Samantha at the World's Fair by Marietta Holley (ebook and pdf reader txt) đź“•
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- Author: Marietta Holley
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"That picter," sez he, "is twenty thousand dollars. It is owned by the German National Gallery, and is loaned by them," and sez he, with a ready flow of knowledge inherent to them Guards, "the artist, Adolph Menzel, is to German art what Meissonier is to the French. His picters are all bought by the National Gallery, and bring enormous sums."
Josiah almost swooned away. Nothin' but pride kep him up—
I didn't say nothin' to add to his mortification. Only I simply said—
"Babe will prize that picter, Josiah Allen."
And he sez, "Be a fool if you want to; I'm a-goin' to git sunthin' to eat."
[Pg 442]
[Pg 441]
And he hurried me along at almost a dog-trot, but I would stop to look at a "Spring Day in Bavaria," and the "Fish Market in Amsterdam," and the "Nun," and some others, I would—they wuz all beautiful in the extreme.
Wall, after we come back into the gallery agin, the first picter we went to see wuz "Christ Before Pilate," by Mr. Muncaxey.
There He stood, the Man of Sorrows, with His tall figure full of patient dignity, and His face full of love, and pity, and anguish, all bent into a indescribable majesty and power.
His hands wuz bound, He stood there the centre of that sneering, murderous crowd of priests and pharisees. On every side of Him He would meet a look of hate and savage exultation in His misery.
And He, like a lamb before the shearers, wuz dumb, bearing patiently the sins and sorrows of a world.
The fate of a universe looked out of His deep, sweet eyes.
[Pg 443]
He could bear it all—the hate, all the ignominy, the cruel death drawin' so near—He could bear it all through love and pity—the highest heights love ever went, and the deepest pity.
Only one face out of that jeerin', evil crowd had a look of pity on't, and that wuz the one woman in the throng, and she held a child in her arms.
Mebby Love had taught her the secret of Grief.
Anyway, she looked as if she pitied Him and would have loosed His bonds if she could. It wuz a dretful impressive picter, one that touched the most sacred feelin's of the beholder.
There wuz a great fuss made over Alma Tadema's picter of "Crowning Bachus."
But I didn't approve on't.
The girls' figgers in it wuz very beautiful, with the wonderful floatin' hair of red gold crowned with roses.
But I wanted to tell them girls that after they got Mr. Bachus all crowned, he'd turn on 'em, and jest as like as not pull out hull handfuls of that golden hair, and kick at 'em, and act.
Mr. Bachus is a villain of the deepest dye. I felt jest like warnin' 'em.
I like Miss Tadema's picters enough sight better—pretty little girls playin' innocent games, and dreamin' sweet fancies By the Fireside.
[Pg 444]
"The Flaggalants," by Carl Marr, is a enormous big picter, but fearful to look at.
It made me feel real bad to see how them men wuz a-hurtin' their own selves. They hadn't ort to.
Another picter by the same artist, called "A Summer Afternoon," I liked as well agin; the soul of the pleasant summer-time looked out of that picter, and the faces of the wimmen and children in it.
The little one clingin' to its mother's hand and feedin' the chickens looked cute enough to kiss. She favored Babe a good deal in her looks.
"The Cemetery in Delmatia" and the "Market Scene in Cairo," by Leopold Muller, struck hard blows onto my fancy. And so did three by Madame Weisenger—
"Mornin' by the Sea-shore," "Breakfast in the Country," and "The Laundress of the Mountain."
"Christ and the Children," by Julius Schmid, wuz beautiful as could be.
And so wuz "The Death of Autumn," by Franz Pensinger—they held in 'em all the sadly glorious beauty of the closing year.
"The Three Beggars of Cordova," by Edwin Weeks, wuz dretful interestin'.
Them tramps set there lookin' so sassy, and lazy, nateral as life. Lots of jest such ones have importuned me for food on my Jonesville door-step.
[Pg 446]
[Pg 445]
Then he had two Hindoo fakirs that wuz real interestin'. The fur-off Indian city, the river, and the fakir a-layin' in the boat, tired out, I presoom, a-makin' folks stand up in the air, and climb up ladders into Nowhere, and eatin' swords, and eatin' fire, and etcetry.
He wuz beat out, and no wonder. The colorin' of this picter is superb.
And so wuz his "Persian Horse Dealers" and others.
Mr. Melcher's "Sermon" and "Communion" wuz very impressive, as nateral as the meetin'-housen and congregation at Jonesville and Zoar.
In the Holland Exhibit wuz all kinds of clouds painted—
Clouds a-layin' low in sombre piles, and clouds with the sun almost a-shinin' through 'em. Wonderful effects as I ever see.
And I wuz a-lookin' at a picter there so glowin' and beautiful that it seemed to hold in it the very secret of summer. The heart fire and glow of summer shone through its fine atmosphere. And sez I, "Josiah, did you ever see anything like it?"
"Oh, yes," sez he; "it's quite fair."
"Fair!" sez I; "can't you say sunthin' more than that?"
[Pg 447]
"Wall, from fair to middlin', then," sez he.
"But for real beauty," sez he, "give me them picters made in corn, and oats, and beans. Give me that Dakota cow made out of grain, with a tail of timothy grass, and straw legs, and corn ear horns. There is real beauty," sez he.
"Or that picter in the State Buildin' of the hull farm made in seeds. The old bean farm-house, and barley well-sweep, and the fields bounded with corn twig fences, and horses made of silk-weed, and manes and tales of corn-silk—there is beauty," sez he.
