Selby Whittingham
“I’m just a slave / only a slave to you, temptation”. So sang Bing Crosby in 1933 in a song, Temptation, repeated by many famous singers since and, in 1970, in a German TV act of Sid Millward & The Nitwits. That shows (it was recorded) Sid presiding over players prey to temptations which are low rather than romantic, ones of vanity, exhibitionism and revenge. “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it” (Wilde). So the Wallace Collection has demonstrated and probably will demonstrate further after its successful attempt to remove the prohibition on lending its works which I and others have deplored (November/December issue). “We will start slowly and see how things go,” says Chairman Horta-Osorío ominously.
Temptation and the Wallace go together in the pictures which give