Cellini began to speak in low and quiet tones as follows: "You must be aware, mademoiselle, that those who adopt any art as a means of livelihood begin the world heavily handicapped--weighted down, as it were, in the race for fortune.

The following of art is a very different thing to the following of trade or mercantile business.

In buying or selling, in undertaking the work of import or export, a good head for figures, and an average quantity of shrewd common sense, are all that is necessary in order to win a fair share of success.

But in the finer occupations, whose results are found in sculpture, painting, music and poetry, demands are made upon the imagination, the emotions, the entire spiritual susceptibility of man.

The most delicate fibres of the brain are taxed; the subtle inner workings of thought are brought into active play; and the temperament becomes daily and hourly more finely strung, more sensitive, more keenly alive to every passing sensation.