Conversations in Ebury Street, Chapter 10

London: William Heineman, 1 January 1924, pages 144-149, 1,903 words

Conversations in Ebury Street is a nonlinear volume of nineteen chapters. Chapters 7-11 are essays in art criticism; chapter 19 is worldbuilding; the rest are essays in literary criticism. The chapters appear separately in the Aesthetics and Worlds pillars of George Moore Interactive. All are included in the ebook of Conversations in Ebury Street in the GMi Shop.

X

In the early 'eighties I was living in the Temple and I think it was Sickert who took me round to the Cock Inn, saying that he had arranged for Steer to be there to meet me, and we came upon him in one of the compartments or pens in which six diners, three on either side, found scanty room for their elbows whilst taking their dinner adown the narrow table; and the places opposite being vacant we sat with him. A quiet, sympathetic young man he seemed to me to be, and I was glad to visit his studio and to accept a picture from him. We continued to see each other; our friendship increased year after year till the great break came when I fled from London, horrified by the Boer War. Of the New English Art Club I had heard nothing whilst I was away, and when I returned a new and important member of the club was introduced to me at Steer's round table: Peter Harrison, a tall, handsome man, handsome as Sickert but more frank of face, with blond hair, blond beard, high nose, white skin and blue eyes, and the appearance and nobility of a stag — a many-antlered intelligence I soon perceived his to be. And assuming that the reader has acquainted himself with the volumes entitled Hail and Farewell, it is only necessary to say that the occasion of the dinner was to welcome me on my return from Ireland. The ear of memory still retains the ring of Tonks's voice in the words: How pleasant it is to have him back among us, criticising our pictures. But we are talking now of Harrison, and puzzled by his knowledge of painting I drew nigh to Steer, who murmured to me: He exhibits with us; and I learnt as we went upstairs that Harrison was an amateur.

Turgenev was a wealthy landowner and so was Landor, and each increased the volume of English and Russian literature. Neither Swinburne nor Shelley wrote for money, yet who would call them amateurs? Wagner was poor, but instead of writing for money he asked his friends to give him money, and his borrowings have enabled his biographers to reveal him to us in all his little humanities. I would write pages about these and Mathilde and her husband; once the pen has written the fatal letters the pen assumes control; but I will not be governed by my pen but by my subject, which is Peter Harrison, who has not painted a masterpiece comparable to The Ring, wherefore Wagner's name has been inexcusably dragged in. By the way, his name is Harrison but not Peter Harrison. Peter is but a nickname; how it was acquired I don't know. And now I am free to continue my story of the dinner party, to tell that Sickert was not present, to say that though his absence is always regretted, on this occasion he was forgotten. He always is, more or less, when Harrison is present, for Peter Harrison's face is as pleasant to look upon and his talk is as entertaining, less sparkling, perhaps, but not less agreeable, a more solid fare. Shall I convey anything to the reader if I say that Peter Harrison's talk is more like Manet's, and Sickert's like Whistler's? Now I come to think of it, Harrison's colouring and his manner recall Manet. Manet, too, was a man of wealth, and in the Nouvelle Athènes his appearance and indeed his manner of speech separated him from those who lived by painting. And no doubt Landor's appearance also distinguished him from — shall we say Southey, his boon companion, his yoke-fellow in some conversations. And Harrison, though he was with us a great deal, always seemed a stranger among us, one who had strayed into our society; and his pictures, too, though in many ways as accomplished as those of other exhibitors, seemed to have strayed into the New English, lacking something hard to define, habit, perhaps. We hoped and the Press hoped, but our hopes were dashed, for without warning, Peter Harrison sent no more pictures to our exhibitions. I write our, for I would identify myself with this artistic movement; indeed, even if I wished to, I could not dissociate myself from it, having been from the beginning its critic and the literary expositor of its ideas. However, there it is; I have written it: Our exhibitions! For some time we were sorry to miss him from the walls, and hoped that the next exhibition would bring him back to us; but it went by without a picture from Harrison, and so did the next and the next, and when we dined at his house we were not shown any pictures. Some three or four that he had painted in former days were allowed to remain on the walls, but no new work was shown; and when we asked for the reason, he said he had ceased to paint, qualifying the admission with the words: I have ceased to paint for exhibition. And I remember him saying: I am not a fool; I know what good painting is and don't want anybody to tell me. And from that day to this nobody has seen a canvas by Peter Harrison.

