Through stained glass
Page 35
CHAPTER XXXV
Both Lewis and his father passed a miserable night, but not even Neltoncould have guessed it when the two met in the morning for a late Sundaybreakfast. Leighton felt a touch of pride in the bearing of his son. Hewondered if Lewis had taken to heart a saying of his: "To feel sullen ishuman nature; to show it is ill breeding." He decided that he hadn't, onthe grounds that no single saying is ever more than a straw tossed onthe current of life.
When they had finished breakfast in their accustomed cheerful silence,Leighton settled down to a long cigar and his paper.
"I suppose you're off to see your lady," he said casually.
Lewis laughed.
"Not yet. She isn't up until twelve ever."
"Doesn't get up until twelve?" said Leighton. "You've found that out,eh?"
"I didn't say 'doesn't get up'; I said 'isn't.' She gets up earlyenough, but it takes her hours. I've never even heard of a woman thattakes such care of herself."
Leighton laid his paper aside.
"By the way," he said, "I've a confession to make to you, one that hasworried me for some days. Your little affair drove it out of my mindlast night."
"Well, Dad, go ahead," said Lewis. "I won't be hard on you."
"Have you any recollection of what you were working on before you wentaway?"
For a moment Lewis's face looked blank, then suddenly it flushed. Heturned sharp eyes on his father.
"I left the studio locked," he said.
Leighton colored in his turn.
"I forgive you that," he said quietly. "Just after I came back to townVi called and told me she had been posing for you. She said she had leftsomething in the studio that she wanted to fetch herself. She asked mefor the key."
Lewis's hands were clenched.
"Well?" he asked.
"I went with her--to the door. She asked me to wait outside. She wasgone a long time. I heard her sobbing----"
"Sobbing? Vi?"
Leighton nodded.
"So--so I went in."
Father and son looked steadily at each other for a moment. Then Lewissaid:
"You've forgiven me for my thought, Dad; now I beg your pardon for it. Isuppose you saw that that bit of modeling was never intended for theSalon? It was meant for Vi--because--well, because I liked her enoughto----"
"I know," interrupted Leighton. "Well, it worked. It worked as suchcures seldom do. While Vi was sobbing her heart out on the couch, Ismashed up the statue with a mallet. That's my confession."
Lewis did not move.
"Did you hear what I said?" asked Leighton. "I smashed up your model ofVi."
"I heard you, Dad," said Lewis. "But you mustn't expect me to getexcited over it, because it's what I should have done myself, once shehad seen it."
"When I did it," continued Leighton, "I had no doubts; but since thenI've thought a lot. I want you to know that if that cast had gone intomarble or bronze, it would have had the eternal life of art itself."
Lewis flushed with pleasure. He knew that such praise from his fathermust have been weighed a thousand times before it gained utterance. Onlyfrom one other man on earth could commendation bring such a thrill. Asthe name of Le Brux came to his mind, it fell from his father's lips.
"Le Brux has been giving me an awful talking to."
"Le Brux!" cried Lewis. "Has he been here?"
"Only in spirit," said Leighton, smiling. "And this is what he said inhis voice of thunder: 'If I had been here, I would have stood by thatfigure with a mallet and smashed the head of any man that raised afinger against it. What is the world coming to when a mere life weighsmore in the balance than the most trifling material expression ofeternity?
"'But, Master,' I said, 'a gentleman must always remember the woman.'
"To which he replied, 'What business has an artist to be anything sosmall as a mere gentleman? It is not alone for fame and repute that wegreat have our being. If by the loss of my single soul I can touch athousand other souls to life, bring sight to the blind and hearing toears that would not hear, what, then, is my soul? Nothing.'"
Leighton stopped and leaned forward.
"Then he said this, and the thunder was gone from his voice: 'When allthe trappings of the world's religions have rotted away, the vicariousintention and example of Christ will still stand and bring a surge tothe hearts of unforgetful men. Thou child, believe me, what humanity hasgained of the best is founded solidly on sacrifice--on the individualruin of many men and women and little children.'"
Leighton paused. Lewis was sitting with locked hands. He was trying todetach his mind from personalities.
"That's a great sophistry, isn't it?" he said.
"Do you know the difference between a sophistry and a great sophistry?"asked Leighton. "A sophistry is a lie; a great sophistry is merelysuper-truth."
"I can see," he went on, "that it's difficult for you to put yourselfoutside sculpture. Let's switch off to literature, because literature,next to music, is the supreme expression in art. I heard one of thekeenest men in London say the other day, 'The man who writes a book thateverybody agrees with is one of two things: a mere grocer of amusementor a mental pander to cash.'
"You've read Irving's tales of the Catskills and of the Alhambra.Vignettes. I think I remember seeing you read Hawthorne's "ScarletLetter." I pick out two Americans because to-day our country supportsmore literary grocers and panders than the rest of the world puttogether. It isn't the writers' fault altogether. You can't turn anation from pap in a day any more than you can wean a baby on lobster _ala_ Newburg.
"But to get back. You might say that Irving gives the lie to my keenfriend unless you admit, as I do, that Irving was not a writer of booksso much as a painter of landscapes. He painted the scenes that were dearto his heart, and in his still blue skies he hung the soft mists offable, of legend, and of the pageant of a passing race. Hawthorne washis antithesis--a painter of portraits of the souls of men and women.That's the highest achievement known to any branch of art." Leightonpaused. "Do you know why those two men wrote as they did?"
Lewis shook his head.
"Because, to put it in unmistakable English, they had something on theirchest, and they had to get it off. Irving wrote to get away from life.Hawthorne never wrote to get away from life,--he wrote himself into itforever and forever."
Leighton paused to get his cigar well alight.
"And now," he went on, "we come to the eternal crux. Which is beauty?Irving's placid pictures of light, or Hawthorne's dark portrayals of thevarying soul of man?" He turned to Lewis. "What's your idea of a prude?"
"A prude," stammered Lewis--"why a prude's a person with an exaggeratedidea of modesty, isn't it?"
"Bah!" said Leighton, "you are as flat as a dictionary. A prude is a farmore active evil than that. A prude, my boy, is one who has but a singleeye, and that in the back of his head, and who keeps his blind face settoward nature. If he would be content to walk backward, the world wouldget along more easily, and would like him better the farther he walked.The reason the live world has always hated prudes is that it's foreverbeing stumbled on by them. Your prude clutches Irving to the small ofhis back and cries, 'This alone is beauty!' But any man with two eyeslooks and answers, 'You are wrong; this is beauty alone.'
"And now do you see where we've come out? To make a thing of beautyalone is to bring a flash of joy to a hard-pressed world. But joy isnever a force, not even an achievement. It's merely an acquisition. Itisn't alive. The man who writes on paper or in stone one throbbing cryof the soul has lifted the world by the power of his single arm. Healone lives. And it is written that you shall know life above all thecreatures that are in sea and land and in the heavens above the earth bythis sign: sole among the things that are, life is its own source andits own end."
Leighton stopped.
"You see now," he added, "why half of me is sorry that it let the otherhalf smash up that cast. What claim has a puny person against oneflicker of eternal truth?"
"Yes," said Lewis, slowly, "I see. I can follow your logic to the veryend. I can't answer it. All I know is that I myself--I couldn't havepaid the price, nor--nor let Vi pay it."
"And to tell you the truth," said Leighton with a smile, "I don't knowthat I'm sorry." Lewis rose to his feet.
"Well, Dad," he said, "it's about twelve o'clock."
"Go ahead, my boy," said Leighton. "Bring the lady to lunch to-day orany other day--if she'll come. Just telephone Nelton."