It is perhaps no mere chance that the threads of the Germanic aim in art were drawn out with such zeal by the Germanic nations. With the Latins a striking effect is made by brilliant technique, mastery of the manual art of painting, and careless sway over all the enchantments of the craft; with the Teutons one stands in the presence of an art which is so natural and simple that one scarcely thinks of the means by which it was called into being. In one case there is virtuosity, ductility, and grace; in the other, health, intrinsic feeling, and temperament. CHAPTER XXXVII ENGLAND To English painting the acquisitions of the French could now give little that was radically novel, for the epoch-making labours of the pre-Raphaelites were already in existence. Apart from certain cases of direct borrowing, it has either completely preserved its autonomy, or recast everything assimilated from France in a specifically English fashion. It is in art, indeed, as it is with men themselves. The English travel more than any other people, for travel is a part of their education. They are to be met in every quarter of the globe--in Africa, Asia, America, or the European Continent; and they scarcely need to open their mouths, even from a distance, to betray that they are English. In the same way there is no need of a catalogue at exhibitions to recognise all English pictures at the first glance. English painting is too English not to be fond of travel. The painter delights in reconnoitring all other schools and studying all styles; he is as much at home in the past as in the present. But as the English tourist, let him go to the world's end, retains everywhere his own customs, tastes, and habits, so English painting, even on its most adventurous journeys, remains unwaveringly true to its national spirit, and returns from all its wanderings more English than before; it adapts what is alien with the same delicious abnegation of all scruple with which the English tongue brings foreign words into harmony with its own sense of convenience. A certain softness of feeling and tenderness of spirit induce the English even in these days to avoid hard contact with reality. Their art rejects everything in nature which is harsh, rude, and brutal; it is an art which polishes and renders the reality poetic at the risk of debilitating its power. It considers matters from the standpoint of what is pretty, touching, or intelligible, and by no means holds that everything true is necessarily beautiful. And just as little does the English eye--so much occupied with detail--see light in its most exquisite subtleties. Indeed, it rather sees the isolated fact than the total harmony, and is clearer than it is fine.