Since then he has been reading law, at the rate of a page a day.
If he is ever admitted to practice I 'm afraid my friendship won't avail
to make me give him my business. Good, bad, or indifferent, the boy is
essentially an artist--an artist to his fingers' ends."
"Why, then," asked Rowland, "does n't he deliberately take up the
chisel?"
"For several reasons. In the first place, I don't think he more than
half suspects his talent. The flame is smouldering, but it is never
fanned by the breath of criticism. He sees nothing, hears nothing, to
help him to self-knowledge. He 's hopelessly discontented, but he
does n't know where to look for help. Then his mother, as she one
day confessed to me, has a holy horror of a profession which consists
exclusively, as she supposes, in making figures of people without their
clothes on. Sculpture, to her mind, is an insidious form of immorality,
and for a young man of a passionate disposition she considers the law a
much safer investment. Her father was a judge, she has two brothers at
the bar, and her elder son had made a very promising beginning in the
same line.
Pages:
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48