Mosses from an old manse
you famous at once; nay, I would almost affirm that it would make an
era in the art. It is as ideal as an antique statue, and yet as real as
any lovely woman whom one meets at a fireside or in the street. But I
trust you do not mean to desecrate this exquisite creature with paint,
like those staring kings and admirals yonder?”
“Not paint her!” exclaimed Captain Hunnewell, who stood by; “not paint
the figure-head of the Cynosure! And what sort of a figure should I cut
in a foreign port with such an unpainted oaken stick as this over my
prow! She must, and she shall, be painted to the life, from the topmost
flower in her hat down to the silver spangles on her slippers.”
“Mr. Copley,” said Drowne, quietly, “I know nothing of marble statuary,
and nothing of the sculptor’s rules of art; but of this wooden image,
this work of my hands, this creature of my heart,”—and here his voice
faltered and choked in a very singular manner,—“of this—of her—I may
say that I know something. A well-spring of inward wisdom gushed within
me as I wrought upon the oak with my whole strength, and soul, and
faith. Let others do what they may with marble, and adopt what rules
they choose. If I can produce my desired effect by painted wood, those
rules are not for me, and I have a right to disregard them.”
“The very spirit of genius,” muttered Copley to himself. “How otherwise
should this carver feel himself entitled to transcend all rules, and
make me ashamed of quoting them?”
He looked earnestly at Drowne, and again saw that expression of human
love which, in a spiritual sense, as the artist could not help
imagining, was the secret of the life that had been breathed into this
block of wood.
The carver, still in the same secrecy that marked all his operations
upon this mysterious image, proceeded to paint the habiliments in their
proper colors, and the countenance with Nature’s red and white. When
all was finished he threw open his workshop, and admitted the towns
people to behold what he had done. Most persons, at their first
entrance, felt impelled to remove their hats, and pay such reverence as
was due to the richly-dressed and beautiful young lady who seemed to
stand in a corner of the room, with oaken chips and shavings scattered
at her feet. Then came a sensation of fear; as if, not being actually
human, yet so like humanity, she must therefore be something
preternatural. There was, in truth, an indefinable air and expression
that might reasonably induce the query, Who and from what sphere this
daughter of the oak should be? The strange, rich flowers of Eden on her
head; the complexion, so much deeper and more brilliant than those of
our native beauties; the foreign, as it seemed, and fantastic garb, yet
not too fantastic to be worn decorously in the street; the
delicately-wrought embroidery of the skirt; the broad gold chain about
her neck; the curious ring upon her finger; the fan, so exquisitely
sculptured in open work, and painted to resemble pearl and ebony;—where
could Drowne, in his sober walk of life, have beheld the vision here so
matchlessly embodied! And then her face! In the dark eyes, and around
the voluptuous mouth, there played a look made up of pride, coquetry,
and a gleam of mirthfulness, which impressed Copley with the idea that
the image was secretly enjoying the perplexing admiration of himself
and other beholders.
“And will you,” said he to the carver, “permit this masterpiece to
become the figure-head of a vessel? Give the honest captain yonder
figure of Britannia—it will answer his purpose far better—and send this
fairy queen to England, where, for aught I know, it may bring you a
thousand pounds.”
“I have not wrought it for money,” said Drowne.
“What sort of a fellow is this!” thought Copley. “A Yankee, and throw
away the chance of making his fortune! He has gone mad; and thence has
come this gleam of genius.”
There was still further proof of Drowne’s lunacy, if credit were due to
the rumor that he had been seen kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady,
and gazing with a lover’s passionate ardor into the face that his own
hands had created. The bigots of the day hinted that it would be no
matter of surprise if an evil spirit were allowed to enter this
beautiful form, and seduce the carver to destruction.
The fame of the image spread far and wide. The inhabitants visited it
so universally, that after a few days of exhibition there was hardly an
old man or a child who had not become minutely familiar with its
aspect. Even had the story of Drowne’s wooden image ended here, its
celebrity might have been prolonged for many years by the reminiscences
of those who looked upon it in their childhood, and saw nothing else so
beautiful in after life. But the town was now astounded by an event,
the narrative of which has formed itself into one of the most singular
legends that are yet to be met with in the traditionary chimney corners
of the New England metropolis, where old men and women sit dreaming of
the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the present and the
future.
One fine morning, just before the departure of the Cynosure on her
second voyage to Fayal, the commander of that gallant vessel was seen
to issue from his residence in Hanover Street. He was stylishly dressed
in a blue broadcloth coat, with gold lace at the seams and
button-holes, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, a triangular hat, with
a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore a silver-hilted hanger at
his side. But the good captain might have been arrayed in the robes of
a prince or the rags of a beggar, without in either case attracting
notice, while obscured by such a companion as now leaned on his arm.
The people in the street started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped
aside from their path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or marble in
astonishment.
“Do you see it?—do you see it?” cried one, with tremulous eagerness.
“It is the very same!”
