The Cairo daily bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1870-1872, 1871-05-04
ART AND SoRROW--A SAD
STORY.

Prom "social studies" in y. Y. World.
Early in the administration
OF President Buchanan, the governor of
Mississippi and representative in Con-
gress from that state united their political
influence to procure the appointment AS
consul TO Genoa of a young Mississippian.
lately graduated from Oakland College.
whose cultivated intellectual gifts were
supplemented by a natural genins for art,
which, it was believed, could be most er-
fectually developed by sojourn in Italy.
The gentleman, whose diplomatic mission
was chiefly intended TO facilitate his artis-
tic pursuits by the support Of superior .o-
cial opportunities, had married immediate
| ly upon leaving college, and possessed a
| patrimony sufficient for all domestic indul-
/ gences; butthe dream of his life was 10 be-
come great painter, and he hurried
across the ocean with his wife and babe to-
ward the imagined fruition of wishes in
which mercenary speculation had no
place. The little family arrived
safely in Genoa, where consus office
and amateurs studio were at once opened,
and then the young southcrncr deemed his
happiness complete. In sense So il was.
alas completed and ended. Scarcely bad
he begun enjoying his opportunities of Ca
"a
City of Palaces and those who. liko him
self, sought to emulate them, when his de-
yot I'd wife was stricken with malarihl
fever, and, despite the best available med
ical aid and her husbands frantic prayers.
died in the land Of strangers. For such q
loss there can DO no earthly compensation
Bearing his motherless child in his arms.
he followed tho body to the grave in n
grief too deep for tears, and. returning
was like maniac for days and DAYS
Friends gathered around him; all that
friendship could yield of care and consola-
tion was lavishly bestowed, and, after q
time, the stricken artist was sufficiently
calmed to revert TO his beloved
art for distraction from his misery
Once recalled 20 art. however,
he followed it with an intensity
altogether disproportiona,c to his
shattered physical strength, and, while
painting OF picture very late one eve.
ming, after day of forcgctfil fastirg. was
stricken totally and hopelessly blind. This
fearful second disaster had scarcely over
taken the ill-fated man. cutting him Off for
ever from art and business, and leaving
him and Lis little daughter wholly depend
ent for n livelihood upon the estate at home
in Mississippi, when the war in the south
broke out, the consulship was lost, the es-
tate imperilled, and the blind man com
PEELED 10 subsist for time upon the bounty
Of the friends of his better DAYS. While he
and the child lived abroad in obscure pow
erty the war utterly ruined his estate, N
well rs that of widowed sister who had
once been one of the wealthiest heiresses of
her State. Said sister, after having in the
first year of the rebellion done all
that she could for the relief of
her absent brother, went heroically
to work, when all her own property
as well rs his was gone, to earn sufficient
for the bringing home Of that brother and
his child. With tireless affection and for
titude, the late mistress of splendid for
tune taught school by day and wrought
with her needle by night for two years,
and sent the money thus hardly gained to
the blind man and his daughter in Genoa
that they might return to their native
land. They came, and ever since then
have been supported 10y her. But now,
says the Natchez chronicler, the daugh-
ter, still youthful "a she is, has determined
to assume her full share in the labor OF
love. Though quite unfamiliar with the
atrical representations, and, of course,
wholly without training, the
young heroine inherils all her
fathers artistic temperament in dramatic
phase, and proposes to adopt the profession
of the stage for the support of her blind
father, her noble aunt, and herself. Her
career as an actress will begin presently
in southern city, and says tho Natchez
paper, if its success be only half equal to
her merits and the good wishes, affection,
and respect of all who know her, it will
be great indeed. So art, the unfulilled
dream of her father, becomes, in another
phase, the reality of the daughters life
but between the dream and the realization
lies the all of death, disaster, poverty, and
long suffering that could make the sublime
impulse for the art of Titan bread-seek-
ing equality in the art of Rachel