Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/176

 of a gulf the deceitful reflection of the star that his imprudent eye sought for in heaven."

Berthold made a pause, passed his hand over his forehead, as if to brush off a cloud; then, raising his head, he continued:—"What am I talking about! would I not be better employed in finishing my task, instead of discussing such vain subtleties? Look, my friend, look at this work; rule has conducted each line of it; hence what neatness! what exactness! all this enters into geometrical calculation, whose application the mind of man can exercise. All which goes beyond this measure, all which rises to the fantastic, is either a special gift of God or an hallucination of hell. God has communicated to us the secrets of art in proportion to the wants felt by poor humanity. Thus, mechanics produce the movement and the life to create mills and time-pieces, or machines to make cloth. All that is in rule, because it is all useful. And so, quite recently, the professor Aloysius maintained that certain animals were created for the purpose of eating others, and he took for example the cat, whose voracious appetite for mice prevents them from eating up all our candles, and all our sugar. And by my faith, the reverend father was right. I say, myself, that men are, in spite of their vanity, only animals, more skilfully organized than others, to create various products, whose contemplation pleases the unknown master of all that exist. But enough of metaphysics. Hallo! my friend, pass me those colors; I yesterday took considerable time to mix them, and I have numbered them with care, so that the flickering of the torches that light my work during the night, should not make me commit errors. Give me number one."

I hastened to obey. Berthold made me pass in review all his colors, which I handed to him one after another,—a tiresome labor, which would not have preserved me from the desire to sleep, if the artist had not sweetened the toil with one of the most original dissertations, and which he alone bore the burden of, on the subject of all kinds of questions,