it, we should have
a school of painters corresponding in greatness to the Elizabethan
dramatists. Depend upon it, the democracy will continue to be Puritan.
Every picture, every book, will be tried by the same imbecile test
Enforcement of Puritan morality will be one of the ways in which the
mob, come to power, will revenge itself on those who still remain its
superiors."

Marsh was not altogether pleased at finding his facile eloquence
outdone. In comparing himself with Elgar, he was conscious of but
weakly representing the tendencies which were a passionate force in
this man with the singularly fine head, with such a glow of wild life
about him. He abandoned the abstract argument, and struck a personal
note.

"However it may be in the future, I grant you the artist has at present
no scope save in one direction. For my own part, I have fallen back on
landscape. Let those who will, paint Miss Wilhelmina in the nursery,
with an interesting doll of her own size; or a member of Parliament
rising to deliver a great speech on the liquor traffic; or Mrs.
What-do-you-call-her, lecturing on woman's rights. These are the
subjects our time affords."

Mallard eyed with fresh curiosity the gentleman who had "fallen back on
landscape."

"What did you formerly aim at?" he inquired, with a sort of suave
gruffness.

"Things which were hopelessly out of the question. I worked for a long
time at a 'Death of Messalina.' That was in Rome. I had a splendid
inspiration for Messalina's face. But my hand was paralyzed when I
thought of the idiotic comments such a picture would occasion in
England. One fellow would say I had searched through history in a
prurient spirit for something sensational; another, that I read a moral
lesson of terrible significance; and so on."

"A grand subject, decidedly!" exclaimed Elgar, with genuine enthusiasm,
which restored Marsh to his own good opinion. "Go on with it! Bid the
fools be hanged! Have you your studies here?"

"Unfortunately not. They are in Rome."

Mallard delivered himself of a blunt opinion.

"That is no subject for a picture. Use it for literature, if you like."

The inevitable discussion began, the discussion so familiar nowadays,
and which would have sounded so odd to the English painters who were
wont to call themselves "historical," Where is the line between
subjects for the easel and subjects for the desk? What distinguishes
the art of the illustrator from the art of the arti