Fred Kaplan

He desired fame and fortune. Whatever the additional enriching complications that were to make him notorious for the complexity of his style and thought, the initial motivation remained constant.

“the most expressively beautiful creature I had ever looked upon. He had a smile to make Correggio sigh in his grave.… Verily nature is still at odds with propriety.… I shall always remember with infinite tender conjecture, as the years roll by, this little unlettered Eros of the Adriatic strand

Six years of frequent illness had pushed him into nervous and physical collapse. A stroke now partly paralyzed him. He had had a nervous breakdown in early 1910, a year after he had made his final visit to Italy. The death of his brother William in August 1910 had been a painful disaster that had left a gaping hole of disconnection in his life and memory. The man who had prided himself on taking possession of many things was now being taken possession of. As he lay dying in a London winter, his mind wandered into increasing incoherence.