Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/44

36 Sherringham insisted, as they went. "Besides, you see her too much as a humbug and too little as a real producer. She has ideas—great ones; she loves the thing for itself. That may keep a woman serious."

"Her greatest idea must always be to show herself; and fortunately she has a splendid self to show. I think of her absolutely as a real producer, but as a producer whose production is her own person, No 'person,' even as fine a one as hers, will stand that for more than an hour, so that humbuggery has very soon to lend a hand. However," Nash continued, "if she's a fine humbug it will do as well, and perfectly suit the time. We can all be saved by vulgarity; that's the solvent of all difficulties and the blessing of this delightful age. Let no man despair; a new hope has dawned."

"She'll do her work like any other worker, with the advantage over many that her talent is rare," Peter replied. "Compared with the life of many women, that's security and sanity of the highest order. Then she can't help her beauty. You can't vulgarize that."

"Oh, can't you?" exclaimed Gabriel Nash.

"It will abide with her till the day of her death. It isn't a mere superficial freshness. She's very noble."

"Yes, that's the pity of it," said Nash. "She's a capital girl, and I quite admit that she'll do for a while a lot of good. She will have brightened up the world for a great many people; she will have brought the ideal nearer to them, held it fast for an hour, with its feet on earth and its great wings trembling. That's always something, for blessed is he who has dropped even the smallest coin into the little iron box