MARK TWAIN IN THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC CHRONICLE
1865
DRUNK?
Or what was the matter with the genial Fitz Smythe when he branched out on that high art criticism in Tuesday's Alta? He says one of the best paintings he has seen in San Francisco "is a genuine horreman," etc., (meaning horseman, of course.) Now how can a mere painting, on lifeless canvass be a "genuine horseman?" And then immediately he drops the horseman and goes to talking incoherently about something connected with an artist's studio. What natural connection can there be between a genuine horseman or bogus horseman, or yet a horseman of any kind, and an artist's studio? You have been getting drunk again, Fitz Smythe. You had better stop that, you know.
[NOTE: Part of the joke of this item is Mark Twain's pretended ignorance of the name of Dutch painter John Horreman.]
[published in Early Tales & Sketches, Volume 2, 1864-1865,
University of California Press, 1981, p. 508.]
