[Illustration: MURAL PLAQUE ERECTED IN MEMORY OF DR. JAMES McCOSH]
The Shaw memorial was unveiled in Boston, in the latter part of May,
1897. The erection of the monument had been so long delayed that
Saint-Gaudens feared that the public had lost interest in the work, or
would expect too much and be disappointed. On the contrary, its success
was immediate, and made him very happy. Its appeal was to men of every
condition, laymen as well as artists, and nothing ever pleased the
sculptor more than the way it arrested the attention of almost every
passer-by. In June, scarcely a month after the unveiling of the Shaw,
another soldier's monument, the equestrian statue of General Logan, was
unveiled at Chicago, and Saint-Gaudens went there to be present at the
ceremony.
[Illustration: STATUE OF PETER COOPER, NEW YORK]
"1142 The Rookery, Chicago, June 23, 1897
"I am again at the top of this big building here, and I will
give you some description of the last 24 hours. At one o'clock
yesterday Mrs. Deering, Mrs. French, Mr. French (brother and
sister-in-law of Dan French) and I were placed in one carriage,
Mr. Deering, Mrs. St. G. and the editor of the 'Chicago Tribune'
in another, and in the wake of a lot of other carriages and
followed by a procession of them, we drove to the big stand. A
great day; with a high wind and glorious sun. I was put in one
of the seats in the Holy of Holies alongside of Mrs. Logan,
if you please, and the president of the ceremonies. A lot of
speeches, one of which was very good, and at the right moment the
complicated arrangement of flags dropped, the cannon fired, the
band played, Mrs. Logan wept, and I posed for a thousand snap
photographs, 'a gleam of triumph passed over my face,' think of
that! (vide 'Chicago Tribune').
[Illustration: THE LOGAN MONUMENT, ERECTED AT CHICAGO]
"However, the monument looks impressive as I see it this morning
for the first time with much of the disfiguring scaffolding gone.
I stay here until Sunday, when I take the 5.30 P.M. train and
shall get to New York Monday at 6 or 7. Last night we went to a
great golf place where high merriment prevailed. This afternoon to
Fort Sheridan. Tonight a reception at the Art Institute; tomorrow
a lawn party at Burnham's and Sunday a visit to the great dredging
canal; on Monday the cars and rest."
After the sculptor's return from Chicago, he continued his preparations
for departure in New York.
"The Players, August 7, 1897
"Brander Matthews has just come and interrupted this with a long
and interesting talk on the conventional in art and an article he
has written and sent to Scribner's on it. You have often wondered
what I think about things--I wonder myself; I think anything and
everything. This seeing a subject so that I can side with either
side with equal sympathy and equal convictions I sometimes think a
weakness. Then again I'm thinking it a strength.
"Last night I dined with X---- and Y---- and passed a delightful
evening with them. X---- cracked his constructed jokes and
manufactured his silversmith puns, and cackled over them. We
talked literature, English, French, and Taine's great work on
English literature. We afterward went to the open air concert
at the Madison Square Garden, and when we were not talking of
anything else we talked on that subject of eternal interest and
mystery 'les femmes.'"
Finally, in the autumn of 1897, after both the Shaw and Logan monuments
had been unveiled, and various minor obstacles to his departure had
been removed, Saint-Gaudens was ready to leave America. Opposition to
his plan still came from every side. Many of his friends in New York
seemed to feel that he was casting a certain reproach upon his country
by his desire to profit by foreign criticism and to measure his work
by European standards. They prophesied that his work would deteriorate
under French influence. His few friends in Paris were equally
discouraging. They did not hesitate to warn him that if he persisted
in coming there he must be prepared to face indifference and failure.
Even Bion, when Saint-Gaudens had asked him to get the opinions of a
few French artists upon photographs of the Shaw memorial, had refused
to do so, saying: "I shan't show your photographs to anyone. Shiff,
MacMonnies, and Proctor have seen them, my poor old friend, and the
others do not know you. They are quite indifferent about what goes on
outside their own little show."
Saint-Gaudens himself feared that he might be making a serious mistake.
