Excerpt from With Pencil, Brush and Chisel: The Life of an Artist
Was born to other things. Writing is about the last I ever expected to attempt, but since I have sinned I shall at least try to offer my explanation. It is all simple and natural, as is any phenomenon after it has been elucidated.
Last January Harvey W. Corbett, while posing for his bust, asked me to speak before the Architectural League, to help them in their publicity campaign, so that the forthcoming exhibition would yield as many as possible of the needed half-dollars which are the mainstay of its existence. The friendly suggestion from the president of such an honorable institution is a command to be executed to the best of one’s ability.
I therefore removed the dust from my long-hidden album and photographed its contents, to be duly thrown on the architectural screen. While I fervently longed for the moment when, after the talk, my troubles would end, I was soon compelled to admit that they had only begun. From all sides I was approached by appeals to publish my Sketches and recollections. They Varied from a request for a laconic statement to an encyclopedical tome. One young woman who represented a popular daily was so solicitous for my reaching the highest heaven that my excuses and protesta tions seemed to avail nothing. She even offered herself as collabo rator with that smile which can make and has unmade continents. But so wholly was I imbued with the picture of failure and ridicule that for once I remained unconquered.
An ill wind must have blown in my direction a little seed which began presently to germinate. I soon saw myself as one of those fellows who, all his life having been no more than one in a large crowd, finds himself unexpectedly precipitated to the front line with an unobstructed outlook; more, I envisioned myself raised to a platform while the numberless throng breathlessly awaited the first words, ready to grasp the novice and relegate him into the oblivion whence he had emerged. This fired my rising ambition. At least, I thought, the game should be worth a trial.
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