It is not surprising that pictures, with all their attraction for eye
and mind, are, to many honest and intelligent people, too much of a
riddle to be altogether pleasant. What with the oracular dicta of
self-constituted arbiters of taste, the discrepancies of popular writers
on Art, the jargon of connoisseurship, the vagaries of fashion, the
endless theories about color, style, chiaro 'scuro, composition, design,
imitation, nature, schools, etc., painting has become rather a subject
for the gratification of vanity and the exercise of pedantic dogmatism,
than a genuine source of enjoyment and culture, of sympathy and
satisfaction,--like music, literature, scenery, and other recognized
intellectual recreations. In these latter spheres it is not thought
presumptuous to assert and enjoy individual taste; the least independent
talkers will bravely advocate their favorite composer, describe the
landscape which has charmed or the book which has interested them; but
when a picture is the subject of discussion, few have the moral
courage to say what they think; there is a self-distrust of one's own
impressions and even convictions in regard to what is represented on
canvas, that never intervenes between thought and expression, where
ideas or sentiments are embodied in writing or in melody. Nor is this to
be ascribed wholly to the technicalities of pictorial art, in which so
few are deeply versed, but in a great measure to the incongruous and
irrelevant associations which have gradually overlaid and mystified a
subject in itself as open to the perception of a candid mind and healthy
senses as any other department of human knowledge. Half the want of
appreciation of pictures arises from ignorance, not of the principles
of Art, but of the elements of Nature. Good observers are rare. The
peasant's criticism upon Moreland's "Farm-yard"--that three pigs never
eat together without one foot at least in the trough--was a strict
inference from personal knowledge of the habits of the animal; so the
surgeon found a head of the Baptist untrue, because the skin was not
withdrawn somewhat from the line of decollation. These and similar
instances show that some knowledge of or interest in the thing
represented is essential to the appreciation of pictures. Sailors and
their wives crowded around Wilkie's "Chelsea Pensioners," when first
exhibited; French soldiers enjoy the minutiae of Vernet's battle-pieces;
a lover can judge of his betrothed's miniature; and the most unrefined
sportsman will point out the niceties of breed in one of Landseer's
dogs. To the want of correspondence so frequent between the subject of a
picture and the observer's experience may, therefore, be attributed no
small degree of the prevalent want of sympathy and confident judgment.
"Gang into an Exhibition," says the Ettrick Shepherd, "and only look at
a crowd o' cockneys, some with specs, and some wi' quizzing-glasses, and
faces without ae grain o' meaning in them o' ony kind whatsomever, a'
glowering, perhaps, at a picture o' ane o' Nature's maist fearfu' or
magnificent warks! What, I ask, could a Prince's-Street maister or
missy ken o' sic a wark mair than a red deer wad ken o' the inside o'
George's-Street Assembly-Rooms?"
The incidental associations of pictures link them to history, tradition,
and human character, in a manner which indefinitely enhances their
suggestiveness. Horace Walpole wove a standard collection of anecdotes
from the lives and works of painters. The frescoes of St. Mark's, at
Florence, have a peculiar significance to the spectator familiar with
Fra Angelico's life. One of the most pathetic and beautiful tragedies
in modern literature is that which a Danish poet elaborated from
Correggio's artist career. Lamb's great treasure was a print from Da
Vinci, which he called "My Beauty," and its exhibition to a literal
Scotchman gave rise to one of the richest jokes in Elia's record. The
pen-drawing Andre made of himself the night before his execution,--the
curtain painted in the space where Faliero's portrait should have been,
in the ducal palace at Venice,--and the head of Dante, discovered by Mr.
Kirkup, on the wall of the Bargello, at Florence,--convey impressions
far beyond the mere lines and hues they exhibit; each is a drama, a
destiny. And the hard but true lineaments of Holbein, the aërial grace
of Malbone's "Hours," Albert Durer's mediaeval sanctities, Overbeck's
conservative self-devotion, a market-place by Ostade, Reynolds's
"Strawberry Girl," one of Copley's colonial grandees in a New England
farmer's parlor, a cabinet gem by Greuze, a dog or sheep of Landseer's,
the misty depths of Turner's "Carthage," Domenichino's "Sibyl," Claude's
sunset, or Allston's "Rosalie,"--how much of eras in Art, events
in history, national tastes, and varieties of genius do they each
foreshadow and embalm! Even when no special beauty or skill is manifest,
the character of features transmitted by pictorial art, their antiquity
or historical significance, often lends a mystery and meaning to the
effigies of humanity. In the carved faces of old German church choirs
and altars, the existent facial peculiarities of race are curiously
evident; a Grecian life breathes from many a profile in the Elgin
marbles, and a sacred marvel invests the exhumed giants of Nineveh; in
the cartoons of Raphael, and the old Gobelin tapestries, are hints
of what is essential in the progress and the triumphs of painting.
