“Need I direct attention,” said he, “to that noble work at the head of the hall, whose magic beauties, as they shine from the canvas, have enchained the admiration of the most distinguished connoisseurs, and evidence stronger reasons for the decision we have come to in its favor than any words of mine could adduce. Although the age and sex of the artist invested the work with an interest in our eyes it would not otherwise perhaps so strongly possess, we would not for a moment have it supposed that they exercised the smallest influence upon our suffrages. We adore beauty, womanhood and youth, but we adore Art more, and have too high a sense of its dignity to permit any extrinsic consideration, however fascinating to the imagination, to divert us from our undivided homage toward it. It is to the solid excellence of the work itself—the new principles which it involves—principles, for the acquirement of which, I am not ashamed to say that I myself, as well as many others grown old in honors as in years, are not unwilling to descend into the character of pupilage—and not the less that we sit at the feet of a genius and a woman. While awarding in this direction the highest distinction, we can speak for our brethren of Art that have come forward in competition for the honors of this day, that they will feel satisfied in withdrawing into an inferior place before her who, from a distant land, chose to throw her merits upon our judgment, and her talents into the service of the British nation. Therefore I bestow the First Prize of the Institution upon the ‘Weeping Magdalene,’ property of the Academy, and executed by the Signora Angelica Kauffman, of the Grisons, whom I have great pleasure in investing with the medal.”
So saying, the President descended, and presented to Angelica, who stood up to receive him, a massive gold medal and chain. There was neither bashfulness nor awkwardness in her demeanor as she stood up amid that vast assembly, whose shouts and plaudits now shook the building to its foundation—only a vivid blush passed over her face as she gazed round the assembly for a moment with an almost bewildered look; but it seemed of some higher emotion than vanity—as if the consciousness and the exultation of genius—the satisfaction of having achieved something for Art—the experienced realization of the hopes and the labors of years—and the knowledge of having won for herself a place among the Immortals, and in the sympathies of her race, which is, perhaps, the principal ingredient in a woman’s passion for fame—were all crowded into the emotion which gave it birth. The simplicity of her appearance contrasted strangely with the splendor of her reputation—young looking for her years, which then amounted to no more than twenty-two, her dress, too, plain and unadorned, and as much after the modest form of the antique as conformity with modern usage would allow without the charge of being particular or fantastic—no less added to this effect, contrasted, as it was, with the gauds and superfluity of hoop and head-dress then in vogue; her arms were bare nearly to the shoulder—and her hair, confined by a bandeau of pearls made to imitate a pointed coronet, was braided over her temples, and twisted up into a loose knot behind, as in times long ago, from which a few rich tresses escaping, fell over a neck possessing the contour and graceful set of an antique statue.
Fatigued and excited, she was glad to escape from the glare of the rooms into an adjoining balcony, to cool her eyes in the dim gleam of the stars—in all moments of excitement or passion, still the same bright, unchanging stars, ever ready to tranquilize us with thoughts of that world where passion and excitement cannot enter. A young man, who had watched her unceasingly all the evening with a deeper interest in his glance than mere curiosity, followed her hastily and in a moment was by her side. She did not attempt to conceal her pleasure at his appearance. “Where have you been, Alexander?” she said; “I often looked for you, but could not recognize yours among the bewildering crowd of faces that swarm in these busy halls.”
“And you thought of me, amid honors and applause, and the caresses of the enlightened, and the smiles of a king!—but oh! Angelica, they may give you praise, they may give you wealth; they may elevate you to a lofty place in the world’s view, where thy beauty and thy worth being recognized, may command the homage of the great and good; they may appoint you to a high rank among the hierarchy of genius that minister in the temple of fame—but I, only I, love thee! Poor in circumstances, poor in dignity, with no other advantage to offer you but a heart rich in affection, I have chosen this moment to lay it at your feet, in homage to a nobleness which, if my thought mistakes not, knows how to esteem such above all other gifts the world else can bestow.” And with many more impassioned words and adoring glances did he woo her, she responding in tones and looks as endearing as his own. Just then, in the midst of her triumphs of art, honors, and of love, she looked up toward the heavens, and saw shining above her that bright, still, solitary star—the same that had risen above the fantasies of her childhood, when she dreamed amid the sunny hills of Italy, far away! Many a strange experience, many a scene had passed before her since it first met her gaze; and now they all seemed to be crowded, as bestirred from her memory, into one moment of review. Her progress from the child to the woman—the strange intervening changes—the same, as she felt herself, yet not the same;—the vistas of fame opened to her with the first appearance of that star—her early struggles, and the space between, to the exulting consciousness of the pinnacle where she now stood, loftier than even her visions had conceived.
