UNPAINTED MASTERPIECES
Georgia was to be married. It was the week before Christmas, and on the
last day of the year she would become Mrs. Joseph Tank. She had told Joe
that if they were to be married at all they might as well get it over
with this year, and still there was no need of being married any earlier
in the year than was necessary. She assured him that she married him
simply because she was tired of having paper bags waved before her eyes
everywhere she went, and she thought if she were once officially
associated with him people would not flaunt his idiosyncrasies at her
that way. And then Ernestine approved of getting married, and Ernestine's
ideas were usually good. To all of which Joe responded that she certainly
had a splendid head to figure it out that way. Joe said that to his mind
reasons for doing things weren't very important anyhow; it was doing them
that counted.
Yesterday had been her last day on the paper. She had felt queer about
that thing of taking her last assignment, though it was hard to reach
just the proper state, for the last story related to pork-packers, and
pork-packing is not a setting favourable to sentimental regrets. It was
just like the newspaper business not even to allow one a little
sentimental harrowing over one's exodus from it. But the time for gentle
melancholy came later on, when she was sorting her things at her desk
just before leaving, and was wondering what girl would have that old
desk--if they cared to risk another girl, and whether the other poor girl
would slave through the years she should have been frivolous, only to
have some man step in at the end and induce her to surrender the things
she had gained through sacrifice and toil. As she wrote a final letter on
her typewriter--she did hate letting the old machine go--Georgia did
considerable philosophising about the irony of working for things only to
the end of giving them up. She had waded through snowdrifts and been
drenched in pouring rains, she had been frozen with the cold and
prostrated with the heat, she had been blown about by Chicago wind until
it was strange there was any of her left in one piece, she had had front
doors--yes, and back doors too, slammed in her face, she had been the
butt of the alleged wit of menials and hirelings, she had been patronised
by vapid women as the poor girl who must make her living some way, she
had been roasted by--but never mind--she had had a beat or two! And now
she was to wind it all up by marrying Joseph Tank, who had made a great
deal of money out of the manufacture of paper bags. This from her--who
had always believed she would end her days in New York, or perhaps write
a realistic novel exposing some mighty evil!
"Ah, well--it's all in the day's work!"--she had been saying that to
herself as she covered her typewriter, and then, just as she was fearing
that her exit would be a maudlin one, Joe called up to say that he did
not think it would be too cold for the machine, and why not spin out
somewhere on the North Shore for a good dinner? Now that had been nice of
Joe, for it tided her over the good-byes.
To-day she was engaged in the pre-nuptial rite of destroying her past,
indulging in the letter destroying ceremonial which seems always to
attend the eve of matrimony. It was so that Ernestine found her when she
stopped on her way from the university that afternoon.
Mrs. McCormick was sewing yards upon yards of lace on something when
Ernestine came in. "She's right in there," she said, referring to Georgia
in a sepulchral tone which might fittingly have been employed for: "The
remains have been laid out in the front room."
Georgia herself, though not sepulchral, was subdued. "My, but I'm glad
you've come," she said, brushing aside several hundred letters that
Ernestine might have a place to sit down. "I'm having the most terrible
twinge of conscience."
"Why, what about?"
Georgia pointed to the clock. "Think of my not being at the office! I
ought to be hanging around now for an afternoon assignment."
"You'll get over that," Ernestine assured her, cheerfully.
"Oh, I suppose so. One gets over everything--even being alive. Meanwhile,
behold me,"--with a great sweep of her arms--"surrounded by my blighting
past."
"That one looks like Freddie Allen's writing," said Ernestine, giving an
envelope at her foot a little shove.
"It is," said Georgia, with feeling; "yes--it is. Poor Freddie--he was
such a nice boy."
"I suppose he's nice still," observed Ernestine.
"Oh, I suppose so. I'm sure I don't know. He's way back there in the dim
past."
"Well, do you want him up here in the sunny present?" Ernestine inquired,
much entertained.
"No, oh no--if I had wanted him I would have had him," with which
reversion to the normal Georgia they laughed understandingly.
She shook herself free of the dust of her past then, piled up the pillows
and settled herself on the bed. "But we had some good times back there in
the dim past, didn't we, Ernestine?"
"Some of them were good times," replied Ernestine, a little soberly.
"Of course our college life would have been happier if we had been able
to pull down that sophomore flag. I've always thought Jack Stewart might
have done a little better with that. But as long as we kept Jim Jones
away from every party in his junior year, perhaps we should be
satisfied." Georgia sighed heavily. "And it is a joy to think back to
your telling the dean he didn't have the courage of his convictions when
he let them fire Stone for heresy. Oh there are a good many things to be
thankful for. You always had lots of nerve when it came to a show-down.
