The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1893-02-10
The POT-B0ILER.

Ernest Grey was an inspired painter.
Therefore he was employed to paint por-
traits of insipid little girls in black silk
stockings, and to produce uninteresting
domestic groups, of which fat and smil-
ing babSsof British responsibility formed
the central figure.
He didn't like it, of course. Pegasus
never does like being harnessed to the
paternal go-cart. But being a philosopher
in his way, and having a wife and child
to keep, he dragged it none the less, with
as good grace as could reasonably be
expected from such celestial metal. The
wife, in fact, formed the familiar model
for the British mother in his Academy
pictures, while little Joan with bare legs
sat placidly for the perennial and annual
baby. Each year, as observant critics
might have noticed, that baby grew
steadily twelye-month older. But there
were no obServant critics for Ernest
Grey's pictures; the craft were all TOO
busy inspecting the canvas of made repu-
tatlons to lind time on hand for spying
out merit in the struggling work OF I'M
known beginners. It's an exploded
1allacy of the past TO suppose that insight
ans INITIATIVE are the true critics hall
mark. Why go out of your way to see
good points in unknown men, when you
can earn your three guineas so much
more surely and simply by sticking to
Lde good points that everybody recog-
nizes? The way to gain reputation for
critical power nowadays is 10 say in
charming and pellucid language what
everybody regards as the proper thing to
say about established favorites. You
voice the popular taste in the very best
English,
But Ernest Grey had ideals, for all that.
how poor creature the artist must be
VINO does not TEEN with unrealiZed and
unrealizable idealsl All the while that
he painted the insipid little girls in the
lmpeccaDle stockings, very neatly gar
tered, he was feeding his soul with tacit
undercurrent OF divine fancy. Ha had
another world than this of ours, in which
ne lived by turns-a strange world of
pure art, where all was profound mys-
ferrous, magical, beautiful. Idyls of
Celtic fancy hoated visible on the air be-
lore his minds eye. Great palaces reared
themselves like exhalations on the waste
ground by Bedford'S Park. Fair, white
maldens moved slow, with measured
tread, across his imagined canvas. What
pictures he might paint, if only some
body would pay him for painting them
lie reveled IN designing these impossible
works. His scenery shonld all lie in the
Lost Land of LyoneSse. spell as of
Merlin should brood, half-seen, over his
dreamy cioisters. The curved capitals of
ms pllasterS should point to something
deeper than mere handicrattsman's work
manship; his brocades and his fringes
should breathe and live; his arabesques
and his fretwork, his tracery and his
molding, should be instinct with soul
and with indefinite yearning. The light
that never was on sea or land should
Hood his landscape. In the pictures he
mad never painted, perhaps never would
paint, ornament and decoration were
lavished in abundance; design ran riot;
onyx and lapis lazui, chrysolite and
chalcedony, beryl and jacinth studded
his Jeweled bowls and his quantity
wrought scabbardS; but all to enforce and
enrich one fair central idea. to add noble
attire and noble array to that which was
itself already noble and beautiful. No
frippery should intrude. All this wealth
OF detail should be subServient in due
place to some glorious thought, some raw
OF that divine sadness that touches near
est the deep heart of man.
So he said to himselfin his dav-dreams.
But life is not day-dream. Life, alas! is
very solid realty. While Ernest Grew
nourished his secret soul with such Wis
ions of beauty. he employed his deft
fingers i'll painting spindle-legs, ever
fresh in number, yet ever the same in
KIND, and unanimously clad in immacu-
late spun-sllk stockings. No hosier was
better up in all the varieties of spun silk
than that inspired painter. 'Tis the way
OF the world, you know-our industrial
world of supply and demand-to harness
its blood-horses to London hansoms.
After all, he was working for Baby Joan
and Bertha. Bertha was the sort of
name most specially in vogue when his
wife was a girl; it had got to Joan and
Joyce by the date OF the baby.) They
lived together IN very small house at
Bedford Park-so small, Berth said, that
when visitor dropped in they bulged
out at the windows. But Ernest GREY
has friend better off than himsel-a
man whose future was already assured
him-a long-haired proprietor who wrote
minor verse which the world was one
day TO wake up and find famous. He
was tall and thin, and loosely knit, and
looked as If he'd been run up by con-
tract. His name was Bernard Hume: he
claimed indirect descent from the phiios-
opher who demolished everything.
Unlike his collateral ancestor however
Bernard Hume had faith, great deal of
taith-irst of al1in himself, and after that
in every one else who shared the honor
OF his acquaintance. This was an amiable
trait on Demands part, for, as a rule,
men who believe in themselves complete
their simple creed with that solitary ar
ticle. With Bernard Hume, on the con-
trary, egotism took more eX banded and
expansive form; it spread itself thie over
the entire encourage. He thought there
was always a great deal in any one who
happened to inspire him with personal
fancy. II like this man. he said to
himself virtually, therefore ne must be
a very superior soul, else how could he
have succeeded in attracting the atten-
ton of so sound a critic and Judge of
human nature?'
OF all Bernard Hume's friends, how
ever, there was not one in whom he be-
nd h.,
painter. ERNEST Grey" he used to saw,
''if only he'd retire from the stocking
trade and give free play to his fancy
would bring the sweat, l tell YOU, into
that brow of Burne-Jones's. (You think
the phrase vulgar? Settle the question
by all means, then, with Browning, who
invented it'll He's born idealist is Grew
"a direct descendant of Lippi and Botti-
cell, pitchforked, by circumstances over
which he has no control, into the modern
hosiery business. If only he could paint
those lovely things he draws so beauti-
fully. Why, he showed ME some sketches
the other day for unreallzed pictures. first
studies for dreams of pure form and color
fair virgins that fit, white-armed,
through spacious halls-plaintlve, melan-
choly, passionate, mystical. One of them
was superb. An Arthurian uncertainty
enveloped the scene. The touch of wiz
ard had made all things in it suffer "a
beautiful change. 1t was life with the
halo on-life as the boy Wordsworth's
ode on Immortality must surely have
seen it-life in the glow of a poets day
dream. a world of pure phantasy,
lighted up from above with CHANGING
color. A world whose exact date is once
upon a time. A world whose precise
place is in the left-hand corner of the
land of fairy tales. If only Ernest Grey
would paint like that, he might fail for
to-day; he might fail for tomorrow: his