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Joseph A. Altsheler - "The Scouts of the Valley"

Charles Dickens - "The Chimes"

Wilkie Collins - "AFTER DARK"

and Stephen Braxton - "Seven Men"

A Face Illumined

E >> E. P. Roe >> A Face Illumined




"No, I thank you," said Van Berg, with a slight expression of
disgust. "I could not speak civilly to a lady that I had just seen
giggling and flirting through one of Beethoven's finest symphonies."

"Well well," said Stanton laughing, "I am rather glad to find one
man who is not drawn to her pretty face like a moth to a candle.
I will join you again by and by."

Van Berg sat down in one of the little stalls that stood open to
the main promenade, and saw his friend thread his way among the
moving figures, and address his cousin. As she turned to speak
with Stanton, the artist received again that vivid impression of
beauty, which her face ever caused before time was given for closer
scrutiny. Indeed from his somewhat distant point of observation,
and in the less searching light, the fatal flaw could scarcely be
detected. Her affected tones and silly words could not be heard,
and he saw only dark lustrous eyes lighting up features that were
almost a revelation even to him with his artistic familiarity with
beauty.

"If I could always keep her at about that distance," he muttered,
"and arrange the lights and shadows in which to view her face, I
could not ask for a better study, for she would give me a basis of
perfect beauty, and I could add any expression of characteristic
that I desired." And now he feasted his eyes as a compensation,
in part, for the annoyance she had caused him in the glare of the
audience room.

He soon saw a frown lower upon her hitherto laughing face like the
shadow of a passing cloud, and it was evident that something had
been said that was not agreeable to her vanity.

A moment or two after Stanton had joined the young lady her escort
for the evening had excused himself for a brief time, and had left
the cousins together. She had then asked, "I say, Ik, who was that
gentleman you were talking with?"

"He's an old friend of mine."

"He's not an OLD friend of any one. He is young and quite good-looking,
or rather he has a certain 'distingue' air that makes one look at
him twice. Who is he?"

"He is an artist, and if he lives and works as he is now doing,
through an ordinary lifetime, he will indeed by distinguished. In
fact, he stands high already."

"How nice," she exclaimed.

"He has another characteristic, which you will appreciate far more
than anything he will ever accomplish with his brush--he is very
rich."

"Why! he's perfectly splendid. Whoever heard of such a strange,
rare creature! I've flirted with lots of poor artists, but never
with a rich one. Bring him to me, and introduce him at once."

"He is not one that you can flirt with, like the attenuated youth
who has just meandered to the barroom."

"Why not?"

"If you had eyes for anything save your own pretty face, and the
public stare, you would have seen that my friend is not a 'creature,'
but a man."

"Come, Cousin Ik," she replied in more natural tones, "too much
of your house is made of glass for you to throw stones. Flirting
and frolicking are as good any day as eating, smoking, and dawdling."

Stanton bit his lip, but retorted, "I don't profess to be a bit
better than you are, Coz; but I at least have the sense to appreciate
those who are my superiors."

"So have I, when I find them; I am beginning to think, however,
that you men are very much alike. All you ask is a pretty face,
for you all think that you have brains enough for two. But bring
your paragon and introduce him, that I may share in your gaping
admiration."

"You would, indeed, my dear Coz, yawn over his conversation, for
you couldn't understand half of it. I think we had better remain
where we are till your shadow returns with his eyes and nose
slightly inflamed. He is aware of at least one method of becoming
a spirited youth, it seems."

"A man who is worth half a million is usually regarded as rather
substantial," she retorted.

"Yes, but in this case the money-bags outweigh the man too
ridiculously. For heaven's sake, Coz, do not make a spectacle of
yourself by marrying this attenuation, or society will assert there
was a regularly drawn bill of sale."

"I assure you that I do not intend to put myself under any man's
thumb for a long time to come. I am having too good a time; and
that reminds me that I would enjoy meeting your friend much more
than listening to your cynical speeches. Did I not know that you
were like my little King Charles--all bark rather than bite--I
wouldn't stand them; and I won't any longer, to-night. So go and
bring your great embryo artist, or he will become one of the old
masters before I see him."

"I fear I must give you a wee bit of bite this time. I have offered
to introduce him and he declines the honor."

