ch other--"This is
genius--real genius! How well he talks! What an extraordinary talent!"

Such praise as this the painter greedily drank in, and was as delighted
as a child by the encomiums of the press, even when bought and paid for
with his own money. His fame continued to spread, and his occupation to
increase, till he grew weary of painting portraits and faces with the
same tricks and attitudes that he knew by heart. Gradually he worked
with less and less good-will, contenting himself with carelessly
sketching in the head, and leaving all the rest to be finished by his
pupils. Formerly he had taken trouble to seek new attitudes; to strike
by novelty--by effect. Now he began to grow weary even of this labour.
He entirely left off reflecting; he had neither power nor leisure for
it. His dissipated mode of life, and the society in which he played the
part of a man of fashion, severed him more and more from labour and from
thought. His touch grew cold and dull, and he insensibly confined
himself to stale, commonplace, worn-out forms. The stiff, monotonous
countenances of officers and civilians, in their graceless modern
costumes, were not very attractive subjects for the pencil. He forgot
all--his graceful draping, his easy attitudes, his power of representing
the passions. As to skilful grouping or dramatic effect in painting, all
that was quite out of the question. He had nothing before his eyes but
the eternal uniform, corset, or dress-coat--objects chilling to the
artist, and affording little scope to imagination. By and by even the
most ordinary merits disappeared, one by one, from his productions; and
they still enjoyed the highest reputation, though real judges and
artists only shrugged their shoulders as they looked at the work of his
hand.

These mute but significant criticisms of the discerning few never
reached the ears of the artist, intoxicated as he was with vanity and
false fame. He already too approached the period of maturity in age and
intellect, and was rapidly acquiring a respectable corpulence. He now
met in the journals with such expressions as these:--"Our respectable
Andrei Petrovitch--our veteran of the pencil, Andrei Petrovitch." He now
received many honorary appointments in public institutions; was
frequently invited to examinations and to committees. He began, as
people infallibly do on reaching a certain age, to stand up sturdily for
the old masters, not from any profound conviction of the