Never since have I tasted that vivid sense of delight in any achievement of my own. I have worked as zealously, and more successfully, but it has been with a humbler heart. And looking backward, I now believe that it was my inner happiness which haloed my creation with a beauty that was half in my own glad eyes.
VIII.
The succeeding few months were quiet, in the dullest sense of the word. Strive as I would, the sunshine had gone from our home. Hessie was no longer the bright Hessie of old days.
I tried to forget my dear sketch of "Enid," and made several attempts to paint some other picture; but the Exhibition drew near, and I had nothing done.
One bright May morning I read in the newspaper an account of the Academy Exhibition. The list of artists and their works stirred me with a strange trouble. Tears rose in my eyes and blotted out the words. I spread the paper on the table before me, pressed my temples with my fingers, and travelled slowly through the criticisms and praises which occupied some columns. Why was there no work of mine mentioned there? Why had I lost my time so miserably during the past months? And questioning myself thus, I was conscious of two sins upon my own head. The first was in glorying in and worshipping the creation of my own labor: the second, in exalting myself upon an imaginary pinnacle of heroism by a fancied self-sacrifice, and having brought deeper trouble upon the sister whose happiness I thought to compass. I wept the choking tears out of my throat and read on.
Something dazzled my eyes for a moment, and brought the blood to my forehead. A picture was mentioned with enthusiastic praise; a picture by E. Vance. It was called "Enid," and was interpreted by a quotation from the poem; my passage—the subject of my lost sketch! A strange idea glanced across my mind. I half smiled at it and put it away. But all day I was restless; and that evening I proposed to Hessie an expedition early next morning to see the pictures. My mother longed to go with us; but as she could not, I promised to bring home a catalogue, and describe each painting to the best of my memory.
With a feverish haste I sought out the picture of "Enid" by E. Vance. Was I dreaming? I passed my hand across my eyes as though some imaginary scene had come between me and the canvas. I did not feel Hessie's hand dropping from my arm. I stood transfixed, grasping the catalogue, and staring at the picture before me.
It was my "Enid." My own in form, attitude, tint, and expression. It was the "Enid" of my dreams realized; the "Enid" of my labor wrought to completion; the "Enid" of my lost sketch ennobled, perfected, glorified.
My work on which I had lavished my love and toil was there, and it was not mine.
Another, a more skilled, a subtler hand, had brought out its meaning with delicate appreciation, ripened its original purpose, enriched the subdued depths of its coloring, etherealized the whole by the purest finish. But that hand had robbed me, with cruel cowardly deliberation. It had stolen my mellow fruit; taken my sweetest rose and planted it in a strange garden. I felt the wrong heavy and sore upon me. I resented it fiercely. I could not endure to look at the admiring faces around me. I turned away sick and trembling, while the blood pulsed indignantly in my throat and beat painfully at my temples.