Page:G.F. Watts - Chesterton.djvu/13

George Fredrick Watts was born on 23rd February 1817, and is still alive. His whole rise and career, that is to say, synchronises roughly with the rise and career of the nineteenth century. As a rule, no doubt such chronological parallels are peculiarly fanciful and unmeaning. Nothing can be imagined more idle, in a general way, than talking about a century as if it were some kind of animal with a head and tail, instead of an arbitrary length cut from an unending scroll. Nor is it less erroneous to assume that even if a period be definitely vital or disturbing, art must be a mirror of it; the greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity; poets, like bricklayers, work on through a century of wars, and Bewick’s birds, to take an instance, have the air of persons unaffected by the French

Revolution. But in the case of Watts there are two circumstances which render the dates relevant. The first is that the nineteenth