The Savannah morning news., 1901-11-20

| was more the woman and less the pu-
PHI now. His breath. for the moment,
came short and uncertainty For fear
| ne had erred he turned his eyes away,
and the next instant was sorry he had
| not turned them back again. Would
| that he had not been able to see! The
arm was fuller; he was wrong in the
slope of the shoulder. He had missed
the subtle melting of the cream of the
| neck into the crimson of the cheek.
And the peep of breast that appeared
| showed his drawing was wrong and his
lighting disadvantageous and arbi-
trary. Something caught at his
breath and again pushed his eyes away:
but moment after they had rebound
the range. In the interval the breast
had gone higher and the light was
fuller. AS he looked it fell from full
to tone less than half. Now it was
almost as he had it; now he was wild
ly wrong. His eye caught the cheek.
1t was higher, and since he had looked
before there was a tender, subtle
suffusion of half-light upon the
neck. He was dazed, confused, baffled.
Something urged him to rush from the
room. How was he to verify-from
anything so changing? Something
new must be invented in art or the best
must be missed. Surely it was beauty,
it must be, this ebb and flow of pure
breast, this melting out and in of tone
on cheek and neck. 1t was all above,
beyond what he or art had ever dared.
With a crushed. defeated feeling he
slipped from the room. He went out
into the night and a little later he was
facing a great unhung masterpiece.
For some time he looked steadily at
it. 1t did not move; it had no life.
There was no flash of eye, no heave of
breast, no pulsing blood that glad
dened the cheek as did streams a des-
ert. There were eyes, but they saw
not; ears, but they heard not; lips. but
they spake not. 1t was dumb thing
the work of mans hand. But it was
Art.
He continued to look for a time--a
great, long time--lost in the multitude
Of thoughts that trooped upon him.
Was his work as great as he had
hoped? Were there no rivals? Was
art enough? The great studio was
very quiet; no one came there. The
very fullnesS of his life at the club had
but accumulated its emptiness. AT his
quarters, maid brought him his food.
He looked back to the time he had
taken his strong, heroic resolve. He
had steadily and stoutly maintained
the great conflict. He was sure he had
been winning-up to few hours ago.
AlSi oliQNOilJy uAiCAPCCbCQlJ3 hAO
come his great disillusioning. There
was another artist-a greater. His
masterpiece put the one on the wall to
shame; the composition was finer, the
pencil fuller, the distributing rarer.
There was an ease of execution and
finish, an absence of feebleness or ar
bitrariness and sobriety of tone in the
creation he had seen that night which
made the work before him ugly and
Gould hn that
still things he had not learned in the
field of art?
For years he had kept the cold kiss
of dead lips fresh upon him. He had
left the world of breathing things for
another world. But as he looked back
he was not sure he had been content
If, through the years, the angel had
him by the hand the serpent had him
by the heart. and he was unsatisfied.
They were empty years; he had not
fulfilled himself.
He looked again to the masterpiece
on the wall. 1t could not love; it did
not need love. 1t could not minister,
nor be ministered unto. 1t could not
laugh, nor suffer. He must be denied
even the bitter-sweet pleasure of
standing some far-off day at it's grave.
1t had no life, no breath, no warmth.
no needs. 1t was a worthless thing:
turned it roughly towards the wall.
1t was several days after. and even
ing. A leaping hearth-fire threw the
shadows of two figures on the opposite
wall. The man had spoken and was
waiting. The woman's profile was to-
ward him, strongly lit from the hearth
in front. The drawing had been done
with a full pencil and the lines that
held in the face were exactly where a
master would have wished them. The
cheeks and the low-toned warm blue
grays of the eyes went high or low
according as the fire leaped or sank.
Something underneath the breast sent
it regularly from light to half light,
then back again.
The woman drew her eyes slowly
from the fire and fixed them upon him.
Yes" she said, simply. He looked
for a time. but he did not speak. The
composition, the balance, the gradat-
ing, the suffusing and distributing were
all exquisite. This time. however, it
was not the artist but the man who
saw. The next instant the irregular
band of light between the silhouettes
on the wall suddenly disappeared. Her
lips were soft and warm with life.
He gave UP the quarrel with God.