uecemDer 4, 1915. 
L A iN JJ A i\ 1) W A 1 b K 
bothering about mine. I notice at all events that the 
chances are immensely against their doing so. While 1 
admit that most serious painting appreciates perhajis 
for one generation, it seems to me that after that period 
the vast majority of works of art steadily depreciate until 
they pass into compjlete oblivion. Only the very greatest 
can aspire to a kind of relative immortality. Popular 
art, on the other hand, begins to go bad almost before it 
has dried on the canvas. Be this as it may, the artist 
who has the inward satisfaction of painting for a remote 
posterity clearly need not exhibit his work. To me it 
Queen Victoria. 
seems more sensible and less romantic to' suppose^ that 
my work has a certain interest for a certain number of 
people for a strictly limited period. Therefore' that it: 
may do what it has to do in the way of stimulating other 
minds while it is still alive, I exhibit it. ' , 
"It is with art as Tristram Shandy avers it to be .with 
love and cuckoldom, ' the interested party is geiierally 
the last to know anything about it.' If the artist sets'out 
to explain what he would be at, the chances are that he is' 
making as wild a shot as the merest critic. I am sure 
I can do very little to enlighten anyone about my work.,, 
Now that I see it spread out in an" exhibition it st>cfns to 
me quite remote and strange and I am probably jraore 
anxious than anyone to know what it, amounts to.' 'taike 
for instance the "large design of the German General Staff; 
a photograph of which appears here. I tind itr pro- 
duces on some people an effect of something fatal- and 
menacing. I suppose, therefore, that it has something 
dramatic or at least theatrical aboiit it. If so its 'effect is 
of a different and I think a lower order to what I aimed 
at, for I was conscious only of a desire to create a' par- 
ticular kind of plastic unity for\vhichT'saw, or sup^oseql 
I saw, an opportunity in the forms of these men as I 
found them in a i)hotograph. If I had succeeded, the 
emotion I should have aroused would have had nothing 
whatever to do with any feelings we may have about the 
Kaiser and von Moltke. 
'' Similariy with the Queen Victoria, which is also re- 
produced here, it was the design which her particular con- 
formation, habits of movement, and her wav of dressing 
bring about, that attracted me to the subject rather than 
any of the feelings which my knowledge of her life and 
character inspire. 
" If it be objected, as one of my critics does, that these 
works are all experimental, I must plead guilty to the 
charge, and can only urge in extenuation that "no one 
can hope to be much more than an experiment in life, 
and generally an inconclusive one at that " 
FOREIGN OPINION. 
The Language Problem. 
M. Cieorges Montorgueil remarks in L' Eclair : 
Last week four Englisli statesman came to Paris to 
debate witli us on questions of intcriiiitional imijortanco. 
Of these four, only one knew anj' French worth meiitit)niiig, 
and not one of our Ministers had any command of English. 
Because I-"rencli is supposed to' be spoken all the world 
over, we lazily took it for granted that our neighbours- woiikl 
understand us. \\'e made no effort to m?et tliem lialf-way 
for we assumed that a knowledge of Frencii.is still to-day, as 
it was yesterday, the hall-mark of the cultured person. ' This 
is mere mental inertia. Compare it with'tiie infinite paiiis 
taken by the German to master any language which it may 
be remotely worth his wliile to know. To-davwe are actuallv 
proposing to banish German from the curriculum of our 
schools on the pretext that it is, or soon will be, a " dead " 
language. Germany knows better than to talk in slipshod 
fashion of " dead ' languages. It is because her spies are 
practised lir'-uists that they are the super-spies of Europe. 
They have settled down among us, have wormed out our 
secrets, and beaten us on our own ground, because the language 
of a nation is the key to its heart and its conscience. It 
unlocks every door. 
Germany at Work. 
M. G. Blanchon writes in the Journal des Dchats : 
Interviewed the other day, von Kluck let fall one memor- 
able sentence : " We shall win," he said, " thank-; to our 
unbounded capacity for work." A haunting saying this when 
one is confronted by the organisation of a warfare which 
jiromises to drag on indefinitely. Having failed to strike their 
decisive blow during the first months of war, the enemy now 
wooes victory by the taking of infinite pains. His work of 
underground fortification grows more ingenious and com- 
plicated daily. Not a stone, not an invention, to be nearer 
the mark, is left unturned which might serve the purpose of 
destruction. His asphyxiating gases are legion, and an army 
of industrious engineers devote all their energies to a research, 
the aim of which is a new and original destruction of life. 
These, candidly, are the methods of commerce translated 
on to another plane. It was the thoroughness of his work 
which made the German such a success in business, and the 
ways of the prosperous tradesman are with him still. He 
launches a new campaign with all the boom with which, of old, 
he would have opened a new department in a shop. No oni; 
can beat-him at advertisement ; neutrals are flooded with 
German puffs of German superiority. Their diplomatic 
missions, to speak crudely to the point, are glorified com- 
mercial travellers' adventures, and the accredited representa- 
tives of the glorious Empire behave abroad as if they were the 
agents of a shady firm under orders to stop at nothing. 
Future of Sweden. 
The following is taken from the Xovoye Vremya: 
It was easy for German diplomacy to make a helpless tool 
out of its Turkey- and Bulgaria, and thus encouraged, it has 
turned its attention to the North. Tiie present problem is 
how to make Sweden fight for the godd cause. No time, no 
energy nor coin of the realm are being sj)ared to achie\e this 
end. - - - ■ , 
^- But it was one thing to whisper sweet Cu'rman nothings into 
Perdhiand's ear ; it is another to gain credence and a satis- 
factwy foothold in common-sense Scandinavia. The Court, 
it is'true, is known to^have pro-German sympathies, but there 
the"* mischief ends. Those responsible for the welfare of the 
C(i)untry know better than to sacrifice Swedish interests to the 
ambitions of William II. The plotting and scheming of Ger- 
man agents round and about the Throne have resulted in 
nothing more definite than a vague atmosphere of mild pro- 
(ierman sympathy which will never, unless we are very much 
mistaken, be translated into action. 
It was easy work in Constantinople to bamboozle the 
Ottoman Government ; Sofia's h'erdinand, too, required little 
persuasion to go against the will and interests of his people ; 
m Athens and in Bucharest the Hohenzollern influence could 
set at naught the efforts of the nation to live up to the best 
of its traditions : but in Sweden the ruling monarch's opinions 
count for \ery little. Thus Germany's favourite method of 
propaganda cannot bear fruit. To influence a wide and 
sensible public is not so easy as to have one's finger in the pies 
of Courts. The Press too (excepting the section secretly 
controlled by Germany) keeps doggedly to the point, and 
even the papers unfriendly to Russia refuse to be duped by 
German intritue. 
