The Madonna of the Future...............................................................................................................................1

We had been talking about the masters who had achieved but a single masterpiecethe artists and poets who

but once in their lives had known the divine afflatus and touched the high level of perfection. Our host had

been showing us a charming little cabinet picture by a painter whose name we had never heard, and who,

after this single spasmodic bid for fame, had apparently relapsed into obscurity and mediocrity. There was

some discussion as to the frequency of this phenomenon; during which, I observed, H sat silent, finishing

his cigar with a meditative air, and looking at the picture which was being handed round the table. "I don't

know how common a case it is," he said at last, "but I have seen it. I have known a poor fellow who painted

his one masterpiece, and"he added with a smile "he didn't even paint that. He made his bid for fame and

missed it." We all knew H for a clever man who had seen much of men and manners, and had a great stock

of reminiscences. Some one immediately questioned him further, and while I was engrossed with the raptures

of my neighbour over the little picture, he was induced to tell his tale. If I were to doubt whether it would

bear repeating, I should only have to remember how that charming woman, our hostess, who had left the

table, ventured back in rustling rosecolour to pronounce our lingering a want of gallantry, and, finding us a

listening circle, sank into her chair in spite of our cigars, and heard the story out so graciously that, when the

catastrophe was reached, she glanced across at me and showed me a tear in each of her beautiful eyes.

It relates to my youth, and to Italy: two fine things! (H began). I had arrived late in the evening at Florence,

and while I finished my bottle of wine at supper, had fancied that, tired traveller though I was, I might pay the

city a finer compliment than by going vulgarly to bed. A narrow passage wandered darkly away out of the

little square before my hotel, and looked as if it bored into the heart of Florence. I followed it, and at the end

of ten minutes emerged upon a great piazza, filled only with the mild autumn moonlight. Opposite rose the

Palazzo Vecchio, like some huge civic fortress, with the great belltower springing from its embattled verge

as a mountain pine from the edge of a cliff. At its base, in its projected shadow, gleamed certain dim

sculptures which I wonderingly approached. One of the images, on the left of the palace door, was a

magnificent colossus, shining through the dusky air like a sentinel who has taken the alarm. In a moment I

recognised him as Michael Angelo's David. I turned with a certain relief from his sinister strength to a slender

figure in bronze, stationed beneath the high light loggia, which opposes the free and elegant span of its arches

to the dead masonry of the palace; a figure supremely shapely and graceful; gentle, almost, in spite of his

holding out with his light nervous arm the snaky head of the slaughtered Gorgon. His name is Perseus, and

you may read his story, not in the Greek mythology, but in the memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini. Glancing from

one of these fine fellows to the other, I probably uttered some irrepressible commonplace of praise, for, as if

provoked by my voice, a man rose from the steps of the loggia, where he had been sitting in the shadow, and

addressed me in good Englisha small, slim personage, clad in a sort of black velvet tunic (as it seemed),

and with a mass of auburn hair, which gleamed in the moonlight, escaping from a little mediaeval birretta. In

a tone of the most insinuating deference he asked me for my "impressions." He seemed picturesque, fantastic,

slightly unreal. Hovering there in this consecrated neighbourhood, he might have passed for the genius of

aesthetic hospitalityif the genius of aesthetic hospitality were not commonly some shabby little custode,

flourishing a calico pockethandkerchief and openly resentful of the divided franc. This analogy was made

none the less complete by the brilliant tirade with which he greeted my embarrassed silence.

"I have known Florence long, sir, but I have never known her so lovely as tonight. It's as if the ghosts of her

past were abroad in the empty streets. The present is sleeping; the past hovers about us like a dream made

visible. Fancy the old Florentines strolling up in couples to pass judgment on the last performance of

Michael, of Benvenuto! We should come in for a precious lesson if we might overhear what they say. The

plainest burgher of them, in his cap and gown, had a taste in the matter! That was the prime of art, sir. The

sun stood high in heaven, and his broad and equal blaze made the darkest places bright and the dullest eyes

clear. We live in the evening of time! We grope in the gray dusk, carrying each our poor little taper of selfish

and painful wisdom, holding it up to the great models and to the dim idea, and seeing nothing but

overwhelming greatness and dimness. The days of illumination are gone! But do you know I fancyI

fancy"and he grew suddenly almost familiar in this visionary fervour"I fancy the light of that time rests

upon us here for an hour! I have never seen the David so grand, the Perseus so fair! Even the inferior

productions of John of Bologna and of Baccio Bandinelli seem to realise the artist's dream. I feel as if the

moonlit air were charged with the secrets of the masters, and as if, standing here in religious attention, we

mightwe might witness a revelation!" Perceiving at this moment, I suppose, my halting comprehension

reflected in my puzzled face, this interesting rhapsodist paused and blushed. Then with a melancholy smile,

"You think me a moonstruck charlatan, I suppose. It's not my habit to bang about the piazza and pounce upon

innocent tourists. But tonight, I confess, I am under the charm. And then, somehow, I fancied you too were an

"I am not an artist, I am sorry to say, as you must understand the term. But pray make no apologies. I am also

"If you are not an artist you are worthy to be one!" he rejoined, with an expressive smile. "A young man who

arrives at Florence late in the evening, and, instead of going prosaically to bed, or hanging over the traveller's

book at his hotel, walks forth without loss of time to pay his devoirs to the beautiful, is a young man after my

The mystery was suddenly solved; my friend was an American! He must have been, to take the picturesque

so prodigiously to heart. "None the less so, I trust," I answered, "if the young man is a sordid New Yorker."

For a moment I was alarmed. Was this midnight reverie mere Yankee enterprise, and was he simply a

desperate brother of the brush who had posted himself here to extort an "order" from a sauntering tourist? But

I was not called to defend myself. A great brazen note broke suddenly from the faroff summit of the

belltower above us, and sounded the first stroke of midnight. My companion started, apologised for

detaining me, and prepared to retire. But he seemed to offer so lively a promise of further entertainment that I

was indisposed to part with him, and suggested that we should stroll homeward together. He cordially

assented; so we turned out of the Piazza, passed down before the statued arcade of the Uffizi, and came out

upon the Arno. What course we took I hardly remember, but we roamed slowly about for an hour, my

companion delivering by snatches a sort of moontouched aesthetic lecture. I listened in puzzled fascination,

and wondered who the deuce he was. He confessed with a melancholy but allrespectful headshake to his

"We are the disinherited of Art!" he cried. "We are condemned to be superficial! We are excluded from the

magic circle. The soil of American perception is a poor little barren artificial deposit. Yes! we are wedded to

imperfection. An American, to excel, has just ten times as much to learn as a European. We lack the deeper

sense. We have neither taste, nor tact, nor power. How should we have them? Our crude and garish climate,

our silent past, our deafening present, the constant pressure about us of unlovely circumstance, are as void of

all that nourishes and prompts and inspires the artist, as my sad heart is void of bitterness in saying so! We

"You seem fairly at home in exile," I answered, "and Florence seems to me a very pretty Siberia. But do you

know my own thought? Nothing is so idle as to talk about our want of a nutritive soil, of opportunity, of

inspiration, and all the rest of it. The worthy part is to do something fine! There is no law in our glorious

Constitution against that. Invent, create, achieve! No matter if you have to study fifty times as much as one of

these! What else are you an artist for? Be you our Moses," I added, laughing, and laying my hand on his

"Golden wordsgolden words, young man!" he cried, with a tender smile. "'Invent, create, achieve!' Yes,

that's our business; I know it well. Don't take me, in Heaven's name, for one of your barren

complainersimpotent cynics who have neither talent nor faith! I am at work!"and he glanced about him

and lowered his voice as if this were a quite peculiar secret"I'm at work night and day. I have undertaken a

CREATION! I am no Moses; I am only a poor patient artist; but it would be a fine thing if I were to cause

some slender stream of beauty to flow in our thirsty land! Don't think me a monster of conceit," he went on,

as he saw me smile at the avidity with which he adopted my illustration; "I confess that I am in one of those

moods when great things seem possible! This is one of my nervous nightsI dream waking! When the south

wind blows over Florence at midnight it seems to coax the soul from all the fair things locked away in her

churches and galleries; it comes into my own little studio with the moonlight, and sets my heart beating too

deeply for rest. You see I am always adding a thought to my conception! This evening I felt that I couldn't

He seemed deeply versed in local history and tradition, and he expatiated con amore on the charms of

Florence. I gathered that he was an old resident, and that he had taken the lovely city into his heart. "I owe

her everything," he declared. "It's only since I came here that I have really lived, intellectually. One by one,

all profane desires, all mere worldly aims, have dropped away from me, and left me nothing but my pencil,

my little notebook" (and he tapped his breastpocket), "and the worship of the pure masters those who

were pure because they were innocent, and those who were pure because they were strong!"

