Twice-told tales
the portraits of dark-souled men, like a gleam of infernal fire. It is
an awful gift,” added Walter, lowering his voice from its tone of
enthusiasm. “I shall be almost afraid to sit to him.”
“Walter, are you in earnest?” exclaimed Elinor.
“For Heaven’s sake, dearest Elinor, do not let him paint the look which
you now wear,” said her lover, smiling, though rather perplexed.
“There! it is passing away now; but when you spoke, you seemed
frightened to death, and very sad besides. What were you thinking of?”
“Nothing, nothing!” answered Elinor, hastily. “You paint my face with
your own fantasies. Well, come for me tomorrow, and we will visit this
wonderful artist.”
But when the young man had departed, it cannot be denied that a
remarkable expression was again visible on the fair and youthful face
of his mistress. It was a sad and anxious look, little in accordance
with what should have been the feelings of a maiden on the eve of
wedlock. Yet Walter Ludlow was the chosen of her heart.
“A look!” said Elinor to herself. “No wonder that it startled him if it
expressed what I sometimes feel. I know by my own experience how
frightful a look may be. But it was all fancy. I thought nothing of it
at the time; I have seen nothing of it since; I did but dream it;” and
she busied herself about the embroidery of a ruff in which she meant
that her portrait should be taken.
The painter of whom they had been speaking was not one of those native
artists who at a later period than this borrowed their colors from the
Indians and manufactured their pencils of the furs of wild beasts.
Perhaps, if he could have revoked his life and prearranged his destiny,
he might have chosen to belong to that school without a master in the
hope of being at least original, since there were no works of art to
imitate nor rules to follow. But he had been born and educated in
Europe. People said that he had studied the grandeur or beauty of
conception and every touch of the master-hand in all the most famous
pictures in cabinets and galleries and on the walls of churches till
there was nothing more for his powerful mind to learn. Art could add
nothing to its lessons, but Nature might. He had, therefore, visited a
world whither none of his professional brethren had preceded him, to
feast his eyes on visible images that were noble and picturesque, yet
had never been transferred to canvas. America was too poor to afford
other temptations to an artist of eminence, though many of the colonial
gentry on the painter’s arrival had expressed a wish to transmit their
lineaments to posterity by moans of his skill. Whenever such proposals
were made, he fixed his piercing eyes on the applicant and seemed to
look him through and through. If he beheld only a sleek and comfortable
visage, though there were a gold-laced coat to adorn the picture and
golden guineas to pay for it, he civilly rejected the task and the
reward; but if the face were the index of anything uncommon in thought,
sentiment or experience, or if he met a beggar in the street with a
white beard and a furrowed brow, or if sometimes a child happened to
look up and smile, he would exhaust all the art on them that he denied
to wealth.
Pictorial skill being so rare in the colonies, the painter became an
object of general curiosity. If few or none could appreciate the
technical merit of his productions, yet there were points in regard to
which the opinion of the crowd was as valuable as the refined judgment
of the amateur. He watched the effect that each picture produced on
such untutored beholders, and derived profit from their remarks, while
they would as soon have thought of instructing Nature herself as him
who seemed to rival her. Their admiration, it must be owned, was
tinctured with the prejudices of the age and country. Some deemed it an
offence against the Mosaic law, and even a presumptuous mockery of the
Creator, to bring into existence such lively images of his creatures.
Others, frightened at the art which could raise phantoms at will and
keep the form of the dead among the living, were inclined to consider
the painter as a magician, or perhaps the famous Black Man of old
witch-times plotting mischief in a new guise. These foolish fancies
were more than half believed among the mob. Even in superior circles
his character was invested with a vague awe, partly rising like
smoke-wreaths from the popular superstitions, but chiefly caused by the
varied knowledge and talents which he made subservient to his
profession.
Being on the eve of marriage, Walter Ludlow and Elinor were eager to
obtain their portraits as the first of what, they doubtless hoped,
would be a long series of family pictures. The day after the
conversation above recorded they visited the painter’s rooms. A servant
ushered them into an apartment where, though the artist himself was not
visible, there were personages whom they could hardly forbear greeting
with reverence. They knew, indeed, that the whole assembly were but
pictures, yet felt it impossible to separate the idea of life and
intellect from such striking counterfeits. Several of the portraits
were known to them either as distinguished characters of the day or
their private acquaintances. There was Governor Burnett, looking as if
he had just received an undutiful communication from the House of
Representatives and were inditing a most sharp response. Mr. Cooke hung
beside the ruler whom he opposed, sturdy and somewhat puritanical, as
befitted a popular leader. The ancient lady of Sir William Phipps eyed
them from the wall in ruff and farthingale, an imperious old dame not
unsuspected of witchcraft. John Winslow, then a very young man, wore
the expression of warlike enterprise which long afterward made him a
distinguished general. Their personal friends were recognized at a
glance. In most of the pictures the whole mind and character were
brought out on the countenance and concentrated into a single look; so
that, to speak paradoxically, the originals hardly resembled themselves
so strikingly as the portraits did.
