"It isn't as bad as it looks," he said. "The fact is, women aren't fit for liberty and an artist ought to have nothing to do with them. But what can a man do? . . . What were we talking about?" "Cluny." "Oh yes! He wants the exhibition to be the first fortnight in November. Can you be ready by then? It must be a turning-point in art, the beginning of big things. I know myself enough to realize that it is doubtful if I shall ever be a great creative artist, but I shall be the Napoleon of the new movement--the soldier and the organizer of the revolution in art. And it won't be confined to art; it will spread through everything. Art will be the central international republic from which the commonwealths which will take the place of the present vulgar capitalistic nations will be inspired. What do you think of that for an idea?" "Stick to art," said Mendel. "I know nothing about the rest." "Do you remember my saying that the music-hall was all that was left of old England? I did not know how true it was. England has become one vast music-hall, with everybody with any talent or brains scrambling to top the bill. It runs through everything--art, politics, the press, literature, social reform, women's suffrage, local government; and the people who top the bill can't be dislodged, just like the poor old crocks on the halls, who come on and give the same show they were giving twenty years ago, and get applause instead of rotten eggs because the British public is so rotten with sentiment and so stupid that it can't tell when a man has lost his talent. Please one generation in England and its grandchildren will applaud you, though everything about you is changed except your name. The result is, of course, that no talent is ever properly developed. A man reaches the point where he can please enough people to make a living, and he sticks there. Now, I ask you, is that a state of things which a self-respecting artist can accept?" "No," said Mendel. "No."