Holker declares that, excepting Mr.
Turner, he was the finest equestrian in London and describes how the
mob would gather every morning round his door to see him descend,
insolent from his toilet, and mount and ride away. Indeed, he
surpassed us all in all the exercises of the body. He even essayed
pree"minence in the arts (as if his own art were insufficient to his
vitality!) and was for ever penning impenuous verses for circulation
among his friends. There was no great harm in this, perhaps. Even the
handwriting of Mr. Brummell was not unknown in the albums. But
D'Orsay's painting of portraits is inexcusable. The aesthetic vision
of a dandy should be bounded by his own mirror. A few crayon sketches
of himself--dilectissimae imagines--are as much as he should ever do.
That D'Orsay's portraits, even his much-approved portrait of the Duke
of Wellington, are quite amateurish, is no excuse. It is the process
of painting which is repellent; to force from little tubes of lead a
glutinous flamboyance and to defile, with the hair of a camel therein
steeped, taut canvas, is hardly the diversion for a gentleman; and to
have done all this for a man who was admittedly a field-marshal....
I have often thought that this selfish concentration, which is a part
of dandyism, is also a symbol of that einsamkeit felt in greater or
less degree by the practitioners of every art.
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