ine that
we are looking at a picture, and we admire exceedingly the perfection of
drawing its author has displayed,--the wonderful breadth of
composition,--the harmony of color-masses. The moment is full of keen
enjoyment for us; but the vital thing, after all, is, what impression
shall we take away with us. Has the picture borne us any message? Has it
been either an interpretation or a revelation of something? Shall we
remember it?"

"But is not simple beauty sometimes a revelation, Mr. Sumner?" asked
Barbara,--"as in a landscape, or seascape, or the painting of a child's
face?"

"Certainly, if the artist has shown by his work that this beauty has
stirred depths of feeling in himself, and his effort has been to reveal
what he has felt to others. If you seek to find this in pictures you
will soon learn to distinguish between those (too many of which are
painted to-day) whose only excellence lies in trick of handling or
cunning disposition of color-masses,--because these things are all of
which the artist has thought,--and those that have grown out of the
highest art-desire, which is to bear some message of the restfulness,
the power, the beauty, or the innocence of nature to the hearts of other
men.

"And there is one thing more that we must not forget. There may be
pictures with bad _motifs_ as well as good ones--weak and simple ones,
as well as strong and holy ones--and yet they may be full of all
artistic qualities of representation. What is true with regard to
literature is true in respect to art. It is, after all, the _message_
that determines the degree of nobility.

"Art was given for that. God uses us to help each other so,
Lending our minds out.

wrote Mr. Browning, and we should always endeavor to find out whether
the artist has loaned his mind or merely his fingers and his knowledge
of the use of his materials. If we find thought in his picture, we
should then ask to what service he has put it.

"If a poem consist only of words and rhythms, how long do you think it
ought to live? And if a picture possess merely forms and colors, however
beautiful they may be, it deserves no more fame. And how much worse if
there be meaning, and it be base and unworthy!"

"Does he not put it well?" whispered Malcom to Bettina from his usual
seat between her and Margery. "I feel as if he were pouring new
thoughts into me."

"Now, the one thing I desire to impress upon you to-night," continued
Mr. Sumner, "is