1991.1016.249.3

Hale W. White (author)

Letter to Philip Webb from W. Hale White, dated 10th February 1899 with a pencil draft by Webb of his response.. Found inserted in the book, Revolution in Tanner's Lane, by Rutherford, Mark when acquired by the museum, shelf P34(F) . Part of the Emery Walker Library.

1899-02-12 - 1899-02-12 1899 - 1899

Arts & Crafts, 19th century

(with additional content by Philip Webb) Letter from W. Hale White to Philip Webb dated 10th February 1899 and marked as answered 2 days later on 12th February. Found in ‘Revolution in Tanner’s Lane’ by Mark Rutherford along with a copy of the privately circulated ‘A Dream of Two Dimensions’ by W. Hale White inscribed to P. L. Webb by the author and printed in January 1884. c/o Miss Hine, Green Bushes, Haslemere ansd. 12 Feb ‘99 10 Feb. 1899 – My dear Webb[i], Thank you very much for your letter. I have taken the liberty of sending it to my interrogator. It was instructive to me and when I see you again I must ask you some further questions. Ah, yes, it is so much easier to invent than to learn! I know a young man who invented a Theory of Life but he cannot pass the lowest examination to qualify him for practising as an apothecary, the profession for which he is designed. One sentence in your letter reminds me of your ancient heresy that Millais had no imagination. To me he is the only modern painter who has any that is perfectly healthy, the only one who can seize a dramatic position; whose pictures have a point. Burne Jone’s pictures are collections of various persons and you don’t have to know precisely why they are brought together. But I pardon you. You inevitably look at works of art as an artist, and I as one of the people, to whom the subject is of much consequence. Nevertheless the artist should not work for the artist only & furthermore he should be planted on the earth. The girls in [illegible crossing out] “Autumn Leaves” with their perfectly English faces are better than Jones’s type (for its is always the same) of impossible spirituality – [illegible crossing out] That you can deny imagination and [illegible crossing out] poetic unity to “Autumn Leaves” would be [illegible crossing out] incomprehensible to me were you not, as I say, an artist – Molly and I are here for a few days change. She has not been well and I fancied an outing might do her good. This region is still beautiful but alas Gentility has besmirched it. I am not so foolish as to object to people choosing to live in pleasant places but I object to the obtrusive arrogance of their houses. Every one of them proclaims pocket. Molly sends her love. Faithfully yours W. Hale White[ii] Philip Webb Esqr [This letter is marked as having been answered, presumably by Philip Webb, on 12th February and beginning on the centre right-hand page is a pencil-written rough draft of a reply] Your letter is in one or two ways elucidatory (forgive telegraphese) – so that I shall be better able to understand your difficulties over the medieval cast of mind & matter – but you are too hard upon yourself and have [inserted instead] used too much black from your colour box and (may I say it?) laid yourself open to being ‘touched’ even by my poor foil. How can you have mustered courage to say you look upon imaginative work not as [inserted] i.e. the work of an artist? as one to whom the subject is of much [illegible crossings out] a practising. If that be so – unless you are are artist or poet, or musician or cook, 3 parts al least of their works are closed to you. All who aspire to understand an imaginative work of art must bring the other pole to the electric battery of communication with the artist. When those who are not poets, and never could be (inserted) in the practical sense yet are poetically inclined do bring that other pole to connect with the intelligence of the poet – and [the poet Monkbalm] was not so far wrong in his estimate of himself. In writing to a sympathetic mind like yours I do not explain my (to me) necessary exaggerations. All people – so far as I am capable of estimating the genus man, have imagination, it is but a question of degree. When nthe imagination is very high it is planted on the earth, but it is not earthy. John’s apocalypse is madman’s work I grant , but it is also saner than the work of a modern political economist. Blake was a very fine madman, he did not descend to earth but lifted it up to himself. The long list of madmen is a voucher for their pure sanity, [unreadable name], Shakespeare, Keats, Carlyle, Ruskin, Morris, Burne Jones, Handel, Beethoven [&c] were decidedly cracked, but I did not accuse Millais of being cracked: but what lights he had were of [a grand] honest kind, the stockbroking world was good enough for him – and though he began by imitating [unreadable], he was wise enough to give over [inserted following] that , to him, blind road and his blind girl” was more [imagined] than his “autumn leaves” – but the former was more unusual than much of Burne Jones’ work. [Footnote: [i] Philip Webb (1831 – 1915), architect and friend of, inter alia, William Morris. [ii] William Hale-White ((1831 – 1913), also known by the pseudonym Mark Rutherford, was a novelist and a great friend of Philip Webb’s. CAW]