d, smilingly; "but
just take a pinch of wax--_that_ way!--and accent that relaxed flank
muscle!... Don't be afraid; watch the shape of the shadows.... That's
it! Do you see? Never be afraid of dealing vigorously with your subject.
Every modification of the first vigorous touch is bound to weaken and
sometimes to emasculate.... I don't mean for you to parade crudity and
bunches of exaggerated muscle as an ultimate expression of vigour. Only
the devotee of the obvious is satisfied with that sort of result; and
our exhibitions reek with them. But there is no reason why the satin
skin and smooth contour of a naked child shouldn't express virility and
vigour--no reason why the flawless delicacy of Venus herself should not,
if necessary, express violence unexaggerated and without either
distortion or lack of finish."

He glanced across at the dozing cat:

"Under that silky black fur there are bones and fibres and muscles.
Don't exaggerate them and call your task finished; merely remember
always that they're there framing and padding the velvet skin. More is
done by skilful inference than by parading every abstract fact you know
and translating the sum-accumulative of your knowledge into the
over-accented concrete. Reticence is a kind of vigour. It can even
approach violence. The mentally garrulous kill their own inspiration.
Inadequacy loves to lump things and gamble with chance for effective
results."

He rose, walked over and examined Gladys, touched her contemplatively
with the button of his mahl-stick, and listened absently to her
responsive purr. Then, palette still in hand, he sat down opposite
Valerie, gazing at her in that detached manner which some mistook for
indifference:

"There are, I think, two reasons for failure in art," he said, "excess
of creative emotion, excess of psychological hair-splitting. The one
produces the normal and lovable failures which, decorate our art
exhibitions; the other results in those curious products which amuse the
public to good-humoured contempt--I mean those pictures full of violent
colour laid on in streaks, in great sweeps, in patches, in dots. The
painter has turned half theorist, half scientist; the theories of the
juxtaposition of colour, and the science of complementary colours,
engrosses his attention. He is no longer an artist; he is a chemist and
physiologist and an artisan.

"Every now and then there is a revolt from the accepted order of things.
New groups form, s