CHAPTER II 



MR. TURVEYDROP AND HIS FOREIGN COUSINS 



That beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is 

 a half truth, and is a part of a universal law that 

 makes a mental condition, the measure of external 

 influences upon us. Every artist knows that fifty 

 per cent of the effect of a picture is in what may 

 be termed background. A painting of Liberty 

 enlightening the world, whose background is a 

 city market, must of necessity be a failure for the 

 subject demands, as background, the ocean and 

 the sky. 



Now, it is equally true that we will fail to 

 understand the influence of a flock of birds upon 

 the mind of the boy, unless we retrace his steps 

 far enough to acquaint ourselves with the cir- 

 cumstances in which the secret of his mental con- 

 dition lay hidden, when he first beheld them. Be- 

 tween the age of four and five, he lived for one 

 year in the country, then three years in the city, 

 hating it all and longing to get back home back 

 to nature. 



Then the return. No angel with a flaming 



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