Indeed, that is one of the mysteries of Turner’s genius--that he could distort facts and leave out apparently essential details and yet make his realization of nature perfect in its truth--and what is still more mysterious is that this system of distortion and elimination was not a matter of convention but a universally applicable principle of practice and one which in his hands was capable of infinite variation. By an infallible instinct he grasped instantly the meaning of his subject as a whole and decided what he should accentuate or omit to make that meaning clear, and all his devices of technical treatment were as infallibly directed by an exact understanding of the way in which they could best be made to serve his end. Paradoxically, he left things out to gain a greater completeness of result, and he departed from strict correctness to secure more absolute reality. But all this he did by the aid of an extraordinary insight into nature’s facts and under the guidance of a judgment which was never at fault. That is why Turner’s manner of representing the sea cannot be applied by lesser men. Without any disparagement of the many able marine painters who have practised since his time it can safely be said that on none of them his mantle has fallen. Certainly to none of them has been granted his rare endowment of intimate vision and profound imagination; certainly none has possessed that combination of exhaustive knowledge and perfect confidence which made him so consummately a master of his craft. There have been in the recent past, there are at work to-day, artists who have studied the sea in the most sympathetic spirit and whose seriousness of effort deserves the highest praise, artists whose accomplishment would be wholly satisfying if Turner had not shown so brilliantly the greater possibilities of sea painting; but theirs is a limited and specialized view beside that of their great predecessor. It is as well, however, that they do not try to do too much. To paint the abstract drama of the sea in the only way that can be made convincing, the possession of a temperament is absolutely essential, but this temperament must be schooled and disciplined by lifelong study or the drama will degenerate into incredible fantasy. Turner was temperamentally fitted to attempt the highest flights, and with his perfect technical equipment nothing was beyond his reach. Other artists must be content to admire his poetic power without aspiring to rival it. But, after all, honest, well-educated, serious prose is better than incoherent poetry, no matter how well-intentioned that may be; and certainly the prose of many of our modern sea painters is very good indeed--clear, logical, and distinguished by a true sense of style--and into much of it comes that touch of poetic feeling that gives charm and picturesqueness to the descriptive statement.