James, however, did not stop on that precise line. In 1887 in writing about Sargent he said: “The highest result is attained when to the element of quick perception a certain faculty of lingering reflection is added,” and he continued, “I mean the quality in the light of which the artist sees deep into his subject, undergoes it, absorbs it, discovers in it new things that were not on the surface, becomes patient with it, and almost reverent, and, in short, elevates and humanizes the technical problems.” James certainly meant by that sympathy, deep human interest, if not sentiment, feeling, and emotion; but Sargent never showed these qualities in his work and has more than once repudiated them by word of mouth. It is a popular contention that he does see “new things that were not on the surface,” that he is a character reader; and that he is a bitter satirist in paint. Again the painter has denied these alleged accomplishments, and with some warmth into the bargain. Frank Millet told me years ago that Sargent, painting at Broadway, England, needed a white marble column in a picture he was then working upon. There was none at hand, but, at Millet’s suggestion, he got a carpenter to make a wooden column and had it painted a clean white. This was set up and Sargent tried to paint it in the picture as a marble column, but with the unexpected result that on the canvas it looked not like marble but like a wooden column painted white. He could not get below “the surface,” though he tried to do so. And Kenyon Cox in a strikingly just estimate of Sargent[17] tells this story: “He had painted a portrait in which he was thought to have brought out the inner nature of his sitter, and to have ‘seen through the veil’ of the external man. When asked about it he is said to have expressed some amazement at the idea, and to have remarked: ‘If there were a veil I should paint the veil; I can paint only what I see.’” And Cox adds: “Whether he said it or not, I am inclined to think that this sentence expresses the truth.” It does; and also Sargent’s self-imposed limitation. He does not want to see below the surface; he thinks the surface in itself, if rightly handled, is sufficient. But there is an explanation that may reconcile these different contentions. [17] _Old Masters and New_, by Kenyon Cox, New York, 1905.