it was Landseer then. Really I believe
that very soon the ladies' papers will devote a column to pictures.
Something in this style. 'Smart people are taking down their
Rossetti's Annunciations now, and are hanging Gambler Bolton's new
Hippopotamus in the place of it. This Hippopotamus is to be the
correct thing in pictures this year, and no woman with any claim to be
considered smart will fail to have it over her piano. Marcus Stone's
new engraving will also be rather chic. Watts's Hope is now considered
a little dowdy.' And so forth. This gregarious admiration is the very
antithesis of artistic appreciation, which I tell you, simply must be
individual."

"Go on," said Bagshot, "go on."

"And that," said my uncle, with the glow of discovery in his face,
"that is where the vulgar critic goes wrong. He conceives an
orthodoxy. He tries to explain why Velasquez is better than Raphael
and Raphael better than Gerard Dow. As well say why a cirrus cloud is
better than a sycamore and a sycamore better than a scarlet hat. Every
painter, unless he is a mere operative, must have his peculiar public.
It is incredible that any painter can really satisfy the aesthetic needs
of such a public as these reproductions indicate. True art is always
sectarian. Why were Landseer and Sidney Cooper popular a few years
ago, and why does every tea-table sneer at them now? There must be
something admirable in them, or they would never have been admired.
Then why has my niece Annie dropped admiring Poynter, and why does she
pretend--and a very thin pretence it is--to admire Whistler?"

"You are wandering from my pictures," said Bagshot.

"I want to," said my uncle. "But why do you try and hide your taste
under these mere formalities in frames? Why do you always say 'I pass'
in the game of decoration? Better a mess of green amateurs and love
therewith, than the richest autotypes and dull complacency. Have what
you like. There is no such thing as absolute beauty. That is the
Magna Charta of the world of art. What is beautiful to me is not
beautiful to another man, in art as in women. But take care to get the
art that fits you. Frankly, that 'Love and Death' suits you, Bagshot,
about as much as a purple toga would. Orchardson is in your style. I
tell you that the greengrocer who buys an original oil painting for
sixteen shillings with frame complete is far nearer artistic salvation
than the patron of the popular autotype.