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In the early morning, when the air is clear and bright, Marion took fresh courage, and clothed herself with new faith and hope. Above all, she worked: that soul is never quite unhappy which can take a healthy pleasure in work for its own sake. Marion was, for the first time, after four years of copying, engaged upon an original picture. She was ambitious, as

She did not yet fully

most young painters are. understand that a work of art must be a copy of Nature itself, and not a reminiscence or a reflection; and her picture had the fault of being drawn from the inspiration of other masters. There are plenty of such pictures in every Royal Academy-you find a familiar touch here, and another there; you are reminded of one master here, and another there. Nature is at second. hand-the light hardly fits the season; the flowers do not fit with each other; the primrose and the nightshade are painted blossoming side by side; and yet, for some subtle grace and secret charm of their own, the pictures are bought and loved. It was so with Marion. She had chosen an Italian subject, who had never been in Italy; she had put in Italian flowers,

CHAPTER V.

HE April mornings are sunlit at six, even in the heart of London, and there is a fine painting light for

those who are able to get up for it.

The early morning was Marion's time of peace and quiet labour; she would be alone. How great a blessing it is to be alone for an hour or two in the day can only, I suppose, be appreciated by women who live together. It is one of the many evils of poverty that the poor have no solitude possible. As the social ladder descends, the necessity of a life in common becomes more marked. The suburban villa has its three sitting-rooms for a family of half a dozen; but the ladies of the "lower middle class" have to sleep, eat, read, work, and play in the same room.

In the early morning, when the air is clear and bright, Marion took fresh courage, and clothed herself with new faith and hope. Above all, she worked: that soul is never quite unhappy which can take a healthy pleasure in work for its own sake. Marion was, for the first time, after four years of copying, engaged upon an original picture. She was ambitious, as

She did not yet fully

most young painters are. understand that a work of art must be a copy of Nature itself, and not a reminiscence or a reflection; and her picture had the fault of being drawn from the inspiration of other masters. There are plenty of such pictures in every Royal Academy-you find a familiar touch here, and another there; you are reminded of one master here, and another there. Nature is at second hand-the light hardly fits the season; the flowers do not fit with each other; the primrose and the nightshade are painted blossoming side by side; and yet, for some subtle grace and secret charm of their own, the pictures are bought and loved. It was so with Marion. She had chosen an Italian subject, who had never been in Italy; she had put in Italian flowers,

who knew not an Italian summer; country figures, who had never seen a contadina; an Italian sky, who had never been out of England; a dress which was never worn under the canopy of heaven; a light which never shone on earth or ocean; and yet, for one redeeming touch it had, the picture was warm with life and feeling. She had taken a scene from Browning's "Pippa passes," a poem which—if its author had only for once been able to wed melodious verse to the the sweetest poetical thought; if he had only tried, just for once, to write lines which should not make the cheeks of those that read them to ache, the front teeth of those who declaim them to splinter and fly, the ears of those that hear them to crack-would have been a thing to rest himself upon for ever, and receive the applause of the world. To the gods it seemed otherwise. Browning, who might have led us like Hamelin the piper, has chosen the worse part. He will be so deeply wise that he cannot express his thought; he will be so full of profundities that he requires a million of lines to express them in; he will leave music and melody to Swinburne; he will leave grace

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