He was silent a while before replying. "Not in the vulgar sense!" he said at last. "I have chosen never to

manifest myself by imperfection. The good in every performance I have reabsorbed into the generative

force of new creations; the badthere is always plenty of thatI have religiously destroyed. I may say, with

some satisfaction, that I have not added a mite to the rubbish of the world. As a proof of my

conscientiousness and he stopped short, and eyed me with extraordinary candour, as if the proof were to be

overwhelming"I have never sold a picture! 'At least no merchant traffics in my heart!' Do you remember

that divine line in Browning? My little studio has never been profaned by superficial, feverish, mercenary

work. It's a temple of labour, but of leisure! Art is long. If we work for ourselves, of course we must hurry. If

This had brought us to my hotel door, somewhat to my relief, I confess, for I had begun to feel unequal to the

society of a genius of this heroic strain. I left him, however, not without expressing a friendly hope that we

should meet again. The next morning my curiosity had not abated; I was anxious to see him by common

daylight. I counted upon meeting him in one of the many pictorial haunts of Florence, and I was gratified

without delay. I found him in the course of the morning in the Tribune of the Uffizithat little

treasurechamber of worldfamous things. He had turned his back on the Venus de' Medici, and with his

arms resting on the rail mug which protects the pictures, and his head buried in his hands, he was lost in the

contemplation of that superb triptych of Andrea Mantegnaa work which has neither the material splendour

nor the commanding force of some of its neighbours, but which, glowing there with the loveliness of patient

labour, suits possibly a more constant need of the soul. I looked at the picture for some time over his

shoulder; at last, with a heavy sigh, he turned away and our eyes met. As he recognised me a deep blush rose

to his face; he fancied, perhaps, that he had made a fool of himself overnight. But I offered him my hand with

a friendliness which assured him I was not a scoffer. I knew him by his ardent chevelure; otherwise he was

much altered. His midnight mood was over, and he looked as haggard as an actor by daylight. He was far

older than I had supposed, and he had less bravery of costume and gesture. He seemed the quiet, poor, patient

artist he had proclaimed himself, and the fact that he had never sold a picture was more obvious than

glorious. His velvet coat was threadbare, and his short slouched hat, of an antique pattern, revealed a rustiness

which marked it an "original," and not one of the picturesque reproductions which brethren of his craft affect.

His eye was mild and heavy, and his expression singularly gentle and acquiescent; the more so for a certain

pallid leanness of visage, which I hardly knew whether to refer to the consuming fire of genius or to a meagre

diet. A very little talk, however, cleared his brow and brought back his eloquence.

"And this is your first visit to these enchanted halls?" he cried. "Happy, thrice happy youth!" And taking me

by the arm, he prepared to lead me to each of the preeminent works in turn and show me the cream of the

gallery. But before we left the Mantegna he pressed my arm and gave it a loving look. "HE was not in a

hurry," he murmured. "He knew nothing of "raw Haste, halfsister to Delay!" How sound a critic my friend

was I am unable to say, but he was an extremely amusing one; overflowing with opinions, theories, and

sympathies, with disquisition and gossip and anecdote. He was a shade too sentimental for my own

sympathies, and I fancied he was rather too fond of superfine discriminations and of discovering subtle

intentions in shallow places. At moments, too, he plunged into the sea of metaphysics, and floundered a while

in waters too deep for intellectual security. But his abounding knowledge and happy judgment told a touching

story of long attentive hours in this worshipful company; there was a reproach to my wasteful saunterings in

so devoted a culture of opportunity. "There are two moods," I remember his saying, "in which we may walk

through galleriesthe critical and the ideal. They seize us at their pleasure, and we can never tell which is to

take its turn. The critical mood, oddly, is the genial one, the friendly, the condescending. It relishes the pretty

trivialities of art, its vulgar cleverness, its conscious graces. It has a kindly greeting for anything which looks

as if, according to his light, the painter had enjoyed doing itfor the little Dutch cabbages and kettles, for the

taper fingers and breezy mantles of latecoming Madonnas, for the little bluehilled, pastoral, sceptical

Italian landscapes. Then there are the days of fierce, fastidious longingsolemn church feasts of the

intellect when all vulgar effort and all petty success is a weariness, and everything but the bestthe best

of the bestdisgusts. In these hours we are relentless aristocrats of taste. We will not take Michael Angelo

The gallery of the Uffizi is not only rich in its possessions, but peculiarly fortunate in that fine architectural

accident, as one may call it, which unites itwith the breadth of river and city between themto those

princely chambers of the Pitti Palace. The Louvre and the Vatican hardly give you such a sense of sustained

inclosure as those long passages projected over street and stream to establish a sort of inviolate transition

between the two palaces of art. We passed along the gallery in which those precious drawings by eminent

hands hang chaste and gray above the swirl and murmur of the yellow Arno, and reached the ducal saloons of

the Pitti. Ducal as they are, it must be confessed that they are imperfect as showrooms, and that, with their

deepset windows and their massive mouldings, it is rather a broken light that reaches the pictured walls. But

here the masterpieces hang thick, and you seem to see them in a luminous atmosphere of their own. And the

great saloons, with their superb dim ceilings, their outer wall in splendid shadow, and the sombre opposite

glow of mellow canvas and dusky gilding, make, themselves, almost as fine a picture as the Titians and

Raphaels they imperfectly reveal. We lingered briefly before many a Raphael and Titian; but I saw my friend

was impatient, and I suffered him at last to lead me directly to the goal of our journeythe most tenderly fair

of Raphael's virgins, the Madonna in the Chair. Of all the fine pictures of the world, it seemed to me this is

the one with which criticism has least to do. None betrays less effort, less of the mechanism of success and of

the irrepressible discord between conception and result, which shows dimly in so many consummate works.

Graceful, human, near to our sympathies as it is, it has nothing of manner, of method, nothing, almost, of

style; it blooms there in rounded softness, as instinct with harmony as if it were an immediate exhalation of

genius. The figure melts away the spectator's mind into a sort of passionate tenderness which he knows not

whether he has given to heavenly purity or to earthly charm. He is intoxicated with the fragrance of the

"That's what I call a fine picture," said my companion, after we had gazed a while in silence. "I have a right

to say so, for I have copied it so often and so carefully that I could repeat it now with my eyes shut. Other

works are of Raphael: this IS Raphael himself. Others you can praise, you can qualify, you can measure,

explain, account for: this you can only love and admire. I don't know in what seeming he walked among men

while this divine mood was upon him; but after it, surely, he could do nothing but die; this world had nothing

more to teach him. Think of it a while, my friend, and you will admit that I am not raving. Think of his seeing

that spotless image, not for a moment, for a day, in a happy dream, or a restless feverfit; not as a poet in a

five minutes' frenzytime to snatch his phrase and scribble his immortal stanza; but for days together, while

the slow labour of the brush went on, while the foul vapours of life interposed, and the fancy ached with

tension, fixed, radiant, distinct, as we see it now! What a master, certainly! But ah! what a seer!"

"Don't you imagine," I answered, "that he had a model, and that some pretty young woman"

"As pretty a young woman as you please! It doesn't diminish the miracle! He took his hint, of course, and the

young woman, possibly, sat smiling before his canvas. But, meanwhile, the painter's idea had taken wings.

No lovely human outline could charm it to vulgar fact. He saw the fair form made perfect; he rose to the

vision without tremor, without effort of wing; he communed with it face to face, and resolved into finer and

lovelier truth the purity which completes it as the fragrance completes the rose. That's what they call

idealism; the word's vastly abused, but the thing is good. It's my own creed, at any rate. Lovely Madonna,

"An idealist, then," I said, half jocosely, wishing to provoke him to further utterance, "is a gentleman who

says to Nature in the person of a beautiful girl, 'Go to, you are all wrong! Your fine is coarse, your bright is

dim, your grace is gaucherie. This is the way you should have done it!' Is not the chance against him?"

