The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 40, February, 1861

Otherwise it cannot be; for, in the three portraits to which allusion has been made, such subtile distinctions of character find expression in equally subtile differences of tint, that no touch could have been given from vague apprehensions of truth. No ambiguity perplexes the spectator; he beholds the inevitable.

Other works than those of portraiture have won for Mr. Page the attention of the world. This attention has elicited from individuals praise and dispraise, dealt out promptly, and with little qualification. But we have looked in vain for some truly appreciative notice of the so-called historical pictures executed by this artist. We do not object to the prompt out-speaking of the public. So much is disposed of, when the mass has given or withheld its approval. We know whether or not the work appeals to the hearts of human beings. Often, too, it is the most nearly just of any which may be rendered. Usually, the conclusions of the great world are correct, while its reasonings are absurd. Its decisions are immediate and clear; its arguments, subsequent and vague.

This measure, however, cannot be meted to all artists. A painter may appeal to some wide, yet superficial sympathy, and attain to no other excellence.

That Mr. Page might have found success in this direction will not be denied by any one who has seen the engraving of a girl and lamb, from one of his early works. It is as sweet and tenderly simple as a face by Francia. But not only did he refuse to confine himself to this style of art, as, when that engraving is before us, we wish he had done,—he passed out of and away from it. And those phases which followed have been such as are the least fitted to stand the trial of public exhibition. His pictures do not command the eye by extraordinary combinations of assertive colors,—nor do they, through great pathos, deep tenderness, or any overcharged emotional quality, fascinate and absorb the spectator.

Much of the middle portion of this artist's professional life is marked by changes. It was a period of growth,—of continual development and of obvious transition. Not infrequently, the transition seemed to be from the excellent to the crude. Nevertheless, we doubt not, that, through all vicissitudes, there has been a steady and genuine growth of Mr. Page's best artistic power, and that he has been true to his specialty.

We should like to believe that the Venetian visit of 1853 was the closing of one period of transition, and the beginning of a new era in Mr. Page's artistic career. It is pleasant to think of the painter's pilgrimage to that studio of Titian, Venice,—for it was all his,—not in nebulous prophetic youth,—not before his demands had been revealed to his consciousness,—not before those twenty long years of solitary, hard, earnest work,—but in the full ripeness of manhood, when prophecy had dawned into confident fulfilment, when the principles of his science had been found, and when of this science his art had become the demonstration. It was fine to come then, and be for a while the guest of Titian.

There is evidence that he began after this visit to do what for years he had been learning to do,—yet, of course, as is ever the case with the earnest man, doing as a student, as one who feels all truth to be of the infinite.

The result has been a series of remarkable pictures. There are among these the specimens of portraiture, a few landscapes, and a number of ideal, or, as they have been called, historical works. Of these last named there is somewhat to be said; and those to which we shall refer are selected for the purpose of illustrating principles, rather than for that of description. These are all associated with history. There are three representations of Venus, and several renderings of Scriptural subjects.

If these pictures are valuable, they are so in virtue of elements which can be appreciated. To present these elements to the world, to appeal to those who can recognize them, is, it is fair to assume, the object of exposition. Not merely praise, but the more wholesome meed of justice, is the desire of a true artist; and as we deal with such a one, we do not hesitate to speak of his works as they impress us.

First of all, in view of the artist's skill as a painter, it is well to regard the external of his work. Here, in both Scriptural and mythological subjects, there is little to condemn. The motives have been bravely and successfully wrought out; the work is nobly, frankly done. The superiority of methods which render the texture and quality of objects becomes apparent. There is no attempt at illusion; yet the representation of substances and spaces is faultless,—as, for instance, the sky of the "Venus leading forth the Trojans." Nor have we seen that chaste, pearly lustre of the most beautiful human skin so well rendered as in the bosom of the figure which gleams against the blue.

But there is a pretension to more than technical excellence in the mythological works; there is a declaration of physical beauty in the very idea; in both these and the Scriptural there is an assumption of historical value.

While we believe that the problem of physical beauty can be solved and demonstrated, and the representations of Venus can be proved to possess or to lack the beautiful, we choose to leave now, as we should be compelled to do after discussion, the decision of the question to those who raise it. It is of little avail to prove a work of art beautiful,—of less, to prove it ugly. Spectators and generations cannot be taken one by one and convinced. But where the operation of judgment is from the reasoning rather than from the intuitive nature, facts, opinions, and impressions may exert healthful influences.

