Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/90

80 ago. For there, to his amazement, he saw the same artist he remembered seeing then, working on the still unfinished picture. He could not help going up and speaking.

"Why, boy," the man said; "you here still? I often thought of you, and wondered what you had done with your life."

"Why, nothing—nothing yet," the lad answered.

"Yet! yet! Is it the spirit of the everlasting hills or Time himself who speaks to me? What frail possessor of uncertain years can afford to say, 'Nothing yet'? It is the 'nothing yet' that kills success. The other day, after all these years, I came upon this unfinished canvas in my studio; I remembered how poor, how miserable I had been when I began it, and I said I will finish it now I am happy—for I have succeeded, boy, in the years you have done 'nothing yet.' Still, to help you, for I know you have talent, I make this proposal: I shall take you for a year, pay your expenses, and see if you really are the genius I think you. If you are, I shall educate you as an artist; if not, why, you will be no worse off here than you have been before."