Mosses from an old manse
Britannia with the trident?”
“All very fine, Drowne; all very fine,” answered the mariner. “But as
nothing like the brig ever swam the ocean, so I am determined she shall
have such a figure-head as old Neptune never saw in his life. And what
is more, as there is a secret in the matter, you must pledge your
credit not to betray it.”
“Certainly,” said Drowne, marvelling, however, what possible mystery
there could be in reference to an affair so open, of necessity, to the
inspection of all the world as the figure-head of a vessel. “You may
depend, captain, on my being as secret as the nature of the case will
permit.”
Captain Hunnewell then took Drowne by the button, and communicated his
wishes in so low a tone that it would be unmannerly to repeat what was
evidently intended for the carver’s private ear. We shall, therefore,
take the opportunity to give the reader a few desirable particulars
about Drowne himself.
He was the first American who is known to have attempted—in a very
humble line, it is true—that art in which we can now reckon so many
names already distinguished, or rising to distinction. From his
earliest boyhood he had exhibited a knack—for it would be too proud a
word to call it genius—a knack, therefore, for the imitation of the
human figure in whatever material came most readily to hand. The snows
of a New England winter had often supplied him with a species of marble
as dazzingly white, at least, as the Parian or the Carrara, and if less
durable, yet sufficiently so to correspond with any claims to permanent
existence possessed by the boy’s frozen statues. Yet they won
admiration from maturer judges than his school-fellows, and were
indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth that
might have made the snow melt beneath his hand. As he advanced in life,
the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible materials for the
display of his skill, which now began to bring him a return of solid
silver as well as the empty praise that had been an apt reward enough
for his productions of evanescent snow. He became noted for carving
ornamental pump heads, and wooden urns for gate posts, and decorations,
more grotesque than fanciful, for mantelpieces. No apothecary would
have deemed himself in the way of obtaining custom without setting up a
gilded mortar, if not a head of Galen or Hippocrates, from the skilful
hand of Drowne.
But the great scope of his business lay in the manufacture of
figure-heads for vessels. Whether it were the monarch himself, or some
famous British admiral or general, or the governor of the province, or
perchance the favorite daughter of the ship-owner, there the image
stood above the prow, decked out in gorgeous colors, magnificently
gilded, and staring the whole world out of countenance, as if from an
innate consciousness of its own superiority. These specimens of native
sculpture had crossed the sea in all directions, and been not ignobly
noticed among the crowded shipping of the Thames and wherever else the
hardy mariners of New England had pushed their adventures. It must be
confessed that a family likeness pervaded these respectable progeny of
Drowne’s skill; that the benign countenance of the king resembled those
of his subjects, and that Miss Peggy Hobart, the merchant’s daughter,
bore a remarkable similitude to Britannia, Victory, and other ladies of
the allegoric sisterhood; and, finally, that they all had a kind of
wooden aspect which proved an intimate relationship with the unshaped
blocks of timber in the carver’s workshop. But at least there was no
inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any attribute to
render them really works of art, except that deep quality, be it of
soul or intellect, which bestows life upon the lifeless and warmth upon
the cold, and which, had it been present, would have made Drowne’s
wooden image instinct with spirit.
The captain of the Cynosure had now finished his instructions.
“And Drowne,” said he, impressively, “you must lay aside all other
business and set about this forthwith. And as to the price, only do the
job in first-rate style, and you shall settle that point yourself.”
“Very well, captain,” answered the carver, who looked grave and
somewhat perplexed, yet had a sort of smile upon his visage; “depend
upon it, I’ll do my utmost to satisfy you.”
From that moment the men of taste about Long Wharf and the Town Dock
who were wont to show their love for the arts by frequent visits to
Drowne’s workshop, and admiration of his wooden images, began to be
sensible of a mystery in the carver’s conduct. Often he was absent in
the daytime. Sometimes, as might be judged by gleams of light from the
shop windows, he was at work until a late hour of the evening; although
neither knock nor voice, on such occasions, could gain admittance for a
visitor, or elicit any word of response. Nothing remarkable, however,
was observed in the shop at those late hours when it was thrown open. A
fine piece of timber, indeed, which Drowne was known to have reserved
for some work of especial dignity, was seen to be gradually assuming
shape. What shape it was destined ultimately to take was a problem to
his friends and a point on which the carver himself preserved a rigid
silence. But day after day, though Drowne was seldom noticed in the act
of working upon it, this rude form began to be developed until it
became evident to all observers that a female figure was growing into
mimic life. At each new visit they beheld a larger pile of wooden chips
and a nearer approximation to something beautiful. It seemed as if the
hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself from the unimaginative world
within the heart of her native tree, and that it was only necessary to
remove the strange shapelessness that had incrusted her, and reveal the
grace and loveliness of a divinity. Imperfect as the design, the
attitude, the costume, and especially the face of the image still
remained, there was already an effect that drew the eye from the wooden
cleverness of Drowne’s earlier productions and fixed it upon the
tantalizing mystery of this new project.
Copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man and a resident of
Boston, came one day to visit Drowne; for he had recognized so much of
moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, in the dearth of
professional sympathy, to cultivate his acquaintance. On entering the
shop, the artist glanced at the inflexible image of king, commander,
dame, and allegory, that stood around, on the best of which might have
been bestowed the questionable praise that it looked as if a living man
had here been changed to wood, and that not only the physical, but the
intellectual and spiritual part, partook of the stolid transformation.
But in not a single instance did it seem as if the wood were imbibing
the ethereal essence of humanity. What a wide distinction is here! and
how far the slightest portion of the latter merit have outvalued the
utmost degree of the former!
“My friend Drowne;” said Copley, smiling to himself, but alluding to
the mechanical and wooden cleverness that so invariably distinguished
the images, “you are really a remarkable person! I have seldom met with
a man in your line of business that could do so much; for one other
touch might make this figure of General Wolfe, for instance, a
breathing and intelligent human creature.”
“You would have me think that you are praising me highly, Mr. Copley,”
answered Drowne, turning his back upon Wolfe’s image in apparent
disgust. “But there has come a light into my mind. I know what you know
as well, that the one touch which you speak of as deficient is the only
one that would be truly valuable, and that without it these works of
mine are no better than worthless abortions. There is the same
difference between them and the works of an inspired artist as between
a sign-post daub and one of your best pictures.”
“This is strange,” cried Copley, looking him in the face, which now, as
the painter fancied, had a singular depth of intelligence, though
hitherto it had not given him greatly the advantage over his own family
of wooden images. “What has come over you? How is it that, possessing
the idea which you have now uttered, you should produce only such works
as these?”
The carver smiled, but made no reply. Copley turned again to the
images, conceiving that the sense of deficiency which Drowne had just
expressed, and which is so rare in a merely mechanical character, must
surely imply a genius, the tokens of which had heretofore been
overlooked. But no; there was not a trace of it. He was about to
withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a half-developed figure
which lay in a corner of the workshop, surrounded by scattered chips of
oak. It arrested him at once.
“What is here? Who has done this?” he broke out, after contemplating it
in speechless astonishment for an instant. “Here is the divine, the
lifegiving touch. What inspired hand is beckoning this wood to arise
and live? Whose work is this?”
“No man’s work,” replied Drowne. “The figure lies within that block of
oak, and it is my business to find it.”
“Drowne,” said the true artist, grasping the carver fervently by the
hand, “you are a man of genius!”
As Copley departed, happening to glance backward from the threshold, he
beheld Drowne bending over the half-created shape, and stretching forth
his arms as if he would have embraced and drawn it to his heart; while,
had such a miracle been possible, his countenance expressed passion
enough to communicate warmth and sensibility to the lifeless oak.
“Strange enough!” said the artist to himself. “Who would have looked
for a modern Pygmalion in the person of a Yankee mechanic!”
As yet, the image was but vague in its outward presentment; so that, as
in the cloud shapes around the western sun, the observer rather felt,
or was led to imagine, than really saw what was intended by it. Day by
day, however, the work assumed greater precision, and settled its
irregular and misty outline into distincter grace and beauty. The
general design was now obvious to the common eye. It was a female
figure, in what appeared to be a foreign dress; the gown being laced
over the bosom, and opening in front so as to disclose a skirt or
petticoat, the folds and inequalities of which were admirably
represented in the oaken substance. She wore a hat of singular
gracefulness, and abundantly laden with flowers, such as never grew in
the rude soil of New England, but which, with all their fanciful
luxuriance, had a natural truth that it seemed impossible for the most
fertile imagination to have attained without copying from real
prototypes. There were several little appendages to this dress, such as
a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain about the neck, a watch in the
bosom, and a ring upon the finger, all of which would have been deemed
beneath the dignity of sculpture. They were put on, however, with as
much taste as a lovely woman might have shown in her attire, and could
therefore have shocked none but a judgment spoiled by artistic rules.
The face was still imperfect; but gradually, by a magic touch,
intelligence and sensibility brightened through the features, with all
the effect of light gleaming forth from within the solid oak. The face
became alive. It was a beautiful, though not precisely regular and
somewhat haughty aspect, but with a certain piquancy about the eyes and
mouth, which, of all expressions, would have seemed the most impossible
to throw over a wooden countenance. And now, so far as carving went,
this wonderful production was complete.
“Drowne,” said Copley, who had hardly missed a single day in his visits
to the carver’s workshop, “if this work were in marble it would make