When he came, he
would talk freely, and give us but too plain evidence of the change and
confusion that were taking place in him. Mac never spared him at these
times, and on one occasion, only a fortnight previous to the exhibition of
the picture, fairly drove the boy into a passion.
"Well, Mr. Whitewash," said he, as Clarian came in, "how are you at this
present writing? You _look_ as if you had been dieting on Gamboge and Flake
White. Take care, young man, or you'll put us students to the cost of a
tombstone with a Latin epitaph for you, yet,--beginning, _Interfecit
se_.--How comes on the Art? You've given the go-by to _Ego_ and _Non-Ego_,
I suppose, and have resolved to achieve the very [Greek: kudos] upon a
ten-foot whitewashed wall, eh? _Soit_,--but what results? Can you say yet,
as Correggio did when he saw the St. Cecilia of Raphael, '_Anch' io son
pittore_'? or do you intend to limit your ambition, _a la_ Dick Tinto, to
the effecting of two liquidations in one by the restoration of
tavern-signs?"
"Please do not taunt me, Mac, for I am cast down, almost. I have the
grandest conception, but the life-touch escapes me. It is in vain I seek
it: we cannot do a thing properly, unless we _feel_ it; passion will not be
simulated. What we know, and can do well, must all be repeated from our own
experience, says St. Simon,--and I agree with him."
"St. Simon be--hanged!" quoth Mac. "So, it seems, the Metaphysic is not
abandoned.
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