Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-04-24

None of the other artists who lived in
the same street, or even those in the same
house, knew much of the young sculptor
Leroy. He was from the south and had
come to study in Paris, but, unlike all the
rest, he never would make any friends or
join in the wild pleasures of his fellow
workers. II was rumored that he was
dreadfully poor, but then so many others
were poor, and yet led pleasant convivial
lives.
mo; something else is wrong with Lee
roy, the artists used to say. "He is either
mad or in love" He never asked any one
inside his room, and indeed there was
nothing much to see, except very bare
garrett and lot of white clay, with here
and there some lump beginning to take
human shape. Leroy's pale quiet face did
not attract people, and he was very soon
left to 90 on his own way. The concierge
used to shrug her shoulders when she
reached the top story in her gossip over the
different inmates of the house, and wonder
how the thin, dark haired fellow lived.
Leroy, for all his melancholy looks and
his poverty, more stringent than any one
imagined, was happy. His mind was
thronged with shapes he longed to put into
marble, and this bare garnet formed the
background to many wonderful dreams.
sometimes, when he shut the door upon
the dark, ugly staircase, and rested a mo-
ment in his chair with his eyes closed, the
room seemed to fill with beautiful forms.
which moved and swayed before him, and
he would lean back, watching intent.y
till at last one above all the rest would en-
trance his eyes. Then he would strive to
imprint every line and curve upon his
memory, in fever lest anything should
escape him before that sudden stiffness in
the air, which always woke him with
shudder to the ugly realities of his life
Over and over again he was disappointed
in the attempt to reproduce his vision, and
often in despair he broke what he had mod
eed. But he could not be unhappy while
he lived in the world of his dreams, and he
never thought of the future Even after
his first SHOCK of finding his little store OF
money exhausted, he began without mis-
giving to pawn his little possessions, and
worked on in the same unhampered way as
before But after time, when his watch
and his clothes, and, finally. even his bed
stead, had gone, he found himself growing
uncertain and restless. He was at work ON
q figure of Justice, but the tall calm wom-
an opposed him, and she seemed to grow
less and less like the majestic shape which
had once moved across his sight. Inces-
sanity he tried to conjure her up before
him, but in this time of his greatest need
his vision seemed to have deserted him.
He could think of nothing but poverty and
misery, and as he looked bitterly round the
empty room he wondered why so little
| had come to his love and enthusiasm.
There was nothing to show for his dreams
nothing but shapeless clods of clay, and
no one but he could know what they
| might have become.
AT last, one cold, wet evening, rs the
dark was beginIing to set in, Leroy left off
working quite dispirited. He leaned back
in his one chair and closed his eyes in weary
| despair, wishing the room were warmer
and that he had something besides bread
| for supper, when suddenly through the