thrope--a Thersites album, or rather nigrum--well, am I wrong in
thinking that this world of shadows is even less to your taste than an
ordinary art exhibition?

"But when you consider the matter more carefully, you will find it has
its good side. What is it that is so absolutely lacking in all modern
art, and the absence of which is the source of all other defects?
Simply this: it no longer respects the _silhouette_! In landscape and
_genre_, historical and portrait painting, yes, even in sculpture, you
find everywhere a lot of pretty little tricks of execution; delicate
shades, tones, and touches; a devilish careful, nervous, and, on the
whole, attractive piece of work, but in it all not a single great
feature; no strong decoration, no solid construction, the very shadow
of which suggests something. Give me a pair of shears and a quire of
black paper, and I will cut you out the whole history of art up to the
nineteenth century; the Sistine Madonna and Claude Lorraine as well as
Teniers and Ruysdael; Phidias and Michael Angelo as well as Bernini; so
that every one of them shall make a good showing, the _rococo_ period
included, which, after all, had something sounder at bottom than our
boasted present. Take away from the latter its finical, over-refined
tricks of color, and what is left? An incredible poverty of form, a
little brilliancy or aspiring 'idealism,' and the bare canvas. The same
thing might, it seems to me, be justly applied to our literature, and
from that to all the other manifestations of our boasted civilization.
But I, on the contrary, have from the very first devoted my attention
to the essential part, the primary form, and the really determining
outlines; and as these, unfortunately, only come out strongly in our
sins and weaknesses, I have become a _silhouette_ cutter--an art that
not only earns no bread, but even takes out of one's mouth the bread he
might otherwise have gained. Naturally, mankind will never forgive one
who shows it its dark side, and points out its excrescences and
deformities and defects; for each individual thinks he is just the one
all of whose sides the sun should especially light up."

It was fortunate for Felix, in his absent-minded state, that Schnetz
was one of those men who, when they once begin upon the great theme of
their life, upon their mission or their one idea, take no offense when
their hearer leaves them to run on alone, but play upon their single
whim in inexha