The Moon and Sixpence | Page 4

is
a charming example of a style, for the most part, less happily cultivated in England than
in France.
[1] "A Modern Artist: Notes on the Work of Charles Strickland," by Edward Leggatt,
A.R.H.A. Martin Secker, 1917.

Maurice Huret in his famous article gave an outline of Charles Strickland's life which
was well calculated to whet the appetites of the inquiring. With his disinterested passion
for art, he had a real desire to call the attention of the wise to a talent which was in the
highest degree original; but he was too good a journalist to be unaware that the "human
interest" would enable him more easily to effect his purpose. And when such as had come
in contact with Strickland in the past, writers who had known him in London, painters
who had met him in the cafes of Montmartre, discovered to their amazement that where
they had seen but an unsuccessful artist, like another, authentic genius had rubbed
shoulders with them there began to appear in the magazines of France and America a
succession of articles, the reminiscences of one, the appreciation of another, which added

to Strickland's notoriety, and fed without satisfying the curiosity of the public. The
subject was grateful, and the industrious Weitbrecht-Rotholz in his imposing
monograph[2] has been able to give a remarkable list of authorities.
[2] "Karl Strickland: sein Leben und seine Kunst," by Hugo Weitbrecht-Rotholz, Ph.D.
Schwingel und Hanisch. Leipzig, 1914.
The faculty for myth is innate in the human race. It seizes with avidity upon any incidents,
surprising or mysterious, in the career of those who have at all distinguished themselves
from their fellows, and invents a legend to which it then attaches a fanatical belief. It is
the protest of romance against the commonplace of life. The incidents of the legend
become the hero's surest passport to immortality. The ironic philosopher reflects with a
smile that Sir Walter Raleigh is more safely inshrined in the memory of mankind because
he set his cloak for the Virgin Queen to walk on than because he carried the English
name to undiscovered countries. Charles Strickland lived obscurely. He made enemies
rather than friends. It is not strange, then, that those who wrote of him should have eked
out their scanty recollections with a lively fancy, and it is evident that there was enough
in the little that was known of him to give opportunity to the romantic scribe; there was
much in his life which was strange and terrible, in his character something outrageous,
and in his fate not a little that was pathetic. In due course a legend arose of such
circumstantiality that the wise historian would hesitate to attack it.
But a wise historian is precisely what the Rev. Robert Strickland is not. He wrote his
biography[3] avowedly to "remove certain misconceptions which had gained currency" in
regard to the later part of his father's life, and which had "caused considerable pain to
persons still living." It is obvious that there was much in the commonly received account
of Strickland's life to embarrass a respectable family. I have read this work with a good
deal of amusement, and upon this I congratulate myself, since it is colourless and dull. Mr.
Strickland has drawn the portrait of an excellent husband and father, a man of kindly
temper, industrious habits, and moral disposition. The modern clergyman has acquired in
his study of the science which I believe is called exegesis an astonishing facility for
explaining things away, but the subtlety with which the Rev. Robert Strickland has
"interpreted" all the facts in his father's life which a dutiful son might find it inconvenient
to remember must surely lead him in the fullness of time to the highest dignities of the
Church. I see already his muscular calves encased in the gaiters episcopal. It was a
hazardous, though maybe a gallant thing to do, since it is probable that the legend
commonly received has had no small share in the growth of Strickland's reputation; for
there are many who have been attracted to his art by the detestation in which they held
his character or the compassion with which they regarded his death; and the son's
well-meaning efforts threw a singular chill upon the father's admirers. It is due to no
accident that when one of his most important works, ,[4] was
sold at Christie's shortly after the discussion which followed the publication of Mr.
Strickland's biography, it fetched POUNDS 235 less than it had done nine months before
when it was bought by the distinguished collector whose sudden death had brought it
once more under the hammer. Perhaps Charles Strickland's power and originality would
scarcely have sufficed to turn the scale if the remarkable mythopoeic faculty of mankind