To accomplish the result of rendering the quality and effect of high light was one of the problems to which Mr. Page years ago turned his attention; and he found its solution in the transposition of the scale. The pitch of Nature could not be adopted as the immutable in art. That were impossible, unless art presumed to cope with Nature. More than he, no man could respect the properties and qualities of the visible world. His ideas of the truthful rendering of that which became the subject of his pencil might seem preposterous to those who knew not the wonderful significancy which he attached to individual forms and tints. Yet, in imitation, where is the limit? What is possible? Must there be any sacrifice? Evidently there must be; and of course it follows that the less important must be sacrificed. Nature herself has taught the artist that the most variable of all her phenomena is that of _tone_. Other truths of Nature have a character of permanency which the artist cannot modify without violating the first principles of art. He is required to render the essential; and to render the essential of that which art cannot sacrifice, if it would, and continue art, he foregoes the non-essential and evanescent. Not only is this permitted,--it is demanded. It is a law through which alone success is attainable. In obedience to it, Mr. Page adopts a key somewhat lower than that of Nature as a point of departure, using his degrees of color frugally, especially in the ascending scale. With this economy, when he approaches the luminous effects of Nature, he finds, just where any other palette would be exhausted, upon his own a reserve of high color. With this, seeking only a corresponding effect of light in that lower tone which assumes no rivalry with the infinite glory of Nature, he attains to a representation fully successful. We would not have it understood that a mere transposition of the scale is all that is required to accomplish such a result; only this,--that in no other way can such a result be secured. To color well, to color so that forms upon the canvas give back tints like those of the objects which have served as models, is only half the work. Quality, as well as color, must be attained. Local, reflected, and transmitted color can be imitated; but as in the attempt to represent light its luminousness is the element which defeats the artist, so, throughout Nature, quality, texture, are the elements which most severely test his power. Could any indispensable truth be considered secondary, it might be assumed that rendering truthfully the qualities of Nature is the first and highest of art. The forms and colors of objects vary infinitely. It might be said that the law of all existence is, in these two particulars, that of change. From the time a human being is born until it disappears in the grave, from the day when the first leaves break the mould to that which sees the old tree fall, the form of each has been modified hourly.