dying or the dead Marat, nothing is seen but the foreshortened face, one shoulder, and the long bare arms; the handle of the deadly knife projects and is relieved against the livid flesh. The resolute woman stands against the window-jamb, and in full light, relieved by her own and the wall's shadow cast upon the map and the dado behind. Her figure is tall and massive; she is dressed in a gown with strongly marked stripes and wears a voluminously folded handkerchief around her shoulders and neck; her hair is loosened; her figure dominates the picture and seems to reduce everything else to an accessory. The face of the slayer is set, as if with the resolution she has just acted on, and with terror as to what is now to follow. The eyes are wide open and the action of the right hand, with clenched fingers, shows how, in relinquishing the haft of the knife, the muscles have convulsively closed again as if it were still retained by their clutch. The thing to observe here is the presence of the human interest demanded, and that in a very concentrated form, indeed; but also the relatively larger value of the artistic language in which the story has been told, and of the smaller value, relatively, of the human interest itself. Let us admit that the picture is a nobler work of art because of this expression of human interest—the striking down of the tyrant, the momentary victory of the heroine, the approaching cruel punishment of that heroine—patience, resignation, resolution, patriotism, and just enough of questioning as to the glory and value of the great French Revolution. All this, which in a poem would be insisted on, dwelt upon, which would form the one "subject" of the work of art, here, in the picture, forms but a part of the subject, and in the opinion of every artist, the inferior, secondary part. The chief subject is, after all, form, line and mass, light and shade, and color. The result is better for having the human interest; the work of art is nobler than if the same light and shade and color were investing walls and draperies where no human interest existed; and the conclusion seems to be that what is valuable in the picture is primarily the two human beings as visible objects, and the strong contrast between them in their represented action, their pose, their coloring—that is, in the outward aspect of their life; and, secondly, the organized light and shade of which these human figures form the chief and ruling part. And the lesson to learn seems to be that the language of painting is so immensely more important, relatively, than the language of literature, that the rules of judgment, applied to the one art, fail lamentably when they are tried upon the other. R. S. FOOTNOTES: