All that litany of mockery and bitterness, which the Comic Spirit kindles afresh on the lips of each rising generation, only to quench it again on the lips of those who 'arrive,' flowed from him copiously.

He was the age indeed for 'arrival,' when, as so often happens, the man of middle life, appeased by success, dismisses the revolts of his youth.

But this was still the language--and the fierce language--of revolt! The decadence of English art and artists, the miserable commercialism of the Academy, the absence of any first-rate teaching, of any commanding traditions, of any 'school' worth the name--the vulgarity of the public, from royalty downward, the snobbery of the rich world in its dealings with art: all these jeremiads which he recited were much the same--_mutatis mutandis_--as those with which, half a century before, poor Benjamin Haydon had filled the 'autobiography' which is one of the capital 'documents' of the artistic life.

This very resemblance, indeed, occurred to Watson.
'Upon my word,' he said, with a queer smile, 'you remind me of Haydon.' Fenwick started; with an impatient movement he pushed away the dog, who whimpered.
'Oh, come--I hope it's not as bad as that,' he said, roughly.
Watson sharply regretted his remark.

Through the minds of both there passed the same image of Haydon lying dead by his own hand beneath the vast pictures that no one would buy.
'Why you talk like this, I'm sure I don't know,' Watson said, with an impatient laugh.