preparing him to build his future success on the solid ground of
positive merit as compared with that of other and gifted artists.

Van Berg's taste and talent led him to select, as his specialty,
the human form and countenance, and he chiefly delighted in those
faces which were expressive of some striking or subtle characteristic
of the indwelling mind. He would never be content to paint surfaces
correctly, giving to features merely their exact proportions. Whether
the face were historical, ideal, or a portrait, the controlling
trait or traits of the spirit within must shine through, or else
he regarded the picture as scarcely half finished.

A more sincere idolator than Van Berg, in his worship of beauty,
never existed; but it was the beauty of a complete man or a complete
woman. Even in his early youth he had not been so sensuous as to
be captivated by that opaque fragment of a woman--an attractive
form devoid of a mind. Indeed with the exception of a few boyish
follies, his art had been his mistress thus far, and it was beginning
to absorb both heart and brain.

With what a quiet pulse--with what a complacent sense of security
we often meet those seemingly trivial events which may change the
whole character of our lives! The ride had been taken, the dinner
enjoyed, and the two friends were seated in the large cool hallway
off the concert garden, where they could smoke without offence. The
unrivalled leader, Thomas, had just lifted his baton--that magic
wand whose graceful yet mysterious motion evokes with equal ease,
seemingly, the thunder of a storm, the song of a bird, the horrid
din of an inferno, or a harmony so pure and lofty as to suggest
heavenly strains. One of Beethoven's exquisite symphonies was to