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Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906

met and[56] loved a simple peasant woman, unlettered, but with sound and serviceable common sense, and with the beauty of perfect honesty shining in her big Norse-blue eyes. It was then and it is now a wonder to me how in that mystical brain of his, replete with abstractions, generalizations, idealizations, he placed his love for wife and children; strong and tender as it was, one could appreciate at once that he had no sense of the burden of practical life which his wife seemed to have taken up as naturally hers. The whole world of the imagination wherein he so constantly moved seemed entirely without her ken, yet this did not seem to trouble either. Nor did the fact that his unworldliness doubled her portion of responsibility seem to cause him to reflect that she was kept too busy, like Martha of old, to "choose that good part" which he had chosen. Thinking of it now, still with some sense of puzzlement, I believe his love for human creatures, and especially within the family relation, were of that deep, still, yearning kind we feel towards the woods and hills of home; the silent, unobtrusive presence fills us with rest and certainty, and we are all unease when we miss it; yet we take it for granted, and seldom dwell upon it in our active thoughts, or realize the part it plays in us; it belongs to the dark wells of being. Dear, falling star of the northland,—so you have gone out, and—it was not yet morning. <div class="center"><ANTIMG src="images/sep12.jpg" width-obs='83' height-obs='16' alt="Decorative separator" /></div> <h2>FIFTY YEARS OF BAD LUCK.</h2> <h3>By Sadakichi Hartmann.</h3> EVERY occupant of the ramshackle, old-fashioned studio building on Broadway knew old Melville, the landscape painter, who had roughed life within its dilapidated walls for more than a score of years. In former years the studio building had been quite fashionable and respectable; there is hardly a painter of reputation in New York to-day who has not, once in his life, occupied a room on the top floor. But in these days of "modern improvements," of running water and steam heat, of elevators and electric lights, it has lost its standing and is inhabited by a rather precarious and suspicious clan of pseudo artists, mountebanks who vegetate on the[57] outskirts of art; "buckeye painters," who turn out a dozen 20x30 canvases a day for the export trade to Africa and Australia; unscrupulous fabricators of Corots and Daubignys, picture drummers who make such rascality profitable, illustrators of advertising pamphlets, and so-called frescoe painters, who ornament ceilings with sentimental clouds, with two or three cupids thrown in according to the price they extort from ignorant parvenues. And yet, no matter on what by-roads these soldiers of fortune wandered to earn their dubious livelihood, they all respected the white-bearded tenant, in his shabby gray suit, a suit which he wore at all seasons, and which time seemed to have treated just as unkindly as the bent and emaciated form of its wearer. Old Melville gave offense to nobody, and always had a pleasant word for everybody, but, as he was not talkative, and the other tenants were too busy to bother an old man painting, nobody knew much about his mode of living, the standard of his art, or his past history. Very few had ever entered his studio—he had neither patrons nor intimate friends—and very likely they would not have enjoyed their visit. A peculiar gloomy atmosphere pervaded the room, almost sickening in its frugality, and as its skylight lay north, the sun never touched it. It had something chilly and uncanny about it even in summer. The floor was bare, furniture there was none, except an old worn-out kitchen table and chair, an easel and an old box which served as a bookcase for a few ragged unbound volumes. The comfort of a bed was an unknown luxury to him; he slept on the floor, on a mattress which in daytime was hidden with his scant wardrobe and cooking utensils in a corner, behind a gray faded curtain. His pictures, simple pieces of canvas with tattered edges, nailed to the four walls, leaving hardly an inch uncovered, were the only decoration and furnished a most peculiar wall paper, which heightened the dreariness of the room. There was after all a good deal of merit to old Melville's landscapes; on an average they were much better than many of those hung "on the line"; the only disagreeable quality was their sombreness of tone. He invariably got them hopelessly muddy in color, despite their resembling the color dreams of a young impressionist painter at the[58] start. He worked at them so long until they became blurred and blotchy, dark like his life, a sad reflection of his unprofitable career. It was nearly thirty years ago that he had left his native town and had come to New York as a boy of sixteen. He already knew something of life then; at an early age he had been obliged to help to support his family, and had served an apprenticeship as printer and sign painter. In New York he determined to become an artist: a landscape painter, who would paint sunshine as had never been done before; but many years elapsed before he could pursue his ambition. Any amount of obstacles were put in his way. He had married and had children, and could only paint in leisure hours, all his other time being taken up in the endeavor to provide for his family, by inferior work, inferior decoration, etc. Not before years of incessant vicissitudes, heart-rending domestic troubles and sorrow, not before his poor wife had died of consumption—that awful day when he had to run about all day in the rain to borrow money enough to bury her!—and his children had been put in a charitable institution, he took up painting as a profession. Then the hard times, which are proverbial with struggling artists without means, began; only they were easier to bear, as he was suffering alone. In days of dispossess and starvation he had at least his art to console him, and he remained true to her in all those years of misery, and never degraded himself again to "pot boiling." In hours of despair, he also tried his hand at it, but simply "couldn't do it." Now and then he had a stroke of luck, a moderate success, but popularity and fame would not come. His pictures were steadily refused by the Academy. Every year he made a new effort, but in vain. One day, when one of his large pictures was exhibited in the show window of a fashionable art store, a rich collector stepped out of his carriage and, entering the store, asked, "How much do you want for the Inness you have in the window?" The picture dealer answered, "It is no Inness, but just as good a piece of work." "No Inness!" ejaculated the man who wanted to buy a name, "then I don't want it," and abruptly left the store. This event, trifling as it was, threw a pale halo over old Melville's whole life and gave him strength to overcome many[59] a severe trial. He hoped on, persevering in his grim fight for existence, despite