He speaks so insinuatingly my cheek grows warmer still.
''What do you know,'' I say, ''of those?''
''Why, only what I surmise, from my observation of the house . . .''
Now his voice and his face are grown bland again. I see Mr Huss tilt his head and observe him Then he calls, pointedly: ''What do you think, Rivers, of this?''★思★兔★網★文★檔★共★享★與★在★線★閱★讀★
''Of what, sir?''
''Of Hawtrey''s champioting, now, of photography.''
''Photography?''
''Rivers,'' says Mr Hawtrey. ''You are a young man. I appeal to you. Can there be any more perfect record of the amatory act—''
''Record!'' says my uncle, peevishly. ''Documentary! The curses of the age!''
''—of the amatory act, than a photograph? Mr Lilly will have it that the science of photography runs counter to the spirit of the Paphian life. I say it is an image of life, and has this advantage over it: that it endures, where life—the Paphian life, the Paphian moment, in especial—must finish and fade.''
''Doth not a book endure?'' asks my uncle, plucking at the arm of his chair.
''It endureth, so long as words do. But, in a photograph you have a thing beyond words, and beyond the mouths that speak them. A photograph will provoke heat in an Englishman, a Frenchman, a savage. It will outlast us all, and I provoke heat in our grandsons. It is a thing apart from history.1
''It is grip