The Venus of Page we cannot accept,—not because it may be unbeautiful, for that might be but a shortcoming,—not because of any technical failure, for, with the exception of weakness in the character of waves, nothing can be finer,—not because it lacks elevated sentiment, for this Venus was not the celestial,—but because it has nothing to do with the present, neither is it of the past, nor related in any wise to any imaginable future.

The present has no ideal of which the Venus of the ancients is a manifestation. Other creations of that marvellous Greek mind might be fitly used to symbolize phases of the present. Hercules might labor now; there are other stables than the Augean; and not yet are all Hydras slain. Armor is needed; and a Vulcan spirit is making the anvil ring beneath the earth-crust of humanity. But Venus, the voluptuous, the wanton,—no sensuousness pervading any religion of this era finds in her its fitting type and sign. She, her companions, and her paramours, with the magnificent religion which evolved them, were entombed centuries ago; and no angel has rolled the stone from the door of their sepulchre. They are dead; the necessity which called the Deistic ideal into existence is dead; the ideal itself is dead, since Paul preached in Athens its funeral sermon.

As history of past conditions, no value can be attached to representations produced in subsequent ages. In this respect all these pictures must be false. The best can only approximate truth. Yet his two pictures of Scriptural subjects—one from the remoteness of Hebrew antiquity, the other from the early days of Christianity—are most valuable even as history: not the history of the flight from Egypt, nor that of the flight into Egypt, but the history of what these mighty events have become after the lapse of many centuries.

Herein lies the difference between Mythology and Christianity: the one arose, culminated, and perished, soul and body, when the shadow of the Cross fell athwart Olympus; the other is immortal,—immortal as is Christ, immortal as are human souls, of which it is the life. No century has been when it has not found, and no century can be when it will not find, audible and visible utterance. The music of the "Messiah" reveals the relation of its age to the great central idea of Christianity. Frà Angelico, Leonardo, Bach, Milton, Overbeck, were the revelators of human elevation, as sustained by the philosophy of which Christ was the great interpreter.

Therefore, to record that elevation, to be the historian of the present in its deepest significance, the noblest occupation. Dwelling, as an artist must dwell, in the deep life of his theme, his work must go forth utterly new, alive, and startling.

Thus did we find the "Flight into Egypt" a picture full of the spirit of that marvellous age, hallowed by the sweet mystery which all these years have given. Who of those who were so fortunate as to see this work of Mr. Page will ever forget the solemn, yet radiant tone pervading the landscape of sad Egypt, along which went the fugitives? Nothing ever swallowed by the insatiable sea, save its human victims, is more worthy of lament than this lost treasure.

Thus, too, is the grandest work of Mr. Page's life, the Moses with hands upheld above the battle. Were we on the first page instead of the last, we could not refrain from describing it. Yet in its presence the impulse is toward silence. We feel, that, viewed even in its mere external, it is as simple and majestic as the Hebrew language. The far sky, with its pallid moon,—the deep, shadowy valley, with its ghostly warriors,—the group on the near mountain, with its superb youth, its venerable age, and its manhood too strong and vital for the destructive years;—in the presence of such a creation there is time for a great silence.

KNITTING SALE-SOCKS

"He's took 'ith all the sym't'ms,—thet 's one thing sure! Dretful pain in hez back an' l'ins, legs feel 's ef they hed telegraph-wires inside 'em workin' fur dear life, head aches, face fevered, pulse at 2.40, awful stetch in the side, an' pressed fur breath. You guess it's neuralogy, Lurindy? I do'no' nothin' abeout yer high-flyin' names fur rheumatiz. I don't guess so!"

"But, Aunt Mimy, what do you guess?" asked mother.

"I don' guess nothin' at all,—I nigh abeout know!"

"Well,—you don't think it's"–

"I on'y wish it mebbe the veryaloud,—I on'y wish it mebbe. But that's tew good luck ter happen ter one o' the name. No, Miss Ruggles, I—think—it's—the raal article at first hand."

"Goodness, Aunt Mimy! what"–

"Yes, I du; an' you'll all hev it stret through the femily, every one; you needn't expect ter go scot-free, Emerline, 'ith all your rosy cheeks; an' you'll all hev ter stay in canteen a month ter the least; an' ef you're none o' yer pertected by vaticination, I reckon I"–

"Well, Aunt Mimy, if that's your opinion, I'll harness the filly and drive over for Dr. Sprague."

