was not keyed right, and started afresh. The picture was fairish good,
but his desire now was to paint the beautiful Anna as the Madonna.

Van Dyck's affections having been ruthlessly uprooted but a few days
before, the tendrils very naturally clung to the first object that
presented itself--and this of course was the intelligent and patient
sitter, aged nineteen last June.

If Rubens could not paint the picture of a lady without falling in love
with her, what should be expected of his best pupil, Van Dyck?

Pygmalion loved into life the cold marble which his hand had shaped, and
thus did Van Dyck love his pictures into being. All portrait-painters are
sociable--they have to be in order to get acquainted with the subject.
The best portrait-painter in America talks like a windmill as he works,
and tries a whole set round of little jokes, and dry asides and trite
aphorisms on the sitter, meanwhile cautiously noting the effect. For of
course so long as a sitter is coldly self-conscious, and fully mindful
that he is "being took," his countenance is as stiff, awkward, and
constrained as that of a farmer at a dinner-party.

Hence the task devolves upon the portrait-artist to bring out, by the
magic of his presence, the nature of the subject. "In order to paint a
truly correct likeness, you must know your sitter thoroughly," said Van
Dyck.

The gracious Rubens prided himself on his ability in this line. He would
often spend half an hour busily mending a brush or mixing paints, talking
the while, but only waiting for the icy mood of the sitter to thaw. Then
he would arrange the raiment of his patron, sometimes redress the hair,