Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous

When the pots had been heated sufficiently, as he supposed, he took them out, but, lo! the experiment had availed nothing. Either he had not hit upon the right ingredients, or the baking had been too long or too short in time. He must of course try again. For days and weeks he pounded and ground new materials; but no success came. The weeks grew into months. Finally his supply of wood became exhausted, and the wife was losing her patience with these whims of an inventor. They were poor, and needed present income rather than future prospects. She had ceased to believe Palissy's stories of riches coming from white enamel. Had she known that she was marrying an inventor, she might well have hesitated, lest she starve in the days of experimenting; but now it was too late.

His wood used up, Palissy was obliged to make arrangements with a potter who lived three miles away, to burn the broken pieces in his furnace. His enthusiasm made others hopeful; so that the promise to pay when white enamel was discovered was readily accepted. To make matters sure of success at this trial, he sent between three and four hundred pieces of earthenware to his neighbor's furnace. Some of these would surely come back with the powder upon them melted, and the surface would be white. Both himself and wife waited anxiously for the return of the ware; she much less hopeful than he, however. When it came, he says in his journal, "I received nothing but shame and loss, because it turned out good for nothing."

Two years went by in this almost hopeless work, then a third, – three whole years of borrowing money, wood, and chemicals; three years of consuming hope and desperate poverty. Palissy's family had suffered extremely. One child had died, probably from destitution. The poor wife was discouraged, and at last angered at his foolishness. Finally the pottery fever seemed to abate, and Palissy went back to his drudgery of glass-painting and occasional surveying. Nobody knew the struggle it had cost to give up the great discovery; but it must be done.

Henry II., who was then King of France, had placed a new tax on salt, and Palissy was appointed to make maps of all the salt-marshes of the surrounding country. Some degree of comfort now came back to his family. New clothes were purchased for the children, and the overworked wife repented of her lack of patience. When the surveying was completed, a little money had been saved, but, alas! the pottery fever had returned.

Three dozen new earthen pots were bought, chemicals spread over them as before, and these taken to a glass-furnace, where the heat would be much greater. He again waited anxiously, and when they were returned, some of the powder had actually melted, and run over the earthenware. This added fuel to the flame of his hope and ambition. And now, for two whole years more, he went between his house and the glass-furnace, always hoping, always failing.

His home had now become like a pauper's. For five years he had chased this will-o'-the-wisp of white enamel; and the only result was the sorrow of his relatives and the scorn of his neighbors. Finally he promised his heart-broken wife that he would make but one more trial, and if this failed, he would give up experimenting, and support her and the children. He resolved that this should be an almost superhuman effort. In some unknown way he raised the money for new pots and three hundred mixtures of chemicals. Then, with the feelings of a man who has but one chance for life, he walked beside the person who carried his precious stock to the furnace. He sat down before the mouth of the great hot oven, and waited four long hours. With what a sinking heart he watched the pieces as they were taken out! He hardly dared look, because it would probably be the old story of failure. But, lo! some were melted, and as they hardened, oh, joy unspeakable, they turned white! He hastened home with unsteady step, like one intoxicated, to tell his wife the overwhelming truth. Surely he could not stop now in this great work; and all must be done in secret, lest other potters learn the art.

Fears, no doubt, mingled with the new-born hopes of Mrs. Palissy, for there was no regular work before her husband, and no steady income for hungry little mouths. Besides, he must needs build a furnace in the shed adjoining their home. But how could he obtain the money? Going to the brick yard, he pledged some of the funds he hoped to receive in the future, and brought home the bricks upon his back. Then he spent seven long months experimenting in clay vessels, that he might get the best shapes and quality to take the enamel. For another month, from early morning till late at night, he pounded his preparations of tin, lead, iron, and copper, and mixed them, as he hoped, in proper proportions. When his furnace was ready, he put in his clay pots, and seated himself before the mouth.

