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Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
227
You
are
thinking,
I
know,
of
Mr.
Sargent’s
famous
portrait
of
him.
Forget
it.
Tankerton
Hall
is
open
to
the
public
on
Wednesdays.
Go
there,
and
in
the
dining-hall
stand
to
study
well
Sir
Thomas
Lawrence’s
portrait
of
the
eleventh
Duke.
Imagine
a
man
some
twenty
years
younger
than
he
whom
you
there
behold,
but
having
some
such
features
and
some
such
bearing,
and
clad
in
just
such
robes.
Sublimate
the
dignity
of
that
bearing
and
of
those
features,
and
you
will
then
have
seen
the
fourteenth
Duke
somewhat
as
he
stood
reflected
in
the
mirror
of
his
room.
Resist
your
impulse
to
pass
on
to
the
painting
which
hangs
next
but
two
to
Lawrence’s.
It
deserves,
I
know,
all
that
you
said
about
it
when
(at
the
very
time
of
the
events
in
this
chronicle)
it
was
hanging
in
Burlington
House.
Marvellous,
I
grant
you,
are
those
passes
of
the
swirling
brush
by
which
the
velvet
of
the
mantle
is
rendered--passes
so
light
and
seemingly
so
fortuitous,
yet,
seen
at
the
right
distance,
so
absolute
in
their
power
to
create
an
illusion
of
the
actual
velvet.
Sheen
of
white
satin
and
silk,
glint
of
gold,
glitter
of
diamonds--never
were
such
things
caught
by
surer
hand
obedient
to
more
voracious
eye.
Yes,
all
the
splendid
surface
of
everything
is
there.
Yet
must
you
not
look.
The
soul
is
not
there.
An
expensive,
very
new
costume
is
there,
but
no
evocation
of
the
high
antique
things
it
stands
for;
whereas
by
the
Duke
it
was
just
these
things
that
were
evoked
to
make
an
aura
round
him,
a
warm
symbolic
glow
sharpening
the
outlines
of
his
own
particular
magnificence.
Reflecting
him,
the
mirror
reflected,
in
due
subordination,
the
history
of
England.
There
is
nothing
of
that
on
Mr.
Sargent’s
canvas.
Obtruded
instead
is
the
astounding
slickness
of
Mr.
Sargent’s
technique:
not
the
sitter,
but
the
painter,
is
master
here.
Nay,
though
I
hate
to
say
it,
there
is
in
the
portrayal
of
the
Duke’s
attitude
and
expression
a
hint
of
something
like
mockery--unintentional,
I
am
sure,
but
to
a
sensitive
eye
discernible.
And--but
it
is
clumsy
of
me
to
be
reminding
you
of
the
very
picture
I
would
have
you
forget.
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