Lives of Girls Who Became Famous Part 14

She also needs this mannish costume, for her long journeys over the Pyrenees into Spain or in the Scottish Highlands. She is always accompanied by her most intimate friend, Mademoiselle Micas, herself an artist of repute, whose mother, a widow, superintends the home for the two devoted friends.

Sometimes in the Pyrenees these two ladies see no one for six weeks but muleteers with their mules. The people in these lonely mountain pa.s.ses live entirely upon the curdled milk of sheep. Once Rosa Bonheur and her friend were nearly starving, when Mademoiselle Micas obtained a quant.i.ty of frogs, and covering the hind legs with leaves, roasted them over a fire. On these they lived for two days.

In Scotland she painted her exquisite "Denizens of the Mountains,"

"Morning in the Highlands," and "Crossing a Loch in the Highlands." In England she was treated like a princess. Sir Edwin Landseer, whom some persons thought she would marry, is reported to have said, when he first looked upon her "Horse Fair," "It surpa.s.ses me, though it's a little hard to be beaten by a woman." On her return to France she brought a skye-terrier, named "Wasp," of which she is very fond, and for which she has learned several English phrases. When she speaks to him in English, he wags his tail most appreciatively.

Rosa Bonheur stands at the head of her profession, an acknowledged master. Her pictures bring enormous sums, and have brought her wealth.

A "View in the Pyrenees" has been sold for ten thousand dollars, and some others for twice that sum.

She gives away much of her income. She has been known to send to the _Mont de Piete_ her gold medals to raise funds to a.s.sist poor artists.

A woman artist, who had been refused help by several wealthy painters, applied to Rosa Bonheur, who at once took down from the wall a small but valuable painting, and gave it to her, from which she received a goodly sum. A young sculptor who greatly admired her work, enclosed twenty dollars, asking her for a small drawing, and saying that this was all the money he possessed. She immediately sent him a sketch worth at least two hundred dollars. She has always provided most generously for her family, and for servants who have grown old in her employ.

She dresses very simply, always wearing black, brown, or gray, with a close fitting jacket over a plain skirt. When she accepts a social invitation, which is very rare, she adorns her dress with a lace collar, but without other ornament. Her working dress is usually a long gray linen or blue flannel blouse, reaching nearly from head to foot. She has learned that the conventional tight dress of women is not conducive to great mental or physical power. She is small in stature, with dainty hands and feet, blue eyes, and a n.o.ble and intelligent face.

She is an indefatigable worker, rising usually at six in the morning, and painting throughout the day.

So busy is she that she seldom permits herself any amus.e.m.e.nts. On one occasion she had tickets sent her for the theatre. She worked till the carriage was announced. "_Je suis prete_," said Rosa, and went to the play in her working dress. A daintily gloved man in the box next to hers looked over in disdain, and finally went into the vestibule and found the manager.

"Who is this woman in the box next to mine?" he said, in a rage.

"She's in an old calico dress, covered with paint and oil. The odor is terrible. Turn her out. If you do not, I will never enter your theatre again."

The manager went to the box, and returning, informed him that it was the great painter.

"Rosa Bonheur!" he gasped. "Who'd have thought it? Make my apology to her. I dare not enter her presence again."

She usually walks at the twilight, often thinking out new subjects for her brush, at that quiet hour. She said to a friend: "I have been a faithful student since I was ten years old. I have copied no master. I have studied Nature, and expressed to the best of my ability the ideas and feelings with which she has inspired me. Art is an absorbent--a tyrant. It demands heart, brain, soul, body, the entireness of the votary. Nothing less will win its highest favor. I wed art. It is my husband, my world, my life-dream, the air I breathe. I know nothing else, feel nothing else, think nothing else, My soul finds in it the most complete satisfaction.... I have no taste for general society,--no interest in its frivolities. I only seek to be known through my works. If the world feel and understand them, I have succeeded.... If I had got up a convention to debate the question of my ability to paint '_Marche au Chevaux_' [The Horse Fair], for which England paid me forty thousand francs, the decision would have been against me. I felt the power within me to paint; I cultivated it, and have produced works that have won the favorable verdicts of the great judges. I have no patience with women who ask _permission to think_!"

