And so we might take one by one the pictures of this master, and, whether the impression that it records is drawn mainly from the exterior of its subject or from a penetration of the character or soul within, whether it be the expression of the soul of some fact of Bible story, no matter what the degree of idealism involved, every time it is form or some interpretation thereof, that is the foundation of the picture. Not form, however, for its own sake, for the purpose of rendering it in its logical and reasoned completeness or of exploiting the master’s efficiency in doing what every student aspires, and many can learn, to do; but form so felt, so rendered, that what we are made conscious of is not alone the physical sense of form, but its abstract significance; in a word, if I may say so, the soul of form, as from time to time it is used to interpret some one or other of the artist’s impressions. You cannot pass from one to the other of the thirty-seven examples of Rembrandt in the exhibition that, as I write, is being held in the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum, or travel round the galleries of Europe, intent upon the wealth of Rembrandts that they contain, without reaching a conviction, that grows more and more assured, of the profound knowledge and feeling for form [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF HENDRICKJE STOFFELS REMBRANDT BERLIN GALLERY] that Rembrandt possessed and communicates. He may reveal clearly but a portion of a figure, veiling or obscuring the rest; but what is revealed is sufficient for the physical appreciation of the whole figure, and enforces the physical significance, while the spiritual significance is profoundly increased by the demand that has been made upon our imagination. After long study one comes to believe, not only that Rembrandt treated form differently from other artists, which no one, I suppose, denies; but also that no other artist has ever treated it with such a mingling of power and subtlety, with so fine and sure a reliance upon its physical qualities, and yet with so marvelous a capacity to interpret its spiritual significance.