‘The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, namely, in a love-cause.’

I cannot help recalling Rosalind’s words as I look at the photograph before me; the history of its original so completely disproves her saucy speech. In my hand I hold the likeness of a man of forty or thereabouts, with a noble square forehead arching above deep thoughtful eyes, a large beardless face surrounded by a heavy growth of long hair, and a thickset form denoting great personal strength. A superficial observer might call the homely portrait commonplace, and turn to gaze on the more aristocratic faces of his fellow-artists in the photographic album; but a careful scrutiny of the coarse irregular features and the broad brow impresses one with the feeling that this was no ordinary man; that a spirit dwelt within these steady eyes purer and mightier than usually falls to the lot of mortal man. But the closest inspection would still leave much untold. The indomitable energy, the heaven-sent genius, may be traced in his strong features and deep eyes; but the exquisite sensibility, the single-heartedness, the uncomplaining patience, would never be guessed.

But a short time has elapsed since he was one of us, and his story is still ringing in the hearts of his countrymen—a story so pathetic in its poverty and its triumph, so touching in its untimely close.

Theodor Mintrop, the original of the photograph, was born near the village of Werden in Westphalia. From his childhood he had an uncontrollable desire to draw, which brought nothing but censure from his elders, substantial bauers and petty farmers, who considered drawing an unpardonable waste of time. But the talent was not to be crushed out. In spite of opposition and discouragement, in spite of his daily hard work on his father’s farm, he practised his art whenever he had an opportunity; at first sketching rough outlines on whitewashed walls, and when he could afford it, buying pencils and paper. In time his fame as an artist spread among the simple peasantry, and even beyond his own limited circle. ‘The country Raphael,’ he was popularly called; and made a little money occasionally by painting signs for country inns, and pictures of the Virgin and Child for the Catholics. All this time he wrought in the fields at a labourer’s usual avocations; and it was a hard horny hand that in his leisure moments wielded the pencil with such surprising genius. He was waiting—waiting patiently till the tide would turn—waiting till the time would come when he could study his art and devote himself wholly to it. And thus he might have spent his entire life, his genius, like an imprisoned bird, hemmed in by sordid cares and toils, if one of these strange coincidences that so often bring the unexpected, had not occurred.

A celebrated artist, seeing some of Mintrop’s drawings, was so struck by their merit, that he immediately set out for Werden, found Mintrop at the plough, and carried him back to his house in DÜsseldorf, offering him every facility for studying thoroughly his beloved art.

The opportunity had come; but how long the country Raphael had waited for it! Thirty years had he repressed his ambition, and performed the duties of farm-labourer for his father and brother. No wonder a sad weariness can be traced on his features. In DÜsseldorf, Mintrop went through the regular course of instruction, beginning at the very lowest class, where he, a man of thirty, sat on the same bench with young lads; but his great genius and intense application soon carried him through the class-rooms. His art had an amount of originality and freshness that seemed to breathe of his free country life at Werden. From his boyhood a great lover of fairy tales, there was a strain of grotesqueness in his works. His father, a man of an original turn of mind, had fostered his passion for the weird homely legends of the German peasantry; and to Theodor, in his imaginative youth, kobolds had peeped out of the earth, nixies had sung in the rivers. The fame of the country Raphael soon spread in DÜsseldorf; art critics acknowledged his wonderful genius, and vied with one another in pointing out the grand simplicity and admirable power of his compositions. How did the untrained peasant, fresh from his rural life, bear all this homage? Simply and meekly. With reverence he regarded the wonderful new life around him, so much more polished, so much pleasanter than his old one; but the dignity of his art and his own self-respect saved him from being overborne by it. But no one guessed that under his homely and somewhat uncouth exterior such an appreciation for all that was fair and good in life existed, as the sequel of his life proved.

Behold him now at perhaps the zenith of his career; having attained the object of his desires, an artistic education; having in a few short years established a fame that many academical pupils of many years’ standing had failed to win; surrounded by many friends, living in the home-circle of his first patron and dearest friend in that pleasant city on the Rhine. His future lay fair and unclouded before him, leading him on from triumph to still greater triumph. But inscrutable are the ways of Providence; God’s ways are not man’s ways; and the tree that promised such glorious fruit was never to reach maturity.

