"You want to do landscapes with cattle knee-deep in grass to hide bad
drawing. You want to do a great deal more than you can do. You have sense of
colour, but you want form. Colour's a gift,--put it aside and think no more
about it,--but form you can be drilled into. Now, all your fancy heads--and
some of them are very good--will keep you exactly where you are. With line you
must go forward or backward, and it will show up all your weaknesses."
"But other people----" began Maisie.
"You mustn't mind what other people do. If their souls were your soul, it would
be different. You stand and fall by your own work, remember, and it's waste of
time to think of any one else in this battle."
Dick paused, and the longing that had been so resolutely put away came back
into his eyes. He looked at Maisie, and the look asked as plainly as words, Was
it not time to leave all this barren wilderness of canvas and counsel and join
hands with Life and Love? Maisie assented to the new programme of schooling so
adorably that Dick could hardly restrain himself from picking her up then and
there and carrying her off to the nearest registrar's office. It was the
implicit obedience to the spoken word and the blank indifference to the
unspoken desire that baffled and buffeted his soul.
Pages:
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933