The ocean voyage in itself was an ordeal to him, and before leaving
he wrote: "I continue fencing and am preparing for the voyage as one
prepares for a fight. I go to the theatre and that tides over the
blue hours which lie between dinner and bed-time." But he felt that
he must make the venture, whatever lay before him, and that he could
never be satisfied until he had stood the test of a comparison with
his chief contemporaries and until his work had been passed upon by
the most sophisticated and penetrating critics of art. At the end of
September, 1897, accompanied by his wife and his son, Homer, he sailed
for England. After crossing to France, he thus described his first
impressions:
"Hotel Normandy, Paris, Nov. 7th, 1897
"The beauty of the scenery and of the English homes and villages
on the railroad from Southampton to London recalled the delightful
impression of the last trip, when I was so light-hearted. The
sense of order and thrift appealed to me strongly in comparison
with the shiftlessness of America. Then London with its
extraordinary impression of power and also of order. Homer and I
went to see Hamlet. Read it, R----. As I grow older, the greatness
of Shakspeare looms higher and higher; every line, every word is
so deep, so true, 'never offending the modesty of nature withal,'
as Hamlet himself advises the players.
"From London we came on the following day to Paris. The country
between Calais and Dover seemed very grand; great rolling lands
with immense fields being ploughed in the waning day. The peace,
simplicity, and calm of it all was profoundly impressive. Just a
ploughman and a boy, alone in the country on a hillside, following
the horses and the plough along the deep, straight furrows; no
fences, a clear sky with the half moon, and only a small clump or
two of trees--all so orderly and grand."
For the first few weeks in Paris Saint-Gaudens was miserable. His
studio, on the Rue de Bagneux, in the Latin Quarter, was large and
cheerful, with comfortable quarters adjoining for his assistants, and
he was extremely interested in his work upon the equestrian statue
of General Sherman. But he missed his old friends and haunts in New
York, the weather was gloomy and depressing, and he felt enervated and
homesick. Almost none of the friends of his student days were there to
welcome him back to Paris, and he was not in the mood to make new ones.
Dr. Shiff, a retired physician with a philosophic turn of mind, and
many years the sculptor's senior, was the only man he could count upon
for regular companionship, though occasionally an old friend like Henry
Adams, John Alexander, or Garnier would drop into the studio. John
Sargent was another warm friend who helped to keep up his spirits and
whom he admired intensely both as a man and as an artist. With Helleu,
the etcher, they enjoyed spending a day or two at Chartres and Rheims.
In the following letter he describes his first meeting with Whistler:
"Paris, Nov. 16th, 1897
"Mac and I made a short call on Whistler, whom I found much more
human than I imagined him to be, and today I went to the Court of
Appeals where a trial of his was to come off--it didn't,--but I
had a delightful chat with him. He is a very attractive man with
very queer clothes, a kind of 1830 coat with an enormous collar
greater even than those of that period; a monocle, a strong jaw,
very frizzly hair with a white mesh in it, and an extraordinary
hat."
The brightest spot in Saint-Gaudens' winter was his visit to the south
of France and to Italy, in the company of his friend Garnier, who, like
Bion, had been a fellow-student of his at the École des Beaux-Arts
years before. They left Paris in December, and went almost directly to
Aspet and Salies du Salat, Gascon villages where Saint-Gaudens' father
was born and where he worked at his trade as a young man. This was the
first time that Augustus Saint-Gaudens had visited that country on the
Spanish frontier where his paternal ancestors had lived for centuries
and where many of their name still survived.
"Aspet, December, 1897
"I write this in the village where my father was born and
today has been one of the most delightful days of my life. I
have invited my old friend Garnier (a dear friend and the most
delightful of companions) to travel with me. We left Paris
yesterday morning and slept at Toulouse last night. We left there
this morning before dawn and saw the sun rise over the Pyrenees on
our way to Salies du Salat, a most picturesque and dirty village
at the foot of the beautiful mountains. I inquired at the station
if any Saint-Gaudens lived there. 'Yes, opposite the mairie.' We
walked up a narrow Spanish-looking street and there was a little
shoe-store and on it the sign 'Saint-Gaudens.' I woke my cousin
up. His is the very house where father passed his childhood. We
three walked over the town up to the cradle of the 'Comminges'
just back of father's house, and we went around on the sward and
on the old moat where the children now play and where his father
and my father played when children. I cannot describe to you how I
was moved by it all.
