20 



VISIT TO A r.nEAT PICTt'RE. 



■ harrow up my soul ; freeze my young blood ; 



Make my two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres; 

 My knotted and combined locks to part. 

 And each particular hair to stand on end. 

 Like quills upon the fretful porcupine." 



nothing of this; and here, where I thought 1 should meet luindreds as 

 eager as myself, I found that if worship must be done, I might perform 

 my devotions almost in perfect privacy ; for about a dozen persons and 

 six hundred empty seats made up the audience. Alas ! I was to learn 

 more than one thing before I left that room ; I had a horror of being 

 noticed, so I quietly took a retired seat and fixed my eyes upon the 

 painting. Before long my dreamy thoughts began to assume a tangible 

 shape, and I started to find, tinging every hue of them, a heavy shade 

 of disappointment. This was hard to believe; put it came on, deeper 

 and deeper, until doubting was no longer possible. J felt a downright 

 disappointment. My head sunk, the blood tingled to my temples ; for 1 

 knew that I ouglit to admire But the flimsy figments were vanishing; 

 I was just awaking from false impressions and false feeling; and, as 

 those who have passed through the same process well know, only pre- 

 paring to appreciate. I now concluded that after all " the gift" was de- 

 nied me ; and so lifted up my eyes and looked with a dogged indifl'er- 

 ence — so imperceptibly, that I perceived not the lapse of time; a strange 

 feeling of interest began to steal over mc, and as it increased — slowly — 

 slowly — the audience, the hall and its furniture, and eventually the can- 

 vass melted away, and I felt myself mysteriously connected with the 

 figures that had thus magic-like started into being. 



There is face there, a mild and gentle face, that speaks eloquently. 

 The head is slightly inclined, and the eyes shaded by long drooping 

 laslies, are directed to an object of suflering in front. Parting from the 

 noble brow, the dark hair clusters upon the shoulders in heavy ringlets. 

 The lips, from which words of Life have dropped, are slightly parted, 

 as if the accents of pity and blessing still lingered upon them. And 

 there, within that fair oval, methinks I read of the "fulness of grace and 

 truth," of ineflable love, and dim, sad traces of "the man of sorrows, 

 acquainted with grief." Other heads are grouped around; and with 

 what interest does the eye scan the features of those, whose lips once 

 tremblingly breathed "Is it I .'" The tender, aflectionate, almost wo- 

 man-like expression of one — the bold and fearless indignation of an- 

 other — the sneaking, sniveling, suspicious look of another — how well 

 portrayed ! But look around ; want, decrepitude, agony and madness 

 have each their representative. The full vigor of life, and the sunken 



