Even to the mere spectator, a strange interest exalts the accessories of a scene in which he bears witness to human sorrow. They thrust themselves forward with a ghastly and unendurable distinctness, as if they would compel the sufferer to count, or measure, or learn them by heart. Nothing is more notable than the way in which even the most trivial objects force themselves upon the attention of a mind which has been fevered by violent and distressful excitement. But, without entering into the question of the general propriety of such treatment, I would only observe that, at least in this instance, it is based on a truer principle of the pathetic than any of the common artistical expedients of the schools. It is true that detail of this kind has long been so carelessly rendered that the perfect finishing of it becomes matter of curiosity, and therefore an interruption to serious thought. But I can easily understand that to many persons the careful rendering of the inferior details in this picture cannot but be at first offensive, as calling their attention away from the principal subject. I suppose that no one possessing the slightest knowledge of expression could remain untouched by the countenance of the lost girl, rent from its beauty into sudden horror the lips half open, indistinct in their purple quivering, the teeth set hard, the eyes filled with the fearful light of futurity, and with tears of ancient days. The poor girl has been singing with her seducer some chance words of the song "Oft in the stilly night" have struck upon the numbed places of her heart she has started up in agony he, not seeing her face, goes on singing, striking the keys carelessly with his gloved hand.
People gaze at it in a blank wonder, and leave it hopelessly so that, although it is almost an insult to the painter to explain his thoughts in this instance, I cannot persuade myself to leave it thus misunderstood. I am at a loss to know how its meaning could be rendered more distinctly, but assuredly it is not understood. Hunts principal picture encourages me to hope that you may yet allow me room in your columns for a few words respecting his second work in the Royal Academy, the "Awakening Conscience." Not that this picture is obscure, or its story feebly told. Sir,Your kind insertion of my notes on Mr.