ine her, the less we can grasp the subtle lineaments that
serve as envelope for her uncorporeal existence. We end by seeing in her
nothing but a kind of extraordinarily strange phosphorescence which is
not the ordinary light of things, nor yet the ordinary brilliance of a
well-regulated palette, and this adds more sorcery to the peculiarities
of her countenance. Notice that in the place she occupies, one of the
dark corners of the canvas, rather low in the middle distance, between a
man in deep red and the captain dressed in black, this eccentric light
has much greater force than the most sudden contrast with a neighbouring
tint, and without extreme care this explosion of accidental light would
have sufficed to disorganize the whole picture.

What is the meaning of this little imaginary or real being, who,
however, is only a supernumerary while yet holding, so to speak, the
chief role? I shall not attempt to tell you. Abler people than I have
allowed themselves to inquire what it was and what it was doing there,
without coming to any satisfactory conclusion.

But if to all these somewhat vain questions Rembrandt replied: "This
child is a caprice no less strange than and quite as plausible as many
others in my engraving or painting. I have placed it as a narrow ray
amid great masses of shadow because its exiguity rendered it more
vibrating and it suited me to awaken with a ray one of the dark corners
of my picture. It also wears the usual costume of my female figures,
great or small, young or old, and in it you will find the type
frequently occurring in my works. I love what glitters, and that is why
I have clothed her in brilliant materials. As for those phosphorescent
gleams that astonish you here, whilst elsewhere they pass unnoticed, it
is only the light in its colourless splendour and supernatural quality
that I habitually give to my figures when I illuminate them at all
strongly."--Do you not think that such a reply ought to satisfy the most
difficult, and that finally, the rights of the stage-setter being
reserved, he need only render account of one point: the manner in which
he has treated the picture?

We know what to think of the effect produced by the _Night Watch_ when
it appeared in 1642. This memorable attempt was neither understood nor
relished. It added noise to Rembrandt's glory, increased it in the eyes
of his faithful admirers, and compromised it in the eyes of those who
had only followed him with so