eenth Duke somewhat as he stood reflected in the mirror of his
room. Resist your impulse to pass on to the painting which hangs next
but two to Lawrence's. It deserves, I know, all that you said about it
when (at the very time of the events in this chronicle) it was hanging
in Burlington House. Marvellous, I grant you, are those passes of the
swirling brush by which the velvet of the mantle is rendered--passes so
light and seemingly so fortuitous, yet, seen at the right distance,
so absolute in their power to create an illusion of the actual velvet.
Sheen of white satin and silk, glint of gold, glitter of diamonds--never
were such things caught by surer hand obedient to more voracious eye.
Yes, all the splendid surface of everything is there. Yet must you not
look. The soul is not there. An expensive, very new costume is there,
but no evocation of the high antique things it stands for; whereas by
the Duke it was just these things that were evoked to make an aura round
him, a warm symbolic glow sharpening the outlines of his own
particular magnificence. Reflecting him, the mirror reflected, in due
subordination, the history of England. There is nothing of that on Mr.
Sargent's canvas. Obtruded instead is the astounding slickness of Mr.
Sargent's technique: not the sitter, but the painter, is master here.
Nay, though I hate to say it, there is in the portrayal of the Duke's
attitude and expression a hint of something like mockery--unintentional,
I am sure, but to a sensitive eye discernible. And--but it is clumsy of
me to be reminding you of the very picture I would have you forget.

Long stood the Duke gazing, immobile. One thing alone ruffled his deep
inward calm. This was the thought that he must presently put off from
him all his splendour, and be his normal self.

The shadow passed from his brow. He would go forth as he was. He would
be true to the motto he wore, and true to himself. A dandy he had lived.
In the full pomp and radiance of his dandyism he would die.

His soul rose from calm to triumph. A smile lit his face, and he held
his head higher than ever. He had brought nothing into this world and
could take nothing out of it? Well, what he loved best he could carry
with him to the very end; and in death they would not be divided.

The smile was still on his face as he passed out from his room. Down
the stairs he passed, and "Oh," every stair creaked faintly, "I ought to
have been marble!"

And it did indeed