Even Lottie joined slightly in the general and not complimentary laugh at Hemstead which followed this thrust, but he, with heightened color, said, "You cannot criticise my picture, Mr. De Forrest, for it does not exist. Therefore I must conclude that your satire is directed against my choice of place and subjects."
"Yes, as with the offence of Denmark's king, they 'smell to heaven.'"
"I appeal to you, Miss Marsden, was not the scent of hay and the breath of the cattle as we caught them passing, sweet and wholesome?"
"I cannot deny that they were."
"You have judicial fairness and shall be umpire in this question. And now, Mr. De Forrest, there is a celebrated and greatly admired picture in a certain gallery, representing a scene from the Roman Saturnalia. You do not object to that, with its classic accessories, as a work of art?"
"Not at all."
"And yet it portrays a corruption that does in truth 'offend heaven.' Your muck-heap, which did not enter my thought at all, and would not have been in my picture, could I paint one, would have been wholesome in comparison. Have I made a point, Judge Marsden?"
"I think you have."
"Finally, Mr. De Forrest, what are we to do with the fact that some of the greatest painters in the world have employed their brushes upon just such scenes as these, which perhaps offend your nose and taste more than they do heaven, and that pictures such as that farm-yard would suggest adorn the best galleries of Europe?"
"What artists of note have painted barn-yard scenes?" asked De
Forrest, in some confusion.