The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862

Out of doors this chord is preëminent in the sunset key, and the western skies ever chant their evening hymn in the 5th, 7th, and 2d of the ethereal music. The correspondence of the sub-dominant would be red, green, and indigo; of the chord of the 6th, red, yellow, and indigo; and so on, the curious mind may elicit the symmetrical to any notes, half notes, or combinations of notes. It is evident that as a note may be interpolated between any two of the scale, for reach or variety, and called, e.g. ♯F or ♭G, so a half tint between green and blue is a kind of analogical ♯ green or ♭ blue.

It seems to us that the elementary angles which Mr. Hay conceives to be the tonic, mediant, and dominant, in formal symmetry, will soon be proved to decompose into a scale of linear harmony, forming another beam in this glory of natural analogy. These angles are the fundamental ones of the pentagon square, and equilateral triangle—respectively 108°, 90°, and 60°. Some such scale it is known existed when art was at its culmination in buried Greece, and it was less the stupendous genius of her designers than the soul of the universe which their rules taught them how to infuse into form, which rendered the marbles of Hellas synonymes for immortality.

The most beautiful and conclusive, and yet most mysterious sign, that points the seeker to the prosecution of this last analogy, remains yet for us to remark, and for some investigator yet to take advantage of. It is the nodal figures which arrange themselves upon an elastic plate (as of glass), when it is made to vibrate (strewed with sand) by a fiddle bow drawn across its edge, so as to produce a pitch of some intensity. These have been investigated, and found subject to certain laws, which link into the chain of symmetry that philosophers have already grasped. Among these figures, of which the simplest arise from the deepest pitches, the angles mentioned occur.

But however interesting it might be to follow out these episodical instances, they would lead us too far from our original compass.

We have plainly exhibited the identity of principle which governs the bases of sound and color, and might fairly write Q.E.D. to our proposition; but the fact so determined has a farther bearing upon art, which it may not be out of place to enlarge upon.

The painter's palette, charged with color, is the instrument with which he thrills a melody to the eye, even as the magniloquent organ or the sigh-breathing flute speak to the ear. And just as the compass of all instruments is constructed on the diatonic scale, so should the range of the palette depend upon the tinges of the spectrum.

While artists of a certain school pretend to imitate Nature, who paints literally with a pencil dipped in rainbow, they make use of a complication of tints, at which their goddess would shudder. In mixing and mixing on the groaning palette, they generate an unhappy brood of misformed tones, which never can agree upon the canvas; while the pigments, impure at best, become doubly so by amalgamation, the ramifications of contrast which such differences superinduce are sure to prove sometimes repulsive.

Contrast is nature's charm, the bubbling source that she exhausts for her prettiest harmonies and varieties.

But earthen pitchers are easily broken at the brink, and if the slippery streams thence flowing are not judiciously checked, they merge into a harsh flood that sweeps away all grace, like the magic fountain in the German myth, whose fairy tricklings, uncovered for a single night, burst into a curbless flood, that drowned the sleeping landscape ere the dawn. The small reactions of contrast in infinitesimal tints, are perhaps neglected or unforeseen, but their influence is fearfully apparent in the end.

The simplicity of beauty is very limited, and he who dabbles in infinite decompositions of color will be certain to encounter turbid and unnatural tones, whose ultimate result will be an inharmonious and disunited whole.

It is true that in the landscape, and cloudscape, and waterscape, there are wonderful extremes of chromatic gradation, for it is the hand and mind of nature that adorns herself; she can see unerringly, and lay on divinely, the remotest intricacies of shade, and her colors are pure light, swimming in ether.

But these media do not come bottled up in tin tubes, and to this gift a mortal hand ought not to presume. It might as well aspire to draw infinitely as to tint infinitesimally; for before it can find use for all the colors in nature, it ought to have all nature upon the canvas. But finally, we hold that reproductive art is as much part and parcel of human nature as the appreciative, or sensation of beauty; and that any one can learn to copy and color a landscape or design, as well as to perform upon a musical instrument. Let genius still wield the creative wand, but in the wide domain of art, over his grotto alone be it written, Procul o procul este profani.

