nd; of compelling
scenes of poetry and history to live before men's eyes, through
conceptions and by methods individual to herself. But more and more, as
she grew familiar with the miracles of art that enrich so many galleries
in Rome, Hilda had ceased to consider herself as an original artist. No,
wonder that this change should have befallen her. She was endowed with
a deep and sensitive faculty of appreciation; she had the gift of
discerning and worshipping excellence in a most unusual measure. No
other person, it is probable, recognized so adequately, and enjoyed with
such deep delight, the pictorial wonders that were here displayed. She
saw no, not saw, but felt through and through a picture; she bestowed
upon it all the warmth and richness of a woman's sympathy; not by any
intellectual effort, but by this strength of heart, and this guiding
light of sympathy, she went straight to the central point, in which the
master had conceived his work. Thus she viewed it, as it were, with his
own eyes, and hence her comprehension of any picture that interested her
was perfect.

This power and depth of appreciation depended partly upon Hilda's
physical organization, which was at once healthful and exquisitely
delicate; and, connected with this advantage, she had a command of
hand, a nicety and force of touch, which is an endowment separate from
pictorial genius, though indispensable to its exercise.

It has probably happened in many other instances, as it did in Hilda's
case, that she ceased to aim at original achievement in consequence of
the very gifts which so exquisitely fitted her to profit by familiarity
with the works of the mighty old masters. Reverencing these wonderful
men so deeply, she was too grateful for all they bestowed upon her,
too loyal, too humble, in their awful presence, to think of enrolling
herself in their society. Beholding the miracles of beauty which they
had achieved, the world seemed already rich enough in original designs,
and nothing more was so desirable as to diffuse those self-same beauties
more widely among mankind. All the youthful hopes and ambitions, the
fanciful ideas which she had brought from home, of great pictures to be
conceived in her feminine mind, were flung aside, and, so far as those
most intimate with her could discern, relinquished without a sigh. All
that she would henceforth attempt and that most reverently, not to say
religiously was to catch and reflect some of the glory