The letters, of course, are the best thing in the book, and the best
of the letters are the briefest. An exquisite talent like Whistler's,
whether in painting or in writing, is always at its best on a small
scale. On a large scale it strays and is distressed. Thus the `Ten
o'Clock,' from which I took that passage about the evening mist and
the riverside, does not leave me with a sense of artistic
satisfaction. It lacks structure. It is not a roundly conceived whole:
it is but a row of fragments. Were it otherwise, Whistler could never
have written so perfectly the little letters. For no man who can
finely grasp a big theme can play exquisitely round a little one.
Nor can any man who excels in scoffing at his fellows excel also in
taking abstract subjects seriously. Certainly, the little letters are
Whistler's passport among the elect of literature. Luckily, I can
judge them without prejudice. Whether in this or that case Whistler
was in the right or in the wrong is not a question which troubles me
at all. I read the letters simply from the literary standpoint. As
controversial essays, certainly, they were often in very bad taste. An
urchin scribbling insults upon somebody's garden-wall would not go
further than Whistler often went. Whistler's mode of controversy
reminds me, in another sense, of the writing on the wall.
Pages:
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112