The Portland daily press., 1883-02-03
Carradine's Love.


Carradne sat alone at his easel, painting:
and as he painted he thought. Eight years
before. when he was poor struggling boy,
just entering On that race which must be run
BY everv aspirant to art and its honors,
there happened to him something which
neither tine nor toll had ever been able to
etface from his memory. As he was passing
along the streets wreath of fragrant roses
suddenly fell on his head, aud looking up in
wonder, he beheld, reaching out from the
embroidered draperies of an overhanging
window, a child, with fairy like proportions,
with great dark eyes and long, curling black
locks, who stood smilingsand throwing him
kisses from her curved lips, coored like
pomegranate. While she still gazed nurse
had come forward and drawn the child
away; the curtains were closed, and he saw
the little creature no more. Such was the
vision that the artist Lad carried so long in
his memory; in his memory only, for he had
40 second glimpse of the child. That very
day an accident occurred which kept him a
prisoner in his room for several weeks, and
when next he went out the house was empty,
and placard with great haring letters an
Rouncing it for sale stared him in the face,
from the same window in which the little
white robed elf had stood waving her hand
and smiling to him. In course of time other
faces appeared there, but they were strange
faces, aud among them was never thu one
for which he looked.
Now as Carradine sat painting alone, he
thought of all this: of the struggle that had
ended az length in success: of this hard. I'M
friended boyhood, and of the beautiful child
with her fragrant rose crown, which had
seemed almost like a prophesy That rose
wreath, dry and withered now, was all that
was left to him of the fair vision; but when
that morning, in turning over an old port
folio, he had come upon it by chance, it
spoke to him of that by-gone day just as
eloquently as when its blossoms we've fresh
and full.
Eight years ago. he said, thoughtfQlly,
letting the shriveled circlet slip through his
fingers slowly. ''She must be sixteen now
If she lives. Ii? No, do not doubt her
living resence-somewhere. i wonder
where she is now, and what she is like at
sixteen?'
With that he placed the wreath beside his
easel, and began to paint. The face, as it
grew on his canvas, presented a young girl
in the dewy morning blush of first youth,
with shadows i'll the great dark eyes and a
half smile abont The bright curled lips, like
an embodied summer sun shower. 1t
was thus that the artist pictured his ideal OF
the child woman, 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 I'M
frlended, he had studied hard for the means
to crafty that inherent idolatry for art
which was always clamoring to find express
sion in form and coloring. He had fought
and he had won; but now, st twenty six, he
stood in the place which he had gained for
himself 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 friendless. There
were men who liked and sought him, women
who would gladly have taught him to forget
his Loneliness in their affection. But though
his nature responded rapidly to any kind
ness, there was one chord, deeper than all,
that remained untouched, and from the
sweetest glances his thoughts went back TO
TO the unknown child that had smiled down
on him so long ago.
The ideal head became his great source of
enjoyment, and dreamy softness shaded
his dark grey eyes, as line by line and tint
by tint took him back Into that past, which,
all lifeess as it was, seemed to him. in those
moments, more real than the busy present.
Yet now, in reviewing that one bright vision
OF his memory, it was not so much the love-
ly child that he saw in fancy, as the beauti-
full girl whose face, with fuller depth and
sweetness, looked out at hin from his own
canvas.
IustinctiVely, he hardly knew why, he
disliked to work on this picture in any other
presence, and he 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 hear ally approach. As the
door opened, Carradine rose hastily, turning
his easel to the wall, so as to conceal the
face upon it, This little stratagem, how
ever, was destined to be of no avail Hav-
ing been marked by the intruder one of
these cordial, well meaning people, good
natured to degree, but with little dclicacy
OF perception-the action at once aroused
his curiosity.
AHA, master painter" he said, with
laugh, s'let us see what it is that you work
at by yourself till it steals away your eyes
and ears. Only one peepr'
With thai, he laid his hand on the frame,
and receiving no forbidding word from Car
radine. turned it around. The next moment
he was loud in praise.
"Bnt who is it, Carradine? If it is por-
trait, tell me where to find the original, and
l will, If it is seven days journeyr
Carradine smiled.
III myself knew where to find such an
original | should not be here to tell you, my
good friend, /" he answered evasively.
"Oh, fancy SKETCH" said the other mis-
led, as the artist had desired. 81 might
have saved myself the trouble of asking. No
real flesh and blood face ever looked like
that-more shame to nature, l saw OF
course you will exhibit it. Carradiue?''
MOP answered the painter, quietly.
MOP repeated the other in surprise.
But my dear fellow, you must, or | shall
betray your secret, and yon will have
swarm of visitors, worse than a plague of
Egypt, let in upon you.''
Carradine hesitated. A chance word in
his friends speech had suggested POSSIBLE
ity that made his heart leap in spite of sober
reason.
"You are right" be said. 81 shall send
the picture for exhibition. 1t will be better |
500
After his visitor had left him alone again,
Carradine bent low over his easel, gazing |
into the lovely, upturned face, until it began |
to fade into the gathering twilight.
''It-itW he muruured to himself half |
unconsciously. "But it cannot be. Yet / |
will send it-and perhaps
And so the picture was sent, in due time:
and it seemed almost as if Carradines soul |
had gone with it and drawn him to follow. |
Hour after hour, and day after day, he sat |
in the gallery, scrutinizing eagerly every |
face amid the visitors, whom taste or fash
ion had brought to look at the now celebra- |
Leu drtlSJS ialeSG success. Every night he |
went away dissatisfied, and every morni
he returned with hope springing afresh in
his heart
Still the object of his search, whatever it
may have been, does not appear; and one
day, discouraged at last, he resolved to go no |
more on so fruitless an Grand Shutting |
himself in his studio, he began to paint, but. |
strive as he would, he could command nei- |
ther hand nor fancy. Finally, tired of re-
peated failure, he abandoned work, and
yielded to an impulse whidh drew his steps
in the customary direction.
When he entered the small side room in
which his picture hung, he found but two
persons within, young man and a girl.
Carradine could not see the faces of these
two but, with an earnestness for which he
was at loss to account, he followed their
retreating figures as they moved slowly to-
ward his picture. But the next moment an
exclamation of establishment burst from the
lips of the young man.
why, here is your portrait, Leilial What
does IL mean? Who can The painter be?''
With that he hurried out to purchase a
catalogue. Carradine advanced quickly to
the girl.
II am the painter he said.