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FATHER BENWELL HITS.
ART has its trials as well as its triumphs. It is powerless to assert
itself against the sordid interests of everyday life. The greatest book
ever written, the finest picture ever painted, appeals in vain to minds
preoccupied by selfish and secret cares. On entering Lord Loring's
gallery, Father Benwell found but one person who was not looking at the
pictures under false pretenses.
Innocent of all suspicion of the conflicting interests whose struggle
now centered in himself, Romayne was carefully studying the picture
which had been made the pretext for inviting him to the house. He had
bowed to Stella, with a tranquil admiration of her beauty; he had
shaken hands with Penrose, and had said some kind words to his future
secretary--and then he had turned to the picture, as if Stella and
Penrose had ceased from that moment to occupy his mind.
"In your place," he said quietly to Lord Loring, "I should not buy this
work."
"Why not?"
"It seems to me to have the serious defect of the modern English school
of painting.


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