esent an
evil time for art has begun; or rather, the devil seems to be busy
amongst our masters, stirring them up pretty freely. If you have not
made up your mind to meet with mortifications and vexations of every
kind, to suffer the more hatred and contempt the higher you soar in
art, as your fame increases everywhere to meet with villains, who
will press round you with friendly mien, to destroy you all the more
surely--if, I say, you have not made up your mind for all this, keep
aloof from painting! Think of the fate of your teacher, the great
Annibale, whom a knavish crew of fellow-painters in Naples persecuted
so that he could not get a single great work to undertake, but was
everywhere shown the door with despite, which brought him to his
untimely grave. Think what happened to our Domenichino, when he was
painting the cupola of the chapel of St. Januarius. Didn't the villains
of painters there (I shall not mention any of their names, not
even that scoundrel Belisario's or Ribera's), did not they bribe
Domenichino's servant to put ashes into the lime, so that the
plastering would not bind? The painting could thus have no permanence.
Think on all those things, and prove yourself well, whether your spirit
is strong enough to withstand the like; for otherwise your power will
be broken, and when the firm courage to make is gone, the power to do
it is gone along with it."

"Ah, Salvator," said Antonio, "it is scarcely possible that, had I once
devoted myself entirely to painting, I should have to undergo more
despite and contempt than I have had to suffer already, being still a
surgeon. You have found pleasure in my pictures, and you have said,
doubtless from inner conviction, that I have it in me to do better
things than many of our San Luca men. And yet it is just they who turn
up their noses at all that I have, with much industry, achieved, and
say, contemptuously, 'Ho, ho, the surgeon thinks he can paint a
picture!' But, for that very reason my decision is firmly come to, to
get clear of a calling which is more and more hateful to me every day.
It is on you, master, that I pin all my hopes. Your word is worth much.
If you chose to speak for me you could at once dash my envious
persecutors to the dust, and put me in the place which is mine by
right."

"You have great confidence in me," said Salvator; "but now that we have
so thoroughly understood each other as to our art, and now that I have
seen your works, I do n