35
Jules, a foreign sculptor I did my utmost to advance, that
the Church might be a gainer by us both; he was going
on hopefully enough, and of a sudden he notifies to me
some marvelous change that has happened in his notions
of Art. Here's his letter: "He never had a clearly conceived 40
Ideal within his brain till today. Yet since his hand
could manage a chisel, he has practiced expressing other
men's Ideals; and, in the very perfection he has attained
to, he foresees an ultimate failure: his unconscious hand
will pursue its prescribed course of old years, and will 45
reproduce
with a fatal expertness the ancient types, let the
novel one appear never so palpably to his spirit. There
is but one method of escape: confiding the virgin type to
as chaste a hand, he will turn painter instead of sculptor,
and paint, not carve, its characteristics"--strike out, I 50
dare say, a school like Correggio: how think you, Ugo?

_Intendant._ Is Correggio a painter?

_Monsignor._ Foolish Jules! and yet, after all, why
foolish? He may--probably will--fail egregiously; but
if there should arise a new painter, will it not be in some 55
such way, by a poet now, or a musician (spirits who have
conceived and perfected an Ideal through some other
channel), transferring it to this, and escaping our conventional
roads by pure ignorance of them; eh, Ugo? If
you have no appetite, talk at least, Ugo! 60

_Intendant._ Sir, I can submit no longer to this course
of yours. First, you select the group of which I formed
one--next you thin it gradually--always retaining me
with your smile--and so do you proceed till you have
fairly got me alone with you between four stone walls. 65
And now then? Let this farce, this chatter, end now;
what is it you want with me?

_Monsignor._ Ugo!

_Intendant._ From the instant you arrived, I felt your
smile on me as you questioned me about this and the 70
other article in those papers--why your brother should
have given me this villa, that _podere_--and your nod at
the end meant--what?

_Monsignor._ Possibly that I wished for no loud talk
here. If once you set me coughing, Ugo!-- 75

_Intendant._ I have your brother's hand and seal to all I
possess: now a