“Oh, Lavvie! the Dowager Countess is downstairs, and her ladyship likes the pictures,” exclaimed the old man, snuffling and smiling infirmly in a flutter of nervous glee.
“Come and sit down by me, father, and see Madonna doing the visitors. It’s funnier than any play that ever was acted.”
“And her ladyship likes the pictures,” repeated the engraver, his poor old watery eyes sparkling with pleasure as he told his little morsel of good news over again, and sat down by the bedside of his favorite child.
The rings at the bell began to multiply at compound interest. Madonna was hardly still at the window for a moment, so many were the visitors whose approach up the garden walk it was now necessary for her to signalize. Down-stairs, all the vacant seats left in the painting room were filling rapidly; and the ranks of standers in the back places were getting two-deep already.
There was Lady Brambledown (whose calls at the studio always lasted the whole morning), sitting in the center, or place of honor, taking snuff fiercely, talking liberal sentiments in a cracked voice, and apparently feeling extreme pleasure in making the respectable middle classes stare at her in reverent amazement. Also, two Royal Academicians—a saturnine Academician, swaddled in a voluminous cloak; and a benevolent Academician, with a slovenly umbrella, and a perpetual smile. Also, the doctor and his wife, who admired the massive frame of “Columbus,” but said not a word about the picture itself. Also, Mr. Bullivant, the sculptor, and Mr. Hemlock, the journalist, exchanging solemnly that critical small talk, in which such words as “sensuous,” “aesthetic,” “objective,” and “subjective,” occupy prominent places, and out of which no man ever has succeeded, or ever will succeed, in extricating an idea. Also, Mr. Gimble, fluently laudatory, with the whole alphabet of Art-Jargon at his fingers’ ends, and without the slightest comprehension of the subject to embarrass him in his flow of language. Also, certain respectable families who tried vainly to understand the pictures, opposed by other respectable families who never tried at all, but confined themselves exclusively to the Dowager Countess. Also, the obscure general visitors, who more than made up in enthusiasm what they wanted in distinction. And, finally, the absolute democracy, or downright low-life party among the spectators—represented for the time being by Mr. Blyth’s gardener, and Mr. Blyth’s cook’s father—who, standing together modestly outside the door, agreed, in awe-struck whispers, that the “Golden Age” was a Tasty Thing, and “Columbus in sight of the New World,” a Beautiful Piece.
All Valentine’s restlessness before the Visitors arrived was as nothing compared with his rapturous activity, now that they were fairly assembled. Not once had he stood still, or ceased talking since the first spectator entered the room. And not once, probably, would he have permitted either his legs or his tongue to take the slightest repose until the last guest had departed from the Studio, but for Lady Brambledown, who accidentally hit on the only available means of fixing his attention to one thing, and keeping him comparatively quiet in one place.
“I say, Blyth,” cried her ladyship (she never prefixed the word “Mister” to the names of any of her male friends)—“I say, Blyth, I can’t for the life of me understand your picture of Columbus. You talked some time ago about explaining it in detail. When are you going to begin?”
“Directly, my dear madam, directly: I was only waiting till the room got well filled,” answered Valentine, taking up the long wand which he used to steady his hand while he was painting, and producing the manuscript tied round with blue ribbon. “The fact is—I don’t know whether you mind it?—I have just thrown together a few thoughts on art, as a sort of introduction to—to Columbus, in short. They are written down on this paper—the thoughts are. Would anybody be kind enough to read them, while I point out what they mean on the picture? I only ask, because it seems egotistical to be reading my opinions about my own works.—Will anybody be kind enough?” repeated Mr. Blyth, walking all along the semicircle of chairs, and politely offering his manuscript to anybody who would take it.
Not a hand was held out. Bashfulness is frequently infectious; and it proved to be so on this particular occasion.
“Nonsense, Blyth!” exclaimed Lady Brambledown. “Read it yourself. Egotistical? Stuff! Everybody’s egotistical. I hate modest men; they’re all rascals. Read it and assert your own importance. You have a better right to do so than most of your neighbors, for you belong to the aristocracy of talent—the only aristocracy, in my opinion, that is worth a straw.” Here her ladyship took a pinch of snuff, and looked at the middle-class families, as much as to say:—“There! what do you think of that from a Member of your darling Peerage?”