"Lor'! yer no need ter du thet, Miss Ruggles,—I kin kerry yer all through jest uz well uz Dr. Sprague, an' a sight better, ef the truth wuz knowed. I tuk Miss Deacon Smiler an' her hull femily through the measles an' hoopin'-cough, like a parcel o' pigs, this fall. They du say Jane's in a poor way an' Nathan'l's kind o' declinin'; but, uz I know they say it jest ter spite me, I don' so much mind. You a'n't gwine now, be ye?"

"There's safety in a multitude of counsellors, you know, Aunt Mimy, and I think on the whole I had best."

"Wal! ef that's yer delib'rate ch'ice betwixt Dr. Sprague an' me, ye kin du ez ye like. I never force my advice on no one, 'xcept this,—I'd advise Emerline there ter throw them socks inter the fire; there'll never none o' them be fit ter sell, 'nless she wants ter spread the disease. Wal, I'm sorry yer 've concluded ter hev thet old quack Sprague; never hed no more diplomy 'n I; don' b'lieve he knows cow-pox from kine, when he sees it. The poor young man's hed his last well day, I'm afeard. Good-day ter ye; say good-bye fur me ter Stephen. I'll call ag'in, ef ye happen ter want any one ter lay him eout."

And, staying to light her little black pipe, she jerked together the strings of her great scarlet hood, wrapped her cloak round her like a sentinel at muster, and went puffing down the hill like a steamboat.

Aunt Mimy Ruggles wasn't any relation to us, I wouldn't have you think, though our name was Ruggles, too. Aunt Mimy used to sell herbs, and she rose from that to taking care of the sick, and so on, till once Dr. Sprague having proved that death came through her ignorance, she had to abandon some branches of her art; and she was generally roaming round the neighborhood, seeking whom she could devour in the others. And so she came into our house just at dinner-time, and mother asked her to sit by, and then mentioned Cousin Stephen, and she went up to see him, and so it was.

Now it can't be pleasant for any family to have such a thing turn up, especially if there's a pretty girl in it; and I suppose I was as pretty as the general run, at that time,—perhaps Cousin Stephen thought a trifle prettier; pink cheeks, blue eyes, and hair the color and shine of a chestnut when it bursts the burr, can't be had without one 's rather pleasant-looking; and then I'm very good-natured and quick-tempered, and I've got a voice for singing, and I sing in the choir, and a'n't afraid to open my mouth. I don't look much like Lurindy, to be sure; but then Lurindy's an old maid,—as much as twenty-five,—and don't go to singing-school.—At least, these thoughts ran through my head as I watched Aunt Mimy down the hill.—Lurindy a'n't so very pretty, I continued to think,—but she's so very good, it makes up. At sewing-circle and quilting and frolics, I'm as good as any; but somehow I'm never any 'count at home; that's because Lurindy is by, at home. Well, Lurindy has a little box in her drawer, and there's a letter in it, and an old geranium-leaf, and a piece of black silk ribbon that looks too broad for anything but a sailor's necktie, and a shell. I don't know what she wants to keep such old stuff for, I'm sure.

We're none so rich,—I suppose I may as well tell the truth, that we're nearly as poor as poor can be. We've got the farm, but it's such a small one that mother and I can carry it on ourselves, with now and then a day's help or a bee,—but a bee's about as broad as it is long,—and we raise just enough to help the year out, but don't sell. We've got a cow and the filly and some sheep; and mother shears and cards, and Lurindy spins,—I can't spin, it makes my head swim,—and I knit, knit socks and sell them. Sometimes I have needles almost as big as a pipe-stem, and choose the coarse, uneven yarn of the thrums, and then the work goes off like machinery. Why, I can knit two pair, and sometimes three, a day, and get just as much for them as I do for the nice ones,—they're warm. But when I want to knit well, as I did the day Aunt Mimy was in, I take my best blue needles and my fine white yarn from the long wool, and it takes me from daybreak till sundown to knit one pair. I don't know why Aunt Jemimy should have said what she did about my socks; I'm sure Stephen hadn't been any nearer them than he had to the cabbage-bag Lurindy was netting, and there wasn't such a nice knitter in town as I, everybody will tell you. She always did seem to take particular pleasure in hectoring and badgering me to death.

