Humphrey was the first to speak after the young lady's name was mentioned. He removed the pipe from his mouth, threw back his head, stroked his long brown beard, and addressed the ceiling.
"She is," he said, "she is indeed a charming girl. Her outlines finely but firmly drawn; her colouring delicate, but strongly accentuated; the grouping to which she lends herself always differentiated artistically; her single attitudes designed naturally and with freedom; her flesh-tints remarkably pure and sweet; her draperies falling in artistic folds; her atmosphere softened as by the perfumed mists of morning; her hair tied in the simple knot which is the admiration and despair of many painters;—you agree with my rendering, brother Cornelius"—he turned his reflective gaze from the ceiling, and fixed his lustrous eyes, perhaps with the least little look of triumph, upon his brother—"my rendering of this incomparable Work?"
He spoke of the young lady as if she were a picture. This was because, immediately after receiving his commission, he bethought him of reading a little modern criticism, and so bought the Academy for a few weeks. In that clear bubbling fount of modern English undefiled, the Art criticisms are done with such entire freedom from cant and affectation that they are a pleasure to read; and from its pages every Prig is so jealously kept out, that the paper is as widely circulated and as popular as Punch; thus Humphrey Jagenal acquired a new jargon of Art criticism, which he developed and made his own.
Cornelius had been profiting by the same delightful and genial enemy to Mutual Admiration Societies. He was a little taken aback for a moment by the eloquence and fidelity of his brother's word-picture, but stimulated to rivalry. He made answer, gazing into the black and hollow depths of the empty fireplace, and speaking slowly as if he enjoyed his words too much to let them slip out too fast—
"She is all that you say, Humphrey. From your standpoint nothing could be better. I judge her, however, from my own platform. I look on her as one of Nature's sweetest poems; such a poem as defies the highest effort of the greatest creative genius; where the cadenced lines are sunlit, and as they ripple on make music in your soul. You are rapt with their beauty; you are saddened with the unapproachable magic of their charm; you feel the deepest emotions of the heart awakened and beating in responsive harmony. And when, after long and patient watching, the Searcher after the Truth of Beauty feels each verse sink deeper and deeper within him, till it becomes a part of his own nature, there arises before him, clad in mystic and transparent Coan robe, the spirit of subtle wisdom, long lying perdu in those magic utterances. She is a lyric; she is a sonnet; she is an epigram——"
"At least," interrupted Humphrey unkindly, cutting short his brother's freest flow, "at least she doesn't carry a sting."
"Then let us say an Idyl——"
"Cornelius, make an Idyl yourself for her," Humphrey interrupted again, because really his brother was taking an unfair advantage of a paltry verbal superiority. "Now that we have both described her—and I am sure, brother," he added out of the kindness of his heart, "no description could be more poetically true than your own—it would make even a stranger see Phillis standing in a vision before his eyes. But let us see what had better be done."
"We must act at once, Humphrey. We must call upon her at her guardian's, Mrs. L'Estrange, at Twickenham. Perhaps that lady does not know so many men of genius as to render the accession of two more to her circle anything but a pleasure and an honour. And as for our next steps, they must be guided by our finesse, by our knowledge of the world, our insight into a woman's heart, our—shall I say our power of intrigue, Humphrey?"
Then the Artist positively winked. It is not a gesture to be commended from an artistic point of view, but he did it. Then he chuckled and wagged his head.