Chapter XIV: Which has to do with the Fascination of Naughtiness

Doome’s studio became the talk of the town.

Who, that is Who, has not sat therein?

It came to be a part of the great Social Function to have the entrance to this handsome room.

The rich tapestries that hung the walls, the glowing colour and the beauty of the furnishments were held in restraint by the chastening, somewhat religious, atmosphere that made the whisper of wickedness add such a mysterious charm to his habitation as it did to the attraction of the dark-souled mysterious Doome himself. No one knew a single vice against the slender handsome youth of the pale classic features and the black hair and immaculate dress; but it was said that things were said. And he was too charmingly delightful--and just a little alarming. Thus gossip wagged an artful tongue.

Dingy-looking weak-eyed journalists of the inferior press sneered in unsigned paragraphs of rancid English at his effeminacy, hinting at unmentionable sins--who, had he struck them, would have thought a horse had kicked them--he, whose only agony was that they should belittle him with their praise. Rude sporting men, that passed their virile lives gazing at horses galloping, said he wanted kicking. None kicked him.

Perhaps the great church candlesticks that rose in massive wrought brass from the dark stained floor at the ends and by the sides of the large room, holding aloft enormous candles half way to the high ceiling, struck the religious note. Or it may have been the exquisitely rich image of the Mary which stood on the mantel amongst the glowing splendid nudes. But the yawning accents of the most garrulous society babbler sank to a whisper on entrance. Nay, the most brilliant rakes had been known to lower their strutting voices on coming into this room. The faculty of reverence lies dormant in the cynic as in the fool.

Nobody had been known to see Doome at work. It was said that some beautiful women could have said things, and they would. But they would not. Yet his exquisite craftsmanship, the wondrous musical rhythm of his line and the quaint and rather morbid fancy of the subjects that came from his pen, together with a certain uncanniness of imagination, continued to pour forth masterpieces in black and white, startling the world of art and delighting the lovers of his genius.

It was significantly whispered that he never worked except at dead of night, with the great candles lit, and all the old-world glass lustres that hung from the ceiling aglow with a hundred lights; it was then, said the traffickers in scandal, he came out to the practice of his art in a silken dressing-gown--the most beautiful woman of London sitting to him to snatch a little of immortality.

The scandal grew.

Society wrangled for him.

“Lord of Furnishments” (writes Bartholomew Doome about this time, the
summer being at wane, to Mr. Pompey Malahide)--“the air of this city
of London is stifling me; the very sins of the town are grown banal,
commonplace. I must to Paris. I leave no address for three months;
but a telegram to the Hotel Albe will be seen within three days. The
town is grown an empty caldron--you yourself had best get away with
your lovely daughters to some gayer city of fresh air and to change
of cheerful small vices and reflecting shop-windows.... But you will
go, whether I advise or not. Meanwhile I am letting the studio to the
Honourable Ponsonby Ffolliott, only son and heir to Lord Wyntwarde of
Cavil, until the twenty-seventh of September. It will take three full
days to rid it of the multifarious scents upon him, and to lay the
echoes of his yaw.... Can I procure you fal-lals of price for Miss
Mary, or adornments to mar the beauty of Miss Judith? Tush! I speak
cant. It is all nonsense about painting the rose. Why do beautiful
women wear clothes if so? And what a noise would be in Fleet Street,
if the roses came out wholly without adornment! Fancy thyself, Lord
of Furnishments, blushing like peony, taking thy Johnsonian walks
abroad, unbedecked and unadorned--not, as now, almost wholly hidden!
Thou wouldst be fantastically wonderful indeed, who art never wholly
devoid of fantasy. The ladies might come out better; but naughtiness
would the more shamefully abound. Personally, I am not against the
rose; but the gods have ordered the painting. So be it paint.

I think you have galled the emotions of the egregious rival. I passed
Tankerton Wollup on the Embankment meditating on the sea-gulls and
the factories beyond, alone with nature who was never given to
contemplate the works of nature. It is full time you joined the
Primrose League, captured a seat in the Commons, and rubbed elbows
with the nobility--when Tankerton Wollup has headache by reason of
your greatness. I see, too, in visions, Miss Judith with a coronet
a-top her pretty brows. But mark the law--rub elbows only with the
old nobility--the new aristocracy is so very exclusive. Have an eye
to subtleties; and thy translation is sure.

But should the gods burst the casket of their very uttermost honours
at your feet, and fill your broad lap with treasure, you will never
be greater than you are.

Yours, mightily beholden,

BARTHOLOMEW DOOME.

P.S.--The sting is ever in the tail. Nature herself hath so ordered
it. I ought to tell you that this Ponsonby Ffolliott thinks he can
paint. Gods of little Egypt, it is all very dreadful--makes the teeth
ache--but he is well satisfied. What more can heaven send? But the
point of the tail is this: ... He took to the arts, _patronized_
them, but six weeks ago. He had drawn ‘funny pictures’ as somewhat
ignoble school-boy at Harrow, it is true; but it was the study of
the nude model that finished the business--’twas beauty unadorned,
lacking even as to fig-leaf, attracted our recruit. He fell into
someone’s studio, a model sitting at the time, and the great idea was
bred--within the winking of an eyelid--leaped, hissing hot, from the
intellectual furnace.

There is already a more than ugly story going about that has to
do with this blood ass of Balaam coupled with that pretty little
ethereal woman who sat for me a while ago. I suppose one must believe
women capable of any enormity in these days. And these youths sin
such dirty mean sins--even sin has lost the grand manner.

And the tools of his craft! Such an ordering of the Latest Thing! I
was present--a silent witness. My poor easel for the making of the
mere black-and-white art is well put away in hiding, or had cracked
of envy in such splendid company. No expense spared.

Yet he has his patiences. Rubs out more than he puts in. Is indeed a
master of much bread-crumbs. He has the catch-words, too--is for Art
for Art’s sake, contemns Story, shrugs at the Anecdote, sneers at the
Soul, purrs of Values, insists that the Picture shall Keep Within the
Frame, rattles all the jargons, and shows a fine contempt for Sargent
and all the modern men--yet has almost decided that Whistler _may_
live--holds, however, that great Art died with the Renaissance; is
not quite sure what the Renaissance was--or where--or when. He chats
as glibly as the rest now--hee-haws against the hee-haws of Quogge
Myre--and not always in vain. Indeed there are degrees in asininity,
when splendour of hee-hawing out-brays the lesser hee-haw. And,
Beelzebub! such knees as are on him!”