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Abbey
by
Orders were given to John S. Sargent and Puvis de Chavannes at the same time that contracts were closed with Abbey. Chavannes was the first man to get his staging up and the first to get it down. He died two years ago, so it is hardly meet to draw a moral about the excellence of doing things with neatness and dispatch. Sargent’s “Prophets” cover scarcely one-tenth of the space assigned him, and the rest is bare white walls, patiently awaiting his brush. Recently he was asked when he would complete the task, and he replied, “Never, unless I learn to paint better than I do now–Abbey has discouraged me!”
I need not attempt to describe Abbey’s work in the Boston Library–a full account of it can be found in the first magazine you pick up. But it is a significant fact that Abbey himself is not wholly pleased with it. “Give me a little time,” he says, “and I’ll do something worth while.”
These words were spoken half in jest, but there is no doubt that the artist, now in the fulness of his powers, in perfect health, in love with life, sees before him work to do of such vast worth that all that lies behind seems but a preparation for that which is yet to come.
The question is sometimes asked, “What becomes of all the Valedictorians and Class-Day Poets?” I can give information as to two parties for whom inquiry is made: the Valedictorian of my Class is now a worthy Floorwalker in Siegel, Cooper and Company’s; and I was the Class-Day Poet. Both of us had our eyes on the Goal. We stood on the threshold and looked out upon the World preparatory to going forth, seizing it by the tail and snapping its head off for our own delectation.
We had our eyes fixed on the Goal–it might better have been the Gaol.
It was a very absurd thing for us to fix our eyes on the Goal. It strained our vision and took our attention from our work.
To think of the Goal is to travel the distance over and over in your mind and dwell on how awfully far off it is. We have so little mind –doing business on such a small capital of intellect–that to wear it threadbare looking for a far-off thing is to get hopelessly stranded in Siegel, Cooper and Company’s.
Siegel, Cooper and Company’s is all right, too, but the point is this–it wasn’t the Goal!
A goodly dash of indifference is a requisite in the formula for doing a great work.
Nobody knows what the Goal is–we are sailing under sealed orders. Do your work today, doing it the best you can, and live one day at a time. The man that does this is conserving his God-given energy, and not spinning it out into tenuous spider-threads that Fate will probably brush away.
To do your work well today is the surest preparation for something better tomorrow–the past is gone, the future we can not reach, the present only is ours. Each day’s work is a preparation for the next.
Live in the present–the Day is here, the time is Now.
Edwin A. Abbey seems to be the perfect type of man, who by doing all his work well, with no vaulting ambitions, has placed himself right in the line of evolution. He is evolving into something better, stronger and nobler all the time. That is the only thing worth praying for–to be in the line of evolution.