ir wonderful
merits, but in order to throw their names in the teeth of young artists.
He did not hesitate to fly in the face of the doctrines he had advocated
some years previously. According to him, labour was every thing,
inspiration a mere name; and he affirmed that, in art, all things should
be subjected to the severest rules.

Fame can give no satisfaction to one who has not earned, but stolen it.
It produces a constant thrill only in the heart conscious of having
deserved it. Tchartkoff no longer valued fame. All his feelings and
desires were turned towards gold. Gold became his passion, his delight,
the object of his being. Bank-notes filled his portfolios, piles of gold
his coffers; but, like all avaricious men, he grew sour, selfish,
inaccessible to every thing but money--cold-hearted and penurious. He
was gradually sinking into an unhappy miser, when an event came to pass
which gave his whole moral being a terrible and awakening shock.

Returning home one day, Tchartkoff found lying on his table a letter, in
which the Academy of Arts invited him, as one of its most distinguished
members, to give his opinion of a new picture just arrived from Italy,
the work of a Russian artist who had long studied there. The painter,
who had been a schoolfellow of Tchartkoff's, imbued, even as a boy, with
a fervent passion for art, had early torn himself from home and friends,
from all the pleasures and habits of his age and country, to toil and
study in the renowned Italian city, whose very name thrills the
painter's heart. There he condemned himself to solitude and
uninterrupted labour. Men spoke of his eccentricity, of his ignorance of
the world, of his neglect of all the customs of society, of the disgrace
he cast on the artist's profession by his dress, which was beneath his
station, and by his frugality, which was almost penury. He cared nothing
for scoff and reproach. Regardless of the world's comments, he gave
himself up to his art. Unweariedly did he haunt the galleries; hour
after hour, day after day, he stood before the works of the great
masters, striving to penetrate their secrets. He never finished a
picture without comparing it many times with the productions of those
mighty teachers, and reading in their creations silent but eloquent
counsel. He engaged in no arguments or disputes, but accorded to every
school the honour it deserved; and after aiming at acquiring what was
most meritorious in each, at length ad