“Do you know why?”
“I suppose not. I mean that I can point out those aspects of the landscape which please me, and they cannot. But that is not a moral difference. Art cannot take us out of the world.”
“Not if we are worldly, Mary.”
“But how can we help being worldly? I was born into the world: I have lived all my life in it: I have never seen or known a person or thing that did not belong to it. How can I be anything else than worldly?”
“Does the sun above us belong to it, Mary? Do the stars, the dreams that poets have left us, the realms that painters have shewn us, the thoughts you and I interchange sometimes when nothing has occurred to disturb your faith? Do these things belong to it?”
“I don’t believe they belong exclusively to us two. If they did, I think we should be locked up as lunatics for perceiving them. Do you know, Adrian, lots of people whom we consider quite foreign to us spiritually, are very romantic in their own way. Aunt Jane cries over novels which make me laugh. Your mother reads a good deal of history, and she likes pictures, I remember when she used to sing very nicely.”
“Yes. She likes pictures, provided they are not too good.”
“She says the same of you. And really, when she pats me on the shoulder in her wise way, and asks me when I will be tired of playing at what she calls transcendentalism, I hear, or fancy I hear, an echo of her thought in my own mind. I have been very happy in my art studies and I don’t think I shall ever find a way of life more tranquil and pleasant than they led me to; but, for all that, I have a notion sometimes that it is a way of life which I am outgrowing. I am getting wickeder as I get older, very likely.”
“You think so for the moment. If you leave your art, the world will beat you back to it. The world has not an ambition worth sharing, or a prize worth handling, Corrupt success, disgraceful failures, or sheeplike vegetation are all it has to offer. I prefer Art, which gives me a sixth sense of beauty, with selfrespect: perhaps also an immortal reputation in return for honest endeavor in a labor of love.”
“Yes, Adrian. That used to suffice for me: indeed, it does so still when I am in the right frame of mind. But other worlds are appearing vaguely on the horizon. Perhaps woman’s art is of woman’s life a thing apart, ’tis man’s whole existence; just as love is said to be the reverse — though it isn’t.”
“It does not scan that way,” said Adrian, with an uneasy effort to be flippant.
No,” said Mary, laughing. “This is the place.”
“Yes,” said Adrian, unstrapping the easels. “You must paint off the fit of depression that is seizing you. The wind has gone round to the southwest. What an exquisite day!”
“It is a little oppressive, I think. I am just in the humor for a sharp evening breeze, with the sea broken up into slate colored waves, and the yachts ripping them up in their hurry home. Thank you, I would rather have the stool that has no back: I will settle the rest myself. Adrian: do you think me ill-tempered?”
“What a question to explode on me! Why?”
“No matter why. Answer my question.”
“I think you always control yourself admirably.”
“You mean when I am angry?”
“Yes.”
“But, putting my selfcontrol out of the question, do you think I get angry often — too often, even though I do not let my anger get the better of me?”
“Not too often, certainly.”
“But often?”
“Well, no. That is, not absolutely angry. I think you are quick to perceive and repel an attack, even when it is only thoughtlessly implied. But now we must drop introspection for the present, Mary. If our sketches are to be finished before luncheon, I must work hard; and so must you. No more conversation until a quarter past one.”
“So be it,” said Mary, taking her seat on the campstool. They painted silently for two hours, interrupted occasionally by strollers, who stopped to look on, much to Herbert’s annoyance, and somewhat to Mary’s gratification. Meanwhile the day grew warmer and warmer; and the birds and insects sang and shrilled incessantly.
“Finished,” said Mary at last, putting down her palette “And not in the least like nature. I ventured a little Prussian blue in that corner of the sky, with disastrous results.”
“I will look presently,” said Herbert, without turning from his canvas, “It will take at least another day to finish mine.”
“You are too conscientious, Adrian. I feel sure your sketches have too much work in them.”
“I have seen many pictures without enough work in them: never with too much. I suppose I must stop now for the present. It is time to return.”
“Yes,” said Mary, packing her sketching furniture. “Oh, dear!” As Faulconbridge says, ‘Now, by my life, the day grows wondrous hot.’ Falonbridge, by the bye, would have thought us a pair of fools. Nevertheless I like him.”
“I am sorry to hear it. Most women like men who are arrogant bullies. Let me see your sketch.”
“It is not a masterpiece, as you may perceive.”
“No. You are impatient, Mary, and draw with a stiff, heavy hand. Look before you into the haze. There is no such thing as an outline in the landscape.”
“I cannot help it. I try to soften everything as much as possible; but it only makes the colors look sodden. It is all nonsense my trying to paint. I shall give it up.”
Must I pay you compliments to keep up your courage. You are unusually diffident today. You have done the cottage and the potato field better than I.”
“Very likely. My touch suits potato fields. I think I had better make a specialty of them. Since I can paint neither sky nor sea nor golden grain, I shall devote myself to potato fields in wet weather.”
Herbert, glancing up at her as he stooped to shoulder his easel, did not answer. A little later, when they were on their way home, he said, “Are you conscious of any change in yourself since you came down here, Mary?”
“No. What kind of change?” She had been striding along beside him, looking boldly ahead in her usual alert manner; but now she slackened her pace, and turned her eyes uneasily downward.
“I have noticed a certain falling off in the steady seriousness that used to be your chief characteristic. You are becoming a little inconsiderate and even frivolous about things that you formerly treated with unvarying sympathy and reverence. This makes me anxious. Our engagement is likely to be such a long one, that the least change in you alarms me. Mary: is it that you are getting tired of Art, or only of me?”
“Oh, absurd! nonsense, Adrian!”
“There is nothing of your old seriousness in that answer, Mary.”
“It is not so much a question as a reproach that you put to me. You should have more confidence in yourself; and then you would not fear my getting tired of you. As to Art, I am not exactly getting tired of it; but I find that I cannot live on Art alone; and I am beginning to doubt whether I might not spend my time better than in painting, at which I am sure I shall never do much good. If Art were a game of pure skill, I should persevere; but it is like whist, chance and skill mixed. Nature may have given you her ace of trumps — genius; but she has not given me any trumps at all — not even court cards.”
“If we all threw up our cards merely because we had not the ace of trumps in our hand, I fear there would be no more whist played in the world. But, to drop your metaphor, which I do not like, I can assure you that Nature has been kinder to you than to me. I had to paint harder and longer