I saw the houses here and there--and it seemed as if I beheld the ghost of a part of my life. If the people knew-- There are streets here with which I am not acquainted. Men pass without a thought for each other. City folk all look ill-humored; I have not met one sunny, happy face.

I went to the picture-gallery. What delights the eye there feeds upon! And besides these, there is the intoxicating wealth of color and the solemn stillness of the place itself. I saw my old teacher and heard him saying to a stranger: "A work of art does not derive its great historical character from the importance of the subject, or the size of the picture. What is required of the artist is that he should be filled with, and, at the same time, transport the beholder to, the scene that he attempts to depict. The same subject can be conceived in various ways, and may be executed either as a light, genre piece, or in the grand and more enduring historical style."

While I passed through the rooms, I felt like one intoxicated. All my old friends greeted me. They are clothed in undying colors, and have remained faithful and unchanged. The power of nature and of art lie in their truthfulness. But they do not speak; they merely exist. No--nature alone is mute; art lends its voice. It is not by the lips alone that the human mind expresses itself. I felt as if the Maria Ægyptica must suddenly turn toward me and ask: "Do you know me now?"

I grew dizzy and fearful.

While in the Raphael gallery, environed by the highest beauty earth has ever known, conceived as only the clearest eye could conceive it, I felt as if in another world.

A happy thought occurred to me: Art is the first liberator of humanity, evoking a second, joy-creating life, and--what is even a greater boon--revealing the highest realm, where every one who is called may enter. The poor son of the people says: "I and my spirit shall dwell in this lofty, this blessed abode." He reigns there eternally, surrounded by his ancestors in art. There dwells immortality; or, better still, death never enters there. The paternal mansion of free, creative art contains infinite space, and is an eternal home. Let him who has lived happily, enter there.

I stood before the palace. The windows of the room that I once occupied were open. My parrot was still there in its golden cage, and called out: "God keep you! God keep you!" But it does not add my name, for it has forgotten it.