"I never like what I do not understand."
"How is it you are a painter then?" asked Kate, in her turn.
"I do not see what that has to do with the subject on which we were speaking," he returned, startled at this attack.
"How is it that you can give expression to a face with your pencil, which you could not convey in words? Even a landscape may speak the painter's soul, far more than the most eloquent description; so it is that glimpses of what is far beyond our nature to comprehend, faint though they be, give us an idea of space and might far more than any even perfectly comprehended explanation, as mist-wreaths hide but magnify the depths seen from a mountain."
"A very poetical definition, Miss Vernon."
"I speak but my thoughts," said Kate, steadily, though she blushed, and felt uneasy; as enthusiasts always do, when the quick current of their imagination is checked by some son of earth, who dignifies his dulness by the name of strong common sense.
"Well, Miss Vernon, I must think of what you say about painting."
"Ah, you must have enthusiasm and imagination to be a painter, though you are too English not to be ashamed of your better self."
"That is what Galliard says."