- In the morning grave, dignified and sweet, * at noon laughing, capricious, * at evening whatever one least expected. I preferred her so rather than in that Madonna-like tranquillity which stirred the depths of my heart. I was dreaming of Geneviève when
“What do you think of my discovery, Alec?”
“I think it wonderful.”
“I shall make no use of it, you know, beyond satisfying my own curiosity so far as may be, and the secret will die with me.”
“It would be rather a blow to sculpture, would it not? We painters lose more than we ever gain by photography.”
Boris nodded, playing with the edge of the chisel.
“This new vicious discovery would corrupt the world of art. No, I shall never confide the secret to anyone,” he said slowly.
It would be hard to find anyone less informed about such phenomena than myself; but of course I had heard of mineral springs so saturated with silica that the leaves and twigs which fell into them were turned to stone after a time. I dimly comprehended the process, how the silica replaced the vegetable matter, atom by atom, and the result was a duplicate of the object in stone. This, I confess, had never interested me greatly, and as for the ancient fossils thus produced, they disgusted me.