"After a characteristic déjeuner with the cousin, a typical French
peasant, and his typical wife, we hired a wagon with two horses
and drove three hours into the mountains through a wonderfully
beautiful country, very Spanish in character, to this delightful
village. Here father was born, and baptized in the little church
right at hand from where I write. There are delightful fountains
at every corner and an air of thrift, order, and cleanliness that
you cannot imagine. We are in a nice hotel, a homelike place, and
tomorrow, after seeing Market Day, we walk to Saint-Gaudens, about
12 miles from here. It is a most romantic spot; all the country
and the people here have a good deal of the Spanish dignity. We
are 30 miles from the frontier of Spain. I must stop now because
my third cousin (his grandfather and mine were brothers) is
coming. He is the postman of the village and the surrounding
country, a handsome young fellow who carries the mail around on
horseback, and who between times makes shoes."
Leaving this out-of-the-way corner of Gascony, under the shadow of the
Pyrenees, Saint-Gaudens and Garnier traveled by Toulouse to Marseilles.
From this port the sculptor had sailed twenty-seven or eight years
before, when he first went to study in Rome. Now, with his old friend,
he again climbed up to where the church of Notre-Dame de la Garde
overlooks the Mediterranean, and was amused to remember the three
days he had spent upon that hill-top, with little to eat but figs and
chocolate, while awaiting the departure of his ship for Italy.
The two artists went by train from Marseilles to Nice and Ventimiglia,
and then walked along the superb Cornice road to San Remo, conscious
that every step brought them nearer to their beloved Italy. The hills,
covered with palms and orange-trees, the sacred-looking groves of
gray-green olives detached against the deep blue of the sea, recalled
to Saint-Gaudens a story by Anatole France describing some early
Christians in an olive grove overlooking the Mediterranean.
In Italy they stopped first at Pisa, and did not reach Rome much before
midnight. Regardless of fatigue, Saint-Gaudens insisted upon starting
out that night to revisit the favorite haunts of his student days,
taking the reluctant Garnier with him. At a late hour they ended their
excursion at the Café Greco, where the sculptor talked with a waiter
who had served him with coffee in 1871. The next morning they spent in
the gardens and the Bosco of the Villa Medici. Nothing seemed to them
much changed, and their happiness was as great as if they had found
their youth again in the land where they had left it. Saint-Gaudens
afterward said that on the night of that arrival in Rome he felt as if
he were slaking a great thirst. Before their return they also visited
the Bay of Naples. Vivid memories of Italy were present with the
sculptor until the end of his life, and during his last illness he said
that one thing he wished to live for was to take again the drive from
Salerno to Amalfi: the vineyards clinging to the hillsides, the cliffs
with the blue waves breaking at their base, haunted him as a vision of
exquisite beauty.
Late in the winter Saint-Gaudens returned to Paris, and when spring
and the pleasant weather came on he was working again with great
enthusiasm, preparing for the Salon. His exhibit at the Champs de
Mars attracted much attention and elicited unexpected praise from the
severest French critics.
"3, rue de Bagneux, Paris, May 16th, 1898
... "I must be brief today for Dr. Shiff is coming in to talk,
and help me with his consoling philosophy as Bion did; and I must
work, for the model leaves shortly, and I must use him every hour
I can; so I will tell you briefly of what has happened.
"This Paris experience, as far as my art goes, has been a great
thing for me. I never felt sure of myself before, I groped ahead.
All blindness seems to have been washed away. I see my place
clearly now, I know, or think I know, just where I stand. A great
self-confidence has come over me and a tremendous desire and will
to achieve high things, with a confidence that I shall, has taken
possession of me. I exhibited at the Champs de Mars and the papers
have spoken well and it seems as if I were having what they call
a 'success' here. I send you some of the extracts from several of
the principal artistic papers here, the 'Gazette des Beaux-Arts,'
'Art et Décoration,' and from the 'Dictionaire Encyclopédique
Larousse'; four of these have asked permission to reproduce my
work. The Director of the Luxembourg tells me he wishes something
of mine, and other friends have asked that I be given the Legion
of Honour. Of this latter you must say nothing, and I only speak
of it to give you a true idea of what impressions I am undergoing.
"For four months it rained incessantly, but the great interest of
preparing for the Salon has interested me. The sunshine has been a
blessing, and Paris, with her smiles and green dress and the blue
skies overhead captivates like a beautiful woman.
"There is something in the air here which pushes one to do
beautiful things; it seems something actually atmospheric,
something soft and gentle in the air.... Later Sargent came in
very good spirits. We dined and went to the theatre together
last night. He wished me to tell him when I go to London, as the
fellows there wish to give me a great 'blow off.' And so it all
goes; the sun is now pouring into the studio, and it all seems
like a great dream."
