a very little light
let, in pinholes, through a very dark matt, will, at a distance, so
assert itself as to prevail over the darkness of the matt.

It is really very little use going on to describe the way the colour
acts in these various processes; for its behaviour varies with every
degree of all of them. One may gradually acquire the skill to combine
all the processes, in all their degrees, upon a single painting; and the
only way in which you can test their relative value, either as texture
or as light and shade, is to constantly practise each process in all its
degrees, and see what results each has, both when seen near at hand and
also when seen from a distance. It is useless to try and learn these
things from written directions; you must make them your own, as precious
secrets, by much practice and much experiment, though it will save you
years of both to learn under a good master.

But this question of distance is a most important thing, and we must
enlarge upon it a little and try to make it quite clear.

Glass-painting is not like any other painting in this respect.

Let us say that you see an oil-painting--a portrait--at the end of the
large room in some big Exhibition. You stand near it and say, "Yes, that
is the King" (or the Commander-in-Chief), "a good likeness; however do
they do those patent-leather boots?" But after you have been down one
side of the room and turn round at the other end to yawn, you catch
sight of it again; and still you say, "Yes, it's a good likeness," and
"really those boots are very clever!" But if it had been your own
painting on _glass_, and sitting at your easel you had at last said,
"Yes,--_now_ it's like the drawing--_that's_ the expression," you could
by no means safely count on being able to say the same at all distances.
You may say it at ten feet off, at twenty, and yet at thirty the shades
may all gather together into black patches; the drawing of the eyelids
and eyes may vanish in one general black blot, the half-tones on the
cheeks may all go to nothing. These actual things, for instance, _will_
be the result if the cheeks are stippled or scrubbed, and the shade
round the eyes left as a _film_--ever so slight a film will do it. Seen
near, you _see the drawing through the film_; but as you go away the
light will come pouring stronger and stronger through the brush or
stipple marks on the cheeks, until all films will cut out against it
like black spots, altering the wh