The news & observer., 1905-12-17

the ultimate word to his lips and held
it, lured his eye to guess the riddle Of
the shadows and held him gasping on
the threshold of knowledge. 1t was
a large picture that Randall dreamed.
Towards it. even if on hands and
knees. he set his life to the advance.
Always. working his way through COL
lege, working his way also with mys-
terious devices through winters of art
school instruction, working still to get
the means to work some more. Ran
dali lived two consistent things: the
present as means to the certainty of
the future.
When all is said, he lived such a
life as is pleasant if sad to think on
He knew nothing of the prosaic. He
loved with a passion as high as his
ambition. He felt with a keenness
which responded to a breath. He
knew the love of a wife who nursed
the fires of his hope, who labOred by
his side. who bravely smiled with him
at sorrow. He knew paternity and the
cruel thrust of death through a dead
child. He saw his own death coming
yet long way off. Calmly he regarded
it and worked on. For years. shaken
with weakness. he warded off the end
| that he might work, battled hopelessly
for time IN which to achieve that deS-
tiny of which he never had a doubt
Randall never had the opportunity
to express himself except in his life.
His art. that held so much of talent
that it might have struck fire with ge-
MUS, failed to get upon the canvass.
Yet inchoate, it passed in the heart Of
the man in which it lived yet did not
die. Unrealized and unsDoken, it was
it's masters oeathleSS faith.
Many portraits remain behind with
the name of Randall upon them. Some
of these hold the gleam of the paint
er's hope. They are hung in the State
library, in the Supreme Court room, at
the Normal and Industrial College and
in the galleries at the University. He
; had a special talent for the portraiture
of men advanced in years The pic
lures of Maior Charles M. Stedman, of
the late Bishop Lyman, of Daniel r.
Goodloe. the uncle of his wife. seem
almost as though their lips would open
and speak. The talent which went
into his work would have been a great
reward for talent: perhaps the value
of tho Gift and the hint that here and
there elusively speaks from its express
sion lay i'm that frank vet modest in
Spiration which dared to look at
genius with eager eyes.
For awhile Randall lived in Wash
! ington, but he loved his State with all
the ardor of his sensitive and sorrow
| tried soul Tie thought of North Car
| olina as another man might have
| thought of a sweetheart. There was a
| tenderness about his patriotism which
| was distinctive. He came to Raleigh.
! His studio here was often closed on
! account of his illness. Still he tried to
| work. Many will remember him. his
| slight figure, his keen, emaciated face,
| the blaze of eyes Softened with the
wistfulness of pain. the tender fiutter
| of the smile about his lips Finally he
was ban:shed to Arizona, but there was
no surcease of his suffering. He came
! back to North Carolina. At Blowing
| Rock, near to the valley of his boy
! hood, he sat and waited for the end,
| working as he could. dreaming still
and dauntless to the gasp. Coming
/ back TO the place he loved. his high
| spirit went away with the veil of
mountain mists which with tenuous
| fingers of cloud had beckoned him
away to the land beyond the summit,
| Randalls poverty has here been en-
phasized because he made of it a clear
| eyed choice for the sake of that Art
! to which he responded as shadow to
! cloud He did not need to be poor.
Early in his career. he occupied a
| chair in the faculty of one of the most
prominent Texas colleges That was
saw his way. He pursued it one
! thoughtedly from the day when with
his grin across his back he went over
| the mountains till he returned to wait
| among them for the ending of the
| path.
| OF those things which call to men
| from the dim receSseS of dead hearts
none IS so alluring, none so forbidding
to face, none so dazzling with promise
| or tardy of return as that which men
| call cart" What is art? is question
| the repetition of which has melted
books which only served to increase
! the riddle. Here considered. it is i'm
pulse and not performance. the desire
! and not the expression, the Seeding
| dreams in the fertile soul of youth
which will either perish or monopolize
! it's soil. For: art is not generous, il
obeisant. 1t will have all or none.
And in character. its return is either
| dole or largess. There is no halfway
ground. Who answes the glittering
| challenge of her star makes of his life
| a tiny craft uron a boundless ocean.
| Haply he drives with buffetS of the
| winds to lands of golden apples; per-
| chance he grounds upon a sandy shore
| in sight of waving trees with shade
| denied; or is he overwhelmed in open
| sea- but bright above the curling
| RraDDIo Cne wave, lie sees dSetlil ilIu
| takes into the dark the gleam.
And Art the Unsuitable devourer. the
mocking mistress, the lover rich in
| Jewels of price or Dallid-faced with
| hunger beckons right and left, to the
| rich and to the poor: and who hears
must answer or perish in the end
| clod whose soul has dwindled to a
doubt. Art summons without distinc-
ton. MANY cannot afford to go. They
have their livings to make. They are
plain men with no time to chase the
mirage. Art is frank Wrecks lie
naked in her path. Follow and the
risk assumes the magnitude of proph-
ecy: stay and the memory of the call
| is as drug TO effort. Succeed with
| out her and there is left but the null
/ tiplied renroach of a stifled thing.
Always is there impulse in the jour-
ney. but when one must work for tine
chance to follow, when in poverty and
| in pain and stumbling. he gasps and
e+ne-oe~s on amid temptations-tha is
! to be brave.
! Regardless of accomplishment, the
truest test of an artist is that he should
work manfully at alien tasks in order
l that he may follow his bent, the While