You looked so lady-like, and yet you really weren't at all."
"Well, I don't know whether I like that or not."
"I mean not so lady-like that it interfered with anything you wanted to
do. You'd speak up in the pleasantest, most agreeable voice and say the
most dreadful things. I'll never forget the day you told "Prof" Moore in
class that you had always had a peculiar aversion to the Pilgrim
Fathers."
"I always did," Ernestine said fervently.
"Then one day when we had spent an hour trying to tell what Shakespeare
meant by some line you said you thought quite likely he put it in just
because there had to be another line. And "Prof" Jennings conditioned you
on the whole year's work--remember?"
"I have reason to," laughed Ernestine.
"The funny part of it was that you never seemed to think you were saying
anything startling. Like the day you contended in ethics that you thought
frequently it was better to be pleasant than truthful. Kitty Janeway was
so shocked at that. I wonder if Kitty Janeway is any happier with her
second husband than she was with her first?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Ernestine in a rather far-away voice.
"I'll send all the girls cards," said Georgia, and again she sighed
heavily. "The cards are going to look very nice," she added, a little
more hopefully.
"Ernestine?"--after a little pause.
"Yes?"
"You and I are hanging right over the ragged edge of thirty."
"Horrors!--Georgia; is this your idea of furnishing pleasant
entertainment for a guest?"
"But I was just thinking how many things have happened to us since we
were twenty-two."
"I was thinking of that a minute ago myself."
"To you, especially. Now, I never supposed when we were in college that
you were going to marry Karl Hubers."
"No," laughed Ernestine, "neither did I."
"I mean I never associated you two with one another. And now I can't
think of you separately. And then your father and mother, and then Karl
losing--heavens, but I'm cheerful! Now, isn't it just like me," she
demanded, angrily, "to act like a fool just because I'm going to be
married? If I keep on I'll find myself weeping because Socrates is dead.
And I never do weep, either. I tell you that Joe Tank's a terrible man,"
she laughed, brushing away some tears.
"I don't think you're going to have much to weep about, Georgia. I know
you're going to be happy."
"Well, if I'm not it won't be Joe's fault. Unless it is his fault on
account of its _not_ being his fault. What I mean is that good-natured
people are sometimes aggravating."
"Oh he'll not always be good-natured," she reassured her.
Ernestine said then that she must go, and was standing at the door when
Georgia burst forth: "Oh Ernestine--I'm so glad I remembered. You really
must go down to the Art Institute and see those pictures by that
Norwegian artist--I shouldn't dream of pronouncing his name. They go away
this week, and it would be awful for you to miss them."
A wistfulness, fairly pain, revealed itself for an instant in Ernestine's
face. And then, as if coming into consciousness of the look: "I know,"
she said briefly. "I read about them. I've been--thinking about it. I did
see some of them in Europe, but of course I should love to see them
again."
"I wish you would, my dear; perhaps"--a little fearfully--"they'd
make you feel like getting to work yourself. Ernestine,"--gathering
courage--"it's awful for you to let your work go this way. Every one
says so. I was talking to Ryan the other day--you know who he is? He
asked all about you, and if you were doing anything now, and when I told
him I was afraid not he fairly flew into a rage, said that was just the
way--the people who might be great didn't seem to have sense enough to
care to be."
That brought the quick colour. "Perhaps Mr. Ryan does not understand
everything in life," she said, coolly.
"Now, Ernestine--he was lovely about you. Would he have shown any feeling
at all if he didn't care a great deal for your work? Does any one fly
into a rage at _my_ not painting? He said you were _one_ American woman
who was an artist instead of 'a woman who paints.' It seems he saw the
Salon picture. Oh, he said beautiful things about you."
Ernestine did not answer. She was standing there very quietly, her hand
on the knob. "Now, Ernestine," Georgia went on, after the manner of one
bound to have it out, "I've tried all winter to cultivate repression. I
don't know what it is you are trying to do over there in the laboratory.
You asked me to do two things--not to ask you about it, and not to
mention it to Karl. I haven't done either, but I want to tell you right
now if you have any idea of giving up your own work I think it's time for
your friends to inquire into your mental workings! The very fact you
don't want Karl to know about it shows you know very well _he_ won't
think it's right. Anything that relates to his work can be done by people
who do that kind of work a great deal better than you can. Really,
Ernestine, the thing is positively fanatical. And anyway,"--this with the
air of delivering the overpowering--"I don't think it is at all nice the
way you are taking other men into your confidence and deceiving Karl."
