everything I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To
the eyes of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the sun, and a
bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a
vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy, is
in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.... To
the eye of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.

_Blake._


VIII

Painting is nothing but the art of expressing the invisible by the
visible.

_Fromentin._


IX

The picture I speak of is a small one, and represents merely the figure
of a woman, clad to the hands and feet with a green and grey raiment,
chaste and early in its fashion, but exceedingly simple.

She is standing: her hands are held together lightly, and her eyes set
earnestly open.

The face and hands in this picture, though wrought with great delicacy,
have the appearance of being painted at once, in a single sitting: the
drapery is unfinished. As soon as I saw the figure, it drew an awe upon