"
"No, I don't know him; I don't find him so easy to know. Since he has
finished my bust and begun to come here disinterestedly, he has become a
great talker. He says very fine things; but does he mean all he says?"
"Few of us do that."
"You do, I imagine. You ought to know, for he tells me you discovered
him." Rowland was silent, and Christina continued, "Do you consider him
very clever?"
"Unquestionably."
"His talent is really something out of the common way?"
"So it seems to me."
"In short, he 's a man of genius?"
"Yes, call it genius."
"And you found him vegetating in a little village and took him by the
hand and set him on his feet in Rome?"
"Is that the popular legend?" asked Rowland.
"Oh, you need n't be modest. There was no great merit in it; there
would have been none at least on my part in the same circumstances.
Real geniuses are not so common, and if I had discovered one in the
wilderness, I would have brought him out into the market-place to see
how he would behave. It would be excessively amusing. You must find it
so to watch Mr. Hudson, eh? Tell me this: do you think he is going to be
a great man--become famous, have his life written, and all that?"
"I don't prophesy, but I have good hopes.
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