human
You've done some fairish work already, if I'm any judge. He comes to his friend's side, as if to get his effect of the picture.
gpt
I don't believe the spirit of a graceful elm that just begins to feel the approach of autumn was ever better interpreted. There is something tremendously tragical to me in the thing. It makes me think of some lovely and charming girl, all grace and tenderness, who finds the first grey hair in her head. I should call that picture The First Grey Hair.
human
The whole thing's too infernally brown! I beg your pardon, Cummings: what were you saying? Go on! I like your prattle about pictures; I do, indeed. I like to see how far you art-cultured fellows can miss all that was in a poor devil's mind when he was at work. But I'd rather you'd sentimentalise my pictures than moralise them. If there's anything that makes me quite limp, it's to have an allegory discovered in one of my poor stupid old landscapes. But The First Grey Hair isn't bad, really. And a good, senseless, sloppy name like that often sells a picture.
gpt
You're brutal, Bartlett. I don't believe your pictures would own you, if they had their way about it.
human
And I wouldn't own _them_ if I had _mine_. I've got about forty that I wish somebody else owned--and I had the money for them; but we seem inseparable. Glad you're going to-morrow? You _are_ a good fellow, Cummings, and I _am_ a brute. Come, I'll make a great concession to friendship: it struck me, too, while I was at work on that elm, that it was something like--an old girl! Bartlett laughs, and catching his friend by either shoulder, twists him about in his strong clutch, while he looks him merrily in the face.
gpt
I'm not a poet, old fellow; and sometimes I think I ought to have been a painter and glazier instead of a mere painter. I believe it would have paid better.
human
Bartlett, I hate to have you talk in that way.
gpt
Oh, I know it's a stale kind.
human
It's worse than stale. It's destructive. A man can soon talk himself out of heart with his better self. You can end by really being as sordid-minded and hopeless and low-purposed as you pretend to be. It's insanity.
gpt
Good! I've had my little knock on the head, you know. I don't deny being cracked. But I've a method in my madness.
human
They all have. But it's a very poor method; and I don't believe you could say just what yours is. You think because a girl on whom you set your fancy--it's nonsense to pretend it was your heart--found out she didn't like you as well as she thought, and honestly told you so in good time, that your wisest course is to take up that rôle of misanthrope which begins with yourself and leaves people to imagine how low an opinion you have of the rest of mankind.
gpt
My dear fellow, you know I always speak well of that young lady. I've invariably told you that she behaved in the handsomest manner. She even expressed the wish--I distinctly remember being struck by the novelty of the wish at the time--that we should remain friends. You misconceive
human
How many poor girls have been jilted who don't go about doing misanthropy, but mope at home and sorrow and sicken over their wrong in secret,--a wrong that attacks not merely their pride, but their life itself. Take the case I was telling you of: did you ever hear of anything more atrocious? And do you compare this little sting to your vanity with a death-blow like that?
gpt
It's quite impossible to compute the number of jilted girls who take the line you describe. But if it were within the scope of arithmetic, I don't know that a billion of jilted girls would comfort me or reform me. I never could regard myself in that abstract way--a mere unit on one side or other of the balance. My little personal snub goes on rankling beyond the reach of statistical consolation. But even if there were any edification in the case of the young lady in Paris, she's too far off to be an example for me. Take some jilted girl nearer home, Cummings, if you want me to go round sickening and sorrowing in secret. I don't believe you can find any. Women are much tougher about the pericardium than we give them credit for, my dear fellow,--much. I don't see why it should hurt a woman more than a man to be jilted. We shall never truly philosophise this important matter till we regard women with something of the fine penetration and impartiality with which they regard each other. Look at the stabs they give and take--they would kill men! And the graceful ferocity with which they despatch any of their number who happens to be down is quite unexampled in natural history. How much do you suppose her lady friends have left of that poor girl whose case wrings your foolish bosom all the way from Paris? I don't believe so much as a boot-button. Why, even your correspondent--a very lively woman, by the way--can't conceal under all her indignation her little satisfaction that so _proud_ a girl as Miss What's-her-name should have been jilted. Of course, she doesn't say it.
