"Comfort!" she exclaimed. "Much comfort I have had since I came here! Comfort I call quiet, and being let alone. Another fortnight at this place would give me brain fever—your life continually in danger either on the sea or by the cliffs—your feelings supposed to be always up at passion pitch—it is all a whirl of secret or declared emotions that don't give you a moment's rest. Oh, pappy, won't it be nice to have a day or two's quiet in our own home, with Carry and Marie? And you know Mr. Lemuel will be in town all the summer and winter. The material for his work he finds within himself. He doesn't need to scamper off like the rest of them to hunt out picturesque peasants and studies of waterfalls—trotting about the country with a note-book in hand—"
"Gerty, Gerty," said her father, with a smile, "your notions are unformed on that subject. What have I told you often?—that the artist is only a reporter. Whether he uses the pencil, or the pen, or his own face and voice, to express the highest thoughts and emotions of which he is conscious, he is only a reporter—a penny-a-liner whose words are written in fire. And you—don't you carry your note-book too?"
"I was not comparing myself with an artist like Mr. Lemuel, pappy. No, no. Of course I have to keep my eyes open, and pick up things that may be useful. His work is the work of intense spiritual contemplation—it is inspiration—"
"No doubt," the father said; "the inspiration of Botticelli."
"Papa!"
Mr. White chuckled to himself. He was not given to joking: an epigram was not in consonance with his high sententiousness. But instantly he resumed his solemn deportment.
"A picture is as much a part of the world as a human face: why should I not take my inspiration from a picture as well as from a human face?"
"You mean to say he is only a copyist—a plagiarist!" she said, with some indignation.
"Not at all," said he. "All artists have their methods founded more or less on the methods of those who have gone before them. You don't expect an artist to discover for himself an entirely new principle of art, any more than you expect him to paint in pigments of his own invention. Mr. Lemuel has been a diligent student of Botticelli—that is all."
This strange talk amidst the awful loneliness and grandeur of Glen-Sloich! They were idly walking along the rough road: far above them rose the giant slopes of the mountains retreating into heavy masses of cloud that were moved by the currents of the morning wind. It was a gray day; and the fresh-water lake here was of a leaden hue, and the browns and greens of the mountain-side were dark and intense. There was no sign of human life or habitation; there was no bird singing; the deer was far away in the unknown valleys above them, hidden by the mystic cloud phantoms. There was an odor of sweet-gale in the air. The only sound was the murmuring of the streams that were pouring down through these vast solitudes to the sea.