their gray shadows the lustre of a better life, at once earthly and
immortal. Thou snatchest back the fleeting moments of History. With
thee, there is no Past; for, at thy touch, all that is great becomes
forever present; and illustrious men live through long ages, in the
visible performance of the very deeds which made thorn what they are. O
potent Art! as thou bringest the faintly revealed Past to stand in that
narrow strip of sunlight, which we call Now, canst thou summon the
shrouded Future to meet her there? Have I not achieved it? Am I not thy
Prophet?"

Thus, with a proud, yet melancholy fervor, did he almost cry aloud, as he
passed through the toilsome street, among people that knew not of his
reveries, nor could understand nor care for them. It is not good for man
to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those around him, by
whose example be may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires, and hopes
will become extravagant, and he the semblance, perhaps the reality, of a
madman. Reading other bosoms, with an acuteness almost preternatural,
the painter failed to see the disorder of his own.

"And this should be the house," said he, looking up and down the front,
before he knocked. "Heaven help my brains! That picture! Methinks it
will never vanish. Whether I look at the windows or the door, there it
is framed within them, painted strongly, and glowing in the richest
tints--the faces of the portraits--the figures and action of the sketch!"

He knocked.

"The Portraits! Are they within?" inquired he, of the domestic; then
recollecting himself,--"your master and mistress! Are they at home?"