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NE
- I understand
- he has been himself both by night and by day,
- and that, after all, is the principal point.
PEER
- Himself? Then do such folks belong to your parish?
THE LEAN ONE
- That depends; the door, at least, stands ajar for them.
- Remember, in two ways a man can be
- himself-there's a right and wrong side to the jacket.
- You know they have lately discovered in Paris
- a way to take portraits by help of the sun.
- One can either produce a straightforward picture,
- or else what is known as a negative one.
- In the latter the lights and the shades are reversed,
- and they're apt to seem ugly to commonplace eyes;
- but for all that the likeness is latent in them,
- and all you require is to bring it out.
- If, then, a soul shall have pictured itself
- in the course of its life by the negative method,
- the plate is not therefore entirely cashiered,-
- but without more ado they consign it to me.
- I take it in hand, then, for further treatment,
- and by suitable methods effect its development.
- I steam it, I dip it, I burn it, I scour it,
- with sulphur and other ingredients like that,
- till the image appears which the plate was designed for,-
- that, namely, which people call positiv
