expressed himself so well. Anxious to draw him out, she said:

'But the picture you admire is merely a strip of sea with some
fishing-boats. I've seen it a hundred times before--at Brighton, at
Westgate, at whatever seaside place we go to, just like that, only not
quite so dark.'

'Yes, just like that, only not quite so dark. That "not quite so dark"
makes the difference. Turner didn't copy, he transposed what he saw.
Transposed what he saw,' he repeated. 'I don't explain myself very
well, I don't know if you understand. But what I mean is that the more
realistic you are the better; so long as you transpose, there must
always be a transposition of tones.'

Mildred admitted that she did not quite understand. Ralph stammered,
and relinquished the attempt to explain. They walked in silence until
they came to the Rembrandts--the portrait of the painter as a young
man and the portrait of the 'Jew Merchant.' Mildred preferred the
portrait of the young man. 'But not because it's a young man,' she
pleaded, 'but because it is, it is---'

'Compared with the "Jew Merchant" it is like a coloured photograph...
Look at him, he rises up grand and mysterious as a pyramid, the other
is as insignificant as life. Look at the Jew's face, it is done with
one tint; a synthesis, a dark red, and the face is as it were made out
of nothing--hardly anything, and yet everything is said... You can't
say where the picture begins or ends, the Jew surges out of the
darkness like a vision. Look at his robe, a few folds, that is all,
and yet he's completely dressed, and his hand, how large, how great...
Don't you see, don't you understand?'