You had leaned over the still pool of some Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of your own face.

And it had all been what art should be--unconscious, ideal, and remote.

One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are, not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own time.

Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of your own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or veil, I cannot tell.

But I know that as I worked at it, every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret.