DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51520#0016
each other, men and women. You have be-
come a little national in your painting, passing
from the Impressionist school to English
eighteenth century. But I must not discuss
painting. I am thinking of the friendly fellow
who likes to see his fellows occasionally, to
show them his Chelsea china and to give them
good cigars and port wine, to hear them talk
about painting ; I am dreaming of my excellent
fellow whom I met in the Cock Tavern twenty
years ago. And I am glad it was at a tavern
that we met. How much pleasanter the re-
membrance is than if we had met in the
Duchess of So-and-So’s drawing-room. But,
my dear friend, your life is made up of revolts
against the drawing-room ; now and again you
are persuaded against your will, and you com-
plain to us about a dinner party that you could
not refuse. You knew by instinct from the
beginning that drawing-rooms and art are
incompatible, that the natural home of art is
the tavern or the cafd. And perhaps I was
thinking of you when I told the Royal Com-
mission which came over here to discover if
it could do anything to assist art in Ireland,
that it could assist art much more by founding
a cafe than by doing anything else. There
was a judge on the Commission, and he thought
the suggestion “somewhat irregular.” But he
had written a book upon Shakespeare, so I
took the occasion to remind him of the
Mermaid Tavern. What Dublin wants and
what London wants are not bequests of pic-
come a little national in your painting, passing
from the Impressionist school to English
eighteenth century. But I must not discuss
painting. I am thinking of the friendly fellow
who likes to see his fellows occasionally, to
show them his Chelsea china and to give them
good cigars and port wine, to hear them talk
about painting ; I am dreaming of my excellent
fellow whom I met in the Cock Tavern twenty
years ago. And I am glad it was at a tavern
that we met. How much pleasanter the re-
membrance is than if we had met in the
Duchess of So-and-So’s drawing-room. But,
my dear friend, your life is made up of revolts
against the drawing-room ; now and again you
are persuaded against your will, and you com-
plain to us about a dinner party that you could
not refuse. You knew by instinct from the
beginning that drawing-rooms and art are
incompatible, that the natural home of art is
the tavern or the cafd. And perhaps I was
thinking of you when I told the Royal Com-
mission which came over here to discover if
it could do anything to assist art in Ireland,
that it could assist art much more by founding
a cafe than by doing anything else. There
was a judge on the Commission, and he thought
the suggestion “somewhat irregular.” But he
had written a book upon Shakespeare, so I
took the occasion to remind him of the
Mermaid Tavern. What Dublin wants and
what London wants are not bequests of pic-