everything he writes; but when I do not, I have such a respect for him that
I always feel as if he must be right whether he seems to me to be right or
not. And if he is severe, it is with the severity of love that will speak
only the truth."

This last speech fell on my ear like the tone of a church bell. "That will
do, my friend" thought I. But I said nothing to interrupt.

By this time he had laid the portfolio open on the side-table, and placed a
chair in front of it for my daughter. Then seating himself by her side, but
without the least approach to familiarity, he began to talk to her about
her drawings, praising, in general, the feeling, but finding fault with the
want of nicety in the execution--at least so it appeared to me from what I
could understand of the conversation.

"But," said my daughter, "it seems to me that if you get the feeling right,
that is the main thing."

"No doubt," returned Mr. Percivale; "so much the main thing that any
imperfection or coarseness or untruth which interferes with it becomes of
the greatest consequence."

"But can it really interfere with the feeling?"

"Perhaps not with most people, simply because most people observe so
badly that their recollections of nature are all blurred and blotted and
indistinct, and therefore the imperfections we are speaking of do not
affect them. But with the more cultivated it is otherwise. It is for them
you ought to work, for you do not thereby lose the others. Besides, the
feeling is always intensified by the finish, for that belongs to the