That this brief taste of unpopularity did him good rather than harm can well be imagined, for without making him bitter it tested with some severity his tenacity and his power to fight vigorously for what he believed to be right—and such a test has always its value as a means of developing the finer qualities of a strong man, or as a warning to the weak one of the need for self-examination. Millais did not require any incentive to self-examination, because he knew well enough what he intended to do when he deliberately set up his own conviction against that of the men who practically ruled British art, and he did not enter upon the fight with any idea of backing out if he found it was likely to go against him. But after the kind of triumphal progress which he made through the Academy schools, the discovery that the wider public was not disposed to accept him as infallible was possibly necessary to prove to him that successes as a student did not give him, as a matter of course, an assured place among the chiefs of his profession. He was taught roughly, and in a way that roused both his fighting spirit and his pride, that this position was to be won only by sustained and strenuous effort; and this lesson he never forgot. Its effects persisted long after he had become a popular favourite, and they helped, it can be fairly believed, to strengthen his character and to keep him from that easy contentment with his own works which is the first step towards degeneration. He did not degenerate after he had secured what he had been striving for; although he had silenced his critics, and had won them over to his side, he continued to sit in severest judgment upon himself, and to the last he exacted from his own capacities the utmost they could give him.
The plates are printed by Bemrose & Sons, Ltd., Derby and London
The text at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh