An Ambitious Man

The first shock of the awakened emotions brings recklessness to some

women, and to others fear.

The more frivolous plunge forward like the drunken man who leaps from

the open window believing space is water.

The more intense draw back, startled at the unknown world before

them.

The woman who thinks love is all ideality is more liable to follow

into undreamed-of chasms than she who, through the complexity of her

own emotions, realises its grosser elements.

It was long after midnight when Joy fell into a heavy sleep, the

night of Arthur Stuart's visit. She heard the drip of the dreary

November rain upon the roof, and all the light and warmth seemed

stricken from the universe save the fierce fire in her own heart.

When she woke in the late morning, great splashes of sunlight were

leaping and quivering like living things across the foot of her bed;

she sprang up, dazed for a moment by the flood of light in the room,

and went to the window and looked out upon a sun-kissed world smiling

in the arms of a perfect Indian summer day.

A happy little sparrow chirped upon the window sill, and some

children ran across the street bare-headed, exulting in the soft air.

All was innocence and sweetness. Mind and morals are greatly

influenced by weather. Many things seem right in the fog and gloom,

which we know to be wrong in the clear light of a sunny morning. The

events of the previous day came back to Joy's mind as she stood by

the window, and stirred her with a sense of strangeness and terror.

The thought of the step she had resolved to take brought a sudden

trembling to her limbs. It seemed to her the eyes of God were

piercing into her heart, and she was afraid.

Joy had from her early girlhood been an earnest and sincere follower

of the Christian religion. The embodiment of love and sympathy

herself, it was natural for her to believe in the God of Love and to

worship Him in outward forms, as well as in her secret soul. It was

the deep and earnest fervour of religion in her heart, which rendered

her music so unusual and so inspiring. There never was, is not and

never can be greatness in any art where religious feeling is lacking.

There must be the consciousness of the Infinite, in the mind which

produces infinite results.

Though the artist be gifted beyond all other men, though he toil

unremittingly, so long as he says, "Behold what I, the gifted and

tireless toiler, can achieve," he shall produce but mediocre and

ephemeral results. It is when he says reverently, "Behold what

powers greater than I shall achieve through me, the instrument," that

he becomes great and men marvel at his power.