recall in the Boston exhibition two portraits of ladies whose _esprit_ was of a kind that quiet folks would consider fast. Their cases also had been keenly diagnosed and met with the skill of an artist who did not care to extenuate, nor on the other hand had fallen under personal subjection to the physical attractiveness, but set down what he saw and surrounded it with the elegant atmosphere that was its salvation in real life. It is here that he compares to such advantage with a painter like Boldini. Sargent has instinctive refinement. It would be quite impossible for him to have any feelings toward his subjects other than those of a true gentleman; and, though he may represent in a lady a full flavour of the modern spirit, he never allows the modernity to exceed the limits of good taste. For the same reason Sargent’s pictures, though many of them have a restlessness of their own, seem quiet alongside Boldini’s. The latter makes a motive of nervous tenuosity, and his pictures, if seen frequently, become wiry in suggestion, and defeat their own purpose of being vibrative; but Sargent’s, controlled by a fine sobriety of feeling, another phase of his unfailing taste and tact, retain their suppleness. Their actuality is all the more convincing because it is not the motive, but an incident. Yet, even so, this actuality is of a very different quality from that reached by the old masters. I have in mind an inevitable comparison, suggested by his portrait of Mr. Marquand in the Metropolitan Museum with one by Titian on the same wall and with a Franz Hals, a Velasquez, and a Rembrandt in an adjoining gallery. In all these latter there is a gravity of feeling that is not alone due to the subduing effects of time; while Sargent’s portrait, even apart from the sleek fatness of the brush work which age will mature, is the product of a habit of mind altogether different. It lacks the intimacy of the “Wife” of Franz Hals, the penetrating depth of the “Doge Grimani,” the quiet assurance of Velasquez’s “Don Carlos,” and the intense sympathy of the Rembrandt, though the last two are only moderate examples of the masters. Instead, it reveals a certain assertiveness in its assurance, an intensity of nervous force rather than of intellectual or sympathetic effort, a brilliant epitome rather than a profound study. It has not the permanence of feeling, either in its characterization or method; that suggestion of perennial, stable truth, which, so far as we can judge from the past, would insure it a place among the great old masters of the future. Among the masters we may feel certain that Sargent will be reckoned as having been one of the most conspicuous figures of his age; but his vogue will rise and dwindle according to the amount of interest felt for the time being in the age which he represented; it will scarcely have that inevitableness of conviction, which, when once recognized, must abide. If this forecast is correct, the reason is that