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620  COUSIN EDITH.      [DECEMBER 2, [[cutoff]]

scale of color, in and out from light to shadow, and from opaqueness to transparency, there is still food for profitable study to any one who would know somewhat of the mysteries and capacities of paint, as shown even in the least remarkable of his works.

Of Page's coloring, Paul Akers says: "Mr. Page adopts a key somewhat lower than that of Nature, as a point of departure, using his degrees of color frugally, especially in the ascending scale. With this economy, when he approaches the luminous effects of Nature, he falls, just where any other palette would be exhausted, upon his own, a reserve of high color. With this, seeking only a corresponding effect of light in that lower tone which assumes no rivalry with the infinite glory of Nature, he attains to a representation fully successful."

Page takes the view that a painter should proceed with his work as far as possible as Nature herself does, and he thinks that Titian had the same idea in mind when he said that "flesh would not let itself be painted in less than four paintings," meaning by this is that the red muscle must be laid on first, then the color of the under-skin, then a thin veil corresponding to the cuticle, and lastly the fine down, and polish, and hairs, outside of all, each paint showing through the other as their corresponding substances do in Nature. In the same way he looks through one surface into another in the atmosphere in which he places objects in a room which he may be depicting, showing the different distances from the eye of the objects within it, giving each its proper position and relative nearness or remoteness. But it would be impossible for any one but the artist himself to describe his own views, nor is it necessary, since his works themselves tell their own tale, or all that a novice in such matters is able to comprehend. 

Apart from his coloring, however, which every one has a right to like or not, as he pleases, his rendering of form and texture in his portraits defies criticism. The impression of weight or lightness, hardness or softness, muscle, bone, flesh, and hair, in them is almost identical in its effect on the mind of the beholder with that produced by the heavy, hanging flesh, the downy softness of the drapery, the muscular knees, and the palpable weight of body, of "The Fates" in the Elgin Marbles. And this perception and mastery of form Page has shown through plaster in his "Shakespeare," as well as by his brush. Standing before his portrait of Wendell Phillips in the present exhibition of the Academy, you feel that you could indent your finger in the soft cheek, feel the bone beneath the muscles of the nose, move the loose skin over the skull on the temples, and be pricked by the close-shaven hairs in the flesh of the skin, while your eye follows the lines and textures of forehead and brow, til eye meets eye, and it seems as if life met life in the wonderful vitality which looks out at you from the face. 

The best evidence that could be given of the estimation in which Page is held by those most competent to judge of his merits was afforded by his election, in May of the present year, as president of the National Academy, after an animated contest, in which he had as competitors for the office some of the most eminent of American artists.
 
SUSAN NICHOLS CARTER. 


COUSIN EDITH.

COUSIN EDITH had done me a terrible wrong five years before--a wrong never to be forgotten--scarcely ever to be forgiven. And it is therefore not to be wondered at, when, after my poor father's sudden death, I received a letter from her, asking me to make her house my home, that, destitute and forlorn as I was, without money, without relations, and almost without friends, I hesitated to accept her offer. Necessity, however, compelled me at length to suppress my resentment, and to consent to her proposal, so kindly and so warmly urged. Like most of my sex, indeed, I felt incapable of taking care of myself, and saw no way in which I could earn my living. I therefore wrote to Mrs. Poynier that I would come, and named the train and the hour by which I expected to reach her residence.

I remember well the long, tedious journey to the city, the arrival of the cars there, and the ride through the lighted streets to the door of my cousin's spacious mansion. When I ran up the steps, leaving my trunk to the tender mercies of the hackman, I found, upon being ushered into a cosy back drawing-room, my cousin, Mrs. Poyneir, awaiting me there. I also remember how my heart shook, as I crossed the threshold, how blurred my eyes became to her face, seen now for the first time in five years--her beautiful face, which, in days gone by, I felt had worked me such a terrible wrong.

"O Rachel"--and I felt two little hands laid on mine, and a soft mouth reached up to tough my rigid one--"you don't know how glad I am that you have come--so glad--for I am all alone now, and when I heard you were alone, too, I couldn't help sending for you."

"Yes, I was very lonely--very wretched--and wanted a change, so I came; you see, I've gotten over most of the old bitterness, or else I couldn't have come. Is that your child?"

"Yes, this is Rachel; didn't you know that I named her for you? -Ah, but how could you know when you forbade my ever seeing or writing to you again?--you see I disobeyed you this once--although I was almost frightened to death, when I wrote that letter asking you to come and live with me--you are sometimes, or at least you used to be, so cold and cruel, Rachel dear--but, come, I'll show you to your room.--Take Aunt Rachel's bag," she added, turning to the child, who hitherto had stood motionless upon the hearth-rug, staring at me as though I was an escaped wild beast--"and follow us up-stairs;" then she took me by the hand--a pretty, girlish way, which I remembered well and bitterly--and led me, out through the hall, up the staircase to a cosy, muslin-hung room, where the warmth of the shining fire drove some of the shivers out of my heart.

"This is your room," said Mrs. Poyneir, not looking at me, but in a nervous, flurried way; "it's opposite mine, and looks out upon the square; for this reason I thought you might like it; I've taken off my mourning, you see, and am beginning to go out again; so, when I am away from you, as I necessarily shall be at times, it will be nice for you to look at the trees and the people passing, it may keep you from feeling lonely;" then she kept on talking until I had brushed my hair, washed my hands, and was ready to go down-stairs again. We had tea by-and-by; and after this came the evening--long, but not dreary--as all first evenings usually are; for, about half-past eight, a gentleman came to see Mrs. Poynier, a very pleasant, witty gentleman, who, by-and-by, I found to be the deceased Mr. Poynier's cousin, Gerald Cary. Thus, my cousin and I did not have an opportunity for a good, sensible talk until next morning, when, breakfast over, we sat together in the pretty breakfast-room, with little Rachel seated on a cricket between us, busily intent upon the dressing and undressing of her favorite doll.

"What are my duties to be, Cousin Edith?" I asked, presently, as the silence began to grow insupportable; "I've made up my mind to work, you know--work will do me good; so you mustn't be afraid of loading my shoulders too heavily--the heavier the better, I want you to understand."

"You are more sadly in need of rest than of work, Rachel," answered my cousin; "don't be offended if I tell you you are looking very weak and sick; for, if you don't know how miserable you are, you ought to be told."

"I have come here to get over it. I was sadly in need of both change and dollars and cents; and I intend now to earn these requisites by working hard."

"I wish you wouldn't talk about work, Cousin Rachel; I wish you would learn to love me again the way you used to love me, and let me persuade you to live here with me as my sister might. O Rachel, you don't know how badly I have felt ever since--ever since our old friendship was broken up--I never meant to do it; you told me once, dear, you thought I never intended wrong-"

"No, you never intended wrong," I could not help interrupting her, "but you worked it very effectually, nevertheless; however, we won't talk about it now, for it would only be digging over an old grave--and I didn't come here to talk about it."

"But I must say one thing to you, Rachel," interrupted my cousin in her turn--the color coming and going in her cheeks with every word--"I've had it in my heart all these long years--even when we parted at the rectory, and you would not let me utter it, and since you came it has been burning my tongue through and through--it's about the old time--five years ago, when you sent him away without listening to either him or me--O Rachel, how hard and cruel you can be! you are so proud, so sensitive, and he--he was so strong, yet proud and sensitive, too; and I--I loved him--yes, I loved him--" she repeated, defying the little start I gave involuntarily--"he was as much to me as he was to you, only--"