ier of one of the masters and
take his time in doing the highest work.
But before the books were done, others came, with retainers in advance.
Then a larger work was begun, to illustrate the Crimean War, in five
hundred battle-scenes.
And so he worked--worked like a steam-engine--worked without ceasing. He
illustrated Shakespeare's "Tempest" as only Dore could; then came
Coleridge, Moore, Hood, Milton, Dante, Hugo, Gautier, and great plans
were being laid to illustrate the Bible.
The years were slipping past. His brothers had found snug places in the
army, and he and his mother lived together in affluence. Between them
there was an affection that was very loverlike. They were comrades in
everything--all his hopes, plans and ambitions were rehearsed to her. The
love that he might have bestowed on a wife was reserved for his mother,
and, fortunately, she had a mind strong enough to comprehend him.
In the corner of the large, sunny apartment that was set apart for his
mother's room, he partitioned off a little room for himself, where he
slept on an iron cot. He wished to be near her, so that each night he
could tell her of what he had done during the day, and each morning
rehearse his plans for the coming hours. By telling her, things shaped
themselves, and as he described the pictures he would draw, others came
to him.
The confessional seems a crying need of every human heart--we wish to
tell some one. And without this confessional, where one soul can outpour
to another that fully sympathizes and understands, marriage is a hollow,
whited mockery, full of dead men's bones.
There is a desire of the heart that makes us long to impart our joy to
another. Corot once caught the sunset on his canvas as the great orb
sank, a golden ball, behind the hills of Barbizon. He wished to show the
picture to some one--to tell some one, and looking around saw only a
cottage on the edge of the wood a quarter of a mile away, and thither he
ran, crying to the astonished farmer, "I've got it! I've got it!"
When Dore did a particularly good piece of work, in the first
intoxication of joy he would run home, kiss his mother on both cheeks,
and picking her up in his strong arms run with her about the rooms.
At other times he would play leap-frog over the chairs, vault over the
piano, and jump across the table. And this wild joy that comes after work
well done he knew for many years. In the evening, after a particularly
good day, h
|