第33章 CHAPTER X(1)
MR. CLEMENT LINDSAY RECEIVES A LETTER, AND BEGINS HIS ANSWER.
It was already morning when a young man living in the town of Alderbank, after lying awake for an hour thinking the unutterable thoughts that nineteen years of life bring to the sleeping and waking dreams of young people, rose from his bed, and, half dressing himself, sat down at his desk, from which he took a letter, which he opened and read. It was written in a delicate, though hardly formed female hand, and crossed like a checker-board, as is usual with these redundant manuscripts. The letter was as follows:
OXBOW VILLAGE, June 13, 1859.
MY DEAREST CLEMENT,--You was so good to write me such a sweet little bit of a letter,--only, dear, you never seem to be in quite so good spirits as you used to be. I wish your Susie was with you to cheer you up; but no, she must be patient, and you must be patient too, for you are so ambitious! I have heard you say so many times that nobody could be a great artist without passing years and years at work, and growing pale and lean with thinking so hard. You won't grow pale and lean, I hope; for I do so love to see that pretty color in your cheeks you have always had ever since I have known you; and besides, I do not believe you will have to work so very hard to do something great,--you have so much genius, and people of genius do such beautiful things with so little trouble. You remember those beautiful lines out of our newspaper I sent you? Well, Mr. Hopkins told me he wrote those lines in one evening without stopping! I wish you could see Mr. Hopkins,--he is a very talented person. I cut out this little piece about him from the paper on purpose to show you, --for genius loves genius,--and you would like to hear him read his own poetry,--he reads it beautifully. Please send this piece from the paper back, as I want to put it in my scrapbook, under his autograph:--"Our young townsman, Mr. Gifted Hopkins, has proved himself worthy of the name he bears. His poetical effusions are equally creditable to his head and his heart, displaying the highest order of genius and powers of imagination and fancy hardly second to any writer of the age. He is destined to make a great sensation in the world of letters."Mrs. Hopkins is the same good soul she always was. She is very proud of her son, as is natural, and keeps a copy of everything he writes.
I believe she cries over them every time she reads them. You don't know how I take to little Sossy and Minthy, those two twins I have written to you about before. Poor little creatures,--what a cruel thing it was in their father and mother not to take care of them!
What do you think? Old bachelor Gridley lets them come up into his room, and builds forts and castles for them with his big books! "The world's coming to an end," Mrs. Hopkins said the first time he did so. He looks so savage with that scowl of his, and talks so gruff when he is scolding at things in general, that nobody would have believed he would have let such little things come anywhere near him.
But he seems to be growing kind to all of us and everybody. I saw him talking to the Fire-hang-bird the other day. You know who the Fire-hang-bird is, don't you? Myrtle Hazard her name is. I wish you could see her. I don't know as I do, though. You would want to make a statue of her, or a painting, I know. She is so handsome that all the young men stand round to see her come out of meeting. Some say that Lawyer Bradshaw is after her; but my! he is ten years older than she is. She is nothing but a girl, though she looks as if she was eighteen. She lives up at a place called The Poplars, with an old woman that is her aunt or something, and nobody seems to be much acquainted with her except Olive Eveleth, who is the minister's daughter at Saint Bartholomew's Church. She never has beauxs round her, as some young girls do--they say that she is not happy with her aunt and another woman that stays with her, and that is the reason she keeps so much to herself. The minister came to see me the other day,--Mr. Stoker his name is. I was all alone, and it frightened me, for he looks, oh, so solemn on Sundays! But he called me "My dear,"and did n't say anything horrid, you know, about my being such a dreadful, dreadful sinner, as I have heard of his saying to some people,--but he looked very kindly at me, and took my hand, and laid his hand on my shoulder like a brother, and hoped I would come and see him in his study. I suppose I must go, but I don't want to. Idon't seem to like him exactly.
I hope you love me as well as ever you did. I can't help feeling sometimes as if you was growing away from me,--you know what I mean, --getting to be too great a person for such a small person as I am.
I know I can't always understand you when you talk about art, and that you know a great deal too much for such a simple girl as I am.
Oh, if I thought I could never make you happy!... There, now! I am almost ashamed to send this paper so spotted. Gifted Hopkins wrote some beautiful verses one day on "A Maiden Weeping." He compared the tears falling from her eyes to the drops of dew which one often sees upon the flowers in the morning. Is n't it a pretty thought?
I wish I loved art as well as I do poetry; but I am afraid I have not so much taste as some girls have. You remember how I liked that picture in the illustrated magazine, and you said it was horrid. Ihave been afraid since to like almost anything, for fear you should tell me some time or other it was horrid. Don't you think I shall ever learn to know what is nice from what is n't?