OF AN ASS 137 



Rhone valley must be so small as to be entirely 

 negligible. An ant's capacity to draw anything 

 which remotely recalls Loch Assynt is nil. 

 Handy little things though ants have been shown 

 by scientists to be, they have never been found 

 painting landscapes ; not by the highest-powered 

 microscope. Men do this. Let these humble- 

 minded people, therefore, thank Heaven that they 

 are men, and if they fear to paint, let them revel 

 in the power to paint and in the power to enjoy. 

 But let us have no more talk of worms and insects. 

 Though I paint the most horrible pictures from 

 which the most kindly connoisseur turns fainting 

 away, this distressing circumstance cannot rob 

 me of my achievement. Perhaps it may be said 

 that no one would wish to rob me of it. That 

 it is worth nothing, nothing at all. This is sheer 

 commercialism. I cannot get sixpence for all my 

 pictures put together. Granted. But I have got 

 from them what no amount of money could buy 

 me. I have learned my superiority to the worms, 

 a matter about which in my youth I had some 

 very uncomfortable doubts. I know that I have 

 faculties which raise me above worms, and I 

 have exercised one of those faculties as honestly 

 as I can. This is a great deal. 



Again, let these people, when they paint, paint 

 on smallish Whatman boards. To produce a sort 