"How is that?" she asked, flushing with anger.

"I will quote his words exactly, and then you can interpret them
as you think best. He said, 'I could not speak civilly to a lady
that I had just seen giggling and flirting through one of Beethoven's
finest symphonies.'"

The young girl's face looked anything but amiable in response to
this speech; but, after a moment, she tossed her head, and replied:

"'N'importe'--there are plenty who can use not only civil words
but complimentary ones."

"Yes, and the mischief of it is that you will listen to them and
to no others. What sort of muscle can one make who lives only on
sugar-plums?"

"They agree with me better than the vinegar drops you and your
unmannerly friend delight in. I don't believe he ever painted
anything better than a wooden squaw for one of your beloved
cigar-shops--welcome back Mr. Minty. You have been away an
unconscionably long time."

"Thanks for the compliment of being missed. I have tried to make
amends by ordering a 'petit souper' for three, for I was sure your
cousin would join us. It will be brought to one of yonder stalls,
where, while we enjoy it, we can both see and hear."

Surmising that the viands would consist of the choicest delicacies
of the season, Stanton readily accepted the invitation, and it so
happened that the cloth was laid for the party in the stall next to
that in which Van Berg was quietly enjoying a cigar and a frugal glass
of lager. They took their places quite unaware of his proximity,
and he listened with considerable interest to the tones and words
of the fair stranger who had so unexpectedly taken possession of
his thoughts. Were it not for a slight shrillness and loudness at
times, and the fashionable affectation of the day, her voice would
have been sweet and girlish enough. As it was, it suggested an
instrument tuned to a false key and consequently discordant with
all true and womanly harmonies. Her conversation with young Minty
was as insipid as himself, but occasionally Stanton's cynical banter
evoked something like repartee and wit.

In the course of her talk she said: "By the way, Ik, mother and
I start for the country next week. We are to spend the summer at
the Lake House, which is up the Hudson somewhere--you know where
better than I. If you will bring your bays and a light wagon
I shall be very glad to see you there; otherwise I shall welcome
you--well--as my cousin."

"If I come I will surely bring my bays, and possibly may invite
you to drive with me."

"Oh, I will save you all trouble in that respect by inviting myself,
when so inclined."

The orchestra was now about to give a selection that Van Berg wished
to hear to better advantage than he could in his present position;
therefore, unobserved by the party on the other side of the thin
partition, he returned to his old seat in the main hallway. Not
very long after, Stanton, with his cousin and Mr. Minty, entered
from the promenade, and again Van Berg received the same vivid
impression of beauty, and, with many others, could not withdraw his
eyes from the exquisite features that were slightly flushed with
champagne and excitement. But, as before, this impression passed
quickly, and the face again became as exasperating to the artist
as the visage of the Venus of Milo would be should some vandal hand
pencil upon it a leer or a smirk. A heavy frown was gathering upon
his brow when the young lady, happening to turn suddenly, caught
and fully recognized his lowering expression. It accorded only
too well with her cousin's words in regard to Van Berg's estimate
of herself, and greatly increased her resentment towards the one who
had already wounded her vanity--the most vulnerable and sensitive
trait in her character. The flush that deepened so suddenly upon
her face was unmistakably that of anger. She promptly turned her
back upon her critic, nor did she look towards him again until
the close of the evening. That his words and manner rankled in
her memory, however, was proved by a slightly preoccupied manner,
followed by fits of gayety not altogether natural, and chiefly by
the fact that she could not leave the place without a swift glance
at the disturbing cause of her wonted self-approval. But Van Berg
took pains to manifest his indifference by standing with his back
towards her when she knew that he must be aware of her departure,
from her slightly ostentatious leave-taking of her cousin, in which,
of course, the spoiled beauty had no other object than to attract
attention to herself.

As Van Berg, with his friend, was passing out a few minutes later,
he asked rather abruptly, showing that he also was not so indifferent
as he had pretended to be:

"What is your cousin's name, Stanton?"

