I did not know why Strickland had suddenly offered to show them to me. I welcomed the opportunity. A man's work reveals him. In social intercourse¹ he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, and you can only gain a true knowledge of him by inferences from little actions, of which he is unconscious, and from fleeting² expressions, which cross his face unknown to him. Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem. But in his book or his picture the real man delivers himself defenceless. His pretentiousness³ will only expose his vacuity⁴. The lathe⁵ painted to look like iron is seen to be but a lathe. No affectation of peculiarity⁶ can conceal⁸ a commonplace mind. To the acute observer no one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul.