New-York tribune., 1902-07-21
A REVOLT.
THE PLANT OF AN UNCULTURED Soul
AGAINST HIS "SUPERIORs."
From Temple Bar.

From Temple Bar.
My plant is merely personal. know Il know
not how) too many cultured peprie 5 anu rnodastiv
in Bloomsbury; they move and have their 81.
perior being mainly in the nelghborhoods Oh
Chelsea Hampstead and Haslemere They
make Intellectual efforts to live down to me-
and there a time-a strained and painful
period-when l endeavored vainly to live up"
to them Now no longer subdued by their shades
and subtleties, rendered difhdenty inarucu-
late by their sublimated slang, l have waxed
rebellous, aggressive, even Vindictive, and the
hour cannot be distant when d final rupture
with refinement must ensue.
They are all authorities on something in par
ticular, and early Italian art in general
They collect everything, from Esquimau jewel
ry Huguenot wills; and they read, great
heaven! they read anything, from poetry In
archaic Cornish, to Egyptian cipher; and they
perform tinkiing antiquities, by way Of music,
rare and renovated spinets.
Their houses have a peculiarly precious flavor
of their own, like obviously eXpensve) Indian
or China Some are pseudo Japanese or
Roman or Egyptian, but most Morris cum
Liberty y-cum- Botticell, and it is these which
pre-eminently abhor. The prevailing tint is
green; for green, though ii has unpermissible
shades, is on the whole the accepted color; the
furniture is of the ArtsyCraftsy order. hung
with unnecessary DOORS bespattered with self
assertive hinges, and defaced by notices more
or less unnerving to the uncultivated mind.
have one prominently irritating house in my
eye. The bookcase menaces the unwary novel
seeker with Let knowledge grow from more to
more" The piano is primed with insidious six
teenth century innuendoes directed against the
trivial amateur. The mantelpieceS are embed
ded with quaint and doggerel "conceits.' which
make evening by the fire penance. The
walls are reticenty clothed with masterpieces
which demand an immediate reference to Pater
or MorelH for an approximate appreciation,
, which no ordinary person can be expected to
have at hand at moments notice
The front door knocker Is a cruel contriVance
by which two rings of twisted iron scrunched
together TO produce sound like that of hun
dred pencils squeaking on a hundred states.
But ii is "prmtive"-Very primitive Zone
doesn't question itD and the heroic house
holders have schooled their nerves to that.
And fitting IL is that one should be forced to
note the knocker of this exclusive dwelling
There Is much that, on pain of spiritual de
struct.on may not enter there! Maple may not
neither may Nude, no-nor many others. Have
not Morris and Ruskin spoken it, and shall not
the elect obey? They do. Except in one par
ticular a lofty soaring. consistency is main
tanned. But the evening meal is anachro-
nism even my own defective senses have appre-
there be sausages at all?) not cut TO some med
i@Val pattern. and why is not the butter i'm
printed with an early Florentine design? 1t is
a lapse an incongruity. base concession to the
body And the very chairs and tables in these
| sublime apartments are constructed in some oc-
cult and mystic manner primarily for the soul.
Even the domestic pets cultured. and have
| ar-the cats especialy-of intense appre-
citation OF their unique surroundings. They sur
render only on pressure. and then languidly to
anything so grossly elementary and unsignil-
cant a milk
/ one critically from their meditative corners
| They know you-do not doubt it-for what Won
are your clothes bewray you even IL your
| speech does not. You have not that air of as
| sured familiarity with the shades OF missal
makers primeyal potters which their papa