To the house of Geselschap (the name of the artist who had befriended Mintrop, and in whose house he lived) came one fine summer a young lady-friend. In the free unrestrained home society, Mintrop had much opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted with this young girl. He had been learning much of life as well as art since he came to DÜsseldorf; but women in a higher rank than the peasants he had for thirty years been familiar with, were ever an object of peculiar interest and intense admiration to him; and the grace and amiability of this stranger soon made a powerful impression on him. For a whole long happy summer this fair young creature lived under the same roof with him, and treated the grave shy man with the playfulness and friendliness of a sister, wholly unaware of the passion she had unwittingly kindled. In short he, the hard-working country Raphael, engrossed in his art, which he pursued for itself, not for money (about which he was one of the most careless of mortals)—he, the rough Westphalian peasant, with hard hands and uncouth figure, had learned to love this gentle maiden, with all the strength of his noble patient heart.

That long happy summer passed, and the young lady returned to her friends. Shortly after, the announcement of her engagement to be married reached DÜsseldorf, piercing the true heart that loved her so well. To commemorate her marriage, Mintrop composed a wonderful series of pictures, that will always link her name to his.

The ‘Love of King Heinzelmann’ they were called; seventy scenes in all, in which he, in the guise of King Heinzelmann, following his beloved Johanna through every incident in daily life, protects and helps her as he would fain have done in reality. True to the traditions of his youth, numbers of quaint dwarfs with long beards, pointed caps, and trunk-hose, attend on the commands of their king; who is himself a strange weird vision with a wizened face, pointed cap, and magic wand, tipped by a burning eye. In a burgher household, these droll figures sweep and wash, bake and brew, throwing themselves into many strange contortions, in the service of Anna; the king ever with them, looking sadder and sadder; for as time goes on, a stranger from America falls in love with Johanna and carries her away across the sea. The poor gnome-king loves in vain; and when the day comes that Johanna and her lover sail away, he and his dwarfs stand sadly on the shore (for they may not cross the sea) watching the vessel till it fades from sight.

The fantastic legend is imbued with a strange humanity; and the ugly figure of the gnome-king touches our inmost sensibility with a thrill of pathos. Such was the love of Mintrop—intense, undying, and hopeless! Some things are almost too sad to bear speaking of, and the waste of affection that goes on in this world is one of them. Doubtless there were many girls in DÜsseldorf equal to Johanna in every respect; but for Mintrop she was the only one, and yet she was another’s.

Three years had passed since Mintrop worked his love into his art—throwing but a thin veil of grotesqueness over his real feelings; and Johanna returned from afar with her husband. They settled in Westphalia; and Johanna, moved by the memories of old days, proposed that Mintrop should be godfather to their infant daughter. Three years were gone, and Mintrop thought he had conquered his hopeless love; but yet the request startles him, and he requires to struggle for composure before he can determine whether he shall agree to it or not. He goes, finds the comfortable home where his lost love resides, meets her and her husband and the various guests present at the ceremony. The priest comes, and the little soft baby is placed in his arms. He looks at his sleeping god-daughter as he somewhat awkwardly receives her, and the child slowly opens her large eyes, so like her mother’s. A thrill runs through Mintrop’s veins; all the old feelings, the old hopes and fears, rush through his mind with a force too cruel to be borne. He hastily places the child in its mother’s arms, and hurries away from the scene.

Not long after, and Mintrop is dying. Some physical cause, the doctor assigns; but his friends know well what it is. His patient loving heart has borne too much. The intensity of his feelings has snapped the cord of life. As his breath leaves him, he thinks of his other love, his Art, and he sighs: ‘Would I might live long enough to finish my work; otherwise, I am ready to die!’ And thus the brave gentle spirit went forth to meet its Maker, regretting only that the promise of its youth was not fulfilled—the work not yet completed. Alas, alas, for human love, for human hopes and wishes! My eyes are wet as I trace these concluding lines; and the face in the photograph is hallowed by a strange sad interest.

Theodor Mintrop died at DÜsseldorf in July 1870; and his sad story, as given above, speedily found its way into the German newspapers. In autumn 1871, a bronze bust erected to his memory was unveiled in the presence of thousands of spectators; and the poet Emil Rittershaus composed and recited a beautiful poem—a requiem to one who died of a broken heart.