The figure, the man that the
wind blows out of the picture, his hat about to leave his head, is not
he really on board in a gale? Did a frock coat flap out in the wind so
well before? And do not the attitudes of the two women leaning over
the side represent their suffering? The man who is not sea-sick sits,
his legs stretched out, his hands thrust into his pockets, his face
sunk on his breast, his hat crushed over his eyes. His pea-jacket, how
well drawn! and can we not distinguish the difference between its
cloth and the cloth of the frock of the city merchant, who watches
with such a woful gaze the progress of the gathering wave? The weight
of the wave is indicated with a few straight lines, and, strangely
enough, only very slightly varied are the lines which give the very
sensation of the merchant's thin frock coat made in the shop of a
fashionable tailor.
It has been said that Keene could not draw a lady or a gentleman. Why
not add that he was neither a tennis player nor a pigeon shot, a
waltzer nor an accomplished French scholar? The same terrible
indictment has been preferred against Dickens, and Mr. Henry James
says that Balzac failed to prove he was a gentleman. It might be well
to remind Mr. James that the artist who would avoid the fashion plate
would do well to turn to the coster rather than the duke for
inspiration. Keene's genius saved him from the drawing-room, never
allowing his gaze to wander from where English characteristics may be
gathered most plentifully--the middle and lower classes.
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