Considered as a language, how definitely is the style of painters
associated with special forms of character and spheres of life! It is
this variety of human experience typified and illustrated on canvas,
that forms our chief obligations to the artist; through him our
perception of and acquaintance with our race, its individuality and
career, its phases and aspects, is indefinitely enlarged. "The greatest
benefit," says a late writer, "we owe to the artist, whether painter,
poet, or novelist, is the _extension of our sympathies_. Art is the
nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying our experience and
extending our contact with our fellow-creatures beyond the bounds of our
personal lot."
The effect of a picture is increased by isolation and surprise. I never
realized the physiognomical traits of Madame de Maintenon, until
her portrait was encountered in a solitary country-house, of whose
drawing-room it was the sole ornament; and the romance of a miniature by
Malbone first came home to me, when an ancient dame, in the costume of
the last century, with trembling fingers drew one of her husband from
an antique cabinet, and descanted on the manly beauty of the deceased
original, and the graceful genius of the young and lamented artist.
Hazlitt wrote an ingenious essay on "A Portrait by Vandyck," which gives
us an adequate idea of what such a masterpiece is to the eye and mind
of genuine artistic perception and sympathy. Few sensations, or rather
sentiments, are more inextricably made up of pleasure and sadness than
that with which we contemplate (as is not infrequent in some old gallery
of Europe) a portrait which deeply interests or powerfully attracts
us, and whose history is irrevocably lost. A better homily on the
evanescence of human love and fame can scarcely be imagined: a face
alive with moral personality and human charms, such as win and warm
our stranger eyes, yet the name, subject, artist, owner, all lost in
oblivion! To pause before an interesting but "unknown portrait" is to
read an elegy as pathetic as Gray's.
The mechanical processes by which Nature is so closely imitated, and
the increase of which during the last few years is one of the most
remarkable facts in science, may at the first glance appear to have
lessened the marvellous in Art, by making available to all the exact
representation of still-life. But, when duly considered, the effect is
precisely the reverse; for exactly in proportion as we become familiar
with the mechanical production of the similitudes of natural and
artificial objects, do we instinctively demand higher powers of
conception, greater spiritual expression in the artist. The discovery
of Daguerre and its numerous improvements, and the unrivalled precision
attained by Photography, render exact imitation no longer a miracle of
crayon or palette; these must now create as well as reflect, invent and
harmonize as well as copy, bring out the soul of the individual and of
the landscape, or their achievements will be neglected in favor of
the fac-similes obtainable through sunshine and chemistry. The best
photographs of architecture, statuary, ruins, and, in some cases, of
celebrated pictures, are satisfactory to a degree which has banished
mediocre sketches, and even minutely finished but literal pictures.
Specimens of what is called "Nature-printing," which gives an impression
directly from the veined stone, the branching fern, or the sea-moss,
are so true to the details as to answer a scientific purpose; natural
objects are thus lithographed without the intervention of pencil or ink.
And these several discoveries have placed the results of mere imitative
art within reach of the mass; in other words, her prose language, that
which mechanical science can utter, is so universal, that her poetry,
that which must be conceived and expressed through individual genius,
the emanation of the soul, is more distinctly recognized and absolutely
demanded from the artist, in order to vindicate his claim to that title,
than ever before.
