ne of the outer streets the sound of a flute, played by fits and
starts, as though the player stopped for breath between the passages,
or as though he forgot his notes in other thoughts.

The window, from which this singular music sounded into the summer air,
opened from the upper story of a house that stood some distance back
from the street--a house of a kind of which there are many in this
western suburb. They are generally entirely unornamented, boxlike
buildings, windowless except on the northern side, and there pierced by
great quadrangular openings, supplied with all manner of arrangements
for admitting the steadiest possible light from above. In summer one
never sees above them the little cloud of smoke that betrays a domestic
hearth, and no profane smell of cooking meets the visitor upon the
threshold--as in most other Munich houses. From the open windows floats
only a light, invisible odor of tobacco-smoke, agreeably mingled with
the invigorating fragrance of varnishes, oils, and turpentine--which
shows that here only the holy fire of art is fed, and that here, upon
silent altars (three-legged easels and sculptors' pedestals) are
offered sacrifices that cannot even shelter the priests that offer them
from the pangs of hunger.

The house of which we speak turned its windowless southern side
toward a little yard, in which lay scattered marble and sandstone
blocks of different sizes. The four studio-windows of the northern side
looked into a carefully-tended, narrow garden, that sheltered them
from all disagreeable reflected lights. Around a little, slender,
drowsily-splashing fountain in the middle bloomed a glorious wealth of
roses; and the neighboring flower-beds, filled with all kinds of
garden-stuff, were enclosed in thick borders of mignonette. Here the
smell of oil and turpentine just referred to could not penetrate,
especially as only the two upper studios were those of painters; while
in the lower story, as could be seen by the blocks of stone in the
yard, a sculptor carried on his art.

Artists--enjoying, as they do, a perpetual holiday mood over their
work--are not wont to be supporters of a regular celebration of the
Sabbath. Those who are so must be such as in the course of years
have come to devote themselves--as not a few do in a so-called
"art-city"--to the mere business-like manufacture of pictures for
"art-clubs," or of parlor statuettes; and so are privileged to take
their rest on the sevent