Now, however, this love came suddenly back, and with tenfold
intensity, as is always the case, and, though I dreaded its unhealthiness,
I could no longer thwart him. Indeed, the Art-sense took such complete
possession of him that I feared to interpose obstacles. He did not go about
his work like a boy, but bent himself to it with the calm, resolute purpose
of a man of forty. I could see the increasing mastery of the idea, in his
changed eye, in his compressed lip, in his statelier, calmer pose; and,
however incredulous we may be respecting _results_, these initiatory
motions never fail to impress us. Even Bluebeard would forbear to strike
down his pregnant wife, for the sake of what she bore under her bosom; and
I, seeing the boy's careful study, and his long and laborious preparation,
could not help looking forward to a result of commensurate importance.
Nevertheless, it was my duty to have combated Clarian's tendencies, for I
could not help seeing the daily injury they did him. _Ars longa, vita
brevis_, was an overpowering conviction of the lad's, and he went to work
to apply the maddest of correctives. Art so exacting and life so short,
then it was his office to labor so much the more earnestly, so much the
more eagerly, that he might squeeze dry this orange of the present, and
lose no opportunity, no moment. Thus it came to pass with him, as it does
with us all who overwork ourselves, that actually he did less than he might
have done, and warped himself in a most pitiable way indeed.
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