If
I hadn’t been kneeling down, trying to take a photo of the colonnades reflected
in a puddle, I probably would never have noticed the newish plaque on the grave
next to the path; ‘Harriet Smyth 1838 – 1859 Friend of the young Stéphane
Mallarmé Une larme sur sa tombe, ce n'est pas trop pour tous les sourires
angeliques qu'elle nous donnait!’ The French translates as “a tear on her tomb
is not too much for all the angelic smiles she gave us!” I was intrigued.
Harriet
Smyth was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario, in 1838, the daughter of Thomas
Sheppard Smyth and Harriet Delatre. Her father was English, born in Uttoxeter,
and was described as a gentleman and a graduate of the University of Oxford.
Her mother was born in Canada to English parents; Harriet’s grandfather was Colonel
Philip Chesneau Delatre, a British army officer who had served in Ceylon and then
moved to Canada on resigning his commission, where he became President of the
Niagara Harbour and Dock Company. Harriet’s mother was close to her older
sister who had married Robert Sullivan, an Irishman who become a successful business
man in Canada and was the second ever Mayor of Toronto. The couple had nine
children but Harriet was closest to her cousin Emily. In the late 1850’s the
two families were in the habit of travelling to France to pass the winter at
Passy, then an elegant suburb of Paris. In Passy they made the acquaintance of a
neighbour, Fanny Desmoulins, who was Stéphane Mallarmé’s grandmother. The two
girls became friends with the young Mallarmé; Harriet
was four years older than the future French poet (though he seemed to be under
the impression that they were the same age, 17), Emily a year younger. Harriet
was probably already sick with the tuberculosis that was soon to kill her and
in February 1859 Mallarmé also became severely ill (his anxious father thought
he might die) but had recovered enough by April to be sent to Passy to convalesce
with his grandmother. A year or so later
Mallarmé wrote out a list of the key events of his
short life in the back of a notebook he had entitled entre quatre murs –
between four walls. One of these key events, written in English rather than
French was "April 1859 I passed a night with Emily." No one is sure
what Mallarmé meant by this – was he suggesting that he had lost his virginity
to the 16-year-old Canadian? The subject was never mentioned again but whatever
had happened between the two was seen by the young poet as being of unusual
significance.
Harriet
and Emily soon returned to England with their families. Harriet must have been
desperately ill by this time as she died on the 11 July at the house the Smyth
family were renting in West Kensington, 9 Edith Villas, W14. She was 21. The
family placed a short notice in the Morning Post and arranged a funeral. She
was buried at Kensal Green on 15 July. At some point in the next few weeks news
of Harriet’s death reached Mallarmé in Passy. The young poet was already
obsessing over death, he had lost his mother at the age of 5, his sister in
1857 and then just before Christmas his aunt Herminie. That summer his grandfather
was ill and left to his own devices Stéphane made a gloomy pilgrimage to the
cemetery of Père Lachaise to see the grave of the poet Béranger and wrote the
first of his Tombeaux poems, the most famous of which are his elegies for
Gautier, Poe, Verlaine and Baudelaire. When he heard of her death, he also
wrote two poems for Harriet Sa fosse est creusée (Her grave is dug) and Sa
tombe est fermée (Her grave is closed). The poems are generally regarded as
juvenilia;
Elle
donna partout un doux souvenir d'elle!
De tout... que reste-t-il? que nous peut-on montrer?
Un
nom!... sur un cercueil où je ne puis pleurer!
Un nom!... qu'effaceront le temps et le lierre!
Un nom!... couvert de pleurs, et demain de poussière
Et tout est dit![i]
Harriet’s story had been largely forgotten until Declan Walton, a retired UN diplomat, once deputy director-general of food and agriculture, took an interest in Mallarmé’s early poems and was moved by his elegies to the 21 year old and the story of their friendship. With the help of the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery Declan found and restored Harriet’s grave in 2013 and paid for the plaque that commemorates her friendship with Mallarmé. He also wrote an articule for the French academic journal Études Stéphane Mallarmé; Du nouveau sur quelques poèmes de jeunesse Mallarmé et les demoiselles Smyth et Sullivan (New Insights into Some Youthful Poems of Mallarmé and the Misses Smyth and Sullivan.) Declan himself died in April 2020. So it goes.
She gave everywhere a sweet memory of her!
Of everything... what's left? what can you show us?
A name!... on a coffin where I cannot cry!
A name!... that time and ivy will erase!
A name!... covered in tears, and tomorrow in dust
And all is said!
 |
| The shot I was taking when I noticed Harriet's grave |
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