Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 050.djvu/346

312 The very one

You have just mention'd,

. What! before you know

The subject of it?

I will take my chance!

'Twill gain the prize, and that's enough for me.

. You're buying, as they say, a pig 'in a poke.·

I care not, if you will but promise me

Ne'er to make known the parent of the pig.

. What is't you mean? I beg you will explain.

I mean that I would purchase not alone

Your painting, but the title to be held

Its author.

What! so you would pass yourself

Off as the painter of my work?

I would.

. You are a man with merits of your own,

Then wherefore deck yourself in borrow'd plumes?

Look ye, Salvator, all men must admit

That I know some things—as a connoisseur

In painting I rank high—no name deceives me,

No colour cheats my critical discernment;

But I cannot create—The living power

Of genius, which projects beyond itself

The creatures of the brain—the shaping hand—

These are not mine. I am a wealthy man,

And no one is esteem'd more highly here;

Yet, as you know, men oft covet most

That which they least possess; and hence my soul

Pants for an artist's fame.

. Come! Come! Director,

You shall not gull me so. An artist's fame!

That is a light, I'm sure, which cannot dazzle

Experienced eyes like yours.

It does, indeed;

Full twenty times—I've sought this interview,

But never till to-day could get admittance—

Your accident excluding strangers from you.

But now I've found you just in the nick o' time—

Come I be persuaded; let me call myself

The painter of that picture.

. If no other

Motive than vanity prompts your request,

I will not hear of it.

I beg of you—

You need not ask me, for I will not do it.

I'll pay you any price you choose to name.

. What is your gold to me?

(after a pause.) Suppose I had

Some other motive—would you then give way?

. That's as the case might be.

You know, Salvator.

That two things are reported to my hurt;

'Tis said I love, and that I'm covetous.

I grant one-half of the report is true:

I am not covetous; but—I'm in love—

Smile if you will—in love with my young ward

. (astonished.) And what has that to do with your demand?

Hearken, Salvator! This child's father, smitten

By love of art, has order'd in his will·

That he alone shall gain his daughter's hand,

Who, in our yearly competition, wins