Now, Tucked Away In A Corner Of My Consciousness Is The
Knowledge That I Need Never Be Lonely Again Unless I Choose.
When I
yield myself fully to the sweet enchantment of this thought, I feel
myself in the mood to paint sunshine, flowers, and happy children's
faces; yet I am sadly lacking in concentration, all the same.
The
fact is, I am no artist in the true sense of the word. My hope
flies ever in front of my best success, and that momentary success
does not deceive me in the very least. I know exactly how much, or
rather how little, I am worth; that I lack the imagination, the
industry, the training, the ambition, to achieve any lasting
results. I have the artistic temperament in so far that it is
impossible for me to work merely for money or popularity, or indeed
for anything less than the desire to express the best that is in me
without fear or favour. It would never occur to me to trade on
present approval and dash off unworthy stuff while I have command of
the market. I am quite above all that, but I am distinctly below
that other mental and spiritual level where art is enough; where
pleasure does not signify; where one shuts oneself up and produces
from sheer necessity; where one is compelled by relentless law;
where sacrifice does not count; where ideas throng the brain and
plead for release in expression; where effort is joy, and the
prospect of doing something enduring lures the soul on to new and
ever new endeavour: so I shall never be rich or famous.
What shall I paint to-day? Shall it be the bit of garden underneath
my window, with the tangle of pinks and roses, and the cabbages
growing appetisingly beside the sweet-williams, the woodbine
climbing over the brown stone wall, the wicket-gate, and the cherry-
tree with its fruit hanging red against the whitewashed cottage?
Ah, if I could only paint it so truly that you could hear the drowsy
hum of the bees among the thyme, and smell the scented hay-meadows
in the distance, and feel that it is midsummer in England! That
would indeed be truth, and that would be art. Shall I paint the
Bobby baby as he stoops to pick the cowslips and the flax, his head
as yellow and his eyes as blue as the flowers themselves; or that
bank opposite the gate, with its gorse bushes in golden bloom, its
mountain-ash hung with scarlet berries, its tufts of harebells
blossoming in the crevices of rock, and the quaint low clock-tower
at the foot? Can I not paint all these in the full glow of summer-
time in my secret heart whenever I open the door a bit and admit its
life-giving warmth and beauty? I think I can, if I can only quit
dreaming.
I wonder how the great artists worked, and under what circumstances
they threw aside the implements of their craft, impatient of all but
the throb of life itself?
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 47 of 61
Words from 24168 to 24684
of 31509
