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 shoulder, "and lead us out of
the house of bondage!"
"Golden words--golden 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
complainers--impotent 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 nights--I 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.
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