Perhaps, indeed, the scope which Painting offers to experimental,
individual, and prescriptive taste, the loyalty it invokes from the
conservative, the "infinite possibilities" it offers to the imaginative,
the intimacy it promotes with Nature and character, are the cause of
so much originality and attractiveness in its votaries. The Lives
of Painters abound in the characteristic, the adventurous, and the
romantic. Open Vasari, Walpole, or Cunningham, at random, and one is
sure to light upon something odd, genial, or exciting. One of the most
popular novelists of our day assured me, that, in his opinion, the
richest unworked vein for his craft, available in these days of
civilized uniformity, is artist-life at Rome, to one thoroughly
cognizant of its humors and aspirations, its interiors and vagrancies,
its self-denials and its resources. I have sometimes imagined what a
story the old white dog who so long frequented the Lepri and the Caffè
Greco, and attached himself so capriciously to the brother artists of
his deceased master, could have told, if blest with memory and language.
He had tasted the freedom and the zest of artist-life in Rome, and
scorned to follow trader or king. He preferred the odor of canvas and
oil to that of conservatories, and had more frolic and dainty morsels at
an _al fresco_ of the painters, in the Campagna, than the kitchen of an
Italian prince could furnish. His very name betokened good cheer, and
was pronounced after the manner of the pert waiters who complacently
enunciate a few words of English. _Bif-steck_ was a privileged dog; and
though occasionally made the subject of a practical joke, taught absurd
tricks, sent on fools' errands, and his white coat painted like a zebra,
these were but casual troubles; he was a sensible dog to despise them,
when he could enjoy such quaint companionship, behold such experiments
in color and drawing, serve as a model himself, and go on delicious
sketching excursions to Albano and Tivoli, besides inhaling
tobacco-smoke and hearing stale jests and love soliloquies _ad
infinitum_. I am of _Bif-steck's_ opinion. There is no such true,
earnest, humorous, and individual life, in these days of high
civilization, as that of your genuine painter; impoverished as it often
is, baffled in its aspirations, unregarded by the material and the
worldly, it often rears and keeps pure bright, genial natures whose
contact brings back the dreams of youth. It is pleasant, too, to
realize, in a great commercial city, that man "does not live by bread
alone," that fun is better than furniture, and a private resource of
nature more prolific of enjoyment than financial investments. It is rare
comfort, here, in the land of bustle and sunshine, to sit in a tempered
light and hear a man sing or improvise stories over his work, to behold
once more vagaries of costume, to let the eye rest upon pictorial
fragments of Italy,--the "old familiar faces" of Roman models, the
endeared outlines of Apennine hills, the _contadina_ bodice and the
brigand hat, until these objects revive to the heart all the romance of
travel.
The technicalities of Art, its refinements of style, its absolute
significance, are, indeed, as dependent for appreciation on a
special endowment as are mathematics; but the general and incidental
associations, in which is involved a world of poetry, may be enjoyed to
the full extent by those whose perception of form, sense of color,
and knowledge of the principles of sculpture, painting, music, and
architecture are notably deficient. It is a law of life and nature, that
truth and beauty, adequately represented, create and diffuse a limitless
element of wisdom and pleasure. Such memorials are talismanic, and
their influence is felt in all the higher and more permanent spheres of
thought and emotion; they are the gracious landmarks that guide humanity
above the commonplace and the material, along the "line of infinite
desires." Art, in its broad and permanent meaning, is a language,--the
language of sentiment, of character, of national impulse, of individual
genius; and for this reason it bears a lesson, a charm, or a sanction
to all,--even those least versed in its rules and least alive to its
special triumphs. Sir Walter Scott was no amateur, yet, through his
reverence for ancestry and his local attachments, portraiture and
architecture had for him a romantic interest. Sydney Smith was impatient
of galleries when he could talk with men and women, and made a practical
joke of buying pictures; yet Newton and Leslie elicited his best humor.
