Vol. XXXVI. PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1850. No. 1.
THE YOUNG ARTIST:
OR THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE.
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BY T. S. ARTHUR.
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CHAPTER I.
A young professional man, entirely dependent on his own efforts, is always in danger of falling into the error of considering an “advantageous” marriage as a most desirable thing. When we say advantageous, we mean in a money point of view. Years, in the natural course of things, must elapse before a profitable position can be gained; and, in looking down the long vista of the future, feelings of discouragement will naturally arise. To some, the prospect appears almost hopeless. The young lawyer without a case on his docket, the young physician who waits day after day for a patient, the young minister with a hundred a year, and the young artist who paints and draws, day after day, but has no sitter in his studio, if dependent on their own exertions, all feel painfully the pressure of poverty. To such the imagination will picture the advantages that money would give, and as there is no hope of gaining money except by a slow and laborious process through years of toil, self-denial and mortification, it is too often the case that marriage is thought of as the means of over-leaping all the trials and troubles that present themselves in a long and disheartening array. With a competency in hand, how interesting would be the profession adopted as a life-pursuit. The lawyer could bury himself in his library without thinking about or caring for the daily bread, diving deeper and deeper into the mysteries of his craft, and preparing himself for a sudden stride into eminence when the day of full preparation had come; the physician could go on with his experiments and studies; the preacher minister lovingly to his flock, in some quiet valley far removed from the strife and “shock of men;” and the artist give himself up to the worship of the beautiful, undisturbed by the little cares and wants that take away so much of the mind’s present enjoyment. Thus, the imagination pictures a happy state of things if money were only in possession. And what easier mode of obtaining this, in every way to-be-desired, possession, than an advantageous marriage? None—is the conclusion of the young aspirant for some of the world’s higher honors. And so he goes into society and seeks an alliance with some fair young daughter of Eve, who, among her other attractions, possesses a few thousands of dollars. If he be a young man of naturally delicate feelings and independent mind, the fact that he obtained a fortune with his wife, be it large or small, will most probably make one of the most bitter ingredients in his cup of life. Thus it proved with Alfred Ellison, a young artist formerly residing in Philadelphia, who sought an “advantageous” alliance as a means of professional advancement; and as the history of his married life is full of instruction, we will endeavor to write out some portions of it faithfully.