I mean. If they were to me ugly and sordid I shouldn't be interested in them. You'll probably think me sentimental, but almost any aspect of life seems to me beautiful in some way."
"Sentimental, no! I don't see any sentiment in those things—they're merciless! What you mean by beauty, I suppose, is that you see something interesting to do technically. It's your drawing you're interested in, not the poor creatures themselves."
"No, no!" said Basil, laughing. "It's really the poor creatures. I'd like to show what I see, that's all. And apropos of your demand for beauty, I remember what a good painter said to me once, in criticising one of my attempts in the Paris studio: 'Ne fais pas le reve; fais les choses qui font rêver.'"
"But what is there to make one dream in those things of yours? No, I don't mean that, they do make one dream, but nightmares! What is the good of dwelling on that side of life, so long as one can't really help those poor people"
"Oh, you're dreaming of soup-kitchens and tracts, perhaps? That's not what I meant, either! Look at this fellow again. What do you see in him?"
He held up the sketch of the bar-keeper.
"I see," said Mrs. Perry slowly, "a big, muscular body, a sharp eye, a brutal face"
