'What is the color of the sky? Is it not blue? Is not blue a cold color; is it not the negative to the warmth, the balance to the scales, the one thing needed on which to rear the glorious fabric that Naychure reveals to the undimmed vision of man? I know your answer, and I refute it. I have studied Art from its roots, and now I'm in the branches, and I grasp the fruit. My manner is peculiar—I have no patent for it—I ask for none. The illimitable passes the legitimate, and the sw-word is carried by the hero—for me the bruzh, the paint-bruzh. You see that painting before you—it is my child—I lavish on it my intentions—I am going to work three years on that picture!'
'I bet you a new hat you sell it, and a dozen more, and send 'em off before six months. You're all the rage now since you sold old Goldburg a picture,' quoth Caper.
'I don't bet, I am opposed to betting. But look that picture of mine in the face, in the face! Here is a finished painting, The Lake of Zurich; see those clouds floating mistily away into the far distance—there's atmosphere for you—there's air! You can't cut those clouds into slices of cheese as you can them of that humbug of a Cloud Lowrain. Cloud Lowrain! he's a purty painter! Naychure is my teacher. I go out mornings and hear the jackdaws chatter, and see trees and all that; sometimes I walk around in a garden for ten minutes and commune with Naychure—that's the way to do it. Look at clouds before you paint 'em—I know it's hard when the sun's in your eyes, but do it—I've spent a week at a time out-doors, like Wordsworth and the great, the grand, the colossial Ruzking.'
'I like that water,' said Rocjean, alluding to that of the painting.
'Water is my peculiar study; I am now engaged experimenting on it—see there!' Here Phlamm pointed to a basin.
'Been washing your hands?' asked Caper.
'Scientifically experimenting, not manually. Water is soup-or-fish-all—earth is not soup-or-fish-all.'
'Our dinners are, during Lent,' quoth Caper, 'unless we're heretics.'
'I don't understand your frivolity—what do you mean?'
'Didn't you say, 'Soup or all fish?''