The same sympathy with the abnormal may be noticed in the Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu, where a solitary painter touches and retouches his supposed masterpiece till he loses all power of self-criticism, and at lasts exhibits triumphantly a shapeless and unintelligible daub of mingled colours.
"A Short History of French Literature"
George Saintsbury
Both, I need hardly say, are unquestionably Shakespeare's; but the fashion in which the matured poet retouches and completes the sketch of his earlier years-composes an oil painting, as it were, from the hints and suggestions of a water-colour sketch long since designed and long since half forgotten-is essentially different from the mere verbal and literal trick of repetition which sciolists might think to detect in the present instance.
"A Study of Shakespeare"
Algernon Charles Swinburne
A great romancer is the lover; he retouches the negative of his beloved, in his imagination, removes freckles, moulds the nose, rounds the cheeks, refines the lips, and adds lustre to the eyes until his ideal is realized and he sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.
"Primitive Love and Love-Stories"
Henry Theophilus Finck