CHAPTER V.
Margaret had received her first commission! What artist does not remember the day when he sold his first picture? What sculptor but has made a broad red mark in his memory against the day his first model was accepted? What writer can recall without a smile of reflected pleasure the hour when the post brought him, not his own carefully written manuscript, "returned with regrets and thanks," but a letter telling him that his thoughts are to be scattered abroad to the world through the mighty medium of the printing-press? He may learn later that what he thought was living seed is nothing but chaff, thrown out from other brains, and mistaken by him for original inspiration; he may find that the seed, though living, falls upon stony ground, and perishes. But in that hour of maiden success there is no gnawing doubt of self; all is pure, triumphant happiness. Perhaps only second to one moment in all our lives is this first victory,—that moment when the one heart in all the world whose beating is attuned to our own acknowledges the sweet concord, and we know that the two can never again be entirely divided.
Margaret had received her first commission. Her voice was heard singing a happy little tune over the work which, from that time forth, acquired a new dignity in her eyes. It had a market value. It was merchantable, like sugar and cotton, bricks and breadstuffs. Men would exchange that which they love best after—and sometimes before—their own souls for its possession. She was an amateur no longer. She had become a money-getter, a bread-winner, a producer. The mere fact that she was to get so many dollars for fulfilling the order would not have accounted for the exhilaration of Margaret's spirits. It would be hard to imagine a person to whom the possession of wealth was of less importance. She had never wanted for anything in her life. Her tastes were simple. She gave away half the income which was settled on herself because she did not care to take the time or thought to spend it. She was not an heiress, but had a sufficient fortune to maintain her comfortably all her days. Money meant only to her what it does to those who have neither suffered the need of it nor felt the embarrassment of its excess. There must have been some reason, then, for Margaret's happiness, beyond the mere prospect of winning a certain number of bank-notes. What is this feeling which urges the queen on her throne to put her thoughts into merchantable shape and offer them to be sold at a stall alongside the book of some humble writer starving in a garret? What induces a princess of the blood to hang her pictures in the great exhibitions, laying aside her royalty for the nonce, and claiming equality with her artist subjects? It is a strange instinct, this; it seems like an acknowledgment that in proportion as a thing is salable, so is it valuable. And yet Theodore Winthrop died broken-hearted, his three noble books, still in manuscript, rejected by every publisher in the land, while authors of certain dime-novels of his time have grown rich through the sale of their very unsavory works.
Why Margaret was so happy, the recorder of her triumph cannot say, and must leave the question to the reader, trusting that he may find the proper solution of this problem.
It was a curious order, the like of which it is doubtful if ever sculptor was intrusted with.
Perhaps the nearest parallel to it that the history of art affords is the snow statue commanded from Michael Angelo by the Medici. Tradition says that though Angelo received the order of his patron with a very bad grace, he nevertheless executed it with his never-failing skill. I have never known, but have always wondered what subject the sculptor chose to typify in the fleeting marble of the snowdrift. May he not have moulded an image of the god Eros, youngest, fairest, most remorseless of the Olympians, whose touch, like that of the snow, at once burns and freezes?
Margaret was commissioned to summon forth from the depths of a salt-mine its tutelary deity; and having once seen its face, to sculpture it on the living wall of its invaded domain. She visited the mine; and what she saw and learned there can be best told in her own words. We take the liberty of making an extract from Miss Ruysdale's private journal:—
PAGES FROM THE DIARY OF MARGARET RUYSDALE.
"The order is now given to make ready the lift, and in a twinkling we find ourselves dropping out of the light of day, below the surface of the earth. Swiftly but steadily the small square platform drops down, down, into the bosom of the earth. The motion is so rapid that we seem to be flying from the daylight. At the bottom of the shaft we alight, to find ourselves in the upper gallery of the salt-mine. It is Sunday, and the great shining corridor, hewn out of the pure crystal, is silent and without sign of life. A group of flickering oil-lamps stand prepared for us, and each of us hastens to take possession of one, eager to keep back the great sea of darkness by the small beacon of a miner's lamp.
