ht,
vague repercussion upon literature. The attitude of the culture of London
towards it is of course merely humiliating to any Englishman who has made
an effort to cure himself of insularity. It is one more proof that the
negligent disdain of Continental artists for English artistic opinion is
fairly well founded. The mild tragedy of the thing is that London is
infinitely too self-complacent even to suspect that it is London and not
the exhibition which is making itself ridiculous. The laughter of London
in this connexion is just as silly, just as provincial, just as obtuse, as
would be the laughter of a small provincial town were Strauss's "Salome,"
or Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande" offered for its judgment. One can
imagine the shocked, contemptuous resentment of a London musical amateur
(one of those that arrived at Covent Garden box-office at 6 a.m. the other
day to secure a seat for "Salome") at the guffaw of a provincial town
confronted by the spectacle and the noise of the famous "Salome"
osculation. But the amusement of that same amateur confronted by an
uncompromising "Neo-Impressionist" picture amounts to exactly the same
guffaw. The guffaw is legal. You may guffaw before Rembrandt (people do!),
but in so doing you only add to the sum of human stupidity. London may be
unaware that the value of the best work of this new school is permanently
and definitely settled--outside London. So much the worse for London. For
the movement has not only got past the guffaw stage; it has got past the
arguing stage. Its authenticity is admitted by all those who have kept
themselves fully awake. And in twenty years London will be signing an
apology for its guffaw. It will be writing itself down an ass. The writing
will consist of large cheques payable for Neo-Impressionist pictures to
Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods. London is already familiar with this
experience, and doesn't mind.

* * * * *

Who am I that I should take exception to the guffaw? Ten years ago I too
guffawed, though I hope with not quite the Kensingtonian twang. The first
Cezannes I ever saw seemed to me to be very funny. They did not disturb my
dreams, because I was not in the business. But my notion about Cezanne was
that he was a fond old man who distracted himself by daubing. I could not
say how my conversion to Cezanne began. When one is not a practising
expert in an art, a single word, a single intonation, uttered by a