provided only it had been less well written?' 'Yes, I suppose it
comes to that.' And then I caught his eye, and we both laughed. He is a
clever fellow himself, I should think, and the ludicrousness of the
idea tickled him as much as it did me. I came away. His admission was
quite the truth. It is the British way to take the second-rate in every
art and scout the best. Write a book poorly and feebly, and it passes.
Write the same thing powerfully and well, and the cry is--It's
improper! It's just the same thing in painting. Paint a nude woman
snowy white, without a shade or a shadow, and looking altogether as no
mortal woman ever did look, and the picture will be hung at the
Academy, and people will say, 'How charming! So artistic!' But paint a
woman with a glow on her neck and bosom, and the warm blood running in
her arms, dare to make her a living, breathing thing on canvas, and
your picture will be rejected. 'Excellent, unequalled, perfect, but--it
cannot be seen!' And what is British art as a consequence? Justly is it
looked down upon by the other nations. We simply set our heel upon the
best men. And look at our productions! Look at the rot and the trash
that floods the libraries every year! Look at the average novel! It's a
disgrace to our intellect! Look at the woodeny dolls that are its men
and women! And behold our Academy! See our pictures!"

"Don't rock your chair like that, Victor; it annoys me."

"Very good," I said, bringing my chair down on its fore legs again.
"Are you ready for the cheese?"

"Yes; but won't you eat anything?"

"No, thanks. I am fed upon annoyance just now."

"You are getting thin on it, too," he answered, looking at me. "It's a
pity you are so excitable!"

"It's a pity I was born in this confounded Britain! I should have got
on all right with Parisian readers. But I don't despair even here. They
can reject my MSS., but they can't take out my brains. I daresay I
shall stumble across some man at last with courage enough to stand by
me in the beginning and help me force open the British public's jaws
and cram my ideas down its throat; and that once done, it will digest
them perfectly, for it's a tough old beast, though very blind. Why on
earth has that fellow carried off the champagne?"

"You finished the bottle yourself just this minute!" returned my
father, in surprise.

"Did I? Oh, very likely! Absence of mind!"

"It seems to me if you had a little less of this talent you boas