"That is?"
"That is, that only in his home can the artist reach the highest point his talents will enable him to attain. I have formed this conclusion from the history of all arts, which have only prospered when the artists had the good fortune to be supplied with subjects furnished by the country of which they were citizens and the time in which they lived-for in this sense, time is also the artist's home: I mean: when they had the good fortune, and of course the power also, to be able to freely develop their talents on their native soil, and upon subjects furnished by their home. I have also drawn this inference from my own observation, which has taught me that those who were unable to find any materials for their art at home--subjects identified with the place and time--were no true artists, but either dilettanti and imitators, or positive charlatans, who deceived with their artificial productions, destitute alike of life and merit, only the great multitude--the beggarly crowd--to which they, in the inmost depths of their natures, certainly belonged."
When Gotthold first began to speak upon this subject, which at that moment was very far from his thoughts, he had only wished to soothe the tumult of his soul, or at least to conceal it from the pale woman by his side; then, carried away by the theme, he had spoken with a certain earnestness, and at last with a freedom of which, a moment before, he would not have believed himself capable. And so, at first absently, but gradually with more eagerness, Cecilia had listened; a ray of the old fire flashed from her dark eye as she asked,
"And does this apply to you?"
"It does; that is, it was a misfortune that through my unhappy quarrel with my father, and in consequence of several sorrowful memories upon which it is not worth while to enter here,--it was a misfortune that I was, in a certain measure, banished from my home at the moment when I could least dispense with it: the flowers I had sought for in the meadows when a child; the trees under which the boy played, through whose tops he saw the sunbeams glide and heard the rain patter; the skies which at one time could laugh so brightly and anon look so unspeakably gloomy, so infinitely dreary; the sea, over whose smooth surface, gleaming in the sunset, or billows black with storm, the fancy of the youth had hovered, sailed out to the regions of the Blest, and the mournful, misty realms of his dreams of battle and conflict and early heroic death: all this--I mean the things and the dreams--I might have been able to paint, to the pleasure and delight of others, in whom, by my pictures, I might have awakened memories of their own childhood, boyhood, and youth; what I paint now I have not drawn from my own soul, have not painted, cannot paint with my whole heart, so how can it, at best, be anything more than sounding brass?"
"Then why are you artists so eager to go to foreign lands?" asked Cecilia.
She seemed once more the intelligent young girl, whose radiant dark eyes reflected the restless ardor of her mind, from whose lips fell silvery laughter, and then grave, earnest words.
"I think this eagerness is often blind and foolish," replied Gotthold, "and, at any rate, I would always advise a young artist not to go to Rome until his own ideas are firmly fixed, or he will be a mere plaything of the winds and clouds. Goethe had written his works on German art, and long been a master of it, when he went to Italy; so he could quietly compose his Faust beneath the pines in the garden of the Villa Borghese, and return laden with the rich treasures of his observations of the country, the people, and the events which for centuries had taken place beneath its glorious skies, and yet remain to the very depths of his artist soul precisely the same as he was before. It is just the same in the republic of the arts as in the state, Cecilia. What citizen could understand the great relations of the government who had not first practised his powers of vision upon the smaller affairs of the parish; who could render any valuable service to the parish, who had not learned to rule his own household; who could manage his house, direct and govern his family, who did not know how to rule and guide himself?"
Gertrude had come up while Gotthold was speaking; Cecilia lifted her into her lap, and the child sat there silently, as if she knew she must not interrupt. Now, as Gotthold paused, she said, "Mamma, I want Uncle Gotthold to be my papa!"
A deep flush crimsoned Cecilia's face, and she hastily tried to put Gretchen down, but the child would not give up the point so easily. She threw her right arm around her mother's neck, and said, coaxingly, "Can't he, mamma; he has such pretty blue eyes, and is always kind to you, and papa is often so horrid; can't he, mamma?"