of the nose, or a fold of the white ruff; but
slight as it is and unnoticeable at first, because of it not only does
the head look round as the egg looks round when relieved by the same
treatment, but the attention is fixed. Unless this had been preserved,
the eye would have, perhaps, rested first on the hand, something
foreign to the painter's intention.

Recalling again the law of the high light and strong dark, and
referring again to the value of the skilful manipulation of light and
shade forming the mass thereby expressing the more clearly the meaning
of a picture, I repeat that, while the eye is always caught by the
strongest dark against the strongest light, it is next caught by the
lesser supplementary light and lesser supplementary dark; and then,
if the painter is skilful enough in the management of the remaining
lesser lights and darks, the eye will run through the gradations to
the end, rebounding once more to the greater light and dark, exactly
in the order intended by the painter; thus unfolding to the spectator
little by little, quite as a plot of a novel is made clear, the story
which the painter had in his own mind to tell. This is effected purely
and entirely by the correct accentuations of the explanatory lights
and darks. One mistake in the management--that is, the accentuating of
the third light, if you please, instead of the second--will not only
confuse the eye of the spectator, but may perhaps give him an entirely
different impression from what was intended by the painter, just as
the shifting of a chapter in a novel would confuse a reader; and this,
if you please, without depending in any way upon either the drawing or
the color of the accessories.

I can best illustrate this by recalling to your mind that marvellous
picture of the so-called literary school of England, a picture by Luke
Fildes known as "The Doctor" and now hanging in the Tate Gallery in
London, in which the whole sad story is told in logical sequence by
the artist's consummate handling of the darks and lights in regular
progression.

* * * * *

You will pardon me, I hope, if I leave the more technical details of
my subject for a moment that I may discuss with you one of the
peculiarities of the so-called art-loving public of to-day, notably
that section which insists that no picture should tell a story of any
kind.

To my own mind this picture of Luke Fildes reaches high-water mark in
the sc