But nothing could reconcile Mrs. Macintosh to the thought of Annie for
her daughter-in-law; her pride, indignation, and disappointment were
much too great, and they showed themselves the worse that her husband
would not say a word against either Annie or Hector, who, he insisted,
had behaved very well. He would not go a step beyond confessing that the
thing was not altogether as he could have wished, but upheld that it
contained ground for satisfaction. In vain he called to his wife's mind
the fact that neither she nor he were by birth or early position so
immeasurably above Annie. Nothing was of any use to calm her; nothing
would persuade her that Annie had not sought their service with the
express purpose of carrying away her son. Her behavior proved, indeed,
that Annie had done prudently in going at once home to her mother, where
presently her late mistress sought and found her; acting royally the
part of one righteously outraged in her dearest dignity. Her worst enemy
could have desired for her nothing more degrading than to see and hear
her. She insisted that Hector should abjure Annie, or leave the house.
Hector laid the matter before his father. He encouraged him to humor his
mother as much as he could, and linger on, not going every night to see
the girl, in the hope that time might work some change. But the time
passed in bitter reproaches on the part of the mother, and
expostulations on the part of the son, and there appeared no sign of the
amelioration the father had hoped for. The fact was that Mrs.
Macintosh's natural vulgarity had been so pampered by what she regarded
as wealth, and she had grown so puffed up, that her very person seemed
to hold the door wide for the devil. For self-importance is perhaps a
yet deeper root of all evil than even the love of money. Any deep,
honest affection might have made it too hot for the devil, but in her
heart there was little room for such a love. She seemed to believe in
nothing but mode and fashion, to care for nothing but what she called
"the thing." She grew in self-bulk, and gathered more and more weight in
her own esteem: she wore yet showier and more vulgar clothes, and
actually cultivated a slang that soon bade farewell to delicacy, so that
she sank and she sank, and she ate and she drank, until at last she
impressed her good-natured clergyman himself as one but a very little
above the beasts that perish--if, indeed, she was in any respect equal
to a good, conscientious dog! She retained, however, this much respect
for her son, for which that son gave her little thanks, that by-and-by
she limited herself to ex-pending all her contempt upon Annie, and
toward Hector settled into a dogged silence, where upon he, finding it
impossible to make any progress toward an understanding where he could
not even get a reply, at last gave up the attempt and became as silent
as she.
To poor Annie it was a terrible thought that she should thus have come
between mother and son; but she remembered that she had read of mothers
who without cause had even hated their own flesh, and how much the more
might not she who knew her ambitions and designs so utterly opposed to
the desires of her son?
And thereupon all at once awoke in Annie the motherhood that lies
deepest of all in the heart of every good woman, making her know in
herself that, his mother having forsaken him, she had no choice but take
him up and be to him henceforward both wife and mother. What remains of
my story will perhaps serve to show how far she succeeded in fulfilling
this her vow.
At last Mr. Macintosh saw that things could not thus continue, and that
he had better accept an offer made him some time before by a London
correspondent--to take Hector into his banking-house and give him the
opportunity of widening his experience and knowledge of business; and
Hector, on his part, was eager to accept the proposal. The salary
offered for his services was certainly not a very liberal one, but the
chief attraction was that the hours were even shorter than they had been
with his father, and would yet enlarge his liberty of an evening.
Hector's delights, as we have seen, had always lain in literature, and
in that direction the labor in him naturally sought an outlet. Now there
seemed a promise of his being able to pursue it yet more devotedly than
before: who could tell but he might ere long produce something that
people might care to read? Some publisher might even care to put it in
print, and people might care to buy it! That would start him in a more
genuine way of living, and he might the sooner be able to marry
Annie--an aspiration surely legitimate and not too ambitious. He had had
a good education, and considered himself to be ably equipped. It was
true he had not been to either Oxford or Cambridge, but he had enjoyed
the advantages possessed by a Scotch university even over an English
one, consisting mainly in the freedom of an unhampered development.
Since then he had read largely, and had cultivated naturally wide
sympathies. As his vehicle for utterance, we have already seen that he
had a great attraction to verse, and had long held and argued that the
best training for effective prose was exercise in the fetters of
verse--a conviction in which he had lived long enough to confirm
himself, and perhaps one or two besides.
