A little lower down a stout Scotchman painted a flowery valley. The
flowers were many and bright, but not so garish as they appeared to him,
and I hinted as much; but he scorned my criticism.
"Mon," he shouted, "I painted the Three Graces, an' they made me an
Academeesian. I painted a flowery glen in the Tyrol (dearie me, but thae
flowers cost me a fortune in blue paint), and it was coft for the Chantry
Bequest, and hoo daur _you_ talk to me?"
Then I departed hurriedly and came upon four men, two of them with long
beards, and all with unkempt hair, laboriously depicting a blue pine,
needle by needle, and every one in its proper place. I asked them if
theirs was not a very troublesome way of painting.
They looked at one another with earnest blue eyes, and remarked that here
was evidently a Philistine who knew not Cimabue and cared not a jot for
Giotto; and the first said: "Sir, methinks he who would climb the golden
stairs should do so step by step;" and the second said, sadly: "We are but
scapegoats, truly, being cast forth by the vindictive Victorians of our
day."
The third murmured in somewhat broken English.
"Victoria Victrix,
Beata Beatrix,"
whereby I recognised him to be a poet, if not a painter.
But the fourth--an energetic-looking man with a somewhat arrogant
manner--said briskly: "Perchance the ass is right; these pine needles are
becoming monotonous, and I have seventeen million four hundred and
sixty-two thousand five hundred and eleven more to do.
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