Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852.

“Oh, what would I not give to be able to procure the smallest piece of gold!”

“You want gold!” quietly inquired his wife; “here is my wedding-ring: if it can help to make you happy, what better use can I put it to? Take it, my husband! God’s blessing rests upon it.” So saying, she placed the long-treasured pledge in Avisseau’s hand. He gazed upon it with deep emotion: how many were the associations connected with that little circlet of gold – the pledge of his union with one who had cheered him in his sorrows, assisted him in his labors, and aided him in his struggles! And, besides, would it not be cruel to accept from her so great a sacrifice? On the other hand, however, the temptation was strong; he had so longed to perform this experiment! If it succeeded, it would add so much to the beauty of his enamel: he knew not what to do. At length, hastily rising from his seat, he left the house. He still retained the ring in his hand: a great struggle was going on in his mind; but each moment the temptation to make the long-desired experiment gained strength in his mind, until at last the desire proved irresistible. He hurried to the furnace, dropped the precious metal into the crucible, applied it to the ware, which he then placed in the oven, and, after a night of anxious watching, held in his hand a cup, such as he had so long desired to see, ornamented with gilt enamel! His wife as she gazed upon it, although at the same time a tear glistened in her eye; and looking proudly upon her husband, she exclaimed: “My wedding-ring has not been thrown away!”

Still, Avisseau, notwithstanding his genius, was destined to lead for many years a life of poverty and obscurity. It was not until the year 1845 that M. Charles Sciller, a barrister, at Tours, first drew attention to the great merit of some of the pieces he had executed, and persuaded him to exhibit them at Angers, Poitiers, and Paris. The attention of the public once directed toward his works, orders began to flow in upon him apace. The President of the Republic and the Princess Matilda Bonaparte are among his patrons, and the most distinguished artists and public men of the day are frequently to be met with in his atélier. In the midst of all this unlooked-for success, Avisseau had ever maintained the modest dignity of his character.

M. Brongniart, the influential director of the great porcelain manufactory at Sèvres, begged of him to remove thither, promising him a liberal salary if he would work for the Sèvres Company, and impart to them his secrets. “I thank you for your kindness, sir,” replied the potter of Tours, “and I feel you are doing me a great honor; but I would rather eat my dry crust here as an artisan than live as an artist on the fat of the land at Sèvres. Here I am free, and my own master: there I should be the property of another, and that would never suit me.”

When he was preparing his magnificent vase for the Exhibition, he was advised to emboss it with the royal arms of England. “No,” he replied, “I will not do that. If her Majesty were then to purchase my work, people might imagine I had ornamented it with these insignia in order to obtain her favor, and I have never yet solicited the favor of any human being!” Avisseau has no ambition to become a rich man. He shrinks from the busy turmoil of life – loving his art for its own sake, and delighting in a life of meditative retirement, which enables him to mature his ideas, and to execute them with due deliberation.

In the swamps and in the meadows he studies the varied forms and habits of reptiles, insects, and fish, until he succeeds in reproducing them so truly to the life, that one can almost fancy he sees them winding themselves around the rushes, or gliding beneath the shelter of the spreading water-leaves. His humble dwelling, situated in one of the faubourgs of Tours, is well worthy of a visit. Here he and his son – now twenty years of age, who promises to prove in every respect a worthy successor to his father – may be found at all hours of the day laboring with unremitting diligence. A room on the ground-floor forms the artist’s studio and museum: its walls are hung with cages, in which are contained a numerous family of frogs, snakes, lizards, caterpillars, &c., which are intended to serve as models; rough sketches, broken busts, half-finished vases, lie scattered around. The furnaces are constructed in a little shed in the garden, and one of them has been half-demolished, in order to render it capable of admitting the gigantic vase which Avisseau has sent to the Great Exhibition. There we trust the successor of Bernard Palissy will meet with the success so justly due to his unassuming merit, and to the persevering genius which carried him onward to his goal in the midst of so much to discourage, and with so little help to speed him on his way.

