"Lady Durwent," said Austin Selwyn--and the quality of his voice was

lighter and more musical than it had been--"I suppose that a man who
deliberately goes to a country to gather impressions lays himself open
to the danger of being influenced by external things only
"Lady Durwent," said Austin Selwyn--and the quality of his voice was
lighter and more musical than it had been--"I suppose that a man who
deliberately goes to a country to gather impressions lays himself open
to the danger of being influenced by external things only. If I were
to base my knowledge of England on what her people say of her, I think
I should be justified in assuming that the century-old charge of her
decadence is terribly true. Yet I claim to have something of an
artist"s sensitiveness to undercurrents, and it seems to me that there
is a strong instinct of race over here--perhaps I express myself
clumsily--but I think there is an England which has far more depth to
it than your artists and writers realise. For some reason you all seem
to want to deny that; and when, as to-night, it is my privilege to meet
some of this country"s expressionists, it appears that none has any
intention of trying to reveal what is fine in your life as a
people--you seek only to satirise, caricature, or damn altogether. If
I believe my ears, there is nothing but stupidity and insularity in
England. If I listen to my senses, to my subconscious mind, I feel
that a great crisis would reveal that she is still the bed-rock of
civilisation."


antiquehardwareforbathrmcanets