Well, I wasn't going to be put down by Aunt Mimy, so I made the needles fly while mother was gone for the doctor. By-and-by I heard a knock up in Stephen's room,—I suppose he wanted something,—but Lurindy didn't hear it, and I didn't so much want to go, so I sat still and began to count out loud the stitches to my narrowings. By-and-by he knocked again.

"Lurindy," says I, "a'n't that Steve a-knocking?"

"Yes," says she,—"why don't you go?"—for I had been tending him a good deal that day.

"Well," says I, "there's a number of reasons; one is, I'm just binding off my heel."

Lurindy looked at me a minute, then all at once she smiled.

"Well, Emmy," says she, "if you like a smooth skin more than a smooth conscience, you're welcome,"—and went up-stairs herself.

I suppose I had ought to 'a' gone, and I suppose I'd ought to wanted to have gone, but somehow it wasn't so much fear as that I didn't want to see Stephen himself now. So Lurindy stayed up chamber, and was there when mother and the doctor come. And the doctor said he feared Aunt Mimy was right, and nobody but mother and Lurindy must go near Stephen, (you see, he found Lurindy there,) and they must have as little communication with me as possible. And his boots creaked down the back-stairs, and then he went.

Mother came down a little while after, for some water to put on Stephen's head, which was a good deal worse, she said; and about the middle of the evening I heard her crying for me to come and help them hold him,—he was raving. I didn't go very quick; I said, "Yes,—just as soon as I've narrowed off my toe"; and when at last I pushed back my chair to go, mother called in a disapproving voice and said that they'd got along without me and I'd better go to bed.

Well, after I was in bed I began to remember all that had happened lately. Somehow my thoughts went back to the first time Cousin Stephen came to our place, when I was a real little girl, and mother'd sent me to the well and I had dropped the bucket in, and he ran straight down the green slippery stones and brought it up, laughing. Then I remembered how we'd birds-nested together, and nutted, and come home on the hay-carts, and how we'd been in every kind of fun and danger together; and how, when my new Portsmouth lawn took fire, at Martha Smith's apple-paring, he caught me right in his arms and squeezed out the fire with his own hands; and how, when he saw once I had a notion of going with Elder Hooper's son James, he stepped aside till I saw what a nincom Jim Hooper was, and then he appeared as if nothing had happened, and was just as good as ever; and how, when the ice broke on Deacon Smith's pond, and I fell in, and the other boys were all afraid, Steve came and saved my life again at risk of his own; and how he always seemed to think the earth wasn't good enough for me to walk on; and how I'd wished, time and again, I might have some way to pay him back; and here it was, and I'd failed him. Then I remembered how I'd been to his place in Berkshire,—a rich old farm, with an orchard that smelled like the Spice Islands in the geography, with apples and pears and quinces and peaches and cherries and plums,—and how Stephen's mother, Aunt Emeline, had been as kind to me as one's own mother could be. But now Aunt Emeline and Uncle 'Siah were dead, and Stephen came a good deal oftener over the border than he'd any right to. Today, he brought some of those new red-streaks, and wanted mother to try them; next time, they'd made a lot more maple-sugar on his place than he wanted; and next time, he thought mother's corn might need hoeing, or it was fine weather to get the grass in: I don't know what we should have done without him. Then I thought how Stephen looked, the day he was pall-bearer to Charles Payson, who was killed sudden by a fall,—so solemn and pale, nowise craven, but just up to the occasion, so that, when the other girls burst out crying at sight of the coffin and at thought of Charlie, I cried, too,—but it was only because Stephen looked so beautiful. Then I remembered how he looked the other day when he came, his cheeks were so red with the wind, and his hair, those bright curls, was all blown about, and he laughed with the great hazel eyes he has, and showed his white teeth;—and now his beauty would be spoiled, and he'd never care for me again, seeing I hadn't cared for him. And the wind began to come up; and it was so lonesome and desolate in that little bed-room down-stairs, I felt as if we were all buried alive; and I couldn't get to sleep; and when the sleet and snow began to rattle on the pane, I thought there wasn't any one to see me and I'd better cry to keep it company; and so I sobbed off to dreaming at last, and woke at sunrise and found it still snowing.

