The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1895-09-01
THE ROANOKE TIMES, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4. 1896.
child's play, provided that the shares

child's play, provided that the shares
go up"
''Oh, they went up all right, and so
did the others that bought afterward.
I've never lost q shilling through fol
lowing Morrison Parker's tips. l can't
complain of that"
And yet you call the man your evil
genius?"
eyes. ] still call the man my evil
genius because lost my soul through
him-my soul as an artist, that was SO
much to me-
1 started. could not understand.
But, with an impetuous impatience,
Everard Deane hastened to make clear
his meaning.
You call yourself an artist, and you
do not understand? Doyou imagine that
an artist Gu. NEEDLE with these sordid
actualities and not find his soul defilcd
by them? Do you suppose that he will
sit down quietly to toll for doubtful
gains indefinitely deferred, when he
knows that u sudden turn of the market
may put huSdreds i'll his pocket? No.
no, my friend, it is not possible. What
does no do? Why, he buys every edition
of the evening paper to see the prices
He runs into his club to watch the tame.
He drives up to the city in working
hours to ask his broker whether he ought
not to SELL That is how it was in my
case. That is how it must be in every
case. My balance at the bank was grow
ing, but while it grew ~ sG-.l-my
artists soul, i'll which c.orcd .:o-was
dying, crushed out Of IL; bright exist
ence by the dead weight of material
cares And so things went until ] stood,
as 1t were. at the parting Of the ways
and swore that 1 would make nv
choice. -
"Yoar choice?''
My choice between the artistic and
the material life. I meant to make it
dramatically too. There was still enough
Of the artist left i'll me for that 1t was
at midnight, III my chambers in the
Temple. l took the manuscript of nv
hall finished novel-the novel that was
To make me famous-from the desk and
placed it OH the table. Beside it laid
= heap OF share certificates. and transfer
forms and contract notes. Between the
two piles there stood a lighted candle.
One of them was to be burned to ashes in
its fla1ne-oAe of them, and ut this SOL
cmn hour 1 WAS to determine which,
and, by determining, decide the whole
course of my future life
He paused. l had 10 press him before
lie would proceed.
And then you bulned''-
Neither was his unexpected an
swer. Neither, for l could not decide
My novel went back into the drawer it
calno from, to wait there till the old
joy i'll the higher life came back to me-
And that joy never came. Even to this
hour it has not come. look back to the
old days | long for them. But know
quito we'll that they will not return to
NE. The greed for gain, its ceascless
worries and anxieties, has killed my
SOUL and that is why 1 tell yuu that 1
am IL failure. -
There was a melancholy, at onco in
credible and convincing, i'll Lis accents.
Unless there We're woman in the case,
l would not have believed it possible
for man so we'll to do to look so mis-
cradle. I sought to say something that
might lift him ont of his despondcncy.
Failure or no failure, Mt least Won
can go to Monte Carlo i'll the winter" I
suggested.
II know. I'm going next week with
Morrison Parker" Everard Deane re-
piled.
And then he shook his head slowly
and shrugged his shoulders gloomily rs
though to say that tho joy of soiourning
on the Riviera while we We're toiling III
the foSs was nothing TO the price that
he had had to pay for it.
And as I drove homo that night to
Nhitcomb street / tried TO persuade my
self that he was right. Francis Gcibbe
III New Budget