their excellencies, as their nearest neighbor and most devoted of servants.

We

A footman showed me into the Count's library and went to announce me. The spacious apartment was furnished with the greatest possible luxury; the walls were lined with bookcases, each of which was surmounted by a bronze bust; over the marble chimney-piece was placed a large mirror; the floor was covered with green cloth and spread with carpets. Having lost all habits of luxury in my poor retreat, and having long since ceased to be familiar with the effects produced by the riches of others, I became timid, and awaited the Count with a certain trepidation, like a provincial petitioner expecting the approach of a minister. The doors opened, and a handsome man of two-and-thirty came in. The Count approached me with frankness and friendliness. I endeavored to muster courage and to explain the object of my call; but he anticipated me. sat down. His easy and agreeable conversation soon dispelled my awkward shyness; I had already resumed my usual manner, when suddenly the Countess entered, and my perturbation became greater than before. She was beautiful indeed. The Count introduced me; I wished to seem to be at my ease, but the more I tried the more awkward did I feel. My new acquaintances wishing to give me time to recover, and to feel myself more at home, conversed together, dispensing with all etiquette, thus treating me like an old friend. I had risen from my seat in the meanwhile, and was pacing the room inspecting the books and pictures. I am no judge of paintings, but one there was which specially attracted my attention. It represented a landscape in Switzerland; but I was struck, not by the beauty of the artist's touch, but because it was perforated by two bullets, one hole being just above the other.

"This is a good shot," said I, turning to the Count. "Yes," said he; "a very remarkable shot. Do you shoot well?" he went on.

"Pretty well," I replied, overjoyed that the conversation had turned upon a subject of interest. "I mean I could not miss a card at thirty paces; of course, when I know the pistols."

"Indeed," said the Countess, with a look of great attention; "and you, my dear, could you hit a card at thirty

?"

paces "Some day," answered the Count, "we shall try. I was not a bad shot in my time, but it is now four years since I held a pistol."

"Oh," remarked I, "that being the case, I do not mind betting that your excellency will not be able to hit a card at twenty paces even: pistol shooting requires daily practice. I know this by experience. I used to be considered one of the best shots in our regiment. It so happened once that I had not touched a pistol for a whole month: my own were undergoing repair, and will your excellency believe it, when I took to shooting again, I missed a bottle four successive times at twenty paces? Our riding-master, a sharp, amusing fellow, happening to be present, cried out: 'I say, old boy, thou canst not lift thy hand against the bottle, eh? No, your excellency, it is a practice that ought not to be neglected, if one does not wish to become rusty at it. The best shot I ever happened to come across practiced every day, and would fire at least three times before dinner. This was a rule with him, as was his glass of vodka."

The Count and Countess appeared pleased at my having become talkative.

"And what kind of a shot was he?" asked the Count. "Of that sort, your excellency, that if he happened to see a fly on the wall.

You are smiling, Countess. But it is true, indeed. When he chanced to see a fly, he would call out 'Kooska, my pistols !' Kooska brings him a loaded pistol. Bang! and there is the fly, flattened to the wall!"

"That was wonderful," said the Count. name?"

"Silvio, your excellency."

"What was his

"Silvio!" exclaimed he, jumping up: "you knew Silvio ?"

"Knew him? Of course, your excellency. We were friends; he was considered by the regiment as being quite one of ourselves: but it is now five years since I heard anything of him. Your excellency appears also to have known him?"

"I knew him- knew him very well. Did he ever relate a very strange occurrence to you?"

"Your excellency cannot possibly mean a box on the ear, which some young scamp gave him at a ball? " "And did he name that scamp to you?"

66

No, your excellency, he did not; but - your excellency," continued I, the truth beginning to dawn upon me, "I beg your pardon - I was not aware can it be yourself?

"I, myself," answered the Count, with an exceedingly perturbed countenance," and the perforated picture is the reminiscence of our last meeting."

"Oh! pray, dear," said the Countess, "pray do not speak of it. I dread hearing the story."

"No," replied he, "I shall relate the whole of it. He knows how I offended his friend, let him now also know how Silvio took his revenge."