All day and all night, he fed the fire, his little children bringing him soup, which was all the food the house afforded. A second day and night he watched the results eagerly; but the enamel did not melt. Covered with perspiration, and faint from loss of sleep and food, with the desperation of hope that is akin to despair, for six days and six nights, catching scarcely a moment of sleep, he watched the earthen pots; but still the enamel did not melt. At last, thinking that his proportions in his mixtures might have been wrong, he began once more to pound and grind the materials without letting his furnace cool. His clay vessels which he had spent seven months in making were also useless, so he hastened to the shops, and bought new ones.

The family were now nearly frantic with poverty and the pottery madness of the father. To make matters quite unbearable, the wood had given out, and the furnace-fires must not stop. Almost wild with hope deferred, and the necessities of life pressing upon him, Palissy tore up the fence about his garden, and thrust it into the furnace-mouth. Still the enamel did not melt. He rushed into the house, and began breaking up the table and chairs for fuel. His wife and children were horrified. They ran through the streets, crying out that Palissy was tearing the house down, and had become crazy. The neighbors gathered, and begged him to desist, but all to no purpose. He tore up the floors of the house, and threw them in. The town jeered at him, and said, "It is right that he die of hunger, seeing that he has left off following his trade." He was exhausted and dried up by the heat of the furnace; but still he could not yield. Finally the enamel melted. But now he was more crazy than before. He must go forward, come what might.

With his family nearer than ever to starvation, he hired an assistant potter, promising the old promise, – to pay when the discovery had been perfected. The town of Saintes must have become familiar with that promise. An innkeeper boarded the potter for six months, and charged it to Palissy, to be paid, like all the other bills, in the future. Probably Mrs. Palissy did not wish to board the assistant, even had she possessed the necessary food. At the end of the six months the potter departed, receiving, as pay, nearly all Palissy's wearing-apparel, which probably was scarcely worth carrying away.

He now felt obliged to build an improved furnace, tearing down the old one to recover the bricks, nearly turned to stone by the intense heat. His hands were fearfully bruised and cut in the work. He begged and borrowed more money, and once more started his furnace, with the boast that this time he would draw three or four hundred francs from it. When the ware was drawn out, the creditors came, eager for their share; but, alas! there was no share for them. The mortar had been full of flints, which adhered to the vessels; and Palissy broke the spoiled lot in pieces. The neighbors called him a fool; the wife joined in the maledictions – and who could blame her?

Under all this disappointment his spirit gave way, and he fled to his chamber, and threw himself upon the bed. Six of his children had died from want during the last ten years of struggle. What agony for the fond mother! "I was so wasted in person," he quaintly wrote afterwards, "that there was no form nor prominence of muscle on my arms or legs; also the said legs were throughout of one size, so that the garters with which I tied my stockings were at once, when I walked, down upon my heels, with the stockings too. I was despised and mocked by all."

But the long lane turned at last. He stopped for a year, and took up his old work to support his dying family, and then perfected his discovery. For five or six years there were many failures, – the furnaces were too hot, or the proportions were wrong; but finally the work became very beautiful. His designs from nature were perfect, and his coloring marvellous. His fame soon spread abroad; and such nobles as Montmorenci, who stood next in rank to the King, and counts and barons, were his patrons. He designed tiles for the finest palaces, ideal heads of the Saviour, and dainty forms from Greek mythology.

Invited by Catherine de Medicis, wife of King Henry II., Palissy removed to Paris, and was thenceforward called "Bernard of the Tuileries." He was now rich and famous. What a change from that day when his half-starved wife and children fled along the streets of Saintes, their furniture broken up for furnace-fires! And yet, but for this blind devotion to a single object, he would have remained a poor, unknown glass-painter all his life. While in Paris, he published two or three books which showed wide knowledge of history, mines, springs, metals, and philosophy. He founded a Museum of Natural History, and for eight years gave courses of lectures, attended by all the learned men of the day. When his great learning was commented upon, he replied, "I have had no other book than the sky and the earth, known to all." A wonderful man indeed!

All his life Palissy was a devoted Huguenot, not fearing to read his Bible, and preach to the people daily from it. Once he was imprisoned at Bordeaux, and but for his genius, and his necessity to the beautifying of palaces and chapels, he would have been put to death. When he was seventy-six, under the brutal Henry III., he was shut up in the Bastille. After nearly four years, the curled and vain monarch visited him, and said, "My good man, you have been forty-five years in the service of the Queen my mother, or in mine, and we have suffered you to live in your own religion, amidst all the executions and the massacres. Now, however, I am so pressed by the Guise party and my people, that I have been compelled, in spite of myself, to imprison these two poor women and you; they are to be burnt to-morrow, and you also, if you will not be converted."

"Sire," answered the old man, "you have said several times that you feel pity for me; but it is I who pity you, who have said, 'I am compelled.' That is not speaking like a King. These girls and I, who have part in the kingdom of heaven, we will teach you to talk royally. The Guisarts, all your people, and yourself, cannot compel a potter to bow down to images of clay."

The two girls were burnt a few months afterward. The next year, 1589, Henry III. was stabbed by a monk who knelt before his throne; and the same year, Palissy died in the Bastille, at the age of eighty.

BERTEL THORWALDSEN

A few months ago we visited a plain old house in Copenhagen, the boyhood home of the great Danish sculptor. Here he worked with his father, a poor wood-carver, who, thinking his boy would be a more skilful workman if he learned to draw, sent him to the Free Royal Academy of Fine Arts when he was twelve years old. At the end of four years he took a prize, and the fact was mentioned in the newspapers. The next day, one of the teachers asked, "Thorwaldsen, is it your brother who has carried off the prize?"

Bertel's cheeks colored with pride as he said, "No, sir; it is I." The teacher changed his tone, and replied, "Mr. Thorwaldsen, you will go up immediately to the first rank."

Years afterward, when he had become famous, he said no praise was ever so sweet as being called "Mr." when he was poor and unknown.

Two years later, he won another prize; but he was now obliged to stay at home half the time to help support the large family. Obtaining a small gold medal from the Academy, although so modest that, after the examination, he escaped from the midst of the candidates by a private staircase, he determined to try for the large gold medal. If he could obtain this, he would receive a hundred and twenty dollars a year for three years, and study art in Italy. He at once began to give drawing-lessons, taught modelling to wealthy boys, and helped illustrate books, working from early morning till late at night. He was rarely seen to smile, so hard was the struggle for daily bread. But he tried for the medal, and won.

What visions of fame must have come before him now, as he said good-by to his poor parents, whom, alas, he was never to see again, and, taking his little dog Hector, started for far-away Italy! When he arrived, he was so ill and homesick that several times he decided to give up art and go back. He copied diligently the works of the old masters, and tried in vain to earn a little money. He sent some small works of his own to Copenhagen; but nobody bought them. He made "Jason with the Golden Fleece," and, when no one ordered it, the discouraged artist broke it in pieces. The next year he modelled another Jason, a lady furnishing the means; and while everybody praised it, and Canova said, "This young Dane has produced a work in a new and grand style," it did not occur to any one to buy the statue in marble.

An artist could not live on praise alone. Anxious days came and went, and he was destitute and wretched. He must leave Rome, and go back to the wood-carving in Copenhagen; for no one wanted beautiful things, unless the maker was famous. He deferred going from week to week, till at last his humble furniture had been sold, and his trunks waited at the door. As he was leaving the house, his travelling companion said to him, "We must wait till to-morrow, from a mistake in our passports."

A few hours later, Mr. Thomas Hope, an English banker, entered his studio, and, struck with the grandeur of his model of Jason, asked the cost in marble. "Six hundred sequins" (over twelve hundred dollars), he answered, not daring to hope for such good fortune. "That is not enough; you should ask eight," said the generous man, who at once ordered it.

And this was the turning-point in Bertel's life. How often a rich man might help a struggling artist, and save a genius to the world, as did this banker! Young Thorwaldsen now made the acquaintance of the Danish ambassador to Naples, who introduced him to the family of Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, where the most famous people in Rome gathered. Soon a leading countess commissioned him to cut four marble statues, – Bacchus, Ganymede, Apollo, and Venus. Two years later, he was made professor in the Royal Academy of Florence.

