17. The Middle-class
THAT I belong to the middle-class is my chief misfortune; it is better to be born an aristocrat, but better still an artisan. To the middle-class belong all the money makers: builders of monopolies, political wire-pullers, and all that spells greed. These people buy everything and sell everybody. With them lying is an art, whereas for the poor it is only a pastime. The aristocrat—the product of luxury and idleness—is as much above any mean action as he is at loss in managing his own affairs. He must employ agents: enter the middle-class! To them he entrusts all his worldly belongings, with an intuitive knowledge that he is robbed always and will be as long as he lives. He knows they pursue his money with all the zest that he pursues sport. But he always carries the same bright face, the same kind heart; and he would pay to the last penny. O but how strange, his agents save him from ruin! and the people on the land contribute more to the miserable business than is known to my lord, more than they themselves ever realise: and so the middle-class remains the back-bone of the Empire. But what does this mean? The truth is that God made the lord and the labourer: the rest is mainly the work of the devil!
18. The Masterpiece
I ONCE told a young artist to attempt no masterpiece. The thing cannot be done. The moment you think of doing a masterpiece you are befooled. Providence does not allow you to arrange anything of that kind. All you must do is paint with a generous heart—paint colour—and leave to the next generation the selection of your masterpiece. The painter, above all men, must be himself, without any regard for the world’s judgment. Do not be deceived: Time will decide the masterpiece—Time will destroy it!
FROM out the ageless oceans in the west,
Where lazily the gods of new worlds rise
And stretch their mighty limbs across the skies—
Insatiate giants roused from out long rest—
Uprose a Titan whose dark arms and breast
Blackened the sea and drew the gull’s shrill cries;
In his dark head he rolled his gloating eyes
And kept his cruel lips together pressed.
The sea that bore him was the eternal pit;
Into its depths he threw the dreams of men—
Threw with one stroke ten thousand tomes of rhyme,
As many works of art, each once deemed fit
To live. One was a masterpiece! Ah, then
These words came forth: I am the Tomb of Time!
19. Mission
WHAT is the painter’s mission? My dear sir, he has no mission. He may talk about anything and everything, but this is his pastime. His art should not be connected with any movement. Painting is a personal matter and, therefore, cannot be regulated by communities. When the painter talks he throws light upon himself, which is necessary sometimes; it may help others to understand him. The painter must be judged, in the end, from his own point of view: it is the only moral judgment for an honest man!