m classic
lore--historical subjects--subjects selected from our splendid
literature and what not; or, if we want modern subjects, we prefer
scenes chosen from a humble sphere, which is not that of those who can
afford to buy pictures--the toilers of the earth--the toilers of the
sea--pathetic scenes from the inexhaustible annals of the poor; or
else, again, landscapes and seascapes--things that bring a whiff of
nature into our feverish and artificial existence--that are in direct
contrast to it.

And even with these beautiful things, how often the charm wears away
with the novelty of possession! How often and how soon the lovely
picture, like its frame, becomes just as a piece of wall-furniture, in
which we take a pride, certainly, and which we should certainly miss
if it were taken away--but which we grow to look at with the pathetic
indifference of habit--if not, indeed, with aversion!

Chairs and tables minister to our physical comforts, and we cannot do
without them. But pictures have not this practical hold upon us; the
sense to which they appeal is not always on the alert; yet there they
are hanging on the wall, morning, noon, and night, unchanged,
unchangeable--the same arrested movement--the same expression of
face--the same seas and trees and moors and forests and rivers and
mountains--the very waves are as eternal as the hills!

Music will leave off when it is not wanted--at least it ought to! The
book is shut, the newspaper thrown aside. Not so the beautiful
picture; it is like a perennial nosegay, for ever exhaling its perfume
for noses that have long ceased to smell it!

But little pictures in black and white, of little every-day people
like ourselves, by some great little artist who knows life well and
has the means at his command to express his knowledge in this easy,
simple manner, can be taken up and thrown down like the book or
newspaper. They are even easier to read and understand. They are
within the reach of the meanest capacity, the humblest education, the
most slender purse. They come to us weekly, let us say, in cheap
periodicals. They are preserved and bound up in volumes, to be taken
down and looked at when so disposed. The child grows to love them
before he knows how to read; fifty years hence he will love them
still, if only for the pleasure they gave him as a child. He will soon
know them by heart, and yet go to them again and again; and if they
are good, he will always find new beautie