-what hours of speculation, what pulses of enthusiasm,
what fevers of effort, are based on that peculiarly subtle illusion! It
is yet the lure, the ignis fatuus of almost every breathing heart. In
the young particularly it burns with the sweetness and perfume of spring
fires. Then most of all does there seem substantial reality in the
shadow of fame--those deep, beautiful illusions which tremendous figures
throw over the world. Attainable, it seems, must be the peace and plenty
and sweet content of fame--that glamour of achievement that never was on
sea or land. Fame partakes of the beauty and freshness of the morning.
It has in it the odour of the rose, the feel of rich satin, the color of
the cheeks of youth. If we could but be famous when we dream of fame,
and not when locks are tinged with grey, faces seamed with the lines
that speak of past struggles, and eyes wearied with the tensity, the
longings and the despairs of years! To bestride the world in the morning
of life, to walk amid the plaudits and the huzzahs when love and faith
are young; to feel youth and the world's affection when youth and health
are sweet--what dream is that, of pure sunlight and moonlight
compounded. A sun-kissed breath of mist in the sky; the reflection of
moonlight upon water; the remembrance of dreams to the waking mind--of
such is fame in our youth, and never afterward.

By such an illusion was Eugene's mind possessed. He had no conception of
what life would bring him for his efforts. He thought if he could have
his pictures hung in a Fifth Avenue gallery much as he had seen
Bouguereau's "Venus" in Chicago, with people coming as he had come on
that occasion--it would be of great comfort and satisfaction to him. If
he could paint something which would be purchased by the Metropolitan
Museum in New York he would then be somewhat of a classic figure,
ranking with Corot and Daubigny and Rousseau of the French or with
Turner and Watts and Millais of the English, the leading artistic
figures of his pantheon. These men seemed to have something which he did
not have, he thought, a greater breadth of technique, a finer
comprehension of color and character, a feeling for the subtleties at
the back of life which somehow showed through what they did. Larger
experience, larger vision, larger feeling--these things seemed to be
imminent in the great pictures exhibited here, and it made him a little
uncertain of himself. Only the criticism in the _Eveni