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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: you that the painting has a blemish. It is not always visible,
since you have failed to detect it; but it is more noticeable in
some lights than in others; and, do what I will, I cannot remove it.
This alone would prevent the painting from being a good investment.
Its market value will never rise."
He turned the canvas sideways to the light, and the defect became
apparent.
It was a dim, oblong, white blot in the middle distance; a nebulous
blur in the painting, as if there had been some chemical impurity in
the pigment causing it to fade, or rather as if a long drop of some
acid, or perhaps a splash of salt water, had fallen upon the canvas
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