Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1882-12-16
CARRADINE'S LOVE.

Carradine sat alone at his easel,
painting; and as he painted he
thought. Eight years before, when
he was poor and struggling boy,
just entering on that race which
must be run by every aspirant to
art and its honors, their happened
to him something which neither
time nor toll had ever been able to
efface from his memory. AS he
was passing along the streets a
wreath of fragrant roses suddenly
fell on his head, and, looking up in
wonder, he beheld, reaching out
from the embroidered draperies of
an over hanging window, a child,
with fairy-like proportions, with
great dark eyes, and long, curling
black locks, who stood smiling and
throwing him kisses from her curv-
ed lips, colored like pomegranate.
While she still gazed nurse had
come forward aud drawn the child
away the curtains were closed, and
he saw the little creature no more.
Such was the vision that the ar
tist had carried so long in his men,
ory; in his memory only, for he
had no second glimpse of the child.
That very day an accident occurred
which kept him ) a prisoner in his
next he went out the house was
empty, and splaeaTd with great
faring letters announcing it for e;ae
stared him in Jthe faeI' rom tne
game window isa WHICH Inc 1uttle
White-robed elfehad stood waving
her hand and smiling to him. In
course of time other faces appeared
there, but they were strange faces,
and among them was never the one
for which he looked.
Now, as Carradine sat painting
alone, he thought of all this of the
struggle that had ended at length |
in success of his hard unfriended !
and of the beautiful child |
with her fragrant rOse-crown, which |
had seemed almost like prophecy. !
That ose-wreath, dry and withered
now, was all that was left to him of
the fair vision, but when that morn
ing, in turning over an old l,ortfo-
liO, he had come upon it by chance,
it spoke to him of that by-gone day |
Just as eloquently as when its bios
SONS were fresh and full.
"Eight years ago." he said,
thoughtfully, letting the shriveled
circIet slip through his fingers slow
". She must be near 16 now-if |
she lives. If? No, / do not doubt |
her living presence-somewhere. /
where she is now, and what
she is like at 1872" Hrt
With that he placed the wreath
beside his easel, and began to paint.
The face, as it grew on his canvas,
presented young girl in the dewy
morning blush of first youth, with
shadows in the great dark eyes and |
a half smile about the bright curved
lips, like an embodied summer sun
shower. 1t was thus that the artist
pictured his ideal of the child-wo-
man, whose infantile look and
smile for eight long years had been
his own dream of love. .-....
Carradine had not had an easy
life. An orphan from his earliest
years, poor and unfriended, he had
striven hard for the means to graft
fy that inherent idolatry for art
which was always clamoring to
find expression in form and color
ing. He had fought and he had
won; but now, at 26, he stood in
the place which he had gained for
almost as much alone at the
very heart as he had been eight
years before, when the child's gift
came to him as a prophecy.
1t was not that he was friendIess.
uyhn lflynH .an6 |
sought him, women who would
have gladly taught him to forget
ais Loneliness in their affection. But
.hough his nature responded readi-
v to any kindness, there was one
,ord, deeper than all, that remain
ri untouched and, from the sweet
sst glances, his thoughts went back
% the unknown child that had
'miled down upon him SO long
lgO.
The ideal head became his great
source of enjoyment, and dreamy
IOftness shaded his dark-gray eyes,
IS line by line and tint by tint took
aim back into that past, which, all
ifeless as it was, seemed to him, in
hose moments, more real than the
1usy present. Yet now, in review
ng that one bright vision of his
memory, it was not so much the
ovely child that he saw, in fancy,
IS the beautiful girl whose face,
with fuller depth and sweetness,
ooked out at him from his own
canvas.
Instinctively, he hardly knew
Why, he disliked to work on this
picture in any other presence, and
ne devoted to it only his hours of
solitude. So it happened that it
was nearly finished when, by some
chance, a friend discovered him
bending over it, too absorbed to
notice any approach. AS the door
opened, Carradine rose hastily,
turning his easel to the wall, so as
10 conceal the face upon it. This
little stratagem, however, was des-
lined to be of no avail. Having
been marked by the intruder-one
Of those cordial, well-meaning peo-
pie, good -natured to degree, but
with little delicacy of perception
The action at once aroused his Curl
Jsity. 20 n1t" a4t ek ..-sHI
AHA, master painter" he said,
with laugh, s'Iet US see what it is
hat you work at by yourself till it
steals away your eyes and ears. On
y one peep ~ vffzg. an
: WITH thof. hn laid his hand On