s asked to play. Hardly
had he begun one off those pretty mazurkas with a Polish rhythm, which
make him the successor of Chopin, when his wife began to talk, quite
low at first, then a little louder. By degrees the fire of conversation
spread. At the end of a minute I was the only listener. Then he shut the
piano, and said to me with a heart-rent smile: "It is always like this
here--my wife does not care for music." Can you imagine anything more
terrible than to marry a woman who does not care for your art? Take my
word for it, my friend, and don't marry. You are alone, you are free;
keep as precious things, your liberty and your loneliness._

THE POET.

_That is all very well! You talk at your ease of solitude. Presently,
when I am gone, if some idea occurs to you, you will gently follow it
by the side of your dying embers, without feeling around you that
atmosphere of isolation, so vast, so empty, that in it inspiration
evaporates and disperses. And one may yet fear to be alone in the hours
of work; but there are moments of discouragement and weariness, when
one doubts oneself ones art even. That is the moment when it must be
happiness to find a faithful and loving heart, ever ready to sympathize
with one's depression, to which one may appeal without fearing to
disconcert a confidence and enthusiasm that are, in fact, unalterable.
And then the child. That sweet unconscious baby smile, is not that the
best moral rejuvenescence one can have? Ah! I have often thought over
that. For us artists, vain as all must be who live by success, by that
superficial esteem, capricious and fleeting, that we call the vogue; for
us, above all others, children are indispensable. They alone can console
us for growing old. All that we lose, the child gains. The success we
have missed, we think: "He will have it" and in proportion as our hair
grows thin, we have the joy of seeing it grow again, curly, golden, full
of life, on a little fair head at our side._

THE PAINTER.

_Ah, poet! poet! have you thought also of all the mouthfuls by which
with the end of pen or brush we must nourish a brood?_

THE POET.

_Well! say what you like, the artist is made for family life, and
that is so true, that those among us who do not marry, take refuge in
temporary companionships, like travellers who, tired of being always
home-less, end by settling in a room in some hotel, and pass their lives
under the hackneyed notice of the signboard: "Apa