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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great,
+Volume 4 (of 14), by Elbert Hubbard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14)
+       Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters
+
+Author: Elbert Hubbard
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2006 [EBook #18118]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14)
+
+Little Journeys To The Homes Of Eminent Painters
+
+Elbert Hubbard
+
+Memorial Edition
+
+Printed and made into a Book by The Roycrofters,
+who are in East Aurora, Erie County, New York
+
+New York
+
+1916
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    MICHELANGELO                     3
+    REMBRANDT                       39
+    RUBENS                          79
+    MEISSONIER                     117
+    TITIAN                         145
+    ANTHONY VAN DYCK               171
+    FORTUNY                        199
+    ARY SCHEFFER                   223
+    FRANCOIS MILLET                257
+    JOSHUA REYNOLDS                285
+    LANDSEER                       309
+    GUSTAVE DORE                   327
+
+
+
+
+MICHELANGELO
+
+    How can that be, lady, which all men learn
+    By long experience? Shapes that seem alive,
+    Wrought in hard mountain marble, will survive
+    Their maker, whom the years to dust return!
+    Thus to effect, cause yields. Art hath her turn,
+    And triumphs over Nature. I, who strive with sculpture,
+    Know this well: her wonders live
+    In spite of time and death, those tyrants stern.
+    So I can give long life to both of us
+    In either way, by color or by stone,
+    Making the semblance of thy face and mine.
+    Centuries hence when both are buried,
+    Thus thy beauty and my sadness shall be shown,
+    And men shall say, "For her 'twas wise to pine."
+
+                      --_Sonnets of Michelangelo_
+
+[Illustration: MICHELANGELO]
+
+
+"Call me by my pet name," wrote Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in one of
+those incomparable sonnets of which the Portuguese never heard. And the
+task yet remains for some psychologist to tell us why, when we wish to
+bestow the highest honor, coupled with familiar affection, we call the
+individual by a given name.
+
+Young men and maidens will understand my allusion; and I hope this book
+will not suffer the dire fate of falling into the hands of any one who
+has forgotten the days of his youth.
+
+In addressing the one we truly revere, we drop all prefix and titles.
+Soldiers marching under the banner of a beloved leader ever have for him
+a name of their own. What honor and trust were once compressed into the
+diminutive, "Little Corporal" or Kipling's "Bobs"; or, to come down to
+something even more familiar to us, say, "Old Abe" and "Little Phil"!
+
+The earth is a vast graveyard where untold millions of men lie buried,
+but out of the myriads who pass into forgetfulness every decade, the race
+holds a few names embalmed in undying amber.
+
+Lovers of art, the round world over, carry in their minds one character,
+so harmoniously developed on every side of his nature that we say twenty
+centuries have never produced his equal. We call him "Leonardo"--the one
+ideal man. Leonardo da Vinci was painter, poet, sculptor, architect,
+mathematician, politician, musician, man of science, and courtier. His
+disposition was so joyous, his manner so captivating, his form and
+countenance so beautiful, that wherever he went all things were his. And
+he was so well ballasted with brains, and so acute in judgment, that
+flattery spoiled him not. His untiring industry and transcendent talent
+brought him large sums of money, and he spent them like a king. So potent
+was his personality that wherever he made his home there naturally grew
+up around him a Court of Learning, and his pupils and followers were
+counted by the score. To the last of his long life he carried with him
+the bright, expectant animation of youth; and to all who knew him he was
+"Leonardo--the only Leonardo."
+
+But great as was Leonardo, we call the time in which he lived, the age of
+Michelangelo.
+
+When Leonardo was forty, and at the very height of his power, Michel
+Agnola Buonarroti, aged twenty, liberated from the block a marble Cupid
+that was so exquisite in its proportions that it passed for an antique,
+and men who looked upon it exclaimed, "Phidias!"
+
+Michel Agnola became Michelangelo, that is to say, "Michel the Angel," in
+a day. The name thrown at him by an unknown admirer stuck, and in his
+later years when all the world called him "Angelo" he cast off the name
+his parents had given him and accepted the affectionate pet name that
+clung like the love of woman.
+
+Michelangelo was born in a shabby little village but a few miles from
+Florence. In another village near by was born Leonardo. "Great men never
+come singly," says Emerson. And yet Angelo and Leonardo exercised no
+influence upon each other that we can trace. The younger man never came
+under the spell of the older one, but moved straight on to his destiny,
+showing not the slightest arc in his orbit in deference to the great
+luminary of his time.
+
+The handsome Leonardo was social: he loved women, and music, and
+festivals, and gorgeous attire, and magnificent equipage. His life was
+full of color and sweeping, joyous, rainbow tints.
+
+Michelangelo was homely in feature, and the aspect of his countenance was
+mutilated by a crashing blow from a rival student's mallet that flattened
+his nose to his face. Torrigiano lives in history for this act alone,
+thus proving that there are more ways than one to gain immortality.
+
+Angelo was proud, self-centered, independent, and he sometimes lashed the
+critics into a buzzing, bluebottle fury by his sarcastic speech. "He
+affronted polite society, conformed to no one's dictates, lived like an
+ascetic and worked like a packmule," says a contemporary.
+
+Vasari, who among his many other accomplishments seems to have been the
+Boswell of his time, compares Leonardo and Michelangelo. He says, "Angelo
+can do everything that Leonardo can, although he does it differently."
+Further, he adds, "Angelo is painter, sculptor, engineer, architect and
+poet." "But," adds this versatile Italian Samuel Pepys, somewhat
+sorrowfully, "he is not a gentleman."
+
+It is to be regretted that Signor Vasari did not follow up his remarks
+with his definition of the term "gentleman."
+
+Leonardo was more of a painter than a sculptor. His pictures are full of
+rollicking mirth, and the smile on the faces of his women is handed down
+by imitation even to this day. The joyous freedom of animal life beckons
+from every Leonardo canvas; and the backgrounds fade off into fleecy
+clouds and shadowy, dreamy, opiate odor of violets.
+
+Michelangelo, however, is true to his own life as Leonardo was to
+his--for at the last the artist only reproduces himself. He never painted
+a laugh, for life to him was serious and full of sober purpose. We can
+not call his work somber--it does not depress--for it carries with it a
+poise and a strength that is sufficient unto itself. It is all heroic,
+and there is in it a subtle quality that exorcises fear and bids care
+begone.
+
+No man ever portrayed the human figure with the same fidelity that Angelo
+has. The naked Adam, when the finger of the Almighty touched him into
+life, gives one a thrill of health to look upon, even after these four
+hundred years have struggled to obliterate the lines.
+
+His figures of women shocked the artistic sense of his time, for instead
+of the Greek idealization of beauty he carved the swelling muscles and
+revealed the articulations of form as no artist before him had ever
+dared. His women are never young, foolish, timid girls--they are Amazons;
+and his men are the kind that lead nations out of captivity. The soft,
+the pretty, the yielding, were far from him. There is never a suggestion
+of taint or double meaning; all is frank, open, generous, honest and
+fearless. His figures are nude, but never naked.
+
+He began his artistic work when fourteen years old, and he lived to be
+eighty-nine; and his years did not outlast his zeal and zest. He was
+above the medium size, an athlete in his lean and sinewy strength, and
+the whipcord quality of his body mirrored the silken strength of his
+will.
+
+In his old age the King arose when Michelangelo entered the
+Council-Chamber, and would not sit until he was seated at the right hand
+of the throne; the Pope would not allow him to kneel before him; when he
+walked through the streets of Rome the people removed their hats as he
+passed; and today we who gaze upon his work in the Eternal City stand
+uncovered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Michelangelo was the firstborn in a large family. Simone Buonarroti, his
+father, belonged to an ebbtide branch of the nobility that had lost
+everything but the memory of great ancestors turned to dust. This father
+had ambitions for his boy; ambitions in the line of the army or a snug
+office under the wing of the State, where he might, by following closely
+the beck and nod of the prince in power, become a magistrate or a keeper
+of customs.
+
+But no boy ever disappointed a proud father more.
+
+When great men in gilt and gold braid, with scarlet sashes across their
+breasts, and dangling swords that clicked and clanged on the stone
+pavement, strode by, rusty, dusty little Michel refused to take off his
+cap and wish them "Long life and God's favor," as his father ordered.
+Instead, he hid behind his mother's gown and made faces. His father used
+to say he was about as homely as he could be without making faces, and if
+he didn't watch out he would get his face crooked some day and couldn't
+get it back.
+
+Simone Buonarroti had qualities very Micawber-like mixed in his clay, and
+the way he cringed and crawled may have had something to do with setting
+the son on the other tack.
+
+The mother was only nineteen when Michel was born, and although the
+moralists talk much about woman's vanity and extravagance, the theory
+gets no backing from this quarter. She was a plain woman in appearance,
+quiet and self-contained, with no nerves to speak of, a sturdy, physical
+endowment, and commonsense enough for two. When scarcely out of dresses
+the boy began to draw pictures. He drew with charcoal on the walls, or
+with a stick in the sand, and shaped curious things out of mud in the
+gutters.
+
+It was an age of creative art, and most of the work being in the churches
+the common people had their part in it. In fact, the common people were
+the artists. And when Simone Buonarroti found his twelve-year-old boy
+haunting the churches to watch the workmen, and also discovered that he
+was consorting with the youths who studied drawing in the atelier of
+Ghirlandajo, he was displeased.
+
+Painters, to this erstwhile nobleman, were simply men in blue blouses who
+worked for low wages on high scaffolds, and occasionally spattered color
+on the good clothes of ladies and gentlemen who were beneath. He didn't
+really hate painters, he simply waived them; and to his mind there was no
+difference between an artisan and an artist.
+
+The mother, however, took a secret pride in her boy's drawings, as
+mothers always do in a son's accomplishments. Doubtless she knew
+something of the art of decoration, too, for she had brothers who worked
+as day laborers on high scaffolds. Yet she didn't say much about it, for
+women then didn't have so much to say about anything as now.
+
+But I can imagine that this good woman, as she went daily to church to
+pray, the year before her first child was born, watched the work of the
+men on the scaffolds, and observed that day by day the pictures grew; and
+as she looked, the sun streamed through stained windows and revealed to
+her the miracles of form and color, and the impressions of "The
+Annunciation," "Mary's Visit to Elizabeth" and "The Babe in the Manger"
+filled her wondering soul with thoughts and feelings too great for
+speech. To his mother was Michelangelo indebted for his leaning toward
+art. His father opposed such a plebeian bent vigorously:
+
+"Bah! to love beautiful things is all right, but to wish to devote all of
+one's time to making them, just for others--ouch! it hurts me to think of
+it!"
+
+The mother was lenient and said, "But if our child can not be anything
+more than a painter--why, we must be content, and God willing, let us
+hope he will be a good one."
+
+Ghirlandajo's was practically a school where, for a consideration, boys
+were taught the secrets of fresco. The master always had contracts of his
+own on hand and by using 'prentice talent made both ends meet. Young
+Michel made it his lounging-place and when he strayed from home his
+mother always knew where to find him.
+
+The master looked upon him as a possible pupil, and instead of ordering
+him away, smiled indulgently and gave him tasks of mixing colors and
+making simple lines. And the boy showed such zest and comprehension that
+in a short time he could draw freehand with a confidence that set the
+brightest scholar in the background. Such a pupil, so alert, so willing,
+so anxious, is the joy of a teacher's heart. Ghirlandajo must have
+him--he would inspire the whole school!
+
+So the master went to the father, but the father demurred, and his
+scruples were only overcome when Ghirlandajo offered to reverse the rule,
+and pay the father the sum that parents usually paid the master. A cash
+payment down caused pater to capitulate, and the boy went to work--aged
+fourteen.
+
+The terms of his apprenticeship called for three years, but after he had
+been at work a year, the ability of the youth made such an impression on
+the master that he took him to Lorenzo, Lorenzo the Magnificent, who then
+ruled over Florence.
+
+Lorenzo had him draw a few sketches, and he was admitted to the Academy.
+This "Academy" was situated in the palace of Lorenzo, and in the gardens
+was a rich collection of antique marbles: busts, columns, and valuable
+fragments that had come down from the days when Pericles did for Athens
+what Lorenzo was then doing for Florence. The march of commerce has
+overrun the garden, but in the Uffizi Gallery are to be seen today most
+of the curios that Lorenzo collected.
+
+By introducing the lad to Lorenzo, Ghirlandajo lost his best helper, but
+so unselfish was this excellent master that he seemed quite willing to
+forego his own profit that the boy might have the best possible
+advantages. And I never think of Ghirlandajo without mentally lifting my
+hat.
+
+At the Academy, Michelangelo ceased to paint and draw, and devoted all
+his energies to modeling in clay. So intent was his application that in a
+few weeks he had mastered technicalities that took others years to
+comprehend.
+
+One day the father came and found the boy in a blouse at work with mallet
+and chisel on a block of marble. "And is it a stone-mason you want to
+make of my heir and firstborn?" asked the fond father.
+
+It was explained that there were stone-masons and stone-masons. A
+stone-mason of transcendent skill is a sculptor, just as a painter who
+can produce a beautiful picture is an artist.
+
+Simone Buonarroti acknowledged he had never looked at it just in that
+way, but still he would not allow his son to remain at the trade
+unless--unless he himself had an office under the government.
+
+Lorenzo gave him the desired office, and took the young stone-mason as
+one of the Medici family, and there the boy lived in the Palace, and
+Lorenzo acted toward him as though he were his son.
+
+The favor with which he was treated excited the envy of some of the
+other pupils, and thus it was that in sudden wrath Torrigiano struck him
+that murderous blow with the mallet. Torrigiano paid for his fierce
+temper, not only by expulsion from the Academy, but by banishment from
+Florence.
+
+Michelangelo was the brightest of the hundred young men who worked and
+studied at the Medici palace.
+
+But when this head scholar was eighteen Lorenzo died. The son of Lorenzo
+continued his father's work in a feeble way, for Piero de Medici was a
+good example of the fact that great men seldom reproduce themselves after
+the flesh. Piero had about as much comprehension of the beautiful as the
+elder Buonarroti. He thought that all these young men who were being
+educated at the Academy would eventually be valuable adjuncts to the
+State, and as such it was a good scheme to give each a trade--besides, it
+kept them off the street; and then the work was amusing, a diversion to
+the nobility when time hung heavy.
+
+Once there came a heavy snowstorm, and snow being an unusual thing in
+Florence, Piero called a lot of his friends together in the gardens, and
+summoning Michelangelo, ordered him to make a snow image for the
+amusement of the guests, just as Piero at other times had a dog jump
+through a hoop.
+
+"What shall it be?" asked Michelangelo.
+
+"Oh, anything you please," replied Piero; "only don't keep us waiting
+here in the cold all day!"
+
+Young Angelo cast one proud look of contempt toward the group and set to
+work making a statue. In ten minutes he had formed a satyr that bore such
+a close resemblance to Piero that the guests roared with laughter. "That
+will do," called Piero; "like Deity, you make things in your own image."
+Some of the company tossed silver coin at the young man, but he let the
+money lie where it fell.
+
+Michel at this time was applying himself to the study of anatomy, and
+giving his attention to literature under the tutorship of the famous poet
+and scholar, Poliziano, who resided at the court.
+
+So filled was the young man's mind with his work that he was blind to the
+discontent arising in the State. To the young, governments and
+institutions are imperishable. Piero by his selfish whims had been
+digging the grave of the Medici. From sovereignty they were flung into
+exile. The palace was sacked, the beautiful gardens destroyed, and
+Michelangelo, being regarded as one of the family, was obliged to flee
+for his life. He arrived in Bologna penniless and friendless, and applied
+to a sculptor for work. "What can you do?" the old sculptor asked. For
+answer, Michelangelo silently took a crayon and sketched a human hand on
+the wall. Marvelous were the lines! The master put his arms around the
+boy and kissed his cheek.
+
+This new-found friend took him into his house, and placed him at his own
+table. Michelangelo was led into the library and workrooms, and told
+that all was his to use as he liked.
+
+The two years he remained at Bologna were a great benefit to the young
+man. The close contact with cultured minds, and the encouragement he
+received, spurred his spirit to increased endeavor. It was here that he
+began that exquisite statue of a Cupid that passed for an antique, and
+found its way into the cabinet of the Duchess of Mantua.
+
+Before long the discovery was made that the work was done by a young man
+only a little past twenty, and Cardinal San Giorgio sent a message
+inviting him to Rome.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rome had long been the Mecca of the boy's ambitions, and he joyously
+accepted the invitation. At Rome he was lodged in the Vatican, and
+surrounded by that world of the beautiful, he went seriously about his
+life's work. The Church must have the credit for being the mother of
+modern art. Not only did she furnish the incentive, but she supplied the
+means. She gave security from the eternal grind of material wants and
+offered men undying fame as reward for noble effort.
+
+The letter of religion was nothing to Michelangelo, but the eternal
+spirit of truth that broods over and beyond all forms and ceremonies
+touched his soul. His heart was filled with the poetry of pagan times.
+The gods of ancient Greece on high Olympus for him still sang and
+feasted, still lived and loved.
+
+But to the art of the Church he devoted his time and talents. He
+considered himself a priest and servant to the cause of Christ.
+
+Established at Rome in the palace of the Pope, Michelangelo felt secure.
+He knew his power. He knew he could do work that would for generations
+move men to tears, and in his prophetic soul was a feeling that his name
+would be inseparably linked with Rome. His wanderings and buffetings were
+things of the past--he was necessary to the Church, and his position was
+now secure and safe. The favor of princes lasts but for a day, but the
+Church is eternal. The Church should be his bride; to her and to her
+alone would he give his passionate soul. Thus mused Michelangelo, aged
+twenty-two. His first work at Rome was a statue of Bacchus, done it seems
+for an exercise to give Cardinal Giorgio a taste of his quality, just as
+he had drawn the human hand on the wall for his Bologna protector; for
+this fine and lofty pride in his power was a thing that clung to
+Michelangelo from rosy youth to hoary age.
+
+The "Bacchus," which is now in the National Museum at Florence, added to
+his reputation; and the little world of art, whose orbit was the Vatican,
+anxiously awaited a more serious attempt, just as we crane our necks when
+the great violinist about to play awakens expectation by a few
+preliminary flourishes.
+
+His first great work at Rome was the "Pieta." We see it today in Saint
+Peter's at the first chapel to the right as we enter, in a long row of
+commonplace marbles, in all its splendid beauty and strength. It
+represents the Mother of Christ, supporting in her arms the dead body
+just after it was lowered from the cross. In most of Michelangelo's work
+there is a heroic quality in the figures and a muscular strength that in
+a degree detracts from the spirit of sympathy that might otherwise come
+over us. It is admiration that seizes us, not sympathy. But this early
+work is the flower of Michelangelo's genius, round and full and complete.
+The later work may be different, but it is not better.
+
+When this group was unveiled in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-eight it was the
+sensation of the year. Old and young, rich and poor, learned and
+unlearned, flocked to see it, and the impression it made was most
+profound. If the Catholic Church has figured on the influence of statuary
+and painting on the superstitious, as has been tauntingly said, she has
+reckoned well. The story of steadfast love and loyalty is masterly told
+in that first great work of Michelangelo. The artist himself often
+mingled with the crowds that surrounded his speaking marble, and the
+people who knelt before it assured him by their reverence that his hand
+had wrought well. And once he heard two able doctors disputing as to who
+the artist was. They were lavish in their praise, and one insisted that
+the work was done by the great sculptor at Bologna, and he named the
+master who had befriended Michelangelo. The artist stood by and heard the
+argument put forth that no mere youth could conceive such a work, much
+less execute it.
+
+That night he stole into the church and by the wan light of a lantern
+carved his name deep on the girdle of the Virgin, and there do we read it
+today. The pride of the artist, however, afterward took another turn, for
+he never thereafter placed his name on a piece. "My work is unlike any
+other--no lover of the beautiful can mistake it," he proudly said.
+
+He worked away with untiring industry and the Church paid him well. But
+many of his pieces have been carried from Rome, and as they were not
+signed and scores of imitations sprang up, it can not always be
+determined now what is his work and what not. He toiled alone, and
+allowed no 'prentice hand to use the chisel, and unlike the sculptors of
+our day, did not work from a clay model, but fell upon the block direct.
+"I caught sight of Michelangelo at work, but could not approach for the
+shower of chips," writes a visitor at Rome in the year Fifteen Hundred
+One.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perfect peace is what Michelangelo expected to find in the palace of the
+Pope. Later he came to know that life is unrest, and its passage at best
+a zigzag course, that only straightens to a direct line when viewed
+across the years. If a man does better work than his fellows he must pay
+the penalty. Personality is an offense.
+
+In Rome there was a small army of painters and sculptors, each eager and
+anxious for the sole favor of the powers. They quibbled, quarreled,
+bribed, cajoled, and even fair women used their influence with cardinals
+and bishops in favor of this artist or that.
+
+Michelangelo was never a favorite in society; simpering beauty peeked at
+him from behind feather fans and made jokes concerning his appearance.
+Yet Walter Pater thought he found evidence that at this time Michelangelo
+was beloved by a woman, and that the artist reproduced her face and form,
+and indirectly pictured her in poems. In feature she was as plain as he;
+but her mind matched his, and was of a cast too high and excellent to
+allow him to swerve from his high ideals. Yet the love ended unhappily,
+and in some mysterious way gave a tinge of melancholy and a secret spring
+of sorrow to the whole long life of the artist.
+
+Jealous competitors made their influence felt. Michelangelo found his
+work relegated to corners and his supplies cut short.
+
+At this time an invitation came from Florence for him to come and make
+use of a gigantic block of marble that had lain there at the city gate,
+blackening in the dirt, for a century.
+
+The Florence that had banished him, now begged him to come back.
+
+"Those who once leave Florence always sigh to return," says Dante. He
+returned, and at once began work on the "David." The result was the
+heroic statue that stood for three hundred years at the entrance to the
+Palazzo Vecchio, only a hundred feet from where Savonarola was hanged and
+burned. The "David" is now in the Belle d' Arte, and if the custodian
+will allow you to climb up on a ladder you will see that the top of the
+head shows the rough unfinished slab, just as it was taken from the
+quarry. Any one but a master would have finished the work.
+
+This magnificent statue took nearly two years to complete. As a study of
+growing youth, boldly recognizing all that is awkward and immature, it
+has never ceased to cause wordy warfare to reign in the camp of the
+critics. "The feet, hands and head are all too large," the Athenians say.
+But linger around the "old swimmin'-hole" any summer day, and you will
+see tough, bony, muscular boys that might have served as a model for the
+"David."
+
+The heads of statues made by the Greeks are small in proportion to the
+body. The "Gladiator" wears a Number Six hat, and the "Discobolus" one
+size smaller; yet the figures represent men weighing one hundred eighty
+pounds each. The Greeks aimed to satisfy the eye, and as the man is
+usually seen clothed, they reduced the size of the head when they showed
+the nude figure.
+
+But Michelangelo was true to Nature, and the severest criticism ever
+brought against him is that he is absolutely loyal to truth. He was the
+first man ever to paint or model the slim, slender form of a child that
+has left its round baby shape behind and is shooting up like a
+lily-stalk. A nude, hardy boy six years old reveals ankle-bones, kneecap,
+sharp hips, ribs, collar-bone and shoulder-blade with startling fidelity.
+And why, being Nature's work, it is any less lovely than a condition of
+soft, cushioned adipose, we must let the critics tell, but Michelangelo
+thought it wasn't.
+
+From Fourteen Hundred Ninety-six, when Michelangelo first arrived in
+Rome, to Fifteen Hundred Four, he worked at nothing but sculpture. But
+now a change came over his restless spirit, for an invitation had come
+from the Gonfaloniere of Florence to decorate one of the rooms of the
+Town Hall, in competition with Leonardo da Vinci--the only Leonardo.
+
+He painted that strong composition showing Florentine soldiers bathing in
+the Arno. The scene depicts the surprise of the warriors as a trumpet
+sounds, calling them to battle with the enemy that is near at hand. The
+subject was chosen because it gave opportunity for exploiting the
+artist's marvelous knowledge of anatomy. Thirty figures are shown in
+various attitudes. Nearly all are nude, and as they scramble up the bank,
+buckling on their armor as they rush forward, eager for the fight, we see
+the wild, splendid swell of muscle and warm, tense, pulsing flesh. As an
+example of Michelangelo's consummate knowledge of form it was believed to
+be his finest work.
+
+But it did not last long; the jealous Bandinelli made a strong bid for
+fame by destroying it. And thus do Bandinelli and Torrigiano go
+clattering down the corridors of time hand in hand. Yet we know what the
+picture was, for various men who saw it recorded their impressions; but
+although many of the younger artists of Italy flocked to Florence to see
+it, and many copied it, only one copy has come down to us--the one in the
+collection of the Earl of Leicester, at Holkham.
+
+So even beautiful Florence could not treat her gifted son with
+impartiality, and when a call came from Pope Julius the Second, who had
+been elected in Fifteen Hundred Three, to return to Rome, the summons was
+promptly obeyed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Julius was one of the most active and vigorous rulers the earth has
+known. He had positive ideas on many subjects and like Napoleon "could do
+the thinking for a world."
+
+The first work he laid out for Michelangelo was a tomb, three stories
+high, with walls eighteen feet thick at the base, surrounded with
+numerous bas-reliefs and thirty heroic statues. It was to be a monument
+on the order of those worked out by the great Rameses, only incorporating
+the talent of Greece with that of ancient and modern Rome.
+
+Michelangelo spent nearly a year at the Carrara quarries, getting out
+materials and making plans for forwarding the scheme. But gradually it
+came over him that the question of economy, which was deeply rooted in
+the mind of Julius, forbade the completion of such a gigantic and costly
+work. Had Julius given Michelangelo "carte-blanche" orders on the
+treasury, and not meddled with the plans, this surpassing piece of
+architecture might have found form. But the fiery Julius, aged
+seventy-four, was influenced by the architect Bramante to demand from
+Michelangelo a bill of expense and definite explanation as to details.
+
+Very shortly after, Michelangelo quit work and sent a note to the Pope to
+the effect that the tomb was in the mountain of Carrara, with many
+beautiful statues, and if he wanted them he had better look for some one
+to get them out. As for himself, his address was Florence.
+
+The Pope sent couriers after him, one after another until five had been
+dispatched, but neither pleading, bribes nor threats could induce him to
+return.
+
+As the scientist constructs the extinct animal from a thigh-bone, so we
+can guess the grandeur of what the tomb might have been from the single
+sample that has come down to us. The one piece of work that was completed
+for this tomb is the statue of "Moses." If the reputation of Michelangelo
+rested upon nothing else than this statue, it would be sufficient for
+undying fame. The "Moses" probably is better known than any other piece
+of Michelangelo's work. Copies of it exist in all important galleries;
+there are casts of it in fifty different museums in America, and pictures
+of it are numberless. There it stands in the otherwise obscure church of
+Saint Pietro in Vincolo today, one hand grasping the flowing beard, and
+the other sustaining the tables of the law--majesty, strength, wisdom
+beaming in every line. As Mr. Symonds has said, "It reveals the power of
+Pope Julius and Michelangelo fused into a Jove."
+
+And so the messengers and messages were in vain, and even when the Pope
+sent an order to the Gonfaloniere Soderini, the actual ruler of Florence,
+to return the artist on pain of displeasure, the matter still
+rested--Michelangelo said he was neither culprit nor slave, and would
+live where he wished.
+
+At length the matter got so serious that it threatened the political
+peace of Florence, and in the goodly company of cardinals, bishops and
+chief citizens, Michelangelo was induced to go to Bologna and make peace
+with the Pope.
+
+His first task now was a bronze statue of Julius, made, it is stated, as
+a partial reproduction of the "Moses." Descriptions of it declare it was
+even finer than the "Moses," but alas! it only endured four years, for a
+mob evolved it into a cannon to shoot stones, and at the same time ousted
+Julius from Bologna.
+
+Michelangelo very naturally seconded the anathematization of the
+Bolognese by Julius, not so much for the insult to the Pope as for the
+wretched lack of taste they had shown in destroying a work of art. Had
+they left the beautiful statue there on its pedestal, Bologna would now
+on that account alone be a place of pilgrimage. The cannon they made is
+lost and forgotten--buried deep in the sand by its own weight--for Mein
+Herr Krupp can make cannon; but, woe betide us! who can make a statue
+such as Michelangelo made?
+
+Michelangelo now followed the Pope to Rome and began a work that none
+other dare attempt, but which today excites the jealous admiration of
+every artist soul who views it--the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
+Ghirlandajo, Perugino, Botticelli and Luca Signorelli had worked on the
+walls with good effect, but to lie on one's back and paint overhead so as
+to bring out a masterly effect when viewed from seventy feet below was
+something they dare not attempt. Michelangelo put up his scaffolds, drew
+designs, and employed the best fresco artists in Italy to fill in the
+color. But as they used their brushes he saw that the designs became
+enfeebled under their attempts--they did not grasp the conception--and in
+wrath he discharged them all. He then obliterated all they had done, and
+shutting out the ceiling from every one but himself, worked alone. Often
+for days he would not leave the building, for fear some one would meddle
+with the work. He drew up food by a string and slept on the scaffold
+without changing his clothes.
+
+After a year of intense application, no one but the artist had viewed the
+work. The Pope now demanded that he should be allowed to see it. A part
+of the scaffolding was struck, and the delight of the old Pope was
+unbounded. This was in Fifteen Hundred Nine, but the completed work was
+not shown to the public until All Souls' Day, Fifteen Hundred Twelve.
+
+The guides at the Vatican tell us this ceiling was painted in twenty-two
+months, but the letters of Michelangelo, recently published, show that he
+worked on it over four years.
+
+It contains over three hundred figures, all larger than life, and some
+are fifteen feet long. A complete description of the work Michelangelo
+did in this private chapel of the Pope would require a book, and in fact
+several books have been written with this ceiling as a subject. The
+technical obstacles to overcome in painting scenes and figures on an
+overhead surface can only be appreciated by those who have tried it. We
+can better appreciate the difficulties when we think that, in order even
+to view the decorations with satisfaction, large mirrors must be used, or
+one must lie prone on his back. In the ability to foreshorten and give
+harmonious perspective--supplying the effect of motion, distance, upright
+movement, coming toward you or moving away--all was worked out in this
+historic chapel in a way that has excited the wondering admiration of
+artists for three hundred years.
+
+When the scaffolding was at last removed, the artist thought for a time
+he had done his last work. The unnatural positions he had been obliged to
+take had so strained the muscles of his neck that on the street he had
+often to look straight up at the sky to rest himself, and things on a
+straight line in front he could not distinguish. Eyes, muscles, hands,
+refused to act normally.
+
+"My life is there on the ceiling of the Chapel of Sixtus," he said.
+
+He was then thirty-nine years old.
+
+Fifty eventful years of life and work were yet before him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Pope Julius died, in Fifteen Hundred Thirteen, Leo the Tenth, a son
+of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was called to take his place. We might
+suppose that Leo would have remembered with pride the fact that it was
+his father who gave Michelangelo his first start in life, and have
+treated the great artist in the way Lorenzo would, were he then alive.
+But the retiring, abstemious habits of Michelangelo did not appeal to
+Leo. The handsome and gracious Raphael was his favorite, and at the
+expense of Michelangelo, Raphael was petted, feted and advanced. Hence
+arose that envious rivalry between these two great men, which reveals
+each in a light far from pleasant--just as if Rome were not big enough
+for both. The pontificate of Leo the Tenth lasted just ten years. On
+account of the lack of encouragement Michelangelo received, it seems the
+most fruitless season of his whole life.
+
+Clement the Seventh, another member of the Medici family, succeeded Leo.
+Clement was too sensible of Michelangelo's merit to allow him to rust out
+his powers in petty tasks. He conceived the idea of erecting a chapel to
+be attached to the church of San Lorenzo, at Florence, to be the final
+resting-place of the great members of the Medici family. Michelangelo
+planned and built the chapel and for it wrought six great pieces of art.
+These are the statues of Lorenzo de Medici, father of Catherine de Medici
+(who was such a large, black blot on the page of history); a statue of
+Giuliano de Medici (whose name lives now principally because Michelangelo
+made this statue); and the four colossal reclining figures known as
+"Night," "Morning," "Dawn" and "Twilight." This chapel is now open to the
+public, and no visitor at Florence should miss seeing it.
+
+The statue of Lorenzo must ever rank as one of the world's masterpieces.
+The Italians call it "Il Pensiero." The sullen strength of the attitude
+gives one a vague ominous impulse to get away. Some one has said that it
+fulfils Milton's conception of Satan brooding over his plans for the ruin
+of mankind.
+
+In Fifteen Hundred Twenty-seven, while Michelangelo was working on the
+chapel, Florence was attacked and sacked by the Constable de Bourbon. The
+Medici family was again expelled, and from the leisurely decoration of a
+church in honor of the gentle Christ, the artist was called upon to build
+barricades to protect his native city. His ingenuity as an engineer was
+as consummate as his exquisite idea of harmony, and for nine months the
+city was defended.
+
+Through treachery the enemy was then allowed to enter and Michelangelo
+fled. Riots and wars seem as natural as thunderstorms to the Latin
+people; but after a year the clouds rolled by, Michelangelo was pardoned,
+and went back to his work of beautifying the chapel of San Lorenzo.
+
+In Fifteen Hundred Thirty-four, Pope Clement was succeeded by Paul the
+Third. Paul was seventy years old, but the vigor of his mind was very
+much like that of the great Julius. His first desire was to complete the
+decoration of the Sistine Chapel, so that the entire interior should
+match the magnificence of the ceiling, and to the task he summoned
+Michelangelo.
+
+The great artist hesitated. The ceiling was his supreme work as a
+painter, and he knew down deep in his heart that he could not hope to
+surpass it, and the risk of not equaling it was too great for him to run.
+The matter was too delicately personal to explain--only an artist could
+understand.
+
+Michelangelo made excuses to the Pope and declared he had forgotten how
+to use a brush, that his eyesight was bad, and that the only thing he
+could do was to carve.
+
+But Paul was not to be turned aside, and reluctantly Michelangelo went
+back to the Sistine, that he had left over twenty years before.
+
+Then it was that he painted "The Last Judgment" on the wall of the upper
+end of the chapel. Hamerton calls this the grandest picture ever
+executed, at the same time acknowledging its faults in taste. But it must
+be explained that the design was the conception of Julius, endorsed by
+Pope Paul, and it surely mirrors the spiritual qualities (or lack of
+them) in these men better than any biography possibly could.
+
+The merciful Redeemer is shown as a muscular athlete, full of anger and
+the spirit of revenge--proud, haughty, fierce. The condemned are ranged
+before him--a confused mass of naked figures, suspended in all attitudes
+of agony and terrible foreboding. The "saved" are ranged on one side, and
+do not seem to be of much better intellectual and spiritual quality than
+the damned; very naturally they are quite pleased to think that it is the
+others who are damned, and not they. The entire conception reveals that
+masterly ability to portray the human figure in every attitude of fear or
+passion. A hundred years after the picture was painted, some dignitary
+took it into his head that portions of the work were too "daring"; and a
+painter was set at work robing the figures. His fussy attempts are quite
+apparent.
+
+Michelangelo's next work was to decorate the Paolina Chapel. As in his
+last work on the Sistine, he was constantly interrupted and advised and
+criticized. As he worked, cardinals, bishops and young artists watched
+and suggested, but still the "Conversion of Saint Paul" and the
+"Crucifixion of Saint Peter," in the Paolina, must ever rank as masterly
+art.
+
+The frescoes in the Paolina Chapel occupied seven years and ended the
+great artist's career as a painter. He was seventy-three years old.
+
+Pope Paul then made him Chief Architect of Saint Peter's. Michelangelo
+knew the difficulties to be encountered--the bickerings, jealousies and
+criticisms that were inseparable from the work--and was only moved to
+accept the place on Pope Paul's declaration that no one else could do as
+well, and that it was the will of God. Michelangelo looked upon the
+performance as a duty and accepted the task, refusing to take any
+recompense for his services. He continued to discharge the duties of the
+office under the direction of Popes Paul, Pius the Fourth and Pius the
+Fifth. In all he worked under the pontificates of seven different popes.
+
+The dome of Saint Peter's, soaring to the skies, is his finest monument.
+The self-sustaining, airy quality in this stupendous structure hushes the
+beholder into silence; and yet that same quality of poise, strength and
+sufficiency marks all of the work of this colossus, whether it be
+painting, architecture or sculpture. America has paid tribute to
+Michelangelo's genius by reproducing the dome of Saint Peter's over the
+Capitol at Washington.
+
+Michelangelo died at Rome, aged eighty-nine, working and planning to the
+last. His sturdy frame showed health in every part, and he ceased to
+breathe just as a clock runs down. His remains were secretly taken to
+Florence and buried in the church of Santa Croce. A fine bust marks the
+spot, but the visitor can not help feeling a regret that the dust of this
+marvelous man does not rest beneath the zenith of the dome of Saint
+Peter's at Rome.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sitting calmly in this quiet corner, and with closed eyes, viewing
+Michelangelo's life as a whole, the impression is one of heroic strength,
+battling with fierce passions, and becoming victor over them by working
+them up into art. The mold of the man was masculine, and the subdued
+sorrow that flavors his whole career never degenerates into sickly
+sentimentality or repining.
+
+The sonnets of Michelangelo, recently given to the world, were written
+when he was nearly seventy years old. Several of the sonnets are directly
+addressed to Vittoria Colonna, and no doubt she inspired the whole
+volume. A writer of the time has mentioned his accidentally finding
+Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna seated side by side in the dim twilight
+of a deserted church, "talking soft and low." Deserted churches have ever
+been favorite trysting-places for lovers; and one is glad for this little
+glimpse of quiet and peace in the tossing, troubled life-journey of this
+tireless man. In fact, the few years of warm friendship with Vittoria
+Colonna is a charmed and temperate space, without which the struggle and
+unrest would be so ceaseless as to be appalling. Sweet, gentle and
+helpful was their mutual friendship. At this period of Michelangelo's
+life we know that the vehemence of his emotions subsided, and tranquility
+and peace were his for the rest of his life, such as he had never known
+before.
+
+The woman who stepped out of high society and won the love of this stern
+yet gentle old man must have been of a mental and spiritual quality to
+command our highest praise. The world loves Vittoria Colonna because she
+loved Michelangelo, and led him away from strife and rivalry and toil.
+
+
+
+
+REMBRANDT
+
+     The eyes and the mouth are the supremely significant features of
+     the human face. In Rembrandt's portraits the eye is the center
+     wherein life, in its infinity of aspect, is most manifest. Not
+     only was his fidelity absolute, but there is a certain mysterious
+     limpidity of gaze that reveals the soul of the sitter. A
+     "Rembrandt" does not give up its beauties to the casual
+     observer--it takes time to know it, but once known, it is yours
+     forever.
+
+    --_Emile Michel_
+
+[Illustration: REMBRANDT]
+
+
+Swimming uneasily in my ink-bottle is a small preachment concerning
+names, and the way they have been evolved, and lost, or added to. Some
+day I will fish this effusion out and give it to a waiting world. Those
+of us whose ancestors landed at Plymouth or Jamestown are very proud of
+our family names, and even if we trace quite easily to Castle Garden we
+do not always discard the patronymic.
+
+Harmen Gerritsz was a young man who lived in the city of Leyden, Holland,
+in the latter part of the Sixteenth Century. The letters "sz" at the end
+of his name stood for "szoon" and signified that he was the szoon of
+Mynheer Gerrit.
+
+Now Harmen Gerritsz duly served an apprenticeship with a miller, and when
+his time expired, being of an ambitious nature, he rented a mill on the
+city wall, and started business for himself. Shortly after he very
+naturally married the daughter of a baker.
+
+All of Mr. Harmen Gerritsz's customers called him Harmen, and when they
+wished to be exact they spoke of him as Harmen van Ryn--that is to say,
+Harmen of the Rhine, for his mill was near the river. "Out West," even
+now, if you call a man Mister, he will probably inquire what it is you
+have against him.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Harmen lived in the mill, and as years went by were blessed
+with a nice little family of six children. The fifth child is the only
+one that especially interests us. They named him Rembrandt.
+
+Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Ryn, he called himself when he entered at the
+grammar-school at Leyden, aged fourteen. His father's first name being
+Harmen, he simply took that, and discarded the Gerrit entirely, according
+to the custom of the time. In fact, all our Johnsons are the sons of
+John, and the names Peterson, Thompson and Wilson, in feudal times, had
+their due and proper significance. Then when we find names with a final
+ending of "s," such as Robbins, Larkins and Perkins, we are to understand
+that the owner is the son of his father. And so we find Rembrandt
+Harmenszoon in his later years writing his name Harmensz and then simply
+Harmens.
+
+Mynheer Harmen Gerritszoon's windmill ground exceeding small, and the
+product found a ready market. There were no servants in the miller's
+family--everybody worked at the business. In Holland people are
+industrious. The leisurely ways of the Dutch can, I think, safely be
+ascribed to their environment, and here is an argument Buckle might have
+inserted in his great book, but did not, and so I will write it down.
+
+There are windmills in Holland (I trust the fact need not longer be
+concealed) and these windmills are used for every possible mechanical
+purpose. Now the wind blows only a part of the time--except in
+Chicago--and there may be whole days when not a windmill turns in all
+Holland. The men go out in the morning and take due note of the wind, and
+if there is an absolute calm many of them go back to bed. I have known
+the wind to die down during the day and the whole force of a windmill
+troop off to a picnic, as a matter of course. So the elements in Holland
+set man the example--he will not rush himself to death when not even the
+wind does.
+
+Then another thing: Holland has many canals. Farmers load their hay on
+canal-boats and take it to the barn, women go to market in boats, lovers
+sail, seemingly, right across the fields--canals everywhere.
+
+Traveling by canal is not rapid transit. So the people of Holland have
+plenty of precedent for moving at a moderate speed. There are no
+mountains in Holland, so water never runs; it may move, but the law of
+gravitation there only acts to keep things quiet. The Dutch never run
+footraces--neither do they scorch.
+
+In Amsterdam I have seen a man sit still for an hour, and this with a
+glass of beer before him, gazing off into space, not once winking, not
+even thinking. You can not do that in America, where trolley-cars whiz
+and blizzards blow--there is no precedent for it in things animate or
+inanimate. In the United States everything is on the jump, art included.
+
+Rembrandt Harmens worked in his father's mill, but never strained his
+back. He was healthy, needlessly healthy, and was as smart as his
+brothers and sisters, but no smarter, and no better looking. He was
+exceedingly self-contained, and would sit and dream at his desk in the
+grammar-school, looking out straight in front of him--just at nothing.
+
+The master tried flogging, and the next day found a picture of himself on
+the blackboard, his face portrayed as anything but lovely. Young
+Rembrandt was sent home to fetch his father. The father came.
+
+"Look at that!" said the irate teacher; "see what your son did; look at
+that!"
+
+Mynheer Harmen sat down and looked at the picture in his deliberate Dutch
+way, and after about fifteen minutes said, "Well, it does look like you!"
+
+Then he explained to the schoolmaster that the lad was sent to school
+because he would not do much around the mill but draw pictures in the
+dust, and it was hoped that the schoolmaster could teach him something.
+
+The schoolmaster decided that it was a hopeless case, and the miller went
+home to report to the boy's mother.
+
+Now, whenever a Dutchman is confronted by a problem too big to solve, or
+a task too unpleasant for him to undertake, he shows his good sense by
+turning it over to his wife. "You are his mother, anyway," said Harmen
+van Ryn, reproachfully.
+
+The mother simply waived the taunt and asked, "Do you tell me the
+schoolmaster says he will not do anything but draw pictures?"
+
+"Not a tap will he do but make pictures--he can not multiply two by one."
+
+"Well," said the mother, "if he will not do anything but draw pictures, I
+think we'd better let him draw pictures."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At that early age I do not think Rembrandt was ambitious to be a painter.
