a photograph or a copy of a photograph. Her figure had no variety of
expression--she herself had no sense of variety. You may say that
this was my business, was only a question of placing her. I placed
her in every conceivable position, but she managed to obliterate
their differences. She was always a lady certainly, and into the
bargain was always the same lady. She was the real thing, but always
the same thing. There were moments when I was oppressed by the
serenity of her confidence that she WAS the real thing. All her
dealings with me and all her husband's were an implication that this
was lucky for ME. Meanwhile I found myself trying to invent types
that approached her own, instead of making her own transform itself--
in the clever way that was not impossible, for instance, to poor Miss
Churm. Arrange as I would and take the precautions I would, she
always, in my pictures, came out too tall--landing me in the dilemma
of having represented a fascinating woman as seven feet high, which,
out of respect perhaps to my own very much scantier inches, was far
from my idea of such a personage.

The case was worse with the Major--nothing I could do would keep HIM
down, so that he became useful only for the representation of brawny
giants. I adored variety and range, I cherished human accidents, the
illustrative note; I wanted to characterise closely, and the thing in
the world I most hated was the danger of being ridden by a type. I
had quarrelled with some of my friends about it--I had parted company
with them for maintaining that one HAD to be, and that if the type
was beautiful (witness Raphael and Leonardo), the servitude was only
a gain. I was neither Leonardo nor Raphael; I might only be a
presumptuous young modern searcher, but I held that everything was to
be sacrificed sooner than character. When they averred that the
haunting type in question could easily BE character, I retorted,