ily helped and so brightly
animated by the most obscure suggestion, that there is no form of
artistical language which will not readily be seized by it, if once it
set itself intelligently to the task; and even without such effort there
are few hieroglyphics of which, once understanding that it is to take
them as hieroglyphics, it cannot make itself a pleasant picture.

Sec. XXIII. Thus, in the case of all sketches, etchings, unfinished
engravings, &c., no one ever supposes them to be imitations. Black
outlines on white paper cannot produce a deceptive resemblance of
anything; and the mind, understanding at once that it is to depend on
its own powers for great part of its pleasure, sets itself so actively
to the task that it can completely enjoy the rudest outline in which
meaning exists. Now, when it is once in this temper, the artist is
infinitely to be blamed who insults it by putting anything into his work
which is not suggestive: having summoned the imaginative power, he must
turn it to account and keep it employed, or it will run against him in
indignation. Whatever he does merely to realize and substantiate an idea
is impertinent; he is like a dull story-teller, dwelling on points which
the hearer anticipates or disregards. The imagination will say to him:
"I knew all that before; I don't want to be told that. Go on; or be
silent, and let me go on in my own way. I can tell the story better than
you."

Observe, then, whenever finish is given for the sake of realization, it
is wrong; whenever it is given for the sake of adding ideas it is right.
All true finish consists in the addition of ideas, that is to say, in
giving the imagination more food; for once well awaked, it is ravenous
for food: but the painter who finishes in order to substantiate takes
the food out of its mouth, and it will turn and rend him.

Sec. XXIV. Let us go back, for instance, to our olive grove,--or, lest the
reader should be tired of olives, let it be an oak copse,--and consider
the difference between the substantiating and the imaginative methods of
finish in such a subject. A few strokes of the pencil, or dashes of
color, will be enough to enable the imagination to conceive a tree; and
in those dashes of color Sir Joshua Reynolds would have rested, and
would have suffered the imagination to paint what more it liked for
itself, and grow oaks, or olives, or apples, out of the few dashes of
color at its leisure. On the other hand, Hobbima