He preferred to base himself more upon the spirit than the letter of a story, to find a new reading for himself, and to treat it with a considerable degree of independence. In _The Princes in the Tower_ he followed none of the accepted versions, and in _Effie Deans_ he made a subject out of the slightest possible suggestion in the text of the romance; yet both pictures show that peculiar air of conviction which results from a perfect understanding of what is essential for the proper application of dramatic material. In these, as in almost all his renderings of incident, appears his habit of attacking not the climax of the story, but rather one of its earlier stages, an intermediate moment when the action is still in progress and the final result is suggested rather than clearly foreshadowed. This habit was always strong upon him. It gave their particular interest to such early works as _The Huguenot_, _The Black Brunswicker_, _The Proscribed Royalist_, and _The Escape of a Heretic_, just as much as it did to later pictures like _The Girlhood of St. Theresa_, or _Speak! Speak!_; and by introducing a touch of speculation into the record of his thoughts he enhanced the fascination which was never wanting in his sturdy inventions. Indeed, there was in every branch of his figure-painting some sufficient reason for his popularity, some distinct attractiveness of mental quality to add convincingly to the impression created by his superlative command over technicalities. He could be tender, dainty, and refined in his studies of children; serious and solemn in his symbolical compositions; pathetic, vigorous, and passionate by turns in his subject-pictures; and through all ran a vein of sentiment that was always wholesome, clean, and intelligible. He never affected to be influenced by feelings that were not honestly natural to him, nor did he pretend to represent anything that he did not believe in sincerely and without question. What he painted was invariably what he felt at the moment; and, whether it was a masterpiece or a comparative failure it expressed simply the appeal that the subject had made to him; and his response to this appeal was always unconventional and definite. He trusted in the same way to a personal impression of his sitter when he set himself to paint a portrait. What he wanted was to show that he understood the individuality of the man or woman before him, and that his understanding had helped him to make clear to others the special idiosyncrasies that separated that man or woman from the ordinary crowd. Portraiture to him was a matter of observation, of receptiveness to suggestion, and acceptance of what was visible, rather than an artistic process which enabled him to give free scope to his inventive instincts.