need some explanation even of the meaning you give. Do you intend
Tamburlaine to represent earthquakes and volcanoes?«
    »O yes,« said Will, laughing, »and migrations of races and clearings of
forests - and America and the steam-engine. Everything you can imagine!«
    »What a difficult kind of shorthand!« said Dorothea, smiling towards her
husband. »It would require all your knowledge to be able to read it.«
    Mr. Casaubon blinked furtively at Will. He had a suspicion that he was being
laughed at. But it was not possible to include Dorothea in the suspicion.
    They found Naumann painting industriously, but no model was present; his
pictures were advantageously arranged, and his own plain vivacious person set
off by a dove-coloured blouse and a maroon velvet cap, so that everything was as
fortunate as if he had expected the beautiful young English lady exactly at that
time.
    The painter in his confident English gave little dissertations on his
finished and unfinished subjects, seeming to observe Mr. Casaubon as much as he
did Dorothea. Will burst in here and there with ardent words of praise, marking
out particular merits in his friend's work; and Dorothea felt that she was
getting quite new notions as to the significance of Madonnas seated under
inexplicable canopied thrones with the simple country as a background, and of
saints with architectural models in their hands, or knives accidentally wedged
in their skulls. Some things which had seemed monstrous to her were gathering
intelligibility and even a natural meaning; but all this was apparently a branch
of knowledge in which Mr. Casaubon had not interested himself.
    »I think I would rather feel that painting is beautiful than have to read it
as an enigma; but I should learn to understand these pictures sooner than yours
with the very wide meaning,« said Dorothea, speaking to Will.
    »Don't speak of my painting before Naumann,« said Will. »He will tell you,
it is all pfuscherei, which is his most opprobrious word!«
    »Is that true?« said Dorothea, turning her sincere eyes on Naumann, who made
a slight grimace and said,
    »O, he does not mean it seriously with painting. His walk must be
belles-lettres. That is wi-ide.«
    Naumann's pronunciation of the vowel seemed to stretch the word satirically.
Will did not half like it, but managed to laugh; and Mr. Casaubon, while he felt
some disgust at the artist's German accent, began to entertain a little respect
for his judicious severity.
    The respect was