accomplish seeing anywhere else, though sometimes I see pictures of him.
This young man is superbly patrician. You may have remarked this
singular phenomenon. All the young men in all the advertisements in the
magazine _Vanity Fair_ are the same young man, whether riding in a
splendid motor car, elegantly attending the play, or doing a little
shooting of birds. You know him, for one thing, by his exquisite
moustache. This fastidiously groomed, exclusively tailored young man, to
be seen in the pages spoken of and at art exhibitions, is certainly not
of Art, nor is he of business. He takes no account whatever, apparently,
of time, as men of business do; and manifestly one could not work in such
a moustache and such clothes without mussing them. He is, in fine, of
Vanity Fair. Oscar Wilde was, as usual, wrong when he said that all
beautiful things were quite useless. This immaculate young man's
practical function at art exhibitions, as perhaps elsewhere, is that of
escort.

He is escort to groups of very handsome and very expensive-looking young
ladies; and these fragrant, rustling groups, with the waxen, patrician
young man in tow, stroll slowly about, catalogues unnoticed in hand,
without pause skirting the picture-hung walls. They are very still, and
they gaze upon the art that they pass with the look of a doe
contemplating the meaning of the appearance of a man. The perfect
escorts of these groups, who would seem naturally to be rather gay young
men, look very serious indeed. Now one of them gracefully, though as if
careful not to make any noise, bends to one of the young ladies; and,
indicating by a solemn look one of the paintings, he whispers to her
apparently concerning it. She silently nods: it is, evidently, quite as
he says. When an art exhibition is so undertakery a thing you wouldn't
think that one would come. Though perhaps it is that one ought.