Talfourd cared little and knew less of the treasures of the Louvre, but
lingered there because it had been his friend Hazlitt's Elysium. Indeed,
there are constantly blended associations in the history of English
authors and artists; Reynolds is identified with Johnson and Goldsmith,
Smibert with Berkeley, Barry with Burke, Constable and Wilkie with Sir
George Beaumont, Haydon with Wordsworth, and Leslie with Irving; the
painters depict their friends of the pen, the latter celebrate in
verse or prose the artist's triumphs, and both intermingle thought and
sympathy; and from this contact of select intelligences of diverse
vocation has resulted the choicest wit and the most genial
companionship. If from special we turn to general associations, from
biography to history, the same prolific affinities are evident, whereby
the artist becomes an interpreter of life, and casts the halo of
romance over the stern features of reality. Hampton Court is the almost
breathing society of Charles the Second's reign; the Bodleian Gallery is
vivid with Britain's past intellectual life; the history of France is
pictured on the walls of Versailles; the luxury of color bred by the
sunsets of the Euganean hills, the waters of the Adriatic, the marbles
of San Marco, and the skies and atmosphere of Venice, are radiant on
the canvas of Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese; Michel Angelo has
embodied the soul of his era and the loftiest spirit of his country;
Salvator typified the half-savage picturesqueness, Neapolitan Claude the
atmospheric enchantments, Carlo Dolce the effeminate grace, Titian the
voluptuous energy, Guido the placid self-possession, and Raphael and
Correggio the religious sentiment of Italy; Watteau put on canvas the
_fête champêtre_; the peasant-life of Spain is pictured by Murillo,
her asceticism by the old religious limners; what English rustics were
before steam and railroads Gainsborough and Moreland reveal, Wilkie has
permanently symbolized Scotch shrewdness and domesticity, and Lawrence
framed and fixed the elegant shapes of a London drawing-room; and each
of these is a normal type and suggestive exemplar to the imagination,
a chapter of romance, a sequestration and initial token of the
characteristic and the historical, either of what has become traditional
or what is forever true.
The indirect service good artists have rendered by educating observation
has yet to be acknowledged. The Venetian painters cannot be even
superficially regarded, without developing the sense of color; nor the
Roman, without enlarging our cognizance of expression; nor the English,
without refining our perception of the evanescent effects in scenery.
Raphael has made infantile grace obvious to unmaternal eyes; Turner
opened to many a preoccupied vision the wonders of atmosphere; Constable
guided our perception of the casual phenomena of wind; Landseer, that
of the natural language of the brute creation; Lely, of the coiffure;
Michel Angelo, of physical grandeur; Rolfe, of fish; Gerard Dow, of
water; Cuyp, of meadows; Cooper, of cattle; Stanfield, of the sea; and
so on through every department of pictorial art. Insensibly these quiet
but persuasive teachers have made every phase and object of the material
world interesting, environed them with more or less of romance, by
such revelations of their latent beauty and meaning; so that, thus
instructed, the sunset and the pastoral landscape, the moss-grown arch
and the craggy seaside, the twilight grove and the swaying cornfield, an
old mill, a peasant, light and shade, form and feature, perspective
and anatomy, a smile, a gesture, a cloud, a waterfall, weather-stains,
leaves, deer,--every object in Nature, and every impress of the
elements, speaks more distinctly to the eye and more effectively to the
imagination.
The vicissitudes which sometimes attend a picture or statue furnish no
inadequate materials for narrative interest. Amateur collectors can
unfold a tale in reference to their best acquisitions which outvies
fiction. Beckford's table-talk abounded in such reminiscences. An
American artist, who had resided long in Italy and made a study of old
pictures, caught sight at a shop-window in New Orleans of an "Ecce
Homo" so pathetic in expression as to arrest his steps and engross his
attention. Upon inquiry, he learned that it had been purchased of a
soldier fresh from Mexico, after the late war between that country and
the United States; he bought it for a trifle, carried it to Europe, and
soon authenticated it as an original Guercino, painted for the royal
chapel in Madrid, and sent thence by the government to a church in
Mexico, whence, after centuries, it had found its way, through the
accidents of war, to a pawnbroker's shop in Louisiana. A lady in one
of our eastern cities, wishing to possess, as a memorial, some article
which had belonged to a deceased neighbor, and not having the means,
at the public sale of her effects, to bid for an expensive piece of
furniture, contented herself with buying for a few shillings a familiar
chimney-screen. One day she discovered a glistening surface under the
flowered paper which covered it, and when this was torn away, there
stood revealed a picture of Jacob and Rebecca at the Well, by Paul
Veronese; doubtless thus concealed with a view to its secret removal
during the first French Revolution. The missing Charles First of
Velasquez was lately exhibited in this country, and the account its
possessor gives of the mode of its discovery and the obstacles which
attended the establishment of its legal ownership in England is a
remarkable illustration both of the tact of the connoisseur and the
mysteries of jurisprudence.
