I went to the British Museum on Thursday. Walter was waiting
for me on the steps, and there was another man with him. The
other man was called Furze. He was a professor at some University
in Wales. He was older than Walter, but not very much older.
He had a very kind face, and a funny way of ducking down his
head. I liked him and was glad he was there too. He had been
working with Walter all the morning in the Assyrian Room, it
seemed, and now he came round with us for a bit, till it was
time for him to catch his train.
He did not talk much; Walter did the talking. I thought he knew
quite as much about the things as Walter, but he was not so excited
about them.
We looked at some Assyrian bas-reliefs of people hunting lions.
They were more interesting than I had expected, and rather beautiful
too, some of them—rather beautiful clean lines—but Walter said
even these were too late, and we went on to cases of rougher
broken things, and he explained what they once had been—pots
and ovens and tiles and all sorts of household stuff.
‘You will get back to your “Urdummheit,”’ Mr. Furze said, smiling
at Walter, ‘_I_ think these pots were not very well made.’
Walter tossed his head. He seemed self-confident here, as he
had been at Howsteads; not a bit shy or nervous, as he was at
Oxford.
‘Who cares if they were well made? This is not an Arts and Crafts
Exhibition. Of course Praxiteles made pretty ornaments, if you
want that.’
‘Well, I still maintain that if you make a pot at all, it is
better to make a beautiful pot than a misshapen one.’
It was evidently an old argument. I could see that.