bringing wrong colour notes into his painting. His sins are
daubs or pot boilers, not masterpieces that will defy the insidious
action of time. To commit a perfect sin is to be great, Reggie, just as
to produce a perfect picture, or to compose a perfect symphony, is to be
great. Francesco Cenci should have been worshipped instead of murdered.
But the world can no more understand the beauty of sin, than it can
understand the preface to 'The Egoist,' or the simplicity of 'Sordello.'
Sin puzzles it; and all that puzzles the world frightens the world; for
the world is a child, without a child's charm, or a child's innocent
blue eyes. How exquisitely coloured these strawberries are, yet if
Sargent painted them he would idealise them, would give to them a beauty
such as Nature never yet gave to anything. So it is with the artist in
sinning. He improves upon the sins that Nature has put, as it were,
ready to his hand. He idealises, he invents, he develops. No trouble is
too great for him to take, no day is too long for him to work in. The
still and black-robed night hours find him toiling to perfect his sin;
the weary white dawn, looking into his weary white face through the
shimmering window panes, is greeted by a smile that leaps from sleepless
eyes. The passion of the creator is upon him. The man who invents a new
sin is greater than the man who invents a new religion, Reggie. No Mrs.
Humphrey Ward can snatch his glory from him. Religions are the Aunt
Sallies that men provide for elderly female venturists to throw missiles
at and to demolish. What sin that has ever been invented has ever been
demolished? There are always new human beings springing into life to
commit it, and to find pleasure in it. Reggie, some day I will write a
gospel of strange sins, and I will persuade the S. P. C. K. Society to
publish it in dull, misty scarlet, powdered with golden devils."

"Oh, Esme, you are great!"

"How true that is! And how seldom people tell the truths that are worth
telling. We ought to choose our truths as carefully as we choose our
lies, and to select our virtues with as much thought as we bestow upon
the selection of our enemies. Conceit is one of the greatest of the
virtues, yet how few people recognise it as a thing to aim at and to
strive after. In conceit many a man and woman has found salvation, yet
the average person goes on all fours grovelling after modesty. You and
I, Reggie, at least have found that salvation. We