But Rue Carew, seated on the arm of her chair, slowly shook her head: "I don't think that those are the only alternatives; do you?"
"What other is there?"
She said, a little shyly: "I think it is all right to do things if you like; make exact
pictures of how things are done if you choose; but it seems to me that
if one really has anything to say, one should show in one's pictures
how things might be or ought to be. Don't you?"
He seemed surprised and interested in her logic, and she took courage
to speak again in her pretty, deprecating way: "If the function of painting and literature is to reflect reality, a
mirror would do as well, wouldn't it? But to reflect what might be or
what ought to be requires something more, doesn't it?"
"Imagination. Yes."
"A mind, anyway.... That is what I have thought; but I'm not at all
sure I am right."
"I don't know. The mind ought to be a mirror reflecting only the
essentials of reality."
"And that requires imagination, doesn't it?" she asked. "You see you
have put it much better than I have."
"Have I?" he returned, smiling. "After a while you'll persuade me that
I possess your imagination, Rue. But I don't."
"You do, Jim----"
"I'm sorry; I don't. You construct, I copy; you create, I ring changes
on what already is; you dissect, I skate over the surface of
things--Oh, Lord! I don't know what's lacking in me!" he added with
gay pretence of despair which possibly was less feigned than real.
"But I know this, Rue Carew! I'd rather experience something
interesting than make a picture of it. And I suppose that confession
is fatal."
"Why, Jim?"
"Because with me the pleasures of reality are substituted for the
pleasures of imagination. Not that I don't like to draw and paint. But
my ambition in painting is and always has been bounded by the visible.
And, although that does not prevent me from appreciation--from
understanding and admiring your work, for example--it sets an
impregnable limit to any such aspiration on my part----"
His mobile and youthful features had become very grave; he stood a
moment with lowered head as though what he was thinking of depressed
him; then the quick smile came into his face and cleared it, and he
said gaily: "I'm an artistic Dobbin; a reliable, respectable sort of Fido on
whom editors can depend; that's all. Don't feel sorry for me," he
added, laughing; "my work will be very much in demand."