f. All but once the passions he had felt were
his own deep property.... The Shadowy Sister, who would live on when
the worn-out earth of her being sank into its seventh year of
restoring,--yes, the Shadowy Sister had been chastened and strengthened
by his passing.

...Beth saw the little boy, faring forth alone without the Mother's
hand--out into the great world of sea--under his star. Not a single
preconception had his mind contained. Everything in the world had been
for him to take, and when he would have taken something ill, the Mother
had come and prevailed.... Only once he was denied--she, Beth, had done
that. Did the Mother prevail against her?... But how mightily had he
desired her!

Beth saw she had betrayed herself. She had been too much an artist of
the world, too little a visionary. She had not seen deeply enough his
inner beauty and integrity; too accustomed had she become to the
myriad-flaring commonness of daily life.... But would the greater
dimension have come to him, if she had given him the happiness he
thought he wanted? Had he turned to Vina Nettleton the man-love she,
Beth, had felt, and been answered with swift adoration, would he have
met in this life the Great Light on his hills?

...Too much artist--how Beth understood what that meant now! There is a
way to God through the arts, but it is a way of quicksands and miasmas,
of deep forests and abysses. Only giants emerge unhurt in spirit. The
artist is taught to worship line and surface; his early paths are the
paths of sensuousness. He may be held true at first by the rigors of
denial--but what a turning is the first success--his every capacity of
sense is suddenly tested, as only an artist's can be! Then, the hatred
of the unsuccessful; he must forge ahead in the teeth of a great wind
of contemporary hostility, _which rouses the Ego and not the Spirit_.
And finally the artist must choose between his visions, for alike come
purity and evil. The road of genius runs ever close to the black abyss
of madness. The human mind ignited with genius is like an old
time-weakened building, in which is installed new machinery of
startling power. What a racking upon old fabric!

The simple religious nature with its ventures into a milder spiritual
country, puts on glory with far less danger and pain than the artist,
and what a perfect surface is prepared within him for the arts to be
painted upon!

Beth knew she had lived her art-life bravely, loved her