which her brother founded upon these events. ‘The array of act and circumstance, and visible form’ becomes exactly what the poet’s or artist’s ‘passion makes them.’[17] In other words, the matter of sense intuition is taken up into the world of intelligence. This matter, which in the first place was something immediate or given, now loses its natural and positive attributes, loses its authority as fact, but gains a wider scope and ampler authority by being taken up into the world of mind and used as a sign. And here again an opportunity presents itself for shallow and wrongheaded criticism. Those who are under the dominion of the theory that art should only represent sensuous facts in their immediacy resent the transformation which the data of sense must undergo before they can take their place in the organised world of meaning. To them, therefore, such pictures as these are defective; the colouring is not sufficiently natural, not bright enough, nor are the contrasts sufficiently strong. These pictures are not painted in ‘the key of nature.’ In a word, they are old-fashioned, because the artist has done something more in them than the theories of impressionism can consecrate. We have then to avoid two mistaken ways of regarding these works. We must not look upon them (1) as attempts to reproduce the actual brilliancy and colour of natural lighting, nor must we treat them (2) as prosaic and literal imitations of actuality devoid of all the higher poetry of art. That these works are open to--nay, have almost invariably fallen victims to--these two opposite forms of depreciation, is a striking proof of the success with which they have avoided those fatal extremes in which so much of the art of the present lies engulfed. But it is not enough simply to avoid the dangers which modern theorising throws in the way of the interpreter. A really concrete and fruitful criticism will not stop short till it has made the attempt to grasp, however imperfectly, by thought the full and special significance of each work. And again, when we have made it clear to ourselves that ‘the array Of act and circumstance, and visible form, Is mainly to the pleasure of the mind What passion makes them,’--