beauty and the beast

THOMAS BURKE

a fable which pretends to make transparent the mysterious relationship between wealth and art

• This is another of the hundred truthful fables of that shameless liar, Ho Ling, -who lives in my ivory tower which the map of London names Limehouse. His tale of the faultless painter shows, I think, how the artist and the aristocrat are one in the dignity of their attitude towards their high estate and towards the allurements of gold. For, as the artist in this tale behaved, so, we know from social history, do the most upright aristocrats behave.

It is (said Ho Ling) of a shy and retiring painter, whose name escapes me at the moment, and as the only daily paper at hand is one of the two that do not publish Social Gossip, I have no means of recalling it.

Well, this painter, from the age of twenty to forty, devoted all his time to painting and painting and painting. So busy was he in painting, and so deeply indentured to his art, that he never found time to bother himself with the trivial occupation of making money. He would seldom see business men, and openly denied himself to the three who, in those eighteen years, called upon him, saying that to talk to people who were in a hurry meant the wasting of more time than he could spare. So, at forty, he was resigned to poverty and to pride in his art.

He knew that maxim which says that the man who hasn't made money at forty never will make money, and he believed it. Wherefore, at that age, he turned his back upon money and set his face towards the true art and towards dinner at two shillings, vin non compris; not because he had read Murger, but because he had to. He continued to paint and to paint and to paint.

Every year, when his work was shown in the Hoo Galleries and the Ho Ha Salon, other artists said: "Here, indeed, is the Big Man. Lo! The Master of the Neo-Expressionists"; and they hovered about him and even so far forgot their virility as to lift their hats to him in the street. But sincere and long-continued as were their panegyrics, they in no way helped the Master to increase the price of his dinners or to drink vintage claret instead of chemical beer; because every year, against the panegyrics of the artists, came the harsh murmur of the public—"Why is not this man duly certified and Put Away?" Nothing can withstand the corrosion, of that harsh murmur; nothing, that is, save real estate and well-secured investments—things alien to the artist, the poet, and the musician.

But in dignity and in silence he went on, living in two rooms and tasting such of the world's graces as an irregular income of two or three hundred pounds a year could buy. For I forgot to say that although he persisted in painting life as his mental myopia found it, and although the public and the dealers turned from it with simulated expressions of colic, there were, here and there, a few people who desired to have pictures on their walls and who, unable to afford the work of recognised painters, would sometimes buy a thing of his. Provided, that is, that they could argue the manager of the gallery into a picture-postcard mood.

In places where other painters met he was reverently spoken of as the one known and genuine case of an artist who did indeed —as the ladies who make the other pictures say they do—live for his art; and often was in grave danger of dying for it. In places where artists of the comic papers and the advertising offices met, he was spoken of in terms that coarsely questioned his motive, and explained it finally as one of two things— sheer idiocy, or what in their gracious language is named Publicity Stunt. But our painter denied them by continuing to live in poverty without visible signs of a weak mind, neither seeking fame nor shrinking from it; neither desiring to know what others thought of him nor affecting, when opinions were offered, to be indifferent. He lived on and painted, unmoved by critic's praise or public's jeers. For although he was a painter he happened to be an artist.

• A rare case. More rare than ladies who write agreeable fictions about painters imagine. Few painters of to-day consider it beneath their dignity to. design posters. Expressionists, Emotionists, Palpitationists, Urgists, Dynamists—they all do it. But our artist never did. One of the many stories by which his admirers pointed his integrity was the story of his flat refusal of a commission, carrying a fee of two hundred guineas, for a signed poster in his highest astigmatic manner to be used for the purpose of drawing attention to the merits of Sigismund Volsunga's Break O' Day Health Saline. His answer to the offer—I cannot bring myself to repeat it—was for many years a familiar quotation among the younger artists when they were offered twenty-two shillings for a biscuitbox design; and even the more experienced artists freely quoted it to their wives and to people with whom there was no possibility of their having any business connections.

Through it all pride sustained him, as we know, from secret memoirs, that it sustains Our Old Nobility. Deeply as those who called him Master wished to help him, they were held back by that barrier of pride. Willingly, for his sustenance, they would have pawned their easels, if the pawnbroker had not been glutted with easels, but they knew the reception that awaited any helper who recognised his poverty. In no way was it possible to lend him canvas or colours or small sums of money, and even leaving these things about his rooms—which was often done—was an enterprise that demanded the utmost exercise of those faculties that bring success in parlour games.

• And then, at about the time when he had almost ceased to be a living force; when, in fact, he was beginning to accept the position of the Grand Old Man of the very young, he took on a new increment of vigour and work. Popular recognition came to him so rapidly, English and American society women struggled so hard to get their portraits done by him, that within two years he only escaped by the skin of his teeth from being elected President of the Neo-Revolutionary Group, which, a week before, had been outmoded by the Post-Neo-Subversists.

The way of it was this—and I may interject that there was no Publicity Stunt about it. Far from it. Indeed, he preserved, and still preserves, a frigid silence upon this sudden change in his fortune.

There came one morning a knock upon the door of one of the two rooms in which he lived, and when he cried "Come in!" his landlady came in, and said that a gentleman desired to speak with him. And when he asked what manner of gentleman—whether it looked like a dealer or an advertisementagent or another artist—the landlady could only answer that it looked too stupid to be any of these. Whereupon he asked her to demand the visitor's name and business. This she did, and returned with the news that the visitor begged to be excused from giving his name, and that his business was of a personal nature which would occupy only a brief minute of the distinguished artist's time. As our artist was in no fear of writs—living always within the small circle of his income—he did what few artists would have done. He ordered the anonymous visitor to be shown up, and mentally devised means of sending him swiftly about his next business.

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A few moments later the door again, opened, and the anonymous visitor entered; and who should it be but the young, eccentric, and stupendously wealthy Lord Ferlootah. One glance was enough to give our artist his visitor's identity, for the portrait of Lord Ferlootah was as frequently displayed in newspapers and society journals as the portraits of unsuccessful criminals and oversuccessful actresses.

The family of Lord Ferlootah, I may interject, had not always been stupendously wealthy. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, indeed, his grandfather could scarcely command from the Jews more than a miserable fifteen-thousand loan on his estates. But by the third quarter of the century they were once more as wealthy as they had been in the days of that Lord Ferlootah who derived so large an income from his industry in supplying the illicit desires of a certain Prince of Hanover—the one whose portrait hangs in the Wallace Collection, and who is affectionately known as Old Pimp Ferlootah.

The second harvest of wealth was all due to two obscure persons named James Watt and George Stephenson. Without them there might have been no young Lord Ferlootah to patronize art and no occasion for this story. With them there arose in England a Railway Boom, and during this boom the grandfather of our Lord Ferlootah permitted himself to join the board of a company that proposed to build a railway across the marshes of East Essex to the Goodwin Sands. After two years of financial activity, however, the company decided that it would be better not to build a railway. The meeting at which this announcement was made broke up in some disorder, and the directors handed over the company to the share-holders, sent in their resignations, and went home and bought a lot of yachts and added new wings to their homes and gave swimming-baths to their townspeople and endowed half a dozen hospitals.

Hence the young Lord Ferlootah's amiable existence as a patron of art and a backer of Sunday Evening theatre societies. So catholic was his taste that not only did he back sombre plays by that dramatist known as the Swedish Raven, but also plays of such inferior intellectual quality that they could only be suitably performed by companies of golden-haired schoolgirls. His was no selfish nature. He realised that numbers of people found pleasure in such things, and while he produced the Swedish Raven for himself, he was happy to ^produce these trifles for lighter minds. In the matter of pictures, not only did he possess a large collection of works of art but also the best examples of the work of British painters. I need not add that there was no studio in London where his face was not more than welcome.

But stay—welcome was not perhaps expressed upon the face of our artist as lie gazed upon the young Lord Ferlootah.

"To what, my Lord," said he, "do I owe the honour of this visit?"

"Sir," said the young Lord Ferlootah, "you see before you a lifelong admirer of your art."

"Yes?" said our artist, as one who has occasion to say it every day.

"Yes, indeed. I did not give my name because I wished this visit to remain anonymous, but I perceive—"

"Anonymous," said our artist, "it could not be. If such were Lord Ferlootah's desire he should have taken the precaution of visiting Mr. William Clarkson, or some astute member of the Big Four."

"I perceive, as I was saying, that I am known; and therefore I come at once to my business. Which is simply this." He thrust a hand into his overcoat pocket and placed on the table a small packet. He then prepared to leave.

