The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1872-01-13
FACES ON THE WALL.
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

author of " Uncle Toms Cabin" MY Wife
and l. !" I" Minister'S Wooin9," etc.
Once there was very good little girl, who
by reason of her goodness, knew whore to find
strawberries in the winter. In the same way
ess perfect people, blessed by the generous
fairies of memory and imagination may sit, as
| do now, in the midst of falling leaves and
whistling winds, and call back the green
grasses and the summer sun. j see yonder in
the glen the darling of our house, the gold
CLEAN in her brown hair, chain of daisies III
her hand and in her eyes the roguish medita-
ton of Kitten weary for an instant only of
its play, and thinking slyly of another spring.
Thrown back upon the velvet grass, she is not
resting, only pausing from her bright chances
TO the tips of her tiny fingers she is wide
awake.
But now the merry play is over, and our pet
nestles yonder on the sofa-cushion, tired at
last in earnest. Slowly the lids fall, and the
lingering smile dies out but the flush in cheek
and lip remains, like the glow after sunset.
The gathered buttercups and daisies are loosely
held by the fair little hand; no shadows, even
of dream-land, disturb the sweet brow's per
feet peace. She is fast asleep.
In other words, two chromos hang upon the
WALL bewitching chld-heads, in which every
mother sees something of her own dear ones,
never grown old, and never lost TO her, how
ever life or death may have dealt with them.
Nothing pleases more at first sight or gives
pleasure longer than poetical pictures of chill
dren. 1.-The little child whom Jesus sets in
the midst of every family, is a joy that grows
not old and fades not.
cage cannot wither custom cannot stale
Its infinite variety"
For this reason d happy picture of child
brings an enjoyment more lasting than any
other because it is a subject of which no one
ever tires
But these pictures, besides their constant
charm for grown folks, are such children,
can understand and love. Our little 'Wide
Awake and Fast Asleep would give many
a pleasant hour of companionable amusement
and intercourse to the little people akin to them
in age. The pictures that childrens eyes rest
on as they are dropping off to sleep, or as they
awake III the morning, seem to them like living
friends. All sorts OF childish dreams and fan
cies make of the pictured face real comp anion.
Not only IN the parlor or the sitting room
would they be an attractive and fitting embel-
iishment, but they are charming pair for the
adornment of nursery.
Undoubtedly these two pictures are portraits.
There Is a realistic faithfulness and truth about
them that forbids the idea of their being fancy
heads. They viii remind many parents of little
ones either here or in heaven. Dickens says
somewhere of his portraiture of little Nell that
he has had letters from the farthest regions of
the earth speaking Of children who resembled
her-so dear, and so early taken He who
paints one child we'll, paints thousands, and
speaks to the tenderest feelings of lnnumerable
hearts.
OF course there is pleasure in possessing an
original painting but when the question lies
between an original at five hundred dollars
and a chrome which scarcely be distn-
guished from it at ten dollars-partcularly
when one has not the fire hundred to spare.
the choice is not very difficult. As to these
two exquisite chromos, only a critical exami-
nation can distinguish between the copies and
the originals, which sold for many hundreds
which is certainly more than can be said of the
best copies of most pictures painted by hand.
Blessings upon ceromo- photography, by which
the successful printing of a master can be re-
produced indefinitely, and can enter thousands
of homes with its educating, quickening, re
forming influences
1t is not alone into the dwellings, of the great
aud wealthy that follow this pretty pair
with anticipations of delight. We see them
in the cottages of the poor in the log cabin of
the backwoodsman, frightening the toll of the
hard wife and mother, and receiving the al
most adoring wonder Of children who have
never seen pictures before.
God bless the darlings-send the little com
forters fast and far