cold, how damned cold, how
indifferently he spoke; why, the very art should have warmed him more.
Could he have--No, no, no: it was true, it was! I felt the conviction
thrill through me like a searing iron. Burn it--did he say--ay--burn it:
it shall be done this instant."

And, hastening to the door, he undid the bolt. He staggered back as he
beheld his old and nearest surviving relative, the mother of his father,
seated upon the ground beside the door, terrified by the exclamations
she did not dare to interrupt. She rose slowly, and with difficulty as
she saw him; and, throwing around him the withered arms which had nursed
his infancy, exclaimed, "My child!--my poor--poor child! what has come
to you of late? you, who were so gentle, so mild, so quiet,--you are no
longer the same,--and oh, my son, how ill you look: your father looked
so just before he died!"

"Ill!" said he, with a sort of fearful gayety, "ill--no: I never was so
well; I have been in a dream till now; but I have woke at last. Why,
it is true that I have been silent and shy, but I will be so no more.
I will laugh, and talk, and walk, and make love, and drink wine, and be
all that other men are. Oh, we will be so merry! But stay here, while I
fetch a light."

"A light, my child, for what?"

"For a funeral!" shouted Warner, and, rushing past her, he descended the
stairs, and returned almost in an instant with a light.

Alarmed and terrified, the poor old woman had remained motionless and
weeping violently. Her tears Warner did not seem to notice; he pushed
her gently into the room, and began deliberately, and without uttering a
syllable, to cut the picture into shreds.

"What are you about, my child?" cried the old woman "you are mad; it is
your beautiful picture that you are destroying!"

Warner did not reply, but going to the hearth, piled together, with nice
and scrupulous care, several pieces of paper, and stick, and matches,
into a sort of pyre; then, placing the shreds of the picture upon it, he
applied the light, and the whole was instantly in a blaze.

"Look, look!" cried he, in an hysterical tone, "how it burns and
crackles and blazes! What master ever equalled it now?--no fault now
in those colours,--no false tints in that light and shade! See how that
flame darts up and soars!--that flame is my spirit! Look--is it not
restless?--does it not aspire bravely?--why, all its brother flames
are grovellers to it!--and now,--why don't you look!