Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/184

 the appearance of the whole which touches and entrances him. The mean detail, to his eyes, is no longer art, it is imitation without color, it is mechanism deprived of movement. As to the rest, my friend, I do not seek to turn you from what you believe to be your vocation. I have guessed in you the slumbering fire of genius, and I have tried to light it up into a real flame. Farewell!"

A sudden revolution took place in the thoughts of Berthold, after hearing these words from the mouth of the Maltese, denouncing the direction which he had followed until then, he quitted his master, and gave himself up, without reserve, to all the vagabond habits of a savage life. Seeking to break, by fatigue of the body, the anguish of his mind, he wandered from morning until night over the mountain and plain. This forced exercise dissipating gradually the vapors by which he was possessed, he found again the calm which had so long fled from him. In one of these excursions, he became acquainted with two young artists, who, like him, had come from Dresden. One of them, who was named Florentin, occupied himself much less with serious studies than with enriching his portfolio with a quantity of agreeable sketches full of spirit and dramatic movement, in spite of the rapidity of their execution. In looking over these drawings, Berthold felt his soul illumined by a light which he had never before been aware of. The picturesque method of Florentin singularly pleased his intelligence, greedy of knowing and realizing artistic truth. He set about copying, with a lively pleasure, the sketches of his friend, and succeeded pretty well in reproducing them, although it was impossible for him to give them the life and animation of the originals. What the Maltese had told him came back to his mind, and he related it to Florentin.

"I am of his opinion," answered Florentin; "I believe, that to arrive at producing the artistic resemblance, it is necessary at first, to familiarize oneself with the types which come the most frequently under our observation. Resign