fondly—of him, the true and loyal gentleman loving her for herself, for what was best and worthiest in herself alone; ready to wait, willing to serve for her, wanting no fortune beyond her dear affection. Then her eyes filled, her heart beat fast, her mood was all tender and all noble. Again she looked long upon her photograph, and this time-though she blushed directly afterwards-she passionately kissed it. Had Arthur been there! How dear, how fair, how very full of noble charm looked Mildred then! All the high and rare enthusiasm of her loftier nature was stirred as she stood at the window of her bower, and debated with her own soul the question of the destiny of her young and lonely life. Immortal as Gretchen in her flower test of love, Mildred stands there fixed for ever in her heart-conflict of perpetual doubt. As a hush falls upon the light when, in a day in summer, the soft rain-clouds gather before the sun, so her sensitive expressive face is clouded by sadness as she holds her photograph behind her while the light dies out of the fair young aspect. How will she decide-"Yes" or No"? Here Mr Millais helps us no farther; Sphinx-like he propounds a riddle (as he did once before), which he leaves to us to solve. But the riddle is delightful ; it is stated with a matchless mastery of painting, although the painting is subordinated to the imaginative interest of fulness of intellectual and poetical meaning. In short, the work is the work of genius, but it is genius working through painting. Campbell tells us, in song, that "painting mute and motionless steals but a glance from time." Its figures can never advance, can never move, can never proceed with action. Immut In the able for ever remains the arrested moment. picture, Mildred will ever ponder, will never decide. Painting grasps intensely the present as it fixes to unchanging permanence the flash of a passing instant; but it fails to record the past or to arrest the future. All light is attended by shadow; and in proportion to the force with which painting seizes and secures the moment is the weakness of its hold upon future and on past. Literature, looser in its limits, more plastic in its form, can cover a wider area and occupy a large space in the story of a life. I have essayed to supplement the painter's fact by my fancies. Have I been able to read correctly “between the lines" of a great artist? I hope, and believe, that Mildred will answer her own question as she ought to answer it. I can, however, only guess the solution of the charming enigma. Enough for me to have attempted to interpret and illustrate Mr Millais' exquisite suggestion. Painters often illustrate authors; why should not an author for once try to illustrate a painter? I cannot overstep the magician's wizard circle. Within that we remain spell-bound; but encircled by its limits I have hazarded an illustration. Have I succeeded? Reader-" Yes or No?" A MODEL ROMANCE. "Th' exactest traits of Body or of Mind, If Queensbury to strip there's no compelling, -POPE. H, Mr Maitland, I am so tired of this position. "OF I wish you could let me have a rest. there's a good fellow-please." Do "Wait just five minutes, Nelly, till I've done this bit of your head. Don't move-thank you—that's a darling, justone minute more. I'm getting it right now, and then we'll knock off for a bit.” The request was the request of a model; the answer was the answer of a painter. The model reclined, in a half-kneeling attitude, apparently at the foot of a cross. Her clasped hands were uplifted; her eyes were upraised pathetically; her long hair streamed down, flowingly, over neck and shoulders; a loose white chemise clothed her to the waist; below was a reddishbrown skirt, skilfully disposed as "drapery," in artful folds. The whole attitude and expression represented -and represented well-imploring agony combined with tender despair. The bare arms were beautifully posed; the eyes gleamed with a sublime splendour. The painter-my friend Frank Maitland, A.R.A.is working with quiet excitement at his easel. One hand painted, the other held a sheaf of brushes, and a palette. His figure is tall; he wears the velvet coat of his craft; he-but why describe him? Everybody knows Frank Maitland. Let that Let that pass. And now, reader, while painter and model (the attitude was a trying one) have "knocked off" work for a little rest, while he lights à pipe, and she, yawningly, stretches her stiff and weary limbs, let us look round us at the delicious litter of a painter's studio. The house is old, and dates, probably, from Queen Anne's days. It has, no doubt, been the habitation of nobles of that period. You cannot see much of the walls, but look at the doors, at the painted ceiling, at the splendid marble mantelpiece. Look at the deep window-places and tall, thick-sashed windows. It is a house which Hogarth might have used for the residence of Lord Squanderfield. The studio is a large three-windowed room, cold and bare of aspect. The backs of canvases framed with deal lie about like bits of scenes out of use, and suggest somewhat the coulisses of a theatre. A lay figure, with a wooden fixedness of aspect, its head reminding one of a ship's figure-head, sits in a renaissance chair, and wears a thirteenth-century costume. This figure forms the principal still-life object in the room. In one corner reposes the major part of an old suit of armour, the dull and dinted breastplate surmounted, in a rather drunken way, by a rust-red helmet. A bell-hilted rapier, temp. Elizabeth, which, says Frank, might have belonged to Raleigh, leans against the wall, and near it is a small sword which suggests the tea-cup times of Anne, the flowing wig and stiff skirts, the figure of Addison, or the brawling Mohocks who stopped Swift's chair. From the open door of a richly carved dark armoire depends a Japanese robe. Plaster casts of feet and hands, busts, masks, and a torso, with the muscles strongly accented by dust, are sprinkled about, and contrast chalkily with the colour of hangings, bits of silk dresses, and a remnant of tapestry. Two old foils, one broken, and both grievously damaged, lie across the arms of a magnificent antique chair, which has a seat of faded crimson velvet, on which rest a Spanish mandolin and one boxing-glove; while a strip of yellow Chinese silk has slipped down on to the floor. A stuffed monkey, with a perennially diabolical smile upon a swollen visage, balances uneasily upon legs with a padded look about them; while a stuffed owl stares glassily in sullen gravity. The bust of one Roman emperor is crowned with a Vandyck hat, and a white petticoat is supported by two Velasquez boar-spears. A very handsome oak table, with massive legs, is covered with Venetian glasses and Flemish bottles, with "pots” of various sorts, comprising Gris de Flandres, Satsuma jars, and the blue “lange Lizen," or six-mark Japanese ware; while an exquisite little Japanese cabinet is crested by a handful of peacock's feathers. Sketches in charcoal and in oils, copies of world-renowned pictures, studies, unfinished paintings, are strewn about in picturesque and grotesque confusion; and, finally, at one end of the room, with the best light falling full upon it, stands the guillotine-like easel on which rests the picture of the hour, the canvas which absorbs all Frank Maitland's thoughts and is freighted with all his ambition, the picture upon which he is now working. And so the happy painter works from year to year-labour, completion, weariness, fruition, His whole work and hope are concentrated, for the time, upon the picture with which he remains face to face for many lonely months. It is finished at last, finished just when it must be completed in order to be sent in to the Academy; and -recommencement. |