The article in _Art et Décoration_ to which Saint-Gaudens refers was
written by Paul Leprieur. After attacking with great severity Rodin's
"Balzac," the critic said:
"The more completely to forget this sinister vision, one may well
linger before the work of a great sculptor, almost unknown among
us, who reveals himself to us, so to speak, for the first time,
with an altogether remarkable collection of monumental sculpture
and photographs of monuments previously executed. We refer to M.
Saint-Gaudens, an Irishman by birth, who has worked mainly for America,
and who was, if I mistake not, the teacher of Mr. MacMonnies--a teacher
far superior to his pupil. His exhibit is one of the surprises and
delights of the Champs de Mars.
"Had we only the photographs which he shows us--whether of his Peter
Cooper, his President Lincoln, the noble and serious allegorical figure
for a tomb, called the Peace of God, or the charming caryatid for the
Vanderbilt house--we could already perceive the grasp of composition,
the decision of the contours, the depth of the sentiment expressed
without any splurge or noise. This sculpture, in its acceptance, or
ingenious re-shaping, of traditions from ancient sources, as well as in
its modern inventiveness, imparts a savor of intimate charm, of dignity
without parade, which are rare indeed in our day.
"The actual work exhibited simply confirms the impression of the
photographs. To say nothing of the placques and medallions, models of
a fine funeral bas-relief, and the highly entertaining and picturesque
statue of a Puritan, the large high-relief dedicated to the memory
of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw may well be esteemed as a model of
intelligent decoration.
"The idea of representing, not the death scene itself, but the moment
preceding it, and of showing the army of blacks, led by the white
officer, filing by as if in a march to death, grave of mien, solemn,
and heroic, is as novel as it is boldly treated. While presenting
prodigies of skill (absolutely without triviality or pettiness in
matters of detail), and modeled with a great freedom and understanding
of how to arrange the various groups of lines in perspective,--which
all men of his profession will admire,--everything is kept subordinate
to the ensemble and to the predetermined unity of motion. Upon each
of the faces one feels more or less the reflection of the motto of
self-sacrifice and enthusiastic faith inscribed on a flat surface in
the background (Omnia relinquit servare rem publicam), and the superb
figure of a woman with flying drapery, symbolical of glory or of death,
comparable to the loveliest creations in this style by Watts or Gustave
Moreau, succeeds in giving to this very sculpturesque composition a
distinguished moral significance."
Two months later the critic Léonce Benedite, in his article on the
salons of 1898, wrote, in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_:
"It is a foreign sculptor, an American artist whose name alone had
previously reached us, M. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who affords us an
example of a commemorative monument composed of modern elements and
broadly executed in the simplest and purest sculptural spirit. Half
French, not only by descent, but by his whole education, trained in our
school,--which he honors today,--the illustrious chief of the future
American school of sculpture has produced numerous beautiful works in
his own country. Photographic reproductions of these accompany his
exhibited works and demonstrate their rare dignity and grandeur of
style. His beautiful mortuary statues, one of which is on exhibition at
the Salon, together with the caryatid of the Vanderbilt house--long and
slender, with beautiful, severe draperies--are figures of distinguished
elegance, of austere grace.
"But above all, the statues of President Lincoln and Peter Cooper, the
mural tablets of Dr. McCosh and Dr. Bellows, show us with how exalted
an appreciation of his art the American master has succeeded in making
the most of the complete modernity of his subjects. To be sure, he has
not misrepresented the characteristic local physiognomy of his models,
or the unique effect of the accessories of costume and furniture; far
from it. But with what elegance and vigor he makes them all speak to
one, from the skirt of the coat to the slightest fold of the trousers!
"We find ourselves face to face with a powerful and self-restrained
master, who is able to comprehend and to express emotion, who speaks a
simple but expressive language, and who has the power to convince and
to fascinate. The monument to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, erected at
Boston, and exhibited in plaster at the Salon, affords us a striking
proof of this. It is a large high-relief, set in a graceful and
exceedingly simple architectural frame. In the center a young officer,
mounted, sword in hand, is leading a company of black soldiers who
are marching by his side, musket on shoulder, with a drummer at their
head. In the upper field floats a grave and melancholy figure, flying
horizontally; it is Duty, and with a sweeping and eloquently mournful
gesture she points out to them the road leading to glory and to
death. The measured march of the men, the expression of resigned and
submissive gravity on the faces of those colored troops, contrasting
with the proud, absorbed energy of the young white man who leads
them, his beautiful young steed nervous and quivering, emphasizes
yet more the restrained enthusiasm and patient determination of the
commander. All this, and even the sculptural comprehension of all this
paraphernalia of war, impresses one simply yet powerfully, and holds
one enthralled by its genuine epic grandeur."
