The Philistines.
by Arlo Bates.
DEDICATION.
To my three friends who, by generously acting as amanuenses, have made it possible that the book should be finished, I take pleasure in gratefully dedicating
"This is no square temple to the gate of which thou canst arrive precipitately; this is no mosque to which thou canst come with tumult but without knowledge."
_Persian Religious Hymn_.
THE PHILISTINES
I
IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING.
I Henry IV.; v.--I.
When Arthur Fenton, the most outspoken of all that band of protesting spirits who had been so well known in artistic Boston as the Pagans, married Edith Caldwell, there had been in his mind a purpose, secret but well defined, to turn to his own account his wife"s connection with the Philistine art patrons of the town. Miss Caldwell was a niece of Peter Calvin, a wealthy and well-meaning man against whom but two grave charges could be made,--that he supposed the growth of art in this country to depend largely upon his patronage, and that he could never be persuaded not to take himself seriously. Mr. Calvin was regarded by Philistine circles in Boston as a sort of re-incarnation of Apollo, clothed upon with modern enlightenment, and properly arrayed in respectable raiment. Had it been pointed out that to make this theory probable it was necessary to conceive of the G.o.d as having undergone mentally much the same metamorphosis as that which had transformed his flowing vestments into trousers, his admirers would have received the remark as highly complimentary to Mr. Peter Calvin. To a.s.sume ident.i.ty between their idol and Apollo would be immensely flattering to the son of Latona.
Fenton understood perfectly the weight and extent of Calvin"s influence, yet, in determining to profit by it, he did not in the least deceive himself as to the nature of his own course.
"Honesty," he afterward confessed to his friend Helen Greyson, who scorned him for the admission, "is doubtless a charming thing for digestive purposes, but it is a luxury too expensive for me. The G.o.ds in this country bid for shams, and shams I purpose giving them."
So well did he carry out 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 a.s.sured 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 coa.r.s.e lips, and he was conscious of a faint amus.e.m.e.nt at the incongruity between his thought and his action.
"And there is the added disadvantage," he continued the conversation as he glanced up and saw that his sitter"s face was quickly, in the silence, falling into a heavy repose, "that frankness begets frankness.
My sitters are always telling me things which I do not want to know, just because I am so beastly outspoken and sympathetic."
"You must have an excellent chance to get pointers," responded the sitter, his pale eyes kindling with animation. "You"ve painted two or three men this winter that could have put you up to a good thing."
"That isn"t the sort of line chat takes in a studio," Fenton returned, with a slight shrug. "It isn"t business that men talk in a studio. That would be too incongruous."
Irons sneered and laughed, with an air of consequence and superiority.
"I don"t suppose many of you artist fellows would make much of a fist at business," he observed.
"Modern business," laughed the other, amused by his own epigram, "is chiefly the art of transposing one"s debts. The thing to learn is how to pa.s.s the burden of your obligations from one man"s shoulders to those of another often enough so that n.o.body who has them gets tired out, and drops them with a crash."
His sitter grinned appreciatively.
"And they don"t tell you how to do this?"
"Oh, no. The things my sitters tell me about are of a very different sort. They make to me confidences they want to get rid of; things you"d rather not hear. Heavens! I have all I can do to keep some men from treating me like a priest and confessing all their sins to me."
Mr. Irons regarded the artist closely, with a curious narrowing of the eyes.
"That must give you a hold over a good many of them," he said. "I shall be careful what I say."
Fenton laughed, with a delightful sense of superiority. It amused him that his sitter should be betraying his nature at the very moment when he fancied himself particularly on his guard.
"You certainly have no crimes on your conscience that interfere with your digestion," was his reply; "but in any case, you may make yourself easy; I am not a blackmailer by profession."
"Oh, I didn"t mean that," Mr. Irons answered, easily; "only of course you are a man who has his living to make. Every painter has to depend on his wits, and when you come in contact with men of another cla.s.s professionally it would be natural enough to suppose you would take advantage of it."
The "lady"s finger" in Fenton"s cheek stood out white amid the sudden red, and his eyes flashed.
"Of course a sitter," he said in an even voice, which had somehow lost all its smooth sweetness, "is in a manner my guest, and the fact that his cla.s.s was not up to mine, or that he wasn"t a gentleman even, wouldn"t excuse my taking advantage of him."
The other flushed in his turn. He felt the keenness of the retort, but he was not dexterous enough to parry it, and he took refuge in coa.r.s.e bullying.
"Come, now, Fenton," he cried with a short, explosive laugh, "you talk like a gentleman."
But the artist, knowing himself to have the better of the other, and not unmindful, moreover, of the fact that to offend Alfred Irons might mean a serious loss to his own pocket, declined to take offence.
"Of course," he answered lightly, and with the air of one who appreciates an intended jest so subtile that only cleverness would have comprehended it, "that is one of the advantages I have always found in being one. I think I needn"t keep you tied down to that chair any longer to-day. Come here and see how you think we are getting on."
And the sitter forgot quickly that he had been on the very verge of a quarrel.