t. One should do this in youth and become a man!
Look at the great master Raphael whom the Pope honours and the world
admires,--he takes wine and bread with him."

"He dines with the baker's wife, the pretty Fornarina!" said Angelo,
one of the merry young friends.

Yes, they all appealed to his good sense and to his youth.

They wished to have the young artist join them in their merry-makings,
in their extravagances and in their mad tricks; he would do so for a
short time, for his blood was warm, his imagination strong; he could
take his part in their merry conversation, and laugh as loudly as the
others; and yet "the merry life of Raphael," as they named it,
vanished from him like the morning mist, when he saw the godlike
lustre which shone forth from the paintings of the great masters, or
when he stood in the Vatican and beheld the forms of beauty, which the
old sculptors had fashioned from blocks of marble, centuries ago. His
breast swelled, he felt something so lofty, so holy, so elevated
within him, yes, something so great and good, that he longed to create
and chisel like forms from marble blocks. He desired to give
expression to the feelings which agitated his heart; but how and in
what shape? The soft clay allowed itself to be modeled into beautiful
figures by his fingers, but on the following day, dissatisfied, he
destroyed all he had created.

One day he passed by one of the rich palaces, of which Rome has so
many; he stood a moment at the large open entrance, and gazed into a
little garden, full of the most beautiful roses, which was surrounded
by archways, decorated with paintings. Large, white callas, with their
green leaves, sprouted forth from marble shells, into which splashed
clear water; a form glided by, a young girl, the daughter of this
princely house, so elegant, so light, so charming! He had never seen
so lovely a woman. Hold! yes, once, one made by Raphael, a painting of
Psyche, in one of the palaces of Rome. There she was but painted,
here she breathed and moved.

She lived in his thoughts and in his heart; he went home to his poor
lodgings and formed a Psyche out of clay; it was the rich, young Roman
girl, the princely woman, and he gazed at his work with satisfaction,
for the first time. This had a signification--it was _She_. When his
friends looked upon it, they exclaimed with joy, that this work was a
revelation of his artistic greatness, which they had always
recognized, but which no