Next morning, I heard mother stepping across the kitchen, and when I came out, she said Lurindy'd just gone to sleep; they'd had a shocking night. So I went out and watered the creatures and milked Brindle, and got mother a nice little breakfast, and made Stephen some gruel. And then I was going to ask mother if I'd done so very wrong in letting Lurindy nurse Stephen, instead of me; and then I saw she wasn't thinking about that; and besides, there didn't really seem to be any reason why she shouldn't;—she was a great deal older than I, and so it was more proper; and then Stephen hadn't ever said anything to me that should give me a peculiar right to nurse him more than other folks. So I just cleared away the things, made everything shine like a pin, and took my knitting. I'd no sooner got the seam set than I was called to send something up on a contrivance mother'd rigged in the back-entry over a pulley. And then I had to make a red flag, and find a stick, and hang it out of the window by which there were the most passers. Well, I did it; but I didn't hurry,—I didn't get the flag out till afternoon; somehow I hated to, it always seemed such a low-lived disease, and I was mortified to acknowledge it, and I knew nobody'd come near us for so long,—though goodness knows I didn't want to see anybody. Well, when that was done, Lurindy came down, and I had to get her something to eat, and then she went up-stairs, and mother took her turn for some sleep; and there were the creatures to feed again, and what with putting on, and taking off, and tending fires, and doing errands, and the night's milking, and clearing the paths, I didn't knit another stitch that day, and was glad enough, when night came, to go to bed myself.

Well, so we went on for two or three days. I'd got my second sock pretty well along in that time,—just think! half a week knitting half a sock!—and was setting the heel, when in came Aunt Mimy.

"I a'n't afeard on it," says she; "don't you be skeert. I jest stepped in ter see ef the young man wuz approachin' his eend."

"No," said I, "he isn't, any more than you are, Aunt Mimy."

"Any more 'n I be?" she answered. "Don't you lose yer temper, Emerline. We're all approachin' it, but some gits a leetle ahead; it a'n't no disgrace, ez I knows on. What yer doin' of? Knittin' sale-socks yet? and, my gracious! still ter work on the same pair! You'll make yer fortin', Emerline!"

I didn't say anything, I was so provoked.

"I don' b'lieve you know heow ter take the turns w'en yer mother a'n't by to help," she continued. "Can't ye take up the heel? Widden ev'ry fourth. Here, let me! You won't? Wal, I alluz knowed you wuz mighty techy, Emerline Ruggles, but ye no need ter fling away in thet style. Neow I'll advise ye ter let socks alone; they're tew intricate fur sech ez you. Mitt'ns is jest abeout 'ithin the compass uv your mind,—mitt'ns, men's single mitt'ns, put up on needles larger 'n them o' yourn be, an' by this rule. Seventeen reounds in the wrist,—tew an' one's the best seam"–

"Now, Miss Jemimy, just as if I didn't know how to knit mittens!"

"Wal, it seems you don't," said she, "though I don' deny but you may know heow ter give 'em; an' ez I alluz like ter du w'at good I kin, I'm gwine ter show ye."

"Show away," says I; "but I'll be bound, I've knit and sold and eaten up more mittens than ever you put your hands in!"

"Du tell! I'm glad to ha' heern you've got sech a good digestion," says she, hunting up a piece of paper to light her pipe. "Wal, ez I wuz sayin'," says she, "tew an' one's the best seam, handiest an' 'lastickest; twenty stetches to a needle, cast up so loose thet the fust one's ter one eend uv the needle an' the last ter t'other eend,—thet gives a good pull."

"I guess your smoke will hurt Stephen's head," said I, thinking to change her ideas.

"Oh, don't you bother abeout Stephen's head; ef it can't stan' thet,'t a'n't good fur much. Wal, an' then you set yer thumb an' knit plain, 'xcept a seam-stetch each side uv yer thumb; an' you widden tew stetches, one each side,—s'pose ye know heow ter widden? an' narry?—ev'ry third reound, tell yer 've got nineteen stetches acrost yer thumb; then ye knit, 'ithout widdenin', a matter uv seven or eight reounds more,–you listenin', Emerline?"

"Lor', Miss Jemimy, don't you know better than to ask questions when I'm counting? Now I've got to go and begin all over again."

"Highty-tighty, Miss! You're a weak sister, ef ye can't ceount an' chat, tew. Wal, ter make a long matter short, then ye drop yer thumb onter some thread an' cast up seven stetches an' knit reound fur yer hand, an' every other time you narry them seven stetches away ter one, fur the gore."