TWICE TOLD TALES

THE PROPHETIC PICTURES

By Nathaniel Hawthorne


[This story was suggested by an anecdote of Stuart, related in Dunlap's
History of the Arts of Design,--a most entertaining book to the general
reader, and a deeply interesting one, we should think, to the artist,]

"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 on 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,