The Count bade me be seated, and I listened with the liveliest curiosity to the following recital:

"I was married five years ago. The first month, the honeymoon, was spent in this village. It is to this house that I am indebted for the happiest, as also for one of the saddest moments of my life.

We were out riding one evening; my wife's horse became unmanageable; she got frightened, gave me her bridle, and set out homewards on foot. I saw upon entering the stable-yard a travelling telega, and was informed that a gentleman, who had refused to give his name, and had simply said that he had some business to transact, was waiting for me in the library. I entered this room, and in the twilight saw a man covered with dust and wearing a long beard. He was standing by the fireplace. I approached him, trying to recall to mind his features. Thou dost not recognize me, Count,' said he, with trembling voice. Silvio ! exclaimed I; and I confess I felt my hair stand on end! 'Yes, it is I,' he continued, the shot remains with me; I have come to discharge my pistol; art thou ready?' The pistol protruded out of his side pocket. I measured twelve paces, and stood there, in that corner, begging him to fire quickly, before my wife returned. He hesitated, he asked for lights. Candles were brought in. I shut the door, gave orders that no one should come in, and again begged him to fire. He took out his pistol, and proceeded to take aim. I was counting the seconds. . . . I thought of her. One dreadful minute passed! Silvio let his arm drop. I regret,' said he, 'that my pistol is not loaded with cherry-stones. The bullet is heavy. This appears to me not a duel, but murder: I am not accustomed to aim at an unarmed man: let us begin anew; let us draw lots who is to have the first fire.' My head swam. .. I suppose I was not consenting. . . At last another pistol was loaded; two bits of paper were rolled up; he placed them in the cap I had once shot through; I again drew the winning number. 'Thou art devilish lucky, Count,' said he, with an ironical smile I can never forget. I do not understand what possessed me, and by what means he forced me to it . . . but I fired—and hit that picture there."

...

The Count pointed to the perforated picture; his face was crimson; the Countess had become whiter than her handkerchief; I could not suppress an exclamation.

"I fired," the Count went on: "and, thank God, missed. Then Silvio. . . . (he looked really dreadful at that moment) Silvio aimed at me. Suddenly the doors opened, Masha 1 rushed in, and with a scream threw herself on my neck. Her presence restored to me all my courage. Darling,' said I, don't you see that we are joking? How frightened you are! Go and take a glass

of water and come back to us; I shall introduce an old friend and comrade to you.' Masha still doubted. 'Tell me, is what my husband says true?' said she, turning to the 1 The pet name for Maria. - TR.

sombre Silvio, is it true that you are both in fun?' 'He is always in fun, Countess,' replied Silvio. Once upon a time he gave me a box on the ear, in fun; in fun, he shot through this cap; in fun, he just now missed me; now I have a fancy to be in fun also.' So saying, he was about to take aim before her! Masha threw herself at his feet. 'Get up, Masha, for shame!' I exclaimed, enraged; and you, sir, will you cease jeering at a poor woman? Are you, or are you not, going to fire?' 'I am not going to,' answered Silvio, I am content. I have seen your hesitation, your timidity. I made you fire at me. I am satisfied. You will remember me. I leave you to your conscience!' Here he was about to take his departure, but stopping in the doorway, he looked at the perforated picture, fired his pistol at it, almost without aiming, and disappeared. My wife had fainted; the servants dared not stop him, and looked at him with terror; he walked out, called the iamshtchik and drove off, before I had even time to recover myself."

The Count concluded. Thus did I learn the ending of a story which had so interested me at its commencement. I did not again meet its hero. It was said that at the time of the revolt under Alexander Ypsilanti, Silvio commanded a detachment of the Heteræ, and was killed in the combat before Skulleni.

CONFESSIONS OF ENGLISH DOCTORS.