+Good healthy boys of fourteen are not hampered and harassed by
+ambition--ambition, like love, camps hot upon our trail later. Ambition
+is the concomitant of rivalry, and sex is its chief promoter--it is a
+secondary sex manifestation.
+
+The boy simply had a little intuitive skill in drawing, and the exercise
+of the talent was a gratification. It pleased him to see the semblance of
+face or form unfold before him. It was a kind of play, a working off of
+surplus energy.
+
+Had the lad's mind at that time been forcibly diverted to books or
+business, it is very probable that today the catalogs would be without
+the name of Rembrandt.
+
+But mothers have ambitions, even if boys have not--they wish to see their
+children do things that other women's children can not do. Among wild
+animals the mother kills, when she can, all offspring but her own. Darwin
+refers to mother-love as, "that instinct in the mind of the female which
+causes her to exaggerate the importance of her offspring--often
+protecting them to the death." Through this instinct of protection is the
+species preserved. In human beings mother-love is well flavored with
+pride, prejudice, jealousy and ambition. This is because the mother is a
+woman. And this is well--God made it all, and did He not look upon His
+work and pronounce it good?
+
+The mother of Rembrandt knew that in Leyden there were men who painted
+beautiful pictures. She had seen these pictures at the University, and in
+the Town Hall and in the churches; and she had overheard men discussing
+and criticizing the work. She herself was poor and uneducated, her
+husband was only a miller, with no recreation beyond the beer-garden and
+a clicking reluctantly off to church in his wooden shoes on Sunday. They
+had no influential friends, no learned patrons--the men at the University
+never so much as nodded to millers. Her lot was lowly, mean, obscure, and
+filled with drudgery and pettiness. And now some one was saying her boy
+Rembrandt was lazy; he would neither work nor study. The taunt stung her
+mother-pride--"He will do nothing but make pictures!"
+
+Ah! a great throb came to her heart. Her face flushed, she saw it
+all--all in prophetic vision stood out like an etching on the blankness
+of the future. "He will do nothing but draw pictures? Very well then, he
+shall draw pictures! He will draw so well that they shall adorn the
+churches of Leyden, and the Town Hall, and yes! even the churches of
+Amsterdam. Holland shall be proud of my boy! He will teach other men to
+draw, his pictures will command fabulous prices, and his name shall be
+honored everywhere! Yes, my boy shall draw pictures! This day will I take
+him to Mynheer Jacob van Swanenburch, who was a pupil of the great
+Rubens, and who has scholars even from Antwerpen. I will take him to the
+Master, and I will say: 'Mynheer, I am only a poor woman, the daughter of
+an honest baker. My husband is a miller. This is my son. He will do
+nothing but draw pictures. Here is a bag of gold--not much, but it is all
+good gold; there are no bad coins in this bag; I've been ten years in
+saving them. Take this bag--it is yours--now teach my son to paint. Teach
+him as you taught Valderschoon and those others--my memory is bad, I can
+not remember the names--I'm only a poor woman. Show my boy how to paint.
+And when I am dead, and you are dead, men will come to your grave and
+say, "It is here that he rests, here--the man who first taught Rembrandt
+Harmenszoon to use a brush!" Do you hear, Mynheer Van Swanenburch? The
+gold--it is yours--and this is my boy!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Van Swanenburches were one of the most aristocratic families of
+Leyden. Jacob van Swanenburch's father had been burgomaster, and he
+himself occupied from time to time offices of importance. He was not a
+great painter, although several specimens of his work still adorn the
+Town Hall of his native city.
+
+Rembrandt was not very anxious to attend Swanenburch's classes. He was a
+hesitating, awkward youth, and on this account was regarded as unsocial.
+For a year the boy looked on, listened, and made straight marks and
+curves and all that. He did not read, and the world of art was a thing
+unknown to him.
+
+There are two kinds of people to be found in all studios: those who talk
+about art, and the fellows who paint the pictures.
+
+However, Rembrandt was an exception, and for a time would do neither. He
+would not paint, because he said he could not--anyway he would not; but
+no doubt he did a deal of thinking. This habit of reticence kept him in
+the background, and even the master had suspicions that he was too beefy
+to hold a clear mental conception.
+
+The error of the Swanenburch atelier lay in the fact that quiet folks are
+not necessarily stupid. It is doubtless true, however, that stupid men by
+remaining quiet may often pass for men of wisdom: this is because no man
+can really talk as wisely as he can look.
+
+Young Rembrandt was handicapped by a full-moon face, and small gray eyes
+that gave no glint, and his hair was so tousled and unruly that he could
+not wear a hat.
+
+So the sons of aristocrats who cracked sly jokes at the miller's boy had
+their fun.
+
+Rembrandt usually came in late, after the master had begun his little
+morning lecture. The lad was barefoot, having left his wooden shoon in
+the hallway "so as not to wear out the floor." He would bow awkwardly to
+the professor, fall over a chair or two that had been slyly pushed in his
+way, and taking his seat chew the butt end of a brush.
+
+"Why are you always late?" asked the master one day.
+
+"Oh, I was working at home and forgot the time."
+
+"And what are you working at?"
+
+"Me? I'm--I'm drawing a little," and he colored vermilion to the back of
+his neck.
+
+"Well, bring your work here so we can profit by it," exclaimed a joker,
+and the class guffawed.
+
+The next morning the lad brought his picture--a woman's face--a picture
+of a face, homely, wrinkled, weather-beaten, but with a look of love and
+patience and loyalty beaming out of the quiet eyes.
+
+"Who did this?" demanded the teacher.
+
+Rembrandt hesitated, stuttered, stammered, and then confessed that he did
+it himself--he could not tell a lie.
+
+He was sure the picture would be criticized and ridiculed, but he had
+decided to face it out. It was a picture of his mother, and he had
+sketched her just as she looked. He would let them laugh, and then at
+noon he would wait outside the door and smash the boy who laughed loudest
+over the head with a wooden shoe--and let it go at that.
+
+But the scholars did not laugh, for Jacob van Swanenburch took the boy by
+the hand and leading him out before the class told those young men to
+look upon their master.
+
+From that time forth Rembrandt was regarded by the little art world of
+Leyden as a prodigy.
+
+Like William Cullen Bryant, who wrote "Thanatopsis" when scarcely
+eighteen, and writing for sixty years thereafter never equaled it, or
+Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who wrote "The Blessed Damozel" at the same age,
+Rembrandt sprang into life full-armed.
+
+It is probably true that he could not then have produced an elaborate
+composition, but his faces were Rembrandtesque from the very first.
+
+Rembrandt is the king of light and shade. You never mistake his work. As
+the years passed, around him clustered a goodly company of pupils,
+hundreds in all, who diligently worked to catch the trick, but Rembrandt
+stands alone. "He is the only artist who could ever paint a wrinkle,"
+says Ruskin. All his portraits have the warts on. And the thought has
+often come to me that only a Rembrandt--the only Rembrandt--could have
+portrayed the face of Lincoln. Plain, homely, awkward, eyes not mates,
+sunken cheeks, leathery skin, moles, uncombed hair, neckcloth askew; but
+over and above and beyond all a look of power--and the soul! that look of
+haunting sorrow and the great, gentle, compassionate soul within!
+
+And so there is a picture of Rembrandt's mother which this son painted
+that must ever stand out as one of the world's masterpieces. Let who
+will, declare that the portrait by Richter in the Gallery at Cologne, of
+Queen Louise, is the handsomest portrait ever painted; yet the depth of
+feeling, the dignity and love in the homely old mother's face, pale not
+in comparison, but are things to which the proud and beautiful Queen
+herself paid homage.
+
+Rembrandt painted nearly a hundred pictures of his mother that we can
+trace. In most of them she holds in her hands a little Bible, and thus
+did the son pay tribute to her devoted piety. She was a model of which he
+never tired. He painted her in court dress, and various other fantastic
+garbs, that she surely never wore. He painted her as a nun, as a queen, a
+court beauty, a plain peasant, a musician; and in various large pictures
+her face and form are introduced. And most of these pictures of his
+mother are plainly signed with his monogram. He also painted his sister
+as the Madonna, and this is signed; but although he doubtless painted his
+father's face, yet he did not sign such pictures, so their authenticity
+is a hazard. This fact gives a clue to his affections which each can work
+out for himself.
+
+Rembrandt remained with Swanenburch for three years, and the master
+proved his faithful friend. He gave him an introduction into the
+aristocratic art world which otherwise might have barred its doors
+against so profound a genius, as aristocracy has done time and again.
+
+The best artists are not necessarily the best teachers. If a man has too
+much skill along a certain line he will overpower and kill the
+individuality in his pupil. There are teachers who smother a pupil with
+their own personality, and thus it often happens that the strongest men
+are not the most useful as instructors. The ideal teacher is not the one
+who bends all minds to match his own; but the one who is able to bring
+out and develop the good that is in the pupil--him we will crown with
+laurel.
+
+Swanenburch was pretty nearly the ideal teacher. His good nature, the
+feminine quality of sympathy in his character, his freedom from all
+petty, quibbling prejudice, and his sublime patience all worked to burst
+the tough husk, and develop that shy and sensitive, yet uncouth and
+silent youth, bringing out the best that was in him. A wrong environment
+in those early years might easily have shaped Rembrandt into a morose and
+resentful dullard: the good in his nature, thrown back upon itself, would
+have been turned to gall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The little business on the city wall had prospered, and Harmen van Ryn
+moved, with his family, out of the old mill into a goodly residence
+across the street. He was carrying his head higher, and the fact that his
+son Rembrandt was being invited to the homes of the professors at the
+University was incidentally thrown off, until the patrons at the
+beer-garden grew aweary and rapped their glasses on the table as a signal
+for silence.
+
+Swanenburch had given a public exhibition of the work of his pupils, at
+which young Rembrandt had been pushed forward as an example of what right
+methods in pedagogics could do.
+
+"Well, why can not all your scholars draw like that, then?" asked a
+broad-beamed Dutchman.
+
+"They certainly could, if they would follow the principles I lay down,"
+answered the master severely.
+
+But admiration did not spoil Rembrandt. His temperature was too low for
+ebullition--he took it all quite as a matter of course. His work was done
+with such ease that he was not aware it was extraordinary in quality; and
+when Swanenburch sold several of his sketches at goodly prices and put
+the silver in the lad's hand, he asked who the blockheads were who had
+invested.
+
+Swanenburch taught his pupils the miracle of spreading a thin coat of wax
+on a brass plate, and drawing a picture in the wax with a sharp graver;
+then acid was poured over it and the acid ate into the brass so as to
+make a plate from which you could print. Etching was a delight to
+Rembrandt. Expert illustrators of books were in demand at Leyden, for it
+was then the bookmaking center of Northern Europe. The Elzevirs were
+pushing the Plantins of Antwerp hard for first place.
+
+So skilfully did Rembrandt sketch, that one of the great printers made a
+proposition to his father to take the boy until he was twenty-one, and
+pay the father a thousand florins a year for the lad's services as an
+illustrator. The father accepted the proposition; and the next day
+brought around another Harmenszoon, who he declared was just as good. But
+the bookmaker was stubborn and insisted on having a certain one or none.
+So the bargain fell through.
+
+It was getting near four years since Swanenburch had taken Rembrandt into
+his keeping, and now he went to the boy's parents and said: "I have given
+all I have to offer to your son. He can do all I can, and more. There is
+only one man who can benefit him and that is Pieter Lastman, of
+Amsterdam. He must go and study with the great Lastman--I myself will
+take him."
+
+Lastman had spent four years in Italy, and had come back full to
+overflowing with classic ideas. His family was one of the most
+aristocratic in Amsterdam, and whatever he said concerning art was quoted
+as final. He was the court of last appeal. His rooms were filled with
+classic fragments, and on his public days visitors flocked to hear what
+he might have to say about the wonders of Venice, Florence and Rome. For
+in those days men seldom traveled out of their own countries, and those
+who did had strange tales to tell the eager listeners when they returned.
+
+Lastman was handsome, dashing, popular. His pictures were in demand,
+principally because they were Lastman's. Proud ladies came from afar and
+begged the privilege of sitting as his model. In Italy, Lastman had found
+that many painters employed 'prentice talent. The great man would sketch
+out the pictures, and the boys would fill in the color. Lastman would go
+off about his business, and perhaps drop in occasionally during the day
+to see how the boys got on, adding a few touches here and there, and
+gently rebuking those who showed too much genius. Lastman believed in
+genius, of course; but only his own genius filled his ideal. As a
+consequence all of Lastman's pictures are alike--they are all equally
+bad. They represent neither the Italian school nor the Dutch, being
+hybrids: Italian skies and Holland backgrounds; Dutchmen dressed as
+dagoes.
+
+Lastman was putting money in his purse. He closely studied public tastes,
+and conformed thereto. He was popular, and there is in America today a
+countryman of his, of like temperament, who is making much moneys out of
+literature by similar methods.
+
+Into Lastman's keeping came the young man, Rembrandt Harmens. Lastman
+received him cordially, and set him to work.
+
+But the boy proved hard to manage: he had his own ideas about how
+portraits should be painted.
+
+Lastman tried to unlearn him. The master was patient, and endeavored hard
+to make the young man paint as he should--that is, as Lastman did; but
+the result was not a success. The Lastman intellect felt sure that
+Rembrandt had no talent worth encouraging.
+
+Lastman produced a great number of pictures, and his name can be found in
+the catalogs of the galleries of Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin and Antwerp;
+and his canvases are in many of the old castles and palaces of Germany.
+In recent years they have been enjoying a vogue, simply because it was
+possible that Rembrandt had worked on them. All the "Lastmans" have been
+gotten out and thoroughly dusted by the connoisseurs, in a frantic search
+for earmarks.
+
+The perfect willingness of Lastman to paint a picture on any desired
+subject, and have it ready Saturday night, all in the colors the patron
+desired, with a guarantee that it would give satisfaction, filled the
+heart of Rembrandt with loathing.
+
+At the end of six months, when he signified a wish to leave, it was a
+glad relief to the master. Lastman had tried to correct Rembrandt's
+vagaries as to chiaroscuro, but without success. So he wrote an ambiguous
+letter certifying to the pupil's "having all his future before him," gave
+him a present of ten florins in jingling silver, and sent him back to his
+folks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rembrandt had been disillusioned by his stay in the fashionable art-world
+of Amsterdam. Some of his idols had crumbled, and there came into his
+spirit a goodly dash of pessimism. His father was disappointed and
+suggested that he get a place as illustrator at the bookmakers, before
+some one else stepped in and got the job.
+
+But Rembrandt was not ambitious. He decided he would not give up
+painting, at least not yet--he would keep at it and he would paint as he
+pleased. He had lost faith in teachers. He moped around the town, and
+made the acquaintance of the painter Engelbrechtsz and his talented
+pupil, Lucas van Leyden. Their work impressed him greatly, and he studied
+out every detail on the canvases until he had absorbed the very spirit of
+the artist. Then, when he painted, he very naturally took their designs,
+and treated them in his own way. Indeed, the paucity in invention of
+those early days must ever impress the student of art.
+
+In visiting the galleries of Europe, I made it my business to secure a
+photograph of every "Madonna and Babe" of note that I could find. My
+collection now numbers over one hundred copies, with no two alike.
+
+The Madonna, of course, is the extreme example; but there are dozens of
+"The Last Supper," "Abraham's Sacrifice," "The Final Judgment," "The
+Brazen Serpent," "Raising of Lazarus," "The Annunciation," "Rebekah at
+the Well" and so on.
+
+If one painter produced a notable picture, all the other artists in the
+vicinity felt it their duty to treat the same subject; in fact, their
+honor was at stake--they just had to, in order to satisfy the clamor of
+their friends, and meet the challenges of detractors.
+
+This "progressive sketching" was kept up, each man improving, or trying
+to improve, on the attempts of the former, until a Leonardo struck twelve
+and painted his "Last Supper," or a Rubens did his "Descent From the
+Cross"--then competitors grew pale, and tried their talent on a lesser
+theme.
+
+One of the most curious examples of the tendency to follow a bellwether
+is found in the various pictures called "The Anatomy Lesson." When Venice
+was at its height, in the year Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two--a date we can
+easily remember--an unknown individual drew a picture of a professor of
+anatomy; on a table in the center is a naked human corpse, while all
+around are ranged the great doctor's pupils. Dissection had just been
+introduced into Venice at that time, and in a treatise on the subject by
+Andrea Vesali, I find that it became quite the fad. The lecture-rooms
+were open to the public, and places were set apart for women visitors and
+the nobility, while all around the back were benches for the plain
+people. On the walls were skeletons, and in cases were arranged saws,
+scalpels, needles, sponges and various other implements connected with
+the cheerful art.
+
+The Unknown's picture of this scene made a sensation. And straightway
+other painters tried their hands at it, the unclothed form of the corpse
+affording a fine opportunity for the "classic touch." Paul Veronese tried
+it, and so did the Bellinis--Titian also.
+
+Then a century passed, as centuries do, and the glory of Venice drifted
+to Amsterdam--commercially and artistically. Amsterdam painters used
+every design that the Venetians had, and some of their efforts were sorry
+attempts. In Sixteen Hundred Twenty, following Venetian precedent,
+dissection became a fad in Leyden and Amsterdam. Swanenburch engraved a
+picture of the Leyden dissecting-room, with a brace of gallant doctors
+showing some fair ladies the beauties of the place. The Dutch were
+ambitious--the young men, Rembrandt included, drew pictures entitled,
+"The Lesson in Anatomy." Doctors who were getting on in the world gave
+orders for portraits, showing themselves as about to begin work on a
+subject. One physician, with intent to get even with his rival, had the
+artist picture the rival in the background as a pupil. Then the rival
+ordered a picture of himself, proud and beautiful, giving a lesson in
+anatomy, armed and equipped for business, and the cadaver was--the other
+doctor.
+
+At the Chicago Fair, in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-three, there was shown a
+most striking "Anatomy Lesson" from the brush of a young New York artist.
+It pictures the professor removing the sheet from the face of the
+corpse, and we behold the features of a beautiful young woman.
+
+Some day I intend to write a book entitled, "The Evolution and
+Possibilities of the Anatomy Lesson." Keep your eye on the subject--we
+are not yet through with it.
+
+Swanenburch offered to give Rembrandt a room in his own house, but he
+preferred the old mill, and a wheat-bin was fitted up for a private
+studio. The fittings of the studio must have cost fully two dollars,
+according to all accounts; there were a three-legged stool, an easel, a
+wooden chest, and a straw bed in the corner. Only one window admitted the
+light, and this was so high up that the occupant was not troubled by
+visitors looking in.
+
+Our best discoveries are the result of accident.
+
+This single window, eight feet from the ground, allowed the rays of light
+to enter in a stream. On cloudy days and early in the mornings or in the
+evenings, Rembrandt noted that when the light fell on the face of the
+visitor the rest of the body was wholly lost in the shadow. He placed a
+curtain over the window with a varying aperture cut in it, and with his
+mother as model made numerous experiments in the effects of light and
+shade. He seems to have been the very first artist who could draw a part
+of the form, leaving all the rest in absolute blackness, and yet give the
+impression to the casual onlooker that he sees the figure complete. Plain
+people with no interest in the technique of art will look upon a
+"Rembrandt," and go away and describe things in the picture that are not
+there. They will declare to you that they saw them--those obvious things
+which one fills in at once with his inward eye. For instance, there is a
+portrait of a soldier, by Rembrandt, in the Louvre, and above the
+soldier's head you see a tall cockade. You assume at once that this
+cockade is in the soldier's hat, but no hat is shown--not the semblance
+nor the outline of a hat. There is a slight line that might be the rim of
+a hat, or it might not. But not one person out of a thousand, looking
+upon the picture, but would go away and describe the hat, and be
+affronted if you should tell them there is no hat in the picture. Given a
+cockade, we assume a hat.
+
+By the use of shadows Rembrandt threw the faces into relief; he showed
+the things he wished to show and emphasized one thing by leaving all else
+out. The success of art depends upon what you omit from your canvas. This
+masterly effect of illusion made the son of the miller stand out in the
+Leyden art-world like one of his own etchings.
+
+Curiously enough, the effect of a new model made Rembrandt lose his
+cunning; with strangers he was self-conscious and ill at ease. His mother
+was his most patient model; his father and sisters took their turn; and
+then there was another model who stood Rembrandt in good stead. And that
+was himself. We have all seen children stand before a mirror and make
+faces. Rembrandt very early contracted this habit, and it evidently
+clung to him through life. He has painted his own portrait with
+expressions of hate, fear, pride, mirth, indifference, hope and wrath
+shown on his plastic features.
+
+There is also an old man with full white beard and white hair that
+Rembrandt has pictured again and again.
+
+This old man poses for "Lot," "Abraham," "Moses," "A Beggar," "A King,"
+and once he even figures as "The Almighty." Who he was we do not know,
+and surely he did not realize the honor done him, or he would have
+written a proud word of explanation to be carved on his tomb.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the Stuttgart Museum is a picture entitled, "Saint Paul in Prison,"
+signed by Rembrandt, with the date Sixteen Hundred Twenty-seven. "The
+Money-Changers" in the Berlin Gallery bears the same signature and date.
+Rembrandt was then twenty years of age, and we see that he was doing good
+work. We also know that there was a certain market for his wares.
+
+When twenty-two years of age his marvelous effects of light and shade
+attracted people who were anxious to learn how to do it. According to
+report he had sixteen pupils in Sixteen Hundred Twenty-eight, each of
+whom paid him the fixed sum of one hundred florins. This was not much,
+but it gave him an income equal to that of his father, and tended to
+confirm his faith in his own powers.
+
+His energy was a surprise to all who had known him, for besides teaching
+his classes he painted, sketched and etched. Most of his etchings were of
+his own face--not intended as portraits, for they are often purposely
+disguised. It seemed to be the intent of the artist to run the whole
+gamut of the passions, portraying them on the human face. Six different
+etchings done in the year Sixteen Hundred Twenty-eight are to be seen in
+the British Museum.
+
+His most intimate friend at this time was Jan Lievens. The bond that
+united them was a mutual contempt for Lastman of Amsterdam. In fact, they
+organized a club, the single qualification required of each candidate for
+admittance being a hatred for Lastman. This club met weekly at a
+beer-hall, and each member had to relate an incident derogatory to the
+Lastman school. At the close of each story, all solemnly drank eternal
+perdition to Lastman and his ilk. Finally, Lastman was invited to join;
+and in reply he wrote a gracious letter of acceptance. This surely shows
+that Lastman was pretty good quality, after all.
+
+Rembrandt was making money. His pupils spread his praise, and so many new
+ones came that he took the old quarters of Swanenburch.
+
+In Sixteen Hundred Thirty-one, there came to him a young man who was to
+build a deathless name for himself--Gerard Dou. Then to complete the
+circle came Joris van Vliet, whose reputation as an engraver must ever
+take a first rank. Van Vliet engraved many of Rembrandt's pictures, and
+did it so faithfully and with such loving care that copies today command
+fabulous prices among the collectors. Indeed, we owe to Van Vliet a debt
+for preserving many of Rembrandt's pictures, the originals of which have
+disappeared. With the help of Van Vliet the Elzevirs accomplished their
+wishes, and so made use of the talent of Rembrandt.
+
+Rembrandt lived among the poor, as a matter of artistic policy, mingling
+with them on an absolute equality. He considered their attitudes simpler,
+more natural, and their conduct less artificial, than the manners of
+those in higher walks.
+
+About Sixteen Hundred Twenty-nine, there came into his hands a set of
+Callot's engravings, and the work produced on his mind a profound
+impression. Callot's specialty was beggardom. He pictured decrepit
+beggars, young beggars, handsome girl-beggars, and gallant old beggars
+who wore their fluttering rags with easy grace.
+
+The man who could give the phlegmatic Rembrandt a list to starboard must
+have carried considerable ballast. Straightway on making Callot's
+acquaintance he went forth with bags of coppers and made the acquaintance
+of beggars. He did not have to travel far--"the Greeks were at his door."
+The news spread, and each morning, the truthful Orles has told us, "there
+were over four hundred beggars blocking the street that led to his
+study," all willing to enlist in the cause of art. For six months
+Rembrandt painted little beside "the ragged gentry." But he gradually
+settled down on about ten separate and distinct types of abject
+picturesqueness.
+
+Ten years later, when he pictured the "Healing Christ," he introduced the
+Leyden beggars, and these fixed types that he carried hidden in the cells
+of his brain he introduced again and again in various pictures. In this
+respect he was like all good illustrators: he had his properties, and by
+new combinations made new pictures. Who has not noticed that every
+painter carries in his kit his own distinct types--sealed, certified to,
+and copyrighted by popular favor as his own personal property?
+
+Can you mistake Kemble's "coons," Denslow's dandies, Remington's horses,
+Giannini's Indians, or Gibson's "Summer Girl"? These men may not be
+Rembrandts, but when we view the zigzag course art has taken, who dare
+prophesy that this man's name is writ in water and that man's carved in
+the granite of a mountain-side! Contemporary judgments usually have been
+wrong. Did the chief citizens of Leyden in the year Sixteen Hundred
+Thirty regard Rembrandt's beggars as immortal? Not exactly!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In Sixteen Hundred Thirty-one, Rembrandt concluded that his reputation in
+the art-world of Holland was sufficient for him to go to Amsterdam and
+boldly pit himself against De Keyser, Hals, Lastman and the rest. He had
+put forth his "Lesson in Anatomy," and the critics and connoisseurs who
+had come from the metropolis to see it were lavish in their praise. Later
+we find him painting the subject again with another doctor handling the
+tweezers and scalpel.
+
+Rembrandt started for Amsterdam the second time--this time as a teacher,
+not as a scholar. He rented an old warehouse on the canal for a studio.
+It was nearly as outlandish a place as his former quarters in the mill at
+Leyden. But it gave him plenty of room, was secluded, and afforded good
+opportunity for experiments in light and shade.
+
+He seemed to have gotten over his nervousness in working with strange
+models; for new faces now begin to appear. One of these is that of a
+woman, and it would have been well for his art had he never met her. We
+see her face quite often, and in the "Diana Bathing" we behold her
+altogether.
+
+Rembrandt shows small trace of the classic instinct, for classic art is
+founded on poetic imagination. Rembrandt painted what he saw; the Greeks
+portrayed that which they felt; and when Rembrandt paints a Dutch wench
+and calls her "Diana," he unconsciously illustrates the difference
+between the naked and the nude. Rembrandt painted this same woman,
+wearing no clothes to speak of, lolling on a couch; and evidently
+considering the subject a little risky, thought to give it dignity by a
+Biblical title: "Potiphar's Wife." One good look at this picture, and the
+precipitate flight of Joseph is fully understood. We feel like following
+his example.
+
+Rembrandt had simply haunted the dissecting-rooms of the University at
+Leyden a little too long.
+
+The study of these viragos scales down our rating of the master. Still, I
+suppose every artist has to go through this period--the period when he
+thinks he is called upon to portray the feminine form divine--it is like
+the mumps and the measles.
+
+After a year of groping for he knew not what, with money gone, and not
+much progress made, Rembrandt took a reef in his pride and settled down
+to paint portraits, and to do a little good honest teaching.
+
+Scholars came to him, and commissions for portraits began to arrive. He
+renounced the freaks of costume, illumination and attitude, and painted
+the customer in plain, simple Dutch dress. He let "Diana" go, and went
+soberly to work to make his fortune.
+
+Holland was prosperous. Her ships sailed every sea, and brought rich
+treasures home. The prosperous can afford to be generous. Philanthropy
+became the fad. Charity was in the air, and hospitals, orphanages and
+homes for the aged were established. The rich merchants felt it an honor
+to serve on the board of managers of these institutions.
+
+In each of the guildhalls were parlors set apart for deliberative
+gatherings; and it became the fashion to embellish these rooms with
+portraits of the managers, trustees and donors.
+
+Rembrandt's portraits were finding their way to the guilds. They
+attracted much attention, and orders came--orders for more work than the
+artist could do. He doubled his prices in the hope of discouraging
+applicants.
+
+Studio gossip and society chatter seemed to pall on young Rembrandt. It
+is said that when a 'bus-driver has a holiday he always goes and rides
+with the man who is taking his place; but when Rembrandt had a holiday he
+went away from the studio, not towards it. He would walk alone, off
+across the meadows, and along the canals, and once we find him tramping
+thirty miles to visit cousins who were fishermen on the seacoast. Happy
+fisher-folk!
+
+But Rembrandt took few play-spells; he broke off entirely from his tavern
+companions and lived the life of an ascetic and recluse, seeing no
+society except the society that came to his studio. His heart was in his
+art, and he was intent on working while it was called the day.
+
+About this time there came to him Cornelis Sylvius, the eminent preacher,
+to sit for a picture that was to adorn the Seaman's Orphanage, of which
+Sylvius was director.
+
+It took a good many sittings to bring out a Rembrandt portrait. On one of
+his visits the clergyman was accompanied by a young woman--his ward--by
+name, Saskia van Ulenburgh.
+
+The girl was bright, animated and intelligent, and as she sat in the
+corner the painter sort of divided his attention between her and the
+clergyman. Then the girl got up, walked about a bit, looking at the
+studio properties, and finally stood behind the young painter, watching
+him work. This was one of the things Rembrandt could never, never endure.
+It paralyzed his hand, and threw all his ideas into a jumble. It was the
+law of his studio that no one should watch him paint--he had secrets of
+technique that had cost him great labor.
+
+"You do not mind my watching you work?" asked the ingenuous girl.
+
+"Oh, not in the least!"
+
+"You are quite sure my presence will not make you nervous, then?"
+
+Rembrandt said something to the effect that he rather liked to have some
+one watch him when he worked; it depended, of course, on who it was--and
+asked the sitter to elevate his chin a little and not look so cross.
+
+Next day Saskia came again to watch the transfer of the good uncle's
+features to canvas.
+
+The young artist was first among the portrait-painters of Amsterdam, and
+had a long waiting-list on his calendar, but we find he managed to paint
+a portrait of Saskia about that time. We have the picture now and we also
+have four or five other pictures of her that Rembrandt produced that
+year. He painted her as a queen, as a court lady and as a flower-girl.
+The features may be disguised a little, but it is the same fine, bright,
+charming, petite young woman.
+
+Before six months had passed he painted several more portraits of Saskia;
+and in one of these she has a sprig of rosemary--the emblem of
+betrothal--held against her heart.
+
+And then we find an entry at the Register's to the effect that they were
+married on June Twenty-fourth, Sixteen Hundred Thirty-four.
+
+Rembrandt's was a masterly nature: strong, original and unyielding. But
+the young woman had no wish that was not his, and her one desire was to
+make her lover happy. She was not a great woman, but she was good, which
+is better, and she filled her husband's heart to the brim. Those first
+few years of their married life read like a fairy-tale.
+
+He bought her jewels, laces, elegant costumes, and began to fill their
+charming home with many rare objects of art. All was for Saskia--his
+life, his fortune, his work, his all.
+
+As the years go by we shall see that it would have been better had he
+saved his money and builded against the coming of the storm; but even
+though Saskia protested mildly against his extravagance, the master
+would have his way.
+
+His was a tireless nature: he found his rest in change. He usually had
+some large compositions on hand and turned to this for pastime when
+portraits failed. Then Saskia was ever present, and if there was a
+holiday he painted her as the "Jewish Bride," "The Gypsy Queen," or in
+some other fantastic garb.
+
+We have seen that in those early years at Leyden he painted himself, but
+now it was only Saskia--she was his other self. All those numerous
+pictures of himself were drawn before he knew Saskia--or after she had
+gone.
+
+Their paradise continued nine years--and then Saskia died.
+
+Rembrandt was not yet forty when desolation settled down upon him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Saskia was the mother of five children; four of them had died, and the
+babe she left, Titus by name, was only eight months old when she passed
+away.
+
+For six months we find that Rembrandt did very little. He was stunned,
+and his brain and hand refused to co-operate.
+
+The first commission he undertook was the portrait of the wife of one of
+the rich merchants of the city. When the work was done, the picture
+resembled the dead Saskia so much more than it did the sitter that the
+patron refused to accept it. The artist saw only Saskia and continued to
+portray her.
+
+But work gave him rest, and he began a series of Biblical
+studies--serious, sober scenes fitted to his mood. His hand had not lost
+its cunning, for there is a sureness and individuality shown in his work
+during the next few years that stamps him as the Master.
+
+But his rivals raised a great clamor against his style. They declared
+that he trampled on all precedent and scorned the laws on which true art
+is built. However, he had friends, and they, to help him, went forth and
+secured the commission--the famous "Night-Watch," now in the Ryks Museum
+at Amsterdam.
+
+The production of this fine picture resulted in a comedy of errors, that
+shaded off into a tragedy for poor Rembrandt. The original commission for
+this picture came from thirty-seven prominent citizens, who were to
+share the expense equally among them. The order was for the portraits of
+the eminent men to appear on one canvas, the subjects to be grouped in an
+artistic way according to the artist's own conceit.
+
+Rembrandt studied hard over the matter, as he was not content to execute
+a picture of a mass of men doing nothing but pose.
+
+It took a year to complete the picture. The canvas shows a band of armed
+men, marching forth to the defense of the city in response to a sudden
+night alarm. Two brave men lead the throng and the others shade off into
+mere Rembrandt shadows, and you only know there are men there by the
+nodding plumes, banners and spearheads that glisten in the pale light of
+the torches.
+
+When the picture was unveiled, the rich donors looked for themselves on
+the canvas, and some looked in vain. Only two men were satisfied, and
+these were the two who marched in the vanguard.
+
+"Where am I?" demanded a wealthy shipowner of Rembrandt as the canvas was
+scanned in a vain search for his proud features.
+
+"You see the palace there in the picture, do you not?" asked the artist
+petulantly.
+
+"Yes, I see that," was the answer.
+
+"Well, you are behind that palace."
+
+The company turned on Rembrandt, and forbade the hanging of any more of
+his pictures in the municipal buildings.
+
+Rembrandt shrugged his shoulders. But as the year passed and orders
+dropped away, he found how unwise a thing it is to affront the public.
+Men who owed him refused to pay, and those whom he owed demanded their
+money.
+
+He continued doggedly on his course.
+
+Some years before he had bought a large house and borrowed money to pay
+for it, and had further given his note at hand to various merchants and
+dealers in curios. As long as he was making money no one cared for more
+than the interest, but now the principal was demanded. So sure had
+Rembrandt been of his powers that he did not conceive that his income
+could drop from thirty thousand florins a year to scarcely a fifth of
+that.
+
+Then his relations with Hendrickje Stoffels had displeased society. She
+was his housekeeper, servant and model--a woman without education or
+refinement, we are told. But she was loyal, more than loyal, to
+Rembrandt: she lived but to serve him and sought to protect his interests
+in every way. When summoned before the elders of the church to answer for
+her conduct, she appeared, pleaded guilty and shocked the company by
+declaring, "I would rather go to Hell with Rembrandt Harmens than play a
+harp in Heaven, surrounded by such as you!"
+
+The remark was bruited throughout the city and did Rembrandt no good. His
+rivals combined to shut his work out of all exhibitions, and several made
+it their business to buy up the overdue claims against him.
+
+Then officers came and took possession of his house, and his splendid
+collections of jewels, laces, furniture, curios and pictures were sold at
+auction. The fine dresses that once belonged to Saskia were seized: they
+even took her wedding-gown: and wanton women bid against the nobility for
+the possession of these things. Rembrandt was stripped of his sketches,
+and these were sold in bundles--the very sweat of his brain for years.
+Then he was turned into the streets.
+
+But Hendrickje Stoffels still clung to him, his only friend. Rembrandt's
+proud heart was broken. He found companionship at the taverns; and to get
+a needful loaf of bread for Hendrickje and his boy, made sketches and
+hawked them from house to house.
+
+Fashions change and art is often only a whim. People wondered why they
+had ever bought those dark, shadowy things made by that Leyden artist,
+What's-his-name! One man utilized the frames which contained "Rembrandts"
+by putting other canvases right over in front of them.
+
+Rembrandt's son Titus tried his skill at art, but with indifferent
+success. He died while yet a youth. Then Hendrickje passed away, and
+Rembrandt was alone--a battered derelict on the sea of life. He lost his
+identity under an assumed name, and sketched with chalk on tavern-walls
+and pavement for the amusement of the crowd.
+
+He died in Sixteen Hundred Sixty-nine, and the expense of his burial was
+paid by the hands of charity.
+
+The cost of the funeral was seven dollars and fifty cents.
+
+In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-seven, there was sold in London a small
+portrait by Rembrandt for a sum equal to a trifle more than thirty-one
+thousand dollars. But even this does not represent the true value of one
+of his pictures--for connoisseurs regard a painting by Rembrandt as
+priceless.
+
+There is a law in Holland forbidding any one on serious penalty to remove
+a "Rembrandt" from the country. If any one of the men who combined to
+work his ruin is mentioned in history, it is only to say, "He lived in
+the age of Rembrandt."
+
+
+
+
+RUBENS
+
+     I was admitted to the Duke of Lerma's presence, and took part in
+     the embassy. The Duke exhibited great satisfaction at the
+     excellence and number of the pictures, which surely have acquired
+     a certain fair appearance of antiquity (by means of my
+     retouching), in spite even of the damage they had undergone. They
+     are held and accepted by the King and Queen as originals, without
+     there being any doubt on their side, or assertion on ours, to
+     make them believe them to be such.
+
+           --_Letter From Rubens at Madrid, to Chieppo, Secretary of
+                  the Duke of Mantua_
+
+[Illustration: RUBENS]
+
+
+The father of Peter Paul Rubens was a lawyer, a man of varied attainments
+and marked personality. In statecraft he showed much skill, and by his
+ability in business management served William the Silent, Prince of
+Orange, in good stead.
+
+But Jan Rubens had a bad habit of thinking for himself. The habit grew
+upon him until the whisper was passed from this one to that, that he was
+becoming decidedly atheistic.
+
+Spain held a strong hand upon Antwerp, and the policy of Philip the
+Second was to crush opposition in the bud. Jan Rubens had criticized
+Spanish rule, and given it as his opinion that the Latin race would not
+always push its domination upon the people of the North.
+
+At this time Spain was so strong that she deemed herself omnipotent, and
+was looking with lustful eyes towards England. Drake and Frobisher and
+Walter Raleigh were learning their lessons in seafaring; Elizabeth was
+Queen; while up at Warwickshire a barefoot boy named William Shakespeare
+was playing in the meadows, and romping in the lanes and alleys of
+Stratford.
+
+All this was taking place at the time when Jan Rubens was doing a little
+thinking on his own account. On reading the history of Europe, Flanders
+seems to one to have been a battle-ground from the dawn of history up to
+the night of June Eighteenth, Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, with a few
+incidental skirmishes since, for it is difficult to stop short. And it
+surely was meet that Napoleon should have gone up there to receive his
+Waterloo, and charge his cavalry into a sunken roadway, making a bridge
+across with a mingled mass of men and horses; upon which site now is a
+huge mound thrown up by the English, surmounted by a gigantic bronze lion
+cast from the captured cannon of the French.
+
+Napoleon belonged to the Latin race: he pushed his rule north into
+Flanders, and there his prowess ended--there at the same place where
+Spanish rule had been throttled and turned back upon itself. "Thus far,
+and no farther." Jan Rubens was right. But he paid dearly for his
+prophecy.
+
+When William the Silent was away on his many warfaring expeditions, the
+man who had charge of certain of his affairs was Jan Rubens. Naturally
+this brought Rubens into an acquaintanceship with the wife of the silent
+prince. Rubens was a handsome man, ready in speech, and of the kind that
+makes friends easily. And if the wife of the Prince of Orange liked the
+vivacious Rubens better than the silent warrior (who won his sobriquet,
+they do say, through density of emotion and lack of ideas), why, who can
+blame her!
+
+But Rubens had a wife of his own, to whom he was fondly attached; and
+this wife was also the close and trusted friend of the woman whose
+husband was off to the wars. And yet when this dense and silent man came
+back from one of his expeditions, it was only publicly to affront and
+disgrace his wife, and to cast Jan Rubens into a dungeon. No doubt the
+Prince was jealous of the courtly Rubens--and the Iagos are a numerous
+tribe. But Othello's limit had been reached. He damned the innocent woman
+to the lowest pit, and visited his wrath on the man.
+
+Of course I know full well that all Northern Europe once rang with shrill
+gossip over the affair, and as usual the woman was declared the guilty
+party. Even yet, when topics for scandal in Belgium run short, this old
+tale is revived and gone over--sides being taken. I've gone over it, too,
+and although I may be in the minority, just as I possibly am as to the
+"guilt" of Eve, yet I stand firm on the side of the woman. I give the
+facts just as they appear, having canvassed the whole subject, possibly a
+little more than was good for me.
+
+Republics may be ungrateful, but the favor of princes is fickle as the
+East Wind.
+
+We make a fine hullabaloo nowadays because France or Russia occasionally
+tries and sentences a man without giving him an opportunity of defense;
+but in the Sixteenth Century the donjon-keeps of hundreds of castles in
+Europe were filled with prisoners whose offense consisted in being feared
+or disliked by some whimsical local ruler.
+
+Jan Rubens was sent on an official errand to Dillenburg, and arriving
+there was seized and thrown into prison, without trial or the privilege
+of communicating with his friends.
+
+Months of agonizing search on the part of his wife failed to find him,
+and the Prince only broke the silence long enough to usurp a woman's
+privilege by telling a lie, and declaring he did not know where Rubens
+was, "but I believe he has committed suicide through remorse."
+
+The distracted wife made her way alone from prison to prison, and
+finally, by bribing an official, found her husband was in an underground
+cell in the fortress at Dillenburg. It was a year before she was allowed
+to communicate with or see him. But Maria Rubens was a true diplomat. You
+move a man not by going to him direct, but by finding out who it is that
+has a rope tied to his foot. She secured the help of the discarded wife
+of the Prince, and these two managed to interest a worthy bishop, who
+brought his influence to bear on Count John of Nassau. This man had
+jurisdiction of the district in which the fortress where Rubens was
+confined was located; and he agreed to release the prisoner on parole on
+condition that a deposit of six thousand thalers be left with him, and an
+agreement signed by the prisoner that he would give himself up when
+requested; and also, further, that he would acknowledge before witnesses
+that he was guilty of the charges made against him.
+
+The latter clause was to justify the Prince of Orange in his actions
+toward him.
+
+Rubens refused to plead guilty, even for the sake of sweet liberty, on
+account of the smirch to the name of the Princess.
+
+But on the earnest request of both his wife and the "co-respondent," he
+finally accepted the terms in the same manner that Galileo declared the
+earth stood still. Rubens got his liberty, was loyal to his parole, but
+John of Nassau kept the six thousand thalers for "expenses."
+
+So much for the honor of princes; but in passing it is worthy of recall
+that Jan Rubens pleaded guilty of disloyalty to his wife, on request of
+said wife, in order that he might enjoy the society of said wife--and
+cast a cloud on the good name of another woman on said woman's request.
+
+So here is a plot for a play: a tale of self-sacrifice and loyalty on the
+part of two women that puts to shame much small talk we hear from small
+men concerning the fickleness and selfishness of woman's love. "Brief as
+woman's love!" said Hamlet--but then, Hamlet was crazy.
+
+Jan Rubens died in Cologne, March Eighteenth, Fifteen Hundred
+Eighty-seven, and lies buried in the Church of Saint Peter. Above the
+grave is a slab containing this inscription: "Sacred to the Memory of Jan
+Rubens, of Antwerp, who went into voluntary exile and retired with his
+family to Cologne, where he abode for nineteen years with his wife Maria,
+who was the mother of his seven children. With this his only wife Maria
+he lived happily for twenty-six years without any quarrel. This monument
+is erected by said Maria Pypelings Rubens to her sweetest and
+well-deserved husband."
+
+Of course, no one knew then that one of the seven--the youngest son of
+Jan and Maria--was to win deathless fame, or that might have been carved
+on the slab, too, even if something else had to be omitted.
+
+But Maria need not have added that last clause, stating who it was that
+placed the tablet: as it stands we should all have known that it was she
+who dictated the inscription. Epitaphs are proverbially untruthful; hence
+arose the saying, "He lies like an epitaph." The woman who can not evolve
+a good lie in defense of the man she loves is unworthy of the name of
+wife.
+
+The lie is the weapon of defense that kind Providence provides for the
+protection of the oppressed. "Women are great liars," said Mahomet;
+"Allah in his wisdom made them so."
+
+Hail, Maria Rubens! turned to dust these three hundred years, what star
+do you now inhabit? or does your avatar live somewhere here in this
+world? At the thought of your unselfish loyalty and precious fibbing, an
+army of valiant, ghostly knights will arise from their graves, and rusty
+swords leap from their scabbards if aught but good be said against thee.
+
+"Ho, ho! and wasn't your husband really guilty, and didn't you know it
+all the time?" I'll fling my glove full in the face of any man who dare
+ask you such a question.
+
+Beloved and loving wife for six-and-twenty years, and mother of seven,
+looking the world squarely in the eye and telling a large and beautiful
+untruth, carving it in marble to protect your husband's name, I kiss my
+hand to you!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the doorpost of a queer little stone house in Cologne is carved an
+inscription to the effect that Peter Paul Rubens was born there on June
+Twenty-ninth, Fifteen Hundred Seventy-seven. It is probably true that the
+parents of Rubens lived there, but Peter Paul was born at Siegen, under
+the shadow of a prison from which his father was paroled.
+
+After a few years the discipline relaxed, for there were new prisoners
+coming along, and Maria and Jan were given permission to move to Cologne.
+
+Peter Paul was ten years of age when his father died. The next year the
+widow moved with her little brood back to Antwerp, back to the city from
+which her husband had been exiled just twenty years before. Five years
+previous the Prince of Orange, who had exiled her husband, was himself
+sent on a journey, via the dagger of an assassin. As the chief enemy of
+Jan Rubens was dead, it was the hope of the widow to recover their
+property that had been confiscated.
+
+Maria Rubens was a good Catholic; and she succeeded in making the
+authorities believe that her husband had been, too, for the home that
+Royalty had confiscated was returned to her.
+
+The mother of Peter Paul loved the dim twilight mysteries of the Church,
+and accepted every dogma and edict as the literal word of God. It is
+easier and certainly safer to leave such matters to the specialists.
+
+She was a born diplomat. She recognized the power of the Church and knew
+that to win one must go with the current, not against it. To have doubts,
+when the Church is willing to bear the whole burden, she thought very
+foolish. Had she been a man she would have been a leader among the
+Jesuits. The folly of opposition had been shown her most vividly in her
+husband's career. What could he not have been had he been wise and
+patient and ta'en the tide at its flood! And this was the spirit that she
+inculcated in the minds of her children.
+
+Little Peter Paul was a handsome lad--handsome as his father--with big,
+dark brown eyes and clustering curls. He was bright, intelligent, and
+blessed with a cheerful, obliging disposition. He came into the world a
+welcome child, carrying the beauty of the morning in his face, and form,
+and spirit.
+
+No wonder is it that the Countess de Lalaing desired the boy for a page
+as soon as she saw him. His mother embraced the opportunity to let her
+favorite child see court life, and so at the early age of twelve, at a
+plunge, he began that career in polite diplomacy that was to continue for
+half a century.
+
+The Countess called herself his "other mother," and lavished upon him all
+the attention that a childless woman had to bestow. The mornings were
+sacred to his lessons, which were looked after by a Jesuit priest; and in
+the afternoon, another priest came to give the ladies lessons in the
+languages, and at these circles young Peter Paul was always present as
+one of the class.
+
+Indeed, the earliest accomplishment of Peter Paul was his polyglot
+ability. When he arrived at Antwerp, a mere child, he spoke German,
+Flemish and French.
+
+Such a favorite did little Peter Paul become with his "other mother," and
+her ladies of the court, that his sure-enough mother grew a bit jealous,
+and feared they would make a hothouse plant of her boy, and so she took
+him away.
+
+The question was, for what profession should he be educated? That he
+should serve the Church and State was already a settled fact in the
+mother's mind: to get on in the world you must cultivate and wisely serve
+those who are in power--that is, those who have power to bestow. Priests
+were plentiful as blackberries, and politicians were on every corner, and
+many of the priests and officeseekers had no special talent to recommend
+them. They were simply timeservers. Maria knew this: To get on you must
+have several talents, otherwise people will tire of you.
+
+In Cologne, Maria Rubens had met returned pilgrims from Rome and they had
+told her of that trinity of giants, Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo;
+and how these men had been the peers of prince and pope, because they had
+the ability to execute marvelous works of beauty.
+
+This extraordinary talent called attention to themselves, so they were
+summoned out of the crowd and became the companions and friends of the
+greatest names of their time.
+
+And then, how better can one glorify his Maker than by covering the
+sacred walls of temples with rich ornament!
+
+The boy entered into the project, and the mother's ambition that he
+should retrieve his father's fortune fired his heart. Thus does the
+failure in life of a parent often give incentive to the genius of a son.
+
+Tobias Verhaecht was the man who taught Rubens the elements of drawing,
+and inculcated in him that love of Nature which was to be his lifelong
+heritage. The word "landscape" is Flemish, and it was the Dutch who
+carried the term and the art into England. Verhaecht was among the very
+first of landscape-painters. He was a specialist: he could draw trees and
+clouds, and a winding river, but could not portray faces. And so he used
+to call in a worthy portrait-painter, by the name of Franck, to assist
+him whenever he had a canvas on the easel that demanded the human form.
+Then when Franck wanted background and perspective, Verhaecht would go
+over with a brush and a few pots of paint and help him out.
+
+At fifteen, the keen, intuitive mind of Rubens had fathomed the talents
+of those two worthies, Verhaecht and Franck. His mind was essentially
+feminine: he absorbed ideas in the mass. Soon he prided himself on being
+able to paint alone as good a picture as the two collaborators could
+together. Yet he was too wise to affront them by the boast. The bent of
+his talent he thought was toward historical painting; and more than this,
+he knew that only epic art would open the churches for a painter. And so
+he next became a pupil under Adam van Noort. This man was a rugged old
+character, who worked out things in his own way and pushed the standard
+of painting full ten points to the front. His work shows a marked advance
+over that of his contemporaries and over the race of painters that
+preceded him. Every great artist is the lingering representative of an
+age that is dead, or else he is the prophet and forerunner of a golden
+age to come.
+
+When I visited the Church of Saint Jaques in Antwerp, where Rubens lies
+buried, the good old priest who acted as guide called my attention to a
+picture by Van Noort, showing Peter finding the money in the mouth of the
+fish. "A close study of that picture will reveal to you the germ of the
+Rubens touch," said the priest, and he was surely right: its boldness of
+drawing, the strong, bright colors and the dexterity in handling all say,
+"Rubens." Rubens builded on the work of Van Noort.
+
+Twenty years after Rubens had left the studio of Van Noort he paid
+tribute to his old master by saying, "Had Van Noort visited Italy and
+caught the spirit of the classicists, his name would stand first among
+Flemish artists."
+
+Rubens worked four years with Van Noort and then entered the studio of
+Otto van Veen. This man was not a better painter than Van Noort, but he
+occupied a much higher social position, and Peter Paul was intent on
+advancing his skirmish-line. He never lost ground. Van Veen was Court
+Painter, and on friendly terms with the Archduke Albert, and Isabella,
+his wife, daughter of Philip the Second, King of Spain.
+
+Van Veen took very few pupils--only those who had the ability to aid him
+in completing his designs. To have worked with this master was an
+introduction at once into the charmed circle of royalty.
+
+Rubens was in no haste to branch out on his own account: he was quite
+content to know that he was gaining ground, making head upon the whole.
+He won the confidence of Van Veen at once by his skill, his cheerful
+presence, and ability to further the interests of his master and patrons.
+In Fifteen Hundred Ninety-nine, when Rubens was twenty-two, he was
+enrolled as a free master at the Guild of Saint Luke on the nomination of
+Van Veen, who also about this time introduced the young artist to Albert
+and Isabella.
+
+But the best service that Van Veen did for Rubens was in taking him into
+his home and giving him free access to the finest collection of Italian
+art in the Netherlands. These things filled the heart of Rubens with a
+desire to visit Italy, and there to dive deeply into the art spirit of
+that land from which all our art has sprung.
+
+To go abroad then and gain access to the art treasures of the world was
+not a mere matter of asking for a passport, handing out a visiting-card,
+and paying your way.
+
+Young men who wished to go abroad to study were required to pass a stiff
+examination. If it was believed that they could not represent their own
+country with honor, their passports were withheld. And to travel without
+a passport was to run the risk of being arrested as an absconder.
+
+But Rubens' place in society was already secure. Instead of applying for
+his passports personally and undergoing the usual catechization, his
+desires were explained to Van Veen, and all technicalities were waived,
+as they always are when you strike the right man. Not only were the
+passports forthcoming, but Albert and Isabella wrote a personal note to
+Viccuzo Gonzaga, the Duke of Mantua, commending the young painter to the
+Duke's good offices.
+
+Van Veen further explained to Rubens that to know the Duke of Mantua
+might mean either humiliation or crowning success. To attain the latter
+through the Duke of Mantua, it was necessary to make a good impression on
+Annibale Chieppo, the Duke's Minister of State. Chieppo had the keeping
+of the ducal conscience as well as the key to the strong-box.
+
+The Duke of Mantua was one of those strange loaded dice that Fate
+occasionally flings upon this checkerboard of time: one of those
+characters whose feverish faculties border on madness, yet who do the
+world great good by breaking up its balances, preventing social
+ankylosis, and eventually forcing upon mankind a new deal. But in the
+train of these vagrant stars famine and pestilence follow.
+
+The Duke of Mantua was brother in spirit to the man who made
+Versailles--and making Versailles undid France.
+
+Versailles is a dream: no language that the most enthusiastic lovers of
+the beautiful may utter, can exaggerate the wonders of those acres of
+palaces and miles of gardens. The magnificence of the place makes the
+ready writer put up his pencil, and go away whipped, subdued and
+crestfallen to think that here are creations that no one pen can even
+catalog. Louis the Grand, we are told, had thirty-six thousand men and
+six thousand horses at work here at one time. No wonder Madame De
+Maintenon was oppressed by the treasures that were beyond the capacity of
+man to contemplate; and so off in the woods was built that lover's
+retreat, "The Trianon." And out there today, hidden in the forest, we
+behold the second Trianon, built by Marie Antoinette, and we also see
+those straw-thatched huts where the ladies of her Court played at peasant
+life.
+
+Louis the Fourteenth builded so well that he discouraged his successor
+from doing anything but play keep-house, and so extensively that France
+was rent in twain, and so mightily that even Napoleon Bonaparte was
+staggered at the thought of maintaining Versailles.
+
+"It's too much for any man to enjoy--I give it up!" said the Little Man,
+perplexed, and ordered every door locked and every window tightly
+shuttered. Then he placed a thousand men to guard the place and went
+about his business.
+
+But today Versailles belongs to the people of France; more, it belongs to
+the people of earth: all is free and you may carry away all the beauty of
+the place that your soul can absorb.
+
+Now, who shall say that Louis the Fourteenth has not enriched the world?
+
+The Duke of Mantua was sumptuous in his tastes, liberal, chivalrous,
+voluptuous, extravagant. At the same time he had a cultivated mind, an
+eye for proportion, and an ear for harmony. He was even pious at times,
+and like all debauchees had periods of asceticism. He was much given to
+gallantry, and his pension-list of beautiful women was not small. He was
+a poet and wrote some very good sonnets; he was a composer who sang, from
+his own compositions, after the wine had gone round; he was an orator who
+committed to memory and made his own the speeches that his secretary
+wrote.
+
+He traveled much, and in great state, with a retinue of servants, armed
+guards, outriders and guides. Wherever he went he summoned the local
+poet, or painter, or musician, and made a speech to him, showing that he
+was familiar with his work by humming a tune or quoting a stanza. Then he
+put a chain of gold around the poor embarrassed fellow's neck, and a
+purse in his hands, and the people cheered.
+
+When he visited a town, cavalcades met him afar out, and as he
+approached, little girls in white and boys dressed in velvet ran before
+and strewed flowers in front of his carriage.
+
+Oh, the Duke of Mantua was a great man!
+
+In his retinue was a troop of comedians, a court fool, two dwarfs for
+luck, seven cooks, three alchemists and an astrologer. Like the old woman
+who lived in a shoe, he had so many children he didn't know what to do.
+One of his sons married a princess of the House of Saxony, another son
+was a cardinal, and a daughter married into the House of Lorraine. He had
+alliances and close relations with every reigning family of Europe. The
+sister of his wife, Marie de Medici, became "King of France," as
+Talleyrand avers, and had a mad, glad, sad, bad, jolly time of it.
+
+Wherever the Duke of Mantua went, there too went Annibale Chieppo, the
+Minister of State. This man had a calm eye, a quiet pulse, and could
+locate any man or woman in his numerous retinue at any hour of the day or
+night. He was a diplomat, a soldier, a financier.
+
+You could not reach the Duke until you had got past Chieppo.
+
+And the Duke of Mantua had much commonsense--for in spite of envy and
+calumny and threat he never lost faith in Annibale Chieppo.
+
+No success in life is possible without a capable first mate. Chieppo was
+king of first mates.
+
+He was subtle as Richelieu and as wise as Wolsey.
+
+When Peter Paul Rubens, aged twenty-three, arrived at Venice, the Duke of
+Mantua and his train were there. Rubens presented his credentials to
+Chieppo, and the Minister of State read them, looked upon the handsome
+person of the young man, proved for himself he had decided talent as a
+painter, put him through a civil-service examination--and took him into
+favor. Such a young man as this, so bright, so courtly, so talented, must
+be secured. He would give the entire Court a new thrill.
+
+"Tomorrow," said the Minister of State, "tomorrow you shall be received
+by the Duke of Mantua and his court!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ducal party remained at Venice for several weeks, and when it
+returned to Mantua, Rubens went along quite as a matter of course. From
+letters that he wrote to his brother Philip, as well as from many other
+sources, we know that the art collection belonging to the Duke of Mantua
+was very rich. It included works by the Bellinis, Correggio, Leonardo da
+Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Tintoretto, Titian, Paoli Veronese, and various
+others whose names have faded away like their colors.
+
+Rubens had long been accustomed to the ways of polite society. The
+magnificence of his manner, and the fine egotism he showed in his work,
+captivated the Court. The Duke was proud of his ward and paraded him
+before his artistic friends as the coming man, incidentally explaining
+that it was the Duke of Mantua who had made him and not he himself.
+
+It was then the custom of those who owned masterpieces to have copies
+made and present them to various other lovers of the beautiful. If an
+honored guest was looking through your gallery, and expressed great
+pleasure in a certain canvas, the correct thing was to say, "I'll have my
+best painter make a copy of it, and send it to you"--and a memorandum was
+made on an ivory tablet. This gracious custom seems to have come down
+from the time when the owners of precious books constantly employed
+scribes and expert illuminators in making copies for distribution. The
+work done in the scriptoriums of the monasteries, we know, was sent away
+as presents, or in exchange for other volumes.
+
+Rubens set diligently to work copying in the galleries of Mantua; and
+whether the Duke was happier because he had discovered Rubens than Rubens
+was because he had found the Duke, we do not know. Anyway, all that the
+young painter had hoped and prayed for had been sent him.
+
+Here was work from the very hands of the masters he had long worshiped
+from afar. His ambition was high and his strong animal spirits and
+tireless energy were a surprise to the easy-going Italians. The galleries
+were his without let or hindrance, save that he allow the ladies of the
+Court to come every afternoon and watch him work. This probably did not
+disturb him; but we find the experienced Duke giving the young Fleming
+some good advice, thus: "You must admire all these ladies in equal
+portion. Should you show favoritism for one, the rest will turn upon you;
+and to marry any one of them would be fatal to your art."
+
+Rubens wrote the advice home to his mother, and the good mother viseed it
+and sent it back.
+
+After six months of diligent work at Mantua we find Rubens starting for
+Rome with letters from the Duke to Cardinal Montalto, highly recommending
+him to the good graces of the Cardinal, and requesting, "that you will be
+graciously so good as to allow our Fleming to execute and make copies
+for us of such paintings as he may deem worthy."
+
+Cardinal Montalto was a nephew of Pope Sixtus, and the strongest man,
+save the Pope, in Rome. He had immense wealth, great learning, and rare
+good sense in matters of art. He was a close friend of the Duke of
+Mantua; and to come into personal relations with such a man was a piece
+of rare good fortune for any man. The art world of Rome now belonged to
+Rubens--all doors opened at his touch. "Our Fleming" knew the value of
+his privileges. "If I do not succeed," he writes to his mother, "it will
+be because I have not improved my opportunities." The word fail was not
+in his lexicon. His industry never relaxed. In Walpole's "Anecdotes of
+Painting," an account is given of a sketchbook compiled by Rubens at this
+time. The original was in the possession of Maurice Johnson, of Spalding,
+England, in Eighteen Hundred Forty-five, at which time it was exhibited
+in London and attracted much attention.
+
+I have seen a copy of the book with its hundred or more sketches of the
+very figures that we now see and admire in the Uffizi and Pitti galleries
+and in the Vatican. Eight generations of men have come and gone since
+Rubens sketched from the Old Masters, but there today stand the chiseled
+shapes, which were then centuries old, and there today are the "Titians"
+and the "Raphaellos" just as the exuberant Fleming saw them. Surely this
+must show us how short are the days of man! "Open then the door; you
+know how little while we have to stay!"
+
+The two figures that seemed to impress Rubens most, as shown in the
+sketchbook, are the Farnese "Hercules" and Michelangelo's "David." He
+shows the foot of the "Hercules," and the hand of the "David," and gives
+front, back and side views with comments and criticisms. Then after a few
+pages have been covered by other matter he goes back again to the
+"Hercules"--the subject fascinates him.
+
+When we view "The Crucifixion," in the Cathedral at Antwerp, we conclude
+that he admired the "Hercules" not wisely but too well, for the muscles
+stand out on all the figures, even of the Savior, in pure Farnese style.
+Two years after that picture was painted, he did his masterpiece, "The
+Descent From the Cross," and we behold with relief the change that had
+come over the spirit of his dreams. Mere pride in performing a difficult
+feat had given place to a higher motive. There is no reason to suppose
+that the Apostles had trained to perform the twelve labors of Hercules,
+or that the two Marys were Amazons. But the burly Roman forms went back
+to Flanders, and for many years staid citizens were slipped into classic
+attitudes to do duty as Disciples, Elders, Angels--all with swelling
+biceps, knotted muscles, and necks like the Emperor Vespasian.
+
+The Mantuan Envoy at Rome had private orders from Chieppo to see that the
+Fleming was well treated. The Envoy was further requested to report to
+the Secretary how the painter spent his time, and also how he was
+regarded by Cardinal Montalto. Thus we see the wily Secretary set one
+servant watching another, and kept in close touch with all.
+
+The reports, however, all confirmed the Secretary in his belief that the
+Fleming was a genius, and, moreover, worthy of all the encouragement that
+was bestowed upon him. The Secretary sent funds from time to time to the
+painter, with gentle hints that he should pay due attention to his
+behavior, and also to his raiment, for the apparel oft doth proclaim the
+man.
+
+The Duke of Mantua seems to have regarded Rubens as his own private
+property, and Rubens had too much sense to do anything by word or deed
+that might displease his patron.
+
+When he had gotten all that Italy could give, or more properly all he
+could absorb, his intent was to follow his heart and go straight back to
+Flanders.
+
+Three years had passed since Rubens had arrived in Venice--years of
+profit to both spirit and purse. He had painted pictures that placed him
+in the rank of acknowledged artists, and the Duke of Mantua had dropped
+all patronizing airs. With the ducal party Rubens had visited Verona,
+Florence, Pisa and Padua. His fame was more than local. The painter
+hinted to Chieppo that he would like to return to Antwerp, but the
+Secretary objected--he had important work for him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rubens was from Flanders, and Flanders was a Spanish possession: then the
+Fleming knew the daughter of the King of Spain. No man was so well fitted
+to go on a delicate diplomatic mission to Spain as the Flemish painter.
+"You are my heart's jewel," said the Duke of Mantua to the Prime
+Minister, when the Minister suggested it.
+
+The Duke wished private information as to certain things Spanish, and was
+also preparing the way to ask for sundry favors. The Court at Madrid was
+artistic in instinct; so was the Mantuan Court. To recognize the esthetic
+side of your friend's nature, when your friend is secretly not quite sure
+but that he is more worldly than spiritual, is a stroke of diplomacy.
+Spain was not really artistic, but there were stirrings being felt, and
+Velasquez and Murillo were soon to appear.
+
+The Duke of Mantua wished to present the King of Spain with certain
+pictures; his mind was filled with a lively sense of anticipation of
+future favors to be received--which feeling we are told is gratitude. The
+entire ceremony must be carried out appropriately--the poetic unities
+being fully preserved. Therefore a skilful painter must be sent with the
+pictures, in order to see that they were safely transported, properly
+unpacked, and rightly hung.
+
+Instructions were given to Peter Paul Rubens, the artistic ambassador, at
+great length, as to how he should proceed. He was to make himself
+agreeable to the King, and to one greater than the King--the man behind
+the throne--the Duke of Lerma; and to several fair ladies as well.
+
+The pictures were copies of the masters--"Titians," "Raphaellos,"
+"Tintorettos" and "Leonardos." They were copied with great fidelity, even
+to the signature and private marks of the original artist. In fact, so
+well was the work done that if the recipient inclined to accept them as
+originals, his mind must not be disabused. Further, the envoy was not
+supposed to know whether they were originals or not (even though he had
+painted them), and if worse came to worst he must say, "Well, surely they
+are just as good as the originals, if not better."
+
+Presents were taken for a dozen or more persons. Those who were not so
+very artistic were to have gifts of guns, swords and precious stones. The
+ambassador was to travel in a new carriage, drawn by six horses and
+followed by wagons carrying the art treasures. All this so as to make the
+right impression and prove to Madrid that Mantua was both rich and
+generous. And as a capsheaf to it all, the painter must choose an
+opportune moment and present his beautiful carriage and horses to the
+King, for the belief was rife that the King of Spain was really more
+horsey than artistic.
+
+The pictures were selected with great care, and the finest horses to be
+found were secured, regardless of cost. Several weeks were consumed in
+preparations, and at last the cavalcade started away, with Rubens in the
+carriage and eleven velvet suits in his chest, as he himself has told us.
+It was a long, hard journey to Madrid. There were encounters with
+rapacious landlords, and hairbreadth escapes in the imminent deadly
+custom-house. But in a month the chromatic diplomat arrived and entered
+Madrid at the head of his company, wearing one of the velvet suits, and
+riding a milk-white charger.
+
+Rubens followed orders and wrote Signor Chieppo at great length, giving a
+minute account of every incident and detail of the journey and of his
+reception at Madrid. While at the Court he kept a daily record of
+happenings, which was also forwarded to the Secretary.
+
+These many letters have recently been given to the public. They are in
+Italian, with a sprinkling here and there of good honest Dutch. All is
+most sincere, grave and explicit. Rubens deserved great credit for all
+these letters, for surely they were written with sweat and lamp-smoke.
+The work of the toiler is over all, but we must remember that at that
+time he had been studying Italian only about a year.
+
+The literary style of Rubens was Johnsonese all his life, and he made his
+meaning plain only by repetitions and many rhetorical flounderings. Like
+the average sixteen-year-old boy who sits himself down and takes his pen
+in hand, all his sprightliness of imagination vanished at sight of an
+ink-bottle. With a brush his feelings were fluid, and in a company grace
+dwelt upon his lips; but when asked to write it out he gripped the pen as
+though it were a crowbar instead of a crow's-quill.
+
+But Chieppo received his reports; and we know the embassy was a
+success--a great success. The debonair Fleming surprised the King by
+saying, "Your Majesty, it is like this"--and then with a few bold strokes
+drew a picture.
+
+He modestly explained that he was not much of a painter--"merely used a
+brush for his own amusement"--and then made a portrait for the Minister
+of State that exaggerated all of that man's good points, and ignored all
+his failings. There was a cast in the Minister's eye, but Rubens waived
+it. The Minister was delighted, and so was the King. He then made a
+portrait of the King that was as flattering as portraits should be that
+are painted for monarchs.
+
+Among his other accomplishments the Fleming was a skilful horseman; he
+rode with such grace and dash that the King took him on his drives,
+Rubens riding by the side of the carriage, gaily conversing as they rode.
+
+And so with the aid of his many talents he won the confidence of the King
+and Court and was initiated into the inner life of Spanish royalty in a
+way that Iberta, the Mantuan Resident, never had been. The King liked
+Rubens, and so did the Man behind the Throne.
+
+Mortals do not merely like each other because they like each other; such
+a bond is tenuous as a spider's thread. I love you because you love the
+things that I love. One woman won my heart by her subtle appreciation of
+"The Dipsy Chanty." Men meet on a horse basis, a book basis, a religious
+basis, or some other mutual leaning; sometimes we find them uniting on a
+mutual dislike for something. For instance, I have a friend to whom I am
+bound by the tie of oneness because we dislike olives, and have a mutual
+indifference to the pretended claims of the unpronounceable Pole who
+wrote "Quo Vadis." The discovery was accidentally made in a hotel
+dining-room: we clasped hands across the board, and since then have been
+as brothers.
+
+The more points at which you touch humanity the more friends you
+have--the greater your influence. Rubens was an artist, a horseman, a
+musician, a politician and a gourmet. When conceptions in the kitchen
+were vague, he would send for the cook and explain to him how to do it.
+He possessed a most discriminating palate and a fine appreciation of
+things drinkable. These accomplishments secured him a well-defined case
+of gout while yet a young man. He taught the Spanish Court how to smoke,
+having himself been initiated by an Englishman, who was a companion of
+Sir Walter Raleigh, and showed them how to roll a cigarette while engaged
+in ardent conversation. And the Spaniards have not yet lost the art, for
+once in Cadiz I saw a horse running away, and the driver rolled and
+lighted a cigarette before trying to stop the mad flight of the frantic
+brute.
+
+In the Royal Gallery at Madrid are several large paintings by Rubens that
+were doubtless done at this time. They are religious subjects; but worked
+in, after the manner of a true diplomat, are various portraits of brave
+men and handsome women. To pose a worthy senator as Saint Paul, and a
+dashing lady of the Court as the Holy Virgin, was most gratifying to the
+phrenological development of approbativeness of the said senator and
+lady. Then, as the painter had pictured one, he must do as much for
+others, so there could be no accusation of favoritism.
+
+Thus the months passed rapidly. The Duke of Lerma writes to Chieppo, "We
+desire your gracious permission to keep the Fleming another month, as
+very special portraits are required from his brush."
+
+The extra month extended itself to three; and when at last Rubens started
+back for Mantua it was after a full year's absence.
+
+The embassy was a most complete success. The diplomat well masked his
+true errand with the artist's garb: and who of all men was ever so well
+fitted by Nature to play the part as Rubens?
+
+Yet he came near overdoing the part at least once. It was in this wise:
+he really was not sure that the honors paid him were on account of his
+being a painter or a courtier. But like comedians who think their forte
+is tragedy, so the part of courtier was more pleasing to Rubens than
+that of painter, because it was more difficult. He painted with such ease
+that he set small store on the talent: it was only a makeshift for
+advancement.
+
+Don John, Duke of Braganza, afterward King of Portugal, was a lover of
+art, and desired to make the acquaintance of the painter. So he wrote to
+Rubens at Madrid, inviting him to Villa Vitiosa, his place of residence.
+
+Rubens knew how the Duke of Mantua did these things--he decided to follow
+suit.
+
+With a numerous train, made up from the fringe of the Madrid Court, with
+hired horsemen going before, and many servants behind, the retinue
+started away. Coming within five miles of the villa of Don John, word was
+sent that Rubens and his retinue awaited his embassy.
+
+Now Don John was a sure-enough duke and could muster quite a retinue of
+his own on occasion, yet he had small taste for tinsel parades. Men who
+have a real good bank-balance do not have to wear fashionable clothes.
+Don John was a plain, blunt man who liked books and pictures. He wanted
+to see the painter, not a courtier: and when he heard of the style in
+which the artist was coming, he just put a boy on a donkey and sent word
+out that he was not at home. And further, to show the proud painter his
+place, he sent along a small purse of silver to pay the artist for the
+trouble to which he had been. The rebuke was so delicate that it was
+altogether lost on Rubens--he was simply enraged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In all, Rubens spent eight years in the service of the Duke of Mantua. He
+had visited the chief cities of Italy, and was familiar with all the art
+of the golden ages that had gone before. When he left Italy he had to
+take advantage of the fact that the Duke was in France, for every time
+before, when he had suggested going, he was questioned thus: "Why, have
+you not all you wish? What more can be done for you? Name your desire and
+you shall have it."
+
+But Rubens wanted home: Antwerp, his mother, brothers, sister, the broad
+River Scheldt, and the good old Flemish tongue.
+
+Soon after arriving in Antwerp he was named as Court Painter by Albert
+and Isabella. Thus he was the successor of his old master, Van Veen.
+
+He was now aged thirty-two, in possession of an income from the State,
+and a fame and name to be envied. He was rich in money, jewels and art
+treasures brought from Italy, for he had the thrifty instincts of a true
+Dutchman.
+
+And it was a gala day for all Antwerp when the bells rang and the great
+organ in the Cathedral played the wedding-march when Peter Paul Rubens
+and Isabella Brandt were married, on the Thirteenth of October, Sixteen
+Hundred Nine. Never was there a happier mating.
+
+That fine picture at Munich of Rubens and his wife tells of the sweet
+comradeship that was to be theirs for many years. He opened a school, and
+pupils flocked to him from all Europe; commissions for work came and
+orders for altar-pieces from various churches.
+
+An order was issued by the Archduke that he should not leave Holland, and
+a copy of the order was sent to the Duke of Mantua, to shut off his
+importunities.
+
+Among the pupils of Rubens we find the name of Jordaens (whom he had
+first known in Italy), De Crayer, Anthony Van Dyck, Franz Snyder and many
+others who achieved distinction. Rubens was a positive leader; so
+animated was his manner that his ambition was infectious. All his young
+men painted just as he did. His will was theirs. From now on, out of the
+thousands of pictures signed "P. P. Rubens," we can not pick out a single
+picture and say, "Rubens did this." He drew outlines and added the
+finishing touches; and surely would not have signed a canvas of which he
+did not approve. In his great studio at Antwerp, at various times, fully
+a hundred men worked to produce the pictures we call "Rubens."
+
+Those glowing canvases in the "Rubens Gallery" of the Louvre, showing the
+history and apotheosis of Marie de Medici, were painted at Antwerp. The
+joyous, exuberant touch of Rubens is over all, even though the work was
+done by 'prentice hands.
+
+Peaceful lives make dull biographies, and in prosperity is small
+romance.
+
+We may search long before finding a life so full to overflowing of
+material good things as that of Rubens. All he touched turned to gold.
+From the time he returned to Antwerp in Sixteen Hundred Eight to his
+death in Sixteen Hundred Forty, his life-journey was one grand triumphal
+march. His many diplomatic missions were simply repetitions of his first
+Spanish embassy, with the Don John incident left out, for Don John seems
+to have been the only man who was not at home to the gracious Rubens.
+
+Mr. Ruskin has said: "Rubens was a great painter, but he lacked that last
+undefinable something which makes heart speak to heart. You admire, but
+you never adore. No real sorrow ever entered his life."
+
+Perhaps we get a valuable clue in that last line. Great art is born of
+feeling, and the heart of Rubens was never touched by tragedy, nor the
+rocky fastnesses of his tears broken in upon by grief. In many ways his
+was the spirit of a child: he had troubles, but not sufficient to prevent
+refreshing sleep, and when he awoke in the morning the trials of
+yesterday were gone.
+
+Even when the helpful, faithful and loving Isabella Brandt was taken away
+from him by death, there soon came other joys to take the place of those
+that were lost.
+
+We have full fifty pictures of his second wife: she looks down at
+us--smiling, buxom, content--from every gallery-wall in Europe. Rubens
+was fifty-three and she was sixteen when they were married; and were it
+not for a twinge of gout now and then, he would have been as young as
+she.
+
+When Rubens went to England on "an artistic commission," we see that he
+captured Charles the First just as he captured the court of Spain. He
+painted five portraits of the King that we can trace. The mild-mannered
+Charles was greatly pleased with the fine portrait of himself bestriding
+the prancing cream-colored charger.
+
+Several notable artists, Sir Joshua Reynolds among them, have
+complimented the picture by taking the horse, background and pose, and
+placing another man in the saddle--or more properly, taking off the head
+of Charles the First and putting on the head of any bold patron who would
+furnish the price. In looking through the galleries of Europe, keep your
+eye out for equestrian portraits, and you will be surprised to see on
+your tab, when you have made the rounds, how many painters have borrowed
+that long-maned, yellow horse that still rears in the National Gallery in
+London, smelling the battle afar off--as Charles himself preferred to
+smell it.
+
+Rubens had a good time in England, although his patience was severely
+tried by being kept at painting for months, awaiting an opportune time to
+give King Charles some good advice on matters political.
+
+English ways were very different from those of the Continent, but Rubens
+soon spoke the language with fluency, even if not with precision.
+
+Rubens spoke seven languages, and to speak seven languages is to speak no
+one well. On this point we have a little comment from high authority.
+Said Charles the First, writing to Buckingham, "The Fleming painter
+prides himself on being able to pass for an Englishman, but his English
+is so larded with French, Dutch and Italian that we think he must have
+been employed on the Tower of Babel."
+
+While painting the ceiling of the banqueting-room at Whitehall (where a
+Dutchman was later to be crowned King of England), he discussed politics
+with the Duke of Buckingham and the King, from the scaffold. Some years
+after we find Buckingham visiting Rubens at his home in Antwerp,
+dickering for his fine collection of curios and paintings.
+
+The Duke afterwards bought the collection and paid Rubens ten thousand
+pounds in gold for it.
+
+Every one complimented Rubens on his shrewdness in getting so much money
+for the wares, and Rubens gave a banquet to his friends in token of the
+great sale to the Britisher. It was a lot of money, to be sure, but the
+Englishman realized the worth of the collection better than did Rubens.
+We have a catalog of the collection. It includes nineteen Titians,
+thirteen Paul Veroneses, seventeen Tintorettos, three Leonardos, three
+Raphaels and thirteen pictures by Rubens himself.
+
+A single one of the Titians, if sold at auction today, would bring more
+than the Duke paid for the entire collection.
+
+James McNeil Whistler has said, "There may be a doubt about Rubens having
+been a Great Artist; but he surely was an Industrious Person."
+
+There is barely enough truth in Mr. Whistler's remark, taken with its
+dash of wit, to save it; but Philip Gilbert Hamerton's sober estimate is
+of more value: "The influence of Rubens for good can not be
+overestimated. He gave inspiration to all he met, and his example of
+industry, vivid imagination, good-cheer and good taste have had an
+incalculable influence on art. We have more canvases from his hand than
+from the hand of any other master. And these pictures are a quarry to
+which every artist of today, consciously or unconsciously, is indebted."
+
+
+
+
+MEISSONIER
+
+     I never hesitate about scraping out the work of days, and
+     beginning afresh, so as to satisfy myself, and try to do better.
+     Ah! that "better" which one feels in one's soul, and without
+     which no true artist is ever content!
+
+     Others may approve and admire; but that counts for nothing,
+     compared with one's own feeling of what ought to be.
+
+    --_Meissonier's Conversations_
+
+[Illustration: MEISSONIER]
+
+
+Life in this world is a collecting, and all the men and women in it are
+collectors.
+
+The question is, What will you collect? Most men are intent on collecting
+dollars. Their waking-hours are taken up with inventing plans, methods,
+schemes, whereby they may secure dollars from other men. To gather as
+many dollars as possible, and to give out as few, is the desideratum. But
+when you collect one thing you always incidentally collect others. The
+fisherman who casts his net for shad usually secures a few other fish,
+and once in a while a turtle, which enlarges the mesh to suit, and gives
+sweet liberty to the shad. To focus exclusively on dollars is to secure
+jealousy, fear, vanity, and a vaulting ambition that may claw its way
+through the mesh and let your dollars slip into the yeasty deep.
+
+Ragged Haggard and his colleague, Cave-of-the-Winds, collect bacteria;
+while the fashionable young men of the day, with a few exceptions, are
+collecting headaches, regrets, weak nerves, tremens, paresis--death. Of
+course we shall all die (I will admit that), and further, we may be a
+long time dead (I will admit that), and moreover, we may be going through
+the world for the last time--as to that I do not know; but while we are
+here it seems the part of reason to devote our energies to collecting
+that which brings as much quiet joy to ourselves, and as little annoyance
+to others, as possible.
+
+My heart goes out to the collector. In the soul of the collector of old
+books, swords, pistols, brocades, prints, clocks and bookplates, there is
+only truth. If he gives you his friendship, it is because you love the
+things that he loves; he has no selfish wish to use your good name to
+further his own petty plans--he only asks that you shall behold, and
+beholding, your eye shall glow, and your heart warm within you.
+
+Inasmuch as we live in the age of the specialist, one man often collects
+books on only one subject, Dante for instance; another, nothing but
+volumes printed at Venice; another, works concerning the stage; and still
+another devotes all his spare time to securing tobacco-pipes. And I am
+well aware that the man who for a quarter of a century industriously
+collects snuffboxes has a supreme contempt for the man who collects both
+snuffboxes and clocks. And in this does the specialist reveal that his
+normal propensity to collect has degenerated. That is to say, it has
+refined itself into an abnormality, and from the innocent desire to
+collect, has shifted off into a selfish wish to outrival.
+
+The man who collects many things, with easy, natural leanings toward,
+say, spoons, is pure in heart and free from guile; but when his soul
+centers on spoons exclusively, he has fallen from his high estate and is
+simply possessed of a lust for ownership--he wants to own more peculiar
+spoons than any other man on earth. Such a one stirs up wrath and
+rivalry, and is the butt and byword of all others who collect spoons.
+
+Prosperous, practical, busy people sometimes wonder why other folks build
+cabinets with glass fronts and strong locks and therein store
+postage-stamps, bits of old silks, autographs and books that are very
+precious only when their leaves are uncut; and so I will here endeavor to
+explain. At the same time I despair of making my words intelligible to
+any but those who are collectors, or mayhap to those others who are in
+the varioloid stage.
+
+Then possibly you say I had better not waste good paper and ink by
+recording the information, since collectors know already, and those who
+are without the pale have neither eyes to see nor hearts to incline. But
+the simple fact is, the proposition that you comprehend on first hearing
+was yours already; for how can you recognize a thing as soon as it comes
+into view if you have never before seen it? You have thought my thought
+yourself, or else your heart would not beat fast and your lips say, "Yes,
+yes!" when I voice it. Truth is in the air, and when your head gets up
+into the right stratum of atmosphere you breathe it in. You may not know
+that you have breathed it in until I come along and write it out on this
+blank sheet, and then you read it and say, "Yes--your hand! that is
+surely so; I knew it all along!"
+
+And so then if I tell you a thing you already know, I confer on you the
+great blessing of introducing you to yourself and of giving you the
+consciousness that you know.
+
+And to know you know is power. And to feel the sense of power is to feel
+a sense of oneness with the Source of Power.
+
+Let's see--what was it, then, that we were talking about? Oh, yes!
+collectors and collecting.
+
+Men collect things because these things stir imagination and link them
+with the people who once possessed and used these things. Thus, through
+imagination, is the dead past made again to live and throb and pulse with
+life. Man is not the lonely creature that those folks with bad digestions
+sometimes try to have us believe.
+
+We are brothers not only to all who live, but to all who have gone
+before.
+
+And so we collect the trifles that once were valuables for other men, and
+by the possession of these trifles are we bounden to them. These things
+stimulate imagination, stir the sympathies, and help us forget the
+cramping bounds of time and space that so often hedge us close around.
+
+The people near us may be sordid, stupid, mean; or more likely they are
+weary and worn with the battle for mere food, shelter and raiment; or
+they are depressed by that undefined brooding fear which civilization
+exacts as payment for benefits forgot--so their better selves are
+subdued.
+
+But through fancy's flight we can pick our companions out of the company
+of saints and sinners who have long turned to dust. I have the bookplates
+of Holbein and Hogarth, and I have a book once owned by Rembrandt, and so
+I do not say Holbein and Hogarth and Rembrandt were--I say they are.
+
+And thus the collector confuses the glorious dead and the living in one
+fairy company; and although he may detect varying degrees of excellence,
+for none does he hold contempt, of none is he jealous, none does he envy.
+From them he asks nothing, upon him they make no demands. In the
+collector's cast of mind there is something very childlike and ingenuous.
+
+My little girl has a small box of bright bits of silk thread that she
+hoards very closely; then she possesses certain pieces of calico, nails,
+curtain-rings, buttons, spools and fragments of china--all of which are
+very dear to her heart. And why should they not be? For with them she
+creates a fairy world, wherein are only joy, and peace, and harmony, and
+light--quite an improvement on this! Yes, dearie, quite.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ernest Meissonier, the artist, began collecting very early. He has told
+us that he remembers, when five years of age, of going with his mother to
+market and collecting rabbits' ears and feet, which he would take home,
+and carefully nail up on the wall of the garret. And it may not be amiss
+to explain here that the rabbit's foot as an object of superstitious
+veneration has no real place outside of the United States of America, and
+this only south of Mason and Dixon's line.
+
+The Meissonier lad's collection of rabbits' ears increased until he had
+nearly colors enough to run the chromatic scale. Then he collected
+pigeons' wings in like manner, and if you have ever haunted French
+market-places you know how natural a thing this would be for a child. The
+boy's mother took quite an interest in his amusements, and helped him to
+spread the wings out and arrange the tails fan-shape on the walls. They
+had long strings of buttons and boxes of spools in partnership; and when
+they would go up the Seine on little excursions on Sunday afternoons,
+they would bring back rich spoils in the way of swan feathers,
+butterflies, "snake-feeders" and tiny shells. Then once they found a
+bird's nest, and as the mother bird had deserted it, they carried it
+home. That was a red-letter day, for the garret collection had increased
+to such an extent that a partition was made across the corner of a room
+by hanging up a strip of cloth. And all the things in that corner
+belonged to Ernest--his mother said so. Ernest's mother seems to have had
+a fine, joyous, childlike nature, so she fully entered into the life of
+her boy. He wanted no other companion. In fact, this mother was little
+better herself than a child in years--she was only sixteen when she bore
+him. They lived at Lyons then, but three years later moved to Paris. Her
+temperament was poetic, religious, and her spirit had in it a touch of
+superstition--which is the case with all really excellent women.
+
+But this sweet playtime was not for long--the mother died in Eighteen
+Hundred Twenty-five, aged twenty-four years.
+
+I suppose there is no greater calamity that can befall a child than to
+lose his mother. Still, Nature is very kind, and for Ernest Meissonier
+there always remained firm, clear-cut memories of a slight, fair-haired
+woman, with large, open, gray eyes, who held him in her arms, sang to
+him, and rocked him to sleep each night as the darkness gathered. He
+lived over and over again those few sunshiny excursions up the river; and
+he knew all the reeds and flowers and birds she liked best, and the
+places where they had landed from the boat and lunched together were
+forever to him sacred spots.
+
+But the death of his mother put a stop for a time to his collecting. The
+sturdy housekeeper who came to take the mother's place, speedily cleared
+"the truck" out of the corner, and forbade the bringing of any more
+feathers and rabbits' feet into her house--well, I guess so! The birds'
+nests, long grasses, reeds, shells and pigeons' wings were tossed
+straightway into the fireplace, and went soaring up the chimney in smoke.
+
+The destruction of the collection didn't kill the propensity to collect,
+however, any more than you can change a man's opinions by burning his
+library. It only dampened the desire for a time. It broke out again after
+a few years and continued for considerably more than half a century.
