As a _painter_ he had never been properly trained.

His values were uncertain; and he had none of the sureness of method which men with half his talent had got out of study under a man like, say, Carolus Duran.
Supposing now, he went to Paris for a year?
No, no!--too many of the Englishmen who went to Paris lost their individuality and became third-rate Frenchmen.

He would puzzle out things for himself--stick to his own programme and ideas.
English poetic feeling, combined with as much of French technique as it could assimilate--there was the line of progress.

Not the technique of these clever madmen--Manet, Degas, Monet, and the rest--with the mean view of life of some, and the hideous surface of others.

No!--but the Barbizon men--and Mother Nature, first and foremost! Beauty too, beauty of idea and selection--not mere beauty of paint, to which everything else--line, modelling, construction--was to be vilely sacrificed.
In his exaltation he began an imaginary article denouncing the Impressionists, spouting it aloud as he went along; so that the passers-by caught a word or two, through the traffic, now and then, and turned to look, astonished, at the handsome, gesticulating fellow in the hansom.