"Then you should prefer the bush there, which gives you its beauty and fragrance without a scratch. But truly your comparison is too far-fetched, even for an artist or a poet, for I suppose they are near of kin. To sensible, matter-of-fact girls, nothing is more absurd than your idealization of us. See how quickly and honestly I can disenchant you. In the presence of both nature and art I am conscious that it is nearly lunch-time. You are far from your boarding-place, so come and take your luck with us. Mamma will be glad to see you, and after lunch I may be a more amiable critic."
"As a critic, I do not wish you to be amiable, but honest severity itself. That you stumbled upon me accidentally in your present mood is my good fortune. Tell me the faults in my picture in the plainest English, and I will gratefully accept your invitation; for the hospitality at your cottage is so genial that bread and cheese would be a banquet. I have a strong fancy for seeing my work through your eyes, and so much faith in you that I know you will tell me what you think, since I ask you to do so."
"Why have you faith in me?" she asked, with a quick, searching glance.
"I belong somewhat to the impressionist school, and my impression of you leads to my words."
"If you compel me to be honest, I must say I'm not capable of criticising your picture. I know little of art, and nothing of its TECHNIQUE."
"Eyes like yours should be able to see a great deal, and, as I said, I am possessed by the wish to know just what they do see. There is the scene I was sketching, and here the canvas. Please, Miss Marian."
"It will be your own fault, now, if you don't like what I say," laughed the young girl, with ready tact, for a quick glance or two had already satisfied her that the picture was not to her taste. "My only remark is this, Mr. Blauvelt,—Nature does not make the same impression on me that it does on you. There is the scene, as you say. How can I make you understand what I feel? Nature always looks so natural to me! It awakens within me various emotions, but never surprise,—I mean that kind of surprise one has when seeing a lady dressed in colors that do not harmonize. To my eye, even in gaudy October, Nature appears to blend her effects so that there is nothing startling or incongruous."
"Is there anything startling and incongruous in my picture?"
"I have not said that. You see you have brought me into perplexity, you have taken me beyond my depth, by insisting on having my opinion. I have read a good many art criticisms first and last. Art is gabbled about a good deal in society, you know, and we have to keep a set of phrases on hand, whether we understand them or not. But since you believe in impressions, and will have mine, it is this as nearly as I can express it. You are under the influence of a school or a fashion in art, and perhaps unconsciously you are controlled by this when looking at the scene there. It seems to me that if I were an artist I should try to get on my canvas the same effects that nature produces, and I would do it after my own fashion and not after some received method just then prevailing. Let me illustrate what I mean by a phase of life that I know more about. There are some girls in society whose ambition it is to dress in the latest style. They are so devoted to fashion that they appear to forget themselves, and are happy if their costume reflects the mode of the hour, even though it makes them look hideous. My aim would be to suggest the style rather unobtrusively, and clothe myself becomingly. I'm too egotistical to be ultra-fashionable. Since I, who am in love chiefly with myself, can so modify style, much more should you, who are devoted to nature, make fashion in art subservient to nature."
"You are right. I have worked too much in studios and not enough out of doors. Ever since I have been sketching this summer, I have had a growing dissatisfaction, and a sense of being trammelled. I do believe, as you say, that a certain received method or fashion of treatment has been uppermost in my mind, and I have been trying to torture—nature into conformity. I'll paint this thing all out and begin again."