What I mean is this:
it tries to represent as still what never yet was still for the
thousandth part of a second: that is, the human face; and as seen by a
spectator who is perfectly still, which no man ever yet was. My dear
fellow, don't you see that what some painters call idealising a
portrait is, if it be wisely done, really painting for you the face
which you see, and know, and love; her ever-shifting features, with
expression varying more rapidly than the gleam of the diamond on
her finger; features which you, in your turn, are looking at with
ever-shifting eyes; while, perhaps, if it is a face which you love and
have lingered over, a dozen other expressions equally belonging to it
are hanging in your memory, and blending themselves with the actual
picture on your retina:--till every little angle is somewhat rounded,
every little wrinkle somewhat softened, every little shade somewhat
blended with the surrounding light, so that the sum total of what
you see, and are intended by Heaven to see, is something far softer,
lovelier--younger, perhaps, thank Heaven--than it would look if your
head was screwed down in a vice, to look with one eye at her head
screwed down in a vice also:--though even that, thanks to the muscles
of the eye, would not produce the required ugliness; and the only
possible method of fulfilling the pre-Raphaelite ideal would be, to
set a petrified Cyclops to paint his petrified brother."

"You are spiteful."

"Not at all. I am standing up for art, and for nature too. For
instance: Sabina has wrinkles. She says, too, that she has grey hairs
coming. The former I won't see, and therefore don't. The latter I
can't see, because I am not looking for them."

"Nor I either," said Stangrave smiling. "I assure you the announcement
is new to me."

"Of course. Who can see wrinkles in the light of those eyes, that
smile, that complexion?"

"Certainly," said Stangrave, "if I asked for her portrait, as I shall
do some day, and the artist sat down and painted the said 'wastes
of time,' on pretence of their being there, I should consider it an
impertinence on his part. What business has he to spy out what nature
has taken such charming trouble to conceal?"

"Again," said Claude, "such a face as Cordifiamma's. When it is at
rest, in deep thought, there are lines in it which utterly puzzle
one--touches which are Eastern, Kabyle, almost Quadroon."

Stangrave started. Claude went on unconscious:--

"But wh