ivory
skull of his singular visitor.

The attention of the young man was taken exclusively by a picture
destined to become famous after those days of tumult and revolution,
and which even then was precious in the sight of certain opinionated
individuals to whom we owe the preservation of the divine afflatus
through the dark days when the life of art was in jeopardy. This noble
picture represents the Mary of Egypt as she prepares to pay for her
passage by the ship. It is a masterpiece, painted for Marie de Medicis,
and afterwards sold by her in the days of her distress.

"I like your saint," said the old man to Porbus, "and I will give you
ten golden crowns over and above the queen's offer; but as to entering
into competition with her--the devil!"

"You do like her, then?"

"As for that," said the old man, "yes, and no. The good woman is well
set-up, but--she is not living. You young men think you have done all
when you have drawn the form correctly, and put everything in
place according to the laws of anatomy. You color the features with
flesh-tones, mixed beforehand on your palette,--taking very good care to
shade one side of the face darker than the other; and because you draw
now and then from a nude woman standing on a table, you think you can
copy nature; you fancy yourselves painters, and imagine that you have
got at the secret of God's creations! Pr-r-r-r!--To be a great poet it
is not enough to know the rules of syntax and write faultless grammar.
Look at your saint, Porbus. At first sight she is admirable; but at the
very next glance we perceive that she is glued to the canvas, and that
we cannot walk round her. She is a silhouette with only one side,
a semblance cut in outline, an image that can't turn nor change her
position. I feel no air between this arm and the background of the
picture; space and depth are wanting. All is in good perspective; the
atmospheric gradations are carefully observed, and yet in spite of your
conscientious labor I cannot believe that this beautiful body has the
warm breath of life. If I put my hand on that firm, round throat I shall
find it cold as marble. No, no, my friend, blood does not run beneath
that ivory skin; the purple tide of life does not swell those veins, nor
stir those fibres which interlace like net-work below the translucent
amber of the brow and breast. This part palpitates with life, but that
other part is not living; life and death jostle each other in eve