And as I saw her at this moment, filled with mental energy
and dominated by the pleasure of mental labour, a quick sympathetic
elation came over me, almost immediately after to be replaced by
simple fear.
"I am afraid you have overtaxed yourself rather," I said, in
conventional phrase; "I'm afraid you're in pain."
"Oh, that's nothing! Come and tell me what you think!" she said,
extending her hand, but not taking her eyes from the drawing. "This
is only the first study, of course. But tell me, have I got a
sufficiently--well--expectant--rapt expression? I am not quite
sure."
I saw she was too utterly preoccupied to attend to anything I said
of herself then, so I did not insist farther, and went up to the
easel. I was not an artist nor a critic, nor in any way qualified to
be a judge of painting as painting; but of genius, who is not a
judge? In any art it is recognisable, patent, obvious to all. There
is no human clod, no boor who is utterly insensible to its
influence. It needs no education to perceive its presence, though
the ignorant could not tell you what that presence was. Genius is as
the sun itself: as universally perceptible. Even the rustic clown
feels the sun hot upon his face. Ask him what sun is, and he cannot
say, but he feels the difference between sun and no sun. And the
power in this rough drawing beat in upon my perceptions as the sun
beats on the labourer's face.
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