It was not an ill-written letter nor an ill-spelt. Here and there the orthography was original, but in the main McTavit had been not ineffectual, and there were fewer traces of illiteracy about the epistle than might have been imagined from Matt’s talk. But in Matt’s mind the written and the spoken were kept as distinct as printed type and the manuscript alphabet; they ran on parallel lines that never met, and that “Amur’can” should be spelled “American” seemed no more contradictory than that “throo” should be spelled “through.” The grammar he had used in scholastic exercises was not for everyday wear; it was of a ceremonious dignity that suited with the stateliness of epistolary communication. Alas! For all the carefulness of the composition, his uncle of the National Gallery gave no sign.
Matt’s suspense and sorrow dwindled at last into resignation, for he had come to a renewed sense of religion. As Mrs. Strang would have put it, he had found grace. There were a few pious books and tracts about the Cattermole establishment, to devour in stolen snatches or by bartering sleep for reading, and among these dusty treasures he lighted on The Pilgrim’s Progress, with quaint wood-cuts. In the moral fervor with which the dramatic allegory informed him Matt felt wickedness an impossibility henceforward; his future life stretched before him white, fleckless, unstainable. Meanness or falsehood or viciousness could never touch his soul. How curiously people must be constituted who could knowingly prefer evil, when good thrilled one with such rapture, bathed one in such peace! Already he felt the beatitude of the New Jerusalem. The pictures he painted should be good, please God. They should exhibit the baseness of Mr. Worldly Wiseman, castigate the town of Carnal Policy; he would uplift the eyes of the wicked to the contemplation of the Shining Ones. Though, after all, he began to ask himself, could any picture equal Bunyan’s book? Was not a book immeasurably the better medium of expression? The suspicion was strengthened by the reading of a dime novel which his mistress’s brother, the stage-driver, had left lying about. It was the first unadulterated novel he had read, and the sensational episodes stirred his blood, his new-born religious enthusiasm died. He loved Mike the Bush-ranger, who was the hero of the novel. Action, strong, self-dependent action, a big personality—there lay the admirable in life. The Christians and Hopefuls were pale-blooded figures after all, and unreal at that. In actual life one only came across mimics who used their language: the Deacon Haileys or the Abner Preeps, to whom even thieving Tommy were preferable. No wonder Mike had been driven to bush-ranging! What a pity he himself had not remained in his forest hut, rebel against humanity, king of the woods! Ah! and how inadequate was paint to express the fulness of life; the medium was too childishly simple. At most one could fix a single scene, a single incident, and that only in its outside aspect. Books palpitated with motion and emotion. He set to work to write a dime novel, stealing an hour from his scanty night. He made but slow progress, though he began with an exciting episode about a white boy besieged in his log-hut by a party of Indians, and saved by the sudden advent of a couple of bears. The words he wrote down seemed a paltry rendition of his thought and inner vision, they were tame and scant of syllable. He discovered that his literary palette was even more pitiful than his pictorial. Still he labored on, for the goal was grand. And, despite his mental divorce between pronunciation and orthography, his spoken English improved imperceptibly through all this contact with literature.
Then one wonderful day—to be marked with a white stone and yet also with a black—he received a letter from England. All his artistic ambition flamed up furiously again as he broke the seal:
London, Limners’ Club.
Dear Nephew,—Your letter gave me mingled pain and pleasure. I was deeply grieved to hear of the sad death of your dear father. My poor brother had not written to me nor had I seen him since his marriage, but I knew I should somehow hear of it if anything went wrong with him. I am shocked to have remained ignorant for so many months after his death. I really think your mother should have let me know, as she could have discovered my address through my wife’s relatives, who live in Halifax. However, I hope God has given her strength to bear the blow. And now, my dear Matthew, let me tell you your letter is very childish, and not what I should have expected of a young man of fourteen as you describe yourself. It is very nice to amuse yourself by painting pictures; it keeps you out of mischief. But how can you fancy that your pictures are worth any money? Why, painting is the most difficult of all the arts; it requires years and years of study under great masters, and it costs a heap of money to pay models—that is, men or women who sit or stand in uncomfortable positions while you are painting them. No picture is any good that is done without models; if you wanted to paint a horse you would have to hire a horse, and that is even more expensive than hiring a man. Otherwise your horse would be all wrong. Why, a friend of mine painted a picture of a forge, and he had to have it all built up in his studio, and it cost a hundred and twenty pounds. Studio! The word reminds me that an artist must have a special room to work in, with windows on top, and these rooms are very expensive. London is crammed full of artists who have had all these advantages and yet they are starving. The pictures that you do now everybody would laugh at. And where would you get the money for frames? A nice gold frame might redeem your pictures, but gold frames are dear. No, my dear Matthew, you must not be a little fool. How could you, a poor orphan, think of coming to London? Why, you would die in the streets. No; remain where you are, and thank God that you are earning your clothes and your keep with an honest sawyer in a land of peace and plenty, and are not a burden on your poor mother. I hope you will listen to your uncle like a good boy, and grow up to be grateful to him for saving you from starvation. Believe me,
Your affectionate uncle,
Matthew Strang.
Matt’s tears blistered the final sheet of this discouraging document. His roseate visions of the future faded to cold gray, his heart ached with a sudden sense of the emptiness of existence. But when he had come to the last word his hand clinched the letter fiercely. A great glow of resolution pervaded his being, like the heat that returns after a cold douche. “I will be a painter. I will, I will, I will!” he hissed. And he tore up the embryo of the dime novel and wrote again to his uncle:
My dear Uncle,—How good you are to write to me and tell me everything I want to know. Don’t be afraid that I will starve in London, dear uncle. I could always earn my living there in the fields and paint late at night, but I won’t come till I have enough money for lessons and models and a studio, though I think I could draw horses without hiring them. I have always been very good at animals. Besides, what do they do when they want bears, as the geography book says there aren’t any bears in England? I could live in the attic, and knock a hole in the roof. My mother doesn’t need anything from me, thank God, as she is married again and bears the blow well, and my sister Harriet is married too, so you see it will be easy for me to save up money. As soon as my apprenticeship is over I shall go on to the States, where the greatest fools make heaps of money, and so in a few years, please God, I shall be able to come over like you did, and be a great artist like you. Good-bye, dear uncle, God bless you.
From your loving nephew,