"Her name is as pretty as herself--Ida Mayhew, and it is worse than
a disquieting ghost in a good many heads and hearts that I know
of. Indeed its owner has robbed men that I thought sensible, not
only of their peace, but, I should say, of their wits also. I had
one friend of whom I thought a great deal, and it was pitiable to
see the abject state to which the heartless little minx reduced
him. I am glad to find that her witchery has no spell for you, and
that you detect just what she is through her disguise of beauty.
'Entre nous,' Van, I will tell you a secret. I was once over ears
in love with her myself, but my cousinly relationship enabled me
to see her so often and intimately that she cured me of my folly
on homeopathic principles. 'Similia similibus curantur.' Even
the blindness of love could not fail to discover that when one
subtracted vanity, coquetry, and her striking external beauty from
Ida Mayhew, but little was left, and that little not a heavenly
compound. Those who know her least, and who add to her beauty
many ideal perfections, are the ones that rave about her most. I
doubt whether she ever had a heart; if so, it was frittered away
long ago in her numberless flirtations. But with all her folly
she has ever had the sense to keep within the conventionalities of
her own fashionable 'coterie,' which is the only world she knows
anything about, and whose unwritten laws are her only creed and
religion. Her disappointed suitors can justly charge her with
cruelty, silliness, ignorance, and immeasurable vanity, but never
with indiscretion. She has to perfection the American girl's
ability to take care of herself, and no man will see twice to take
a liberty beyond that which etiquette permits. I have now given
you in brief the true character of Ida Mayhew. It is no secret,
for all who come to know her well, arrive at the same opinion. When
I saw you had observed her this evening for the first time, I was
quite interested in watching the impression she would make upon
you, and I am very glad that your judgment has been both good and
prompt; for I slightly feared that your love of beauty might make
you blind to everything else."

Stanton's concluding words were as incense to Van Berg, for he
prided himself in no slight degree on his even pulse and sensible
heart, that, thus far, had given him so little trouble; and he therefore
replied, with a certain tinge of complacency and consciousness of
security:

"You know me well enough, Ik, to be aware that I am becoming almost
a monomaniac in my art. A woman's face is to me little more than
a picture which I analyze from an artistic stand-point. A MERELY
PRETTY face is like a line of verse of musical rhythm, but without
sense or meaning. This is bad and provoking enough; but when
the most exquisite features give expression only to some of the
meanest and unworthiest qualities that can infest a woman's soul,
one is exasperated almost beyond endurance. At least I am, for I
am offended in my strongest instincts. Think of employing stately
Homeric words and measure in describing a belle's toilet table with
its rouge-pots, false hair, and other abominations! Much worse is
it, in my estimation, that the features of a goddess should tell
us only of such moral vermin as vanity, silliness, and the egotism
of a poor little self that thinks of nothing, and knows nothing
save its own small cravings. Pardon me, Ik; I am not speaking of
your cousin but in the abstract. In regard to that young lady,
as you saw, I was very much struck with the face. Indeed, to tell
the honest truth, I never saw so much beauty spoiled before, and
the fact has put me in so bad a humor that you, no doubt, are glad
I have reached my corner and so must say good-night."

"Ida Mayhew can realize all such abstractions," muttered Ik Stanton,
as he walked on alone.

The reader will be apt to surmise, however, that some resentment,
resulting from his former and unrequited sentiment towards the
girl, gave an unjust bias to his judgement.





Chapter III. An Artist's Freak.




Van Berg's night-key admitted him to a beautiful home, which he
now had wholly to himself, since his parents and sister had sailed
for Europe early in the spring, intending to spend the summer
abroad. The young man had already travelled and studied for years
in the lands naturally attractive to an artist, and it was now his
purpose to familiarize himself more thoroughly with the scenery of
his own country.

On reaching his own apartment he took down a prosy book, that he
might read himself into that condition of drowsiness which would
render sleep possible; but sleep would not come, and the sentences
were like the passers-by in the street, whom we see but do not note,
and for whose coming and going we know not the reasons. Between
himself and the page he saw continually the exquisite features and
the exasperating face of Ida Mayhew. At last he threw aside the
book, lighted a cigar, and gave himself up to the reveries to which
this beautiful, but discordant visage so strongly predisposed him.
Its perfection in one respect, its strongly marked imperfection
in another, both appealed equally to his artistic and thoughtful
mind. At one moment it would appear before him with an ideal
loveliness such as had never blessed the eye of his fancy even;
but while he yet looked the features would distort themselves into
the vivid expression of some contemptible trait, so like what he
had seen in reality, during the evening, that, in uncontrollable
irritation, he would start up and pace the floor.