He turned upon me almost angrily, but perceiving the genial savour of my sarcasm, he smiled gravely. "Look

at that picture," he said, "and cease your irreverent mockery! Idealism is THAT! There's no explaining it; one

must feel the flame! It says nothing to Nature, or to any beautiful girl, that they will not both forgive! It says

to the fair woman, 'Accept me as your artist friend, lend me your beautiful face, trust me, help me, and your

eyes shall be half my masterpiece!' No one so loves and respects the rich realities of nature as the artist whose

imagination caresses and flatters them. He knows what a fact may hold (whether Raphael knew, you may

judge by his portrait, behind us there, of Tommaso Inghirami); bad his fancy hovers above it, as Anal hovered

above the sleeping prince. There is only one Raphael, bad an artist may still be an artist. As I said last night,

the days of illumination are gone; visions are rare; we have to look long to see them. But in meditation we

may still cultivate the ideal; round it, smooth it, perfect it. The result the result," (here his voice faltered

suddenly, and he fixed his eyes for a moment on the picture; when they met my own again they were full of

tears)"the result may be less than this; but still it may be good, it may be GREAT!" he cried with

vehemence. "It may hang somewhere, in after years, in goodly company, and keep the artist's memory warm.

Think of being known to mankind after some such fashion as this! of hanging here through the slow centuries

in the gaze of an altered world; living on and on in the cunning of an eye and hand that are part of the dust of

ages, a delight and a law to remote generations; making beauty a force and purity an example!"

"Heaven forbid," I said, smiling, "that I should take the wind out of your sails! But doesn't it occur to you

that, besides being strong in his genius, Raphael was happy in a certain good faith of which we have lost the

trick? There are people, I know, who deny that his spotless Madonnas are anything more than pretty blondes

of that period enhanced by the Raphaelesque touch, which they declare is a profane touch. Be that as it may,

people's religious and aesthetic needs went arm in arm, and there was, as I may say, a demand for the Blessed

Virgin, visible and adorable, which must have given firmness to the artist's hand. I am afraid there is no

My companion seemed painfully puzzled; he shivered, as it were, in this chilling blast of scepticism. Then

shaking his head with sublime confidence"There is always a demand!" he cried; "that ineffable type is one

of the eternal needs of man's heart; but pious souls long for it in silence, almost in shame. Let it appear, and

their faith grows brave. How SHOULD it appear in this corrupt generation? It cannot be made to order. It

could, indeed, when the order came, trumpettoned, from the lips of the Church herself, and was addressed to

genius panting with inspiration. But it can spring now only from the soil of passionate labour and culture. Do

you really fancy that while, from time to time, a man of complete artistic vision is born into the world, that

image can perish? The man who paints it has painted everything. The subject admits of every

perfectionform, colour, expression, composition. It can be as simple as you please, and yet as rich; as

broad and pure, and yet as full of delicate detail. Think of the chance for flesh in the little naked, nestling

child, irradiating divinity; of the chance for drapery in the chaste and ample garment of the mother! think of

the great story you compress into that simple theme! Think, above all, of the mother's face and its ineffable

suggestiveness, of the mingled burden of joy and trouble, the tenderness turned to worship, and the worship

turned to farseeing pity! Then look at it all in perfect line and lovely colour, breathing truth and beauty and

"Anch' io son pittore!" I cried. "Unless I am mistaken, you have a masterpiece on the stocks. If you put all

that in, you will do more than Raphael himself did. Let me know when your picture is finished, and wherever

in the wide world I may be, I will post back to Florence and pay my respects tothe MADONNA OF THE

He blushed vividly and gave a heavy sigh, half of protest, half of resignation. "I don't often mention my

picture by name. I detest this modem custom of premature publicity. A great work needs silence, privacy,

mystery even. And then, do you know, people are so cruel, so frivolous, so unable to imagine a man's wishing

to paint a Madonna at this time of day, that I have been laughed atlaughed at, sir!" and his blush deepened

to crimson. "I don't know what has prompted me to be so frank and trustful with you. You look as if you

wouldn't laugh at me. My dear young man"and he laid his hand on my arm"I am worthy of respect.

Whatever my talents may be, I am honest. There is nothing grotesque in a pure ambition, or in a life devoted

There was something so sternly sincere in his look and tone that further questions seemed impertinent. I had

repeated opportunity to ask them, however, for after this we spent much time together. Daily for a fortnight,

we met by appointment, to see the sights. He knew the city so well, he had strolled and lounged so often

through its streets and churches and galleries, he was so deeply versed in its greater and lesser memories, so

imbued with the local genius, that he was an altogether ideal valet de place, and I was glad enough to leave

my Murray at home, and gather facts and opinions alike from his gossiping commentary. He talked of

Florence like a lover, and admitted that it was a very old affair; he had lost his heart to her at first sight. "It's

the fashion to talk of all cities as feminine," he said, "but, as a rule, it's a monstrous mistake. Is Florence of

the same sex as New York, as Chicago? She is the sole perfect lady of them all; one feels towards her as a lad

in his teens feels to some beautiful older woman with a 'history.' She fills you with a sort of aspiring

gallantry." This disinterested passion seemed to stand my friend in stead of the common social ties; he led a

lonely life, and cared for nothing but his work. I was duly flattered by his having taken my frivolous self into

his favour, and by his generous sacrifice of precious hours to my society. We spent many of these hours

among those early paintings in which Florence is so rich, returning ever and anon, with restless sympathies,

to wonder whether these tender blossoms of art had not a vital fragrance and savour more precious than the

fullfruited knowledge of the later works. We lingered often in the sepulchral chapel of San Lorenzo, and

watched Michael Angelo's dimvisaged warrior sitting there like some awful Genius of Doubt and brooding

behind his eternal mask upon the mysteries of life. We stood more than once in the little convent chambers

where Fra Angelico wrought as if an angel indeed had held his hand, and gathered that sense of scattered

dews and early bird notes which makes an hour among his relics seem like a morning stroll in some

monkish garden. We did all this and much morewandered into dark chapels, damp courts, and dusty

palacerooms, in quest of lingering hints of fresco and lurking treasures of carving.

I was more and more impressed with my companion's remarkable singleness of purpose. Everything was a

pretext for some wildly idealistic rhapsody or reverie. Nothing could be seen or said that did not lead him

sooner or later to a glowing discourse on the true, the beautiful, and the good. If my friend was not a genius,

he was certainly a monomaniac; and I found as great a fascination in watching the odd lights and shades of

his character as if he had been a creature from another planet. He seemed, indeed, to know very little of this

one, and lived and moved altogether in his own little province of art. A creature more unsullied by the world

it is impossible to conceive, and I often thought it a flaw in his artistic character that he had not a harmless

vice or two. It amused me greatly at times to think that he was of our shrewd Yankee race; but, after all, there

could be no better token of his American origin than this high aesthetic fever. The very heat of his devotion

was a sign of conversion; those born to European opportunity manage better to reconcile enthusiasm with

comfort. He had, moreover, all our native mistrust for intellectual discretion, and our native relish for

sonorous superlatives. As a critic he was very much more generous than just, and his mildest terms of

approbation were "stupendous," "transcendent," and "incomparable." The small change of admiration seemed

to him no coin for a gentleman to handle; and yet, frank as he was intellectually, he was personally altogether

a mystery. His professions, somehow, were all halfprofessions, and his allusions to his work and

circumstances left something dimly ambiguous in the background. He was modest and proud, and never

spoke of his domestic matters. He was evidently poor; yet he must have had some slender independence,

since he could afford to make so merry over the fact that his culture of ideal beauty had never brought him a

penny. His poverty, I supposed, was his motive for neither inviting me to his lodging nor mentioning its

whereabouts. We met either in some public place or at my hotel, where I entertained him as freely as I might

without appearing to be prompted by charity. He seemed always hungry, and this was his nearest approach to

human grossness. I made a point of asking no impertinent questions, but, each time we met, I ventured to

make some respectful allusion to the magnum opus, to inquire, as it were, as to its health and progress. "We

are getting on, with the Lord's help," he would say, with a grave smile. "We are doing well. You see, I have

the grand advantage that I lose no time. These hours I spend with you are pure profit. They are

SUGGESTIVE! Just as the truly religious soul is always at worship, the genuine artist is always in labour. He

takes his property wherever he finds it, and learns some precious secret from every object that stands up in

the light. If you but knew the rapture of observation! I gather with every glance some hint for light, for

colour, or relief! When I get home, I pour out my treasures into the lap of toy Madonna. Oh, I am not idle!

