"My own immortal works!" cried the painter, threatening Jansen with his finger. "I know who is behind all this. I know the sly cabals of my much-esteemed friends, who seize every opportunity to parade my unproductiveness before my eyes. I know that they mean no harm, and give me credit for some talent; I ought to be ashamed of myself for not sharing this good opinion and at last rousing myself to action. But it all glances aside from the armor of my own self-knowledge. I don't deny that I have all sorts of good qualifications for an artist, sense and brains and some insight into the true aims of art. Unfortunately, there is only one little thing lacking--the disposition to really produce something. I should have been just the man to have been born a Raphael without hands, and would have borne this fate with the greatest complacency. But won't you light a cigar, or do you prefer a chibouque? By the way, a little refreshment wouldn't be out of place, considering this tropical temperature."
Without waiting for an answer, he rang a beautifully chased silver bell.
A young servant-girl, of pretty figure and graceful manner, entered; the painter whispered a word in her ear, whereupon the girl disappeared and returned, five minutes after, with a silver waiter, on which stood a wicker-work bottle and some glasses.
"I brought this wine myself from Samos," said Rossel; "You must at least taste it and drink to our good friendship!"
"Then let me immediately sin against that friendship and ask a somewhat indiscreet question: how is it possible for you to bury, like a dead treasure, a talent which you yourself admit you have?"
"My dear fellow," replied the artist, coolly, "the matter is much simpler than you suppose. My object is, like that of all men--let them prate as much as they like about duty, virtue, or self-sacrifice--to be as happy as possible. But happiness consists, as I believe, in nothing else than in creating for one's self a certain state, a manner of life or pursuit, in which one finds himself at the height of his individuality, in the full enjoyment of his peculiar powers and gifts. Therefore, every man has a happiness of his own; and nothing can be more foolish than for one person to object to another's way of enjoying himself, or to persuade or advise others to exchange their way for his. The more any one makes himself feel, by his manner of life, that he is a particular individual, the more Nature has attained her end in making him, and the more contented he can be with himself and his situation. All unhappiness arises from the fact that men try to do things for which they are not fitted. If you give a million to a man born with a genius for begging, you will make him an unhappy millionaire. He can no longer exercise his talent. A virtuoso in suffering, a Stylites, or a sister of charity, for whom you should suddenly provide a healthy and comfortable life, would at once lose all individuality and so all happiness. For it is undeniable that there are men who are only conscious of their individuality when they are torturing themselves, in the coarser or finer sense of the expression. To such, a state of repose is an abasement, and to this class belong all truly productive artists. To work, to produce something which shall afterward stand as a monument of their power, appears to them the highest happiness; and this happiness ought to be accorded to them all the more readily, from the fact that most of them cannot live without it. Only they ought to be just enough to look at the matter also from the opposite point of view, where an individual only feels conscious of his powers and gifts when in the free enjoyment of an apparently fruitless repose. When I lie on my back and make pictures in the smoke of my cigar, or gaze upon the works which great creative beings have produced in times gone by, am I not, in my way, putting to good use that buried treasure within me in which you were so good as to believe? and making of this individual, whom his friends accuse of culpable laziness, the very thing for which he was really fitted and intended--a perfectly harmonious and happy man? Once in a while, indeed, the vulgar prejudice seizes even me, and I suddenly grow tremendously active. But after the paroxysm has lasted a week, at the longest, I suddenly see the folly of the proceeding and throw the unfinished daub into some dark closet, among other embryos of immortal works. Ah! my dear friend, there is so much struggling, and pushing, and producing going on, that a quiet, inoffensive art-lover of my disposition might well be tolerated as a salutary antidote to this epidemic of activity."