For years she lived in Rue d'a.s.sas, a retired street half made up of gardens. Here she had one of the most beautiful studios of Paris, the room lighted from the ceiling, the walls covered with paintings, with here and there old armor, tapestry, hats, cloaks, sandals, and skins of tigers, leopards, foxes, and oxen on the floor. One Friday, the day on which she received guests, one of her friends, coming earlier than usual, found her fast asleep on her favorite skin, that of a magnificent ox, with stuffed head and spreading horns. She had come in tired from the School of Design, and had thrown herself down to rest.

Usually after greeting her friends she would say, "Allow me to resume my brush; we can talk just as well together." For those who have any great work to do in this worlds there is little time for visiting; interruptions cannot be permitted. No wonder Carlyle groaned when some person had taken two hours of his time. He could better have spared money to the visitor.

For several years Rosa Bonheur has lived near Fontainebleau, in the Chateau By. Henry Bacon says: "The chateau dates from the time of Louis XV., and the garden is still laid out in the style of Le Notre.

Since it has been in the present proprietor's possession, a quaint, picturesque brick building, containing the carriage house and coachman's lodge on the first floor, and the studio on the second, has been added; the roof of the main building has been raised, and the chapel changed into an orangery: beside the main carriage-entrance, which is closed by iron gates and wooden blinds, is a postern gate, with a small grated opening, like those found in convents. The blinds to the gate and the slide to the grating are generally closed, and the only communication with the outside world is by the bell-wire, terminating in a ring beside the gate. Ring, and the jingle of the bell is at once echoed by the barking of numerous dogs,--the hounds and ba.s.sets in chorus, the grand Saint Bernard in slow measure, like the ba.s.s-drum in an orchestra. After the first excitement among the dogs has begun to abate, a remarkably small house-pet that has been somewhere in the interior arrives upon the scene, and with his sharp, shrill voice again starts and leads the canine chorus. By this time the eagle in his cage has awakened, and the parrot, whose cage is built into the corner of the studio looking upon the street, adds to the racket.

"Behind the house is a large park divided from the forest by a high wall; a lawn and flower-beds are laid out near the buildings; and on the lawn, in pleasant weather, graze a magnificent bull and cow, which are kept as models. In a wire enclosure are two chamois from the Pyrenees, and further removed from the house, in the wooded part of the park, are enclosures for sheep and deer, each of which knows its mistress. Even the stag, bearing its six-branched antlers, receives her caresses like a pet dog. At the end of one of the linden avenues is a splendid bronze, by Isadore Bonheur, of a Gaul attacking a lion.

"The studio is very large, with a huge chimney at one end, the supports of which are life-size dogs, modeled by Isadore Bonheur.

Portraits of the father and mother in oval frames hang at each side, and a pair of gigantic horns ornaments the centre. The room is decorated with stuffed heads of animals of various kinds,--boars, bears, wolves, and oxen; and birds perch in every convenient place."

When Prussia conquered France, and swept through this town, orders were given that Rosa Bonheur's home and paintings be carefully preserved. Even her servants went unmolested. The peasants idolized the great woman who lived in the chateau, and were eager to serve her.

She always talked to them pleasantly. Rosa Bonheur died at her home at 11 P.M., Thursday, May 25, 1899.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Rome. February. 1859]

Ever since I had received in my girlhood, from my best friend, the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in five volumes in blue and gold, I had read and re-read the pages, till I knew scores by heart. I had longed to see the face and home of her whom the English call "Shakespeare's daughter," and whom Edmund Clarence Stedman names "the pa.s.sion-flower of the century."

I shall never forget that beautiful July morning spent in the Browning home in London. The poet-wife had gone out from it, and lay buried in Florence, but here were her books and her pictures. Here was a marble bust, the hair cl.u.s.tering about the face, and a smile on the lips that showed happiness. Near by was another bust of the idolized only child, of whom she wrote in _Casa Guidi Windows_:--

"The sun strikes through the windows, up the floor: Stand out in it, my own young Florentine, Not two years old, and let me see thee more!

It grows along thy amber curls to shine Brighter than elsewhere. Now look straight before And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine, And from thy soul, which fronts the future so With unabashed and unabated gaze, Teach me to hope for what the Angels know When they smile clear as thou dost!"

Here was the breakfast-table at which they three had often sat together. Close beside it hung a picture of the room in Florence, where she lived so many years in a wedded bliss as perfect as any known in history. Tears gathered in the eyes of Robert Browning, as he pointed out her chair, and sofa, and writing-table.