KNIGHTS OF THE CROSS

ST. GEORGE’S CROSSBY CAROLINE CHESEBRO’

A dull November evening: ghosts of a fog aspiring to the summit of a mountain, which formed the startling feature in the background of a landscape: a melancholy dissonance of swelling, rolling, breaking waves – strong, though not violent, moaning of autumnal winds through the valley, and up the mountain side: dark, heavy masses of cloud – red, and silvery, and leaden lines alternating on the horizon, at the point where the sun had disappeared: a girl standing on an enormous stone that was nearly surrounded by the water, a boy seated on the same rock near her feet; they were Ella, the clergyman’s daughter, and George, a shoemaker’s son.

An arm, white, round, and smooth as a girl’s, bared to the elbow, besmeared with blood and India ink, a hand, gliding over it rapidly, making strange tracery as it moved; a voice, soft and melodious, but tremulous in its tones, telling of a heart beating within the speaker’s breast that was keenly susceptible to every emotion – that voice saying,

“Did I show you the verses that I wrote about our Cross, Ella?”

“No! no —did you write verses about it?”

Without replying to the words, the boy laid down the needle he was using, drew from his pocket a little book, took from it a paper which he gave to the girl, silently resuming his work.

And in the gloom and cold she read,

FOR ELLATHE SYMBOL AND MEMORIALI place the semblance of a Wayside Cross,Thy hands and mine have fashioned, in this place,Not only as an ornament, to graceWith well-shaped form, and covering of moss,My shelves of books; nor yet Life’s supreme lossTo hint through it to all who will admire:Another impulse urged me, and a higher —All false ambition and “world praise,” pure dross,Which doth but weaken thought, and lay on toilA heavier curse than Adam’s, stands reprovedBefore this solemn figure. He who diedOrdained a Rest from this vain world’s turmoilIn shadow of his cross. So unremovedHere let this stand, and shed its warnings wide.Here shall it stand above these graves of Thought,These well-remembered, and frequented graves,In memory of the lion-hearted bravesWho into Life new life and strength have brought —In memory of the martyrs who have taughtThe sacred truths for which they dared to die —In memory of the poet-souls that lieIn the poor potter’s field for strangers bought;Here let it stand, a hallowed monument,Most meet, o’er the great hopes entomed beneath —And if it speaks to only you and IOf more than beauty, have we vainly blentThe moss and lichens? Is it thy beliefOur thoughts shall ever in such shadow lie?

“A rare library I have,” said the boy, with bitter accent – “yet I have made use of no poetic license in speaking of my shelves of books – I have just two shelves, and there are at least a dozen books in each.”

“I know of some men who have great libraries, and they might be glad to know as much as you do about books,” said the girl, soothingly. “Never mind, you’ll write more books than you own, one of these days.”

“Oh, Ella, you speak like a child – you are a child indeed,” he repeated, surveying her as if he had not thought of such a thing before. “I shall never, never write a book, I have got another life marked out for me.”

“Who says so? who put such a thing into your head?” she asked, quickly. “Why, you write now– you write verses and prose – so you are an author already.”

“I wish to God I were!”

“You are, you are, I tell you.”

“I have a mother—I am to be a preacher!” the words were almost hissed forth – but having uttered them, he seemed immediately to regain tranquillity. “Do you remember the day when we two had a pic-nic here, and gathered moss from the rocks, and made those crosses?” he said, tenderly.

“Why, yes,” she answered, with evident surprise – “to be sure I remember – it was only last week. What a lovely day it was – and what a beautiful cross that was you shaped for me. I look at it every day – I believe it will never fade.”

“It can not fade… You spoke of my writing books … what should I write them for?”

“Money and Fame – what all authors write for.”

“Oh, what a mistake! not all! Sit down here, Ella. There’s a good girl. Don’t you know there are some persons who don’t write for money, and who don’t care for fame? Some who write because they must, who’d go crazy outright, if they didn’t, but who would just as soon dig a hole in the ground, and throw what they write in there, or make a burial place of this sea, as they’d have their writings printed? They write to satisfy their own great spirits, not to please others.”

“No, I never heard of such a thing, and I don’t believe it either. You are talking in fun, to hear yourself – or to get me into a dispute with you – nothing pleases you better.”

The boy looked up, his eyes met those of the girl beside him – they smiled on each other. What children they were. How strangely forgetful of the gulf that lay between them!