+There was a house at Poissy "full to the roof-tiles" of books, marbles,
+bronzes and innumerable curios, gathered from every corner of the earth;
+and a palace at Paris filled in like manner, for which Ernest Meissonier
+had expended more than a million francs.
+
+In the palace at Paris, when the owner was near his threescore years and
+ten, he took from a locker a morocco case, and opening it, showed his
+friend, Dumas, a long curl of yellow hair; and then he brought out a
+curious old white-silk dress, and said to the silent Dumas, "This curl
+was cut from my mother's head after her death, and this dress was her
+wedding-gown."
+
+A few days after this Meissonier wrote these words in his journal: "It is
+the Twentieth of February--the morning of my seventieth birthday. What a
+long time to look back upon! This morning, at the hour when my mother
+gave me birth, I wished my first thoughts to be of her. Dear Mother, how
+often have the tears risen to my eyes at the remembrance of you! It was
+your absence--the longing I had for you--that made you so dear to me. The
+love of my heart goes out to you! Do you hear me, Mother, calling and
+crying for you? How sweet it must be to have a mother, I say to myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I would have every man rich," said Emerson, "that he might know the
+worthlessness of riches."
+
+Every man should have a college education, in order to show him how
+little the thing is really worth. The intellectual kings of the earth
+have seldom been college-bred. Napoleon ever regretted the lack of
+instruction in his early years; and in the minds of such men as Abraham
+Lincoln and Ernest Meissonier there usually lingers the suspicion that
+they have dropped something out of their lives.
+
+"I'm not a college man--ask Seward," said Lincoln, when some one
+questioned him as to the population of Alaska. The remark was merry jest,
+of course, but as in all jest there lurks a grain of truth, so did there
+here.
+
+At the height of Meissonier's success, when a canvas from his hand
+commanded a larger price than the work of any other living artist, he
+exclaimed, "Oh, if only I had been given the advantages of a college
+training!"
+
+If he had, it is quite probable that he never would have painted better
+than his teacher. Discipline might have reduced his daring genius to
+neutral salts, and taken all that fine audacity from his brush.
+
+He was a natural artist: he saw things clearly and in detail; he had the
+heart to feel, and he longed for the skill to express that which he saw
+and felt. And when the desire is strong enough it brings the thing--and
+thus is prayer answered.
+
+Meissonier while but a child set to work making pictures--he declared he
+would be an artist. And in spite of his father's attempts to shame him
+out of his whim, and to starve him into a more practical career, his
+resolution stuck.
+
+He worked in a drugstore and drew on the wrapping-paper; then with this
+artist a few days, and then with that. He tried illustrating, and finally
+a bold stand was made and a little community formed that decided on
+storming the Salon.
+
+There is something pathetic in that brotherhood of six young men, binding
+themselves together, swearing they would stand together and aid each
+other in producing great art.
+
+The dead seriousness of the scheme has a peculiar sophomore quality.
+There were Steinheil, Trimolet, Daumier, Daubigny, Deschaumaes and
+Meissonier, all aged about twenty, strong, sturdy, sincere and innocently
+ignorant--all bound they would be artists.
+
+Two of these young men were sign-painters, the others did odd jobs
+illustrating, and filled in the time at anything which chance offered.
+When one got an invitation out to dinner he would go, and furtively drop
+biscuit and slices of meat into his lap, and then slyly transfer them to
+his waistcoat-pockets, so as to take them to his less fortunate brethren.
+
+They haunted the galleries, made themselves familiar with catalogs,
+criticized without stint, knew all about current prices, and were able
+to point out the great artists of Paris when they passed proudly up the
+street.
+
+They sketched eternally, formed small wax models, and made great
+preparations for masterpieces.
+
+The reason they did not produce the masterpieces was because they did not
+have money to buy brushes, paints and canvas. Neither did they have funds
+to purchase food to last until the thing was done; and it is difficult to
+produce great art on half-rations. So they formed the brotherhood, and
+one midnight swore eternal fealty. They were to draw lots: the lucky
+member was to paint and the other five were to support him for a month.
+He was to be supplied his painting outfit and to be absolutely free from
+all responsibility as to the bread-and-butter question for a whole month.
+
+Trimolet was the first lucky man.
+
+He set diligently to work, and dined each evening on a smoking
+mutton-chop with a bottle of wine, at a respectable restaurant. The five
+stood outside and watched him through the window--they dined when and
+where they could.
+
+His picture grew apace, and in three weeks was completed. It was
+entitled, "Sisters of Charity Giving Out Soup to the Poor." The work was
+of a good machine-made quality, not good enough to praise nor bad enough
+to condemn: it was like Tomlinson of Berkeley Square.
+
+On account of the peculiar subject with which it dealt, it found favor
+with a worthy priest, who bought it and presented it to a convent.
+
+This so inflated Trimolet that he suggested it would be a good plan to
+keep right on with the arrangement, but the five objected.
+
+Steinheil was next appointed to feed the vestal fire. His picture was
+so-so, but would not sell.
+
+Daubigny came next, and lived so high that inspiration got clogged, fatty
+degeneration of the cerebrum set in, and after a week he ceased to
+paint--doing nothing but dream.
+
+When the turn of the fourth man came, Meissonier had concluded that the
+race must be won by one and one, and his belief in individualism was
+further strengthened by an order for a group of family portraits, with a
+goodly retainer in advance.
+
+Straightway he married Steinheil's sister, with whom he had been some
+weeks in love, and the others feeling aggrieved that an extra mouth to
+feed, with danger of more, had been added to the "Commune," declared the
+compact void.
+
+Trimolet still thought well of the arrangement, though, and agreed, if
+Meissonier would support him, to secure fame and fortune for them both.
+
+Meissonier declined the offer with thanks, and struck boldly out on his
+own account.
+
+The woman who had so recklessly agreed to share his poverty must surely
+have had faith in him--or are very young people who marry incapable of
+either faith or reason? Never mind; she did not hold the impulsive young
+man back.
+
+She couldn't--nothing but death could have stayed such ambition. His will
+was unbending and his ambition never tired.
+
+He was an athlete in strength, and was fully conscious that to be a good
+animal is the first requisite. He swam, rowed, walked, and could tire out
+any of his colleagues at swordplay or skittles.
+
+But material things were scarce those first few years of married life,
+and once when the table had bread, but no meat nor butter, he took the
+entire proceeds of a picture and purchased a suit of clothing of the time
+of Louis the Grand: not to wear, of course--simply to put in the
+"collection."
+
+Small wonder is it that, for some months after, when he would walk out
+alone the fond wife would caution him thus: "Now Ernest, do not go
+through that old-clothes market--you know your weakness."
+
+"I have no money, so you need not worry," he would gaily reply.
+
+Of those times of pinching want he has written, "As to happiness--is it
+possible to be wretched at twenty, when one has health, a passion for
+art, free passes for the Louvre, an eye to see, a heart to feel, and
+sunshine gratis?"
+
+But poverty did not last long. Pictures such as this young man produced
+must attract attention anywhere.
+
+He belonged to no school, but simply worked away after his own fashion;
+what he was bound to do was to produce a faithful picture--sure, clear,
+strong, vivid. He saw things clearly and his sympathies were acute, as is
+shown in every canvas he produced.
+
+Meissonier had the true artistic conscience--he was incapable of putting
+out an average, unobjectionable picture--it must have positive
+excellence. "There is a difference," said he, "between a successful
+effort and a work of love." He painted only in the loving mood.
+
+No greater blessing than the artistic conscience can come to any worker
+in art, be he sculptor, writer, singer or painter. Hold fast to it, and
+it shall be your compass in time when the sun is darkened. To please the
+public is little, but to satisfy your Other Self, that self that leans
+over your shoulder and watches your every thought and deed, is much. No
+artistic success worth having is possible unless you satisfy that Other
+Self.
+
+But like the moral conscience it can be dallied with until the grieved
+spirit turns away, and the wretch is left to his fate.
+
+Meissonier never hesitated to erase a whole picture when it did not
+satisfy his inward sense--customers might praise and connoisseurs offer
+to buy, it made no difference. "I have some one who is more difficult to
+please than you," he would say; "I must satisfy myself."
+
+The fine intoxication that follows good artistic work is the highest joy
+that mortals ever know. But once let a creative artist lower his
+standard and give the world the mere product of his brain, with heart
+left out, that man will hate himself for a year and a day. He has sold
+his soul for a price: joy has flown, and bitterness is his portion.
+Meissonier never trifled with his compass. To the last he headed for the
+polestar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The early domestic affairs of Meissonier can best be guessed from his
+oft-repeated assertion that the artist should never marry. "To produce
+great work, Art must be your mistress," he said. "You must be married to
+your work. A wife demands unswerving loyalty as her right, and a portion
+of her husband's time she considers her own. This is proper with every
+profession but that of Art. The artist must not be restrained, nor should
+even a wife come between him and his Art. The artist must not be judged
+by the same standards that are made for other men. Why? Simply because
+when you begin to tether him you cramp his imagination and paralyze his
+hand. The priest and artist must not marry, for it is too much to expect
+any woman to follow them in their flight, and they have no moral right to
+tie themselves to a woman and then ask her to stay behind."
+
+From this and many similar passages in the "Conversations" it is clear
+that Meissonier had no conception of the fact that a woman may possibly
+keep step with her mate. He simply never considered such a thing.
+
+A man's opinions concerning womankind are based upon the knowledge of the
+women he knows best.
+
+We can not apply Hamerton's remark concerning Turner to Meissonier.
+Hamerton said that throughout Turner's long life he was lamentably
+unfortunate in that he never came under the influence of a strong and
+good woman.
+
+Meissonier associated with good women, but he never knew one with a
+spread of spiritual wing sufficient to fit her to be his companion. There
+is a minor key of loneliness and heart hunger running through his whole
+career. Possibly, in the wisdom of Providence, this was just what he
+needed to urge him on to higher and nobler ends. He never knew peace, and
+the rest for which he sighed slipped him at the very last. "I'm tired, so
+tired," he sighed again and again in those later years, when he had
+reached the highest pinnacle.
+
+And still he worked--it was his only rest! Meissonier painted very few
+pictures of women, and in some miraculous way skipped that stage in
+esthetic evolution wherein most artists affect the nude. In his whole
+career he never produced a single "Diana," nor a "Susanna at the Bath."
+He had no artistic sympathy with "Leda and the Swan," and once when
+Delaroche chided him for painting no pictures of women, he was so
+ungallant as to say, "My dear fellow, men are much more beautiful than
+women!"
+
+During the last decade of his life Meissonier painted but one portrait of
+a woman, and to America belongs the honor. The sitter was Mrs. J. W.
+Mackay, of California.
+
+As all the world knows, Mrs. Mackay refused to accept the canvas. She
+declared the picture was no likeness, and further, she would not have it
+for a gift.
+
+"So you do not care for the picture?" asked the great artist.
+
+"Me? Well, I guess not--not that picture!"
+
+"Very well, Madam. I think--I think I'll keep it for myself. I'll place
+it on exhibition!" And the great artist looked out of the window in an
+absent-minded way, and hummed a tune.
+
+This put another phase on the matter. Mrs. Mackay winced, and paid the
+price, which rumor says was somewhere between ten and twenty-five
+thousand dollars. She took the little canvas in her carriage and drove
+away with it, and what became of the only portrait of a woman painted by
+Meissonier during his later years, nobody knew but Mrs. Mackay, and Mrs.
+Mackay never told.
+
+Meissonier once explained to a friend that his offense consisted in
+producing a faithful likeness of the customer.
+
+The Mackay incident did not end when the lady paid the coin and accepted
+the goods. Meissonier, by the haughtiness of his manner, his artistic
+independence, and most of all, by his unpardonable success, had been
+sowing dragons' teeth for half a century. And now armed enemies sprang
+up, and sided with the woman from California. They made it an
+international episode: less excuses have involved nations in war in days
+agone. But the enemies of Meissonier did not belong alone to America,
+although here every arm was braced and every tongue wagged to vindicate
+the cause of our countrywoman.
+
+In Paris the whole art world was divided into those who sided with
+Meissonier and those who were against him. Cafes echoed with the sounds
+of wordy warfare; the columns of all magazines and newspapers bulged with
+heated argument; newsboys cried extras on the street, and bands of
+students paraded the boulevards singing songs in praise of Mrs. Mackay
+and in dishonor of Meissonier, "the pretender." The assertion was made
+again and again that Meissonier had fed sham art upon the public, and by
+means of preposterous prices and noisy puffing had hypnotized a world.
+They called him the artist of the Infinitely Little, King of Lilliput,
+and challenged any one to show where he had thrown heart and high emotion
+into his work. Studies of coachmen, smokers, readers, soldiers,
+housemaids, chess-players, cavaliers and serenaders were not enough upon
+which to base an art reputation--the man must show that he had moved men
+to high endeavor, said the detractors. A fund was started to purchase the
+Mackay portrait, so as to do the very thing that Meissonier had
+threatened to do, but dare not: place the picture on exhibition. To show
+the picture, the enemy said, would be to prove the artist's commonplace
+quality, and not only this, but it would prove the man a rogue. They
+declared he was incapable of perceiving the good qualities in a sitter,
+and had consented for a price to portray a person whom he disliked; and
+as a result, of course, had produced a caricature; and then had
+blackmailed his patron into paying an outrageous sum to keep the picture
+from the public.
+
+The argument sounded plausible. And so the battle raged, just as it has
+since in reference to Zola.
+
+The tide of Meissonier's prosperity began to ebb: prospective buyers kept
+away; those who had given commissions canceled them.
+
+Meissonier's friends saw that something must be done. They inaugurated a
+"Meissonier Vindication," by making an exhibition of one hundred
+fifty-five "Meissoniers"--and the public was invited to come and be the
+jury. Art-lovers from England went in bodies, and all Paris filed through
+the gallery, as well as a goodly portion of provincial France. By the
+side of each canvas stood a gendarme to protect it from a possible
+fanatic whose artistic hate could not be restrained.
+
+To a great degree this exhibition brought feeling to a normal condition.
+Meissonier was still a great artist, yet he was human and his effects
+were now believed to be gotten by natural methods. But there was a lull
+in the mad rush to secure his wares. The Vanderbilts grew lukewarm;
+titled connoisseurs from England were not so anxious; and Mrs. Mackay sat
+back and smiled through her tears.
+
+Meissonier had expended over a million francs on his house in the
+Boulevard Malesherbes in Paris, and nearly as much on the country-seat at
+Poissy. These places were kingly in their appointments and such as only
+the State should attempt to maintain. For a single man, by the work of
+his right hand, to keep them up was too much to expect.
+
+Meissonier's success had been too great. As a collector he had overdone
+the thing. Only poor men, or those of moderate incomes, should be
+collectors, for then the joy of sacrifice is theirs. Charles Lamb's
+covetous looking on the book when it was red, daily for months, meanwhile
+hoarding his pay, and at last one Saturday night swooping down and
+carrying the volume home to Bridget in triumph, is the true type.
+
+But money had come to Meissonier by hundreds of thousands of francs, and
+often sums were forced upon him as advance payments. He lived royally and
+never imagined that his hand and brain could lose their cunning, or the
+public be fickle.
+
+The fact that a "vindication" had been necessary was galling: the great
+man grew irritable and his mood showed itself in his work: his colors
+grew hard and metallic, and there were angles in his lines where there
+should have been joyous curves.
+
+Debts began to press. He painted less and busied his mind with
+reminiscence--the solace of old age.
+
+And then it was that he dictated to his wife the "Conversations." The
+book reveals the quality of his mind with rare fidelity--and shows the
+power of this second wife fully to comprehend him. Thus did she disprove
+some of the unkind philosophy given to the world by her liege. But the
+talk in the "Conversations" is of an old man in whose heart was a tinge
+of bitterness. Yet the thought is often lofty and the comment clear and
+full of flashing insight. It is the book of Ecclesiastes over again,
+written in a minor key, with a little harmless gossip added for filling.
+Meissonier died in Paris on the Twenty-first of January, Eighteen Hundred
+Ninety-one, aged seventy-six years.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The canvas known as "Eighteen Hundred Seven," which is regarded as
+Meissonier's masterpiece, has a permanent home in the Metropolitan Museum
+of Art in New York. The central figure is Napoleon, at whose shrine the
+great artist loved to linger. The "Eighteen Hundred Seven" occupied the
+artist's time and talent for fifteen years, and was purchased by A. T.
+Stewart for sixty thousand dollars. After Mr. Stewart's death his art
+treasures were sold at auction, and this canvas was bought by Judge Henry
+Hilton and presented to the city of New York.
+
+There are in all about seventy-five pictures by Meissonier owned in
+America. Several of his pieces are in the Vanderbilt collection, others
+are owned by collectors in Chicago, Cleveland and Saint Louis.
+
+There are various glib sayings to the effect that the work of great men
+is not appreciated until after they are dead. This may be so and it may
+not. It depends upon the man and the age. Meissonier enjoyed full half a
+century of the highest and most complete success that was ever bestowed
+upon an artist.
+
+The strong intellect and marked personality of the man won him friends
+wherever he chose to make them; and it probably would have been better
+for his art if a degree of public indifference had been his portion in
+those earlier years. His success was too great: the calm judgment of
+posterity can never quite endorse the plaudits paid the living man. He
+is one of the greatest artists the Nineteenth Century has produced, but
+that his name can rank among the great artists of all time is not at all
+probable.
+
+William Michael Rossetti has summed the matter up well by saying:
+"Perfection is so rare in this world that when we find it we must pause
+and pay it the tribute of our silent admiration. It is very easy to say
+that Meissonier should have put in this and omitted that. Had he painted
+differently he would have been some one else. The work is faultless, and
+such genius as he showed must ever command the homage of those who know
+by experience the supreme difficulty of having the hand materialize the
+conceptions of the mind. And yet Meissonier's conceptions outmatched his
+brush: he was greater than his work. He was a great artist, and better
+still, a great man--proud, frank, fearless and conscientious."
+
+
+
+
+TITIAN
+
+     Titian by a few strokes of the brush knew how to make the general
+     image and character of whatever object he attempted. His great
+     care was to preserve the masses of light and of shade, and to
+     give by opposition the idea of that solidity which is inseparable
+     from natural objects. He was the greatest of the Venetians, and
+     deserves to rank with Raphael and Michelangelo.
+
+    --_Sir Joshua Reynolds_
+
+[Illustration: TITIAN]
+
+
+The march of progress and the rage for improvement make small impression
+on Venice. The cabmen have not protested against horsecars as they did in
+Rome, tearing up the tracks, mobbing the drivers, and threatening the
+passengers; neither has the cable superseded horses as a motor power, and
+the trolley then rendered the cable obsolete.
+
+In short, there never was a horse in Venice, save those bronze ones over
+the entrance to Saint Mark's, and the one Napoleon rode to the top of the
+Campanile. But there are lions in Venice--stone lions--you see them at
+every turn. "Did you ever see a live horse?" asked a ten-year-old boy of
+me, in Saint Mark's Square.
+
+"Yes," said I; "several times."
+
+"Are they fierce?" he asked after a thoughtful pause. And then I
+explained that a thousand times as many men are killed by horses every
+year as by lions.
+
+Four hundred years have made no change in the style of gondolas, or
+anything else in Venice. The prow of the Venetian gondola made today is
+of the same height as that prescribed by Tommaso Mocenigo, Doge in the
+year Fourteen Hundred. The regulated height of the prow is to insure
+protection for the passengers when going under bridges, but its peculiar
+halberd shape is a thing not one of the five thousand gondoliers in
+Venice can explain. If you ask your gondolier he will swear a pious oath,
+shrug his fine shoulders, and say, "Mon Dieu, Signore! how should I
+know?--it has always been so." The ignorance and superstition of the
+picturesque gondolier, with his fluttering blue hatband and gorgeous
+sash, are most enchanting. His lack of knowledge is like the ignorance of
+childhood, when life has neither beginning nor end; when ways and means
+present no vexatious problems; when if food is not to be had for the
+simple asking, it can surely be secured by coaxing; when the day is for
+frolic and play, and the night for dreams and sleep.
+
+But although your gondolier may not be able to read or write, he yet has
+his preferences in music and art, and possesses definite ideas as to the
+eternal fitness of things. In Italy, many of the best paintings being in
+churches, and all the galleries being free on certain days, the common
+people absorb a goodly modicum of art education without being aware of
+it. I have heard market-women compare the merits of Tintoretto and Paul
+Veronese, and stupid indeed is the boat "hooker" in Venice who would not
+know a "Titian" on sight.
+
+But the chronology of art is all a jumble to this indolent, careless,
+happy people. These paintings were in the churches when their fathers and
+mothers were alive, they are here now, and no church has been built in
+Venice for three hundred years.
+
+The history of Venice is nothing to a gondolier. "Why, Signore! how
+should I know? Venice always has been," explained Enrico, when I asked
+him how old the city was.
+
+When I hired Enrico I thought he was a youth. He wore such a dandy suit
+of pure white, and his hatband so exactly matched his sash, that I felt
+certain I was close upon some tender romance, for surely it was some
+dark-eyed lacemaker who had embroidered this impossible hatband and
+evolved the improbable sash!
+
+The exercise of rowing a gondola is of the sort that gives a splendid
+muscular development. Men who pull oars have round shoulders, but the
+gondolier does not pull an oar, he pushes it, and as a result has a flat
+back and brawny chest. Enrico had these, and as he had no nerves to speak
+of, the passing years had taken small toll. Enrico was sixty. Once he ran
+alongside another gondola and introduced me to the gondolier, who was his
+son. They were both of one age. Then one day I went with Enrico to his
+home--two whitewashed rooms away up under the roof of an old palace on
+the Rialto--and there met his wife.
+
+Mona Lisa showed age more than Enrico. She had crouched over a little
+wooden frame making one pattern of lace for thirty years, so her form was
+bent and her eyesight faulty. Yet she proudly explained that years and
+years ago she was a model for a painter, and in the Della Salute I could
+see her picture, posed as Magdalen. She got fourteen cents a day for her
+work, and had been at it so long she had no desire to quit. She took
+great pride in Enrico's white-duck suits and explained to me that she
+never let him wear one suit more than two days without its being washed
+and starched; and she always pipeclayed his shoes and carefully inspected
+him each morning before sending him forth to his day's work. "Men are so
+careless, you know," she added by way of apology.
+
+There was no furniture in the rooms worth mentioning--Italians do not
+burden themselves with things--but on the wall I caught sight of a
+bright-colored unfinished sketch of the Bridge of Sighs. It was little
+more than an outline, and probably did not represent ten minutes' work,
+but the lines seemed so firm and sure that I at once asked who did it.
+
+"An American did it, Signore, an American painter; he comes here every
+year; our son is his gondolier and shows him all the best places to
+paint, and takes him there when the light is good and keeps the people
+back so the artist can work--you understand? A shower came up just as his
+Excellency, the American, began on this, and it got wet and so he gave it
+to my son and he gave it to me."
+
+"What is the painter's name?" I asked. Enrico could not remember, but
+Mona Lisa said his name was Signore Hopsmithiziano, or something like
+that.
+
+There were several little plaster images on the walls, and through the
+open door that led to the adjoining room I saw a sort of an improvised
+shrine, with various little votive offerings grouped about an unframed
+canvas. The picture was a crude attempt at copying that grand figure in
+Titian's "Assumption."
+
+"And who painted that?" I asked.
+
+Enrico crossed himself in silence, and Mona Lisa's subdued voice
+answered: "Our other son did that. He was only nineteen. He was a
+mosaicist and was studying to be a painter; he was drowned at the Lido."
+
+The old woman made the sign of the cross, her lips moved, and a single
+big tear stood on her leathery cheek. I changed the painful subject, and
+soon found excuse to slip away. That evening as the darkness gathered and
+twinkling lights began to appear like fireflies, up and down the Grand
+Canal, I sat in a little balcony of my hotel watching the scene. A
+serenading party, backing their boats out into the stream, had formed a
+small blockade, and in the group of gondolas that awaited the unraveling
+of the tangle I spied Enrico. He had a single passenger, a lady in the
+inevitable black mantilla, holding in her hands the inevitable fan. A
+second glance at the lady--and sure enough! it was Mona Lisa. I ran
+downstairs, stepped out across the moored line of gondolas, took up a
+hook, and reaching over gently pulled Enrico's gondola over so I could
+step aboard.
+
+Mona Lisa was crooning a plaintive love-song and her gondolier was coming
+in occasionally with bars of melodious bass. I felt guilty for being
+about to break in upon such a sentimental little scene, and was going to
+retreat, but Enrico and Mona Lisa spied me and both gave a little cry of
+surprise and delight.
+
+"Where have you been?" I asked--"you fine old lovers!"
+
+And then they explained that it was a Holy Day and they had been over to
+the Church of San Giorgio, and were now on their way to Santa Maria de'
+Frari.
+
+"It is a very special mass, by torchlight, and is for the repose of the
+soul of Titian, who is buried there. You may never have an opportunity to
+see such a sight again--come with us," and Enrico held out his strong
+brown hand.
+
+I stepped aboard, the boats opened out to the left and to the right, and
+we passed with that peculiar rippling sound, across the water that
+reflected the lights as of a myriad stars.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Titian was born one hundred years before Rubens, and died just six months
+before Rubens' birth.
+
+On the one hundred twenty-second anniversary of the birth of Titian,
+Rubens knelt at his grave, there in the church of Santa Maria de' Frari,
+and vowed he would follow in the footsteps of the illustrious master. And
+the next day he wrote to his mother describing the incident. Thousands of
+other sentimental and impulsive youth have stood before that little slab
+of black marble on which is carved the simple legend, "Tiziano Vecellio,"
+and vowed as Rubens did, but out of the throng not one rendered such
+honor to the master as did the brilliant Fleming. The example of Titian
+was a lifelong inspiration to Rubens; and to all his pupils he held up
+Titian as the painter par excellence. In the Rubens studio Titian was the
+standard by which all art was gauged.
+
+When Rubens returned to Flanders from Italy he carried with him
+twenty-one pictures done by the hand of the master.
+
+Titian was born at the little village of Cadore, a few miles north of
+Venice. When ten years of age his father took him down to the city and
+apprenticed him to a worker in mosaic, the intent of the fond parent
+probably being to get the youngster out of the way, more than anything
+else.
+
+The setting together of the little bits of colored glass, according to a
+pattern supplied, is a task so simple that children can do it about as
+well as grown folks. They do the work there today just exactly as they
+did four hundred years ago, when little Tiziano Vecellio came down from
+Cadore and worked, getting his ears pinched when he got sleepy, or
+carelessly put in the red glass when he should have used the blue.
+
+An inscription on a tomb at Beni Hassan, dating from the reign of
+Osortasen the First, who lived three thousand years before Christ,
+represents Theban glassblowers at work. I told Enrico of this one day
+when we were on our way to a glass-factory.
+
+"That's nothing," said Enrico; "it was the glassblowers of Venice who
+taught them how," and not a ghost of a smile came across his fine,
+burnt-umber face.
+
+There is a story by Pliny about certain Phenician mariners landing on the
+shores of a small river in Palestine and making a fire to cook their
+food, and afterward discovering that the soda and sand under their pots
+had fused into glass. No one now seriously considers that the first
+discovery of glass, and for all I know Enrico may be right in his flat
+statement that the first glass was made at Venice, "for Venice always
+was."
+
+The art of glassmaking surely goes back to the morning of the world. The
+glassblower is a classic, like the sower who goes forth to sow, the
+potter at his wheel, and the grinding of grain with mortar and pestle.
+Thus, too, the art of the mosaicist--who places bright bits of stone and
+glass in certain positions so as to form a picture--goes back to the
+dawn. The exquisite work in mosaic at Pompeii is the first thing that
+impresses the visitor to that silent city. Much of the work there was
+done long before the Christian era, and must have then been practised
+many centuries to bring it to such perfection.
+
+Young Tiziano from Cadore did not like the mere following of a set
+pattern--he introduced variations of his own, and got his nose tweaked
+for trying to improve on a good thing. Altogether he seemed to have had a
+hard time of it there at Messer Zuccato's mosaic-shop.
+
+The painter's art, then as now, preceded the art of the mosaicist, for
+the picture or design to be made in mosaic is first carefully drawn on
+paper, and then colored, and the worker in mosaic is supposed simply to
+follow copy. When you visit the glass-factories of Venice today, you see
+the painted picture tacked up on the wall before the workmen, who with
+deft fingers stick the bits of glass into their beds of putty. This
+scheme of painting a pattern is in order that cheap help can be employed;
+when it began we do not know, but we do know there was a time when the
+great artist in mosaic had his design in his head, and materialized it by
+rightly placing the bits of glass with his own hands, experimenting,
+selecting and rejecting until the thing was right. But this was before
+the time of Titian, for when Titian came down to Venice there were
+painters employed in the shop of Sebastian Zuccato who made the designs
+for the dunderheads to follow. That is not just the word the painters
+used to designate the boys and women who placed the bits of glass in
+position, but it meant the same thing.
+
+The painters thought themselves great folks, and used to make the others
+wait on them and run errands, serving them as "fags."
+
+But the Vecellio boy did not worship at the shrine of the painters who
+made the designs. He said he could make as good pictures himself, and
+still continued to make changes in the designs when he thought they
+should be made; and once in a dispute between the boy and the maker of a
+design, the master took sides with the boy. This inflated the lad with
+his own importance so, that shortly after he applied for the position of
+the quarrelsome designer.
+
+The fine audacity of the youngster so pleased the master that he allowed
+him to try his hand with the painters a few hours each day. He was
+getting no wages anyway, only his board, and the kind of board did not
+cost much, so it did not make much difference.
+
+In Venice at that time there were two painters by the name of
+Bellini--Gentile and Giovanni, sons of the painter Jacob Bellini, who had
+brought his boys up in the way they should go. Gian, as the Venetians
+called the younger brother, was the more noted of the two. Occasionally
+he made designs for the mosaicists, and this sometimes brought him to
+the shop where young Titian worked.
+
+The boy got on speaking terms with the great painter, and ran errands
+back and forth from his studio. When twelve years of age we find him duly
+installed as a helper at Gian Bellini's studio, with an easel and box of
+paints all his own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The brightest scholar in the studio of Gian Bellini was a young man by
+the name of Giorgio, but they called him Giorgione, which being
+interpreted means George the Great. He was about the age of Titian, and
+the two became firm friends.
+
+Giorgione was nearly twenty when we first hear of him. He was a handsome
+fellow--tall, slender, with an olive complexion and dreamy brown eyes.
+There was a becoming flavor of melancholy in his manner, and more than
+one gracious dame sought to lure him back to earth, away from his
+sadness, out of the dream-world in which he lived.
+
+Giorgione was a musician and a poet. He sang his own pieces, playing the
+accompaniment on a harp. Vasari says he sang his songs, playing his own
+accompaniment on a flute, but I think this is a mistake.
+
+Into all his work Giorgione infused his own soul--and do you know what
+the power to do that is? It is genius. To be able to make a statue is
+little, but to breathe into its nostrils the breath of life--ah! that is
+something else! The last elusive, undefinable stroke of the brush, that
+something uniting the spirit of the beholder with the spirit of the
+artist, so that you feel as he felt when he wrought--that is art.
+Burne-Jones is the avatar of Giorgione. He subdues you into silence, and
+you wait, expecting that one of his tall, soulful dream-women will speak,
+if you are but worthy--holding your soul in tune.
+
+Giorgione never wrought so well as Burne-Jones, because he lived in a
+different age--all art is an evolution. Painting is a form of expression,
+just as language is a form of expression. Every man who writes English is
+debtor to Shakespeare. Every man who paints and expresses something of
+that which his soul feels is debtor to Giorgione and Botticelli. But to
+judge of the greatness of an artist--mind this--you must compare him with
+his contemporaries, not with those who were before or those who came
+after. The old masters are valuable, not necessarily for beauty, but
+because they reveal the evolution of art.
+
+Between Burne-Jones and Giorgione came Botticelli. Now, Botticelli
+builded on Giorgione, while Burne-Jones builded on Botticelli. Aubrey
+Beardsley, dead at the age at which Keats died, builded on both, but he
+perverted their art and put a leer where Burne-Jones placed faith and
+abiding trust. Aubrey Beardsley got the cue for his hothouse art from one
+figure in Botticelli's "Spring," I need not state which figure: a glance
+at the picture and you behold sulphur fumes about the face of one of the
+women.
+
+Did Aubrey Beardsley infuse his own spirit into his work? Yes, I think he
+did. Mrs. Jameson says, "There are no successful imitations of Giorgione,
+neither can there be, for the spirit of the man is in every face he drew,
+and the people who try to draw like him always leave that out."
+
+There are various pictures in the Louvre, the National Gallery, and the
+Pinacothek at Munich, signed with Giorgione's name, but Mrs. Jameson
+declares they are not his, "because they do not speak to your soul with
+that mild, beseeching look of pity," Possibly we should make allowance
+for Mrs. Jameson's warm praise--other women talked like that when
+Giorgione was alive.
+
+Giorgione was one of those bright luminaries that dart across our plane
+of vision and then go out quickly in hopeless night, leaving only the
+memory of a blinding light. He died at thirty-three, which Disraeli
+declares is the age at which the world's saviors have usually died--and
+he names the Redeemer first in a list of twenty who passed out at the age
+of three-and-thirty. Disraeli does not say that all those in his list
+were saviors, for the second name he records is that of Alexander the
+Great, the list ending with Shelley.
+
+Giorgione died of a broken heart.
+
+The girl he loved eloped with his friend, Morta del Feltri, to whom he
+had proudly introduced her a short time before. It is an old story--it
+has been played again and again to its Da Rimini finish. The friend
+introduces the friend, and the lauded virtues of this friend inflames
+imagination, until love strikes a spark; then soon instead of three we
+find one--one groping blindly, alone, dazed, stunned, bereft.
+
+The handsome Giorgione pined away, refusing to be comforted. And soon his
+proud, melancholy soul took its flight from an environment with which he
+was ever at war, and from a world which he never loved. And Titian was
+sent for to complete the pictures which he had begun.
+
+Surely, disembodied spirits have no control over mortals, or the soul of
+Giorgione would have come back and smitten the hand of Titian with palsy.
+
+For a full year before he died Giorgione had not spoken to Titian,
+although he had seen him daily.
+
+Giorgione had surpassed all artists in Venice. He had a careless, easy,
+limpid style. But there was decision and surety in his swinging lines,
+and best of all, a depth of tenderness and pity in his faces that gave to
+the whole a rich, full and melting harmony.
+
+Giorgione's head touched heaven, and his feet were not always on earth.
+Titian's feet were always on earth, and his head sometimes touched
+heaven. Titian was healthy and in love with this old, happy, cruel,
+sensuous world. He was willing to take his chances anywhere. He had no
+quarrel with his environment, for did he not stay here a hundred years
+(lacking half a year), and then die through accident? Of course he liked
+it. One woman, for him, could make a paradise in which a thousand
+nightingales sang. And if one particular woman liked some one else
+better, he just consoled himself with the thought that "there is just as
+good fish," etc. I will not quote Walt Whitman and say his feet were
+tenoned and mortised in granite, but they were well planted on the
+soil--and sometimes mired in clay.
+
+Titian admired Giorgione; he admired him so much that he painted exactly
+like him--or as nearly as he could.
+
+Titian was a good-looking young man, but he was not handsome like
+Giorgione. Yet Titian did his best; he patronized Giorgione's tailor,
+imitated his dreamy, far-away look, used a brush with his left hand, and
+painted with his thumb. His coloring was the same, and when he got a
+commission to fresco the ceiling of a church he did it as nearly like
+Giorgione frescoes as he could.
+
+This kind of thing is not necessarily servile imitation--it is only
+admiration tipped to t' other side. It is found everywhere in aspiring
+youth and in every budding artist.
+
+As in the animal kingdom, genius has its prototype. In the National
+Gallery at London you will see in the Turner Room a "Claude Lorraine" and
+a "Turner" hung side by side, as provided for in Turner's will. You would
+swear, were the pictures not labeled, that one hand did them both. When
+thirty, Turner admired Claude to a slavish degree; but we know there came
+a time when he bravely set sail on a chartless sea, and left the great
+Claude Lorraine far astern.
+
+Titian loved Giorgione so well that he even imitated his faults. At first
+this high compliment was pleasing to Giorgione; then he became
+indifferent, and finally disgusted. The very sight of Titian gave him a
+pain.
+
+He avoided his society. He ceased to speak to him when they met, and
+forbade his friends to mention the name "Titian" in his presence.
+
+It was about this time that Giorgione's ladylove won fame by discarding
+him in that foolish, fishwife fashion. He called his attendants and
+instructed them thus: "Do not allow that painter from Cadore--never mind
+his name--to attend my funeral--you understand?"
+
+Then he turned his face to the wall and died.
+
+In his studio were various pictures partly completed, for it seems to
+have been his habit to get rest by turning from one piece of work to
+another. His executors looked at these unfinished canvases in despair.
+There was only one man in all Venice who could complete them, and that
+was Titian.
+
+Titian was sent for.
+
+He came, completed the pictures, signed them with the dead man's name,
+and gave them to the world.
+
+"And," says the veracious Vasari, "they were done just as well, if not
+better than Giorgione himself could have done them, had he been alive!"
+
+It was absurd of Giorgione to die of a broken heart and let Titian come
+in, making free with everything in his studio, and complete his work. It
+was very absurd.
+
+Time is the great avenger--let us wait. Morta del Feltri, the perfidious
+friend, grew tired of his mistress: their love was so warm it shortly
+burned itself to ashes--ashes of roses.
+
+Morta deserted the girl, fled from Venice, joined the army, and a javelin
+plunged through his liver at the battle of Zara ended his career.
+
+The unhappy young woman, twice a widow, fought off hungry wolves by
+finding work in a glass-factory, making mosaics at fourteen cents a day.
+When she was seventy, Titian, aged seventy-five, painted her picture as a
+beggar-woman.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The quality of sentiment that clings about the life of Giorgione seems to
+forbid a cool, critical view of his work. Byron indited a fine poem to
+him; and poetic criticism seems for him the proper kind. The glamour of
+sentiment conceals the real man from our sight. And anyway, it is hardly
+good manners to approach a saint closely and examine his halo to see
+whether it be genuine or not. Halos are much more beautiful when seen
+through the soft, mellow light of distance.
+
+Giorgione's work was mostly in fresco, so but little of it has survived.
+But of his canvases several surely have that tender, beseeching touch of
+spirit which stamps the work as great art.
+
+Whether Mrs. Jameson is right in her assumption that all canvases bearing
+Giorgione's name are spurious which lack that look of pity, is a
+question. I think that Mrs. Jameson is more kind than critical, although
+my hope is that Renan is correct in his gratuitous statement, "At the
+Last Great Day men will be judged by women, and the Almighty will merely
+vise the verdict." If this be true, all who, like Giorgione, have died
+for the love of woman will come off lightly.
+
+But the fact is, no man is great all the time. Genius is an exceptional
+mood even in a genius, and happy is the genius who, like Tennyson, builds
+a high wall about his house, so he is seen but seldom, and destroys most
+of his commonplace work.
+
+Ruskin has printed more rubbish than literature--ten times over. I have
+his complete works, and am sorry to say that, instead of confining myself
+to "Sesame and Lilies," I have foolishly read all the dreary stuff,
+including statistics, letters to Hobbs and Nobbs, with hot arguments as
+to who fished the murex up, and long, scathing tirades against the old
+legal shark who did him out of a hundred pounds. Surely, to be swindled
+by a lawyer is not so unusual a thing that it is worth recording!
+
+But Ruskin wrote about it, had it put in print, read the proof, and
+printed the stuff, so no one, no matter how charitably disposed, can
+arise and zealously declare that this only is genuine, and that spurious.
+It's all genuine--rubbish, bosh and all.
+
+Titian painted some dreary, commonplace pictures, and he also painted
+others that must ever be reckoned as among the examples of sublime art
+that have made the world stronger in its day and generation and proud of
+what has been.
+
+Titian was essentially a pagan. When he painted Christian subjects he
+introduced a goodly flavor of the old Greek love of life. Indeed, there
+is a strong doubt whether the real essence of Christianity was ever known
+at Venice, except in rare individual cases.
+
+It was the spirit of the sea-kings, and not the gentle, loving Christ,
+that inspired her artists and men of learning.
+
+The sensuous glamour of the Orient steeped the walls of San Marco in
+their rainbow tints, and gave that careless, happy habit to all the
+Venetian folk. In Titian's time, as today, gay gallants knelt in the
+churches, and dark, dreamy eyes peeked out from behind mantillas, and the
+fan spoke a language which all lovers knew. Outside was the strong smell
+of the sea, and never could a sash be flung open to the azure but there
+would come floating in on the breeze the gentle tinkle of a guitar.
+
+But Titian, too, as well as Giorgione, infused into his work at times the
+very breath of life.
+
+At the Belle d' Arte at Venice is that grand picture, "The Assumption,"
+which for more than two hundred years was in the Church of Santa Maria
+de' Frari. When Napoleon appointed a commission to select the paintings
+in Venice that were considered best worth preserving and protecting, and
+take them to the Belle d' Arte, this picture was included in the list. It
+was then removed from its place, where it had so long hung, above the
+grave of the man who executed it.
+
+I have several large photographs of this picture, showing different
+portions of it. One of these pictures reveals simply the form of the
+Virgin. She rises from the earth, caught up in the clouds, the drapery
+streaming in soft folds, and on the upturned face is a look of love and
+tenderness and trust, combined with womanly strength, that hushes us into
+tears.
+
+Surely there is an upward law of gravitation as well as a gravitation
+that pulls things down. Titian has shown us this. And as he drew over and
+over again in his pictures the forms and faces of the men and women he
+knew, so I imagine that this woman was a woman he knew and loved. She is
+not a far-off, tenuous creature, born of dreams: she is a woman who has
+lived, suffered, felt, mayhap erred, and now turns to a Power, not
+herself, eternal in the heavens. Into this picture the artist infused his
+own exalted spirit, for the mood we behold manifest in others is usually
+but the reflection of our own spirit.
+
+In some far-off eon, ere this earth-journey began, some woman looked at
+me that way once, just as Titian has this woman look, with the same
+melting eyes and half-parted lips, and it made an impression on my soul
+that subsequent incarnations have not effaced.
+
+I bought the photograph in Venice, at Ongania's, and paid three dollars
+for it. Then I framed it in simple, unplaned, unstained cedar, and it
+hangs over my desk now as I write.
+
+When I am tired and things go wrong, and the round blocks all seem to be
+getting into the square holes, and remembrances of the lawyer who cheated
+me out of a hundred pounds come stealing like a blight over my spirit, I
+look up at the face of this woman who is not only angelic but human. I
+behold the steady upward flight and the tender look of pity, and my soul
+reaches out, grasping the hem of the garment of Her who we are told was
+the Mother of God, and with Her I leave the old sordid earth far beneath
+and go on, and on, and up, and up, and up, until my soaring spirit
+mingles and communes with the great Infinite.
+
+
+
+
+ANTHONY VAN DYCK
+
+    His pieces so with live objects strive,
+    That both or pictures seem, or both alive.
+    Nature herself, amaz'd, does doubting stand,
+    Which is her own and which the painter's hand,
+    And does attempt the like with less success,
+    When her own work in twins she would express.
+    His all-resembling pencil did outpass
+    The magic imagery of looking-glass.
+    Nor was his life less perfect than his art.
+    Nor was his hand less erring than his heart.
+    There was no false or fading color there,
+    The figures sweet and well-proportioned were.
+
+    --_Cowley's "Elegy on Sir Anthony Van Dyck"_
+
+[Illustration: ANTHONY VAN DYCK]
+
+
+The most common name in Holland is Van Dyck. Its simple inference is that
+the man lives on the dyke, or near it. In the good old days when
+villagers never wandered far from home, the appellation was sufficient,
+and even now, at this late day, it is not especially inconsistent.
+
+In Holland you are quite safe in addressing any man you meet as Van Dyck.
+
+The ancient Brotherhood of Saint Luke, of Antwerp, was always an
+exclusive affair, but during the years between Fifteen Hundred
+Ninety-seven and Sixteen Hundred Twenty-three there were twenty-seven
+artists by the name of Van Dyck upon its membership register. Out of
+these two dozen and three names, but one interests us.
+
+Anthony Van Dyck was the son of a rich merchant. He was born in the year
+Fifteen Hundred Ninety-nine--just twenty-two years after the birth of
+Rubens. Before Anthony was ten years old the name and fame of Rubens
+illumined all Antwerp, and made it a place of pilgrimage for the faithful
+lovers of art of Northern Europe.
+
+The success of Rubens fired the ambition of young Van Dyck. His parents
+fostered his desires, and after he had served an apprenticeship with the
+artist Van Balen, a place was secured for him in the Rubens studio. For a
+full year the ambitious Rubens took small notice of the Van Dyck lad, and
+possibly would not have selected him then as a favorite pupil but for an
+accident.
+
+Rubens reduced his work to a system. While in his studio he was the
+incarnation of fire and energy. But at four o'clock each day he dismissed
+his pupils, locked the doors, and mounting his horse, rode off into the
+country, five miles and back.
+
+One afternoon, when the master had gone for his usual ride, several of
+the pupils returned to the studio, wishing to examine a certain picture,
+and by hook or by crook gained admittance. On an easel was a partly
+finished canvas, the paint fresh from the hands of the master. The boys
+examined the work and then began to scuffle--boys of sixteen or seventeen
+always scuffle when left to themselves. They scuffled so successfully
+that the easel was upset, and young Van Dyck fell backwards upon the wet
+canvas, so that the design was transferred to his trousers.
+
+The picture was ruined.
+
+The young men looked upon their work aghast. It meant disgrace for them
+all.
+
+In despair Van Dyck righted the easel, seized a brush, and began to
+replace the picture ere it could fade from his memory. His partners in
+crime looked on with special personal interest and encouraged him with
+words of lavish praise. He worked to within ten minutes of the time the
+master was due; and then all made their escape by the window through
+which they had entered.
+
+The next day, when the class assembled, the pupils were ordered to stand
+up in line. Then they were catechized individually as to who had replaced
+the master's picture with one of his own.
+
+All pleaded ignorance until the master reached the blond-haired Van Dyck.
+The boy made a clean breast of it all, save that he refused to reveal the
+names of his accomplices.
+
+"Then you painted the picture alone?"
+
+"Yes," came the firm answer that betokened the offender was resolved on
+standing the consequences.
+
+The master relieved the strained tension by a laugh, and declared that he
+had only discovered the work was not his own by perceiving that it was a
+little better than he could do. Accidents are not always unlucky--this
+advanced young Van Dyck at once to the place of first assistant to Peter
+Paul Rubens.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Commissions were pouring in on Rubens. With him the tide was at flood. He
+had been down to Paris and had returned in high spirits with orders to
+complete that extensive set of pictures for Marie de Medici; he also had
+commissions from various churches; and would-be sitters for portraits
+waited in his parlors, quarreling about which should have first place.
+
+Van Dyck, his trusted first lieutenant, lived in his house. The younger
+man had all the dash, energy and ambition of the older one. He caught the
+spirit of the master, and so great was his skill that he painted in a way
+that thoroughly deceived the patrons; they could not tell whether Rubens
+or Van Dyck had done the work.
+
+This was very pleasing to Rubens. But when Van Dyck began sending out
+pictures on his own account, properly signed, and people said they were
+equal to those of Rubens, if not better, Rubens shrugged his shoulders.
+
+There was as little jealousy in the composition of Peter Paul Rubens as
+in any artistic man we can name; but to declare that he was incapable of
+jealousy, as a few of his o'er-zealous defenders did, is to apply the
+whitewash. The artistic temperament is essentially feminine, and jealousy
+is one of its inherent attributes. Of course there are all degrees of
+jealousy, but the woman who can sit serenely by and behold her charms
+ignored for those of another, by one who yesterday sat at her feet making
+ballad to her eyebrow and sighing like a furnace, does not exist on the
+planet called Earth.
+
+The artist, in any line, craves praise, and demands applause as his
+lawful right; and the pupil who in excellence approaches him, pays him a
+compliment that warms the cockles of his heart. But let a pupil once
+equal him and the pupil's name is anathema. I can not conceive of any man
+born of woman who would not detest another man who looked like him, acted
+like him, and did difficult things just as well. Such a one robs us of
+our personality, and personality is all there is of us.
+
+The germ of jealousy in Rubens' nature had never been developed. He
+dallied with no "culture-beds," and the thought that any one could ever
+really equal him had never entered his mind. His conscious sense of power
+kept his head high above the miasma of fear.
+
+But now a contract for certain portraits that were to come from the
+Rubens studio had been drawn up by the Jesuit Brothers, and in the
+contract was inserted a clause to the effect that Van Dyck should work on
+each one of the pictures.
+
+"Pray you," said Rubens, "to which Van Dyck do you refer? There are many
+of the name in Antwerp."
+
+The jealousy germ had begun to develop.
+
+And about this time Van Dyck was busying himself as understudy, by making
+love to Rubens' wife. Rubens was a score of years older than his pupil,
+and Isabella was somewhere between the two--say ten years older than Van
+Dyck, but that is nothing! These first fierce flames that burn in the
+heart of youth are very apt to be for some fair dame much older than
+himself. No psychologist has ever yet just fathomed the problem, and I am
+sure it is too deep for me--I give it up. And yet the fact remains, for
+how about Doctor Samuel Johnson--and did not our own Robert Louis fall
+desperately in love with a woman sixteen years his senior? Aye, and
+married her, too, first asking her husband's consent, and furtherance
+also being supplied by the ex-husband giving the bride away at the altar.
+At least, we have been told so.
+
+Were this sketch a catalog, a dozen notable instances could be given in
+which very young men have been struck hard by women old enough to have
+nursed them as babes.
+
+Van Dyck loved Isabella Rubens ardently. He grew restless, feverish, lost
+appetite and sighed at her with lack-luster eye across the dinner-table.
+Rubens knew of it all, and smiled a grim, sickly smile.
+
+"I, too, love every woman who sits to me for a portrait. He'll get over
+it," said the master. "It all began when I allowed him to paint her
+picture."
+
+Busy men of forty, with ambitions, are not troubled by Anthony Hope's
+interrogation. They glibly answer, "No, no, love is not all--it's only a
+small part of life--simply incidental!"
+
+But Van Dyck continued to sigh, and all of his spare time was taken up in
+painting pictures of the matronly Isabella. He managed to work even in
+spite of loss of appetite; and sitters sometimes called at the studio and
+asked for "Master Van Dyck," whereas before there was only one master in
+the whole domain.
+
+Rubens grew aweary.
+
+He was too generous to think of crushing Van Dyck, and too wise to
+attempt it. To cast him out and recognize him openly as a rival would be
+to acknowledge his power. A man with less sense would have kicked the
+lovesick swain into the street. Rubens was a true diplomat. He decided to
+get rid of Van Dyck and do it in a way that would cause no scandal, and
+at the same time be for the good of the young man.
+
+He took Van Dyck into his private office and counseled with him calmly,
+explaining to him how hopeless must be his love for Isabella. He further
+succeeded in convincing the youth that a few years in Italy would add the
+capsheaf to his talent. Without Italy he could not hope to win all; with
+Italy all doors would open at his touch.
+
+Then he led him to his stable and presented him with his best
+saddle-horse, and urged immediate departure for a wider field and
+pastures new.
+
+A few days later the handsome Van Dyck--with a goodly purse of gold,
+passports complete, and saddlebags well filled with various letters of
+introduction to Rubens' Italian friends--followed by a cart filled with
+his belongings, started gaily away, bound for the land where art had its
+birth.
+
+"With Italy--with Italy I can win all!" he kept repeating to himself as
+he turned his horse's head to the South.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first day's ride took the artistic traveler to the little village of
+Saventhem, five miles from Brussels. Here he turned aside long enough to
+say good-by to a fair young lady, Anna Van Ophem by name, whom he had met
+a few months before at Antwerp.
+
+He rode across the broad pasture, entered the long lane lined with
+poplars, and followed on to the spacious old stone mansion in the grove
+of trees.
+
+Anna herself saw him coming and came out to meet him. They had not been
+so very well acquainted, but the warmth of a greeting all depends upon
+where it takes place. It was lonely for the beautiful girl there in the
+country: she welcomed the handsome young painter-man as though he were a
+long-lost brother, and proudly introduced him to her parents.
+
+Instead of a mere call he was urged to put up his horse and remain
+overnight; and a servant was sent out to find the man who drove the cart
+with the painter's belongings, and make him comfortable.
+
+The painter decided that he would remain overnight and make an early
+start on the morrow.
+
+And it was so agreed.
+
+There was music in the evening, and pleasant converse until a late hour,
+for the guest must sit up and see the moon rise across the meadow--it
+would make such a charming subject for a picture!
+
+So they sat up to see the moon rise across the meadow.
+
+At breakfast the next morning there was a little banter on the subject of
+painting. Could not the distinguished painter remain over one day and
+give his hosts a taste of his quality?
+
+"I surely will if the fair Anna will sit for her portrait!" he
+courteously replied.
+
+The fair Anna consented.
+
+The servant who drove the cart had gotten on good terms with the servants
+of the household, and was being initiated into the mysteries of making
+Dutch cheese.
+
+Meanwhile the master had improvised a studio and was painting the
+portrait of the charming Anna.
+
+After working two whole days he destroyed the canvas because the picture
+was not keyed right, and started afresh. The picture was fairish good,
+but his desire now was to paint the beautiful Anna as the Madonna.
+
+Van Dyck's affections having been ruthlessly uprooted but a few days
+before, the tendrils very naturally clung to the first object that
+presented itself--and this of course was the intelligent and patient
+sitter, aged nineteen last June.
+
+If Rubens could not paint the picture of a lady without falling in love
+with her, what should be expected of his best pupil, Van Dyck?
+
+Pygmalion loved into life the cold marble which his hand had shaped, and
+thus did Van Dyck love his pictures into being. All portrait-painters are
+sociable--they have to be in order to get acquainted with the subject.
+The best portrait-painter in America talks like a windmill as he works,
+and tries a whole set round of little jokes, and dry asides and trite
+aphorisms on the sitter, meanwhile cautiously noting the effect. For of
+course so long as a sitter is coldly self-conscious, and fully mindful
+that he is "being took," his countenance is as stiff, awkward, and
+constrained as that of a farmer at a dinner-party.
+
+Hence the task devolves upon the portrait-artist to bring out, by the
+magic of his presence, the nature of the subject. "In order to paint a
+truly correct likeness, you must know your sitter thoroughly," said Van
+Dyck.
+
+The gracious Rubens prided himself on his ability in this line. He would
+often spend half an hour busily mending a brush or mixing paints, talking
+the while, but only waiting for the icy mood of the sitter to thaw. Then
+he would arrange the raiment of his patron, sometimes redress the hair,
+especially of his lady patrons, and once we know he kissed the cheek of
+the Duchess of Mantua, "so as to dispel her distant look." I know a
+portrait-artist in Albany who is said to occasionally salute his lady
+customers by the same token, and if they protest he simply explains to
+them that it was all in the interest of art--in other words, artifice for
+art's sake.
+
+After three days at the charming old country-seat at Saventhem, Van Dyck
+called his servant and told him to take the shoes off of the
+saddle-horse, and turn it and the cart-horse loose in the pasture. He
+had decided to remain and paint a picture for the village church.
+
+And it was so done.
+
+The pictures that Van Dyck then painted are there now in the same old
+ivy-grown, moss-covered church at Saventhem. The next time you are in
+Brussels it will pay you to walk out and see them.
+
+One of the pictures is called "Saint Martin Dividing His Cloak With Two
+Beggars." The Saint is modestly represented by Van Dyck himself, seated
+astride the beautiful horse that Rubens gave him.
+
+The other picture is "The Holy Family," in which the fair Anna posed for
+the Virgin, and her parents and kinsmen are grouped around her as the
+Magi and attendants.
+
+Both pictures reveal the true Van Dyck touch, and are highly prized by
+the people of the village and the good priests of the church. Each night
+a priest carries in a cot and sleeps in the chancel to see that these
+priceless works of art are protected from harm. When you go there to see
+them, give the cowled attendant a franc and he will unfold the tale, not
+just as I have written it, but substantially. He will tell you that Van
+Dyck stopped here on his way to Italy and painted these pictures as a
+pious offering to God, and what boots it after all!
+
+More than once have the village peasants collected, armed with scythes,
+hoes and pitchforks, to protect these sacred pictures from vandalism on
+the part of lustful collectors or marauding bands of soldiers.
+
+In Eighteen Hundred Fourteen, a detachment of French soldiers killed a
+dozen of the villagers, and a priest fell fighting for these treasures on
+the sacred threshold, stabbed to his death. Then the vandals tramped over
+the dead bodies, entered the church, and cut from its frame Van Dyck's
+"Holy Family" and carried the picture off to Paris. But after Napoleon
+had gotten his Waterloo (only an hour's horseback ride from Saventhem),
+the picture was restored to the villagers on order of the Convention.
+
+Rubens waited expectantly, thinking to have news from his brilliant pupil
+in Italy. He waited a month. Two months passed, and still no word. After
+three months a citizen reported that the day before he had seen Van Dyck,
+aided by a young woman, putting up a picture in the village church at
+Saventhem.
+
+Rubens saddled his horse and rode down there. He found Van Dyck and his
+lady-love sitting hand in hand on a mossy bank, in a leafy grove,
+listening to the song of a titmouse. Rubens did not chide the young man;
+he merely took him one side and told him that he had stayed long enough,
+and "beyond the Alps lies Italy." He also suggested that Anthony Van Dyck
+could not afford to follow the example of his illustrious Roman namesake
+who went down into Egypt and found things there so softly luxurious that
+he forgot home, friends, country--all! To remain at Saventhem would be
+death to his art--he must have before him the example of the masters.
+
+Van Dyck said he would think about it; and Rubens took a look at his old
+saddle-horse rolling in the pasture or wading knee-deep in clover, and
+rode back home.
+
+In a few days he sent Chevalier Nanni down to the country-seat at
+Saventhem, to tell Van Dyck that he was on his way to Italy and that Van
+Dyck had better accompany him.
+
+Van Dyck concluded to go. He made tearful promises to his beautiful Anna
+that he would return for her in a year.
+
+And so the servant, who had become an expert in the making of Dutch
+cheese, caught the horses out of the pasture, and having rebroken them,
+the cavalcade started southward in good sooth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was four years before Van Dyck returned. He visited Milan, Florence,
+Verona, Mantua, Venice and Rome, and made himself familiar with the works
+of the masters. Everywhere he was showered with attention, and the fact
+that he was the friend and protege of Rubens won him admittance into the
+palaces of the nobles.
+
+The four years in Italy widened his outlook and transformed him from a
+merely handsome youth into a man of dignity and poise.
+
+Great was his relief when he returned to Antwerp to hear that the pretty
+Anna Van Ophem of Saventhem had been married three years before to a
+worthy wine merchant of Brussels, and was now the proud mother of two
+handsome boys.
+
+Great was the welcome that Van Dyck received at Antwerp; and in it all
+the gracious Rubens joined. But there was one face the returned traveler
+missed: Isabella had died the year before.
+
+The mere fact that a man has been away for several years studying his
+profession gives him a decided prestige when he returns. Van Dyck, fresh
+from Italy, exuberant with life and energy, became at once the vogue.
+
+He opened a studio, following the same lines that Rubens had, and several
+churches gave him orders for extensive altarpieces.
+
+Antwerp prided herself on being an artistic center. Buyers from England
+now and then appeared, and several of Rubens' pictures had been taken to
+London to decorate the houses and halls of royalty.
+
+Portrait-painting is the first form of art that appeals to a rude and
+uncultivated people. To reproduce the image of a living man in stone, or
+to show a likeness of his face in paint, is calculated to give a thrill
+even to a savage. There is something mysterious in the art, and the
+desire to catch the shadow ere the substance fades is strong in the human
+heart. One reason that sacred art was so well encouraged in the Middle
+Ages was because the faces portrayed were reproductions of living men and
+women. This lent an intense personal interest in the work, and insured
+its fostering care. Callous indeed was the noble who would not pay good
+coin to have himself shown as Saint Paul, or his enemy as Judas. In fact,
+"Judas Receiving the Thirty Pieces of Silver" was a very common subject,
+and the "Judas" shown was usually some politician who had given offense.
+
+In Sixteen Hundred Twenty-eight, England had not yet developed an
+art-school of her own. All her art was an importation, for although some
+fine pictures had been produced in England, they were all the work of
+foreigners--men who had been brought over from the Continent.
+
+Henry the Eighth had offered Raphael a princely sum if he would come to
+London and work for a single year. Raphael, however, could not be spared
+from Italy to do work for "the barbarians," and so he sent his pupil,
+Luca Penni. Bluff old Hans Holbein also abode in England and drew a
+goodly pension from the State.
+
+During the reign of Mary and her Spanish husband, Philip, several
+pictures by Titian arrived in London, via Madrid. Then, too, there were
+various copies of pictures by Paul Veronese, Murillo and Velasquez that
+long passed for original, because the copyist had faithfully placed the
+great artist's trademark in the proper place.
+
+Queen Elizabeth held averages good by encouraging neither art nor
+matrimony--whereas her father had set her the example of being a liberal
+patron of both. If Elizabeth never discovered Shakespeare, how could she
+be expected to know Raphael?
+
+About Sixteen Hundred Twenty, the year the "Mayflower" sailed, Paul
+Vensomer, Cornelis Jannsen and Daniel Mytens went over to England from
+the Netherlands and quickly made fortunes by painting portraits for the
+nobility. This was the first of that peculiar rage for having a hall
+filled with ancestors. The artists just named painted pictures of people
+long gone hence, simply from verbal descriptions, and warranted the
+likeness to give satisfaction.
+
+Oh, the Dutch are a thrifty folk!
+
+James the First had no special eye for beauty--no more than Elizabeth
+had--but a few of his nobles were intent on providing posterity with
+handsome ancestors, and so the portrait-painter flourished.
+
+An important move in the cause of literature was made by King James when
+he placed Sir Walter Raleigh in the Tower; for Raleigh's best
+contributions to letters were made during those thirteen years when he
+was alone, with the world locked out. And when his mind began to lose its
+flash, the King wisely put a quietus on all danger of an impaired output
+by cutting off the author's head.
+
+Still, there was no general public interest in art until the generous
+Charles appeared upon the scene. Charles was an elegant scholar and
+prided himself on being able to turn a sonnet or paint a picture; and the
+only reason, he explained, why he did not devote all his time to
+literature and art was because the State must be preserved. He could hire
+men to paint, but where could one be found who could govern?
+
+Charles had purchased several of Rubens' pieces, and these had attracted
+much attention in London. Receptions were given where crowds surged and
+clamored and fought, just to get a look at the marvelous painting of the
+wonderful Fleming. Such gorgeous skill in color had never before been
+seen in England.
+
+Charles knighted Rubens and did his best to make him a permanent attache
+of his Court; but Rubens had too many interests of a financial and
+political nature at home to allow himself to be drawn away from his
+beloved Antwerp.
+
+But now he had a rival--the only real rival he had ever known. Van Dyck
+was making head. The rival was younger, handsomer, and had such a
+blandishing tongue and silken manner that the crowd began to call his
+name and declare he was greater than Caesar.
+
+Yet Rubens showed not a sign of displeasure on his fine face--he bowed
+and smiled and agreed with the garrulous critics when they smote the
+table and declared that all of Van Dyck's Madonnas really winked.
+
+He bided his time.
+
+And it soon came, for the agent of Lord Arundel, that great Maecenas of
+the polite arts, came over to Flanders to secure treasures, and of course
+called on Rubens.
+
+And Rubens talked only of Van Dyck--the marvelous Van Dyck.
+
+The agent secured several copies of Van Dyck's work, and went back to
+England, telling of all that Rubens had told him, with a little
+additional coloring washed in by his own warm imagination.
+
+To discover a genius is next to being one yourself. Lord Arundel felt
+that all he had heard of Van Dyck must be true, and when he went to the
+King and told him of the prodigy he had found, the King's zeal was warm
+as that of the agent, for does not the "messianic instinct" always live?
+
+This man must be secured at any cost. They had failed to secure Rubens,
+but the younger man had no family ties, no special property interests,
+neither was he pledged to his home government as was Rubens.
+
+Straightway the King of England dispatched a messenger urging Anthony Van
+Dyck to come over to England. The promised rewards and honors were too
+great for the proud and ambitious painter to refuse. He started for
+England.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In stature Van Dyck was short, but of a very compact build. He carried
+the crown of his head high, his chin in, and his chest out. His name is
+another added to that list of big-little men who had personality plus,
+and whose presence filled a room. Caesar, Napoleon, Lord Macaulay, Aaron
+Burr and that other little man with whom Burr's name is inseparably
+linked, belong to the same type. These little men with such dynamic force
+that they can do the thinking for a race are those who have swerved the
+old world out of her ruts--whether for good or ill is not the question
+here.
+
+When you find one of these big-little men, if he does not stalk through
+society a conquering Don Juan it is because we still live in an age of
+miracles.
+
+Women fed on Van Dyck's smile, and pined when he did not deign to notice
+them. He was royal in all his tastes--his manner was regal, and so proud
+was his step that when he passed forbidden lines, sentinels and servants
+saluted and made way, never daring to ask him for card, passport or
+countersign.
+
+He gloried in his power and worked it to its farthest limit.
+
+Unlike Rembrandt, he never painted beggars; nor did he ever stoop as
+Titian did when he pictured his old mother as a peasant woman at market,
+in that gem of the Belle d' Arte at Venice; nor did he ever reveal on his
+canvas wrinkled, weather-worn old sailors, as did Velasquez.
+
+He pictured only royalty, and managed, in all his portraits, to put a
+look of leisure and culture and quiet good-breeding into the face,
+whether it was in the original or not. In fact, he fused into every
+picture that he painted a goodly modicum of his own spirit. You can
+always tell a Van Dyck portrait; there is in the face a self-sufficiency,
+a something that speaks of "divine right"--not of arrogance, for
+arrogance and assumption reveal a truth which man is trying to hide, and
+that is that his position is a new acquirement. Van Dyck's people are all
+to the manner born.
+
+He was thirty-three years old when he arrived in England.
+
+King Charles furnished the painter a house at Blackfriars, fronting the
+Thames, to insure a good light, and gave him a summer residence in Kent.
+All his expenses were paid by the State, and as his tastes were regal the
+demands on the public exchequer were not small. His title was, "Principal
+Painter in Ordinary to the King and Queen of England."
+
+Van Dyck had worked so long with Rubens that he knew how to use 'prentice
+talent. He studied by a system and turned off a prodigious number of
+canvases. The expert can at once tell a picture painted by Van Dyck
+during his career in England: it lacks the care and finish that was shown
+in his earlier years. Yet there is a subtle sweep and strength in it all
+that reveals the personality of the artist.
+
+Twenty-two pictures he painted of King Charles that we can trace. These
+were usually sent away as presents. And it is believed that in the seven
+years Van Dyck lived in England he painted nearly one thousand portraits.
+
+The courtly manner and chivalrous refinement of the Fleming made him a
+prime favorite of Charles. He was even more kingly than the King.
+
+In less than three months after he arrived in England Charles publicly
+knighted him, and placed about his neck a chain of gold to which was
+attached a locket, set with diamonds, containing a picture of the King.
+
+A record of Van Dyck's affairs of the heart would fill a book. His old
+habit of falling in love with every lady patron grew upon him. His
+reputation went abroad, and his custom of thawing the social ice by
+talking soft nonsense to the lady on the sitter's throne, while it
+repelled some allured others.
+
+At last Charles grew nettled and said that to paint Lady Digby as "The
+Virgin" might be all right, and even to turn around and picture her as
+"Susanna at the Bath" was not necessarily out of place, but to show
+Margaret Lemon, Anne Carlisle and Catherine Wotton as "The Three Graces"
+was surely bad taste. And furthermore, when these same women were shown
+as "Psyche," "Diana" and the "Madonna"--just as it happened--it was
+really too much!
+
+In fact, the painter must get married; and the King and Queen selected
+for him a wife in the person of a Scottish beauty, Maria Ruthven.
+
+Had this proposition come a few years before, the proud painter would
+have flouted it. But things were changed. Twinges of gout and sharp
+touches of sciatica backed up the King's argument that to reform were the
+part of wisdom. Van Dyck's manly shape was tending to embonpoint: he had
+evolved a double chin, the hair on his head was rather seldom, and he
+could no longer run upstairs three steps at a time. Yes, he would get
+married, live the life of a staid, respectable citizen, and paint only
+religious subjects. Society was nothing to him--he would give it up
+entirely.
+
+And so Sir Anthony Van Dyck was married to Maria Ruthven, at Saint Paul's
+Cathedral, and the King gave the bride away, ceremonially and in fact.
+
+Sir Anthony's gout grew worse, and after some months the rheumatism took
+an inflammatory turn. Other complications entered, which we would now
+call Bright's Disease--that peculiar complaint of which poor men stand in
+little danger.
+
+The King offered the Royal Physician a bonus of five hundred pounds if he
+would cure Van Dyck: but if he had threatened to kill the doctor if the
+patient died, just as did the Greek friends of Byron, when the poet was
+ill at Rome, it would have made no difference.
+
+A year after his marriage, and on the day that Maria Ruthven gave birth
+to a child, Anthony Van Dyck died, aged forty years. Rubens had died but
+a few months before.
+
+The fair Scottish wife did not care to retain her illustrious name at the
+expense of loneliness, and so shortly married again. Whom she married
+matters little, since it would require a search-warrant to unearth even
+the man's name, so dead is he. But inasmuch as the brilliant Helena
+Fourment, second wife of Rubens, whose picture was so often painted by
+her artist-husband, married again, why shouldn't Madame Van Dyck follow
+the example?
+
+It is barely possible that Charles Lamb was right when he declared that
+no woman married to a genius ever believed her husband to be one. We know
+that the wife of Edmund Spenser became the Faerie Queene of another soon
+after his demise, and whenever Spenser was praised in her presence she
+put on a look that plainly said, "I could a tale unfold."
+
+My own opinion is that a genius makes a very bad husband. And further, I
+have no faith in that specious plea, "A woman who marries a second time
+confers upon her first husband the highest compliment, for her action
+implies that she was so happy in her first love that she is more than
+willing to try it again."
+
+I think the reverse is more apt to be the truth, and that the woman who
+has been sorely disappointed in her first marriage is anxious to try the
+great experiment over again, in order if possible to secure that bliss
+which every daughter of Eve feels is her rightful due.
+
+Maria Ruthven lived to rear a goodly brood of children, and Samuel Pepys
+records that she used to send a sort o' creepy feeling down the backs of
+callers by innocently introducing her children thus: "This is my eldest
+daughter, whose father was Sir Anthony Van Dyck, of whom you have
+doubtless heard; and these others are my children by my present husband,
+Sergeant Nobody." Van Dyck's remains are buried in Saint Paul's
+Cathedral. A very fine monument, near the grave of Turner, marks the
+spot; but his best monument is in the examples of his work that are to be
+found in every great art-gallery of the world.
+
+
+
+
+FORTUNY
+
+     I think I knew Fortuny as well as any one did. He was surcharged
+     with energy, animation and good-cheer; and the sunshine he worked
+     into every canvas he attempted, was only a reflection of the
+     sparkling, gem-like radiance of his own nature. He absorbed from
+     earth, air, sky, the waters and men, and transmuted all dross
+     into gold. To him all things were good.
+
+    --_Letter From Regnault_
+
+[Illustration: FORTUNY]
+
+
+Now, once upon a day there was a swart, stubby boy by the name of Mariano
+Fortuny. He was ten years old, going on 'leven, and lived with his
+grandfather away up and up four flights of rickety stairs in an old house
+at the village of Reus, in Spain. Mariano's father had died some years
+before--died mysteriously in a drunken fight at a fair, where he ran a
+Punch and Judy show. Some said the Devil had come and carried him off,
+just as he nightly did Mr. Punch.
+
+Frowsy, little, shock-headed Mariano didn't feel so awfully bad when his
+father died, because his father used to make him turn the hand-organ all
+day, and half the night, and take up the collections; and the fond parent
+used to cuff him when there were less than ten coppers in the tambourine.
+They traveled around from place to place, with a big yellow dog and a
+little blue wagon that contained the show. They hitched their wagon to a
+dog. At night they would sleep in some shed back of a tavern, or under a
+table at a market, and Mariano would pillow his head on the yellow dog
+and curl up in a ball trying to keep warm.
+
+When the father died, a tall man, who carried a sword and wore spurs, and
+had two rows of brass buttons down the front of his coat, took the dog
+and the wagon and the Punch and Judy show and sold 'em all--so as to get
+money to pay the funeral expenses of the dead man.
+
+The tall man with the sword might have sold little Mariano, too, or
+thrown him in with the lot for good measure, but nobody seemed to want
+the boy--they all had more boys than they really needed already.
+
+A fat market-woman gave the lad a cake, and another one gave him two
+oranges, and still another market-woman, fatter than the rest, blew her
+nose violently on her check apron and said it was too bad a boy like that
+didn't have a mother.
+
+Mariano never had a mother--at least none that he knew of, and it really
+seemed as if it didn't make much difference, but now he began to cry,
+and, since the fat woman had suggested it, really wished he had a mother,
+after all.
+
+There was an old priest standing by in the group. Mariano had not noticed
+him. But when the priest said, "But God is both our father and our
+mother, so no harm can come to us!" Mariano looked up in his face and
+felt better.
+
+The priest's name was Father Gonzales; Mariano knew, because this is what
+the market-woman called him. The fat market-woman talked with the priest,
+and the priest talked with the man with the dangling sword, and then
+Father Gonzales took the boy by the hand and led him away, and Mariano
+trotted along by his side, quite content, save for a stifled wish that
+the big yellow dog might go too. And it is a gross error to suppose that
+a yellow dog is necessarily nothing but a canine whose capillary covering
+is highly charged with ocherish pigment.
+
+Where they were going made no difference. "God is our father and our
+mother"--Father Gonzales said so--and, faith! he ought to know.
+
+And by and by they came to the tall old tenement-house, and climbed up
+the stairs to where Mariano's old "grandfather" lived. Perhaps he wasn't
+Mariano's sure-enough grandfather, but he was just as good as if he had
+been.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But now it was an awfully long time ago since little Mariano and Father
+Gonzales had first climbed the stairs to where Grandfather Fortuny lived.
+The old grandfather and Mariano worked very hard, but they were quite
+content and happy. They had enough to eat, and each had a straw bed and
+warm blankets to cover him at night, and when the weather was very cold
+they made a fire of charcoal in a brazier and sat before it with
+spread-out hands, very thankful that God had given them such a good home
+and so many comforts.
+
+The grandfather made images out of white plaster, flowers sometimes, and
+curious emblems that people bought for votive offerings. Little Mariano's
+share in the work was to color the figures with blue and red paint, and
+give a lifelike tint to the fruit and bouquets that the grandfather cast
+from the white plaster.
+
+Father Gonzales was their best customer, and used often to come up and
+watch Mariano paint an image of the Virgin, just as he ordered it.
+Mariano was very proud to receive Father Gonzales' approval; and when the
+image was complete he would sometimes get a copper extra for delivering
+the work to some stricken person that the priest wished especially to
+remember. For one of Father Gonzales' peculiarities was that although he
+bought lots of things he always gave them away.
+
+Mariano used often to carry letters and packages for Father Gonzales.
+
+One day the good priest came up the stairs quite out of breath. He
+carried a letter in his hand.
+
+"Here, Mariano, my boy, you can run, while my poor old legs are full of
+rheumatism. Here, take this letter down to the Diligence Office and tell
+them to send it tonight, sure. It is for the Bishop at Barcelona and it
+must be in his hands before tomorrow. Run now, for the last post closes
+very soon."
+
+Mariano took the letter, dived hatless out of the door and, sitting on
+the first stair, shot to the bottom like the slide to doom.
+
+Grandfather Fortuny and the gentle old priest leaned out over the stone
+window-sill and laughed to see the boy scurry down the street.
+
+Then the priest went his way.
+
+Grandfather Fortuny waited, looking out of the window, for the boy to
+come back. The boy did not come.
+
+He waited.
+
+Lights began to flicker in the windows across the way.
+
+A big red star came up in the West. The wind blew fresh and cool.
+
+The old man shut down the sash, and looked at the untasted supper of
+brown bread and goat's milk and fresh fruit.
+
+He took his hat from the peg and his cane from the corner and hobbled
+down the stairs. He went to the Diligence Office. No one there remembered
+seeing the boy--how can busy officials be expected to remember
+everything?
+
+Grandfather Fortuny made his way to the house of Father Gonzales. The
+priest had been called away to attend a man sick unto death--he would not
+be back for an hour.
+
+The old man waited--waited one hour--two.
+
+Father Gonzales came, and listened calmly to the troubled tale of the old
+man. Then together they made their way over to the tall tenement and up
+the creaky stairway.
+
+There was the flicker of a candle to be seen under the door.
+
+They entered, and there at the table sat Mariano munching silently on his
+midnight supper.
+
+"Where have you been?" was the surprised question of both old men,
+speaking as one person.
+
+"Me? I've been to Barcelona to give the letter to the Bishop--the last
+diligence had gone," said the boy with his mouth full of bread.
+
+"To Barcelona--ten miles, and back?"
+
+"Me? Yes."
+
+"Did you walk?"
+
+"No, I ran."
+
+Father Gonzales looked at Grandfather Fortuny, and Grandfather Fortuny
+looked at Father Gonzales; then they both burst out laughing. Mariano
+placed an extra plate on the table, and the three drew up chairs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Business was looking up with Grandfather Fortuny and Mariano. All the
+images they made were quickly taken. People said they liked the way the
+cheeks and noses of the Apostles were colored; and when Father Gonzales
+brought in a sailor who had been shipwrecked, and the sailorman left ten
+pesetas for a plaster-of-Paris ship to be placed as a votive offering in
+the Chapel of Saint Dominic, their cup was full.
+
+Mariano made the ship himself, and painted it, adding the yellow pennant
+of Spain to the mainmast.
+
+This piece of work caused a quarrel between Grandfather Fortuny and
+Father Gonzales. The priest declared that a boy like that shouldn't waste
+his youth in the shabby, tumble-down village of Reus--he should go to
+Barcelona and receive instruction in art.
+
+The grandfather cried and protested that the boy was all he had to love
+in the wide world; he himself was growing feeble, and without the lad's
+help at the business nothing could be done--starvation would be the end.
+
+Besides, it would take much money to send Mariano to the Academy--it
+would take all their savings, and more! Do not inflate the child with
+foolish notions of making a fortune and winning fame! The world is cruel,
+men are unkind, and the strife of trying to win leads only to
+disappointment and vain regret at the last. Did not the artist Salvio
+commit suicide? Mariano had now a trade--who in Reus could make an image
+of the Virgin and color it in green, red and yellow so it would sell on
+sight for two pesetas?
+
+Father Gonzales smiled and said something about images at two pesetas
+each as compared with the work of Murillo and Velasquez. He laughed at
+the old man's fears of starvation, and defied him to name a single case
+where any one had ever starved. And as for expenses, why, he had thought
+it all out: he would pay Mariano's expenses himself!
+
+"Should we two old men, about ready to die, stand in the way of the
+success of that boy?" exclaimed the priest. "Why, he will be an artist
+yet, do you hear?--an artist!"
+
+They compromised on the Grammar-School, with three lessons a week by a
+drawing-master.
+
+Grandfather Fortuny did not starve. Mariano was a regular steam-engine
+for work. He made more images evenings, and better ones, than they had
+ever made before during the day.
+
+Finally Father Gonzales' wishes prevailed and Mariano was sent to the
+Academy at Barcelona. Out of his own scanty income the old priest set
+aside a sum equal to eight dollars a month for Mariano; and when the
+grandfather's sight grew too feeble for him to work at his trade he moved
+over to the rectory.
+
+For a year, Father Gonzales sent the eight dollars on the first of each
+month. And then there came to him a brusk notification from Claudio
+Lorenzale, the Director of the Academy, to the effect that certain sums
+had been provided by the City of Barcelona to pay the expenses of four of
+the most worthy pupils at the Academy, and Mariano Fortuny had been voted
+as one who should receive the benefit of the endowment.
+
+Father Gonzales read the notice to Grandfather Fortuny, and then they
+sent out for a fowl, and a bottle and a loaf of bread two feet long; and
+together the two old men made merry.
+
+The grandfather had now fully come to the belief that the lad would some
+day be a great artist.
+
+We do not know much concerning the details of Mariano's life at
+Barcelona, save from scraps of information he now and then gave out to
+his friends Regnault and Lorenzo Valles, and which they in turn have
+given to us.
+
+Yet we know he won the love of his teachers, and that Federico Madrazo
+picked out his work and especially recommended it.
+
+Madrazo, I believe, is living now--at least he was a few years ago. He
+was born and bred an artist. His father, Joseph, had been a pupil under
+David, and was an artist of more than national renown. He served the
+Court at Madrid in various diplomatic relations, and won wealth and a
+noble name.
+
+Federico Madrazo used to spend a portion of his time at the Academy of
+Barcelona as instructor and adviser to the Director. I do not know his
+official position, if he had one, but I know he afterward became the
+Director of the Museum of Art at Madrid.
+
+Madrazo had two sons, who are now celebrated in the art world. One of
+them, Raimonde Madrazo, is well known in Paris, and, in Eighteen Hundred
+Ninety-three, had several pictures on exhibition at the Chicago
+Exposition; while another son, Rivera, is a noted sculptor and a painter
+of no small repute.
+
+And so it was that Mariano Fortuny at Barcelona attracted the attention
+of Federico Madrazo, the artist patrician.
+
+I can not find that Mariano's work at this time had any very special
+merit. It merely showed the patient, painstaking, conscientious workman.
+But the bright, strong, eager young man was the sort that every teacher
+must love. He knew what he was at school for, and did his best.
+
+Madrazo said, "He's a manly fellow, and if he does not succeed he is now
+doing more--he deserves success." So Mariano Fortuny and the great
+Madrazo, pupil and teacher, became firm friends.
+
+And we know that, in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-seven, Mariano was voted the
+"Prize of Rome." Each year this prize was awarded to the scholar who on
+vote of the teachers and scholars was deemed most deserving. It meant two
+years of study at Rome with five hundred dollars a year for expenses. And
+the only obligation was that the pupil should each year send home two
+paintings: one an original and the other a copy of some old masterpiece.
+
+The sum of two hundred fifty dollars was advanced to Mariano at once. He
+straightway sent one-half of the amount down to his grandfather, with
+particulars of the good news.
+
+"What did I tell you?" said the grandfather. "It was I who first taught
+him to use a brush. I used to caution him about running his reds into his
+greens, and told him to do as I said and he would be a great artist yet."
+
+Father Gonzales and Grandfather Fortuny went out and bought two fowls,
+three bottles, and a loaf of bread a yard long.
+
+Mariano made all preparations to start for Rome. But the night before the
+journey was to begin, conscription officers came to his lodging and told
+him to consider himself under arrest--he must serve the State as a
+soldier.
+
+It seems that the laws of Spain are such that any citizen can be called
+on to carry arms at any moment; and there are officials who do little but
+lie in wait for those who can pay, but have no time to fight. These
+officials are more intent on bleeding their countrymen than the enemy.
+
+Mariano applied to his friend Madrazo for advice as to what to do, and
+Madrazo simply cut the Gordian knot by paying out of his own purse three
+hundred dollars to secure the release of the young artist.
+
+And so Mariano started gaily away, carrying with him the heart's love of
+two old men, and the admiring affection of a whole school.
+
+The grandfather died three months afterward--went babbling down into the
+Valley, making prophecies to the last to the effect that Mariano Fortuny
+would yet win deathless fame.
+
+And Father Gonzales lived to see these prophecies fulfilled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then, at twenty-two, Fortuny was ordered by the city of Barcelona to
+accompany General Prim on his Algerian expedition, it was a milepost on
+his highway of success.
+
+Nominally he was secretary to the General. Who it was secured his
+appointment he never knew; but we have reason to suppose it was Federico
+Madrazo.
+
+Fortuny's two years in Rome had just expired; his Barcelona friends knew
+that the time had been well spent, and the opportunities improved, and a
+further transplantation they believed would result in an increased
+blossoming.
+
+"Enter into life! Enter into life!" was the call of a prophet long ago.
+In barbaric Africa, Fortuny entered into life with the same fine, free,
+eager, receptive spirit that he had elsewhere shown. General Prim,
+soldier and scholar, saw that his secretary was capable of doing
+something more than keeping accounts, and so a substitute was hired and
+Fortuny was sent here and there as messenger, but in reality, so that he
+could see as many sides of old Moorish life as possible.
+
+Staid old General Prim loved the young man just as Madrazo had. Fortuny
+was not much of a soldier, for war did not interest him, save from its
+picturesque side. "War is transient, but Beauty is eternal," he once
+said.
+
+Even the fact that the Spanish Army was now on the soil of her ancient
+enemy, the Moor, did not stir his patriotism.
+
+He sketched with feverish industry, fearing the war would end too soon,
+and he would have to go back with empty sketchbooks. The long stretches
+of white sands, the glaring sunshine, the paradox of riotous riches and
+ragged poverty, the veiled women, blinking camels, long rifles with butts
+inlaid with silver, swords whose hilts are set with precious stones, gray
+Arab horses with tails sweeping the ground, and everywhere the flutter of
+rags--these things bore in on his artist-nature and filled his heart.
+
+He hastily painted in a few of his sketches and sent them as presents to
+his friends in Barcelona.
+
+The very haste of the work, the meager outline and simple colors--glaring
+whites and limpid blues, with here and there a dash of red to indicate a
+scarf or sash--astonished his old teachers. Here were pictures painted in
+an hour that outmatched any of the carefully worked out, methodical
+attempts of the Academy! It was all life, life, life--palpitating life.
+
+The sketches were shown, the men in power interviewed, and the city of
+Barcelona ordered Fortuny to paint one large picture to be eventually
+placed in the Parliament House to commemorate the victory of General
+Prim.
+
+As an earnest of good faith a remittance of five hundred dollars
+accompanied the order.
+
+The war was short. At the battle of Wad Ras the enemy was routed after a
+pitched fight where marked dash and spirit were shown on both sides.
+
+And so this was to be the scene of Fortuny's great painting. Hundreds of
+sketches were made, including portraits of General Prim and various
+officers. Fortuny set about the work as a duty to his patrons who had so
+generously paved the way for all the good fortune that was his. The
+painting was to be a world-beater; and Fortuny, young, strong,
+ambitious--knowing no such word as fail--went at the task.
+
+Fortuny had associated with many artists at Rome and he had heard of that
+wonderful performance of Horace Vernet's, the "Taking of the Smalah of
+Abd-el-Kader." This picture of Vernet's, up to that time, was the largest
+picture ever held in a single frame. It is seventy-one feet long and
+sixteen feet high. To describe that picture of Vernet's with its thousand
+figures, charging cavalry, flashing sabers, dust-clouds, fleeing cattle,
+stampeding buffalos, riderless horses, overturned tents, and
+fear-stricken, beautiful women would require a book.
+
+In passing, it is well to say that this picture of Vernet's is the parent
+of all the panorama pictures that have added to the ready cash of certain
+enterprising citizens of Chicago, and that Vernet is the father of the
+modern "military school."
+
+If you have seen Vernet's painting you can never forget it, and if there
+were nothing else to see at Versailles but this one picture you would be
+repaid, and amply repaid, for going out from Paris to view it.
+
+Before beginning his great canvas Fortuny was advised to go to Versailles
+and see the Vernet masterpiece.
+
+He went and spent three days studying it in detail.
+
+He turned away discouraged. To know too much of what other men have said
+is death to a writer; for an artist to be too familiar with the best in
+art is to have inspiration ooze out at every pore.
+
+Fortuny took a week to think it over. He was not discouraged--not he--but
+he decided to postpone work on the masterpiece and busy himself for a
+while with simpler themes. He remained at Paris and made his thumb-nail
+sketches: a Moor in spotless white robe with red cap, leaning against a
+wall; a camel-driver at rest; a solitary horseman with long spear, a
+trellis with climbing vines, and a veiled beauty looking out from behind,
+etc.
+
+And in all these pictures is dazzling sunshine and living life. The joy
+of them, the ease, the grace, the beauty, are matchless.
+
+Goupil and Company, the art-dealers, contracted to take all the work he
+could turn out. And Fortuny did not make the mistake of doing too much.
+He possessed the artistic conscience, and nothing left his studio that
+did not satisfy his heart and head.
+
+Trips had been taken to Florence, Venice and the beloved Morocco, and the
+poise and grace and limpid beauty of Fortuny's pictures seemed to
+increase.
+
+Three years had passed, and now came a letter from the authorities at
+Barcelona asking for their great battle picture, and a remittance was
+sent "to meet expenses."
+
+Fortuny promised, and made an effort at the work.
+
+Another year went by and another letter of importunity came. Barcelona
+did not comprehend how her gifted son was now being counted among the
+very ablest artists in Paris--that world center of art. Artists should
+struggle for recognition, be rebuffed, live on a crust in dingy garrets,
+cultivate a gaunt and haggard look, and wear suits shiny at the elbows!
+
+How could the old professors down at Barcelona understand that this mere
+youth was pressed with commissions from rich Americans, and in receipt of
+a princely income?
+
+Fortuny returned all the money that Barcelona had sent him, regarding it
+all as a mere loan, and promised to complete the battle picture whenever
+he could bring his mind to bear upon it so that the work would satisfy
+himself.
+
+The next year he visited Spain and was received at Madrid and Barcelona
+as a prince. Decorations and ceremonials greeted him at Madrid; and at
+Barcelona there were arches of triumph built over the streets, and a
+hundred students drew his carriage from the steamboat-landing up to the
+old Academy where he used to draw angles and curves from a copy all day
+long.
+
+And it was not so many moons after this little visit to Barcelona that
+wedding-bells were sent a-swing, and Mariano Fortuny was married to
+Cecilia, daughter of Federico Madrazo.
+
+Their honeymoon of a year was spent at the Alhambra Palace amid the
+scenes made famous by our own Washington Irving. And it was from Granada
+that he sent a picture to America to be sold for the benefit of the
+sufferers in the Chicago fire.
+
+But there were no idle days. The artist worked with diligence, dipping
+deep into the old Moorish life, and catching the queer angles of old
+ruins and more queer humanity upon his palette. His noble wife proved his
+mate in very deed, and much of his best work is traceable to her loving
+criticism and inspiration.
+
+Paris, Granada and Rome were their home, each in turn. The prices Fortuny
+realized were even greater than Meissonier commanded. Some of his best
+pieces are owned in America, through the efforts of W. H. Stewart of
+Philadelphia. At the A. T. Stewart sale, in New York, the "Fortunys"
+brought higher prices than anything else in the collection, save, I
+believe, the "1807" of Meissonier. In fact, there are more "Fortunys"
+owned in New York than there are in either Barcelona or Madrid.
+
+Indeed, there is a marked similarity between the style of Fortuny and
+that of Meissonier. When some busybody informed Meissonier that Fortuny
+was imitating him, Meissonier replied, "To have such a genius as Mariano
+Fortuny imitate me would be the greatest happiness of my whole career."
+
+Fortuny's life is mirrored in his name: his whole career was one
+triumphant march to fortune, fame, love and honor.
+
+He avoided society, as he was jealous of the fleeting hours, and his
+close friends were few; but those who knew him loved him to a point just
+this side of idolatry.
+
+Fortuny died at Rome on November Twenty-second, Eighteen Hundred
+Seventy-two, of brain rupture--an instant and painless death. In his
+short life of thirty-six years he accomplished remarkable results, but
+all this splendid work he regarded as merely in the line of preparation
+for a greater work yet to come.
+
+For some weeks before he died he had been troubled with a slight fever,
+contracted, he thought, from painting in a damp church; but the day of
+his death he took up his brush again and, as he worked, gaily talked with
+his wife of their plans for the future.
+
+It is very pleasant to recall, however, that before death claimed him,
+Fortuny had completed the great picture of "The Battle of Wad Ras." The
+canvas is now hanging on the wall of the Parliament House at Barcelona,
+and the picture is justly the pride of the city that showed itself such a
+wise and loving mother to the motherless boy, Mariano Fortuny.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Italy and Spain are sisters, and not merely first cousins, as Mr.
+Whistler once remarked. Their history to a great degree is
+contemporaneous. They have seen dynasties arise, grow old, and die; and
+schools of art, once the pride of the people, sink into blank
+forgetfulness: for schools, like dynasties and men, live their day and go
+tottering to their rest.
+
+Italy, as the elder sister, has set the fashion for the younger. The
+manners, habits and customs of the people have been the same.
+
+To a great extent all art is controlled by fad and fashion; and all the
+fashions in the polite arts easily drifted from Italy into Spain. The
+works of Titian carried to Madrid produced a swarm of imitators, some of
+whom, like Velasquez, Zurbaran, Ribera and Murillo, having spun their
+cocoons, passed through the chrysalis stage, developed wings, and soared
+to high heaven. But the generations of imitators who followed these have
+usually done little better than gape.
+
+And although Spain has been a kind mother to art for four hundred years,
+yet the modern school of Spanish art shows no "apostolic succession" from
+the past. It is a thing separate and alone: gorgeous, dazzling, strong,
+and rarely beautiful. Totally unlike the art of the old masters, it takes
+its scenes from Nature and actual living life--depending not on myth,
+legend or fable. It discards pure imagination, and by holding a mirror up
+to Nature has done the world the untold blessing of introducing it to
+itself.
+
+The average man sees things in the mass, and therefore sees nothing;
+everything, to his vision, is run together in hopeless jumble: all is
+discord, confusion--inextricable confusion worse confounded.
+
+But the artist who is also a scientist (whether he knows it or not)
+discovers that in the seeming confusion, order, method and law yet reign
+supreme. And to prove his point he lifts from the tangle of things one
+simple, single scene and shows this, and this alone, in all its full and
+rounded completeness--beautiful as a snow-crystal on the slide of a
+microscope.
+
+All art consists in this: to show the harmony of a part. And having seen
+the harmony of a part we pass on to a point where we can guess the
+harmony of the whole. Whether you be painter, sculptor, musician or
+writer, all your endeavors are toward lifting from the mass of things a
+scene, a form, a harmony, a truth, and, relieving it from all that
+distracts, catch it in immortal amber.
+
+The writer merely unearths truth: truth has always existed: he lifts it
+out of the mass, and holding it up where others can see it, the
+discerning cry, "Yes, yes--we recognize it!" The musician takes the sound
+he needs from the winds blowing through the forest branches, constructs a
+harp strung with Apollo's golden hair, and behold, we have a symphony!
+The wrongs of a race in bondage never touched the hearts of men until a
+woman lifted out a single, solitary black man and showed us the stripes
+upon the quivering back of Uncle Tom. One human being nailed to a cross
+reveals the concentrated woes of earth; and as we gaze upon the picture,
+into our hard hearts there comes creeping a desire to lessen the sorrows
+of the world by an increased love; and a gentleness and sympathy are ours
+such as we have never before known.
+
+Fortuny is king of the modern school of Spanish painters. His genius made
+an epoch, and worked a revolution in the art of his country--and, some
+have said, in the art of the time.
+
+As a nation it may be that Spain is crumbling into dust, but her rotting
+ruins will yet fertilize many a bank of violets. Certain it is that no
+modern art surpasses the art of Spain; and for once Italy must go to
+Spain for her pattern.
+
+
+
+
+ARY SCHEFFER
+
+     The artistic tastes of the Princess, the lofty range of her
+     understanding, her liberality, and the sterling benevolence of
+     her mind all combined to engender a coldness and lack of sympathy
+     between herself and the persons composing the Court.
+
+     In the heart of the Princess dwelt a deep religious faith, such
+     as becomes a noble, womanly heart. Nevertheless, her ardent mind
+     sought to penetrate every mystery, so she was often accused of
+     being a doubter--when the reverse was really true.
+
+    --_Ary Scheffer to His Brother Arnola_
+
+[Illustration: ARY SCHEFFER]
+
+
+The artistic evolution of Ary Scheffer was brought about mainly through
+the influence of three women. In the love of these women he was bathed,
+nourished and refreshed; their approbation gave direction to his efforts;
+for them he lived and worked; while a fourth woman, by her inability to
+comprehend the necessities of such a genius, clipped his wings, so that
+he fell to earth and his feet mired in the clay.
+
+The first factor in the evolution of Scheffer, in point of both time and
+importance, was his mother. She was the flint upon which he tried his
+steel: his teacher, adviser, critic, friend. She was a singularly strong
+and capable woman, seemingly slight and fragile, but with a deal of
+whipcord, sinewy strength in both her physical and mental fiber.
+
+No one can study the lives of eminent artists without being impressed
+with the fact that the artist is essentially the child of his mother. The
+sympathy demanded to hold a clear, mental conception--the imagination
+that sees the whole, even when the first straight line is made--is the
+gift of mother to son. She gives him of her spirit, and he is heir to her
+love of color, her desire for harmony and her hunger for sympathy. These,
+plus his masculine strength, may allow him to accomplish that which was
+to her only a dream.
+
+If a mother is satisfied with her surroundings, happy in her environment,
+and therefore without "a noble discontent," her children will probably be
+quite willing to have a good time on the "unearned increment" that is
+their material portion. Her virtue and passive excellence die with her,
+and she leaves a brood of mediocrities.
+
+Were this miraculous scheme of adjustment lacking in the Eternal Plan,
+wealth, achievement and talent could be passed along in a direct line and
+the good things of earth be corraled by a single family.
+
+But Nature knows no law of entail; she does, however, have her Law of
+Compensation, and this is the law which holds in order the balance of
+things. If a man accumulates a vast fortune, he probably also breeds
+spendthrifts who speedily distribute his riches; if he has great talent,
+the talent dies with him, for he only inspires those who are not of his
+blood; and if a woman is deprived of the environment for which her soul
+yearns, quite often her children adjust the average by working out an
+answer to her prayer.
+
+When twenty-eight years of age we find Madame Scheffer a widow, with
+three sons: by name, Ariel, Henri and Arnold.
+
+Madame Scheffer had a little money--not much, but enough to afford her a
+small, living income.
+
+She might have married again, or she could have kept her little "dot"
+intact and added interest to principal by going and living with kinsmen
+who were quite willing to care for her and adopt her children.
+
+But no; she decided to leave the sleepy little Dutch village where they
+lived in Holland, and go down to Paris.
+
+And so she thrust her frail bark boldly out upon the tide, hoping and
+expecting that somewhere and sometime the Friendly Islands would be
+reached. She would spend her last sou in educating her boys, and she
+knew, she said, that when that was gone, God would give them the power
+and inclination to care for her and provide for themselves. In short, she
+tumbled her whole basket of bread upon the waters, fully confident that
+it would come back buttered. Her object in moving to Paris was that her
+boys could acquire French, the language of learning, and also that they
+might be taught art.
+
+And so they moved to the great, strange world of Paris--Paris the gay,
+Paris the magnificent, Paris that laughs and leers and sees men and women
+go down to death, and still laughs on.
+
+They lived, away up and up in a tenement-house, in two little rooms.
+There was no servant, and the boys took hold cheerfully to do the
+housekeeping, for the mother wasn't so very strong.
+
+The first thing was to acquire the French language, and if you live in
+Paris the task is easy. You just have to--that's all.
+
+Madame Scheffer was an artist of some little local repute in the village
+where they had lived, and she taught her boys the rudiments of drawing.
+
+Ariel was always called Ary. When he grew to manhood he adopted this pet
+name his mother had playfully given him. He used to call her "Little
+Mother." Shortly after reaching Paris, Ary was placed in the studio of M.
+Guerin. Arnold showed a liking for the Oriental languages, and was
+therefore allowed to follow the bent of his mind. Henry waxed fat on the
+crumbs of learning that Ary brought home.
+
+And so they lived and worked and studied; very happy, with only now and
+then twinges of fear for the future, for it would look a little black at
+times, do all they could to laugh away the clouds. It was a little
+democracy of four, with high hopes and lofty ideals. Mutual tasks and
+mutual hardships bound them together in a love that was as strong as it
+was tender and sweet.
+
+Two years of Paris life had gone by, and the little fund that had not
+been augmented by a single franc in way of income had dwindled sadly.
+
+In six months it was gone.
+
+They were penniless.
+
+The mother sold her wedding-ring and the brooch her husband had given her
+before they were married.
+
+Then the furniture went to the pawnbroker's, piece by piece.
+
+One day Ary came bounding up the stairs, three steps at a time. He burst
+into the room and tossed into his mother's lap fifty francs.
+
+When he got his breath he explained that he had sold his first picture.
+
+Ary, the elder boy, was eighteen; Henri, the younger, was thirteen. "It
+was just like a play, you see," said Ary Scheffer, long years afterward.
+"When things get desperate enough they have to mend--they must. The
+pictures I painted were pretty bad, but I really believe they were equal
+to many that commanded large prices, and I succeeded in bringing a few
+buyers around to my views. Genius may starve in a garret, if alone; but
+the genius that would let its best friends starve, too, being too modest
+to press its claims, is a little lacking somewhere."
+
+Young Scheffer worked away at any subject he thought would sell. He
+painted just as his teacher, Guerin, told him, and Guerin painted just
+like his idol, David, or as nearly as he could.
+
+Art had gotten into a fixed groove; laws had been laid down as to what
+was classic and what not. Conservatism was at the helm.
+
+Art, literature, philosophy, science, even religion, have their periods
+of infancy, youth, manhood and decay. And there comes a time to every
+school, and every sect, when it ceases to progress. When it says, "There
+now, this is perfection, and he who seeks to improve on it is anathema,"
+it is dead, and should be buried. But schools and sects and creeds die
+hard. Creeds never can be changed: they simply become obsolete and are
+forgotten; they turn to dust and are blown away on the free winds of
+heaven.
+
+The art of the great David had passed into the hands of imitators. It had
+become a thing of metes and bounds and measurements and geometric
+theorems. Its colors were made by mixing this with that according to
+certain fixed formulas.
+
+About this time a young playwright by the name of Victor Hugo was making
+much din, and the classics as a consequence were making mighty dole and
+endeavoring to hiss him down. The Censor had forbidden a certain drama of
+Hugo's to be played until it had been cut and trimmed and filed and
+polished, and made just like all other plays.
+
+Victor Hugo was the acknowledged leader of the spirit of protest; in
+lyric music Rossini led; and Delacroix raised the standard of revolt in
+painting. With this new school, which called itself "Romanticism," Madame
+Scheffer and her sons sincerely sympathized. The term "Romanticism" of
+itself means little, or nothing, or everything, but the thing itself is
+the eternal plea for the right of the individual--a cry for the privilege
+to live your own life and express the truth as you feel it, all in your
+own way. It is a revolution that has come a thousand times, and must and
+will come again and again. When custom gets greater than man it must be
+broken. The ankylosis of artistic smugness is no new thing. In heart and
+taste and ambition Ary and the Little Mother were one. Madame Scheffer
+rejoiced in the revolt she saw in the air against the old and outgrown.
+She was a Republican in all her opinions and ideals; and these feelings
+she shared with her boys. They discussed politics and art and religion
+over the teacups; and this brave and gentle woman kept intellectual pace
+with her sons, who in merry frolic often carried her about in their arms.
+Only yesterday, it seemed to her, she had carried them, and felt upon her
+face the soft caress of baby hands. And now one of these sons stood a
+foot higher than she.
+
+Ary Scheffer was tall, slender, with a thoughtful, handsome face. The
+habit of close study, and the early realization of responsibilities had
+hastened his maturity. Necessity had sharpened his business sense and
+given a practical side to his nature, so he deferred enough to the old
+world to secure from it the living that is every man's due.
+
+His pictures sold--sold for all they were worth. The prices were not
+large, but there was enough money so that the gaunt wolf that once
+scratched and sniffed at the door was no longer to be seen nor heard.
+
+They had all they needed. The Little Mother was the banker, and we may
+safely guess that nothing was wasted.
+
+Pupils now came to Ary Scheffer--dull fellows from the schools, who
+wished to be coached. Sitters in search of good portraits, cheap for
+cash, occasionally climbed the stairway. The Little Mother dusted about
+and fixed up the studio so as to make it look prosperous.
+
+One fine lady came in a carriage to sit for her portrait. She gave her
+wraps into the keeping of the Little Mother at the door, with an
+admonitory, "Take care of these, mind you, or I'll report you to your
+master."
+
+The Little Mother bowed low and promised.
+
+That night when she told at the supper-table how the fine lady had
+mistaken her for a servant, Henri said, "Well, just charge the fine lady
+fifty francs extra in the bill for that."
+
+But Ary would not consent to let the blunder go so cheaply. When the fine
+lady came for her next sitting, the Little Mother was called and advised
+with at length as to pose and color-scheme.
+
+Neither was the advising sham, for Ary deferred to his mother's judgment
+in many ways, and no important step was taken without her approval. They
+were more like lovers than mother and son. His treatment of her was more
+than affectionate--it was courteous and deferential, after the manner of
+men who had ancestors who were knights of the olden time.
+
+The desire to sit on a divan and be waited upon is the distinguishing
+feature of the heartless mistress of fortune. Like the jeweled necklace
+and bands of gold at wrist and waist, which symbol a time when slavery
+was rife and these gauds had a practical meaning, so does the woman who
+in bringing men to her feet by beck and nod tell of animality too coarse
+for speech.
+
+But the woman with the great, tender and loving heart gives her all and
+asks no idolatrous homage. Her delight is in serving, and willingly and
+more than willingly, for without thought she breaks the vase of precious
+ointment and wipes the feet of the beloved with the hairs of her head.
+
+Madame Scheffer sought in all ways to serve her sons, and so we find
+there was always a gentle rivalry between Ary and his mother as to who
+could love most.
+
+She kept his studio in order, cleaned his brushes and prepared the
+canvas. In the middle of the forenoon she would enter his workroom with
+tea and toast or other little delicacies that he liked, and putting the
+tray down, would kiss the forehead of the busy worker and gently tiptoe
+out.
+
+When the day's work was done she intelligently criticized and encouraged;
+and often she would copy the picture herself and show how it could be
+changed for the better here or there.
+
+And all this fine, frank, loving companionship so filled Ary's heart that
+he put far behind him all thought of a love for another with its closer
+tie. He lived and worked for the Little Mother. They were very happy, for
+they were succeeding. They had met the great, cruel world, the world of
+Paris that romps and dances and laughs, and sees struggling and sad-eyed
+women and men go down to their death, and still laughs on; they had met
+the world in fair fight and they had won.
+
+The Little Mother had given all for Ary; on his genius and ability she
+had staked her fortune and her life.
+
+And now, although he was not twenty-one, she saw all that she had given
+in perfect faith, coming back with interest ten times compounded.
+
+The art world of Paris had both recognized and acknowledged the genius of
+her boy--with that she was content.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the year Eighteen Hundred Eighteen, we find General Lafayette writing
+to Lady Morgan in reference to a proposed visit to the Chateau de la
+Grange. He says: "I do not think you will find it dull here. Among others
+of our household is a talented young painter by the name of Scheffer."
+
+Later, Lady Morgan writes to friends in England from La Grange, "Ary
+Scheffer, a talented artist, is a member of our company here at the
+chateau. He is quite young, but is already a person of note. He is making
+a portrait of the General, and giving lessons to the young ladies in
+drawing, and I, too, am availing myself of his tutorship."
+
+Through his strong Republican tendencies Scheffer had very naturally
+drifted into the company of those who knew Lafayette. The artist knew the
+history of the great man and was familiar with his American career.
+Scheffer was interested in America, for the radicals with whom he
+associated were well aware that there might come a time when they would
+have to seek hastily some hospitable clime where to think was not a
+crime. And indeed, it is but natural that those with a penchant for
+heresy should locate a friendly shore, just as professional criminals
+study the extradition laws.
+
+Lafayette, Franklin and Washington had long been to Scheffer a trinity of
+familiar names, and when an opportunity came to be introduced to the
+great Franco-American patriot he gladly took advantage of it.
+
+Lafayette was sixty-one; Scheffer was twenty-three, but there at once
+sprang up a warm friendship between them. Not long after their first
+meeting Scheffer was invited to come to La Grange and make it his home as
+long as he cared to.
+
+The Little Mother urged the acceptance of such an invitation. To
+associate for a time with the aristocratic world would give the young man
+an insight into society and broaden his horizon.
+
+In the family of Lafayette, Scheffer mingled on an equality with the
+guests. His conversation was earnest, serious and elevated; and his
+manner so gracious and courtly that he won the respect of all he met.
+Lady Morgan intimates that his simplicity of manner tempted the young
+ladies who were members of his class in drawing to cut various innocent
+capers in his presence, and indulge in sly jokes which never would have
+been perpetrated had the tutor been more of a man of the world.
+
+It has happened more than once that men of the highest spirituality have
+had small respect for religion, as it is popularly manifested. The
+machinery of religion and religion itself are things that are often
+widely separated; and Ary Scheffer was too high-minded and noble to
+worship the letter and relinquish the spirit that maketh alive. He was of
+that type that often goes through the world scourged by a yearning for
+peace, and like the dove sent out from the Ark finding no place to rest.
+All about he beheld greed, selfishness, hypocrisy and pretense. He longed
+for simplicity and absolute honesty, and was met by craft and diplomacy.
+He asked for religion, and was given a creed.
+
+And so into the hearts of such as he there comes creeping a spirit of
+revolt. Instead of accepting this topsy-turvy old world and making the
+best of it, their eyes are fixed upon an ideal that Heaven alone can
+realize.
+
+The home of Lafayette was the rendezvous of the discontented. Art,
+literature, politics and religion were all represented in the parlors of
+La Grange. Where Franklin had discoursed Poor Richard philosophy, there
+now gathered each Sunday night a company in which "the greatest of the
+Americans" would have delighted. For this company, no question was too
+sacred for frank and free discussion.
+
+It was at the home of Lafayette that Scheffer met Augustin Thierry, and
+between these two there grew a friendship that only death was to divide.
+
+But there was one other person Scheffer met at La Grange who was to
+exercise a profound influence on his life: this was the Duchess of
+Orleans. The quiet manliness of the young artist impressed the future
+Queen of France, and he was invited to Neuilly to copy certain portraits.
+
+In the year Eighteen Hundred Twenty-six, we find Scheffer regularly
+established in the household of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, with
+commissions to paint portraits of all the members of the family, and
+incidentally to give lessons in drawing and mathematics to the Princess
+Marie.
+
+The Princess had been a sore trial to her parents, in that she had failed
+to fit into the conventional ways of polite society. Once she had shocked
+all Neuilly by donning man's attire and riding horseback astride. A
+worthy priest who had been her tutor had found her tongue too sharp for
+his comfort, and had resigned his post in dismay. The Princess argued
+religion with the Bishop and discussed politics with visitors in such a
+radical way that her father often turned pale. For the diversions of
+society she had a profound contempt that did not fail to manifest itself
+in sharp sallies against the smug hypocrisy of the times. She had read
+widely, knew history, was familiar with the poets, and had dived into the
+classics to a degree equaled by few women in France. So keen was her wit
+that, when pompous dignitaries dined at Neuilly, her father and mother
+perspired freely, not knowing what was coming next. In her character were
+traits that surely did not belie her Louis Quatorze ancestry.
+
+And yet this father and mother had a certain secret pride in the
+accomplishments of their daughter. Parents always do. Her independence
+sort of kept them vibrating between ecstasies of joy and chills of fear.
+
+The Princess was plain in feature but finely formed, and had attracted
+the favorable attention of various worthy young men, but no man had ever
+dared to make love to her except by post or proxy. Several lovers had
+pressed their claims, making appeal through her father; but the Duke of
+Orleans, strong as he was, never had cared to intimate to his daughter a
+suggestion as to whom she should wed. Love to her was a high and holy
+sacrament, and a marriage of convenience or diplomacy was to the mind of
+the Princess immoral and abhorrent.
+
+The father knew her views and respected them.
+
+But happiness is not a matter of intellect. And in spite of her
+brilliant, daring mind the Princess of Orleans was fretting her soul out
+against the bars of environment: she lacked employment; she longed to do,
+to act, to be.
+
+She had ambitions in the line of art, and believed she had talent that
+was worth cultivating.
+
+And so it was that Ary Scheffer, the acknowledged man of talent, was
+invited to Neuilly.
+
+He came.
+
+He was twenty-nine years of age; the Princess was twenty-five.
+
+The ennui of unused powers and corroding heart-hunger had made the
+Princess old before her time. Scheffer's fight with adversity had long
+before robbed him of his youth.
+
+These two eyed each other curiously.
+
+The gentle, mild-voiced artist knew his place and did not presume on
+terms of equality with the Princess who traced a direct pedigree to Louis
+the Great. He thought to wait and allow her gradually to show her
+quality.
+
+She tried her caustic wit upon him, and he looked at her out of mild blue
+eyes and made no reply. He had no intention of competing with her on her
+own preserve; and he had a pride in his profession that equaled her pride
+of birth.
+
+He looked at her--just looked at her in silence. And this spoilt child,
+before whom all others quailed, turned scarlet, stammered and made
+apology.
+
+In good sooth, she had played tierce and thrust with every man she had
+met, and had come off without a scar; but here was a man of pride and
+poise, and yet far beneath her in a social way, and he had rebuked her
+haughty spirit by a simple look.
+
+A London lawyer has recently put in a defense for wife-beating, on the
+grounds that there are women who should be chastised for their own good.
+I do not go quite this far, but from the time Scheffer rebuked the
+Princess of Orleans by refusing to reply to her saucy tongue there was a
+perfect understanding between them. The young woman listened respectfully
+if he spoke, and when he painted followed his work with eager eyes.
+
+At last she had met one who was not intent on truckling for place and
+pelf. His ideals were as high and excellent as her own--his mind more
+sincere. Life was more to him than to her, because he was working his
+energies up into art, and she was only allowing her powers to rust.
+
+She followed him dumbly, devotedly.
+
+He wished to treat her as an honored pupil and with the deference that
+was her due, but she insisted that they should study and work as equals.
+
+Instead of giving the young woman lessons to learn, they studied
+together. Her task as pupil was to read to him two hours daily as he
+worked, and things she did not fully understand he explained.
+
+The Princess made small progress as a painter, probably because her
+teacher was so much beyond her that she was discouraged at thought of
+equaling him; and feeling that in so many other ways they were equals,
+she lost heart in trying to follow him in this.
+
+At length, weary of attempts at indifferent drawing, the Princess begged
+her tutor to suggest some occupation for her where they could start
+afresh and work out problems together. Scheffer suggested modeling in
+clay, and the subject was taken up with avidity.
+
+The Princess developed a regular passion for the work, and group after
+group was done. Among other figures she attempted was an equestrian
+statue of Joan of Arc.
+
+This work was cast in bronze and now occupies an honored place at
+Versailles.
+
+So thoroughly did the young woman enter into the spirit of sculpture that
+she soon surpassed Scheffer in this particular line; but to him she gave
+all credit.
+
+Her success was a delight to her parents, who saw with relief that the
+carping spirit of cynicism was gone from her mind, and instead had come a
+kindly graciousness that won all hearts.
+
+In the ability to think and act with independence there was something
+decidedly masculine in the spirit of the Princess Marie; and, as I have
+shown, Scheffer possessed a sympathy and gentleness that was essentially
+feminine (which is quite a different thing from being effeminate). These
+two souls complemented each other, and their thoughts being fixed on
+similar ideals, how can we wonder that a very firm affection blossomed
+into being?
+
+But the secret of their love has never been written, and base would be
+the pen that would attempt to picture it in detail.
+
+Take off thy shoes, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
+
+The Duke and Duchess admired Scheffer, but never quite forgot that he was
+in their employ, and all their attempts to treat him as an equal revealed
+the effort. It was as though they had said: "You are lowly bred, and work
+with your hands, and receive a weekly wage, but these things are nothing
+to us. We will not think less of you, for see, do we not invite you to
+our board?"
+
+The aristocracy of birth is very seldom willing to acknowledge the
+aristocracy of brain. And the man of brains, if lowly born, has a
+mild indifference, at least, for all the gilt and gaud of royalty. The
+Prince of Wales does not recognize the nobility of Israel Zangwill; and
+Israel Zangwill asks in bored indifference, "Who--who is this man you
+call H. R. H.?"
+
+But love is greater than man-made titles, and when was there ever a
+difference in station able to separate hearts that throbbed only for each
+other?
+
+Possibly even the stern old Duke might have relented and given his
+blessing were it not that events of mighty importance came seething
+across the face of France, and duties to his country outweighed the
+duties to his daughter.
+
+On the Thirtieth day of July, Eighteen Hundred Thirty, Ary Scheffer was
+at the house of his mother in Paris. A hurried knock came at the door,
+and Ary answered it in person. There on the threshold stood M. Thiers.
+
+"Oh, Scheffer! it is you, how fortunate! you are a member of the
+household of Orleans, and I have a most important message for the Duke.
+You must go with me and deliver it to him."
+
+"I see," said Scheffer; "the Convention has named the Duke as King of
+France, and we are to notify him."
+
+"Exactly so," said Thiers.
+
+Horses were at the door: they mounted and rode away. The streets were
+barricaded, so carriages were out of the question, but Scheffer and
+Thiers leaped the barricades, and after several minor mishaps found
+themselves safely out of Paris.
+
+The call was not entirely unexpected on the part of the Duke. Scheffer
+addressed him as "Le Roi," and this told all.
+
+The Duke hesitated, but finally decided to accept the mission, fraught
+with such mighty import. He started in disguise for Paris that night on
+foot.
+
+At the back entrance of the Palais Royal stood Ary Scheffer, and saw
+Louis Philippe mingle with the crowd, unrecognized--then pass into the
+palace--this palace that was his birthplace.
+
+The next day Louis appeared with Lafayette on a balcony of the Hotel de
+Ville, and these two embraced each other in sight of the multitude.
+
+It is not for me to write a history of those troublous times, but suffice
+it to say that the "Citizen King" ruled France probably as well as any
+other man could have done. His task was a most difficult one, for he had
+to be both king and citizen--to please Royalist and Populist alike.
+
+This sudden turn of the political kaleidoscope was a pivotal point in the
+life of Ary Scheffer. So long as the Duke of Orleans was a simple country
+gentleman, Scheffer was the intimate friend of the family, but how could
+the King of France admit into his family circle a mere low-born painter?
+Certainly not they who are descended from kings!
+
+Orders were issued by the government to Scheffer to paint certain
+pictures, and vouchers reached him from official sources, but he was
+made to understand that friendship with the household of a king was not
+for him. Possibly he had been too much mixed up with the people in a
+political way! The favor of the populace is a thing monarchs jealously
+note, as mariners on a lee shore watch the wind.
+
+The father of Louis Philippe was descended from a brother of Louis the
+Great, while on his mother's side he was a direct descendant of the great
+monarch and Madame de Montespan. Such an inbred claim to royalty was
+something of which to boast, but at the same time Louis Philippe was
+painfully sensitive as to the blot on the 'scutcheon.
+
+The Princess Marie knew the slender tenure by which her father held his
+place, and although her heart was wrung by the separation from her lover,
+she was loyal to duty as she saw it, and made no sign that might
+embarrass the Citizen King.
+
+Arnold and Henri Scheffer were each married, and working out careers. Ary
+and his mother lived together, loving and devoted. And into the keeping
+of this mother had come a grandchild--a beautiful girl-baby. They called
+her name Cornelie. About the mother of Cornelie the grandmother was not
+curious. It was enough to know that the child was the child of her son,
+and upon the babe she lavished all the loving tenderness of her great,
+welling, mother heart. She had no words but those of gentleness and love
+for the son that had brought this charge to her. And did she guess that
+this child would be the sustaining prop for her son when she, herself,
+was gone?
+
+All this time the poor Princess Marie was practically a prisoner in the
+great palace, wearing out her heart, a slave to what she considered duty.
+She grew ill, and all efforts of her physicians to arouse her from her
+melancholy were in vain.
+
+Her death was a severe shock to poor Scheffer. For some months friends
+feared for his sanity, for he would only busy his brush with scenes from
+Faust, or religious subjects that bordered on morbidity. Again and again
+he painted "Marguerite in Prison," "Marguerite Waiting," "Marguerite in
+Paradise" and "Mignon." Into all of his work he infused that depth of
+tenderness which has given the critics their cue for accusing him of
+"sentimentality gone mad." And in fact no one can look upon any of the
+works of Scheffer, done after Eighteen Hundred Thirty, without being
+profoundly impressed with the brooding sadness that covers all as with a
+garment.
+
+From the time he met the Princess of Orleans there came a decided
+evolution in his art; but it was not until she had passed away that one
+could pick out an unsigned canvas and say positively, "This is
+Scheffer's!"
+
+In all his work you see that look of soul, and in his best you behold a
+use of the blue background that rivals the blue of heaven. No other
+painter that I can recall has gotten such effects from colors so simple.
+
+But Scheffer's life was not all sadness. For even when the Little Mother
+had passed away, Ary Scheffer wrote calmly to his friend August Thierry:
+"I yet have my daughter Cornelie, and were it not for her I fear my work
+would be a thing of the past; but with her I still feel that God exists.
+My life is filled with love and light."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a curious circumstance that Ary Scheffer, who conducted the
+Citizen King to Paris, was to lead him away.
+
+Scheffer was a Captain in the National Guard, and when the stormy times
+of Eighteen Hundred Forty-eight came, he put away his brushes, locked his
+studio, and joined his regiment.
+
+Louis Philippe had begun as a "citizen"--one of the people--and following
+the usual course had developed into a monarch with a monarch's
+indifference to the good of the individual.
+
+The people clamored for a republic, and agitation soon developed into
+revolution. On the morning of the Twenty-fourth of February, Eighteen
+Hundred Forty-eight, Scheffer met the son of Lafayette, who was also an
+officer in the National Guard.
+
+"How curious," said Lafayette, "that we should be protecting a King for
+whom we have so little respect!"
+
+"Still, we will do our duty," answered Scheffer.
+
+They made their way to the Tuileries, and posted themselves on the
+terrace beneath the windows of the King's private apartments. As they sat
+on the steps in the wan light of breaking day. Scheffer heard some one
+softly calling his name. He listened and the call was repeated.
+
+"Who wants me?" answered Scheffer.
+
+"'Tis I, the Queen!" came the answer.
+
+Scheffer looked up and at the lattice of the window saw the white face of
+the woman he had known so well and intimately for a full score of years.
+
+The terror of the occasion did away with all courtly etiquette.
+
+"Who is with you?" asked the Queen.
+
+"Only Lafayette," was the answer.
+
+"Come in at once, both of you. The King has abdicated and you must
+conduct us to a place of safety."
+
+Scheffer and his companion ran up the steps, the Queen unbolted the door
+with her own hands, and they entered. Inside the hallway they found Louis
+Philippe dressed as for a journey, with no sign of kingly trappings. With
+them were their sons and several grandchildren.
+
+They filed out of the palace, through the garden, and into the Place de
+la Concorde--that spot of ghastly memories.
+
+The King looked about nervously. Some of the mob recognized him.
+
+Scheffer concluded that a bold way was the best, and stepping ahead of
+Louis Philippe, called in a voice of authority, "Make way--make way for
+the King!"
+
+The crowd parted dumb with incredulity at the strange sight.
+
+By the fountain in the square stood a public carriage, and into this
+shabby vehicle of the night the royal passengers were packed.
+
+Dumas, who had followed the procession, mounted the box.
+
+Scheffer gave a quick whispered order to the driver, closed the door with
+a slam, lifted his hat, and the vehicle rumbled away towards the Quai.
+
+When Scheffer got back to the Tuileries the mob had broken in the iron
+gates at the front of the gardens, and was surging through the palace in
+wild disorder.
+
+Scheffer hastened home to tell Cornelie the news of the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the Little Mother died, a daughter of Henri Scheffer came to join
+the household of Ary Scheffer. The name of this niece was also Cornelie.
+
+The fact of there being two young women in the house by one name has led
+to confusion among the biographers. And thus it happens that at least
+four encyclopedias record that Ernest Renan married the daughter of Ary
+Scheffer. Renan married the niece, and the fact that they named their
+first child Ary helped, possibly, to confirm the error of the
+biographers.
+
+Scheffer's life was devoted to providing for and educating these young
+women. He himself gave them lessons in the languages, in music, painting
+and sculpture. The daughter was a handsome girl; and in point of
+intellect kept her artist-father very busy to keep one lesson in advance.
+Together they painted and modeled in clay, and the happiness that came to
+Scheffer as he saw her powers unfold was the sweetest experience he had
+ever known.
+
+The coldness between himself and the King had increased. But Louis
+Philippe did not forget him, for commissions came, one after another, for
+work to cover the walls of the palace at Versailles. With the Queen his
+relations were friendly--even intimate. Several times she came to his
+house. Her interest in Cornelie was tender and strong, and when Scheffer
+painted a "Mignon" and took Cornelie for a model, the Queen insisted on
+having the picture and paying her own price--a figure quite beyond what
+the artist asked.
+
+This picture, which represents so vividly the profound pathos and depth
+of soul which Ary Scheffer could put upon a canvas, can now be seen in
+the Louvre. But the best collection of Scheffer's portraits and
+historical pictures is at Versailles.
+
+In the gentle companionship of his beloved daughter, Scheffer found the
+meed of joy that was his due. With her he lived over the days that had
+gone forever, and those other days that might have been.
+
+And when the inevitable came and this daughter loved a worthy and
+suitable young man, Scheffer bowed his head, and fighting hard to keep
+back the tears gave the pair his blessing.
+
+The marriage of Doctor Marjolin and Cornelie Scheffer was a happy mating;
+and both honored the gifted father and ministered to him in every kindly
+way.
+
+But so susceptible was Scheffer's nature that when his daughter had given
+her whole heart to another, the fine edge of his art was dulled and
+blunted. He painted through habit, and the work had merit, but only at
+rare intervals was there in it that undefinable something which all can
+recognize, but none analyze, that stamps the product as great art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When, in the year Eighteen Hundred Fifty, Scheffer married, it was the
+death of his art.
+
+The artist does business on a very small margin of inspiration. Do you
+understand me? The man of genius is not a genius all the time. Usually he
+is only a very ordinary individual. There may be days or weeks that are
+fallow, and sometimes even years that are years of famine. He can not
+conquer the mood of depression that is holding him to earth.
+
+But some day the clouds suddenly clear away, the sun bursts out, and the
+soul of the man is alive with divine fervor. Sublime thoughts crowd upon
+him, great waves of emotion sweep over his soul, and as Webster said of
+his Hayne speech, "The air was full of reasons, and all I had to do was
+to reach up and seize them."
+
+All great music and all deathless poems are written in a fever of
+ecstasy; all paintings that move men to tears are painted in tears.
+
+But it is easy to break in upon the sublime mood and drag the genius back
+to earth. Certain country cousins who occasionally visited the family of
+Ralph Waldo Emerson cut all mental work off short; the philosopher laid
+down his pen when the cousins came a-cousining and literally took to the
+woods. An uncongenial caller would instantly unhorse Carlyle, and
+Tennyson had a hatred of all lion-hunters--not merely because they were
+lion-hunters, but because they broke in upon his paradise and snapped the
+thread of inspiration.
+
+Mrs. Grote tells us that Scheffer's wife was intelligent and devoted--in
+fact, she was too devoted. She would bring her sewing and watch the
+artist at his work. If the great man grew oblivious of her presence she
+gently chided him for it; she was jealous of his brothers, jealous of his
+daughter, even jealous of his art. She insisted not only that he should
+love her, but demanded that he should love nothing else. And yet all the
+time she was putting forth violent efforts to make him happy. As a result
+she put him in a mood where he loved nothing and nobody. She clipped his
+wings, and instead of a soaring genius we find a whimsical, commonplace
+man with occupation gone.
+
+Wives demand the society of their husbands as their lawful right, and I
+suppose it is expecting too much to suppose that any woman, short of a
+saint, could fit into the bachelor ways of a dreamer of dreams, aged
+fifty-five.
+
+Before he met the widow of General Beaudrand, Scheffer was happy, with a
+sweet, sad happiness in the memories of the love of his youth--the love
+that was lost, and being lost still lived and filled his heart.
+
+But the society of the widow was agreeable, her conversation vivacious.
+He decided that this being so it might be better still to have her by him
+all the time. And this was what the lady desired, for it was she who did
+the courting.
+
+Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "Because I like an occasional pinch of
+salt is no reason why you should immerse me in brine," but Ary Scheffer,
+the mild, gentle and guileless, did not reason quite so far.
+
+The vivacious Sophie took him captive, and he was shorn of his strength.
+And no doubt the ex-widow was as much disappointed as he; there really
+was no good reason why he should not paint better than ever, when here he
+wouldn't work at all! Lawks-a-daisy!
+
+His spirit beat itself out against the bars, health declined, and
+although he occasionally made groggy efforts to shake himself back into
+form, his heart was not in his work.
+
+Seven years went dragging by, and one morning there came word from London
+that the Duchess of Orleans, the mother of the beloved Marie, was dying.
+Scheffer was ill, but he braced himself for the effort, and hastily
+started away alone, leaving a note for Cornelie.
+
+He arrived in England in time to attend the funeral of his lifelong
+friend, and then he himself was seized with a deadly illness.
+
+His daughter was sent for, and when she came the sick man's longing
+desire was to get back to France. If he was to die, he wanted to die at
+home. "To die at home at last," is the prayer of every wanderer. Ary
+Scheffer's prayer was answered. He expired in the arms of his beloved
+daughter on June Fifteenth, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-eight, aged
+sixty-three years.
+
+
+
+
+FRANCOIS MILLET
+
+     When I meet a laborer on the edge of a field, I stop and look at
+     the man: born amid the grain where he will be reaped, and turning
+     up with his plow the ground of his tomb, mixing his burning sweat
+     with the icy rain of Autumn. The furrow he has just turned is a
+     monument that will outlive him. I have seen the pyramids of
+     Egypt, and the forgotten furrows of our heather: both alike bear
+     witness to the work of man and the shortness of his days.
+
+    --_Chateaubriand_
+
+[Illustration: FRANCOIS MILLET]
+
+
+Jean Francois Millet is to art what Wagner is to music, or what Whitman
+is to poetry. These men, one a Frenchman, another a German, the third an
+American, taught the same gospel at the same time, using different
+languages, and each quite unaware of the existence of the others. They
+were all revolutionaries; and success came so tardily to them that
+flattery did not taint their native genius.
+
+"Great men never come singly," says Emerson.
+
+Richard Wagner was born in the year Eighteen Hundred Thirteen, Millet in
+Eighteen Hundred Fourteen, and Whitman in Eighteen Hundred Nineteen.
+"Tannhauser" was first produced in Eighteen Hundred Forty-five; the
+"Sower" was exhibited in Eighteen Hundred Fifty; and in Eighteen Hundred
+Fifty-five "Leaves of Grass" appeared.
+
+The reception accorded to each masterpiece was about the same; and all
+would have fallen flat had it not been for the gibes and jeers and
+laughter which the work called forth.
+
+Wagner was arrested for being an alleged rioter; Whitman was ejected from
+his clerkship and his book looked after by the Attorney-General of
+Massachusetts; Millet was hooted by his fellow-students and dubbed the
+Wild-Man-of-the-Woods.
+
+In a letter to Pelloquet, Millet says, "The creations that I depict must
+have the air of being native to their situation, so that no one looking
+on them shall imagine they are anything else than what they are."
+
+In his first preface to "Leaves of Grass," Whitman writes: "The art of
+arts, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters is
+simplicity. * * * To speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and
+insouciance of the movement of animals and the unimpeachableness of the
+sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside, is the flawless
+triumph of art."
+
+Wagner wrote in an Essay on Art:
+
+"The Greek, proceeding from the bosom of Nature, attained to Art when he
+had made himself independent of the immediate influences of Nature.
+
+"We, violently debarred from Nature, and proceeding from the dull ground
+of a Heaven-rid and juristic civilization, first reach Art when we
+completely turn our backs on such a civilization, and once more cast
+ourselves, with conscious bent, into the arms of Nature."
+
+Men high in power, deceived by the "lack of form," the innocent naivete
+as of childhood, the simple homeliness of expression, the absence of
+effort, declared again and again that Millet's work was not art, nor
+Wagner's "recurring theme" true music, nor Whitman's rhymeless lines
+poetry. The critics refused to recognize that which was not labored:
+where no violence of direction was shown they saw no art. To follow close
+to Nature is to be considered rude by some--it indicates a lack of
+"culture."
+
+Millet, Wagner and Whitman lived in the open air; with towns and cities
+they had small sympathy; they felt themselves no better and no wiser than
+common folks; they associated with working men and toiling women; they
+had no definite ideas as to who were "bad" and who "good."
+
+They are frank, primitive, simple. They are masculine--and in their
+actions you never get a trace of coyness, hesitancy, affectation or
+trifling coquetry. They have nothing to conceal: they look at you out of
+frank, open eyes. They know the pains of earth too well to dance nimbly
+through life and laugh the hours away. They are sober, serious, earnest,
+but not grim. Their faces are bronzed by sun and wind; their hands are
+not concealed by gloves; their shirts are open to the breast, as though
+they wanted room to breathe deeply and full; the boots they wear are
+coarse and thick-soled, as if the wearer had come from afar and yet had
+many long miles to go. But the two things that impress you most are: they
+are in no haste; and they are unafraid.
+
+All can approach such men as these. Possibly the smug and self-satisfied
+do not care to; but men in distress--those who are worn, or old, or
+misunderstood--children, outcasts, those far from home and who long to
+get back, silently slip weak hands in theirs and ask, "May we go your
+way?"
+
+Can you read "Captain, My Captain," or listen to the "Pilgrims' Chorus,"
+or look upon "The Man With the Hoe" without tears?
+
+And so we will continue our little journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charles Warren Stoddard relates that in one of the far-off islands of the
+South Sea, he found savages so untouched by civilization that they did
+not know enough to tell a lie. It was somewhat such a savage as this with
+whom we have to deal.
+
+He was nineteen years old, six feet high, weighed one hundred sixty
+pounds, and as he had never shaved, had a downy beard all over his face.
+His great shock of brown hair tumbled to his shoulders. His face was
+bronzed, his hands big and bony, and his dark gray eyes looked out of
+their calm depths straight into yours--eyes that did not blink, eyes of
+love and patience, eyes like the eyes of an animal that does not know
+enough to fear.
+
+He was the son of a peasant, and the descendant of a long line of
+peasants, who lived on the coast of Normandy--plain, toiling peasants
+whose lives were deeply rooted into the rocky soil that gave them scanty
+sustenance. If they ever journeyed it was as sailors--going out with the
+tide--and if they did not come back it was only because those who go down
+to the sea in ships sometimes never do.
+
+And now this first-born of the peasant flock was going to leave his
+native village of Gruchy.
+
+He was clad in a new suit of clothes, spun, woven, cut and sewed by the
+hands of his grandmother.
+
+He was going away, and his belongings were all packed in a sailor's
+canvas bag; but he was not going to sea.
+
+Great had been the preparations for this journey.
+
+The family was very poor: the father a day-laborer and farmer; the mother
+worked in the fields, and as the children grew up they too worked in the
+fields; and after a high tide the whole family hurried to the seashore to
+gather up the "varech," and carry it home for fertilizer, so that the
+rocky hillside might next Summer laugh a harvest.
+
+And while the father and the mother toiled in the fields, or gathered the
+varech, or fished for shrimps, the old grandmother looked after the
+children at home. The grandmother in such homes is the real mother of the
+flock: the mother who bore the children has no time to manifest
+mother-love; it is the grandmother who nurses the stone-bruises, picks
+out the slivers, kisses away the sorrows, gladdens young hearts by her
+simple stories, and rocks in her strong, old arms the babe, as she croons
+and quavers a song of love and duty.
+
+And so the old grandmother had seen "her baby" grow to a man, and with
+her own hands she had made his clothes, and all the savings of her years
+had been sewed into a belt and given to the boy.
+
+And now he was going away.
+
+He was going away--going because she and she alone had urged it. She had
+argued and pleaded, and when she won the village priest over to her side,
+and Father Lebrisseau in his turn had won several influential men--why,
+it must be!
+
+The boy could draw: he could draw so well that he some day would be a
+great artist--Langlois, the drawing-master at Cherbourg, ten miles away,
+said so.
+
+What if they were only poor peasants and there never had been a painter
+in the family! There would be now. So the priest had contributed from his
+own purse; and the Councilmen of Cherbourg had promised to help; and the
+grandmother had some silver of her own.
+
+Jean Francois Millet was going to Paris to study to be an artist.
+
+Tears rained down the wrinkled, leathery cheeks of the old grandmother;
+the mother stood by dazed and dumb, nursing a six-months-old babe;
+children of various ages hung to the skirts of mother and grandmother,
+tearful and mystified; the father leaned on the gate, smoking a pipe,
+displaying a stolidity he did not feel.
+
+The diligence swung around the corner and came rattling down the single,
+stony, narrow street of the little village. The driver hardly deigned to
+stop for such common folks as these; but the grandmother waved her apron,
+and then, as if jealous of a service some one else might render, she
+seized one end of the canvas bag and helped the brown young man pass it
+up to the top of the diligence. Jean Francois climbed up after, carrying
+a little prayer-book that had been thrust into his hands--a final parting
+gift of the grandmother.
+
+The driver cracked his whip and away they went.
+
+As the diligence passed the rectory, Father Lebrisseau came out and held
+up a crucifix; the young man took off his cap and bowed his head.
+
+The group of watchers moved out into the roadway. They strained their
+eyes in the direction of the receding vehicle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a three days' ride, Jean Francois was in Paris. The early winter
+night was settling down, and the air was full of fog and sleet.
+
+The young man was sore from the long jolting. His bones ached, and the
+damp and cold had hunted out every part of his sturdy frame.
+
+The crowds that surged through the street hurrying for home and fireside
+after the day's work were impatient.
+
+"Don't block the way, Johnny Crapaud!" called a girl with a shawl over
+her head; and with the combined shove and push of those behind, the
+sabot-shod young man was shouldered into the street.
+
+There he stood dazed and bereft, with the sailor's bag on his back.
+
+"Where do you wish to go?" asked a gendarme, not unkindly.
+
+"Back to Gruchy," came the answer.
+
+And the young man went into the diligence office and asked when the next
+stage started.
+
+It did not go until the following morning. He would have to stay
+somewhere all night.
+
+The policeman outside the door directed him to a modest tavern.
+
+Next morning things looked a little better. The sun had come out and the
+air was crisp. The crowds in the street did not look quite so cold and
+mean.
+
+After hunger had been satisfied, "Johnny Crapaud" concluded to stay long
+enough to catch a glimpse of the Louvre, that marvel of marvels! The
+Louvre had been glowingly described to him by his old drawing-master at
+Cherbourg. Visions of the Louvre had been in his mind for weeks and
+months, and now his hopes were soon to be realized. In an hour perhaps he
+would stand and look upon a canvas painted by Rubens, the immortal
+Rubens!
+
+His enthusiasm grew warm.
+
+The girl who had served him with coffee stood near and was looking at him
+with a sort of silent admiration, such as she might bestow upon a curious
+animal.
+
+He looked up; their eyes met.
+
+"Is it true--is it true that there are pictures by Rubens in the Louvre?"
+asked the young man.
+
+The oddity of the question from such a being and the queer Normandy
+accent amused the girl, and she burst out laughing. She did not answer
+the question, but going over to a man seated at another table whispered
+to him. Then they both looked at the queer youth and laughed.
+
+The young countryman did not know what they were laughing at--probably
+they did not, either--but he flushed scarlet, and soon made his way out
+into the street, his luggage on his back. He wanted to go to the Louvre,
+but dare not ask the way--he did not care to be laughed at.
+
+And so he wandered forth.
+
+The shops were very marvelous, and now and again he lingered long before
+some window where colored prints and paintings were displayed. He
+wondered if the places were artists' studios; and at one place as he
+looked at a series of sketches the thought came to him that he himself
+could do better.
+
+This gave him courage, and stepping inside the door he set down his bag
+and told the astonished shopkeeper that the pictures in the window were
+very bad--he could paint better ones--would the proprietor not hire him
+to paint pictures? He would work cheap, and labor faithfully.
+
+He was hastily hustled out into the street--to harbor lunatics was
+dangerous.
+
+So he trudged on--looking for the Louvre.
+
+Night came and the search was without reward.
+
+Seeing a sign of "Apartments for single gentlemen," he applied and was
+shown a modest room that seemed within his means. The landlady was very
+kind; in fact, she knew people at Gruchy and had often been to
+Cherbourg--her uncle lived there.
+
+Jean Francois felt relieved to find that even in busy, bustling,
+frivolous Paris there were friendly people; and when the kind lady
+suggested that pickpockets in the streets were numerous, and that he had
+better give his money over to her for safekeeping, he handed out his
+store of three hundred francs without question.
+
+He never saw his money again.
+
+The next day he still sought the Louvre--not caring to reveal his
+ignorance by asking the way.
+
+It was several days before Fate led him along the Seine and he found
+himself on the Pont Neuf. The palace stretching out before him had a
+familiar look. He stopped and stared. There were the palaces where
+history had been made. He knew the Tuileries and he knew the Louvre--he
+had seen pictures of both.
+
+He walked out across the Place de la Concorde, and seeing others enter,
+made his way through the gates of the sacred precinct.
+
+He was in the Palace of the Louvre; he had found the way, unaided and
+alone.
+
+His deep religious nature was moved, and taking off his cap he crossed
+himself in a silent prayer of gratitude.
+
+What his sensations were he partially pictured to his friend Sensier
+thirty years after: "It seemed as though I had at last attained,
+achieved. My feelings were too great for words, and I closed my eyes,
+lest I be dazzled by the sight and then dare not open them lest I should
+find it all a dream. And if I ever reach Paradise I know my joy will be
+no greater than it was that first morning when I realized that I stood
+within the Louvre Palace."
+
+For a week Millet visited the Louvre every day.
+
+When the doors were unlocked each morning he was waiting on the steps;
+and he did not leave in the afternoon until the attendant warned him it
+was time to go.
+
+He lingered long before the "Raffaellos" and stood in the "Rubens
+Gallery" dumb with wonder and admiration.
+
+There were various people copying pictures here and there. He watched
+them furtively, and after seeing one young man working at an easel in a
+certain place for a week, he approached and talked with him.
+
+Jean Francois told his history and the young man listened patiently. He
+advised that it would be foolish to go back to Gruchy at once. The youth
+should go to some master and show what he could do--remain and study for
+a little while at least; in fact, he himself would take him to Delaroche.
+Things looked brighter; and arrangements were made to meet on the morrow
+and go interview the master.
+
+Delaroche was found and proved kindly. He examined the two sketches that
+Jean Francois submitted, asked a few questions, and graciously led the
+new applicant into the atelier, where a score of young men were
+sketching, and set him to work.
+
+The letter written by Jean to the good old grandmother that night hinted
+at great plans for the future, and told of love, and of hope that was
+dauntless.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Twelve years were spent by Jean Francois in Paris--years of biting
+poverty and grim endurance: the sport and prey of Fate: the butt and
+byword of the fashionable, artistic world.
+
+Jean Francois did not belong in Paris: how can robins build nests in
+omnibuses?
+
+He was at war with his environment; and the stern Puritan bias of his
+nature refused to conform to the free and easy ways of the gay
+metropolis. He sighed for a sight of the sea, and longed for the fields
+and homely companionship that Normandy held in store.
+
+So we find him renouncing Paris life and going back to his own.
+
+The grandmother greeted him as one who had won, but his father and
+mother, and he, himself, called it failure.
+
+He started to work in the fields and fell fainting to the earth.
+
+"He has been starved," said the village doctor. But when hunger had been
+appeased and strength came back, ambition, too, returned.
+
+He would be an artist yet.
+
+A commission for a group of family portraits came from a rich family at
+Cherbourg. Gladly he hastened thence to do the work.
+
+While in Cherbourg he found lodgings in the household of a widow who had
+a daughter. The widow courted the fine young painter-man--courted him for
+the daughter. The daughter married him. A strong, simple man, unversed
+in the sophistry of society, loves the first woman he meets, provided, of
+course, she shows toward him a bit of soft, feminine sympathy. This
+accounts for the ease with which very young men so often fall in love
+with middle-aged women. The woman does the courting; the man idealizes,
+and endows the woman with all the virtues his imagination can conjure
+forth. Love is a matter of propinquity.
+
+The wife of Jean Francois was neutral salts. She desired, no doubt, to do
+what was right and best, but she had no insight into her husband's needs,
+and was incapable of guessing his latent genius.
+
+As for the new wife's mother and kinsmen, they regarded Jean Francois as
+simply lazy, and thought to crowd him into useful industry. He could
+paint houses or wagons, and, then, didn't the shipyard folks employ
+painters?
+
+Well, I guess so.
+
+Jean Francois still dreamed of art.
+
+He longed to express himself--to picture on canvas the emotions that
+surged through his soul.
+
+Disillusionment had come, and he now saw that his wife was his mate only
+because the Church and State said so. But his sense of duty was firm, and
+the thought of leaving her behind never came to him.
+
+The portraits were painted--the money in his pocket; and to escape the
+importunities and jeers of his wife's relatives he decided to try Paris
+once more.
+
+The wife was willing. Paris was the gateway to pleasure and ambition.
+
+But the gaiety of Paris was not for her. On a scanty allowance of bread
+one can not be so very gay--and often there was no fuel.
+
+Jean Francois copied pictures in the Louvre and hawked them among the
+dealers, selling for anything that was offered.
+
+Delaroche sent for him. "Why do you no longer come to my atelier?" said
+the master.
+
+"I have no money to pay tuition," was the answer.
+
+"Never mind; I'll be honored to have you work here."
+
+So Jean Francois worked with the students of Delaroche; and a few
+respected his work and tried to help market his wares. But connoisseurs
+shook their heads, and dealers smiled at "the eccentricities of genius,"
+and bought only conventional copies of masterpieces or studies of the
+nude.
+
+Meantime the way did not open, and Paris was far from being the place the
+wife supposed. She would have gone back to Cherbourg, but there was no
+money to send her, and pride prevented her from writing the truth to her
+friends at home. She prayed for death, and death came. The students at
+Delaroche's contributed to meet the expenses of her funeral. Jean
+Francois still struggled on.
+
+Delaroche and others declared his work was great, but how could they make
+people buy it?
+
+A time of peculiar pinching hardship came, and Jean Francois again bade
+Paris adieu and made his way back to Gruchy. There he could work in the
+fields, gather varech on the seashore, and possibly paint portraits now
+and then--just for amusement.
+
+And thus he would live out the measure of his days.
+
+The visit of Jean Francois to his boyhood's home proved a repetition of
+the first.
+
+Another woman married him.
+
+Catherine Lemaire was not a brilliant woman, but she had a profound
+belief in her husband's genius.
+
+Possibly she did not understand him when he talked his best, but she made
+a brave show of listening, and did not cross him with any little
+whimsical philosophies of her own.
+
+She was sturdy and strong of heart; privation was nothing to her; she
+could endure all that Jean Francois could, and count it a joy to be with
+him.
+
+She was the consoler, not he; and when the mocking indifference of the
+world passed the work of Jean Francois by, she said, "Who cares, so long
+as we know 't is good?" and measured the stocking on her nose and made
+merry music with the flying needles.
+
+Soon the truth forced itself on Jean Francois and Catherine that no man
+is thought much of by his kinsmen and boyhood acquaintances. No one at
+Gruchy believed in the genius of Jean Francois--no one but the old
+grandmother, who daily hobbled to mass and prayed the Blessed Virgin not
+to forget her boy. Jean Francois and his wife studied the matter out and
+talked it over at length, and they decided that to stay in Gruchy would
+be to forfeit all hope of winning fame and fortune.
+
+Gruchy held nothing for them; possibly Paris did.
+
+And anyway, to go down in a struggle for better things was not so
+ignominious an end as to allow one's powers to rust out, held back only
+through fear of failure.
+
+They started for Paris.
+
+Yes, Paris remembered Jean Francois. How could Paris forget him--he was
+so preposterous and his work so impossible!
+
+It was still a struggle for bread.
+
+Marriages and births have a fixed relation to the price of corn, the
+sociologists say. Perhaps they are right; but not in this case.
+
+The babies came along with the years, and all brought love with them.
+
+The devotion of Jean Francois to his wife and children had a deep, sober,
+religious quality, such as we associate with Abraham and Jacob and the
+other patriarchs of old.
+
+The heart of Millet was often wrung by the thought of the privation and
+hardships his wife and children had to undergo. He blamed himself for
+their lack of creature comforts, and the salt tears rained down his beard
+when he had to go home and report that he had tramped the streets all day
+with a picture under his arm, looking for a buyer, but no buyer could be
+found.
+
+But all this time the old grandmother up in Normandy waited and watched
+for news from her boy.
+
+Now and again during the years she saw his name mentioned in connection
+with the Salon; and once she heard a medal had been granted him, and at
+another time an "Honorable Mention."
+
+Her heart throbbed in pride and she wrote congratulations, and thanked
+the good God for answering her prayers. Little did she know of the times
+when bread was cut in tiny bits and parceled out to each hungry mouth, or
+the days when there was no fuel and the children kept to their beds to
+prevent freezing.
+
+But the few friends of Jean Francois who had forced the "Honorable
+Mention" and secured the medal, now got something more tangible; they
+induced the Government Director of Fine Arts to order from Jean Francois
+Millet a picture for which the artist was to receive two thousand francs;
+two hundred francs were paid on account and the balance was to be paid on
+delivery of the picture.
+
+Jean Francois hurried home with the order in his trembling fingers.
+Catherine read the order with misty eyes. She was not unduly elated--she
+knew that success must come some time. And husband and wife then and
+there decided that when the eighteen hundred francs were paid over to
+them they would move out of Paris.
+
+They would make a home in the country. People do without things in the
+country, but they do not starve. You can raise vegetables, and even
+though the garden be small and the folks poor, God is good and the
+sunshine and showers come and things grow. And for fuel one can gather
+fagots if they are near a wood.
+
+They would go to Barbizon--Barbizon, that tiny village on the edge of the
+Forest of Fontainebleau. Several artists who had been there in the Summer
+sketching had told them of it. The city was gradually smothering Jean
+Francois. He prayed for a sight of the great open stretches of pasture,
+and green woods and winding river.
+
+And now it was all so near.
+
+He set to work feverishly to paint the great picture that was to bring
+deliverance.
+
+At last the picture was done and sent to the Director's.
+
+Days of anxious waiting followed.
+
+The picture was accepted and paid for.
+
+Jean Francois and Catherine cried and laughed for joy, as they tumbled
+their belongings into bags and bundles. The grocer who had trusted them
+took some of their furniture for pay, and a baker and a shoemaker
+compromised by accepting a picture apiece. They were going to
+Barbizon--going to the country--going to freedom! And so the father and
+the mother and the queer-looking, yellow children were perched on the top
+of the diligence with their bundles, bound for Barbizon. They looked into
+each other's faces and their joy was too great for speech.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Living at the village of Barbizon, or near it, were Theodore Rousseau,
+Hughes Martin, Louis LeRoy and Clerge.
+
+These men were artists, and their peasant neighbors recognized them as
+separate and apart from themselves. They were Summer boarders. But Millet
+was a peasant in thought and feeling and sympathy, and mingled with the
+people on an absolute equality. He was peasant--and more than peasant;
+for the majesty of the woods, the broken rocks, the sublime stretches of
+meadow-lands with their sights, odors and colors intoxicated him with
+their beauty. He felt as if he had never before looked upon God's
+beautiful world.
+
+And yet Paris was only a day's journey away! There he could find a market
+for his work. To be near a great city is a satisfaction to every
+intellectual worker, but, if he is wise, his visits to the city are far
+apart. All he needs is the thought that he can go if he chooses.
+
+Millet was thirty-four years of age when he reached Barbizon. There he
+was to remain for the remaining twenty-seven years of his life--to live
+in the one house--years of toil, and not lacking in poverty, pain and
+anxiety, but years of freedom, for he worked as he wished and called no
+man master.
+
+It is quite the custom to paint the life of Millet at Barbizon as one of
+misery and black unrest; but those who do this are the people who read
+pain into his pictures: they do not comprehend the simplicity and
+sublimity and quiet joy that were possible in this man's nature, and in
+the nature of the people he pictured.
+
+From the time he reached Barbizon there came into his work a largeness, a
+majesty and an elevation that is unique in the history of art. Millet's
+heart went out to humanity--the humanity that springs from the soil,
+lives out its day, and returns to earth. His pictures form an epic of
+country life, as he tells of its pains, its anxieties, its
+privations--yes, of its peace and abiding faith, and the joy and health
+and strength that comes to those who live near to Nature's heart.
+
+Walt Whitman catalogues the workers and toilers, and lists their
+occupations in pages that will live; Millet shows us wood-gatherers,
+charcoal-burners, shepherds, gleaners, washerwomen, diggers, quarrymen,
+road laborers, men at the plow, and women at the loom. Then he shows the
+noon-hour, the moments of devotion, the joys of motherhood, the silent
+pride of the father, the love of brother and sister and of husband and
+wife. And again in the dusk of a winter night we see black-lined against
+the sky the bent figure of an old woman, bearing her burden of fagots;
+and again we are shown the plain, homely interior of a cottage where the
+family watches by the bedside of a dying child.
+
+And always the picture is not quite complete--the faces are never
+distinct--no expression of feature is there, but the soul worked up into
+the canvas conveys its silent message to all those who have eyes to see
+and hearts to feel.
+
+Only a love and sympathy as wide as the world could have produced the
+"Gleaners," the "Sower" and the "Angelus."
+
+Millet was what he was on account of what he had endured. All art is at
+last autobiography.
+
+The laborer's cottage that he took at Barbizon had but three small, low
+rooms. These served as studio, kitchen and bedchamber. When the family
+had increased to eleven, other rooms were added, and the studio was
+transferred to the barn, there at the end of the garden.
+
+Millet had two occupations, and two recreations, he once said. In the
+mornings he worked in his garden, digging, sowing, planting, reaping. In
+the afternoons he painted--painted until the sun got too low to afford
+the necessary light; then he went for his daily solitary walk through the
+woods and fields, coming back at dark. After supper he helped his wife
+with the housework, put the children to bed, and then sat and read until
+the clock struck midnight.
+
+This was his simple life. Very slowly, recognition came that way.
+Theodore Rousseau, himself a great artist, and a man too great for
+jealousy, spread his fame, and the faithful Sensier in Paris lost no
+opportunity to aid his friend by the use of a commercial shrewdness in
+which Millet was woefully lacking.
+
+Then came Corot, Daubigny, Diaz and others of giant stature, to Barbizon,
+and when they went back to Paris they told of Millet and his work. And
+then we find Meissonier, the proud, knocking at the gate of Le Grand
+Rustique.
+
+It is pleasant to recall that Americans were among the first to recognize
+the value of Millet's art. His "Sower" is the chief gem of the Vanderbilt
+collection; and the "Angelus" has been thought much more of in France
+since America so unreservedly set her seal upon it.
+
+Millet died in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-five.
+
+It was only during the last ten years of his life that he felt
+financially free, and even then he was far from passing rich. After his
+death his fame increased, and pictures he had sold for twenty dollars,
+soon changed hands for as many hundred.
+
+Englishmen say that America grew Millet-mad, and it may be true that our
+admiration tipped a bit to t' other side; yet the fabulous prices were
+not always paid by Americans--the rich men of earth vied with each other
+for the possession of a "Millet."
+
+The "Gleaners" was bought by the French Government for three hundred
+thousand francs, and is now in the Louvre "in perpetuity." This sum paid
+for this one picture represents a larger amount of money than passed
+through the hands of Millet during his entire life; and yet it is not
+one-half what another "Millet" brought. The "Angelus" was sold for the
+sum of eight hundred thousand francs--a larger amount than was ever
+before paid for a single canvas.
+
+It is idle to say that no picture is worth such a sum. Anything is worth
+what some one else will pay for it.
+
+The number of "Millets," it may be explained, is limited, and with men in
+America who have incomes of ten million dollars or more a year, no sane
+man dare prophesy what price the "Sower" may yet command.
+
+Millet himself, were he here, would be aghast at the prices paid for his
+work, and he would turn, too, with disfavor from the lavish adulation
+bestowed upon his name.
+
+This homely, simple artist was a profound thinker; a sympathetic dreamer;
+a noble-hearted, generous man; so truthful and lovable that his virtues
+have been counted a weakness; and so they are--for the planet Earth.
+
+
+
+
+JOSHUA REYNOLDS
+
+     To make it people's interest to advance you, by showing that
+     their business will be better done by you than by any other
+     person, is the only solid foundation of success; the rest is
+     accident.
+
+    --_Reynolds to His Nephew_
+
+[Illustration: JOSHUA REYNOLDS]
+
+
+On the curious little river Plym, five miles from Plymouth, is the hamlet
+of Plympton. It is getting on towards two hundred years since Joshua
+Reynolds was born there. The place has not changed so very much with the
+centuries: there still stand the quaint stone houses, built on arches
+over the sidewalk, and there, too, is the old Norman church with its high
+mullioned windows. Chester shows the best example of that very early
+architecture, and Plympton is Chester done in pigmy.
+
+The birthplace of Reynolds is one of these houses in the "Row"; a
+greengrocer now has the lower floor of the house for his shop, while his
+numerous family live upstairs.
+
+The Reverend Samuel Reynolds also had a numerous family--there being
+eleven children--so the present occupation is a realistic restoration of
+a previous condition.
+
+The grocer has a leaning toward art, for his walls are well papered with
+chromos and posters; and as he sold a cabbage to a good housewife he
+nipped off a leaf for a pen of rabbits that stood in the doorway, and
+talked to me glibly of Reynolds and Gainsborough. The grocer considers
+Gainsborough the greater artist, and surely his fame is wide, like unto
+the hat--hated by theater-goers--that his name has rendered deathless,
+and which certain unkind ones declare has given him immortality. Joshua
+was the seventh child in the brood of five boys and six girls. The fond
+parents set him apart for the Church, and to that end he was placed in
+the Plympton Grammar-School, and made to "do" fifty lines of Ovid a day.
+
+The old belief that to translate Latin with facility was the true test of
+genius has fallen somewhat into desuetude, yet there are a few who still
+hold to the idea that to reason, imagine and invent are not the tests of
+a man's powers; he must conjugate, decline and derive. But Grant Allen,
+possessor of three college degrees, avers that a man may not even be able
+to read and write, and yet have a very firm mental grasp on the eternal
+verities.
+
+Anyway, Joshua Reynolds did not like Latin. He hated the set task of
+fifty lines, and hated the system that imposed a fine of twenty lines for
+a failure to fulfil the first.
+
+The fines piled up until young Joshua, aged twelve, goin' on thirteen,
+went into such hopeless bankruptcy that he could not pay tuppence on the
+pound.
+
+We have a sheet of this Latin done at that time, in a cramped, schoolboy
+hand, starting very bold and plain, and running off into a tired blot and
+scrawl. On the bottom of the page is a picture, and under this is a line
+written by the father: "This is drawn by Joshua in school out of pure
+idleness." The Reverend Samuel had no idea that his own name would live
+in history simply because he was the father of this idle boy.
+
+Still, the clergyman showed that he was a man of good sense, for he
+acceded to the lad's request to let the Latin slide. This conclusion no
+doubt was the easier arrived at after the master of the school had
+explained that the proper education of such a youth was quite hopeless.
+
+All the Reynolds children drew pictures and most of them drew better than
+Joshua. But Joshua did not get along well at school, and so he felt the
+necessity of doing something.
+
+It is a great blessing to be born into a family where strict economy of
+time and money is necessary. The idea that nothing shall be wasted, and
+that each child must carve out for himself a career, is a thrice-blessed
+heritage.
+
+Rich parents are an awful handicap to youth, and few indeed there be who
+have the strength to stand prosperity; especially is this true when
+prosperity is not achieved, but thrust upon them.
+
+Joshua got hold of a copy of Richardson's "Theory of Painting," and found
+therein that the author prophesied the rise of a great school of English
+painters.
+
+Joshua thought about it, talked with his brothers and sisters about it,
+and surprised his mother by asking her if she knew that there was soon
+to be a distinct school of British Art.
+
+About this time there came to the village a strolling artist by the name
+of Warmell. This man opened up a studio on the porch of the tavern and
+offered to make your picture while you wait. He did a thriving business
+in silhouettes, and patrons who were in a hurry could have their profiles
+cut out of black paper with shears and pasted on a white background in a
+jiffy--price, sixpence.
+
+Joshua struck up quite a friendship with this man and was taught all the
+tricks of the trade--even to the warning that in drawing the portrait of
+a homely man it is not good policy to make a really homely picture.
+
+The best-paying pewholder in the Reverend Samuel Reynolds' church was a
+Mr. Craunch, whose picture had been made by the joint efforts of the
+strolling artist Warmell and young Reynolds. 'T was a very beautiful
+picture, although it is not on record that Mr. Craunch was a handsome
+man.
+
+Warmell refused to take pay for Craunch's picture, claiming that he felt
+it was pay enough to have the honor of such a great man sitting to him.
+This remark proved to Craunch that Warmell was a discerning person and
+they were very soon on intimate terms of friendship. Mr. Craunch gave Mr.
+Warmell orders to paint pictures of the Craunch family. One day Warmell
+called the great man's attention to the fact that young Reynolds, his
+volunteer assistant, had ambitions in an art way that could not be
+gratified unless some great and good man stepped in and played the part
+of a Maecenas.
+
+In fact, Joshua wanted to go to London and study with Hudson, the
+son-in-law and pupil of Richardson, the eminent author who wrote the
+"Theory of Painting." Warmell felt sure that after a few months, with his
+help, young Reynolds could get the technique and the color-scheme, and a'
+that, and the firm of Warmell and Reynolds could open a studio in
+Plymouth or Portsmouth and secure many good orders.
+
+Craunch listened with patience and advised with the boy's parents.
+
+The next week he took the lad up to London and entered him as a pupil
+with the great Hudson, who could not paint much of a picture himself, but
+for a consideration was willing to show others how.
+
+Rumor has it that Warmell got a certain sum in English gold for all
+pupils he sent to Hudson's studio, but I take no stock in such
+insinuations.
+
+Warmell here disappears from mortal view, like one of those stage
+trapdoor vanishings of Mephisto--only Mephisto usually comes back, but
+Warmell never did.
+
+Reynolds was very happy at Hudson's studio. He was only seventeen years
+old when he arrived there, fresh from the country. London was a marvel of
+delight to Joshua; the shops, theaters, galleries and exhibitions were a
+never-ending source of joy. He worked with diligence, and probably got
+more for his money than any one of Hudson's fifty pupils. Hudson was
+well-to-do, dignified and kind. His place was full of casts and classic
+fragments, and when he had set his pupils to copying these he considered
+his day's work done.
+
+Joshua wrote glowing letters home, telling of all he did. "While I am at
+work I am the happiest creature alive," he said. Hudson set Joshua to
+copying Guercino's works, and kept the lad at it so steadily that he was
+really never able to draw from Nature correctly thereafter.
+
+After a year, Craunch came up from the country to see how his ward was
+getting along. Joshua showed him the lions of the city; and painted his
+picture, making so fine a portrait that when Mr. Craunch got back home he
+threw away the one made by Warmell.
+
+Once at an exhibition Joshua met Alexander Pope, whom he had seen several
+times at Hudson's studio. Pope remembered him and shook hands. Joshua was
+so inflated by the honor that he hastened home to write a letter to his
+mother and tell her all about it.
+
+According to the terms of agreement with Hudson, Joshua was bound to stay
+four years; but now two years had passed, and one fine day in sudden
+wrath Hudson told him to pack up his kit and go.
+
+The trouble was that Joshua could paint better than Hudson--every pupil
+in the school knew it. When the scholars wanted advice they went to
+Reynolds, and some of them, being sons of rich men, paid Reynolds for
+helping them.
+
+Then Reynolds had painted a few portraits on his own account and had kept
+the money, as he had a perfect right to do. Hudson said he hadn't, for he
+was bound as an apprentice to him.
+
+"But only during working-hours," replied young Reynolds. We can hardly
+blame Hudson for sending him away--no master wants a pupil around who
+sees all over, above and beyond him, and who can do better work than he.
+It's confusing, and tends to rob the master of the deification that is
+his due.
+
+Reynolds had remained long enough--it was time for him to go.
+
+He went back to Devonshire, and Craunch, the biggest man in Plympton,
+took him over to Lord Edgecumbe, the biggest man in Plymouth.
+
+Craunch carried along the portrait of himself that Joshua had made, and
+asked milord if he didn't want one just like it. Edgecumbe said he surely
+did, and asked Joshua if he painted the picture all alone by himself.
+
+Joshua smiled.
+
+Lord Edgecumbe had a beautiful house, and to have a good picture of
+himself, and a few choice old ancestors on the walls, he thought would be
+very fine.
+
+Joshua took up his abode in the Edgecumbe mansion, the better to do his
+work.
+
+He was a handsome youth, nearly twenty years old, with bright, beaming
+eyes, a slight but compact form, and brown curls that came to his
+shoulders. His London life had given him a confidence in himself, and in
+his manner there was a grace and poise flavored with a becoming
+diffidence.
+
+A man who can do things well should assume a modesty, even if he has it
+not. If you can write well, do not talk--leave that to the man who can do
+nothing else. If you can paint, let your work speak for you.
+
+Joshua Reynolds was young, but he was an artist in diplomacy. His talent,
+his modesty, his youth, his beauty, won the hearts of the entire
+Edgecumbe household.
+
+He painted portraits of all the family; and of course all the visitors
+were called upon to admire, not only the pictures, but the painter as
+well.
+
+A studio was opened in one of Lord Edgecumbe's buildings at Plymouth, and
+he painted portraits of all the great folks thereabout.
+
+On Christmas-Day, Seventeen Hundred Forty-six, the Reverend Samuel
+Reynolds died, but before his death he fully realized that one of his
+children was well on the way to fame and fortune.
+
+The care of the broken family now devolved on Joshua, but his income was
+several times as much as his father had ever earned, and his
+responsibilities were carried lightly.
+
+While at the house of Lord Edgecumbe, Reynolds had met young Commodore
+Keppel. In Seventeen Hundred Forty-nine, Keppel was placed in command of
+the Mediterranean fleet, with orders to clear the seas of the Barbary
+pirates. Keppel invited Reynolds to join him on board the "Centurion" as
+his guest.
+
+Gladly he accepted, and they sailed away for the Orient with a cabin
+stocked with good things, and enough brushes, paints, canvases and easels
+to last several painters a lifetime.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was three years before Reynolds came back to Plymouth. He had visited
+Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Port Mahon and Minorca. At the two last-named
+places there were British garrisons, and Reynolds set to work making
+portraits of the officers. For this he was so well paid that he decided
+to visit Italy instead of voyaging farther with his friend Keppel.
+
+He then journeyed on to Naples, Rome, Venice, Pisa and Florence, stopping
+in each city for several months, immersing himself in the art atmosphere
+of the place. Returning to Rome, he remained there two years, studying
+and copying the works of Raphael, Angelo, Titian and other masters.
+
+Occasionally, he sold his copies of masterpieces, and by practising
+strict economy managed to live in a fair degree of comfort.
+
+Rome is the hottest place in Summer and the coldest in Winter of which I
+know. The average Italian house has a damp and chill in Winter which
+clutches the tourist and makes him long for home and native land. Imagine
+a New England farmhouse in March with only a small dish-pan of coals to
+warm it, and you have Rome in Winter.
+
+Rome, with its fever in Summer and rheumatism and pneumonia in Winter,
+has sent many an artist to limbus. Joshua Reynolds escaped the damp of
+the Vatican with nothing worse than a deafness that caused him to carry
+an ear-trumpet for the rest of his life.
+
+But now he was back at Plymouth. Lord Edgcumbe looked over the work he
+had brought and called into the ear-trumpet that a man who could paint
+like that was a fool to remain in a country town: he should go to London
+and vanquish all such alleged artists as Hudson.
+
+Keppel had gotten back to England, and he and Edgcumbe had arranged that
+Reynolds should pitch his tent in the heart of artistic London. So a
+handsome suite of apartments was secured in Saint Martin's Lane.
+
+The first work undertaken seems to have been that full-length portrait of
+Commodore Keppel. The picture shows the Commodore standing on a rocky
+shore, issuing orders to unseen hosts. There is an energy, dash and
+heroism pictured in the work that at once caught the eye of the public.
+
+"Have you seen Keppel's portrait?" asked Edgcumbe of every one he met.
+
+Invitations were sent out to call at Joshua Reynold's studio and see
+"Keppel." There were a good many pictures displayed there, but "Keppel"
+was placed in a small room, set apart, rightly focused, properly draped,
+and lighted only by candles, that stood in silver candle-sticks, and
+which were solemnly snuffed by a detailed marine, six foot three, in a
+red coat, with a formidable hanger at his side. Only a few persons were
+admitted at a time and on entering the room all you saw was the valiant
+form of the doughty Commodore, the sea-mist in his face and the wild
+winds blowing his locks. The big marine on guard in the shadow added the
+last realistic touch, and the gentlemen visitors removed their hats and
+the ladies talked in whispers--they all expected Keppel to speak, and
+they wished to hear what he would say.
+
+It is a great thing to paint a beautiful picture, but 't is a more
+difficult feat to hypnotize the public into accepting the fact.
+
+The live Keppel was pointed out on the street as the man who had had his
+picture taken.
+
+Now, people do not have portraits painted simply because they want
+portraits painted: they want these portraits shown and admired.
+
+To have Reynolds paint your portrait might prove a repetition of the
+Keppel--who knows!
+
+Sitters came and a secretary in livery took their names and made
+appointments, as is done today in the office of a prosperous dentist.
+
+Joshua Reynolds was young and strong, and he worked while it was called
+the day. He worked from sunrise until sunset.
+
+That first year in London he produced one hundred twenty portraits,
+besides painting various other pictures. This he could not have done
+without the assistance of a most loyal helper.
+
+This helper was Giuseppe Marchi.
+
+There are a half-dozen biographies of Reynolds, and from Boswell,
+Walpole and Burney, Gossips-in-Ordinary, we have vivid glimpses into his
+life and habits. Then we have his own journal, and hundreds of letters;
+but nowhere do we get a frank statement of the assistance rendered him by
+Giuseppe Marchi.
+
+When Reynolds was in Rome, aged twenty-one, he fell in with a
+tatterdemalion, who proffered his service as guide. Rome is full of such
+specimens, and the type is one that has not changed in five hundred
+years.
+
+Reynolds tossed the lad a copper, and the ragged one showed his fine
+white teeth in a gladsome grin and proffered information. He clung to the
+visitor all that afternoon, and the next morning when Reynolds started
+out with his sketching-outfit, the youngster was sitting on his doorstep.
+So they fared forth, Giuseppe carrying the kit.
+
+Reynolds knew but little Italian--the boy taught him more. The boy knew
+every corner of Rome, and was deep in the history of the Eternal
+City--all he knew was Rome.
+
+Joshua taught the youngster to sketch, and after the first few days there
+in Rome. Joshua rigged Giuseppe up an easel, and where went Joshua there
+also went Giuseppe.
+
+Joshua got a bit ashamed of his partner's attire and bought him better
+raiment.
+
+When Reynolds left Rome on his homeward march, there, too, tagged the
+faithful Giuseppe.
+
+After several months they reached Lyons, and Joshua counted his money.
+There was only enough to pay his fare by the diligence to Paris, with a
+few francs over for food. He told Giuseppe that he could not take him
+farther, and emptying his pockets of all his coppers, and giving him his
+best silk handkerchief and a sketching-outfit, they cried down each
+other's backs, kissed each other on both cheeks in the Italian fashion,
+and parted.
+
+It took eight days to reach Paris by the diligence, and Joshua only got
+through by stopping one day and bartering a picture for sundry loaves of
+necessary bread.
+
+But he had friends in Paris, influential friends. And when he reached the
+home of these influential friends, there on the curbstone sat Giuseppe,
+awaiting his coming, with the silk handkerchief knotted loosely about his
+neck!
+
+Giuseppe had thrown away the painting-kit and walked the three hundred
+miles in eight days, begging or stealing by the way the food he needed.
+
+When Joshua Reynolds opened his studio in Saint Martin's Lane, his
+faithful helper was Giuseppe Marchi. Giuseppe painted just as Joshua did,
+and just as well.
+
+When sitters came, Giuseppe was only a valet: he cleaned the brushes,
+polished the knives, ran for water and hovered near to do his master's
+bidding. He was the only person allowed in the model-room, and all the
+time he was there his keen eyes made a correct and proper estimate of the
+sitter. Listening to no conversation, seeing nothing, he yet heard
+everything and nothing escaped his glance.
+
+When the sitting, which occupied an hour, was over, Giuseppe took the
+picture into another room, and filled in the background and drapery just
+as he knew it should be.
+
+"Marchi does not sign and date the portraits, but he does all the rest,"
+said Garrick. And "Little Burney," treading on thinner ice, once
+remarked, "If Sir Joshua ever embraces a fair sitter and imprints upon
+her forehead a chaste kiss, I am sure that Giuseppe Marchi will never
+tell."
+
+It is too late to accuse Sir Joshua Reynolds of ingratitude towards
+Giuseppe; he was grateful, and once referred to Marchi as "an angel sent
+from God to help me do my work." But he paid Marchi valet's wages and
+treated him like a servant. Possibly this was the part of expedience, for
+had Marchi ever gotten it into his head that he could paint as well as
+Sir Joshua he would have been worthless as a helper.
+
+For forty years they were never separated.
+
+Cotton disposes of Giuseppe Marchi by saying, "He was a clever colorist,
+but incapable of doing independent work." Cotton might, however, have
+told the whole simple truth, and that was that Marchi was hands, feet,
+eyes and ears for his master--certain it is that without his help Sir
+Joshua could never have attained the fame and fortune he did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In selecting his time for a career, Joshua Reynolds showed good judgment.
+He went into public favor on a high tide. England was prosperous, and
+there was in the air a taste for the polite arts. Literature was becoming
+a fad.
+
+Within a short time there had appeared Gray's "Elegy," Smollett's
+"Peregrine Pickle," Fielding's "Amelia" and Richardson's "Clarissa
+Harlowe." Here was menu to fit most palates, and the bill-of-fare was
+duly discussed in all social gatherings of the upper circles. The
+afflicted ones fed on Gray; the repentant quoted Richardson; while
+Smollett and Fielding were read aloud in parlor gatherings where fair
+ladies threatened to leave the room--but didn't. Out at Strawberry Hill,
+his country home, Horace Walpole was running that little printing-shop,
+making books that are now priceless, and writing long, gossipy letters
+that body forth the spirit of the time, its form and pressure. The
+Dilettante Society, composed of young noblemen devoted to high art and
+good-fellowship, was discussing a scheme for a National Academy. Garrick
+was at the height of his fame; Hogarth was doing for art what Smollett
+did for literature; while two young Irishmen, Burke and Goldsmith, were
+getting ready to make English letters illustrious; Hudson was painting
+portraits with a stencil; Gainsborough was immortalizing a hat; Doctor
+Johnson was waiting in the entry of Lord Chesterfield's mansion with the
+prospectus of a dictionary; and pretty Kitty Fisher had kicked the hat
+off the head of the Prince of Wales on a wager.
