“I am going to show you something different now,” he said, coming up to her almost with reluctance. “There is one sort of rest; I will now show you a higher. Here, stand so. The light falls well from this angle. Now, what do you see?”
“I don’t understand it,” said Prissie, after a long, deep gaze.
“Never mind, you see something. Tell me what you see.”
Priscilla looked again at the picture.
“I see a woman,” she said at last, in a slow, pained kind of voice. “I can’t see her face very well, but I know by the way she lies back in that chair, that she is old, and dreadfully tired. Oh, yes, I know well that she is tired—see her hand stretched out there—her hand and her arm—how thin they are—how worn—and—”
“Hard worked,” interrupted Hammond. “Anyone can see by the attitude of that hand, by the starting veins and the wrinkles, that the woman has gone through a life of labour. Well, she does not occupy the whole of the picture. You see before you a tired-out worker. Don’t be so unhappy about her. Look up a little higher in the picture. Observe for yourself that her toils are ended.”
“Who is that other figure?” said Priscilla. “A woman too, but young and strong. How glad she looks, and how kind. She is carrying a little child in her arms. Who is she? What does she mean?”
“That woman, so grand and strong, represents Death, but not under the old metaphor. She comes with renewed life—the child is the type of that—she comes as a deliverer. See, she is touching that poor worn-out creature, who is so tired that she can scarcely hold her head up again. Death, with a new aspect, and a new grand strength in her face, is saying to this woman, ‘Come with me now to your rest. It is all over,’ Death says: ‘all the trouble and perplexity and strife. Come away with me and rest.’ The name of that picture is ‘The Deliverer.’ It is the work of a painter who can preach a sermon, write a book, deliver an oration, and sing a song, all through the medium of his brush. I won’t trouble you with his name just now. You will hear plenty of him and his wonderful, great pictures by-and-by, if you love art as I do.”
“Thank you,” said Prissie, simply. Some tears stole down her cheeks. She did not know she was crying; she did not attempt to wipe them away.