The west shore., August 01, 1889, Page 449, Image 42

410
terrors to the almost intolerable weight of anxiety.
Suddenly, but aa if with effort, he broke the silonoe.
" You were right, Arthur."
About what, Winthrop?"
" About about life society ambition every,
thing," evasively answered my cousin. "They are
empty as a bubble."
" Ah! Have you weighed them all this afternoon,
dear Winthrop, and found them wanting? Have love
and art such remarkable powers of divination and
wisdom, that in one short afternoon, whioh I have
frittered away in a wildwood ramble, they have ena
bled yoo to explore the depths of life, its sorrows and
joys, its silent tragedies and its loud ha-has? Or
have you found such unspeakable delight that you
are lifted above the dead level of mortal life? Tray
tell me how I, too, can solve this riddle so easily."
" I have not reasoned it out, Arthur, it has just
come to me as light comes from yonder moon."
" Oh, yes, by simple reflection."
" Ton always banter when one speaks of profound
subjects. I mean simply that the truth has dawned
upon me without any volition of my own. I know it
without knowing how."
" I understand. It is one of those conclusions
which spring up periodically in the hot soil of a young
man's blasted hopes. That is s species of growth fa
miliar to philosophers, but the warmth of its habitat
soon scorches it up. But is this all? I thought you
were going to tell me something new and strange
about life,"
" Bo I shall, if you will listen. Dut lot us go over
there and sit down on one of those graves.. It is a
comfort to be assured by thoir ghostly prcsonoe that
there are some who are at peace with the world at
least"
We had reached the outskirts of the village. On
a slightly rolling eminence sloping to tho westward
there gleamed the modest tombstones marking the
resting places of the town's departs generation
We climbed the fence in dofanlt of a convenient gate
way, and soon found a pleasant seat far enough from
the highway to avoid interruption. After a moment's
Bilenoe, Winthrop began
" Did you ever see a human being without a soul V
" Yes, hundreds of them," was what I wautod to
answer, but I respected my cousin's mood, and so I
merely said, "Seriously, no, I never hate; buttlmt
is a very strange question with which to begin asyni
posium on the problems of modern life." 1
" Well," Winthrop went on in a straio tone, " I
have. It came to my room this afternwn." i
"What did?"
" That thing, that animal, that beautiful Uy
which we call Olive." '
"Olive!" I exclaimed. "My God, Winthrop,
what do you mean?"
"Just what I say," he replied calmly, and with
the faint tinge of a sneer in his voice, " I mean to
aay that she whom we call Olive has no soul; that the
creature whose breath and touch and beauty enslaved
me from the moment I lookod into her eyes possesses
that power despite the absence of all that we have
been taught to worship as the soul" His words
breathed scorn and oontompt, and he spoke doliber.
ately u though he wished to flay his spirit and en.
fold it in thoir furious abasement. I was too pro.
foundly moved to interrupt him and ho continued his
narration: " Every day for weeks I have studied her
in every possible mood in order to paint her portrait
I wrote you that I loved her from the moment I saw
hor; and so I did; but I soon discovered a moat sin.
gular flaw in her nature; honoc, during those sittings
I compelled love to be the slave of art, permitting
its prcsonoe only aa an aid to greater depth of in.
sight, and to call forth the apparently dormant spir.
itual endowments of the subject I worked rspldly
and more satisfactorily than ever before, for she was
a fine subject; and when, shortly before you came, I
had finished all but a few details, Olive pronounced
it faultless, u indeed it wu to her eyes, and even to
my own in point of execution. Dut I saw there was
no light from heaven in her eyes, no gleam of spirit
ual beauty illuminated the face, Btill, that did not
dishearten me; it wu a labor of love, and I returned
to it again and worked dilllgently and with a holy
awe. Yet again I wu destined to fail, for when I
showed it to an art oonnoiaseur who happened to be
passing through the town, telling him it wu the
work of a friend, he declared it made his flesh creep
to look at it; uked if it wu painted from life - that
he would give anything to see so strange a subject;
a mate for Hawthorn's faun,' he said. I told him
It wu an ideal sketch. Thereupon I blotted out the
mocking ryes, snd plied myself to the task again. I
' wreaked my soul upon egression.' I made Olive
sit for hours, and I sought In untold ways to eitort
eiprcuiou from her large inoonstant orbs, or rather,
to find a toulbeam in them; for I felt that if I oould
o it there but one instant I could transfer it to the
caovas. Dut alu, my next effort wu criticised for
having s man's exprrulon in tho delicste outlines of
a woman's face, Ouce more with redoubled energy
I returned to my solf-impoeed task. I lavished the
niiwt putirut care and all my skill upon the prrpars
' tion of ray colors; I spent the intermediate boars in
: exulted meditation and searching solf-analysls in or.
; dir to put myn'lf rn hi'hiH If pouibla with the in.
. itiort or consciousness of my subject For many
tin) 1 1 scarcely slrpt or tasted food, Dut the curse