Maud Wilder Goodwin

“ Listen, Winifred. Because you see me a delver in dusty old books, you think perhaps that I don't know what love is; but I tell you as I grow older it comes to fill a larger and larger part of the horizon, to seem perhaps the only reality. I don't mean just the love of a man for a woman, but the great throbbing bond of human affection and sympathy; and of all the kinds of affection, there is none that has the strength and toughness that belong to the love of husband and wife. I wish you to marry, Winifred,—I have always wished it,—only let it be to a true man, my dear,—let it be to a true man! ”

“ Here Flint paused, and began to walk the floor impatiently. "Oh, if you can ask that, I could not make you understand. It is useless to go on talking."
"No," said Winifred, now with fuller command of herself, "it is not useless; it is necessary. We must make each other understand. If we cannot do it now, how much less afterward! It always seems to me as if it were selfish folly in men and women to act as if their love were the only reality in the world, so that they forget everything that they owe to other people. ”

“ I have no patience with a rude man."
"Flint rude?" said Philip.
"Most decidedly rude, I should say."
"Oh, but he is not rude. He is only indifferent."
"Indifference is rudeness."
"Then I'm afraid, Miss Standish," broke in Winifred, "we must all be rude to most of the world. That is, unless we belong to the Salvation Army, like Nora Costello, and take an interest in everybody or rather every soul."
"Very remarkable girl, that Nora Costello," said Philip. ”

“ Brady was an indifferent companion, subject to fits of absence of mind,—more unsocial than absence of body.
There was only one resource left; the young men betook themselves to the White-House. Life there could not be wholly dull, while a perpetual sparring match was going on between Miss Standish and Dr. Cricket, while Professor Anstice smoked his pipe serenely on the corner of the piazza, and Ben Bradford openly adored Winifred, heedless of outside observation or amusement. ”

“ Winifred saw that I was justly indignant; and though she can be as peppery as anybody over her own quarrels, she is always bent on smoothing down other people; so she called out:—
"Well, fortunately, Mr. Flint, you are not too late for 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul;' and I am sure you did not get that all alone there at the inn." I wondered if he appreciated that rather neat little stab. Winifred does those things well, with a demure manner which leaves people in doubt whether her remarks are vicious or simply blundering. ”

“ There is such an amount of wear and tear in the ordinary strain of married life that I hate to see cruel and unusual ones added. If Winifred Anstice should ever or could ever— There, I will not allow myself even to think about it, for it would be so much harder to give it up afterward if I am compelled to, and, after all, what chance is there that a girl like Winifred would be willing to spend her whole life with a man whose nature and character are so different from hers! ”

“ He felt that he had appeared like a fool; and it must be a generous soul which can forgive one who has been both cause and witness of such humiliation. To conquer his irritation, Flint proceeded to take his injured rod to pieces, and repack it gloomily in its bag of green felt. When he looked up again, all petty annoyances faded out of his mind, for there ahead of him, behind the little patch of pines, lay the great cool, cobalt stretch of ocean, unfathomably deep, unutterably blue.
The young man felt a vague awe and exaltation tugging at his heart. ”

“ The beauty of youth is an ivorytype; the beauty of age is an etching, bitten out by the burin and acid of thought, experience, and sorrow.
The prevailing mood with James Anstice was one of gentle weariness. He felt that his life was ended, and that the years were going on in a sort of monotonous anti-climax. Yet, in spite of this undertone of depression, his manner was responsive, genial, even gay at times, and he lived much in the reflected light of Winifred's youth and energy. ”

“ Never in his life had Flint so raved against his own lack of readiness as now, when he felt the passing moments slipping by, and could find no words to set himself right in the eyes of the woman he loved,—the woman whose little gloved hand rested on his arm. Judge then of his feeling when, smiling up into his eyes with perfect friendliness, Winifred said under her breath, "Why do we go there—you and I? They really aren't our kind at all." ”

“ I came to the conclusion that the secret of the length of a holiday lies in the severity of the effort to enjoy one's self. At our age the truest happiness lies in absorption in work,—a kind of active and bustling Nirvana. Having come to this conclusion, I pulled out the golf-stockings I am knitting for Ben, and fell to work, with the result that it was tea-time before I knew it.
Winifred made quite a diversion by coming down dressed as Columbia, in a white muslin with blue sashes and a big bunch of red roses. ”

