“‘What’s that?’ he demanded excitedly.  Then he called to his wife, who had strayed ahead a few steps.  ‘Henrietta,’ he said, ’come back here—­you’re missing something.  There’s a picture there that’s worth a million dollars—­and without the frame, too, mind you!’

“She came hurrying back and for ten minutes they stood there drinking in that picture.  Every second they discovered new and subtle beauties in it.  I could hardly induce them to go on for the rest of the tour, and the next day they came back for another soul-feast in front of it.”

Later along, that guide confided to me that in his opinion I had a keen appreciation of art, much keener than the average lay tourist.  The compliment went straight to my head.  It was seeking the point of least resistance, I suppose.  I branched out and undertook to discuss art matters with him on a more familiar basis.  It was a mistake; but before I realized that it was a mistake I was out in the undertow sixty yards from shore, going down for the third time, with a low gurgling cry.  He did not put out to save me, either; he left me to sink in the heaving and abysmal sea of my own fathomless ignorance.  He just stood there and let me drown.  It was a cruel thing, for which I can never forgive him.

In my own defense let me say, however, that this fatal indiscretion was committed before I had completed my art education.  It was after we had gone from France to Germany, and to Austria, and to Italy, that I learned the great lesson about art—­which is that whenever and wherever you meet a picture that seems to you reasonably lifelike it is nine times in ten of no consequence whatsoever; and, unless you are willing to be regarded as a mere ignoramus, you should straightway leave it and go and find some ancient picture of a group of overdressed clothing dummies masquerading as angels or martyrs, and stand before that one and carry on regardless.

When in doubt, look up a picture of Saint Sebastian.  You never experience any difficulty in finding him—­he is always represented as wearing very few clothes, being shot full of arrows to such an extent that clothes would not fit him anyway.  Or else seek out Saint Laurence, who is invariably featured in connection with a gridiron; or Saint Bartholomew, who, you remember, achieved canonization through a process of flaying, and is therefore shown with his skin folded neatly and carried over his arm like a spring overcoat.

Following this routine you make no mistakes.  Everybody is bound to accept you as one possessing a deep knowledge of art, and not mere surface art either, but the innermost meanings and conceptions of art.  Only sometimes I did get to wishing that the Old Masters had left a little more to the imagination.  They never withheld any of the painful particulars.  It seemed to me they cheapened the glorious end of those immortal fathers of the faith by including the details of the martyrdom in every picture.  Still, I would not have that admission get out and obtain general circulation.  It might be used against me as an argument that my artistic education was grounded on a false foundation.