and her productive forces. Canova lived in his studio, as
Voltaire lived in his study; and so must Homer and Phidias have lived.

While Lisbeth kept Wenceslas Steinbock in thraldom in his garret, he was
on the thorny road trodden by all these great men, which leads to the
Alpine heights of glory. Then happiness, in the person of Hortense, had
reduced the poet to idleness--the normal condition of all artists, since
to them idleness is fully occupied. Their joy is such as that of the
pasha of a seraglio; they revel with ideas, they get drunk at the founts
of intellect. Great artists, such as Steinbock, wrapped in reverie, are
rightly spoken of as dreamers. They, like opium-eaters, all sink into
poverty, whereas if they had been kept up to the mark by the stern
demands of life, they might have been great men.

At the same time, these half-artists are delightful; men like them and
cram them with praise; they even seem superior to the true artists, who
are taxed with conceit, unsociableness, contempt of the laws of society.
This is why: Great men are the slaves of their work. Their indifference
to outer things, their devotion to their work, make simpletons regard
them as egotists, and they are expected to wear the same garb as the
dandy who fulfils the trivial evolutions called social duties. These
men want the lions of the Atlas to be combed and scented like a lady's
poodle.

These artists, who are too rarely matched to meet their fellows, fall
into habits of solitary exclusiveness; they are inexplicable to the
majority, which, as we know, consists mostly of fools--of the envious,
the ignorant, and the superficial.

Now you may imagine what part a wife should play in the life of these
glorious and exceptional beings. She ought to be what, for five years,
Lisbeth had been, but with the added offering of love, humble and
patient love, always ready and always smiling.

Hortense, enlightened by her anxieties as a mother, and driven by
dire necessity, had discovered too late the mistakes she had been
involuntarily led into by her excessive love. Still, the worthy daughter
of her mother, her heart ached at the thought of worrying Wenceslas;
she loved her dear poet too much to become his torturer; and she could
foresee the hour when beggary awaited her, her child, and her husband.

"Come, come, my child," said Lisbeth, seeing the tears in her cousin's
lovely eyes, "you must not despair. A glassful of tears will not buy a
pl