Interludes

Ruskin so belaboured the poor ancients about their landscapes that when I was a youth he had taught me to believe that Claude and Ruisdael were mere duffers. So when he speaks of Whistler, as we shall presently see, his blame is so exaggerated that it produces a revulsion in the mind of the reader. He said Whistler's painting consisted in throwing a pot of paint in the public's face. Well! we may say Whistler is somewhat sketchy and careless or wanting in colour, but it is quite possible to keep our tempers over it.

"This salad is very gritty," said a gentleman to Douglas Jerrold at a dinner party. "Gritty," said Jerrold, "it's a mere gravel path with a few weeds in it." That was very unfair on the salad.

3. Criticism should be appropriate.

I mean by this something different from proportionate. Sometimes the language of cri