Unluckily, I never cared a cent for anything but art, and never shall.
My idea of man's chief end was to enrich the world with things of
beauty, and have a fairly good time myself while doing so. I do not
think I mentioned that second part, which is the only one I have managed
to carry out; but my father must have suspected the suppression, for he
branded the whole affair as self-indulgence.

"Well," I remember crying once, "and what is your life? You are only
trying to get money, and to get it from other people at that."

He sighed bitterly (which was very much his habit), and shook his poor
head at me. "Ah, Loudon, Loudon!" said he, "you boys think yourselves
very smart. But, struggle as you please, a man has to work in this
world. He must be an honest man or a thief, Loudon."

You can see for yourself how vain it was to argue with my father.
The despair that seized upon me after such an interview was, besides,
embittered by remorse; for I was at times petulant, but he invariably
gentle; and I was fighting, after all, for my own liberty and pleasure,
he singly for what he thought to be my good. And all the time he never
despaired. "There is good stuff in you, Loudon," he would say; "there
is the right stuff in you. Blood will tell, and you will come right in
time. I am not afraid my boy will ever disgrace me; I am only vexed he
should sometimes talk nonsense." And then he would pat my shoulder or
my hand with a kind of motherly way he had, very affecting in a man so
strong and beautiful.

As soon as I had graduated from the high school, he packed me off to the
Muskegon Commercial Academy. You are a foreigner, and you will have a