I was introduced in Florence to an American lady whose drawingroom had long formed an attractive place

of reunion for the foreign residents. She lived on a fourth floor, and she was not rich; but she offered her

visitors very good tea, little cakes at option, and conversation not quite to match. Her conversation had

mainly an aesthetic flavour, for Mrs. Coventry was famously ''artistic." Her apartment was a sort of Pitti

Palace au petit pied. She possessed "early masters" by the dozena cluster of Peruginos in her dining

room, a Giotto in her boudoir, an Andrea del Sarto over her drawing room chimneypiece. Surrounded by

these treasures, and by innumerable bronzes, mosaics, majolica dishes, and little wormeaten diptychs

covered with angular saints on gilded backgrounds, our hostess enjoyed the dignity of a sort of highpriestess

of the arts. She always wore on her bosom a huge miniature copy of the Madonna della Seggiola. Gaining her

ear quietly one evening, I asked her whether she knew that remarkable man, Mr. Theobald.

"Know him!" she exclaimed; "know poor Theobald! All Florence knows him, his flamecoloured locks, his

black velvet coat, his interminable harangues on the beautiful, and his wondrous Madonna that mortal eye has

"My dear ingenuous youth," rejoined my shrewd friend, "has he made a convert of you? Well, we all believed

in him once; he came down upon Florence and took the town by storm. Another Raphael, at the very least,

had been born among men, and the poor dear United States were to have the credit of him. Hadn't he the very

hair of Raphael flowing down on his shoulders? The hair, alas, but not the head! We swallowed him whole,

however; we hung upon his lips and proclaimed his genius on the housetops. The women were all dying to

sit to him for their portraits and be made immortal, like Leonardo's Joconde. We decided that his manner was

a good deal like Leonardo's mysterious, and inscrutable, and fascinating. Mysterious it certainly was;

mystery was the beginning and the end of it. The months passed by, and the miracle hung fire; our master

never produced his masterpiece. He passed hours in the galleries and churches, posturing, musing, and

gazing; he talked more than ever about the beautiful, but he never put brush to canvas. We had all subscribed,

as it were, to the great performance; but as it never came off people began to ask for their money again. I was

one of the last of the faithful; I carried devotion so far as to sit to him for my head. If you could have seen the

horrible creature he made of me, you would admit that even a woman with no more vanity than will tie her

bonnet straight must have cooled off then. The man didn't know the very alphabet of drawing! His strong

point, he intimated, was his sentiment; but is it a consolation, when one has been painted a fright, to know it

has been done with peculiar gusto? One by one, I confess, we fell away from the faith, and Mr. Theobald

didn't lift his little finger to preserve us. At the first hint that we were tired of waiting, and that we should like

the show to begin, he was off in a huff. 'Great work requires time, contemplation, privacy, mystery! O ye of

little faith!' We answered that we didn't insist on a great work; that the fiveact tragedy might come at his

convenience; that we merely asked for something to keep us from yawning, some inexpensive little lever de

rideau. Hereupon the poor man took his stand as a genius misconceived and persecuted, an ame meconnue,

and washed his hands of us from that hour! No, I believe he does me the honour to consider me the head and

front of the conspiracy formed to nip his glory in the buda bud that has taken twenty years to blossom. Ask

him if he knows me, and he will tell you I am a horribly ugly old woman, who has vowed his destruction

because he won't paint her portrait as a pendant to Titian's Flora. I fancy that since then he has had none but

chance followers, innocent strangers like yourself, who have taken him at his word. The mountain is still in

labour; I have not heard that the mouse has been born. I pass him once in a while in the galleries, and he fixes

his great dark eyes on me with a sublimity of indifference, as if I were a bad copy of a Sassoferrato! It is a

long time ago now that I heard that he was making studies for a Madonna who was to be a resume of all the

other Madonnas of the Italian schoollike that antique Venus who borrowed a nose from one great image

and an ankle from another. It's certainly a masterly idea. The parts may be fine, but when I think of my

unhappy portrait I tremble for the whole. He has communicated this striking idea under the pledge of solemn

secrecy to fifty chosen spirits, to every one he has ever been able to button hole for five minutes. I suppose

he wants to get an order for it, and he is not to blame; for Heaven knows how he lives. I see by your blush,"

my hostess frankly continued, "that you have been honoured with his confidence. You needn't be ashamed,

my dear young man; a man of your age is none the worse for a certain generous credulity. Only allow me to

give you a word of advice: keep your credulity out of your pockets! Don't pay for the picture till it's

delivered. You have not been treated to a peep at it, I imagine! No more have your fifty predecessors in the

faith. There are people who doubt whether there is any picture to be seen. I fancy, myself, that if one were to

get into his studio, one would find something very like the picture in that tale of Balzac'sa mere mass of

I listened to this pungent recital in silent wonder. It had a painfully plausible sound, and was not inconsistent

with certain shy suspicions of my own. My hostess was not only a clever woman, but presumably a generous

one. I determined to let my judgment wait upon events. Possibly she was right; but if she was wrong, she was

cruelly wrong! Her version of my friend's eccentricities made me impatient to see him again and examine

him in the light of public opinion. On our next meeting I immediately asked him if he knew Mrs. Coventry.

He laid his hand on my arm and gave me a sad smile. "Has she taxed YOUR gallantry at last?" he asked.

"She's a foolish woman. She's frivolous and heartless, and she pretends to be serious and kind. She prattles

about Giotto's second manner and Vittoria Colonna's liaison with 'Michael'one would think that Michael

lived across the way and was expected in to take a hand at whistbut she knows as little about art, and about

the conditions of production, as I know about Buddhism. She profanes sacred words," he added more

vehemently, after a pause. "She cares for you only as some one to band teacups in that horrible mendacious

little parlour of hers, with its trumpery Peruginos! If you can't dash off a new picture every three days, and let

her hand it round among her guests, she tells them in plain English that you are an impostor!"

This attempt of mine to test Mrs. Coventry's accuracy was made in the course of a late afternoon walk to the

quiet old church of San Miniato, on one of the hilltops which directly overlook the city, from whose gates

you are guided to it by a stony and cypressbordered walk, which seems a very fitting avenue to a shrine. No

spot is more propitious to lingering repose than the broad terrace in front of the church, where, lounging

against the parapet, you may glance in slow alternation from the black and yellow marbles of the church

facade, seamed and cracked with time and windsown with a tender flora of its own, down to the full domes

and slender towers of Florence and over to the blue sweep of the widemouthed cup of mountains into whose

hollow the little treasure city has been dropped. I had proposed, as a diversion from the painful memories

evoked by Mrs. Coventry's name, that Theobald should go with me the next evening to the opera, where

some rarelyplayed work was to be given. He declined, as I half expected, for I observed that he regularly

kept his evenings in reserve, and never alluded to his manner of passing them. "You have reminded me

before," I said, smiling, "of that charming speech of the Florentine painter in Alfred de Musset's

'Lorenzaccio': 'I do no harm to anyone. I pass my days in my studio, On Sunday I go to the Annunziata or to

Santa Mario; the monks think I have a voice; they dress me in a white gown and a red cap, and I take a share

in the choruses; sometimes I do a little solo: these are the only times I go into public. In the evening, I visit

my sweetheart; when the night is fine, we pass it on her balcony.' I don't know whether you have a

sweetheart, or whether she has a balcony. But if you are so happy, it's certainly better than trying to find a

He made no immediate response, but at last he turned to me solemnly. "Can you look upon a beautiful

"Really," I said, "I don't pretend to be sheepish, but I should be sorry to think I was impudent." And I asked

him what in the world he meant. When at last I had assured him that I could undertake to temper admiration

with respect, he informed me, with an air of religious mystery, that it was in his power to introduce me to the

"Upon my word," I cried, "you are extremely fortunate, and that is a most attractive description."

"This woman's beauty," he went on, "is a lesson, a morality, a poem! It's my daily study."

