nature must, of course, have been carefully studied
before the man can work out anything in art by which it is faithfully
represented. The artist, for instance, who made that statue, must have
known the proportions of the human frame. He must have made studies
of various parts of it,--heads and hands, and arms and legs, and so
forth,--and having done so, he then puts together all his various
studies of details, so as to form a new whole, which is intended to
personate an idea formed in his own mind. Do you go with me?"

"Partly, sir; but I am puzzled a little still."

"Of course you are; but you'll puzzle yourself right if you think over
what I say. Now if, in order to make this statue, which is composed of
metal or stone, more natural, I stuck on it a wig of real hair, would
not you feel at once that I had spoilt the work; that as you clearly
express it, 'it would not be the right thing'? and instead of making the
work of art more natural, I should have made it laughably unnatural, by
forcing insensibly upon the mind of him who looked at it the contrast
between the real life, represented by a wig of actual hair, and the
artistic life, represented by an idea embodied in stone or metal. The
higher the work of art (that is, the higher the idea it represents as a
new combination of details taken from nature), the more it is degraded
or spoilt by an attempt to give it a kind of reality which is out
of keeping with the materials employed. But the same rule applies to
everything in art, however humble. And a couple of stuffed canary-birds
at the brim of a basket-work imitation of a Greek drinking-cup would be
as bad taste as a wig from the barber's on the head of a marble statue
of Apollo."

"I see," said Will, his head downcast, like a man pondering,--"at least
I think I see; and I'm very much obliged to you, sir."

Mrs. Somers had long since returned with the work-basket, but stood with
it in her hands, not daring to interrupt the gentleman, and listening to
his discourse with as much patience and as little comprehension as if it
had been one of the controversial sermons upon Ritualism with which on
great occasions Mr. Lethbridge favoured his congregation.

Kenelm having now exhausted his critical lecture--from which certain
poets and novelists who contrive to caricature the ideal by their
attempt to put wigs of real hair upon the heads of stone statues might
borrow a useful hint or two if they would condescend to do s