atter until my uncle unsettled him. "Nice
carpet, Bagshot," said my uncle, "nice and soft. This chair certainly
very comfortable. But what the mischief do you mean--you, with your
pretence to culture--by hanging your dwelling with all those framed and
glazed photograph and autograph dittoes? I should have thought you at
least would have known better. Love and Life, and Love and Death, the
Daphnephoria, Rembrandt's portrait--Wild Havoc, man! What were you
thinking of?"

Bagshot seemed staggered. He ventured to intimate feebly his
persuasion that the things were rather good.

"Good they certainly are, and well reproduced, but only the Bible and
Shakspeare could stand this incessant reiteration, and not all
Shakspeare. These things are in shop windows, man--drawing-rooms,
offices, everywhere. They afflict me like popular songs--like popular
quotations. They are good enough--as a matter of fact they are too
good. Only, don't you know Willis has Love and Life and Love and
Death? And so has Smith, and Bays has Rembrandt's portrait in his
office, and my niece Euphemia has the Daphnephoria in her drawing-room.
I can't understand, George, why you let it stay there. It is possible
to have too much of a good thing. There is no getting away from these
all too popular triumphs. They cover up the walls everywhere. They
consume all other art. I shall write a schedule some day of the Fifty
Correct Pictures of the British People. And to find _you_, Bagshot,
among the Philistines!"

"I thought they showed rather an improvement in the general taste,"
said Bagshot. "There is no reason why a thing should not be common,
and yet very beautiful. Primroses, for instance----"

"That is true enough, but pictures are not primroses," said my uncle.
"Besides, I think we like primroses all the better because they must
soon be over; but these are perennial blossoms, like the everlasting
flowers and dried grass of a lodging house. They may still be
beautiful, but by this time, Bagshot, they are awfully dry and dusty.
Who looks at them? I notice our eyes avoid them even while we talk
about them. We have all noticed everything there is to be noticed, and
said all the possible things that are to be said about them long ago.
Surely a picture must be a little fresh to please. Else we shall come
at last to the perfect picture, and art will have an end. Don't you
see the mere popularity of these things of the pavement is enough to