IN going about the world it is impossible not to see that there is a kind of infallible pope set up in many families, who is none other than the family doctor. The family lawyer is an uninteresting and fossil sort of being to ladies and children. But the doctor is still Sir Oracle, and all Molière's gibes against his order are forgotten or unknown, and he often remains the family pope. Now I am not going to say anything against my excellent friends the doctors. They are very well able to take care of themselves. We may call them one-eyed, but we must admit that they are the one eyed among ourselves who are the blind. Still I have the somewhat unamiable purpose of discussing some of their blunders on their own showing. I am going to deal a little recklessly with certain confessions that I find them making, either voluntarily or involuntarily, but, at the same time, I know how easily they could turn the tables by discussing the confessions of patients. They see a great deal of the worst of life; its meanness, selfishness, irritability, and cowardice. Indeed, when we satirize the doctors, we are mainly complaining of human nature itself. Their knowledge is little, because all human knowledge is little. During all these thousands of years we have not mastered the very alphabet words with which we might construct a science of the human body or of the human mind. So true is the complaint of the hero of "Locksley Hall: ""Science moves but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point." The public themselves compel the doctors to have a touch of humbug about them. A highly scientific friend has been telling me that he is treating a particular patient with bread pills and colored water; her chronic case requires incessant watching before he can determine the method of treatment. In the mean time he finds it necessary to satisfy her. The patient who calls in a doctor thinks nothing of him unless he will physic his dura ilia very stiffly then and there; and if he is truly a scientific man, and takes a long time for his diagnosis, the said patient puts him down as not knowing his business. If the public want to be deceived, deceived they must be.

I was talking one day with a medical friend. He complained that the public treated him very unfairly. They expect him, sir, to be omnipotent. They send for him in illness, and expect that a medical man will immediately be able to do everything. They forget that he has to watch the case and learn something of the constitution of the patient." I was calling on another medical friend one day, and he was telling me something of some new cases.

1 A driver of post-horses. TR.

"I

now

am giving them a mixture of peppermint and water just that will do them neither good nor harm—until I can find out what is the best for them. Besides, I am proposing to make some interesting experiments on them." I thought of the experimentum in corpore vili. I mentally resolved that my own vile corpus should not, "if I knew it," be experimented on. They say that every great orator is formed at the expense of his hearers, and perhaps it would not be too much to say that every great doctor is also formed at the expense of his patients.

It is often easy to detect the doctor in inaccuracies and carelessnesses. A doctor told me one day that I ought to take a course of Turkish baths. He was a man whose memory was not to be relied on. I asked him next day, "Doctor, would not a Turkish bath be a good thing?" The doctor looked very solemn and said, "A good thing, but not a good thing for you." I once called in a doctor, who came down eight miles, examined me for eight minutes, and took his eight guineas. He gave me a most elaborate opinion, which turned out to be totally wrong. A doctor once forbade me to take beer; the next doctor I went to prescribed beer. You cannot go through life, you cannot get behind the scenes in medical life, you cannot take up a medical periodical or a medical book, but you see the absolute uncertainty that exists on what one would think the most elementary matters, the conflict of opinion on subjects that one might have expected to have had settled long ago. Every now and then some entirely new disease transpires, the account of the symptoms is published, there is no name for the case in any of the books, and everywhere from Europe and America come suggestions for the nomenclature or the treatment. Perhaps the patient little thinks that he has got into the case books, and is immortalized under some obscure initials. The probability is that the mystery of his case is never cleared up.

It is a great thing to meet with a medical man of genial nature and of candid mind, a man who understands that candor is dangerous, and yet chooses to be candid. He will discuss his kills and cures, his worries and successes, in the frankest possible way. His life is a campaign, and he will confess to a few casualties in the way of killed and wounded. "It is not so much, old fellow, that we ever directly kill a man off in the way of an overdose of poison. But sometimes a man makes an utter mistake. He has gone wrong in his diagnosis. His whole line of treatment has been a mistake. The terrible conviction comes over him that he has muddled the whole business, that if he had taken the right line he would have been all right, but that now the life is irretrievably lost." Such mishaps are not necessarily those of ignorant and stupid men. The greatest surgeons have performed unnecessary amputations, and the greatest physicians have utterly mistaken symptoms. The greatness of a doctor, like that of a commander, consists in his making the smallest possible amount of blunders.

