——
CHAPTER III.
Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes
not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is
thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future,
without fear, and with a manly heart.
Longfellow.
“The spirits of youth are elastic, and after great pressure will naturally rebound. ‘Hope on, hope ever,’ is a maxim seldom forgotten until age has chilled the blood and palsied the powers of life. After a few days spent in brooding over the present, Paul again looked forward to the future, and determined to seek some other avenue by which he might gather up a little, just a little, of the treasure which others possessed in such abundance. His fondness for literature suggested the idea that his pen might be employed with more profit than his pencil, and the periodicals of the day appeared to offer a wide field for exertion. But emolument from such sources was precarious at best. All who held an established reputation in the world of letters were contributors to the various popular publications, and Paul Talbot wanted the “magic of a name” to win golden opinions from the Press. Sometimes he met with those who were more just, and more generous, and thus encouraged he toiled on, hoping even against hope, that his desires would yet be accomplished.
“With many misgivings, and a fear that he had mistaken his vocation, he had taken his ill-fated picture to a place where engravings were kept for sale, and left it with the shopkeeper, promising to pay him one half the money for which it might be sold. How discouraging to see it week after week in the window, until it began to look like a soiled fixture of the establishment. No one would ever buy it, that was certain, and if they would not purchase this his best work, how could he ever hope to dispose of others of less merit, which were standing round the walls of his little room? Alas, no! but when once in Italy—then he would paint pictures such as he dreamed of in imagination. For the present, with weary frame and throbbing brow, he must Labor on.
“There are few but know