could do nothing but die; this world had nothing more to teach him. Think
of it a while, my friend, and you will admit that I am not raving. Think
of his seeing that spotless image, not for a moment, for a day, in a
happy dream, or a restless fever-fit; not as a poet in a five minutes'
frenzy--time to snatch his phrase and scribble his immortal stanza; but
for days together, while the slow labour of the brush went on, while the
foul vapours of life interposed, and the fancy ached with tension, fixed,
radiant, distinct, as we see it now! What a master, certainly! But ah!
what a seer!"

"Don't you imagine," I answered, "that he had a model, and that some
pretty young woman--"

"As pretty a young woman as you please! It doesn't diminish the miracle!
He took his hint, of course, and the young woman, possibly, sat smiling
before his canvas. But, meanwhile, the painter's idea had taken wings.
No lovely human outline could charm it to vulgar fact. He saw the fair
form made perfect; he rose to the vision without tremor, without effort
of wing; he communed with it face to face, and resolved into finer and
lovelier truth the purity which completes it as the fragrance completes
the rose. That's what they call idealism; the word's vastly abused, but
the thing is good. It's my own creed, at any rate. Lovely Madonna,
model at once and muse, I call you to witness that I too am an idealist!"

"An idealist, then," I said, half jocosely, wishing to provoke him to
further utterance, "is a gentleman who says to Nature in the person of a
beautiful girl, 'Go to, you are all wrong! Your fine is coarse, your
bright is dim, your grace is _gaucherie_. This is the way you should
have done it!' Is not the chance against him?"