One sunshiny morning, in the good old times of the town of Boston, a
young carver in wood, well known by the name of Drowne, stood
contemplating a large oaken log, which it was his purpose to convert
into the figure-head of a vessel. And while he discussed within his own
mind what sort of shape or similitude it were well to bestow upon this
excellent piece of timber, there came into Drowne’s workshop a certain
Captain Hunnewell, owner and commander of the good brig called the
Cynosure, which had just returned from her first voyage to Fayal.
“Ah! that will do, Drowne, that will do!” cried the jolly captain,
tapping the log with his rattan. “I bespeak this very piece of oak for
the figure-head of the Cynosure. She has shown herself the sweetest
craft that ever floated, and I mean to decorate her prow with the
handsomest image that the skill of man can cut out of timber. And,
Drowne, you are the fellow to execute it.”
“You give me more credit than I deserve, Captain Hunnewell,” said the
carver, modestly, yet as one conscious of eminence in his art. “But,
for the sake of the good brig, I stand ready to do my best. And which
of these designs do you prefer? Here,”—pointing to a staring,
half-length figure, in a white wig and scarlet coat,—“here is an
excellent model, the likeness of our gracious king. Here is the valiant
Admiral Vernon. Or, if you prefer a female figure, what say you to
Britannia with the trident?”
“All very fine, Drowne; all very fine,” answered the mariner. “But as
nothing like the brig ever swam the ocean, so I am determined she shall
have such a figure-head as old Neptune never saw in his life. And what
is more, as there is a secret in the matter, you must pledge your
credit not to betray it.”
“Certainly,” said Drowne, marvelling, however, what possible mystery
there could be in reference to an affair so open, of necessity, to the
inspection of all the world as the figure-head of a vessel. “You may
depend, captain, on my being as secret as the nature of the case will
permit.”
Captain Hunnewell then took Drowne by the button, and communicated his
wishes in so low a tone that it would be unmannerly to repeat what was
evidently intended for the carver’s private ear. We shall, therefore,
take the opportunity to give the reader a few desirable particulars
about Drowne himself.
He was the first American who is known to have attempted—in a very
humble line, it is true—that art in which we can now reckon so many
names already distinguished, or rising to distinction. From his
earliest boyhood he had exhibited a knack—for it would be too proud a
word to call it genius—a knack, therefore, for the imitation of the
human figure in whatever material came most readily to hand. The snows
of a New England winter had often supplied him with a species of marble
as dazzingly white, at least, as the Parian or the Carrara, and if less
durable, yet sufficiently so to correspond with any claims to permanent
existence possessed by the boy’s frozen statues. Yet they won
admiration from maturer judges than his school-fellows, and were
indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth that
might have made the snow melt beneath his hand. As he advanced in life,
the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible materials for the
display of his skill, which now began to bring him a return of solid
silver as well as the empty praise that had been an apt reward enough
for his productions of evanescent snow. He became noted for carving
ornamental pump heads, and wooden urns for gate posts, and decorations,
more grotesque than fanciful, for mantelpieces. No apothecary would
have deemed himself in the way of obtaining custom without setting up a
gilded mortar, if not a head of Galen or Hippocrates, from the skilful
hand of Drowne.
But the great scope of his business lay in the manufacture of
figure-heads for vessels. Whether it were the monarch himself, or some
famous British admiral or general, or the governor of the province, or
perchance the favorite daughter of the ship-owner, there the image
stood above the prow, decked out in gorgeous colors, magnificently
gilded, and staring the whole world out of countenance, as if from an
innate consciousness of its own superiority. These specimens of native
sculpture had crossed the sea in all directions, and been not ignobly
noticed among the crowded shipping of the Thames and wherever else the
hardy mariners of New England had pushed their adventures. It must be
confessed that a family likeness pervaded these respectable progeny of
Drowne’s skill; that the benign countenance of the king resembled those
of his subjects, and that Miss Peggy Hobart, the merchant’s daughter,
bore a remarkable similitude to Britannia, Victory, and other ladies of
the allegoric sisterhood; and, finally, that they all had a kind of
wooden aspect which proved an intimate relationship with the unshaped
blocks of timber in the carver’s workshop. But at least there was no
inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any attribute to
render them really works of art, except that deep quality, be it of
soul or intellect, which bestows life upon the lifeless and warmth upon
the cold, and which, had it been present, would have made Drowne’s
wooden image instinct with spirit.
The captain of the Cynosure had now finished his instructions.
