"What do you say? figures?" replied the good man, who had an abundance of common sense: "one must paint very beautiful ones, or else let them alone. Figure painting is beyond such talent as I have been able to acquire, and whereas people think well of my garlands and arabesques, I should be very sure of making connoisseurs laugh if I should attempt to represent limping cupids or hump-backed nymphs dancing on my ceilings." "Suppose I should try!" said the child, whom nothing daunted. "Try on paper, and however successful you may be for your years, you will soon see that you must learn before you know." Michel tried. Pier-Angelo showed his son's sketches to some connoisseurs, and to some painters too, who saw that the child had much talent, and that it would be well for him not to be confined too closely to the drudgery of mixing colors. Thereupon, Pier-Angelo determined to make a painter of him, sent him to one of the best studios in Rome, and relieved him entirely from preparing colors and daubing walls. "One of two things will happen," he said to himself with good reason; "either the child will become a master, or, if he has only trifling talent, he will come back to the trade of decorating with knowledge that I do not possess, and he will be a workman of the first order in his line. In either case he will have a freer and more comfortable life than mine." Not that Pier-Angelo was dissatisfied with his lot. He was blest with that improvidence, that recklessness, one might say, which are characteristic of the most laborious and most robust men. He always relied upon destiny, perhaps because he relied most of all upon his strong arms and his courage. But as he was a very shrewd and intelligent observer, he had already detected in Michel the gleam of a spark of ambition which his other children had never had. He drew the conclusion that the measure of happiness with which he had been content would not suffice for that more delicately balanced organism. Tolerant to excess, and thoroughly convinced that every man has aptitudes which no other man can estimate accurately, he respected Michel's impulses and inclinations as manifestations of the will of Heaven, and therein was no less imprudent than generous. For that blind complaisance was certain to lead, and did in fact lead to this result--that Michelangelo became accustomed never to suffer, never to be thwarted, and to look upon his own personality as more important and more interesting than that of other people. He often mistook his caprices for desires, and his desires for rights. Moreover, he was attacked early in life by the disease peculiar to fortunate mortals, that is to say, the fear that they may not always be so fortunate; and in the midst of his progress he was often paralyzed by the fear of failing. A vague disquietude seized upon him, and as he was naturally energetic and bold, it sometimes made him sullen and irritable.