THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON
of faith.‘
Mere eyesight tells us that a plaster mould is truer
to nature than the greatest masterpiece of Phidias;
so does
science, with her gross calipers.
Sensible men prefer a good
photograph of nature to a bad landscape.
The photograph
shows them the view of their own normal eye through the
medium of an accepted symbolism; the picture shows the
view of an indifferent bad soul through a medium of mud.
But Corotl
But Whistler!
But Morrice ! Corot sees a wood,
and paints Pan; Bougereau sees a pretty model, and paints a
pretty model.
He doesn’t paint Woman.
Morrice paints the
Venice of Byron, of our historic and voluptuous dreams; not
the Venice of the Yankee and the churning steamers.
Raphael
found Madonna in his mistress
; Rembrandt a queen of sombre
passion and seduction in his wife.
In one way or another we
must get to God’s meaning through a medium that itself is
meaningless.”
" Just as through dejeuner we get to the dessert
! " laughed
Ida, who had something more to say than her face showed.
All through lunch she had allured the big black savage, until
beneath her glances he was in agony.
ΑΗ the primitive
passions fought one another in his heart.
He could have
killed Rolles for the very nonchalance of his small-talk
It
hurt him that anyone should speak to Ida save in words of
love.
Equally, he could have killed him {or a trace of inflec-
tion in his voice.
Edgar Rolles understood his torture, understood the sup-
pressed intensity of Ida’s purpose, though he could not guess
its nature.
Somehow he distrusted the event.
“ Take literature I ᾽᾽he went on, in that even vigilant voice
of his.
“ Take Zola with his million marshalled facts. What
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