So in youth, like Moses from the
mountain, we have sights of that House Beautiful of art which we
shall never enter. They are dreams and unsubstantial; visions of
style that repose upon no base of human meaning; the last heart-
throbs of that excited amateur who has to die in all of us before
the artist can be born. But they come to us in such a rainbow of
glory that all subsequent achievement appears dull and earthly in
comparison. We were all artists; almost all in the age of
illusion, cultivating an imaginary genius, and walking to the
strains of some deceiving Ariel; small wonder, indeed, if we were
happy! But art, of whatever nature, is a kind mistress; and though
these dreams of youth fall by their own baselessness, others
succeed, graver and more substantial; the symptoms change, the
amiable malady endures; and still, at an equal distance, the House
Beautiful shines upon its hill-top.
V
Gretz lies out of the forest, down by the bright river. It boasts
a mill, an ancient church, a castle, and a bridge of many
sterlings. And the bridge is a piece of public property;
anonymously famous; beaming on the incurious dilettante from the
walls of a hundred exhibitions. I have seen it in the Salon; I
have seen it in the Academy; I have seen it in the last French
Exposition, excellently done by Bloomer; in a black-and-white by
Mr. A. Henley, it once adorned this essay in the pages of the
MAGAZINE OF ART.
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