The Philistines | Page 2

his intention, that in a few years he came to be
the fashionable portrait-painter of the town; the artist to whom people
went who rated the worth of a picture by the amount they were required
to pay for it, and the reputation of the painter in conventional circles;
the man to whom a Boston society woman inevitably turned when she
wished the likeness of her charms preserved on canvas, and when no
foreigner was for the moment in vogue and on hand.
The steps by which Fenton attained to this proud eminence were
obvious enough. In the first place, he persuaded Mr. Calvin to sit to
him. Mr. Calvin always sat to the portrait painters whom he endorsed.
This was a sort of official recognition, and the results, as seen in the
needlessly numerous likenesses of the gentleman which adorned his
Beacon Hill mansion, would have afforded a cynic some amusement,
and not a little food for reflection. Once launched under distinguished
patronage, Fenton was clever enough to make his way. He really was
able to paint well when he chose, a fact which was, on the whole, of
less importance in his artistic career than were the adroitness of his
address, and his ready and persuasive sympathy. The qualifications of a
fashionable doctor, a fashionable clergyman, and a fashionable
portrait-painter are much the same; it is only in the man-milliner that
skill is demanded in addition to the art of pleasing.
As usually happens in such a case, Fenton's old friends avoided him, or
found themselves left in the distance by his rapid strides toward fame
and fortune. Then such of them as still came in contact with him made
his acquaintance in a new character, and learned to accept him as a
wholly different man from the one they had supposed themselves to
know in the days when he was never weary of pouring forth tirades
against the Philistinism he had now embraced. They admired the skill
with which he painted stuffs and gowns, but among themselves they
agreed that the old-time vigor and sincerity were painfully lacking in

his work; and if they grumbled sometimes at the prices he got, it is only
just to believe that it was seldom with any real willingness to pay, in
the sacrifice of convictions and ideals, the equivalent which he had
given for his popularity.
Fenton was one morning painting, in his luxuriously appointed studio,
the portrait of a man who was in the prime of life, and over whom
vulgar prosperity had, in forming him, left everywhere her finger marks
plainly to be seen. He was tall and robust, with light eyes and blonde
whiskers, and a general air of insisting upon his immense superiority to
all the world. That he secretly felt some doubts of the perfection of his
social knowledge, there were indications in his manner, but on the
whole the complacency of a portly bank account overcame all
misgivings of this sort. His character might have been easily inferred
from the manner in which he now set his broad shoulders expansively
back in the armchair in which he was posing, and regarded the artist
with a patronizing air of condescending to be wonderfully entertained
by his conversation.
"You are the frankest fellow I ever saw," he said, smiling broadly.
"Oh, frank," Fenton responded; "I am too frank. It will be the ruin of
me sooner or later. It all comes of being born with a habit of being too
honest with myself."
"Honesty with yourself is generally held up as a cardinal virtue."
"Nonsense. A man is a fool who is too frank with himself; he is always
sure to end by being too frank with everybody else, just from mere
habit."
Mr. Irons smiled more broadly still. He by no means followed all
Fenton's vagaries of thought, but they tickled his mental cuticle
agreeably. The artist had the name of being a clever talker, and with
such a listener this was more than half the battle. The men who can
distinguish the real quality of talk are few and far to seek; most people
receive what is said as wit and wisdom, or the reverse, simply because
they are assured it is the one or the other; and Alfred Irons was of the
majority in this.
Fenton painted in silence a moment, inwardly possessed of a desire to
caricature, or even to paint in all its ugliness, the vulgar mouth upon
which he was working. The desire, however, was not sufficiently strong
to restrain him from the judicious flattery of cleverly softening and

refining the coarse lips, and he was conscious of a faint amusement at
the incongruity between his thought and his action.
"And there is the added disadvantage," he continued the conversation
as he