His relations with his mother, and consequent impediments to seeing
Annie, took away the sting of having to part with her for awhile; and,
when he finally closed with the offer, she at once resumed her
application for a place in the High School, and was soon accepted, for
there were not a few in the town capable of doing justice to her fitness
for the office; so that now she had the joy not merely of being able to
live with her mother as before, and of contributing to her income, but
of knowing at the same time that she lived in a like atmosphere with
Hector, where her growth in the knowledge of literature, and her
experience in the world of thought, would be gradually fitting her for a
companion to him whom she continued to regard as so much above her. Her
marked receptivity in the matter of verse, and her intrinsic
discrimination of nature and character in it, became in her, at length,
as they grew, sustaining forces, enlarging her powers both of sympathy
and judgment, so that soon she came to feel, in reading certain of the
best writers, as if she and Hector were looking over the same book
together, reading and pondering it as one, simultaneously seeing what
the writer meant and felt and would have them see and feel. So that, by
the new intervention of space, they were in no sense or degree
separated, but rather brought by it actually, that is, spiritually,
nearer to each other. Also Hector wrote to her regularly on a certain
day of every week, and very rarely disappointed her of her expected
letter, in which he uttered his thoughts and feelings more freely than
he had ever been able to do in conversation. This also was a gain to
her, for thus she went on to know him better and better, rising rapidly
nearer to his level of intellectual development, while already she was
more than his equal in the moral development which lies at the root of
all capacity for intellectual growth. So Annie grew, as surely--without
irreverence I may say--in favor both with God and man; for at the same
time she grew constantly in that loveliest of all things--humanity.
Nor was Hector left without similar consolation in his life, although
passed apart from Annie. For, not to mention the growing pleasure that
he derived from poring over Annie's childlike letters--and here I would
beg my reader to note the essential distinction betwixt childish and
childlike--full of the keenest perceptions and the happiest phrases, he
had soon come to make the acquaintance of a kindred spirit, a man whom,
indeed, it took a long time really to know, but who, being from the
first attracted to him, was soon running down the inclined plane of
acquaintanceship with rapidly increasing velocity toward something far
better than mere acquaintance: nor was there any check in their steady
approach to a thorough knowledge of each other. He was a slightly older
man, with a greater experience of men, and a good deal wider range of
interests, as could hardly fail to be the case with a Londoner. But the
surprising thing to both of them was that they had so many feelings in
common, giving rise to many judgments and preferences also in common; so
that Hector had now a companion in whom to find the sympathy necessary
to the ripening of his taste in such a delicate pursuit as that of
verse; and their proclivities being alike, they ran together like two
drops on a pane of glass; whence it came that at length, in the
confident expectation of understanding and sympathy, Hector found
himself submitting to his friend's judgment the poem he had produced
when first grown aware that he was in love with Annie Melville; although
such was his sensitiveness in the matter of his own productions that
hitherto he had not yet ventured on the experiment with Annie herself.
His new friend read, was delighted; read again, and spoke out his
pleasure; and then first Hector knew the power of sympathy to double the
consciousness of one's own faculty. He took up again the work he had
looked upon as finished, and went over it afresh with wider eyes, keener
judgment, and clearer purpose; when the result was that, through the
criticisms passed upon it by his friend, and the reflection of the poem
afresh in his own questioning mind, he found many things that had to be
reconsidered; after which he committed the manuscript, carefully and
very legibly re-written, once more to his friend, who, having read it
yet again, was more thoroughly pleased with it than before, and proposed
to Hector to show it to another friend to whom the ear of a certain
publisher lay open. The favorable judgment of this second friend was
patiently listened to by the publisher, and his promise given that the
manuscript should receive all proper attention.
On this part of my story there is no occasion to linger; for, strange
thing to tell,--strange, I mean, from the unlikelihood of its
happening,--the poem found the sympathetic spot in the heart of the
publisher, who had happily not delegated the task to his reader, but
read it himself; and he made Hector the liberal offer to undertake all
the necessary expenses, giving him a fair share of resulting profits.
Stranger yet, the poem was so far a success that the whole edition, not
a large one, was sold, with a result in money necessarily small but far
from unsatisfactory to Hector. At the publisher's suggestion, this first
volume was soon followed by another; and thus was Hector fairly launched
on the uncertain sea of a literary life; happy in this, that he was not
entirely dependent on literature for his bodily sustenance, but was in a
position otherwise to earn at least his bread and cheese. For some time
longer he continued to have no experience of the killing necessity of
writing for his daily bread, beneath which so many aspiring spirits sink
prematurely exhausted and withered; this was happily postponed, for
there are as much Providence and mercy in the orderly arrangement of our
trials as in their inevitable arrival.
His reception by what is called the public was by no means so remarkable
or triumphant as to give his well-wishers any ground for anxiety as to
its possible moral effect upon him; but it was a great joy to him that
his father was much interested and delighted in the reception of the
poem by the Reviews in general. He was so much gratified, indeed, that
he immediately wrote to him stating his intention of supplementing his
income by half as much more.
This reflected opinion of others wrought also to the mollifying of his
mother's feelings toward him; but those with which she regarded Annie
they only served to indurate, as the more revealing the girl's
unworthiness of him. And although at first she regarded with favor her
husband's kind intention toward Hector, she faced entirely round when he
showed her a letter he had from his son thanking him for his generosity,
and communicating his intention of begging Annie to come to him and be
married at once.
