Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1890-08-30

and big it scarcely was. But In point OF
! are1stlc merit it far surpassed what had
come prepared for, even though the
specimen of her work which he had
shown me above stairs had been so good.
Its dimensions were perhaps two feet by
eighteen inches, and it represented the
interior of q dungeon CT prison cell. An
oblong window, too high up to be reach
ed without ladder, too narrow to per-
NIT the passage through it of human
body, and further protected by stout
iron bars, admitted daylight and framed
IN a patch Of slaty wiltry sky. For the
rest there We're bare stone walls, a stone
ceiling and a stone floor; while broad
stone slab, SO constructed that it formed
part Of the solid masonry Of the
wall from which it projected, was the
only piece Of furniture i'll evidence, and
nlanifeStly answered at once for bed,
stool and table. So much for the Access
series. They were rendered in spirit Of
exact, almost Photographic realism; and
the effect of massiveness, remoteness and
gloom, proper to the subject, was wildly
conveyed. And now the interest of the
composition conferred in the figure of an
old man, seated upon the broad stone
bench, with his elbows resting on his
knees, his fingers buried in his long,
white beard and his eyes fixed intently,
vacantly, painfully straight before him.
+ There was something SO irresistibly
pathetic-i in that old mans face and figure
that L, who had come to criticise, felt
myself instantly penetrated by an emo
ton Of distress and sympathy as if
were looking upon veritable human
being and not upon mere efigy in
paint and canvas. His face was terribly
enaciated; the cheekbones and the
bridge Of his nose seemed to be almost
starting through the skin. His hair and
beard were long and white and IN
conbed and untrimmed. Bis skin had
that clayey, CHASTITY pallor which results
from long seclusion from fresh air and
sunshine. His clothes were old and
worn and they hung baggily about his
limbs as if he had shrunk up within
them His attitude, limp and bent over
and huddled together, breathed broken
spirit in every line; and his eyes in their
fixed, purposoless stare expressed the de-
spalr and the hopeleSsness and the deep
dull pain that consumed his heart far
I more knowingly than words ever could
have done. In examining this picture
you quite forgot to think Of the artists
technique, which, however, was excel
lent. Indeed, if the drawing, coloring
and modelling had not been very good
no such final emotional effect could have
been obtained.
well" demanded the exterminator,
who stood at my elbow, sow you like
it, chr
oh" said, sit is very strong. Very
powerful and imaginative and moving.
But how did she come to choose such a
painful subject? And who was her
model? Where did she ever find such
an awfully broken down old MANI"
"Eh, for the sobjec' she pent wat IN
terest her, suppose. The model, e was
the ole man himself"
What old man? Where did she find
him? It's a wonderful face-like the
wreck Of a face that had once been
strong, intellectual, almost beautiful"
wy, don" tell you it was her ole
man, her faz;sir; Dr.. Eczardy, who leoFe
Upstairs. -eIsERs
WHAT gasped. Her father? Her
own father"
Eyes. 1t represent him in the prison
in Rossia, wero they keep him five, six
years waiting to be tried, and were e
catch the cawnsumption. You see it
was pretty hari staying all alone there,
in solitaf' confinement, one, two, tree,
four, Eve, six years. z pretty near go
crazy"
Hard! I should think it was. And
you-l don't 500 how you can sleep with
that picture ii the room
"Oh, you get use to it," he explained,
with q shr1g.
''But shell However she could bring
herself to paint it l can't understand.
Her own fatherl The subject is horrible
enough in itself. But when it comes to
ones own fatherl To work over such
thing day after day, week after week!
don't see how she could do it. She
she must be young woman of consid-
cradle grit"
Yes, you right; she his" said Mu-
selle. ''She tole me about that picture,
DIR. MUSCLE, she tole me, ! want to
pent a picture witch mex people see 'ow
In Rossa they treat a gentleman who is
arrested only as suspect, and before g Is
tried to find if o is guilty or hinnocent.
e is only suspect, waiting to be tried;
yet for five years they keep him all alone
there, in solitar' confinement like that
till his 'ealth is destroyed, his career in
the world ruined, his heart broken, his
uaind almost gone crazy and his family
not knowing if Q is dead Or alive, or in
Bossia or in Siberia, or wat, or Were, or
anysing about him She tole me that,
to explain wy she pent him that way"