Page:A Legend of Camelot, Pictures and Poems, etc. George du Maurier, 1898.djvu/149

 impression by the careless remarks of his trusty friends, who had not yet gotten themselves wives of their own (and who, although they would speak of each other's faces as "beautiful," "lovely," "divine," and so forth, were extremely fastidious in the matter of modern female beauty).

This disenchantment had been the one slight drawback to a happiness nearly perfect; but he had always been too much of a Gentleman to reproach his wife with her physical shortcomings; and had found both his consolation and his reward in her gentleness, her gratitude, her admiration for his genius, and her complete devotion to himself.

Moreover, although he could not alter her form, features, and complexion, he had endeavoured to teach her most of the early Italian attitudes, and she had proved a docile and intelligent pupil.

But now all this was changed; for wherever she went she was greeted with an admiration sufficient to turn an older and wiser head than hers; Dukes, Bishops, Generals, Admirals, even Right Honourables vied with each other in paying pretty compliments to the pretty Mrs. Spratt; so that she grew somewhat vain, and almost seemed at times as though she were half inclined to give herself airs; for instance, she would innocently blurt out before the wives and daughters of these great dignitaries (especially if they happened to be rather plain) that she would sooner be dead than not be beautiful, and the wives and daughters did not always relish these egotistical bursts of confidence.

Then there were the Royal Academicians, who also vied with each other in spoiling her; the painters painted her, one and all; and the sculptors sculpted, and the engravers engraved; while the cantankerous architects looked on with smothered envy; and gay young Associates, fellows of infinite jest, enlivened the sittings with inimitable song, dance, and story.

Not content with painting her, one famous artist, possessed of wide and varied information, and quite an authority in such matters, solemnly stated that so beautiful a woman as Mrs. John Spratt had not been seen for four hundred years!

It requires less than this to make a pretty woman —which Mrs. Spratt immediately became.

So that even that lily of lilies, born of the foam of the sea, wafted hither from the Channel Isles by soft propitious winds, immortalised by Millais and Poynter, and enshrined for ever (along with a good many others) in the constant but capacious heart of Mr. Punch, was fain to abdicate from her throne in favour of that rose of roses, Mrs. Jack Spratt; and, to her inexpressible relief, was permitted once more to mingle with the gay and fashionable throng without attracting more notice than any other handsome and well-dressed lady; and as handsome and well-dressed ladies are by no means the exception in this gifted land, she had a nice easy time of it; quite a holiday, so to speak.

Not only the Fine Arts, as represented by the Royal Academy, but poetry, literature, and the exact sciences followed suit, and paid homage to the popular Mrs. Spratt in the persons of their most famous representatives—shining lights, whose names are household words all over the habitable globe; and such homage she would receive at first with gracious condescension, for she made it her queenly boast that she honoured true genius irrespective of birth or breeding; which was very good of her, for in her inmost heart she thought but lightly of these immortals who had worked so hard for their immortality.

It must be remembered that Mrs. Spratt had lived on terms of daily and familiar intercourse with the greatest geniuses of the age; for such, as she had always been given to understand, were her husband and the trusty friends; and this on their own authority; and these were, of all people, in a position to speak of such matters, being, as we have already said, critics as well as everything else, and knowing each other well.

There was Peter Leonardo Pye, for instance, the author of Dank Kisses from Mildewed Lips, who was quite the greatest poet that had 68