their gray shadows the lustre of a better life, at once earthly and
immortal. Thou snatchest back the fleeting moments of history. With
then there is no past, for at thy touch all that is great becomes for
ever present, and illustrious men live through long ages in the
visible performance of the very deeds which made them what they are. O
potent Art! as thou bringest the faintly-revealed past to stand in
that narrow strip of sunlight which we call 'now,' canst thou summon
the shrouded future to meet her there? Have I not achieved it? Am I
not thy prophet?"

Thus with a proud yet melancholy fervor did he almost cry aloud as he
passed through the toilsome street among people that knew not of his
reveries nor could understand nor care for them. It is not good for
man to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those around him
by whose example he may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires and
hopes will become extravagant and he the semblance--perhaps the
reality--of a madman. Reading other bosoms with an acuteness almost
preternatural, the painter failed to see the disorder of his own.

"And this should be the house," said he, looking up and down the front
before he knocked. "Heaven help my brains! That picture! Methinks it
will never vanish. Whether I look at the windows or the door, there it
is framed within them, painted strongly and glowing in the richest
tints--the faces of the portraits, the figures and action of the
sketch!"

He knocked.

"The portraits--are they within?" inquired he of the domestic; then,
recollecting himself, "Your master and mistress--are they at home?"