The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

Childhood and genius alike look through and over the lattice-work which separates the regions of the natural and the supernatural. She had firm faith in midnight revels in the woods, held by those elves, fairies, and satyrs who come down to us from the dim and shaded life of earlier ages, and whose existence she had eagerly accepted when I hinted its possibility. Her theory of the mutability of species exceeded Darwin's; for she fancied that the vegetable world was occasionally endowed with animal life, and that the luxuriant and often poisonous vines, which choked by their rude embrace so many tenderer forms of life, waked up, under some unknown influence, into the snakes, of which she felt as little fear.

As for me, I encouraged this tangle of woodland dreams across her brain, and liked to think she dwelt apart, blind and deaf to all contamination through its simple power.

Annie was to-day, therefore, most happy that Spring was reorganizing her dreamland again; and while I seated myself on a stone to arrange my materials, she ran to fill the tin cup with water from the brook below. Then she helped me with my paints, and watched curiously all my preparations. When these were completed, I said,—

"Now, Annie, prepare a little scene for me, and I will paint it."

At first she was reluctant to make the attempt; but I insisted, and she did so.

The tiny thread which fed the stream below trickled over a stone beside us, making rich with its silver beads of moisture a cushion of moss beneath. On this Annie heaped bloodroots and anemones, a few early violets, and one or two arbutus-sprays, and then looked up to see if I was satisfied.

"Yes," I said, "if you will sit on that tree-stump, and leave your hand there."

She laughed merrily, pleased to be in my first painting. I drew out my paper, and rapidly sketched the outlines. Then I took my brush; the pale spring beauties grew beneath its touch, and lay with careless grace on the soft, damp moss.

Annie had resumed her Botany as the afternoon wore on, reaching forward occasionally to note my progress; and her hand lay relaxed, the fingers loosely clasping the last violets laid down.

I was giving most affectionate pats of my camel's-hair to the last little pink nail, feeling more elated at this first attempt than at many a better picture since, when I heard the tramp of horses' feet in the road to the left of the meadow where we sat. I was too intent upon my work to raise my eyes, and Annie sat with her face turned toward the woods, so that I thought nothing more of it until we were startled by a voice at a little distance.

"Well, my young friend, I suppose this studio is open to visitors?"

I looked up, and saw Miss Merton and Mr. Lang.

"We were riding, and called at the forge," said Miss Merton, with a wondering glance at Annie, whose astonishment had not admitted of a change of position; "and as Mr. Lang heard there you were off on an excursion, we have been expecting to see you, and caught our first glimpse as the horses walked up the hill. Won't you introduce us to your young friend, Mr. Allen?"

"This is Annie Bray, my master's daughter," I stammered, with a keen and very unpleasant remembrance of Miss Darry's remarks.

Annie rose, and returned with natural ease Miss Merton's smile and kindly greeting, while Mr. Lang bent over to look at my painting.

"Alice, look here. This is as pretty a bit of water-color as I've ever seen. A young girl's hand is a gratifying possession, but I am not sure that I should have stopped with it in the present instance." And he looked admiringly at Annie's modest beauty.

Miss Merton walked round the stump, and stood behind me.

"It is indeed pretty. Miss Annie's hand suggests the idea that these blossoms at least were not 'born to blush unseen.' It reminds me of our object in seeking you, Mr. Allen. A friend," she added, with an arch look at Mr. Lang, "has been audacious enough to give me a costly picture. I am to have a few friends to admire it to-morrow evening. I know you will enjoy it; so I want you to come, too."

"You are very kind, but"–I hesitated.

"But what?" inquired Mr. Lang. "Speak out boldly, Sandy."

"I should not think you would care to have a poor blacksmith with your friends. Let me come another evening."

"I am sorry, that, judging by your own feelings, you have arrived at this conclusion," answered Mr. Lang, dryly. "I might have thought, under similar circumstances, you would have treated us in the same way. Do as you choose, of course; but remember, blacksmith or artist, no one will respect you, unless you so thoroughly respect yourself as to hold your manhood above your profession, and accept every courtesy in the spirit in which it is offered."

I began to understand that he would guard me from the vanity and over-sensitiveness which were the natural outgrowth of my position; yet I reddened at the implied weakness.

"Pray don't mind Mr. Lang's criticisms," said Miss Merton, noticing my confusion. "You certainly do not doubt the sincerity of our invitation?"