+
+And so into this atmosphere of seething life came Joshua Reynolds, the
+handsome, gracious, silent, diplomatic Reynolds. Fresh from Italy and the
+far-off islands of the Southern seas where Ulysses sailed, he came--his
+name and fame heralded as the Raphael of England.
+
+To have your portrait painted by Reynolds was considered a proper
+"entree" into the "bon ton." To attempt to give the names of royalty who
+sat to him would be to present a transcript of Burke's Peerage.
+
+Unlike Van Dyck, at whose shrine Reynolds worshiped, Reynolds was coldly
+diplomatic in his relations with his sitters. He talked but little,
+because he could not hear, and to hold an ear-trumpet and paint with both
+hands is rather difficult. On the moment when the sitting was over, the
+patron was bowed out. The good ladies who lay in wait with love's lariat
+never found an opportunity to make the throw.
+
+Reynolds' specialty was women and children. No man has ever pictured them
+better, and with him all women were kind. Not only were they good, but
+good-looking; and when arms lacked contour, or busts departed from the
+ideal, Kitty Fisher or Nelly O'Brien came at the call of Marchi and lent
+their charms to complete the canvas.
+
+Reynolds gradually raised his prices until he received fifteen guineas
+for a head, one hundred for a half-length, and one hundred and fifty for
+a full-length. And so rapidly did he work that often a picture was
+completed in four hours.
+
+Usually, success is a zigzag journey, but it was not so with Reynolds.
+From Seventeen Hundred Fifty-seven to Seventeen Hundred Eighty-eight, his
+income was never less than thirty thousand dollars a year, and his
+popularity knew no eclipse.
+
+About the time the American Stamp Act was being pushed through
+Parliament, Reynolds' studio was the neutral stamping-ground for both
+parties.
+
+Copley, the Boston artist, gave Reynolds a bias in favor of truth; and
+when Townshend, the man who introduced the Stamp Act in Parliament, sat
+to Sir Joshua, the artist and sitter forgot their business and wrangled
+over politics. Soon afterward Sir Joshua made a bet with Townshend, a
+thousand pounds against five, that George Washington would never enter
+Reynolds' studio. This was in response to the boast that Washington would
+soon be brought to England a captive, and Townshend would conduct him to
+Reynolds to have his picture taken.
+
+The bet made a sensation and Reynolds offered to repeat it to all comers;
+and a score or more of sincere men paid over five pounds into the hands
+of Sir Joshua, and took his note for one thousand pounds, payable when
+Washington landed in England a prisoner.
+
+Old Ursa Major had small patience with Reynolds' political prophecies;
+he called America a land of pirates and half-breed cutthroats, and would
+have bet Sir Joshua to a standstill--only he had conscientious scruples
+about betting, and besides, hadn't any money.
+
+Goldsmith and Burke, of course, sided with Reynolds in his American
+sympathies, and Garrick referred to them as "My friends, the three Irish
+Gentlemen."
+
+A frequent visitor at the studio at this time was Angelica Kauffman, who
+deserves a volume instead of a mere mention. She came up from
+Switzerland, unknown, and made her way to the highest artistic circles in
+London. She had wit and beauty, and painted so well that Reynolds
+admitted she taught him a few tricks in the use of color. She produced
+several portraits of Reynolds, and Reynolds painted several of her; and
+the daughter of Thackeray wrote a novel which turns on the assumption
+that they were lovers.
+
+There certainly was a fine comradeship existing between them; but whether
+Reynolds was ever capable of an all-absorbing passion there is much
+doubt. He was married to his work.
+
+Reynolds had many intimate friends among women: Peg Woffington, Mrs.
+Clive, Mrs. Thrale, Hannah More, Fanny Burney and others. With them all
+there went the same high, chivalrous and generous disinterestedness. He
+was a friend to each in very fact.
+
+When the Royal Academy was formed in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight,
+Reynolds was made its president, and this office he held until the close
+of his life. He was not one of the chief promoters of the Academy at the
+beginning, and the presidency was half forced upon him. He might have
+declined the honor then had the King not made him a knight, and showed
+that it was his wish that Reynolds should accept. Sir Joshua, however,
+had more ballast in his character than any other painter of his time, and
+it was plain that without his name at the head the Academy would be a
+thing for smiles and quiet jokes.
+
+The thirty-four charter members included the names of two Americans,
+Copley and West, and of one woman, Angelica Kauffman.
+
+And it is here worthy of note that although the Methodist Church still
+refuses to allow women to sit as delegates in its General Conference,
+yet, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight, no dissent was made when Joshua
+Reynolds suggested the name of a woman as a member of the Royal Academy.
+
+Sir Joshua did not forget his friends at the time honors were given out,
+for he secured the King's permission to add several honorary members to
+the Academy--men who couldn't paint, but who still expressed themselves
+well in other ways.
+
+Doctor Johnson was made Professor of Ancient Literature; Oliver
+Goldsmith, Professor of Ancient History; and Richard Dalton, Librarian.
+
+In this case the office did not seek the man: the man was duly measured,
+and the office manufactured to fit him.
+
+When Sir Joshua died, in February, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-two, it was
+the close of a success so uninterrupted that it seems unequaled in the
+history of art. He left a fortune equal to considerably more than half a
+million dollars; he had contributed valuable matter to the cause of
+literature; he had been the earnest friend of all workers in the cause of
+letters, music and art; and had also been the intimate adviser and
+confidant of royalty. He was generous and affectionate, wise and sincere;
+a cheerful and tireless worker--one in whom the elements were so well
+mixed that all the world might say, This was a man!
+
+
+
+
+LANDSEER
+
+     The man behind his work was seen through it--sensitive, variously
+     gifted, manly, genial, tender-hearted, simple and unaffected; a
+     lover of animals, children and humanity; and if any one wishes to
+     see at a glance nearly all we have written, let him look at
+     Landseer's portrait, painted by himself, with a canine
+     connoisseur on either side.
+
+    --_Monkhouse_
+
+[Illustration: LANDSEER]
+
+
+Happy lives make dull biographies. Young women with ambitions should be
+very cautious lest mayhap they be caught in the soft, silken mesh of a
+happy marriage, and go down to oblivion, dead to the world.
+
+"Miss Pott--the beautiful Miss Pott," they called her. The biographers
+didn't take time to give her first name, nor recount her pedigree, so
+rapt were they with her personality. They only say, "She was tall,
+willowy and lissome; and Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her picture as a
+peasant beauty, bearing on her well-poised head a sheaf of corn."
+
+It was at the house of Macklin, the rich publisher, that John Landseer,
+the engraver, met Miss Pott. She was artistic in all her instincts; and
+as she knew the work of the brilliant engraver and named his best pieces
+without hesitation he grew interested. Men grow interested when you know
+and appreciate their work; sometimes they grow more interested, at which
+time they are also interesting.
+
+And so it came about that they were married, the beautiful Miss Pott and
+John Landseer, and it can also be truthfully added that they were happy
+ever afterward.
+
+But that was the last of Miss Pott. Her husband was so strong, so
+self-centered, so capable, that he protected her from every fierce wind,
+and gratified her every wish. She believed in him thoroughly and
+conformed her life to his. Her personality was lost in him. The
+biographer scarcely refers to her, save when he is obliged to,
+indirectly, to record that she became the mother of three fine girls, and
+the same number of boys, equally fine, by name, Thomas, Charles and
+Edwin.
+
+Thomas and Charles grew to be strong, learned and useful men, so
+accomplished in literature and art that their names would shine bright on
+history's page, were they not thrown into the shadow by the youngest
+brother.
+
+Before Edwin Landseer was twenty years of age he was known throughout the
+United Kingdom as "Landseer." John Landseer was known as "the father of
+Landseer," and the others were "the brothers of Landseer."
+
+And when once in Piccadilly, the beautiful Miss Pott (that was) was
+pointed out as "the mother of Landseer," the words warmed the heart of
+the good woman like wine. To be the wife of a great man, and the mother
+of a greater was career enough--she was very happy.
+
+Queen Anne Street, near Cavendish Square, is a shabby district, with long
+lines of plain brick houses built for revenue only.
+
+But Queen Anne Street is immortal to all lovers of art because it was the
+home of Turner; and within its dark, dull and narrow confines were
+painted the most dazzlingly beautiful canvases that the world has ever
+seen. And yet again the street has another claim on our grateful
+remembrance, for at Number Eighty-three was born, on March Seventh,
+Eighteen Hundred Two, Edwin Landseer.
+
+The father of Landseer was an enthusiastic lover of art. He had sprung
+from a long line of artistic workers in precious metals; and to use a
+pencil with skill he regarded as the chief end of man.
+
+Long before his children knew their letters, they were taught to make
+pictures. Indeed, all children can make pictures before they can write.
+For a play-spell, each day John Landseer and his boys tramped across
+Hampstead Heath to where there were donkeys, sheep, goats and cows
+grazing; then all four would sit down on the grass before some chosen
+subject and sketch the patient model.
+
+Edwin Landseer's first loving recollections of his father went back to
+these little excursions across the Heath. And for each boy to take back
+to his mother and sisters a picture of something they had seen was a
+great joy.
+
+"Well, boys, what shall we draw today?" the father would ask at
+breakfast-time.
+
+And then they would all vote on it, and arguments in favor of goat or
+donkey were eloquently and skilfully set forth.
+
+I said that a very young child could draw pictures: standing by my chair
+as I write this line is a chubby little girl, just four years old, in a
+check dress, with two funny little braids down her back. She is begging
+me for this pencil that she may "make a pussy-cat for Mamma to put in a
+frame."
+
+What boots it that the little girl's "pussy-cat" has five or six legs and
+three tails--these are all inferior details.
+
+The evolution of the individual mirrors the evolution of the race, and
+long before races began to write or reason they made pictures.
+
+Art education had better begin young, for then it is a sort of play; and
+good artistic work, Robert Louis Stevenson once said, is only useful
+play.
+
+Probably Edwin Landseer's education began a hundred years before he was
+born; but his technical instruction in art began when he was three years
+old, when his father would take him out on the Heath and placing him on
+the grass, put pencil and paper in his hand and let him make a picture of
+a goat nibbling the grass.
+
+Then the boy noted for himself that a goat had a short tail, a cow a
+switch-tail, and horses had no horns, and that a ram's horns were unlike
+those of a goat.
+
+He had begun to differentiate and compare--and not yet four years old!
+
+When five years of age he could sketch a sleeping dog as it lay on the
+floor better than could Thomas, his brother, who was seven years older.
+
+We know the deep personal interest that John Landseer felt in the boy,
+for he preserved his work, and today in the South Kensington Museum we
+can see a series of sketches made by Edwin Landseer, running from his
+fifth year to manhood.
+
+Thus do we trace the unfolding of his genius.
+
+That young Landseer's drawing was a sort of play there is no doubt.
+People who set very young children at tasks of grubbing out cold facts
+from books come plainly within the province of the Society for the
+Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and should be looked after, but to do
+things with one's hands for fun is only a giving direction to the natural
+energies.
+
+Before Edwin Landseer was eight years of age his father had taught him
+the process of etching, and we see that even then the lad had a vivid
+insight into the character of animals. He drew pictures of pointers,
+mastiffs, spaniels and bulldogs, and gave to each the right expression.
+
+The Landseers owned several dogs, and what they did not own they
+borrowed; and once we know that Charles and Thomas "borrowed" a mastiff
+without the owner's consent.
+
+All children go through the scissors age, when they cut out of magazines,
+newspapers or books all the pictures they can find, so as to add to the
+"collection." Often these youthful collectors have specialties: one will
+collect pictures of animals, another of machinery, and still another of
+houses. But usually it is animals that attract.
+
+Scissors were forbidden in the Landseer household, and if the boys wanted
+pictures they had to make them.
+
+And they made them.
+
+They drew horses, sheep, donkeys, cattle, dogs; and when their father
+took them to the Zoological Garden it was only that they might bring back
+trophies in the way of lions and tigers.
+
+Then we find that there was once a curiosity exhibited in Fleet Street in
+the way of a lion-cub that had been caught in Africa and mothered by a
+Newfoundland dog. The old mother-dog thought just as much of the orphan
+that was placed among her brood as of her sure-enough children. The owner
+had never allowed the two animals to be separated, and when the lion had
+grown to be twice the size of his foster-mother there still existed
+between the two a fine affection.
+
+The stepmother exercised a stepmother's rights, and occasionally
+chastised, for his own good, her overgrown charge, and the big brute
+would whimper and whine like a lubberly boy.
+
+This curious pair of animals made a great impression on the Landseers.
+The father and three boys sketched them in various attitudes, and
+engravings of Edwin's sketch are still to be had.
+
+And so wherever in London animals were to be found, there, too, were the
+Landseers with pencils and brushes, and pads and palettes.
+
+In the back yard of the house where the Landseers lived were sundry pens
+of pet rabbits; in the attic were pigeons, and dogs of various breeds lay
+on the doorstep sleeping in the sun, or barked at you out of the windows.
+
+It is reported that John Landseer once contemplated a change of
+residence; he selected the house he wanted, bargained with the landlord,
+agreed as to terms and handed out his card preparatory to signing a
+lease.
+
+The real-estate agent looked at the name, stuttered, stammered, and
+finally said: "You must excuse me, Sir, but they say as how you are a
+dealer in dogs, and your boys are dog-catchers! You'll excuse me--but--I
+just now 'appened to think the 'ouse is already took!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Landseers moved from Queen Anne Street to Foley Street, near
+Burlington House. This was a neighborhood of artists, and for neighbors
+they had West, Mulready, Northcote, Constable, Flaxman and our own
+picturesque Allston, of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
+
+The Elgin Marbles were then kept at Burlington House, and these were a
+great source of inspiration to the Landseer boys. It gave them a true
+taste of the Grecian, and knowing a little about Greece, they wanted to
+know more. Greece became the theme--they talked it at breakfast, dinner
+and supper. The father and mother told them all they knew, and guessed at
+a few things more, and to keep at least one lesson ahead of the children
+the parents "crammed for examination."
+
+Edwin sketched that world-famous horse's head from the Parthenon, and the
+figures of horses and animals in bas-relief that formed the frieze; and
+the boys figured out in their minds why horses and men were all the same
+height.
+
+Gradually it dawned upon the father and the brothers that Edwin was their
+master so far as drawing was concerned. They could sketch a Newfoundland
+dog that would pass for anybody's Newfoundland, but Edwin's was a certain
+identical dog, and none other.
+
+Edwin Landseer really discovered the dog.
+
+He discovered that dogs of one breed may be very different in temper and
+disposition; and going further he found that dogs have character and
+personality. He struck an untouched lode and worked it out to his own
+delight and the delight of great numbers of others.
+
+His pictures were not mystical, profound or problematic--simply dogs, but
+dogs with feelings, affections, jealousies, prejudices. In short, he
+showed that dogs, after all, are very much like folks; and from this,
+people with a turn for psychology reasoned that the source of life in the
+dog was the same as the source of life in man.
+
+Plain people who owned a dog beloved by the whole household, as household
+dogs always are, became interested in Landseer's dogs. They could not buy
+a painting by Landseer, but they could spare a few shillings for an
+engraving.
+
+And so John Landseer began to reproduce the pictures of Edwin's dogs.
+
+The demand grew, and Thomas now ceased to sketch and devoted all his time
+to etching and engraving his brother's work.
+
+Every one knew of Landseer, even people who cared nothing for art: they
+wanted a picture of one of his dogs to hang over the chimney, because the
+dog looked like one they used to own.
+
+Then rich people came and wanted Edwin to paint a portrait of their dog,
+and a studio was opened where the principal sitters were dogs. From a
+position where close economy must be practised, the Landseers found
+themselves with more money than they knew what to do with.
+
+Edwin was barely twenty, but had exhibited at several Royal Academy
+Exhibitions and his name was on every tongue. He gave no attention to
+marketing his wares--his father and brothers did all that--he simply
+sketched and had a good time. He was healthy, strong, active, and could
+walk thirty miles a day; but now that riches had come that way he bought
+a horse and rode.
+
+Then other horses were presented to him, and he began to picture horses,
+too. That he knew horses and loved them is evidenced in many a picture.
+In every village or crossroads town of America can be found copies of his
+"Shoeing," where stands the sleek bay mare, the sober, serious donkey,
+and the big dog.
+
+No painter who ever lived is so universally known as Landseer, and this
+is because his father and brothers made it their life-business to
+reproduce his work by engraving.
+
+Occasionally, rich ladies would want their own portraits painted with a
+favorite dog at their feet, or men wanted themselves portrayed on
+horseback, and so Landseer found himself with more orders than he could
+well care for. People put their names, or the name of their dog, on his
+waiting-list, and some of the dogs died of old age before the name was
+reached.
+
+"I hear," said a lady to Sydney Smith at a dinner party--"I hear you are
+to have your portrait painted by Landseer."
+
+"Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" answered the wit.
+The story went the rounds, and Mulready once congratulated the clergyman
+on the repartee.
+
+"I never made the reply," said Sydney Smith; "but I wish I had."
+
+Sydney Smith was once visiting the Landseer studio, and his eye chanced
+to light on the picture of a very peculiar-looking dog.
+
+"Yes, it's a queer picture of a queer dog. The drawing is bad enough, and
+never pleased me!" And Landseer picked up the picture and gave it a toss
+out of the window. "You may have it if you care to go get it," he
+carelessly remarked to the visitor. Smith made haste to run downstairs
+and out of the house to secure his prize. He found it lodged in the
+branches of a tree.
+
+In telling the tale years afterward, Smith remarked that, whereas many
+men had climbed trees to evade dogs, yet he alone of all men had once
+climbed a tree to secure one.
+
+Sir Walter Scott saw Landseer's picture of "The Cat's Paw," and was so
+charmed with it that he hunted out the young artist, and soon after
+invited him to Abbotsford.
+
+Leslie, the American artist, was at that time at Scott's home painting
+the novelist's portrait. This portrait, by the way, became the property
+of the Ticknor family of Boston, and was exhibited a few years ago at the
+Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
+
+Landseer, Leslie and Scott made a choice trio of congenial spirits. They
+were all "outdoor men," strong, sturdy, good-natured, and fond of boyish
+romp and frolic. Many were the long tramps they took across mountain,
+heath and heather. They visited the Highland district together, fished in
+Loch Lomond, paddled the entire length of Loch Katrine, and hunted deer
+on the preserve of Lord Gwydr.
+
+On one hunting excursion, Landseer was stationed on a runway, gun in
+hand, with a gillie in attendance. The dogs started a fine buck, which
+ran close to them, but instead of leveling his gun, Landseer shoved the
+weapon into the hands of the astonished gillie with the hurried whispered
+request, "Here, you, hold this for me!" and seizing his pencil, made a
+hasty sketch of the gallant buck ere the vision could fade from memory.
+
+In fact, both Landseer and Leslie proved poor sportsmen--they had no
+heart for killing things.
+
+A beautiful live deer was a deal more pleasing to Landseer than a dead
+one; and he might truthfully have expressed the thought of his mind by
+saying, "A bird in the bush is worth two on a woman's bonnet." And indeed
+he did anticipate Thoreau by saying, "To shoot a bird is to lose it."
+
+The idea of following deer with dogs and guns, simply for the sport of
+killing them, was repugnant to the soul of this sensitive, tender-hearted
+man.
+
+In the faces of his deer he put a look of mingled grandeur and pain--a
+half-pathos, as if foreshadowing their fate.
+
+In picturing the dogs and donkeys, he was full of jest and merriment; but
+the kings of moor and forest called forth deeper and sadder sentiments.
+
+That wild animals instinctively flee in frenzied alarm at man's approach
+is comment enough on our treatment of them.
+
+The deer, so gentle and so graceful, so innocent and so beautiful, are
+never followed by man except as a destroyer; and the idea of looking down
+a rifle-barrel into the wide-open, soulful eyes of a deer made Landseer
+sick at heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To Landseer must be given the honor of first opening a friendly
+communication between the present royal family and the artistic and
+literary world.
+
+Wild-eyed poets and rusty-looking, impecunious painters were firmly
+warned away from Balmoral. The thought that all poets and painters were
+anarchistic and dangerous--certainly disagreeable--was firmly fixed in
+the heart of the young Queen and her attendants.
+
+The barrier had first been raised to Landseer. He was requested to visit
+the palace and paint a picture of one of the Queen's deerhounds. It was
+found that the man was not hirsute, untamed or eccentric. He was a
+gentleman in manner and education--quite self-contained and manly.
+
+He was introduced to the Queen; they shook hands and talked about dogs
+and horses and things, just like old acquaintances. They loved the same
+things, and so were friends at once. It was not long before Landseer's
+near neighbors at Saint John's Wood were stricken speechless at the
+spectacle of Queen Victoria on horseback waiting at the door of
+Landseer's house, while the artist ran in to change his coat. When he
+came out he mounted one of the groom's horses for a gallop across the
+park with the Queen of England, on whose possessions the sun never sets.
+
+These rides with royalty were, however, largely a matter of professional
+study; for he not only painted a picture of the Queen on horseback, but
+of Albert as well. And at Windsor there can now be seen many pictures of
+dogs and horses painted by Landseer, with nobility incidentally
+introduced, or vice versa, if you prefer.
+
+It was in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-five that Landseer began to paint the
+pets of the royal family, and the friendly intimacy then begun continued
+up to the time of his death in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-three.
+
+In the National Academy are sixty-seven canvases by Landseer; and for the
+Queen, personally, he completed over one hundred pictures, for which he
+received a sum equal to a quarter of a million dollars.
+
+Landseer's career was one of continuous prosperity. In his life there was
+neither tragedy nor disappointment. His horses and dogs filled his
+bachelor heart, and when Tray, Blanche and Sweetheart bayed and barked
+him a welcome to that home in Saint John's Wood where he lived for just
+fifty years, he was supremely content.
+
+His fortune of three hundred thousand pounds was distributed at his
+death, as he requested, among various servants, friends and needy
+kinsmen.
+
+Landseer had no enemies, and no detractors worth mentioning. That his
+great popularity was owing to his deference to the spirit of the age goes
+without saying. He never affronted popular prejudices, and was ever alert
+to reflect the taste of his patrons. The influence of passing events was
+strong upon him: the subtlety of Turner, the spiritual vision of Fra
+Angelico, the sublime quality of soul (that scorned present reward and
+dedicated its work to time) of Michelangelo were all far from him.
+
+That he at times attempted to be humorous by dressing dogs in coats and
+trousers with pipe in mouth is to be regretted. A dog so clothed is not
+funny--the artist is.
+
+The point has also been made that in Landseer's work there was no
+progression--no evolution. His pictures of mountain scenery done in
+Scotland before he was thirty mark high tide. To him never again came the
+same sweep of joyous spirit or surge of feeling.
+
+Bank-accounts, safety and satisfaction are not the things that stir the
+emotions and sound the soul-depths. Landseer never knew the blessing of a
+noble discontent. But he contributed to the quiet joy of a million homes;
+and it is not for us to say, "It is beautiful; but is it art?" Neither
+need we ask whether the name of Landseer will endure with those of
+Raphael and Leonardo. Edwin Landseer did a great work, and the world is
+better for his having lived; for his message was one of gentleness,
+kindness and beauty.
+
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE DORE
+
+     Lacroix told Dore one day, early in his life in Paris, that he
+     should illustrate a new edition of his works in four volumes, and
+     he sent them to him. In a week Lacroix said to Dore, who had
+     called, "Well, have you begun to read my story?" "Oh! I mastered
+     that in no time; the blocks are all ready"; and while Lacroix
+     looked on stupefied, the boy dived into his pockets and piled
+     many of them on the table, saying, "The others are in a basket at
+     the door; there are three hundred in all!"
+
+    --_Blanche Roosevelt_
+
+[Illustration: GUSTAVE DORE]
+
+
+It was at the Cafe de l'Horloge in Paris. Mr. Whistler sat leaning on his
+cane, looking off into space, dreamily and wearily.
+
+He roused enough to answer the question: "Dore--Gustave Dore--an artist?
+Why, the name sounds familiar! Oh, yes, an illustrator. Ah, now I
+understand; but there is a difference between an artist and an
+illustrator, you know, my boy. Dore--yes, I knew him--he had bats in his
+belfry!"
+
+And Mr. Whistler dismissed the subject by calling for a match, and then
+smoked his cigarette in grim silence, blowing the smoke through his nose.
+
+Not liking a man, it is easy to shelve him with a joke, or to waive his
+work with a shrug and toss of the head, but not always will the ghost
+down at our bidding.
+
+In the realm of art nothing is more strange than this: genius does not
+recognize genius. Still, the word is much abused, and the man who is a
+genius to some is never so to others. In defining a genius it is easiest
+to work by the rule of elimination and show what he is not.
+
+For instance, neither Reynolds, Landseer nor Meissonier was a genius.
+These men were strong, sane, well poised--filled with energy and life.
+They were receptive and quick to grasp a suggestion or hint that could be
+turned to their advantage--to further the immediate plans they had in
+hand. They had ambition and the ability to concentrate on a thing and do
+it. Just what they focused their attention upon was largely a matter of
+accident. They had in them the capacity for success--they could have
+succeeded at anything they undertook, and they were too sensible to
+undertake a thing at which they could not succeed. They always saw light
+through at the other end.
+
+"I have success tied to the leg of my easel by a blue ribbon," said
+Meissonier.
+
+They succeeded by mathematical calculation, and the fame, name and gold
+they won was through a conscious laying hold upon the laws that bring
+these things to pass.
+
+They chose to paint pictures, and the entire energy of their natures was
+concentrated upon this one thing. Practising the art, day after day,
+month after month, year after year, they acquired a wonderful facility.
+They knew the history of art--its failures, pitfalls and successes. They
+knew the human heart--they knew what the people wanted and what they
+didn't. They set themselves to supply a demand. And all this keenness,
+combined with good taste and tireless energy, would have brought a like
+success in any one of a dozen different professions.
+
+And these are the men who give plausibility to that stern half-truth: a
+man can succeed in anything he undertakes--it is all a matter of will.
+
+But you can not count Gustave Dore in any such category. He stands alone:
+he had no predecessors, and he left no successors. We say that the artist
+has his prototype; but every rule has its exception--even this one.
+
+Gustave Dore drew pictures because he could do nothing else. He never had
+a lesson in his life, never drew from a model, could not sketch from
+Nature; accepted no one's advice; never retouched or considered his work
+after it was done; never cudgeled his brains for a subject; could read a
+book by turning the leaves; grasped all knowledge; knew all languages;
+found an immediate market for his wares and often earned a thousand
+dollars before breakfast; lived fifty years and produced over one hundred
+thousand sketches--an average of six a day; made two million dollars by
+the labor of his own hands; was knighted, flattered, proclaimed, adored,
+lauded, scorned, scoffed, hooted, maligned, and died broken-hearted.
+
+Surely you can not dispose of a man like this with a "bon mot"!
+
+Comets may be good or ill, but wise men nevertheless make note of them,
+and the fact that they once flashed their blinding light upon us must
+live in the history of things that were.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An Alsatian by birth, and a Parisian by environment, Dore is spoken of as
+of the French School, but if ever an artist belonged to no "school" it
+was Gustave Dore.
+
+His early years were spent in Strassburg, within the shadow of the
+cathedral. His father was a civil engineer--methodical, calculating,
+prosperous. The lad was the second of three sons: strong, bright,
+intelligent boys.
+
+In his travels up and down the Rhine the father often took little Gustave
+with him, and the lad came to know each wild crag, and crowning fortress,
+and bend in the river where strong men with spears and bows and arrows
+used to lie in wait. In imagination Gustave repeopled the ruins and
+filled the weird forests with curious, haunting shapes. The Rhine reeks
+with history that merges off into misty song and fable; and this folklore
+of the storied river filled the day-dreams and night-dreams of this
+curious boy.
+
+But all children have a vivid imagination, and the chief problem of
+modern education is how to conserve and direct it. As yet no scheme or
+plan or method has been devised that shows results, and the men of
+imagination seem to be those who have succeeded in spite of school. In
+Gustave Dore we have the curious spectacle of Nature keeping bright and
+fresh in the man all those strange conceptions of the child, and
+multiplying them by a man's strength.
+
+The wild imaginings of Gustave only served his father and mother with
+food for laughter; and his erratic absurdities in making pictures
+supplied the neighbors' fun.
+
+But actions that are funny in a child become disturbing in a man; he's
+cute when little, but "sassy" when older.
+
+Gustave, however, did not put away childish things. When he had reached
+the age of indiscretion--was fourteen, and had a frog in his throat, and
+was conscious of being barefoot--he still imagined things and made
+pictures of them. His father was distressed, and sought by bribes to get
+him to quit scrawling with pencil and turn his attention to logarithms
+and other useful things; but with only partial success.
+
+When fifteen he accompanied his father and older brother to Paris, where
+the older boy was to be installed in the Ecole Polytechnique. It was the
+hope of the father that, once in Paris, Gustave would consent to remain
+with his brother, and thus, by a change of base, a reform in his tastes
+would come about and he would leave the Rhine with its foolish old-woman
+tales and cease the detestable habit of picturing them.
+
+It was the first time Gustave had ever been to Paris--the first time he
+had ever visited a large city. He was fascinated, captivated, enthralled.
+Paris was fairyland and paradise. He announced to his father and brother
+that he would not return to Alsace, neither would he go to the
+Polytechnique. They told him he must do either one or the other; and as
+the father was going back home in two days, Gustave could have just
+forty-eight hours in which to decide his destiny.
+
+Passing by the office of the "Journal pour Rire," the father and son
+gaping in all the windows like true rustics, they saw announced an
+illustrated edition of "The Labors of Hercules." Some of the
+illustrations were shown in the window with the hope of tempting possible
+buyers. Gustave looked upon these illustrations with critical eye, and
+his face flushed scarlet--but he said nothing.
+
+He knew the book; aye, every tale in it, with all its possible
+variations, had long been to him a bit of true history. To him Hercules
+lived yesterday, and, confusing hearsay with memory, he was almost ready
+to swear that he was present and used a shovel when the strong man
+cleaned the Augean stables.
+
+The next morning, when his father and brother were ready to go to visit
+the Polytechnique, Gustave pleaded illness and was allowed to lie abed.
+But no sooner was he alone than he seized pencil and paper and began to
+make pictures illustrating "The Labors of Hercules."
+
+In two hours he had half a dozen pictures done, and fearing the return of
+his father he hurried with his pictures to Monsieur Philipon, director of
+the "Journal pour Rire." He shouldered past the attendants, pushed his
+way into the office of the great man, and spreading his pictures out on
+the desk cried, "Look here, sir! that is the way 'The Labors of
+Hercules' should be illustrated!"
+
+It was the action of one absorbed and lost in an idea. Had he taken
+thought he would have hesitated, been abashed, self-conscious--and
+probably been repulsed by the flunkies--before seeing Monsieur Philipon.
+It was all the sublime effrontery and conceit--or naturalness, if you
+please--of a country bumpkin who did not know his place.
+
+Philipon glanced at the pictures and then looked at the boy. Then he
+looked at the pictures. He called to another man in an adjoining room and
+they both looked at the pictures. Then they consulted in an undertone. It
+was suggested that the boy draw another illustration right there and
+then. They wished to make sure that he himself did the work, and they
+wanted to see how long it took.
+
+Gustave sat down and drew another picture.
+
+Philipon refused to let the lad leave the office, and dispatched a
+messenger for his father. When the father arrived, a contract was drawn
+up and signed, whereby it was provided that the "infant" should remain
+with Philipon for three years, on a yearly salary of five thousand
+francs, with the proviso that the lad should attend the school, Lycee
+Charlemagne, for four hours every day.
+
+Thus, while yet a child, without discipline or the friendly instruction
+that wisdom might have lent, he was launched on the tossing tide of
+commercial life.
+
+His "Hercules" was immediately published and made a most decided hit--a
+palpable hit. Paris wanted more, and Philipon wished to supply the
+demand. The new artist's pictures in the "Journal pour Rire" boomed the
+circulation, and more illustrations were in demand. Philipon suggested
+that the four hours a day at school was unnecessary--Gustave knew more
+already than the teachers.
+
+Gustave agreed with him, and his pay was doubled. More work rushed in,
+and Gustave illustrated serial after serial with ease and surety, giving
+to every picture a wildness and weirdness and awful comicality. The work
+was unlike anything ever before seen in Paris: every one was saying,
+"What next!" and to add to the interest, Philipon, from time to time,
+wrote articles for various publications concerning "the child
+illustrator" and "the artistic prodigy of the 'Journal pour Rire.'"
+
+With such an entree into life, how was it possible that he should ever
+become a master? His advantages were his disadvantages, and all his
+faults sprang naturally as a result of his marvelous genius. He was the
+victim of facility.
+
+Everything in this world happens because something else has happened
+before. Had the thing that happened first been different, the thing that
+followed would not be what it is.
+
+Had Gustave Dore entered the art world of Paris in the conventional way,
+the master might have toned down his exuberance, taught him reserve, and
+gradually led him along until his tastes were formed and character
+developed. And then, when he had found his gait and come to know his
+strength, the name of Paul Gustave Dore might have stood out alone as a
+bright star in the firmament--the one truly great modern.
+
+Or, on the other hand, would the ossified discipline and set rules of a
+school have shamed him into smirking mediocrity and reduced his native
+genius to neutral salts?
+
+Who will be presumptuous enough to say what would have occurred had not
+this happened and that first taken place?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before Gustave Dore had been in Paris a year his father died. Shortly
+after, the Strassburg home was broken up, and Madame Dore followed her
+son to Paris. Gustave's tireless pencil was bringing him a better income
+than his father had ever made; and the mother and three sons lived in
+comfort.
+
+The mother admonished Gustave to apply himself to pure art, and not be
+influenced by Philipon and the others who were making fortunes by his
+genius. And this advice he intended to follow--not yet, but very soon.
+There were "Rabelais" and Balzac's "Contes Drolatiques" to illustrate.
+These done, he would then enter the atelier of one of the masters and
+take his time in doing the highest work.
+
+But before the books were done, others came, with retainers in advance.
+Then a larger work was begun, to illustrate the Crimean War, in five
+hundred battle-scenes.
+
+And so he worked--worked like a steam-engine--worked without ceasing. He
+illustrated Shakespeare's "Tempest" as only Dore could; then came
+Coleridge, Moore, Hood, Milton, Dante, Hugo, Gautier, and great plans
+were being laid to illustrate the Bible.
+
+The years were slipping past. His brothers had found snug places in the
+army, and he and his mother lived together in affluence. Between them
+there was an affection that was very loverlike. They were comrades in
+everything--all his hopes, plans and ambitions were rehearsed to her. The
+love that he might have bestowed on a wife was reserved for his mother,
+and, fortunately, she had a mind strong enough to comprehend him.
+
+In the corner of the large, sunny apartment that was set apart for his
+mother's room, he partitioned off a little room for himself, where he
+slept on an iron cot. He wished to be near her, so that each night he
+could tell her of what he had done during the day, and each morning
+rehearse his plans for the coming hours. By telling her, things shaped
+themselves, and as he described the pictures he would draw, others came
+to him.
+
+The confessional seems a crying need of every human heart--we wish to
+tell some one. And without this confessional, where one soul can outpour
+to another that fully sympathizes and understands, marriage is a hollow,
+whited mockery, full of dead men's bones.
+
+There is a desire of the heart that makes us long to impart our joy to
+another. Corot once caught the sunset on his canvas as the great orb
+sank, a golden ball, behind the hills of Barbizon. He wished to show the
+picture to some one--to tell some one, and looking around saw only a
+cottage on the edge of the wood a quarter of a mile away, and thither he
+ran, crying to the astonished farmer, "I've got it! I've got it!"
+
+When Dore did a particularly good piece of work, in the first
+intoxication of joy he would run home, kiss his mother on both cheeks,
+and picking her up in his strong arms run with her about the rooms.
+
+At other times he would play leap-frog over the chairs, vault over the
+piano, and jump across the table. And this wild joy that comes after work
+well done he knew for many years. In the evening, after a particularly
+good day, he would play the violin and sing entire scenes from some
+opera, his mother turning the leaves.
+
+As to his skill as a musician, is this testimonial on the back of a fine
+photograph I once had the pleasure of handling: "As a souvenir of tender
+friendship, presented to Gustave Dore, who joins with his genius as a
+painter the talents of a distinguished violinist and charming tenor.--G.
+Rossini."
+
+The illustrations for Dante's "Inferno" were done in Dore's twenty-second
+year, and for this work he was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of
+Honor. He never did better work, and at this time his hand and brain
+seemed at their best.
+
+Every great writer and every great artist makes vigorous use of his
+childhood impressions. Childhood does not know it is storing up for the
+days to come, but its memories sink deep into the soul, and when called
+upon to express, the man reaches out and prints from the plates that are
+bitten deep; and these are the pictures of his early youth--or else they
+tell of a time when he loved a woman.
+
+The first named are the more reliable, for sex and love have been made
+forbidden subjects, until self-consciousness, affectation and untruth
+creep easily into their accounting. All literature and all art are
+secondary sex manifestations, just as surely as the song of birds or the
+color and perfume of flowers are sex qualities. And so it happens that
+all art and all literature is a confession; and it occurs, too, that
+childhood does not stand out sharp and clear on memory's chart until it
+is past and adolescence lies between. Then maturity gives back to the man
+the childhood that is gone forever.
+
+Many of the world's best specimens of literature are built on the
+impressions of childhood. Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, and I'll name you
+another--James Whitcomb Riley--have written immortal books with the
+autobiography of childhood for both warp and woof.
+
+Gustave Dore's best work is a reproduction of his childhood's thoughts,
+feelings and experiences--all well colored with the stuff that dreams are
+made of.
+
+The background of every good Dore picture is a deep wood or mountain-pass
+or dark ravine. The wild, romantic passes of the Vosges, and the sullen
+crags, topped with dark mazes of wilderness, were ever in his mind, just
+as he saw them yesterday when he clutched his father's hand and held his
+breath to hear the singing of the wood-nymphs 'mong the branches.
+
+His tracery of bark and branch, and drooping bough held down with weight
+of dew, are startlingly true. The great roots of giant trees, denuded by
+storm and flood, lie exposed to view; and deep vistas are given of
+shadowy glade and swift-running mountain torrent. All is somber,
+terrible, and tells of forces that tossed these mountain-tops like bowls,
+and of a Power immense, immeasurable, incomprehensible, eternal in the
+heavens.
+
+Dore's first exhibition in the Salon was made when he was eighteen, and a
+few years later, when he was presented with the Cross of the Legion of
+Honor, the decoration made his work exempt from jury examination. And so
+every year he sent some large painting to the Salon.
+
+His work was the wonder of Paris, and on every hand his illustrations
+were in demand, but his canvases were too large in size and too terrible
+in subject to fit private residences.
+
+Patrons were cautious.
+
+To own a "Dore" was proof of a high appreciation of art, or else a lack
+of it--buyers did not know which.
+
+They were afraid of being laughed at.
+
+His competitors began to hoot and jeer. Not being able to make pictures
+that would compete with his, they wrote him down in the magazines.
+
+His name became a jest.
+
+Various of his illustrations for the Bible were enlarged into immense
+canvases, some of which were twenty feet long and twelve feet high. All
+who looked upon these pictures were amazed by the fecundity in invention
+and the skill shown in drawing; but the most telling criticism against
+them was their defect in coloring. Dore could draw, but could not color,
+and the report was abroad that he was color-blind.
+
+The only buyers for his pictures came from England and America. Paris
+loved art for art's sake, and the Bible was not popular enough to make
+its illustration worth while. "What is this book you are working on?"
+asked a caller.
+
+It was different in London, where Spurgeon preached every Sunday to three
+thousand people. The "Dores" taken to London attracted much
+attention--"mostly from the size of the canvases," Parisians said. But
+the particular subject was the real attraction. Instead of reading their
+daily "chapter," hard-working, tired people went to see a Dore Bible
+picture where it was exposed in some vacant storeroom and tuppence
+entrance-fee charged.
+
+It occurred to certain capitalists that if people would go to see one
+Dore, why would not a Dore gallery pay?
+
+A company was formed, agents were sent to Paris and negotiations begun.
+Finally, on payment of three hundred thousand dollars, forty large
+canvases were secured, with a promise of more to come.
+
+Dore took the money, and, the agents being gone, ran home to tell his
+mother. She was at dinner with a little company of invited guests.
+Gustave vaulted over the piano, played leap-frog among the chairs, and
+turning a handspring across the table, incidentally sent his heels into
+a thousand-dollar chandelier that came toppling down, smashing every dish
+upon the table, and frightening the guests into hysterics.
+
+"It's nothing," said Madame Dore; "it's nothing--Gustave has merely done
+a good day's work!"
+
+The "Dore Gallery" in London proved a great success. Spurgeon advised his
+flock to see it, that they might the better comprehend Bible history; the
+Reverend Doctor Parker spoke of the painter as "one inspired by God";
+Sunday-schools made excursions thither; men in hobnailed shoes knelt
+before the pictures, believing they were in the presence of a vision.
+
+And all these things were duly advertised, just as we have been told of
+the old soldier who visited the Gettysburg Cyclorama at Chicago and
+looking upon the picture, he suddenly cried to his companion, "Down,
+Bill, down! by t' Lord, there's a feller sightin' his gun on us!"
+
+Barnum offered the owners twice what they paid for the "Dore Gallery,"
+with intent to move the pictures to America, but they were too wise to
+accept.
+
+Twenty-eight of the canvases were eventually sold, however, for a sum
+greater than was paid for the lot, yet enough remained to make a most
+representative display; and no American in London misses seeing the Dore
+Gallery, any more than we omit Madame Tussaud's Wax-Works.
+
+In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-three, Dore visited England and was welcomed
+as a conquering hero. The Prince of Wales and the nobility generally paid
+him every honor. He was presented to the Queen, and Victoria thanked him
+for the great work he had done, and asked him to inscribe for her a copy
+of the "Dore Bible."
+
+More than this, the Queen directed that several Dore pictures be
+purchased and placed in Windsor Castle.
+
+Of course, all Paris knew of Dore's success in England. Paris laughed.
+"What did I tell you?" said Berand. And Paris reasoned that what England
+and America gushed over must necessarily be very bad. The directors of
+the Salon made excuses for not hanging his pictures.
+
+Dore had become rich, but his own Paris--the Paris that had been a
+foster-mother to him--refused to accredit him the honor which he felt was
+his due.
+
+In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-eight, smarting under the continued gibes and
+geers of artistic France, he modeled a statue which he entitled "Glory."
+It represents a woman holding fast in affectionate embrace a beautiful
+youth, whose name we are informed is Genius. The woman has in one hand a
+laurel-wreath; hidden in the leaves of this wreath is a dagger with which
+she is about to deal the victim a fatal blow.
+
+Dore grew dispirited, and in vain did his mother and near friends seek to
+rally him out of the despondency that was settling down upon him. They
+said, "You are only a little over forty, and many a good man has never
+been recognized at all until after that--see Millet!"
+
+But he shook his head.
+
+When his mother died, in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-one, it seemed to snap
+his last earthly tie. Of course he exaggerated the indifference there was
+towards him; he had many friends who loved him as a man and respected him
+as an artist.
+
+But after the death of his mother he had nothing to live for, and
+thinking thus, he soon followed her. He died in Eighteen Hundred
+Eighty-three, aged fifty years.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SO HERE ENDETH "LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF EMINENT PAINTERS," BEING
+VOLUME FOUR OF THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD: EDITED AND
+ARRANGED BY FRED BANN; BORDERS AND INITIALS BY ROYCROFT ARTISTS, AND
+PRODUCED BY THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN EAST AURORA,
+ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK, MCMXXII
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note:
+
+Inconsistencies in the original (e.g., Arnola/Arnold; Edgcumbe/Edgecumbe;
+geers/jeers) have been retained in this etext.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Journeys to the Homes of the
+Great, Volume 4 (of 14), by Elbert Hubbard
+
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