without impertinence be thought more critical than another--must have
come somewhere about 1870. M. Vollard once asked him what he did during
the war. "Ecoutez un peu, monsieur Vollard! Pendant la guerre j'ai
beaucoup travaillé sur le motif à l'Estaque." M. Vollard is too good a
patriot to add that during the war he also went into hiding, having
been called up for military service. Cézanne, I am sorry to say, was an
_insoumis_--a deserter. He seems to have supposed that he had something
more important to do than to get himself killed for his country. It was
not only in art that Cézanne gave proof of a surprisingly sure sense of
values. Some fulsome journalist, wishing to flatter the old man after he
had become famous, represented him hugging a tree and, with tears in
his eyes, crying: "Comme je voudrais, celui-là, le transporter sur ma
toile!" For a moment Cézanne contemplated the picture in terrified
amazement, then exclaimed: "Dites, monsieur Vollard, c'est effrayant,
la vie!" Useless to blame the particular imbecile: it was the world in
which such things were possible that filled him with dismay. I stretch
my hand towards a copy of the _Burlington Magazine_ and come plumb on
the following by the present Director of the Tate Gallery:

The truth is that the ecstasy of art and good actions are closely
interrelated, the one leading to the other in endless succession or
possibly even progression.

"Dites, monsieur Vollard, c'est effrayant, la vie!" [J]

[Footnote J: Since writing these words I learn that the director of the
Tate Gallery has been unable to find, in his series of vast rooms, space
for two small and fine works by Cézanne. It is some consolation to know
that he has found space for more than twenty by Professor Tonks.]