I Told Him My Story And My Situation, Concealing Only My Name And Rank.
He Appeared Strongly Interested By My Recital; Invited Me To His House,
And From That Time I Became His Favorite Pupil.
He thought he perceived
in me extraordinary talents for the art, and his encomiums awakened all
my ardor.
What a blissful period of my existence was it that I passed
beneath his roof. Another being seemed created within me, or rather,
all that was amiable and excellent was drawn out. I was as recluse as
ever I had been at the convent, but how different was my seclusion. My
time was spent in storing my mind with lofty and poetical ideas; in
meditating on all that was striking and noble in history or fiction; in
studying and tracing all that was sublime and beautiful in nature. I
was always a visionary, imaginative being, but now my reveries and
imaginings all elevated me to rapture.
I looked up to my master as to a benevolent genius that had opened to
me a region of enchantment. I became devotedly attached to him. He was
not a native of Genoa, but had been drawn thither by the solicitation
of several of the nobility, and had resided there but a few years, for
the completion of certain works he had undertaken. His health was
delicate, and he had to confide much of the filling up of his designs
to the pencils of his scholars. He considered me as particularly happy
in delineating the human countenance; in seizing upon characteristic,
though fleeting expressions and fixing them powerfully upon my canvas.
I was employed continually, therefore, in sketching faces, and often
when some particular grace or beauty or expression was wanted in a
countenance, it was entrusted to my pencil.
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