human
It is an axiom with our guild, he went on, not, perhaps, averse to giving his provincial hosts a new sensation,
gpt
By Jove, it's inconceivable, the ignorance of art in America! he told the little group before the portrait.
human
You find everyone so incurably personal in his point of view ... always objecting to a masterpiece because the watch-chain isn't the kind usually worn by the dear departed.
gpt
Yes, it's incredible that anyone, even an old village granny, should be able to look at that canvas and not be struck speechless by its quality.
human
I never saw such use of pigment in my life ... it makes the Whistler 'Carlyle' look like burnt-out ashes ... the luminous richness of the blacks in the academic gown, the masterly generalization in the treatment of the hair, the placing of those great talons of hands on the canvas carrying out the vigorous lines of the composition, and the unforgettable felicity of those brutally red lips as the one ringing note of color. As for life-likeness, what's the old dame talking about! I never saw such eyes! Not a hint of meretricious emphasis on their luster and yet they fairly flame.
gpt
It's incredibly good luck that our little two-for-a-cent college should have so fine a thing, he said knowingly.
human
I've been wondering how such an old skinflint as Gridley ever got the money loose to have his portrait done by--
gpt
It was Mackintosh, the sugar king, who put up for it. He's a great Gridleyite, and persuaded him to sit.
human
Yes, so they say. The professor was dead against it from the first. Fallères himself had to beg him to sit. Fallères said he felt a real inspiration at the sight of the old fellow ... knew he could make a good thing out of him. He _was_ a good subject!
gpt
Oh, nobody knew him personally ... the silent old codger. He was a dry-as-dust, bloodless, secular monk--
human
Excuse me for my cynical mirth, he said,
gpt
I only repeated the village notion of him, he said airily.
human
He may have been anything. All I know is that he was as secretive as a clam, and about as interesting personally.
gpt
Look at the picture, said the critic, still laughing;
human
You're right, he doesn't look much like my character of him. I never seem to have had a good, square look at him before. I've heard several people say the same thing, that they seemed to understand him better from the portrait than from his living face. There was something about his eyes that kept you from thinking of anything but what he was saying.
gpt
The eyes are wonderful ... ruthless in their power ... fires of hell. He laughed a deprecating apology for his overemphatic metaphor and suggested:
human
It's possible that there was more to the professorial life than met the eye. Had he a wife?
gpt
No; it was always a joke in the village that he would never look at a woman.
human
I've heard of that kind of a man before, he said.
gpt
Never known to drink, either, I suppose?
human
Cold-water teetotaler,
gpt
Look at the color in that nose! said the critic.
human
I fancy that the ascetic moralist--
gpt
Yep, a lot of us fellows always thought old Grid a little too good to be true.
human
His father, old Governor Gridley, wasn't he ... Well, I guess you're right about the son. No halos were handed down in _that_ family!