The Moon and Sixpence
by W. Somerset Maugham
Author of “Of Human Bondage”
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Chapter XLI
Chapter XLII
Chapter XLIII
Chapter XLIV
Chapter XLV
Chapter XLVI
Chapter XLVII
Chapter XLVIII
Chapter XLIX
Chapter L
Chapter LI
Chapter LII
Chapter LIII
Chapter LIV
Chapter LV
Chapter LVI
Chapter LVII
Chapter LVIII
The Moon and Sixpence
Chapter I
I confess that when first I made acquaintance with Charles Strickland I
never for a moment discerned that there was in him anything out of the
ordinary. Yet now few will be found to deny his greatness. I do not
speak of that greatness which is achieved by the fortunate politician
or the successful soldier; that is a quality which belongs to the place
he occupies rather than to the man; and a change of circumstances
reduces it to very discreet proportions. The Prime Minister out of
office is seen, too often, to have been but a pompous rhetorician, and
the General without an army is but the tame hero of a market town. The
greatness of Charles Strickland was authentic. It may be that you do
not like his art, but at all events you can hardly refuse it the
tribute of your interest. He disturbs and arrests. The time has passed
when he was an object of ridicule, and it is no longer a mark of
eccentricity to defend or of perversity to extol him. His faults are
accepted as the necessary complement to his merits. It is still
possible to discuss his place in art, and the adulation of his admirers
is perhaps no less capricious than the disparagement of his detractors;
but one thing can never be doubtful, and that is that he had genius. To
my mind the most interesting thing in art is the personality of the
artist; and if that is singular, I am willing to excuse a thousand
faults. I suppose Velasquez was a better painter than El Greco, but
custom stales one’s admiration for him: the Cretan, sensual and tragic,
proffers the mystery of his soul like a standing sacrifice. The artist,
painter, poet, or musician, by his decoration, sublime or beautiful,
satisfies the aesthetic sense; but that is akin to the sexual instinct,
and shares its barbarity: he lays before you also the greater gift of
himself. To pursue his secret has something of the fascination of a
detective story. It is a riddle which shares with the universe the
merit of having no answer. The most insignificant of Strickland’s works
suggests a personality which is strange, tormented, and complex; and it
is this surely which prevents even those who do not like his pictures
from being indifferent to them; it is this which has excited so curious
an interest in his life and character.
It was not till four years after Strickland’s death that Maurice Huret
wrote that article in the _Mercure de France_ which rescued the unknown
painter from oblivion and blazed the trail which succeeding writers,
with more or less docility, have followed. For a long time no critic
has enjoyed in France a more incontestable authority, and it was
impossible not to be impressed by the claims he made; they seemed
extravagant; but later judgments have confirmed his estimate, and the
reputation of Charles Strickland is now firmly established on the lines
which he laid down. The rise of this reputation is one of the most
romantic incidents in the history of art. But I do not propose to deal
with Charles Strickland’s work except in so far as it touches upon his
character. I cannot agree with the painters who claim superciliously
that the layman can understand nothing of painting, and that he can
best show his appreciation of their works by silence and a cheque-book.
It is a grotesque misapprehension which sees in art no more than a
craft comprehensible perfectly only to the craftsman: art is a
manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may
understand. But I will allow that the critic who has not a practical
knowledge of technique is seldom able to say anything on the subject of
real value, and my ignorance of painting is extreme. Fortunately, there
is no need for me to risk the adventure, since my friend, Mr. Edward
Leggatt, an able writer as well as an admirable painter, has
exhaustively discussed Charles Strickland’s work in a little book[1]
which is a charming example of a style, for the most part, less happily
cultivated in England than in France.
[1] “A Modern Artist: Notes on the Work of Charles Strickland,” by
Edward Leggatt, A.R.H.A. Martin Secker, 1917.
Maurice Huret in his famous article gave an outline of Charles
Strickland’s life which was well calculated to whet the appetites of
the inquiring. With his disinterested passion for art, he had a real
desire to call the attention of the wise to a talent which was in the
highest degree original; but he was too good a journalist to be unaware
that the “human interest” would enable him more easily to effect his
purpose. And when such as had come in contact with Strickland in the
past, writers who had known him in London, painters who had met him in
the cafés of Montmartre, discovered to their amazement that where they
had seen but an unsuccessful artist, like another, authentic genius had
rubbed shoulders with them there began to appear in the magazines of
France and America a succession of articles, the reminiscences of one,
the appreciation of another, which added to Strickland’s notoriety, and
fed without satisfying the curiosity of the public. The subject was
grateful, and the industrious Weitbrecht-Rotholz in his imposing
monograph[2] has been able to give a remarkable list of authorities.
