Reginald on the Academy

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　

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"One goes to the Academy in self-defence," said Reginald."It is the one topic one has in common with the CountryCousins.""It is almost a religious observance with them," said theOther. "A kind of artistic Mecca, and when the good ones diethey go" -"To the Chantrey Bequest. The mystery is what they find totalk about in the country.""There are two subjects of conversation in the country:Servants, and Can fowls be made to pay? The first, Ibelieve, is compulsory, the second optional.""As a function," resumed Reginald, "the Academy is afailure.""You think it would be tolerable without the pictures?""The pictures are all right, in their way; after all, one canalways look at them if one is bored with one's surroundings,or wants to avoid an imminent acquaintance.""Even that doesn't always save one. There is the inevitablefemale whom you met once in Devonshire, or the Matoppo Hills,or somewhere, who charges up to you with the remark that it'sfunny how one always meets people one knows at the Academy.Personally, I don't think it funny.""I suffered in that way just now," said Reginald plaintively,"from a woman whose word I had to take that she had met melast summer in Brittany.""I hope you were not too brutal?""I merely told her with engaging simplicity that the art oflife was the avoidance of the unattainable.""Did she try and work it out on the back of her catalogue?""Not there and then. She murmured something about being 'soclever.' Fancy coming to the Academy to be clever!""To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is diningnowhere in the evening.""Which reminds me that I can't remember whether I accepted aninvitation from you to dine at Kettner's to-night.""On the other hand, I can remember with startlingdistinctness not having asked you to.""So much certainty is unbecoming in the young; so we'llconsider that settled. What were you talking about? Oh,pictures. Personally, I rather like them; they are sorefreshingly real and probable, they take one away from theunrealities of life.""One likes to escape from oneself occasionally.""That is the disadvantage of a portrait; as a rule, one'sbitterest friends can find nothing more to ask than thefaithful unlikeness that goes down to posterity as oneself.I hate posterity--it's so fond of having the last word. Ofcourse, as regards portraits, there are exceptions.""For instance?""To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to heavenprematurely.""With the necessary care and impatience, you may avoid thatcatastrophe.""If you're going to be rude," said Reginald, "I shall dinewith you to-morrow night as well. The chief vice of theAcademy," he continued, "is its nomenclature. Why, forinstance, should an obvious trout-stream with a palpablerabbit sitting in the foreground be called 'an evening dreamof unbeclouded peace,' or something of that sort?""You think," said the Other, "that a name should economisedescription rather than stimulate imagination?""Properly chosen, it should do both. There is my lady kittenat home, for instance; I've called it Derry.""Suggests nothing to my imagination but protracted sieges andreligious animosities. Of course, I don't know your kitten"-"Oh, you're silly. It's a sweet name, and it answers to it--when it wants to. Then, if there are any unseemly noises inthe night, they can be explained succinctly: Derry andToms.""You might almost charge for the advertisement. But asapplied to pictures, don't you think your system would be toosubtle, say, for the Country Cousins?""Every reformation must have its victims. You can't expectthe fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels overthe prodigal's return. Another darling weakness of theAcademy is that none of its luminaries must 'arrive' in ahurry. You can see them coming for years, like a Balkantrouble or a street improvement, and by the time they havepainted a thousand or so square yards of canvas, their workbegins to be recognised.""Someone who Must Not be Contradicted said that a man must bea success by the time he's thirty, or never.""To have reached thirty," said Reginald, "is to have failedin life."

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