From the moment in which he began to delineate this miraculous figure, a singular change seemed to have taken place in his whole nature. His imagination, like a sea put in motion by the wind, appeared to be in perpetual agitation. He was restless and uneasy when any other occupation kept him away from his picture. As his health was good, and his frame vigorous though susceptible, this state of excitement was at first rather pleasing than otherwise. He indulged himself, therefore, with those agitating visions, as they may be called, which the contemplation or recollection of his Lucifer called up before his mind. At length, however, the idea of the mighty fallen angel, whose form he had delighted to clothe with terror and sublimity, began to present itself under a new character to his mind; and instead of being a subject to be fondled, as it were, and caressed by the imagination, seemed as it approached maturity to manifest certain mysterious qualities, which, engendered terror and apprehension rather than delight. Spinello's _studio_ now began to be a place of torture to him, and he turned his eyes towards the amusements of the world, which he had hitherto shunned and scorned. He frequented the society of other young artists, with whom he often strolled into the woods, or rather groves, for which this portion of Etruria was always remarkable, sometimes traversing or descending the Val d'Arno, at others roaming about the ruins, or visiting the site of Pliny's Tuscan Villa. On returning in high spirits from one of these excursions, he learned by the letter of a friend that the object of his first love had proved unfaithful, and been united in marriage to another. This event, though it had no connexion whatever with his former cause of uneasiness, threw a new gloom over his imagination, in the midst of which the figure of Lucifer, dilating, like an image in the mists of the desert, to superhuman dimensions, stood up to scare and torment him afresh.