"That is a most extraordinary picture, young gentleman. Those will come to be something else than trees before you have done with them."
"Do you see anything out of the way, sir?" Edmund said, with flashing eyes.
"I mean," said the goldsmith, "that there are all sorts of forms and shapes peeping out from amongst those high leaves there, in ever-changing variety: geniuses, strange animals, maidens, and flowers. Yet the whole thing ought only to amount to that group of trees before us there, through which the rays of the evening sun are streaming so charmingly."
"Sir!" Edmund answered, "either you have a very profound understanding, and a most penetrating eye for matters of this kind, or I have been unusually successful in portraying my inmost feelings. Don't you perceive when, in looking at Nature, you abandon yourself to all your feelings of longing, all kinds of wonderful shapes and forms come looking at you through the trees with beautiful eyes? That was what I was trying to represent to the senses in this sketch, and I see I have succeeded."
"I understand," Leonhard said, rather coldly and dryly. "You wanted to drop study, and give yourself a rest, to refresh and strengthen your fancy."
"Not at all," Edmund answered. "I consider this way of working from Nature is my best and most useful 'study.' Study of this sort enables me to put the really poetic and imaginative element into my landscape. Unless the landscape painter is every bit as much a poet as the portrait painter, he will never be anything but a dauber."
"Heaven help us!" cried the goldsmith. "So you, dear Edmund Lehsen, are going to----"
"You know me, then, sir, do you?" the painter cried.
"Why shouldn't I?" said Leonhard. "I first made your acquaintance on an occasion which you, probably, don't remember much about; that is to say, when you were born. Considering the small experience which you had at that time, you had behaved very well--had given your mamma little trouble--and as soon as you came into the world, gave a very pretty cry of pleasure and delight. Also, you showed a great love for the daylight, which, by my advice, you were not kept away from. Because, according to the most recent medical opinions, daylight is far from having a bad effect on babies, but rather is beneficial to their bodies and their minds. Your papa was so pleased that he hopped about the room on one leg, singing
'The manly heart with love o'erflowing,'