whose nights are haunted with the forms of angels and wanderers from
the stars, the spirits of all things lovely and exalted in the
universe: the universe as it was; when to fountain, and stream, and
hill, and to every tree which the summer clothed, was allotted the
vigil of a Nymph! when through glade, and by waterfall, at glossy
noontide, or under the silver stars, the forms of Godhead and Spirit
were seen to walk; when the sculptor modelled his mighty work from the
beauty and strength of Heaven, and the poet lay in the shade to dream
of the Naiad and the Faun, and the Olympian dwellers whom he walked in
rapture to behold; and the painter, not as now, shaping from shadow
and in solitude the dim glories of his heart, caught at once his
inspiration from the glow of earth and its living wanderers, and, lo,
the canvas breathed! Oh! what are the dull realities and the abortive
offspring of this altered and humbled world--the world of meaner and
dwarfish men--to him whose realms are peopled with visions like
these?"

And the artist, whose ardour, long excited and pent within, had at
last thus audibly, and to Clarence's astonishment, burst forth,
paused, as if to recall himself from his wandering enthusiasm. Such
moments of excitement were indeed rare with him, except when utterly
alone, and even then, were almost invariably followed by that
depression of spirit by which all over-wrought susceptibility is
succeeded. A change came over his face, like that of a cloud when the
sunbeam which gilded leaves it; and, with a slight sigh and a subdued
tone, he resumed,--

"So, my friend, you see what our art can do even for the humblest
professor, when I, a poor, friendless, patronless artist, can thus
indulge myself by forgetting the present. But I have not yet