"Susan, you do not know what you are. You—you—are a beautiful woman. You are more beautiful than Julia was at the height of her beauty. You are more beautiful than your mother was—"
Doctor Alvin's voice echoed mournfully as if he were calling upon the dead.
"Susan, you have only to look upon men to conquer them. You can achieve with a gesture what artists accomplish with a masterpiece. What can artists do, other than quicken the pulse of sluggard humanity? But, Susan—God guide your power—you will make blood boil, heads reel, hearts throb until they burst, if so you will it. Art—artists! There is no need of you studying art. Artists will study you. Have you never looked at yourself in the glass, child? Have you never, when—when—You have studied art with Malepeste, and you know what lines are. Have you never thought of studying your own lines? None of the great statues or paintings, of which Malepeste has the photographs, is so harmoniously perfect as you. Art!—You are the genius of art. I have influenced you into taking up various lines of work, that I might keep you from the pitfalls of love, until the proper time. But, now, my guardianship is ended. I have played a part. I must lay aside my mask. Susan, I have been deceiving you. Love is by all odds the greatest thing in the world. You must love. And you must let some one love you—some one of the many who will be ready to lay down their lives for you—"
[LUCY FURMAN]
Miss Lucy Furman, short-story writer, was born at Henderson, Kentucky, in 1870, the daughter of a physician. Her parents died when she was quite young, and she was brought up by her aunt. Miss Furman attended public and private schools at Henderson, and at the age of sixteen years, graduated from Sayre Institute at Lexington, Kentucky. The three years following her graduation were spent at Henderson and at Shreveport, Louisiana, the home of her grandparents, in both of which places she was a social leader. At the age of nineteen, it became necessary for her to make her own way in the world, and for about four years she was court stenographer at Evansville, Indiana. Miss Furman's earliest literary work was done at Evansville. The first stories she ever wrote were accepted by The Century Magazine when she was but twenty-three years of age. These were some of the Stories of a Sanctified Town (New York, 1896), one of the most charming books yet written by a Kentucky woman. At the age of twenty-five, when her prospects were exceedingly bright, Miss Furman's health failed entirely, and during the next ten years she was an invalid, seeking health in Florida, southern Texas, on the Jersey coast, and elsewhere, but without much success, and being always too feeble to do any writing. In 1907 she went up into the mountains of her native State to become a teacher in the W. C. T. U. Settlement School at Hindman, Knott county, Kentucky. She did very little at first, but gradually her strength came back, and for the last two years she has been writing stories and sketches of the Kentucky mountains for The Century Magazine. In 1911 The Century published a series of stories under the title of Mothering on Perilous, which will be brought out in book form. In 1912 Miss Furman had several stories in the same magazine, one of the best of which was Hard-Hearted Barbary Allen. Her lack of physical strength has compelled her to work very slowly, and it is only by living out-of-doors at least half the time that she can live at all. "I have charge of the gardening and outdoor work at the Settlement School," Miss Furman wrote recently, "but the happiest part of my life is my residence at the small boys' cottage, about which I have told in the 'Perilous' stories, and in which I find endless pleasure and entertainment. Here I hope to spend the remainder of my days." Very pathetic, reader, and very heroic!
Bibliography. Letters from Miss Furman to the Author; The Century Magazine (July, August, November, December, 1912).
A MOUNTAIN COQUETTE[63]
[From Hard-Hearted Barbary Allen (The Century Magazine, March, 1912)]