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166ARIADNE.blocks of poor pale stone, till she could bidthem arise and speak.Sometimes the artist'screation is spontaneous,electric, full of sudden and eager joys, like thebirthof love itself: sometimes itisaccomplishedonly withsoretravail,and manypangs and sleeplessnights,Idee the birth of children. Whetherthe offspring of joy or of pain be tlie holiest andthe strongest, who shall say? — is our ladyof SanSisto or the Delphic Sibyl worth the most ?All this timeInever saw the one whosepleasure it had been to teach her the gladnessof laborious clays, and all the secrets of the artsthat say to the wood and the stone, " tell menthe vision wehave had of heaven." He did notsummonme, andIdid not dare to seek him.Isaw the old mother, who grew quite blind,and who struck herstaff at theemptyair,and saidtome: "So wouldIstrike the girl wereshe here;was she blind like me " that she could not see agreatlife at her feet?One night Giulio, the foreman, said to me," the master has beenill; we were very afraid."It seemed that the fever of oui' city, which had