embarrassment into which my own
imagination threw me when in presence of this lovely being. It elevated
her into something almost more than mortal. She seemed too exquisite
for earthly use; too delicate and exalted for human attainment. As I
sat tracing her charms on my canvas, with my eyes occasionally riveted
on her features, I drank in delicious poison that made me giddy. My
heart alternately gushed with tenderness, and ached with despair. Now I
became more than ever sensible of the violent fires that had lain
dormant at the bottom of my soul. You who are born in a more temperate
climate and under a cooler sky, have little idea of the violence of
passion in our southern bosoms.

A few days finished my task; Bianca returned to her convent, but her
image remained indelibly impressed upon my heart. It dwelt on my
imagination; it became my pervading idea of beauty. It had an effect
even upon my pencil; I became noted for my felicity in depicting female
loveliness; it was but because I multiplied the image of Bianca. I
soothed, and yet fed my fancy, by introducing her in all the
productions of my master. I have stood with delight in one of the
chapels of the Annunciata, and heard the crowd extol the seraphic
beauty of a saint which I had painted; I have seen them bow down in
adoration before the painting: they were bowing before the loveliness
of Bianca.

I existed in this kind of dream, I might almost say delirium, for
upwards of a year. Such is the tenacity of my imagination that the
image which was formed in it continued in all its power and freshness.
Indeed, I was a solitary, meditative being, much given to reverie, and
apt to foster ideas which had once taken strong possession of me. I was
roused from this fond, melancholy, delicious dream by the death of my
worthy benefactor. I cannot describe the pangs his death occasioned me.
It left me alone and almost broken-hearted. He bequeathed to me his
little property; which, from the liberality of his disposition and his
expensive style of living, was indeed but small; and he most
particularly recommended me, in dying, to the protection of a nobleman
who had been his patron.

The latter was a man who passed for munificent. He was a lover and an
encourager of the arts, and evidently wished to be thought so. He
fancied he saw in me indications of future excellence; my pencil had
already attracted attention; he took me at once under his protection;
seeing that I was over