This sight seemed to recall him for a moment. He paused, lifted up the picture once more, and placed it on the table. “But,” he muttered, “might not this critic be envious? am I sure that he judged rightly--fairly? The greatest masters have looked askant and jealous at their pupils’ works. And then, how slow, how cold, how damned cold, how indifferently he spoke; why, the very art should have warmed him more. Could he have--No, no, no: it was true, it was! I felt the conviction thrill through me like a searing iron. Burn it--did he say--ay--burn it: it shall be done this instant.” And, hastening to the door, he undid the bolt. He staggered back as he beheld his old and nearest surviving relative, the mother of his father, seated upon the ground beside the door, terrified by the exclamations she did not dare to interrupt. She rose slowly, and with difficulty as she saw him; and, throwing around him the withered arms which had nursed his infancy, exclaimed, “My child!--my poor--poor child! what has come to you of late? you, who were so gentle, so mild, so quiet,--you are no longer the same,--and oh, my son, how ill you look: your father looked so just before he died!” “Ill!” said he, with a sort of fearful gayety, “ill--no: I never was so well; I have been in a dream till now; but I have woke at last. Why, it is true that I have been silent and shy, but I will be so no more. I will laugh, and talk, and walk, and make love, and drink wine, and be all that other men are. Oh, we will be so merry! But stay here, while I fetch a light.” “A light, my child, for what?” “For a funeral!” shouted Warner, and, rushing past her, he descended the stairs, and returned almost in an instant with a light. Alarmed and terrified, the poor old woman had remained motionless and weeping violently. Her tears Warner did not seem to notice; he pushed her gently into the room, and began deliberately, and without uttering a syllable, to cut the picture into shreds. “What are you about, my child?” cried the old woman “you are mad; it is your beautiful picture that you are destroying!” Warner did not reply, but going to the hearth, piled together, with nice and scrupulous care, several pieces of paper, and stick, and matches, into a sort of pyre; then, placing the shreds of the picture upon it, he applied the light, and the whole was instantly in a blaze. “Look, look!” cried he, in an hysterical tone, “how it burns and crackles and blazes! What master ever equalled it now?--no fault now in those colours,--no false tints in that light and shade! See how that flame darts up and soars!--that flame is my spirit! Look--is it not restless?--does it not aspire bravely?--why, all its brother flames are grovellers to it!--and now,--why don’t you look!--it falters--fades--droops--and--ha--ha--ha! poor idler, the fuel is consumed--and--it is darkness.”