“Like the Archbishop who was always painted in a gibbous attitude—­first quarter, you know—­with his back turned to you, and his face just visible over his lawn sleeve,” said Father Payne, “but that was in order to hide an excrescence on his left cheek.  Do you remember what Lamb said of Barry Cornwall’s wen on the nape of his neck?  Some one said that Barry Cornwall was thinking of having it cut off.  ‘I hope he won’t do that,’ said Lamb, ’I rather like it—­it’s redundant, like his poetry!’ I rather agree with Lamb.  I like people to be a little redundant, and a harmless pose is pure redundancy:  it only means that a man is up to some innocent game or other, some sort of mystification, and is enjoying himself.  It’s like a summer haze over the landscape.  Now, there’s another friend of mine who was once complimented on his ‘uplifted’ look.  Whenever he thinks of it, and that’s pretty often, he looks uplifted, like a bird drinking, with his eyes fixed on some far-off vision.  I don’t mind that!  It’s only a wish to look his best.  It’s partly a wish to give pleasure, you know.  It’s the same thing that makes people wear their hair long, or dress in a flamboyant way.  I’ll tell you a little story.  You know Bertie Nash, the artist.  I met him once in a Post Office, and he was buying a sheet of halfpenny stamps.  I asked him if he was going to send out some circulars.  He looked at me sadly, and said, ’No, I always use these—­I can’t use the penny stamps—­such a crude red!’ Now, he didn’t do that to impress me:  but it was a pose in a way, and he liked feeling so sensitive to colour.”

“But oughtn’t one to avoid all that sort of nonsense?” said some one; “it’s better surely to be just what you are.”

“Yes, but what are you, after all?” said Father Payne; “your moods vary.  It would be hopeless if everyone tried to keep themselves down to their worst level for the sake of sincerity.  The point is that you ought to try to keep at your best level, even if you don’t feel so.  Hang it, good manners are a pose, if it comes to that.  The essence of good manners is sometimes to conceal what you are feeling.  Is it a pose to behave amiably when you are tired or cross?”

“No, but that is in order not to make other people uncomfortable,” said Vincent.

“Well, it’s very hard to draw the line,” said Father Payne:  “but what we really mean by pose is, I imagine, the attempt to appear to be something which you frankly are not—­and that is where the word has changed its sense, Barthrop.  An artist’s pose is something characteristic, which makes a man look his best.  What we generally mean by pose is the affecting a best which one never reaches.  Come, tell a story, some one!  That’s the best way to get at a quality.  Won’t some one quote an illustration?”

“What about my friend Pearce, the schoolmaster?” said Vincent.  “He read a book about schoolmastering, and he said he didn’t think much of it.  He added that the author seemed only to be giving elegant reasons for doing things which the born schoolmaster did by instinct.”