"Imagination and the love of art have both died out of me." "Miriam," interposed Donatello with gentle gravity, "why should we keep our friend in suspense?
We know what anxiety he feels.

Let us give him what intelligence we can." "You are so direct and immediate, my beloved friend!" answered Miriam with an unquiet smile.

"There are several reasons why I should like to play round this matter a little while, and cover it with fanciful thoughts, as we strew a grave with flowers." "A grave!" exclaimed the sculptor.
"No grave in which your heart need be buried," she replied; "you have no such calamity to dread.

But I linger and hesitate, because every word I speak brings me nearer to a crisis from which I shrink.

Ah, Donatello! let us live a little longer the life of these last few days! It is so bright, so airy, so childlike, so without either past or future! Here, on the wild Campagna, you seem to have found, both for yourself and me, the life that belonged to you in early youth; the sweet irresponsible life which you inherited from your mythic ancestry, the Fauns of Monte Beni.