Micro R&D 1/MicroRD-CD-ROM-Vol1-1994.iso/books/hawthorn/prophetc

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                                      1837
                                TWICE-TOLD TALES
                             THE PROPHETIC PICTURES
                             by Nathaniel Hawthorne

   BUT THIS PAINTER!" cried Walter Ludlow, with animation. "He not
only excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in
all other learning and science. He talks Hebrew with Dr. Mather, and
gives lectures in anatomy to Dr. Boylston. In a word, he will meet the
best instructed man among us on his own ground. Moreover, he is a
polished gentleman- a citizen of the world- yes, a true cosmopolite;
for he will speak like a native of each clime and country of the globe
except our own forests, whither he is now going. Nor is all this
what I most admire in him."
   "Indeed!" said Elinor, who had listened with a woman's interest
to the description of such a man. "Yet this is admirable enough."
   "Surely it is," replied her lover, "but far less so than his
natural gift of adapting himself to every variety of character,
insomuch that all men- and all women too, Elinor- shall find a
mirror of themselves in this wonderful painter. But the greatest
wonder is yet to be told."
   "Nay, if he have more wonderful attributes than these," said
Elinor, laughing, "Boston is a perilous abode for the poor
gentleman. Are you telling me of a painter or a wizard?"
   "In truth," answered he, that question might be asked much more
seriously than you suppose. They say that he paints not merely a man's
features, but his mind and heart. He catches the secret sentiments and
passions, and throws them upon the canvas, like sunshine- or
perhaps, in the portraits of dark-souled men, like a gleam of infernal
fire. It is an awful gift," added Walter, lowering his voice from
its tone of enthusiasm. "I shall be almost afraid to sit to him."
   "Walter, are you in earnest?" exclaimed Elinor.
   "For Heaven's sake, dearest Elinor, do not let him paint the look
which you now wear," said her lover, smiling, though rather perplexed.
"There: it is passing away now, but when you spoke you seemed
frightened to death, and very sad besides. What were you thinking of?"
   "Nothing, nothing," answered Elinor hastily. "You paint my face
with your own fantasies. Well, come for me tomorrow, and we will visit
this wonderful artist."
   But when the young man had departed, it cannot be denied that a
remarkable expression was again visible on the fair and youthful
face of his mistress. It was a sad and anxious look, little in
accordance with what should have been the feelings of a maiden on
the eve of wedlock. Yet Walter Ludlow was the chosen of her heart.
   "A look!" said Elinor to herself. "No wonder that it startled
him, if it expressed what I sometimes feel. I know, by my own
experience, how frightful a look may be. But it was all fancy. I
thought nothing of it at the time- I have seen nothing of it since-
I did but dream it."
   And she busied herself about the embroidery of a ruff, in which she
meant that her portrait should be taken.
   The painter, of whom they had been speaking, was not one of those
native artists who, at a later period than this, borrowed their colors
from the Indians, and manufactured their pencils of the furs of wild
beasts. Perhaps, if he could have revoked his life and prearranged his
destiny, he might have chosen to belong to that school without a
master, in the hope of being at least original, since there were no
works of art to imitate nor rules to follow. But he had been born
and educated in Europe. People said that he had studied the grandeur
or beauty of conception, and every touch of the master hand, in all
the most famous pictures, in cabinets and galleries, and on the
walls of churches, till there was nothing more for his powerful mind
to learn. Art could add nothing to its lessons, but Nature might. He
had therefore visited a world whither none of his professional
brethren had preceded him, to feast his eyes on visible images that
were noble and picturesque, yet had never been transferred to
canvas. America was too poor to afford other temptations to an
artist of eminence, though many of the colonial gentry, on the
painter's arrival, had expressed a wish to transmit their lineaments
to posterity by means of his skill. Whenever such proposals were made,
he fixed his piercing eyes on the applicant, and seemed to look him
through and through. If he beheld only a sleek and comfortable visage,
though there were a gold-laced coat to adorn the picture and golden
guineas to pay for it, he civilly rejected the task and the reward.
But if the face were the index of any thing uncommon, in thought,
sentiment, or experience; or if he met a beggar in the street, with
a white beard and a furrowed brow; or if sometimes a child happened to
look up and smile, he would exhaust all the art on them that he denied
to wealth.
