The Ruling Passion [47]
he drew me out of clanging Broadway into one of the side
streets that run toward the placid region of Washington Square.
"No, no," I answered, feeling, even in the act of resistance, the
pleasure of his cheerful guidance, "you are altogether wrong. I
don't need a dinner at your new-found Bulgarian table-d'hote--seven
courses for seventy-five cents, and the wine thrown out; nor some of
those wonderful Mexican cheroots warranted to eradicate the tobacco-
habit; nor a draught of your South American melon sherbet that cures
all pains, except these which it causes. None of these things will
help me. The doctor suggests that they do not suit my temperament.
Let us go home together and have a shower-bath and a dinner of
herbs, with just a reminiscence of the stalled ox--and a bout at
backgammon to wind up the evening. That will be the most
comfortable prescription."
"But you mistake me," said he; "I am not thinking of any creature
comforts for you. I am prescribing for your mind. There is a
picture that I want you to see; not a coloured photograph, nor an
exercise in anatomical drawing; but a real picture that will rest
the eyes of your heart. Come away with me to Morgenstern's gallery,
and be healed."
As we turned into the lower end of Fifth Avenue, it seemed as if I
were being gently floated along between the modest apartment-houses
and old-fashioned dwellings, and prim, respectable churches, on the
smooth current of Pierrepont's talk about his new-found picture.
How often a man has cause to return thanks for the enthusiasms of
his friends! They are the little fountains that run down from the
hills to refresh the mental desert of the despondent.
"You remember Falconer," continued Pierrepont, "Temple Falconer,
that modest, quiet, proud fellow who came out of the South a couple
of years ago and carried off the landscape prize at the Academy last
year, and then disappeared? He had no intimate friends here, and no
one knew what had become of him. But now this picture appears, to
show what he has been doing. It is an evening scene, a revelation
of the beauty of sadness, an idea expressed in colours--or rather, a
real impression of Nature that awakens an ideal feeling in the
heart. It does not define everything and say nothing, like so many
paintings. It tells no story, but I know it fits into one. There
is not a figure in it, and yet it is alive with sentiment; it
suggests thoughts which cannot be put into words. Don't you love
the pictures that have that power of suggestion--quiet and strong,
like Homer Martin's 'Light-house' up at the Century, with its
sheltered bay heaving softly under the pallid greenish sky of
evening, and the calm, steadfast glow of the lantern brightening
into readiness for all the perils of night and coming storm? How
much more powerful that is than all the conventional pictures of
light-houses on inaccessible cliffs, with white foam streaming from
them like the ends of a schoolboy's comforter in a gale of wind! I
tell you the real painters are the fellows who love pure nature
because it is so human. They don't need to exaggerate, and they
don't dare to be affected. They are not afraid of the reality, and
they are not ashamed of the sentiment. They don't paint everything
that they see, but they see everything that they paint. And this
picture makes me sure that Falconer is one of them."
By this time we had arrived at the door of the house where
Morgenstern lives and moves and makes his profits, and were admitted
to the shrine of the Commercial Apollo and the Muses in Trade.
It has often seemed to me as if that little house were a silent
epitome of modern art criticism, an automatic indicator, or perhaps
regulator, of the aesthetic taste of New York. On the first floor,
surrounded by all the newest fashions in antiquities and BRIC-A-
streets that run toward the placid region of Washington Square.
"No, no," I answered, feeling, even in the act of resistance, the
pleasure of his cheerful guidance, "you are altogether wrong. I
don't need a dinner at your new-found Bulgarian table-d'hote--seven
courses for seventy-five cents, and the wine thrown out; nor some of
those wonderful Mexican cheroots warranted to eradicate the tobacco-
habit; nor a draught of your South American melon sherbet that cures
all pains, except these which it causes. None of these things will
help me. The doctor suggests that they do not suit my temperament.
Let us go home together and have a shower-bath and a dinner of
herbs, with just a reminiscence of the stalled ox--and a bout at
backgammon to wind up the evening. That will be the most
comfortable prescription."
"But you mistake me," said he; "I am not thinking of any creature
comforts for you. I am prescribing for your mind. There is a
picture that I want you to see; not a coloured photograph, nor an
exercise in anatomical drawing; but a real picture that will rest
the eyes of your heart. Come away with me to Morgenstern's gallery,
and be healed."
As we turned into the lower end of Fifth Avenue, it seemed as if I
were being gently floated along between the modest apartment-houses
and old-fashioned dwellings, and prim, respectable churches, on the
smooth current of Pierrepont's talk about his new-found picture.
How often a man has cause to return thanks for the enthusiasms of
his friends! They are the little fountains that run down from the
hills to refresh the mental desert of the despondent.
"You remember Falconer," continued Pierrepont, "Temple Falconer,
that modest, quiet, proud fellow who came out of the South a couple
of years ago and carried off the landscape prize at the Academy last
year, and then disappeared? He had no intimate friends here, and no
one knew what had become of him. But now this picture appears, to
show what he has been doing. It is an evening scene, a revelation
of the beauty of sadness, an idea expressed in colours--or rather, a
real impression of Nature that awakens an ideal feeling in the
heart. It does not define everything and say nothing, like so many
paintings. It tells no story, but I know it fits into one. There
is not a figure in it, and yet it is alive with sentiment; it
suggests thoughts which cannot be put into words. Don't you love
the pictures that have that power of suggestion--quiet and strong,
like Homer Martin's 'Light-house' up at the Century, with its
sheltered bay heaving softly under the pallid greenish sky of
evening, and the calm, steadfast glow of the lantern brightening
into readiness for all the perils of night and coming storm? How
much more powerful that is than all the conventional pictures of
light-houses on inaccessible cliffs, with white foam streaming from
them like the ends of a schoolboy's comforter in a gale of wind! I
tell you the real painters are the fellows who love pure nature
because it is so human. They don't need to exaggerate, and they
don't dare to be affected. They are not afraid of the reality, and
they are not ashamed of the sentiment. They don't paint everything
that they see, but they see everything that they paint. And this
picture makes me sure that Falconer is one of them."
By this time we had arrived at the door of the house where
Morgenstern lives and moves and makes his profits, and were admitted
to the shrine of the Commercial Apollo and the Muses in Trade.
It has often seemed to me as if that little house were a silent
epitome of modern art criticism, an automatic indicator, or perhaps
regulator, of the aesthetic taste of New York. On the first floor,
surrounded by all the newest fashions in antiquities and BRIC-A-