fibre. And, indeed,
he--who had in him so much that drove him towards the fine Arts, yet
could go out to earn his bread upon the waters, dwelling among those
who had no glimmering of the things he cared for--was no slippered
mouther of Pater and Sainte-Beuve but a strong spirit, confident in
his own breadth of pinion, courageous to let Fate order his destiny.

Another outcome of my search for light was a conviction of the
importance of his theory of art. I might almost say his religion
of art, inasmuch as he had no traffic with anything that was not
spontaneous, effervescing. To him a hammer and a chisel were actual
and very real, and the plastic art appealed especially to him in its
character of _smiting_. To smite from the stone, to finish with all a
craftsman's cunning care--there seemed to him real joy in this; and so
I think he felt the influence of art dynamically, maintaining always
that the life-force is also the art-force, and remains constant
throughout the ages. So, I imagine, he reasoned when he wrote the
following verses, only to fling them aside to be forgotten:

_An Author, Sitting to a Sculptor, Speaks His Mind._

And yet you call yourself a sculptor, sir?
You with your tape a-trailing to and fro,
Jotting down figures, frowning when I stir,
Measuring me across the shoulders, so!
And yet you are an artist, they aver,
Heir to the crown of Michelangelo?

I cannot think--eh, what? I ought to think?
How will you have me? Shall I sit at ease,
Staring at nothing thro' the eyelids' chink,
Coining new words for old philosophies?
Aye, so I sit until the pale stars wink
And vanish ere the early morning breeze.

Sculpture is dead, I say! We have no men
To match the mighty masters of the past:
I've read, I've seen their works; the acumen
Of Learning on their triumph I have cast.
Divine! Colossal! Tongue nor pen
Can tell their beauty, O Iconoclast!

Ah, now you're modelling--in the soft clay!
In that prosaic task where is the glow
Of genius, as in great Lorenzo's day,
When, solitary in his studio,
Buonarotti, in his "terrible way,"
Smote swift and hard the marble, blow on blow?

One moment while I ask you, earnestly,
Where is the splendour of the Dorian gone,
The genius of him whose mastery
Outshines the classic grace of Sicyon,
W