HER PICTURE
THOUGH her picture has been with me but these few short weeks it has so crept into my past that I can conceive not the room without it. I had not thought myself solitary here before, but now should her face vanish from my wall I were indeed in ashes. From its place in the still corner it looks out upon me through the day with eyes of full hazel, wistfully; and at times the firelight flickering in the golden brown of her hair and o'er her close unassailable lips turns them to a vivid appearance of life. And yet it is not in this demure mood of gravity I know her best, which is in a manner strange to her custom, at most a rare and passing exhibition of her thoughtfulness. If you should see this exquisite portrait you would proclaim her of a tender seriousness, one that had caught some knowledge of the world's travail, nor learnt to smile at it, though the gift of joyous blood ran in her veins. You would misjudge her did you so imagine her. For she has no unwholesome gravity, is not oppressed by outer woes, suffers not vicariously beyond a woman's habit, is blithe and jocund, nods at her own poor troubles merrily, and meets fortune with a negligence of uncommon grace. There is none other whom her dainty gaieties so become. She has in truth sedater moments as in this picture; but I am assured that her eyes go no further than the eyes of her happy sisters, her lips whisper nothing more. This visage of shy solemnity is not most notable of her, and yet I love its mute expression even as I love her speaking face. Her winsome smile in life possesses all my idle hours; her sober gaze from out the mellow canvas moves me to draw a little nearer to her through my daily work. Her gaiety is sweet to me, yet somehow I prefer her picture to be grave and quiet. To have her laughing ever in my face were to wince at a certain callous apathy of the cold paint. I suffer the common tragedies of mortality day by day; my humours vary with the shifting hours; anon I am in pain or sorrow; and that she should be witness with her smile were distasteful to me, as it were to her own pitiful self. And so as I bend to my work she looks down upon me hour by hour, peaceful and softly earnest, till the peace and earnestness of her presence have entered also into the possession of my spirit.
This picture is now my dearest treasure, a function of my heart, as integral a part of myself as are my constant thoughts and fancies. The gross accidents of life step between me and her daily, but her picture nought may assoil; it abides with me always, a gracious guardian above the reach of chance or time. Though she herself should fade from my experience (which God in His grace forbid! ) I have her here still watching me with a most kind regard. Those lustrous eyes, fashioned of raw paint, informed with light and life, keep ward upon the world in which I move, so steadfastly that I could think they follow my diurnal course, and at my failures will grow wet with tears. And yet her own sweet eyes, I am persuaded, have never wept for me, whose servitude is but a vain reiterated tribute to her loveliness. To bow before her is the common lot; man's adoration and her beauty are two correlatives of fate; the one is born and moveth with the other. Many there be that live upon her smile; there is but one that hath taken her picture for his heart. That soft face speaking from the wall has grown to be my conscience; most often has it detached me from the society of rude thoughts and ruder companions. When I am most errant and most evil of mind I have but to look up and read her delicate glance to rid me of my inmost devil. At such times I shut my lips against my babble, and listen to her low voice through the boisterous talk, bethinking me how unworthy am I of so delicious a communion. She in her counterfeit shares with me my graver thoughts, though she herself has suffered me no entrance into her interior feelings. From her outward conduct to me, who am a mere atom in her pleasant circle, she would appear to be very human, full of light, heedless, dainty whims. I should consider, did I judge her so, that her mind runs little on sad phantasies. Her customs are so joyous and unrestrained, and she bears upon her face the marks of a great and smiling innocence. This behaviour doth belie her.
Still I keep company with her graver picture, though her pretty frolics thrill me through and through. I come from the vivid flesh to the breathing image on the wall. They are both real to me, the same in diverse moods: the one as I know her best, the other as I should know her worthiest could I but look, clandestine, into her soul. These twain resemblances mirror her full nature, comprising the sentient round: the one in life with her brimming eyes of mirth, the other with her sedate and chastened looks watching me about my room. How near had I grown to her were I the licensed intimate of this grave mood in life! Ofttimes have I caught but a fleeting glimpse of it when the laughter ebbed from her dimples, and it has shown me in a flash how far I stood from one who locked her secret thoughts so closely. 'It is thus I have seen you at sweet intervals,' I cry to her picture; 'it is thus I would have you always in my room. Yet it is not thus,' I cry, 'I would have you always live your pretty life.' For that soft countenance was not born for tears. Time, indeed, shall bring it these moments of awe: pray God, but rarely! Smiles are fitter to her need than sombre meditation. That fragile, exquisite life shall be wrecked upon no austere denial. Let the shadow pass! It is nothing in the sunlight.
Thus have I come to read the changing humours of this pictured face, which often when I fix my gaze upon it seems to be instinct with gracious humanity. It is so perfect in its delicate flesh that (methinks) it needs but a little to break through the rigid surface of the canvas and descend to very life. Immured and pent within the smooth dead medium breathes the soul of one, real and palpitant; and beneath the eyelids thoughts seem to burn and glow till I have wondered that the lashes flicker not and the lids close not at my ardent gaze. And when in the twilight I look through dim and half-closed vision I can see that soft white bosom slowly rise; the brocade sparkles, the lips quiver and part, the eyes open from their dreaming, the aureate hair waves in the breath of the evening. She seems to dissolve into warm flesh and come out to me with a sudden cry of welcome. Should she step forth, I think I should greet her with no surprise, so implicit am I in her constant presence: yet a little timorously, lest in her continuous guardianship she had acquired a distaste for my inferior ways. And yet I know that she would only break into smiles, and that I should but feel the familiar clasp of her hands, but see that alluring curve of her mouth. As I have ever been to her so should I then be: a unit in a multitude, one but as others, used with no special care or individual attention.