“ Graham turned to greet two newcomers, Flint was left alone, with no hindrance to the occupation of watching Winifred Anstice. She stood with her back toward him and her head slightly turned, so that his eye took in the delicate line of cheek and chin, broken by the shadows of a dimple, the curve of the neck, and the soft little curls that nestled at the base of the hair. A woman is always much handsomer or much plainer than usual in evening dress. ”

“ More than one of the men working in the factory took notice of the blue eyes and the red cheeks, and would have been glad to secure their owner for a wife; but she was not for any of them. Before she had been in the village six months, she had given her faithful heart to Michael Davitt, the young New England fisherman whose boat lay below the bridge which she crossed every morning on her way to her work in the factory. Many a time on bright spring mornings she loitered on the bridge, leaning over its wooden railing to watch Michael as he washed out his boat, and made ready for the day's sail. ”

“ The question, the vital pressing question in her case, was how she would use this freedom. Should it slip into the hardness of the new woman, on the one hand, or, on the other, allow itself to be fettered to the dulness of every-day decorum, her opportunity would be lost; but if she could hold the delicate equilibrium where she stood,—self-poised, and yet swaying to the influences which must work on every soul for its highest development, plastic yet firm,—then he believed, firmly believed, that there might lie in her a power for which the world would be the better and the richer. ”

“ Brady ended rather disjointedly.
"Don't you believe Mars is inhabited? and that the lines on its surface are canals for irrigation?"
"I don't know," answered Brady, whose mental processes were simple.
"Neither do I," said Flint; "and what is more, neither does any man, any more than he knows about God and a future life; and so why should we go to making up creeds and breaking the heads of people who don't agree with us when we are all just guessers, and probably all of us wrong?" ”

“ This juvenile candor would have had no effect, had not Winifred supplemented it by saying:—
"Mr. Bradford will take charge of me and my cape, Mr. Flint; I really cannot consent to trouble you further."
Her manner was equivalent to a dismissal. Flint handed over the cape, as she bade him, to young Bradford's eager grasp, bowed, and turned his steps homeward. As he strolled along, he felt a curiously sudden change of mood, from the elation of the morning to a depression half physical, half mental. ”

“ In this, it is an advance upon a tea-party."
"Picnicking with people you know is a bore, Picnicking with people you don't know is a feat of endurance," echoed Flint.
"Professionally, I am in favor of them," threw in Dr. Cricket. "I often feel like saying, with the old Roman, 'This day's work shall breed prescriptions.'"
"Oh, come now!" said Brady, "you're all trying to be clever. This is only talk. I think a picnic is great fun, especially a tea-picnic, where you boil coffee, and light a camp-fire, and perch about on the rocks over the water. ”

“ On such a day, it is good to be alive. Flint felt the sunshine in his blood as he stepped out into the fresh, open air. For a while he hesitated as to the use to which he should put the morning in order to secure the utmost of its bounty. Then he bethought him of his duty in returning the blue golf cape which he reproached himself as an idiot for having taken. Brady had gone crabbing with Marsden, so Flint could not delegate the duty to him, as he had intended. ”

“ Ben Bradford sat on a chair tipped back against the wall, with his thumbs thrust through the armholes of his corduroy vest. Winifred lounged upon the haircloth sofa with one foot surreptitiously tucked under her. Every one's attitude suggested a degree of comfort rare in society. A wonderful sense of intimacy is imparted by perils undergone together, or profound experiences shared. They seem to sweep away, as with a whirlwind breath, that thick veil of convention and commonplace which shroud many acquaintances from beginning to end. ”

“ For myself, I confess to a peculiar sensitiveness in the matter of voices,—an unfortunate peculiarity for one condemned to spend her life in a sea-board town of the United States. Like Ulysses, I have endured greatly, have suffered greatly; but when this girl speaks, I am repaid. I often lose the sense of what she is saying, in the pure physical pleasure of listening to her speech. It has in it a suggestion of joy, and little delicate trills of hidden laughter which, after all, is not laughter, but rather the mingling of a reminiscence and an anticipation of mirth. ”