   Pictorial skill being so rare in the colonies, the painter became
an object of general curiosity. If few or none could appreciate the
technical merit of his productions, yet there were points, in regard
to which the opinion of the crowd was as valuable as the refined
judgment of the amateur. He watched the effect that each picture
produced on such untutored beholders, and derived profit from their
remarks, while they would as soon have thought of instructing Nature
herself as him who seemed to rival her. Their admiration, it must be
owned, was tinctured with the prejudices of the age and country.
Some deemed it an offence against the Mosaic law, and even a
presumptuous mockery of the Creator, to bring into existence such
lively images of his creatures. Others, frightened at the art which
could raise phantoms, at will, and keep the form of the dead among the
living, were inclined to consider the painter as a magician, or
perhaps the famous Black Man, of old witch times, plotting mischief in
a new guise. These foolish fancies were more than half believed
among the mob. Even in superior circles his character was invested
with a vague awe, partly rising like smoke wreaths from the popular
superstitions, but chiefly caused by the varied knowledge and
talents which he made subservient to his profession.
   Being on the eve of marriage, Walter Ludlow and Elinor were eager
to obtain their portraits, as the first of what, they doubtless hoped,
would be a long series of family pictures. The day after the
conversation above recorded they visited the painter's rooms. A
servant ushered them into an apartment, where, though the artist
himself was not visible, there were personages whom they could
hardly forbear greeting with reverence. They knew, indeed, that the
whole assembly were but pictures, yet felt it impossible to separate
the idea of life and intellect from such striking counterfeits.
Several of the portraits were known to them, either as distinguished
characters of the day or their private acquaintances. There was
Governor Burnett, looking as if he had just received an undutiful
communication from the House of Representatives, and were inditing a
most sharp response. Mr. Cooke hung beside the ruler whom he
opposed, sturdy, and somewhat puritanical, as befitted a popular
leader. The ancient lady of Sir William Phipps eyed them from the
wall, in ruff and farthingale- an imperious old dame, not
unsuspected of witchcraft. John Winslow, then a very young man, wore
the expression of war-like enterprise, which long afterwards made
him a distinguished general. Their personal friends were recognized at
a glance. In most of the pictures, the whole mind and character were
brought out on the countenance, and concentrated into a single look,
so that, to speak paradoxically, the originals hardly resembled
themselves so strikingly as the portraits did.
   Among these modern worthies there were two old bearded Saints,
who had almost vanished into the darkening canvas. There was also a
pale, but unfaded Madonna, who had perhaps been worshipped in Rome,
and now regarded the lovers with such a mild and holy look that they
longed to worship too.
   "How singular a thought," observed Walter Ludlow, "that this
beautiful face has been beautiful for above two hundred years! Oh,
if all beauty would endure so well! Do you not envy her, Elinor?"
   "If earth were heaven, I might," she replied. "But where all things
fade, how miserable to be the one that could not fade!"
   "This dark old St. Peter has a fierce and ugly scowl, saint
though he be," continued Walter. "He troubles me. But the Virgin looks
kindly at us."
   "Yes; but very sorrowfully, methinks," said Elinor.
   The easel stood beneath these three old pictures, sustaining one
that had been recently commenced. After a little inspection, they
began to recognize the features of their own minister, the Rev. Dr.
Colman, growing into shape and life, as it were, out of a cloud.
   "Kind old man!" exclaimed Elinor. "He gazes at me as if he were
about to utter a word of paternal advice."
   "And at me," said Walter, "as if he were about to shake his head
and rebuke me for some suspected iniquity. But so does the original. I
shall never feel quite comfortable under his eye till we stand
before him to be married."
   They now heard a footstep on the floor, and turning, beheld the
painter, who had been some moments in the room, and had listened to
a few of their remarks. He was a middle-aged man, with a countenance
well worthy of his own pencil. Indeed, by the picturesque, though
careless arrangement of his rich dress, and, perhaps, because his soul
dwelt always among painted shapes, he looked somewhat like a
portrait himself. His visitors were sensible of a kindred between
the artist and his works, and felt as if one of the pictures had
stepped from the canvas to salute them.
   Walter Ludlow, who was slightly known to the painter, explained the
object of their visit. While he spoke, a sunbeam was falling athwart
his figure and Elinor's, with so happy an effect that they also seemed
living pictures of youth and beauty, gladdened by bright fortune.
