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Bouton, John Bell

"Round the Block"


This is severe simplicity. It is the highest school of Art."
"And the cheapest," observed Tiffles; "which is an important
consideration when you have an acre or two of canvas to paint. It would
cost a deal more to put in the sun and moon, travelling caravans, and
other objects of interest, here and there."
"Incidentally it may be the cheapest," said Patching. "But that is a
question for capitalists, and not for artists to determine. True Art
never thinks of the expense."
"It always seemed to me to be the easiest school of Art," said Marcus
Wilkeson. "I suppose, now, that you can dash off twenty or thirty rods
of this a day."
Patching smiled with a lofty pity. "So I can. Not because it is the
easiest, though--far from it; but because I happen to have a genius for
quick and sure touches. You, not being a professional artist, think the
execution of that scrap of desert and sky an easy matter. Perhaps you
fancy that you could do it." There was the least infusion of satire in
the artist's tone.
"Oh, no!" replied Marcus Wilkeson, who ever shrank from wounding the
self-love of a fellow creature.


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