tails; for, let me tell you, the
human body does not end off with a line. In that respect sculptors get
nearer to the truth of nature than we do. Nature is all curves, each
wrapping or overlapping another. To speak rigorously, there is no such
thing as drawing. Do not laugh, young man; no matter how strange that
saying seems to you, you will understand the reasons for it one of these
days. A line is a means by which man explains to himself the effect
of light upon a given object; but there is no such thing as a line in
nature, where all things are rounded and full. It is only in modelling
that we really draw,--in other words, that we detach things from their
surroundings and put them in their due relief. The proper distribution
of light can alone reveal the whole body. For this reason I do not
sharply define lineaments; I diffuse about their outline a haze of warm,
light half-tints, so that I defy any one to place a finger on the exact
spot where the parts join the groundwork of the picture. If seen near
by this sort of work has a woolly effect, and is wanting in nicety and
precision; but go a few steps off and the parts fall into place; they
take their proper form and detach themselves,--the body turns, the limbs
stand out, we feel the air circulating around them.

"Nevertheless," he continued, sadly, "I am not satisfied; there are
moments when I have my doubts. Perhaps it would be better not to sketch
a single line. I ask myself if I ought not to grasp the figure first by
its highest lights, and then work down to the darker portions. Is not
that the method of the sun, divine painter of the universe? O Nature,
Nature! who has ever caught thee in thy flights? Alas! the heights of
knowledge, like the depths of ignorance, lead to unbelief. I doubt my
work."

The old man paused, then resumed. "For ten years I have worked, young
man; but what are ten short years in the long struggle with Nature? We
do not know the type it cost Pygmalion to make the only statue that ever
walked--"

He fell into a reverie and remained, with fixed eyes, oblivious of all
about him, playing mechanically with his knife.

"See, he is talking to his own soul," said Porbus in a low voice.

The words acted like a spell on Nicolas Poussin, filling him with the
inexplicable curiosity of a true artist. The strange old man, with his
white eyes fixed in stupor, became to the wondering youth something more
than a man; he seemed a fantastic spirit inha