"Criticism," said Mr. Fett, with his mouth full of sausage, "is the flower of all the arts."
"For my part, I hate it," put in the melancholy Rinaldo.
"To be sure," Mr. Fett conceded, "if all men grasped this great truth, there would be an end of artists; and in time, by consequence, of critics, who live by them and for whom they exist. Therefore I keep my discovery as a Platonic secret, and utter it but occasionally, in my cups, and when"—with a severe glance at Mr. Badcock—"the vulgar are not attending."
Mr. Badcock woke up at once. "On the contrary," he explained,
"I listen best with my eyes closed; a habit I acquired in Axminster
Parish Church. Indeed, I am all ears."
"Indeed you are. . . . Well then, as I was about to say, the secret of success in the Arts is to make other men do the work for you. At this obviously he will excel who has learnt to appraise other men's work, and knows exactly of what they are capable; that is to say, the Critic. Believe me, dear friends, the happiest moment of my life will come when, as impresario I shall have realized the ambition of giving myself, as capo comico, the sack at twenty-four hours' notice."
"A man should know his own worth," grumbled Rinaldo, "if only in self-defence on pay-day."
"'Tis notorious, my dear Rinaldo, that your mere artist never does. Intent upon expressing self, he misses the detachment which alone is Olympian; whereas the critic—Tell me, why is an architect architectonic? Because he sits in his parlour, pushing the brown sherry and chatting with his clients, while his clerks express their souls for him in a back office. This lesson, O Badcocchio, I learnt from an uncle of mine, who had amassed a tidy competence by thus vicariously erecting a quite incredible number of villa residences for retired tradesmen in the midlands—to be precise, in and around Wolverhampton. I say vicariously, for on his deathbed it brought him inexpressible comfort that he himself had not designed these things.
"He was in many respects a remarkable man, and came near to being a great one. His name originally was Lorenzo Smith, to which in later years he added that of Desborough—partly for euphony, partly because the initials made to his mind a pleasing combination, partly also in pursuance of his theory of life, that he best succeeds who makes others work for him. By annexing the Desborough patronymic—which, however, he tactfully spelled Desboro', to avoid conflict with the family prejudices—he added, at the cost of a trifling fee to the Consistory Court of Canterbury, a flavour of old gentility to the artistic promise of Lorenzo, the solid commercial assurance of Smith. Together the three proved irresistible. He prospered. He died worth twenty-five thousand pounds, which had indeed been fifty thousand but for an unlucky error.
"Like many another discoverer, he pushed his discovery too far. He reasoned—but the reasoning was not in pari materia—that what he had applied to Art he could apply to Religion. In compliment to what he understood to be the ancient faith of the Desboroughs he had embraced the principles of Roman Catholicism—his motto, by the way, was Thorough—and this landed him, shortly after middle age, in an awkward predicament. He had, in an access of spleen, set fire to the house of a client whose payments were in arrear. The good priest who confessed him recommended, nay enjoined, an expiatory pilgrimage to Rome; and my uncle, on the excuse of a rush of orders, despatched a junior clerk to perform the pilgrimage for him.
"For a time all went well. The young man (whom my uncle had promoted from the painting of public-house sign-boards) made his way to Rome, saluted the statue of the Fisherman, climbed on his knees up the Scala Sancta, laid out the prescribed sum on relics, beads, scapulars, medals, and what-not, and, in short, fulfilled all the articles of my uncle's vow. On the second evening, after an exhausting tour of the churches, he sat down in a tavern, and incautiously, upon an empty stomach, treated himself to a whole flask of the white wine of Sicily. It produced a revulsion, in which he remembered his Protestant upbringing; and the upshot was, a Switzer found him, late that night, supine in the roadway beneath the Vatican gardens, gazing up at the moon and damning the Pope. Behaviour so little consonant with his letters of introduction naturally awoke misgivings. He was taken to the cells, where he broke down, and with crapulous tears confessed the imposture; which so incensed His Holiness that my uncle only bought himself off excommunication by payment of a crippling sum down, and an annual tribute of his own weight (sixteen stone twelve) in candles of pure spermaceti. O Badcock, fill Donna Julia's glass, and pass the bottle!"