We want something to please folks."
Irons was more concerned about his popularity than even in regard to
the reputation as an art patron he was laboriously striving to build
up. He was an inordinately vain man, but he was an exceedingly shrewd
one. His self-esteem was gratified by seeing his name among those of
men influential in art matters; he bought pictures largely for the
pleasure of being talked of as a man who patronized the proper
painters, and he was looked upon as likely at no distant day to become
president of a club which Fenton dubbed the Discourager of Art; but he
realized that for a man who still had some political aspirations there
was a substantial value in popular favor not to be found in any
reputation for culture, however delightful the latter might be. He
distinctly intended to please the public by his action in regard to the
statue, a resolution which was rendered the more firm by the fact that
he vastly over-estimated the interest which the public was likely to
take in the matter. He trimmed the ashes from his cigar as he spoke,
with an air which was intended to convey the idea that he would stand
no nonsense.
"Won't Mr. Herman enter a competitive trial?" Calvin asked. "We might
ask two or three others and then select the best model."
"He won't go into a competition. He says it's beneath an artist's
dignity.
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