the influence of three women. In the love of these women he was bathed,
nourished and refreshed; their approbation gave direction to his efforts;
for them he lived and worked; while a fourth woman, by her inability to
comprehend the necessities of such a genius, clipped his wings, so that
he fell to earth and his feet mired in the clay.

The first factor in the evolution of Scheffer, in point of both time and
importance, was his mother. She was the flint upon which he tried his
steel: his teacher, adviser, critic, friend. She was a singularly strong
and capable woman, seemingly slight and fragile, but with a deal of
whipcord, sinewy strength in both her physical and mental fiber.

No one can study the lives of eminent artists without being impressed
with the fact that the artist is essentially the child of his mother. The
sympathy demanded to hold a clear, mental conception--the imagination
that sees the whole, even when the first straight line is made--is the
gift of mother to son. She gives him of her spirit, and he is heir to her
love of color, her desire for harmony and her hunger for sympathy. These,
plus his masculine strength, may allow him to accomplish that which was
to her only a dream.

If a mother is satisfied with her surroundings, happy in her environment,
and therefore without "a noble discontent," her children will probably be
quite willing to have a good time on the "unearned increment" that is
their material portion. Her virtue and passive excellence die with her,
and she leaves a brood of mediocrities.

Were this miraculous scheme of adjustment lacking in the Eternal Plan,
wealth, achievement and talent could be passed along in a direct line and
the good things of earth be corraled by a single family.