“Now you are getting warm, as the children say. Hey, Rose?”
“I see,” she cried, with a real joy in her mind; and, taking her pencil, swiftly drew the desolate dead thing, while Lyndsay looked on.
“Good!” he said; “very good. You have it precisely. I will make a word-sketch, and we will compare work. I can’t draw a straight line, as you know. I conceive of the other world, not entirely as a place to develop our own qualities, but where there will be a pleasant interchange of capacities. There, my dear, I shall sing like Nilsson and paint like Velasquez.”
“I think I could myself make some pleasant exchanges,” said Rose. “Those stiff lines of the dead branchless firs and pines, set against that dark cloud,—they remind me of the lances in that great picture by Velasquez at Madrid,—the Surrender of Breda. I loved the two men in that picture. Requesens is taking the keys of the town from Don John of Nassau, and he is just saying, ‘Might have happened to any fellow,—so sorry for you!’ You know, papa?”
“No, I do not. But I recall Macbeth’s etching of the picture. Go on with your sketch. Mine will be done in a few minutes.”
Then he wrote in his note-book again, glancing now and then at the tree.
“Listen, Rose. How is this? ‘Tree sketch: dead tree; no bark; cool gray all over; stands alone on point of land. Trunk twisted; only two limbs; bunched end-twigs. Limbs raised like arms.’ Now, if—mind, if it says to you—I mean if it has for you a distinct expression—I hate affectation here and everywhere: but if this distorted thing really expresses for you—something—label it!”
Rose was still a moment, and then said, “It is rooted there, still, alone. It seems to be turning back toward its fellows. It suggests to me utter dreariness. What have you found to say about it, Pardy?”
“See, dear, I have written, as I often do at the end of a word-sketch: ‘Loneliness, suffering; isolated anguish, if you like.’”
“I see. How very, very interesting! It seems to remember the fire, father.” It was sometimes this, and sometimes Pardy, or Marcus Aurelius, or any queer pet-name of nursery origin.