Read Online After My Fashion by John Cowper Powys - Free Book Online Page A

battle.
    It certainly did make things more difficult when the very persons who hated one another because one liked them both displayed so much more anxiety as to just how they impressed each other than how they impressed oneself.
    That part of the business they both seemed to take for granted!
    She found herself wishing that there was a third man in this tea party.
    â€˜Surely you will not deny,’ she heard Richard saying when her wandering attention returned, ‘that the least new ripple of a new point of view, of a new impression of things, of a new tone or rhythm in our reaction to things, has a profound psychological interest, even if, from the highest standard, it remains tentative and formless?’
    â€˜I do, I do deny it,’ cried the young painter, striking the honey- pot a severe blow with the end of his knife. ‘These “new ripples”, as you call them, are not the real forward movement of the great tradition. That , when it appears, dominates us all, conservatives and modernists alike, by its universal human power. In my art you have a Cézanne or a Renoir. In yours you have a William Blake or a Paul Verlaine. You will notice that Cézanne and Renoir carry on the tradition of the subtlest of the great masters, just as the lyrics of Blake and Verlaine remind you of Shakespeare’s—’
    Richard’s voice violently interrupted him. ‘No! No! No! you traditionists are always so unfair to us. You treat us just as the Church treats its visionaries. Blake isn’t in the least like Shakespeare, nor is Verlaine in the least like Villon, as you were probably going to remark. And how are you to know, may I ask, when to look for the new Renoirs and Verlaines if you take no interest in the experiments of the new people?’
    Richard positively scowled at Nelly at that point because he caught her looking with interest at a dog fight in the street. Robert Canyot struck the honey-pot a terrific blow.
    â€˜Experiments,’ he cried, ‘are not achievements! When your new people work hard enough, and study the great men deeply enough, and stop putting down every confounded thing that comes into their heads, they’ll force me to respect them. They’ll be artists then.Meanwhile they’re just amateur triflers, like the people who fuss over them!’
    Richard’s face grew dark and his fingers clenched. Was this young puppy actually daring to tell him that his monographs upon René Ghil, Gustave Kahn, Jules Laforgue, Grégoire Le Roy, and so forth, were wasted labour, unworthy of a first-class intellect?
    â€˜I suppose you’d class Rémy de Gourmont among your experimenters,’ he snarled sarcastically, making a naïvely unconscious movement with his hand, as if to retain the attention of Miss Moreton who had risen from her seat to watch the dogs being separated. But his antagonist was too wary to be caught. ‘I know nothing of the person you speak of. No doubt from your tone I ought to, and perhaps I ought. If I ought, some day no doubt I shall; for in the end one always does come across the real achievements.’
    â€˜Perhaps that’s what these “fussy amateurs” you scoff at are for ,’ flung back the older man; ‘in order that these deserving ones shall not have to wait till they’re dead for the honour of being appreciated by Mr Robert Canyot!’
    At this point – was it with the intention of letting her new friend have the last word? – Nelly Moreton resolutely broke in. ‘Sorry to change the conversation,’ she said, ‘but if we’re to get back in time for supper we must really make a start.’
    Less shamefaced than they deserved, and avoiding one another’s eyes so obviously that the girl couldn’t help comparing them to the two dogs who were now being dragged away by their respective masters, the men rose to their feet, and Canyot went to the little desk to pay for