neighbour liked.

"The colour of each painting was different--the vivacity of colour
and tone, the distinctness of each part in relation to the whole;
and each picture would have been recognized anywhere as a specimen
of work by each one of us, characteristic of our names. And we spent
on the whole affair perhaps twenty minutes.

"I wish you to understand, again, that we each thought and felt as if
we had been photographing the matter before us. We had not the first
desire of expressing _ourselves_, and I think would have been very
much worried had we not felt that each one was true to nature. And
we were each one true to nature.... If you ever know how to paint
somewhat well, and pass beyond the position of the student who has
not yet learned to use his hands as an expression of the memories of
his brain, you will always give to nature, that is to say, what is
outside of you, the character of the lens through which you see
it--which is yourself."

Such bits of testimony from painters help us to understand the brief
sayings of the critics, like Taine's well-known "Art is nature seen
through a temperament," G. L. Raymond's "Art is nature made human," and
Croce's "Art is the expression of impressions." These painters and critics
agree, evidently, that the mind of the artist is an organism which acts as
a "transformer." It receives the reports of the senses, but alters these
reports in transmission and it is precisely in this alteration that the
most personal and essential function of the artist's brain is to be
found.

Remembering this, let the student of poetry now recall the diagram used in