第126章

"I have no doubt you will try it yet," said Harry.

The young artist shook his head. "I am sometimes disposed to throw aside the brush in disgust, at the temerity of man, which can attempt to copy even what is most noble, in the magnificent variety, and the simple grandeur of nature."

"You have been sufficiently successful in what you have attempted hitherto," said Harry. "I saw your view of Lake Ontario, in Philadelphia, just after I arrived; and I can never forget the impression it produced on me. Of all your pictures that I have seen, that is my favourite."

"It is indeed a noble picture," said Mr. Wyllys.

"And few men but yourself, Charlie, could have given so deep an interest to a broad field of water, with only a strip of common-place shore in the fore-ground, and a bank of clouds in the distance. A common painter would have thrown in some prettiness of art, that would have ruined it; but you have given it a simple dignity that is really wonderful!" said Hazlehurst.

"You mortify me," said Charlie; "it is so much inferior to what I could wish."

"Captain C-----," continued Harry, "who was stationed at Oswego for several years, told me he should have known your picture without the name, for a view of one of the great lakes; there was so much truth in the colour and movement of the water; so much that was different from the Ocean."

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is cruel in you to flatter a poor young artist at this rate," said Charlie.

"If it is criticism you want," said Hazlehurst, "I can give you a dose. You were very severely handled in my presence, a day or two since, and on the very subject of your picture of Lake Ontario."

"Pray, let me hear the criticism; it will sober me."

"What was the fault?" said Elinor; "what was wanting?"

"A few houses and a steamboat, to make it lively."

"You are making up a good story, Mr. Hazlehurst," said Mrs. Creighton, laughing.

"I give you the critic's words verbatim. I really looked at the young lady in astonishment, that she should see nothing but a want of liveliness in a picture, which most of us feel to be sublime. But Miss L----- had an old grudge against you, for not having made her papa's villa sufficiently prominent in your view of Hell-Gate."

"But, such a villa!" said Hubbard. "One of the ugliest within ten miles of New York. It is possible, sometimes, by keeping at a distance, concealing defects, and partially revealing columns through verdure, to make one of our Grecian-temple houses appear to advantage in a landscape; but, really, Mr. D-----'s villa was such a jumble, so entirely out of all just proportion, that I could do nothing with it; and was glad to find that I could put a grove between the spectator and the building: anybody but its inmates would have preferred the trees."

"Not at all; Miss D----- thought the absence of the portico, with its tall, pipe-stem columns, the row of dormer windows on the roof, and the non-descript belvidere crowning all, a loss to the public."

{"belvidere" = as used here, a raised turret on top of a house (Italian)}

"The miserable architecture of this country is an obstacle to a landscape painter, quite too serious to be trifled with, I can assure you," said Charlie.

"It must be confessed," said Mr. Ellsworth, "that the order of things has been reversed here. Architecture is usually called the parent of the fine arts; but with us she is the youngest of the family, and as yet the worst endowed. We had respectable pictures, long before we had a single building in a really good style; and now that we have some noble paintings and statuary, architecture still lags behind. What a noise they made in New York, only a few years since, about St. Thomas's Church!"

{St. Thomas's Church" = St. Thomas Episcopal Church was erected at the corner of Broadway and Houston Street, in New York City, in 1826, in the Gothic style which was only beginning to replace the Greek Revival. Susan Fenimore Cooper shared her father's dislike of Greek Revival houses that imitated Grecian temples, and his love of the Gothic}

"Yes," said Mr. Stryker; "the curse of the genius of architecture, which Jefferson said had fallen upon this country, has not yet been removed."

"Some of the most ludicrous objects I have ever laid my eyes on," said Hazlehurst, "have been pretending houses, and, I am sorry to say, churches too, in the interior of the country; chiefly in the would-be Corinthian and Composite styles. They set every rule of good taste and good sense at defiance, and look, withal, so unconscious of their absurdity, that the effect is as thoroughly ridiculous, as if it had been the object of the architect to make them so."

"For reason good," observed Mr. Wyllys; "because they are wanting in simplicity and full of pretension; and pretension is the root of all absurdity."

They had now reached the spot Charlie had selected for his picture; the young artist pointed it out to Miss Wyllys, who was in the other boat.

"This is the spot I have chosen," he said, "and I hope you will agree with me in liking the position; it commands some of the finest points on the lake: that is the Black mountain in the back-ground."

His friends admired his choice, acknowledging that the view was one of the most beautiful they had seen.

"It must be difficult to choose, where every view is charming," said Elinor. "How beautiful those little islands are; so much variety, and all so pleasing!"

"You will see hundreds of them, Miss Wyllys, when you have been over the lake," said Hubbard.

"There are just three hundred and sixty-five, marm," added one of the boatmen, the guide of the party; "one for every day in the-year."

"This must be May-day island," said Elinor, pointing to an islet quite near them. "This one, half wood, half meadow, which shows so many flowers."

"May-day island it shall be for the next six weeks," said Charlie, smiling. "I have chosen it for another view."