“Listen! I do bother you awfully, but—I've been thinking—here we are, you know. God knows when I'll find a man who could help me as you can. And we brought all those wonderful old paintings aboard here. I've been thinking—well, since I've got so much to learn of Chinese culture, why not begin? Couldn't I—would they mind if I looked at some of the pictures? And—if it isn't asking too much—you could tell me why they're good. Just begin to give me something to go by. Isn't it as good a way to make the break as any?”
It was a most acceptable diversion. Doane, though several boxes of the paintings were in his own rooms, sent a servant to ask a permission that was cordially granted. And as there was a wind blowing, they went below, and talked there in low voices in order not to disturb the sleeping girl, while the elder man carefully opened a box and got out a number of the long scrolls that were wound on rods of ivory, handling them with reverent fingers.
He chose one from the brush of that Chao Meng-fu who flourished under the earliest Mongol or Yuan rulers, a roll perhaps fourteen or fifteen inches in width, and in length, judging from the thickness, as many feet, tied around with silk cords and fastened with tags of carven jade. The painting itself, naturally, was on silk, which in turn was pasted on thick, dark-toned paper, made of bamboo pulp, with borders of brocade. The projecting ends of the ivory rollers, like the tags, were carved.
At the edge of the scroll were, besides the seal signature of the artist, and the date—in our chronology, A. D. 1308—many other signatures in the conventional square seal characters of royal and other collectors who had possessed the painting, with also, a few pithy, appreciative epigrams from eminent critics of various periods. On that one margin was stamped the authentic history of the particular bit of silk, paper and pigment during its life of six full centuries; for no hand could have forged those seals.
There was no likelihood that the boy—lacking, as he was, in cultural background—would exhibit any sensitive responsiveness to the exquisite brush-work of the fine old painter or to his consciously subjective attitude toward his art. But there is a way in which the simple Western mind that is not preoccupied with fixed concepts of art may be led into enjoyment of such a landscape scroll; this is to exhibit it as do the Chinese themselves, unrolling it, very slowly, a little at a time, deliberately absorbing the detail and the finely suggested atmosphere, until a sensation is experienced not unlike that of making a journey through a strange and delightful country. Doane employed this method—it was surely what that old painter intended—and led the boy slowly from a pastoral home, so small beneath its towering overhanging mountain crags, that lost themselves finally in soft cloud-masses, as to appear insignificant, out along a river where lines of reeds swayed in the winds and boats moved patiently, across a lake that was dotted with pavilions and pleasure craft—on and on, through varied scenes that yet were blended with amazing craftsmanship into a continuous, harmonious whole.
The time crept by and by. When Doane finally explained the seal characters at the end and retied the old silk cords with their hanging rectangles of unclouded green jade, the sun was low over the western hills.
Rocky's face was flushed, his eyes nervously bright. “I don't get it all, of course,” he said; “but it makes you feel somehow as if you'd been reading The Pilgrim's Progress!”
Doane gravely nodded.
“Shall we look at another?” said Rocky.
“No. That is enough. The Chinese knew better than to crowd the mind with confused impressions of many paintings. A good picture is an experience to be lived through, not a trophy to be glanced at.”