the very next glance we perceive that she is glued to the canvas, and
that we cannot walk round her. She is a silhouette with only one side,
a semblance cut in outline, an image that can't turn nor change her
position. I feel no air between this arm and the background of the
picture; space and depth are wanting. All is in good perspective; the
atmospheric gradations are carefully observed, and yet in spite of
your conscientious labor I cannot believe that this beautiful body has
the warm breath of life. If I put my hand on that firm, round throat I
shall find it cold as marble. No, no, my friend, blood does not run
beneath that ivory skin; the purple tide of life does not swell those
veins, nor stir those fibres which interlace like net-work below the
translucent amber of the brow and breast. This part palpitates with
life, but that other part is not living; life and death jostle each
other in every detail. Here, you have a woman; there, a statue; here
again, a dead body. Your creation is incomplete. You have breathed
only a part of your soul into the well-beloved work. The torch of
Prometheus went out in your hands over and over again; there are
several parts of your painting on which the celestial flame never
shone."

"But why is it so, my dear master?" said Porbus humbly, while the
young man could hardly restrain a strong desire to strike the critic.

"Ah! that is the question," said the little old man. "You are floating
between two systems,--between drawing and color, between the patient
phlegm and honest stiffness of the old Dutch masters and the dazzling
warmth and abounding joy of the Italians. You have tried to follow, at
one and the same time, Hans Holbein and Titian; Albrecht Durier and
Paul Veronese. Well, well! it was a glorious ambition, but what is the
result? You have neither the stern attraction of severity nor the