ONE OF THE MILLION

Shoemaker Scheffer opened his shop within sight of the college buildings, and expected to live by trade. He was young and skilful, obliging, and prompt, and acquired, ere long, a substantial reputation. Prosperity did not mislead him; he applied his income to the furtherance of his business, abhorred debt, squandered nothing, was exact and persevering.

At work early and late, he seemed the model of contentment, as he was of industry. Prompt, obliging, careful, he made the future easy of prediction.

But though the ruddy firelight shines well on the window panes, what griefs, what agonies, what discords, are developed around the hearthstone. Scheffer's quiet demeanor was, in some degree, deception. One woman in the world knew it was so—no other being did.

The immediate excitant of his unrest was found in the college students, who passed his place of business at all hours of the day. He remembered that he might have worked his way into the ranks of those fellows. Nothing vexed him so much as to see a lounger among them; for he must needs think of the time when, a stripling, he agonized over his choice, and said to himself, thinking of his mother (dead now, when the comfort he toiled for was secured), 'Time enough for books when I am sure of bread; flesh is needy and perishing, spirit is eternal.' He had walked out of school to the counter of his uncle, and stood behind it seven years, doing with earnest might what his hand found to do.

And here he was now, on his own ground, wistfully looking over his barriers into the college yard, and, shall we say it, envying the career of every studious lad—most of all that of the scholarly Harry Cromwell, and the broad-browed, proud young Mitchell, who came into his shop now and then, in remembrance of old days; for these lads could all remember when they stood in one straight line among the social forces, and neither had marched out of the old division to take rank in the new.

One day Paul Mitchell strolled into Scheffer's shop. Scheffer, at the moment, was reading a newspaper, and he did not instantly throw the sheet aside: he thought it unlikely that Paul required his service. But at last, laying the paper away, and going up to Mitchell, he asked:

'What will you have, this morning?'

Paul's bright eyes smiled, full of fun.

'I'll have fifty thousand dollars, straight, and a library like that in the Atheneum.'

'You want shoeing more,' was Scheffer's dry response; and, turning from the youth, he went back to his counter, and emptied thereon a large box of patent leathers, which he began to assort.

Gradually Paul approached, and at last he took up a pair of the boots, and asked the price. Scheffer named it; Paul threw them down again.

'You might as well ask fifty dollars as three. It's you fellows who have all the money.'

'Do you think so?' answered Scheffer; and he began to collect his goods again, and to pack them in separate boxes. He was careful, however, to throw aside the pair that had tempted Mitchell to confess a truth.

At last, when the counter was cleared, he took the boots, and said to the boy, pointing to one of the sofas:

'Sit down there, my man.'

Paul did as bidden. Scheffer untied his shoestring, drew off the dusty, worn-out shoe, and tried the pair in his hand. The fit was perfect.

Then Scheffer looked up, and, without rising, asked:

'How long have you to study before you graduate?'

'Five years.'

'Why do you speak in that way?'

'How did I speak?' asked Paul.

'Discouraged like.'

'You're mistaken.'

'Am I? Then why look so solemn? I'd like your chance.'

'You would!' exclaimed Paul, incredulous. 'Why, you had such a chance yourself once, and you didn't accept it, if they know the facts at home.'

Scheffer stood up.

'Who says that?' he asked, quietly. Still, the question had a hurried sound to Paul. 'Did any one in that house remember!'

'Josephine told me so. She thinks you made a wise choice. So do I. I wish I was as well off as you are, doing something for a support. And it was on account of your mother you made the choice! But my mother insists on my having a profession. Stuff! But nobody seems satisfied. That's one kind of consolation.'

Scheffer was silent for a moment. Half of Paul's words were unheard; but enough had struck through sense to spirit, and he said:

'Do you want to be shod for the next five years? I'll strike a bargain with you, Paul.'

'What can I do for you?' asked the astonished lad.

'I'll tell you, and if you don't like it, why, no matter—that's all.' And Scheffer added, in an earnest tone: 'I don't know but it's living near the college, hearing the bell ring, and seeing the fellows with their books, has bewitched me; any way, I'm thinking I must have an education, and I wish to get it systematically. I always thought I could have it when I chose; but if I don't bestir myself, I shall not be able to choose much longer.'

August wiped his forehead as he spoke; but he had said it. Gravely, anxiously he looked at Paul. He could have forgiven him even a smile. But Paul did not smile. Neither did he hesitate too long to rob his words of grace.

