His artistic side also shows itself in a paper on 'Artist and
Critic,' in which he defines the difference between the mechanical and
fine arts. 'In mechanical arts,' he says, 'the craftsman uses his skill
to produce something useful, but (except in the rare case when he is at
liberty to choose what he shall produce) his sole merit lies in skill.
In the fine arts the student uses skill to produce something beautiful.
He is free to choose what that something shall be, and the layman claims
that he may and must judge the artist chiefly by the value in beauty of
the thing done. Artistic skill contributes to beauty, or it would not
be skill; but beauty is the result of many elements, and the nobler the
art the lower is the rank which skill takes among them.'
A clear and matter-of-fact thinker, Jenkin was an equally clear and
graphic writer. He read the best literature, preferring, among other
things, the story of David, the ODYSSEY, the ARCADIA, the saga of Burnt
Njal, and the GRAND CYRUS. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ariosto,
Boccaccio, Scott, Dumas, Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot, were some
of his favourite authors. He once began a review of George Eliot's
biography, but left it unfinished. Latterly he had ceased to admire her
work as much as before.
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