There is a youth in this suburban town who bids fair to be a second Landseer. As I passed his father’s residence, I saw the young aspirant at work sketching from nature.
He had the foot of a little cur fast in the jaws of a steel-trap staked in the orchard. The artist sat at a short distance sketching the poor beast, as it stood on three legs gazing at the heavens and crying piteously. He was eagerly striving to get the expression of pain upon the dog’s face, and by the grin upon his own countenance I judged he was succeeding.
SKETCHING FROM NATURE.
There was something in the pair that reminded me of Parrhasius and the Captive; and being in somewhat of a sketching mood myself at the time, I produced my book and pencil, and leaning over the fence, sketched the painter and his howling model.
SO SICK!
On my way back to the city the bay seemed even rougher than in the morning. There was hardly a passenger on board the ferry-boat but showed symptoms of trouble. Although most of them would have been excellent subjects for the artist of a comic pictorial, my attention was specially directed towards an elderly lady who sat with folded arms, the elbows resting upon her knees, and a most woe-begone expression upon her wrinkled visage. Some passengers who were sick were able partly to conceal their emotions; she was not; every muscle of her face betrayed her. She was sick and couldn’t help but show it.
AT THE RAIL.