“And Drowne,” said he, impressively, “you must lay aside all other
business and set about this forthwith. And as to the price, only do the
job in first-rate style, and you shall settle that point yourself.”
“Very well, captain,” answered the carver, who looked grave and
somewhat perplexed, yet had a sort of smile upon his visage; “depend
upon it, I’ll do my utmost to satisfy you.”
From that moment the men of taste about Long Wharf and the Town Dock
who were wont to show their love for the arts by frequent visits to
Drowne’s workshop, and admiration of his wooden images, began to be
sensible of a mystery in the carver’s conduct. Often he was absent in
the daytime. Sometimes, as might be judged by gleams of light from the
shop windows, he was at work until a late hour of the evening; although
neither knock nor voice, on such occasions, could gain admittance for a
visitor, or elicit any word of response. Nothing remarkable, however,
was observed in the shop at those late hours when it was thrown open. A
fine piece of timber, indeed, which Drowne was known to have reserved
for some work of especial dignity, was seen to be gradually assuming
shape. What shape it was destined ultimately to take was a problem to
his friends and a point on which the carver himself preserved a rigid
silence. But day after day, though Drowne was seldom noticed in the act
of working upon it, this rude form began to be developed until it
became evident to all observers that a female figure was growing into
mimic life. At each new visit they beheld a larger pile of wooden chips
and a nearer approximation to something beautiful. It seemed as if the
hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself from the unimaginative world
within the heart of her native tree, and that it was only necessary to
remove the strange shapelessness that had incrusted her, and reveal the
grace and loveliness of a divinity. Imperfect as the design, the
attitude, the costume, and especially the face of the image still
remained, there was already an effect that drew the eye from the wooden
cleverness of Drowne’s earlier productions and fixed it upon the
tantalizing mystery of this new project.
Copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man and a resident of
Boston, came one day to visit Drowne; for he had recognized so much of
moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, in the dearth of
professional sympathy, to cultivate his acquaintance. On entering the
shop, the artist glanced at the inflexible image of king, commander,
dame, and allegory, that stood around, on the best of which might have
been bestowed the questionable praise that it looked as if a living man
had here been changed to wood, and that not only the physical, but the
intellectual and spiritual part, partook of the stolid transformation.
But in not a single instance did it seem as if the wood were imbibing
the ethereal essence of humanity. What a wide distinction is here! and
how far the slightest portion of the latter merit have outvalued the
utmost degree of the former!
“My friend Drowne;” said Copley, smiling to himself, but alluding to
the mechanical and wooden cleverness that so invariably distinguished
the images, “you are really a remarkable person! I have seldom met with
a man in your line of business that could do so much; for one other
touch might make this figure of General Wolfe, for instance, a
breathing and intelligent human creature.”
“You would have me think that you are praising me highly, Mr. Copley,”
answered Drowne, turning his back upon Wolfe’s image in apparent
disgust. “But there has come a light into my mind. I know what you know
as well, that the one touch which you speak of as deficient is the only
one that would be truly valuable, and that without it these works of
mine are no better than worthless abortions. There is the same
difference between them and the works of an inspired artist as between
a sign-post daub and one of your best pictures.”
“This is strange,” cried Copley, looking him in the face, which now, as
the painter fancied, had a singular depth of intelligence, though
hitherto it had not given him greatly the advantage over his own family
of wooden images. “What has come over you? How is it that, possessing
the idea which you have now uttered, you should produce only such works
as these?”
The carver smiled, but made no reply. Copley turned again to the
images, conceiving that the sense of deficiency which Drowne had just
expressed, and which is so rare in a merely mechanical character, must
surely imply a genius, the tokens of which had heretofore been
overlooked. But no; there was not a trace of it. He was about to
withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a half-developed figure
which lay in a corner of the workshop, surrounded by scattered chips of
oak. It arrested him at once.
“What is here? Who has done this?” he broke out, after contemplating it
in speechless astonishment for an instant. “Here is the divine, the
lifegiving touch. What inspired hand is beckoning this wood to arise
and live? Whose work is this?”
“No man’s work,” replied Drowne. “The figure lies within that block of
oak, and it is my business to find it.”
“Drowne,” said the true artist, grasping the carver fervently by the
hand, “you are a man of genius!”
As Copley departed, happening to glance backward from the threshold, he
beheld Drowne bending over the half-created shape, and stretching forth
his arms as if he would have embraced and drawn it to his heart; while,
had such a miracle been possible, his countenance expressed passion
enough to communicate warmth and sensibility to the lifeless oak.
