maybe Persepolis! The nightingale-harmony of an eternal yes--the whisper
of a sweet unending yes. The unknown, the unreal. This is love. There is
delusion, an _au delà_.

Good heavens! and the world still believes in education, in teaching
people the "grammar of art." Education should be confined to clerks, and
it drives even them to drink. Will the world learn that we never learn
anything that we did not know before? The artist, the poet, painter,
musician, and novelist go straight to the food they want, guided by an
unerring and ineffable instinct; to teach them is to destroy the nerve
of the artistic instinct. Art flees before the art school... "correct
drawing," "solid painting." Is it impossible to teach people, to force
it into their heads that there is no such thing as correct drawing, and
that if drawing were correct it would be wrong? Solid painting; good
heavens! Do they suppose that there is one sort of painting that is
better than all others, and that there is a receipt for making it as for
making chocolate! Art is not mathematics, it is individuality. It does
not matter how badly you paint, so long as you don't paint badly like
other people. Education destroys individuality. That great studio of
Julien's is a sphinx, and all the poor folk that go there for artistic
education are devoured. After two years they all paint and draw alike,
every one; that vile execution,--they call it execution,--_la pâte, la
peinture au premier coup_. I was over in England last year, and I saw
some portraits by a man called Richmond. They were horrible, but I liked
them because they weren't like painting. Stott and Sargent are clever
fellows enough; I like Stott the best. If they had remained at home and
hadn't been taught, they might have developed a personal art, but the
trail of the serpent is over all they do--that vile French painting,
_le morceau_, etc. Stott is getting over it by degrees. He exhibited a
nymph this year. I know what he meant; it was an interesting intention.