Secret Histories

Father Purcell was a collector of old local traditions, and weirder things, too. "There are some pictures," said I to my friend, "which impress one, I know not how, with a conviction that they represent not the mere ideal shapes and combinations which have floated through the imagination of the artist, but scenes, faces, and situations which have actually existed." I had only to request the story of the painting to be gratified; Schalken was an honest, blunt Dutchman, and wholly incapable of committing a flight of imagination. There are few forms upon which the mantle of mystery and romance could seem to hang more ungracefully than upon that of the uncouth and clownish Schalken -- the Dutch boor -- whose pieces delight the initiated of the present day almost as much as his manners disgusted the refined of his own. Yet this man, so rude, so dogged, so slovenly, figures as the hero of a romance by no means devoid of interest or of mystery. And by no means is this the weirdest lore recorded in. . . . THE PURCELL PAPERS VOLUME II (Jacketless library hardcover.)