failures and humiliation. But the years passed by, and he still sat there in his studio, and in its emptiness, its walls covered with his dark and unsold pictures, whose tone seemed to grow darker with every year. He was one of those sensitive beings who continually suffer from the harsh realities of life, who are as naive as children, and therefore as easily disillusionized, and nevertheless cannot renounce their belief in the ideal. Not a day passed that he did not sit several hours before his easel, trying to paint sunshine as it really is. Nobody in this busy world, however, took notice of his efforts or comprehended the pathos of old Melville's life, those fifty years of bad luck. And yet such martyr-like devotion to art, such a glorious lifelong struggle against fate and circumstances, is so rare in modern times that one might expect the whole world to talk about it in astonished admiration. And how did he manage to get along all this time, these twenty-five years or more, since "pot boiling" had become an unpardonable crime to him? Now and then he borrowed a dollar or so, that lasted him for quite a while, as his wants were almost reduced to nothing. Of course he was always behind in the rent, but as he sometimes sold a sketch, he managed somehow to keep his studio. He did not eat more than once a day. "Too much eating is of no use," he consoled himself, and in this respect he had many colleagues in the fraternity of art, as more than one-half of our artists do not manage to get enough to eat, which fact may explain why many paint so insipidly. A few days before his sudden death, an old gentleman, a chance acquaintance, was talking with him about the muddy coloring of the pictures. Old Melville's eyes wandered over the four walls representing a life's work; at first he ardently argued in their favor, but finally gave in that they, perhaps, were a little bit too dark. "Why do you not take a studio where you can see real sunlight; there is one empty now with Southern exposure, right in this building." Old Melville shook his head, murmuring some excuses of "can't afford it," of "being used so long to this one," but his visitor insisted, "he would pay the rent and fix matters with the landlord." The good[60] soul did not understand much about painting, about tones and values, but merely wanted to get the old man into a more cheerful room. It was difficult for old Melville to take leave of his studio, in which he had seen a quarter of a century roll by, which he had entered as a man in the best years of his life, and now left as an old man; but when he had moved into the new room, the walls of which were an agreeable gray, he exclaimed, "How nice and light!" After arranging his few earthly possessions, he brought out a new canvas, opened a side window, sat down once more before his easel, and gazed intently at the sunshine streaming in and playing on the newly painted and varnished floor. For years he had wielded the brush every day, but on this day he somehow could not paint; he could not find the right harmony. He at first attributed it to a cold which he had contracted, but later on, irritated and somewhat frightened, he mumbled to himself, "I fear I can't paint in this room." And thus he sat musing at his easel with the blank canvas before him, blank as once his youth had been, full of possibilities of a successful career, when suddenly an inspiration came upon him. He saw before him the orchard of his father's little Canadian farm, with the old apple trees in bloom, bathed in the sweet and subtle sunlight of spring, a scene that for years had lain hidden among the faint, almost forgotten memories of his childhood days, but now by some trick of memory was conjured up with appalling distinctiveness. This he wished to realize in paint, and should he perish in the effort! Feverishly he seized his palette and brushes, for hours and hours he painted—the sunlight had long vanished from his studio floor, a chill wind blew through the open window and played with his gray locks—and when the brush at last glided from his hand he had accomplished his lifelong aim—he had painted sunshine. Slowly he sank back in his chair, the arms hanging limp at his sides, and his chin falling on his chest, an attitude a painter might adopt gazing at a masterpiece he had just accomplished—in this case old Melville's painting hours were over for evermore, his eyes could no longer see the colors of this world. Like a soldier he had died at his post of duty, and serene happiness over this final victory lay on his features. In every life some[61] ideal happiness is hidden, which may be found, and for which we should prospect all our days. Old Melville had attained his little bit of sunshine rather late in life, but he had called it his own, at least for however short a moment, while most of us others, whom life treats less scurvily, blinded by foolish and selfish desire, cannot even succeed in grasping material happiness, which crosses our roads quite often enough and stands at times right near us, without being recognized. And the fate of old Melville's pictures? Who knows if they may not some day, when their colors have mellowed, be discovered in some garret, and re-enter the art world in a more dignified manner? True enough, they will not set the world on fire, yet they may be at least appreciated as the sincere efforts of a man who loved his art above all else, and, despite deficiencies, had a keen understanding for nature and considerable ability to express it. Whatever their future may be, his work has not been in vain. It is the cruel law of human life that hundreds of men must drudge their whole lives away in order that one may succeed, not a bit better than they; in the same way in art, hundreds of talents must struggle and suffer in vain that one may reach the cloud-wrapped summit of popularity and fame. And that road is sure to lead over many corpses, and many of the nobler altruistic qualities of man have to be left far behind in the valley of unknown names. Life was brutal to you, old Melville! But this way or that way, what is the difference? <div class="center"><ANTIMG src="images/sep12.jpg" width-obs='83' height-obs='16' alt="Decorative separator" /></div> There was a time when in the name of God and of true faith in Him men were destroyed, tortured, executed, beaten in scores and hundreds of thousands. We, from the height of our attainments, now look down upon the men who did these things. But we are wrong. Amongst us there are many such people, the difference lies only here—that those men of old did these things then in the name of God, and of His true service, whilst now those who commit the same evil amongst us do so in the name of "the people," "for the true service of the people."—Leo Tolstoy. <hr /> [62] Books to be had through Mother Earth The Doukhobors: Their History in Russia; Their Migration to Canada. By Joseph Elkins  .  .   $2.00 Moribund Society and Anarchism. By Jean Grave  .  .   25c. Education and Heredity. By J. M. 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