________________________________________________
_ "One goes to the Academy in self-defence," said Reginald.
"It is the one topic one has in common with the Country
Cousins."
"It is almost a religious observance with them," said the
Other. "A kind of artistic Mecca, and when the good ones die
they go" -
"To the Chantrey Bequest. The mystery is what they find to
talk about in the country."
"There are two subjects of conversation in the country:
Servants, and Can fowls be made to pay? The first, I
believe, is compulsory, the second optional."
"As a function," resumed Reginald, "the Academy is a
failure."
"You think it would be tolerable without the pictures?"
"The pictures are all right, in their way; after all, one can
always LOOK at them if one is bored with one's surroundings,
or wants to avoid an imminent acquaintance."
"Even that doesn't always save one. There is the inevitable
female whom you met once in Devonshire, or the Matoppo Hills,
or somewhere, who charges up to you with the remark that it's
funny how one always meets people one knows at the Academy.
Personally, I DON'T think it funny."
"I suffered in that way just now," said Reginald plaintively,
"from a woman whose word I had to take that she had met me
last summer in Brittany."
"I hope you were not too brutal?"
"I merely told her with engaging simplicity that the art of
life was the avoidance of the unattainable."
"Did she try and work it out on the back of her catalogue?"
"Not there and then. She murmured something about being 'so
clever.' Fancy coming to the Academy to be clever!"
"To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is dining
nowhere in the evening."
"Which reminds me that I can't remember whether I accepted an
invitation from you to dine at Kettner's to-night."
"On the other hand, I can remember with startling
distinctness not having asked you to."
"So much certainty is unbecoming in the young; so we'll
consider that settled. What were you talking about? Oh,
pictures. Personally, I rather like them; they are so
refreshingly real and probable, they take one away from the
unrealities of life."
"One likes to escape from oneself occasionally."
"That is the disadvantage of a portrait; as a rule, one's
bitterest friends can find nothing more to ask than the
faithful unlikeness that goes down to posterity as oneself.
I hate posterity--it's so fond of having the last word. Of
course, as regards portraits, there are exceptions."
"For instance?"
"To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to heaven
prematurely."
"With the necessary care and impatience, you may avoid that
catastrophe."
"If you're going to be rude," said Reginald, "I shall dine
with you to-morrow night as well. The chief vice of the
Academy," he continued, "is its nomenclature. Why, for
instance, should an obvious trout-stream with a palpable
rabbit sitting in the foreground be called 'an evening dream
of unbeclouded peace,' or something of that sort?"
"You think," said the Other, "that a name should economise
description rather than stimulate imagination?"
"Properly chosen, it should do both. There is my lady kitten
at home, for instance; I've called it Derry."
"Suggests nothing to my imagination but protracted sieges and
religious animosities. Of course, I don't know your kitten"
-
"Oh, you're silly. It's a sweet name, and it answers to it--
when it wants to. Then, if there are any unseemly noises in
the night, they can be explained succinctly: Derry and
Toms."
"You might almost charge for the advertisement. But as
applied to pictures, don't you think your system would be too
subtle, say, for the Country Cousins?"
"Every reformation must have its victims. You can't expect
the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over
the prodigal's return. Another darling weakness of the
Academy is that none of its luminaries must 'arrive' in a
hurry. You can see them coming for years, like a Balkan
trouble or a street improvement, and by the time they have
painted a thousand or so square yards of canvas, their work
begins to be recognised."
"Someone who Must Not be Contradicted said that a man must be
a success by the time he's thirty, or never."
"To have reached thirty," said Reginald, "is to have failed
in life." _
Read next: Reginald at the Theatre
Read previous: Reginald on Christmas Presents
Table of content of Reginald
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