The artist was evidently struck.
   "My easel is occupied for several ensuing days, and my stay in
Boston must be brief," said he, thoughtfully; then, after an observant
glance, he added: "but your wishes shall be gratified, though I
disappoint the Chief Justice and Madam Oliver. I must not lose this
opportunity, for the sake of painting a few ells of broadcloth and
brocade."
   The painter expressed a desire to introduce both their portraits
into one picture, and represent them engaged in some appropriate
action. This plan would have delighted the lovers, but was necessarily
rejected, because so large a space of canvas would have been unfit for
the room which it was intended to decorate. Two half-length
portraits were therefore fixed upon. After they had taken leave,
Walter Ludlow asked Elinor, with a smile, whether she knew what an
influence over their fates the painter was about to acquire.
   "The old women of Boston affirm," continued he, "that after he
has once got possession of a person's face and figure, he may paint
him in any act or situation whatever- and the picture will be
prophetic. Do you believe it?"
   "Not quite," said Elinor, smiling. "Yet if he has such magic, there
is something so gentle in his manner that I am sure he will use it
well."
   It was the painter's choice to proceed with both the portraits at
the same time, assigning as a reason, in the mystical language which
he sometimes used, that the faces threw light upon each other.
Accordingly he gave now a touch to Walter, and now to Elinor, and
the features of one and the other began to start forth so vividly that
it appeared as if his triumphant art would actually disengage them
from the canvas. Amid the rich light and deep shade, they beheld their
phantom selves. But, though the likeness promised to be perfect,
they were not quite satisfied with the expression; it seemed more
vague than in most of the painter's works. He, however, was
satisfied with the prospect of success, and being much interested in
the lovers, employed his leisure moments, unknown to them, in making a
crayon sketch of their two figures. During their sittings, he
engaged them in conversation, and kindled up their faces with
characteristic traits, which, though continually varying, it was his
purpose to combine and fix. At length he announced that at their
next visit both the portraits would be ready for delivery.
   "If my pencil will but be true to my conception, in the few last
touches which I meditate," observed he, "these two pictures will be my
very best performances. Seldom, indeed, has an artist such subjects."
   While speaking, he still bent his penetrative eye upon them, nor
withdrew it till they had reached the bottom of the stairs.
   Nothing, in the whole circle of human vanities, takes stronger hold
of the imagination than this affair of having a portrait painted.
Yet why should it be so? The looking-glass, the polished globes of the
andirons, the mirror-like water, and all other reflecting surfaces,
continually present us with portraits, or rather ghosts, of ourselves,
which we glance at, and straightway forget them. But we forget them
only because they vanish. It is the idea of duration- of earthly
immortality- that gives such a mysterious interest to our own
portraits. Walter and Elinor were not insensible to this feeling,
and hastened to the painter's room, punctually at the appointed
hour, to meet those pictured shapes which were to be their
representatives with posterity. The sunshine flashed after them into
the apartment, but left it somewhat gloomy as they closed the door.
   Their eyes were immediately attracted to their portraits, which
rested against the farthest wall of the room. At the first glance,
through the dim light and the distance, seeing themselves in precisely
their natural attitudes, and with all the air that they recognized
so well, they uttered a simultaneous exclamation of delight.
   "There we stand," cried Walter, enthusiastically, "fixed in
sunshine forever! No dark passions can gather on our faces!"
   "No," said Elinor, more calmly; "no dreary change can sadden us."
   This was said while they were approaching, and had yet gained
only an imperfect view of the pictures. The painter, after saluting
them, busied himself at a table in completing a crayon sketch, leaving
his visitors to form their own judgment as to his perfected labors. At
intervals, he sent a glance from beneath his deep eyebrows, watching
their countenances in profile, with his pencil suspended over the
sketch. They had now stood some moments, each in front of the
other's picture, contemplating it with entranced attention, but
without uttering a word. At length, Walter stepped forward- then back-
viewing Elinor's portrait in various lights, and finally spoke.
   "Is there not a change?" said he, in a doubtful and meditative
tone. "Yes; the perception of it grows more vivid the longer I look.
It is certainly the same picture that I saw yesterday; the dress-
the features- all are the same; and yet something is altered."
   "Is then the picture less like than it was yesterday?" inquired the
painter, now drawing near, with irrepressible interest.
