Part 28 (1/2)

I want an intelligent audience before I publish them I want to ”try them on” somebody's mind--like a dress--to see how they fit

Only youreins to overweigh the profit of my philosophy

I think you could help me

After the publication he wrote:

I am sorry that the Essays I dedicated to you have been a failure --as I think they have been--to judge by the opinions of the Press I wanted, when I wrote theht and felt in the very sie I could find

What the critics say is that I have uttered truisms in the baldest, least attractive diction

Here I find ed, and not unjustly In the pursuit of truth, I said what I had to say bluntly--and it seeive forth In the search for sincerity of style, I reduced every proposition to its barest foration of rhetoric has revealed the nudity of my commonplaces

I know that I have no wand, that I cannot conjure, that I cannot draw the ears of men to listen to my words

So, when I finally withdraw from further appeals to the public, as I mean to do, I cannot pose as a Prospero who breaks his staff I ahly nervous varlet in the sphere of art, who has sought to wear the robe of thenow disrobed, takes his place quietly where God appointed hiue in future, since his proper function has been shown him

Thus it is with me And I should not, my dear friend, have inflicted so ross miscalculation of my powers, connected your name with the book which proves my incompetence

Yes, the Master [Footnote: Dr Jowett, Master of Balliol] is right: make as much of your life as you can: use it to the best and noblest purpose: do not, when you are old and broken like e you have vainly conquered, as I aood bye Keep any ofThis will reat many of yours You will never lose a warm corner in the centre of the heart of your friend

J A SYMONDS

PS Live well Live happy Do not forget me I like to think of you in plenitude of life and activity I should not be sorry for you if you broke your neck in the hunting field But, like the Master, I want you to , powerful life you have--before the inevitable, dolorous, long, dark night draws nigh

Later on, a propos of his translation of the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, he wrote:

I alad that you like my Cellini The book has been a success; and I ah I am not interested in its sale

The publisher paid es

MY DEAR MARGOT,

I wrote to you in a great hurry yesterday, and with soround of my head

So I did not tell you how ht into the points of my Introduction to Cellini I do not rate that piece of writing quite as highly as you do But you ”spotted” the best thing in it--the syllogis Cellini's state of mind as to Bourbon's death

It is true, I think, what you say: that I have been getting more nervous and less elaborate in style of late years This is very natural One starts in life with sensuous susceptibilities to beauty, with a strong feeling for colour and for melodious cadence, and also with an i oneself This causes young work to seem decorated and laboured, whereas it very often is really spontaneous and hasty, htforward than the work of middle life I write noith much more trouble and more slowly, and with ives e, than I used to have I write what pleases myself less, but what probably strikes other peoplediscourse; but not so much about ht, and I wanted to tell you how I analyse the change of style which you point out, and which results, I think, frorows in years

The artist ought never to be commanded by his subject, or his vehicle of expression But until he ceases to love both with a blind passion, he will probably be so commanded And then his style will appear decorative, florid, mixed, unequal, laboured It is the sobriety of a satiated or blunted enthusiasht to remember his dithyraer, nor to yearn after them

Do you know that I have only just now found the tihts in bed with influenza and bronchitis, to read Marie Bashkirtseff? (Did ever nadrasil of even Russian life?)

By this ti from your friends how much Marie Bashkirtseff reminds theain I am such a fossil that I permit rain of truth in the as the likenesses No two leaves on one linden are really the same But you and she, detached from the forest of life, seem to me like leaves plucked from the same sort of tree