Rodin in Rime

it with “Moses breaking the Tables of the Law”; F. cocks his eye warily, and asks if it is not meant for “Mary Magdalene”; G. votes for “The Beetle-Crusher and his Muse,” and so on, day after day, till Z. comes round and recognizes it for Balzac. Rodin shakes him warmly by both hands: Balzac it is for all time—and one ceases to wonder that it was rejected! Now, of course, this paper pellet is in any case very wide of its mark. Rodin can easily sculp himself a tabernacle and go in with Whistler—and even drag in Velasquez: but here am I illustrating, however feebly, the Works, eootry: and poetry cannot, unfortunately, ever be pure technique. I have long wished to write “A Sonnet in W. and P.” (with Whip as the keynote); a triolet in U. and K.; an ode in S. Sh. Sw. Sp. and Str. —and so on; but people would merely say “Nonsense Verses” (so they do now, some of them!). So that my work is liable to the most vital misinterpretation. My best friend tells the utterly false, utterly funny story about me that I wrote one sonnet for “L’Ange déechu” and another for ‘‘ Fille d’'Icare.” _ The real heart of the attack is, of course, against Rodin’s intention, and it is my object to show what rubbish it is, even granting the literary basis of criticism to be valid: I am given to understand that something of the sort described above does sometimes take place in the naming of a statue (of the allegorical description especially). But that is a question of felicity, of epigram; never of subject. | 5