Portrait Of King William III
I never can look at those periodical portraits in THE GALAXY magazine without feeling
a wild, tempestuous ambition to be an artist. I have seen thousands and thousands of
pictures in my time-- acres of them here and leagues of them in the galleries of Europe--
but never any that moved me as these portraits do.
There is a portrait of Monsignore Capel in the November number, now COULD anything
be sweeter than that? And there was Bismarck's, in the October number; who can look at
that without being purer and stronger and nobler for it? And Thurlow and Weed's picture
in the September number; I would not have died without seeing that, no, not for anything
this world can give. But looks back still further and recall my own likeness as printed in
the August number; if I had been in my grave a thousand years when that appeared, I
would have got up and visited the artist.
I sleep with all these portraits under my pillow every night, so that I can go on studying
them as soon as the day dawns in the morning. I know them all as thoroughly as if I had
made them myself; I know every line and mark about them. Sometimes when company
are present I shuffle the portraits all up together, and then pick them out one by one and
call their names, without referring to the printing on the bottom. I seldom make a
mistake--never, when I am calm.
I have had the portraits framed for a long time, waiting till my aunt gets everything ready
for hanging them up in the parlor. But first one thing and then another interferes, and so
the thing is delayed. Once she said they would have more of the peculiar kind of light
they needed in the attic. The old simpleton! it is as dark as a tomb up there. But she does
not know anything about art, and so she has no reverence for it. When I showed her my
"Map of the Fortifications of Paris," she said it was rubbish.
Well, from nursing those portraits so long, I have come at last to have a perfect
infatuation for art. I have a teacher now, and my enthusiasm continually and
tumultuously grows, as I learn to use with more and more facility the pencil, brush, and
graver. I am studying under De Mellville, the house and portrait painter. [His name was
Smith when he lived in the West.] He does any kind of artist work a body wants, having a
genius that is universal, like Michael Angelo. Resembles that great artist, in fact. The
back of his head is like this, and he wears his hat-brim tilted down on his nose to expose
it.
I have been studying under De Mellville several months now. The first month I painted
fences, and gave general satisfaction. The next month I white-washed a barn. The third, I
was doing tin roofs; the forth, common signs; the fifth, statuary to stand before cigar
shops. This present month is only the sixth, and I am already in portraits!
The humble offering which accompanies these remarks [see figure]-- the portrait of his
Majesty William III., King of Prussia-- is my fifth attempt in portraits, and my greatest
