Julia was in a very high degree impregnated with the taste and

desire for art which seemed so generally the characteristic of our

people. I speak not now of the degree of skill which she possessed.

Her teacher was a foreigner, and a mere mechanic; but, while

he taught her only the ordinary laws of painting, her natural

endowment wrought more actively in favor of her performances. She

soon discovered how much she could learn from the little which her

teacher knew; and when she made this discovery, she ceased to have

any use for his assistance. Books, the study of the old masters,

and such of the new as were available to her, served her infinitely

more in the prosecution of her efforts; and these I stimulated by

all means in my power: for I esteemed her natural endowments to

be very high, and very well knew how usual it is for young ladies,

after marriage, to give up those tastes and accomplishments which

had distinguished and heightened their previous charms. It was quite

enough that I admired the art, and tasked her to its pursuit, to

make her cling to it with alacrity and love. We wandered together

early in the morning and at the coming on of evening, over all the

sweet, enticing scenes which were frequent in our suburbs. Environed

by two rivers, wide and clear, with deep forests beyond--a broad

bay opening upon the sea in front--lovely islands of gleaming sand,

strewn at pleasant intervals, seeming, beneath the transparent

moonlight, the chosen places of retreat for naiads from the deep

and fairies from the grove--there was no lack of objects to delight

the eye and woo the pencil to its performances. Besides, never was

blue sky, and gold-and-purple sunset, more frequent, more rich,

more shifting in its shapes and colors, from beauty to superior

beauty, than in our latitude. The eye naturally turned up to it

with a sense of hunger; the mind naturally felt the wish to record

such hues and aspects for the use of venerating love; and the eager

spirit, beginning to fancy the vision wrought according to its own

involuntary wish, seemed spontaneously to cry aloud, in the language

of the artist, on whom the consciousness of genius was breaking

with a sun-burst for the first time, "I, too, am a painter!"

Julia's studio was soon full of beginnings. Fragmentary landscapes

were all about her. Like most southrons, she did not like to finish.

There is an impatience of toil--of its duration at least--in the

southern mind, which leaves it too frequently unperforming. This

is a natural characteristic of an excitable people. People easily

moved are always easily diverted from their objects. People of very

vivid fancy are also very capricious. There is yet another cause

for the non-performance of the southern mind--its fastidiousness.

In a high state of social refinement, the standards of taste become

so very exacting, that the mind prefers not to attempt, rather

than to offend that critical judgment which it feels to be equally

active in its analysis and rigid in its requisitions. Genius and

ambition must be independent of such restraints. "Be bold, be bold,

be bold!" is the language of encouragement in Spenser; and when

he says, at the end, "Be not too bold," we are to consider the

qualification as simply a quiet caution not to allow proper courage

to rush into rashness and insane license. The GENIUS that suffers

itself to be fettered by the PRECISE, will perhaps learn how

to polish marble, but will never make it live, and will certainly

never live very long itself!




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