'Can you tell me,' said Uncle Bill Browne to Rocjean, with the air of a man about to ask a hard conundrum, 'why beards, long hair, and art, always go together?'
'Of course, art draws out beards along with talent; paints and bristles must go together; but high-art drives the hair of the head in, and clinches it. Among artists first and last there have been men with giant minds, and they have known it was their duty to show their mental power: the beard is the index.'
'But the beard points downward,' suggested Caper, 'and not upward.'
'That depends–'
'On pomade Hongroise—or beeswax,' interrupted Caper.
'Exactly; but let me answer Uncle Bill. To begin, we may safely assert that an artist's life—here in Rome, for instance—is about as independent a one as society will tolerate; its laws, as to shaving especially, he ignores, and caring very little for the Rules of the Toilette, as duly published by the—bon ton journals, uses his razor for mending lead-pencils, and permits his beard to enjoy long vacation rambles. Again: those who first set the example of long beards, Leonardo da Vinci, for example, who painted his own portrait with a full beard a foot long, were men who moved from principle, and I have the belief that were Leonardo alive to-day, he would say:
"My son, and well-beloved Rocjean, zitto! and let ME talk. Know, then, that I did permit my beard luxuriant length—for a reason. Thou dost not know, but I do, that among the ancient Egyptians they worshiped in their deity the male and female principle combined; so the exponents of this belief, the Egyptian priests, endeavored in their attire to show a mingling of the male and female sex; they wore long garments like women, vergogna! they wore long hair, guai! and they SHAVED THEIR FACES! It pains me to say, that their indecent example is followed even to this day, by the priests of what should be a purer and better religion.
"Silenzio! I have not yet said my say. Among Eastern nations, their proverbs, and what is better, their customs, show a powerful protest against this impure old faith. You have seen the flowing beards of the Mohammedans, especially the Turks, and their short-shaved heads of hair, and you may have heard of their words of wisdom:
"'Long hair, little brain.'
"And that eloquent sentence:
"'Who has no beard has no authority.'
"They have other sayings, which I can not approve of; for instance:
"'Do not buy a red-haired person, do not sell one, either; if you have any in the house, drive them away.'
"I say I do not approve of this, for the majority of the English have red heads, and people who want to buy my pictures I never would drive out of my house, mai!"
'Come,' said Caper, 'Leonardo no longer speaks when there is a question of buying or selling. Assume the first person.'
'Another excellent reason for artists in Rome to wear beards is, that where their foreign names can not be pronounced, they are often called by the size, color, or shape, of this face-drapery. This is particularly the case in the Café Greco, where the waiters, who have to charge for coffee, etc., when the artist does not happen to have the change about him, are compelled to give him a name on their books, and in more than one instance, I know that they are called from their beards, I have a memorandum of these nicknames: I am called Barbone, or Big-bearded; and you, Caper, are down as Sbarbato Inglese, the Shaved Englishman.'
'Hm!' spoke Caper, 'I an't an Englishman, and I don't shave; my beard has to come yet.'
'What is my name?' asked Uncle Bill.
'Puga Sempre, or He Pays Always. A countryman of mine is called Baffi Rici, or Big Moustache; another one, Barbetta, Little Beard; another, Barbáccia, Shabby Beard; another, Barba Nera, Black Beard; and, of course, there is a Barba Rossa, or Red Beard. Some of the other names are funny enough, and would by no means please their owners. There is Zoppo Francese, the Lame Frenchman; Scapiglione, the Rowdy; Pappagallo, the Parrot; Milordo; Furioso; and one friend of ours is known, whenever he forgets to pay two baiocchi for his coffee, as San Pietro!'
'Well,' said Uncle Bill, 'I'll tell you why I thought you artists wore long beards: that when you were hard up, and couldn't buy brushes, you might have the material ready to make your own.'
'You're wrong, Uncle,' remarked Caper; 'when we can't buy them, we get trusted for them—that's our way of having a brush with the enemy.'
'That will do, Jim, that will do; say no more. None of the artists' beards here, can compare with one belonging to a buffalo-and-prairie painter who lives out in St. Louis—it is so long he ties the ends together and uses it for a boot-jack. Good-night, boys, good-night!'
A CALICO-PAINTER
Rocjean was finishing his after-dinnerical coffee and cigar, when looking up from Las Novedades, containing the latest news from Madrid, and in which he had just read en Roma es donde hay mas mendigos, Rome, is where most beggars are found; London, where most engineers, lost women, and rat-terriers, abound; Brussels, where women who smoke, are all round—looking up from this interesting reading, he saw opposite him a young man, whose acquaintance he knew at a glance, was worth making. Refinement, common-sense, and energy were to be read plainly in his face. When he left the café, Rocjean asked an artist, with long hair, who was fast smoking himself to the color of the descendants of Ham, if he knew the man?'
'No-o-oo, I believe he's some kind of a calico-painter.'
'What?'
'Oh! a feller that makes designs for a calico-mill.'
Not long afterward Rocjean was introduced to him, and found him, as first impressions taught him he would—a man well worth knowing. Ho was making a holiday-visit to Rome, his settled residence being in Paris, where his occupation was designer of patterns for a large calico-mill in the United States. A New-Yorker by birth, consequently more of a cosmopolitan than the provincial life of our other American cities will tolerate or can create in their children, Charles Gordon was every inch a man, and a bitter foe to every liar and thief. He was well informed, for he had, as a boy, been solidly instructed; he was polite, refined, for he had been well educated. His life was a story often told: mercantile parent, very wealthy; son sent to college; talent for art, developed at the expense of trigonometry and morning-prayers; mercantile parent fails, and falls from Fifth avenue to Brooklyn, preparatory to embarking for the land of those who have failed and fallen—wherever that is. Son wears long hair, and believes he looks like the painter who was killed by a baker's daughter, writes trashy verses about a man who was wronged, and went off and howled himself to a long repose, sick of this vale of tears, et cetera. Finally, in the midst of his despair, long hair, bad poetry and painting, an enterprising friend, who sees he has an eye for color, its harmonies and contrasts, raises him with a strong hand into the clear atmosphere of exertion for a useful and definite end—makes him a 'calico-painter.'
It was a great scandal for the Bohemians of art to find this calico-painter received every where in refined and intelligent society, while they, with all their airs, long hairs, and shares of impudence, could not enter—they, the creators of Medoras, Magdalens, Our Ladies of Lorette, Brigands' Brides, Madame not In, Captive Knights, Mandoline Players, Grecian Mothers, Love in Repose, Love in Sadness, Moonlight on the Waves, Last Tears, Resignation, Broken Lutes, Dutch Flutes, and other mock-sentimental-titled paintings.
'God save me from being a gazelle!' said the monkey.
'God save us from being utility calico-painters!' cried the high-minded, dirty cavaliers who were not cavaliers, as they once more rolled over in their smoke-house.
'In 1854,' said Gordon, one day, to Rocjean, after their acquaintance had ripened into friendship, 'I was indeed in sad circumstances, and was passing through a phase of life when bad tobacco, acting on an empty stomach, gave me a glimpse of the Land of the Grumblers. One long year, and all that was changed; then I woke up to reality and practical life in a 'Calico-Mill;' then I wrote the lines you have asked me about. Take them for what they are worth.
REDIVIVUS
MDCCCLVI
'He sat in a garret in Fifty-four,
To welcome Fifty-five.
'God knows,' said he, 'if another year
Will find this man alive.
I was born for love, I live in song,
Yet loveless and songless I'm passing along,
And the world?—Hurrah!
Great soul, sing on!
'He sat in the dark, in Fifty-four,
To welcome Fifty-five.
'God knows,' said he, 'if another year
I'll any better thrive.
I was born for light, I live in the sun,
Yet in, darkness, and sunless, I'm passing on,
And the world?—Hurrah!
Great soul, shine on!'
'He sat in the cold, in Fifty-four,
To welcome Fifty-five.
'God knows,' said he, 'I'm fond of fire,
From warmth great joy derive.
I was born warm-hearted, and oh! it's wrong
For them all to coldly pass along:
And the world?—Hurrah!
Great soul, burn on!'
'He sat in a home, in Fifty-five,
To welcome Fifty-six.
'Throw open the doors!' he cried aloud,
'To all whom Fortune kicks!
I was born for love, I was born for song,