"Ah, yes, mother; but you see you have selected two occupations that are necessary in the welfare of one's country or fellow creatures. Now nobody is the better for painting, so far as I can perceive."
"Many are greatly the worse, Guy. A noble gift perverted it one of Satan's instruments. Poetry and music rank in a similar position; but enlist them all in the cause of truth, morality, and Christian love, and they exercise a power for good which God can bless and prosper. For this they were given, and woe to those who have profaned them for baser uses."
"I want to feel sure that the profession I choose shall not be a mere fancy of my own—a lazy sham for occupation, because I am obliged to work; and it will not satisfy me that I love it, and delight in it, and even succeed in it, if it never does good to anybody in the world. Why, I might actually do harm, of I induced people to buy my pictures when they ought to spend their money in some other way."
"I hope, if you knew that to be the case, you would not induce them, Guy."
"No, of course I would not. Still, I want to see just the right principle and motive, mother—one that will stand through everything."
"It is necessary in the providence of God that you should devote your time and talents, whatever they may be, to gain your own living, dear Guy, and it would comfort my heart if in so doing, you should be able to make a home some day for our Maude, when either she might be unemployed, or I may—"
"Hush, my mother; I can't bear your 'may be.' I want to make a home for you both, or it will be no home to me."
"Then you have an honest, lawful motive, Guy."
"So I have, mother—a motive for work that will bear me through any drudgery of preparation. Now for the sphere of it. My natural taste, desire, conscious possession of some degree of—of talent, shall I say?—point to the ornamental. I do wish I had a clear hard head for something outrageously useful, quite indispensable to all the world!"
"Well," said his mother, smiling, "on the supposition that it is to be something among the Fine Arts, let us try to find a little encouragement."