Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1900-03-04

! IN the morning. ne idiu al opCA oooA
face downward now as he left his
| seat.
II cannot tell you how much II
| touches me to have you take all this
| trouble for me. Where would I have
| stood to-day but for your interest in
| me?"
Little Hedges wriggled unconfort-
ably in his best coat. Personal trib-
utes always affected him like prickly
heat. He brushed this one aside rath-
er grufly.
Every tub must stand on its own
bottom. What is that you have
there?" He nodded toward the book
| Teddy had laid down.
Something should very much like
to read to you. It's not long, just a
paragraph, but it says, so much better
than l can, something tried to say
to you last night"
about what?"
About a mans having one moment
of supreme inspiration in his lifetime,
| and only one. May / read it?''
IF 1t isn't long, yes. But we must
be getting to the Academy early, to
! see what sort of light they have hung
you in. I'll order up breakfast"
And, without waiting for further per-
mission, Teddy began to read. He
often read aloud to Hedges.
Each bud flowers but once, and
| each flower has but its minute of per-
| feet beauty, SO in the garden of the
| soul each feeling has, as it were, its
towering instant. its one and only
moment of expansive grace and rad
liant kingship. Each star passes but
oLce in the night through the meridian
over our heads, and shines there but
one instant, so in the heaven of the
mind each thought touches it's zenith
but once, and in that moment all its
brilliancy and all its greatness cul-
inmate. Artist, poet or thinker, II
you want to fix and immortalize your
ideas or your feelings, seize them at
this precise and feeting moment, for
it is their highest point"
"Rot!" little Hedges broke in ire
yerently. Il don't know who you
have been spouting but I'll venture to
say that the fellow who wrote it was
] trying to extenuate or excuse life of
failure. We would all get tangled up
early in our careers If we recognized
but one fleeting moment of inspira-
ton. You would find Harry LORE
quer much more healthy reading to
start the day on. But after this week
I hope you'll have less time for NOR
bid amusement of that Sort"
Teddy looked perplexed.
II expect you to have orders to fill.
"Oh, you do? hope So sir. 1t is
time you were seeing some practical
results from the labor you have ex-
pended on me-"
Il expect more than practical re-
suits. / look for brilliant ones"
Teddy was very silent during the
walk from Washington square to the
| Academy. He knew what artists day
meant in the case of other applicants
| for public favor. For himself it held
potentialities for pain or pleasure
that shook him to his nerve center
with apprehension. Even his master
did not-could not-know what a die
he had cast
Friends and acquaintance nodded
cordially to Hedges and his handsome
pupil as the two men passed up the
broad stairway to the galleries on an
/ upper floor. Teddy scarcely saw
them. He stopped in the outer en-.
trance hall to the galleries. Its square
space was lined with flowers and pot
ted plants. He leaned against a pill
lar to wait for Hedges. who had gone
into the east gallery to see where the
| pictures had been hung.
This was the day on which the fash
ionables would be out in force. Al
ready the carriages were beginning Il
unload their cargoes Of critical and
fastidious judges. To Teddy the day
held but one possible event of any i'm
portance. Would Diana Towers b,
there? And would she recognize her
self in his ascension lilies?
Now that the canvass had passed en-
tirely beyond his own control. b,
stood aghast at his own daring.
He knew that his pictures were II
the east gallery. That was sufficient
reason to keep him wandering rest
lessly through the north, south ant
west galleries.
| The crowd was ipcressing every mo-
ment he had lost Hedges very soor