course, after
the famous _torero_ described by Gautier in his "Voyage en Espagne."
When I was in Madrid sometime later I went to a number of bull-fights
before I put the story together.' 'But,' I asked Harris, 'Is it
possible for an _espada_ to stand in the bull ring with his back to
the bull, during a charge, as you have made him do frequently in the
story?' 'Of course not,' he answered me at once, smiling his frankly
malevolent smile, 'Of course not. That part was put in to show how
much the public will stand for in a work of fiction. I believe one of
the _espadas_ tried it some time after the book appeared and was
immediately killed.'

"Fiction, history, poetry, criticism, at their best, are all the same
thing. When they inflame the imagination and stir the pulse they are
identical: all creative work. It does not matter what a man writes
about. It matters how he writes it. Subject is nothing. Should we
regard Velasquez as less important than Murillo because the former
painted portraits of contemporaries, whom in his fashion he
criticized, while the Spanish Bouguereau disguised his models as the
Virgin? Walter Pater's description of the _Monna Lisa_ would live if
the picture disappeared. Indeed it has created a factitious interest
in da Vinci's masterwork. Even more might be said for Huysmans's
description of Moreau's _Salome_, which actually puts the figures in
the picture in motion! The critic, the historian at their best are
creative artists as the writers of fiction are creative artists.
Should we regard, for example, 'Imperial Purple' less a work of
creative art than 'The Rise of Silas Lapham'?"

"I am getting your meaning more and more," said Sitgreaves. "And it
occurs to me that perhaps I have been unjust in rating Moore low as a
novelist. Perhaps I should have said that he is more successful in
those books which depend more on his memory and less on his
imaginative instinct. He cannot, after all, have known Jesus and
Paul...."

"You are quite wrong," I said. "At least from his point of view. He
says that he knows Paul better than he has ever known any one else. He
even finds hair on Paul's chest. He can describe Paul, I believe, to
the last mole. He knows his favourite colours, and whether he prefers
artichokes to alligator pears. As for Christ, everybody professes to
know Christ these days. Since the world has become distinctly
un-Christian it has become comparatively easy to discuss Christ. He
is regar