"You doubt this? Let us consider this same artistic temperament and
its results," continued the judge, making a wry face. "Once or twice
it has been my bad fortune to meet it. One trifling scamp I have in
mind, painted. A house, a fence, a barn, even a sign-board? Not at
all, but messes he called 'The Sea,' one doesn't know why, save that
the things slightly resembled raw oysters. However, the women raved
over him. His laundress and his landlady had good cause to rave!
"He wrote, too. A text-book, a title, a will, a deed, a business
letter? Far from it! He wrote _poetry_, if you please! The little
wretch wrote _poetry_! That's what the artistic temperament leads a
man to! Bah! I hate, I despise, I abhor, the artistic temperament!"
We looked at the judge, open-mouthed. "Who would have thought the
old man to have had so much blood in him?"
"There have been times," admitted the judge, subsiding, "when I
radically disagreed with my late client; when I opposed her
strongly. But when she willed her whole estate to you, Miss Smith,
instead of to Nicholas Jelnik, I heartily approved. Understand, I
have no personal bias, no animosity against this young man; but he
is, I am told, more or less of an artist, and one might as well
leave an estate to an anarchist at once.
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