abiding reality which he seeks; so that if the individual pass away, if the object be frustrated, his love and his labour are not essentially disappointed.
I said one day to my artist, when he was ardently engaged on a favourite picture, "Adolphe, has your love of art ever been tested by any great misfortune?" He replied, "I have suffered—I am suffering under a great calamity; not the blighting of ambition, not the loss of any loved one, but a far more withering sorrow; I have ceased to love the being whom I once believed that I must love while life lasted. I have cherished what I thought was a bright amethyst, and I have seen it losing its lustre day by day till I can no longer delude myself into a belief that it is not valueless. But you see," said he, turning to me and smiling, "I love my pictures still; I should not like to die till I have worked up my chosen subjects."
Who would not have some purpose in life as independent in its value as art is to the artist?
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