The Academy of Copenhagen now sent him five hundred dollars as an expression of their pride in him. How much more he needed it when he was near starving, all those nine years in Rome! The bashful student had become the genial companion and interesting talker. Louis of Bavaria, who made Munich one of the art centres of the world, was his admirer and friend. The Danish King urged him to return to Copenhagen; but, as the Quirinal was to be decorated with great magnificence, Rome could not spare him. For this, he made in three months his famous "Entry of Alexander into Babylon," and soon after his exquisite bas-reliefs, "Night" and "Morning," – the former, a goddess carrying in her arms two children, Sleep and Death; the latter, a goddess flying through the air, scattering flowers with both hands.

In 1816, when he was forty-six, he finished his Venus, after having made thirty models of the figure. He threw away the first attempt, and devoted three years to the completion of the second. Three statues were made, one of which is at Chatsworth, the elegant home of the Duke of Devonshire; and one was lost at sea. A year later, he carved his exquisite Byron, now at Trinity College, Cambridge.

He was now made a member of three other famous academies. Having been absent from Denmark twenty-three years, the King urged his return for a visit, at least. The Royal Palace of Charlottenburg was prepared for his reception The students of the Academy escorted him with bands of music, cannon were fired, poems read, cantatas sung; and the King created him councillor of state.

Was the wood-carver's son proud of all these honors? No. The first person he met at the palace was the old man who had served as a model for the boys when Thorwaldsen was at school. So overcome was he as he recalled those days of toil and poverty, that he fell upon the old man's neck, and embraced him heartily.

After some of the grandest work of his life in the Frue Kirke, – Christ and the Twelve Apostles, and others, – he returned to Rome, visiting, on the way, Alexander of Russia, who, after Thorwaldsen had made his bust, presented the artist with a diamond ring.

Although a Protestant, accounted now the greatest living sculptor, he was made president of the Academy of St. Luke, a position held by Canova when he was alive, and was commissioned to build the monument of Pius VII. in St. Peters. Mendelssohn, the great composer, had become his warm friend, and used to play for him as he worked in his studio. Sir Walter Scott came to visit the artist, and as the latter could speak scarcely a word of English, the two shook hands heartily, and clapped each other on the shoulder as they parted.

When Thorwaldsen was sixty-eight years old, he left Rome to end his days among his own people. The enthusiasm on his arrival was unbounded. The whole city waited nearly three days for his coming. Boats decked with flowers went out to meet him, and so many crowded on board his vessel that it was feared she would sink. The members of the Academy came in a body; and the crowd took the horses from the carriage, and drew it themselves through the streets to the Palace of Charlottenburg. In the evening there was a grand torchlight procession, followed by a constant round of parties.

So beset was he with invitations to dinner, that, to save a little time for himself, he told his servant Wilkins, that he would dine with him and his wife. Wilkins, greatly confused, replied, "What would the world think if it found out that the chancellor dined with his servant?"

"The world – the world! Have I not told you a thousand times that I don't care in the least what the world thinks about these things?" Sometimes he refused even to dine with the King. Finding at last that society would give him no rest, he went to live with some friends at Nyso, seven hours by boat from Copenhagen.

Once more he visited Rome, for a year, receiving royal attentions all through Germany. Two years after, as he was sitting in the theatre, he rose to let a lady pass. She saw him bending toward the floor, and asked, "Have you dropped something?"

The great man made no answer; he was dead. The funeral was a grand expression of love and honor. His body lay in state in the Royal Palace, laurel about his brow, the coffin ornamented with floral crowns – one made by the Queen of Denmark; his chisel laid in the midst of laurel and palm, and his great works of art placed about him. Houses were draped in black, bells tolled in all the churches, women threw flowers from their windows before the forty artists who carried the coffin, and the King and Prince royal received it in person at the Frue Kirke.

Then it was borne to the large museum which Copenhagen had built to receive his work, and buried in the centre of the inner court, which had been prepared under his own hand. A low granite coping surrounds the grave, which is entirely covered with ivy, and on the side is his boyish name, Bertel (Bartholomew) Thorwaldsen.

