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. |
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