I answered eagerly in the affirmative, and he handed me a volume bound in curiously embossed leather, and ornamented with silver clasps.  It was entitled “Letters of a Dead Musician.”

“You will find clear gems of thought, passion, and feeling in this book,” said Cellini; “and being a musician yourself, you will know how to appreciate them.  The writer was one of those geniuses whose work the world repays with ridicule and contempt.  There is no fate more enviable!”

I looked at the artist with some surprise as I took the volume he recommended, and seated myself in the position he indicated; and while he busied himself in arranging the velvet curtains behind me as a background, I said: 

“Do you really consider it enviable, Signor Cellini, to receive the world’s ridicule and contempt?”

“I do indeed,” he replied, “since it is a certain proof that the world does not understand you.  To achieve something that is above human comprehension, that is greatness.  To have the serene sublimity of the God-man Christ, and consent to be crucified by a gibing world that was fated to be afterwards civilized and dominated by His teachings, what can be more glorious?  To have the magnificent versatility of a Shakespeare, who was scarcely recognized in his own day, but whose gifts were so vast and various that the silly multitudes wrangle over his very identity and the authenticity of his plays to this hour—­what can be more triumphant?  To know that one’s own soul can, if strengthened and encouraged by the force of will, rise to a supreme altitude of power—­is not that sufficient to compensate for the little whining cries of the common herd of men and women who have forgotten whether they ever had a spiritual spark in them, and who, straining up to see the light of genius that burns too fiercely for their earth-dimmed eyes, exclaim:  ’We see nothing, therefore there can be nothing.’  Ah, mademoiselle, the knowledge of one’s own inner Self-Existence is a knowledge surpassing all the marvels of art and science!”

Cellini spoke with enthusiasm, and his countenance seemed illumined by the eloquence that warmed his speech.  I listened with a sort of dreamy satisfaction; the visual sensation of utter rest that I always experienced in this man’s presence was upon me, and I watched him with interest as he drew with quick and facile touch the outline of my features on his canvas.

Gradually he became more and more absorbed in his work; he glanced at me from time to time, but did not speak, and his pencil worked rapidly.  I turned over the “Letters of a Dead Musician” with some curiosity.  Several passages struck me as being remarkable for their originality and depth of thought; but what particularly impressed me as I read on, was the tone of absolute joy and contentment that seemed to light up every page.  There were no wailings over disappointed ambition, no regrets for the past, no complaints, no criticism, no word for or against the brothers of his art; everything was treated from a lofty standpoint of splendid equality, save when the writer spoke of himself, and then he became the humblest of the humble, yet never abject, and always happy.