than the famous Botticellis and Bellinis and Giorgiones which crowded the walls of the galleries. As we stood before them, Peter imagined tales af adventure and romance to suit the subjects, pinning his narratives to the expression of a face, the style of a sleeve, the embroidery of a doublet, or to some accompanying puppet or pet, some ill-featured hunch-back dwarf.
Thus the days passed and Peter became dreamy and wistful and the charm of his spirit, I believe, was never before so poignant, for his chameleon soul had taken on the hue of the renaissance and its accompanying spirituality, the spirituality of the artist, the happy working artist contriving works of genius. He could have perfectly donned the costume of the cinquecento, for the revolutionary Peter of New York, the gay, faun-like Peter of Paris, had disappeared, and a Peter of reveries and dreams had usurped their place.
Never have I been so happy, he said to me on one of these days, as I am now. This is true beauty, the beauty of spirit, art which has nothing to do with life, which, indeed, makes you forget the existence of life. Of course, however, this is of no help to the contemporary artist. Confronted, on every hand, with perfection, he must lay down his chisel or his brush or his pen. Great art can never flourish here again. That is why Browning's poetry about Florence is so bad; why Ouida, perhaps a lesser artist, succeeded where Browning failed. This is the
