You shrunk back lest the sword of the
warrior should indeed descend, and turned away your head that you
might not witness the agonies of the expiring martyr."
In a large number of instances, language such as this will be found to
be merely a clumsy effort to convey to others a sense of the
admiration, of which the writer does not understand the real cause in
himself. A person is attracted to a picture by the beauty of its
colour, interested by the liveliness of its story, and touched by
certain countenances or details which remind him of friends whom he
loved, or scenes in which he delighted. He naturally supposes that
what gives him so much pleasure must be a notable example of the
painter's skill; but he is ashamed to confess, or perhaps does not
know, that he is so much a child as to be fond of bright colours and
amusing incidents; and he is quite unconscious of the associations
which have so secret and inevitable a power over his heart. He casts
about for the cause of his delight, and can discover no other than
that he thought the picture like reality.
In another, perhaps, a still larger number of cases, such language
will be found to be that of simple ignorance--the ignorance of persons
whose position in life compels them to speak of art, without having
any real enjoyment of it.
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