Doré

“ There's always a retreat," she said, nodding.
His way of taking her, unexpected and positive, made her forget, at times, the combat intended, in the delight of self-analyzation.
"Your eyes are extraordinary," he said, meeting her glance critically. "They're not eyes; they're blue clouds entangled in your eyelashes."
But even in this there was no personal enthusiasm. He spoke enthusiastically, but as an observer, calculating and foreseeing developments. This compliment infuriated Doré. She was not accustomed to having men meet her full glance with nothing but criticism. ”

“ Mordaunt declared his aunt was the youngest of the trio when they alighted at the station, where Mrs. Caldwell's carriage awaited them. The beauty and strangeness of the scene—as they drove up a winding road, between rugged peaks of sandstone, some nearly blood-red, others milk-white, others again like amethyst, projected against the clear blue sky, and simulating the pinnacles, turrets, and spires of a castellated city—recalled the wild creations of Gustave Doré. It seemed too fantastic to be real. ”

“ In an evil hour for his peace of mind and his fame, Doré decided to leave illustration and become a historic painter. He evidently regarded genius as a Pandora's gift, an all-embracing finality, an endowment that could neither be worsened nor bettered, being complete in itself. ”

“ We are indeed in the land of old romance. Nothing imaginable more weird, fantastic and sombre, than these spectral castles and crumbling towers past counting! The wide landscape is peopled with these. They seem to rise as if by magic from the level landscape, and we fancy that they will disappear magically as they have come. And here again one wild visionary scene after another reminds us that we are in the land of Doré's most original inspiration. ”

“ Half the secret of Doré's power as an illustrator was his exaggerated perception of this fact,—his comprehension of the artistic witchcraft of suggestion. And since the perception of details depends vastly upon the quality of eyesight, a landscape necessarily suggests less to the keen-sighted man than to the myope. The keener the view, the less depth in the impression produced. There is no possibility of mysterious attraction in wooded deeps or mountain recesses for the eye that, like the eye of the hawk, pierces shadow and can note the separate quiver of each leaf. ”

“ In the great gallery of Doré paintings at London, is one of this Flavian Amphitheatre after a human sacrifice such as we have described. There lie the mangled forms upon the gory and trampled sands. The sated wild beasts prowl listlessly over the arena. The circling seats rise tier above tier, empty and desolate. But poised in air, with outspread wings, above the slain, with a countenance of light and a palm of victory, is a majestic angel; and sweeping upward in serried ranks, amid the shining stars, is a cloud of bright-winged angels, the convoy of the martyrs' spirits to the skies. ”

“ Oh! that would be the height of impolitesse and disobedience—you could not do that, my dear Dore; consider, he is not a man that nobody knows, like your old butor of a White Connal. Not signify how bad you treat him—like the dog; but here is a man of a certain quality, who knows the best people in Paris, who can talk, and tell every where. Oh! in conscience, my dear Dore, I shall not suffer these airs with a man who is somebody, and—”
“If he were the king of France,” cried Dora, “if he were Alexander the Great himself, I would not be forced to see the man, or marry him against my will!” ”

“ We turn into a quiet street where the prevailing note is gloom, and, having secured the friendly escort of a Jewish clergyman's son, without whose presence we should hesitate to intrude, we pass through a dark doorway and find ourselves among a group of men whose features and whose occupations would have delighted the heart of Gustave Doré. ”

“ No man is great in the eyes of his valet de chambre, witness Sancho Panza who told his master such sound truths. But Bois-Doré, who was simply an excellent man, enjoyed the privilege of being a demi-god in the eyes of his servant; and, while some heroes have been the laughing-stock of their retainers, this laughable old man was taken quite seriously by the majority of his. ”

“ Gustave Doré found out the secret, that, to depict the perfection of a monster only one element of incongruous monstrosity should be utilized at a time, and the result of his knowledge has been his incomparable creatures of fancy. ”

