TO THE EDITOR OF THE KEEPSAKE.

You have asked me, sir, to point out a subject for the pencil,
and I feel the difficulty of complying with your request,
although I am not certainly unaccustomed to literary composition,
or a total stranger to the stores of history and tradition, which
afford the best copies for the painter's art. But although SICUT
PICTURA POESIS is an ancient and undisputed axiom--although
poetry and painting both address themselves to the same object of
exciting the human imagination, by presenting to it pleasing or
sublime images of ideal scenes--yet the one conveying itself
through the ears to the understanding, and the other applying
itself only to the eyes, the subjects which are best suited to
the bard or tale-teller are often totally unfit for painting,
where the artist must present in a single glance all that his art
has power to tell us. The artist can neither recapitulate the
past nor intimate the future. The single NOW is all which he can
present; and hence, unquestionably, many subjects which delight
us in poetry or in narrative, whether real or fictitious, cannot
with advantage be transferred to the canvas.

Being in some degree aware of these difficulties, though
doubtless unacquainted both with their extent and the means by
which they may be modified or surmounted, I have, nevertheless,
ventured to draw up the following traditional narrative as a
story in which, when the general details are known, the interest
is so much concentrated in one strong moment of agonizing
passion, that it can be understood and sympathized with at a
single glance. I therefore presume that it may be acceptable as
a hint to some one among the numerous artists who have of late