“I can not accept the view,” said the Sentimental Bachelor, looking up
from his piano stool, “that because one has a houseful of books and
pictures one is necessarily a lover of literature and art. I have a
few myself—not many; but you will observe that my book-cases have not
glass doors; on the contrary (if you understand the significance of
that phrase), they are beautiful examples of the cabinetmaker’s craft,
harmonizing well with the architectural and color schemes of the rooms
containing them. But the devil a book can you see in them without
opening them.
“Why is that? Because, in the first place, books are not beautiful—at
least none of those within the means of any but a millionaire. Even
the most costly and sumptuous of them are angular, blocklike objects,
displeasing to the eye. Unless bound with special reference to the room
in which they are to turn their backs on you, most of them will be out
of harmony with their environment and with one another.
“Yes, you see here scattered about, mostly on the floor, a few books”
(the Sentimental Bachelor indicated them by a graceful gesture of his
right hand) “that are as unlovely as any. But these are volumes having
for me a peculiar value from pleasant or tender association—just as
any article might have—just, in fact, as that rug has, upon which the
divine Janette has deigned to set her little feet. Ah, Janette the
adorable!—Melissa being dead.
“You dare to think, no doubt, that with glass doors to my book-cases
I should be better able to find readily any particular volume that
I might want. Pardon me, but it is unworthy of you to impute to me
so deep and dark an ignorance. I should be sorry if ever I failed to
put my hand on any desired book in the darkest night. Believe me, my
friend, it is not the book-lover who displays his books in a show-case.
“As to pictures, if I were so unfortunate as to own all the treasures
of the Dresden galleries, you would see no more than one painting in a
room. That is the Japanese way, and the Japanese are the only civilized
people in our modern world; they are born artists all, though some
neglect their mental heritage and go out as cooks. Think of it!—a
people among whom the arranging of three cut flowers in a vase (they
know not the dreadful ‘bouquet’) is an art having its principles and
laws, its learned professors to expound them, its honorable place in
the curriculum of public and private education!
“Trust the Japanese to be always right in a matter of art. His instinct
is as infallible as that of the ancient Greek; and our European
‘schools’ of painting are already greatly indebted to him. It is a
silly new picture in which the Japanese influence can not be traced.
I’m ordering my dependent young brother from Paris to Tokio to study
art—the little rascal!
“One painting in a room fixes attention; two divide it; more than two
disperse it. Than a wall plastered with bad canvases I know of nothing
more distracting and confusing except a wall plastered with good
ones. It is like a swarm of pretty girls, or a table d’hôte dinner in
a country hotel, where all you are to eat is brought in at once and
arranged round your plate. It kills the appetite.
“Why does one do that sort of thing? To impress one’s visitors—to show
off. No, no; it is not because one is fond of paintings and never
tires of them. Be pleased to exercise your faculty of observation. I
passed a few weeks recently at the country house of a friend. Before
I had been half an hour in the place he had taken me through all the
rooms and shown me a hundred of his ‘art treasures’—paintings by famous
‘masters.’ (Maybe I had my own opinion as to that.) For my pleasure?
Why, no; he allowed me less than a half minute to each. Gadzooks! can
a fellow digest a painting that he has _bolted_? No, sir; ’twas for
gratification of his vanity of possession. During the weeks that I
remained in his house I never once caught him, nor any member of his
family, standing before any one of all those pictures, silently ‘taking
it in.’ The purpose of the pictures was to supply an opportunity for
his visitors’ envy and compel their tongues to the service of his ears.
“You observe on my walls here,” the veteran virtuoso continued,
revolving slowly on his pivot, “one water-color and a lot of
trifles—photographs, pen-and-ink drawings, and so forth—most of them
rather bad. The painting itself is none too good; I should not like to
have my taste in such things judged by it. But observe: it is the work
of a young friend, and into every inch of it he has put something of
his heart, for it was done in the hope of pleasing me. The carved oak
frame, too, is one of his own creation, the mat (of copper)—all. Would
the costliest and ugliest of old masters give me as much pleasure? You,
yes; but, dear fellow, you are not considered.
“See that pen-and-ink head—there are better. But it is a first attempt,
done by the uninstructed young girl whose photograph you see alongside.
She is to be a great artist some day, but none of her work will have to
me the interest and value of that.
“Ah, those faded and soiled little photographs—Mary, Hélène, Katy, the
divine Josie and the rest—you need not look at them; they are merely
little soft spots for _my_ eyes to fall upon and rest. Why, sir,
there’s not the most trifling object in this room but has a hundred
tender recollections clinging to it like bats to a stalactite—swarming
about it like bees about Hymettus. Should I replace them with ‘works of
art’ bought in the shops and damnably authenticated?
“This room is for me. I live here, read here, write here, smoke here.
Wherever my eye falls, it rests upon something that starts a train
of thought and emotion infinitely more agreeable, and I believe more
profitable, than any suggested by the work of a hand that I never
grasped, guided by however sure an eye that never looked into mine.
Don’t, I pray you, take the trouble to appear to be interested in these
things, such as a country maiden might decorate her sleeping room
withal. (Ah, happy country maiden, untaught in the black art of showing
off!) Don’t, I beg, give anything here a second glance: ‘there was no
thought of pleasing thee’ when it was put here.
“Come,” concluded the Sentimental Bachelor, taking his hat and stick,
“let us go to the Park. I want to show you the fine Rembrandt that I
presented to the Art Gallery. Celestine adored it.”