"The vaulted roof is upborne by gigantesque pillars sculptured from the living crystal, and we pass down the wide aisles full of a wonder not untouched by awe. Leading the way is one slight figure, which we might well imagine to be that of the genius of the mine,—a young woman, whose graceful form assumes at each instant some new and classic pose. She now holds her lamp high above her head, to show a splendid crystal shining like a diamond on the side of the mine, and again stoops to pick a fragment of rock-salt from the floor. As she pauses and looks over her shoulder at us who follow, she recalls one of the figures which Pompeii has preserved on the walls of its ruined villas, graceful, airy, with the careless, light beauty of Greek art domiciled in Italy. As we turn into one of the branching galleries, a new spectacle meets our view. High up against the roof a faint light glimmers out of the heavy darkness. It grows stronger and brighter, and at last springs into a triumphant glory, illuminating vaulted roof and pillared aisle, floor, and shining walls with its warm glow. It sparkles on the wondrous crystals, and reveals the great drilled holes of the blasts; it throws itself triumphantly down the midnight gallery, and is lost in its distant shadows; it touches the face of a youth, beautiful as a young faun, who bends close beside the flame and feeds it with a steady hand. It is dynamite, this rosy, searching radiance, and the young man is its guardian. The light wanes slowly, and at last flickers out, and the shadows come trooping about us again thick and fast.
"The others are going to another part of the mine; but I linger behind them, unwilling to leave so soon this strange place. They have turned into the main aisle again; the voices and torches grow fainter and dimmer, and are finally lost. Moved by a sudden impulse, I quench the small spark of light I carry in my hand, and the darkness settles visibly about me like a pall. It presses upon my shoulders with an irresistible weight, and forces me to my knees upon the soft, salt-sanded earth. I cannot stand alone in this wonderful quiet darkness. A power that I have never felt before compels me to bend my head before the Invisible. My life, it seems to me, was in some mysterious way burning with that tiny point of flame in the vase of oil. With the failing of the flame my life has been extinguished, and I am now nothing but a shadow, like those that fled before me but a moment ago. Will the flame ever be rekindled? Shall I ever again reclaim my lost humanity? And if I could, would I raise my voice to make that claim heard? There is a pause unmeasured by sight or sound. Is it of minutes or of centuries? Am I still a human being, or a shadow of the mine? No senses are left me, but a power of vision which is not of the senses.
"I am conscious of a vast plain of water, blue, tranquil, limitless, waveless, for it is a sea without a shore; and in the heaven shines a spotless sun, calm, radiant, all-powerful. Time passes; are they seconds or eons that elapse before the sapphire sea is troubled and broken into crested lines of white sea-foam? Dark streaks seem trembling upwards, striving with and at last conquering the all-powerful sea; for a low ridge of land appears, defying the waters, which must now for all time fret and chafe against its stubborn sides. The brown streaks grow and grow, stretch out towards each other, and link themselves at last into a great ring, prisoning in its midst a disk of conquered water. In vain the bounded sea rebels and tries to break down the wall of earth that holds it fast, and rush back to its mother element. In vain; for it is the day when God said, 'Let there be land!' And the ring grows broad, and strong, and firm, and at last beautiful and green; for the great sun is its friend, and the lake is land-locked,—a hopeless captive. But while the sun looks kindly on the earth, and brings forth from its bosom strange and beautiful forms, it parches the lake cruelly, and the prisoner pines and shrinks, and grows less and less, while the eager land presses greedily about it, and follows its retreat step by step; and at every step which the land gains there is a mark of its victory, a mark that shall endure while the land exists. But the bitterness of the sea cannot be conquered; and when the victory is complete, and the last lapse of water has dried and died beneath the sun, the land bears in its bosom a great basin of sea-salt, which testifies to those who shall come thereafter that the sea once held dominion here. But all is not peaceful yet with the conquering land. Stormy passions shake her being, and in one of these outbursts of volcanic fury the great salt basin is torn from its bed and tossed upon its side, and so lies edgewise; for the earth cannot expel, though she may distort, the legacy of the sea. And now the land covers that which she cannot cast out with clean, soft soil, and a wondrous thick carpet of green, from which spring giant trees and fair flowers, making the land full of beauty to him who has come at last to enjoy all that has been so long preparing for him. Man comes, and with him human labor; and the soil is tilled, and cane is planted, and bears sugar for the master of the land. But the hidden salt is still there, and the roots of the cane reach far down into the earth. And when the cane is gathered, and the stubble stands through the long winter, a strange, white bloom is seen upon its broken stumps, which when tasted proves to be, not sweet, but salt. The black laborer learns this fact without question. By the simpler types of man all the wonders of nature are thus accepted, one seeming not more mysterious than another. And the land still keeps her secret.
