The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1878-05-29
Artist Love.

In psychological research there is no
theme of such exhaustless interest as the
infinite variety of manifestation in which
the grand passion shapes itself to the student
Of human nature. Even among the lowest
grades of humanity there is something more
or less enchanting TO the interest in the dis
play of that inter communism OF feeling that
represents love- though il be only the rudest
conception of that mystical climax of high
sentiment which is in fact a dazzling retlec-
ton of divinity itself. But of all its multi
form phases-that one, which is ennobled
by the presence of genius and sanctiied by
the reverent homage OF the soul, Is alone
worthy of our contemplation from mental
point of view.
Chance once placed an engraved copy of
Romney's famous picture, "Sensibillty," in
our hands. BY an intuition we exclaimed,
without having learned the name of the
painter, or any history of the picture, THE
artist who painted this picture loved the
model from which IL was drawn, and that as
a man can love but one woman In all his
life.'' The je ne sails quot which prompted
this idea will always remain inexplicable,
and subsequent understandings of the claim
that heavenly beauty held ON Romney's
fancy gave no solution to the indelible i'm
preston that all the stirred deeps of
the artists nature gave impulsion TO his
genius when he put the features of Lady
Hamilton-then Emma Lyon-upon the
canvas as the representative OF Sensibility.
The mere brsin.f1ush of the artist who
Clothes a face of mortal beauty with the
divine aspect OF his own ideal could never
account for the wondrOus lovingness that
seems TO breathe from that picture. de
scriptive force turks in every line OF 1t, and
one has only to follow these velled charac-
tiers to learn the whole history of how poor
Romneys soul surrendered its vast powers
to the adorable Hygeia, under which imper
sonatlon the charlatan Graham was exhib-
iting the matches charms of Emma Lyon
at the time of Romney's first knowledge of
her who kept his heart forever after
In fancy we see through his eyes when
first they rested on the celestial bed be-
meath whose roseate canopy, and bathed in
dreamy light reclined the undraped lowell
ness of the woman whose entertainments
rivalled the "Ethiop Queens" and drew
across the continent OF Europe "the greatest
sailor since our world began" who left the
command of a nobler arg0sy than that which
lined the coast of Actium, that he might
bask at idle ease beneath the glamour of her
smile.
from that fatal moment we can follow the
great painter through all the stages of love
that mastered soul and sense of him till bis
genius became stepped in the bewilderiDg
lustre of one face. Picture after picture,
under different names and guises, grew I'M
der his magic pencil-but each one was, after
all, only portrait of Lady Hamilton.
With common mortals the heart may sur
vive hopeless love, and passion can repeat
itself, because it has never taken hold OF any
save the sensational and sensuOus part OF the
creature. But with men and women OF pre-
eminent psychological development, and
more especially with those in whom the
qualities of genius. or any of its attributes,
exist, a passion is deathless because it has
become engrafted on those faculties which
are immortal. The histories OF those ''chil-
dren of the sun" whom men call geniuses
TEEN with examples of how one love sounds
like prolonged minor chord through all
the lighter music of life. Generally
such love comes when the mortal has
reached the meridian fullness OF all the