[2] “Karl Strickland: sein Leben und seine Kunst,” by Hugo
Weitbrecht-Rotholz, Ph.D. Schwingel und Hanisch. Leipzig, 1914.
The faculty for myth is innate in the human race. It seizes with
avidity upon any incidents, surprising or mysterious, in the career of
those who have at all distinguished themselves from their fellows, and
invents a legend to which it then attaches a fanatical belief. It is
the protest of romance against the commonplace of life. The incidents
of the legend become the hero’s surest passport to immortality. The
ironic philosopher reflects with a smile that Sir Walter Raleigh is
more safely inshrined in the memory of mankind because he set his cloak
for the Virgin Queen to walk on than because he carried the English
name to undiscovered countries. Charles Strickland lived obscurely. He
made enemies rather than friends. It is not strange, then, that those
who wrote of him should have eked out their scanty recollections with a
lively fancy, and it is evident that there was enough in the little
that was known of him to give opportunity to the romantic scribe; there
was much in his life which was strange and terrible, in his character
something outrageous, and in his fate not a little that was pathetic.
In due course a legend arose of such circumstantiality that the wise
historian would hesitate to attack it.
But a wise historian is precisely what the Rev. Robert Strickland is
not. He wrote his biography[3] avowedly to “remove certain
misconceptions which had gained currency” in regard to the later part
of his father’s life, and which had “caused considerable pain to
persons still living.” It is obvious that there was much in the
commonly received account of Strickland’s life to embarrass a
respectable family. I have read this work with a good deal of
amusement, and upon this I congratulate myself, since it is colourless
and dull. Mr. Strickland has drawn the portrait of an excellent husband
and father, a man of kindly temper, industrious habits, and moral
disposition. The modern clergyman has acquired in his study of the
science which I believe is called exegesis an astonishing facility for
explaining things away, but the subtlety with which the Rev. Robert
Strickland has “interpreted” all the facts in his father’s life which a
dutiful son might find it inconvenient to remember must surely lead him
in the fullness of time to the highest dignities of the Church. I see
already his muscular calves encased in the gaiters episcopal. It was a
hazardous, though maybe a gallant thing to do, since it is probable
that the legend commonly received has had no small share in the growth
of Strickland’s reputation; for there are many who have been attracted
to his art by the detestation in which they held his character or the
compassion with which they regarded his death; and the son’s
well-meaning efforts threw a singular chill upon the father’s admirers.
It is due to no accident that when one of his most important works,
_The Woman of Samaria_,[4] was sold at Christie’s shortly after the
discussion which followed the publication of Mr. Strickland’s
biography, it fetched £235 less than it had done nine months before
when it was bought by the distinguished collector whose sudden death
had brought it once more under the hammer. Perhaps Charles Strickland’s
power and originality would scarcely have sufficed to turn the scale if
the remarkable mythopoeic faculty of mankind had not brushed aside with
impatience a story which disappointed all its craving for the
extraordinary. And presently Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz produced the work
which finally set at rest the misgivings of all lovers of art.
[3] “Strickland: The Man and His Work,” by his son, Robert Strickland.
Wm. Heinemann, 1913.
[4] This was described in Christie’s catalogue as follows: “A nude
woman, a native of the Society Islands, is lying on the ground beside a
brook. Behind is a tropical Landscape with palm-trees, bananas, etc. 60
in. x 48 in.”
Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz belongs to that school of historians which
believes that human nature is not only about as bad as it can be, but a
great deal worse; and certainly the reader is safer of entertainment in
their hands than in those of the writers who take a malicious pleasure
in representing the great figures of romance as patterns of the
domestic virtues. For my part, I should be sorry to think that there
was nothing between Anthony and Cleopatra but an economic situation;
and it will require a great deal more evidence than is ever likely to
be available, thank God, to persuade me that Tiberius was as blameless
a monarch as King George V. Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz has dealt in such
terms with the Rev. Robert Strickland’s innocent biography that it is
difficult to avoid feeling a certain sympathy for the unlucky parson.
His decent reticence is branded as hypocrisy, his circumlocutions are
roundly called lies, and his silence is vilified as treachery. And on
the strength of peccadillos, reprehensible in an author, but excusable
in a son, the Anglo-Saxon race is accused of prudishness, humbug,
pretentiousness, deceit, cunning, and bad cooking. Personally I think
it was rash of Mr. Strickland, in refuting the account which had gained
belief of a certain “unpleasantness” between his father and mother, to
state that Charles Strickland in a letter written from Paris had
described her as “an excellent woman,” since Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz was
able to print the letter in facsimile, and it appears that the passage
referred to ran in fact as follows: _God damn my wife. She is an