"But when you consider the matter more carefully, you will find it has its good side. What is it that is so absolutely lacking in all modern art, and the absence of which is the source of all other defects? Simply this: it no longer respects the _silhouette_! In landscape and _genre_, historical and portrait painting, yes, even in sculpture, you find everywhere a lot of pretty little tricks of execution; delicate shades, tones, and touches; a devilish careful, nervous, and, on the whole, attractive piece of work, but in it all not a single great feature; no strong decoration, no solid construction, the very shadow of which suggests something. Give me a pair of shears and a quire of black paper, and I will cut you out the whole history of art up to the nineteenth century; the Sistine Madonna and Claude Lorraine as well as Teniers and Ruysdael; Phidias and Michael Angelo as well as Bernini; so that every one of them shall make a good showing, the _rococo_ period included, which, after all, had something sounder at bottom than our boasted present. Take away from the latter its finical, over-refined tricks of color, and what is left? An incredible poverty of form, a little brilliancy or aspiring 'idealism,' and the bare canvas. The same thing might, it seems to me, be justly applied to our literature, and from that to all the other manifestations of our boasted civilization. But I, on the contrary, have from the very first devoted my attention to the essential part, the primary form, and the really determining outlines; and as these, unfortunately, only come out strongly in our sins and weaknesses, I have become a _silhouette_ cutter--an art that not only earns no bread, but even takes out of one's mouth the bread he might otherwise have gained. Naturally, mankind will never forgive one who shows it its dark side, and points out its excrescences and deformities and defects; for each individual thinks he is just the one all of whose sides the sun should especially light up." It was fortunate for Felix, in his absent-minded state, that Schnetz was one of those men who, when they once begin upon the great theme of their life, upon their mission or their one idea, take no offense when their hearer leaves them to run on alone, but play upon their single whim in inexhaustible variations. When, after half an hour or so, Felix interrupted Schnetz with the laughing remark that his teacher would scold him if he came to work too late, he found that he himself had not spoken a dozen words; and yet the lieutenant took leave of him with the remark that he rejoiced to have discovered in him a congenial spirit, and hoped the four flights of stairs would not be so high as to keep him from their acquaintance later over a glass of beer and a tolerable cigar. CHAPTER VII.