e a veil, and with all this there must be nothing in
the work that will be mistaken for the smoke-laden air of England.
Only thus, by this fidelity to the very nature and spirit of a place,
can the picture be made to express the essence of its life, which is
really the heart of the whole mystery.

Coming at last to our text, Water-Colors--the art of depicting nature
on a sheet of white paper by paints diluted with water--it will be
well to remind you that the art goes back to almost prehistoric times.
A few weeks ago, in the library of Mr. Jesse Carter, director of the
American Academy in Rome, I saw one of the earliest water-colors in
existence. It was painted upon a sheet of slate, and, although some
thousands of years old, still retained its color and remarkable
brilliancy. The subject was a group of figures, the centre object
being a girl of wonderful grace.

The present art of water-color painting, with a sheet of white paper
as background instead of the permanent stone, is, however, but little
more than one hundred and fifty years old, and owes its existence
largely to the men of the English school.

Mr. C. E. Hughes, in his delightful book on "Early English Water
Color," confined this English school to the men born between the
years 1720 and 1820.

In this group he places the great Gainsborough, who from 1760 to 1774
worked "in charcoal and water-color on tinted paper," which he said he
"loved to dash off of an evening, and which dazzled the fine ladies
and gentlemen who frequented the select watering-place of Bath," where
he was then living.

Then came Robert Cozens, the brothers Sanby, Thomas Hearne, Thomas
Malton, Samuel Scott, and a few others, all known as the
eighteenth-century painters.

These were succeeded by Thomas Girtin, who was born in 1775 and died
at twenty-seven years of age; and the great J. M. W. Turner, who first
saw the light in the same year, and on the day on which all great
Englishmen should be born--namely, April 23--a day dedicated to St.
George and the birthday of William Shakespeare.

Girtin and Turner worked together. Girtin, measured by the standard of
to-day, was an extreme impressionist, leaving behind him sketches
dashed in with an appearance of freedom which Peter DeWint and David
Cox might have envied when in after years they were at the height of
their power. Turner, on the contrary, devoted his time to acquiring
that triumphant grasp of detail which caused him to be kn