Of this room in Casa Guidi, Kate Field wrote in the _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1861: "They who have been so favored can never forget the square ante-room, with its great picture and piano-forte, at which the boy Browning pa.s.sed many an hour; the little dining room covered with tapestry, and where hung medallions of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Robert Browning; the long room filled with plaster casts and studies, which was Mr. Browning's retreat; and, dearest of all, the large drawing-room, where _she_ always sat. It opens upon a balcony filled with plants, and looks out upon the old iron-gray church of Santa Felice. There was something about this room that seemed to make it a proper and especial haunt for poets. The dark shadows and subdued light gave it a dreamy look, which was enhanced by the tapestry-covered walls, and the old pictures of saints that looked out sadly from their carved frames of black wood. Large bookcases, constructed of specimens of Florentine carving selected by Mr.

Browning, were br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with wise-looking books. Tables were covered with more gayly bound volumes, the gifts of brother authors.

Dante's grave profile, a cast of Keats' face and brow taken after death, a pen-and-ink sketch of Tennyson, the genial face of John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning's good friend and relative, little paintings of the boy Browning, all attracted the eye in turn, and gave rise to a thousand musings. But the glory of all, and that which sanctified all, was seated in a low armchair near the door. A small table, strewn with writing materials, books and newspapers, was always by her side."

Then Mr. Browning, in the London home, showed us the room where he writes, containing his library and hers. The books are on simple shelves, choice, and many very old and rare. Here are her books, many in Greek and Hebrew. In the Greek, I saw her notes on the margin in Hebrew, and in the Hebrew she had written her marginal notes in Greek.

Here also are the five volumes of her writings, in blue and gold.

The small table at which she wrote still stands beside the larger where her husband composes. His table is covered with letters and papers and books; hers stands there unused, because it is a constant reminder of those companionable years, when they worked together.

Close by hangs a picture of the "young Florentine," Robert Barrett Browning, now grown to manhood, an artist already famed. He has a refined face, as he sits in artist garb, before his easel, sketching in a peasant's house. The beloved poet who wrote at the little table, is endeared to all the world. Born in 1809, in the county of Durham, the daughter of wealthy parents, she pa.s.sed her early years partly in the country in Herefordshire, and partly in the city. That she loved the country with its wild flowers and woods, her poem, _The Lost Bower_, plainly shows.

"Green the land is where my daily Steps in jocund childhood played, Dimpled close with hill and valley, Dappled very close with shade; Summer-snow of apple-blossoms running up from glade to glade.

"But the wood, all close and clenching Bough in bough and root in root,-- No more sky (for overbranching) At your head than at your foot,-- Oh, the wood drew me within it, by a glamour past dispute.

"But my childish heart beat stronger Than those thickets dared to grow: _I_ could pierce them! I could longer Travel on, methought, than so.

Sheep for sheep-paths! braver children climb and creep where they would go.

"Tall the linden-tree, and near it An old hawthorne also grew; And wood-ivy like a spirit Hovered dimly round the two, Shaping thence that bower of beauty which I sing of thus to you.

"And the ivy veined and glossy Was enwrought with eglantine; And the wild hop fibred closely, And the large-leaved columbine, Arch of door and window mullion, did right sylvanly entwine.

"I have lost--oh, many a pleasure, Many a hope, and many a power-- Studious health, and merry leisure, The first dew on the first flower!

But the first of all my losses was the losing of the bower.

"Is the bower lost then? Who sayeth That the bower indeed is lost?

Hark! my spirit in it prayeth Through the sunshine and the frost,-- And the prayer preserves it greenly, to the last and uttermost.

"Till another open for me In G.o.d's Eden-land unknown, With an angel at the doorway, White with gazing at His throne, And a saint's voice in the palm-trees, singing, 'All is lost ...

and _won_!'"

Elizabeth Barrett wrote poems at ten, and when seventeen, published an _Essay on Mind, and Other Poems_. The essay was after the manner of Pope, and though showing good knowledge of Plato and Bacon, did not find favor with the critics. It was dedicated to her father, who was proud of a daughter who preferred Latin and Greek to the novels of the day.

Her teacher was the blind Hugh Stuart Boyd, whom she praises in her _Wine of Cyprus_.