Of course, after this, I lost no time in reminding him of what, before we parted, had taken the shape of a

promise. "I feel somehow," he had said, "as if it were a sort of violation of that privacy in which I have

always contemplated her beauty. This is friendship, my friend. No hint of her existence has ever fallen from

my lips. But with too great a familiarity we are apt to lose a sense of the real value of things, and you perhaps

We went accordingly by appointment to a certain ancient house in the heart of Florencethe precinct of the

Mercato Vecchioand climbed a dark, steep staircase, to the very summit of the edifice. Theobald's beauty

seemed as loftily exalted above the line of common vision as his artistic ideal was lifted above the usual

practice of men. He passed without knocking into the dark vestibule of a small apartment, and, flinging open

an inner door, ushered me into a small saloon. The room seemed mean and sombre, though I caught a

glimpse of white curtains swaying gently at an open window. At a table, near a lamp, sat a woman dressed in

black, working at a piece of embroidery. As Theobald entered she looked up calmly, with a smile; but seeing

me she made a movement of surprise, and rose with a kind of stately grace. Theobald stepped forward, took

her hand and kissed it, with an indescribable air of immemorial usage. As he bent his head she looked at me

"Behold the Serafina!" said Theobald, frankly, waving me forward. "This is a friend, and a lover of the arts,"

he added, introducing me. I received a smile, a curtsey, and a request to be seated.

The most beautiful woman in Italy was a person of a generous Italian type and of a great simplicity of

demeanour. Seated again at her lamp, with her embroidery, she seemed to have nothing whatever to say.

Theobald, bending towards her in a sort of Platonic ecstasy, asked her a dozen paternally tender questions as

to her health, her state of mind, her occupations, and the progress of her embroidery, which he examined

minutely and summoned me to admire. It was some portion of an ecclesiastical vestmentyellow satin

wrought with an elaborate design of silver and gold. She made answer in a full rich voice, but with a brevity

which I hesitated whether to attribute to native reserve or to the profane constraint of my presence. She had

been that morning to confession; she had also been to market, and had bought a chicken for dinner. She felt

very happy; she had nothing to complain of except that the people for whom she was making her vestment,

and who furnished her materials, should be willing to put such rotten silver thread into the garment, as one

might say, of the Lord. From time to time, as she took her slow stitches, she raised her eyes and covered me

with a glance which seemed at first to denote a placid curiosity, but in which, as I saw it repeated, I thought I

perceived the dim glimmer of an attempt to establish an understanding with me at the expense of our

companion. Meanwhile, as mindful as possible of Theobald's injunction of reverence, I considered the lady's

That she was indeed a beautiful woman I perceived, after recovering from the surprise of finding her without

the freshness of youth. Her beauty was of a sort which, in losing youth, loses little of its essential charm,

expressed for the most part as it was in form and structure, and, as Theobald would have said, in

"composition." She was broad and ample, lowbrowed and largeeyed, dark and pale. Her thick brown hair

hung low beside her cheek and ear, and seemed to drape her head with a covering as chaste and formal as the

veil of a nun. The poise and carriage of her head were admirably free and noble, and they were the more

effective that their freedom was at moments discreetly corrected by a little sanctimonious droop, which

harmonised admirably with the level gaze of her dark and quiet eye. A strong, serene, physical nature, and the

placid temper which comes of no nerves and no troubles, seemed this lady's comfortable portion. She was

dressed in plain dull black, save for a sort of dark blue kerchief which was folded across her bosom and

exposed a glimpse of her massive throat. Over this kerchief was suspended a little silver cross. I admired her

greatly, and yet with a large reserve. A certain mild intellectual apathy belonged properly to her type of

beauty, and had always seemed to round and enrich it; but this bourgeoise Egeria, if I viewed her right,

betrayed a rather vulgar stagnation of mind. There might have been once a dim spiritual light in her face; but

it had long since begun to wane. And furthermore, in plain prose, she was growing stout. My disappointment

amounted very nearly to complete disenchantment when Theobald, as if to facilitate my covert inspection,

declaring that the lamp was very dim, and that she would ruin her eyes without more light, rose and fetched a

couple of candles from the mantelpiece, which he placed lighted on the table. In this brighter illumination I

perceived that our hostess was decidedly an elderly woman. She was neither haggard, nor worn, nor gray; she

was simply coarse. The "soul" which Theobald had promised seemed scarcely worth making such a point of;

it was no deeper mystery than a sort of matronly mildness of lip and brow. I should have been ready even to

declare that that sanctified bend of the head was nothing more than the trick of a person constantly working at

embroidery. It occurred to me even that it was a trick of a less innocent sort; for, in spite of the mellow

quietude of her wits, this stately needlewoman dropped a hint that she took the situation rather less seriously

than her friend. When he rose to light the candles she looked across at me with a quick, intelligent smile, and

tapped her forehead with her forefinger; then, as from a sudden feeling of compassionate loyalty to poor

Theobald, I preserved a blank face, she gave a little shrug and resumed her work.

What was the relation of this singular couple? Was he the most ardent of friends or the most reverent of

lovers? Did she regard him as an eccentric swain, whose benevolent admiration of her beauty she was not ill

pleased to humour at this small cost of having him climb into her little parlour and gossip of summer nights?

With her decent and sombre dress, her simple gravity, and that fine piece of priestly needlework, she looked

like some pious laymember of a sisterhood, living by special permission outside her convent walls. Or was

she maintained here aloft by her friend in comfortable leisure, so that he might have before him the perfect,

eternal type, uncorrupted and untarnished by the struggle for existence? Her shapely hands, I observed, wore

"And the pictures, how do they come on?" she asked of Theobald, after a long pause.

"Finely, finely! I have here a friend whose sympathy and encouragement give me new faith and ardour."

Our hostess turned to me, gazed at me a moment rather inscrutably, and then tapping her forehead with the

gesture she had used a minute before, "He has a magnificent genius!" she said, with perfect gravity.

"Eh, why do you smile?" she cried. "If you doubt it, you must see the bambino!" And she took the lamp and

conducted me to the other side of the room, where on the wall, in a plain black frame, hung a large drawing in

red chalk. Beneath it was fastened a little howl for holy water. The drawing represented a very young child,

entirely naked, half nestling back against his mother's gown, but with his two little arms outstretched, as if in

the act of benediction. It was executed with singular freedom and power, and yet seemed vivid with the

sacred bloom of infancy. A sort of dimpled elegance and grace, mingled with its boldness, recalled the touch

of Correggio. "That's what he can do!" said my hostess. "It's the blessed little boy whom I lost. It's his very

image, and the Signor Teobaldo gave it me as a gift. He has given me many things besides!"

I looked at the picture for some time and admired it immensely. Turning back to Theobald I assured him that

if it were hung among the drawings in the Uffizi and labelled with a glorious name it would hold its own. My

praise seemed to give him extreme pleasure; he pressed my hands, and his eyes filled with tears. It moved

him apparently with the desire to expatiate on the history of the drawing, for he rose and made his adieux to

our companion, kissing her band with the same mild ardour as before. It occurred to me that the offer of a

similar piece of gallantry on my own part might help me to know what manner of woman she was. When she

perceived my intention she withdrew her hand, dropped her eyes solemnly, and made me a severe curtsey.

He eyed me an instant askance, and then seemed hurried along by the current of remembrance. "You should

have seen the mother and the child together, seen them as I first saw themthe mother with her head draped

in a shawl, a divine trouble in her face, and the bambino pressed to her bosom. You would have said, I think,

that Raphael had found his match in common chance. I was coming in, one summer night, from a long walk

in the country, when I met this apparition at the city gate. The woman held out her hand. I hardly knew

whether to say, 'What do you want?' or to fall down and worship. She asked for a little money. I saw that she

was beautiful and pale; she might have stepped out of the stable of Bethlehem! I gave her money and helped

her on her way into the town. I had guessed her story. She, too, was a maiden mother, and she had been

turned out into the world in her shame. I felt in all my pulses that here was my subject marvellously realised.

I felt like one of the old monkish artists who had had a vision. I rescued the poor creatures, cherished them,

watched them as I would have done some precious work of art, some lovely fragment of fresco discovered in

a mouldering cloister. In a monthas if to deepen and sanctify the sadness and sweetness of it allthe poor

little child died. When she felt that he was going she held him up to me for ten minutes, and I made that

sketch. You saw a feverish haste in it, I suppose; I wanted to spare the poor little mortal the pain of his

position. After that I doubly valued the mother. She is the simplest, sweetest, most natural creature that ever

bloomed in this brave old land of Italy. She lives in the memory of her child, in her gratitude for the scanty

kindness I have been able to show her, and in her simple religion! She is not even conscious of her beauty;

my admiration has never made her vain. Heaven knows that I have made no secret of it. You must have

observed the singular transparency of her expression, the lovely modesty of her glance. And was there ever

such a truly virginal brow, such a natural classic elegance in the wave of the hair and the arch of the

forehead? I have studied her; I may say I know her. I have absorbed her little by little; my mind is stamped

and imbued, and I have determined now to clinch the impression; I shall at last invite her to sit for me!"

