The Psyche Page #2

								

crush him.

"The Psyche must be executed in marble," said the wealthy
patrician. And those were words of life for the dead clay and the
heavy block of marble, and words of life likewise for the deeply-moved
artist. "When the work is finished I will purchase it," continued
the rich noble.

A new era seemed to have arisen in the poor studio. Life and
cheerfulness gleamed there, and busy industry plied its work. The
beaming Morning Star beheld how the work progressed. The clay itself
seemed inspired since she had been there, and moulded itself, in
heightened beauty, to a likeness of the well-known features.

"Now I know what life is," cried the artist rejoicingly; "it is
Love! It is the lofty abandonment of self for the dawning of the
beautiful in the soul! What my friends call life and enjoyment is a
passing shadow; it is like bubbles among seething dregs, not the
pure heavenly wine that consecrates us to life."

The marble block was reared in its place. The chisel struck
great fragments from it; the measurements were taken, points and lines
were made, the mechanical part was executed, till gradually the
stone assumed a human female form, a shape of beauty, and became
converted into the Psyche, fair and glorious--a divine being in
human shape. The heavy stone appeared as a gliding, dancing, airy
Psyche, with the heavenly innocent smile--the smile that had
mirrored itself in the soul of the young artist.

The Star of the roseate dawn beheld and understood what was
stirring within the young man, and could read the meaning of the
changing color of his cheek, of the light that flashed from his eye,
as he stood busily working, reproducing what had been put into his
soul from above.

"Thou art a master like those masters among the ancient Greeks,"
exclaimed his delighted friends; "soon shall the whole world admire
thy Psyche."

"My Psyche!" he repeated. "Yes, mine. She must be mine. I, too, am
an artist, like those great men who are gone. Providence has granted
me the boon, and has made me the equal of that lady of noble birth."

And he knelt down and breathed a prayer of thankfulnesss to
Heaven, and then he forgot Heaven for her sake--for the sake of her
picture in stone--for her Psyche which stood there as if formed of
snow, blushing in the morning dawn.

He was to see her in reality, the living, graceful Psyche, whose
words sounded like music in his ears. He could now carry the news into
the rich palace that the marble Psyche was finished. He betook himself
thither, strode through the open courtyard where the waters ran
splashing from the dolphin's jaws into the marble basins, where the
snowy lilies and the fresh roses bloomed in abundance. He stepped into
the great lofty hall, whose walls and ceilings shone with gilding
and bright colors and heraldic devices. Gayly-dressed serving-men,
adorned with trappings like sleigh horses, walked to and fro, and some
reclined at their ease upon the carved oak seats, as if they were
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