To have a model sitting with an open door was no more usual or
befitting at that time than it is now. And that the strong smell of the
Dutch tobacco should not come through that door, bordered on the
miraculous.

"When, however, I drew a step nearer, I soon saw why my good Jan had
given up smoking, and though I was only a landscape painter, I did not
at all wonder at him. For such a model was worth while losing one's
head for, to say nothing of one's pipe.

"The colours on the face of the young girl who sat there in the best
light, as motionless as a picture, with a red damask curtain behind
her, were really so brilliant, that they exceeded all probability, and
made me perfectly stupid with amazement. Such a white satin-skin, just
tinged with faintest rose-colour, and here and there with blue, such
vividly red lips, such velvety brown eyes and silky hair of the same
colour growing rather low on a superbly arched brow, I have never
before nor since seen, except, indeed in pictures, where they make
little impression because they are exaggerated. Nature can certainly
venture upon much that Art can never safely aspire to. When I had
somewhat got over the first shock of this sensational style of
nature-painting, I saw that in the drawing, too, the very best possible
had been done; done with a grandeur and solidity which were almost
prodigal, for it is not wise to expend every resource, colour and form,
both in perfection, on any one figure. Even a sculptor must have
confessed that only in the best antiques had he seen anything of the
kind. Above all I was amazed at the contour of the cheeks, the noble,
massively-rounded chin, the half-opened lips that seemed to breathe out
a very overflow of life, and the perfect shape of the straight,
scornful little nose, which was just a trifle too broad, perhaps,
for modern taste. It was only the eyes that afforded any room for
fault-finding, if after seeing those calm and melancholy stars beaming
on one, one had the heart for it. At least I found out later that the
line of the eyelids might have been more curved, and they themselves a
degree broader.

"For the first ten minutes I stood there actually spell-bound, did not
even say 'Good-day,' and was--as people often stupidly call it--all
eyes. And indeed no one spoke. Van Kuylen, his extinct pipe in his
mouth, had merely given me a side nod, and continued painting hard. The
motionless beauty queened it before her red curtain on an ol