I am disappointed that I cannot report any extravagances in his opinions on the old masters. There is so much in his character which is strange that I feel it would complete the picture if his views were outrageous. I feel the need to ascribe to him fantastic theories about his predecessors, and it is with a certain sense of disillusion that I confess he thought about them pretty much as does everybody else. I do not believe he knew El Greco. He had a great but somewhat impatient admiration for Velasquez. Chardin delighted him, and Rembrandt moved him to ecstasy. He described the impression that Rembrandt made on him with a coarseness I cannot repeat. The only painter that interested him who was at all unexpected was Brueghel the Elder. I knew very little about him at that time, and Strickland had no power to explain himself. I remember what he said about him because it was so unsatisfactory.
我感到很失望，不能寫下他在評論一些老派畫家時的謬論。他的性格既然如此怪異，如果他在品評繪畫時也有一些奇談怪論，我筆下的這個形象就更加完美了。我覺得我很需要叫他對過去的一些畫家發表些荒誕的理論，但是我還是得講老實話，他同一般人一樣，對這些畫家也是贊不絕口，這叫我非常失望。我看他根本不知道誰是埃爾·格列柯。他對委拉斯凱茲相當敬佩，盡管懷有某種厭煩不耐的情緒。他喜歡夏爾丹，倫勃朗則使他感到入迷。他給我講倫勃朗的繪畫給他的印象時，用的語言極其粗鄙，我在這里無法引述。誰也想不到他最喜愛的一位畫家竟是老布魯蓋爾（彼得·布魯蓋爾（1522—1569），佛蘭德斯畫家；其子揚·布魯蓋爾（1568—1625）亦為畫家）。我當時對老布魯蓋爾不太了解，而思特里克蘭德也沒有能力表達自己。我之所以記得他對布魯蓋爾的評論是因為他這句話實在太詞不達意了。
"He's all right," said Strickland. "I bet he found it hell to paint."
“他的畫不錯，”思特里克蘭德說，“我敢說他發現畫畫兒是件受罪的事。”
When later, in Vienna, I saw several of Peter Brueghel's pictures, I thought I understood why he had attracted Strickland's attention. Here, too, was a man with a vision of the world peculiar to himself. I made somewhat copious notes at the time, intending to write something about him, but I have lost them, and have now only the recollection of an emotion. He seemed to see his fellow-creatures grotesquely, and he was angry with them because they were grotesque; life was a confusion of ridiculous, sordid happenings, a fit subject for laughter, and yet it made him sorrowful to laugh. Brueghel gave me the impression of a man striving to express in one medium feelings more appropriate to expression in another, and it may be that it was the obscure consciousness of this that excited Strickland's sympathy. Perhaps both were trying to put down in paint ideas which were more suitable to literature.
后來我在維也納看過彼得·布魯蓋爾的幾幅畫以后，我想我才懂得為什么這位畫家引起了思特里克蘭德的注意。這是另一個對世界懷著自己獨特幻覺的畫家。我當時作了大量筆記，準備將來寫一本關于布魯蓋爾的書，但是這些材料后來都遺失了，留下來的只是一種感情的回憶。在布魯蓋爾的眼睛里，人們的形象似乎是怪誕的，他對人們這種怪誕的樣子非常氣憤；生活不過是一片混亂，充滿了各種可笑的、齷齪的事情，它只能給人們提供笑料，但是他笑的時候卻禁不住滿心哀傷。布魯蓋爾給我的印象是，他想用一種手段努力表達只適合于另一種方式表達的感情，思特里克蘭德之所以對他同情，說不定正是朦朧中意識到這一點。也許這兩個人都在努力用繪畫表現出更適合于通過文學表達的意念。
Strickland at this time must have been nearly forty-seven.
思特里克蘭德這時大概已經四十七歲了。
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