Even when a doctor understands you thoroughly he may not be a good doctor, after all. There was a great doctor who was a perfect hero at diagnosis. He could trace out the most difficult and obscure diseases. He discovered a new disease, which no one else had discovered all through the centuries in which people had had diseases. There were no pains that he would not take in order to arrive at the correct diagnosis of a case. The nurse in the hospital would be startled by his presence at midnight. After he had gone to rest thinking about a case, some point of detail which he thought of importance would present itself to his mind, and he would get up in the middle of the night in order to clear it up. He has been known, after seeing a patient eight or ten miles from town, as he was coming homewards to have been suddenly struck with the idea that he had omitted some important inquiry, and to have gone back all the way in order to satisfy his mind. It is said of him that medicine was the one day-dream and night-dream of his existence. It might have been thought that a doctor so marvellous at diagnosis would have been most skilful in his treatment. But it was nothing of the kind. The diagnosis being accomplished, anybody might

and cure.

try any curative process. The case ceased to retain its interest. Listen to what his enthusiastic biographer says: "We fear that the one great object being accomplished, the same energetic power was not devoted to its alleviation Without accusing him of a m ditated neglect of therapeutics, we fancy we can trace the dallying with remedies," and the words which he places on the lips of the great doctor, as representing his views, were, I do not clearly see my way to the direct agency of special medicaments, but I must prescribe something for the patient, at least, to satisfy his or her friends." The general interpretation of all this is that the greatest powers of doctors are, after all, extremely limited, and that the medical man who is extremely able in one department may be extremely weak in another, and, though he may know your illness, he may not know how to treat it. Medical men are very severe upon quacks. The scientific man abhors the empirical man. Yet it is impossible to look into medical literature without finding it replete with virtual confessions that medical men are immensely indebted to quacks and empirics. Take a point in surgery. Most surgeons have known of old Hutton the bone-setter, and have probably held him in abhorrence. The provincial surgeon and the aboriginal bone-setter are frequently in collision. The bone-setter will talk of a joint being out, and of putting a joint in, when such a feat is anatomically impossible. In fact, he does not know anatomy. But he sometimes has a curious art in manipulating joints which leaves trained professional skill in the despairing distance. Such a man was the famous old Hutton. His cures are some of the most striking on record. Without any scientific training, he had acquired a subtlety, power, and precision of touch which enabled him to effect marvellous good. It was a peculiar trick of the wrist which he had. He said that his art lay not in the pulling, but the twist. It is empiric, if you like, but it effected cures which the science of the hospitals could not accomplish. An immense amount of the best medical practice is empiric. At last, a sensible surgeon thought it worth his while to cultivate old Hutton's acquaintance, watched his treatment, studied his method, imitated his touch, and has since written a book on the subject; a very remarkable one, no doubt, but, at the same time, a remarkable confession of the profession's indebtedness to empirics.

Radcliffe said that when he died he would leave behind him the whole mystery of physic on half a sheet of paper. The famous Cheyne says, in his Autobiography, that when he got to London the great thing was "to be able to eat hastily, and to swallow down much liquor." When Sir Richard Croft destroyed himself, after the death of the Princess Charlotte, it was a sort of confession that there had been some sort of incompetence. Sir Astley Cooper is reported to have owned that his mistakes would fill a church yard. A medical man once told me himself that he would rather see a patient die than call in another doctor when such a step might appear to imply any mistrust of his own abilities. Parish doctors, who are absurdly underpaid, must often be compelled to give pauper patients the less expensive medicines, rather than the more expensive, which their case might require, though I have repeatedly known such men give the best, and bear the cost. The general practitioner, in dealing with some case where a patient of doubtful solvency already owes him money, may be almost pardoned if he withholds cod-liver oil and administers quassia instead of quinine. There is another matter on which some medical men - I am thankful to say, very few have nearly made a confession; and I am also thankful to say that such medical men represent only a very small portion of the profession. There are a great number of medical men who make up their own drugs, which they procure either directly from London, or from the best chemist in their locality. As a rule, it is calculated that about ten per cent. of the earnings of a general practitioner are expended in drugs. Some practitioners contrive, not by the most creditable means, to reduce this to five per cent. For instance, quinine is exceedingly expensive some eight shillings an ounce

and so the medical man substitutes in his practice less expensive bitters, such as quassia and strychnine. It is interesting, also, to inquire how far the drugs furnished to provincial hospitals and infirmaries are in all cases of the best quality and properly tested by medical officers. It is not so much the medical men as the committees that are to blame. If they refuse to pay the chemist high prices for good articles, the chemist can only afford to send secondrate articles at second-rate prices. It is simply impossible for instance, that good cod-liver oil can be sold at the low prices at which it is sometimes furnished to such institutions.

