Episode 25: The Old Portrait by Hume Nisbet

Classic Ghost Stories

Tony Walker

Fiction, Drama, Science Fiction

4.9 • 686 Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2019

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hume NisbetHuman Nisbet was a Scottish born novelist an artist. He was born in sterling in Scotland and was trained as an artist from an early age. Nisbet moved to Australia at the age of 16.He spent a lot of time travelling around Australia and New Zealand and then returned to Great Britain.He first went back to London in 1872 but did not achieve great success with his art so went back to Scotland and became an art master in Edinburgh. Nisbet did achieve some success as a book illustrator.As well as his illustration work, much of his income came from writing rather than painting and he published 40 to 50 novels and volumes of poetry.As was in vogue at the time he wrote a number of ghost and horror stories. Again a lot of these were set in Australia where he spent a lot of time.Nisbet wrote vampire stories as well as ghost stories and this story here read out – the old portrait is a clever short story on a vampire theme. Most vampire stories have a Gothic object in which the vampire dwells. Most famously this is the castle in Dracula, but we also see the family castle and the ruins of Karnstein in Carmilla.I think it is legitimate to say that the picture frame in this story is in fact the Gothic habitation of the vampire. Once the narrator has cleaned up the picture frame he sees that the decoration he wants took as being fine art is in fact the exquisite working of worms and other deathlike themes. Very gothic.A nice short Christmas vampire story for you to listen to on Christmas Day!LinksWebsitehttp://bit.ly/ClassicGhostStoriesPodcast (Classic Ghost Stories Podcast)Musichttps://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/witch-phase-four (Heartwood Institute)Patronage & Supporthttps://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Donate a Coffee)https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Become a Patreon)https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Support the show) (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)Support the showVisit us here: www.ghostpod.orgBuy me a coffee if you're glad I do this: https://ko-fi.com/tonywalkerIf you really want to help me, become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/barcudMusic by The Heartwood Institute: https://bit.ly/somecomeback Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Everybody dies, don't they?
0:10.4	Isn't that same?
0:14.4	You tried to get into the locked drawer today, didn't you?
0:17.7	How do the dead come back, mother?
0:20.0	What's the secret? The old Portrait by Hume Nesbit.
0:25.6	Old-fashioned frames are a hobby of mine.
0:28.6	I'm always on the prowl amongst the frames and dealers and curiosities for something quaint and unique in picture frames.
0:35.6	I don't care much for what's inside them, for being a
0:39.4	painter. It is my fancy to get the frames first and then paint a picture which I think
0:43.8	suits their probable history and design. In this way I get some curious and I think also some
0:50.4	original ideas. One day in December about a week before Christmas I picked up a fine but dilapidated specimen
0:57.3	of wood carving in a shop near Soho.
1:00.5	The gilding had been worn nearly away and three of the corners broken off, yet, as there was one
1:05.4	of the corners still left, I hoped to be able to repair the others from it.
1:09.7	As for the canvas inside this frame, it was so
1:12.8	smothered with dirt and time-stains that I could only distinguish it had been a very badly painted
1:18.2	likeness of some sort, of some commonplace person, daubed in by a poor pot-boiling painter
1:25.0	to fill the second-hand frame, which his patron may have picked up
1:28.7	cheaply as I had done after him. But as the frame was all right, I took the spoiled canvas along with
1:34.8	it, thinking it might come in handy. For the next few days my hands were full of work of one kind
1:40.5	and another, so it was only on Christmas Eve that I found myself at liberty to examine
1:45.4	my purchase which had been lying with its face to the wall since I had brought it to my studio.
	...

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