em, 'to say the least of it, astounding'?

"Not at all! By this sort of thing was he known among us, poor
chap--and so was he our fresh gladness and continued surprise."

"Did I not make historical his enchanting encounter with Mr.
Herkomer's water-colour drawing of Mr. Ruskin at the Grosvenor, which
he described as the 'first oil portrait we have of the great master'?
Amazing that, if you like!

"Do not all remember how we leaped for joy at the reading of it?"

"Even Atlas himself laughed aloud, and, handicapped as he is with the
World, and weighted with wisdom, danced upon his plinth, a slow
measure of reckless acquiescence, as I set down in the chronicles of
all time that 'Arry, 'unable, by mere sense of smell, to distinguish
between oil and water-colour, might at least have inquired; and that
either the fireman or the guardian in the Gallery could have told him
not to blunder in the _Times_.'"

"But no, he never would ask--he liked his potshots at things; it used
to give a sort of sporting interest to his speculations upon pictures.
And so he was ever obstinate--or any one at the Fine Art Society would
have told him the difference between an etching and a photograph.--I
am, good sir, yours, etc."

Atlas, _a bientot_.

ST. IVES, CORNWALL,
Jan. 25, 1834.

[Illustration]

_Propositions--No. 2_

A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about
the end has disappeared.

To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows
great and earnest labour, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit
for view.

Industry in Art is a necessity--not a virtue--and any evidence of the
same, in the production, is a blemish, not a quality; a proof, not of
achievement, but of absolutely insufficient work, for work alone will
efface the footsteps of work.

The work of the master reeks not of the sweat of the brow--suggests no
effort--and is finished from its beginning.

The completed task of perseverance only, has never been begun, and
will remain unfinished to eternity--a monument of goodwill and
foolishness.

"There is one that laboureth, and taketh pains, and maketh haste, and
is so much the more behind."

The masterpiece should appear as the flower to the
painter--perfect in its bud as in its bloom--with no reason to explain
its presence--no mission to fulfil--a joy to the artist--a delusion to
the philanthropist--a puzzle to the bot