Part Three Poet and Angel Chapter 33 Realism

"One would think these people really liked me for myself,"--he said one morning, tossing aside a particularly gushing, pressing note from a lady who was celebrated for the motley crowds she managed to squeeze into her rooms, regardless of any one's comfort or convenience,--"And yet, as the matter stands, they actually know nothing of me. I might be a villain of the deepest dye, a kickable cad, or a coarse ruffian, but so long as I have written a 'successful' book and am a 'somebody'--a literary 'notable'--what matter my tastes, my morals, or my disposition! If this sort of thing is Fame, all I can say is, that it savors of very detestable vulgarity!"

"Of course it does!"--assented Villiers-"But what else do you expect from modern society? ... What CAN you expect from a community which is chiefly ruled by moneyed parvenus, BUT vulgarity? If you go to this woman's place, for instance"--and he glanced at the note Alwyn had thrown on the table,--"you will share the honors of the evening with the famous man-milliner of Bond Street, an 'artist' in gowns, the female upholsterer and house decorator, likewise an 'artist,'--the ladies who 'compose' sonnets in Regent Street, also 'artists,--' and chiefest among the motley crowd, perhaps, the so-called new 'Apostle' of aestheticism, a ponderous gentleman who says nothing and does nothing, and who, by reason of his stupendous inertia and taciturnity, is considered the greatest 'gun' of all! ... it's no use YOUR going among such people,--in fact, no one who has any reverence left in him for the TRUTH of Art CAN mix with those whose profession of it is a mere trade and hypocritical sham. Such dunderheads would see no artistic difference between Phidias and the man of to-day who hews out and sets up a common marble mantel- piece! I'm not a fellow to moan over the 'good old times,'--no, not a bit of it, for those good old times had much in them that was decidedly bad,--but I wish progress would not rob us altogether of refinement."