Another subject on which medical men will speak with much frankness is euthanasia. Medical men have told me that they have given their patients medicine to enable them to go off comfortably "a good stiff dose of opium, or something of that kind." It sounds rather horrid, but the subject really admits a good deal of argumentation. It is argued that it is a great mistake to keep a man alive, under great torture, and with immense expense and pains, when he must eventually die is not worth the candle. If a dog has got hydrophobia he is killed at once; but if a man has got it, he lingers on in agonies to the last. Again, a pauper patient, who is an interesting scientific case, may have the value of hundreds spent upon him to save him from dying, but only five shillings to keep him alive. It is very hard to spell out the rights of things exactly. I hear, however, the judges would tell some advocates of euthanasia that wilful attempts to shorten life may, legally speaking, be considered wilful murder.

Sir Anthony Carlisle tells a story of inexcusable blundering by a medical man. Basil Montagu, the barrister, who was present when he told it, capped it by several others. "A gentleman residing about a post stage from town met with an accident, which eventually rendered amputation of a limb indispensable. The surgeon alluded to was requested to perform the operation, and went from town with two pupils to the gentleman's house on the day appointed for that purpose. The usual preliminaries being arranged, the surgeon proceeded to operate; the tourniquet was applied, the flesh divided, the bone laid bare, when, to his astonishment, he discovered that he had forgotten to bring his saw! Here was a predicament to be in! Luckily, his presence of mind did not forsake him. Without apprising his patient of the terrible fact, he put one of his pupils into his carriage, and told the coachman to gallop to town. It was an hour and a half before the saw was obtained, and during all that time the patient lay suffering. The agony of the suspense was great, but scarcely a sufficient punishment for his neglect in not seeing that all his instruments were in his case."

Sir William Ferguson speaks with unmitigated contempt of a case of bad practice which came before his notice. A patient was sent to him suffering from necrosis of a small portion of the clavicle. The practitioner had trusted entirely to a plaster of a waxy, resinous kind. So thickly was it laid on that much time and turpentine were consumed before the part could be properly examined. It was then found out that the only mischief remaining was a small piece of dead bone, which was almost as easily removed as lifting it from the table. The villainous plaster was removed, water dressing applied, and in a fortnight only a scar remained. The Edinburgh Review, which gives the incident, adds: "This was a very significant example of the nature of the plaster to hide, not so much the wound of the patient, as the ignorance of the medical attendant." This is what the laborer told Radcliffe: "Ah! doctor, mine is not the only bad work which the earth covers."

A very curious, and entirely unconscious, confession of ignorance was made by a country doctor who came up from Sussex to attend the meetings of a well-known medical society that used to assemble at Bolt Court. The gentleman in question is described as a big, pompous man who always spoke with oracular decision, and placed the fingers of his right hand in his waistcoat. The subject of discussion was cholera. The oracular gentleman rose, and stated that he had made the discovery that the cholers

was known in the time of Shakespeare. Everybody manifested the liveliest attention. "Yes, I was at the theatre last night, and saw the play of Taming the Shrew.' Petruchio says to Katherine, You are choleric.'” There was a general burst of laughter, which was increased when the learned ignoramus proceeded to vindicate himself. He gravely asserted that to convince himself that the actor had made no mistake in the word, he had himself referred to the works of Shakespeare, and had found that the word had been there used correctly. He ever afterwards plumed himself on the discovery.

