figures changed position the shady places would not be wiped off, and

would remain dark spots which never could be made luminous. I have
avoided that blunder, though many of our most illustriouspainters

have fallen into it. In my work you will see whiteness beneath the
opacity of the broadest shadow. Unlike the crowd of ignoramuses, who

fancy they draw correctly because they can paint one good vanishing
line, I have not dryly outlined my figures, nor brought out

superstitiously minute anatomical details; for, let me tell you, the
human body does not end off with a line. In that respect sculptors get

nearer to the truth of nature than we do. Nature is all curves, each
wrapping or overlapping another. To speak rigorously, there is no such

thing as drawing. Do not laugh, young man; no matter how strange that
saying seems to you, you will understand the reasons for it one of

these days. A line is a means by which man explains to himself the
effect of light upon a given object; but there is no such thing as a

line in nature, where all things are rounded and full. It is only in
modelling that we really draw,--in other words, that we detach things

from their surroundings and put them in their due relief. The proper
distribution of light can alone reveal the whole body. For this reason

I do not sharplydefine lineaments; I diffuse about their outline a
haze of warm, light half-tints, so that I defy any one to place a

finger on the exact spot where the parts join the groundwork of the
picture. If seen near by this sort of work has a woolly effect, and is

wanting in nicety and precision; but go a few steps off and the parts
fall into place; they take their proper form and detach themselves,--

the body turns, the limbs stand out, we feel the air circulating
around them.

"Nevertheless," he continued, sadly, "I am not satisfied; there are
moments when I have my doubts. Perhaps it would be better not to

sketch a single line. I ask myself if I ought not to grasp the figure
first by its highest lights, and then work down to the darker

portions. Is not that the method of the sun, divinepainter of the
universe? O Nature, Nature! who has ever caught thee in thy flights?

Alas! the heights of knowledge, like the depths of ignorance, lead to
unbelief. I doubt my work."

The old man paused, then resumed. "For ten years I have worked, young
man; but what are ten short years in the long struggle with Nature? We

do not know the type it cost Pygmalion to make the only statue that
ever walked--"

He fell into a reverie and remained, with fixed eyes, oblivious of all
about him, playing mechanically with his knife.

"See, he is talking to his own soul," said Porbus in a low voice.
The words acted like a spell on Nicolas Poussin, filling him with the

inexplicable curiosity of a true artist. The strange old man, with his
white eyes fixed in stupor, became to the wondering youth something

more than a man; he seemed a fantastic spirit inhabiting an unknown
sphere, and waking by its touch confused ideas within the soul. We can

no more define the moral phenomena of this species of fascination than
we can render in words the emotions excited in the heart of an exile

by a song which recalls his fatherland. The contempt which the old man
affected to pour upon the noblest efforts of art, his wealth, his

manners, the respectful deference shown to him by Porbus, his work
guarded so secretly,--a work of patient toil, a work no doubt of

genius, judging by the head of the Virgin which Poussin had so naively
admired, and which, beautiful beside even the Adam of Mabuse, betrayed

the imperial touch of a great artist,--in short, everything about the
strange old man seemed beyond the limits of human nature. The rich

imagination of the youth fastened upon the one perceptible and clear
clew to the mystery of this supernatural being,--the presence of the

artistic nature, that wild impassioned nature to which such mighty
powers have been confided, which too often abuses those powers, and

drags cold reason and common souls, and even lovers of art, over stony
and arid places, where for such there is neither pleasure nor

instruction; while to the artistic soul itself,--that white-winged
angel of sportive fancy,--epics, works of art, and visions rise along

the way. It is a nature, an essence, mocking yet kind, fruitful though
destitute. Thus, for the enthusiastic Poussin, the old man became by

sudden transfiguration Art itself,--art with all its secrets, its
transports, and its dreams.

"Yes, my dear Porbus," said Frenhofer, speaking half in reverie, "I
have never yet beheld a perfect woman; a body whose outlines were

faultless and whose flesh-tints--Ah! where lives she?" he cried,
interrupting his own words; "where lives the lost Venus of the

ancients, so long sought for, whose scattered beauty we snatch by
glimpses? Oh! to see for a moment, a single moment, the divine

completed nature,--the ideal,--I would give my all of fortune. Yes; I
would search thee out, celestial Beauty! in thy farthestsphere. Like

Orpheus, I would go down to hell to win back the life of art--"
"Let us go," said Porbus to Poussin; "he neither sees nor hears us any

longer."
"Let us go to his atelier," said the wonder-struck young man.

"Oh! the old dragon has guarded the entrance. His treasure is out of
our reach. I have not waited for your wish or urging to attempt an

assault on the mystery."
"Mystery! then there is a mystery?"

"Yes," answered Porbus. "Frenhofer was the only pupil Mabuse was
willing to teach. He became the friend, saviour, father of that

unhappy man, and he sacrificed the greater part of his wealth to
satisfy the mad passions of his master. In return, Mabuse bequeathed

to him the secret of relief, the power of giving life to form,--that
flower of nature, our perpetualdespair, which Mabuse had seized so

well that once, having sold and drunk the value of a flowered damask
which he should have worn at the entrance of Charles V., he made his

appearance in a paper garment painted to resembledamask. The splendor
of the stuff attracted the attention of the emperor, who, wishing to

compliment the old drunkard, laid a hand upon his shoulder and
discovered the deception. Frenhofer is a man carried away by the

passion of his art; he sees above and beyond what other painters see.
He has meditated deeply on color and the absolute truth of lines; but

by dint of much research, much thought, much study, he has come to
doubt the object for which he is searching. In his hours of despair he

fancies that drawing does not exist, and that lines can render nothing
but geometric figures. That, of course, is not true; because with a

black line which has no color we can represent the human form. This
proves that our art is made up, like nature, of an infinite number of

elements. Drawing gives the skeleton, and color gives the life; but
life without the skeleton is a far more incomplete thing than the

skeleton without the life. But there is a higher truth still,--namely,
that practice and observation are the essentials of a painter; and

that if reason and poesy persist in wrangling with the tools, the
brushes, we shall be brought to doubt, like Frenhofer, who is as much

excited in brain as he is exalted in art. A sublimepainter, indeed;
but he had the misfortune to be born rich, and that enables him to

stray into theory and conjecture. Do not imitate him. Work! work!
painters should theorize with their brushes in their hands."

"We will contrive to get in," cried Poussin, not listening to Porbus,
and thinking only of the hidden masterpiece.

Porbus smiled at the youth's enthusiasm, and bade him farewell with a
kindly invitation to come and visit him.

*****
Nicolas Poussin returned slowly towards the Rue de la Harpe and

passed, without observing that he did so, the modest hostelry where he
was lodging. Returning presently upon his steps, he ran up the

miserable stairway with anxiousrapidity until he reached an upper
chamber nestling between the joists of a roof "en colombage,"--the

plain, slight covering of the houses of old Paris. Near the single and
gloomy window of the room sat a young girl, who rose quickly as the

door opened, with a gesture of love; she had recognized the young
man's touch upon the latch.

"What is the matter?" she asked.
"It is--it is," he cried, choking with joy, "that I feel myself a

painter! I have doubted it till now; but to-day I believe in myself. I
can be a great man. Ah, Gillette, we shall be rich, happy! There is

gold in these brushes!"
Suddenly he became silent. His grave and earnest face lost its

expression of joy; he was comparing the immensity of his hopes with