“Strange enough!” said the artist to himself. “Who would have looked
for a modern Pygmalion in the person of a Yankee mechanic!”
As yet, the image was but vague in its outward presentment; so that, as
in the cloud shapes around the western sun, the observer rather felt,
or was led to imagine, than really saw what was intended by it. Day by
day, however, the work assumed greater precision, and settled its
irregular and misty outline into distincter grace and beauty. The
general design was now obvious to the common eye. It was a female
figure, in what appeared to be a foreign dress; the gown being laced
over the bosom, and opening in front so as to disclose a skirt or
petticoat, the folds and inequalities of which were admirably
represented in the oaken substance. She wore a hat of singular
gracefulness, and abundantly laden with flowers, such as never grew in
the rude soil of New England, but which, with all their fanciful
luxuriance, had a natural truth that it seemed impossible for the most
fertile imagination to have attained without copying from real
prototypes. There were several little appendages to this dress, such as
a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain about the neck, a watch in the
bosom, and a ring upon the finger, all of which would have been deemed
beneath the dignity of sculpture. They were put on, however, with as
much taste as a lovely woman might have shown in her attire, and could
therefore have shocked none but a judgment spoiled by artistic rules.
The face was still imperfect; but gradually, by a magic touch,
intelligence and sensibility brightened through the features, with all
the effect of light gleaming forth from within the solid oak. The face
became alive. It was a beautiful, though not precisely regular and
somewhat haughty aspect, but with a certain piquancy about the eyes and
mouth, which, of all expressions, would have seemed the most impossible
to throw over a wooden countenance. And now, so far as carving went,
this wonderful production was complete.
“Drowne,” said Copley, who had hardly missed a single day in his visits
to the carver’s workshop, “if this work were in marble it would make
you famous at once; nay, I would almost affirm that it would make an
era in the art. It is as ideal as an antique statue, and yet as real as
any lovely woman whom one meets at a fireside or in the street. But I
trust you do not mean to desecrate this exquisite creature with paint,
like those staring kings and admirals yonder?”
“Not paint her!” exclaimed Captain Hunnewell, who stood by; “not paint
the figure-head of the Cynosure! And what sort of a figure should I cut
in a foreign port with such an unpainted oaken stick as this over my
prow! She must, and she shall, be painted to the life, from the topmost
flower in her hat down to the silver spangles on her slippers.”
“Mr. Copley,” said Drowne, quietly, “I know nothing of marble statuary,
and nothing of the sculptor’s rules of art; but of this wooden image,
this work of my hands, this creature of my heart,”—and here his voice
faltered and choked in a very singular manner,—“of this—of her—I may
say that I know something. A well-spring of inward wisdom gushed within
me as I wrought upon the oak with my whole strength, and soul, and
faith. Let others do what they may with marble, and adopt what rules
they choose. If I can produce my desired effect by painted wood, those
rules are not for me, and I have a right to disregard them.”
“The very spirit of genius,” muttered Copley to himself. “How otherwise
should this carver feel himself entitled to transcend all rules, and
make me ashamed of quoting them?”
He looked earnestly at Drowne, and again saw that expression of human
love which, in a spiritual sense, as the artist could not help
imagining, was the secret of the life that had been breathed into this
block of wood.
The carver, still in the same secrecy that marked all his operations
upon this mysterious image, proceeded to paint the habiliments in their
proper colors, and the countenance with Nature’s red and white. When
all was finished he threw open his workshop, and admitted the towns
people to behold what he had done. Most persons, at their first
entrance, felt impelled to remove their hats, and pay such reverence as
was due to the richly-dressed and beautiful young lady who seemed to
stand in a corner of the room, with oaken chips and shavings scattered
at her feet. Then came a sensation of fear; as if, not being actually
human, yet so like humanity, she must therefore be something
preternatural. There was, in truth, an indefinable air and expression
that might reasonably induce the query, Who and from what sphere this
daughter of the oak should be? The strange, rich flowers of Eden on her
head; the complexion, so much deeper and more brilliant than those of
our native beauties; the foreign, as it seemed, and fantastic garb, yet
not too fantastic to be worn decorously in the street; the
delicately-wrought embroidery of the skirt; the broad gold chain about
her neck; the curious ring upon her finger; the fan, so exquisitely
sculptured in open work, and painted to resemble pearl and ebony;—where
could Drowne, in his sober walk of life, have beheld the vision here so
matchlessly embodied! And then her face! In the dark eyes, and around
the voluptuous mouth, there played a look made up of pride, coquetry,
and a gleam of mirthfulness, which impressed Copley with the idea that
the image was secretly enjoying the perplexing admiration of himself
and other beholders.