His uncurbed imagination conjured up all kinds of weird and grotesque
imagery. He found himself commiserating the girl's features as if
they were high-toned captives held in degrading bondage by a spiteful
little monster, that delighted to put them to low and menial uses.
To one of his temperament such beauty as he had just witnessed,
controlled by, and ministering to, some of the meanest and pettiest
of human vices, was like Mary Magdalene when held in thraldom by
seven devils.

A cool and matter-of-fact person could scarcely understand Van
Berg's annoyance and perturbation. If a true artist were compelled
to see before him a portrait that required only a few skillful
touches in order to become a perfect likeness, and yet could not
give those touches, the picture would become a constant vexation;
and the better the picture, the nearer it approached the truth, the
deeper would be the irritation that all should be spoiled through
defects for which there was no necessity.

In the face that persistently haunted him Van Berg saw a beauty
that might fulfil his best ideal; and he also saw just why it did
not and never could, until its defects were remedied. He felt
a sense of personal loss that he should have discovered a gem so
nearly perfect and yet marred by so fatal a flaw.

The next day it was still the same. The face of Ida Mayhew interposed
itself before everything that he sought to do or see. Whether it
were true or not, it appeared to him that in all his wanderings and
observations he had never seen features so capable of fulfilling
his highest conception of beauty did they but express the higher
qualities and emotions of the soul. He also felt that never
before had he seen a face that would seem to him so hideous in its
perversion.

He threw down his brush and palette in despair and again gave himself
up to his fancies. He then sketched in outline the beautiful face
as expressing joy, hope, courage, thought or love, but was provoked
to find that he ever obtained the best likeness when portraying
the vanity, silliness, or petulance which had been the only
characteristics he had seen.

He now grew metaphysical and tried to analyze the girl's mind.
He sought to grope mentally his way back into the recesses of the
soul, which had looked, acted, and spoken the previous evening.
A strange little place he imagined it, and oddly furnished. It
occurred to him that it bore a resemblance to her dressing room,
and was full of queer feminine mysteries and artificial ideas that
had been created by conventional society rather than inspired by
nature.

He asked himself, "Can it be that here is a character in which the
elements of a true and good woman do not exist? Has she no heart,
no mind, no conscience worthy of the name? At her age she cannot
have lost these qualities. Have they never been awakened? Do
they exist to that degree that they can be aroused into controlling
activity? I suppose there can be pretty idiots. As people are
born blind or scrofulous, so I suppose others can be born devoid of
heart or conscience, inheriting from a degenerate ancestry sundry
mean and vile propensities in their places. Human nature is
a scale that runs both up and down, and it is astonishing how far
the extremes can be apart."

"How high is it possible for the same individual to rise in this
scale? I imagine we are all prone to judge of people as if they
were finished pictures, and to think that the defects our first
scrutiny discovers will remain for all time. It is in real life
much as in fiction. From first to last a villain is a villain,
as if he had been created one. The heroine is a moss rose-bud by
equal and unchanging necessity. Is this girl a fool, and will she
remain one by any innate compulsion? By Jove! I would like to see
her again in the searching light of day. I would like to follow
her career sufficiently long, to discover whether nature has been
guilty of the grotesque crime of associating inseparably with that
fine form and those exquisite features, a hideous little mind that
must go on intensifying its dwarfed deformity, until death snuffs
it out. If this be true, the beautiful little monster that is
bothering me so suggests a knotty problem to wiser heads than mine."

Somewhat later his musings led him to indulge in a broad laugh.

"Possibly," he said aloud, "she is a modern and fashionable Undine,
and has never yet received a woman's soul. The good Lord deliver
me from trying to awaken it, as did the knight of old in the story,
by swelling the long list of her victims. I can scarcely imagine
a more pitiable and abject creature than a man (once sane and
sensible) in thraldom to such a tantalizing semblance of a woman.
She would no more appreciate his devotion than the jackdaw the
pearl necklace it pecked at.

