al truth. "Modern Painters" has
value in this very showing of the critical development, which to an
intelligent student is greater than that a complete and infallible guide
could have.

The chapter on Invention is full of the most delightful artistic truth,
and shows completely, by copious illustrations, how well Turner deserved
the rank Ruskin gives him amongst great composers. The analyses of the
compositions of Turner are most curious and interesting, but, of course,
depend on the accompanying plates. Some most valuable mental philosophy
bearing on the production of art-works concludes Part VIII., which
is devoted to "Invention Formal," of which we quote the concluding
paragraphs:--

"Until the feelings can give strength enough to the will to enable it
to conquer them, they are not strong enough. If you cannot leave your
picture at any moment, cannot turn from it and go on with another while
the color is drying, cannot work at any part of it you choose with equal
contentment, you have not firm enough grasp of it.

"It follows, also, that no vain or selfish person can possibly paint,
in the noble sense of the word. Vanity and selfishness are troublous,
eager, anxious, petulant: painting can only be done in calm of mind.
Resolution is not enough to secure this; it must be secured by
disposition as well. You may resolve to think of your picture only; but,
if you have been fretted before beginning, no manly or clear grasp of
it will be possible for you. No forced calm is calm enough: only honest
calm, natural calm. You might as well try by external pressure to smooth
a lake till it could reflect the sky, as by violence of effort to secure
the peace through which only you can reach imagination. That peace must
come in its own time, as the waters settle themselves into clearness as
well as quietness: you can no more filter your mind into purity than you
can compress it into calmness; you must keep it pure, if you would have
it pure; and throw no stones into it, if you would have it quiet. Great
courage and self-command may to a certain extent give power of painting
without the true calmness underneath, but never of doing first-rate
work. There is sufficient evidence of this in even what we know of great
men, though of the greatest we nearly always know the least (and that
necessarily; they being very silent, and not much given to setting
themselves forth to questioners,--apt to be contemptuously reserved no
less than un