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.
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