And then there was “The Prodigal,” a comin’ back in rags, and misery, and remorse, to the home he left in his pride and strength; and to see that old father a waitin’ to welcome him, and the feeble old mother bein’ helped out by her sons and daughters—a forgivin’ of him. Oh, what a idee that did give of the long sufferin’ and patience of love.
Finally, my eyes fell onto a picture that affected me more than any I had seen as yet. The name on’t was: “The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord.” They had gathered round the table for the first time since death had been there, and the minister was askin’ a blessin’. A woman sat at the head of the table with her hands clasped close, as if to crush back her agony; her face white and thin from watchin’ and sorrow—jest as a certain person’s would be if it was Josiah,—her eyes bent down, jest as if she could not look at that vacant chair. On one side of her with his face bent down in grief, was a young feller about the age of Thomas Jefferson; on the other side, a girl about the age of Tirzah Ann, was kneelin’ right down by the table a sobbin’ as if her heart would break. And as I looked at it the thought would come up, though I ordered it back, “What! what if it was Josiah?” And this thought rousted up such feelins that I couldn’t control ’em, and I turned round instinctively and locked arms with him, and we went into another room.
Presently, or about that time we found ourselves in the French Department. I laid out to pay a good deal of attention to France, whether they showed off in the Main Buildin’ or Art Gallery, or anywhere; because, wherever I stood before their doins,—above all the beauty and grandeur of their display, I see with my mind’s eye, that gallant form that left glory and happiness behind him to come with army and treasure to help a strugglin’ land to freedom. I see that noble face—not middle-aged and brass-mounted as he looks on his monument, but young and eager eyed—a standin’ on the vessel’s keel, (or keeler) a goin’ at Liberty’s call, into a New World, and the perils and hardships of a camp; and wavin’ back a good bye to the gay pleasures of his youth, to rank, and all he loved best—his sweetheart and his native land.
I feel most skairt to say it, and don’t know as I ort to, but somehow I feel a little different about Layfayette from what I do about our own glorious Washington. For G. W. was a fightin’ for his own land, and there was most likely a little mite of selfishness mixed up with his noble emotions, (probable not more than one part in two or three hundred) but in this noble young feller these wasn’t a mite. He give all, and dared all, from pure love of Liberty, and sympathy for the oppressed. And so France’s hull doins would have looked good to me anyway for his sake. But if they had stood up on their own merits alone they would have stood firm and solid as a hemlock post newly sot. They done well, clear from the ceilin’ down. There was one picture, there was a great crowd before, and amongst the rest I see the “Creation Searchers” a standin’ in a row, a gazin up at it with a dissatisfied though nearly wooden expression of countenance. The picture was “Rizpah Defendin’ the bodies of Saul’s childern from the Eagles;” it affected me terribly—I thought of Thomas Jefferson. The wild desolation of the spot, the great beams a risin’ out of the rocks with the seven dead bodies a hangin’ up in the air—left there to die of hunger and agony,—with the slow death of agonizin’ horrer wrote out on their dead faces and their stiffened forms. And beneath them standin’ with her yeller dress and blue drapery a floatin’ back from her, is Rizpah, fightin’ back a huge vulture that with terrible open mouth and claws is contendin’ with her for the bodies of her sons. They were slain to avert the famine, and there is in her face the strength of the martyr, and the energy of despair. How that woman, so strong, so heroic by nature must have loved her two boys! It was a horrible, scareful picture but fearfully impressive. When I look at anything very beautiful, or very grand and impressive, my emotions lift me clear up above speech. I s’pose the higher we go up the less talkin’ there is done. Why if anybody could feel sociable and talkative when they first look at that picture, I believe they could swear, they wouldn’t be none too good for it. But jest at that minute when I was feelin’ so awful horrified, and lifted up, and curious, and sublime and everything, I heerd a voice sayin’ in a pert lively tone, but very scorfin’,
“That haint true to nater at all.”
“No,” says Solomon Cypher in a complainin’, fault-findin’ way, “there’s nothin’ natteral about it at all. Why!” says he strikin’ himself a eloquent blow in the pit of his stomach—“why didn’t they hang the scarecrows nearer to the cornfield?”
“And I never,” says Cornelius Cork, a holdin’ his glasses on with both hands—for his nose bein’ but small, they would fall off—“I never see a crow that looked like that; it haint shaped right for a crow.”
“The perspective of the picture haint the right size,” says Shakespeare Bobbet.
“The tone is too low down,” says Solomon Cypher; “the cheerful obscure is too big and takes up too much room.”
“Cheerful obscure,” says I in witherin’ tones, as I looked round at ’em.