   "The features are perfect, Elinor," answered Walter, "and, at the
first glance, the expression seemed also hers. But, I could fancy that
the portrait has changed countenance, while I have been looking at it.
The eyes are fixed on mine with a strangely sad and anxious
expression. Nay, it is grief and terror! Is this like Elinor?"
   "Compare the living face with the pictured one," said the painter.
   Walter glanced sidelong at his mistress, and started. Motionless
and absorbed- fascinated, as it were- in contemplation of Walter's
portrait, Elinor's face had assumed precisely the expression of
which he had just been complaining. Had she practised for whole
hours before a mirror, she could not have caught the look so
successfully. Had the picture itself been a mirror, it could not
have thrown back her present aspect with stronger and more
melancholy truth. She appeared quite unconscious of the dialogue
between the artist and her lover.
   "Elinor," exclaimed Walter, in amazement, "what change has come
over you?"
   She did not hear him, nor desist from her fixed gaze, till he
seized her hand, and thus attracted her notice; then, with a sudden
tremor, she looked from the picture to the face of the original.
   "Do you see no change in your portrait?" asked she.
   "In mine? None!" replied Walter, examining it. "But let me see!
Yes; there is a slight change- an improvement, I think, in the
picture, though none in the likeness. It has a livelier expression
than yesterday, as if some bright thought were flashing from the eyes,
and about to be uttered from the lips. Now that I have caught the
look, it becomes very decided."
   While he was intent on these observations, Elinor turned to the
painter. She regarded him with grief and awe, and felt that he
repaid her with sympathy and commiseration, though wherefore, she
could but vaguely guess.
   "That look!" whispered she, and shuddered. "How came it there?"
   "Madam," said the painter, sadly, taking her hand, and leading
her apart, "in both these pictures, I have painted what I saw. The
artist- the true artist- must look beneath the exterior. It is his
gift- his proudest, but often a melancholy one- to see the inmost
soul, and, by a power indefinable even to himself, to make it glow
or darken upon the canvas, in glances that express the thought and
sentiment of years. Would that I might convince myself of error in the
present instance!"
   They had now approached the table, on which were heads in chalk,
hands almost as expressive as ordinary faces, ivied church towers,
thatched cottages, old thunder-stricken trees, Oriental and antique
costume, and all such picturesque vagaries of an artist's idle
moments. Turning them over, with seeming carelessness, a crayon sketch
of two figures was disclosed.
   "If I have failed," continued he, "if your heart does not see
itself reflected in your own portrait- if you have no secret cause
to trust my delineation of the other- it is not yet too late to
alter them. I might change the action of these figures too. But
would it influence the event?"
   He directed her notice to the sketch. A thrill ran through Elinor's
frame; a shriek was upon her lips; but she stifled it, with the
self-command that becomes habitual to all who hide thoughts of fear
and anguish within their bosoms. Turning from the table, she perceived
that Walter had advanced near enough to have seen the sketch, though
she could not determine whether it had caught his eye.
   "We will not have the pictures altered," said she, hastily. "If
mine is sad, I shall but look the gayer for the contrast."
   "Be it so," answered the painter, bowing. "May your griefs be
such fanciful ones that only your picture may mourn for them! For your
joys- may they be true and deep, and paint themselves upon this lovely
face till it quite belie my art!"
   After the marriage of Walter and Elinor, the pictures formed the
two most splendid ornaments of their abode. They hung side by side,
separated by a narrow panel, appearing to eye each other constantly,
yet always returning the gaze of the spectator. Travelled gentlemen,
who professed a knowledge of such subjects, reckoned these among the
most admirable specimens of modern portraiture; while common observers
compared them with the originals, feature by feature, and were
rapturous in praise of the likeness. But it was on a third class-
neither travelled connoisseurs nor common observers, but people of
natural sensibility- that the pictures wrought their strongest effect.
Such persons might gaze carelessly at first, but, becoming interested,
would return day after day, and study these painted faces like the
pages of a mystic volume. Walter Ludlow's portrait attracted their
earliest notice. In the absence of himself and his bride, they
sometimes disputed as to the expression which the painter had intended
to throw upon the features; all agreeing that there was a look of
earnest import, though no two explained it alike. There was less
diversity of opinion in regard to Elinor's picture. They differed,
indeed, in their attempts to estimate the nature and depth of the
gloom that dwelt upon her face, but agreed that it was gloom, and
alien from the natural temperament of their youthful friend. A certain
fanciful person announced, as the result of much scrutiny, that both
these pictures were parts of one design, and that the melancholy
strength of feeling, in Elinor's countenance, bore reference to the
more vivid emotion, or, as he termed it, the wild passion, in that
of Walter. Though unskilled in the art, he even began a sketch, in
which the action of the two figures was to correspond with their
mutual expression.
