greatness has not much meaning. His being over-fastidious cannot be overlooked; his perfection in unfinishedness mostly betrays his temperament; he was one of the most studied artists. If it appeared his work was always done from inspiration, it is only that he proved the work which he executed at the odd moment, as we might say, when he least expected it. The remarkable part is that he was always ready for that moment; what energy, what persistence he had to grasp it!
I am told of his habitual indifference to time and place; not only in his personal action, also he made his dream of colour and rhythm at once soar out of them. He never copied Nature or eternity; what he represented on canvas was the very Nature and eternity themselves; it was a sad accident to let his picture bear a particular name of a place. While it does not look like the reality you and I think we see perhaps in Nature, it shows a a sweeping ghostliness ageless and eternal. It is most interesting to read what he said before the Judge at the time of the Ruskin-Whistler case. He remarked:—“If it were
