rved the monarch. "A little of Moor, something borrowed from
Titian, yet a great deal that is original. The bluish-grey leaden tone
comes from your shop. The thing is a wretched likeness! Sophonisba
resembles a gardener's boy. Who made it?"

"My pupil, Ulrich Navarrete."

"How long has he been painting?"

"For several months, Sire."

"And you think he will be an artist of note?"

"Perhaps so. In many respects he surpasses my expectations, in others he
falls below them. He is a strange fellow."

"He is ambitious, at any rate."

"No small matter for the future artist. What he eagerly begins has a
very grand and promising aspect; but it shrinks in the execution. His
mind seizes and appropriates what he desires to represent, at a single
hasty grasp...."

"Rather too vehement, I should think."

"No fault at his age. What he possesses makes me less anxious, than what
he lacks. I cannot yet discover the thoughtful artist-spirit in him."

"You mean the spirit, that refines what it has once taken, and in quiet
meditation arranges lines, and assigns each color to its proper place,
in short your own art-spirit."

"And yours also, Sire. If you had begun to paint early, you would have
possessed what Ulrich lacks."

"Perhaps so. Besides, his defect is one of those which will vanish with
years. In your school, with zeal and industry...."

"He will obtain, you think, what he lacks. I thought so too! But as I
was saying: he is queerly constituted. What you have admitted to me more
than once, the point we have started from in a hundred conversations--he
cannot grasp: form is not the essence of art to him."

The king shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his forehead; but Moor
continued: "Everything he creates must reflect anew, what he experienced
at the first sight of the subject. Often the first sketch succeeds, but
if it fails, he seeks without regard to truth and accuracy, by means
of trivial, strange expedients, to accomplish his purpose. Sentiment,
always sentiment! Line and tone are everything; that is our motto.
Whoever masters them, can express the grandest things."

"Right, right! Keep him drawing constantly. Give him mouths, eyes, and
hands to paint."

"That must be done in Antwerp."

"I'll hear nothing about Antwerp! You will stay, Antonio, you will stay.
Your wife and child-all honor to them. I have seen your wife's portrait.
Good, nourishing bread! Here you have ambrosia and manna. You know whom
I mean