human
Oh, I don't ask any praise for the discovery. You deserve praise for not making it. It does honour to your good heart. Well, don't be vexed, old fellow. And in trying to improve me on this little point--a weak point, I'll allow, with me--do me the justice to remember that I didn't flaunt my misanthropy, as you call it, in your face; I didn't force my confidence upon you.
gpt
I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, Bartlett.
human
Well, you haven't. It's all right.
gpt
I wish I could think so.
human
You have _my_ leave--my request, in fact. He takes a turn about the room, thrusting his fingers through the hair on his forehead, and letting it fall in a heavy tangle, and then pulling at either side of his parted beard. In facing away from one of the sofas at the end of the room, he looks back over his shoulder at it, falters, wheels about, and picks up from it a lady's shawl and hat.
gpt
Hallo! He lets the shawl fall again into picturesque folds on the sofa.
human
This is the spoil of no local beauty, Cummings. Look here; I don't understand this. There has been an arrival.
gpt
Yes; it's an arrival beyond all question. Those are a _lady's_ things. I should think that was a Paris hat.
human
How should a Paris hat get here? I know the landlord wasn't expecting it. But it can't be going to stay; it's here through some caprice. It may be a transient of quality, but it's a transient. I suppose we shall see the young woman belonging to it at dinner. He sets the hat on his fist, and holds it at arm's length from him.
gpt
What a curious thing it is about clothes
human
Don't, Bartlett, don't!
gpt
Why?
human
I don't know. It makes me feel as if you were offering an indignity to the young lady herself.
gpt
You express my idea exactly. This frippery has not only the girl's personality but her very spirit in it. This hat looks like her; you can infer the whole woman from it, body and soul. It has a conscious air, and so has the shawl, as if they had been eavesdropping and had understood everything we were saying. They know all about my heart-break, and so will she as soon as she puts them on; she will be interested in me. The hat's in good taste, isn't it?
human
Exquisite it seems to me; but I don't know about such things.
gpt
Neither do I; but I feel about them. Besides, a painter and glazier sees some things that are hidden from even a progressive minister. Let us interpret the lovely being from her hat. This knot of pale-blue flowers betrays her a blonde; this lace, this mass of silky, fluffy, cob-webby what-do-you-call-it, and this delicate straw fabric show that she is slight; a stout woman would kill it, or die in the attempt. And I fancy--here pure inspiration comes to my aid--that she is tallish. I'm afraid of her! No--wait! The shawl has something to say. He takes it up and catches it across his arm, where he scans it critically.
human
I don't know that I understand the shawl, exactly. It proves her of a good height,--a short woman wouldn't, or had better not, wear a shawl,--but this black colour: should you think it was mourning? Have we a lovely young widow among us?
gpt
I don't see how it could go with the hat, if it were.
human
True; the hat is very pensive in tone, but it isn't mourning. This shawl's very light, it's very warm; I construct from it a pretty invalid. He lets the shawl slip down his arm to his hand, and flings it back upon the sofa.
gpt
We return from the young lady's heart to her brain--where she carries her sentiments. She has a nice taste in perfumes, Cummings: faintest violet; that goes with the blue. Of what religion is a young lady who uses violet, my reverend friend?
human
Bartlett, you're outrageous. Put down that hat!
gpt
No, seriously. What is her little æsthetic specialty? Does she sketch? Does she scribble? Tell me, thou wicked hat, does she flirt? Come; out with the vows that you have heard poured into the shelly ear under this knot of pale-blue flowers! Where be her gibes now, her gambols, her flashes of merriment? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. Dost thou think, Horatio Cummings, Cleopatra looked o' this fashion? And smelt so? --he presses the knot of artificial flowers to his moustache--
human
Pah!
gpt
Bartlett, this is atrocious. I protest
human
Well, give me up, I tell you. He returns, and takes his friend by the shoulders, as before, and laughs.
gpt
I'm not worth your refined pains. I might be good, at a pinch, but I never could be truly lady-like.
human
You like to speak an infinite deal of nothing, don't you?
gpt
It's the only thing that makes conversation.