DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51520#0012
they will not find fault with me for praising the
wise and kindly influence you have exercised,
and drawing attention to your untiring devo-
tion to an ideal, and claiming that your kindly
heart had a share in the work of saving
English art from the Academy as much, or
nearly as much, as your admirable precept
and example. Nor will they be very cross
with me for recording in this dedicatory epistle
those little bodily signs whereby we know
you—the big overcoat, the muffler, the goloshes
that you take with you when you go out to
dinner, for the streets of Chelsea are very often
sloppy and your model always comes at ten
o’clock in the morning (I don’t think the
model is ever very long out of your mind).
Haven’t we often laughed at you, saying
that you walk in the middle of the street at
night lest a tile should come on your head or
break at your feet and put you off work next
morning : a man must keep cool if his model
is coming at ten. It may be considered bad
taste to mention these little things, but so
long as Tonks and Rothenstein and McCall
and Harrison do not think the mentioning
of them in bad taste I shall not mind what
others think. They will not mind. So I’ll
continue to speak of your oddities. It is by our
oddities that our friends know us and love us.
We all have our little ways, and our friends
will think I’ve done well if I speak of your
afternoon prowling about the secondhand
shops. As soon as the model leaves you go
wise and kindly influence you have exercised,
and drawing attention to your untiring devo-
tion to an ideal, and claiming that your kindly
heart had a share in the work of saving
English art from the Academy as much, or
nearly as much, as your admirable precept
and example. Nor will they be very cross
with me for recording in this dedicatory epistle
those little bodily signs whereby we know
you—the big overcoat, the muffler, the goloshes
that you take with you when you go out to
dinner, for the streets of Chelsea are very often
sloppy and your model always comes at ten
o’clock in the morning (I don’t think the
model is ever very long out of your mind).
Haven’t we often laughed at you, saying
that you walk in the middle of the street at
night lest a tile should come on your head or
break at your feet and put you off work next
morning : a man must keep cool if his model
is coming at ten. It may be considered bad
taste to mention these little things, but so
long as Tonks and Rothenstein and McCall
and Harrison do not think the mentioning
of them in bad taste I shall not mind what
others think. They will not mind. So I’ll
continue to speak of your oddities. It is by our
oddities that our friends know us and love us.
We all have our little ways, and our friends
will think I’ve done well if I speak of your
afternoon prowling about the secondhand
shops. As soon as the model leaves you go