of the merit of painting as we are of that of language; and I
can only show you whence that merit springs, after having thoroughly
shown you in what it consists. But, in the meantime, I have simply to
tell you, that the manual arts are as accurate exponents of ethical
state, as other modes of expression; 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 indisputably 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 realise 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 a direct and new
intention. Then imagine that m