No man can read the
evidence of labour who is not himself laborious, for he does not know
what the work cost: nor can he read the evidence of true passion if he
is not passionate; nor of gentleness if he is not gentle: and the most
subtle signs of fault and weakness of character he can only judge by
having had the same faults to fight with. I myself, for instance, know
impatient work, and tired work, better than most critics, because I am
myself always impatient, and often tired:--so also, the patient and
indefatigable touch of a mighty master becomes more wonderful to me
than to others. Yet, wonderful in no mean measure it will be to you
all, when I make it manifest;--and as soon as we begin our real work,
and you have learned what it is to draw a true line, I shall be able
to make manifest to you,--and undisputably so,--that the day's work of
a man like Mantegna or Paul Veronese consists of an unfaltering,
uninterrupted, succession of movements of the hand more precise than
those of the finest fencer: the pencil leaving one point and arriving
at another, not only with unerring precision at the extremity of the
line, but with an unerring and yet varied course--sometimes over
spaces a foot or more in extent--yet a course so determined everywhere
that either of these men could, and Veronese often does, draw a
finished profile, or any other portion of the contour of the face,
with one line, not afterwards changed.
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