twelve o'clock
Association , fixed and eternalized by the structure of the language , is the tyranny that keeps down the live idea . `` We 've got to restore the innocence of memory , as Gauguin restored the innocence of the eye . '' * * * * * Michael noticed that the talk was not always sustained at this constructive level . And to-night , towards twelve o'clock , it dropped and broke in a welter of vituperation . It was , first , a frenzied assault on the Old Masters , a storming of immortal strongholds , a tearing and scattering of the wing feathers of archangels ; then , from this high adventure it sank to a perfunctory skirmishing among living eminences over forty , judged , by reason of their age , to be too contemptible for an attack in force . It rallied again to a bombing and blasting of minute ineptitudes , the slaughter of `` swine like -- and -- and -- and -- and -- '' ; and ended in a furious pursuit of a volatile young poet , Edward Rivers , who had escaped by sheer levity from the tug of the Vortex , and was setting up a small swirl of his own . Michael was with the revolutionaries heart and soul ; he believed in Morton Ellis and Austen Mitchell and Monier-Owen even more than he believed in Lawrence Stephen , and almost as much as he believed in Jules Réveillaud .