“ I wonder why I chronicle all this small beer about Winifred Anstice and old Marsden's colt. I suppose because nothing really worth noting has occurred, and it is not for nothing that a diary is called a commonplace book. I find that if I wait for clever thoughts and important events, my journal shows portentous gaps at the end of the week, and I promised myself that I would write something in it every day while I was at Nepaug. For my part, I enjoy the old-fashioned diary,—a sort of almanac, confessional, receipt-book, and daily paper rolled together ”

“ Graham's house, and the door opened almost before she had mounted the steps.
As she passed along the hall, a wave of fragrance from lavishly disposed flowers floated out to her through the drawn portières, and she caught a glimpse of the softened light of many lamps-shaded to the eye but festive to the fancy. "Decidedly," thought Winifred, "it is agreeable to be rich, and next to being rich one's self, the best thing is to associate with rich people. Money is such a smoother of rough ways! ”

“ It is a peremptory challenge, which forces her, for the moment at least, to consider a certain man not as one of a class,—as a member of the conventional, calling, smiling, chaffing circle,—but as an individual, passing suddenly from all this surface trifling to a life and death reality—saying as Jonathan Flint had said this night: "Give me [Pg 266] all or nothing. I will have no half loaves. Let us have an end of pretences and evasions. For once at least you shall listen, and be told the truth flowing at lava heat out of a man's heart." It was by no means a new experience to Winifred Anstice. ”

“ He paused again at a fashionable florist's shop tucked deftly in among the theatres of central Broadway. The men at the counter were busily engaged over curiously incongruous tasks,—one binding up a cross of lilies, another a wreath for a baby's coffin, and a third preparing a beribboned basket, gay with chrysanthemums, for a dinner-table. Heedless, like us all, of every one's experiences but his own, Flint stood by, waiting impatiently for the clerk who was putting the last lily in the cross. ”

“ Ignoring his companion, or dreading perhaps to let loose the floods of his garrulity by making any gap in the dam of silence, Flint sat idly inspecting his fishing-tackle, shutting it up, then drawing it out, and finally topping it with the last, light, slender tip, quivering like the outmost delicate twig of an aspen as he shook it over the side of the carryall. In fancy, he saw it bending beneath the weight of a black bass such as haunted the translucent depths of a fresh [Pg 13] water pond a mile or two away. ”

“ Quick as thunder, and the last man grab 'em when they come within reach!"
In answer to Michael's words, the men hastily formed in line, and moved out till Brady stood chest-deep in water. It was a wise precaution, for Flint, though a good swimmer, found his task too hard for him. He felt like a man in a nightmare with a weight of lead upon his chest; and arms that must move, and could not move, and yet must again. ”

“ McGregor smiled,—a smile it had cost him twenty years of service in the best families to acquire,—a smile which expressed respectful appreciation of the facetiousness intended without any personal share in it. He never allowed himself to be more amused than a butler should be.
Winifred Anstice dropped into the chair which he held for her, and took up, one by one, the letters which lay on the silver tray by her side. ”

“ Flint's musings ended in a determination to answer this letter, and to answer it now while the genial mood was on him. The writer had taken pains to give little clue to her identity. Well, he would answer her from behind the same veil of impersonality. She need never know how widely she had missed her guess in her picture of him. She might keep her poor little illusions—yes, "elderly gentleman" and all. He would speak to her, as one soul might speak to another, unhampered by all the trammels of outward circumstance. ”

“ Brady, being a man of action, wasted no energy in discussion. He jumped to the ground, pulled out first his overcoat and gripsack, fortunately unharmed, then the paper parcels of oatmeal and hominy, sticky and dripping. Swiftly corking the jug, he lifted it out of the carryall, together with the oilcloth strip, and deftly stood both against a fence by the roadside. Flint watched him with admiration. He felt himself supremely helpless in the presence of the direful calamity. ”

“ Flint answered a little impatiently.
"I am sorry," the girl began lamely. It was just dawning upon her that it was not so easy to control the destinies of other people, as she had fancied.
"Oh, that is all right!" her companion responded more cheerfully; "New York in summer is not half so bad as you people who never stay there probably imagine."
"I don't know," said Winifred; "to me it seems dreadful to be shut up inside brick walls, or walking on hot paving-stones, when one might be sitting under green trees, or by rolling waves, breathing in the fresh country air. ”