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A collector peeps into all the picture-shops of Europe for a landscape of Poussin, a crayon-sketch of Salvator; but the Transfiguration, the Last Judgment, the Communion of St.
He passed the picture-shops without noticing the treasures in the windows; the silver-ware and fanciful ornaments of the jewellers' establishments served only to remind him of the vanities of earth, and his own poverty; and as he looked upon the gaily-dressed crowd that was thronging Broadway, among which there was not one whose face was known to him, that painful sense of desolation which comes over one when he feels alone in a crowd, saddened him almost to tears.
He grew more mature by the severe discipline which, sanctified by the Spirit of grace, was purifying his soul; and he pursued the homely trade which at first he so disliked, and tried to conquer self by hurrying past the picture-shops, which were so great a source of attraction at first, and now regarded them as forbidden fruit.
It is amazing what a fascination the small picture-shops, to which at home we should never give a glance, afford us; even the frontispieces to popular music have unwonted attractions; while the pottery-shops, full of ware made from clay 'peculiar to the locality, are only too seductive to our wives, who purchase largely what they believe to be great bargains, till they find on their return home the identical articles in Oxford Street, at half the price.
Here, a young man, for his ten pounds, has all sorts of accessory instruction, models, &c.; and has further, and for nothing, numberless incitements to study his profession which are not to be found in England: the streets are filled with picture-shops, the people themselves are pictures walking about; the churches, theatres, eating-houses, concert-rooms are covered with pictures: Nature itself is inclined more kindly to him, for the sky is a thousand times more bright and beautiful, and the sun shines for the greater part of the year.
As he was made errand boy, he was obliged to be often in the streets; and then the pleasure he enjoyed in standing before the windows of the picture-shops, made him forget the tears which he so often shed under his master's caning, his mistress's continual fault-finding, and his meagre fare.
When last in Paris, we were in the midst of what was called a Catholic reaction. Artists talked of faith in poems and pictures; churches were built here and there; old missals were copied and purchased; and numberless portraits of saints, with as much gilding about them as ever was used in the fifteenth century, appeared in churches, ladies' boudoirs, and picture-shops.
Mary thought of the potato-pie and her brothers, and could almost have cried, as Jenny, heedless of her sister's entreaties, would linger at the picture-shops. "I shall be obliged to go and leave you, Jenny! I must get dinner ready." "I don't care," said Jenny. "I don't want any dinner, and I can come home quite well by myself." Mary half longed to give her a fright, it was so provoking.
"Agnes, do not sit so crooked at your writing; it is ruinous to your health. Be careful to spell every word properly; for those who do not learn to spell well while they are young, can never acquire a correct knowledge of it." Our little shoemaker stood looking through the window with a pleasure nearly allied to that which had once enchained him before the picture-shops.
Need I say that all the picture-shops of the University promptly displayed a fancy portrait of the newly fledged minister clad in what Artemus Ward called "the scandalous style of the Greek slave," and bearing the unkind inscription "The Rev. X.Y.Z. distinguishing himself from his fellow-Christians"? If a comma too much brought ruin into Mr.
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