XIX
ART

It was explained to me the other day, the meaning of this elusive little word of three letters. All my pre-conceived opinions were dashed to the ground and, in the space of half an hour, I was taught the modern appreciation of the meaning of that word—Art.

It chanced I wanted a copy of that picture by Furze, “Diana of the Uplands”—Furze whom the gods loved or envied, I don’t know which. I wanted a copy of it to hang in my bedroom in a little farmhouse in the country. I wanted to hang it near my bed so that when I woke of a morning, I could start straight away across the Uplands, feeling the generous give of the heather beneath my feet, tasting the freshening draught of wind in my nostrils, taking into my limbs the energy of those hounds ever ready to strain away from their leash and leave their mistress a speck upon a dim horizon.

It chanced that I wanted all that—which is not a little. But these are the real good things of life which are so seldom bought because they are so cheap. A small print-seller’s in Regent Street was good enough for me.

I walked in. On the threshold I was met by a little serving-maid with a chubby red face and a brand-new green apron.

“Yes?” said she.

It opened the conversation excellently.

“I want a coloured print of ‘Diana of the Uplands,’” said I.

She hurried to a portfolio and began turning over coloured prints at an incredible speed. Before she had found it, she looked up.

“Will you have it plain?” she asked, “or with a B.A.M.?”

“A B.A.M.?” said I. I could not describe to you the effect of those three mysterious letters. It sounded almost improper. “You ought not to say things like that to me,” I continued solemnly. “Supposing I said that you were a V.P.G.”

She became at a loss between confusion and amusement.

“I forgot,” she said, apologetically. “I’m new here, and that’s what we call them. It means British Art Mount.”

At that moment there came another serving-maid in a green apron.

“What is it you want, sir?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m being attended to, thank you,” I replied.

“Yes, but this young lady’s new to the shop,” she said; “she’s not quite used to serving yet.”

“She’s doing very well indeed,” said I. “She’s already nearly persuaded me to buy a thing I don’t want—a thing I don’t even know the meaning of.”

The little girl with the chubby cheeks wriggled her shoulders with delight.

“I asked him if he wanted a B.A.M.,” she explained.

The other looked quite shocked.

“You know I’ve told you not to say that,” she said. “You’d better go up to Miss Nelson, she wants you upstairs.”

The little maid departed. I was left with her more elderly and more experienced sister in trade. In a moment she had discovered the picture in question and had laid it out for my approval. I did approve; and then she asked me if I wanted it framed.

“If you do framing here, I shall be very glad,” said I.

“Then what sort of frame would you like?” she asked.

I hesitated. I was trying to see it in my mind’s eye on that bedroom wall; see it when the sun was pouring in through the open window; when the rain was pattering against the panes, and the sky was grey. Therefore, while I made up my mind—just, perhaps, to conceal from her the fact that I could be in doubt about such a matter—I asked her what she would suggest.

She drew herself up, conscious of the state of importance which she had attained with my question.

“Well,” she said, and her head hung thoughtfully on one side—“that depends on what room it’s for. Is it for the dining-room or the drawing-room?”

Now what possessed me, I do not know; but when I thought of that little farmhouse in the valley between the Uplands, the words dining-room and drawing-room sounded ridiculous. There is just a sitting-room—and a small sitting-room—that is all. This dining-room and drawing-room seemed nonsensical, and what with one thing and another it put me in a nonsensical mood.

“’Tis for the cook’s bedroom,” said I.

If only you had seen her face! It fell like a stone over a cliff and, what is more, it never seemed to reach the bottom of that expression of bewilderment.

“Oh,” she replied—“I see. Well, then, I’m sure I couldn’t advise you. Tastes differ—don’t they?”

“So I’ve heard,” said I. “But I wish you would advise me, all the same. I’m quite ignorant about these things. I’m only a farmer. I’ve just come up to London for the day and I’ve been given this commission for—well, she’s more than the cook—she’s the housekeeper. She didn’t tell me anything about the frame. What frame would you suggest? I thought a nice rosewood one; but you know much better about these sort of things than I do.”

“A rosewood one won’t be bad,” said she, in a quaint little tone of voice that gently patronised me. “A rosewood one’ll do,” she repeated; “but it’s not Art.”

That phrase had an electrical sound to me; and when I say electrical, I mean, beside the shock of it, something which neither you nor I nor any of us understand.

“Why isn’t it Art?” I asked quickly. “You mustn’t think me foolish,” I added, “but really I suppose I’m what you call a country bumpkin; I know nothing about these things. Why isn’t it Art?”

“Just——it isn’t,” she replied, and she took down a sample of black moulding and a sample of gold; then she laid a sample of rosewood on one side of the picture. “There,” she said, “that’s your cook’s taste.” She did not quite like to call it mine. Then she laid the other two samples on the other sides of the print—“and that’s Art.”

I looked at the picture, then I looked at her. Then I looked back at the picture again.

“But how do you know it’s Art?” said I.

She pulled herself up still straighter and she answered, with all the confidence in the world—

“Because I’ve been taught—that’s why. Because I’ve been educated to it. I haven’t spent five years here amongst all these pictures without learning what’s Art and what isn’t.”

“And now you know?” said I.

She nodded her head heavily with wisdom.

“But are you sure you’ve been taught right?” I went on. “How are you to know that the people who taught you knew?”

“’Cos they’ve been in the business all their lives,” she replied. “’Cos they’ve found out what the public like and they give it to them. It’s like one person learning music on a grand piano and another learning music on a cheap cottage piano. Do you mean to tell me that the one as learns on the grand piano isn’t going to be a better musician than the one as learns on the cottage?”

“It’s more likely that they’d be a better judge of pianos,” said I.

She told me I was talking silly and which frame would I have.

“I’m trying not to talk silly,” I assured her. “I mean every word I say, only I haven’t been educated as you have. You must remember that, and make allowances. I only said that about the piano because I knew a lady who had a satinwood BlÜthner grand piano, and she never played on it from one day to another, so that she did not even know what a good piano was, and much less did she know about music.”

“I wish she’d give it to me,” said the little serving-maid.

“I wish she would,” said I; “then perhaps you’d admit that there was something in what I said, after all. But, joking aside, if you’ve been taught what is Art and what isn’t, couldn’t you teach me? I love the country. I think the fields of corn that grow up on my land every year are beautiful. And when I see them getting ripe and being gathered, then going out to feed the whole world—you here in the cities, who don’t know the gold of a ripening field of corn—every single one of you, all fed from those wonderful fields that have waves like the sea when the winds blow across them—things like that I know about—things like that I appreciate.”

“Oh—well—that’s Nature,” said she. “We were talking about Art. Art’s holdin’ the mirror up to Nature—see.”

“Then what’s the matter with the mirror?” I asked.

“What mirror?”

“The mirror of Art?”

“Why there’s nothing the matter with it.”

“Well—I don’t know,” said I, “but it seems to me as if so many people have been taught to look into it, that it has become dulled with their breath and won’t reflect anything now.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“I don’t believe I know myself,” I replied. “I haven’t been taught like you have.”

“Well—which frame would you like?” she asked a little testily.

“I’m afraid my housekeeper’ll be annoyed if I don’t take the rosewood one,” said I.