He could do no more.
Laying aside his tools, he went to his desk, and took from the drawer,
that package of his mother's letters. He pushed a deep arm-chair in front
of his picture, and again seated himself. As he read letter after letter,
he lifted his eyes, at almost every sentence from the written pages to his
work. It was as though he were submitting his picture to a final test--as,
indeed, he was. He had reached the last letter when Conrad Lagrange
entered the studio; Czar at his heels.
Every day, while the picture was growing under the artist's hand, his
friend had watched it take on beauty and power. He did not need to speak
of the finished painting, now.
"Well, lad," he said, "the old letters again?"
The artist, caressing the dog's silky head as it was thrust against his
knee, answered, "Yes, I finished the picture two hours ago. I have been
having a private exhibition all on my own hook. Listen." From the letter
in his hand he read:
"It is right for you to be ambitious, my son. I would not have you
otherwise. Without a strong desire to reach some height that in the
distance lifts above the level of the present, a man becomes a laggard on
the highway of life--a mere loafer by the wayside--slothful,
indolent--slipping easily, as the years go, into the most despicable of
places--the place of a human parasite that, contributing nothing to the
wealth of the race, feeds upon the strength of the multitude of toilers
who pass him by.
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