“See, Ella, I have finished my work.”

It was getting very cold and cheerless there on the sea-side, and she shivered as she turned to look at the completed work, whose progress she had shrunk from watching.

“What did you call it? Oh, I remember, that is the anchor. But there’s another mark below it, an old one too,” she said, bending lower, that she might see it more distinctly. “You never told me about this – what is it?”

“Shall I make an anchor on your arm?”

The girl drew back.

“You are afraid it will hurt you,” he said, half in scorn.

She looked on his arm where the blood was mingling with the ink.

“No,” she said, resolutely,“I’m not afraid it will hurt me, but the mark, will it not last always?”

“To be sure it will. Oh! you will be a beauty – you will shine in ball-rooms with those fair white arms uncovered! Such stuff as this would deface them!”

“No such thing! you like to tease me, and that’s the reason you talk so. How wild you are! I’m not at all afraid of the pain – nor of marring my beauty. You know, in the first place, I have no beauty, and I don’t want any either.”

“Tut – but I’m not going to flatter you. Do you really want to know what this other mark here is?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a cross, Ella.”

“A cross, George? What’s the reason you wear it there?”

“Why do you wear that gold thing attached to the gold chain hung around your neck? That is a cross too.”

“This? Oh, mamma gave it to me.”

“What good does it do you? Do you say your prayers over it?”

“No – I think it very pretty – I wear it for mamma’s sake.”

The boy folded his arms, and turning half away from her said, scornfully, as if to himself:

“She wears it proudly, for it shinesWith costly gems, a radiant thing’ —A worthier emblem of the timesTo Fashion’s court she could not bring.“Made fast with chain of precious gold,She dons it with her gala-dress: —It shines amid the silken fold —Sin clasps it with a bold caress.“It is no burden as she treadsThrough Pleasure’s paths in open day;No threat’ning shadow ever spreadsFrom those rich jewels round her way“She clasps it in her vainest mood,(That awful symbol lightly worn,)Forgetful that ’tis stained with blood,And has the Prince of Glory borne’“Oh strange forgetfulness! She seesNo circling Crown of Thorns hung there’Droops ne’er beneath it to her knees’Is never driven by it to prayer!“It lies no weight upon her breast —It speaks no warning to her heart —It lends no guiding light – at bestIs but a gaud in Folly’s mart.“Go! hide the glittering thing from sight!Go! bear the cross in worthier guise’The soul-worn crucifix sheds lightThat in no paltry bauble lies.”

As he finished the recitation, or improvisation, whichever it might be, the youth quietly turned toward the maiden, lifted the slight chain which secured the ornament over her head, and glancing at the “bauble” contemptuously, flung it far into the water.

She was so astonished that, though his movement was comprehended, she made no attempt to stay his purpose – her eyes followed his hand, and the bright golden cross as it flashed on the waves and disappeared – then she turned away, without speaking, as if to leave him.

“Stay!” he said, and she stopped short – “come and sit down here beside me,” but she looked at him as though she did not hear.

“It vexes me,” he said, in an apologetic, conciliatory way, “it vexes me to see every holy, sacred thing made vain, by vain unmeaning people. What business has any one to wear a golden cross? Had you worn one of lead or iron, I would not have thrown it into the sea. I wish you would wait a few minutes —don’t go! I want to tell you about this cross on my arm. You asked me about it. To me it means endure. Ella, you can’t guess how much it means; because it isn’t possible for you ever to look into the future as I do. You can’t imagine what I see before me. I don’t know as I should have thought of engraving an anchor here, under this cross, but when I came down to the beach to-night I was very desperate – I saw you standing up here on this rock, the sunlight was shining on your hair and face, the breeze making sport with your shawl and dress, and you looked to me just like Hope, standing so firm on the rock, looking up so calmly into heaven. Oh, Ella, you can’t guess what quiet the sight of you sent into my soul. If you had been an angel, and had stood repeating the words of Jesus as He walked on the waters, I could not have heard you say Peace more distinctly… One has no right to hope, who can not endure. I don’t like to see such awful realities as the cross turned into vain symbols, that’s the truth about it. But I want you to forgive me for throwing your cross into the sea, I only wish I could tear every cross from you as easily, as you go through life. I couldn’t bear to think that you would very soon, let me see, you are fifteen years old! go among gay people wearing that thing, forgetful of its meaning. Will you forgive me?”