"Not at all," I exclaimed, warmly.

"Then will you not come to-morrow evening?"

Yielding to the fascinating persuasiveness of her manner, I now consented so readily, that Mr. Lang, laughing, asked, in the old friendly tone,—

"Did you paint this picture, Sandy, for any special purpose?"

"Only that I might show it to Miss Darry."

"Ah, well, let us take it to her. I have another use for it besides. Are there any further touches to be given it?"

I looked; it might have been improved by more work, but I had not the courage to undertake it before them. So I said I thought it would do.

He lingered a moment, while Miss Merton spoke a few words to Annie, who only waited until they reached the stile to express warmly her admiration of the lovely lady, who had invited her also to come some day to Hillside, to see the air-plants in her conservatory.

CHAPTER VIII

When I descended from my room to the kitchen, the next evening, arrayed for my visit, with all the elegance of which my simple wardrobe admitted, Mrs. Bray exclaimed,—

"Well, Sandy, I protest, you do look smart! But don't be set up, 'cause you keep high company. I s'pose, knowin Amos was a family man, and couldn't go visitin' round, they took a notion to you."

Annie followed me to the door, saying,—

"You must remember to tell me about the picture, Sandy, and what they say of yours; and do look at the plants Miss Merton promised to show me, and see just how she looks herself."

"And anything more?" I asked, laughing.

"Yes,—what they say to you. You look as handsome to-night, Sandy, as the tall gentleman with Miss Merton,—only such a very different handsome!"

"Then you admired his appearance?" I asked, lingering. "I fancied you were too busy looking at Miss Merton to think of him."

But Annie continued to unfold her opinion without noticing my remark.

"I should be afraid he wouldn't care for me, if I didn't look and act just as he wanted me to. I don't like his way of being handsome, Sandy, so well as yours."

Unconsciously, Annie was making her first experiment in analysis; and as I did not quite relish the basis upon which my beauty rested, I bade her good-night, and hurried away.

I knew I was not handsome, yet Annie's naïve admiration undoubtedly braced me to face the evening. In my gray eye there was nothing of the soft, dreamy expression usually supposed to accompany the æsthetic temperament. On the contrary, it had the earnest, scrutinizing glance peculiar to a more restless intellect than mine. The intent gaze of some ancestor, perhaps, looked out from these "windows of my soul." If so, and his spirit was occasionally permitted to view the world through me, the "fancy gardening" in which I so extensively indulged could scarcely have been congenial to his tastes. The eye was the salient point, however, of a countenance not otherwise noticeable, except from a girlish habit I had of coloring whenever I was suddenly addressed.

When I reached Hillside, I rang the bell with some trepidation, which was increased by the announcement of the servant that the ladies were at the tea-table. This trifling annoyance of presenting myself at the tea-hour, when expected to pass the evening, was sufficiently serious to my awkwardness to threaten my enjoyment of the visit; but I had scarcely seated myself in the library when Miss Darry appeared.

"I hoped you would be in doubt as to the hour of coming, Sandy, and get here early," she said, smiling brightly. "You must let me thank you for painting that picture for me to look at; I even admired the little white hand of your plebeian friend, it was so charmingly done."

I could not be annoyed at this mingling of praise and badinage, especially when she relieved me from all sense of intrusion. Moreover, she looked so brilliant, so sparkling and happy, that I watched her, amazed at the metamorphosis from her ordinarily calm, intellectual conversation and plain appearance.

"I thought perhaps you would keep the picture to please me, Miss Darry," I faltered, feeling that I was presenting it to an entirely new character.

She accepted it, however, most graciously, and led me into the conservatory, that I might assist her in arranging some baskets of flowers for the parlor-tables.

"I never did believe in conservatories," she exclaimed, as I expressed my admiration of the many rare plants. "It is as unnatural a life for flowers to be crowded together, each in its little pot of earth, as for human beings in their separate beds in a hospital. The idea of shutting up plants and pictures in a room by themselves, to be visited on state occasions, or when some member of the family in a vagrant mood chances unexpectedly among them, seems to me preposterous."

Meanwhile she ran in and out among the flower-stands, breaking off branches of flame-colored azalea, creamy, voluptuous-looking callas, and a variety of drooping blossoms and sprays of green, with a reckless handling of their proud beauty, which I involuntarily contrasted with Annie Bray's timid, half-caressing touch of the wild-flowers.

