ashamed?"

"No, why? It would be a bother to me to know a lot of things offhand. To
pass by a mountain and know how it was thrown up, what it is composed
of, what its flora and fauna are; to get to a town and know its history
in detail.... What things to be interested in! It's tiresome! I hate
history too much. I far prefer to be ignorant of everything, and
especially the past, and from time to time to offer myself a capricious,
arbitrary explanation."

"But I think that knowing things not only is not tiresome," said
Kennedy, "but is a great satisfaction."

"You think even learning things is a satisfaction?"

"Thousands of years ago one could know things almost without learning
them; nowadays in order to know, one has to learn. That is natural and
logical."

"Yes, certainly. And the effort to learn about useful things seems
natural and logical to me too, but not to learn about merely agreeable
things. To learn medicine and mechanics is logical; but to learn to look
at a picture or to hear a symphony is an absurdity."

"Why?"

"At any rate the neophytes that go to see a Rafael picture or to hear
a Bach sonata and have an exclamation all ready, give me the sad
impression of a flock of lambs. As for your sublime pedagogues of the
Ruskin type, they seem to me to be the fine flower of priggishness, of
pedantry, of the most objectionable bourgeoisie."

"What things your brother is saying!" exclaimed Kennedy.

"You shouldn't notice him," said Laura.

"Those artistic pedagogues enrage me; they remind me of Protestant
pastors and of the friars that go around dressed like peasants, and who
I think are called Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. The pedagogues
are Brothers of the Esthetic Doctrine, one of the stupidest inventions
that ever occurred to the English. I don't know which I find more
ridiculous, the Salvation Army or Ruskin's books."

"Why have you this hatred for Ruskin?"

"I find him an idiot. I only skimmed through a book of his called _The
Seven Lamps of Architecture_, and the first thing I read was a paragraph
in which he said that to use an imitation diamond or any other imitation
stone was a lie, an imposition, and a sin. I immediately said: 'This man
who thinks a diamond is the truth and paste a lie, is a stupid fool who
doesn't deserve to be read.'"

"Yes, all right: you take one point of view and he takes another. I
understand why Ruskin wouldn't please you. What I do not understand is
why you