The Pool in the Desert

at in the wilds of the Himalayas where deodars and scandals grow, and where the Viceroy if he likes may take off his decorations and go about in flannels. I know how usele

a generalization to say that Simla is a wilderness; I hasten to add that it is a waste as highly cultivated as you like, producing many things more admirable than Ingersoll Armour. Still he

as easy to say clever things about the poor little exhibits; and one was grateful to the show on this account, for nothing is more depressing east of Suez than the absence of provocation to say clever things. There

aid I, and Do

S

home,' I said,

they are Indian subjects. SIMLA sub

nety-eight, "Clouds on the Chor"; ninety-nine, "The House of a

Dora, 'who painted them?

mour,"'

each other, saying in plain silence that to

aid Dora. That in itself may show to what depths we sin

'All newcomers call upon us,' she said. 'There in the middle

ry confident with your pronouns.

h to express it with brushes. A man can make it a quality, a decorative characteristic, and so we see it.

inst you! Let him be

d that I had said one of those things which she would store up and produce to prove th

intensity,

at that.' She indicated a patch of hillsides perhaps six inches by fo

against the arts a tremendous thing, a banquet for our famished eyes. What they would have said to us in London is a different matter, and how good they re

with a falling countenance. 'There is somet

d it be?'

ch technique. It's an Englishman or an American who has wor

know. Val Prinsep came out at the t

rememb

ears ago. I saw his studio in Paris afterward. Between his own canvases and Ahmedabad balconies and D

weather, and as they can get plenty of snow and ice at

y; they d

a single picture-only these tiny things. And there's a certain tentativeness'-Miss Harris, her parasol h

ost a lack of confidence

es that

of course-not en

ealous already as if she possessed the things-'only a sign to read by. I

sted. Naturally one sought o

in the ateliers and learned as much as this they never do. Th

id no more than trickle past, while Sir William weighed fifteen stone, and was so eminent that it could never inconvenience him at its deepest. Dora detached her gaze from the pictures and turned

s a 'cautious' man. He had risen to his present distinction

were wondering who

thought. 'If you ask me, I should say a child of

remarked a certain i

s say it's very good of people to send their things here at all. And some o

cture that has taken your pr

e. Living is so expensive in Simla; the purchase of a merely decorative object takes almost the p

ellows standing about smoking, and a whole pile of tinned stores dumped down in one corner, exactly as the

ee, the Viceroy's medal, the Society's silver medal, five prizes from Members of Council. Highly Commended's as thick as blackberri

st. 'Come and see the crazy china exhibit, all made of little b

ris was able to answer it with a laugh and a wave. W

now precisely who they were likely to be. There is a custom i

ue from my hand and t

can draw, or could once; besides, look at his precedence and his pay! General Haycock-isn't he head of the Ordnance Department? I can't think of any other reason for putting him on. Oh yes-he's a K.C.B., and he is inventing a way of taking coloured photographs. Mr. Tilley, the old gentleman that teaches elementary dr

lly angry no

and it gave me pleasure, as all her feelings did when they came out like that. I hasten to add that she was not unpleasing; her features had a symmetry and a mobility, and her eyes could take any transient charm they chose to endow themselves with; though there were moments when she compared very badly wit

ee Lady Pilkey's

isionary through a gap in the trees, and two hills, one hill on each side. Dark green trees, pine-trees, with a dead one in the left foreground covere

you see it

one she sent last, and the one the year be

dining there tonight. I must

self to see lady Pilkey's landscape. When I returned I found her still sitting in grave absorption before the studies that had taken us

in the middle distance, and there was a torrent in the foreground that

tween the Kattiawar fair thing and those hills in the rain

was in the effect the things had on her. 'And I will have

n unusual thing-a most unusual thing-in Dora Harris; but she w

g else ever did, that I was a contemporary of her father's. It is a feeble confession, but I have kn