CHAPTER XXIX.

I was determined to have the bust as near right as I could make it. It had taken me, however, at least five times as long to measure the distances with my eyes as it would have done to measure them with the calipers, and I saw no advantage in the longer and more painful effort. The measurements are mere preparations for the artist's true work, and are, like the surveyor's lines, preparatory to the architect's labor. When my subject, in his turn, undertook my portrait, he was true to his own principles, and finished it without measurements. I then, though with some horror at my temerity, asked permission to verify his work with the dividers, and found at the first stroke a difference of at least half an inch in the distance between the eyes. He looked very much mortified, but said that it was done to 'give the effect.' I have had no misgivings since about the economy and wisdom of using the calipers freely. To be useful, they must be applied with the greatest precision—so small are the differences upon which all the infinite variety in human countenances depends. With the aid of my careful measurements, I do in one day what it would cost me a week or two's work to accomplish without, and I am then able to give my exclusive attention to the modeling."