Art is not with us always; we know not whence it comes, nor whither it goes. The Muse was with us when we were poor and unhappy, and when we were rich she deserted us. Many instances could be given, and against these other instances could be set in which the Muse demanded easy and comfortable circumstances and refused to follow the artist to the garret. Nor is the Muse faithful to young men; she visits them and leaves them helpless before half their lives have worn away. She comes to men in their old age and inspires one work, and henceforth they are stranded in commonplace. Yet there must be a law. Our pens write easily the word must! Why must there be a law? That there is a mystery is certain, and one that artists ponder, the afflicted and the unafflicted alike. Why is it that the poet sits down in the morning and writes a poem, sometimes two or three? And why is it that six months pass without a stanza? He is in good health; he sleeps well and eats well, and his lady loves him; yet the poet is sterile as the cat in the armchair. And sometimes intellectual sterility is a sort of creeping paralysis, the artist producing less and less each year, till he reaches a moment when he produces nothing. Yet he is as intelligent as he was before, very often more intelligent, and very often his health is better. He can walk twenty miles without fatigue, he can do everything he could do when he was a young man, except paint.

Harrison's health is not that of a policeman, nor is his strength, yet I am disposed to believe that in the words: I have ceased to paint for exhibition; I am not a fool; I know what good painting is, he has given the true reason for his abstention. Somebody in the eighteenth century told the same story, saying that when he looked through some books he had published he was not altogether displeased with the writing of them; but seeing clearly that they were not first-rate, in other words, that they did not lift him into English literature, he preferred to lead the amiable and useful life of a country gentleman without troubling literature any further, and I think Harrison thinks in the same way. And yet there is another side to the question.  A French painter who had risen almost to the front rank, earning an income of twenty thousand francs a year by painting shall we say twenty pictures a year, was approached by a picture dealer, who said: Why not paint only five pictures twice the size of those that you are painting, and charge three times as much? The time spent on small canvases is almost the same as that spent on large. To which the painter gave a reply, the philosophy of which recommends itself to me and will, no doubt, to my readers: But what should I do with the rest of my time? If the painter have a place in the country, and dogs, and perhaps a farm, if he plans an avenue or lays out a few gardens and adds to the gardens little by little, buys a few books on iron-work and enters into a correspondence with French firms for the supply of an old gateway, his time passes quite agreeably.  A little nap between breakfast and luncheon; luncheon comes — a pleasant break in the day, and after luncheon a walk round his big or little property. There is shooting, there is fishing, and when he is too old for shooting, well — another little nap after luncheon. The wife is reading a novel on the sofa; friends come in. Tea-time approaches; the friends leave, and then there is dinner to look forward to. In view of his old age, gluttony should be encouraged, and a taste for wine. Dear me! it is time to go to bed; and the day has passed without his knowing it.

We are all travelling towards the happy days when ambition no longer frets like a hair shirt, and the in­sensate desire to add to English literature or art has ceased. Harrison is there; we are not. Wherefore our pity and our regrets are wasted when we dine with him in his beautiful house, filled with collections of exquisite Chelsea and Dresden, water-colours by Turner and pictures by Steer. Under our feet is a lovely Aubusson, about which I hesitated many years ago; but he who hesitates about an Aubusson, loses it, alas! alas! The beauty of that Aubusson was a suffering to me, but that suffering has been removed, for Harrison asks me no longer to his annual dinners at which Steer and Tonks and myself were the company. The dinners continue, Tonks on the right hand, Steer on the left, but my place is filled by­ whom? Or is it left empty? These are matters on which I need information, for my absence from Harrison's dinners has caused me to doubt myself. I am no longer the same self as I was, or perhaps I should say no longer the same self in my own eyes, which is much more important. My enforced absence from these dinner parties has brought my conception of myself, formed through long years, to naught. I had looked upon myself as caviare to the general and a delectable dish for the few. And he that has acquired a taste for caviare never loses it; and he that has swallowed an oyster is faithful to the oyster to the end of his life; and as the lovers of caviare and oyster are faithful, so were my friends to me, but now, all of a sudden, things are different; for the first time somebody who once liked my company likes it no more. I am wrong; there was another — a woman, but she need not be named here.

Here endeth the fourth portrait.