"A well is needed, and a shaft is sunk. Water comes bubbling to the surface, bringing with it a strange testimony of the forgotten sea; the spring is salt. Time passes; the golden age of peaceful agriculture comes and goes, and Acadia knows the iron age of war. War and want frown down upon the strong young country. The great storehouses of the world are closed, and men are thrown back upon the resources of their own land. There is a salt famine; and a man who thinks more than his neighbors brings the great kettles from his sugar-house and boils the water of the salt spring, and thus secures a small supply of salt. This is while the latest of the centuries is in its youth and the youngest of the nations in its childhood. Peace again! And commerce comes back, bringing its supplies from other countries, and saving men the toil of seeking at home that which it is easier to bring from abroad. The salt spring is forgotten, and half a century passes before the red war-cloud darkens above Arcadia. War again, the cruellest of all wars, in which the lusty sons have turned their weapons each against his brother; there is no other strong enough to cope with them. Then the dwellers in the island remember the tradition of the boiling of the salt water, and the old kettles are set up again, and a meagre residuum of salt is gained, while the great basin lies unsuspected ten feet beneath the surface of the ground. The spring fails one day, and a new well is sunk. The laborers strike, in digging it, a rock which they cannot dislodge.
"'Dig around it,' says the overseer. Dig around it! Dig around the great salt basin whose upper edge it takes a hundred and a half acres of soil to cover! The task is soon seen to be a difficult one, and the obstinate ledge of rock, which cannot be dug around, is examined. At last, after cycles have passed, you are avenged, O sea! and the land is found to be but a setting to the great treasure she holds embedded in her jealous breast. Pure and priceless in its worth is the great salt-bed, and the island which was never heard of before a hundred miles beyond its shores is now one of the wonders of the New World.
"A light breaks upon my eyes, which have forgotten the darkness in the great panorama which has been spread before my mind. I struggle to my feet, and in a moment am surrounded by my friends, who have not had time even to notice my absence. It was but for a half-hour, after all, that I was lost in the salt-mine."
After this preliminary visit followed days of earnest work, during which the studio door yielded not to the touch of friend or admirer, Margaret's father even being for the first time excluded from her counsels. Hitherto she had labored mainly to please him, and had worked under his direction, carrying out his ideas. She had been, in very fact, little more than the fine tool he had fashioned for himself. All was now changed. Her individuality must play its part; she would be held responsible for her work, and her brain alone must direct her hand. For the first time in her life she felt the creative force in herself. The clay seemed a living substance, which moulded itself beneath her hands as if as much interested as she in the process of its transformation. When her model was complete, Margaret and her father disappeared from the city, accompanied by a kindred spirit, whom Margaret had discovered in the person of one Antonio, a master stonecutter famous for his tasteful mantelpieces and mortuary monuments. No warning was given of their intended departure, and their friends were at a loss to account for it. Gradually the secret leaked out, and a conspiracy was formed to follow the fugitives to the very bowels of the earth.
Mrs. Harden was the prime leader of the enterprise, and the party included Philip Rondelet. Feuardent was not invited. Meanwhile Margaret, quite unconscious of the plot for her pursuit, was working steadily. The days flew by as only working days do, when each hour sees something accomplished, each day a step hewn out of the mountain road at whose summit Fame sits. To some men it is an easy ascent; they reach the top without suspecting it. It is told of Rossini (whose early operas had been hissed from the stage) that on the night when that masterpiece, "The Barber of Seville," was first produced, he dared not go to the theatre, but sat at home shivering in his poor room. Presently he heard the sound of a great throng of people in the street below—on the stair—at his very door. "They have come to mob me!" cried the great composer; and as no other escape was possible, he beat a hasty retreat up the chimney. They came and bade him stand forth to receive the homage of the whole city assembled to do him honor.
I knew a man once, a famous writer to-day, whose fears of public ridicule it was my task to strive to allay while his first book was in press. Three months after, his name was known wherever the English language is read. There are men who walk steadily down the scale of excellence, as unconscious of their descent as this other was of his upward progress. There are those again, in the band of mountaineers striving to reach the Alpine summit, who through their own temerity lose foot-hold and slip head long into some abyss. To such a one it often happens that his more fortunate companions lower ropes to him and strive in every way to extricate him from the pit into which he has fallen. If they succeed in bringing him to the surface, they try to shoulder him along with themselves. That is a pleasant phase, and one that I like to see; never mind if the rescued man should slip into the next crevasse, his friends will be all the better able to go on their way for having given him another chance. The cautious man, who sits down on the safe ground of his first successful step and dares go no farther lest the crust should give way beneath his feet, is, alas! a common type, and perhaps the saddest one to see. We expected so much of him! His first book struck so fine a note, ringing out clear and bold, penetrating the busy ears dulled by constant world-rumble. We cry, "Bravo! Go on! Give us the second note in the chord!" But the second note is the first! Like Toto's kingly singer, he can go no farther than Do! He can roar it louder and louder, do! do! DO! but he cannot sing re! though he should split his throat.
