One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
than to the Flemish mouldings of cloud-forms under Venetian
brushes. His purchases of pictures had been his unhappiest
ventures. He had relied and reposed on the dicta of
newspaper critics; who are sometimes unanimous, and are
then taken for guides, and are fatal. He was led to the conclusion
that our modern-lauded pictures do not ripen. They
have a chance of it, if abused. But who thinks of buying the
abused? Exalted by the critics, they have, during the days of
Exhibition, a glow, a significance or a fun, abandoning them
where examination is close and constant, and the critic’s trumpet-note
dispersed to the thinness of the fee for his blowing.
As to foreign pictures, classic pictures, Victor had known his
purse to leap for a Raphael with a history in stages of descent
from the Master, and critics to swarm: a Raphael of the dealers,
exposed to be condemned by the critics, universally derided.
A real Raphael in your house is aristocracy to the rooftree.
But the wealthy trader will reach to title before he may
hope to get the real Raphael or a Titian. Yet he is the one
who would, it may be, after enjoyment of his prize, bequeath
it to the nation—Presented to the Nation by Victor Montgomery
Radnor. There stood the letters in gilt; and he had a thrill
of his generosity; for few were the generous acts he could not
perform; and if an object haunted the deed, it came of his
trader’s habit of mind.
He revelled in benevolent projects of gifts to the nation,
which would coat a sensitive name. Say, an ornamental City
Square, flowers, fountains, afternoon bands of music—comfortable
seats in it, and a shelter, and a ready supply of good
cheap coffee or tea. Tobacco? why not rolls of honest tobacco!
nothing so much soothes the labourer. A volume of
plans for the benefit of London smoked out of each ascending
pile in his brain. London is at night a moaning outcast
round the policeman’s’ legs. What of an all-night-long, cosy,
brightly lighted, odoriferous coffee-saloon for rich or poor,
on the model of the hospitable Paduan? Owner of a penny,
no soul among us shall be rightly an outcast … .
Dreams of this kind are taken at times by wealthy people
as a cordial at the bar of benevolent intentions. But Victor
was not the man to steal his refreshments in that known
style. He meant to make deeds of them, as far as he could,
considering their immense extension; and except for the sensitive
social name, he was of single-minded purpose.
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