University of Virginia Library

EFFECTS OF INTERRUPTION.

Guido had painted a picture that astonished all
Florence. It rested upon his easel. It was pronounced

his chef-d'œuvre. It was almost perfect.
Everybody came to see—to admire—to praise it.

“How glorious!” said one.

“It has never been excelled!” said another.

“What atmosphere—what vitality!” said a third.

“And why don't the group of peasants speak?”
said a fourth.

A slight defect was observed in the face of one
of them, which was a portrait taken from life.
Guido was alone. He sat about remedying the
defect. He had mixed the colours—the brush had
touched the canvass—he was full of the idea of
making the picture “not almost, but altogether”
perfect, and a bland smile irradiated his fine countenance—when
an officer entered his studio and
arrested him for debt. Guido rose from his seat
and dashed the brush at the unoffending canvass!
The picture was ruined for ever!

“What a fretful fool was Guido!” said one.

“How irritable!” said another.

“What a dunce to get into a passion because he
was interrupted!” said a third.

“How silly to spoil in a moment the labour of a
year!” said a fourth.

“He is not constructed like other men, and is a
fool,” said they all.

“Do you paint, friends?” asked a bystander.

“No,” was the reply.

“Then you know nothing of the workings of the
mind of an artist, nor can you feel the withering
disappointment he endures when, just as he is giving
the last touch to a production that is to bring him
fame and competence, his golden dream is broken.
His imagination takes wings, and that which but a
moment before was the aspiration of a bright and
burning fancy, when left unfinished and resumed in
a more serious mood, becomes a mechanical and
weary drudgery. Had Guido been differently constructed,
had he been what you have been pleased
to call him—a fool—he never would have been able
to paint the picture at all.”