He is strong, through
his fresh imagination, to combine ancient myth with modern
science in a huge decorative canvas, to reflect the dignity and
loveliness and spiritual power of an exalted old age, to do
practical work in a practical crisis--and to joy, at the same
time, with the moon baby dancing on the beach!
"Jack Elliott," they will tell you who know him, "has an artistic
temperament." Well, if this be the artistic temperament, what a
pity there is not more of it in the world! It is not the
temperament that is self-centered, whining, ineffectual. It is
the temperament that does whatever comes to hand as well as it
can, for sheer love of the task, and of beautiful workmanship
that through imagination wins to sympathy, and through
imagination grasps the opportunity to do practical work
beautifully, where others would only do it practically. It is the
temperament eternally boyish and buoyant, which is on the side of
sweetness and light.
Perhaps it is not what the world means by the artistic
temperament. But it is the temperament of the true artist. "Never
do a pot-boiler," said Mr. Elliott to a young painter the other
day.
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