"'Is there any _money_ in it?' 'Oh, of course, if you get to be a great painter. But how do you know you've got it in you to be a great painter? Think you have? Got a pretty good opinion of yourself, haven't you?' 'What if you fail? Suppose you wake up some morning and find yourself a middle-aged man and a fizzle? Guess you'll wish then that you'd stuck to plain everyday business and dropped all this highfalutin about art.' 'Yes. I suppose it's an easy life: sitting around and painting pictures. Pretty soft, eh? Give me a man's job!' 'Don't you think it's a little rash, my boy, to risk so much, when if you'd settle down to a good business you'd be sure of a decent living? And what about marriage? If you marry you'll have to paint pot boilers, and then what becomes of your art? You might as well be a business man and be done with it. And if you don't, is it worth going without a wife and children in order to paint pictures, and so come at last to a lonely old age?'" He knew all the old ones by heart. Later we used to recite them together in concert like school children in the geography class. If you took the roof off any Chamber of Commerce you would find half a dozen retired business men whose guilty secret it is that they dabble on the quiet with paint tubes, or modeling clay, or scenarios, or a violin--the poor, damned souls of artists. They have made their "pile." House and lot, wife and children, motor car and country club--all these they have; and yet, gnawing at their hearts is the secret knowledge that they have missed the big thing. They were born to beget children of the spirit; they were born to create in art, in music, in literature, in social experiment; and the ignoble standards of the society in which they live have bludgeoned and ridiculed them into prostituting their highest powers in the market-place. In such relationship did this young man stand to the life of his country and his time. With unflinching eye he listened to its taunt: "Artist, create at your peril! You may starve, for all me, until you win a reputation that is a commercial asset. After which, having despised you, I will do my best to corrupt you by rewards and flatteries gratifying to my intellectual snobbery." Such were the terms. This youth, uncertain of his own powers, accepted them with quiet courage and imperturbable good humor. Such was the secret of that look of settled purpose so intriguing on a face so young, and such the secret of the fire which smouldered behind those dark eyes. He was prepared for a siege. He was ready to go to the mat. It had taken three generations--son, sire, and grand-sire--to make this stand against the all-devouring maw of American commercialism: three generations to conquer and produce an artist. And mindful of his end I ask myself whether they did conquer. We shall see. * * * * * Midnight clanked from the city clocks.