The “Yes” she said was more than a half sob – but as if ashamed of the emotion she could not conceal, Ella gave the boy her hand, with a frankness that conveyed all the pardon he wanted.

“Will you let me mark the anchor on your arm then, Ella?”

“No, but you may do the cross.” She sat down beside him again, and he traced on her tender arm, with the fine point of the needle, a symbol and a badge.

“And you will not have the Hope?”

“That is in my heart.”

“In truth it is the safest place for it. Your arm might have to be amputated some day, but your heart, I know, will never die while you live.”

“Can the heart die?”

“Yes, it can be killed – it can die of disease, of cold, of fever, a thousand things can destroy it – just as the body is destroyed.”

“Don’t you keep your hope in your heart too?”

“Yes, when I have any. There’s no moon to-night. Let’s go. We shall have a storm before morning. See the waves! they look as if they had been saturated in the Blackness of Darkness, and were just escaped from it. And, do look up! what a fit pavilion are those clouds for the Angel of Wrath! oh, how I wish he would appear!”

“George! George!”

“Yes, Ella – for he would be sure to do away these cursed distinctions we know so much of! Then I should have no need for feeling as I do, when I shut your gate after you, and go on to the shed where the shoemaker’s widow lives with her son, whom people are so very kind, so exceeding kind, as to call a poet. Ella, neither you nor I will live to see it – but the old things shall pass away on this earth, and new powers reign here ere long. And then, in that blessed day when Justice shall rule, a girl like you may walk up this village street with a boy even like me, and take his arm, and speak with him as an equal, and none shall stare and think the condescension wonderful. As it is – walk alone – go on before me – though you are weary and cold, I am not fit to support or to shelter you.”

He opened the gate for her, for they stood now before the parsonage – as she passed through he said, more gently, “I am sorry that I threw your cross away; it was a violent, and passionate, and childish act. Besides, you prized it – for your mother’s sake; you love your mother. And no good will ever come of its being torn away from you. There was no cause for treating you so.”

“Yes, there was, George – don’t mind – good has come of it already.”

“Oh, Ella – how?”

“I’m ready, this moment, to bear another cross, to take it up and bear it, if God will.”

“Woe to the human hand that lays a heavier cross on your shoulder than that I threw away from you.”

“Good-night, George.”

“Good-night, Ella.”

“George, you don’t believe I feel as you say people do about being seen walking or talking – with – you? I am, indeed, very proud of you, and – ”

“Yes – I don’t doubt it, since you say so – you’re proud of me, though I can’t see why. But you’re not proud for me, nor with me.”

“Yes – I am.”

“No! no! you don’t understand what you’re talking about. I’m glad you don’t – if I called ‘the whole world a cheat, and all men liars,’ you wouldn’t say yea and amen to that?”

“No; for I could prove to you that you mistook all about you. Oh, if you only knew how – ”

“No more – good-night. You are not like other people, Ella, or we could not speak as we do together.”

II

A dull November morning – rain had fallen in great quantities during the night, as George Waldron had predicted, and clouds yet covered the entire heaven. Amid the leafless forest trees that covered the mountain side, stood here and there a few evergreens, like ghosts, robed in funereal gloom – the wind was fierce and cold – the waters of the lake rolled high and furiously, they dashed madly on the beach – they rolled far back and up, with maniac force.

The boy was there again, standing on the seashore – the sun had not yet risen – he stood where the sunlight had fallen the night before on Ella, but the light that had enveloped her as a glory-robe, was not on him. He looked pale, and very anxious, and from the rock where she had stood he restlessly and curiously scanned every wave that broke upon the beach.

He had been roused long before daylight from his slumbers, by the parson, Ella’s father, and at his request had gone for a physician, for Ella was very ill.

