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110 THE PORTRAIT,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
_.. I Need Not Linger Over The Early Daw...
favorite subject . This third "was that of the beautiful sculptress of made Bologna strong b a , strong the Prop lines erzi impression a addressed da-Rossi on to , whose her my by imag genius another ination and gifted , rendered sad one history of modern doubl had y
y times , I mean Felicia Hemans , who in her " records of women " gives the unfortunate Properzia a place . he But declared I must not those digress _,
vellousl with my y Vasari dowered and beings his " should mortal be gods calle , ' d as , while my readers mar wait - to know wliat we did in Paris , and how our two modern painters ,
artist and amateur , got on . Tired of playing a part , the amateur , after a few demoniac
attempts to copy a picture , the meaning of which he could scarcely comprehend , one day in a rage tossed brushes and easel into a
room reserved for useless articles , from which they were never again brought out . The artist , on the contrary , worked hard . He
• was in earnest , and knew that industry and perseverance , even to the greatest geniusare indiensable . The mornings of Mr . Cleveland
, sp were spent in the Louvre , his evenings usually in our salon . I was ¦ content to be a listener when Mrs . Bethune and Mr . Cleveland
discoursed on art . I was his pupil without acknowledging it , his ardent discileand an unquenchable desire to excel took possession of
p , me . To obtain praise from him—in fact , to astonish him at some future time—became a fixed idea . By night and by day it was
dominant , and no persuasion of Mrs . Bethune's could prevail on me to show him at that time any of my sketches , so did I dread
discouragement . I would wait , I said , to myself—wait I would , and did . CHAPTER II .
Mks . _Bethttne belonged to a class of women frequently met with among the affluent . Refined in manner almost to fastidiousness ,
elegant in taste as became an artist , languid and pensive , when not excited , * somewhat fitful in tenrper , her spirits either too high or too
low , _imjDatient of contradiction , given to command , and have all her own like spoilt children and old . In shortshe was
a petted way child , of fortune , who had young never seen the dark side , of life ; who never had heard unpleasant truthsunless perhaps from _,
her husband when alive , any as we are informed b , y Mrs . Ellis that husbands will say unpleasant things , even to the loveliest and richest
of wives—and Mrs . Bethune was both lovely and rich . She had not married for but from family considerations had
accepted a husband money considerabl , y older than herself . She now ran the risk of becoming more wayward than ever , as , like other rich people ,
she was surrounded by a host of admiring flatterers , who , had she chosen to say that the earth did not movewould have agreed with '
her , in spite of a hundred Galileos . The , reader must not suppose that I formed this estimate of friend when I was then residing
with her , a girl . of eighteen . At my that time I thought almost every
thing she did , right , and looked up to her as a younger person
110 The Portrait,
110 THE PORTRAIT ,
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1861, page 110, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041861/page/38/
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