"What is your opinion of a tolerable egg?" he asked.


The amateur artist was painting sunset, red with blue streaks and green
dots.

The old rustic, at a respectful distance, was watching.

"Ah," said the artist looking up suddenly, "perhaps to you, too, Nature
has opened her sky picture page by page! Have you seen the lambent flame
of dawn leaping across the livid east; the red-stained, sulphurous
islets floating in the lake of fire in the west; the ragged clouds at
midnight, black as a raven's wing, blotting out the shuddering moon?"

"No," replied the rustic, "not since I give up drink."


Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life.--_Jean Paul Richter_.


Now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature; they being
both the servants of His providence. Art is the perfection of nature.
Were the world now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a chaos.
Nature hath made one world, and art another. In brief, all things are
artificial; for nature is the art of God.--_Sir Thomas Browne_.




ARTISTS