Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/271

 Mary MacLane, if you live—if you live, my darling, the world will one day recognize your genius. And when once the world has recognized such genius as this—oh, then no one will ever think of profaning it by comparing it with any Bashkirtseff!

But I would give up this genius eagerly, gladly—at once and forever—for one dear, bright day free from loneliness.

The portraits of the Bashkirtseff are certainly beautiful, but there is something about them that is—well, not common, but bourgeois at least, as if she were a German waitress of unusual appearance, or an aristocratic shop-girl, or a nurse with good taste who would walk out on pleasant forenoons wheeling a go-cart—something of that sort. Perhaps it is because her neck is too short, or because her wrists are too muscular-looking. I thank a gracious Devil as I look up at the pictures that I have not those particular points and