m, almost sickening
in its frugality, and as its skylight lay north, the sun never touched
it. It had something chilly and uncanny about it even in summer. The
floor was bare, furniture there was none, except an old worn-out kitchen
table and chair, an easel and an old box which served as a bookcase for
a few ragged unbound volumes. The comfort of a bed was an unknown luxury
to him; he slept on the floor, on a mattress which in daytime was hidden
with his scant wardrobe and cooking utensils in a corner, behind a gray
faded curtain. His pictures, simple pieces of canvas with tattered
edges, nailed to the four walls, leaving hardly an inch uncovered, were
the only decoration and furnished a most peculiar wall paper, which
heightened the dreariness of the room.

There was after all a good deal of merit to old Melville's landscapes;
on an average they were much better than many of those hung "on the
line"; the only disagreeable quality was their sombreness of tone. He
invariably got them hopelessly muddy in color, despite their resembling
the color dreams of a young impressionist painter at the start. He
worked at them so long until they became blurred and blotchy, dark like
his life, a sad reflection of his unprofitable career.

It was nearly thirty years ago that he had left his native town and had
come to New York as a boy of sixteen. He already knew something of life
then; at an early age he had been obliged to help to support his family,
and had served an apprenticeship as printer and sign painter. In New
York he determined to become an artist: a landscape painter, who would
paint sunshine as had never been done before; but many years elapsed
before he could pursue his ambition. Any amount of obstacles were put in
his way. He had married and had children, and could only paint in
leisure hours, all his other time being taken up in the endeavor to
provide for his family, by inferior work, inferior decoration, etc. Not
before years of incessant vicissitudes, heart-rending domestic troubles
and sorrow, not before his poor wife had died of consumption--that awful
day when he had to run about all day in the rain to borrow money enough
to bury her!--and his children had been put in a charitable institution,
he took up painting as a profession. Then the hard times, which are
proverbial with struggling artists without means, began; only they were
easier to bear, as he was suffering alone. In days of dispossess and
starvation h