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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: room by himself. For Raeburn could plunge at once through all
the constraint and embarrassment of the sitter, and present
the face, clear, open, and intelligent as at the most
disengaged moments. This is best seen in portraits where the
sitter is represented in some appropriate action: Neil Gow
with his fiddle, Doctor Spens shooting an arrow, or Lord
Bannatyne hearing a cause. Above all, from this point of
view, the portrait of Lieutenant-Colonel Lyon is notable. A
strange enough young man, pink, fat about the lower part of
the face, with a lean forehead, a narrow nose and a fine
nostril, sits with a drawing-board upon his knees. He has
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