He might even have had the cruel
luck to hear one patron of the arts, who began by designing
the pictorial advertisements for his own furniture-polish,
state that he would buy that twilight effect with the
empty fields, if only the trees in the foreground weren't
so blurred. Other things, too, he might have heard that
would have amused him more as being less commonplace,
but pleased him no better, said by people who cast furtive
glances over their shoulders to see if anybody that might
be the artist was within reach of their discriminating
admiration; and here and there, if he had listened well,
a vigorous word that meant recognition and reward. It
was not that he did not long for the tritest word of
comment from the oracle before which he had chosen to
lay the fruit of his labors; indeed, he was so conscious
of his desire to know this opinion, not over clever as
he believed it, that he ran away on the evening of
varnishing-day. If he staid he felt that he would inevitably
compromise his dignity, so he hid himself with some
amiable people in Hampshire, who could be relied upon
not to worry him, for a week. He did not deny himself
the papers, however. They reached him in stacks, with
the damp chill of the afternoon post upon them; and in
their solid paragraphs he read the verdict of the British
public written out in words of proper length and much
the same phrases that had done duty for Eastlake and Sir
Martin Shee.
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