The artist contends with a temperament unusually exacting and, at times, very inconvenient. I remember having to ride my bicycle twelve miles one afternoon some years ago, to a bakery in another town from where I lived, to gratify a whim of temperament, I suppose, for some particularly delicious tea rolls that were manufactured there. I felt I could not possibly get along with the plain bread and butter I knew we had for supper. I purchased the rolls, and was tying the precious bundles to the handle-bars of my wheel when a carriage drove up in front of the bakery. It contained two rather unprepossessing women who were evidently acquainted with the baker’s wife, judging from the familiar way they called to her from the curb. The baker’s wife came out upon the doorstep, and inquired what kind of bread she should bring them. It was then, without an idea of causing the slightest shock to the sensibilities of the man they saw, with a bicycle, they replied with picturesque indifference--“Oh, any kind, just so long as it is bread to fill-up on!” Overhearing this I could not help making the necessary mental memoranda what unpromising subjects for art influences were the temperaments of these women--how little education could really do for them! how utterly impossible it would be for them to change their temperaments, and how, in all probability, they had much rather be dead than to be continually harrassed by the fastidious obligations of art! But the case I have chosen is, perhaps, extreme. There is a pleasure for most temperaments in art--a certain happiness that it contributes in a mild way. The average temperament experiences through art a sensation akin to that produced by music, and like music to the average temperament, art is by no means a necessity. It is merely the graceful accomplishment to be cultivated after the serious business of life is off the stage for the day, and we turn to playthings; whereas in the case of the artist, it is his whole existence. My mother ridiculed me about episodes like that of the rolls, but always commended my talent for drawing. Although I tried to explain, she refused to believe that my talent for drawing was only one result of the PLATE LXXXIX. [Illustration: MISS SIMPLICITY--HER HOUSE.] [Illustration: DETAIL--PRINCESSGATE.]