Butler High School - Magnet Yearbook (Butler, PA)

Page 32 text:

SEN I □ R MAGNET The next day I met Mr. Farr. He was my gentleman of the exhibit. He had a quiet charm about him that won me at once. He listened intently, leaning forward in his chair and squinting at me, as I told him how my work was entirely original with me, how long I had been doing it, how I loved it. Before long we were discussing—or, rather, I was—various personalities, little scandals, and bigger tragedies of the art world. I told him about seeing him at the exhibit. He was interested and amused. Finally I realized I was monopolizing the situation. After all I had come to get information—not to give it. So you admire Margaret?’’ Margaret? The girl in the picture. The next two hours went quickly. We talked through the dinner hour. Now that the portrait has been returned to its owner in England to be hung away for long years, and Mr. Farr has been dead for three, I feel quite safe in telling one of the most interesting stories I have ever heard. Having been urged to go into law by a father who did not understand that sensitive natures crop out even in families of lawyers, Bruce Farr had followed the profession in a quiet way, interested more in his collecting. Before he had taken his place in the firm he had been given a year abroad to get +he art foolishness over and done with. He had been accompanied by a cousin, a young man a few years older than Bruce. They had tramped over Europe enjoying every minute of it, filling themselves with ideas and memories to last through long years. It was in London they found the picture in a rather obscure gallery. Instantly it fired Bruce’s imagination. He thought the girl the most beautiful he had ever seen. He hunted the artist, a rather unknown struggling painter who was already past middle age. Mr. Colton seemed delighted that the picture was going to America. He disclosed the fact that the girl, his niece, had been in America for six months. She had joined her mother who had married again. They lived in a western state. Bruce was delighted. Some day he was going to see in the flesh his ideal of feminine beauty. A few months later the portrait of Margaret Colton took its place in the Farr home. To Bruce, the girl was a livinq presence. He became so attached to the portrait for what it represented to him that his after-dinner wine and cigar lost their zest and charm, unless he had it in her company, where she took the place of sweetheart, companion, and wife. In the square of canvas, in the beautiful head of a woman, there came to be personified for Bruce Farr Page thirty

Page 31 text:

■ SENIOR MAGNET exhibit to decide whether it was the young woman of the portrait or the manner in which the artist had approached his subject that fascinated me. The subject was a young woman in her middle twenties. She was not so beautiful as extremely handsome. She had a full, round face, with a beautiful throat, perhaps with the fullness of a singer's throat. Her black hair v as drawn back simply from an extremely broad and intelligent forehead. Her eyes had the warmth and intensity that one associates with southern countries. I was delighted with her generous and sensitive mouth. She had the same baffling smile with the sadness and hurt that has charmed thousands in the Mona Lisa. Her dress seemed to be medieval. The artist had given much time to the details of her dress, each little button being clearly and carefully done. I had been interested from the beginning of the exhibit in this beautiful woman. The puzzle of her beauty had become an obession with me. I never left without a farewell few minutes with her. She had completely won my imagination. I had looked up all the possible information about the picture. It was privately owned by an Englishman who had bought it from an supposedly impoverished American family. The artist was an Englishman by the name of Colton. The portrait was not for sale. In my column one day I had used the young woman as my subject. I had been careful to keep my discussion technical, afraid that in my extreme admiration for the young woman I might forget that it was the arist who deserved the credit. The gentleman stood quietly, looking intently at the picture. After standing before it for a long time, he walked back to a bench in the middle of the room, where he sat down. He was unaware of the other people in the room, among whom there were two collectors with whom I was acquainted, a party of what could have been nothing but school teachers, two giggly girls about twelve, and an elderly woman who walked with difficulty with a cane. He seemed lost in the picture at which he kept squinting. I left him in the same place when I had to go to meet Mr. Litovitch who, with me, was arranging for an exhibit of etchings. It was at least two weeks later, in the midst of the holidays that I got a letter. I had been in bed for a few days with a bad throat, so the letter had been lying idle for at least a couple of days. I had written a very appealing story about the gentleman and the beautiful portrait in my Tuesday column, Gallivanting in the Galleries. The letter was a simple one, on stationery from an East End hotel. It merely said that if I were interested in the real story I should call Mr. Farr at the given number before seven o'clock on the evening of the next day. Page twenty-nine

Page 33 text:

-— SENIDR MAGNET ’ ■ ■ all the beauty, intelligence, strength, and understanding in the world. After Margaret had had her unique position in his home for about ten years, Bruce Farr was invited to a dinner in honor of William Colton, an artist who was becoming more and more famous. He shook hands with the artist and reminded him of their former meeting. They discussed the beautiful portrait, although Bruce did not tell the whole story of his devotion to an ideal. In the course of the conversation the artist remarked that he had just heard where Margaret was and that he was quite anxious to see her. Bruce jotted the address down. The idea with which he had toyed so often returned. He would like to see the real Margaret! He was afraid, and yet the curiosity which had been growing with the years was too great. A week later he closed his office and gave his driver the address, in a little town in southern New York. He sank back among the cushions, closed his eyes, and let his fancy go. It was the intelligence and understanding that made her beautiful. It was the keenness and sympathy in that remarkable face. Sometimes he thought that he had been a romantic fool; but she stood for so much to him. What he wanted he did not know. When he saw her—then what? Was it worth it? But the gnawing of that curiosity urged him on. Was there really a woman in the flesh such as she? He didn’t qo off on wild goose chases often. . . . The driver had spoken. Bruce Farr looked up and wondered at the rather bewildered look on the man’s face. Then his eye caught the bronze placard on the entrance gates: Maywood Home for the Insane! His protest was instant and vigorous. There must be some mistake. He looked for the card on which he had written the address. There was no error. A thouqht flashed through his mind. Might he have been the victim of a practical ioke? Bruce recovered his composure slowly. Now he must know, no matter what the consequences. They drove in through the gates, up throuqh the well-kept lawn to the fine looking building. The atmosphere within was quiet and pleasant. He looked around the larqe hiqh-ceilinged room. There was something about the sanitarium that had the same quality of bigness and tragedy that his beloved portrait had. He explained to the superintendent that he had made the trip to see his dear friend, Margaret Colton. In a few minutes he was taken to a side porch. The doctor to whom he was introduced drew his attention to the extreme beauty of a woman walking on the lawn. A rare case. So many are interested in it. Her beauty is unmarred, because she can't worry. She has absolutely nothing with which to worry. Page thirty-one