"Frenhofer is passionately devoted to our art, and he looks higher and farther ahead than other painters. He has given much profound thought to the subject of colouring and to the absolute accuracy of lines; but he has studied so much that he has reached the point where he is uncertain of the very object of his studies. In his moments of despair he declares that drawing does not exist and that only geometrical figures can be made with lines; which is going beyond the truth, for with lines and with black, which is not a colour, a human figure maybe drawn; which proves that our art, like nature, is made up of an infinite number of elements: drawing furnishes a skeleton, colour gives life; but life without the skeleton is much less complete than the skeleton without life. In short, there is one thing which is more true than any of these, and that is that practice and observation are everything with a painter, and that, if reason and poetic sense quarrel with the brush, we arrive at doubt, like our excellent friend here, who is as much madman as painter. A sublime artist, he was unfortunate enough to be born rich, which permitted him to go astray; do not imitate him! Work! Painters ought not to meditate, except with brush in hand." "We will find our way there!" cried Poussin, no longer listening to Porbus, and undeterred by doubts. Porbus smiled at the young stranger's enthusiasm, and, when they parted, invited him to come to see him. Nicolas Poussin walked slowly back to Rue de la Harpe, and passed, unperceiving, the modest house in which he lodged. Ascending his wretched staircase with anxious haste, he reached a room high up beneath a roof supported by pillars, a simple and airy style of architecture found in the houses of old Paris. Beside the single, dark window of that room sat a girl, who, when she heard the door, sprang at once to her feet with a loving impulse; she recognised the painter by the way he raised the latch. "What's the matter?" she asked. "The matter--the matter----" he cried, choking with joy; "the matter is that I have come to feel that I am a painter. I have always doubted myself before, but this morning I believe in myself! I tell you, Gillette, we shall be rich, happy! There is gold in these brushes."