p
brightly, so as to enlighten you. Then you will be able to recognise
the real spirit that animates you. Do you think I am so foolish as to
place the landscape lower in rank than the historical painting, and
that I do not recognise the common goal after which the painters of
both classes should strive? The apprehension of nature in the deepest
import of that higher sense, which kindles all beings to a higher life,
that is the sacred end of all art. Can the mere dim copying of nature
lead to this? How poor, how stiff and forced, is the appearance of a
manuscript copied from another in some foreign language, which the
copyist does not understand, and is, therefore, unable to give the
strokes, which he laboriously imitates, their proper significance.
Thus your master's landscapes are correct copies of an original author
in a language which is strange to him. The initiated artist hears the
voice of nature, which from trees, hedges, flowers, mountains, and
waters, speaks to him, and of unfathomable mysteries in wondrous
sounds, which form themselves in his bosom to a pious feeling of
foreboding; then, as a divine spirit, the talent itself of transferring
this dim feeling to his works, descends upon him. Have not you
yourself, young man, felt strangely affected when looking at the
landscapes of the old masters? Assuredly you did not think whether the
leaves of the lime trees, the pines, the plane trees, might be truer to
nature, whether the back ground might be more misty, or the water might
be clearer; but the spirit that breathes from the whole raised you into
a higher region, the reflection of which you seemed to behold.
Therefore, study nature in the mechanical part, sedulously and
carefully, that you may attain the practice of representation; but do
not take the practice for the art itself. If you have penetrated into
the deep import of nature, her pictures will arise within you in bright
magnificence.' The Maltese was silent; but when Berthold, deeply moved
by what he had heard, stood with downcast eyes, and incapable of
uttering a word, the Maltese left him, saying, 'I had no intention of
interrupting you in your calling, but I know that a higher spirit is
slumbering in you. I called upon it, with strong words, that it might
awake, and move its wings with freshness and vigour. Farewell.'

"Berthold felt as if the Maltese had only clothed in words that which
had already been fermenting in his soul. The inn