If we were to try to explain why The Man with the Glove is a great work of art we should find the first reason, perhaps, in the fact that the man seems actually alive. The portrait has what the critics call vitality, in a remarkable degree. Again, the painter has revealed in the face the inner life of the man himself; the portrait is a revelation of his personality.
It has been said that every man wears an habitual mask in the presence of his fellows. It is only when he is taken unaware that the mask drops, and the man’s real self looks out of his face. The portrait painter’s art must catch the sitter’s expression in such a moment of unconsciousness. The great artist must be a seer as well as a painter, to penetrate the secrets of human character.
The young man of our picture is one of those reticent natures capable of intense feeling. In this moment of unconsciousness his very soul seems to look forth from his eyes. It is the soul of a poet, though he may not possess the gift of song. He has the poet’s imagination as a dreamer of noble dreams.
The time seems to have come when he is just awakening to the possibilities of life. He faces the future seriously, but with no shrinking. One recalls the words of Gareth, in Tennyson’s Idyll:
“Man am I grown, a man’s work must I do.
Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the king—
Else wherefore born?”[20]
The lofty ideals of the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table are such as we feel sure this gentle spirit would make his own:—
“To reverence the king as if he were