DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0098
8.2
AN ART-STUDENT IN MUNICH.
was discoursing upon some transcendentalism. I know
also., very well, that Anna this morning boiled a tea-spoon,
instead of an egg, for her breakfast! Yes, it is very alarm-
ing, this infection of dreaminess and abstraction of min cl.
For myself, I make an excuse for poor Anna, knowing how
she supports upon her head “ the Worry-pole.” I dare say
people do not generally know what this infliction is,
although they themselves probably hear one always about
with them, sprouting out of their brains.
Clare last night made a sketch of Anna’s “ Worry-pole.”
It is not a “May-pole,” such as we see in the villages about
here,—a tall pole, upon which, on either side, and running
down from the tip-top till within a certain distance of the
earth, are suspended little figures and ornaments, the insignia
of the various village trades, and a pole that is wreathed
with flowers upon a May-day,—no, it is not a merry,
joyous, light-hearted May-pole, but a “Worry-pole!”—It
is a pole planted on the head of many an unlucky mortal,
and, though invisible to the people about him or her, he or
she wanders through the world with its tremendous weight
always pressing upon them; and upon this pole, from the
bottom upwards, swing insignia. When I look at Clare’s
sketch, I don’t blame Anna for boiling the tea-spoon or
wrapping up her purse. At the top of the pole, behold the
stern face of a great painter ; he has a lowering brow, an
upraised finger, and the mystic words “Arbeit! Arbeit! Com-
position ! Composition !” proceed out of his bps : beneath
him come casts of arms, legs, bodies, studies of draperies,
the Anatomist’s “ Vade-Mecum” models, compositions;
then commence the domestic worries—a voluminous corre-
spondence, typified by letters of all forms and sizes,—home-
sickness in the form of certain English faces,—Munich
acquaintance who have not yet found out Clare and Anna’s
peculiarity of never returning calls,—bills, undarned stock-
AN ART-STUDENT IN MUNICH.
was discoursing upon some transcendentalism. I know
also., very well, that Anna this morning boiled a tea-spoon,
instead of an egg, for her breakfast! Yes, it is very alarm-
ing, this infection of dreaminess and abstraction of min cl.
For myself, I make an excuse for poor Anna, knowing how
she supports upon her head “ the Worry-pole.” I dare say
people do not generally know what this infliction is,
although they themselves probably hear one always about
with them, sprouting out of their brains.
Clare last night made a sketch of Anna’s “ Worry-pole.”
It is not a “May-pole,” such as we see in the villages about
here,—a tall pole, upon which, on either side, and running
down from the tip-top till within a certain distance of the
earth, are suspended little figures and ornaments, the insignia
of the various village trades, and a pole that is wreathed
with flowers upon a May-day,—no, it is not a merry,
joyous, light-hearted May-pole, but a “Worry-pole!”—It
is a pole planted on the head of many an unlucky mortal,
and, though invisible to the people about him or her, he or
she wanders through the world with its tremendous weight
always pressing upon them; and upon this pole, from the
bottom upwards, swing insignia. When I look at Clare’s
sketch, I don’t blame Anna for boiling the tea-spoon or
wrapping up her purse. At the top of the pole, behold the
stern face of a great painter ; he has a lowering brow, an
upraised finger, and the mystic words “Arbeit! Arbeit! Com-
position ! Composition !” proceed out of his bps : beneath
him come casts of arms, legs, bodies, studies of draperies,
the Anatomist’s “ Vade-Mecum” models, compositions;
then commence the domestic worries—a voluminous corre-
spondence, typified by letters of all forms and sizes,—home-
sickness in the form of certain English faces,—Munich
acquaintance who have not yet found out Clare and Anna’s
peculiarity of never returning calls,—bills, undarned stock-