As the folded packet, lying in release on the table, began to unfold itself, our artist stared at it. Then he touched it. Then he picked it up. Then he carefully examined it. Then lie ran his fingers through it. Five hundred, five hundred, five hundred— Ten thousand pounds. In one second the full meaning of ten thousand pounds flashed through his mind— good clothes, fine wines, an elegant studio, travel in the East, unlimited canvas, beautiful furniture . . . Then it was gone, and he was himself again.

"A small tribute to genius," said Lord Ferlootah, "which I beg—"

Our artist yelped. "A what?"

Lord Ferlootah stepped back, as though fearing an assault. "A small tribute from a humble admirer of genius."

Our artist placed his hands on his hips and glared across the table. "A small tribute—eh? So that's your idea of a small tribute, is it? Yes," he went on, somewhat coarsely, "it would be. Just what people of your kind—gentlemen, I believe you call yourselves— would call a tribute. Shall I tell you what I call it, my Lord? I call it a damned and monstrous insult. That's what I call it." And he folded his arms and glared.

"Sir," said Lord Ferlootah, with that courtesy which had enabled his grandfather to induce exasperated share-holders to vote increased fees to directors, "Sir, I beg you to hear me."

"Rubbish!" said our artist, somewhat inconsequently. "Had you wished to make a tribute to my art you could have bought my pictures."

And then the young, eccentric and stupendously wealthy Lord Ferlootah put his foot even deeper into it. "Yes. Quite. But—I mean—I did not wish to buy your pictures. Not the pictures of your present manner. But I saw in them all the signs of a genius, which, if allowed to go its own way unhampered by petty cares and worries will undoubtedly produce truly great works which I should be honoured to possess. Therefore—selfishly, perhaps —I wish to assist that genius by removing those cares."

"Very pretty," sneered our artist. "Very pretty. So! My present manner isn't good enough for you, isn't it? Isn't good enough for you? And who," he cried, forgetting the deference due to rank, "and who the hell are you, you cod-fish? Really, there is no limit to the impudence of the peerage. You —a nobody—a mere name in Debrett —who didn't even have enough ability to earn your title, or the nerve to buy it. And you think my pictures are not good enough for you. You offer me money. You—an obscure Viscount, with no place in the world, try to creep in through a side-door, and make a place for yourself by linking yourself up with me. Buying yourself a share in my fame. Bah! Woof!" He shook his head at the young Lord Ferlootah like an irritated sheep-dog.

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Under this attack Lord Ferlootah winced. The back of his neck went hot. He looked at the floor. For the first time in his young life he began to know the meaning of Inferiority Complex. He looked round the bare and dilapidated studio-sitting-room, and tried to recover his superiority from its poverty. But he couldn't; the poverty of the studio seemed to be right, and he seemed to be wrong. He was abashed. He turned to go, and dropped his stick. Stooping to pick it up he dropped his hat. Rising from the recovery of his hat, he knocked his elbow on a corner of the table. It hurt. "I—I —I mean—"

"Lord Ferlootah, this interview has already lasted too long. Without the slightest cause you have given me two deadly insults. You have insulted my poverty, and you have insulted my work." He reached to the table, and gathered in his hands the sheaf of bank-notes. He gave them one twist; then flung them into the face of Lord Ferlootah. They broke upon his face and scattered about the floor. "That, Lord Ferlootah, is my answer to your insult."

Lord Ferlootah took the moment with dignity. "Sir, you are perhaps justified. My method was clumsy. But believe me, my intention was pure. I see that I have offended. I will go."

Our artist pointed to the floor. "And this—litter?"

Lord Ferlootah looked at it. "I came to make my tribute to genius in the only way I could. I have made it, and I have been rebuffed. I will have no more to do with it. Burn it. Give it to a hospital. Do what you will with it. I have blundered. I am deeply grieved. Before this, I admired your genius. Now, despite the harsh things that you have said of me, it has my profound respect. Good-day, Sir."

He went out, leaving our artist standing rigid in the centre of the room. On the stairs he hesitated, thinking of some further points by which he might bring our artist to see his action in a softer light. He turned back. Then he decided that explanations seldom explained, and that it was best to leave the matter as it was. He went downstairs and out of the house.

Had he gone back he would have seen the faultless painter scrambling feverishly on hands and knees, grabbing notes from under the sofa and from under the chair and from under the table, and piling them together with an ecstatic smile.

And the moral is (said Ho Ling): Take an example from our artist and from Our Old Nobility. Maintain your attitude, and be as honest as you can afford to be.