We can make no symphony of praise for him; he gave the key-note, others must make the harmony. It is painful of ascent at best, this hill, even where ambition is the staff, and the heels are winged with genius. It is too rough a road for a woman to tread, and let us hope that our young heroine will not attempt it. Better for her the smooth country by-road, with fruitful fields on either hand, than the rugged mountain path. And yet "Mr. Toil" is the only spouse who is never unfaithful; and when friend, sweetheart, husband, break troth with a woman, let her open her arms and fold the grim old fellow to her deserted breast. If she be true to him, he will not forsake her in the darkest hour. The more homage she laid at the feet of the mortal lover, the colder he grew, perchance; but with "Mr. Toil" every sacrifice is richly rewarded, the closer the embrace in which she folds him, the stronger the support he returns.
None of these thoughts troubled Margaret Ruysdale, one may be sure, as she sat high up on her scaffolding in the dark gallery of the salt-mine. They are thoughts which do not vex children, and the young girl was, as her friend Sara Harden often said, still a child in most respects. The work was finished. That very night the scaffolding was to be knocked away. Her fingers lingered lovingly over the surface which she should never touch again. With her chisel she deepened a line here, and shaved off a particle of crystal there. She was taking farewell of the face which she had freed from the living wall of salt. How she had enjoyed cutting the clear white crystal from the features which she almost believed were behind it!
"I am only unveiling the face of the salt-spirit," she had said a dozen times when her father and the cutter of stone had warned her that she was working too hastily in the brittle material. She had understood instinctively the soft, friable, salt crystal, and had used her chisel with more dexterity than her colleague, hampered by the traditions of his trade.
"None but a novice would have attempted it," said the workman admiringly. "A novice and a woman! Only novices and women achieve the impossible."
"And genius, Antonio," added the General sententiously, claiming for his daughter the supreme of gifts. Stuart Ruysdale was a modest man as far as he himself was concerned; but his vanity in regard to his child was unbounded. The most unassuming people often make the vainest parents.
A group of moving lights appeared at the end of the gallery. Margaret supposed they were carried by a party of miners, and paid no heed to their approach. The lights halted at the foot of the scaffolding, and still she went on retouching the features with a loving care. There was a pause, then a shout of greeting fell upon her ear. She started; and being perilously near the edge of the planking, gave a little cry of fright before she could answer the salutation. When she learned that her friends had come to visit her, she made her way down the ladder. Philip was the first to take her hand.
"How could you deceive me so?" he asked.
"I did n't; I only let you be deceived."
"Beshrew you for an evil-disposed little thing. I wonder you dared come down at all. Do you call this the part of friendship?" cried Mrs. Harden.
"Forgive me, all of you! I did want to keep my secret to myself, and you have got the better of me, after all; so be magnanimous."
"It will depend upon how we like your Lot's wife. It's that, of course, you have been digging out of the wall?" rejoined Mrs. Harden, laughing.
"You shall see," answered Margaret. "They have come to take away the supports, and you shall guess what the subject is."
When the obscuring planks were removed, a strong light was cast upon the roof of the mine, which was vaulted, like the aisle of a Norman church. Vast pillars hewn out of the quartz, spanned by round arches, supported the roof; and near one of these massive columns Margaret had carved the likeness of the salt-sprite. The face on which the brilliant flickering light now fell was set about with glittering salt-crystals, which shone like so many mammoth diamonds. It was a melancholy face, full of startled surprise. From the darkness of the mine it glimmered forth, pale, reproachful, ghostly.
"How beautiful, but how uncanny! Where did you ever see such a face, child?" said Mrs. Harden, breaking the silence.
"Here in the mine."
"It is a great success," said the master of the mine, "and I congratulate myself on the possession of so remarkable a work of art. My only regret is that it exists in so perishable a material."
Each one had his or her word to say of praise and gratulation. General Ruysdale, pleased and proud, walked about, viewing the sculptured head from every point, "positively chortling with happiness," as Mrs. Harden said; but Margaret soon slipped away from her friends and admirers. Philip followed, and found her sitting near the shaft, in the twilight region, where the darkness of the mine and the glad light of day were struggling for the upper hand.
"Are you not satisfied?" he asked, quick to see her trouble.
"No, and it hurts me to have you all praise it when I know how much better I could have made it. It seems as if you expected nothing more of me, and were surprised that I have done even as well as this."
"Dear friend, believe me, that feeling is one that you will always have, no matter at what point you may arrive in your art. You have in your own mind the spirit of the conception, and, do what you will, you can only show us its reflection. When self-satisfaction comes, progress stops. May you never know it."
"It makes me ashamed to have them praise me," Margaret repeated. And Philip laughed, and told her that this was as it should be.