tube of black paint in your hand, or dab on a few glaring
colours, or even make two or three crippled figures with repulsive
faces look up from the midst of filth and dirt, and then say, 'There's
a Salvator for you!'--just for these very reasons I think a good deal
of you. I tell you, my lad, you'll not find a more faithful friend than
I am--that I can promise you with all my heart and soul."

Antonio was beside himself with joy at the kind way in which the great
painter thus testified to his interest in him. Salvator expressed an
earnest desire to see his pictures. Antonio took him there and then to
his studio.

Salvator had in truth expected to find something fairly good from the
young man who spoke so intelligently about art, and who, it appeared,
had a good deal in him; but nevertheless he was greatly surprised at
the sight of Antonio's fine pictures. Everywhere he found boldness in
conception, and correctness in drawing; and the freshness of the
colouring, the good taste in the arrangement of the drapery, the
uncommon delicacy of the extremities, the exquisite grace of the heads,
were all so many evidences that he was no unworthy pupil of the great
Reni. But Antonio had avoided this master's besetting sin of an
endeavour, only too conspicuous, to sacrifice expression to beauty. It
was plain that Antonio was aiming to reach Annibal's strength, without
having as yet succeeded.

Salvator spent some considerable time of thoughtful silence in the
examination of each of the pictures. Then he said, "Listen, Antonio: it
is indeed undeniable that you were born to follow the noble art of
painting. For not only has Nature endowed you with the creative spirit
from which the finest thoughts pour forth in an inexhaustible stream,
but she has also granted you the rare ability to surmount in a short
space of time the difficulties of technique. It would only be false
flattery if I were to tell you that you had yet advanced to the level
of your masters, that you are yet equal to Guido's exquisite grace or
to Annibal's strength; but certain I am that you excel by a long way
all the painters who hold up their heads so proudly in the Academy of
St. Luke[2.4] here--Tiarini,[2.5] Gessi,[2.6] Sementa,[2.7] and all
the rest of them, not even excepting Lanfranco[2.8] himself, for he
only understands fresco-painting. And yet, Antonio, and yet, if I were
in your place, I should deliberate awhile before throwing away the
lancet altogether,