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But before he could add another word, Clutton rapped
with the handle of his knife imperiously on the table.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said in a stern voice, and his huge nose
positively wrinkled with passion, ‘a name has been men-
tioned which I never thought to hear again in decent society.
Freedom of speech is all very well, but we must observe the
limits of common propriety. You may talk of Bouguereau
if you will: there is a cheerful disgustingness in the sound
which excites laughter; but let us not sully our chaste lips
with the names of J. Ruskin, G. F. Watts, or E. B. Jones.’
‘Who was Ruskin anyway?’ asked Flanagan.
‘He was one of the Great Victorians. He was a master of
English style.’
‘Ruskin’s style—a thing of shreds and purple patches,’
said Lawson. ‘Besides, damn the Great Victorians. When-
ever I open a paper and see Death of a Great Victorian, I
thank Heaven there’s one more of them gone. Their only
talent was longevity, and no artist should be allowed to live
after he’s forty; by then a man has done his best work, all
he does after that is repetition. Don’t you think it was the
greatest luck in the world for them that Keats, Shelley, Bon-
nington, and Byron died early? What a genius we should
think Swinburne if he had perished on the day the first se-
ries of Poems and Ballads was published!’
The suggestion pleased, for no one at the table was more
than twenty-four, and they threw themselves upon it with
gusto. They were unanimous for once. They elaborated.
Someone proposed a vast bonfire made out of the works of
the Forty Academicians into which the Great Victorians

0 Of Human Bondage