s away with the suspicious swiftness of a crow; she wears
no scarf by which the poet can clutch her; her hair is a flame; she
vanishes like the lovely rose and white flamingo, the sportsman's
despair. And work, again, is a weariful struggle, alike dreaded and
delighted in by these lofty and powerful natures who are often broken
by it. A great poet of our day has said in speaking of this overwhelming
labor, "I sit down to it in despair, but I leave it with regret." Be it
known to all who are ignorant! If the artist does not throw himself into
his work as Curtius sprang into the gulf, as a soldier leads a forlorn
hope without a moment's thought, and if when he is in the crater he does
not dig on as a miner does when the earth has fallen in on him; if he
contemplates the difficulties before him instead of conquering them
one by one, like the lovers in fairy tales, who to win their princesses
overcome ever new enchantments, the work remains incomplete; it perishes
in the studio where creativeness becomes impossible, and the artist
looks on at the suicide of his own talent.

Rossini, a brother genius to Raphael, is a striking instance in his
poverty-stricken youth, compared with his latter years of opulence. This
is the reason why the same prize, the same triumph, the same bays are
awarded to great poets and to great generals.

Wenceslas, by nature a dreamer, had expended so much energy in
production, in study, and in work under Lisbeth's despotic rule, that
love and happiness resulted in reaction. His real character reappeared,
the weakness, recklessness, and indolence of the Sarmatian returned to
nestle in the comfortable corners of his soul, whence the schoolmaster's
rod had routed them.

For the first few months the artist adored his wife. Hortense and
Wenceslas abandoned themselves to the happy childishness of a legitimate
and unbounded passion. Hortense was the first to release her husband
from his labors, proud to triumph over her rival, his Art. And, indeed,
a woman's caresses scare away the Muse, and break down the sturdy,
brutal resolution of the worker.

Six or seven months slipped by, and the artist's fingers had forgotten
the use of the modeling tool. When the need for work began to be
felt, when the Prince de Wissembourg, president of the committee of
subscribers, asked to see the statue, Wenceslas spoke the inevitable
byword of the idler, "I am just going to work on it," and he lulled his
dear Hortense wit