And all that night, after the leech was summoned, he walked or ran along the beach, waiting with an impatience so fierce that one could not call it childish, for day to come. His garments were soaked with rain, but he knew it not, neither was he conscious of fatigue, or cold, or faintness, but incessantly, as he went to and fro, wild prayers burst from his lips. In the gloom, and storm, and darkness, he harbored but one thought, one hope, the rescue of Ella’s golden cross from the waters. The moment he heard that she was ill, he said to himself, she will die, and his fiery soul, recalling her mild, reproachful look as she watched his sudden motion, and her gently-expressed regret when the cross was lost, began to torture him. The act of passion became a thousand times exaggerated, and the recollection maddened him.

All day he walked along that stormy beach, and when night came, it was not till thick darkness began to gather over land and flood, that he arose to go back to his mother’s house. Mrs. Waldron had but just come in from the parsonage – she was going back again for the night, for Ella was very ill – and this good woman was noted as an efficient nurse,

“How is she, mother?” was his abrupt salutation, as he closed the door behind him, and walked up to the table where she sat at work for him.

“Who?” asked the mother, forgetting her neighborly, in her maternal anxiety, as she looked upon the pale and haggard face of her boy.

“The girl at the parsonage. I went for the doctor for her last night, you know.”

“Oh – she is very ill indeed, very ill; I’m going to watch there to-night.”

“It will tire you. You’re not well yourself.”

“Oh, well, son, when a neighbor’s sick, and wants my help, I hope I shall always be ready to give it – even if I don’t feel over and above smart myself.”

“Neighbor!” he repeated, furiously. “If it was you they talked of visiting, or helping, they’d say, it is a poor woman that lives near us– they wouldn’t call you ‘neighbor,’ mother – they’ve a different way of talking.”

“Oh, son! son! how awful proud you are. You’re hard on ’em. I’m feared you haven’t the right sort of spirit in you. It’s not the mood to take into the world – if you knock people down you’ll have to pay for it; the best way is just to ask leave to go by, and if they won’t make room, apologize for pushing on.”

“Mother,” he said, abruptly interrupting her, “did you see El – the sick girl, to-day?”

“Why, yes! I staid in the room all the time. Poor child, I don’t think she quite knew what she was talking about. She was wild-like – running on about the storm, and the night, and a cross, which was give to her by her mother – and it’s lost, they say. You never see folks so done up as the minister and his wife. When sorrow comes to us we’re all alike. But they are knocked up complete.”

“Was she grieving about the cross? Why don’t they get another like it, and make her think it’s found!”

“Oh, they wouldn’t deceive her! That would be agin the parson’s principles. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Don’t trouble yourself about getting tea, mother. I’m not at all hungry. Lie down and take a little nap. I’ll help myself, and I’ve got a book I want to read now.”

Though the words were kindly uttered, he spoke as one having authority; and without attempting a remonstrance, the mother complied with his suggestion, and was soon in a deep sleep. Early in the evening he aroused her, hurried away to the parsonage, and there left her for the night.

Exhausted by the excitement to which both mind and body had been subject for the last twenty-four hours, he returned home, but not to read, nor to study. The door to his humble home made fast, he passionately flung himself upon the floor, and until the fire-light died away he lay there, his eyes glaring about like a maniac’s, scanning the discolored walls, and the humble furniture, familiar to him since he first learned to take note of things, and understand the contrasts in the world. He slept not for one moment, nor could he think connectedly on any subject. His hopes were all dashing to and fro, confused and stormy as he knew the waves were, that beat along the shore on that wild night. One moment a gleam of glory, like a lightning flash, would break upon his soul, and the next the thunder-crash of the decision of Destiny and Doom, would peal through his excited intellect. He never for an instant thought of her recovery. He looked upon her death as a necessity that concerned him, and him alone, and he looked beyond her grave to his own future, as though he could tread on to it across that mound alone… He thought upon his mother, and an icy chill made him nerveless – he painted his own portrait, and stood apart from the work, and gazed upon it with a critic’s eyes. It was always in the light of a Preacher that he looked upon himself; but while one of these pictured similitudes, that of the Poet-Preacher, whose parish lay in Author-Land, won him again and again, as by a siren charm, to bestow upon it one more, and one more look, from the other he turned with shuddering and aversion.