There is also the Tate. Or, perhaps, " Where is
also the Tate ? " For it is the very devil to get at (except in a Rolls-Royce ; and Rolls-Royces have more suitable places to go to, such as Asprey's and Grosvenor House). But when you have once got there, it is worth it. A curious affair. Very depressing, at first, with all those Watts-his-names and Blake's interesting but rather morbid drawings and Ferdinando and Isabella at the trysting-tree—you know the sort of thing—and acres of Turner, splashing about like a gorgeous porpoise. Then come the French at the end, like sunlight. There is a azanne—a landscape with a bent tree, on loan, I am afraid, or it may be a new " acquisition." The tears come into one's eyes, it is so soft and deep and green and beautiful. Opposite it, a van Gogh, a long, narrow landscape, high up on the wall, sings like a canary in its cage. There are two other Cezannes on loan in another room. These were particularly interesting because of their surroundings. I have forgotten now exactly who they were, but people like Bonvin, Decamps, Gericault- all very good—and certainly one Chardin. Yet all of these, even the Chardin, were invisible, disappeared, beside the Cezannes. One had to dig them out to appre- ciate their beauties. And it was not, as you might think, because Cezanne was more " striking," for there was a Segonzac opposite, larger and far more brilliant, which looked, in the face of the master-painter, like the work of a master-mason.
Then there are the old favourites, the van Gogh chair, the Cezanne which looks like a tapestry. I was looking at these when an old woman came in and an old man in knickerbockers. Gentlefolk, as they are called. They came from the room full of Sargent's Wertheimers, and they said at once " Oh, no. There is none of that fine workmanship here " and then they laughed heartily at the Cezannes. Poor old dears I Poor old darlings ! They would laugh as heartily at an angel, unless he were wearing a bowler hat. Indeed, they did laugh at an angel.
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