Never before
had life appeared so rich a possession and so full of glorious
possibilities. Never in the past had he felt his profession to
be so noble and worthy of his devotion, and never had the fame he
hoped to grasp by means of it seemed so near. Beauty became to him
so infinitely beautiful and divine that he felt he could worship
it were it only embodied, and then with a strange and exquisite
thrill of exultation he exclaimed: "Right or wrong, to my eye it
is embodied in Ida Mayhew, and she will fill my studio with light
again to-day and many days to come. If ever an artist was fortunate
in securing as a friend, as an inspiration, a perfect and budding
flower of personal and spiritual loveliness, I am that happy man."
The Van Berg of other days would have called the Van Berg that
waited impatiently for his guests that morning a rhapsodical fool,
and the greater part of the world would offer no dissent. The
world is very prone to call every man who is possessed by a little
earnestness or enthusiasm a fool, but it is usually an open question
which is the more foolish--the world or the man; and perhaps we shall
all learn some day that there was more of sanity in our rhapsodies
than in the shrewd calculations that verged towards meanness.
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