The Vicar's wife required to have this last remark explained to her. She only knew the Philistines of Scripture, an unfortunate people who seem always to have been in the wrong.
'And you saw some good pictures?' inquired Aunt Betsy.
'A few good ones and acres of daubs,' replied Urania. 'Why will so many people paint? There are pictures which are an affliction to the eye—an outrage upon common sense. Instead of a huge gallery lined from floor to ceiling with commonplace, why cannot we have a Temple with a single Watts, or Burne Jones, or Dante Bossetti, which one could go in and worship quietly in a subdued light?'
'That is a horridly expensive way of seeing pictures,' said the Vicar's wife; 'I hate paying a shilling for seeing a single picture. If it is ever so good one feels one has had so little for one's money. Now at the Academy there are always at least fifty pictures which delight me.'
'You must be very easy to please,' said Urania.
'I am,' replied the Vicar's wife, curtly, 'and that is one of the blessings for which I am thankful to God. I hate your nil admiraris,' added the lady, as if it were the name of a species.
After this Urania became suddenly interested in Schumann, and glided across the room to see what the music meant.
'That is very sweet,' she murmured, sinking into a seat by Bessie; 'classical, of course?'
'Schumann,' answered Ida, briefly.
'I thought so. It has that delicious vagueness one only finds in German music—a half-developed meaning—leaving wide horizons of melodious uncertainty.'