"June 14th, Paris
"I am going to stay alone in Paris and on Sundays go and see Brush
and Garnier and the Proctors and go to St. Moritz for a week or
ten days; further than that I have no plans.... I see Shiff every
other night and dine with him then; occasionally I see F----,
whom I rather like. I'm working hard but slowly. I want a little
rest, so in two days I go to London to see the exhibit there;
besides, Sargent gives me a dinner on the 20th. Paris is really
a wonderfully attractive city and the 'cut' atmosphere, to use
a very unpleasant phrase, is clearly a great thing. There can
never be more than a few big men that one respects, but there are
so many people deeply interested in art, literature and music,
so many that are working hard, that you feel a great deal of
intelligence around you in the direction in which you are working,
beside the unusual amount of general intelligence which surrounds
one."
Toward the end of June Saint-Gaudens and his family went to England.
In London, Sargent, always hospitable, gave a dinner to introduce
Saint-Gaudens to many distinguished sculptors and painters.
Burne-Jones, unfortunately, had died a few days before. Saint-Gaudens
had always admired his work greatly, and treasured photographs of his
pictures.
After two days at Broadway with Edwin Abbey, the family separated.
Saint-Gaudens and his son Homer then returned to Paris for the summer,
while Mrs. Saint-Gaudens went to take a cure at Vichy and St. Moritz.
During that summer in Paris Saint-Gaudens saw as much as possible
of George De Forest Brush and his family, who were then living near
Fontainebleau. His intimacy with the Brushes dated back to his student
days in Paris, and had been kept up in America. The two families had
often been neighbors at Cornish, New Hampshire. Indeed, the Brushes had
spent their first summer there encamped in an Indian "tepee," which was
pitched on the edge of a field in front of the Saint-Gaudens' house.
Their life always impressed every one as singularly beautiful and
happy, and their presence so near Paris helped Saint-Gaudens to get
through the long, dull weeks of the summer.
"Paris, July 10th or 11th
"Lately I have had a great time with X----, driving and lunching
with him and sometimes with the ladies, going to Versailles and
the museums. Next Sunday we go to Chantilly, another day to
Dampierre where Rude's great statue of Louis (XIII, I think) is.
We go to the Cluny, to the Louvre, and sit sipping in front of
cafés, X---- telling me how much the woman question from one point
of view troubles him and I doing the same from another, and the
big world turns round, and we all suffer, and men fight, and women
mourn. Courage and love is what we all need, isn't it?
"Yesterday I went with Homer to Fontainebleau to see Brush and
Proctor who live near there at 'Marlotte Montigny.' The day was
fine, and I enjoyed it greatly, particularly the walk with Brush
and his two lovely eldest children. How remarkable Brush is! All
the children are so beautiful and nice-mannered. He has commenced
another picture of his wife, this time with all the children and
himself, and it is already a stimulating thing, the composition is
so fine and what there is of it that is drawn, is so splendidly
drawn."
"Paris, July 14th
"It is the third or fourth really fine day that we have had
since coming to France eight months ago. The whole city is alive
with sunshine, a sky with white floating clouds, and every place
brilliant with flags, and there is an unusual feeling of peace in
this big studio as I sit alone in it and write to you.
"I have your letter with the enclosure from the _Transcript_.
'That's the way things is,' as Bryant said to me. I send you some
more Hosannahs in my honour by this mail, and there is going to be
more still in the 'Gazette des Beaux-Arts,' as I judge from the
way Ary Renan talked to me the other night. He is son of the great
Renan and is one of the editors of the 'Gazette des Beaux-Arts'
and wished to meet me so much that Pallier, another critic, asked
us to dine with him night before last. Pallier is the one who
wrote the long article in the Liberté about me.
