"In these days of strange, wild gods, in whose temples the heathen riot in flames and flares and orgies of color, it seems to me incumbent upon the saner among the craft to cling perhaps closer than ever to the great canons that the great masters have set forth for us. What do these new men worship? Color—color—blobs and blotches of raw, crude color! They think of nothing else, these barbarians. Let drawing, arrangement, construction even, go—they say—and with bloodshot eyes they dance in one wild debauch of life and light! It is not art!"
Casting an imperceptibly alert eye to right and left, Pelgram saw that he was now in possession of the maximum audience he was likely to achieve. In a near-by corner, blockaded by three attentive gentlemen who seemed much less interested in art than in nature, sat Miss Maitland, within easy though obstructed earshot. She could hardly help hearing, and with an inward sigh of satisfaction the artist gave himself over utterly to the exordium which for some inexplicable reason formed the nucleus of his idea of a properly conducted studio affair. He felt that he was going to be very eloquent, and he felt reasonably secure from interruption, for no one in that company would have the temerity to question, on his own hearthstone, his pronunciamentos. No one,—except perhaps the irrepressible Wilkinson,—and it was with the greatest relief that he beheld Charlie safely out of hearing and engaged in rapt converse with Isabel.
"Yes, those of us who believe, who still hold the immortal things sacred, have a great trust vested in us. It is for us, the few still faithful, to keep the lustral fires pure from defilement by the unbelievers. What would the great draughtsmen of old, the great true colorists among the masters, say if we should betray them to the wild, criminal vagaries of these falsest of false prophets?"
He turned savagely upon Ling Hop, who replied, with entire truth, and with a certain feeling for caution which showed that he could be trusted in any crisis:—
"Yes. What?"
"They swarm with muddy feet through the safest, surest halls of art of all time. They do not hesitate to say that arrangement—arrangement!—is not a necessity in a work of art. They say construction is not vital. They care nothing of whether nature at the moment is right or wrong—whether there is a combination of circumstances worthy of reproduction—but they throw their pictures on the canvas in any way they chance to come. And what pictures! Raw, flaunting things, with no care given to balance, none to line, none to color! It would be unbelievable—if it were not true."
Miss Heatherton, on whom his inspired gaze at this juncture rested, closed her eyes, as though she feared to disturb even by a glance the continuity of this astonishing harangue. At the footstool of Olympus sat Miss Long, in patient ecstasy.
"These painters—anarchists of the craft, I call them—would force us to leave off painting quiet interiors," continued Pelgram, lowering his voice with mournful impressiveness, "because, forsooth, interiors are inane, undramatic things unless relieved by color! Not our color, but the bright, blazing color that roars and raves. Still-lifes they condemn unless they swim in seas of pure emotion. For with them color is emotion, emotion color. . . . To be sure, we know better, but I repeat that a heavy charge is on us. We must march loyally forward, keeping our banners high. We must go on painting a modest lady, dressed in dark blue, sitting on a gray chair with a shiny wooden floor beneath her—to show that these things can sometimes make an artistic harmony worthy of being translated for all time into a picture that shall never die. What if this has been done ten thousand times before? The old gods are jealous gods, and at the ten thousandth time they take their own at last."
"Yes. At last," said Ling Hop, observing that a response was expected of him.
Pelgram turned to the portrait.