But the writer? He can
express a certain amount through his handwriting, if he write in a
properly elastic way. But his writing is not printed in facsimile. It
is printed in cold, mechanical, monotonous type. For his every effect
he must rely wholly on the words that he chooses, and on the order in
which he ranges them, and on his choice among the few hard-and-fast
symbols of punctuation. He must so use those slender means that they
shall express all that he himself can express through his voice and
face and hands, or all that he would thus express if he were a good
talker. Usually, the good talker is a dead failure when he tries to
express himself in writing. For that matter, so is the bad talker. But
the bad talker has the better chance of success, inasmuch as the
inexpressiveness of his voice and face and hands will have sharpened
his scent for words and phrases that shall in themselves convey such
meanings as he has to express. Whistler was that rare phenomenon, the
good talker who could write as well as he talked. Read any page of The
Gentle Art of Making Enemies, and you will hear a voice in it, and see
a face in it, and see gestures in it. And none of these is quite like
any other known to you. It matters not that you never knew Whistler,
never even set eyes on him.
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