A lawyer is perhaps inspired, when he is engaged in a
cause on which he thinks his reputation hangs; but, day by day, when he
goes down to the work that brings him his daily bread, he is quite as
likely to call it his drudgery as I my daily toil."
She left her seat and walked with me towards a painting which hung not
far from us. It represented sunset upon the water. "The tender-curving
lines of creamy spray" were gathering up the beach; the light was
glistening across the waves; and shadows and light almost seemed to move
over the canvas.
"There," said Miss Stuart, "is what I call work that is worthy. I know
there was inspiration in every touch of the brush. I know there was
happy life in the life that inspired that painting. It is worth while to
live and to show that one has been living in that way."
"But I think," said I, "that the artist even of that picture laid aside
his brush heavily, when he sighed to himself that he must call it
finished. I believe that in all the days that it lay upon his easel he
went to it many times with weariness, because there was monotony in the
work,--because the work that he had laid out for himself in his fancy
was far above what he could execute with his fingers.
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