or
painter was ever born otherwise?--she could not bear to wear a calico
dress and coarse shoes, and eat with an iron spoon from a tin cup,
when the other girls wore handsome dresses, and had silver mugs and
spoons. She grew melancholy, neglected her books, and finally became
so ill that she was obliged to be taken home.
And now Raymond Bonheur very wisely decided not to make plans for his
child for a time, but see what was her natural tendency. It was well
that he made this decision in time, before she had been spoiled by his
well-meant but poor intentions.
Left to herself, she constantly hung about her father's studio, now
drawing, now modeling, copying whatever she saw him do. She seemed
never to be tired, but sang at her work all the day long.
Monsieur Bonheur suddenly awoke to the fact that his daughter had
great talent. He began to teach her carefully, to make her accurate in
drawing, and correct in perspective. Then he sent her to the Louvre to
copy the works of the old masters. Here she worked with the greatest
industry and enthusiasm, not observing anything that was going on
around her. Said the director of the Louvre, "I have never seen an
example of such application and such ardor for work."
One day an elderly English gentleman stopped beside her easel, and
said: "Your copy, my child, is superb, faultless. Persevere as you
have begun, and I prophesy that you will be a great artist." How glad
those few words made her! She went home thinking over to herself the
determination she had made in the school when she ate with her iron
spoon, that sometime she would be as famous as her schoolmates, and
have some of the comforts of life.
Her copies of the old masters were soon sold, and though they brought
small prices, she gladly gave the money to her father, who needed it
now more than ever. His second wife had two sons when he married her,
and now they had a third, Germain, and every cent that Rosa could
earn was needed to help support seven children. "La mamiche," as
they called the new mother, was an excellent manager of the meagre
finances, and filled her place well.
Rosa was now seventeen, loving landscape, historical, and genre
painting, perhaps equally; but happening to paint a goat, she was so
pleased in the work, that she determined to make animal painting a
specialty. Having no money to procure models, she must needs make long
walks into the country on foot to the farms. She would take a piece
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