“We won’t bother about those dealers you speak of, but I’d like to see your work.”
“I get ten dollars for a painting sometimes,” I said, thinking that would be an added inducement to him to let me help him sell his paintings. He smiled when I said that and after a moment he said:
“Ten dollars are a mighty comfortable thing, and so are two pairs of darned socks, as Oliver Twist would have said; but there’s something besides the selling question in all these efforts of ours—don’t you know that?”
“You mean self-expression?” I asked timidly. I had heard studio talk before.
“Yes—self-expression, and a good many other things besides.”
He paused, studying me musingly.
“I wonder if you will understand,” he said almost to himself, and then he added, with a beaming look: “Yes, I am sure you will. It’s this way: If our art is our life, then perhaps we had best follow Goethe’s advice and live resolutely in the good, the whole and the true. To do that we must know values—values on the canvas and values in life.”
Reggie’s scale of values flashed to my mind.
“To be well informed,” he went on, “generally helps us to recognize values.”
“The value of one’s paintings?” I asked slyly.