apparent in this world, or any other. Much
more, if, in deeper vistas of his imagination, some presently graphic
Zechariah paint--(let us say) four carpenters, the public will most
likely declare that he ought to have painted persons in a higher class
of life, without ever inquiring whether the Lord had shown him four
carpenters or not. And the worst of the business is that the public
impatience, in such sort, is not wholly unreasonable. For truly, a
painter who has eyes can, for the most part, see what he "likes" with
them; and is, by divine law, answerable for his liking. And, even at
this late hour of the day, it is still conceivable that such of them as
would _verily_ prefer to see, suppose, instead of a tramp with a
harmonium, Orpheus with his lute, or Arion on his dolphin, pleased
Proteus rising beside him from the sea,--might, standing on the
"pleasant lea" of Margate or Brighton, have sight of those personages.

Orpheus with his lute,--Jubal with his harp and horn,--Harmonia, bride
of the warrior seed-sower,--Musica herself, lady of all timely thought
and sweetly ordered things,--Cantatrice and Incantatrice to all but the
museless adder; these the Amphion of Fesole saw, as he shaped the marble
of his tower; these, Memmi of Siena, fair-figured on the shadows of his
vault;--but for us, here is the only manifestation granted to our best
practical painter--a vagrant with harmonium--and yonder blackbirds and
iridescent jackasses, to be harmonized thereby.

244. Our best _painter_ (among the living) I say;--no question has ever
been of that. Since Van Eyck and Duerer there has nothing been seen so
well done in laying of clear oil-color within definite line. And what he
might have painted for us, if _we_ had only known what we would have of
him! Heaven only knows. But we none of us knew,--nor he neither; and on
the whole the perfectest of his works, and the representative picture of
that generation--was no Annunciate Maria bowing herself; but only a
Newsless Mariana stretching herself: which is indeed the best symbol of
the mud-moated Nineteenth century; in _its_ Grange, Stable--Sty, or
whatever name of dwelling may best befit the things it calls Houses and
Cities: imprisoned therein by the unassailablest of walls, and blackest
of ditches--by the pride of Babel, and the filthiness of Aholah and
Aholibamah; and their worse younger sister;--craving for any manner of
News from any world--and getting none trustworthy even