"'At lastat last'?" I repeated, in much amazement. "Do you mean that she has never done so yet?"

"I have not really hadaa sitting," said Theobald, speaking very slowly. "I have taken notes, you know; I

have got my grand fundamental impression. That's the great thing! But I have not actually had her as a model,

What had become for the moment of my perception and my tact I am at a loss to say; in their absence I was

unable to repress a headlong exclamation. I was destined to regret it. We had stopped at a turning, beneath a

lamp. "My poor friend," I exclaimed, laying my hand on his shoulder, "you have DAWDLED! She's an old,

It was as if I had brutally struck him; I shall never forget the long, slow, almost ghastly look of pain, with

He drew a long breath and leaned against a house, looking at me with questioning, protesting, reproachful

eyes. At last, starting forward, and grasping my arm"Answer me solemnly: does she seem to you truly old?

Then at last I understood the immensity of his illusion how, one by one, the noiseless years had ebbed away

and left him brooding in charmed inaction, for ever preparing for a work for ever deferred. It seemed to me

almost a kindness now to tell him the plain truth. "I should be sorry to say you are blind," I answered, "but I

think you are deceived. You have lost time in effortless contemplation. Your friend was once young and fresh

and virginal; but, I protest, that was some years ago. Still, she has de beaux restes. By all means make her sit

He took off his hat and stood passing his handkerchief mechanically over his forehead. "De beaux restes? I

thank you for sparing me the plain English. I must make up my Madonna out of de beaux restes! What a

"Never mind her age," I cried, revolted at what I had done, "never mind my impression of her! You have your

memory, your notes, your genius. Finish your picture in a month. I pronounce it beforehand a masterpiece,

He stared, but he seemed scarcely to understand me. "Oldold!" he kept stupidly repeating. "If she is old,

what am I? If her beauty has faded, wherewhere is my strength? Has life been a dream? Have I worshipped

too longhave I loved too well?" The charm, in truth, was broken. That the chord of illusion should have

snapped at my light accidental touch showed how it had been weakened by excessive tension. The poor

fellow's sense of wasted time, of vanished opportunity, seemed to roll in upon his soul in waves of darkness.

I led him homeward with all possible tenderness, but I attempted neither to check his grief, to restore his

equanimity, nor to unsay the hard truth. When we reached my hotel I tried to induce him to come so.

"We will drink a glass of wine," I said, smiling, "to the completion of the Madonna."

With a violent effort he held up his head, mused for a moment with a formidably sombre frown, and then

giving me his hand, "I will finish it," he cried, "in a month! No, in a fortnight! After all, I have it HERE!"

And he tapped his forehead. "Of course she's old! She can afford to have it said of hera woman who has

made twenty years pass like a twelvemonth! Oldold! Why, sir, she shall be eternal!"

I wished to see him safely to his own door, but he waved me back and walked away with an air of resolution,

whistling and swinging his cane. I waited a moment, and then followed him at a distance, and saw him

proceed to cross the Santa Trinita Bridge. When he reached the middle he suddenly paused, as if his strength

had deserted him, and leaned upon the parapet gazing over into the river. I was careful to keep him in sight; I

confess that I passed ten very nervous minutes. He recovered himself at last, and went his way, slowly and

That I had really startled poor Theobald into a bolder use of his longgarnered stores of knowledge and taste,

into the vulgar effort and hazard of production, seemed at first reason enough for his continued silence and

absence; but as day followed day without his either calling or sending me a line, and without my meeting him

in his customary haunts, in the galleries, in the Chapel at San Lorenzo, or strolling between the Arno side and

the great hedgescreen of verdure which, along the drive of the Cascine, throws the fair occupants of

barouche and phaeton into such becoming reliefas for more than a week I got neither tidings nor sight of

him, I began to fear that I had fatally offended him, and that, instead of giving a wholesome impetus to his

talent, I had brutally paralysed it. I had a wretched suspicion that I had made him ill. My stay at Florence was

drawing to a close, and it was important that, before resuming my journey, I should assure myself of the truth.

Theobald, to the last, had kept his lodging a mystery, and I was altogether at a loss where to look for him.

The simplest course was to make inquiry of the beauty of the Mercato Vecchio, and I confess that unsatisfied

curiosity as to the lady herself counselled it as well. Perhaps I had done her injustice, and she was as

immortally fresh and fair as be conceived her. I was, at any rate, anxious to behold once more the ripe

enchantress who had made twenty years pass as a twelvemonth. I repaired accordingly, one morning, to her

abode, climbed the interminable staircase, and reached her door. It stood ajar, and as I hesitated whether to

enter, a little servingmaid came clattering out with an empty kettle, as if she had just performed some

savoury errand. The inner door, too, was open; so I crossed the little vestibule and entered the room in which

I had formerly been received. It had not its evening aspect. The table, or one end of it, was spread for a late

breakfast, and before it sat a gentlemanan individual, at least, of the male sexdoing execution upon a

beefsteak and onions, and a bottle of wine. At his elbow, in friendly proximity, was placed the lady of the

house. Her attitude, as I entered, was not that of an enchantress. With one hand she held in her lap a plate of

smoking maccaroni; with the other she had lifted high in air one of the pendulous filaments of this succulent

compound, and was in the act of slipping it gently down her throat. On the uncovered end of the table, facing

her companion, were ranged half a dozen small statuettes, of some snuff coloured substance resembling

terracotta. He, brandishing his knife with ardour, was apparently descanting on their merits.

Evidently I darkened the door. My hostess dropped liner maccaroni into her mouth, and rose hastily with a

harsh exclamation and a flushed face. I immediately perceived that the Signora Serafina's secret was even

better worth knowing than I had supposed, and that the way to learn it was to take it for granted. I summoned

my best Italian, I smiled and bowed and apologised for my intrusion; and in a moment, whether or no I had

dispelled the lady's irritation, I had at least stimulated her prudence. I was welcome, she said; I must take a

seat. This was another friend of hersalso an artist, she declared with a smile which was almost amiable.

Her companion wiped his moustache and bowed with great civility. I saw at a glance that he was equal to the

situation. He was presumably the author of the statuettes on the table, and he knew a moneyspending

forestiere when he saw one. He was a small wiry man, with a clever, impudent, tossedup nose, a sharp little

black eye, and waxed ends to his moustache. On the side of his head he wore jauntily a little crimson velvet

smokingcap, and I observed that his feet were encased in brilliant slippers. On Serafina's remarking with

dignity that I was the friend of Mr. Theobald, he broke out into that fantastic French of which certain Italians

are so insistently lavish, and declared with fervour that Mr. Theobald was a magnificent genius.

"I am sure I don't know," I answered with a shrug. "If you are in a position to affirm it, you have the

advantage of me. I have seen nothing from his hand but the bambino yonder, which certainly is fine."

He declared that the bambino was a masterpiece, a pure Corregio. It was only a pity, he added with a

knowing laugh, that the sketch had not been made on some good bit of honeycombed old panel. The stately

Serafina hereupon protested that Mr. Theobald was the soul of honour, and that he would never lend himself

to a deceit. "I am not a judge of genius," she said, "and I know nothing of pictures. I am but a poor simple

widow; but I know that the Signor Teobaldo has the heart of an angel and the virtue of a saint. He is my

benefactor," she added sententiously. The afterglow of the somewhat sinister flush with which she had

greeted me still lingered in her cheek, and perhaps did not favour her beauty; I could not but fancy it a wise

custom of Theobald's to visit her only by candlelight. She was coarse, and her pour adorer was a poet.

"I have the greatest esteem for him," I said; "it is for this reason that I have been uneasy at not seeing him for

Her companion uttered a rapid expletive, and reproached her with not having been to see him. She hesitated a

moment; then she simpered the least bit and bridled. "He comes to see mewithout reproach! But it would

not be the same for me to go to him, though, indeed, you may almost call him a man of holy life."

"He has the greatest admiration for you," I said. "He would have been honoured by your visit."

She looked at me a moment sharply. "More admiration than you. Admit that!" Of course I protested with all

the eloquence at my command, and my mysterious hostess then confessed that she had taken no fancy to me

on my former visit, and that, Theobald not having returned, she believed I had poisoned his mind against her.