There was a certain Pope who lost his physician, and to all who applied for the office he put the question, "How many have you killed?" Each doctor in turn solemnly asseverated that he had never killed any one. An old fellow with a big beard came at last. "How many have you killed?" asked the Pope. "Tot quot," said the old fellow, pulling his beard with both hands. The Pope was pleased with the confession, and believing that he must at least be a man with an enormous experience, took him as his physician.

at the Kit-Cat Club.

"I have worked hard a great many years," said William Hunter once," and yet I don't know the principles of the art." I am afraid that Hunter killed himself by getting into a violent passion. A great physician was once dining One of his friends ventured to remind him that it was time he should go and visit his patients. The doctor picked out a list that contained fifteen names. "It is no great matter whether I see them to-night, or not," said he. "Nine of them have such bad constitutions that all the physicians in the world can't save them; and the other six have such good constitutions that all the physicians in the world can't kill them." The doctor might have added that though he could neither kill nor cure, yet still his visits might have been of the greatest use. There is an acute remark of Coleridge's somewhere, to the effect that a man who is vaguely ill is wonderfully toned down, and indeed consoled, when he is made to understand clearly the nature of his ailment. This kind of comfort, albeit somewhat dreary, the physician is certainly enabled to give; and no man does more good by his talk than the physician. It is frequently the one comfort of the day to which the desponding patient looks forward, and often finds it an elixir of comfort. Sometimes, also, when he knows that useless calls are daily registered against him, it is very much the reverse. I have known of families who have been almost broken in purse and spirits, and compelled to leave a neighborhood, on account of this too great intimacy with an expensive doctor. I have known doctors on the other hand, who will attend one most carefully, and the only fee they will take is that one should accept their invitations to dinner. The general moral for us all is to take the best care to keep ourselves well; and if we should have the misfortune to fall into the doctor's hands, to take all he gives us that we may keep out of his hands still. But still I must gratefully record that I have had illnesses in which it has been almost a compensation that I should be able to see something of the kind and skilful friend who was my doctor.

AN ARTIST'S DREAM.

A SUMMER morning at Dresden is one of the pleasantest, brightest things in nature. One who walks through the streets encounters a constant stream, stirring yet not turbulent, of busy life; the cheerful aspect given by the warm sun to the surrounding houses; the movement and bustle of the open market-place, whose walls look down on the bargaining and chaffering beneath, just for all the world as they looked down when Canaletto painted them, thus lending the grace of the past to the vigor of the present; the passing glimpses caught in little squares or places of leafy trees and plashing fountains relieving the picture of human industry with touches of natural beauty; all

these make a combination of delightful sights and sounds which can hardly be surpassed.

Or if the traveller is weary of the presence of his kind, and would be alone with the great mother, he can stroll down to the banks of the Elbe and contemplate the quiet in place of the noisy stream, as its waters flow by him in a broad, strong current. The timber rafts with little logs huts built upon them, which it bears down to their destination, guided and inhabited by men who have cut the timber from its native forest, and who thus find in the logs house-room, means of travelling, and merchandise combined have such ample room on the bosom of the wide river, that they give an added motion to its beauty without marring the sense of solitude.

Or, does the wanderer prefer nature mirrored and idealized by art, nature reflected for him in the magic glass which shows its beauties and conceals its defects, to nature seen by the unaided light of his own eyes, then he can pass from the heat and brilliancy of the outside world to the cool atmosphere and subdued light of that gallery which is an inexhaustible source of wealth to the art student.

This was the course chosen, on one morning such as we have described, by Rupert Graham, a young painter resident in Dresden, who, strolling first through the other galleries to accustom his eye to form and color. rested at length in the shrine of the Madonna di San Sisto, and worshipped the mighty genuis who gave to the world that wondrous picture of a beauty more than humanly perfect, of a strength and purity which cannot be less than Divine. The young artist gazed at this with a sort of adoration; his whole being concentrated itself in the act of looking until his eyes seemed fixed upon their object as are the bird's on the rattlesnake's or the patient's on the mesmerist's; his senses were unable to comprehend anything else in the world; the universe for him was that picture and nothing else; the curtains and walls which surrounded the painting seemed to fade mysteriously away and leave it and him suspended in some remote mid-air.

