cut a dozen gashes across the canvas. Then, dropping his weapon,
he flung out of the room, leaving his sitter and her friends in
speechless consternation, to wonder then and ever after in what way
they had offended him. In their opinions, if a man had talent and
understood his business, he should produce portraits with the same
ease that he would answer dinner invitations, and if they paid for,
they were in no way bound also to praise, his work. They were
entirely pleased with the result, but did not consider it necessary
to tell him so, no idea having crossed their minds that he might be
in one of those moods so frequent with artistic natures, when words
of approbation and praise are as necessary to them, as the air we
breathe is to us, mortals of a commoner clay.

Even in the theatrical and operatic professions, those hotbeds of
conceit, you will generally find among the "stars" abysmal depths
of discouragement and despair. One great tenor, who has delighted
New York audiences during several winters past, invariably
announces to his intimates on arising that his "voice has gone,"
and that, in consequence he will "never sing again," and has to be
caressed and cajoled back into some semblance of confidence before
attempting a performance. This same artist, with an almost
limitless repertoire and a reputation no new successes could
enhance, recently risked all to sing what he considered a higher
class of music, infinitely more fatiguing to his voice, because he
was impelled onward by the ideal that forces genius to constant
improvement and development of its powers.

What the people who meet these artists occasionally at a private
concert or behind the scenes during the intense strain of a
representation, take too readily for monumental egoism and conceit,