Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/166



N painting a portrait, two thoughts are upper-most: first, that the picture shall be as entirely truthful as even Cromwell himself could desire: and, secondly, that the mise en scène should express without overshadowing the subject. Annual visits to the Academy show certain learned gentlemen with a hand laid affectionately upon a globe, if the sitter is a traveller, or toying with a magnifying glass, if he is a professor of science. Any painter can thus portray the objects in which his sitter is primarily interested, but it takes a Sargent to dispense with such accessories and yet leave the impress of the man's mind shining through his eyes, and breathing his spirit through each stroke of the brush.

It has been my endeavour to show H. H. not only as a Postal Reformer, but in all the phases of everyday life, and yet I am acutely conscious that his character, his inmost thoughts, remain but vaguely expressed. Perhaps his very simplicity and transparency make the task more difficult than if one were analysing a profoundly complex character.

For one who had travelled so extensively, and seen so many sides of life, his judgment of men was singularly uncritical. All his friends know the truth of the assertion that to his kindly mind "every goose was a swan," and having benefited so constantly and 126