“Really, Mr. Talmage, I think we have a designer with unusual talent,” replied Miss Martin, anxiously.
“Designer! Why the child has never been outside of a dirty tenement room. Being crippled, you know, she could not run about as other children do. Where could she see anything to inspire her brain to design?”
“Wasn’t Beethoven stone deaf? And didn’t he compose the sweetest music and most perfect symphonies without ever having heard the sound of them—other than in his own thoughts! That, as well as other wonders, proves that it is not from without that we find inspiration and true talent. It is solely from within, and one whose mind is seeking for the beautiful and eternal will find it there, whether it be music, verse, form, or color,” said Miss Martin.
“You’re a philosopher, Miss Martin, and a true one, at that,” said Uncle Ben, highly pleased at his companion’s reply to his doubts.
“So you see, Mr. Talmage, Nelly Finn may be a great designer in mind, and the fact that she does not lose her artistic ideas of what she sees and feels in her thoughts, by coarse contact with the outside world, leaves her original and expressive.”
“Well, show me some of the sketches you seem to think are so marvelous,” said Uncle Ben.
As is generally the case, those who come to laugh go away to wonder, and it was so with Uncle Ben. The moment he saw the lead-pencil lines crudely drawn on yellow manila wrapping paper, he detected the talent displayed. He took several of these samples with him to show Mr. Richards.
“What do you think of this work, Richards?”
“Where did you get them?” asked the newspaper man instantly interested.
“Oh, one of our Little Citizens is an expert artist, I find,” laughed Uncle Ben.