She met that with a little laugh. "Dear me--what laudable sentiment. I've
always heard there was no one half so proper as the girl about to be
married. Never mind, Georgia,"--a little more seriously, a little as if
it would not be hard to cry--"Karl will forgive me--some day."
"But, Ernestine, I want you to work! Can't you see how awful it is for
you not to--express yourself?"
"I am going to express myself," she answered, lightly enough, but after
she had gone Georgia wondered just what she had meant by that.
She decided, when she came out of the apartment building, that she would
take a little walk. It was just cold enough to be exhilarating, and she
felt the need of something bracing. She was wishing as she walked along
very fast, responding to the keen, good air, that Karl were with her now.
Karl did not exercise enough, and when he did yield to her supplications
and go for a walk with her he did not seem to enjoy it as she wished he
might. "After a while, liebchen," he would say. "I'll be more accustomed
to things after a while. And meanwhile there's plenty of fresh air right
here in our back yard." "But it isn't just getting the fresh air," she
would protest, "it's enjoying it while you're getting it."--"Wait till
spring comes," he would sometimes answer. "I'm going to get out more
then."
When she saw she was near one of the stations of the Illinois Central she
stopped, a little confused. Could it be she had meant all the time to
come here? Looking to the south, she saw that at the next station, not
three blocks away, the train which would take her to the city in ten
minutes was just arriving. The Art Institute was only two blocks from the
Van Buren Street station;--those facts associated themselves quickly in
her mind. She looked at her watch: not quite three. Karl had said he
would be busy with Mr. Ross until five. She stood there in hesitation.
She had seen no pictures since--oh it was too long ago to remember. What
harm could it do her? And anyway--this with something of the uprising of
the truant child--it was Christmas time! Every one else was taking a
vacation, why--but here it was all swept into the imperative
consciousness that she had no time to lose, and she was at the ticket
window before she was quite sure that she had made up her mind.
It was all so strange then; exhilaration mounted high for a little while,
but there followed a very tense excitement. She tried to laugh at
herself, contend that she was coming for enjoyment, relaxation, that it
was absurd to go to pieces this way; but things long suppressed called
for their own, and the man to whom she gave her admission fee wondered
for a long time after she had passed him just what it was about her
seemed so strange.
How good it was! How good to be back among her own kind of things! In the
laboratory every one knew more than she did; there she was repressed,
humble even, gratefully accepting the crumbs of knowledge falling from
their tables. It was good to feel for a little while that she was some
place where she knew a great deal about things. She wished Mr. Willard or
Mr. Beason would happen along that she might give them some insight into
the colossalness of their ignorance.
She turned down the corridor leading to the room where she would find the
special exhibit. She stopped before many of the pictures--reverting to
that joy of the spirit in dominance. There was exultation, almost
rapture, in this quick, firm rush of understanding; deep joy in just
knowing the good from the bad.
But when she reached the pictures she had come to see it was different.
She walked to the middle of the room, and in one slow sweep of glance,
punctuated with long pauses, took them in. And she responded to them with
a warm, glad rush of tears.
They fell upon her artist's soul as the very lovely rain upon the thirsty
meadow. They drew her to them as the mother the homesick child, and like
the homesick child, back at last after weary days, she knew only that she
had come home. In this first overflowing moment there was no thought of
colour--brush work--this or that triumphant audacity; it was a coming to
her own, a home-coming of the spirit--the heart's passionate
thankfulness, the heart's response.
A few minutes of reverent pause, a high delight, deep response, and
then--the inevitable. Clear as a bell upon the midnight air was that call
from soul to kindred soul. Assurance and longing and demand possessed her
beyond all power to stay. The work she stood before now called to her as
naturally and inevitably as the bird to its mate, as undeniably as the
sea to the river, as potently as spring calls upon earth for its own, as
autumn calls to summer for harvest time.
It frightened her. It seemed something within her over which she had no
control. It surged through her as far beyond all reason as the tides of
the sea are beyond the hand of man. It was procreative power demanding
fulfillment as the child ready for birth demands that it be born.
She was conscious of some one's having come into the room. That her face
might not be seen she turned away and sat down before one of the
pictures. She was quivering so passionately that it seemed almost
impossible to hold herself within command.
The girl who had come in was moving restlessly from one picture to
another; at last she walked over and sat down on the seat by Ernestine.
"I think I like this one best," she said, abruptly, nodding to the
picture before them.
Ernestine nodded in reply. She was not sure what would happen were she to
speak. The girl she supposed to be one of the students there.
"I would give anything in the world--just anything in the world--if I
could do it too!"
At the passion of that she turned quickly and looked at the girl. In
spite of the real feeling of her tone a fretful look was predominant in
her face.
