for pleasure which Cronshaw said was the only motive
of human action urged them blindly on, and the very
vehemence of the desire seemed to rob it of all pleasure.
They were hurried on by a great wind, helplessly, they
knew not why and they knew not whither. Fate
seemed to tower above them, and they danced as though
everlasting darkness were beneath their feet.
Their silence was vaguely alarming. It was as
if life terrified them and robbed them of power of
speech so that the shriek which was in their hearts
died at their throats. Their eyes were haggard
and grim; and notwithstanding the beastly lust that
disfigured them, and the meanness of their faces,
and the cruelty, notwithstanding the stupidness which
was worst of all, the anguish of those fixed eyes
made all that crowd terrible and pathetic. Philip
loathed them, and yet his heart ached with the infinite
pity which filled him.
He took his coat from the cloak-room and went out
into the bitter coldness of the night.
L
Philip could not get the unhappy event out of his
head. What troubled him most was the uselessness
of Fanny’s effort. No one could have worked
harder than she, nor with more sincerity; she believed
in herself with all her heart; but it was plain that
self-confidence meant very little, all his friends
had it, Miguel Ajuria among the rest; and Philip was
shocked by the contrast between the Spaniard’s
heroic endeavour and the triviality of the thing he
attempted. The unhappiness of Philip’s life
at school had called up in him the power of self-analysis;
and this vice, as subtle as drug-taking, had taken
possession of him so that he had now a peculiar keenness
in the dissection of his feelings. He could not
help seeing that art affected him differently from
others. A fine picture gave Lawson an immediate
thrill. His appreciation was instinctive.
Even Flanagan felt certain things which Philip was
obliged to think out. His own appreciation was
intellectual. He could not help thinking that
if he had in him the artistic temperament (he hated
the phrase, but could discover no other) he would
feel beauty in the emotional, unreasoning way in which
they did. He began to wonder whether he had anything
more than a superficial cleverness of the hand which
enabled him to copy objects with accuracy. That
was nothing. He had learned to despise technical
dexterity. The important thing was to feel in
terms of paint. Lawson painted in a certain way
because it was his nature to, and through the imitativeness
of a student sensitive to every influence, there pierced
individuality. Philip looked at his own portrait
of Ruth Chalice, and now that three months had passed
he realised that it was no more than a servile copy
of Lawson. He felt himself barren. He painted
with the brain, and he could not help knowing that
the only painting worth anything was done with the
heart.
