Page 370 - of-human-bondage-

‘Oh, I had a shot at a portrait too.’
‘The sedulous ape,’ he murmured.
He turned away again to Lawson’s canvas. Philip red-
dened but did not speak.
‘Well, what d’you think of it?’ asked Lawson at length.
‘The modelling’s jolly good,’ said Clutton. ‘And I think
it’s very well drawn.’
‘D’you think the values are all right?’
‘Quite.’
Lawson smiled with delight. He shook himself in his
clothes like a wet dog.
‘I say, I’m jolly glad you like it.’
‘I don’t. I don’t think it’s of the smallest importance.’
Lawson’s face fell, and he stared at Clutton with astonish-
ment: he had no notion what he meant, Clutton had no gift
of expression in words, and he spoke as though it were an
effort. What he had to say was confused, halting, and ver-
bose; but Philip knew the words which served as the text of
his rambling discourse. Clutton, who never read, had heard
them first from Cronshaw; and though they had made small
impression, they had remained in his memory; and lately,
emerging on a sudden, had acquired the character of a reve-
lation: a good painter had two chief objects to paint, namely,
man and the intention of his soul. The Impressionists had
been occupied with other problems, they had painted man
admirably, but they had troubled themselves as little as the
English portrait painters of the eighteenth century with the
intention of his soul.
‘But when you try to get that you become literary,’ said