That phrase had an electrical sound to me; and when I say electrical, I mean, beside the shock of it, something which neither you nor I nor any of us understand.
“Why isn’t it Art?” I asked quickly. “You mustn’t think me foolish,” I added, “but really I suppose I’m what you call a country bumpkin; I know nothing about these things. Why isn’t it Art?”
“Just——it isn’t,” she replied, and she took down a sample of black moulding and a sample of gold; then she laid a sample of rosewood on one side of the picture. “There,” she said, “that’s your cook’s taste.” She did not quite like to call it mine. Then she laid the other two samples on the other sides of the print—“and that’s Art.”
I looked at the picture, then I looked at her. Then I looked back at the picture again.
“But how do you know it’s Art?” said I.
She pulled herself up still straighter and she answered, with all the confidence in the world—
“Because I’ve been taught—that’s why. Because I’ve been educated to it. I haven’t spent five years here amongst all these pictures without learning what’s Art and what isn’t.”
“And now you know?” said I.
She nodded her head heavily with wisdom.
“But are you sure you’ve been taught right?” I went on. “How are you to know that the people who taught you knew?”