DOI article:
A Birthday Letter
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26392#0022
18 A Birthday Letter
Latin Quarter, especially students of Art, are sometimes not
without a certain strain of unrefinement in their natures. I
have heard that they devoutly hate a prig. I have heard that,
though you may be as virtuous and proper as ever you like in the
Latin Ouarter, you were exceedingly well-advised not to seem
so ; that if you would “ do good,” you must indeed do it “ by
stealth,” and not blush merely, but suffer corporal penalties, if you
“ find it fame.” I have heard of prigs being seized at midnight
by mobs armed with cudgels \ of their clothing being torn from
their backs, and their persons embellished with symbolic pictures
and allusive texts, in paint judiciously mixed with siccatif so that
it dried in before soap and water were obtainable. Tell us, sir,
why didn’t “something happen” to Taffy-the-Laird and little
Billee ?
Though I may seem to address you in a gladsome spirit,
believe me, it is with pain that I have brought myself to write
unkind things of Trilby. Its author is a highly distinguished
gentleman, whose work in his own department of art, everybody
with an eye for good drawing, and a sense of humour, should be
thankful for. But the fact of the matter is that the art of writing
must be learned; must be as thoroughly and as industriously
studied and practised and considered as any other art. They
understand this in France ; but in England people imagine that
any fool can write a novel—“ it’s as easy as lying.” That is why
English novels, for downright absolute worthlessness, take the
palm amongst the novels of the world. It is no shame to a
highly distinguished draughtsman that, trying his hand in the
art of fiction, he should have achieved a grotesque artistic failure.
You or I would probably achieve a grotesque artistic failure, if
we should try our hands at a cartoon for Punch. The shame is
to the public, which has hailed an artistic failure as an artistic
triumph.
Latin Quarter, especially students of Art, are sometimes not
without a certain strain of unrefinement in their natures. I
have heard that they devoutly hate a prig. I have heard that,
though you may be as virtuous and proper as ever you like in the
Latin Ouarter, you were exceedingly well-advised not to seem
so ; that if you would “ do good,” you must indeed do it “ by
stealth,” and not blush merely, but suffer corporal penalties, if you
“ find it fame.” I have heard of prigs being seized at midnight
by mobs armed with cudgels \ of their clothing being torn from
their backs, and their persons embellished with symbolic pictures
and allusive texts, in paint judiciously mixed with siccatif so that
it dried in before soap and water were obtainable. Tell us, sir,
why didn’t “something happen” to Taffy-the-Laird and little
Billee ?
Though I may seem to address you in a gladsome spirit,
believe me, it is with pain that I have brought myself to write
unkind things of Trilby. Its author is a highly distinguished
gentleman, whose work in his own department of art, everybody
with an eye for good drawing, and a sense of humour, should be
thankful for. But the fact of the matter is that the art of writing
must be learned; must be as thoroughly and as industriously
studied and practised and considered as any other art. They
understand this in France ; but in England people imagine that
any fool can write a novel—“ it’s as easy as lying.” That is why
English novels, for downright absolute worthlessness, take the
palm amongst the novels of the world. It is no shame to a
highly distinguished draughtsman that, trying his hand in the
art of fiction, he should have achieved a grotesque artistic failure.
You or I would probably achieve a grotesque artistic failure, if
we should try our hands at a cartoon for Punch. The shame is
to the public, which has hailed an artistic failure as an artistic
triumph.