"And as for statutes, I'd ruther see one of them figgers that Miss Brooks of Nebraska makes out of butter than a hull carload of marble figgers."
I sithed a deep, curious sithe, and he went on:
"Why," sez he, "it stands to reason they're more valuable; what good would the stun be to you if a marble statute got smashed? A dead loss on your hands.
"But let one of her Iolanthes git knocked over and broke to pieces, why there you are, good, solid butter, worth 30 cents of any man's money.
"Give me statuary that is ornamental in prosperity, and that you can eat up if reverses come to you," sez he.
[Pg 448]
"Why," sez he, "there is one hundred kinds of grain in that one model farm of Illinois.
"Now, if that picter should git torn to pieces by a cyclone, what would a ile paintin' be? A dead loss.
"But that grain farm-house, what food for hens that would make—such a variety. Why, the hens would jest pour out eggs fed on the ruins of that farm.
"Give me beauty and economy hitched together in one team."
I sithed, and the sithe wuz deep, almost like a groan, and sez I—
"You tire me, Josiah Allen—you tire me almost to death."
"Wall," sez he, "I'm talkin' good horse sense."
Sez I, "I should think it wuz animal sense of some kind—nothin' spiritual about it and riz up."
"Wall," sez he, "you'll see five hundred folks a-standin' round and praisin' up them seed picters where there is one that gits carried away as you do over Wattses 'Love and Death' and Elihu Vedder's dum picters."
"Wall," sez I, in a tired-out axent, "that don't prove anything, Josiah Allen. The multitude chose Barrabus to the Divine One.
[Pg 449]
"Not," sez I reasonably, "that I would want to compare the seed picters and the butter females to a robber.
"They're extremely curious and interestin' to look at, and wonderful in their way as anything in the hull Exposition.
"But," sez I, "there is a height and a depth in the soul that them butter figgers can't touch—no, nor the pop-corn trees can't reach that height with their sorghum branches. It lays fur beyond the switchin' timothy tail of that seed horse or the wavin' raisen mane of that prune charger. It is a realm," sez I, "that I fear you will never stand in, Josiah Allen."
"No, indeed," sez he; "and I don't want to. I hain't no desires that way."
Again I sithed, and we walked off into another gallery.
Wall, I might write and keep a-writin' from Fourth of July to Christmas Eve, and then git up Christmas mornin' and say truly that the half hadn't been told of what we see there, and so what is the use of tryin' to relate it in this epistle.
But suffice it to say that we stayed there all day long, and that night we meandered home perfectly wore out, and perfectly riz up in our two minds, or at least [Pg 450]I wuz. Josiah's feelin's seemed to be clear fag, jest plain wore out fag.
The nights are always cool in Chicago—that is, if the weather is anyways comfortable durin' the day.
And this night it wuz so cool that a good woollen blanket and bedspread wuz none too much for comfort.
And it wuz with a sithe of contentment that I lay down on my peaceful goose-feather pillow, and drawed the blankets up over my weary frame and sunk to sleep.
I had been to sleep I know not how long when a angry, excited voice wakened me. It said, "Lay down, can't you!"
I hearn it as one in a dream. I couldn't sense where I wuz nor who wuz talkin', when agin I hearn—
"Dum it all! why can't you fall as you ort to?"
Wuz some struggle a-goin' on in my room? The bed wuz in an alcove, and I could not see the place from where the voice proceeded.
I reached my hand out. My worst apprehensions wuz realized. Josiah wuz not there.
Wuz some one a-killin' him, and a-orderin' him to lay still and fall as he ort to?
Wuz such boldness in crime possible?
[Pg 451]
I raised my head and looked out into the room, and then with a wild shriek I covered up my head. Then I discovered that there wuz only one thin sheet over me.
The sight I had seen had driv' the blood in my veins all back to my heart.
A tall white figger wuz a-standin' before the glass, draped from head to foot in heavy white drapery.
I'd often turned it over in my mind in hours of ease which I'd ruther have appear to me in the night—a burglar or a ghost.
And now in the tumultous beatin's of my heart I owned up that I would ruther a hundred times it would be a burglar.
Anything seemed to me better than to be alone at night with a ghost.
But anon, as I quaked and trembled under that sheet, the voice spoke agin—
"Samantha, are you awake?" And I sprung up in bed agin, and sez I—
"Josiah Allen, where are you? Oh, save me, Josiah! save me!"
The white figger turned. "Save you from what, Samantha? Is there a mouse under the bed, or is it a spider, or what?"
"Who be you?" sez I, almost incoherently. "Be you a ghost? Oh, Josiah, Josiah!" And I sunk b[Pg 452]ack onto the pillow and busted into tears. The relief wuz too great.
But anon Wonder seized the place that Fear had held in my frame, and dried up the tear-drops, and I sprung up agin and sez—
"What be you a-doin', Josiah Allen, rigged up as you be in the middle of the night, with the lights all a-burnin'?"
For every gas jet in the room was a-blazin' high.
Sez he, "I am posin' for a statute, Samantha."
And come to look closter, I see he had took off the blanket and bedspread and had swathed 'em round his form some like a toga.
And I see it wuz them that he wuz apostrofizin' and orderin' to lay down in folds and fall graceful.
And somehow the idee of his takin' the bedclothes offen me seemed to mad me about as much as his foolishness
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