   It was whispered among friends that, day by day, Elinor's face
was assuming a deeper shade of pensiveness, which threatened soon to
render her too true a counterpart of her melancholy picture. Walter,
on the other hand, instead of acquiring the vivid look which the
painter had given him on the canvas, became reserved and downcast,
with no outward flashes of emotion, however it might be smouldering
within. In course of time, Elinor hung a gorgeous curtain of purple
silk, wrought with flowers and fringed with heavy golden tassels,
before the pictures, under pretence that the dust would tarnish
their hues, or the light dim them. It was enough. Her visitors felt,
that the massive folds of the silk must never be withdrawn, nor the
portraits mentioned in her presence.
   Time wore on; and the painter came again. He had been far enough to
the north to see the silver cascade of the Crystal Hills, and to
look over the vast round of cloud and forest from the summit of New
England's loftiest mountain. But he did not profane that scene by
the mockery of his art. He had also lain in a canoe on the bosom of
Lake George, making his soul the mirror of its loveliness and
grandeur, till not a picture in the Vatican was more vivid than his
recollection. He had gone with the Indian hunters to Niagara, and
there, again, had flung his hopeless pencil down the precipice,
feeling that he could as soon paint the roar, as aught else that
goes to make up the wondrous cataract. In truth, it was seldom his
impulse to copy natural scenery, except as a framework for the
delineations of the human form and face, instinct with thought,
passion, or suffering. With store of such his adventurous ramble had
enriched him: the stern dignity of Indian chiefs; the dusky loveliness
of Indian girls; the domestic life of wigwams; the stealthy march; the
battle beneath gloomy pine-trees; the frontier fortress with its
garrison; the anomaly of the old French partisan, bred in courts,
but grown gray in shaggy deserts; such were the scenes and portraits
that he had sketched. The glow of perilous moments; flashes of wild
feeling; struggles of fierce power- love, hate, grief, frenzy; in a
word, all the worn-out heart of the old earth had been revealed to him
under a new form. His portfolio was filled with graphic
illustrations of the volume of his memory, which genius would
transmute into its own substance, and imbue with immortality. He
felt that the deep wisdom in his art, which he had sought so far,
was found.
   But amid stern or lovely nature, in the perils of the forest or its
overwhelming peacefulness, still there had been two phantoms, the
companions of his way. Like all other men around whom an engrossing
purpose wreathes itself, he was insulated from the mass of human kind.
He had no aim- no pleasure- no sympathies- but what were ultimately
connected with his art. Though gentle in manner and upright in
intent and action, he did not possess kindly feelings; his heart was
cold; no living creature could be brought near enough to keep him
warm. For these two beings, however, he had felt, in its greatest
intensity, the sort of interest which always allied him to the
subjects of his pencil. He had pried into their souls with his keenest
insight, and pictured the result upon their features with his utmost
skill, so as barely to fall short of that standard which no genius
ever reached, his own severe conception. He had caught from the
duskiness of the future- at least, so he fancied- a fearful secret,
and had obscurely revealed it on the portraits. So much of himself- of
his imagination and all other powers- had been lavished on the study
of Walter and Elinor, that he almost regarded them as creations of his
own, like the thousands with which he had peopled the realms of
Picture. Therefore did they flit through the twilight of the woods,
hover on the mist of waterfalls, look forth from the mirror of the
lake, nor melt away in the noontide sun. They haunted his pictorial
fancy, not as mockeries of life, nor pale goblins of the dead, but
in the guise of portraits, each with the unalterable expression
which his magic had evoked from the caverns of the soul. He could
not recross the Atlantic till he had again beheld the originals of
those airy pictures.
