The first is the Gift of God, the second is the Vision of Genius, but
the third is the Reward of Honesty.
In _The Quest of the Silver Fleece_ there is little, I ween, divine or
ingenious; but, at least, I have been honest. In no fact or picture have
I consciously set down aught the counterpart of which I have not seen or
known; and whatever the finished picture may lack of completeness, this
lack is due now to the story-teller, now to the artist, but never to the
herald of the Truth.
NEW YORK CITY
_August 15, 1911_
THE AUTHOR
_One_
DREAMS
Night fell. The red waters of the swamp grew sinister and sullen. The
tall pines lost their slimness and stood in wide blurred blotches all
across the way, and a great shadowy bird arose, wheeled and melted,
murmuring, into the black-green sky.
The boy wearily dropped his heavy bundle and stood still, listening as
the voice of crickets split the shadows and made the silence audible. A
tear wandered down his brown cheek. They were at supper now, he
whispered--the father and old mother, away back yonder beyond the night.
They were far away; they would never be as near as once they had been,
for he had stepped into the world. And the cat and Old Billy--ah, but
the world was a lonely thing, so wide and tall and empty! And so bare,
so bitter bare! Somehow he had never dreamed of the world as lonely
before; he had fared forth to beckoning hands and luring, and to the
eager hum of human voices, as of some great, swelling music.
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