The Forrest City times., 1908-12-25

figure of the child, strangely fore. | shortened. with the head toward you ! and rayed witt. gold so that it is ! difficult to say whether it is meant to be baby or star. The Lanthorn of Light is the fantastic title that Gull l bertson chose.
 When the critics came to write, one
 and all they laid aside that stale joke
 about the Yellow Girl"-or perhaps | they did not recognize the woman | Some of them said that religious mania was less offensive than the art 1 ists earlier freaks: others that "a note of power and originality" etc, etc; his friends wrote "Culbertson is on the way to finding himself" And l, knowing even little of his inner history felt that they were right. But for all the beauty of line and color. for all the spiritual power of this last picture. l was dominated rather by a sense of unrest and sadness The splcndor of light became, in the art. ists hands, almost tragedy.
 Three years later, when l stood be.
 fore portrait of Mary-Gold. I felt that he had attained to this supreme achievement. He had learned to sub due the splendor of her coloring and to bring out it's significance. The
 whole thing is brown, but turning to | red, to purple, to blue to green, to 1 gold. Her magnificent hair is dull compared with the barbaric crown
 that he once believed it to be; hei eyes are like misty sunshine: her smile is evanescent, but infinitely glad But the figure rests and the face is strong in peace; and l could not but think that the artist as we'll had l come to the end of his seeking. was not greatly surprised as ! stood there, when he touched me on the shoulder. He was as thin as ever and very gray. His face was deeply marked; but when I looked from his work to his eyes, I felt that he had come through the waters
 She looks her name" said I softly. the very genius of spiritual wealth." could see that l had pleased him. You are right said he, and added: ohuii never uO DelleF IDdn that. found it difficult to ask questions
 And she?' 1 stumbled over the words.
 She is my wife said he Shall we sit down few moments?"
 And so, with people passing and re. passing before the work of his hands
 he told me briefly the burden of his life. He did not look to see or to hear what people thought of his work;
 but h# watched the portrait as if to him it were alive.
 Il am another Jacob" said he quiet. ly, but l outwaited him. It has been nearly il years. And she loved me all the while It has been a strange Atalanta chase for us from end to end of the world. And whenever I came too near. sEe threw me a golden apple, in the way of letting me paint a picture. You know how we began.
 You saw the Autumn? The mystery was very dense then: but when I was doing the Isolde, she made me feel that sword. It cut into the spirit-we won't talk of it, nor of the Judas
 Tree. l was insane then: and she poor thlng.-nearly as bad though I did not know. We parted and I went ont into the desert-you know? I oont remember how many years 1t was but we were bound to meet again. It was the mere pull of our TWO natures-across the world I sup. pose. l found her in a little wavside Village church in Italy-it couldn't nave been more wonderful; and there l made her stop until I had painted the Lanthorn
 When it was done. she laid her mana on my shoulder-the nearest she had ever come to me up to then. and she said: You have read my lace You ought to know that you are right. It would be the greatest thing In the world for me to have a child
 but there's insanity. you know. in our family for generations back What could do? l can't go into the story Ethel, even to you. l thought she might have trusted me, but she ran away again-ran away in the night
 before l had finished the picture. sent 1t as 1t was-and I don't know that any one ever noticed
 T stayed on in the place. but I did no painting for a year or two. I sun pose l acquired some little skin in those bad days. I think I had a feel. ! ing that if l waited on long enouqb she would come back to me. Ii was three years before she came back to that church where we had sat and talked; and there we sat and talked again. And l was bitter about the 17 lost years; but she would not let mo speak-she drew the converse of inc picture-she was always gold unal loved, my Mary. But she made ma see how the fire through which wa had passed was the very breath ot life. And when she stopped speaking l sat thinking of the past and what if had meant and what the future might mean; how all the things of which we are deprived in reality enter into the spirit and live there and give life l And l was afraid to ask again tba,u.