“The star triumphs!” thought she; “I am not superstitious,” she continued, aloud, “but, Alexander, I have seen that orb once before, and feel as if I should see it but once again. With every hour of joy does there not mingle a pang?—that telling of the dark reverse, which, in this unstable scene, must sooner or later await the most fortunate.”
“Hush! dear Angelica,” said her lover, laying his finger on her lips; “to-night let us only think of being happy.”
“You are right,” replied she, and, seizing his arm, they were soon mingling and jesting with the crowds of the saloon.
——
PART III.
It had been a day of clouds and heavy rain, and now the night was closing over a dreary and scantily furnished apartment in one of those ruined palaces of Florence, which, like so many objects in Italy, are invested with the romantic prestige of grandeur passed away. A single rushlight threw into view the dilapidated marble walls, on which were the tattered remains of what might once have been gorgeous tapestry, and a large oriel window, in whose immediate vicinity stood a mean uncurtained bed, where lay a woman apparently dying. A single female, sitting near her to administer such assistance as she needed, and a cold, indifferent looking man, who had his chair drawn up in an opposite corner of the room, and evidently stationed there more from duty or necessity than any feeling of interest, were the sole occupants beside. Low murmuring sounds broke from the lips of the dying woman. She was talking incessantly, as in that thronging of indistinct, though perhaps not undelightful images that often flit across the brain of the departing, her thoughts seemed to be wandering over many varied scenes, and her consciousness of existence to be quickened as it was about to be closed forever. Her speech was of flowers and of sunshine, and of every thing fullest of life. Distant, happy years seemed to be restored to her, for her imagination transported her back to the era of her childhood, and she talked of wandering in old familiar places with her companions, many of them dead and gone—for by some subtle process of association, those of them mainly seemed present to her visions—and of “bounding,” as she said, “fast, fast” after something she could not detain. “Let me rest!” she would murmur, “I am breathless with running—let me rest!” The passionless placidity of the countenance was in strange contrast with this—and the helplessness of the limbs, which, cold and nearly motionless, began to assume the semblance of that clay to which they were fast returning. Suddenly she opened her eyes, restored to the full consciousness of her situation. The eyes—those mirrors of the soul which neither time nor sorrow can rob of their magic, as long as they are the reflection of that which is immortal—were all that told of Angelica Kauffmann—and the long chestnut hair, which, though now hard and icy to the touch, still clung round her temples with some of the old luxuriance of those days when she dreamed inspired visions by the Alpine streams, or shone, the star of genius, in metropolitan saloons. For the rest, her features were faded and pale, their classic outline vanished in the hollows of time and the sharpness of death—haggard, too, but bearing that pathetic expression which told it might be the result more of suffering than years. And that cold, almost repulsive looking man!—can he be the same who knelt beside her beneath the stars and talked of unperishing love? Yes, such is life! In those worldly reverses which are too often the doom of the mentally gifted, poverty and neglect arrived—years of indifference followed, the character of the lover soon merging into that of the selfish and somewhat exacting husband—and now it had come to this. Calling him toward her, he took her proffered hand with a look of cold compassion. “I have been dreaming strangely to-night, Alexander,” said she, “and have the strangest sensations, as if all past life were passing in review before me, and its experiences crowded into a few fleeting hours—circumstances which I had believed long since forgotten, and feelings which I had thought to have outlived or crushed into oblivion. Yet there is none that return to me with a more vivid consciousness than my old feeling for you; and even now I seem to leap back over long, weary years of coldness, indifference, and estrangement, and the sad imprints with which they have dimmed your features, and to see you stand before me, ardent and beautiful as when I dreamed that Heaven had no brighter reflection than the fondness of your eyes. You will pardon this,” said she, on perceiving that such sympathies moved him not; “I have no wish to recall you to the past, nor too late to revive an extinguished affection, which can so seldom be brought into review without pain—far less with a thought of reproach for any, except for myself. It is but to testify to you in parting, that with the life I have led, happy as it was before I knew you—spent amid dreams of beauty, and the caresses of a family that sympathized with the delights of my calling, and were proud of my fame, honored as it afterward became when my achievements as an artist, extolled in every country in Europe, drew me forth from my retreat to receive that brief and brilliant homage, less intoxicating to me on the score of my individual self, than as a tribute to the success of that art to which I had consecrated the energies of my existence—yet there is no part of it I would willingly live over again but the early, too brief moments spent near you—no part of it than this I more fervently hold to my heart, as the true gold hoarded from what else appears, in this hour whose solemnity dispels all illusions, the dross and scum of existence. Does not this prove that love is immortal? And now a thought has struck me, that that sweet, bright blossoming which, alas! for us yielded so little fruit, may yet offer a harvest to be reaped in some other world. Will you think of this, Alexander?—let us part forgiving each other—our next meeting will be happier—and brighter!”