Immortal Youth: A Study in the Will to CreatePrice, Lucien
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Immortal Youth: A Study in the Will to Create
Price, Lucien
Demmler, Fred Adolph, 1888-1918
... Morning; and such a morning as never was. Quite forgetting to
dress, Fritz lost himself staring out of the open window at the quaint
harbor, the fishing fleet, the blue bay and the gaunt headlands until
it was suggested to him that passers by might be enjoying him as much
as he was enjoying the morning.
There was an hour for soaking it in before the train left for the
city, and soak it in he did. A sea of pale blue, like molten glass,
untroubled by a breeze; sky the deep blue of a morning after storms;
air sweet with the scent of blossoming orchards and dooryard lilacs
and tart with the tang of salt brine; merry twitter of robins; lazy
splash of surf; the long headlands tapering down to the sea; the squat
white tower of Straitsmouth light solitary on its rocky islet, "and
overhead the lovely skies of May."
In the midst of it stood a young artist, dumb with delight. His eyes
drank.
Oh brethren of the possessing class, ye who must own this and that
before you can enjoy, this world can never give the bliss for which ye
sigh. That pilgrimage cost less than $3.00 per.
* * * * *
Evening. Above the tiny grass-plat and spindling poplars in Mount
Vernon Square floats the magic of a night in mid-June. The windows of
the fifth-floor-back in 94 Charles are lighted and open to the
breeze. From those of the Advent come gusts of music,--rumbles of
organ and the fresh voices of boys: choir rehearsal. But I think the
sounds which float down from the windows of 94 are more in tune with
the night: peal after peal of infectious laughter. It was clear to the
meanest order of intellect that Sisson was telling stories which were
more joyous than dutiful: also that he had Fritz going. There was no
mistaking that laugh.
A belated delivery man, basket on arm, pauses beside me to listen and
grin.
"I bet that was a good one," says he. "Say, but can't that guy laugh!"
IV
In the autumn he reappeared bronzed and husky from a summer on a
Pennsylvania farm. That spring had been the overture. Now the curtain
rose. How can my thin piano score reproduce that richly glowing
orchestration?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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