that the eye could at once see the required shade in the scale of
tints. Thus the aristocratic artist saved time. A pretty little
cabinet with a hundred tiny drawers, of ebony inlaid with ivory,
contained the little steel moulds in which she shaped the leaves and
some forms of petals. A fine Japanese bowl held the paste, which was
never allowed to turn sour, and it had a fitted cover with a hinge so
easy that she could lift it with a finger-tip. The wire, of iron and
brass, lurked in a little drawer of the table before her.

"Under her eyes, in a Venetian glass, shaped like a flower-cup on its
stem, was the living model she strove to imitate. She had a passion
for achievement; she attempted the most difficult things, close
racemes, the tiniest corollas, heaths, nectaries of the most
variegated hues. Her hands, as swift as her thoughts, went from the
table to the flower she was making, as those of an accomplished
pianist fly over the keys. Her fingers seemed to be fairies, to use
Perrault's expression, so infinite were the different actions of
twisting, fitting, and pressure needed for the work, all hidden under
grace of movement, while she adapted each motion to the result with
the lucidity of instinct.

"I could not tire of admiring her as she shaped a flower from the
materials sorted before her, padding the wire stem and adjusting the
leaves. She displayed the genius of a painter in her bold attempts;
she copied faded flowers and yellowing leaves; she struggled even with
wildflowers, the most artless of all, and the most elaborate in their
simplicity.

"'This art,' she would say, 'is in its infancy. If the women of Paris
had a little of the genius which the slavery of the harem brings out