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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
57
For
some
years
there
has
been
a
great
deal
of
talk
about
Art
in
our
country.
It
began,
I
suspect,
when
the
veritable
artistic
impulse
of
the
Victorian
time
had
flagged,
when
the
energy
of
a
great
time
was
all
but
exhausted.
Principles
always
become
a
matter
of
vehement
discussion
when
practice
is
at
ebb.
Not
by
taking
thought
does
one
become
an
artist,
or
grow
even
an
inch
in
that
direction--which
is
not
at
all
the
same
as
saying
that
he
who
is
an
artist
cannot
profit
by
conscious
effort.
Goethe
(the
example
so
often
urged
by
imitators
unlike
him
in
every
feature
of
humanity)
took
thought
enough
about
his
Faust;
but
what
of
those
youthtime
lyrics,
not
the
least
precious
of
his
achievements,
which
were
scribbled
as
fast
as
pen
could
go,
thwartwise
on
the
paper,
because
he
could
not
stop
to
set
it
straight?
Dare
I
pen,
even
for
my
own
eyes,
the
venerable
truth
that
an
artist
is
born
and
not
made?
It
seems
not
superfluous,
in
times
which
have
heard
disdainful
criticism
of
Scott,
on
the
ground
that
he
had
no
artistic
conscience,
that
he
scribbled
without
a
thought
of
style,
that
he
never
elaborated
his
scheme
before
beginning--as
Flaubert,
of
course
you
know,
invariably
did.
Why,
after
all,
has
one
not
heard
that
a
certain
William
Shakespeare
turned
out
his
so-called
works
of
art
with
something
like
criminal
carelessness?
Is
it
not
a
fact
that
a
bungler
named
Cervantes
was
so
little
in
earnest
about
his
Art
that,
having
in
one
chapter
described
the
stealing
of
Sancho's
donkey,
he
presently,
in
mere
forgetfulness,
shows
us
Sancho
riding
on
Dapple,
as
if
nothing
had
happened?
Does
not
one
Thackeray
shamelessly
avow
on
the
last
page
of
a
grossly
"subjective"
novel
that
he
had
killed
Lord
Farintosh's
mother
at
one
page
and
brought
her
to
life
again
at
another?
These
sinners
against
Art
are
none
the
less
among
the
world's
supreme
artists,
for
they
lived,
in
a
sense,
in
a
degree,
unintelligible
to
these
critics
of
theirs,
and
their
work
is
an
expression,
satisfying
and
abiding,
of
the
zest
of
life.
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