The Genius (12 page)

The art world of New York is peculiar. It was then and for some
time after, broken up into cliques with scarcely any unity. There
was a world of sculptors, for instance, in which some thirty or
forty sculptors had part—but they knew each other slightly,
criticised each other severely and retired for the most part into a
background of relatives and friends. There was a painting world, as
distinguished from an illustrating world, in which perhaps a
thousand alleged artists, perhaps more, took part. Most of these
were men and women who had some ability—enough to have their
pictures hung at the National Academy of Design exhibition—to sell
some pictures, get some decorative work to do, paint some
portraits. There were studio buildings scattered about various
portions of the city; in Washington Square; in Ninth and Tenth
Streets; in odd places, such as Macdougal Alley and occasional
cross streets from Washington Square to Fifty-ninth Street, which
were filled with painters, illustrators, sculptors and craftsmen in
art generally. This painting world had more unity than the world of
sculptors and, in a way, included the latter. There were several
art clubs—the Salmagundi, the Kit-Kat and the Lotus—and there were
a number of exhibitions, ink, water color, oil, with their
reception nights where artists could meet and exchange the
courtesies and friendship of their world. In addition to this there
were little communal groups such as those who resided in the Tenth
Street studios; the Twenty-third Street Y. M. C. A.; the Van Dyck
studios, and so on. It was possible to find little crowds, now and
then, that harmonized well enough for a time and to get into a
group, if, to use a colloquialism, one
belonged
. If you
did not, art life in New York might be a very dreary thing and one
might go a long time without finding just the particular crowd with
which to associate.

Beside the painting world there was the illustrating world, made
up of beginners and those who had established themselves firmly in
editorial favor. These were not necessarily a part of the painting
or sculpture worlds and yet, in spirit, were allied to them, had
their clubs also, and their studios were in the various
neighborhoods where the painters and sculptors were. The only
difference was that in the case of the embryo illustrators they
were to be found living three or four in one studio, partly because
of the saving in expense, but also because of the love of
companionship and because they could hearten and correct one
another in their work. A number of such interesting groups were in
existence when Eugene arrived, but of course he did not know of
them.

It takes time for the beginner to get a hearing anywhere. We all
have to serve an apprenticeship, whatever field we enter. Eugene
had talent and determination, but no experience, no savoir faire,
no circle of friends and acquaintances. The whole city was strange
and cold, and if he had not immediately fallen desperately in love
with it as a spectacle he would have been unconscionably lonely and
unhappy. As it was the great fresh squares, such as Washington,
Union and Madison; the great streets, such as Broadway, Fifth
Avenue and Sixth Avenue; the great spectacles, such as the Bowery
at night, the East River, the water front, the Battery, all
fascinated him with an unchanging glamor.

He was hypnotized by the wonder of this thing—the beauty of it.
Such seething masses of people! such whirlpools of life! The great
hotels, the opera, the theatres, the restaurants, all gripped him
with a sense of beauty. These lovely women in magnificent gowns;
these swarms of cabs, with golden eyes, like monstrous insects;
this ebb and surge of life at morning and evening, made him forget
his loneliness. He had no money to spend, no immediate hope of a
successful career, he could walk these streets, look in these
windows, admire these beautiful women; thrill at the daily
newspaper announcements of almost hourly successes in one field or
another. Here and there in the news an author had made a great
success with a book; a scientist with a discovery; a philosopher
with a new theory; a financier with an investment. There was news
of great plays being put on; great actors and actresses coming from
abroad; great successes being made by débutantes in society; great
movements forwarded generally. Youth and ambition had the call—he
saw that. It was only a question of time, if you had talent, when
you would get your hearing. He longed ardently for his but he had
no feeling that it was coming to him quickly, so he got the blues.
It was a long road to travel.

One of his pet diversions these days and nights was to walk the
streets in rain or fog or snow. The city appealed to him, wet or
white, particularly the public squares. He saw Fifth Avenue once in
a driving snowstorm and under sputtering arc lights, and he hurried
to his easel next morning to see if he could not put it down in
black and white. It was unsuccessful, or at least he felt so, for
after an hour of trying he threw it aside in disgust. But these
spectacles were drawing him. He was wanting to do them—wanting to
see them shown somewhere in color. Possible success was a solace at
a time when all he could pay for a meal was fifteen cents and he
had no place to go and not a soul with whom to talk.