MOZART

The quaint old city of Salzburg, Austria, built into the mountain-side, is a Mecca for all who love music, and admire the immortal Mozart. When he was alive, his native city allowed him nearly to starve; when he was dead, she built him a beautiful monument, and preserved his home, a plain two-story, stuccoed building, for thousands of travellers to look upon sadly and tenderly.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born Jan. 27, 1756, a delicate, sensitive child, who would ask a dozen times a day whether his friends loved him, and, if answered in the negative, would burst into tears. At three, he began to show his passion for music. He would listen intensely as his father taught his little sister, Nannerl, seven years old; would move his playthings from one room to another, to the sound of the violin; and at four, composed pieces which astonished his sire.

Two years later, the proud father took Wolfgang and his sister on a concert tour to Vienna. So well did the boy play, that the Empress Maria Theresa held him in her arms, and kissed him heartily. One day as he was walking between two of her daughters, he slipped on the polished floor and fell. Marie Antoinette, afterward Empress of France, raised him up, whereupon he said, "You are very kind; I will marry you." The father was alarmed at this seeming audacity; but the lovely Princess playfully kissed him.

The next year he was taken to Paris, and here two sets of sonatas, the works of a boy of seven, were brought out, dedicated to Marie Antoinette. The children sat at the royal table, poems were written about them, and everywhere they excited wonder and admiration; yet so excessively modest was young Mozart, that he cried when praised too much. In London, Bach took the boy between his knees, and alternately they played his own great works and those of Handel at sight. Royalty gave them "gold snuffboxes enough to set up a shop," wrote home the father; "but in money I am poor." Wolfgang was now taken ill of inflammatory fever; but he could not give up his music. A board was laid across the bed, and on this he wrote out his thoughts in the notes. Finally, with ardor dampened at their lack of pecuniary success, Leopold Mozart took his dear ones back to quiet Salzburg.

Here the cold archbishop, discrediting the reports of the boy's genius, shut him up alone for a week to compose an oratorio, the text furnished by himself. Mozart, only ten years old, stood the test brilliantly. The next year a second tour was taken to Vienna, to be present at the marriage of the Archduchess Maria Josepha. The bride died from smallpox shortly after their arrival: and poor Wolfgang took the disease, and was blind for nine days. When he recovered, the musicians, moved by envy and jealousy, would not be outdone by a boy of twelve, who was equally at home in German or Italian opera, and determined to hiss off the stage whatever he might compose. Sad at heart, and disappointed, again the Mozarts went back to the old home.

Two years later, after much self-sacrifice, the father took his boy to Italy for study. The first day in Passion Week they went to the Sistine Chapel to hear the famous "Miserere" of Allegri, which was considered so sacred, that the musicians were forbidden to take home any part of it, or copy it out of the chapel, on pain of excommunication. Wolfgang, as soon as he reached his lodgings, wrote it out from memory; which remarkable feat for a boy of fourteen astonished all Rome. So wonderfully did he play, that the audience at Naples declared there was witchcraft in the ring which he wore on his left hand, and he was obliged to remove it. At Milan, when he was nearly fifteen, he composed the opera "Mithridate," conducting it himself, which was given twenty nights in succession to enthusiastic audiences. After this came requests for operas from Maria Theresa, Munich, and elsewhere. He was busy every moment. Overworked, he was often ill; but the need for money to meet heavy expenses made constant work a necessity. All this time he wrote beautiful letters to his mother and sister. "Kiss mamma's hand for me a thousand billion times," is the language of his loving heart. He could scarcely be said to have had any childhood; but he kept his tenderness and affection to the last of his life.

After their return to Salzburg, finding the new archbishop even less cordial than the old – the former had allowed Wolfgang the munificent salary of five dollars and a fourth yearly! – it was deemed wise to try to find a new field for employment. The father, now sixty years of age, must earn a pittance for the family by giving music-lessons, while the mother accompanied the son to Paris. The separation was a hard one for the devoted father, who could not say good-by to his idolized son, and poor Nannerl wept the whole day long. Mozart, now twenty-one, and famous, well repaid this affection by his pure character. He wrote: "I have God always before me. Whatever is according to his will is also according to mine; therefore I cannot fail to be happy and contented."