Malise Grey was an artist of great but peculiar talent—a fine draughtsman, an admirable colorist, but his imagination was of a Gothic cast, and he delighted in strange, fantastical, and supernatural subjects. He had travelled much in Germany, and his mind was imbued with the superstitions and legends of that storied land. These he loved to illustrate with his pencil, and his walls were covered with German scenes and subjects, from the "Witches' Sabbath" to the "Castled Crag of Drachenfels." Portraits he painted from necessity, not choice; but he was too true an artist for the million. The sleek hypocrite wore not on his canvas the deceptive look of holiness that bore him on through life to wealth and honor, but the crafty, sensual smile, the libertine eye, and lips that indicated the secret phases of his character. Imbecile beauty saw her index in the painted mirror. Folly stood convicted by the pencil. It was frequently remarked, that you might learn more of a man from a glance at his portrait than from months' companionship with the original. Malise Grey was not popular—but he lived for his art, and bread and water satisfied his earthly cravings.
The meerschaum fairly smoked out, the artist drew from a dusty pile of canvases one on which he had painted a family group. It was a fancy piece. An old man lay upon his death bed, over which bent a weeping wife and a sorrowing and lovely child. The face of the latter was one of unearthly beauty, and Raphael or Titian might not have disdained the painting of those glistening blue eyes, and the falling sunbeams of that golden hair. The painter had poured out his soul upon that angelic countenance and perfect figure.
"It is my ideal," said the artist, "and, by the mystic whisper of the heart, by the bright teaching of the star that rules my destiny, by the forbidden lore of which I have drank deeply, I know that the ideal of each mind is the reflex of the actual, and with the true artist fancy is existence!"
The meerschaum was again filled, and Malise Grey contemplated his picture. The smoke wreaths rolled around it, but it shone out luminous and starlike. Its harmony was like the silent melody of the spheres, and its musical radiance dispelled the remembrance of all his sufferings, and lulled him like the melody of falling waters. When, at length, he drew his poor couch from its recess, and threw himself upon it, he left the picture full in sight, and continued to watch it by the fading firelight till its last luminous point disappeared with the blaze, and slumber closed his lids to make its memory brighter.
The next morning was clear and sparkling; the first rays of the sun were like fiery rubies on the walls of the studio.
The painter sprang to his feet. "The dream!" he cried. "My heart did not deceive me. The spirits are at work for its accomplishment."
He went forth to take his daily walk. There were times when an appalling dread of insanity smote his heart, and once the expression of a friend at the recital of one of his wildest fantasies led him into a train of reflection and self-examination which shook his very soul. For a time he forsook his studio, and went abroad into the gay world and formed fashionable acquaintances; but he went back to his lonely room and his hermit life at the expiration of a few weeks, convinced that the madness of art was preferable to the madness of society. And it was a painful thing for him to go abroad, for no one sympathized with him. His mind dwelt either on the shadowy past, or the yet more shadowy future. He held no communion with the present. So, on the occasion we have referred to, after a hurried walk, he returned to his room, the door of which he had left unlocked. A veiled lady sat before his easel. She rose upon his entrance. His heart beat high with anticipations. The lady thus addressed him:—
"Malise Grey, we have known each other in the land of dreams!" and removing her veil, she pointed with her left hand to the picture, while she extended her right to the painter. The ideal and the actual stood before him. A strange light gleamed upon the painter's mind, and he spoke as if prompted by some unseen power.
"Esther Vaughan, by this token do I know you." He took her hand, and added, "By the mystic spell that drew us to each other, I conjure you here to plight your troth to me for weal and woe."
"My father died shortly after that picture was painted," replied the maiden, "and my mother—my poor mother—soon followed him. The spirit summons commanded me to seek you out. I have obeyed."