“I don’t know. The mind ought to be a mirror reflecting only the essentials of reality.”
“And that requires imagination, doesn’t it?” she asked. “You see you have put it much better than I have.”
“Have I?” he returned, smiling. “After a while you’ll persuade me that I possess your imagination, Rue. But I don’t.”
“You do, Jim––”
“I’m sorry; I don’t. You construct, I copy; you create, I ring changes on what already is; you dissect, I skate over the surface of things—Oh, Lord! I don’t know what’s lacking in me!” he added with gay pretence of despair which possibly was less feigned than real. “But I know this, Rue Carew! I’d rather experience something interesting than make a picture of it. And I suppose that confession is fatal.” 324
“Why, Jim?”
“Because with me the pleasures of reality are substituted for the pleasures of imagination. Not that I don’t like to draw and paint. But my ambition in painting is and always has been bounded by the visible. And, although that does not prevent me from appreciation—from understanding and admiring your work, for example—it sets an impregnable limit to any such aspiration on my part––”
His mobile and youthful features had become very grave; he stood a moment with lowered head as though what he was thinking of depressed him; then the quick smile came into his face and cleared it, and he said gaily:
“I’m an artistic Dobbin; a reliable, respectable sort of Fido on whom editors can depend; that’s all. Don’t feel sorry for me,” he added, laughing; “my work will be very much in demand.”