Medoline Selwyn's Work Part 8

"Is that a specimen of your college conversation, Hubert? If so, you might better remain at Oaklands."

"Surely, mother; you don't expect us to talk like a sewing society or select gathering of maiden ladies," Hubert said with some disgust. "Fancy a lot of young fellows picking and choosing their words as if they were a company of prigs."

"If every word we utter continues to vibrate in the air until the final wreck of matter, as some scientists suppose, surely we can't be too careful of our words, my son."

"If we believe all the nonsense those chaps who are continually meddling with nature's secrets tell us, we should sit with shut lips and folded hands lest we would destroy the equilibrium of the universe, or our own destiny. There is any quant.i.ty of bosh let loose on poor, long-suffering humanity, and labeled Science."

"That comes with bad grace from an embryo scholar. If I were you I would throw education 'to the dogs' and take things on trust like Thomas, or the Mill Road people," I said, jestingly.

"I want to know for myself; and so not get cheated by every crank who airs his theories."

"But, Hubert, to come back to the original dispute, if the atmosphere does not hold our every foolish or necessary word, they are permanently recorded in another place by a pen that never writes falsely, or misses a single sentence. How many pages have you got written there, I wonder, that if it were possible you would gladly obliterate with your heart's blood one day."

"Mother, you are worse than the scientists; at least more terrifying. Do you know, Miss Selwyn, when I was a little chap she had me persuaded to be a missionary to Greenland, or the South Pole. I had made up my mind to choose the very worst possible place, so as to have all the greater reward."

"What has changed your mind?"

"Natural development, I expect. Mother is a very sweet and gentle woman, but I am sorry to say she is a crank, if there was ever one."

"Why, Hubert, you amaze me," I said, smiling. "I thought she was as near perfection as any one I ever knew. Excuse me expressing myself so openly," I said, bowing to Mrs. Flaxman; "but won't you tell me what her tendency to insanity is; for I believe cranks are a species of madmen, if I rightly understand what the word implies."

"Over religiosity. Why, really, she used to make me long for martyrdom when I was a child."

"I did not think a person could so soon outgrow early piety," I said, dryly.

Hubert colored and said very little more about his mother's early lessons after that to me; but I could see that his strange indifference respecting those subjects she held as most important of anything within reach of humanity pained her deeply.

CHAPTER VII.

EXAMINATION.

Directly Mr. Winthrop had attended to matters at once claiming his attention on his return, he began to investigate my daily avocations. I showed him the work already accomplished, so far as it could be seen--the knitting certainly excepted. My sketches in water colors and oils I brought out rather timidly for his inspection. Mrs. Flaxman had told me how severe he was in his criticisms on careless work, and possibly all through my painting the thought what he might say of what I was doing had a strong influence on the quality of my work. In some respects, no doubt, it helped me to paint more carefully and copy more closely from nature; but, on the other hand, imagination and freedom were restrained; and it is possible I might have better satisfied him with what I had accomplished if I had never once thought about his opinion as I worked.

As I carried them into the library that bright early autumn morning, I felt a shrinking at submitting my pictures, in their imperfection, to unsympathetic eyes, much as a mother might feel at bringing a deformed child to a baby show; but I had also a measure of satisfaction, since I could prove to my guardian that I had not been idle, when I spread before him copies, more or less defective, of views from his own grounds. The servants had watched them grow under my pencil and brush with an interest almost equalling my own; and it was amusing the eagerness which even Thomas evinced to be painted into a picture, spoiling it very much, to my mind, by insisting on having on his Sunday clothes.

Mr. Winthrop glanced at them with some surprise as he saw the goodly heap; then he said: "I will only look to-day at what you have done since coming here. Mrs. Flaxman tells me you have accomplished a good expenditure of paint."

"I have only brought those, sir, I did not suppose you cared to examine my school work."

"Some other time I may do so; but do you say all these have been done since you came here?" He picked one up, not noticing apparently my reply, and recognizing the view, instantly his face brightened.

