will paint of her. Shall it be in characteras a queen-a Juno-a Judith-a Mirandawill it not be better to paint her exactly as she is, to copy those features carefully, to transfer her living, breathing image to the canvass. I think so. What say you. Farewell. CHAPTER VII. SITTING FOR A PORTRAIT-A VINDICATION OF ARTISTS. SEVERAL sittings had already taken place, and the picture certainly ought to have been further advanced than it was, and would have been probably, had Ernest been painting a less handsome young lady. But it really is none of our business, if it went on fast enough to please the parties concerned. We purpose this chapter to record a tête-à-tête between the artist and his sitter, Miss Lawrence not being present as she was in general. in Miss Fairweather was indulging in one of those interesting fits of silence which formed a contrast to her usual lively manner, and seemed to find a pleasure in listening to Ernest, who was gradually talking more and painting less. 66 No, Miss Fairweather, it is difficult to get the credit of seeing beauty as an artist. I pass a girl in humble life, without fashion or dress or elegance to set her off to advantage. But nature has chiselled her features in a classic mould, and given her a graceful figure and elastic step. I see all this at a glance, and cannot help exclaiming to my unsympathising companion for the time being, Flaccid, or any one else' How beautiful.' He looks and sees only a poor girl beneath that sphere where he looks for beauty, gives me an incredulous stare to see if I am joking, bursts into a stupid laugh and says- Oh, you think everybody beautiful.' And so everybody is beautiful, and how much beauty blooms unheeded by man, who goes blundering through the world minding the main chance, admiring, according to modern conventional rules, blind as a bat where beauty is concerned. The poet and the artist, and all who possess degree what is called the creative power, know and feel that the world is full of beauty. They are said by the multitude to invent, when they in any only seize upon a few out of the immeasureable glories of existence, and put them before the admiring gaze of their fellow men. Artists, poets, philosophers, authors, musicians, sculptors, &c., invent, in the original meaning of the world, they discover. The artist who wor ships the Greek ideal, does not necessarily ignore beauty existing in types essentially dif ferent. But the triumphs of the Greek school seem to be founded on the truest and most profound principles of beauty, if we may judge by the universal sympathy they have excited in creative minds in all ages. If we had never seen them, we should desire to see the works which could have so inspired Byron, where, speaking of the Apollo, he says "But in his delicate form-a dream of love Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast The mind with in its most unearthly mood A ray of immortality-and stood Starlike, around, until they gather'd to a god." "One would, indeed," said Miss Fairwea ther. "Tell me where those beautiful lines are, that I may read them when I go home." "I will show them to you, Miss Fairweather," said Ernest, taking up a small pocket edition of Byron, and turning to the fourth canto of Childe Harold. "There is a religion in art," he continued, "a feeling which gains on the heart of the true and devout worshipper. Look at yonder bust of Clytæ, Miss Fairweather. How often have I drawn it and hung upon its surpassing loveliness, till it began to exercise a sort of spell over me while contemplating the tempered pride conveyed in that short curling lip, and the soul which looks out at the full almond-shaped eyes, drooping at the outer extremities, and the serene majesty of that over arching intellectual brow, and as I gazed I fancied I could sympathise with Pygmalion, in the craze which stole over me, wondering whether such a living form existed, or might be found perchance on earth." "Do you know who I think it like ?" said Miss Fairweather. "Miss Lawrence. She |