’And the clear region where ’t was born,

Round in itself incloses.’

Taking this view of art, I think we understand more easily the skill of the artist, and the differencebetween him and the mere amateur.  What we call miracles and wonders of art are not so to him who created them.  For they were created by the natural movements of his own great soul.  Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but shadows of himself;—­shadows in marble, colors, stone, words.  He feels and recognises their beauty; but he thought these thoughts and produced these things as easily as inferior minds do thoughts and things inferior.  Perhaps more easily.  Vague images and shapes of beauty floating through the soul, the semblances of things as yet indefinite or ill-defined, and perfect only when put in art,—­this Possible Intellect, as the Scholastic Philosophers have termed it,—­the artist shares in common with us all.  The lovers of art are many.  But the Active Intellect, the creative power,—­the power to put these shapes and images in art, to imbody the indefinite, and render perfect, is his alone.  He shares the gift with few.  He knows not even whence nor how this is.  He knows only that it is; that God has given him the power, which has been denied to others.”

“I should have known you were just from Germany,” said the lady, with a smile, “even if you had not told me so.  You are an enthusiast for the Germans.  For my part I cannot endure their harsh language.”

“You would like it better, if you knew it better,” answered Flemming.  “It is not harsh to me; but homelike, hearty, and full of feeling, like the sound of happy voices at a fireside, of a winter’s night, when the wind blows, and the fire crackles, and hisses, and snaps.  I do indeed love the Germans; the men are so hale and hearty, and the Frauleins so tender and true!”

“I always think of men with pipes and beer, and women with knittingwork.”

“O, those are English prejudices,” exclaimed Flemming.  “Nothing can be more—­”

“And their very literature presents itself to my imagination under the same forms.”

“I see you have read only English criticisms; and have an idea, that all German books smell, as it were, ’of groceries, of brown papers, filled withgreasy cakes and slices of bacon; and of fryings in frowzy back-parlours; and this shuts you out from a glorious world of poetry, romance, and dreams!”

Mary Ashburton smiled, and Flemming continued to turn over the leaves of the sketch-book, with an occasional criticism and witticism.  At length he came to a leaf which was written in pencil.  People of a lively imagination are generally curious, and always so when a little in love.

“Here is a pencil-sketch,” said he, with an entreating look, “which I would fain examine with the rest.”

“You may do so, if you wish; but you will find it the poorest sketch in the book.  I was trying one day to draw the picture of an artist’s life in Rome, as it presented itself to my imagination; and this is the result.  Perhaps it may awaken some pleasant recollection in your mind.”