and when he appears on the walls of the Royal Academy he is called The
Infant Samuel. Occasionally also an artist catches a couple of gamins in
the gutter and asks them to come to his studio. The first time they
always appear, but after that they don't keep their appointments. They
dislike sitting still, and have a strong and perhaps natural objection to
looking pathetic. Besides, they are always under the impression that the
artist is laughing at them. It is a sad fact, but there is no doubt that
the poor are completely unconscious of their own picturesqueness. Those
of them who can be induced to sit do so with the idea that the artist is
merely a benevolent philanthropist who has chosen an eccentric method of
distributing alms to the undeserving. Perhaps the School Board will
teach the London gamin his own artistic value, and then they will be
better models than they are now. One remarkable privilege belongs to the
Academy model, that of extorting a sovereign from any newly elected
Associate or R.A. They wait at Burlington House till the announcement is
made, and then race to the hapless artist's house. The one who arrives
first receives the money. They have of late been much troubled at the
long distances they have had to run, and they look with disfavour on the
election of artists who live at Hampstead or at Bedford Park, for it is
considered a point of honour not to employ the underground railway,
omnibuses, or any artificial means of locomotion. The race is to the
swift.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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