“The same?” answered another, who had arrived in town only the night
before. “Who do you mean? I see only a sea-captain in his shoregoing
clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit, with a bunch of beautiful
flowers in her hat. On my word, she is as fair and bright a damsel as
my eyes have looked on this many a day!”
“Yes; the same!—the very same!” repeated the other. “Drowne’s wooden
image has come to life!”
Here was a miracle indeed! Yet, illuminated by the sunshine, or
darkened by the alternate shade of the houses, and with its garments
fluttering lightly in the morning breeze, there passed the image along
the street. It was exactly and minutely the shape, the garb, and the
face which the towns-people had so recently thronged to see and admire.
Not a rich flower upon her head, not a single leaf, but had had its
prototype in Drowne’s wooden workmanship, although now their fragile
grace had become flexible, and was shaken by every footstep that the
wearer made. The broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the
one represented on the image, and glistened with the motion imparted by
the rise and fall of the bosom which it decorated. A real diamond
sparkled on her finger. In her right hand she bore a pearl and ebony
fan, which she flourished with a fantastic and bewitching coquetry,
that was likewise expressed in all her movements as well as in the
style of her beauty and the attire that so well harmonized with it. The
face with its brilliant depth of complexion had the same piquancy of
mirthful mischief that was fixed upon the countenance of the image, but
which was here varied and continually shifting, yet always essentially
the same, like the sunny gleam upon a bubbling fountain. On the whole,
there was something so airy and yet so real in the figure, and withal
so perfectly did it represent Drowne’s image, that people knew not
whether to suppose the magic wood etherealized into a spirit or warmed
and softened into an actual woman.
“One thing is certain,” muttered a Puritan of the old stamp, “Drowne
has sold himself to the devil; and doubtless this gay Captain Hunnewell
is a party to the bargain.”
“And I,” said a young man who overheard him, “would almost consent to
be the third victim, for the liberty of saluting those lovely lips.”
“And so would I,” said Copley, the painter, “for the privilege of
taking her picture.”
The image, or the apparition, whichever it might be, still escorted by
the bold captain, proceeded from Hanover Street through some of the
cross lanes that make this portion of the town so intricate, to Ann
Street, thence into Dock Square, and so downward to Drowne’s shop,
which stood just on the water’s edge. The crowd still followed,
gathering volume as it rolled along. Never had a modern miracle
occurred in such broad daylight, nor in the presence of such a
multitude of witnesses. The airy image, as if conscious that she was
the object of the murmurs and disturbance that swelled behind her,
appeared slightly vexed and flustered, yet still in a manner consistent
with the light vivacity and sportive mischief that were written in her
countenance. She was observed to flutter her fan with such vehement
rapidity that the elaborate delicacy of its workmanship gave way, and
it remained broken in her hand.
Arriving at Drowne’s door, while the captain threw it open, the
marvellous apparition paused an instant on the threshold, assuming the
very attitude of the image, and casting over the crowd that glance of
sunny coquetry which all remembered on the face of the oaken lady. She
and her cavalier then disappeared.
“Ah!” murmured the crowd, drawing a deep breath, as with one vast pair
of lungs.
“The world looks darker now that she has vanished,” said some of the
young men.
But the aged, whose recollections dated as far back as witch times,
shook their heads, and hinted that our forefathers would have thought
it a pious deed to burn the daughter of the oak with fire.
“If she be other than a bubble of the elements,” exclaimed Copley, “I
must look upon her face again.”
He accordingly entered the shop; and there, in her usual corner, stood
the image, gazing at him, as it might seem, with the very same
expression of mirthful mischief that had been the farewell look of the
apparition when, but a moment before, she turned her face towards the
crowd. The carver stood beside his creation mending the beautiful fan,
which by some accident was broken in her hand. But there was no longer
any motion in the lifelike image, nor any real woman in the workshop,
nor even the witchcraft of a sunny shadow, that might have deluded
people’s eyes as it flitted along the street. Captain Hunnewell, too,
had vanished. His hoarse sea-breezy tones, however, were audible on the
other side of a door that opened upon the water.
“Sit down in the stern sheets, my lady,” said the gallant captain.
“Come, bear a hand, you lubbers, and set us on board in the turning of
a minute-glass.”
And then was heard the stroke of oars.
“Drowne,” said Copley with a smile of intelligence, “you have been a
truly fortunate man. What painter or statuary ever had such a subject!
No wonder that she inspired a genius into you, and first created the
artist who afterwards created her image.”
Drowne looked at him with a visage that bore the traces of tears, but
from which the light of imagination and sensibility, so recently
illuminating it, had departed. He was again the mechanical carver that
he had been known to be all his lifetime.
“I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. Copley,” said he, putting his
hand to his brow. “This image! Can it have been my work? Well, I have
wrought it in a kind of dream; and now that I am broad awake I must set
about finishing yonder figure of Admiral Vernon.”
And forthwith he employed himself on the stolid countenance of one of