The umber-colored silk she wore toned down what I, who fancied the delicate sea-shell hue of blondes, should have termed her rather strong colors; and now, bent on my enjoyment rather than improvement, she looked much younger, and certainly far handsomer, than I had supposed she could. Her entire self-possession, the familiarity with which she approached human beings, Nature, and Art, were to me so many indications of her power, and because of my own awe in the presence of any revelation of beauty or intellect, seemed the more wonderful. In admiration of her ease, I became at ease myself, and was thoroughly enjoying her gay mood, which puzzled while it charmed me, when the glass door opening into the drawing-room was pushed aside, and Mr. Lang entered.

"Good evening, Sandy. Alice and Mr. Leopold have been inquiring for you, Miss Darry; but don't run away with those baskets so quickly. I want a few blossoms for Alice's hair. Yours is gorgeous, tropical. Sandy's here has as much of a wild-wood appearance as exotics will admit of. One would think Nature was in league with Darley in making these ferns; they are outlines merely; but this rich red japonica in the centre, on its cushion of white flowers, shows you a genuine colorist, Sandy."

Miss Darry, making some gay reply, gave me a basket, which, designedly or not, made me less awkwardly conscious of my hands, and we entered the drawing-room. Unaccustomed to gayeties of any kind, I was quite dazzled by the sudden and brilliant blaze of light, the few guests already assembled, and by Miss Merton's beauty enveloped in soft floating folds of gossamer, looking as though the mist itself had woven her a garment. No time, however, was given in which I could relapse into self-consciousness. Miss Darry occupied me with various statuettes and engravings, until Mr. Lang rejoined us, accompanied by a gentleman whom he introduced to me as Mr. Leopold, the painter of the picture which I was to see in the course of the evening. Although my reading had necessarily been limited, Miss Darry's persistent training, and my own voracious appetite for information in everything relating to the arts, had given me a somewhat superficial knowledge of the pictures, style, and personal appearance of the best old and modern painters. In spite of some obstinate facts tending to a different conclusion, I had imbibed the conventional idea of a genius, that he must dwell in an etherealized body,—and Mr. Leopold's stalwart frame, full, florid face, and well-rounded features were a surprise and disappointment. I expected the Raphaelesque,—tender grace and melancholy; but about these frank blue eyes and full red lips lurked the good-nature of a healthy school-boy, the quaint, unchecked humor of a man upon whose life had fallen the sunshine of prosperity.

"So, you are the young man, Mr. Allen, who painted the Spring Flowers and the Maiden's Hand," he said, in a full, rich voice, and with a genial smile. "It is evident, you, too, are in your spring-time, while I, near my autumn, can afford to refer to the peculiarities of that period. I cannot regret that you have a life of struggle before you; for it is not merely the pleasing fancy which paints fine pictures. You would have let a sunbeam play over that little hand, had you possessed the technical knowledge to manage it: now, wouldn't you?"

I crimsoned, assenting as though to a crime.

"Effects of sunlight on bright colors are sometimes very striking," he continued. "A crimson flower wet with dew and nodding in sunshine is a kind of tremulous rainbow, which a man might well like to copy. We must make a compact to help each other, Mr. Allen, I want to study human nature, and would like an introduction to all the oddities of the village."

I promised to make him acquainted with them, wondering meanwhile that he craved for his culture what I regarded as the chief obstacle to mine.

"You shall meet Sandy at the forge some day, when work is over, and visit the villagers," said Mr. Lang. "Miss Darry, shall you or I take Mr. Allen to see the picture? He may like a longer inspection of it than some of us."

