Mungold was not to be despised as an apostate--he was to be
congratulated as a man whose aptitudes were exactly in line with the
taste of the persons he liked to dine with.
At this point in his meditations, Stanwell's eye fell on the
portrait of Miss Gladys Glyde. It was really, as Shepson said, as
good as a Mungold; yet it could never be made to serve the same
purpose, because it was the work of a man who knew it was bad art.
That at least would have been Caspar Arran's contention--poor
Caspar, who produced as bad art in the service of the loftiest
convictions! The distinction began to look like mere casuistry to
Stanwell. He had never been very proud of his own adaptability. It
had seemed to him to indicate the lack of an individual stand-point,
and he had tried to counteract it by the cultivation of an
aggressively personal style. But the cursed knack was in his
fingers--he was always at the mercy of some other man's sensations,
and there were moments when he blushed to remember that his
grandfather had spent a laborious life-time in Rome, copying the Old
Masters for a generation which lacked the facile resource of the
camera.
Pages:
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269