a list of passengers sailing on the Kronprinz Wilhelm is more nearly a work of art than a novel by Thomas Hardy! What is there in that? Anybody can do it. Where is the arrangement, the colour, the form? Hardy merely photographs life!
But aren't you trying to photograph still life?
Peter's face was almost purple; I thought he would burst a blood-vessel.
Don't you understand that perfumes and reaping-machines are never to be found together in real life? That is art, making a pattern, dragging unfamiliar words and colours and sounds together until they form a pattern, a beautiful pattern. An Aubusson carpet is art, and it is assuredly not a photograph of still life. . . . Art. . . .
I don't know how much more of this there was but, when Peter finally stopped talking, the sunlight was streaming in through the window.
