_Vailima_, _January_ 15th, 1894.
MY DEAR LOW,—. . . Pray you, stoop your proud head, and sell yourself to
some Jew magazine, and make the visit out. I assure you, this is the
spot for a sculptor or painter. This, and no other—I don’t say to stay
there, but to come once and get the living colour into them. I am used
to it; I do not notice it; rather prefer my grey, freezing recollections
of Scotland; but there it is, and every morning is a thing to give thanks
for, and every night another—bar when it rains, of course.
About _The Wrecker_—rather late days, and I still suspect I had somehow
offended you; however, all’s well that ends well, and I am glad I am
forgiven—did you not fail to appreciate the attitude of Dodd? He was a
fizzle and a stick, he knew it, he knew nothing else, and there is an
undercurrent of bitterness in him. And then the problem that Pinkerton
laid down: why the artist can _do nothing else_? is one that continually
exercises myself. He cannot: granted. But Scott could. And Montaigne.
And Julius Cæsar. And many more. And why can’t R. L. S.? Does it not
amaze you? It does me. I think of the Renaissance fellows, and their
all-round human sufficiency, and compare it with the ineffable smallness
of the field in which we labour and in which we do so little. I think
_David Balfour_ a nice little book, and very artistic, and just the thing
to occupy the leisure of a busy man; but for the top flower of a man’s
life it seems to me inadequate. Small is the word; it is a small age,
and I am of it. I could have wished to be otherwise busy in this world.
I ought to have been able to build lighthouses and write _David Balfours_
too. _Hinc illae lacrymae_. I take my own case as most handy, but it is
as illustrative of my quarrel with the age. We take all these pains, and
we don’t do as well as Michael Angelo or Leonardo, or even Fielding, who
was an active magistrate, or Richardson, who was a busy bookseller.
_J’ai honte pour nous_; my ears burn.
I am amazed at the effect which this Chicago exhibition has produced upon
you and others. It set Mrs. Fairchild literally mad—to judge by her
letters. And I wish I had seen anything so influential. I suppose there
was an aura, a halo, some sort of effulgency about the place; for here I
find you louder than the rest. Well, it may be there is a time coming;
and I wonder, when it comes, whether it will be a time of little,
exclusive, one-eyed rascals like you and me, or parties of the old stamp
who can paint and fight, and write and keep books of double entry, and
sculp, and scalp. It might be. You have a lot of stuff in the kettle,
and a great deal of it Celtic. I have changed my mind progressively
about England, practically the whole of Scotland is Celtic, and the
western half of England, and all Ireland, and the Celtic blood makes a
rare blend for art. If it is stiffened up with Latin blood, you get the
French. We were less lucky: we had only Scandinavians, themselves
decidedly artistic, and the Low-German lot. However, that is a good
starting-point, and with all the other elements in your crucible, it may
come to something great very easily. I wish you would hurry up and let
me see it. Here is a long while I have been waiting for something _good_
in art; and what have I seen? Zola’s _Débâcle_ and a few of Kipling’s
tales. Are you a reader of Barbey d’Aurevilly? He is a never-failing
source of pleasure to me, for my sins, I suppose. What a work is the
_Rideau Cramoisi_! and _L’Ensorcelée_! and _Le Chevalier Des Touches_!
This is degenerating into mere twaddle. So please remember us all most
kindly to Mrs. Low, and believe me ever yours,