Open Air v. Clubs.

But to me the most pleasing quality in the book is its open-air
flavor. Here is yet another young author, and one of the most
promising, joining the healthy revolt against the workshops. Though
for my sins I have to write criticism now and then, and use the
language of the workshops, I may claim to be one of the rebels, having
chosen to pitch a small tent far from cities and to live out of doors:
and it rejoices me to see the movement growing, as it undoubtedly has
grown during the last few years, and find yet one more of the younger
men refusing, in Mr. Stevenson's words, to cultivate restaurant fat,
to fall in mind "to a thing perhaps as low as many types of
_bourgeois_--the implicit or exclusive artist." London is an alluring
dwelling-place for an author, even for one who desires to write about
the country. He is among the paragraph-writers, and his reputation
swells as a cucumber under glass. Being in sight of the newspaper men,
he is also in their mind. His prices will stand higher than if he go
out into the wilderness. Moreover, he has there the stimulating talk
of the masters in his profession, and will be apt to think that his
intelligence is developing amazingly, whereas in fact he is developing
all on one side; and the end of him is--the Exclusive Artist:--

"_When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the
Club-room's green and gold
The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their
pens in the mould--
They scratch with their pens in the mould of their
graves and the ink and the anguish start,
For the Devil mutters behind the leaves: 'It's pretty,
but is it Art?'_"