not shock
the eye of an ordinary observer. Little outlay is needed to hire a room;
none whatever to call it a studio. This magical word furnishes it at
once, and covers every deficiency in chairs, tables, and carpet. Studio,
Artist,--excellent, well-sounding names! In them is often the secret of
the whole business.

An artist has this advantage over other men,--he may indulge in whatever
amusements his means can afford him, and no one will find fault. Every
class has its own standard of manners and conduct. The measure and rule
for artists have come over the sea, condensed from French _feuilletons_
and _Vies de Boheme_. They are supposed to belong, by right of
profession, to a reckless, witty, singing, and carousing guild. It is
almost needless to say that the real life of the hard-working men who
have earned fame by the brush is as unlike all this as possible. But
these vague, ultramarine notions of fun and revelry have taken
possession of the American mind, just opening to art, and established
the standard for artists here. It exists in fact only in the
imagination; for, excepting a few ebullitions in the way of hair,
beards, and black sombreros, our artists are as saturnine as the rest of
us, and not as good company around the mahogany as a judicious
combination of clergymen and lawyers. Nevertheless, so powerful is the
conventional, when it has once taken root in the imagination, that some
of our younger artists believe themselves to be wild, rollicking
fellows, who despise the humdrum existence of the rest of us, although
they are sober and economical, pay their bills weekly, and talk their
morning paper like other people. Young correspondents! you will perceive
what a chance is here for you. If a kind public, in its youthful
enthusiasm for art, invests these steady-going citizens with such
delightful romantic qualities, it will of course wink at any
irregularities of conduct on your part, as in strict keeping with the
character.

In addition, you will always find us of the press your trusty friends.
Although behind the scenes myself, the peculiar connection that exists
between items-men and artists is as inexplicable to me as the
partnership of the owl and the prairie-dog in their dwellings on the
plains. Why, when we make every other calling pay roundly for a notice,
we puff the artists gratis in the most conspicuous columns of the paper,
is a puzzle to me. But the fact exists. Hire your studio, nail up your
n