able of all her phenomena is that of _tone_. Other truths
of Nature have a character of permanency which the artist cannot modify
without violating the first principles of art. He is required to render
the essential; and to render the essential of that which art cannot
sacrifice, if it would, and continue art, he foregoes the non-essential
and evanescent.

Not only is this permitted,--it is demanded. It is a law through which
alone success is attainable. In obedience to it, Mr. Page adopts a key
somewhat lower than that of Nature as a point of departure, using his
degrees of color frugally, especially in the ascending scale. With this
economy, when he approaches the luminous effects of Nature, he finds,
just where any other palette would be exhausted, upon his own a reserve
of high color. With this, seeking only a corresponding effect of light
in that lower tone which assumes no rivalry with the infinite glory of
Nature, he attains to a representation fully successful.

We would not have it understood that a mere transposition of the scale
is all that is required to accomplish such a result; only this,--that in
no other way can such a result be secured. To color well, to color so
that forms upon the canvas give back tints like those of the objects
which have served as models, is only half the work. Quality, as well as
color, must be attained. Local, reflected, and transmitted color can be
imitated; but as in the attempt to represent light its luminousness is
the element which defeats the artist, so, throughout Nature, quality,
texture, are the elements which most severely test his power.

Could any indispensable truth be considered secondary, it might be
assumed that rendering truthfully the qualities of Nature is the first
and highest of art. The forms and colors of objects vary infinitely.
It might be said that the law of all existence is, in these two
particulars, that of change. From the time a human being is born until
it disappears in the grave, from the day when the first leaves break the
mould to that which sees the old tree fall, the form of each has been
modified hourly.

But that which differentiates objects more completely than any other
property is quality. The sky over us, and the waters of the earth, are
subject to infinite variations. Yet, whether in the tiny drop that
trembles at the point of a leaf or in the vast ocean-globe of our
planet, in the torpor of forest-ponds or in the wrath of cataracts,