In this state of mind, one probably resembling the socalled trance of the clairvoyant (for, as he never lost sight of the picture, but only saw a transformation take place around it, it could hardly be an ordinary slumber), a strange vision came to him. Accessories and surroundings of furniture grew again round the picture, but they were not those which naturally belonged to it. He seemed to see it reposing upon an easel raised on a sort of throne in a painter's studio. The chairs and sofas, the canvases on the walls, the litter on the floor, seemed all strangely familiar to him, and he was about to look round for the owner of the studio, when - oh wonder of wonders! - it came to him, as if by slow degrees of light, that the studio was his own, and that this man, who was worn out with toil but exalted with joy at its result, who now looked with a creator's love at the work of his heart and hands, and now regarded it with a mysterious awe, as though he felt that in executing it he had been but the means for some Divine inspiration this man was none other than himself; and as he recognized the fact, tears of happiness welled into his eyes.

He remembered how long, how patiently he had worked at this one painting, into which he intended to throw all his soul, all his strength; he remembered how on one dark day, when his eye and hand were weary, and his heart began to sink with the deep despair of reaction that artists must pass through, a sudden flood of joyous sunlight had streamed in at the window, breaking through the pall of clouds, spreading around him and his canvas, wrapping them in a celestial glory, and, far more than this, piercing with its warm beams to his chilled heart, bringing as it seemed to his very soul a new birth of perception and power, a Divine breath of genius. He had turned cold and pale all over for a moment, and stood dumb as one who has seen a vision of more than mortal power; then with a burst of happiness his strength and his hope had returned to him, and from that moment he had never flagged in his work; it had been dearer to him than his life, it

had been to him what wife and children may be to other men, it had absorbed all his thought, all his energy. Did doubt or fear of any kind oppress him, did the weight of care for a moment hang on his arm and retard its desire to work, he had but to look up at the picture, and it seemed to him as if heaven itself shone down in content and gave him courage to work on. And he had worked on unceasingly, might even have worked too long perhaps, and injured the picture by too much elaboration, but that the same sort of feeling which he had always regarded as a mysterious inspiration had come to him again and struck him motionless for a minute; and then looking at the picture, he said, "It is enough," and laid down his brush. And now his work was complete; it stood in perfect glory on his easel; at times he could with difficulty believe that it was really there, or that if it was he had had any share in its production: at others he felt as if it were his own inmost life and soul, strangely changed and glorified, that stood there before him. There it was, however, and there was he, expecting visits from some of the great masters of painting and criticism, of pencil and pen, who ruled the taste of the day, for he had been anxious that so great a work should be seen as soon as possible, not for the sake of his own fame, for he had quite forgotten himself as an individual and lived only in the picture, but for the sake of art and artists; and under this conviction he had sent out cards of invitation as soon as he could.

As he stood pondering, thinking with delight of the wonder and the admiration that would steal into the faces of those who looked on the picture, of the great cry of joy that would go up from the world of art when they saw such a treasure, there came a knock at the door, and he was recalled to himself by the voice of a great painter addressing him by name and bidding him good morning.

"So." said this gentleman in a cheerful, busy tone, "the picture is finished. Let's have a look at it." And as he spoke he advanced and contemplated the canvas from the most favorable light. The artist watched his face in happy expectation; and in place of the sudden wonder and joy that he hoped to see spread over it, he perceived a strange expression of doubt and dissatisfaction come over the features. The eyebrows ascended for a moment, while the mouth rounded itself in complacent superiority; then the brow puckered into a frown of discontent, the head shook to and fro in pity, and the oracle spoke. "A great advance in your drawing," said he; "really very correct on the whole; but but what could possess you to choose such a subject? Anything so vague, so sentimental, I never saw. There's a want of any tangible meaning in the whole thing; it's a pretty group in some ways; and if you'd taken the main idea of the composition for a family portrait, it would have done very well. But the color, my dear fellow-the color! It looks as if you'd been afraid of your palette; those pale sickly hues will never stand the test of time; and that saffron robe on the left! And these cherubs, or whatever they are- vague- very vague- --- no definition about them, no strong lines and no strong colors. No, no, my dear Graham, if you'll take my advice—which I really give you as a friend, for I take an interest in you, and believe you will do good work some day - you'll turn this to the wall and regard it as a lesson in drawing. Now, don't be offended with me for speaking the truth. Goodby, old fellow; I've got half a dozen studios to look at before dinner." And with these words the great painter swung cheerfully away, leaving the young artist speechless with rage and disappointment.

