The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: childhood, and from these roods of jewelled canvas he received
an indelible impression. The gallery at Stallbridge betokened
generations of picture lovers; Norris was perhaps the first of his
race to hold the pencil. The taste was genuine, it grew and
strengthened with his growth; and yet he suffered it to be
suppressed with scarce a struggle. Time came for him to go to
Oxford, and he resisted faintly. He was stupid, he said; it was
no good to put him through the mill; he wished to be a painter.
The words fell on his father like a thunderbolt, and Norris
made haste to give way. "It didn't really matter, don't you
know?" said he. "And it seemed an awful shame to vex the old
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