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Portrait of King William III · The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty nine of The thirty thousand Dollar Bequest and
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  Speaker 1: Other Stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. The thirty thousand Dollar Bequest
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  Speaker 1: and Other Stories, Section twenty nine. The Portrait of King
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  Speaker 1: William the Third by Mark Twain read by Eric Leech.
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  Speaker 1: I never can look at those periodical portraits in the
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  Speaker 1: Galaxy magazine without feeling a wild, tempestuous ambition to be
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  Speaker 1: an artist. I've seen thousands and thousands of pictures in
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  Speaker 1: my time, acres of them here, in leagues of them
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  Speaker 1: in the galleries of Europe, but never any that moved
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  Speaker 1: me as these portraits do. There is a portrait of
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  Speaker 1: Monseigneur a Capelle in the November number. How could anything
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  Speaker 1: be sweeter than that? And there was Bismarcks in the
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  Speaker 1: October number. Who can look at that without being purer
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  Speaker 1: and stronger and nobler for it? And Thurlow and Weed's
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  Speaker 1: picture in the September number. I would not have died
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  Speaker 1: without seeing that. No, not for anything this world can give.
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  Speaker 1: But look back still further and recall my own likeness
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  Speaker 1: as printed in the August number. If I had been
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  Speaker 1: in my grave a thousand years when that happened, I
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  Speaker 1: would have got up and visited the artist. I sleep
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  Speaker 1: with all these portraits under my pillow every night so
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  Speaker 1: that I can go on studying them as soon as
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  Speaker 1: the day dawns in the morning. I know them all
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  Speaker 1: as thoroughly as if I had made them myself. I
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  Speaker 1: know every line and mark about them. Sometimes, when company
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  Speaker 1: are present, I shuffle the portraits all up together, and
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  Speaker 1: then pick them out one by one and call their
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  Speaker 1: names without referring to the printing on the bottom. I
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  Speaker 1: seldom make a mistake, never when I am calm. I've
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  Speaker 1: had the portraits framed for a long time, waiting till
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  Speaker 1: my aunt gets everything ready for hanging them up in
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  Speaker 1: the parlor. But first one thing and then another interferes,
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  Speaker 1: and so the thing is delayed. Once she said they
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  Speaker 1: would have more of the peculiar kind of light they
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  Speaker 1: needed in the attic, the old simpleton. It's as dark
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  Speaker 1: as a tomb up there. But she does not know
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  Speaker 1: anything about art, and so she has no reverence for it.
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  Speaker 1: When I showed her my map of the fortifications of Paris,
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  Speaker 1: she said it was rubbish. Well, from nursing those portraits
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  Speaker 1: so long, I've come at last to have a perfect
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  Speaker 1: infatuation for art. I have a teacher now, and my
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  Speaker 1: enthusiasm continually and tumultuously grows as I learned to use
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  Speaker 1: with more and more facility the pencil, brush and graver.
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  Speaker 1: I'm studying under de Melville, the house and portrait painter.
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  Speaker 1: His name was Smith when he lived in the West.
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  Speaker 1: He does any kind of artist work. A body, once
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  Speaker 1: having a genius that's universal, like Michael Angelo, resembles that
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  Speaker 1: great artist. In fact, the back of his head is
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  Speaker 1: like this, and he wears his hat bring tilted down
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  Speaker 1: on his nose to expose it. I've been studying under
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  Speaker 1: de Melville several months now. The first month I painted
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  Speaker 1: fences and gave general satisfaction. The next month I whitewashed
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  Speaker 1: a barn. The third I was doing tin roofs, the
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  Speaker 1: fourth common signs, the fifth statuary to stand up before
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  Speaker 1: cigar shops. This present month is only the sixth, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm already in portraits. The humble offering which accompanies these
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  Speaker 1: remarks see figure the portrait of His Majesty William the
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  Speaker 1: third King of Prussia is my fifth, the tenth in portraits,
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  Speaker 1: and my greatest success. It has received unbounded praise from
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  Speaker 1: all classes of the community. But that which gratifies me
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  Speaker 1: most is the frequent and cordial verdict that it resembles
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  Speaker 1: the Galaxy portraits. Those were my first love, my earliest admiration,
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  Speaker 1: the original source and incentive of my art ambition. Whatever
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  Speaker 1: I am in art today, I owe to these portraits.
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  Speaker 1: I ask no credit for myself. I deserve none, and
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  Speaker 1: I never take any either. Many a stranger has come
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  Speaker 1: to my exhibition, for I've had my portrait of King
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  Speaker 1: William on exhibition at one dollar a ticket, and would
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  Speaker 1: have gone away blessing me if I had led him,
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  Speaker 1: but I never did. I always stated where I got
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  Speaker 1: the idea. King William wears large, bushy side whiskers, and
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  Speaker 1: some critics have thought that this portrait would have been
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  Speaker 1: more complete if they were added, But it was not possible.
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  Speaker 1: There was not room for side whiskers and epaulets both,
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  Speaker 1: and so I let the whiskers go and put in
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  Speaker 1: the epaulets for the sake of style. That thing on
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  Speaker 1: his hat is an eagle. The Prussian eagle. It's a
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  Speaker 1: national emblem. When I say hat, I mean helmet. But
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  Speaker 1: it seems impossible to make a picture of a helmet
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  Speaker 1: that a body can have confidence in. I wish kind
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  Speaker 1: friends everywhere would aid me in my endeavor to attract
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  Speaker 1: a little attention to the galaxy portraits. I feel persuaded
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  Speaker 1: it can be accomplished if the course to be pursued
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  Speaker 1: be chosen with judgment. I write for that magazine all
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  Speaker 1: the time, and so do many abler men. And if
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  Speaker 1: I can get these portraits into universal favor, it's all
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  Speaker 1: I ask. The reading matter will take care of itself.
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  Speaker 1: Commendations of the portrait. There is nothing like it in
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  Speaker 1: the Vatican Pious the Ninth. It has none of that vagueness,
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  Speaker 1: that dreamy spirituality about it, which many of the first
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  Speaker 1: critics of Arkansas have objected to. In the Mario school
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  Speaker 1: of art, Ruskin, the expression is very interesting. J. W.
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  Speaker 1: Tischen Parentheses keeps a macaroni store in Venice at the
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  Speaker 1: old family stand and Parentheses it is the neatest thing
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  Speaker 1: in still life I have seen for years. Rosa bond
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  Speaker 1: here the smile may be almost called unique Bismarck. I
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  Speaker 1: never saw such character portrayed in a picture face before
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  Speaker 1: de Melville. There is benignant simplicity about the execution of
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  Speaker 1: this work, which warms the heart and toward it full.
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  Speaker 1: As much as it fascinates the eye landseer, one cannot
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  Speaker 1: see it without longing to contemplate the artist. Frederick William,
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  Speaker 1: Send me the entire edition, together with the plate and
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  Speaker 1: the original portrait, and name your own price. And would
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  Speaker 1: you like to come over and stay awhile with Napoleon
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  Speaker 1: at Wilhelm Show It shall not cost you assent, William
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  Speaker 1: the Third. This is the end of the Portrait of
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  Speaker 1: King William the Third, read by Eric Leech, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,