"Ah, you have shown taste in this selection; it is one of my favorite views. I am glad you prefer nature to mere copying from another's work which is like accepting other men's ideas, when one is capable of originating them of one's own." He looked at it closely and for some time in silence, then with no further word of praise he criticised it mercilessly, while he pointed out fault after fault. I could only acquiesce in the correctness of his criticisms, and only wondered I should have been so blind as to permit such glaring faults to creep into my work. Of the many scores of drawing and painting lessons I had previously taken, not any twelve of them, to say the least, had widened my knowledge of art as this hour spent with my guardian over that first picture had done. I looked at him with a provoked sort of admiration, surprised that one who knew so well how nature should be imitated, did not, himself, attempt the task, and angry both with him and myself that I was being subjected to such humiliation, while I listened to him as he convinced me the picture I thought so good was a mere daub. I was wise enough, and proud enough too, not to make any sign that I was undergoing torture, and with stoical calmness permitted him, without a single remonstrance, to examine every picture there, even the one containing Thomas in his Sunday suit, as he stood surveying with idealized face, a superb patch of cabbages.

"Fancy has run riot with you there entirely; if the gardener were surveying his sweetheart in the church choir he might have some such seraphic expression, but it is utterly thrown away on those vegetables; his face and his broadcloth coat are in perfect harmony," Mr. Winthrop said, with even voice, as he held aloft the picture that all the other members of his household had so greatly admired.

"You think, then, the time spent in these has been quite wasted?" I tried to say calmly.

"A genuine artist, no doubt, would say without a moment's hesitation that the paint was thrown away. As for the time, he would probably say a young girl's time was of little consequence in any case. I am not an artist, and do not value paint at a high figure; so I most decidedly affirm that you made an excellent use of the paint. Labor conscientiously spent in decorating a barn door is well employed. The door may not be much the better, but the person who tries to improve its appearance with painstaking care is benefited."

"Then I may conscientiously continue decorating canvas, or at least trying to do so."

"I should certainly desire and advise you to do so; but instead of covering so many, if you would take time and talent in elaborating one picture, I would be better pleased."

He laid the pictures to one side. "We will continue this study more exhaustingly in the future; to-day I want to speak of other things. You have made use of my library, Mrs. Flaxman also informs me. Will you please tell me what books you have been reading?"

I went to the shelves and took down the books I had spent most time over, a good many were novels; and on these I felt certain I could pa.s.s a fairly good examination, since I had read some of them with absorbed interest; novels of all kinds were, for the most part, forbidden mental food at school, and therefore, when opportunity offered, I dipped into them with the keener avidity. But my mind was healthy enough to crave more solid food than fiction alone, and I was glad to be able to hand my guardian a volume or two of Carlyle's Frederick, Froude's Caesar, Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic, and a couple of volumes of Bancroft's History of the United States.

"Have you read all these since you came to Oaklands?" he asked, with evident surprise.

"I skipped some of the dull pa.s.sages; the 'dry-as-dust' parts of which I found a few even in Carlyle."

"Could you stand an examination, think you, in each or any of them?"

"I am willing to try," I said, seating myself on the opposite side of the table with folded hands, and possibly a martyrlike air of resignation.

"Since you are so willing we will take Froude's Caesar to-day; let me hear you give a digest of the entire book."

My eyes sparkled; for this was the last volume I had read, and the author had infused into my mind a strong leaven of his own hero-wors.h.i.+p for the majestic Caesar. I was surprised at the ease with which I repeated chapter after chapter of those stirring incidents, while with his stern, inscrutable face, my guardian turned the leaves to follow me in my rapid flight from tragedy to tragedy in those stormy times.

He laid the book down without comment, and, glancing at the remainder of the pile paused a moment, and then said: "I will defer the criticisms on these to some other day. Your memory as well as vocal organs will be fatigued."

I meanwhile resolved to consult those books again before the further examination should take place.

"You have practised every day on the piano in addition to your other work; may I ask how long a time you allowed yourself?"

"At least an hour, sometimes when it was wet or unpleasant out of doors I took longer time. Never more than three hours, I believe."

"We will take an hour or two after dinner over your music, after this once a week, we will spend a short time in reviewing what you read."

A new anxiety seized me at this promised ordeal. I fancied examinations and I had said good-bye forever when I left the school-room.

"I trust you will not think me severe if I insist on thoroughness in everything. I am wearied seeing so much good money and time wasted on young girls! With the majority of them, once they have left their teacher's side, all their interest in further mental culture is at an end."

"Some great writers say that our schooling is simply to train the mind to work, fitting it, so to speak, with necessary tools like a well-equipped mechanic."

"But if the tools are never utilized, what good are they merely to lie and rust?"

"Who can affirm positively that they are never utilized? Even the shallowest boarding-school Miss may carry herself more gracefully in society than one of your usefulest women--Mrs. Blake, for instance."

"How do you know anything about Mrs. Blake?" he asked abruptly.

"I met her on the train when I came here and she talked some time with me."

"It is not usual for persons in your position to permit such liberties."