'What will you study?' he asked.

'Whatever you set me at.'

'Latin?'

'They say a fool is not a perfect fool till he has studied Latin. No, I thank you. Five years, did you say?'

'Five years,' repeated Paul, this time without sighing.

'Well, get the books I need. You know what they are. Bring the bill to me. Have it made out in your name, though, I'll settle the account. Mum's the word, Paul. I won't have snobs laughing at the learned shoemaker. The secret is mine.'

Paul promised. Scheffer thereupon picked up the student's worn-out shoes, and tossed them into a distant heap of rubbish, and the lad went on his way rejoicing. He was a widow's son, and poor; and to be shod as a gentleman should be was a serious matter to him.

II

But, as to the secret, there was Josephine, who shared the family burden of poverty and pride; Josephine, who was a beauty, and not spoiled at that, but light of heart and cheerful, disposed to make the best of things; laughing lightly over mishaps which made her mother weep; Josephine, of whose fair womanhood as much was hoped in a worldly way as of Paul's talents; Josephine, to whom Paul told everything: how could he withhold from her August Scheffer's curious secret?

That afternoon, when he went home, Paul found her in the porch. She had a book; of course, it was one of Cromwell's. Paul discovered that when he had settled himself near her, with a book in his own hand. He had come to her so conscious of his late bargain, and the immediate benefit he had derived therefrom, that he expected an instant leaning toward discovery on her part. But Josephine was absorbed in her occupation, and though she looked up and smiled when she saw Paul coming, she looked down again and sighed the next instant, and continued reading with a gravity that soon attracted his notice. Her looks troubled him. Of late, a shadow seemed to have fallen darkly over her; she was, though Paul understood it not, in the struggle of youth with life. Do you know what that struggle is? Not all who pass through it go on their way rejoicing, over the everlasting blessedness won from the 'good and great angel.' For then this earth more manifestly were the world of the redeemed ones.

Not long before, Paul had heard Josephine say that she would not live on in this idle way. She must find some work to do. Perhaps, he thought, the sense of a necessity her mother instantly and constantly denied when Josephine spoke of it, is now again oppressing her. However occasioned, Paul's face saddened when he looked at her. The maddening impatience he had felt many times—impatience for the strength and efficiency of manhood—once more tormented him; it grew an intolerable thought to him that so many years must pass before he should be prepared to do a man's work, earn a man's wages—do as August Scheffer was doing.

Such sombre reflections as these absorbed him, when he became suddenly conscious of the eyes of Josephine. She sat looking upon him; disturbed anew, it seemed, by the show of his disturbance. His eyes met hers, and she said:

'What is it, Paul? What has gone wrong with you?'

'Nothing. But it is enough to give one the horrors to see you looking so like destruction. Something has happened, Josephine; what is it?'

'What fine shoes you have on, Paul!' she said, quickly, pretending to be absorbed in the discovery she had only that instant made.

Paul laughed, and blushed.

'I earned them,' said he.

'Earned them!' Josephine's beautiful eyes were full of surprise, of admiration even, as she now fixed them on her brother. 'I wish I could earn anything—a row of pins, or a loaf of bread.'

'If you did, you wouldn't eat all the loaf yourself. But I spent all my wage on myself, you see! But I did earn them—at least, I'm going to, before I get through.'

'How in the world did you do it, Paul?'

'I am a tutor, Josephine,' said he, with mock gravity. She answered, earnestly:

'You're a good fellow, any way, tutor or not. It's a secret, then, this business?'

'Yes, the deadest kind of a dead secret. But I shall tell you. I made a mental reservation of you. August Scheffer–'

Josephine started, trembled, looked away from Paul, recovered herself in an instant; then looked back again, and straight into his eyes. Paul saw nothing strange in this; he went on quietly:

'Scheffer is getting ambitious! If I had a shop and such a business as his, catch me bothering about books!'

'He was always fond of reading,' answered Josephine. 'You know what a reader his mother was? No, you don't know. You were too young. Well, he wants you to help him, and you are to be shod.'

'Yes, that's the whole of it. Why don't you laugh, or be surprised. I shall do my best with him.'

'I should hope you would do better than your best. Be punctual and steady in this business; for, really, you owe August Scheffer more than a shop full of shoes is worth. You will get as much good as you can possibly give. I wish I had your chance!'

