"Hates pictures!"
"And especially portraits. And I'm afraid, Mr. Dalrymple, she hates artists."
"Good heavens; how cruel! I suppose there is some story attached to it. There has been some fatal likeness,—some terrible picture,—something in her early days?"
"Nothing of the kind, Mr. Dalrymple. It is merely the fact that her sympathies are with ugly things, rather than with pretty things. I think she loves the mahogany dinner-table better than anything else in the house; and she likes to have everything dark, and plain, and solid."
"And good?"
"Good of its kind, certainly."
"If everybody was like your mother, how would the artists live?"
"There would be none."
"And the world, you think, would be none the poorer?"
"I did not speak of myself. I think the world would be very much the poorer. I am very fond of the ancient masters, though I do not suppose that I understand them."