"It would be no kindness to the poor gentleman, I can tell you that," she said. "He has come to see me every

"I don't pretend to know him or to understand him," I said. "He's a mystery! Nevertheless, he seems to me a

Serafina glanced at her companion a moment, as if for inspiration. He contented himself with shrugging his

shoulders as he filled his glass again. The padrona hereupon gave me a more softly insinuating smile than

would have seemed likely to bloom on so candid a brow. "It's for that that I love him!" she said. "The world

has so little kindness for such persons. It laughs at them, and despises them, and cheats them. He is too good

for this wicked life! It's his fancy that he finds a little Paradise up here in my poor apartment. If he thinks so,

how can I help it? He has a strange beliefreally, I ought to he ashamed to tell youthat I resemble the

Blessed Virgin: Heaven forgive me! I let him think what he pleases, so long as it makes him happy. He was

very kind to me once, and I am not one that forgets a favour. So I receive him every evening civilly, and ask

after his health, and let him look at me on this side and that! For that matter, I may say it without vanity, I

was worth looking at once! And he's not always amusing, poor man! He sits sometimes for an hour without

speaking a word, or else he talks away, without stopping, on art and nature, and beauty and duty, and fifty

fine things that are all so much Latin to me. I beg you to understand that he has never said a word to me that I

mightn't decently listen to. He may be a little cracked, but he's one of the blessed saints."

Serafina, I fancied, left part of her story untold; but she told enough of it to make poor Theobald's own

statement seem intensely pathetic in its exalted simplicity. "It's a strange fortune, certainly," she went on, "to

have such a friend as this dear mana friend who is less than a lover and more than a friend." I glanced at

her companion, who preserved an impenetrable smile, twisted the end of his moustache, and disposed of a

copious mouthful. Was HE less than a lover? "But what will you have?" Serafina pursued. "In this hard world

one must not ask too many questions; one must take what comes and keep what one gets. I have kept my

good friend for twenty years, and I do hope that, at this time of day, signore, you have not come to turn him

I assured her that I had no such design, and that I should vastly regret disturbing Mr. Theobald's habits or

convictions. On the contrary, I was alarmed about him, and I should immediately go in search of him. She

gave me his address, and a florid account of her sufferings at his nonappearance. She had not been to him

for various reasons; chiefly because she was afraid of displeasing him, as he had always made such a mystery

"Ah," cried the gentleman, "he admires the Signora Serafina, but he wouldn't admire me." And then,

I was about to withdraw, after having promised that I would inform the Signora Serafina of my friend's

condition, when her companion, who had risen from table and girded his loins apparently for the onset,

grasped me gently by the arm, and led me before the row of statuettes. "I perceive by your conversation,

signore, that you are a patron of the arts. Allow me to request your honourable attention for these modest

products of my own ingenuity. They are brandnew, fresh from my atelier, and have never been exhibited in

public. I have brought them here to receive the verdict of this dear lady, who is a good critic, for all she may

pretend to the contrary. I am the inventor of this peculiar style of statuetteof subject, manner, material,

everything. Touch them, I pray you; handle them freely you needn't fear. Delicate as they look, it is

impossible they should break! My various creations have met with great success. They are especially admired

by Americans. I have sent them all over Europeto London, Paris, Vienna! You may have observed some

little specimens in Paris, on the Boulevard, in a shop of which they constitute the specialty. There is always a

crowd about the window. They form a very pleasing ornament for the mantelshelf of a gay young bachelor,

for the boudoir of a pretty woman. You couldn't make a prettier present to a person with whom you wished to

exchange a harmless joke. It is not classic art, signore, of course; but, between ourselves, isn't classic art

sometimes rather a bore? Caricature, burlesque, la charge, as the French say, has hitherto been confined to

paper, to the pen and pencil. Now, it has been my inspiration to introduce it into statuary. For this purpose I

have invented a peculiar plastic compound which you will permit me not to divulge. That's my secret,

signore! It's as light, you perceive, as cork, and yet as firm as alabaster! I frankly confess that I really pride

myself as much on this little stroke of chemical ingenuity as upon the other element of novelty in my

creationsmy types. What do you say to my types, signore? The idea is bold; does it strike you as happy?

Cats and monkeysmonkeys and catsall human life is there! Human life, of course, I mean, viewed with

the eye of the satirist! To combine sculpture and satire, signore, has been my unprecedented ambition. I

As this jaunty Juvenal of the chimneypiece delivered himself of his persuasive allocution, he took up his

little groups successively from the table, held them aloft, turned them about, rapped them with his knuckles,

and gazed at them lovingly, with his head on one side. They consisted each of a cat and a monkey,

fantastically draped, in some preposterously sentimental conjunction. They exhibited a certain sameness of

motive, and illustrated chiefly the different phases of what, in delicate terms, may be called gallantry and

coquetry; but they were strikingly clever and expressive, and were at once very perfect cats and monkeys and

very natural men and women. I confess, however, that they failed to amuse me. I was doubtless not in a mood

to enjoy them, for they seemed to me peculiarly cynical and vulgar. Their imitative felicity was revolting. As

I looked askance at the complacent little artist, brandishing them between finger and thumb and caressing

them with an amorous eye, he seemed to me himself little more than an exceptionally intelligent ape. I

mustered an admiring grin, however, and he blew another blast. "My figures are studied from life! I have a

little menagerie of monkeys whose frolics I contemplate by the hour. As for the cats, one has only to look out

of one's back window! Since I have begun to examine these expressive little brutes, I have made many

profound observations. Speaking, signore, to a man of imagination, I may say that my little designs are not

without a philosophy of their own. Truly, I don't know whether the cats and monkeys imitate us, or whether

it's we who imitate them." I congratulated him on his philosophy, and he resumed: "You will do use the

honour to admit that I have handled my subjects with delicacy. Eh, it was needed, signore! I have been free,

but not too freeeh? Just a hint, you know! You may see as much or as little as you please. These little

groups, however, are no measure of my invention. If you will favour me with a call at my studio, I think that

you will admit that my combinations are really infinite. I likewise execute figures to command. You have

perhaps some little motivethe fruit of your philosophy of life, signore which you would like to have

interpreted. I can promise to work it up to your satisfaction; it shall be as malicious as you please! Allow me

to present you with my card, and to remind you that my prices are moderate. Only sixty francs for a little

group like that. My statuettes are as durable as bronzeaere perennius, signoreand, between ourselves, I

As I pocketed his card I glanced at Madonna Serafina, wondering whether she had an eye for contrasts. She

had picked up one of the little couples and was tenderly dusting it with a feather broom.

What I had just seen and heard had so deepened my compassionate interest in my deluded friend that I took a

summary leave, making my way directly to the house designated by this remarkable woman. It was in an

obscure corner of the opposite side of the town, and presented a sombre and squalid appearance. An old

woman in the doorway, on my inquiring for Theobald, ushered me in with a mumbled blessing and an

expression of relief at the poor gentleman having a friend. His lodging seemed to consist of a single room at

the top of the house. On getting no answer to my knock, I opened the door, supposing that he was absent, so

that it gave me a certain shock to find him sitting there helpless and dumb. He was seated near the single

window, facing an easel which supported a large canvas. On my entering he looked up at me blankly, without

changing his position, which was that of absolute lassitude and dejection, his arms loosely folded, his legs

stretched before him, his head hanging on his breast. Advancing into the room I perceived that his face

vividly corresponded with his attitude. He was pale, haggard, and unshaven, and his dull and sunken eye

gazed at me without a spark of recognition. I had been afraid that he would greet me with fierce reproaches,

as the cruelly officious patron who had turned his contentment to bitterness, and I was relieved to find that

my appearance awakened no visible resentment. "Don't you know me?" I asked, as I put out my hand. "Have

He made no response, kept his position stupidly, and left me staring about the room. It spoke most plaintively

for itself. Shabby, sordid, naked, it contained, beyond the wretched bed, but the scantiest provision for

personal comfort. It was bedroom at once and studioa grim ghost of a studio. A few dusty casts and prints

on the walls, three or four old canvases turned face inward, and a rustylooking colourbox, formed, with the

easel at the window, the sum of its appurtenances. The place savoured horribly of poverty. Its only wealth

was the picture on the easel, presumably the famous Madonna. Averted as this was from the door, I was

unable to see its face; but at last, sickened by the vacant misery of the spot, I passed behind Theobald, eagerly

and tenderly. I can hardly say that I was surprised at what I founda canvas that was a mere dead blank,

cracked and discoloured by time. This was his immortal work! Though not surprised, I confess I was

powerfully moved, and I think that for five minutes I could not have trusted myself to speak. At last my silent

nearness affected him; he stirred and turned, and then rose and looked at me with a slowly kindling eye. I

murmured some kind ineffective nothings about his being ill and needing advice and care, but he seemed

absorbed in the effort to recall distinctly what had last passed between us. "You were right," he said, with a

pitiful smile, "I am a dawdler! I am a failure! I shall do nothing more in this world. You opened my eyes;

and, though the truth is bitter, I bear you no grudge. Amen! I have been sitting here for a week, face to face

with the truth, with the past, with my weakness and poverty and nullity. I shall never touch a brush! I believe

I have neither eaten nor slept. Look at that canvas!" he went on, as I relieved my emotion in an urgent request

that he would come home with me and dine. "That was to have contained my masterpiece! Isn't it a promising

foundation? The elements of it are all HERE. And he tapped his forehead with that mystic confidence which

had marked the gesture before. "If I could only transpose them into some brain that has the hand, the will!