There is scarcely, indeed, an artist or a patron of art, of any
eminence, who has not his own "story of a picture." Like all things
of beauty and of fame, the very desire of possession which a painting
excites, and the interest it awakens, give rise to some costly
sacrifice, or incidental circumstance, which associates the prize with
human fortune and sentiment. I remember an anecdote of this kind told me
by a friend in Western New York.
"Waiting," said he, "in the little front-parlor of a house in the town
of C----, to transact some business with its occupant, I was attracted
by a clean sketch in oil that hung above the fireplace. It might have
escaped notice elsewhere, but traces of real skill in Art were too
uncommon in this region to be disregarded by any lover of her fruits.
The readiness to seize upon any casual source of interest, common
with those who "stand and wait" in a place where they are strangers,
doubtless had something to do with the careful attention I bestowed upon
this production. It was a very modest attempt,--a bit of landscape, with
two horses grazing and a man at work in the foreground. Quiet in tone,
and half-concealed by the shaded casement, it was only by degrees, and
to ward off the _ennui_ of a listless half-hour, that I gradually became
absorbed in its examination. There were some masterly lines, clever
arrangement, a true feeling, and a peculiar delicacy of treatment, that
implied the hand of a trained artist.
"My pleasant communion with the unknown was at last interrupted by the
entrance of my tardy man-of-business, but the instant our affair was
transacted I inquired about the sketch. It proved to be the work of
a young Englishman then residing in the neighborhood. I obtained his
address and sought his dwelling. He was scraping an old palette as we
entered, and advanced with it in one hand, while he saluted me with the
air of a gentleman and the simplicity of an honest man. He wore a linen
blouse, his collar was open, his hair long and dark, his complexion
pale, his eye thoughtful, and a settled expression of sweetness and
candor about the mouth made me feel, at a glance, that I had rightly
interpreted the sketch. I mentioned it as an apology for my intrusion,
and added, that a natural fondness for Art, and rare opportunities for
gratifying the taste, induced me to improve occasions like this with
alacrity. He seemed delighted to welcome such a visitor, as his life,
for several weeks, had been quite isolated. The retirement and agreeable
scenery of this inland town harmonized with his feelings; he was
unambitious, happy in his domestic relations, and had managed, from time
to time, to execute a portrait or dispose of a sketch, and thus subsist
in comfort; so that an accidental and temporary visit to this secluded
region had unconsciously lengthened into a whole summer's residence,--
partly to be ascribed to the kindness and easy terms of his good old
host, a thrifty farmer, whose wife, having no children of her own, doted
upon the painter's boy, and grieved at the mention of their departure. I
doubt if my new friend would have had the enterprise to migrate at all,
but for my urgency; but I soon discovered, that, with the improvidence
of his tribe, he had laid nothing by, and that he stood in need of
medical advice, and, after a long conversation, upon my engaging to
secure him an economical home and plenty of work in Utica, he promised
to remove thither in a month; and then becoming more cheerful, he
exhibited, one by one, the trophies of Art in his possession.
"Among them were a Moreland and a Gainsborough, some fine engravings
after Reynolds, prints, cartoons, and crayon heads by famous artists,
and two or three Hogarth proof-impressions; but the treasure which
riveted my gaze was a masterly head of such vigorous outline and
effective tints, that I immediately recognized the strong, free, bold
handling of Gilbert Stuart. 'That was given me,' said the gratified
painter, 'by the son of an Edinburgh physician, who, when a young
practitioner, had the good-fortune to call one day upon Stuart when he
was suffering from the effects of a fall. He had been thrown from a
vehicle and had broken his arm, which was so unskilfully set that
it became inflamed and swollen, and the clumsy surgeon talked of
amputation. Imagine the feeling of such an artist at the idea of losing
his right arm! The doctor's visit was not professional, but, seeing the
despondent mood of the invalid artist, he could not refrain the offer
of service. It was accepted, and proved successful, and the patient's
gratitude was unbounded. As the doctor refused pecuniary compensation,
Stuart insisted upon painting a likeness of his benefactor; and as
he worked under no common impulse, the result, as you see, was a
masterpiece.'
