White Ashes | Page 4

triumph of
paint over paper--a new and vivid illustration of the practical value of
true art."
"Oh, nonsense, Charlie!" said Pelgram, much annoyed at being made
the rather vulnerable subject of Wilkinson's humor.
His tormentor was delighted at perceiving his victim writhe and went
gayly on.
"But unhappily our Stanwood is so impractical. Probably he would
have declined the commission. Atmospheric envelopes slowly en route
to the dead letter office of dream pastels demand his whole attention.
Painting is crass; he mildly cameos. Tonal nuances--shades of
imperceptible difference in the shadowy debatable land between things
colored exactly alike--claim his earnest interpretation. When he rarely
speaks, it is usually an important contribution to the world's artistic
knowledge on some such subject as 'The Influence of Rubens'
Grandmother on his Portraits of his Second Wife' or 'The True Alma
Mater of Alma Tadema.'"
The artist, whose round smooth face was pink with rage, almost choked,
but was wholly unable to reply. That he should be made the gross butt
of a man such as Wilkinson was bad enough, but that this should take
place in the presence of ladies--and especially of Helen Maitland--was
almost unendurable.
Miss Maitland, seeing the flames approaching the magazine with
alarming rapidity, hastily started a back-fire, adapting Wilkinson's style
to her purpose with a success which--repartee not being her strongest
point--astonished even herself.
"Charlie's views on art," she said to the smoldering Pelgram, "are
always interesting because they are so wholly free and natural. Most art
critics are checked and biased by having studied their subject and
formed certain fixed impressions which are bound to come to the

surface in their criticisms; some critics are influenced by having gone
so far as to look at meritorious pictures in an endeavor to analyze and
appreciate them intelligently; but Charlie labors under no such
restraints. Once he went into the Louvre, but it was to get out of the
rain. Except for an acute sense of smell, he could not detect an oil
painting from a water color, even if he should try; and except for an
abnormal self-confidence he would hesitate in the first step of
criticism--a careful consideration of the value of the canvas as
compared with that of the frame. It is therefore because Charlie is the
only self-admitted art critic who knows nothing whatever of the subject,
that his opinions are so interesting, for they are sure to be absolutely
impartial and free from all bias of every kind. But where he heard of
Alma Tadema is a puzzle to me, unless that name has been utilized by
the manufacturer of some new tooth powder or popular cigar that has
failed to attract my notice in the street car advertisements," she
concluded thoughtfully.
The harassed artist turned with a look of almost abject canine gratitude
toward his defender. Intervention from any source was welcome, but
Miss Maitland's unexpected appearance as his belligerent partisan lifted
him with a single swing from the abysmal humiliation of ridicule to the
highest summit of hope. Helen had always been polite to him, but never
before had she warmed to his outspoken defense. She had usually
expressed an interest in his work, but as a matter of fact some of it was
worthy of her quite impersonal interest. In his own set, men
accustomed to formulate their opinions with complete independence
and considerable shrewdness frequently remarked that Stan was an
awful ass, but he could paint some. This was the common last analysis,
the degree of qualifying favor being measured in each case by the
comparative pause between the last two words and the accent and
inflection upon the ultimate.
And even among those who considered Pelgram's asinine qualities
plainly predominant, there was an admission of his certain artistic
readiness, a cleverness in his grouping, a superficial dexterity in his
brush work, a smartness and facility in the method of his pursuit of
false gods. The irrepressible Wilkinson had struck true to the mark of

his weaknesses, but something could well be said for the unhappy
poseur in whom his shaft had quivered. Some one had observed that
Pelgram regarded the appearance of his person and of his studio as of
more serious importance than that of his canvases, but his commissions
withal came in sufficient numbers to permit his extensive indulgence in
bodily and domestic adornment. Granting him to be an ass, he certainly
was a reasonably successful one, and he was even generally held to be
a talented one.
For all his work was cursed by his indecision, he was surprisingly
steady along the line of personal relations. At one time he would devote
himself wholly to the production of exotic-looking pastels; at another
time to nothing but the strangest of nocturnes in which the colors were
washed on in a