ression; first, with absolute precision,
of that of the workman; and then with precision, disguised by many
distorting influences, of that of the nation to which it belongs.

And, first, they are a perfect exponent of the mind of the workman:
but, being so, remember, if the mind be great or complex, the art is
not an easy book to read; for we must ourselves possess all the mental
characters of which we are to read the signs. No man can read the
evidence of labour who is not himself laborious, for he does not know
what the work cost: nor can he read the evidence of true passion if he
is not passionate; nor of gentleness if he is not gentle: and the most
subtle signs of fault and weakness of character he can only judge by
having had the same faults to fight with. I myself, for instance, know
impatient work, and tired work, better than most critics, because I am
myself always impatient, and often tired:--so also, the patient and
indefatigable touch of a mighty master becomes more wonderful to me
than to others. Yet, wonderful in no mean measure it will be to you
all, when I make it manifest;--and as soon as we begin our real work,
and you have learned what it is to draw a true line, I shall be able
to make manifest to you,--and undisputably so,--that the day's work of
a man like Mantegna or Paul Veronese consists of an unfaltering,
uninterrupted, succession of movements of the hand more precise than
those of the finest fencer: the pencil leaving one point and arriving
at another, not only with unerring precision at the extremity of the
line, but with an unerring and yet varied course--sometimes over
spaces a foot or more in extent--yet a course so determined everywhere
that either of these men could, and Veronese often does, draw a
finished profile, or any other portion of the contour of the face,
with one line, not afterwards changed. Try, first, to realize to
yourselves the muscular precision of that action, and the intellectual
strain of it; for the movement of a fencer is perfect in practised
monotony; but the movement of the hand of a great painter is at every
instant governed by direct and new intention. Then imagine that
muscular firmness and subtlety, and the instantaneously selective and
ordinant energy of the brain, sustained all day long, not only without
fatigue, but with a visible joy in the exertion, like that which an
eagle seems to take in the wave of his wings; and this all life long,
and through long life