XVII

Material for a Projected Sequel to
Alps and Sanctuaries

Mrs. Dowe on Alps and Sanctuaries

AFTER reading Alps and Sanctuaries Mrs. Dowe said to
Ballard: " You seem to hear him talking to you all the time
you are reading."

I don't think I ever heard a criticism of my books which
pleased me better, especially as Mrs. Dowe is one of the women
I have always liked.

Not to be Omitted

I must get in about the people one meets. The man who
did not like parrots because they were too intelligent. And
the man who told me that Handel's Messiah was " trte chic,"
and the smell of the cyclamens " stupendous." And the man
who said it was hard to think the world was not more than
6000 years old, and we encouraged him by telling him we
thought it must be even more than 7000. And the English
lady who said of some one that " being an artist, you know,
of course he had a great deal of poetical feeling." And the
man who was sketching and said he had a very good eye for
colour in the light, but would I be good enough to tell him
what colour was best for the shadows.

" An amateur," he said, " might do very decent things in
water-colour, but oils require genius."

So I said : " What is genius ? "

" Millet's picture of the Angdus sold for 700,000 francs.
Now that/' he said, " is genius."