It was an interesting phase of Eugene's character that he had a
passion for financial independence. He might have written home from
Chicago at times when he was hard pressed; he might have borrowed
some money from his father now, but preferred to earn it—to appear
to be further along than he was. If anyone had asked him he would
have said he was doing fine. Practically he so wrote to Angela,
giving as an excuse for further delay that he wanted to wait until
he had ample means. He was trying all this time to make his two
hundred dollars go as far as possible and to add to it by any
little commissions he could get, however small. He figured his
expenses down to ten dollars a week and managed to stay within that
sum.

The particular building in which he had settled was really not a
studio building but an old, run-down boarding and apartment house
turned partially to uses of trade. The top floor contained three
fair sized rooms and two hall bedrooms, all occupied by lonely
individuals plying some craft or other. Eugene's next door neighbor
chanced to be a hack illustrator, who had had his training in
Boston and had set up his easel here in the hope of making a
living. There were not many exchanges of courtesies between them at
first, although, the door being open the second day he arrived, he
saw that an artist worked there, for the easel was visible.

No models applying at first he decided to appeal to the Art
Students' League. He called on the Secretary and was given the
names of four, who replied to postal cards from him. One he
selected, a young Swedish American girl who looked somewhat like
the character in the story he had in mind. She was neat and
attractive, with dark hair, a straight nose and pointed chin, and
Eugene immediately conceived a liking for her. He was ashamed of
his surroundings, however, and consequently diffident. This
particular model was properly distant, and he finished his pictures
with as much expedition and as little expense as he possibly
could.

Eugene was not given to scraping odd acquaintances, though he
made friends fast enough when the balance of intellect was right.
In Chicago he had become friendly with several young artists as a
result of working with them at the Institute, but here he knew no
one, having come without introductions. He did become acquainted
with his neighbor, Philip Shotmeyer. He wanted to find out about
local art life from him, but Shotmeyer was not brilliant, and could
not supply him with more than minor details of what Eugene desired
to know. Through him he learnt a little of studio regions, art
personalities; the fact that young beginners worked in groups.
Shotmeyer had been in such a group the year before, though why he
was alone now he did not say. He sold drawings to some of the minor
magazines, better magazines than Eugene had yet had dealings with.
One thing he did at once for Eugene which was very helpful: he
admired his work. He saw, as had others before him, something of
his peculiar distinction as an artist, attended every show and one
day he gave him a suggestion which was the beginning of Eugene's
successful magazine career. Eugene was working on one of his street
scenes—a task which he invariably essayed when he had nothing else
to do. Shotmeyer had drifted in and was following the strokes of
his brush as he attempted to portray a mass of East Side working
girls flooding the streets after six o'clock. There were dark walls
of buildings, a flaring gas lamp or two, some yellow lighted shop
windows, and many shaded, half seen faces—bare suggestions of souls
and pulsing life.

"Say," said Shotmeyer at one point, "that kind o' looks like the
real thing to me. I've seen a crowd like that."

"Have you?" replied Eugene.

"You ought to be able to get some magazine to use that as a
frontispiece. Why don't you try
Truth
with that?"

"Truth" was a weekly which Eugene, along with many others in the
West, had admired greatly because it ran a double page color insert
every week and occasionally used scenes of this character. Somehow
he always needed a shove of this kind to make him act when he was
drifting. He put more enthusiasm into his work because of
Shotmeyer's remark, and when it was done decided to carry it to the
office of
Truth
. The Art Director approved it on sight,
though he said nothing, but carried it in to the Editor.

"Here's a thing that I consider a find in its way."

He set it proudly upon the editorial desk.

"Say," said the Editor, laying down a manuscript, "that's the
real thing, isn't it? Who did that?"

"A young fellow by the name of Witla, who has just blown in
here. He looks like the real thing to me."

"Say," went on the Editor, "look at the suggestion of faces back
there! What? Reminds me just a little of the masses in Doré
stuff—It's good, isn't it?"

"It's fine," echoed the Art Director. "I think he's a comer, if
nothing happens to him. We ought to get a few centre pages out of
him."

"How much does he want for this?"

"Oh, he doesn't know. He'll take almost anything. I'll give him
seventy-five dollars."

"That's all right," said the Editor as the Art Director took the
drawing down. "There's something new there. You ought to hang on to
him."

"I will," replied his associate. "He's young yet. He doesn't
want to be encouraged too much."

