hopes, and in thoughts. They told him, that he was rich in talents
and excellence but that he needed confidence in himself. He was never
satisfied with his work and either destroyed all that he modeled or
left it unfinished; this is not the proper course to adopt, if one
would be known, appreciated and live.

"You are a dreamer," said they, "this is your misfortune! You have not
yet lived, you have not inhaled life in large healthy draughts, you
have not yet enjoyed it. One should do this in youth and become a man!
Look at the great master Raphael whom the Pope honours and the world
admires,--he takes wine and bread with him."

"He dines with the baker's wife, the pretty Fornarina!" said Angelo,
one of the merry young friends.

Yes, they all appealed to his good sense and to his youth.

They wished to have the young artist join them in their merry-makings,
in their extravagances and in their mad tricks; he would do so for a
short time, for his blood was warm, his imagination strong; he could
take his part in their merry conversation, and laugh as loudly as the
others; and yet "the merry life of Raphael," as they named it,
vanished from him like the morning mist, when he saw the godlike
lustre which shone forth from the paintings of the great masters, or
when he stood in the Vatican and beheld the forms of beauty, which the
old sculptors had fashioned from blocks of marble, centuries ago. His
breast swelled, he felt something so lofty, so holy, so elevated
within him, yes, something so great and good, that he longed to create
and chisel like forms from marble blocks. He desired to give
expression to the feelings which agitated his heart; but how and in