inci; and the "Ophelia" of Hughes, though inexcusably
incorrect in the figure, has a refinement of drawing in the face,
and especially in the lines of the open, chanting mouth, which no
draughtsman of the French school can equal. It is where the idea guides
the hand that the Pre-Raphaelites are triumphant; everywhere else they
fail. But this is a fault which will correct itself as they learn the
significance and value of things they do not now understand. They paint
well that which they love, and devotion grows and widens its sphere the
longer it endures, taking in, little by little, all things which bear
relation to the thought or thing it clings to; and the man who draws
because he has something to tell, and draws _that_ well, is certain
of finally drawing all things well. This very deficiency of
Pre-Raphaelitism, then, points to its true excellence, and indicates
that singleness of purpose which is an element in all true Art. The want
of grace, which is made almost a synonyme with Pre-Raphaelitism, has its
origin in the same resolute clinging to truth as the artist comprehends
it, and uncompromising determination to express it as perfectly as he
has the power,--a feeling which never permits him to think whether his
work be graceful, but whether it be just; so that his tremulous and
almost fearful conscientiousness--tremulous with desire to see all,
and fearful lest some line should wander by a hair's breadth from its
fullest expressiveness--makes him lose sight entirely of grace and
repose. No form that has the appearance of being painfully drawn
can ever be a graceful one; and so the Pre-Raphaelite, until he has
something of a master's facility and decision, can never be graceful.
The artist who prefers grace to truth will never be remarkable either
for grace or truth, while the one who clings to truth at all sacrifices
will finally reach the expression of the highest degree of beauty which
his soul is capable of conceiving; for the lines of highest beauty and
supremest truth are coincident. The Ideal meets the Actual finally in
the Real.

If there be one point of feeling in which the Pre-Raphaelites can be
said to be more than in all others antagonistic to the schools of
painting which preceded them, it would be that indicated by this
distinction,--that the new school is one which in all cases places truth
before beauty, while the old esteems beauty above truth. The tendency
of the one is towards a severe and truth