“What difference do you see between this picture and the ‘Horse Fair’?” she asked.
They looked carefully at the picture before them and Ethel Blue scampered back to refresh her memory on the “Horse Fair.”
“There isn’t any more action in one than the other,” said James, “though, of course, it’s different.”
“But this one makes me think a lot about a great man,” added his sister.
“And you want to know what it’s all about,” exclaimed Ethel Brown.
“You feel as if there must be some story about this one,” said Ethel Blue, returning from her expedition to the “Horse Fair.”
“That’s just the point,” said Miss Graham, patting her shoulder, “There’s no especial appeal to the imagination in the ‘Horse Fair.’ You just see horses going to any horse fair in northern France, and there’s nothing to tell you that one horse has won a ploughing match and that another is a candidate for a blue ribbon because of his great weight. But here you realize at once that Napoleon was a man to command attention. You want to know what he has been doing. You feel that there is some good reason for the evident admiration of his soldiers. Those two pictures are examples of two different classes of pictures. The ‘Horse Fair’ you might call a sketch in a traveller’s note book. The Napoleon picture is an illustration in a story.”
The young people thought over all this and nodded their agreement.
“Now come with me and see this picture of a pretty girl.”
Miss Graham led the way to the Morgan collection and they looked into the winning face of “Miss Farren.” She seemed to be moving swiftly across the canvas, her dress and cloak streaming behind her from the speed of her motion.