Of his picture, the one that stood now on his easel, he had at the bottom of his heart one conviction--that no one had ever painted a picture like it.

He did not believe that his picture was better than all the pictures of Raphael, but he knew that what he tried to convey in that picture, no one ever had conveyed.

This he knew positively, and had known a long while, ever since he had begun to paint it.