THREE PICTURES:

SUNRISE—NOONDAY—NIGHT.

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BY CAROLINE C——.

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“Like a clear fountain, his desire

Exults, and leaps toward the light,

In every drop it says ‘Aspire!’

Striving for more ideal height.”

—

“Looking within myself, I note how thin

A plank of station, chance, or prosperous fate,

Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin;

In my own heart I find the worst man’s mate!”

J. R. Lowell.

An artist was passing slowly through the thorough-fare of a great city, where for a few days he was sojourning.

He was a young man, and the few years of his life, if they had proved heavy and sorrowful in experience, had at least left no dark impress on his forehead. His figure was strikingly elegant, and the face manly, and very beautiful; it might well have been taken to represent the Genius of Thought, so calm, elevated, and ennobled by spiritual excellence was it.

The artist was a poor man; you could guess that by the worn garments in which he was attired, for from the figure, bearing, and whole appearance of the youth, it was evident that he was not of that class of geniuses who affect shabbiness in personal appearance, in the name of eccentricity.

And he was an ambitious young man, too. A glance into his studio, where constantly and diligently he toiled in his vocation, had told you that. It would seem by the constant emendations he would make, and by the finished style he labored to impart to all he did, that nothing short of superior excellence or perfection in his art, would satisfy him.

He has come into the open air this morning, not because he is wearied with his work, for it is a source of continual delight to him—neither in search of amusement, but to ponder on a thought which has long harbored in his mind—three pictures should be his fame. From his quiet studio he would send into the world a moral lesson that should delight and instruct, and leave in the world an abiding moral influence. Not only did Martin Gray long to win for himself a proud name on the earth, but with the poets and the preachers he would fain lift up his voice and teach—he also would be a priest and a reformer, and by his works he would testify to the infinite beauty of holiness and virtue.

The artist’s heart beat joyfully as he revolved this idea in his mind—his hope was high—his hand was skillful.

“If my name only ranks with the masters’ some day—if I can do some real and substantial good in my generation! I cannot labor too hard to secure these ends,” he said to himself as he passed, unconscious of the noise and confusion about him, along the street.

Mechanically turning at the first corner, Martin moved on to quarters of the city where the strife and confusion of life were more subdued.

At once he stood silent, as though changed suddenly to marble, then a heart-cheering cry of joy and surprise burst from him, and “I have found it! I have found it!” he cried—“here is sunrise at last!”

There were children playing in the street, poor little children, boys and girls, whose only play-ground was that hot and dusty place. But in the person of one, the quick eye of the artist detected extraordinary beauty, though decked in rags almost as extraordinary.

The unconscious child was a girl, six or seven years of age, faultless in form and feature, the very embodiment of one of Martin Gray’s ideals.

It was not solely the exquisite loveliness of the child’s face, though the shape and coloring were perfect—but beside the dark rich hair, which fell in such unheeded profusion on the shoulders of its little mistress—and beside the deep, sapphire-blue of the large languid eyes, and the classic regularity of every feature, there was an expression, a soul look, which intensified her natural beauty, and stamped her as the owner of an intellect whose range was far higher than that reached by any of her playmates.

“Tell me your name, little angel,” said the artist, in the excitement of his delighted surprise.

“My name is Alice Flynn,” was the prompt answer, accompanied by a smile and frank look of inquiry, which read very plainly “what is your name—and what do you want of me?”

“Have you a mother? Where does she live? Go with me to your home—I must speak with her.”

The child answered these queries by at once leaving her playmates—the artist followed her quickly, and in a few moments they entered a narrow byway. Passing a short distance through it, little Alice paused before a shabby old frame house, which seemed every day on the point of bidding an eternal farewell to all things terrestrial.

“This is the place where we live, sir,” she said, with the sweetest voice in the world; “will you come in?”

“The little girl is yours, ma’am, I believe,” said Martin, as he stood in the presence of what seemed to him an ogress—a gigantic woman who certainly could lay but little claim to beauty, when compared with the “child-angel” who called her mother.

“Yes—she wasn’t lost was she? Or was she up to mischief in the street, just tell me that?”

“No, no—nothing of the kind,” said the artist quickly—but not in the least daunted by the washer-woman’s unamiable greeting—“I was struck with her appearance—and now that I have at last an opportunity of accomplishing an object I have long contemplated, I trust you will not object.”

“Lord, sir, what is it ye want—speak it out quick can’t ye—my work is waiting for me, don’t ye see? Do you want the child’s front teeth, or her hair? I’ve sold her hair twice to a barber, but her teeth—”

“You mistake me,” exclaimed Martin Gray, sharply, for he was disgusted with the cruel words of the old beldam. “I am an artist—I would like to take her likeness—will you permit me to do so?”

