Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1863-01-15
VAN sLINGELANDI'S WOOING.
from Chambers Journal.1

Peter van Slingelandt set up his art tent
In the place of his birth, the quaint old
city of LeydeD, a sort of dull dirty,
Dutch Venice, minced up by incessant
canals into fifty dank islets, all tied loosely
together by some hundred and forty odd
bridges. Peter was calm, quiet, con
tented man, with no locomotive longiDgs,
no very fervid aspirations. He was not
the bird that beats itself to death against
the bars OF its cage, in agoniZing efforts
for liberty; he preferred to make his cage
as cosy as he could, and to adapt himself
to it's limitations. Besides, it was vol
untary confinement; he needed not to
have had the Leyden ramparts forever
bounding his horizon and framing his life.
Others had wandered away to the sheeny
south, and looked with eyes of love and
amazement. yet with feeling of immense
removal from the glories of Italian art /;
some had crossed TO England, and found
welcome, and patronage, and wealth but
Peter held on to his quiet studio IN the
old gable-topped house just turning out of
the handsome high street of the city. He
was not rich-a steady, Industrious, en-
thusistic worker, but one who loved his
work, and loved to linger over it; con-
scientious. scrupulous, interchangeable, mi
croscopic man, how could he produce rep
idly2 True, facile slovenliness would
have brought the gold more quickly in :;
but Peter respected his art, respected him
selt-he could not condescend to let the
scamp work " go out of his studio. l
doubt if it ever occurred to the dear,
good, Flooding, sober soul to do such a
thing he had no notion of art apart from
solid, highly wrought, intensely finished
pictures.
So he sat one day in bis small quiet stu
dio before panel on the easel. Not
Haunting, fiaring studio of more recent
date, remember, bat Dutch painters stu
dio of the year 1860, or so. No garish
draperies, no glittering weapons, no pol
lshed fragments OF armor, no dusty torsos
blocking up the corners, no cast of muscu-
lar limbs, no nose-broken antiques-a
neatly furnished, nicely garnished, we'll
kept room, with polished floor, polished
table, chairs, and even polished easel. Ali
windows firmly closed, all doors tightly
fitting; for Peter has proclaimed unremit-
ting war with the dust; he will suffer it
under no pretense; he will do all be can
to exclude and suppress dust. He changes
his shoes outside his studio door he puts
on another we'll brushed, dusky green
dGublet, with ivory buttons; be hangs up
his cloak he enters the room cautiously
as cat looking for a mouse; he regards
with jealous eyes the sunbeam that will
somehow slant in at the upper half of the
window, and angrily the little notes that
will somehow dance and float about in
that shaft of golden light. There is no in
vitation, no provocation to the dust at all.
The color box is polished, and its lid closes
with an extreme exactness; the pencil
handles are polished, and there is silk
vail protecting the face of the panel. The
properties of the painting room are not
remarkable; mirror, framed by fve-aDd-
twenty smaller mirrors, rejecting altogeth-
er siX-and-twenty miniature portraits of
the studio, with the broad back of Peter
van SlingelandS veil visible, a prominent
object as he bends over his panel; a
brown, uncoutA looking jug, which has
often sat for its picture, and to which
good I ter sometimes applies his lips;
glasses long in the stem, with much cut
ting and engraving about them; drinking
horns, TASKS, cps, pipes. For the rest,
there is little in the room beyond the ordi-
nary fittings of a burgher's house OF that
day, and not very rich burgher either.
Peter sits at his WORK, a portly, good
looking fellow. with long, blonde, dry
hair, and still more blond and dry eye
brows, eyelashes, moustaches, and peaked
beard. His plump cheeks are closly sha-
Won, and he has very calm, steady blue
eyes. To him, sitting contemplatively,
enters his good friend Max Keppen, a stu
dent OF Leyden University very like Pc.
ter, onl J younger and thinDer-not bit
more demonstrative. He lifts up the
brown jug, and regales himself with Its
Gohtents. tie understands the usages OF
e'ef studio: he moves about slowly,
oautiously; ne has shaken himself we'll
ouls'oe--he brings in no dust.
:, rev words of salutation pass between
saon-they are too intimate, they under
s'ano each other too we'll for that. Peter
.enoTes Inc silk shroud from the panel;
t 10y oo.h pour over it specifies for aboat
whisper. - '
Peter pods his head; he points with
h tue small Keen pencil in his hand. 81
1--we peen bringing that out since We'd
fnSay. 20 you mark, Max, that little
inc Of nan ~ : could not sleep for think
tag c ~, ~. say, is it right, my MAXI That
sides ;nta , Where the tin e of purple SUBJ
Ing it. brea J.aSi iI red; then the light, catch
raorl nh; haas INTO fine line of warm
How m mn'e ehoa Light is always warm, Max.
h -" 'a leu cheat themselves. MANY wonld
Shamel" WIN oead color.
cit is very good Patorp