. The Whistler book; a monograph of the life and positin in art of James McNeill Whistler, together with a careful study of his more important works . a painter. It is so rare aquality. Velasquez was so much of a solemncavalier that he was almost ashamed of beinga painter. It offended him to be reminded ofhis profession. It was a serious sport to him,but only a sport. He was like Goethe: a dis-tinguished and conscientious amateur. Theirexalted position in life enabled them to treatart with such ease and condescension. ButWhistler had to climb to the veiy heightsfrom which they started, and all
. The Whistler book; a monograph of the life and positin in art of James McNeill Whistler, together with a careful study of his more important works . a painter. It is so rare aquality. Velasquez was so much of a solemncavalier that he was almost ashamed of beinga painter. It offended him to be reminded ofhis profession. It was a serious sport to him,but only a sport. He was like Goethe: a dis-tinguished and conscientious amateur. Theirexalted position in life enabled them to treatart with such ease and condescension. ButWhistler had to climb to the veiy heightsfrom which they started, and all the battlesand victories, struggles and temporary defeats, 232 The Whistler Book magnificent successes and lavish praises werethe result of liis personal efforts. Wliistlerneeded, and had the true autolatry of theartist; he could conceive genius only under anartistic guise; he entertained the absolutefaith that the faculty of painting is some-thing so hugely superior to anything else thatit confers a sort of sacred character on itsowner. And it is for this wholesome artisticseriousness, this salutary egotism, that I ad-mire Whistler, the CHAPTER XII THE STORY OF THE BEAUTIFUL Who knew the errant life of the highway,of the starht desert and windy mountain slopesbetter than the story-teller of old, who wan-dered from town to village, from camp tosolitary tent, all OA^er the face of the earth,telling his simple tales to those who cared tolisten? He was the wayfarer who lived in hislife the Odyssey of the eternal Wanderer, andwhose words reflected in quaint imaginativeexcursions the adventures of strange men andwomen he had met in lonely forests andcrowded city streets. Every nomadic tribe, every nation, everycountry, has had its singer of songs, its chanterof religious hymns, its troubadour, its vagrompoet, some story-teller of the beautiful. Theyhave vanished, and the story is now repeatedby the professional poet and artist. He nolonger treads the highways and the listener
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectwhistle, bookyear1910