“No! what would you do with it? The girl’s about spoiled now with people’s telling her how beautiful she is. To be sure the child is well enough”—this with a sort of brutish pride—“in looks, but beauty don’t give us bread, and her good looks only spiles her—she’s getting proud and hateful since people have told her so much about it, the little fool!”

“If that is so, I fear it is not the wisest course to let her play so much in the street with other little folks,” said Martin.

This approach to advice aroused the woman’s ire. “Where’s she to be kept, I’d like to know that? A poor woman like me as arns her bread by the sweat of her face has little time to be looking about after the young ones. People like me can’t keep their children to home like other folks, who have plenty of room indoor and out. So you see, young man, your advice aint worth much any how.”

“Of course, madam, you know your own business best; but, seriously, you cannot mean to refuse my earnest request. I assure you it will be the greatest favor to me if you will suffer me to take the child’s picture. I am willing to pay you for the privilege.”

“Then it shall be done,” said the woman, brightening up. “How much will you offer?”

“Two dollars,” answered the young man, “and I will pay you more at some future day—but I also am poor.”

Poor fellow, he spoke the truth indeed, for the two dollars were just half the contents of his old faded purse at that moment.

“Well, she may go for that. Here Alice, you’re gwine to have your face painted—let me brush you up a little.”

“No—no, I pray madam, leave her to me. I will take her to my studio as she is; I would not have her appearance changed in the least—the drapery of the child does not need any alteration, I will bring her to you again in an hour.”

“Well, she’ll be safe enough, I ’spose, go on.”

“Are you going to paint my face, sir? What for? Will it hurt me?” asked Alice Flynn as she, with Martin, passed along the streets hand in hand.

“Not your face, child,” answered the artist, “I’m going to paint a face like yours—that is all.”

“What for?”

“To hang up in my room, and then perhaps to sell it some day for a great deal of money.”

“Sell me! sell my face!” and the little innocent laughed, and wondered why any body should want to buy a face like hers!

Martin, too busy with his own thoughts, made no answer to her many exclamations of astonishment and wonder. Two steps at a time, with the girl in his arms, did the delighted youth ascend the three steep and narrow flights of stairs which led to the poor little attic room he dignified with the “name, style, and title” of studio.

A barren place it seemed to little Alice Flynn, for such a nice gentleman to live in—indeed scarce a whit better than her own poor home was it.

“Are you poor, too?” she asked, with childlike confidence—and a most unchildish and unnatural sadness was in her voice as she spoke.

“Yes, I am poor—I paint pictures for a living, Alice. I shall not grow rich in a day,” said the artist, and his words were uttered with not quite the usual, light-hearted happy tone.

Probably my reader will not soon, if ever, see the original painting executed on that day which ever after remained a date so memorable in the recollections of Martin Gray. Let me, therefore, here state that the Sunrise was a portrait quite dissimilar to those we usually see of young children.

“Now lie quietly, Alice, for a moment,” said Martin. He had placed her on the ancient lounge, the only reasonable piece of furniture in the room. “Now close your eyes—ah! not so close, let them be half open, as though you were just waking up—now I will paint a picture the world shall wonder at! Yes, I also will make a Sunrise!”

Quietly and motionless, as though bereft of life, the child lay and watched the artist’s movements; in him she forgot herself, consequently had none of that intense consciousness of expression so often perceivable in the portraits of people who become immortalized, and perpetuated on—canvas!

What a sight to see! the lonely desolate places where the impoverished children of Genius, the painters, sculptors, and poets, have with patient but almost hopeless toil wrought out their wonder-works!

Oh! eyes whose range of vision was circumscribed by four contracted walls, have looked on scenes of rarer and richer beauty than travelers in many climes have seen; and voices, husky, tuneless with want and grief, have breathed, even when tortured with the death-agony, songs, that the world has hushed its mighty voice, and its tumultuous heart to hear; warriors have conquered on battle-fields, whose inspiration was the song that burst from the dying son of poverty, while pain and fever prostrated him, who kept back by force of mind the advance of death, until the strain of glory should be fully and perfectly conceived!

An hour passed, and not for one moment had the hand of the artist paused—it is enough to say that even he was satisfied with the progress he had made in those swift-winged sixty minutes.

Upon the easy couch Alice had fallen asleep, unperceived by the young painter—he awakened her with some regret, but the time he had promised to keep her with him was passed, and Martin had little inclination to brave the wrath of the mother’s tongue. Thoughtfully he led the child to her home, and when he parted with her there, it was with a heart full of sorrow, for he knew that a life of hardship, and want, and temptation, was in store for the beautiful girl.

