like an abstract relentless fate when it pours back into the deep gulf of a sea of forgetfulness, with a rush of whitened pebbles dragged from the beach, or a long expanse of uncovered sands left bare, studded with slippery fragments of rock and the bones of shipwrecked boats. These are no more than symbols of the rising and falling again of human feeling, which, in all its phases, is of the highest interest to those who recognise, even in its imaginary developments, a shadow of their own. The moment when we first perceive that our individual tide has turned is one which few persons will find it possible to forget. We look on with a piteous surprise to see our little triumphs, our not-little hopes, the future we had still believed in, the past in which we thought our name and fame would still be to the good, whatever happened, all floating out to sea to be lost there, out of sight of men. In the morning all might seem as sure to go on for ever--that is, for our time, which means the same thing--as the sky over us, or the earth beneath our feet; but before evening there was a different story, and the tide was in full retreat, carrying with it both convictions of the past and hope in the future, not only our little laurels, all tossed and withered, and our little projects, but also the very heart of exertion, our confidence in ourselves and providence. The discovery comes in many different ways--in the unresponsive silence which greets an orator who once was interrupted by perpetual cheers, in the publishing of a book which drops and is never heard of more, or, as in the present case, the unsold pictures: and in the changed accent with which the fickle public pronounces a once favoured name. There are some who salute this discovery with outcries of indignation and refusal to believe. They think, like the French, that they are betrayed, or, like many of us, that an enemy has done this: a malignant critic perhaps, an ill-disposed publisher or dealer: and save their own pride by putting forth explanations, and persuading themselves, if nobody else, that the thing is temporary and an accident, or else that it is due to cruel fate, and the machinations of evil-hearted men. But when, amid the gifts of the artist, be they small or great, he happens to retain the clearer reason, the common-sense of ordinary intelligence, it is more difficult to take refuge in such self-deceptions, merciful expedients of Nature as they may be to blind us to our own misfortunes. The reasonable man has the worst of it in such cases. It is less possible for him to believe in a mysterious fate or in malign influences. He is obliged to allow to himself that the going out of the tide is as natural as its coming in, and that he is no way exempted from the operation of those laws which affect human reputation and comfort as much as the rising and the falling affect the winds and the seas.