"I fear my Undine theory won't answer. Stanton says she has no heart,
and her face and manner confirm his words. But now I think of it,
the original Undine lived a long time ago--in the age of primeval
simplicity, when even cool-blooded water nymphs had hearts. One
is induced to think, in our age, that this organ will eventually
disappear with the other characteristics of ancient and undeveloped
man, and that the brain, or what stands for it, will become all in
all. In the first instance the woman's soul came in through the
heart; but I suppose that in the case of a modern Undine it could
enter most readily through the head. I wonder if there is something
like an unawakened mind, sleeping under that broad low brow that
mocks one with its fair intellectual outline. I wonder if it
would be possible to set her thinking, and so eventually render
her capable of receiving a woman's soul. As it is now she seems
to possess only certain disagreeable feminine propensities. One
might engage in such an experiment as a philosopher rather than a
lover; or, what is more to my purpose, as an artist.

"By Jove! I would half like to make the attempt; it would give zest
to one's summer vacation. Well, what is to hinder? Now I think
of it she remarked that she was to spend the season at the Lake
House, not far from the Hudson, a place well suited to my purposes.
There are the wild highlands on one side, and a soft pastoral country
on the other. I could there find abundant opportunity for varied
studies in scenery, and at the same time beguile my idle hours at
the hotel with this face of marvellous capabilities and possibilities.
The features already exist, and would be beautiful if the girl were
dead, and they could be no longer distorted by the small vices of
the spirit back of them. They might become transcendently beautiful,
could she in very truth receive the soul of a true and thoughtful
woman--a soul such as makes my mother beautiful in her plain old
age.

"I'm inclined to follow this odd fancy. That girl is a 'rara
avis' such as has never flown across my path before. I shall have
a quarrel with nature all my life if I must believe she can fashion
a face capable of meaning so much and yet actually meaning so
little, and that little disgusting."

After a few moments of deep thought, he again started to his feet
and commenced pacing his studio.

"Suppose," he soliloquized, "I attempt a novel bit of artistic work
as my summer recreation. Suppose I take the face of this stranger
instead of a piece of canvas and try to illumine it with thought,
with womanly character and intelligence. If I fail, as I probably
shall, no harm will be done. If her silliness and vanity are
ingrained and essential parts of her nature, she shall learn that
there is at least one man who can see her as she is, and whose
heart is not wax on which to stamp her pretty and senseless image.
If I only partially succeed, if I discern she has a mind, but
so feeble that it can only half reclaim her from her weakness and
folly, still something will be accomplished. Her features are so
beautiful, that should they come to express even the glimmerings
of that which is admirable, the face will be in part redeemed.
But if by some happy miracle, as in the instance of the original
Undine, a mind can be awakened that will gradually prepare a place
for the soul of a true woman, I shall accomplish the best work of
my life, even estimated from an artistic point of view. Possibly,
for my reward, she will permit me to paint her portrait as a souvenir
of our summer's acquaintance."

It did not take Van Berg long to complete his arrangements for
leaving town. He wrote a line to his friend Stanton, saying that
he proposed spending a few weeks in the vicinity of the Highlands
on the Hudson, and that he could not say when he would be at his
rooms or at home again. The afternoon of the following day found
him a passenger on a fleet steamboat, and fully bent upon carrying
out his odd artistic freak.





Chapter IV. A Parthian Arrow.





As, in the quiet June evening, Harold Van Berg glided through the
shadows of the Highlands, there came a slight change over his spirit
of philosophical and artistic experiment. The season comported
with his early manhood, and the witching hour and the scenery were
not conducive to cold philosophy. He who prided himself on his
steady pulse and a devotion to art so absorbing that it even prompted
his impulses and gave character to his recreation, was led to feel,
on this occasion, that his mistress was vague and shadowy, and to
half wish for that companionship which the most self-reliant natures
have craved at times, ever since man first felt, and God knew, that
it was "not good for him to be alone." If he could turn from the
beauty of the sun-tipped hills and rocks and the gloaming shadows
to an appreciative and sympathetic face, such as he could at
least imagine the visage of Ida Mayhew might become, would not his
enjoyment of the beauty he saw be doubly enhanced? In his deepest
consciousness he was compelled to admit that it would. He caught
a glimpse of the truth that he would never attain in his highest
manhood until he had allied himself to a womanhood which he should
come to believe supremely true and beautiful.

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