“Poor and handsome,” thought he—“God protect her! To be sure it would be a sad sight were the innumerable host of poor people all hideously ugly—and as to the necessity of the thing, such folks would seem to require the simple pleasure of being admired, inasmuch as they are debarred from participating in all amusements and enjoyments that cost money, and beauty costs nothing. And yet Heaven have mercy on the poor family that boasts of a beauty! as surely as the sunshine, pride will creep in under the door-sill or by the window, and certainly in a covert manner. The pretty daughter must be prettily dressed, even at the expense, and by the self-denial of the more plainly gifted remainder of the family. Then come struggles, heart-bitterness and envy—God be thanked if hatred and malice do not also come! Now there’s that little Alice Flynn—if she were only my sister, or one over whom I had the shadow of control! Oh! that I were only rich! She ought to be educated! Heavens! what a smile—and what a mind she has—she thinks! God defend her!”

Indulging in such thoughts as these Martin had passed again through the crowded streets, quite unmindful of all things save that one high project he had conceived, which now, he for the first time felt convinced might be really performed. Once more we find him before his easel, and how he labored there! Six days, morning and evening, he worked on his creation, and Saturday night saw him looking upon it with such intensity of satisfaction, as betokened a very happy heart—for it was finished, and his heart and his mind had declared it “very good!”

The following week there was to be an exhibition of the paintings of native artists in New York, and to the rooms prepared for this purpose Martin conveyed his work, and it was not perhaps without a thrill of pride that he placed it among the multitudinous proofs of genius there.

The Sunrise was unframed, and having been among the last brought in, it occupied an obscure and unfavorable position. But Martin surveyed it with the eyes of a lover—he knew its superior merit, and he fancied that others would behold it in just such a light. But Martin was destined to be disappointed not a little; during the first days of the exhibition, while the rooms were filled to overflowing, but little attention was attracted toward his portrait. Sometimes it was so fortunate as to attract an exclamation of surprise, and a momentary glance of admiration—and once or twice a group of young people stopped a moment to honor it with examination, but there were works of well known artists which must be criticised and applauded—there were “first attempts” of rich and fashionable men which must be praised—and besides, it was on the whole taken for granted by universal consent, that the best pictures occupied the most prominent stations, and that those condemned to the back-ground must necessarily be only passably good or mediocre.

By degrees Martin began to take these facts into consideration—and then it was only by great effort he managed to keep his hopes alive, that some good fate was yet in store for his darling.

An early hour on the morning of the fifth day found him once more attracted to the rooms, he would endeavor to secure for his child a position more prominent, for some of the paintings had been already removed by their masters.

But two persons were there when he entered. They were a lady and gentleman in deep mourning, and they were standing before his Sunrise! Passing up the long hall slowly, with his eyes directed to the thickly covered wall, where he saw what only an artist could, the outwritten, burning hopes of a multitude of men, he contrived to keep watch of the two who remained so long motionless and speechless before the pictured child.

“Do you know the author of this work, sir; and if it is for sale?” asked the stranger as Martin drew near.

“I have an acquaintance with the artist,” answered he, “but the painting, I think, is not for sale.”

“Why should it be placed here then?” asked the gentleman quickly, and with great evident disappointment.

“Because, sir, there is something dear to the heart of the author of a work, beside the money which the sale of it would bring. I feel at liberty to answer you frankly as you have asked—the artist hoped that by this work attention might be attracted to his skill, for he is a young man necessitated to labor, and, as yet, altogether unknown in his profession.”

“I admire the genius of the young man, he will succeed in making himself known beyond all doubt. But perhaps I might offer for this picture a sum great enough to satisfy even him.”

There was a silence, and there was in the lady’s eyes such a beseeching look as she glanced from the picture toward Martin, that his determination was almost vanquished, but he looked down and said:

“The painting is my work—I cannot part with it at any price.”

“It is yours! and you will not sell it! Mr. Artist, you do not, cannot know how much you refuse us! We had a child, a darling little girl, she was an angel to us—she is lost to us, is dead, young man!—and this portrait! it is so like her, at any cost I would secure it. Name your price, high as you value your beautiful work, consider that to us it is infinitely more valuable! the hours of labor you have spent upon it have endeared it to you—it is more to us though than even that, it is life to us, for it brings her back again!”

The lady trembled as her companion pleaded with the artist so earnestly. It was not in Martin Gray to deny a plea so sad and so heartfelt. “It shall be yours,” he exclaimed, “permit me to retain the work but a few days, and it shall then be returned to you.”

A thankful glance of the tearful eyes of the bereaved mother was what Martin thought at that moment a full reward.

“God bless you, sir! you have made us happy! If five thousand dollars is any compensation, they are yours!”

That was another kind of reward! The young artist thought both invaluable; and it was with a light heart that with the picture in its case, he carried it once more to the attic studio.

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