“In the next studio we visited, the Moth had met with an accident; he had singed his wings by venturing too near his light (candle-light). For all that, we found him a most enthusiastic limner, who discoursed like a lunatic on the subtle fire of genius. His speciality was portrait-painting, about which he had his own notions. “ ‘It is necessary,’ he said, ‘in order to idealise the subject, to carefully study the habits of plant life, and impart something of its grace and tenderness to the outlines of the insect who is sitting for a portrait. It is wonderful to observe the effect produced by peculiar habits of life, and most necessary for the artist to note their influences in the treatment of a subject. One requires to make one’s self master of the life and thoughts of the sitter, so as to give a poetic rendering {119} to his idiosyncrasy. Thus the low-life vulgar habits of a patron which impress their stamp on his physiognomy must be studiously concealed beneath a virtuous mask of paint and outline. In this way we depict what the insect under happier influences might have been, in place of what he really is.’ [Illustration] “ ‘In other words,’ I said, ‘you portray your client as the insect {120} God made him before he himself wrecked the fair image by giving himself up to the works of the devil. In this way I suppose you serve God and Mammon at the same time. After all, truth is truth, whether on canvas or in conversation, and it seems to me that you prostitute your sublime art by handing down painted lies to posterity.’ We had to leave this studio, as the new light I had thrown on this moth’s studies singed his wings afresh. “My Mentor next led me to a brilliant group of the _Coccus cacti_, or cochineal insects, from the forests of the ‘Far East,’ who were awkwardly colouring dead leaves. “ ‘Strangers,’ said one of them, ‘there has been only one great epoch for the fine arts.’ “I was about to suggest that there had been four great epochs, and to concede that one of the four had perhaps been the greatest of all. “ ‘The ancients!’ “ ‘That will do,’ said one of the painters. ‘The ancients were children, chrysalides groping in darkness.’ “ ‘Perhaps you deem the Augustine epoch the greatest?’ “ ‘The age of Augustus! What of that? We know nothing about it.’ “ ‘Perhaps, then, the period of the Renaissance?’ “ ‘The Renaissance! A period of beggarly decadence!’ “ ‘Ah, then, to revive signifies to decline.’ “ ‘Decidedly; so far as the Renaissance goes.’ “ ‘The only period remaining is the seventeenth century.’ My voice was here stifled by groans.