The Madonna of the Future | Page 6

to the rubbish of the world. As a proof of my
conscientiousness and he stopped short, and eyed me with
extraordinary candour, as if the proof were to be overwhelming--"I

have never sold a picture! 'At least no merchant traffics in my heart!'
Do you remember that divine line in Browning? My little studio has
never been profaned by superficial, feverish, mercenary work. It's a
temple of labour, but of leisure! Art is long. If we work for ourselves,
of course we must hurry. If we work for her, we must often pause. She
can wait!"
This had brought us to my hotel door, somewhat to my relief, I confess,
for I had begun to feel unequal to the society of a genius of this heroic
strain. I left him, however, not without expressing a friendly hope that
we should meet again. The next morning my curiosity had not abated; I
was anxious to see him by common daylight. I counted upon meeting
him in one of the many pictorial haunts of Florence, and I was gratified
without delay. I found him in the course of the morning in the Tribune
of the Uffizi--that little treasure-chamber of world-famous things. He
had turned his back on the Venus de' Medici, and with his arms resting
on the rail- mug which protects the pictures, and his head buried in his
hands, he was lost in the contemplation of that superb triptych of
Andrea Mantegna--a work which has neither the material splendour nor
the commanding force of some of its neighbours, but which, glowing
there with the loveliness of patient labour, suits possibly a more
constant need of the soul. I looked at the picture for some time over his
shoulder; at last, with a heavy sigh, he turned away and our eyes met.
As he recognised me a deep blush rose to his face; he fancied, perhaps,
that he had made a fool of himself overnight. But I offered him my
hand with a friendliness which assured him I was not a scoffer. I knew
him by his ardent chevelure; otherwise he was much altered. His
midnight mood was over, and he looked as haggard as an actor by
daylight. He was far older than I had supposed, and he had less bravery
of costume and gesture. He seemed the quiet, poor, patient artist he had
proclaimed himself, and the fact that he had never sold a picture was
more obvious than glorious. His velvet coat was threadbare, and his
short slouched hat, of an antique pattern, revealed a rustiness which
marked it an "original," and not one of the picturesque reproductions
which brethren of his craft affect. His eye was mild and heavy, and his
expression singularly gentle and acquiescent; the more so for a certain
pallid leanness of visage, which I hardly knew whether to refer to the
consuming fire of genius or to a meagre diet. A very little talk, however,

cleared his brow and brought back his eloquence.
"And this is your first visit to these enchanted halls?" he cried. "Happy,
thrice happy youth!" And taking me by the arm, he prepared to lead me
to each of the pre-eminent works in turn and show me the cream of the
gallery. But before we left the Mantegna he pressed my arm and gave it
a loving look. "HE was not in a hurry," he murmured. "He knew
nothing of "raw Haste, half-sister to Delay!" How sound a critic my
friend was I am unable to say, but he was an extremely amusing one;
overflowing with opinions, theories, and sympathies, with disquisition
and gossip and anecdote. He was a shade too sentimental for my own
sympathies, and I fancied he was rather too fond of superfine
discriminations and of discovering subtle intentions in shallow places.
At moments, too, he plunged into the sea of metaphysics, and
floundered a while in waters too deep for intellectual security. But his
abounding knowledge and happy judgment told a touching story of
long attentive hours in this worshipful company; there was a reproach
to my wasteful saunterings in so devoted a culture of opportunity.
"There are two moods," I remember his saying, "in which we may walk
through galleries--the critical and the ideal. They seize us at their
pleasure, and we can never tell which is to take its turn. The critical
mood, oddly, is the genial one, the friendly, the condescending. It
relishes the pretty trivialities of art, its vulgar cleverness, its conscious
graces. It has a kindly greeting for anything which looks as if,
according to his light, the painter had enjoyed doing it--for the little
Dutch cabbages and kettles, for the taper fingers and breezy mantles of
late-coming Madonnas, for the little blue-hilled, pastoral, sceptical
Italian landscapes. Then there are the days