ish was quite out of the
question, and that all he could do was to dazzle by the facility,
rapidity, and smartness of his execution. He had to content himself with
catching the general expression, neglecting the more delicate details,
and not attempting to attain the individuality and reality of nature.
Besides this, every sitter had some fresh fancy. The ladies required
that only their sentiment and character should be represented in their
portraits; that all the rest should be smoothed and softened; sharp
angles rounded off; defects mitigated, and even, if possible, altogether
concealed. They required, in short, to be made attractive in their
portraits, whether nature had made them so or not. Consequently many,
when they seated themselves in the painting chair, put on such looks and
expressions as absolutely astounded the artist. One struggled to give
her features an air of melancholy; another of sentimental abstraction; a
third tried desperately to make her mouth small, and pursed it up till
it resembled a round dot. And in spite of all this they expected
striking resemblance, ease, and grace. Nor were the gentlemen more
reasonable. One required to be painted with a strong energetic turn of
the head; another with uplifted eyes, full of poetic inspiration; an
ensign of the Guards declared that he should not be satisfied unless
Mars was made visible in his countenance: a civilian delicately
suggested that his face should be made as much as possible to express
incorruptible probity, mingled with imposing dignity, and that he should
be painted leaning his arm on a book, inscribed in legible characters,
"I stand for right." At first all these requests frightened and annoyed
our painter; there was so much to be harmonised, considered, and
arranged, and all in a few hours. At last he began to understand the
secret, and went on without troubling his head in the least. From the
first two or three words spoken, he perceived how the sitter wished to
be painted. The gentleman who wanted Mars was made a Mars of; he who
aped Byron received a Byronic attitude. As to the ladies, whether they
wished to be Corinnas, or Undines, or Aspasias, he was quite ready to
accommodate them, and even added, from his own imagination, a universal
air of distinction, which never does any harm, and which sometimes makes
people excuse even want of resemblance. He soon began to be astonished
at the wonderful rapidity and success of his execution. As to t