“ Doctors, it seemed, were sometimes human, especially old ones. Often they had in the party men whose names were famous in the profession, abrupt incisive tyrants, neither abrupt nor tyrannical with them, submitting to their banter, prodigal of compliments, just as difficult to be kept in place as other men. Doré listened in astonishment to their conversations, amazed at the impertinence of the girls, and the ready laughing acceptance of those who, in the day, commanded them. ”

“ When the family man got up to go, say! you should see her bounce him out of the door and leap to the telephone, crying:
"'Make that a veal chop and mashed!'"
"Too late?" said Doré, laughing.
"Well, we lost as far as the first entrée; but, as Del said, the next time such a thing occurs, there'll be a wise waiter on the other end of the line! Where's Snyder?"
"They opened in Atlantic City last week; expect to return Monday."
"They say she's got a big hit! Glad of it!"
"So what's-his-name—your cartoonist—doesn't approve?" said Doré, smiling.
"He's a perfect pest. ”

“ Bois-Doré glanced furtively from the master lying stretched out on the bed, with an air of utter prostration, to the calm, stern, devout servant, whose monkish profile was outlined against the window.
"These are not highwaymen," he thought. "What the devil! this fair, slender young man, with an eye as soft as a girl's—To be sure, this morning when he was angry with the gypsies, and yesterday when he inveighed against the Moors, his expression was less benignant than usual. ”

“ Salvator Rosa did the same with his work, painted a picture between daylight and dark, and composed a poem when the lamps were lit.
Doré could not paint directly from the model or from nature, as all true artists ought to do, or else force themselves to do. A student of mine was once sketching outside when Doré came upon him and asked to have a try at his sketch. ”

“ She said they were the only flowers she cared for; so, when orders came in, all the florist did was to telephone the amount he would credit to her account!"
"Was the florist Pouffé?" asked Doré, stopping short and laughing.
"One of them. But the real touch was when the [Pg 130] admirer called. She would place the vase of roses, say, on the mantel,—out of reach, naturally,—blow a special perfume in the room, and say:
"'My! how wonderfully fragrant those roses are!'"
Doré felt divined; she laughed, conscious of a telltale color.
"Really, Your Honor, you know entirely too much!" ”

“ Monsieur d'Alvimar and Lucilio had been invited by the marquis to be present.
"See," continued Bois-Doré, with ingenuous pride in his own penetration, putting aside the child's coarse white shirt, "his face is sun-burned, but no more than our peasants are in harvest-time; his neck is as white as snow, and he has feet and hands so small that serf or villein never could show the like. Come, my little imp, be not ashamed; and, as I am told that you understand French, answer our questions. What is your name?"
"Mario," the child replied without hesitation. ”

“ As a painter he has grandeur of conception and a bold expressive style. Amongst his chief works are: Christ leaving the Prætorium, Paolo and Francesca di Rimini, The Flight into Egypt, and Mont Blanc. In later years Doré also won fame as a sculptor. [74]
Dore ́ma, a genus of plants, nat. ord. Umbelliferæ. D. ammoniăcum, a Persian species, yields the ammoniacum of commerce, a milky juice that exudes from punctures on the stem and dries in little 'tears'. ”

“ Dore's nature was exuberant and buoyant, and he was youthful in appearance. He had a passion for music, possessed rare skill as a violinist, and it is assumed that, had he failed to succeed with his pencil, he could have won a brilliant reputation as a musician.
He was a bachelor, and lived a quiet, retired life with his mother—married, as he expressed it, to her and his art. His death occurred on January 23, 1883.
JESUS AND THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY.
Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. ”

“ She had only an immense curiosity as to herself, wondering if she had really discovered something new, if in fact it were possible for the same Doré, who selfishly, in will-o'-the-wisp fashion, enticed men on to mock their discomfiture, could open up a flood of womanly strength to one who came to her in weakness. ”

“ Young Robin was afterward Abbé of Sorrèze. The elder Robin was a grateful and devoted debtor of Monsieur de Bois-Doré, and we may well believe that the marquis owed it to that friendship that he was never molested for his former acts of complicity in the crime of salt-smuggling.
So Bois-Doré opened his heart to that faithful friend concerning a part of the embarrassment with which he was threatened by the prince's visit, and confessed that he was particularly disturbed concerning worthy Lucilio, whose presence in his house the hypocritical zealots of the province regarded with an evil eye. ”

