But the savage seclusion of the wild
life in winter repelled his senses. Besides, the lumber business meant
endless figures and measurements in stuffy offices and he retreated from
it all.
He had an artistic bent. From a small child he had had it, and it grew
with his years. He wanted to paint, and he painted; he wanted to sculp in
clay, and he sculped in clay; but all the time he was conscious it was
the things he had seen and the life he had lived which made his painting
and his sculpture worth while. It was absurd that a man of his great
outdoor capacity should be the slave of a temperamental quality, and yet
it was so. It was no good for his father to condemn, or his mother to
mourn, he went his own way.
He had seen much of Junia Shale in these years and had grown fond of her,
but she was away much with an aunt in the West, and she was sent to
boarding-school, and they saw each other only at intervals. She liked him
and showed it, but he was not ready to go farther. As yet his art was
everything to him, and he did not think of marriage. He was care-free. He
had a little money of his own, left by an uncle of his mother, and he had
also an allowance from his mother--none from his father--and he was
satisfied with life.
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