"You too then paint subjects of this pathetic kind?" asked the stranger, casting across at the young man a somewhat oblique glance from beneath half-closed eyelids. "I can never overcome my surprise that men in their best and most cheerful years can waste their time and imagination on such subjects. We have I should think Holy Families enough in our galleries, it is a field in which there is no room for a new invention; and those corpses and distortions of agony are so wholly repugnant to all grace and enjoyment of sense, that I can never help turning my eyes away from them. It is the business of the arts to heighten and cheer our existence, to make all its wants and all the wretchedness of the world vanish at their approach, and not to vex and rack our fancy with their productions. The sensible world ought to play in a fresh cheerful light, and with its gentle attraction soothe, and in that way elevate us. Beauty is joy, life, vigour. The man who seeks night and gloomy feelings has acquired yet small knowledge of himself. But you perhaps are one of those who, at the sight of pictures of this sort, force their religious faith into raptures, and require a species of devotion to be kindled in us, that we may understand the subject and appreciate it with christian feelings?" "And would that then," cried Dietrich with a degree of haste and vehemence, "be a thing so unheard-of, or even singular? In the beautiful, when in its appearance the idea is realized, the attraction of the sensible world assumes a higher, a divine character, and thus the awe and pity which in uninspired souls want a voice and an interpreter, are exalted by the mediation of art into heavenly devotion. It is to be sure absurd, though excusable, when a wretched picture enraptures the believing spectator, merely on account of its pious subject; but it is to me perfectly inconceivable how a feeling heart at the sight of the Maria di Papa Sesto at Dresden can resist an impression of faith and devotion. I am well aware that the recent efforts of modern artists, among whom I own myself enlisted, have given great offence to many excellent people, but it is time to let passion subside, and to admit that the old track is quite broken up and become impassable. What in fact was the object of those who first revived the modern doctrine but to rekindle the feelings, which had long been considered as quite superfluous in all productions of art? And has not this new school already produced much that is respectable? A spirit, it cannot be denied, is manifesting itself, which will strengthen and improve. A new road has been discovered, which will, it is true, as is the case in every period of enthusiasm, be trodden by many uncalled aspirants, whose productions will be exaggerated, offensive, and in every respect censurable. But is then the bad of this age worse than the creations which some time ago raised Casanova to celebrity? or the