, among other
troubles, is quite the reverse of what you think. The old masters hold
me here, it is true, but they no longer warm me with their influence.
It is not flame consuming, but torpor chilling me, that helps to make me
wretched."

"Perchance, then," said the German, looking keenly at her, "Raphael has
a rival in your heart? He was your first love; but young maidens are not
always constant, and one flame is sometimes extinguished by another!"
Hilda shook her head, and turned away. She had spoken the truth,
however, in alleging that torpor, rather than fire, was what she had
to dread. In those gloomy days that had befallen her, it was a great
additional calamity that she felt conscious of the present dimness of an
insight which she once possessed in more than ordinary measure. She had
lost--and she trembled lest it should have departed forever--the faculty
of appreciating those great works of art, which heretofore had made so
large a portion of her happiness. It was no wonder.

A picture, however admirable the painter's art, and wonderful his power,
requires of the spectator a surrender of himself, in due proportion with
the miracle which has been wrought. Let the canvas glow as it may, you
must look with the eye of faith, or its highest excellence escapes you.
There is always the necessity of helping out the painter's art with your
own resources of sensibility and imagination. Not that these qualities
shall really add anything to what the master has effected; but they must
be put so entirely under his control, and work along with him to such
an extent, that, in a different mood, when you are cold and critical,
instead of sympathetic, you will be apt to fancy that the loftier merits
of the picture were of your own dreaming, not of his creating.

Like all revelations of the better life, the adequate perception of a
great work of art demands a gifted simplicity of vision. In this, and
in her self-surrender, and the depth and tenderness of her sympathy, had
lain Hilda's remarkable power as a copyist of the old masters. And now
that her capacity of emotion was choked up with a horrible experience,
it inevitably followed that she should seek in vain, among those friends
so venerated and beloved, for the marvels which they had heretofore
shown her. In spite of a reverence that lingered longer than her
recognition, their poor worshipper became almost an infidel, and
sometimes doubted whether the pictorial art be not a