"I suppose we are a genus by ourselves in the providential scheme--we
talents that can't act, that can't do nor dare! We take it out in talk,
in plans and promises, in study, in visions! But our visions, let me
tell you," he cried, with a toss of his head, "have a way of being
brilliant, and a man has not lived in vain who has seen the things I have
seen! Of course you will not believe in them when that bit of worm-eaten
cloth is all I have to show for them; but to convince you, to enchant and
astound the world, I need only the hand of Raphael. His brain I already
have. A pity, you will say, that I haven't his modesty! Ah, let me
boast and babble now; it's all I have left! I am the half of a genius!
Where in the wide world is my other half? Lodged perhaps in the vulgar
soul, the cunning, ready fingers of some dull copyist or some trivial
artisan, who turns out by the dozen his easy prodigies of touch! But
it's not for me to sneer at him; he at least does something. He's not a
dawdler! Well for me if I had been vulgar and clever and reckless, if I
could have shut my eyes and taken my leap.
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