Depend on him
to arrive at the studio punctually, to surrender himself and sit as
still as a mouse, trying to look his best in whatever posture the
painter shall have selected as characteristic, and talking (if he have
leave to talk) with a touching humility and with a keen sense of his
privilege in being allowed to pick up a few ideas about art. To a
dentist or a hairdresser he surrenders himself without enthusiasm,
even with resentment. But in the atmosphere of a studio there is
something that entrances him. Perhaps it is the smell of turpentine
that goes to his head. Or more likely it is the idea of immortality.
Goethe was one of the handsomest men of his day, and (remember) vain,
and now in the prime of life; so that he was specially susceptible to
the notion of being immortalised. `The design is already settled, and
the canvas stretched'; and I have no doubt that in the original German
these words ring like the opening of a ballad. `The anchor's up and
the sail is spread,' as I (and you, belike) recited in childhood. The
ship in that poem foundered, if I remember rightly; so that the
analogy to Goethe's words is all the more striking.
It is in this same letter that the poet mentions those three great
points which I have already laid before you: the fallen obelisk for
him to sit on, the white mantle to drape him, and the ruined temples
for him to look at.
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