A Cathedral Singer

A Cathedral Singer, by James
Lane Allen

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Title: A Cathedral Singer
Author: James Lane Allen
Release Date: March 16, 2005 [EBook #15385]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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A Cathedral Singer
[Illustration]

A Cathedral Singer
BY JAMES LANE ALLEN
Author of "The Sword of Youth," "The Bride of the Mistletoe," "The
Kentucky Cardinal," "The Choir Invisible," etc.
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY SIGISMOND DE IVANOWSKI
NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1916 Copyright, 1914, 1916, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Published, March, 1916

TO PITY AND TO FAITH

A Cathedral Singer

I
Slowly on Morningside Heights rises the Cathedral of St. John the
Divine: standing on a high rock under the Northern sky above the long
wash of the untroubled sea, above the wash of the troubled waves of
men.
It has fit neighbors. Across the street to the north looms the
many-towered gray-walled Hospital of St. Luke--cathedral of our ruins,
of our sufferings and our dust, near the cathedral of our souls.
Across the block to the south is situated a shed-like two-story building
with dormer-windows and a crumpled three-sided roof, the studios of
the National Academy of Design; and under that low brittle skylight
youth toils over the shapes and colors of the visible vanishing paradise

of the earth in the shadow of the cathedral which promises an unseen,
an eternal one.
At the rear of the cathedral, across the roadway, stands a low stone wall.
Just over the wall the earth sinks like a precipice to a green valley
bottom far below. Out here is a rugged slope of rock and verdure and
forest growth which brings into the city an ancient presence,
nature--nature, the Elysian Fields of the art school, the potter's field of
the hospital, the harvest field of the church.
This strip of nature fronts the dawn and is called Morningside Park.
Past the foot of it a thoroughfare stretches northward and southward,
level and wide and smooth. Over this thoroughfare the two
opposite-moving streams of the city's traffic and travel rush headlong.
Beyond the thoroughfare an embankment of houses shoves its mass
before the eyes, and beyond the embankment the city spreads out over
flats where human beings are as thick as river reeds.
Thus within small compass humanity is here: the cathedral, the hospital,
the art school, and a strip of nature, and a broad highway along which,
with their hearth-fires flickering fitfully under their tents of stone, are
encamped life's restless, light-hearted, heavy-hearted Gipsies.
* * * * *
It was Monday morning and it was nine o'clock. Over at the National
Academy of Design, in an upper room, the members of one of the
women's portrait classes were assembled, ready to begin work. Easels
had been drawn into position; a clear light from the blue sky of the last
of April fell through the opened roof upon new canvases fastened to the
frames. And it poured down bountifully upon intelligent young faces.
The scene was a beautiful one, and it was complete except in one
particular: the teacher of the class was missing--the teacher and a
model.
Minutes passed without his coming, and when at last he did enter the
room, he advanced two or three steps and paused as though he meant
presently to go out again. After his usual quiet good-morning with his

sober smile, he gave his alert listeners the clue to an unusual situation:
"I told the class that to-day we should begin a fresh study. I had not
myself decided what this should be. Several models were in reserve,
any one of whom could have been used to advantage at this closing
stage of the year's course. Then the unexpected happened: on Saturday
a stranger, a woman, came to see me and asked to be engaged. It is this
model that I have been waiting for down-stairs."
Their thoughts instantly passed to the model: his impressive manner,
his respectful words, invested her with mystery, with fascination. His
countenance lighted up with wonderful interest as he went on:
"She is not a professional; she has never posed. In asking me to engage
her she proffered barely the explanation which she seemed to feel due
herself. I turn this explanation over to you because she wished, I think,
that you also should not misunderstand her. It