ity of "the stroke," by the by, if we stop to analyze for a
moment, is the stroke that comes straight from the heart, tingling up
the spinal column, down the arm, and straight to the finger-tips. Ole
Bull had it when his violin echoed a full orchestra; Paderewski has it
when he rings clearly and sharply some note that vibrates through you
for hours after; Booth had it when drawing himself up to his full
height as Cardinal Richelieu he began that famous speech, "Around her
form I draw the holy circle of our faith"--his upraised finger a
barrier that an army could not break down; Velasquez, in his
marvellous picture in the Museum of the Prado in Madrid of "The
Topers" ("Los Borrachos"); Frans Hals, in almost every canvas that his
brush touched; and in later years our own John Sargent, in many of his
portraits, but especially in his direct out-of-door studies, shows it;
as do scores of others whose sureness of touch and exact knowledge
have made their names household words where art is loved and genius
held sacred.

And with this ability to record swiftly and surely there will come a
certain enthusiasm, fanned to white heat when, some morning, trap in
hand, you are searching for something to paint, your mind entirely
filled with a certain object (you propose to paint boats if you
please, and you have walked around them for minutes trying to get the
best view and deciding upon the all-important best possible
composition)--when, turning suddenly, you face a mass of buildings and
a sweep of river that instantly put to flight every idea concerning
your first subject, and in a moment a new arrangement is evolved and
you are working like mad. It is only under this pressure of
_enthusiasm_ that the best work is produced.

* * * * *

The coming landscape-painter will be a _four-hour man_, of thorough
knowledge, one who has most intimate and close acquaintance with
nature, one who can select and then seize the salient features of the
landscape, at a glance arranging them upon the square of his canvas,
in other words, composing them, the basis being the most expansive and
most picturesque grouping of the several details of the subject,
extracting at the same moment, at the same instant, with one sweep of
his eye, the whole scheme of local color, and then surely, clearly,
lovingly, and reverently making it breathe upon his canvas for other
souls to live by.

* * * * *