ent,
but they should hesitate to produce work that appeals to the last
judgement, which is the judgement within. There is too much reason to
divine that a certain number of those who aspire to differ from the
greatest of masters have no temperaments worth speaking of, no point of
view worth seizing, no vigilance worth awaiting, no mood worth waylaying.
And to be, _de parti pris_, an Impressionist without these! O
Velasquez! Nor is literature quite free from a like reproach in her own
things. An author, here and there, will make as though he had a word
worth hearing--nay, worth over-hearing--a word that seeks to withdraw
even while it is uttered; and yet what it seems to dissemble is all too
probably a platitude. But obviously, literature is not--as is the craft
and mystery of painting--so at the mercy of a half-imposture, so guarded
by unprovable honour. For the art of painting is reserved that shadowy
risk, that undefined salvation. If the artistic temperament--tedious
word!--with all its grotesque privileges, becomes yet more common than it
is, there will be yet less responsibility; for the point of honour is the
simple secret of the few.

THE COLOUR OF LIFE

Red has been praised for its nobility as the colour of life. But the
true colour of life is not red. Red is the colour of violence, or of
life broken open, edited, and published. Or if red is indeed the colour
of life, it is so only on condition that it is not seen. Once fully
visible, red is the colour of life violated, and in the act of betrayal
and of waste. Red is the secret of life, and not the manifestation
thereof. It is one of the things the value of which is secrecy, one of
the talents that are to be hidden in a napkin. The true colour of life
is the colour of the body, the colour of the covered red, the implicit
and not explicit red of the living heart and the pulses. It is the
modest colour of the unpublished blood.

So bright, so light, so soft, so mingled, the gentle colour of life is
outdone by all the colours of the world. Its very beauty is that it is
white, but less white than milk; brown, but less brown than earth; red,
but less red than sunset or dawn. It is lucid, but less lucid than the
colour of lilies. It has the hint of gold that is in all fine colour;
but in our latitudes the hint is almost elusive. Under Sicilian skies,
indeed, it is deeper than old ivory; but under the misty blue of the
English zenith, and