Mosses from an old manse
heartiest praise that he could find expression for; and, indeed, had he
paused there, a man of finer words and nicer perception could not
easily have said more. “That goes beyond me, I confess. But what then?
There is more real use in one downright blow of my sledge hammer than
in the whole five years’ labor that our friend Owen has wasted on this
butterfly.”
Here the child clapped his hands and made a great babble of indistinct
utterance, apparently demanding that the butterfly should be given him
for a plaything.
Owen Warland, meanwhile, glanced sidelong at Annie, to discover whether
she sympathized in her husband’s estimate of the comparative value of
the beautiful and the practical. There was, amid all her kindness
towards himself, amid all the wonder and admiration with which she
contemplated the marvellous work of his hands and incarnation of his
idea, a secret scorn—too secret, perhaps, for her own consciousness,
and perceptible only to such intuitive discernment as that of the
artist. But Owen, in the latter stages of his pursuit, had risen out of
the region in which such a discovery might have been torture. He knew
that the world, and Annie as the representative of the world, whatever
praise might be bestowed, could never say the fitting word nor feel the
fitting sentiment which should be the perfect recompense of an artist
who, symbolizing a lofty moral by a material trifle,—converting what
was earthly to spiritual gold,—had won the beautiful into his
handiwork. Not at this latest moment was he to learn that the reward of
all high performance must be sought within itself, or sought in vain.
There was, however, a view of the matter which Annie and her husband,
and even Peter Hovenden, might fully have understood, and which would
have satisfied them that the toil of years had here been worthily
bestowed. Owen Warland might have told them that this butterfly, this
plaything, this bridal gift of a poor watchmaker to a blacksmith’s
wife, was, in truth, a gem of art that a monarch would have purchased
with honors and abundant wealth, and have treasured it among the jewels
of his kingdom as the most unique and wondrous of them all. But the
artist smiled and kept the secret to himself.
“Father,” said Annie, thinking that a word of praise from the old
watchmaker might gratify his former apprentice, “do come and admire
this pretty butterfly.”
“Let us see,” said Peter Hovenden, rising from his chair, with a sneer
upon his face that always made people doubt, as he himself did, in
everything but a material existence. “Here is my finger for it to
alight upon. I shall understand it better when once I have touched it.”
But, to the increased astonishment of Annie, when the tip of her
father’s finger was pressed against that of her husband, on which the
butterfly still rested, the insect drooped its wings and seemed on the
point of falling to the floor. Even the bright spots of gold upon its
wings and body, unless her eyes deceived her, grew dim, and the glowing
purple took a dusky hue, and the starry lustre that gleamed around the
blacksmith’s hand became faint and vanished.
“It is dying! it is dying!” cried Annie, in alarm.
“It has been delicately wrought,” said the artist, calmly. “As I told
you, it has imbibed a spiritual essence—call it magnetism, or what you
will. In an atmosphere of doubt and mockery its exquisite
susceptibility suffers torture, as does the soul of him who instilled
his own life into it. It has already lost its beauty; in a few moments
more its mechanism would be irreparably injured.”
“Take away your hand, father!” entreated Annie, turning pale. “Here is
my child; let it rest on his innocent hand. There, perhaps, its life
will revive and its colors grow brighter than ever.”
Her father, with an acrid smile, withdrew his finger. The butterfly
then appeared to recover the power of voluntary motion, while its hues
assumed much of their original lustre, and the gleam of starlight,
which was its most ethereal attribute, again formed a halo round about
it. At first, when transferred from Robert Danforth’s hand to the small
finger of the child, this radiance grew so powerful that it positively
threw the little fellow’s shadow back against the wall. He, meanwhile,
extended his plump hand as he had seen his father and mother do, and
watched the waving of the insect’s wings with infantine delight.
Nevertheless, there was a certain odd expression of sagacity that made
Owen Warland feel as if here were old Pete Hovenden, partially, and but
partially, redeemed from his hard scepticism into childish faith.
“How wise the little monkey looks!” whispered Robert Danforth to his
wife.
“I never saw such a look on a child’s face,” answered Annie, admiring
her own infant, and with good reason, far more than the artistic
butterfly. “The darling knows more of the mystery than we do.”
As if the butterfly, like the artist, were conscious of something not
entirely congenial in the child’s nature, it alternately sparkled and
grew dim. At length it arose from the small hand of the infant with an
airy motion that seemed to bear it upward without an effort, as if the
ethereal instincts with which its master’s spirit had endowed it
impelled this fair vision involuntarily to a higher sphere. Had there
been no obstruction, it might have soared into the sky and grown
immortal. But its lustre gleamed upon the ceiling; the exquisite
texture of its wings brushed against that earthly medium; and a sparkle
or two, as of stardust, floated downward and lay glimmering on the
carpet. Then the butterfly came fluttering down, and, instead of
returning to the infant, was apparently attracted towards the artist’s
hand.
“Not so! not so!” murmured Owen Warland, as if his handiwork could have
understood him. “Thou has gone forth out of thy master’s heart. There
is no return for thee.”
