Forty-three and a half, forty-four, forty-five, and this handful of small silver and copper. Call it fifty in all.
“Only fifty dollars!” ejaculated my mental interrogator.
Only fifty! responded I.
“’Twon’t do!”
I lit another cigar. It was clear enough, it wouldn’t do; and I got into the hammock again. Commend me to a hammock, (a pita hammock, none of your canvas abominations,) and a cigar, as valuable aids to meditation and self-communion of all kinds. There was a long silence, but the inquisition went on, until the cigar was finished. Finally “I’ll do it!” I exclaimed, in the voice of a man determined on some great deed, not agreeable but necessary, and I tossed the cigar stump out of the window. But what I determined to do, may seem no great thing after all; it was only to paint the portrait of my landlady.
“Yes, I’ll paint the old wench!”
Now, I am an artist, not an author, and have got the cart before the horse, inasmuch as my narrative does not preserve the “harmonies,” as every well-considered composition should do. It has just occurred to me that I should first have told who I am, and how I came to be in Jamaica, and especially in that filthy place, Kingston. It isn’t a long story, and if it is not too late, I will tell it now.
As all the world knows, there are people who sell rancid whale oil, and deal in soap, and affect a great contempt for artists. They look down grandly on the quiet, pale men who paint their broad red faces on canvas, and seem to think that the few greasy dollars which they grudgingly pay for their flaming immortality, should be received with meek confusion and blushing thanks, as a rare exhibition of condescension and patronage. I never liked such patronage, and therefore would paint no red faces. But there is a great difference between red, bulbous faces, and rosy faces. There was that sweet girl at the boarding-school in L—— Place, the Baltimore girl, with the dark eyes and tresses of the South, and the fair cheek and elastic step of the North! Of course, I painted her portrait, a dozen times at least, I should say. I could paint it now; and I fear it is more than painted on my heart, or it wouldn’t rise smiling here, to distract my thoughts, make me sigh, and stop my story.
An artist who wouldn’t paint portraits and had a soul above patronage—what was there for him to do in New York? Two compositions a year in the Art Union, got in through Mr. Sly, the manager, and a friend of mine, were not an adequate support for the most moderate man. I’ll paint grand historical paintings, thought I one day, and straightway purchased a large canvas. I had selected my subject, Balboa, the discoverer of the Pacific, bearing aloft the flag of Spain, rushing breast-deep in its waves, and claiming its boundless shores and numberless islands for the crown of Castile and Leon. I had begun to sketch in the plumed Indians, gazing in mute surprise upon this startling scene, when it occurred to me—for I have patches of common sense scattered amongst the flowery fields of my fancy—to count over the amount of my patrimonial portion. Grand historical paintings require years of study and labor, and I found I had but two hundred dollars, owed for a month’s lodging, and had an unsettled tailor’s account. It was clear that historical painting was a luxury, for the present at least, beyond my reach. It was then some evil spirit, (I strongly suspect it was the ——,) taking the cue doubtless from my projected picture, suggested:—