But we are now speaking of art, while we should have more to say (for it
concerns us more) of the character of the young woman who was destined
to figure in a stranger way than in making beautiful figures on silk.
Mysie was one of a class: few in number they are indeed, but on that
account more to be prized. Her taste and fine manipulations were but
counterparts of qualities of the heart--an organ to which the pale face,
with its delicate lines and the clear liquid eyes, was a suitable index.
The refinement which enabled her to make her imitation of beautiful
objects on the delicate material of her work was only another form of a
sensibility which pervaded her whole nature--that gift which is only
conceded to peculiar organizations, and is such a doubtful one, too, if
we go, as we cannot help doing, with the poet, when he sings that
"chords that vibrate sweetest pleasures," often also "thrill the deepest
notes of woe." Nay, we might say that the creatures themselves seem to
fear the gift, for they shrink from the touch of the rough world, and
retire within themselves as if to avoid it, while they are only courting
its effects in the play of an imagination much too ardent for the duties
of life; and, as a consequence, how they seek secretly the support of
stronger natures, clinging to them as do those strange plants called
parasites, which, with their tender arms and something so like fingers,
cling to the nearest stem of a stouter neighbour, and embracing it, even
though hollow and rotten, cover it, and choke it with a flood of
flowers.
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