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From one chair to another, from chair number two to the shelf of the old bookcase which filled the middle space of the wall; from the bookcase, with a leap and a bound, on to the oak chest in which were stored drawing-books and copies; from the chest to another chair, and thence with a whoop and wildly waving hands to the end of an ordinary wooden form.
Why was this charming fair one, whose graces were of an irregular pattern whose nose has a heavenward inclination who pretends to no strictness of beauty, according to absurd rules laid down in drawing-books why is she brought into such fatal juxtaposition with this other severe and classical-looking and statuesque lady! To be merely a foil? Much obliged, Mr. Sherwin!
"Yes, mother," answered Jimmy, who was deep in a picture which he was copying from one of the drawing-books Paul had bought him. "Where are you going mother?" "To carry back some work, Jimmy. I have got half-a-dozen shirts done, and must return them, and ask for more." "They ought to pay you more than twenty-five cents apiece, mother. How long has it taken you to make them?" "Nearly a week."
"If you'll go to your room, my darling, and do as I tell you, I'll keep your secret, and help you with your tree," said her mother. "Don't cry, my child, don't cry; it's so bad for your throat. I think I can find you some beads to make a necklace for Darling, and three pencils for the boys, and some paper which you can cut up into drawing-books for them."
This was at about twelve years old, as the dates of these drawings show, and, therefore, three or four years before she came among us. Soon after this time, the ideal figures began to take the place of portraits and caricatures, and a new feature appeared in her drawing-books in the form of fragments of verse and short poems.
In the afternoon her throat grew rapidly worse. She had begged almost impatiently that Darling would not leave the Christmas preparations to sit with her, and as talking was bad for her, and as she had secret preparations to make on her own account, her mother had supported her wish to be left alone. But when it grew dusk, and the drawing-books were finished, Madam Liberality felt lonely.
Laughing at our own thoughtlessness, we returned to the house, and leaving Emily without, I ran upstairs to procure the drawing-books and pencils, which lay in my bedroom. As I ran up the stairs I was met by the tall, ill-looking Frenchwoman, evidently a good deal flurried. 'Que veut, madame? said she, with a more decided effort to be polite than I had ever known her make before.
In every picture, there are, of course, white mantles, white urns, white columns, white statues those oblige accomplishments of the sublime. There are the endless straight noses, long eyes, round chins, short upper lips, just as they are ruled down for you in the drawing-books, as if the latter were the revelations of beauty, issued by supreme authority, from which there was no appeal?
How many drawing-books have you filled, I said, since you began to take lessons? This was the first, she answered, since she was here; and it was not full, but there were many separate sheets of large size she had covered with drawings. I turned over the leaves of the book before us. Academic studies, principally of the human figure. Heads of sibyls, prophets, and so forth. Limbs from statues.
Here he kept all the documents relating to him ever since he had been a boy: here were his prize copy-books and drawing-books, all bearing George's hand, and that of the master: here were his first letters in large round-hand sending his love to papa and mamma, and conveying his petitions for a cake. His dear godpapa Sedley was more than once mentioned in them.
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