Parkyn reflected for a moment and then replied, “I am quite sure you understand me much better than most of my friends, but I do not fancy being thought ridiculous, even by you, and my story might seem absurd to a man of your philosophic and rather lymphatic temperament.”
“Oh, nonsense!” I exclaimed, “I’m not so lymphatic as you seem to think. Philosophy puts a check on the impulses of the heart, while art lets them roam fancy free, yet human nature is the same in both philosopher and artist, so fire away, old fellow; I’m all ears—evolutionary relics you know.”
Parkyn leaned languidly against the corner of the mantel, his chin resting upon his hands and began:
“The details of my career up to the date of the circumstances that impelled me to leave the profession for which nature adapted me, are commonplace. My life was that of the average poor boy of artistic tastes and talents, who fights his way to the attainment of a thorough professional training. By hard work, I succeeded in getting enough money together to enable me to study with the most celebrated masters of Europe. I finally settled down in my native city, Boston, and after many trials and vicissitudes, was in due time in a fair way to earn a respectable living, although fame was by no means beating her angelic wings against the windows of my studio. It was too near the roof, I fear,” and Parkyn smiled somewhat bitterly.
“It so happened that the society of artists of which I eventually became a member, instituted a yearly exhibition of paintings patterned after the Paris Salon. As an act of extreme condescension I was especially invited by the directors of the exhibition to contribute. The invitation was gladly accepted and I promptly began casting about for a suitable theme—a matter that often constitutes the most difficult part of the artist’s labors. The department of painting in which I was particularly adept was the study of the nude and I quite naturally resolved to produce something in the line of my favorite work. And then came the search for a model.
“Contrary to the popular notion, a satisfactory model is a very scarce commodity. The human form divine rarely stands the keen professional criticism of the eye artistic. A picture is oftener the composite of several models than the actual delineation of one. The arms and shoulders of one, the feet of another, and the torso of still another may be required. Several months passed away and although the time for the exhibition was dangerously near, I had not yet found what I sought. As you may imagine, I was in despair, for having set my heart upon a certain subject for my picture, I was loth to abandon it, for another of less interest. And now comes the strangest part of my story—the part which I fear is hardly materialistic enough for you, my dear doctor,” and Parkyn hesitated.
“Go on; go on!” I exclaimed.
“I had always been an ardent student of the classics, and was in the habit of reading for an hour or two before retiring. In selecting a book almost at random from the modest little collection of odds and ends—by courtesy my library—I happened one evening to get hold of an old treatise on mythology. While reading of the gods and goddesses therein described, and admiring the artistic opportunities afforded by the social circle in which the heathen deities moved, I fell asleep in my chair, and dreaming, found that for which I had vainly sought in my waking hours—my model.
“You as a practical physician will doubtless attribute my dream to the direct impression made upon my brain by the character of the book I had been reading, and I must admit that my experience had certain features which would justify such an opinion, yet I feel nevertheless that my dream model had a basis of reality.
“I seemed to be in the midst of a vast garden—the most beautiful I had ever seen. The flowers and shrubs surpassed all forms with which I was familiar. Hovering over the rare and many hued exotics were gorgeous butterflies and humming birds, to which no description could possibly do justice. The air was redolent with the odor of the blossoms and vibrant with the songs of rare birds and the melodious strains of unseen musical instruments. ‘Surely,’ I thought, ‘this must be Paradise.’