biting an unknown sphere,
and waking by its touch confused ideas within the soul. We can no more
define the moral phenomena of this species of fascination than we can
render in words the emotions excited in the heart of an exile by a song
which recalls his fatherland. The contempt which the old man affected
to pour upon the noblest efforts of art, his wealth, his manners,
the respectful deference shown to him by Porbus, his work guarded so
secretly,--a work of patient toil, a work no doubt of genius, judging by
the head of the Virgin which Poussin had so naively admired, and which,
beautiful beside even the Adam of Mabuse, betrayed the imperial touch of
a great artist,--in short, everything about the strange old man seemed
beyond the limits of human nature. The rich imagination of the youth
fastened upon the one perceptible and clear clew to the mystery of this
supernatural being,--the presence of the artistic nature, that wild
impassioned nature to which such mighty powers have been confided, which
too often abuses those powers, and drags cold reason and common souls,
and even lovers of art, over stony and arid places, where for such
there is neither pleasure nor instruction; while to the artistic soul
itself,--that white-winged angel of sportive fancy,--epics, works of
art, and visions rise along the way. It is a nature, an essence, mocking
yet kind, fruitful though destitute. Thus, for the enthusiastic Poussin,
the old man became by sudden transfiguration Art itself,--art with all
its secrets, its transports, and its dreams.

"Yes, my dear Porbus," said Frenhofer, speaking half in reverie, "I have
never yet beheld a perfect woman; a body whose outlines were faultless
and whose flesh-tints--Ah! where lives she?" he cried, interrupting his
own words; "where lives the lost Venus of the ancients, so long sought
for, whose scattered beauty we snatch by glimpses? Oh! to see for a
moment, a single moment, the divine completed nature,--the ideal,--I
would give my all of fortune. Yes; I would search thee out, celestial
Beauty! in thy farthest sphere. Like Orpheus, I would go down to hell to
win back the life of art--"

"Let us go," said Porbus to Poussin; "he neither sees nor hears us any
longer."

"Let us go to his atelier," said the wonder-struck young man.

"Oh! the old dragon has guarded the entrance. His treasure is out of our
reach. I have not waited for your wish or urging to attempt an assault
on the mystery."