His slow words then came:
"Yassum, I kin stan' it. I could stan' it foreveh. But she's daid," he cried hoarsely. "I kill her—I choke her—with that han'!" thrusting out the member. "The same han' she used to put her li'l' han's roun' and hole so tight—same han' I used to pat her cheek with—same han'—" A shudder passed over his huge form until his teeth chattered.
"Oh, I know it's hard!" exclaimed the tender woman, suffering only less than he. "You have sinned, and you must do penance. But we've all sinned, and all done penance, and yet happiness comes again. Believe me, Moss, some day you'll be happy again. Be brave, and one month from to-day I'll be here to see you again. Meanwhile, can I do anything for you—take any word to Benjy?"
His lusterless eyes seemed to brighten a little.
"Mis' Pen, will you sot up a li'l' tombstone on her grave? Juss a li'l' one, so I kin fine it some day, when I gits out?"
And Penelope, with blinding eyes, promised.
[AN AMERICAN MASTER OF LANDSCAPE]
BY
T. M. CLELAND
A striking reversal of attitude may be noticed to-day toward innovations in the field of art. Time was, we are told by the biographers of the Old Masters, when the painter who dared to step beyond the pale of conventions current in his day, suffered the neglect and bitter scorn of his contemporaries. From the earliest period of artistic endeavor, the innovator has been on the defensive; whereas the cardinal sin in the modern artist is rather the failure to innovate or to startle us by some new form of disregard for the principles established by tradition. In the place of knowledge and patient scholarship, we find sophistication and a restless, conscious craving to produce an effect sufficiently startling to command the instant attention of a busy world. In the art of landscape painting particularly this desire to be effective at any cost has led many of the younger generation of artists to adopt for themselves hastily formed theories regarding the phenomena of light and air and to devote their lives to these, forgetting all else.