ispel the shadow of a toilet too hastily
conceived. Before long he took that fatal step, his marriage with Lady
Harriet Gardiner. The marriage, as we all know, was not a happy one,
though the wedding was very pretty. It ruined the life of Lady Harriet
and of her mother, the Blessington. It won the poor Count further still
further from his art and sent him spinning here, there, and everywhere.
He was continually at Cleveden, or Belvoir, or Welbeck, laughing gaily
as he brought down our English partridges, or at Crockford's, smiling
as he swept up our English guineas from the board. Holker declares
that, excepting Mr. Turner, he was the finest equestrian in London and
describes how the mob would gather every morning round his door to see
him descend, insolent from his toilet, and mount and ride away. Indeed,
he surpassed us all in all the exercises of the body. He even essayed
preeminence in the arts (as if his own art were insufficient to his
vitality!) and was for ever penning impenuous verses for circulation
among his friends. There was no great harm in this, perhaps. Even the
handwriting of Mr. Brummell was not unknown in the albums. But D'Orsay's
painting of portraits is inexcusable. The aesthetic vision of a
dandy should be bounded by his own mirror. A few crayon sketches of
himself--dilectissimae imagines--are as much as he should ever do. That
D'Orsay's portraits, even his much-approved portrait of the Duke of
Wellington, are quite amateurish, is no excuse. It is the process
of painting which is repellent; to force from little tubes of lead a
glutinous flamboyance and to defile, with the hair of a camel therein
steeped, taut canvas, is hardly the diversion for a gentleman; and to
have done all this for a man who was admittedly a field-marshal....

I have often thought that this selfish concentration, which is a part
of dandyism, is also a symbol of that einsamkeit felt in greater or less
degree by the practitioners of every art. But, curiously enough, the
very unity of his mind with the ground he works on exposes the dandy to
the influence of the world. In one way dandyism is the least selfish
of all the arts. Musicians are seen and, except for a price, not heard.
Only for a price may you read what poets have written. All painters
are not so generous as Mr. Watts. But the dandy presents himself to the
nation whenever he sallies from his front door. Princes and peasants
alike may gaze upon his masterpieces. Now, any