When the ladies came downstairs they found their host and Erskine in the picture gallery, famous in the neighborhood for the sum it had cost Sir Charles. There was a new etching to be admired, and they were called on to observe what the baronet called its tones, and what Agatha would have called its degrees of smudginess. Sir Charles’s attention often wandered from this work of art. He looked at his watch twice, and said to his wife:
“I have ordered them to be punctual with the luncheon.”
“Oh, yes; it’s all right,” said Lady Brandon, who had given orders that luncheon was not to be served until the arrival of another gentleman. “Show Agatha the picture of the man in the—”
“Mr. Trefusis,” said a servant.
Mr. Trefusis, still in snuff color, entered; coat unbuttoned and attention unconstrained; exasperatingly unconscious of any occasion for ceremony.
“Here you are at last,” said Lady Brandon. “You know everybody, don’t you?”
“How do you do?” said Sir Charles, offering his hand as a severe expression of his duty to his wife’s guest, who took it cordially, nodded to Erskine, looked without recognition at Gertrude, whose frosty stillness repudiated Lady Brandon’s implication that the stranger was acquainted with her, and turned to Agatha, to whom he bowed. She made no sign; she was paralyzed. Lady Brandon reddened with anger. Sir Charles noted his guest’s reception with secret satisfaction, but shared the embarrassment which oppressed all present except Trefusis, who seemed quite indifferent and assured, and unconsciously produced an impression that the others had not been equal to the occasion, as indeed they had not.
“We were looking at some etchings when you came in,” said Sir Charles, hastening to break the silence. “Do you care for such things?” And he handed him a proof.
Trefusis looked at it as if he had never seen such a thing before and did not quite know what to make of it. “All these scratches seem to me to have no meaning,” he said dubiously.
Sir Charles stole a contemptuous smile and significant glance at Erskine. He, seized already with an instinctive antipathy to Trefusis, said emphatically:
“There is not one of those scratches that has not a meaning.”
“That one, for instance, like the limb of a daddy-long-legs. What does that mean?”
Erskine hesitated a moment; recovered himself; and said: “Obviously enough — to me at least — it indicates the marking of the roadway.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Trefusis. “There never was such a mark as that on a road. It may be a very bad attempt at a briar, but briars don’t straggle into the middle of roads frequented as that one seems to be — judging by those overdone ruts.” He put the etching away, showing no disposition to look further into the portfolio, and remarked, “The only art that interests me is photography.”
Erskine and Sir Charles again exchanged glances, and the former said:
“Photography is not an art in the sense in which I understand the term. It is a process.”
“And a much less troublesome and more perfect process than that,” said Trefusis, pointing to the etching. “The artists are sticking to the old barbarous, difficult, and imperfect processes of etching and portrait painting merely to keep up the value of their monopoly of the required skill. They have left the new, more complexly organized, and more perfect, yet simple and beautiful method of photography in the hands of tradesmen, sneering at it publicly and resorting to its aid surreptitiously. The result is that the tradesmen are becoming better artists than they, and naturally so; for where, as in photography, the drawing counts for nothing, the thought and judgment count for everything; whereas in the etching and daubing processes, where great manual skill is needed to produce anything that the eye can endure, the execution counts for more than the thought, and if a fellow only fit to carry bricks up a ladder or the like has ambition and perseverance enough to train his hand and push into the van, you cannot afford to put him back into his proper place, because thoroughly trained hands are so scarce. Consider the proof of this that you have in literature. Our books are manually the work of printers and papermakers; you may cut an author’s hand off and he is as good an author as before. What is the result? There is more imagination in any number of a penny journal than in half-a-dozen of the Royal Academy rooms in the season. No author can live by his work and be as empty-headed as an average successful painter. Again, consider our implements of music — our pianofortes, for example. Nobody but an acrobat will voluntarily spend years at such a difficult mechanical puzzle as the keyboard, and so we have to take our impressions of Beethoven’s sonatas from acrobats who vie with each other in the rapidity of their prestos, or the staying power of their left wrists. Thoughtful men will not spend their lives acquiring sleight-of-hand. Invent a piano which will respond as delicately to the turning of a handle as our present ones do to the pressure of the fingers, and the acrobats will be driven back to their carpets and trapezes, because the sole faculty necessary to the executant musician will be the musical faculty, and no other will enable him to obtain a hearing.”
The company were somewhat overcome by this unexpected lecture. Sir Charles, feeling that such views bore adversely on him, and were somehow iconoclastic and lowlived, was about to make a peevish retort, when Erskine forestalled him by asking Trefusis what idea he had formed of the future of the arts. He replied promptly. “Photography perfected in its recently discovered power of reproducing color as well as form! Historical pictures replaced by photographs of tableaux vivants formed and arranged by trained actors and artists, and used chiefly for the instruction of children. Nine-tenths of painting as we understand it at present extinguished by the competition of these photographs, and the remaining tenth only holding its own against them by dint of extraordinary excellence! Our mistuned and unplayable organs and pianofortes replaced by harmonious instruments, as manageable as barrel organs! Works of fiction superseded by interesting company and conversation, and made obsolete by the human mind outgrowing the childishness that delights in the tales told by grownup children such as novelists and their like! An end to the silly confusion, under the one name of Art, of the tomfoolery and makebelieve of our play-hours with the higher methods of teaching men to know themselves! Every artist an amateur, and a consequent return to the healthy old disposition to look on every man who makes art a means of money-getting as a vagabond not to be entertained as an equal by honest men!”
“In which case artists will starve, and there will be no more art.”
“Sir,” said Trefusis, excited by the word, “I, as a Socialist, can tell you that starvation is now impossible, except where, as in England, masterless men are forcibly prevented from producing the food they need. And you, as an artist, can tell me that at present great artists invariably do starve, except when they are kept alive by charity, private fortune, or some drudgery which hinders them in the pursuit of their vocation.”
“Oh!” said Erskine. “Then Socialists have some little sympathy with artists after all.”
“I fear,” said Trefusis, repressing himself and speaking quietly again, “that when a Socialist hears of a hundred pounds paid for a drawing which Andrea del Sarto was glad to sell for tenpence, his heart is not wrung with pity for the artist’s imaginary loss as that of a modern capitalist is. Yet that is the only way nowadays of enlisting sympathy for the old masters. Frightful disability, to be out of the reach of the dearest market when you want to sell your drawings! But,” he added, giving himself a shake, and turning round gaily, “I did not come here to talk shop. So — pending the deluge — let us enjoy ourselves after our manner.”
“No,” said Jane. “Please go on about Art. It’s such a relief to hear anyone talking sensibly about it. I hate etching. It makes your eyes sore — at least the acid gets into Sir Charles’s, and the difference between the first and second states is nothing but imagination, except that the last state is worse than the — here’s luncheon!”
They went downstairs then. Trefusis sat between