“You wrong them, my dear friend; their words were all kindness and affection. They gave me hope, and encouragement too. They fancy that I have in me what will one day grow into fame itself; and even you, Billy, in your most sanguine hopes, have never dreamed of greater success for me than they have predicted in the calm of a moonlit saunter.”
“May the saints in heaven reward them for it!” said Billy, and in his clasped hands and uplifted eyes was all the fervor of a prayer. “They have my best blessin' for their goodness,” muttered he to himself.
“And so I am again a sculptor!” said Massy, rising and walking the room. “Upon this career my whole heart and soul are henceforth to be concentrated; my fame, my happiness are to be those of the artist. From this day and this hour let every thought of what—not what I once was, but what I had hoped to be, be banished from my heart. I am Sebastian Greppi. Never let another name escape your lips to me. I will not, even for a second, turn from the path in which my own exertions are to win the goal. Let the faraway land of my infancy, its traditions, its associations, be but dreams for evermore. Forwards! forwards!” cried he, passionately; “not a glance, not a look, towards the past.”
Billy stared with admiration at the youth, over whose features a glow of enthusiasm was now diffused, and in broken, unconnected words spoke encouragement and good cheer.
“I know well,” said the youth, “how this same stubborn pride must be rooted out, how these false, deceitful visions of a stand and a station that I am never to attain must give place to nobler and higher aspirations; and you, my dearest friend, must aid me in all this,—unceasingly, unwearyingly reminding me that to myself alone must I look for anything; and that if I would have a country, a name, or a home, it is by the toil of this head and these hands they are to be won. My plan is this,” said he, eagerly seizing the other's arm, and speaking with immense rapidity: “A life not alone of labor, but of the simplest; not a luxury, not an indulgence; our daily meals the humblest, our dress the commonest, nothing that to provide shall demand a moment's forethought or care; no wants that shall turn our thoughts from this great object, no care for the requirements that others need. Thus mastering small ambitions and petty desires, we shall concentrate all our faculties on our art; and even the humblest may thus outstrip those whose higher gifts reject such discipline.”
“You 'll not live longer under the Duke's patronage, then?” said Traynor.
“Not an hour. I return to that garden no more. There's a cottage on the mountain road to Serravezza will suit us well: it stands alone and on an eminence, with a view over the plain and the sea beyond. You can see it from the door,—there, to the left of the olive wood, lower down than the old ruin. We 'll live there, Billy, and we 'll make of that mean spot a hallowed one, where young enthusiasts in art will come, years hence, when we have passed away, to see the humble home Sebastian lived in,—to sit upon the grassy seat where he once sat, when dreaming of the mighty triumphs that have made him glorious.” A wild burst of mocking laughter rung from the boy's lips as he said this; but its accents were less in derision of the boast than a species of hysterical ecstasy at the vision he had conjured up.
“And why would n't it be so?” exclaimed Billy, ardently,—“why would n't you be great and illustrious?”
The moment of excitement was now over, and the youth stood pale, silent, and almost sickly in appearance; great drops of perspiration, too, stood on his forehead, and his quivering lips were bloodless.
“These visions are like meteor streaks,” said he, falteringly; “they leave the sky blacker than they found it! But come along, let us to work, and we 'll soon forget mere speculation.”