‘O beauty of the rose,
Goodness as well as perfume exhaling!
Who gazes on these flowers,
On this blue hill and ripening field—he knows
Where duty leads and that the nameless Powers
In a rose can speak their will.’
Really charming!” Mr. Clew made another mark with his pencil.
“But commonplace, commonplace.” Mr. Mallard shook his head. “And in any case a verse can’t justify a bad picture. What an unsubtle harmony of colour! And how uninteresting the composition is! That receding diagonal—it’s been worked to death.” He too made a mark in his catalogue—a cross and a little circle, arranged like the skull and cross-bones on a pirate’s flag. Mr. Mallard’s catalogues were always covered with these little marks: they were his symbols of condemnation.
Mr. Albemarle, meanwhile, had moved away to greet the new arrivals. To the critic of the Daily Cinema he had to explain that there were no portraits of celebrities. The reporter from the Evening Planet had to be told which were the best pictures.
“Mr. Lypiatt,” he dictated, “is a poet and philosopher as well as a painter. His catalogue is a—h’m—declaration of faith.”