"Can it be possible?" he asked himself. "Have I been so bitterly mistaken all this time? Is there not, after all, the real light of genius in my work? Oh, yes," he cried, as he looked at it again, "it is not a mistake: I feel it too deeply for that; and although all the painters in the world abuse it, I shall still believe in its beauty."

Now came another knock at the door, and another painter of great repute entered. He went up to look at the picture, and regarded it with his head on one side, in a raven-like manner, for some time. "I think, Mr. Gra

ham," he said at length, "if you want my real opinion, I think there is a good deal of merit in your picture: the expression is decidedly good - yes, decidedly good; but for the rest you see you have forgotten that the great object of art is to reproduce nature."

The artist murmured something humbly about idealizing

nature.

"Idealize by all means, my dear Mr. Graham,” said the other, "idealize as much as you can, but do not forget to preserve a certain verisimilitude. When we talk of reproducing nature, we mean reproducing all objects, natural or artificial, which we find in nature. Now among artificial objects is drapery, my dear Mr. Graham, is drapery. And let me just ask you if you ever anywhere saw any draperies like those? This question the painter asked with the air of a man whose most tender feelings have been hurt, and went on, without waiting for an answer: "I do not say it is easy to be accurate, but accuracy is worth a great deal of trouble. Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that I spent three months in travelling to obtain proper authority, indubitable authority, for the centurion's armor in my last Roman picture. And then it is so easy to throw in an object of furniture or what not that belongs to the time of your picture -a biblot as the French call it - bere and there. It gives a local and antiquarian color, and is of great value of immense value, my dear Mr. Graham. Are you going to send this to the Academy? Yes? Ah! Good morning."

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To this eminent painter succeeded an eminent critic who was not a painter; and from his judgment, free from the trammels which actual experience of art may bring with it, the artist hoped for greater approbation. Real appreciation, after what he had already heard, he could scarcely expect. This critic greeted the artist with much condescension, and looked at the picture from every point of view. He looked at it standing and he looked at it kneeling; he went close up to it and far from it; he made a sort of double glass of his hands and gazed at it through that, and then he said, Honestly, Graham, I don't think this is up to your last year's work. There's a great deal too much realism for the subject, which is purely ideal, to my mind. You know, these cherubs are just like every-day, real-life babies, only that they have wings and so forth. And I think there's an obtrusive reality about the figures; they're all too defined, if you know what I mean too corporeal. And I can't help thinking there's something wrong with your harmonies. Those green curtains seem to me of too sonorous a quality to accord well with the light timbre of the saffron robe, and the cherubs again are treated in too staccato a manner." This critic was one of a school who choose to employ technical musical terms to convey their so-called ideas about painting: in the adoption of which method they display about as much sense as would a lawyer who talked about a failing case having sustained a complicated fracture with severe abrasions, or a musician who spoke of the middle distance of a sonata. "At the same time," continued the critic, "I am very much pleased with the brio of your curtains and the soft sensuous tones of your clouds; but I cannot understand why you have kept them in that subdued key throughout instead of supporting the principal theme with a full diapason of scarlet in the background. Indeed, I can't understand the whole business why you should have deserted your brilliant, dashing style of last year, which only wanted a little more keeping in one key-why you should have left landscape and taken to idealism, I certainly cannot imagine." And he certainly could not.

The critic was succeeded by another painter, a painter who delighted in odd, weird pictures, which were variations in the same groundwork of color throughout. He would have river scenes which looked as if seen through a green or an opaque white glass, and would expend immense cleverness in producing landscapes which were like some ghastly view in a dead world. The substance of his remarks was, "My dear fellow, you've got too much color."

After him came a truly jovial realistic painter, who was