"When great prices are given for pictures, it is generally with a view to selling them again: a dubious compliment to the artist. No man gets a thousand pounds' worth of pure art joy out of any picture. He can spend his thousand pounds to much more of aesthetic advantage. But there is no inherent sacredness in prices. A picture is worth only what it will fetch. Let our artists be satisfied with a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, like any other species of craftsman. After all, they were all craftsmen--Michael Angelo, Titian, Donatello, Canova--wall-decorators, door-painters, ceiling-colourers, tomb-builders, stone-masons, working to contract and to measure. When our artists are content with the pay of manual labourers and the joy of art, taste may be stimulated in the masses, and original work be going at the price of lithographs. Why shouldn't artists even paint public-house signs? Beer being the national religion, why shouldn't it find adequate expression in Art? "Not that it matters much whether our artists live or die,--Art seems about over. It seems to be an accident that happened once or twice in the Past,--among the Greeks, at the Renaissance, in Spain, in Holland,--which no amount of art-schools and art-publications can coax back. To found Academies and R.A.-ships is to spur a dead horse. Look at the Greek sculptures, look at the Italian pictures, and ask yourself what we have to put beside them after all our endless exhibitions! Modern improvements! _Plein air!_ Bah! Where can you show me more 'atmosphere' than in Carpaccio, or in Jacques d'Arthois. Impressionism? Look at that snow-effect by old Van Valckenborch here! But we do the modern, the contemporary, you cry----" "No, I don't," I interrupted feebly, more to let him take breath than for the jest's sake. But he ignored the opportunity.