Since I have been sitting here taking stock of my intellects, I have come to believe that I have the material for

a hundred masterpieces. But my hand is paralysed now, and they will never be painted. I never began! I

waited and waited to be worthier to begin, and wasted my life in preparation. While I fancied my creation

was growing it was dying. I have taken it all too hard! Michael Angelo didn't, when he went at the Lorenzo!

He did his best at a venture, and his venture is immortal. THAT'S mine!" And he pointed with a gesture I

shall never forget at the empty canvas. "I suppose we are a genus by ourselves in the providential

schemewe talents that can't act, that can't do nor dare! We take it out in talk, in plans and promises, in

study, in visions! But our visions, let me tell you," he cried, with a toss of his head, "have a way of being

brilliant, and a man has not lived in vain who has seen the things I have seen! Of course you will not believe

in them when that bit of wormeaten cloth is all I have to show for them; but to convince you, to enchant and

astound the world, I need only the hand of Raphael. His brain I already have. A pity, you will say, that I

haven't his modesty! Ah, let me boast and babble now; it's all I have left! I am the half of a genius! Where in

the wide world is my other half? Lodged perhaps in the vulgar soul, the cunning, ready fingers of some dull

copyist or some trivial artisan, who turns out by the dozen his easy prodigies of touch! But it's not for me to

sneer at him; he at least does something. He's not a dawdler! Well for me if I had been vulgar and clever and

What to say to the poor fellow, what to do for him, seemed hard to determine; I chiefly felt that I must break

the spell of his present inaction, and remove him from the haunted atmosphere of the little room it was such a

cruel irony to call a studio. I cannot say I persuaded him to come out with me; he simply suffered himself to

be led, and when we began to walk in the open air I was able to appreciate his pitifully weakened condition.

Nevertheless, he seemed in a certain way to revive, and murmured at last that he should like to go to the Pitti

Gallery. I shall never forget our melancholy stroll through those gorgeous halls, every picture on whose walls

seemed, even to my own sympathetic vision, to glow with a sort of insolent renewal of strength and lustre.

The eyes and lips of the great portraits appeared to smile in ineffable scorn of the dejected pretender who had

dreamed of competing with their triumphant authors; the celestial candour, even, of the Madonna of the

Chair, as we paused in perfect silence before her, was tinged with the sinister irony of the women of

Leonardo. Perfect silence, indeed, marked our whole progressthe silence of a deep farewell; for I felt in all

my pulses, as Theobald, leaning on my arm, dragged one heavy foot after the other, that he was looking his

last. When we came out he was so exhausted that instead of taking him to my hotel to dine, I called a carriage

and drove him straight to his own poor lodging. He had sunk into an extraordinary lethargy; he lay back in

the carriage, with his eyes closed, as pale as death, his faint breathing interrupted at intervals by a sudden

gasp, like a smothered sob or a vain attempt to speak. With the help of the old woman who had admitted me

before, and who emerged from a dark back court, I contrived to lead him up the long steep staircase and lay

him on his wretched bed. To her I gave him in charge, while I prepared in all haste to seek a physician. But

"Since a certain night he passed ten days ago. I came up in the morning to make his poor bed, and found him

sitting up in his clothes before that great canvas he keeps there. Poor, dear, strange man, he says his prayers

to it! He had not been to bed, nor since then, properly! What has happened to him? Has he found out about

"Prove at least that one old woman can be faithful," I said, "and watch him well till I come back." My return

was delayed, through the absence of the English physician, who was away on a round of visits, and whom I

vainly pursued from house to house before I overtook him. I brought him to Theobald's bedside none too

soon. A violent fever had seized our patient, and the case was evidently grave. A couple of hours later I knew

that he had brain fever. From this moment I was with him constantly; but I am far from wishing to describe

his illness. Excessively painful to witness, it was happily brief. Life burned out in delirium. One night in

particular that I passed at his pillow, listening to his wild snatches of regret, of aspiration, of rapture and awe

at the phantasmal pictures with which his brain seemed to swarm, comes back to my memory now like some

stray page from a lost masterpiece of tragedy. Before a week was over we had buried him in the little

Protestant cemetery on the way to Fiesole. The Signora Serafina, whom I had caused to be informed of his

illness, had come in person, I was told, to inquire about its progress; but she was absent from his funeral,

which was attended by but a scanty concourse of mourners. Half a dozen old Florentine sojourners, in spite of

the prolonged estrangement which had preceded his death, had felt the kindly impulse to honour his grave.

Among them was my friend Mrs. Coventry, whom I found, on my departure, waiting in her carriage at the

"Well," she said, relieving at last with a significant smile the solemnity of our immediate greeting, "and the

"I have seen her," I said; "she is mineby bequest. But I shall never show her to you."

"Excuse me; I am sad and vexed and bitter." And with reprehensible rudeness I marched away. I was

excessively impatient to leave Florence; my friend's dark spirit seemed diffused through all things. I had

packed my trunk to start for Rome that night, and meanwhile, to beguile my unrest, I aimlessly paced the

streets. Chance led me at last to the church of San Lorenzo. Remembering poor Theobald's phrase about

Michael Angelo"He did his best at a venture"I went in and turned my steps to the chapel of the tombs.

Viewing in sadness the sadness of its immortal treasures, I fancied, while I stood there, that they needed no

ampler commentary than these simple words. As I passed through the church again to leave it, a woman,

turning away from one of the side altars, met me face to face. The black shawl depending from her head

draped picturesquely the handsome visage of Madonna Serafina. She stopped as she recognised me, and I

saw that she wished to speak. Her eye was bright, and her ample bosom heaved in a way that seemed to

portend a certain sharpness of reproach. But the expression of my own face, apparently, drew the sting from

her resentment, and she addressed me in a tone in which bitterness was tempered by a sort of dogged

resignation. "I know it was you, now, that separated us," she said. "It was a pity he ever brought you to see

me! Of course, you couldn't think of me as he did. Well, the Lord gave him, the Lord has taken him. I have

just paid for a nine days' mass for his soul. And I can tell you this, signoreI never deceived him. Who put it

into his head that I was made to live on holy thoughts and fine phrases? It was his own fancy, and it pleased

"And did he speak of me?" She had hesitated and dropped her eyes; she raised them with her question, and

revealed in their sombre stillness a gleam of feminine confidence which, for the moment, revived and

illumined her beauty. Poor Theobald! Whatever name he had given his passion, it was still her fine eyes that

She dropped her eyes again and was silent. Then exhaling a full rich sigh, as she gathered her shawl

Passing through a narrow side street on my way back to my hotel, I perceived above a doorway a sign which

it seemed to me I had read before. I suddenly remembered that it was identical with the superscription of a

card that I had carried for an hour in my waistcoat pocket. On the threshold stood the ingenious artist whose

claims to public favour were thus distinctly signalised, smoking a pipe in the evening air, and giving the

finishing polish with a bit of rag to one of his inimitable "combinations." I caught the expressive curl of a

couple of tails. He recognised me, removed his little red cap with a most obsequious bow, and motioned me

to enter his studio. I returned his salute and passed on, vexed with the apparition. For a week afterwards,

whenever I was seized among the ruins of triumphant Rome with some peculiarly poignant memory of

Theobald's transcendent illusions and deplorable failure, I seemed to hear a fantastic, impertinent murmur,