I listened with a sort of dreamy satisfaction; the visual sensation of utter rest that I always experienced in this man's presence was upon me, and I watched him with interest as he drew with quick and facile touch the outline of my features on his canvas.
Gradually he became more and more absorbed in his work; he glanced at me from time to time, but did not speak, and his pencil worked rapidly.
I turned over the "Letters of a Dead Musician" with some curiosity.
Several passages struck me as being remarkable for their originality and depth of thought; but what particularly impressed me as I read on, was the tone of absolute joy and contentment that seemed to light up every page.

There were no wailings over disappointed ambition, no regrets for the past, no complaints, no criticism, no word for or against the brothers of his art; everything was treated from a lofty standpoint of splendid equality, save when the writer spoke of himself, and then he became the humblest of the humble, yet never abject, and always happy.
"O Music!" he wrote, "Music, thou Sweetest Spirit of all that serve God, what have I done that thou shouldst so often visit me?
It is not well, O thou Lofty and Divine One, that thou shouldst stoop so low as to console him who is the unworthiest of all thy servants.

For I am too feeble to tell the world how soft is the sound of thy rustling pinions, how tender is the sighing breath of thy lips, how beyond all things glorious is the vibration of thy lightest whisper! Remain aloft, thou Choicest Essence of the Creator's Voice, remain in that pure and cloudless ether, where alone thou art fitted to dwell.

My touch must desecrate thee, my voice affright thee.

Suffice it to thy servant, O Beloved, to dream of thee and die!" Meeting Cellini's glance as I finished reading these lines, I asked: "Did you know the author of this book, signor ?" "I knew him well," he replied; "he was one of the gentlest souls that ever dwelt in human clay.