'To teach him, Josephine?'

'To be a helpful man, dear Paul.'

'As far as I can see, everybody in these days is wishing that he was somebody else. That's what's the matter with Scheffer.'

'No,' said Josephine, quietly; 'it isn't. Not that. He wouldn't take any man's place that lives. Ask him.'

'Of course he would say 'No.' He is proud as Lucifer.'

'I like his spirit.'

'Yes, and you like Cromwell's spirit, too. What in the world do you suppose he is going to do?'

'What?' asked Josephine, as if she did not know.

Paul surveyed her for a moment. Did she not know? He could not decide. He could look through most people, simple, earnest, penetrating fellow that he was; but not through Josephine.

'Cromwell is going abroad,' he said, finally. 'He's been talking with a sea captain for a month back. It's all out now. He's going to quit his class, and take deck passage for Havre; going to the school of mines in Paris, and, when through with that, on a mineral hunt from Africa to Siberia. And he hasn't a cent of money! Perhaps that's the spirit you like. Perhaps you won't object to my going with him.'

Josephine looked at Paul; she was not in the least alarmed. 'I like the spirit well enough,' she said, 'but it isn't your kind; it would be misery to do a thing in that way, for you. He has another 'fervor.''

'Yes, he has,' said Paul, with a deeper meaning than his sister guessed.

'You say I like a queer kind of spirit,' said she. 'I like independence. But there's some great lack in me, there must be. I'm what you call too prudent, I suppose. I seem unable to put out of sight the chances of failure; and it can't be that people who venture a great deal think much of them. I wish, as you do, that Harry had a little money—ever so little—to fall back on. He never seems to think of accidents, or sickness; but he is going to a strange country, and, to be sure, if he is able to do exactly what he expects, he will succeed; and in the end he will, I know, whatever happens. But it would be dreadful for him to meet with misfortunes, though he laughs at my croaking. Everything is to turn out just as he wants! But do things often, I wonder?'

'Yes, with August Scheffer—the only one I know of.'

'But you never can know the struggle he passed through; it was terrible. You call him a philosopher; he is so, because he found out early how to fight the good fight. Nothing will ever look so alluring to him as the career he might have had by choosing the thing he did not choose.' Ceasing to speak aloud and to Paul, Josephine added, in a voice no one could hear: 'I was in the midst of that struggle; I understand him as no one else does. And—he knows it.'

'Tell me about it,' said Paul. 'You don't know how much I admire Scheffer.'

'Well you may,' she answered; 'but there is nothing to tell. He had the opportunity to keep at school, or to go into his uncle's shop—and he chose the shop on his mother's account.'

'And I chose a profession on my mother's account,' said Paul bitterly.

Josephine laid her hand on his; it was a gentle touch, but it recalled him.

'The best choice in both cases,' said she. 'Any one can see you are not expert enough to make a successful trader. Ask August if a man must not have a talent for trade, just as an artist must have a genius for painting.'

'Then you think August a born trader?'

'I know he can do more than one thing well,' she answered.

'If you think so well of August,' said he, 'I don't see how you can think better of another fellow. The town couldn't contain him if he heard what you said just now.'

Josephine turned a page of her book.

'He knows perfectly well what I think of him, Paul.'

The very frankness of her words and manner misled the boy. The curious suspicion that for a moment had beset him fled fast before his laughter.

She went on reading—seemed to do so. But an image for which the writer of that book was not responsible stood, all the while, clear and immovable in her memory. Before her, in a rude shed, were a boy and a girl. The girl had a basket in her hand, filled with chips, which she had raked from the sawdust; the boy was offering her assistance; but he knew well enough there was no wood to be sawn or split. It was growing dark and cold within the house, and still more dismal without it. The hearts of these two are warmer than their hands.

'I've done it,' said the boy. 'I brought my books home last night, Josey, and I'm going to my uncle in the morning.'

'What did he say?'

'He wouldn't say a word. It was my choice, and I must stand by it,' he answered. 'It's for my mother! If I had only you, and was working for you, I would take the other track. But, you see, it is for her; and I'm her only son.'

'You will be August Scheffer, whatever you may do,' she said, in a soft, sweet voice.

