Butler High School - Magnet Yearbook (Butler, PA)

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-— 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

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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

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- SENIOR MAGNET - On the smooth lawn walked a beautiful woman. She had a sure, slow gait, walking with a measured, deliberate step. Bruce did not speak. She did not notice anyone on the steps. He saw the high smooth profile beautiful as on the canvas, the full throat, the placid, tragic eyes, the full mouth. He searched into her eyes, that had looked so intelligent and kindly. Nothing! He left immediately. Shortly after, he sold the picture to a collector who had been wanting it. He never found out how the picture was painted, or whether it was a monstrous joke of that eccentric Colton, who had deliberately set out to prove how simple it was to put on canvas that which existed only in his imagination. Mr. Farr went to pay a visit to his dear old friend that day in the gallery before she returned to her home in England. I shall never forget his closing words on the subject: I hope they love her as I did and that they will never find out. MY MASTERPIECE Lewis Hays I started to paint a picture Four years or so ago, A picture of youth in the making, A youth beginning to grow. My pallet was smaHered with history, Latin, grammar, and math; It was just the very beginning Of a long and stony path. Next there came French and physics, Biology, science, and trig, Astronomy, chemistry, civics,— Boy, but those names sounded big! Examinations came and went; Semesters came and passed; And then before I realized It was my very last. And now my picture is finished: A youth in a cap and gown; A youth who feels like an emperor With a diploma for a crown. Page thirty-two