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Guinness, of course, is a howl; the wheezing, hawking, spitting image of a merry old soak. He sports a fortnight's grizzle, along with "eyes like a pair of half-sucked acid drops," and he has developed a horrendously comic walk. Yet he never lets the spectator forget that Jimson is a man of parts—though he never quite manages to convince anybody that the old rapscallion is really a genius. The stupefyingly loud and uninteresting pictures he paints (actually the work of Britain's 30-year-old John Bratby) are partly responsible for the failure, but Guinness must share in the blame. He is a highly intelligent actor, but he simply lacks the demonic force to fill out a personality as large as Jimson's. And he seems to have ignored almost completely the extraordinary religious depths of the man, as expressed, for instance, in the amen he sings to life in his dying words.
"There you go," I said, "getting up a grievance. Which is about the worst mistake anyone can make, especially if he has one. Get rid of that sense of justice, or you'll feel sorry for yourself, and then you'll soon be dead ... Go love without the help of anything on earth; and that's real horse meat." "Please don't talk," said the nun, "you're very seriously ill." "Not so seriously as you're well. How don't you enjoy life, mother. I should laugh all round my neck at this minute if my shirt wasn't a bit on the tight side." "It would be better for you to pray." "Same thing, mother."