The Spanish artist, over a cup of chocolate, has lovely dreams, of burnt umber hue, and despises the neglected treasures left him by the Moors, while he seeks gold in—­castles in the air.

The German, with feet in Italy and head far away in the Fatherland, frequents the German-club in preference to the Greco; for at the club is there not lager beer?....  In imperial Rome, there are lager beer breweries!  He has the profundities of the esthetical in art at his finger-ends; it is deep-sea fishing, and he occasionally lands a whale, as Kaulbach has done; or very nearly catches a mermaid with Cornelius.  Let us respect the man—­he works.

The French artist, over a cup of black coffee, with perhaps a small glass of cognac, is the lightning to the German thunder.  If he were asked to paint the portrait of a potato, he would make eyes about it, and then give you a little picture fit to adorn a boudoir.  He does every thing with a flourish.  If he has never painted Nero performing that celebrated violin-solo over Rome, it is because he despaired of conveying an idea of the tremulous flourish of the fiddle-bow.  He reads nature, and translates her, without understanding her.  He will prove to you that the cattle of Rosa Bonheur are those of the fields, while he will object to Landseer that his beasts are those of the guinea cattle-show.  He blows up grand facts in the science of art with gunpowder, while the English dig them out with a shovel, and the Germans bore for them.  He finds Raphael, king of pastel artists, and never mentions his discovery to the English.  He is more dangerous with the fleurette than many a trooper with broadsword.  Every thing that he appropriates, he stamps with the character of his own nationality.  The English race-horse at Chantilly has an air of curl-papers about his mane and tail.

The Italian artist—­the night-season is for sleep.

The English artist—­hearken to Ruskin on Turner!  When one has hit the bull’s-eye, there is nothing left but to lay down the gun, and go and have—­a whitebait dinner.

The American artist—­there is danger of the youthful giant kicking out the end of the Cradle of Art, and ‘scatterlophisticating rampageously’ over all the nursery.

’I’d jest give a hun-dred dol-lars t’morrow, ef I could find out a way to cut stat-tures by steam,’ said Chapin, the sculptor.

’I can’t see why a country with great rivers, great mountains, and great institutions generally, can not produce great sculptors and painters,’ said Caper sharply, one day to Rocjean.

‘It is this very greatness,’ answered Rocjean, ’that prevents it.  The aim of the people runs not in the narrow channel of mountain-stream, but with the broad tide of the ocean.  In the hands of Providence, other lands in other times have taken up painting and sculpture with their whole might, and have wielded them to advance civilization.  They have played—­are playing their part, these civilizers; but they are no longer chief actors, least of all in America.  Painting and sculpture may take the character of subjects there; but their role as king is—­played out.’