"A few weeks after this pleasant interview, I had established my
_protégé_ at Utica, and obtained him several commissions. But his
medical attendant pronounced his disease incurable; he lingered a
few months, conversing to the last, during the intervals of pain and
feebleness, with a resignation and intelligence quite endearing. When he
died, I advised his widow to preserve as long as possible the valuable
collection he had left, and with it she repaired to one of her kindred
in affluent circumstances, living fifty miles away. She endeavored to
force upon my acceptance one, at least, of her husband's cherished
pictures; but, knowing her poverty, I declined, only stipulating that if
ever she parted with the Stuart, I should have the privilege of taking
it at her own price.
"A year passed, and I was informed that many of her best things had
become the property of her relative, who, however, knew not how to
appreciate them. I commissioned a friend, who knew him, to purchase at
any cost the one I craved. He discovered that a native artist, who
had been employed to delineate the family, had obtained this work in
payment, and had it carefully enshrined in his studio at Syracuse. This
was Charles Elliot; and the possession of so excellent an original
by one of the best of our artists in this department explains his
subsequent triumphs in portraiture. He made a study of this trophy; it
inspired his pencil; from its contemplation he caught the secret of
color, the breadth and strength of execution, which have since placed
him among the first of American portrait-painters, especially for old
and characteristic heads. Thus, in the centre of Western New York, he
found his Academy, his Royal College, his Gallery and life-school, in
one adequate effort of Stuart's masterly hand; the offering of gratitude
became the model and the impulse whereby a farmer's son on the banks
of the Mohawk rose to the highest skill and eminence. But this was a
gradual process; and meantime it is easy to imagine what a treasure the
picture became in his estimation. It was only by degrees that his merit
gained upon public regard. His first visit to New York was a failure;
and after waiting many weeks in vain for a sitter, he was obliged to
pay his indulgent landlord with a note of hand, and return to the more
economical latitude of Syracuse. There he learned that a wealthy trader,
desirous of the _éclat_ of a connoisseur, was resolved to possess the
cherished portrait. Although poor, he was resolved never to part with
it; but the sagacious son of Mammon was too keen for him; discovering
his indebtedness, he bought the artist's note of the inn-keeper, and
levied an execution upon his effects. But genius is often more than a
match for worldly-wisdom. Elliot soon heard of the plot, and determined
to defeat it. He worked hard and secretly, until he had made so good a
copy that the most practised eye alone could detect the counterfeit; and
then concealing the original at his lodgings, he quietly awaited the
legal attachment. It was duly levied, the sale took place, and the
would-be amateur bought the familiar picture hanging in its accustomed
position, and then boasted in the market-place of the success of his
base scheme. Ere long one of Elliot's friends revealed the clever trick.
The enraged purchaser commenced a suit, and, although the painter
eventually retained the picture, the case was carried to the Supreme
Court, and he was condemned to pay costs. Ten years elapsed. The artist
became an acknowledged master, and prosperity followed his labors. No
one can mistake the rich tints and vigorous expression, the character
and color, which distinguish Elliot's portraits; but few imagine how
much he is indebted to the long possession and study of so invaluable an
original for these traits, moulded by his genius into so many admirable
representations of the loved, the venerable, and the honored, both
living and dead."
Another friend of mine, in exploring the more humble class of
boarding-houses in one of our large commercial towns, in search of an
unfortunate relation, found himself, while expecting the landlady,
absorbed in a portrait on the walls of a dingy back-parlor. The
furniture was of the most common description. A few smutched and faded
annuals, half-covered with dust, lay on the centre-table, beside an
old-fashioned astral lamp, a cracked porcelain vase of wax-flowers, a
yellow satin pincushion embroidered with tarnished gold-lace, and an
album of venerable hue filled with hyperbolic apostrophes to the charms
of some ancient beauty; which, with the dilapidated window-curtains, the
obsolete sideboard, the wooden effigy of a red-faced man with a spyglass
under his arm, and the cracked alabaster clock-case on the mantel, all
bespoke an impoverished establishment, so devoid of taste that the
beautiful and artistic portrait seemed to have found its way there by a
miracle. It represented a young and _spirituelle_ woman, in the
costume, so elegant in material and formal in mode, which Copley has
immortalized; in this instance, however, there was a French look about
the coiffure and robe. The eyes were bright with intelligence chastened
by sentiment, the features at once delicate and spirited, and altogether
the picture was one of those visions of blended youth, grace, sweetness,
and intellect, from which the fancy instinctively infers a tale of love,
genius, or sorrow, according to the mood of the spectator. Subdued by
his melancholy errand and discouraged by a long and vain search, my
friend, whose imagination was quite as excitable as his taste was
correct, soon wove a romance around the picture. It was evidently not
the work of a novice; it was as much out of place in this obscure
and inelegant domicil, as a diamond set in filigree, or a rose among
pigweed. How came it there? who was the original? what her history and
her fate? Her parentage and her nurture must have been refined; she must
have inspired love in the chivalric; perchance this was the last relic
of an illustrious exile, the last memorial of a princely house.