“And will you,” said he to the carver, “permit this masterpiece to
become the figure-head of a vessel? Give the honest captain yonder
figure of Britannia—it will answer his purpose far better—and send this
fairy queen to England, where, for aught I know, it may bring you a
thousand pounds.”
“I have not wrought it for money,” said Drowne.
“What sort of a fellow is this!” thought Copley. “A Yankee, and throw
away the chance of making his fortune! He has gone mad; and thence has
come this gleam of genius.”
There was still further proof of Drowne’s lunacy, if credit were due to
the rumor that he had been seen kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady,
and gazing with a lover’s passionate ardor into the face that his own
hands had created. The bigots of the day hinted that it would be no
matter of surprise if an evil spirit were allowed to enter this
beautiful form, and seduce the carver to destruction.
The fame of the image spread far and wide. The inhabitants visited it
so universally, that after a few days of exhibition there was hardly an
old man or a child who had not become minutely familiar with its
aspect. Even had the story of Drowne’s wooden image ended here, its
celebrity might have been prolonged for many years by the reminiscences
of those who looked upon it in their childhood, and saw nothing else so
beautiful in after life. But the town was now astounded by an event,
the narrative of which has formed itself into one of the most singular
legends that are yet to be met with in the traditionary chimney corners
of the New England metropolis, where old men and women sit dreaming of
the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the present and the
future.
One fine morning, just before the departure of the Cynosure on her
second voyage to Fayal, the commander of that gallant vessel was seen
to issue from his residence in Hanover Street. He was stylishly dressed
in a blue broadcloth coat, with gold lace at the seams and
button-holes, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, a triangular hat, with
a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore a silver-hilted hanger at
his side. But the good captain might have been arrayed in the robes of
a prince or the rags of a beggar, without in either case attracting
notice, while obscured by such a companion as now leaned on his arm.
The people in the street started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped
aside from their path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or marble in
astonishment.
“Do you see it?—do you see it?” cried one, with tremulous eagerness.
“It is the very same!”
“The same?” answered another, who had arrived in town only the night
before. “Who do you mean? I see only a sea-captain in his shoregoing
clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit, with a bunch of beautiful
flowers in her hat. On my word, she is as fair and bright a damsel as
my eyes have looked on this many a day!”
“Yes; the same!—the very same!” repeated the other. “Drowne’s wooden
image has come to life!”
Here was a miracle indeed! Yet, illuminated by the sunshine, or
darkened by the alternate shade of the houses, and with its garments
fluttering lightly in the morning breeze, there passed the image along
the street. It was exactly and minutely the shape, the garb, and the
face which the towns-people had so recently thronged to see and admire.
Not a rich flower upon her head, not a single leaf, but had had its
prototype in Drowne’s wooden workmanship, although now their fragile
grace had become flexible, and was shaken by every footstep that the
wearer made. The broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the
one represented on the image, and glistened with the motion imparted by
the rise and fall of the bosom which it decorated. A real diamond
sparkled on her finger. In her right hand she bore a pearl and ebony
fan, which she flourished with a fantastic and bewitching coquetry,
that was likewise expressed in all her movements as well as in the
style of her beauty and the attire that so well harmonized with it. The
face with its brilliant depth of complexion had the same piquancy of
mirthful mischief that was fixed upon the countenance of the image, but
which was here varied and continually shifting, yet always essentially
the same, like the sunny gleam upon a bubbling fountain. On the whole,
there was something so airy and yet so real in the figure, and withal
so perfectly did it represent Drowne’s image, that people knew not
whether to suppose the magic wood etherealized into a spirit or warmed
and softened into an actual woman.
“One thing is certain,” muttered a Puritan of the old stamp, “Drowne
has sold himself to the devil; and doubtless this gay Captain Hunnewell
is a party to the bargain.”
“And I,” said a young man who overheard him, “would almost consent to
be the third victim, for the liberty of saluting those lovely lips.”
“And so would I,” said Copley, the painter, “for the privilege of
taking her picture.”
