Chapter 6 No.6

Perhaps no art differs more widely with individual mind and temperament than that of teaching. I soon appreciated this under Mr. Leopold's training. For the first few lessons, I was put to no copying, given no verbal instruction; he showed me how to mix oil-colors, expecting his to be prepared for him, when, in his eagerness to produce an effect, he did not care to stop for the purpose himself; and for the rest, advised me to watch him, which I did narrowly, while he worked sometimes by the hour without speaking.

When I commenced painting, therefore, I felt as though I was making constant discoveries, and began to think, in the conceit of my youth and developing power, that I was working without other guide than my own intuition, until I found a number of serious errors indicated. Miss Darry's teaching made me feel that I could not do without her; Mr. Leopold's, that just so far as he carried me, I in turn could take some one else.

The summer days wore on. My hands grew rougher and coarser with hard work, yet just as surely increased their dexterity in holding the brush with a firm grasp and giving flexible and delicate strokes to finer work. My lessons and new forge left but little time for the cottage and Annie Bray now. Moreover, she, too, changed as the months wore on. When did I ever imagine, with all my growing plans and manhood, that she also was to have her work and purpose in the world? Yet she had made her visit to Hillside, had been not only amused and delighted, but instructed, by all she saw there. I was too deeply engrossed in self-development to continue my attention to her studies; but Miss Merton, inspired by Miss Darry's example, or attracted by the modest sweetness so congenial to her own womanly character, undertook the unwonted occupation of teaching; and Mr. Lang, greatly to my surprise, encouraged her in it. Three afternoons in the week Annie went to Hillside to receive a course of instruction, barren of system and conducted with supreme disregard of plainer and more useful branches, yet bringing out in a graceful way all her peculiarly refined tastes. Annie's hours rarely admitted of my walking home with her; and though occasionally she stopped at the forge, on her way through the village, it was only for a moment, and that often a busy one with me. She had grown taller and paler, sadder in expression, too, I fancied, notwithstanding the new interest at Hillside. But then she was leaving childhood behind her; her father had been more rough than ever since I left him; and with a momentary pity and wonder that she was more shy of my fond and brotherly ways than formerly, I ascribed it to these ordinary causes, and kept steadily at my work. It was not for me, the protégé of so brilliant a woman as Frank Darry, and a rising genius, to pause in my career for the pale cheeks of the village blacksmith's daughter.

My intercourse with Mr. Leopold did not become more familiar with time. The idea of his not looking like a genuine artist, the disappointment and failure to comprehend his pictures, changed into awe of the inner force of the man, as I beheld his patient, earnest labor. To my shallow comprehension of the worth of genius, his persistent effort, after the attainment of all I hoped to realize, was marvellous. He was rich, famed, cultivated, yet the ideal excellence hovered ever above him, waiting like a resurrection body to clothe the escaped soul of inspiration; and for this he toiled more unremittingly than I in my struggle for existence even in the world of Art. The secret of this man's soul was not, however, revealed to my questioning. Ever considerate and kind, he was no friend in any sense implying mutual interchange of thought or confidence. With Miss Darry, on the contrary, he was his free and natural self. Whenever I saw them together, I was conscious that his great nature went out irresistibly to meet hers, a fact of which it seemed to me she was far less aware than I. She walked and drove with him, but merely because Miss Merton and Mr. Lang were engrossed with each other, and as a side-play from the main object of her life.

I had been employed for several weeks upon a picture of greater importance than any before attempted. Miss Darry confidently declared it would be accepted at the autumn exhibition of paintings in the city; and Mr. Leopold briefly advised me to make the attempt, backed by his favor to get it in. It was the working up of the odd fancy in which Annie and I had indulged so long ago,-that the forest haunts were not deserted, even though man did not invade them. In a clearing in the midst of the woods I had assembled the familiar squirrels, birds, and flowers, to play their part in the revels Nature takes on summer afternoons; and from the gnarled trunks and twisted vines whose grotesque involutions hinted the serpent-life within to the elves which peered from beneath the broad dank leaves, I had reasserted the old childish faith.

As I have said, Miss Darry approved my picture, though only as a preliminary to better things, saying,-

"You must paint Chimborazo, or some of the mammoth California scenery, Sandy. The microscope, not the canvas, is the proper instrument by which to scrutinize the minute. Genius certainly need not forever be peeping at Nature through her key-holes, but can enter her open door and dwell amid the grandest scenes of the universe."