The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-12-12
A MODERN PYGMALION.


! huDchback of amazing strength, like the
/ founding of "Notre Dame de Paris" not a
poisonous hunchback'd toad" like Rich
ard, duke of Gloster; not hunchback with
long nose, google eyes. and protruding
breast, like the genial gentleman from
Fleet street who pokes his weekly fun at
the world. Our hunchback was very
much other than these.
Pygmalion Smith (for owe it to many
now living to conceal the true names of
the persons of my tragedy was a bunch
back of no ordinary type. True, his spine,
like Pope's, was an animated note of inter-
rogation. This he had in common with all
his race. But his legs and arms were
strong and supple beyond the average of
other men, and his head, neck and face
were of the noblest type that nature knows
Added to this the heart of transcendent
genius beat beneath his crumpled chest
AT the time of which write Pygmalion
Smith had proved himself to be the fore
most of living sculptors. Descended from
an obscure peasant farmer breed, at the
age of thirty this man found himself
sought out, courted and fattered by the
men and women of taste or of most ex-
him, duchesses showed a desire to pet him,
but Pygmalion would have none of that.
He was conscious of his own superiority
and refused to be treated like tame bear.
He never one jot abated his independence,
but if people were content to worship him,
well and good He rather liked it. And
this incorporating self reliance had
made thing possible which certainly at
= hoA folz ho hx-e
but in which it had acquiesced when ac-
complished with quite becoming resigna-
ton. This Pygmalion Smith, of obscure
peasant birth and breeding, had wooed and
won the most beautiful debutante of the
season, the grandest daughter of an earl,
the rage of every inaammable butterfly of
the ballroom.
Hermione Harrington, whose name con-
ceals the identity of the most beautiful and
dainty of the debutantes of our century's
eighth decade, was something more than
pink and white dressed up doll She was a
genuine woman, high spirited and fired by
the loftiest ideals. As a child she had
hated dolls and fluffy lambs that squeaked
when hit about their middles, and to her
the toad which she visited daily and kept
in hole in the garden was worth world
of dolls, flock of fluffy sillinesses For
long hours Hermione and that solemn toad
would sit and gaze at each other, until .
wonderful fairy story wove itself in her
brain, in which she became the toad's bride
What story wove itself on the other hand
in the old toad's brain as he sat and gazed
in her beautiful face we have no means Of
knowing; and now Hermione was the bride
of hunchback, and she knew that her
Richard, however much Queen Margaret
might call him "hunchbacked toad" wore
''yet a precious jewel in his head"
She was immensely proud of her hus-
band and loved MIN only as faithful, sin
gle hearted woman can, and he, poor, SEN
sitive fellow that he was, loved her
passionately, nay, almost despairingly,
for how could so peerless beauty, so I'M
rivaled woman, he asked himself, see
more in him to love than in many an
other? How could it be other than pass
ing caprice which had led her to throw
herself into his arms? Nature had designed
her for marriage with an Antinous, and he
was at best but a pocket Hercules" Any
how he could and would do this much for
her. He would make such transcending
marble portraiture of her that, so long as
the dying Gladiator" had lasted, so long
should her beauty last to gladden. and de-
light the world.
Now, Pygmalion held with some that
true art depends not upon choice of sub
ject or choice of dress, but wholly upon
the treatment which subject and dress
meet with at the hands of the artist. He
therefore determined that the portrait of
Hermione should be piece of true mod
ern realism, aDd, as he had been carried
away by his first passion when he saw her
dressed IN a white lace ball gown, with
bare arms and neck, thrown back, tired
from the dance, half recumbent on a sofa,
so he determined that her portrait should
go down to posterity. The canons of clas-
sic art might be against him, but what
cared Pygmalion? Transcendently beau
tiful was she in a modern corsage and
couture, and if coming ages failed to see
the beauty so much the worse for them.
Never had she seemed to him so desirable
as when she reclined in sweet abandon on
that modern sofa, and that modern sofa
should be part and parcel of his realistic
design. And so he threw himself heart
and soul into the fulfllment of this design
Hour after hour and day after day his
lovely wife would pose before his ravished
y
was ever at its best in his dear presence.
But, delightful as was this monopolizing
Of this ftirest Of all women to him, there
was deep down in his heart the conviction
that it was rather the qualification of her
vanity than a cordiality born of love for
him that made her so surprisingly kind
and sympathetic.
The fact of the matter was that de-
fined jealousy had got place in his heart. /
Among others of Hermione's friends who
had obtained the entree to his studio since |
their marriage was a certain noble cousin !
Of hers, Lord Marlborough, an aristocrat,
a born critic and dilettante, and withal
very true and noble gentleman. Hermit /
one and he had been as brother and sister |
IN their childhood, and had not dropped /
The outward symbols of such relationship !
now they were grown up And Pygma- /
ion, Leoutes like, magnified these ipno- /
cent little familiarities into "a padding OF /
palms" and "a pinching OF fingers" and /
was consumed with an unreasoning jeal- !
ousy.
As bad fortune would have ii, Hermit
one and her cousin had IN truth a very |
important secret between them; and Pyg- |
malion, with his suspicion all agog, was
not slow to notice that there was an I'M
Outstanding between these two, and that
communications constantly were
passing between them, they evidently be
ng under the impression that he saw moth
ne of their covert glances.
The fact was that Lord Marlborough had
conceived a tremendous admiration for the
gcaius OF his pretty cousins husband and,
being a man of considerable influence had