The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
is because the idea is so absurd," I said, "that, if I felt the power were mine to imprison sunbeams, I should hardly care to repeat the effort. The sunshine rests upon the grass, freely we say, but in truth under some law that prevents its penetrating farther. A sunbeam existing in the absence of the sun is, of course, an absurdity. Yet they are there, the sunbeams of last spring, in your oval room, as I saw them one day in May."
"Which convinces me," said Miss Stuart, "that you are an artist. That is not real sunshine. You have created it. You are born for an artist-life. Do not go back to your drudgery."
"Daily work," I answered, "must become mechanical work, if we perform it in a servile way. A lawyer is perhaps inspired, when he is engaged in a cause on which he thinks his reputation hangs; but, day by day, when he goes down to the work that brings him his daily bread, he is quite as likely to call it his drudgery as I my daily toil."
She left her seat and walked with me towards a painting which hung not far from us. It represented sunset upon the water. "The tender-curving lines of creamy spray" were gathering up the beach; the light was glistening across the waves; and shadows and light almost seemed to move over the canvas.
"There," said Miss Stuart, "is what I call work that is worthy. I know there was inspiration in every touch of the brush. I know there was happy life in the life that inspired that painting. It is worth while to live and to show that one has been living in that way."
"But I think," said I, "that the artist even of that picture laid aside his brush heavily, when he sighed to himself that he must call it finished. I believe that in all the days that it lay upon his easel he went to it many times with weariness, because there was monotony in the work,–because the work that he had laid out for himself in his fancy was far above what he could execute with his fingers. The days of drudgery hung heavily on the days of inspiration; and it was only when he carried his heart into the most monotonous part of his work that he found any inspiration in it, that he could feel he had accomplished anything."
We turned suddenly away into a room where we had not been before. I could not notice the pictures that covered the walls for the sake of one to which Miss Stuart led the way. After looking upon that, there could be no thought of finding out any other. It possessed the whole room. The inspiration which uplifted the eyes fell over the whole painting. We looked at it silently, and it was not till we had left the building that Miss Stuart said,–
"We have seen there something which takes away all thought of artist or style of painting or work. I have never been able to ask myself what is the color of the eyes of that Madonna, or of her flowing hair, or the tone of the drapery. I see only an expression that inspires the whole figure, gives motion to the hands, life to the eyes, thought to the lips, and soul to the whole being."
"The whole inspiration, the whole work," I said, "is far above us. It is quite above me. No, I am not an artist; my fingers do not tingle for the brush. This is an inspiration I cannot reach; it floats above me. It moves and touches me, but shows me my own powerlessness."
I left Boston. I went back to winter, to my old home, to my every-day's work. My work was not monotonous; or if one tone did often recur in it, I built upon it, out of my heart and life, full chords of music. The vision of Margaret Stuart came before my eyes in the midst of all mechanical labor, in all the hours of leisure, in all the dreams of night. My life, indeed, grew more varied than ever; for I found myself more at ease with those around me, finding more happiness than I had ever found before in my intercourse with others. I found more of myself in them, more sympathy in their joy or sorrow, myself more of an equal with those around me.
The winter months passed quickly away. Mr. Clarkson frequently showed his disappointment because the mills no longer produced the wonder of last year. For me, it had almost passed out of my thoughts. It seemed but a part of the baser fabric of that vision where Margaret Stuart reigned supreme. I saw no way to help him; but more and more, daily, rejoiced in the outer sunshine of the world, in the fresh, glowing spring, in the flowers of May. So I was surprised again, when, near the close of May, after a week of stormy weather, the sunlight broke through the window where it had shone the year before. It hung a moment on the threads of work,–then, seeming to spurn them, fell upon the ground.
We were weaving, alas! a strange "arabesque pattern," as it was called, with no special form,–so it seemed to my eyes,–bringing in gorgeous colors, but set in no shape which Nature ever produced, either above the earth or in metals or crystals hid far beneath. How I reproached myself, on Mr. Clarkson's account, that I had not interceded, just for this one day of sunshine, for some pattern that Nature might be willing to acknowledge! But the hour was past, I knew it certainly, when the next day the sun was clouded, and for many days we did not see its face again.
So the time passed away. Another summer came along, and another glowing autumn, and that winter I did not go to Boston. Mr. Clarkson let me fall back again into my commonplace existence. I was no longer more than one of the common workmen. Perhaps, indeed, he looked upon, me with a feeling of disappointment, as though a suddenly discovered diamond had turned to charcoal in his hands. Sometimes he consulted me upon chemical matters, finding I knew what the books held, but evidently feeling a little disturbed that I never brought out any hidden knowledge.
This second winter seemed more lonely to me. The star that had shone upon me seemed farther away than ever. I could see it still. It was hopelessly distant. My Juno! For a little while I could imagine she was thinking of me, that my little name might be associated in her memory with what we had talked of, what we had seen together, with some of the high things which I knew must never leave her thoughts. But this glimmering memory of me I knew must have faded away as her life went on, varied as it was with change of faces, sounds of music, and whirl of excitement. Then, too, I never heard her name mentioned. She was out of my circle, as far away from my sphere as the heroines of those old romances that I had read so long ago; but more life-like, more warm, more sunny was her influence still. It uplifted my work, and crowned my leisure with joy. I blessed the happy sunshine of that 27th of May, which in a strange way had been the clue that led to my knowledge of her.
The longest winter-months melt away at last into spring, and so did these. May came with her promises and blights of promise. Recalling, this time, how sunshine would come with the latter end of May through the dark walls, I begged of Mr. Clarkson that a favorite pattern of mine might be put upon the looms. Its design was imagined by one of my companions in my later walks. He was an artist of the mills, and had been trying to bring within the rigid lines that were required some of the grace and freedom of Nature. He had scattered here some water-lilies among broad green leaves. My admiration for Nature, alas! had grown only after severe cultivation among the strange forms which we carpet-makers indulge in with a sort of mimicry of Nature. So I cannot be a fair judge of this, even as a work of art. I see sometimes tapestries in a meadow studded with buttercups, and I fancy patterns for carpets when I see a leaf casting its shadow upon a stone. So I may be forgiven for saying that these water-lilies were dear to me as seeming like Nature, as they were lying upon their green leaves.
Mr. Clarkson granted my request, and for a few days, this pattern was woven by the machine. These trial-days I was excited from my usual calmness. The first day the sunshine did not reach the narrow window. The second day we had heavy storm and rain. But the third day, not far from the expected hour, the sunshine burst through the little space. It fell upon my golden threads; it seemed directly to embrace them joyously, to encircle them closely. The sunlight seemed to incorporate itself with the woolly fibre, to conceal itself among the work where the shuttle chose to hide it. I fancied a sort of laughing joy, a clatter and dash in the machinery itself, as though there were a happy time, where was usually only a monotonous whirl. I could scarcely contain myself till noon.
When I left my room, I found, on inquiry, that Mr. Clarkson was not in the building, and was to be away all day. I went out into the air for a free breath, and looked up into the glowing sky, yet was glad to go back again to my machines, which I fancied would greet me with an unwonted joy. But, as I passed towards the stairway, I glanced into one of the lower rooms, where some of the clerks were writing. I fancied Mr. Clarkson might be there. There were women employed in this room, and suddenly one who was writing at a desk attracted my attention. I did not see her face; but the impression that her figure gave me haunted me as I passed on. Some one passing