Annie was living at home, feeding on Hector's letters, and strengthened
by her mother's sympathy. She was teaching regularly at the High School,
and adding a little to their common income by giving a few music
lessons, as well as employing her needle in a certain kind of embroidery
a good deal sought after, in which she excelled. She had heard nothing
of his having begun to distinguish himself, neither had yet seen one of
the reviews of his book, for no one had taken the trouble to show her
any of them.
One day, however, as she stood waiting a moment for something she wanted
in the principal bookshop of the town, a little old lady, rather
shabbily dressed, came in, whom she heard say to the shopman, in a
gentle voice, and with the loveliest smile:
"Have you another copy of this new poem by your townsman, young
Macintosh?"
"I am sorry I have not, ma'am," answered the shopman; "but I can get you
one by return of post."
"Do, if you please, and send it me at once. I am very glad to hear it
promises to be a great success. I am sure it quite deserves it. I have
already read it through twice. You may remember you got me a copy the
other day. I cannot help thinking it an altogether remarkable
production, especially for so young a man. He is quite young, I
believe?"
"Yes, ma'am--to have already published a book. But as to any wonderful
success, there is so little sale for poetry nowadays. I believe the one
you had yourself, my lady, is the only one we have been asked for."
"Much will depend," said the lady, "on whether it finds a channel of its
own soon enough. But get me another copy, anyhow--and as soon as you
can, please. I want to send it to my daughter. There is matter between
those Quaker-like boards that I have found nowhere else. I want my
daughter to have it, and I cannot part with my own copy," concluded the
old lady, and with the words she walked out of the shop, leaving Annie
bewildered, and with the strange feeling of a surprise, which yet she
had been expecting. For what else but such success could come to Hector?
Had it not been drawing nearer and nearer all the time? And for a moment
she seemed again to stand, a much younger child than now, amid the gusty
whirling of the dead leaves about her feet, once more on the point of
stooping to pick up what might prove a withered leaf, but was in reality
a pound-note, the thing which had wrought her so much misery, and was
now filling her cup of joy to the very brim. The book the old lady had
talked of could be no other than Hector's book. No other than Hector
could have written it. What a treasure there was in the world that she
had never seen! How big was it? what was it like? She was sure to know
it the moment her eyes fell upon it. But why had he never told her about
it? He might have wanted to surprise her, but she was not the least
surprised. She had known it all the time! He had never talked about what
he was writing, and still less would he talk of what he was going to
write. Intentions were not worthy of his beautiful mouth! Perhaps he did
not want her to read it yet. When he did, he would send her a copy. And,
oh! when would her mother be able to read it? Was it a very dear book?
There could be no thought of their buying it! Between them, she and her
mother could not have shillings enough for that. When the right time
came, he would send it. Then it would be twice as much hers as if she
had bought it for herself.
The next day she met Mr. and Mrs. Macintosh, and the former actually
congratulated her on what Hector had done and what people thought of him
for it; but the latter only gave a sniff. And the next post brought the
book itself, and with it a petition from Hector that she would fix the
day to join him in London.
Annie made haste, therefore, to get ready the dress of white linen in
which she meant to be married, and a lady, the sister of Hector's
friend, meeting her in London, they were married the next day, and went
together to Hector's humble lodgings in a northern suburb.
Hector's new volume, larger somewhat, but made up of smaller poems, did
not attract the same amount of attention as the former, and the result
gave no encouragement to the publisher to make a third venture. One
reason possibly was that the subjects of most of the poems, even the
gayest of them, were serious, and another may have been that the common
tribe of reviewers, searching like other parasites, discovered in them
material for ridicule--which to them meant food, and as such they made
use of it. At the same time he was not left without friends: certain of
his readers, who saw what he meant and cared to understand it, continued
his readers; and his influence on such was slowly growing, while those
that admired, feeling the power of his work, held by him the more when
the scoffers at him grew insolent. Still, few copies were sold, and
Hector found it well that he had other work and was not altogether
dependent on his pen, which would have been simple starvation. And, from
the first, Annie was most careful in her expenditure.
Among the simple people whom husband brought her to know, she speedily
became a great favorite, and this circle widened more rapidly after she
joined it. For her simple truth, which even to Hector had occasionally
seemed some what overdriven, now revealed itself as the ground of her
growing popularity. She welcomed all, was faithful to all, and
sympathetic with all. Nor was it longer before her husband began to
study her in order to understand her--and that the more that he could
find in her neither plan nor system, nothing but straightforward,
foldless simplicity. Nor did she ever come to believe less in the
foreseeing care of God. She ceased perhaps to attribute so much to the
ministry of the angels as when she took the fiercer blast that rescued
from the flames the greasy note and blew it uncharred up the roaring
chimney for the sudden waft of an angel's wing; but she came to meet
them oftener in daily life, clothed in human form, though still they
were rare indeed, and often, like the angel that revealed himself to
Manoah, disappeared upon recognition.
