The man who could conceive and write the character of
Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot, as Scott has conceived and written
it, had not only splendid romantic, but splendid tragic gifts. How
comes it, then, that he could so often fob us off with languid,
inarticulate twaddle?
It seems to me that the explanation is to be found in the very
quality of his surprising merits. As his books are play to the
reader, so were they play to him. He conjured up the romantic with
delight, but he had hardly patience to describe it. He was a great
day-dreamer, a seer of fit and beautiful and humorous visions, but
hardly a great artist; hardly, in the manful sense, an artist at
all. He pleased himself, and so he pleases us. Of the pleasures
of his art he tasted fully; but of its toils and vigils and
distresses never man knew less. A great romantic - an idle child.
CHAPTER XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE (11)
WE have recently (12) enjoyed a quite peculiar pleasure: hearing,
in some detail, the opinions, about the art they practise, of Mr.
Walter Besant and Mr. Henry James; two men certainly of very
different calibre: Mr. James so precise of outline, so cunning of
fence, so scrupulous of finish, and Mr. Besant so genial, so
friendly, with so persuasive and humorous a vein of whim: Mr. James
the very type of the deliberate artist, Mr.
Pages:
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204