Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 1.djvu/55

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But what was the man himself? It is just this question which I have half promised to answer, implying that, as a translator, I have some special right to speak upon the topic.

Well, then: I seem to know Cellini first of all as a man possessed by intense, absorbing egotism; violent, arrogant, self-assertive, passionate; conscious of great gifts for art, physical courage, and personal address. Without having read a line of Machiavelli, he had formed the same ideal of virtù or manly force of character as the author of The Prince. To be selfreliant in all circumstances; to scheme and strike, if need be, in support of his opinion or his right; to take the law into his own hands for the redress of injury or insult: this appeared to him the simple duty of an honourable man. But he had nothing of the philosopher's calm, the diplomatist's prudence, the general's strategy, or the courtier's self-restraint. On the contrary, he possessed the temperament of a born artist, blent in almost equal proportions with that of a born bravo. Throughout the whole of his tumultuous career these two strains contended in his nature for mastery. Upon the verge of fifty-six, when a man's blood has generally cooled, we find that he was released from prison on bail, and bound over to keep the peace for a year with some enemy whose life was probably in danger; and when I come to speak about his homicides, it will be obvious that he enjoyed killing live men quite as much as casting bronze statues.