“Have threads been spun?  No, there were none! 
   We were so chill, so small and lone. 
   Have we to higher regions gone? 
   To give the key Peter was not prone. 
   I saw the sacramental stone
   And laid my hallowed hands thereon. 
   Alas! the bread and wine were gone. 
   With dazzling radiance all things shone,
   ’Twas base deceit; I was undone.”

Miss Burns was touched to see that his thoughts were still engaged with the little dancer.  On another occasion he said to her: 

“I am not fitted to be a physician.  I am incapable of making the sacrifice to humanity of pursuing an occupation that depresses me so.  I have a riotous imagination.  Perhaps I could be a writer.  But I am determined to become a sculptor.  While I was sick, especially at the end of the second week, I remodelled all the works of Phidias and Michael Angelo.  Don’t misunderstand me, Eva.  In becoming a sculptor, I am no longer ambitious of distinction.  I shall merely be rendering homage to the greatness of art.  While remaining a faithful workman asking nothing for myself, I may in time succeed in mastering the nude form sufficiently to produce at least one good piece.”

“You know I have confidence in your talent,” said Miss Burns.

“Then, what do you think of this plan, Miss Eva?  The income from my wife’s estate is about five thousand marks, enough for the education of my three children.  I receive an annuity of three thousand marks.  Do you think we five could end our days in peace in a little house with a studio, say, near Florence?”

Miss Burns’s answer to the weighty question was a hearty laugh.

She was intimately acquainted with the artistic disposition and so, perhaps, was actually well fitted to educate adult children.  She had been the good friend and comrade of two or three great artists in France and England, and had a soothing way of entering into the work, the interests, and the experiences of such extraordinary men.  Neither of her parents had been an artist.  Her father had been a plain business man.  Yet both had possessed that veneration and love of art and artists which is almost as rare as the creative gift.  In the museum at Birmingham, there were pictures by Burne-Jones and Rossetti and a collection of drawings, the gift of her father while still a prosperous man.  She herself was not convinced that she had an imperative calling to art.  Her passion was to be useful to art in serving artists.  This was not the first time, and Frederick knew it, that she had acted the part of the good Samaritan.  She was always ready to sacrifice herself in order to help artists out of every sort of difficulty.

“I have no desire to be a Bonifacius Ritter,” said Frederick.  “A great collection of studios, with works turned out by wholesale, no matter how excellent they may be, does not suit my disposition.  What I want is a workshop opening on a garden, where I can pick violets in winter and break off branches of evergreen oak, yew, and laurel.  There, in peace and quiet, hidden from the world, I should like to devote myself to art and culture in general.  The myrtle, too, would have to blossom again within my garden wall, Miss Burns.”  Miss Burns laughed and paid no attention to the allusion.