And the crags that fall unbidden
Startle not the ear!”
Bayard Taylor.
Leaning against the wall in the atelier of a young artist, stood a picture to which the finishing touches had that day been given. It was a face of singular loveliness, and seemed to be that of a young girl in the bloom of early womanhood, if the word bloom could be used in connection with a face so spiritual in its character. From the pale and rounded forehead, in whose transparent temples the delicate tracery of veins was distinctly seen, the hair flowed back in dark waves, closely confined at the back, with the exception of one or two long ringlets, which had escaped and lay upon the white neck. The eyes were of softest hazel, and into their far depths of sadness, calm, and heavenly thought, it seemed impossible to look. The delicate Grecian nose corresponded with the spiritual brow and eye, and it was only in the full, warm mouth, that the secret of an impassioned nature was revealed.
Gazing upon the picture with drooping eyelids and folded hands, sat a woman far past her early prime, wearing an ordinary dress of deepest mourning. There was something in the outline of her face, and in the beauty of her dark-hazel eye, which would have suggested to an observer the truth that she stood in the relation of mother to the fair original of the portrait before her, and the mourning garb might have aroused a suspicion of what was also true, that Death had claimed this treasure of her heart.
“And you will not sell me this picture?” she said in a broken voice, apparently resuming a conversation with the artist, who sat before his easel, at the farthest end of the room.
“No, madam, it is quite impossible,” was the coldly civil reply, as he touched and re-touched the work before him.
“But I have said that I would pay you all, and more than you usually demand for such a work, and—and—she was my child.”
“Let us once for all, madam, understand each other,” said the artist, laying down his brush and looking her full in the face—“it is true that I have taken and still do take likenesses for the paltry sum of fifty dollars, for I am young, with my fame yet to earn, and fame alone in our profession wins money. But this is no common picture—I had conceived the thought to execute a work on which I would lay out all my power, on which I would set the full seal of my genius, when I met your daughter. Her face attracted me; it was beautiful, it was singular in its character, it was what I wanted—at my request she sat to me, and for those sittings I paid her, as you well know, a liberal price. I have spent weeks over this picture, I have expended upon it all my energies, and for a purpose. You may not be aware that the artists’ exhibition takes place soon—my picture will be there—it must command attention; I shall be known and my fame will be established! Part with it now! No, not for ten times its value would I sacrifice all the hopes that hang upon that work.”
The woman had held her breath to listen to his words, and as his voice ceased, the long-suppressed emotion burst forth, and she passionately cried—