equal vividness. To change anything of this country, so clear, so
precise, so characteristic, is to soften; to alleviate what is too
rude, is to weaken; to generalise, is to disfigure. So the artist is
obliged to take Algiers in the lump; in spite of himself he will find
himself forced into a scrupulous exactitude, nothing must be passed
over, and so his pictures are at best only the truth, photographic
truth and the naturalness of a fac-simile.

The sixty-five drawings which the painter will bring back and will
exhibit in Messrs. Dowdeswell's will be documentary evidence of the
existence of Algeria--of all that makes a country itself, of exactly
the things by which those who have been there know it, of the things
which will make it known to those who have not been there, the exact
type of the inhabitants, their costume, their attitudes, their ways,
and manner of living. Once the painter accepts truth for aim and end,
it becomes impossible to set a limit upon his investigations. We shall
learn how this people dress, ride, and hunt; we shall learn what arms
they use--the painter will describe them as well as a pencil may
describe--the harness of the horses he must know and understand;
through dealing with so much novelty it becomes obligatory for the
travelling painter to become explanatory and categorical. And as the
attraction of the unknown corresponds in most people to the immoral
instinct of curiosity, the painter will find himself forced to attempt
to do with paint and canvas what he could do much better in a written
account. His public will demand pictures composed after the manner of
an inventory, and the taste for ethnography will end by being confused
with the sentiment of beauty.

Amongst this collection of _documents_ which causes the Gallery to
resound with foolish and vapid chatter there are two small pictures.