likes Tupper, that is no reason why you should hang your head.
She thinks with the majority, and has the courage of her
opinions. I have always suspected public taste to be a
mongrel product, out of affectation by dogmatism; and felt
sure, if you could only find an honest man of no special
literary bent, he would tell you he thought much of
Shakespeare bombastic and most absurd, and all of him written
in very obscure English and wearisome to read. And not long
ago I was able to lay by my lantern in content, for I found
the honest man. He was a fellow of parts, quick, humorous, a
clever painter, and with an eye for certain poetical effects
of sea and ships. I am not much of a judge of that kind of
thing, but a sketch of his comes before me sometimes at night.
How strong, supple, and living the ship seems upon the
billows! With what a dip and rake she shears the flying sea!
I cannot fancy the man who saw this effect, and took it on the
wing with so much force and spirit, was what you call
commonplace in the last recesses of the heart. And yet he
thought, and was not ashamed to have it known of him, that
Ouida was better in every way than William Shakespeare. If
there were more people of his honesty, this would be about the
staple of lay criticism. It is not taste that is plentiful,
but courage that is rare. And what have we in place? How
many, who think no otherwise than the young painter, have we
not heard disbursing second-hand hyperboles? Have you never
turned sick at heart, O best of critics! when some of your own
sweet adjectives were returned on you before a gaping
audience? Enthusiasm about art is become a function of the
average female being, which she performs with precision and a
sort of haunting sprightliness, like an ingenious and well-