"O, pray don't try it!" said Miriam, laughing; "If it should turn out
that you are less than an angel, you would find the stones of the Roman
pavement very hard; and if an angel, indeed, I am afraid you would never
come down among us again."
This young American girl was an example of the freedom of life which
it is possible for a female artist to enjoy at Rome. She dwelt in her
tower, as free to descend into the corrupted atmosphere of the city
beneath, as one of her companion doves to fly downward into the
street;--all alone, perfectly independent, under her own sole
guardianship, unless watched over by the Virgin, whose shrine she
tended; doing what she liked without a suspicion or a shadow upon the
snowy whiteness of her fame. The customs of artist life bestow such
liberty upon the sex, which is elsewhere restricted within so much
narrower limits; and it is perhaps an indication that, whenever we admit
women to a wider scope of pursuits and professions, we must also remove
the shackles of our present conventional rules, which would then become
an insufferable restraint on either maid or wife. The system seems to
work unexceptionably in Rome; and in many other cases, as in Hilda's,
purity of heart and life are allowed to assert themselves, and to be
their own proof and security, to a degree unknown in the society of
other cities.
Hilda, in her native land, had early shown what was pronounced by
connoisseurs a decided genius for the pictorial art. Even in her
schooldays--still not so very distant--she had produced sketches that
were seized upon by men of taste, and hoarded as among the choicest
treasures of their portfolios; scenes delicately imagined, lacking,
perhaps, the reality which comes only from a close acquaintance with
life, but so softly touched with feeling and fancy that you seemed to
be looking at humanity with angels' eyes. With years and experience
she might be expected to attain a darker and more forcible touch, which
would impart to her designs the relief they needed. Had Hilda remained
in her own country, it is not improbable that she might have produced
original works worthy to hang in that gallery of native art which,
we hope, is destined to extend its rich length through many future
centuries. An orphan, however, without near relatives, and possessed of
a little property, she had found it within her possibilities to come
to Italy; that central clime, whither the eyes and the heart of every
artist turn, as if pictures could not be made to glow in any other
atmosphere, as if statues could not assume grace and expression, save in
that land of whitest marble.
Hilda's gentle courage had brought her safely over land and sea; her
mild, unflagging perseverance had made a place for her in the famous
city, even like a flower that finds a chink for itself, and a little
earth to grow in, on whatever ancient wall its slender roots may fasten.
Here she dwelt, in her tower, possessing a friend or two in Rome, but
no home companion except the flock of doves, whose cote was in a ruinous
chamber contiguous to her own. They soon became as familiar with the
fair-haired Saxon girl as if she were a born sister of their brood; and
her customary white robe bore such an analogy to their snowy plumage
that the confraternity of artists called Hilda the Dove, and recognized
her aerial apartment as the Dovecote. And while the other doves flew far
and wide in quest of what was good for them, Hilda likewise spread
her wings, and sought such ethereal and imaginative sustenance as God
ordains for creatures of her kind.