   "O glorious Art!" thus mused the enthusiastic painter as he trod
the street, thou art the image of the Creator's own. The innumerable
forms, that wander in nothingness, start into being at thy beck. The
dead live again. Thou recallest them to their old scenes, and givest
their gray shadows the lustre of a better life, at once earthly and
immortal. Thou snatchest back the fleeting moments of History. With
thee there is no Past, for, at thy touch, all that is great becomes
forever present; and illustrious men live through long ages, in the
visible performance of the very deeds which made them what they are. O
potent Art! as thou bringest the faintly revealed Past to stand in
that narrow strip of sunlight, which we call Now, canst thou summon
the shrouded Future to meet her there? Have I not achieved it? Am I
not thy Prophet?"
   Thus, with a proud, yet melancholy fervor, did he almost cry aloud,
as he passed through the toilsome street, among people that knew not
of his reveries, nor could understand nor care for them. It is not
good for man to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those
around him by whose example he may regulate himself, his thoughts,
desires, and hopes will become extravagant, and he the semblance,
perhaps the reality, of a madman. Reading other bosoms with an
acuteness almost preternatural, the painter failed to see the disorder
of his own.
   "And this should be the house," said he, looking up and down the
front, before he knocked. "Heaven help my brains! That picture!
Methinks it will never vanish. Whether I look at the windows or the
door, there it is framed within them, painted strongly, and glowing in
the richest tints- the faces of the portraits- the figures and
action of the sketch!"
   He knocked.
   "The Portraits! Are they within?" inquired he of the domestic; then
recollecting himself- "your master and mistress! Are they at home?"
   "They are, sir," said the servant, adding, as he noticed that
picturesque aspect of which the painter could never divest himself,
"and the Portraits too!"
   The guest was admitted into a parlor, communicating by a central
door with an interior room of the same size. As the first apartment
was empty, he passed to the entrance of the second, within which his
eyes were greeted by those living personages, as well as their
pictured representatives, who had long been the objects of so singular
an interest. He involuntarily paused on the threshold.
   They had not perceived his approach. Walter and Elinor were
standing before the portraits, whence the former had just flung back
the rich and voluminous folds of the silken curtain, holding its
golden tassel with one hand, while the other grasped that of his
bride. The pictures, concealed for months, gleamed forth again in
undiminished splendor, appearing to throw a sombre light across the
room, rather than to be disclosed by a borrowed radiance. That of
Elinor had been almost prophetic. A pensiveness, and next a gentle
sorrow, had successively dwelt upon her countenance, deepening, with
the lapse of time, into a quiet anguish. A mixture of affright would
now have made it the very expression of the portrait. Walter's face
was moody and dull, or animated only by fitful flashes, which left a
heavier darkness for their momentary illumination. He looked from
Elinor to her portrait, and thence to his own, in the contemplation of
which he finally stood absorbed.
   The painter seemed to hear the step of Destiny approaching behind
him, on its progress towards its victims. A strange thought darted
into his mind. Was not his own the form in which that destiny had
embodied itself, and he a chief agent of the coming evil which he
had foreshadowed?
   Still, Walter remained silent before the picture, communing with it
as with his own heart, and abandoning himself to the spell of evil
influence that the painter had cast upon the features. Gradually his
eyes kindled; while as Elinor watched the increasing wildness of his
face, her own assumed a look of terror; and when at last he turned
upon her, the resemblance of both to their portraits was complete.
   "Our fate is upon us!" howled Walter. "Die!"
   Drawing a knife, he sustained her, as she was sinking to the
ground, and aimed it at her bosom. In the action, and in the look
and attitude of each, the painter beheld the figures of his sketch.
The picture, with all its tremendous coloring, was finished.
   "Hold, madman!" cried he, sternly.
   He had advanced from the door, and interposed himself between the
wretched beings, with the same sense of power to regulate their
destiny as to alter a scene upon the canvas. He stood like a magician,
controlling the phantoms which he had evoked.
   "What!" muttered Walter Ludlow, as he relapsed from fierce
excitement into silent gloom. "Does Fate impede its own decree?"
   "Wretched lady!" said the painter, "did I not warn you?"
   "You did," replied Elinor, calmly, as her terror gave place to
the quiet grief which it had disturbed. "But- I loved him!"
   Is there not a deep moral in the tale? Could the result of one,
or all our deeds, be shadowed forth and set before us, some would call
it Fate, and hurry onward, others be swept along by their passionate
desires, and none be turned aside by the PROPHETIC PICTURES.


                        THE END