–And did August Scheffer ever stand for less among powers and places, than when, in the darkening wood shed, he spoke these words:

'But, Josey, will things always be the same with us?'

–Things had changed, indeed. The whole world had changed since then. Had the changing world rolled in between them? Since then the widow Mitchell had worked her way out of the worst of her distresses. Josephine had become a beautiful woman. Paul was striding on toward a profession. The family had removed to one of those box-like dwellings opposite the college grounds, and the fair face of Mrs. Mitchell's daughter was the theme of many a student's dreaming—of Harry Cromwell's, most conspicuous among students—of his dreaming, day and night. It was his book she held.

III

It happened, of course, that Paul dropped into Scheffer's shop the next day. August was on the lookout, and conducted him forthwith into a quiet corner. The books were there delivered, but the package remained unopened. Scheffer had his reasons. He wanted leisure to examine them—above all, privacy. He also saw, or thought he saw, that Paul was in haste to be gone; and there was something on his mind of which he desired to be free.

Paul was only disturbed about a proposal he wished to make to Scheffer.

He was electrified when Scheffer himself broached the subject, and transacted it half, at a stroke, though all unconsciously, by asking:

'What has become of Hal Cromwell? He took so many prizes last year.'

Paul's eyes brightened strangely, his whole countenance became luminous. Scheffer surveyed the change as if it were not half agreeable to him. 'Harry is here yet, but he won't be long. That's a secret, though. He's going to France. Guess how.'

'In a balloon, I suppose. He hasn't any money.'

'No,' said Paul, half offended at the tone in which this was spoken. 'He's going to work his passage. He's one of the fellows who can do without money.'

'Indeed!' said Scheffer.

Paul went on: 'He hasn't more than twenty dollars. He sold all his prizes long ago.'

'Is he going to travel?' asked Scheffer, quietly.

'Travel! no. Not yet awhile, I mean. He's mad, just now, on minerals and geology. He's going to school in Paris, where he can learn all about such things. Then he's going to hunt up specimens for cabinets; then he'll be sending curiosities over here by the ship load. If any one wanted to speculate, he'd pay an enormous interest on the money lent him. But catch him asking the loan of a threepenny bit of any man! You know him.'

'Yes,' he said; 'we've had many a rough day together. About the time his father got into trouble, my father did more than one good turn for him. But that's neither here nor there.'

'Yes, it is,' said Paul, quickly; 'if your father helped his father, it's a token that you will help him.'

Scheffer was not so clear on that point: his reply might have chilled Paul's enthusiasm, could anything have done that.

'I can tell you what, Mitchell,' he said, 'I don't wonder at Cromwell, and I don't blame him. I believe it's better to go hungry on your own earnings than full fed at another man's expense. One can starve at home with a better grace than he can among strangers. That's my mind. It mayn't be his.'

'It's mine, though,' said Paul. 'If I had the money—if I had a hundred dollars, I should insist on his taking them. I wish my mother had put me to a trade: it's all nonsense, this slaving for the sake of position—what you call it.'

'Don't talk so,' said Scheffer. 'If Harry Cromwell wants anything of me, I should be ashamed of him if he wouldn't ask it. As to wishing that you had a trade, if there's a mechanical turn in you, you'll twist into it yet. But I don't believe there is. Go on as you have begun. It will all come out right.'

Paul scanned the fine face of the speaker in a spirit of inquiry unguessed of August. He was thinking of Josephine, and of her words. Then he said, 'So you always say. But I can't see it. If I could, then I'd be a philosopher like you. Do you mean I should speak to Harry?'

Scheffer hesitated.

'I see him every day,' said he. 'Sometimes he comes in here. Don't you think he would be better pleased if it should happen of itself, you know—not as if we had talked over his affairs. He is such a proud fellow.'

Paul readily acceded to this plan. He told Josephine what he had done, and she worked on with a lighter heart. She was thinking of Scheffer. How slowly he had grown up into her sight again! Man and woman, if they looked at each other now, must it be across a great gulf? What had education done for her! Could she thank the teaching that had brought her to see in her womanhood something beyond the reach of a man like Scheffer? Could she thank the culture that gave her a position for which nature and habits like his were all unfit? This maturity seemed unnatural to the heart of that remembered childhood, which, in its brave, loving generosity, could trust a boy to any work or station, feeling that in the workman would be securely lodged himself.