a line in nature, where all things are rounded and full.  It is only in modelling that we really draw,—­in other words, that we detach things from their surroundings and put them in their due relief.  The proper distribution of light can alone reveal the whole body.  For this reason I do not sharply define lineaments; I diffuse about their outline a haze of warm, light half-tints, so that I defy any one to place a finger on the exact spot where the parts join the groundwork of the picture.  If seen near by this sort of work has a woolly effect, and is wanting in nicety and precision; but go a few steps off and the parts fall into place; they take their proper form and detach themselves, —­the body turns, the limbs stand out, we feel the air circulating around them.

“Nevertheless,” he continued, sadly, “I am not satisfied; there are moments when I have my doubts.  Perhaps it would be better not to sketch a single line.  I ask myself if I ought not to grasp the figure first by its highest lights, and then work down to the darker portions.  Is not that the method of the sun, divine painter of the universe?  O Nature, Nature! who has ever caught thee in thy flights?  Alas! the heights of knowledge, like the depths of ignorance, lead to unbelief.  I doubt my work.”

The old man paused, then resumed.  “For ten years I have worked, young man; but what are ten short years in the long struggle with Nature?  We do not know the type it cost Pygmalion to make the only statue that ever walked—­”

He fell into a reverie and remained, with fixed eyes, oblivious of all about him, playing mechanically with his knife.

“See, he is talking to his own soul,” said Porbus in a low voice.

The words acted like a spell on Nicolas Poussin, filling him with the inexplicable curiosity of a true artist.  The strange old man, with his white eyes fixed in stupor, became to the wondering youth something more than a man; he seemed a fantastic spirit inhabiting 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