“I believe I had never thought of myself at all before. You know I said that all the time I was so troubled because I did not know where I was, I never once thought of being any where.”
“That, to be sure, is the most important, for it would be hardly worth while to go round the world to find where our house was situated, and to come back and find it occupied by some one else. That is often the case with those who travel from home, and I believe we must come back every night to be sure of not losing it.”
“How every thing brings in every thing else!” said Kate. “I believe you will never begin.”
“I soon learned that,” answered Leonora, “and that brings me to the beginning of my story, if you will have it that I am to tell one, though I would rather tell it in my own way, by drawing the illustrations to Linda's, which, as I said, would almost answer for mine; but why should it not, as we were each to tell something in our experience resembling Clara's?”
“Poor Clara! I had almost forgotten her,” said Fanny.
“None are poor but those who think themselves rich. How proud I felt of my first poor little drawings! How well I remember them! The house, and the fence before it, and the lattice in the garret window, and then the great elm and the brook, and by degrees the distant hill behind, for I kept adding to my pictures as I advanced, having to go back farther and farther for a point of view, till at last the hill on the outskirts of the village, overlooking the whole, was my favorite spot for sketching, if I may dignify my stiff little achievements by such a term. Still it was the house that was the centre of the picture; but, as Kate says, one thing leads to every thing, and I found there was no end to the things I must introduce; and yet they did not seem to belong to the house, but to be fastened to it in some way. I could not get them off, and remember, when some one was saying that a painter of his acquaintance could not get his pictures off his hands, feeling a certain pride in knowing that I was contending with one of the regular difficulties of the art. But at last I succeeded, in some degree, in getting my picture right, and did not altogether disbelieve what every one said at home, that it was beautiful. As I was led, however, farther and farther back, by the necessity for a wider view, the house began to have rather a subordinate look; but still it was my home, and nothing seemed a picture without it. As yet I had had no instruction, as you would easily believe if you should see my productions of that period, until one day, as I was bending over my drawing board, (I was very particular about my drawing paper then, and always had the best,) and had just got in the house, a shade fell across my picture, and looking up, I saw a young man with camp stool and portfolio slung across his shoulder, looking down at my work. I drew a little back, that he might see it better, rather pleased that he should see that I also was in that line. He glanced at the landscape, then looked again at my sketch with a smile. He had not said a word, and yet the opinion of all my family, aunts, cousins, and all, admiring my picture on a thanksgiving day after dinner, would not have weighed a straw with me against that smile. Yet he asked me to go on with it, which I did lest he should go away, looking up now and then, and seeing him regarding my work with the half-curious interest with which one would watch an ant-hill, till at last I threw down my pencil, and asked him if he would not oblige me with a sketch of his own.
“He gave one look at the landscape. What a look!—it was a new revelation to me in art,—like an eagle taking in the whole view at one sweep. He seemed to hold every hill and valley fixed with his eye as in a vice, and to weigh the place and proportion of every thing as in a balance, on the firm line of his mouth. All at one glance too; for, without unstrapping his camp stool, he placed his portfolio on his knee, kneeling on the other, and hardly looking up twice, handed me in a few minutes a complete sketch. I say a complete sketch, for I had not known till then that a sketch may be as complete as a finished picture. But I forget that my story also must be a sketch, and I will not spoil it by details which cannot be interesting to you.
“As soon as I saw his sketch, I found, to my astonishment, that he had left out the house altogether; and even the village he had put away at one side as of no importance. On mentioning the oversight, he took out his eye-glass and looked at the house, asking me what particular importance I attached to it. I timidly replied that I lived there.
“'Ah,' he exclaimed, and apologized for his omission, saying he would not forget so important a feature in the landscape. 'Come' said he, 'you shall be my guide over these hills, to which I am a stranger. Let us forget the house for a while, and look up a new view of the village, which does not come in very well here.' How strange it seemed to me that he should speak of the village where I had been born, as a thing to be introduced here or there at his convenience. Already his words seemed to set it afloat; but when, after a long detour, leaving it quite out of sight, we came suddenly upon the edge of the mountain, where the whole valley lay like a toy village almost directly under our feet, it was like a fairy enchantment. There was the actual village, every house and garden in its place, so near that it could be seen distinctly, and yet so far down that it had a foreign look. Then he took out a spy-glass, and adjusting it, handed it to me. 'Now for the house,' said he; and after carrying the tube over half the village, I exclaimed for joy. There I was directly at the gate; it was at the back of the house, and the forenoon work was going on as usual. My father was standing at the door giving some silent direction to the man, who seemed to answer him without saying a word, and Jane was going about like a historical personage, hanging out clothes.
“It was exactly as if I had been looking at a place I had been reading about in some old book; and yet the persons were so familiar to me, more so than ever. I handed the spy-glass to the stranger that he might share my delight, but he did not care to look. 'That is the way,' said he, 'all places look to me. To the artist the familiar is strange, and the strange familiar.'