PRINCE.

By Heavens! you must have stolen the resemblance from her mirror (_with
his eyes still rivetted on the picture_). Oh, you well know, Conti,
that we praise the artist most when we forget his merits in his works.

CONTI.

Yet I am extremely dissatisfied with this portrait, and nevertheless I
am satisfied with being dissatisfied with myself. Alas! that we cannot
paint directly with our eyes! On the long journey from the eye through
the arm to the pencil, how much is lost! But, as I have already said,
though I know what is lost, and how and why it is lost, I am as proud
and prouder of this loss than of what I have preserved. For by the
former I perceive more than by the latter, that I am a good painter,
though my hand is not always so. Or do you hold, Prince, that Raffaelle
would not have been the greatest of all artists even had he
unfortunately been born without hands?

PRINCE (_turning his eyes a moment from the picture_).

What do you say, Conti? What was your enquiry?

CONTI.

Oh, nothing--nothing; mere idle observations! Your soul, I observe, was
wholly in your eyes. I like such souls and such eyes.

PRINCE (_affecting coldness_).

And so, Conti, you really consider Emilia Galotti amongst the first
beauties of our city.

CONTI.

Amongst them? Amongst the first? The first of our city? You jest,
Prince, or your eyesight must have been all this time as insensible as
your hearing.

PRINCE.

Dear Conti (_again fixing his eyes on the picture_), how can we
uninitiated trust our eyes? In fact, none but an artist can judge of
beauty.

CONTI.

And must the feeling of every person wait for the decision of a
painter? To a cloister with him who would learn from us what is
beautiful! But this much I must own to you, as a painter, Prince. It is
one of the greatest delights of my life that Emilia Galotti has sat to
me. This head, this countenance, this forehead, these eyes, this nose,
this mouth, this chin, this neck, this bosom, this shape, this whole
form, are from the present time forward my only model of female beauty.
The original picture for which she sat, is in the possession of her
absent father. But this copy----

PRINCE (_turning to him quickly_).

Well, Conti--i