I looked imploringly at Miss Darry, who, slipping her hand within my arm, led me into a room corresponding to the conservatory in size and position. The walls were mostly covered with cabinet-pictures, and among several larger ones was the recent addition by Mr. Leopold. At my first glance, I was conscious of that sense of disappointment which comes to us when our imagination devises an ideal beauty, which human hands rob of delicacy by the very act of embodiment: moreover, how could I, in my dreamy, undeveloped boy-life, with a fancy just awakened, and revelling in its own tropical creations, appreciate the simple strength, the grand repose of the picture before me? What appeared barren to me in the man and his works was born of the very depth of a nature which, in copying the Infinite, had learned not only the tender beauty of flowers, the consolations of the clouds, the grandeur of mountains, seas, and rocks, but the beauty of common scenes, the grass and herbage of daily intercourse and use. Touching the world at all points, he had something to give and receive from nearly every one he met; and, as Sydney Smith has said Dr. Chalmers was a thousand men in one, I can say that he had the versatility and power of ten ordinary artists. At the time, however, nothing of all this was in my mind; only a certain sense of satisfaction took the place of disappointment, as I looked at the picture. He had given clearly the impression of magnitude in the gigantic mass of gray limestone which juts out of the deep blue Spanish sea. Misty flakes of dispersing cloud above suggested the recent rain which had clothed its frequently barren sides with a mantle of verdure. A few bell-shaped blossoms hung over crevices of rock, fearless in the frail foothold of their thread-like stems, as innocent child-faces above a precipice. It was in this simple way, and by the isthmus of sand connecting it to the continent, long and level, like the dash Nature made after so grand a work, before descending to the commonplaces of ordinary creation, that he had toned down the grandeur of stern old Gibraltar.

Miss Darry Indulged me long in my desire to look at the first fine picture I had ever seen; but when other guests entered, we withdrew to the farther side of the room, where I was not left in undisturbed possession of her society, though conscious that she never, for a moment, lost sight of me or my manner of acquitting myself. Miss Merton, Miss Darry, Mr. Lang, Mr. Leopold, and a few others, formed the group of talkers; and I stood within the circle, a listener, until Miss Darry and Mr. Leopold obliged me to participate. They had an admirable power of drawing each other out, and he seemed greatly attracted by her brilliant criticisms of life and Art. Had I known of the theory which, robbed of its metaphysical subtilties, is advanced in some of our fashionable romances, I should have been convinced that evening that Miss Darry was, intellectually at least, my counterpart. If I faltered in my vocabulary, when expressing an opinion or replying to a question, she supplied the missing word, or by glance and approving smile reassured me to recall it; if my thought lacked shape and completeness, she gave it a few sharp cuts with the chisel of her keen wit and clear intellect, handing it back for me to color as I chose. Miss Merton, lovely as she was, shone with a lesser light that evening in Miss Darry's presence; yet Mr. Lang, tempted away for a moment, always rejoined her with an admiring smile, well pleased at fascinations less indiscriminately exercised.

A little later, as I again approached Mr. Leopold's picture, not venturing to return to the parlors, now that Miss Darry was engrossed by other gentlemen, I became an unwilling listener to a few words of conversation between Miss Merton and Mr. Lang, who stood just outside the door.

"What a girl Frank Darry is for accomplishing everything she undertakes!" said Miss Merton, admiringly; "how she has improved her protégé! he can talk on subjects where I have to be silent, though I have had what dear mamma used to call a 'finished education.'"

"Yes, darling. She has made his mental growth very rapid; but, in the process of cultivation, he is gaining a little false pride, which I hope is not of her planting. He blushes, whenever his trade is alluded to: foolish fellow! not to see that the very fact of being a blacksmith is his claim to superiority. A thoroughly trained youth might have done far more than he without any special ability."

"But, Hamilton, you may misconstrue blushes which are so frequent; he is in a new world, too; do give him a chance to make himself at home, before you criticize him. You must admit I was right about his not annoying one by any decided awkwardness of behavior."

"Oh, yes, dear. A certain sense of fitness goes with the artistic temperament. I suppose old Dr. Johnson, devouring his food and drinking innumerable cups of tea, might be a far more shocking social companion than this blacksmith's apprentice. You are always drawing out the lovable traits of people, dear Alice," he added, in a lower tone; "and that is a thousand times better than Frank Darry's intellectual developments."

They turned away then; and I, angry at being forced to listen at all to what was not meant for my ear, and the more so that Mr. Lang had spoken of me so depreciatingly, stood burning with shame and indignation. Annie Bray's undoubting faith and love would have comforted me without a word of spoken confidence; but she was not here to give it; and, longing for the reassurance of Miss Darry's presence, I entered the drawing-room,—but would gladly have withdrawn again, for Mr. Lang came quickly toward me.

