sed a truth which needed
expression, and which, coming from the lord of form and colour, cannot
fail to have its influence. His lecture, the Apocrypha though it be for
the people, yet remains from this time as the Bible for the painter, the
masterpiece of masterpieces, the song of songs. It is true he has
pronounced the panegyric of the Philistine, but I fancy Ariel praising
Caliban for a jest: and, in that he has read the Commination Service over
the critics, let all men thank him, the critics themselves, indeed, most
of all, for he has now relieved them from the necessity of a tedious
existence. Considered, again, merely as an orator, Mr. Whistler seems to
me to stand almost alone. Indeed, among all our public speakers I know
but few who can combine so felicitously as he does the mirth and malice
of Puck with the style of the minor prophets.

KEATS'S SONNET ON BLUE

(Century Guild Hobby Horse, July 1886.)

During my tour in America I happened one evening to find myself in
Louisville, Kentucky. The subject I had selected to speak on was the
Mission of Art in the Nineteenth Century, and in the course of my lecture
I had occasion to quote Keats's Sonnet on Blue as an example of the
poet's delicate sense of colour-harmonies. When my lecture was concluded
there came round to see me a lady of middle age, with a sweet gentle
manner and a most musical voice. She introduced herself to me as Mrs.
Speed, the daughter of George Keats, and invited me to come and examine
the Keats manuscripts in her possession. I spent most of the next day
with her, reading the letters of Keats to her father, some of which were
at that time unpublished, poring over torn yellow leaves and faded scraps
of paper, and wondering at the little Dante in which Keats had written
those marvellous notes on Milton. Some months afterwards, when I was in
California, I received a letter from Mrs. Speed asking my acceptance of
the original manuscript of the sonnet which I had quoted in my lecture.
This manuscript I have had reproduced here, as it seems to me to possess
much psychological interest. It shows us the conditions that preceded
the perfected form, the gradual growth, not of the conception but of the
expression, and the workings of that spirit of selection which is the
secret of style. In the case of poetry, as in the case of the other
arts, what may appear to be simply technicalities of method are in their
essence spiritual, not mech