"Do you--work hard?" she asked, merely to relieve the pause.
"Work--yes; but mere work won't do it. I can't do anything like
this,"--it was in bitterness she said it.
"Very few can, you know," murmured Ernestine.
"Yes--but I want to! I don't care anything about life--I don't care
anything about anything--if I can't paint!"
It struck her immediately as so entirely wrong. She looked at the girl,
and then again at the pictures. All the great things they conveyed were
passing her by. She missed the essence of it. The greatness of the work
merely moved her to anger because she was not great herself. It was an
attitude to close the soul.
"But you should care for life," she said, in her very gentle way. "Do the
best you can with your own work, but work like this should, above
everything else, make you care for life."
The girl moved impatiently. "You don't understand. I guess you are not an
artist," and she rose and went away.
Ernestine smiled a trifle, but the strange little interview had opened up
a long vista. The girl represented, in extreme measure, but
fundamentally, the professional attitude. Most artists saw work in
relation to themselves. Pictures were either better or worse than they
could do. They came to the great things like these, seeking something,
usually some mechanical device, to take away to their own work. She could
see so plainly now the shallowness of that.
Her own mood had changed,--broken. Perhaps it was the consciousness that
she too had been seeing it in relation to herself, or it may have been
but natural reaction. The big uprising was dying down; the heat of the
passion had passed; it was all different now, and in the wake of her
brimming moment there came the calm that follows storm, the sadness of
spirit which attends the re-enthronement of reason, but also the
understanding, far-seeingness, which is the aftermath of great passion
like that.
There had come to her, as she sat there beside the girl, a throbbing
determination to do both things. The thought had come before, but always
to be banished. It came now with new insistence just because anything
else seemed so impossible. There had never come, even to the outermost
edge of her consciousness, the thought of giving up the work she was
going to do for Karl. Her hardest hour had never even suggested the
possibility of surrender. Her love had seen its way; her life had been
consecrated. But now, when it seemed no longer within her power to deny
the work for which she had been ordained, it seemed that to fulfill both
things was the one thing possible. But in this after-moment of unblurred
understanding she saw she could do both things only by taking from the
things she gave to Karl. It would mean giving her soul to the one, and
what she had left to the other. And she knew that she could never do what
she meant to do for Karl unless she gave everything within herself to
that cause. The chief aim of her struggle in the laboratory had not been
to acquire knowledge and usefulness--that she could do, she knew; her
real aim had been to give to Karl's work the things she had always given
to her own. With a divided soul she could do no more for him than any
other assistant. She was seeking to give him herself. Oh no--it was
simple enough; she had no thought of offering Karl an empty vessel.
Her mind saw it all, her will never wavered, but the bruised, conquered
spirit quivered under the pain. A long time she sat there, and as the
hour went by a strange thing happened. The pictures were healing the
spirit which they had torn. As they had first moved her to the frenzy
for achievement, had then left her with the pain of relinquishment,
they were bringing her now something of the balm of peace. How big they
were!--first passion, then pain, then understanding, now strength.
Ernestine came in that hour to see a great truth. It was something she
worked out for herself, something taught her by life and her own heart,
and that is why it reached her soul as it could never have done had she
but read it in books. She came to see that the greatest thing in life was
to be in harmony with the soul of the world. She came into the
understanding that to do that, one need not of necessity paint great
pictures, one need not stand for any specific achievement, one need only
so work out one's life that one made for harmony and not for discord. The
greatest thing pictures could do was to draw men into this world harmony.
These pictures were great because they reached the soul, and she came to
see, and this is what few do see, that the soul which is reached is not
less great than the soul which has spoken. She too could have been one of
the souls to speak; she accepted that in the simplicity with which we
receive the indisputable, but it was good to think that she would not
have failed utterly in fulfilling herself, if at the end, no matter
through what, she made for harmony, and not for discord.
She grew so quiet then: the quiet of deep understanding. A long time
she sat before a picture of light out beyond some trees. Oh what a
world--with the light coming through the trees like that, and men to see
it, and make it seen! She wished Karl might see these pictures; she
looked at them with a new intentness,--she would tell Karl all about
them; he would be so glad she had come.
She rose to go. Once more she looked around at the pictures, and to her
eyes there came a dimness, and to her spirit a deep and tender yearning.
There would be joy in having done such work as this. But there were other
things! To work out one's life as bravely and well as one knew how, to do
what seemed best, to be faithful and unfailing to those who were nearest
one, to be willing to lay down one's life for one's love,--perhaps when
the end of the world was reached, and all things translated in terms of
universal things, to have done that would itself mean the painting of a
masterpiece. Perhaps the God of things as they are would see the
unpainted pictures.