With a wavering movement, and emitting a tremulous radiance, the
butterfly struggled, as it were, towards the infant, and was about to
alight upon his finger; but while it still hovered in the air, the
little child of strength, with his grandsire’s sharp and shrewd
expression in his face, made a snatch at the marvellous insect and
compressed it in his hand. Annie screamed. Old Peter Hovenden burst
into a cold and scornful laugh. The blacksmith, by main force, unclosed
the infant’s hand, and found within the palm a small heap of glittering
fragments, whence the mystery of beauty had fled forever. And as for
Owen Warland, he looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life’s
labor, and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly
than this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful,
the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of
little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the
enjoyment of the reality.
A VIRTUOSO’S COLLECTION
The other day, having a leisure hour at my disposal, I stepped into a
new museum, to which my notice was casually drawn by a small and
unobtrusive sign: “TO BE SEEN HERE, A VIRTUOSO’S COLLECTION.” Such was
the simple yet not altogether unpromising announcement that turned my
steps aside for a little while from the sunny sidewalk of our principal
thoroughfare. Mounting a sombre staircase, I pushed open a door at its
summit, and found myself in the presence of a person, who mentioned the
moderate sum that would entitle me to admittance.
“Three shillings, Massachusetts tenor,” said he. “No, I mean half a
dollar, as you reckon in these days.”
While searching my pocket for the coin I glanced at the doorkeeper, the
marked character and individuality of whose aspect encouraged me to
expect something not quite in the ordinary way. He wore an
old-fashioned great-coat, much faded, within which his meagre person
was so completely enveloped that the rest of his attire was
undistinguishable. But his visage was remarkably wind-flushed,
sunburnt, and weather-worn, and had a most, unquiet, nervous, and
apprehensive expression. It seemed as if this man had some
all-important object in view, some point of deepest interest to be
decided, some momentous question to ask, might he but hope for a reply.
As it was evident, however, that I could have nothing to do with his
private affairs, I passed through an open doorway, which admitted me
into the extensive hall of the museum.
Directly in front of the portal was the bronze statue of a youth with
winged feet. He was represented in the act of flitting away from earth,
yet wore such a look of earnest invitation that it impressed me like a
summons to enter the hall.
“It is the original statue of Opportunity, by the ancient sculptor
Lysippus,” said a gentleman who now approached me. “I place it at the
entrance of my museum, because it is not at all times that one can gain
admittance to such a collection.”
The speaker was a middle-aged person, of whom it was not easy to
determine whether he had spent his life as a scholar or as a man of
action; in truth, all outward and obvious peculiarities had been worn
away by an extensive and promiscuous intercourse with the world. There
was no mark about him of profession, individual habits, or scarcely of
country; although his dark complexion and high features made me
conjecture that he was a native of some southern clime of Europe. At
all events, he was evidently the virtuoso in person.
“With your permission,” said he, “as we have no descriptive catalogue,
I will accompany you through the museum and point out whatever may be
most worthy of attention. In the first place, here is a choice
collection of stuffed animals.”
Nearest the door stood the outward semblance of a wolf, exquisitely
prepared, it is true, and showing a very wolfish fierceness in the
large glass eyes which were inserted into its wild and crafty head.
Still it was merely the skin of a wolf, with nothing to distinguish it
from other individuals of that unlovely breed.
“How does this animal deserve a place in your collection?” inquired I.
“It is the wolf that devoured Little Red Riding Hood,” answered the
virtuoso; “and by his side—with a milder and more matronly look, as you
perceive—stands the she-wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus.”
“Ah, indeed!” exclaimed I. “And what lovely lamb is this with the
snow-white fleece, which seems to be of as delicate a texture as
innocence itself?”
“Methinks you have but carelessly read Spenser,” replied my guide, “or
you would at once recognize the ‘milk-white lamb’ which Una led. But I
set no great value upon the lamb. The next specimen is better worth our
notice.”
“What!” cried I, “this strange animal, with the black head of an ox
upon the body of a white horse? Were it possible to suppose it, I
should say that this was Alexander’s steed Bucephalus.”
“The same,” said the virtuoso. “And can you likewise give a name to the
famous charger that stands beside him?”
Next to the renowned Bucephalus stood the mere skeleton of a horse,
with the white bones peeping through his ill-conditioned hide; but, if
my heart had not warmed towards that pitiful anatomy, I might as well
have quitted the museum at once. Its rarities had not been collected
with pain and toil from the four quarters of the earth, and from the
depths of the sea, and from the palaces and sepulchres of ages, for
those who could mistake this illustrious steed.
“It, is Rosinante!” exclaimed I, with enthusiasm.
And so it proved. My admiration for the noble and gallant horse caused
me to glance with less interest at the other animals, although many of
them might have deserved the notice of Cuvier himself. There was the
donkey which Peter Bell cudgelled so soundly, and a brother of the same
species who had suffered a similar infliction from the ancient prophet