He went out, pulling a solemn countenance.

"I like this fairly well," he said. "We may be able to find room
for it. I'll send you a check shortly if you'll let me have your
address."

Eugene gave it. His heart was beating a gay tattoo in his chest.
He did not think anything of price, in fact it did not occur to
him. All that was in his mind was the picture as a double page
spread. So he had really sold one after all and to
Truth
!
Now he could honestly say he had made some progress. Now he could
write Angela and tell her. He could send her copies when it came
out. He could really have something to point to after this and best
of all, now he knew he could do street scenes.

He went out into the street treading not the grey stone pavement
but air. He threw back his head and breathed deep. He thought of
other scenes like this which he could do. His dreams were beginning
to be realized—he, Eugene Witla, the painter of a double page
spread in
Truth
! Already he was doing a whole series in
his imagination, all he had ever dreamed of. He wanted to run and
tell Shotmeyer—to buy him a good meal. He almost loved him,
commonplace hack that he was—because he had suggested to him the
right thing to do.

"Say, Shotmeyer," he said, sticking his head in that worthy's
door, "you and I eat tonight.
Truth
took that
drawing."

"Isn't that fine," said his floor-mate, without a trace of envy.
"Well, I'm glad. I thought they'd like it."

Eugene could have cried. Poor Shotmeyer! He wasn't a good
artist, but he had a good heart. He would never forget him.

This one significant sale with its subsequent check of
seventy-five dollars and later the appearance of the picture in
color, gave Eugene such a lift in spirit that he felt, for the time
being, as though his art career had reached a substantial basis,
and he began to think of going to Blackwood to visit Angela. But
first he must do some more work.

He concentrated his attention on several additional scenes,
doing a view of Greeley Square in a sopping drizzle, and a picture
of an L train speeding up the Bowery on its high, thin trestle of
steel. He had an eye for contrasts, picking out lights and shadows
sharply, making wonderful blurs that were like colors in precious
stones, confused and suggestive. He took one of these after a month
to
Truth
, and again the Art Director was his victim. He
tried to be indifferent, but it was hard. The young man had
something that he wanted.

"You might show me anything else you do in this line," he said.
"I can use a few if they come up to these two."

Eugene went away with his head in the air. He was beginning to
get the courage of his ability.

It takes quite a number of drawings at seventy-five and one
hundred dollars each to make a living income, and artists were too
numerous to make anyone's opportunity for immediate distinction
easy. Eugene waited months to see his first drawing come out. He
stayed away from the smaller magazines in the hope that he would
soon be able to contribute to the larger ones, but they were not
eagerly seeking new artists. He met, through Shotmeyer, two artists
who were living in one studio in Waverly Place and took a great
liking to them. One of them, McHugh, was an importation from
Wyoming with delicious stories of mountain farming and mining; the
other, Smite, was a fisher lad from Nova Scotia. McHugh, tall and
lean, with a face that looked like that of a raw yokel, but with
some gleam of humor and insight in the eyes which redeemed it
instantly, was Eugene's first choice of a pleasing, genial
personality. Joseph Smite had a sense of the sea about him. He was
short and stout, and rather solidly put together, like a
blacksmith. He had big hands and feet, a big mouth, big, bony eye
sockets and coarse brown hair. When he talked, ordinarily, it was
with a slow, halting air and when he smiled or laughed it was with
his whole face. When he became excited or gay something seemed to
happen distinctly to every part of his body. His face became a
curious cross-hatch of genial lines. His tongue loosened and he
talked fast. He had a habit of emphasizing his language with oaths
on these occasions—numerous and picturesque, for he had worked with
sea-faring men and had accumulated a vast vocabulary of picturesque
expressions. They were vacant of evil intent so far as he was
concerned, for there was no subtlety or guile in him. He was kindly
and genial all through. Eugene wanted to be friendly and struck a
gay relationship with these two. He found that he got along
excellently well with them and could swap humorous incidents and
character touches by the hour. It was some months before he could
actually say that he was intimate with them, but he began to visit
them regularly and after a time they called on him.

