I
In the sunset of his life a man often finds himself unable to put dates
even upon events in which his sympathies were, and perhaps are still,
engaged; all things seem to have befallen yesterday, and yet it cannot be
less than three years since we were anxious to testify to our belief in the
kindness and justice with which you had fulfilled your double duties in the
_Morning Post_ towards us and the proprietors of the paper.
A committee sprang up quickly, and a letter was addressed by it to all the
notable workers in the arts and to all those who were known to be
interested in the arts, and very soon a considerable sum of money was
collected; but when the committee met to decide what form the commemorative
gift should take, a perplexity arose, many being inclined towards a piece
of plate. It was pointed out that a piece of plate worth eight hundred
pounds would prove a cumbersome piece of furniture--a white elephant, in
fact--in the small house or apartment or flat in which a critic usually
lives. The truth of this could not be gainsaid. Other suggestions were
forthcoming for your benefit, every one obtaining a certain amount of
support, but none commanding a majority of votes; and the perplexity
continued till it was mooted that the disposal of the money should be left
to your option, and in view of the fact that you had filled the post of art
critic for many years, you decided to found a Slade scholarship. It seemed
to you well that a young man on leaving the Slade School should be provided
with a sum of money sufficient to furnish a studio, and some seven or eight
hundred pounds were invested, the remainder being spent on a trinket for
your personal wear--a watch. I have not forgotten that I was one of the
dissidents, scholarships not appealing to me, but lately I have begun to
see that you were wise in the disposal of the money. A watch was enough for
remembrance, and since I caught sight of it just now, the pleasant thoughts
it has evoked console me for your departure: after bidding you good-bye on
the doorstep, I return to my fireside to chew the cud once again of the
temperate and tolerant articles that I used to read years ago in the
_Morning Post_.
You see, Ross, I was critic myself for some years on the _Speaker_,
but my articles were often bitter and explosive; I was prone to polemics
and lacked the finer sense that enabled you to pass over works with which
you were not in sympathy, and without wounding the painter. My intention
was often to wound him in the absurd hope that I might compel him to do
better. My motto seems to have been 'Compel them to come in'--words used by
Jesus in one of his parables, and relied on by ecclesiastics as a
justification of persecution, and by many amongst us whose names I will not
pillory here, for I have chosen that these pages shall be about you and
nothing but you. If I speak of myself in a forgotten crusade, it is to
place you in your true light. We recognized your critical insight and your
literary skill, but it was not for these qualities that we, the criticized,
decided to present you, the critic, with a token of our gratitude; nor was
it because you had praised our works (a great number of the subscribers had
not received praise from you): we were moved altogether, I think, by the
consciousness that you had in a difficult task proved yourself to be a
kindly critic, and yet a just one, and it was for these qualities that you
received an honour, that is unique, I think, in the chronicles of
criticism.