“That,” said he, in a curiously low voice—the kind of voice one uses in churches—“that is where G. F. Watts lives.”
And he pointed to some high chimneys that overtopped [18]
]a belt of trees, and stopped and gazed. But I was in no mood of reverence and, though I have frequently struggled to induce a feeling of rapture when gazing upon the large canvases of Watts, I have never been able to do so. So I pulled out my handkerchief and wiped my perspiring forehead.
“Hot?” asked Shaw grimly.
“Of course I’m hot. Aren’t you?”
“Warm. Just nicely warm.”
Presently we came to a tall tower of terra-cotta bricks which, Shaw told me, had been erected by the villagers under the direction and at the instigation of Watts himself. We stopped in front of this and, as it was one of the “sights” of the district, I felt that I was expected to say something wise or, at all events, something complimentary about it. I could say neither.
“Which do people imagine it to be—useful or ornamental?” I asked.
“I wonder,” said he.
“For it is neither,” I ventured.
But his thoughts were otherwhere, for he began a long, technical exposition on the art of making bricks and tiles. His talk became art-and-crafty. I was carried back to my childhood days, my kindergarten days. I heard the name of William Morris and I sighed most profoundly.