It was during this year that he came to know several models
passingly well, to visit the various art exhibitions, to be taken
up by Hudson Dula, the Art Director of
Truth
and invited
to two or three small dinners given to artists and girls. He did
not find anyone he liked exceptionally well barring one Editor of a
rather hopeless magazine called
Craft
, devoted to art
subjects, a young blond, of poetic temperament, who saw in him a
spirit of beauty and tried to make friends with him. Eugene
responded cheerfully and thereafter Richard Wheeler was a visitor
at his studio from time to time. He was not making enough to house
himself much better these days, but he did manage to buy a few
plaster casts and to pick up a few nice things in copper and brass
for his studio. His own drawings, his street scenes, were hung here
and there. The way in which the exceptionally clever looked at them
convinced him by degrees that he had something big to say.

It was while he was settling himself in this atmosphere—the
spring of the second year—that he decided to go back and visit
Angela and incidentally Alexandria and Chicago. He had been away
now sixteen months, had not seen anyone who had won his affections
or alienated him from his love of Angela. He wrote in March that he
thought he would be coming in May or June. He did get away in
July—a season when the city was suffering from a wave of intense
heat. He had not done so much—illustrated eight or ten stories and
drawn four double page pictures for
Truth
, one of which
had appeared; but he was getting along. Just as he was starting for
Chicago and Blackwood a second one was put on the news-stand and he
proudly carried a copy of it with him on the train. It was the
Bowery by night, with the L train rushing overhead and, as
reproduced, it had color and life. He felt intensely proud and knew
that Angela would also. She had written him such a glowing
appreciation of the East Side picture called "Six O'clock."

As he rode he dreamed.

He reached it at last, the long stretch between New York and
Chicago traversed; he arrived in the Lake city in the afternoon,
and without pausing to revisit the scenes of his earlier efforts
took a five o'clock train for Blackwood. It was sultry, and on the
way heavy thunder clouds gathered and broke in a short, splendid
summer rain. The trees and grass were thoroughly wet and the dust
of the roads was laid. There was a refreshing coolness about the
air which caressed the weary flesh. Little towns nestling among
green trees came into view and passed again, and at last Blackwood
appeared. It was smaller than Alexandria, but not so different.
Like the other it was marked by a church steeple, a saw mill, a
pretty brick business street and many broad branching green trees.
Eugene felt drawn to it at sight. It was such a place as Angela
should live in.

It was seven o'clock and nearing dusk when he arrived. He had
not given Angela the definite hour of his arrival and so decided to
stay over night at the little inn or so-called hotel which he saw
up the street. He had brought only a large suit case and a
traveling bag. He inquired of the proprietor the direction and
distance of the Blue house from the town, found that he could get a
vehicle any time in the morning which would take him over, as the
phrase ran, for a dollar. He ate his supper of fried steak and poor
coffee and fried potatoes and then sat out on the front porch
facing the street in a rocking chair, to see how the village of
Blackwood wagged and to enjoy the cool of the evening. As he sat he
thought of Angela's home and how nice it must be. This town was
such a little place—so quiet. There would not be another train
coming up from the city until after eleven.

After a time he rose and took a short walk, breathing the night
air. Later he came back and throwing wide the windows of the stuffy
room sat looking out. The summer night with its early rain, its wet
trees, its smell of lush, wet, growing things, was impressing
itself on Eugene as one might impress wet clay with a notable
design. Eugene's mood was soft toward the little houses with their
glowing windows, the occasional pedestrians with their "howdy
Jakes" and "evenin' Henrys." He was touched by the noise of the
crickets, the chirp of the tree toads, the hang of the lucent suns
and planets above the tree tops. The whole night was quick with the
richness of fertility, stirring subtly about some work which
concerned man very little or not at all, yet of which he was at
least a part, till his eyelids drooped after a time and he went to
bed to sleep deeply and dreamlessly.

Next morning he was up early, eager for the hour to arrive when
he might start. He did not think it advisable to leave before nine
o'clock, and attracted considerable attention by strolling about,
his tall, spare, graceful figure and forceful profile being an
unusual sight to the natives. At nine o'clock a respectable
carryall was placed at his disposal and he was driven out over a
long yellow road, damp with the rain of the night before and shaded
in places by overhanging trees. There were so many lovely wild
flowers growing in the angles of the rail fences—wild yellow and
pink roses, elder flower, Queen Anne's lace, dozens of beautiful
blooms, that Eugene was lost in admiration. His heart sang over the
beauty of yellowing wheatfields, the young corn, already three feet
high, the vistas of hay and clover, with patches of woods enclosing
them, and over all, house martens and swallows scudding after
insects and high up in the air his boyhood dream of beauty, a
soaring buzzard.

