‘Often had I painted that face in the other life,--sometimes with awe and love, sometimes with scorn: for hire and for bread, and for pride and for fame. It is pale with suffering, yet smiles; the eyes have tears in them, yet light below, and all that is there is full of tenderness and of love. There is a crown upon the brow, but it is made of thorns. It came before me suddenly, while I stood there, with the men shouting close to my ear urging me on, and fierce fury in my heart, and the rage to be first, and to forget. Where my models were, there it came. I could not see them, nor my groups that I had planned, nor anything but that Face. I called out to my men, “Who has done this?” but they heard me not, nor understood me, for to them there was nothing there save the figures I had set--a living picture all ready for the painter’s hand. ‘I could not bear it, the sight of that face. I flung my tools away. I covered my eyes with my hands. But those who were about me pressed on me and threatened. They pulled my hands from my eyes. “Coward!” they cried, and “Traitor, to leave us in the lurch. Now will the other side win and we be shamed. Rather tear him limb from limb, fling him from the walls!” The crowd came round me like an angry sea; they forced my pencils back into my hands. “Work,” they cried, “or we will tear you limb from limb.” For though they were upon my side, it was for rivalry, and not out of any love for me.’ He paused for a moment, for his heart was yet full of the remembrance, and of joy that it was past. ‘I looked again,’ he said, ‘and still it was there. O Face divine--the eyes all wet with pity, the lips all quivering with love! And neither pity nor love belonged to that place, nor any succour, nor the touch of a brother, nor the voice of a friend. “Paint,” they cried, “or we will tear you limb from limb!”--and fire came into my heart. I pushed them from me on every side with the strength of a giant. And then I flung it on the canvas, crying I know not what--not to them but to Him. Shrink not from me, little sister, for I blasphemed. I called Him Impostor, Deceiver, Galilean; and still with all my might, with all the fury of my soul, I set Him there for every man to see, not knowing what I did. Everything faded from me but that Face--I saw it alone. The crowd came round me with shouts and threats to drag me away, but I took no heed; they were silenced, and fled and left me alone, but I knew nothing; nor when they came back with others and seized me, and flung me forth from the gates, was I aware what I had done. They cast me out and left me upon the wild without a shelter, without a companion, storming and raving at them as they did at me. They dashed the great gates behind me with a clang, and shut me out. And I turned and defied them, and cursed them as they cursed me, not knowing what I had done.’