Of late Clutton had withdrawn himself somewhat from the group who took their meals at Gravier’s, and lived very much by himself.  Flanagan said he was in love with a girl, but Clutton’s austere countenance did not suggest passion; and Philip thought it more probable that he separated himself from his friends so that he might grow clear with the new ideas which were in him.  But that evening, when the others had left the restaurant to go to a play and Philip was sitting alone, Clutton came in and ordered dinner.  They began to talk, and finding Clutton more loquacious and less sardonic than usual, Philip determined to take advantage of his good humour.

“I say I wish you’d come and look at my picture,” he said.  “I’d like to know what you think of it.”

“No, I won’t do that.”

“Why not?” asked Philip, reddening.

The request was one which they all made of one another, and no one ever thought of refusing.  Clutton shrugged his shoulders.

“People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.  Besides, what’s the good of criticism?  What does it matter if your picture is good or bad?”

“It matters to me.”

“No.  The only reason that one paints is that one can’t help it.  It’s a function like any of the other functions of the body, only comparatively few people have got it.  One paints for oneself:  otherwise one would commit suicide.  Just think of it, you spend God knows how long trying to get something on to canvas, putting the sweat of your soul into it, and what is the result?  Ten to one it will be refused at the Salon; if it’s accepted, people glance at it for ten seconds as they pass; if you’re lucky some ignorant fool will buy it and put it on his walls and look at it as little as he looks at his dining-room table.  Criticism has nothing to do with the artist.  It judges objectively, but the objective doesn’t concern the artist.”

Clutton put his hands over his eyes so that he might concentrate his mind on what he wanted to say.

“The artist gets a peculiar sensation from something he sees, and is impelled to express it and, he doesn’t know why, he can only express his feeling by lines and colours.  It’s like a musician; he’ll read a line or two, and a certain combination of notes presents itself to him:  he doesn’t know why such and such words call forth in him such and such notes; they just do.  And I’ll tell you another reason why criticism is meaningless:  a great painter forces the world to see nature as he sees it; but in the next generation another painter sees the world in another way, and then the public judges him not by himself but by his predecessor.  So the Barbizon people taught our fathers to look at trees in a certain manner, and when Monet came along and painted differently, people said:  But trees aren’t like that.  It never struck them that trees are exactly how a painter chooses to see them.  We paint from within outwards—­if we force our vision on the world it calls us great painters; if we don’t it ignores us; but we are the same.  We don’t attach any meaning to greatness or to smallness.  What happens to our work afterwards is unimportant; we have got all we could out of it while we were doing it.”