As he rode the moods of his boyhood days came back to him—his
love of winging butterflies and birds; his passion for the voice of
the wood-dove (there was one crying in the still distance now)—his
adoration for the virile strength of the men of the countryside. He
thought as he rode that he would like to paint a series of country
scenes that would be as simple as those cottage dooryards that they
now and then passed; this little stream that cut the road at right
angles and made a drinking place for the horses; this skeleton of
an old abandoned home, doorless and windowless, where the roof
sagged and hollyhocks and morning glories grew high under the
eaves. "We city dwellers do not know," he sighed, as though he had
not taken the country in his heart and carried it to town as had
every other boy and girl who had gone the way of the
metropolis.

The Blue homestead was located in the centre of a rather wide
rolling stretch of country which lay between two gently rising
ridges of hill covered with trees. One corner of the farm, and that
not so very far from the house, was cut by a stream, a little
shallow thing, singing over pebbles and making willows and hazel
bushes to grow in profusion along its banks, and there was a little
lake within a mile of the house. In front of it was a ten acre
field of wheat, to the right of it a grazing patch of several
acres, to the left a field of clover; and near the house by a barn,
a well, a pig pen, a corn crib and some smaller sheds. In front of
the house was a long open lawn, down the centre of which ran a
gravel path, lined on either side by tall old elm trees. The
immediate dooryard was shut from this noble lawn by a low picket
fence along the length of which grew lilac bushes and inside which,
nearer the house, were simple beds of roses, calycanthus and golden
glow. Over an arbor leading from the backdoor to a rather distant
summer kitchen flourished a grapevine, and there was a tall remnant
of a tree trunk covered completely with a yellow blooming trumpet
vine. The dooryard's lawn was smooth enough, and the great lawn was
a dream of green grass, graced with the shadows of a few great
trees. The house was long and of no great depth, the front a series
of six rooms ranged in a row, without an upper storey. The two
middle rooms which had originally, perhaps seventy years before,
been all there was of the house. Since then all the other rooms had
been added, and there was in addition to these a lean-to containing
a winter kitchen and dining room, and to the west of the arbor
leading to the summer kitchen, an old unpainted frame storehouse.
In all its parts the place was shabby and run down but picturesque
and quaint.

Eugene was surprised to find the place so charming. It appealed
to him, the long, low front, with doors opening from the centre and
end rooms direct upon the grass, with windows set in climbing vines
and the lilac bushes forming a green wall between the house and the
main lawn. The great rows of elm trees throwing a grateful shade
seemed like sentinel files. As the carryall turned in at the wagon
gate in front he thought "What a place for love! and to think
Angela should live here."

The carryall rattled down the pebble road to the left of the
lawn and stopped at the garden gate. Marietta came out. Marietta
was twenty-two years old, and as gay and joyous as her elder sister
Angela was sober and in a way morbid. Light souled as a kitten,
looking always on the bright side of things, she made hosts of
friends everywhere she went, having a perfect swarm of lovers who
wrote her eager notes, but whom she rebuffed with good natured,
sympathetic simplicity. Here on this farm there was not supposed to
be so much opportunity for social life as in town, but beaux made
their way here on one pretext and another. Marietta was the magnet,
and in the world of gaiety which she created Angela shared.

Angela was now in the dining room—easy to be called—but Marietta
wanted to see for herself what sort of lover her sister had
captured. She was surprised at his height, his presence, the
keenness of his eyes. She hardly understood so fine a lover for her
own sister, but held out her hand smilingly.

"This is Mr. Witla, isn't it?" she asked.

"The same," he replied, a little pompously. "Isn't it a lovely
drive over here?"

"We think it nice in nice weather," she laughed. "You wouldn't
like it so much in winter. Won't you come in and put your grip here
in the hall? David will take it to your room."

Eugene obeyed, but he was thinking of Angela and when she would
appear and how she would look. He stepped into the large, low
ceiled, dark, cool parlor and was delighted to see a piano and some
music piled on a rack. Through an open window he saw several
hammocks out on the main lawn, under the trees. It seemed a
wonderful place to him, the substance of poetry—and then Angela
appeared. She was dressed in plain white linen. Her hair, braided
as he liked it in a great rope, lay as a band across her forehead.
She had picked a big pink rose and put it in her waist. At sight of
her Eugene held out his arms and she flew to them. He kissed her
vigorously, for Marietta had discreetly retired and they were left
alone.