“If you are to be an artist,” he said, once more, “you must not be afraid of life. You must welcome it to its utmost cross. You must take the cold, the heat, the poverty, the hunger, the burning way through the desert, the snow-clad steeps, the keen hurt, and the happiness—it is all one, for it gives you knowledge. You must know all the pain of the world, face to face, if you are to help those who bear it. Keen feelings give you the great hurt, but also, in payment, the great joy. The balance swings true. The Herr Doctor has told me this. He is most wise; he understands.”
“I see,” answered Lynn. “I will never be afraid again.”
“That,” said the Master, with his face alight,—“that is mine son’s true courage. Take it with your head up, your teeth shut, and your heart always believing. Fear nothing, and much will be given back to you,—is it not so? Let life do all it can—you will never be crushed unless you are willing that it should be so. Defeat comes only to those who invite it.”
“I see,” said Lynn, again; “with all my heart I thank you.”
He went away soon afterward, insensibly comforted. Overnight, he had come into his heritage of pain, had lost the girl he loved, and in swift restitution found comradeship with the Master.
That stately figure lingered long before his vision, grey and rugged, yet with a certain graciousness—simple, kindly, and yet austere; one who had accepted his sorrow, and, by some alchemy of the spirit, transmuted it into universal compassion, to speak, through the Cremona, to all who could understand.