ighbours. A collection of the earliest known
works of the greatest men would be much more useful to the student than
any number of their maturer works, for it would show him that he need not
worry himself because his work does not look clever, or as silly people
say, "show power."

The secrets of success are affection for the pursuit chosen, a flat
refusal to be hurried or to pass anything as understood which is not
understood, and an obstinacy of character which shall make the student's
friends find it less trouble to let him have his own way than to bend him
into theirs. Our schools and academies or universities are covertly but
essentially radical institutions, and abhorrent to the genius of
Conservatism. Their sin is the true radical sin of being in too great a
hurry, and the natural result has followed, they waste far more time than
they save. But it must be remembered that this proposition like every
other wants tempering with a slight infusion of its direct opposite.

I said in an early part of this book that the best test to know whether
or no one likes a picture is to ask oneself whether one would like to
look at it if one was quite sure one was alone. The best test for a
painter as to whether he likes painting his picture is to ask himself
whether he should like to paint it if he was quite sure that no one
except himself, and the few of whom he was very fond, would ever see it.
If he can answer this question in the affirmative, he is all right; if he
cannot, he is all wrong.

I must reserve other remarks upon this subject for another occasion.

SANCTUARIES OF OROPA AND GRAGLIA. (FROM CHAPTERS XV. AND XVI. OF ALPS
AND SANCTUARIES.)

The morning after our arrival at Biella, we took the daily diligence for
Oropa, leaving Biella at eight o'clock. Before we were clear of the town
we could see the long line of the hospice, and the chapels dotted about
near it, high up in a valley at some distance off; presently we were
shown another fine building some eight or nine miles away, which we were
told was the sanctuary of Graglia. About this time the pictures and
statuettes of the Madonna began to change their hue and to become
black--for the sacred image of Oropa being black, all the Madonnas in her
immediate neighbourhood are of the same complexion. Underneath some of
them is written, "Nigra sum sed sum formosa," which, as a rule, was more
true as regards the first epithet than the second.

It was n