In
some of his persons, indeed, Shakespeare is as Nature herself,
all-inclusive; but in others--and chiefly in comedy--he is partial, he is
impressionary, he refuses to know what is not to his purpose, he is an
artist. And in that gay, wilful world it is that he gives us--or used to
give us, for even the world is obsolete--the pleasure of _oubliance_.
Now this fugitive writer has not been so swift but that I have caught him
a clout as he went. Yet he will do it again; and those like-minded will
assuredly also continue to show how much more completely human, how much
more sensitive, how much more responsible, is the art of the critic than
the world has ever dreamt till now. And, superior in so much, they will
still count their superior weeping as the choicest of their gifts. And
Lepidus, who loves to wonder, can have no better subject for his
admiration than the pathos of the time. It is bred now of your mud by
the operation of your sun. 'Tis a strange serpent; and the tears of it
are wet.
THE POINT OF HONOUR
Not without significance is the Spanish nationality of Velasquez. In
Spain was the Point put upon Honour; and Velasquez was the first
Impressionist. As an Impressionist he claimed, implicity if not
explicity, a whole series of delicate trusts in his trustworthiness; he
made an appeal to the confidence of his peers; he relied on his own
candour and asked that the candid should rely upon him; he kept the
chastity of art when other masters were content with its honesty, and
when others saved artistic conscience he safeguarded the point of honour.
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