"You speak of Browning--I shall read the 'Ring and the Book,' but
unless a man's style is clear I am too lazy and I have too little
time to devote to digging gold out of the rocks, fine as it may
be. On the other hand I got the Schopenhauer that Shiff spoke
about with the intention of sending it to you, but it is so deadly
in its pessimism, judging from the ten or eleven lines that I
read, that I flung it away. It was so terribly true from his point
of view, but what's the use of taking that point of view? We can't
remedy matters by weeping and gnashing our teeth over the misery
of things. 'That's the way things is' again, and although I have
been told all my life it's best to put on a brave face and bear
all cheerfully, it's only lately that it is really coming into my
philosophy.
"It seems as if we are all in one open boat on the ocean,
abandoned and drifting no one knows where, and while doing all
we can to get somewhere, it is better to be cheerful than to be
melancholy; the latter does not help the situation, and the former
cheers up one's comrades.
"Michel, a friend of mine, had a beautiful nude marble bought for
the Luxembourg, a pure noble chaste figure. There was a remarkable
statuette by Gerôme, two or three other good things in sculpture
and the same among the objets d'art, and one swell thing in
painting, the Puvis de Chavannes. _That_ appealed to me, but of
course there were a lot of other very fine things, by Aman Jean,
Henri Martin, Besnard and others. I send you some publications
with the good things marked. I think if the Champs-Elysées were
sifted there would be more good work found in it or as much as at
the Champs de Mars. It is remarkable how much good work is done in
Paris, but the first impression is bad, as the good is concealed
in such a mountain of trash; but it's like gold in a mountain."
"Paris, July 24th
"Last night I dined with an old 'camarade d'atelier' at his home
in the Cité Boileau at Passy and it was a great pleasure to be
with him, one of the nicest kind of Frenchmen, a sculptor who
is doing admirable work, a man of calm manners and large views,
intensely interested in his work. His wife and three children
are by the seaside, and on their return, if Homer does not go to
America and I remain too, I'm looking forward to Homer's meeting
his children. His boy, who is seventeen, is going to work in his
atelier with him. It was delightful, as he took one through the
rooms of his three children, to see the photographs of admirable
works of art they had selected to hang on the walls. He has a
house with a garden and we dined outside. (His name is) Lenoir
and he is the son of a distinguished architect and grandson of a
Lenoir whose bust is erected in the Cour des Beaux-Arts, a man
of great distinction here on account of his love of art and his
efforts to prevent the Revolutionists in 1795 from destroying the
public monuments."
Early in August, while his wife was still away, Saint-Gaudens took his
son Homer to Holland, where they had a delightful trip, extending to
the quaint dead cities of the north. Ten days or so after their return
to Paris they made another successful expedition together to join some
friends at the sea-shore.
"3 rue de Bagneux, Paris, Aug. 26.
"It was intensely hot in Paris. I discovered that the Brushes were
at Boulogne as well as the Proctors, so off we packed and we have
had a great time, what with bathing and lolling all day on the
cliffs, which I adore doing. The two Mears sisters followed us
down there, and we, the Brushes, Proctors, Mears, babies, and all
started off in the mornings, and, with the luncheon mixed up with
the babies in the carriage, passed most delightful days, either on
the cliffs or by the shore."
Saint-Gaudens, however, could never be happy long away from his work,
and he was soon writing from his studio again.
"Paris, Sept. 2d
"A Russian professor at one of the Universities here has sent me
his translation of Tolstoi's last work 'What is Art?' and has
asked me (with highly eulogistic terms about what I have done, in
an inscription on the fly leaf) to give him my opinion, which he
wishes to publish with those of other men of note. So I am in for
reading it. You read it too, please, and tell me what you think
of it, then I'll sign it and send it as my opinion! For I have
no opinion, or so many that trying to put them into shape would
result in driving me into the mad-house sooner than I am naturally
destined to be there. Yes, 5000 different points of view that are
possible. After all, we are like lots of microscopical microbes on
this infinitesimal ball in space, and all these discussions seem
humourous at times. I suppose that every earnest effort toward
great sincerity or honesty or beauty in one's production is a drop
added to the ocean of evolution, to the Something higher that I
suppose we are rising slowly (d----d slowly) to, and all the other
discussions upon the subject seem simply one way of helping the
seriousness of it all.
"Shiff's letter that I enclose is in reply to one asking whether
the professor's request was all right and whether I should bother
about it. In answer he wrote that the Russian was a very serious
man who had done admirable work. I once told Shiff that at times
I thought that 'beauty must mean at least some goodness'--that
explains part of his letter to me."