Chapter 2 - Page 2

me! When he was brought home from Vicksburg with a piece of shell in
his skull, my poor mother began to think she had n't loved him enough. I
remember, as she hung round my neck sobbing, before his coffin, she told
me that I must be to her everything that he would have been. I swore in
tears and in perfect good faith that I would, but naturally I have
not kept my promise. I have been utterly different. I have been idle,
restless, egotistical, discontented. I have done no harm, I believe, but
I have done no good. My brother, if he had lived, would have made
fifty thousand dollars and put gas and water into the house. My mother,
brooding night and day on her bereavement, has come to fix her ideal in
offices of that sort. Judged by that standard I 'm nowhere!"

Rowland was at loss how to receive this account of his friend's domestic
circumstances; it was plaintive, and yet the manner seemed to him
over-trenchant. "You must lose no time in making a masterpiece," he
answered; "then with the proceeds you can give her gas from golden
burners."

"So I have told her; but she only half believes either in masterpiece or
in proceeds. She can see no good in my making statues; they seem to her
a snare of the enemy. She would fain see me all my life tethered to the
law, like a browsing goat to a stake. In that way I 'm in sight. 'It
's a more regular occupation!' that 's all I can get out of her. A
more regular damnation! Is it a fact that artists, in general, are such
wicked men? I never had the pleasure of knowing one, so I could n't
confute her with an example. She had the advantage of me, because she
formerly knew a portrait-painter at Richmond, who did her miniature in
black lace mittens (you may see it on the parlor table), who used to
drink raw brandy and beat his wife. I promised her that, whatever I
might do to my wife, I would never beat my mother, and that as for
brandy, raw or diluted, I detested it. She sat silently crying for an
hour, during which I expended treasures of eloquence. It 's a good thing
to have to reckon up one's intentions, and I assure you, as I pleaded my
cause, I was most agreeably impressed with the elevated character of
my own. I kissed her solemnly at last, and told her that I had said
everything and that she must make the best of it. This morning she has
dried her eyes, but I warrant you it is n't a cheerful house. I long to
be out of it!"

"I 'm extremely sorry," said Rowland, "to have been the prime cause of
so much suffering. I owe your mother some amends; will it be possible
for me to see her?"

"If you 'll see her, it will smooth matters vastly; though to tell the
truth she 'll need all her courage to face