138 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



of illusion of so much of the Universe on so small 

 a space is to taste omnipotence. While one part 

 of the soul prostrates itself before valley and 

 wood, rolling down-land and the miracle of the 

 clouds, another part sings loudly and contentedly 

 while the daubing goes on. The child that is in 

 us all plays happily at being father. We are 

 engaged on the sincerest form of not flattery, 

 but worship. A lick of Burnt Sienna and a whole 

 autumn forest, twenty miles away, is there, under 

 our hand. Four thousand leaves lie in a brushful 

 of Terre Verte, the infinity of space in a thin 

 wash of Cobalt. A pool of Yellow Ochre, a dab 

 of Vandyke Brown, and we own a thatched 

 cottage. With a streak of Dragon's-blood we 

 take seisin of territories. We play at Creation, 

 and it is the best game (in all its forms) yet in- 

 vented. And the real Artist smiles on our play. 



But this nonsense of painting makes me neglect 

 the ass, and neglect he detests. Of what his 

 opinion of us may be I have, of course, no certain 

 idea, but I cannot think that it is high. One 

 of us he sees fiddling with an apparatus or seated 

 immovable with a little book in her hand or 

 strolling the down with hair flying loose upon the 

 breeze shouting words of no meaning ; the other 

 squats on the ground making dirty a piece of 

 white paper. Thus or somewhat thus he must 



