Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/158

104 change of temper since I wrote the Frere review, or a wanton praise of one man and blame of another. Every syllable of my criticism, these last twenty years, is weighed like apothecaries’ drugs, whether it be prussic acid (which I can’t ever distil to the bitterness I want), or perfumery of the Rimmel- smoothest. You all of you think I know nothing •of my trade ; pick out what you like, and say,

‘Well, for Ruskin, that’s not so bad,’ and ‘What a fool that fellow is!’ when it’s what you don’t agree with — and of course, that way, you never really understand a word I say.

“I wrote of Frère, first, he had the ‘simplicity of Wordsworth.’ Well, he lived in a village, loved it, and painted what he saw there. (Hook has done something of the kind, though not so faithfully, for Clovelly.) But you don’t suppose there’s any ‘ sim- plicity’ in Walker! All those peasants of his are got up for the stage. Look at the flutter of that girl’s apron under the apple-tree ; look at the ridi- culous mower, galvanised-Elgin in his attitude {and the sweep of the scythe utterly out of draw- ing, by the way). You don’t suppose that flock of geese is done simply? It is elaborately affected — straining to express the feelings of a cockney who had never before seen a goose in his life, web- footed. You don’t suppose those children in the