were astonished to notice that while Noah's ark goes sailing
in the remote distance, there is close to it a cotton-factory, the
chimney of which is pouring out white smoke that covers the whole of
the sky in the picture, while the ark seems to be trying to sail down
that chimney. Now, they didn't have cotton-factories in those days;
the thing don't hang. The artist must have been drunk.'

"Now, this insinuation pains me. How would you like it if you painted
a picture of the tower of Babel, and somebody should come along and
insist that it was the chimney of a cotton-factory, and that the
clouds with which the sky is covered were smoke? Cotton-factory! Your
man certainly cannot be familiar with the Scriptures; and when he
talks about the ark sailing down that chimney, he forgets that the
reason why it is standing on one end is that the water is so rough as
to make it pitch. You know the Bible says that arks did pitch 'without
and within.' Now, don't it?"

"I think maybe it does," said the major.

"But that's not the worst. I can stand that; but what do you think
of a man that goes to criticising a work of art, and says--Now just
listen to this:

"'On the right is a boy who has his clothes off and has apparently
been in swimming, and has been rescued by a big yellow dog just as he
was about to drown. What this has to do with the Triumph of Truth we
don't know, but we do know that the dog is twice as large as the boy,
and that he has the boy's head in his mouth, while the boy's hands are
tied behind his back. Now, for a boy to go in swimming with his hands
tied, and for a dog to swallow his head so as to drag him out, appears
to us the awfulest foolishness on earth.'

"You will probably be surprised to learn that your critic is here
referring to a very beautiful study of a Christian martyr who has been
thrown among the wild beasts of the arena, and who is engaged in being
eaten by a lion. The animal is not a yellow dog; that human being has
not been in swimming; and the reason that he is smaller than the lion
is that I had to make him so in order to get his head into the lion's
mouth. Would you have me represent the lion as large as an elephant?
Would you have me paste a label on the Christian martyr to inform the
public that 'This is not a boy who has been treading water with
his hands tied'? Now, look at the matter calmly. Is the _Patriot_
encouraging art when it goes on in this manner? Blame me if I think it
is."