He was only seven years old, but he labored
as earnestly as if he were a man grown, his little rosy ringers
gripping that pencil which was to make him in life and death
famous as kings are not famous, and let his tender body lie in its
last sleep in the Pantheon of Rome.
He had covered hundreds of sheets with designs before he had
succeeded in getting embodied the ideas that haunted him. When he
had pleased himself at last, he set to work to transfer his
imaginations to the clay in color in the subtile luminous metallic
enamel that characterizes Urbino majolica.
Ah, how glad he was now that his father had let him draw from the
time he was two years old, and that of late Messer Benedetto had
shown him something of the mysteries of painting on biscuit and
producing the metallic lustre which was the especial glory of the
pottery of the duchy!
How glad he was, and how his little heart bounded and seemed to
sing in this his first enjoyment of the joyous liberties and
powers of creative work!
A well-known writer has said that genius is the power of taking
pains; he should have said rather that genius HAS this power also,
but that first and foremost it possesses the power of spontaneous
and exquisite production without effort and with delight.
Luca looked at him (not at his work, for the child had made him
promise not to do so) and began to marvel at his absorption, his
intentness, the evident facility with which he worked: the little
figure leaning over the great dish on the bare board of the table,
with the oval opening of the window and the blue sky beyond it,
began to grow sacred to him with more than the sanctity of
childhood.
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