This reverie of conjecture was interrupted by the entrance of the
landlady. My friend had almost forgotten the object of his visit; and
when his anxious inquiries proved vain, he drew the loquacious hostess
into general conversation, in order to elicit the mystery of the
beautiful portrait. She was a robust, gray-haired woman, with whose
constitutional good-nature care had waged a long and partially
successful war. That indescribable air which speaks of better days was
visible at a glance; the remnants of bygone gentility were obvious in
her dress; she had the peculiar manner of one who had enjoyed social
consideration; and her language indicated familiarity with cultivated
society; yet the anxious expression habitual to her countenance, and
the bustling air of her vocation which quickly succeeded conversational
repose, hinted but too plainly straitened circumstances and daily toil.
But what struck her present curious visitor more than these casual
traits were the remains of great beauty in the still lovely contour of
the face, the refined lines of her mouth, and the depth and varied play
of the eyes. He was both sympathetic and ingenious, and ere long gained
the confidence of his auditor. The unfeigned interest and the true
perception he manifested in speaking of the portrait rendered him, in
its owner's estimation, worthy to know the story his own intuition had
so nearly divined. The original was Theodosia, the daughter of Aaron
Burr. His affection for her was the redeeming fact of his career and
character. Both were anomalous in our history. In an era remarkable for
patriotic self-sacrifice, he became infamous for treasonable ambition;
among a phalanx of statesmen illustrious for directness and integrity,
he pursued the tortuous path of perfidious intrigue; in a community
where the sanctities of domestic life were unusually revered, he bore
the stigma of unscrupulous libertinism. With the blood of his gallant
adversary and his country's idol on his hands, the penalties of debt and
treason hanging over him, the fertility of an acute intellect wasted on
vain expedients,--an outlaw, an adventurer, a plausible reasoner
with one sex and fascinating betrayer of the other, poor, bereaved,
contemned,--one holy, loyal sentiment lingered in his perverted
soul,--love for the fair, gifted, gentle being who called him father.
The only disinterested sympathy his letters breathe is for her; and the
feeling and sense of duty they manifest offer a remarkable contrast to
the parallel record of a life of unprincipled schemes, misused talents,
and heartless amours. As if to complete the tragic antithesis of
destiny, the beloved and gifted woman who thus shed an angelic ray upon
that dark career was soon after her father's return from Europe lost in
a storm at sea while on her way to visit him, thus meeting a fate which,
even at the distance of time, is remembered with pity. Her wretched
father bore with him, in all his wanderings and through all his
remorseful exile, her picture--emblem of filial love, of all that is
beautiful in the ministry of woman, and all that is terrible in human
fate. At length he lay dangerously ill in a garret. He had parted with
one after another of his articles of raiment, books, and trinkets,
to defray the expenses of a long illness; Theodosia's picture alone
remained; it hung beside him,--the one talisman of irreproachable
memory, of spotless love, and of undying sorrow; he resolved to die with
this sweet relic of the loved and lost in his possession; there his
sacrifices ended. Life seemed slowly ebbing; the underpaid physician
lagged in his visits; the importunate landlord threatened to send this
once dreaded partisan, favored guest, and successful lover to the
almshouse; when, as if the spell of woman's affection were spiritually
magnetic, one of the deserted old man's early victims--no other than
she who spoke--accidentally heard of his extremity, and, forgetting her
wrongs, urged by compassion and her remembrance of the past, sought
her betrayer, provided for his wants, and rescued him from impending
dissolution. In grateful recognition of her Christian kindness, he gave
her all he had to bestow,--Theodosia's portrait.
* * * * *