Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1894-03-29
SANDOMIR LEOPOLD'S
REQUESTS.
"Taies of Ton Travellers" Series.
BY Edgar L. Waterman.


and landscapes, so long as he continued
the kindly practice of giving them away.
At last there came time, before he
was 40 years OF age, when, having no
pictures left and no guilders for those
which were gone, his noble enthusiasm
in the house furnishing line for others
was brought To sudden check by such
demands as fame alone was never
known to meet
To an artist, these demands were gross
and trivial in their nature,but their very
insigniticance seemed to spread a pesti-
lence of contempt which rendered them
more serious and Imperative; curiously
causing the recipients of his past favors
to turn their faces with great and critical
attentiveness upon his fine paintings
which had not cost them form, and
their backs with unbendng pertinacity
upon the fine artist. Thus Herr Paulus,
Illuminating in his bare studio, took his
first'lesson in belated thrift.
While thus engaged, his eyes alighted
upon newspaper of q paper, then
recently communicated to the French
Geographical Society by DR.. LIE Bon,
upon primitive and little known race
of people calling themselves Podhalians,
who exist high up among the Carpathian
mountains of Galicia, in the Tatras
range of these mountains separating
Galicia, or Austrian Polan, from Hun
gary's glowing plains.
Herr Paulus had rcread the article
many times, and sat looking out of his
studio window over and above the
quaint old Chemnitz roofs, as il his
artists eyes saw the billowy swaths Of
the Tatras range, and gave him COM
munion with the Arcadian people there
This day.dreamlng had been inter-
rupted byanother rude demand for rent.
He satisfied the intruder with definite,
promise of Requirement, and then reread
the sketch once more, some portions of
it aloud, as though half arguing to in
visible though interested friends:
"'Though poor they are content.
That is much. Their food is principally
oats, either simply boiled or ground and
converted into cakes; and though their
diet is spare, they enjoy perfect health
and live long lives Now there must
be wonderful compilations and types
among such people these"
He walked back and forth for time
with the paper in his hand, seeming to
realize more and more how little his
studio really contained. Then he read
aloud again:
"'l'ne population of this remote re-
gion--' why, il is not 100 miles from
Chemnitz l-'numhers several hundred
thousand individuals. During four or
five months of the year those of them
who accompany their tlocks and herds
TO the mountain pastures, live exclu
sively ON goat-milk whey, each person
consuming from three to four liters
daily"
Here Herr Paulus rested his head in
Que hand dlscouragedly, closed his eyes
tightly as il from pain, and made an ex-
ceedingly wry face. He tllliped the
paper IN his dlsengaged hand for long
time before he o2ened his eyes and re:
sumed:
Though far from being cultured,
the Tatras peasantry are poets and
artists by nature Ach, Gott," he
groaned, show beautiful and how rare
They are fond of dancing, and often,
when the labors of the day are over, meet
to indulge in their favorite diversion.
They are born impr0vsatores, too, and
many of them can sing their own songs
set to music of their own composition.
Their poetry is tender and artess in
sentiment and generous and elevated in
style; qualities attributable to their
wealth Of spontaneous resources, not in
frequently possessed by natures know
ing neither violent passions nor uE'
natural excitements.
Herr Paulus sprang from his chair tc
the window, as though the little, dark
and lonely studio were prison. He
spread his hands upward and fiutter.
ingly upon the panes, while his face
pressed the glass with backward anC
forward, impatient movements.
II was growing dark in the hard, ole
street, below. The stone gables opposite
looked hateful to him for the first time
now; and the saffrony glow of thu
after-sunset sky seemed resting mosi
lovingly away in the northeast where
the Tatras mountains lay.
Finally he turned from the outel
4 glowing to the inner darkness, strucL
4 his hands together sharply from which
II they seemed to rebound into the al
with the gesture OF one throwing off {
4 hopeless load, when he sang for littl,
as merrily as he had ever done in thu
+ student days when hope was high a
Buda-Pesth.
He had lights brought in unusua
numbers; wrote note and dispatched
it by kellner; told the little old fellow
with the gray mold of the raisin upol
him who answered it, to set a price upol
the trifes he could find within tn
studio; accepted the proffer Mt once
4 found himself in possession of less thai
two hundred florins; whereupon Her
Paulus paid his rent and, with hastil,
and secretly packed knapsack, contain
ing only such materials as an artist O
experience would require, shortly afte
midnight of the same day gained ad
mittance to the little inn of Altsohl
where. heremained until the next even
ing; setting out in the balmy June twi
light, after having heard from the gossi
at the inn that his strange disappearance
and probable suicide had advanced til
value of his canvasses to their luck
poesessors fully hundred fold.
But Herr Paulus was gaining i
philosophy as well as experience.
"rhe best beloved are the dead" h
reflected. 81 will be as one dead I
4 he pressed forward cheerily towar
Neusohl and the pass through III
II Liptau heights beyond.
Il On the morning of the fourth da
Herr Paulus found himself in the gre,
panoramic valley of the Arva, trampln
radiantly along the mighty stone roa
leading from Uracow, the metropolis {
Galicia, To Buda-Pesth and the furtht
cities of the vineland South. On tn
lnountain-shadowed forest-fringed, elf
hung and cascade-tremulous thorough
fare, ne sauntered rather than trudge(
Scholar, traveller and artist that he ha
been, all his travel and study had neve