Among these modern worthies there were two old bearded saints who had
almost vanished into the darkening canvas. There was also a pale but
unfaded Madonna who had perhaps been worshipped in Rome, and now
regarded the lovers with such a mild and holy look that they longed to
worship too.
“How singular a thought,” observed Walter Ludlow, “that this beautiful
face has been beautiful for above two hundred years! Oh, if all beauty
would endure so well! Do you not envy her, Elinor?”
“If earth were heaven, I might,” she replied. “But, where all things
fade, how miserable to be the one that could not fade!”
“This dark old St. Peter has a fierce and ugly scowl, saint though he
be,” continued Walter; “he troubles me. But the Virgin looks kindly at
us.”
“Yes, but very sorrowfully, methinks,” said Elinor.
The easel stood beneath these three old pictures, sustaining one that
had been recently commenced. After a little inspection they began to
recognize the features of their own minister, the Rev. Dr. Colman,
growing into shape and life, as it were, out of a cloud.
“Kind old man!” exclaimed Elinor. “He gazes at me as if he were about
to utter a word of paternal advice.”
“And at me,” said Walter, “as if he were about to shake his head and
rebuke me for some suspected iniquity. But so does the original. I
shall never feel quite comfortable under his eye till we stand before
him to be married.”
They now heard a footstep on the floor, and, turning, beheld the
painter, who had been some moments in the room and had listened to a
few of their remarks. He was a middle-aged man with a countenance well
worthy of his own pencil. Indeed, by the picturesque though careless
arrangement of his rich dress, and perhaps because his soul dwelt
always among painted shapes, he looked somewhat like a portrait
himself. His visitors were sensible of a kindred between the artist and
his works, and felt as if one of the pictures had stepped from the
canvas to salute them.
Walter Ludlow, who was slightly known to the painter, explained the
object of their visit. While he spoke a sunbeam was falling athwart his
figure and Elinor’s with so happy an effect that they also seemed
living pictures of youth and beauty gladdened by bright fortune. The
artist was evidently struck.
“My easel is occupied for several ensuing days, and my stay in Boston
must be brief,” said he, thoughtfully; then, after an observant glance,
he added, “But your wishes shall be gratified though I disappoint the
chief-justice and Madame Oliver. I must not lose this opportunity for
the sake of painting a few ells of broadcloth and brocade.”
The painter expressed a desire to introduce both their portraits into
one picture and represent them engaged in some appropriate action. This
plan would have delighted the lovers, but was necessarily rejected
because so large a space of canvas would have been unfit for the room
which it was intended to decorate. Two half-length portraits were
therefore fixed upon. After they had taken leave, Walter Ludlow asked
Elinor, with a smile, whether she knew what an influence over their
fates the painter was about to acquire.
“The old women of Boston affirm,” continued he, “that after he has once
got possession of a person’s face and figure he may paint him in any
act or situation whatever, and the picture will be prophetic. Do you
believe it?”
“Not quite,” said Elinor, smiling. “Yet if he has such magic, there is
something so gentle in his manner that I am sure he will use it well.”
It was the painter’s choice to proceed with both the portraits at the
same time, assigning as a reason, in the mystical language which he
sometimes used, that the faces threw light upon each other.
Accordingly, he gave now a touch to Walter and now to Elinor, and the
features of one and the other began to start forth so vividly that it
appeared as if his triumphant art would actually disengage them from
the canvas. Amid the rich light and deep shade they beheld their
phantom selves, but, though the likeness promised to be perfect, they
were not quite satisfied with the expression: it seemed more vague than
in most of the painter’s works. He, however, was satisfied with the
prospect of success, and, being much interested in the lovers, employed
his leisure moments, unknown to them, in making a crayon sketch of
their two figures. During their sittings he engaged them in
conversation and kindled up their faces with characteristic traits,
which, though continually varying, it was his purpose to combine and
fix. At length he announced that at their next visit both the portraits
would be ready for delivery.
“If my pencil will but be true to my conception in the few last touches
which I meditate,” observed he, “these two pictures will be my very
best performances. Seldom indeed has an artist such subjects.” While
speaking he still bent his penetrative eye upon them, nor withdrew it
till they had reached the bottom of the stairs.
Nothing in the whole circle of human vanities takes stronger hold of
the imagination than this affair of having a portrait painted. Yet why
should it be so? The looking-glass, the polished globes of the
andirons, the mirror-like water, and all other reflecting surfaces,
continually present us with portraits—or, rather, ghosts—of ourselves
which we glance at and straightway forget them. But we forget them only
because they vanish. It is the idea of duration—of earthly
immortality—that gives such a mysterious interest to our own portraits.
Walter and Elinor were not insensible to this feeling, and hastened to
the painter’s room punctually at the appointed hour to meet those
pictured shapes which were to be their representatives with posterity.