“ I found more romance as well as information in Borro and Simpson than in all the novels and poems put together; and I obtained a fair idea of the artistic side of Spanish gipsy life from Doré’s “Spain.” Doré is something of a musician as well as a limner; and his knowledge of the violin enabled him to make himself at home in the camps of that music-loving people. He played wild airs to them, and studied their poses and gestures with such success that his gipsies seem actually to dance in the engravings. ”

“ On the road, Bois-Doré furnished his young kinsman with such precise details concerning his brother's death, the recovery of his nephew, the episode of the Catalan knife, the admission extorted from the culprit by his indignation, and finally the testimony of the ring, that Guillaume could not persist in upholding his friend's honor. ”

“ Is it any wonder that facile success and excessive laudation should turn the stripling's head? Professionally, if not artistically speaking, Doré passed straight from child to man; in one sense of the word he had no boyhood, the term tyro remained inapplicable. This undersized, fragile lad, looking years younger than he really was, soon found himself on what must have appeared a pinnacle of fame and fortune.
Shortly after his agreement with Philipon, his father died, and Mme. Doré with her family removed to Paris, settling in a picturesque and historic hôtel of the Rue St. ”

“ United States.” The five children were night-blooming flowers. There were hints of Doré in the shadow of the father, cast against the log walls of the cabin. He sat on the little stairway. He was a better Don Quixote than Doré ever drew.
I said, “Every middle-aged man I have met in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina has been a soldier, and I suppose you were.”
He looked at me long, as though the obligation of hospitality did not involve conversation. He spoke at last: “I fought, but I could not help it. It was for home, or against home. ”

“ For there are a quiet humour and a delicate fancy running through the legend, amid all the exciting accounts of loves and wars, tourneys and battles, accidents and adventures, which do not lose interest because they are illustrated by the powerful pencil of Gustave Doré. ”

“ M. Doré's works are well known in this country, where they have been exhibited both as contributions to exhibitions of pictures by various artists, and also a number of his oil pictures forming a gallery by themselves.
M. Doré has turned his great powers to drawings on the wood; and, as an illustrator of books of imagination by the great authors, is almost unrivalled in popularity. ”

“ I must take care of myself!" said Doré, with a sudden assumption of seriousness.
She began to talk of her career, of her independence, her ambitions—rapidly, feeling that there were sunken perils in the course of his conversation.
"Really, it isn't difficult. American men are chivalrous; they always protect a young girl—really, I've been surprised! And then, I don't think it's quite right that I should have advantages other girls haven't. ”

“ Turning from Hogarth to a modern artist, in spite of his faults of Gustave Doré. most marvellous genius and inventive faculty, I frequently find critics of approved knowledge and sagacity describing the late Gustave Doré as a caricaturist. ”

“ The words, I was told, were by Castellani of Rome. The other song was brilliant, strong, thrilling. It was an outburst of love, where a Tyrolese jodel was interpolated and sung by that brilliant imaginative genius Gustave Doré. Here one met with choice conversation, fruitful, instructive, amiable, and vivacious, from which one came forth with the mind more elevated and a greater warmth at heart; but....
To that exhibition I sent a plaster cast of my bas-relief representing the "Triumph of the Cross," the marble group of the "Pietà," and the model for the base of the Egyptian Vase. ”

“ Doris’s own father and mother were untiring readers of poetry and other literature, and they were bringing their daughter up in their footsteps. But surely, this village girl had never learned such things from her parents. Sally must have sensed the unspoken question.
“That’s a long poem in a big book we have,” she explained. “It has lovely pictures in it made by a man named Doré.” (She pronounced it “Door.”) “The book was one of my mother’s wedding presents. It always lies on our parlor table. I don’t believe any one else in our house has ever read it but Genevieve and me. ”