"Sandy," he said, "this may not be exactly the time to discuss business matters with you; but your friends seem to feel that you deserve a better chance in the world. Mr. Bray, to whom I spoke yesterday, says you were not bound to serve him after your eighteenth birthday, but that you have never expressed a wish to leave. Don't you see what a foolish fellow you are to work for him, when you might be earning for yourself?"

"But I have had no money to start with. I have had time for study, too," I stammered.

"Two reasons sufficient for an abstracted youth like you, but utterly unpractical. I want you to hire a forge this side of Warren. I will insure you custom enough to warrant the step."

He looked at me keenly as he spoke, while I colored with the pride and indignation which, since his words to Miss Merton a few moments before, I had been trying to control. Was this to be the end of all my hopes, the object of Miss Darry's instructions, her flattering encouragements and exaggerated estimate of my "genius," as she had termed it, that I might have a forge of my own, to which I should be compelled to give undivided attention, and shoe Mr. Lang's horses, and possibly some others belonging to Miss Merton's visitors? Yet, remembering how much had been already, if unwisely, done for me, I held down these thoughts, and, after a momentary pause, professed my willingness to think the matter over, if I could reserve time for other pursuits. His face lighted up, then, with the smile which had charmed me at the forge.

"You are not spoiled yet, Sandy, I see. If you will only keep to your trade, I will keep you to your art. You must have a boy at the forge, and in the afternoons you can come here and paint under Mr. Leopold's direction: he makes his home here during the summer, and he says you have a talent worth cultivation."

The revulsion of feeling was as complete as he could have desired; and I had not fully expressed my gratitude when Miss Darry appeared. I went with her to bid Miss Merton good-evening, and she stood in the moonlight beside me on the step, as Annie Bray had done a few hours before; but now I also was a changed character.

"I am proud of my pupil, Sandy," she said, with more of her ordinary manner than I had observed during the evening. "If I can place you in better hands than mine, I shall be willing to give you up."

"Give me up? never!" I cried, "Why, Miss Darry, this evening has proved to me that I could not sustain myself in any untried position without some help from you."

She smiled, saying I was ridiculously unconscious of my own ability, and yet looking gratified, I fancied, at the confession.

(To be continued.)

THE PROGRESS OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH

In the spring of 1860 an article was published in this magazine with the above title, giving an account of the extension of the telegraph up to that time. Its progress since has been very great in every quarter of the globe. Upon this continent the electric wire extends from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, connecting upwards of six thousand cities and villages; while upon the Eastern Continent unbroken telegraphic communication exists from London to all parts of Europe,—to Tripoli and Algiers, in Africa,—Cairo, in Egypt,—Teheran, in Persia,—Jerusalem, in Syria,—Bagdad and Nineveh, in Asiatic Turkey,—Bombay, Calcutta, and other important cities, in India,—Irkoutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia,—and to Kiakhta, on the borders of China.

But however rapid the extension of the telegraph has been in the past, it is destined to show still greater advancement in the future. Neither the American nor the European system has yet attained to its ultimate development. Transient wars now delay the establishment of lines in San Juan, Panama, Quito, Lima, Valparaiso, Buenos Ayres, Montevideo, Rio Janeiro, Surinam, Caraccas, and Mexico, and the incorporating of them, with all their local ramifications, into one American telegraph system. The Atlantic cable, although its recent attempted submergence has proved a failure, will yet be successfully laid; while the equally important enterprise of establishing overland telegraphic communication with Europe viâ the Pacific coast and the Amoor River is now being vigorously pushed forward towards its successful completion.

The latter project, which is being carried out by the Western Union Extension Telegraph Company, with a capital of ten million dollars, embraces the construction of a line of telegraph from New Westminster, British Columbia, the northern terminus of the California State Telegraph Company, through British Columbia and Russian America to Cape Prince of Wales, and thence across Behring's Strait to East Cape; or, if found more practicable, from Cape Romanzoff to St. Lawrence Island, thence to Cape Tchuktchi, and thence by an inland route around the Sea of Okhotsk to the mouth of the Amoor River. At this point it is to be joined by the line now being constructed by the Russian Government to connect with Irkoutsk, where a line of telegraph begins, which stretches through Tomsk and Omsk, in Western Siberia, Katharinburg, on the Asiatic-European frontier, Perm, Kasan, Nijni-Novogorod, and Moscow, to St. Petersburg.