The image, or the apparition, whichever it might be, still escorted by
the bold captain, proceeded from Hanover Street through some of the
cross lanes that make this portion of the town so intricate, to Ann
Street, thence into Dock Square, and so downward to Drowne’s shop,
which stood just on the water’s edge. The crowd still followed,
gathering volume as it rolled along. Never had a modern miracle
occurred in such broad daylight, nor in the presence of such a
multitude of witnesses. The airy image, as if conscious that she was
the object of the murmurs and disturbance that swelled behind her,
appeared slightly vexed and flustered, yet still in a manner consistent
with the light vivacity and sportive mischief that were written in her
countenance. She was observed to flutter her fan with such vehement
rapidity that the elaborate delicacy of its workmanship gave way, and
it remained broken in her hand.
Arriving at Drowne’s door, while the captain threw it open, the
marvellous apparition paused an instant on the threshold, assuming the
very attitude of the image, and casting over the crowd that glance of
sunny coquetry which all remembered on the face of the oaken lady. She
and her cavalier then disappeared.
“Ah!” murmured the crowd, drawing a deep breath, as with one vast pair
of lungs.
“The world looks darker now that she has vanished,” said some of the
young men.
But the aged, whose recollections dated as far back as witch times,
shook their heads, and hinted that our forefathers would have thought
it a pious deed to burn the daughter of the oak with fire.
“If she be other than a bubble of the elements,” exclaimed Copley, “I
must look upon her face again.”
He accordingly entered the shop; and there, in her usual corner, stood
the image, gazing at him, as it might seem, with the very same
expression of mirthful mischief that had been the farewell look of the
apparition when, but a moment before, she turned her face towards the
crowd. The carver stood beside his creation mending the beautiful fan,
which by some accident was broken in her hand. But there was no longer
any motion in the lifelike image, nor any real woman in the workshop,
nor even the witchcraft of a sunny shadow, that might have deluded
people’s eyes as it flitted along the street. Captain Hunnewell, too,
had vanished. His hoarse sea-breezy tones, however, were audible on the
other side of a door that opened upon the water.
“Sit down in the stern sheets, my lady,” said the gallant captain.
“Come, bear a hand, you lubbers, and set us on board in the turning of
a minute-glass.”
And then was heard the stroke of oars.
“Drowne,” said Copley with a smile of intelligence, “you have been a
truly fortunate man. What painter or statuary ever had such a subject!
No wonder that she inspired a genius into you, and first created the
artist who afterwards created her image.”
Drowne looked at him with a visage that bore the traces of tears, but
from which the light of imagination and sensibility, so recently
illuminating it, had departed. He was again the mechanical carver that
he had been known to be all his lifetime.
“I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. Copley,” said he, putting his
hand to his brow. “This image! Can it have been my work? Well, I have
wrought it in a kind of dream; and now that I am broad awake I must set
about finishing yonder figure of Admiral Vernon.”
And forthwith he employed himself on the stolid countenance of one of
his wooden progeny, and completed it in his own mechanical style, from
which he was never known afterwards to deviate. He followed his
business industriously for many years, acquired a competence, and in
the latter part of his life attained to a dignified station in the
church, being remembered in records and traditions as Deacon Drowne,
the carver. One of his productions, an Indian chief, gilded all over,
stood during the better part of a century on the cupola of the Province
House, bedazzling the eyes of those who looked upward, like an angel of
the sun. Another work of the good deacon’s hand—a reduced likeness of
his friend Captain Hunnewell, holding a telescope and quadrant—may be
seen to this day, at the corner of Broad and State streets, serving in
the useful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical instrument maker.
We know not how to account for the inferiority of this quaint old
figure, as compared with the recorded excellence of the Oaken Lady,
unless on the supposition that in every human spirit there is
imagination, sensibility, creative power, genius, which, according to
circumstances, may either be developed in this world, or shrouded in a
mask of dulness until another state of being. To our friend Drowne
there came a brief season of excitement, kindled by love. It rendered
him a genius for that one occasion, but, quenched in disappointment,
left him again the mechanical carver in wood, without the power even of
appreciating the work that his own hands had wrought. Yet who can doubt
that the very highest state to which a human spirit can attain, in its
loftiest aspirations, is its truest and most natural state, and that
Drowne was more consistent with himself when he wrought the admirable
figure of the mysterious lady, than when he perpetrated a whole progeny
of blockheads?
There was a rumor in Boston, about this period, that a young Portuguese
lady of rank, on some occasion of political or domestic disquietude,
had fled from her home in Fayal and put herself under the protection of
Captain Hunnewell, on board of whose vessel, and at whose residence,
she was sheltered until a change of affairs. This fair stranger must
have been the original of Drowne’s Wooden Image.