To a man who could draw like Alere, possessed, too, of the still rarer talent—the taste to see what to draw—there really is no limit in our days; for as for colour, you do not require a genius for colour in an age of dinginess—why, the point, nowadays, is to avoid colour, and in a whole Academy you shall scarcely find as much as would tint a stick of sealing-wax.
"You put on a black coat and go into society"—that is the secret of commissions, and commissions are fortune. Nothing so clever in the way of advice has been sent forth as that remark. The great Tichborne said something about folk that had money and no brains, and folk that had brains but no money; and they as has no brains ought to be so managed as to supply money to those who had. But even the greatness of the great Tichborne's observation falls into insignificance before Chesterfield in one sentence: "Put on a black coat and go into society."
What are the sayings of the seven wise men of Greece compared to that?
CHAPTER XXVII.
Y no possible means could Alere Flamma work himself into a dress coat. The clubs, the houses of the great, the mutual admiration dinners—those great institutions of the day—were all closed to him because of the Dress Coat.
If he had really desired to enter, of course he would have squeezed into the evening monkey-skin somehow; but, in truth, Alere did not want to enter.