“I have enjoyed myself,” said Logan. “By God! I wish there were a revolution. I’d have my finger in the pie. Oh! what lovely legs there’d be to pull—all the world’s and his wife’s as well. But it won’t come in my time.”
Under Logan’s influence Mendel began to enjoy his food, which he had always treated as a tiresome necessity before. He sat back in his chair and sipped his wine and crumbled up his bread exactly as Logan did; and he had a delicious sense of leisure and well-being, as though nothing mattered very much. And, indeed, when he came to think of it, nothing did matter. He had years and years ahead of him, and here was good solid pleasure in front of him, so that he had only to dip his hands in it and take and take. . . .
After the dinner Logan ordered cigars, coffee, and liqueurs, and Mendel felt very lordly. The restaurant had filled up, and among the rest were Mitchell and Morrison.
Mendel turned, gave them a curt nod, and could not restrain a grin of satisfaction as he thought that score was settled. He leaned forward and gave himself up to the pleasure of Logan’s talk.
“What I contend,” said Logan, “is this—and mind you, I let off my youthful gas years ago. I’ve been earning my living since I was fourteen, so I know a little of what the world’s like. I’ve been in offices and shops, and on the land, in hotels, on the railway, on the road as a bagman, from house to house as a tallyman, and I know what I’m talking about. The artist is a free man, and therefore an outlaw, because the world is full of timid slaves who lie in the laps of women. If an artist is not a free man, then he is not an artist. And I say that if the artist is outlawed, then he must use any and every means to get out of the world what it denies him. One must live.”
“That’s true,” said Mendel.
“You may take it from me that there is less room in the world now for artists than ever there was. In the old days you chose your patron and he provided for you, as the Pope provided for Michael Angelo, and you devoted your art to whatever your patron stood for, spiritual power if he happened to be a pope, secular power if he happened to be a duke or a king. But, nowadays, suppose you had a patron—say, Sir Julius Fleischmann—and he kept you alive, what on earth could you devote your art to? You could paint his portrait, and his wife’s portrait, and all his daughters’ portraits, but they’d mean nothing; they’d just be vulgar men and women. No. Art is a bigger thing than any power left on the earth. Money has eaten up all the other powers, and only art is left uncorrupted by it. Art cannot be patronized. It cannot serve religion, because there is no religion vital enough to contain the spirit of art. There is nothing left in the world worthy of such noble service, and therefore art must be independent and artists must be free, because there is no honourable service open to them. They must have their own values, and they must have the courage of them. The world’s values are the values fit for the service of Sir Julius Fleischmann, but they are not fit for men whose blood is stirring with life, whose minds are eager and active, men who will accept any outward humiliation rather than the degradation of the loss of their freedom.”
“I met Sir Julius Fleischmann. Once,” Mendel said. “He subscribed for me when I went to my first School of Art. They wanted to send me to Italy, but I refused, because I knew my place was here in London. There’s more art for me in the Tottenham Court Road than in all the blue skies in the world.”
“Quite right, too!” cried Logan. “That shows how sound an artist’s instinct is. He knows what is good for him because he is a free man. The others have to be told what is good for them because they don’t know themselves and because, however unhappy they are, they don’t know the way out. When you and I are unhappy we know that it is because we have lost touch with life, or because we have lost touch with art; either the flesh or the spirit is choked with thorns, and we set about plucking them out. When it is a question of saving your soul, what do morals matter?”
Mendel had heard people talk about morals, and he knew that his own were supposed to be bad; but he was not certain what they were. Rather timidly he asked Logan, who gave his fat chuckle and replied:—