How often the will passes, we know not whither, like the wind; and the thoughts, swallowed up in the materialism of far other thoughts, come back to us in later life only as random visions of what might have been! Indeed, it is beautiful for the artist when he can recover that boy’s will, and link the early thoughts on to the maturer thoughts of manhood. This way lie sincerity, depth and fulness of conviction, and ripest fruitfulness. It has been difficult for American artists to maintain this continuity of evolution, since they have had to travel far for instruction, and the way of return to the associations of the past has not seemed clear. Still, many have found it, and perhaps a volume of criticism might be based upon this one fact; and it might be shown that those whom we most admire as powerful painters, for the reality of what they have to say and their impressive way of saying it, are the ones who, in their art, have got back closest, either to the actual scenes or to the mental associations of their youth. [Illustration: Copyright, 1902, by N.E. Montrose, New York. A STY. By Horatio Walker.] But besides the quality of force in Walker and his art, there is the other one of persuasiveness. You may remember his “Oxen Drinking,”--the two broad-fronted, patient heads side by side at the water trough, their driver, in blue shirt, standing by them, and the rich brown backs of the massive beasts showing against the dark-gray horizon. For the sky, reaching far up above the group, has been whipped into turbulence by the wind; it is slaty-hued, threatening storm. How grandiose this elemental fermentation! How significant the bulk and solidity of the beasts! There is force all through the picture, the force of disturbance and the force of immobility; for the beasts are grounded like boulders; the man, motionless. It is a force that compels attention and communicates its own strength to one’s self; and then succeeds an infinite suggestion of restfulness. The heavens may labour, but for man and oxen the appointed task is done, and they enter into their rest. And note that this suggestion is not arrived at by a process of the intellect, but by pure sensation. [Illustration: Copyright, 1902, by N.E. Montrose, New York. PLOUGHING IN ACADIA. By Horatio Walker.]