George Willard

“ On his hands and knees in the bushes George Willard stared at the scene before him and tried hard to think. He prepared to spring at the man who had humiliated him. To be beaten seemed infinitely better than to be thus hurled ignominiously aside.
Three times the young reporter sprang at Ed Handby and each time the bartender, catching him by the shoulder, hurled him back into the bushes. The older man seemed prepared to keep the exercise going indefinitely but George Willard's head struck the root of a tree and he lay still. Then Ed Handby took Belle Carpenter by the arm and marched her away. ”

“ In gardens back of houses in Winesburg dry shriveled potato vines lay sprawling on the ground. Men who had finished the evening meal and who had planned to go uptown to talk the evening away with other men at the back of some store changed their minds. George Willard tramped about in the rain and was glad that it rained. He felt that way. He was like Enoch Robinson on the evenings when the old man came down out of his room and wandered alone in the streets. He was like that only that George Willard had become a tall young man and did not think it manly to weep and carry on. ”

“ In the hallway there was the sound of footsteps and George Willard came in at the door. Sitting in a chair beside his mother he began to talk. "I'm going to get out of here," he said. "I don't know where I shall go or what I shall do but I am going away."
The woman in the chair waited and trembled. An impulse came to her. "I suppose you had better wake up," she said. "You think that? You will go to the city and make money, eh? It will be better for you, you think, to be a business man, to be brisk and smart and alive?" ”

“ Out of the dream Wing Biddlebaum made a picture for George Willard. In the picture men lived again in a kind of pastoral golden age. Across a green open country came clean-limbed young men, some afoot, some mounted upon horses. In crowds the young men came to gather about the feet of an old man who sat beneath a tree in a tiny garden and who talked to them.
Wing Biddlebaum became wholly inspired. For once he forgot the hands. Slowly they stole forth and lay upon George Willard's shoulders. ”

“ He would get work in some shop and become friends with the other workmen and would be indistinguishable. Then he could talk and laugh. He would no longer be queer and would make friends. Life would begin to have warmth and meaning for him as it had for others.
The tall awkward young man, striding through the streets, laughed at himself because he had been angry and had been half afraid of George Willard. He decided he would have his talk with the young reporter before he left town, that he would tell him about things, perhaps challenge him, challenge all of Winesburg through him. ”

“ When George Willard went to work for the Winesburg Eagle he was besieged by Joe Welling. Joe envied the boy. It seemed to him that he was meant by Nature to be a reporter on a newspaper. “It is what I should be doing, there is no doubt of that,” he declared, stopping George Willard on the sidewalk before Daugherty’s Feed Store. ”

“ The idea that George Willard would some day become a writer had given him a place of distinction in Winesburg, and to Seth Richmond he talked continually of the matter. "It's the easiest of all lives to live," he declared, becoming excited and boastful. "Here and there you go and there is no one to boss you. ”

“ Early that evening George went into Ransom Surbeck's pool room with Seth Richmond and Art Wilson, son of the town butcher. Seth Richmond stood with his back against the wall and remained silent, but George Willard talked. The pool room was filled with Winesburg boys and they talked of women. The young reporter got into [Pg 27] that vein. He said that women should look out for themselves that the fellow who went out with a girl was not responsible for what happened. As he talked he looked about, eager for attention. He held the floor for five minutes and then Art Wilson began to talk. ”

“ Jumping to his feet and breaking off the tale, Doctor Parcival began to walk up and down in the office of the Winesburg Eagle where George Willard sat listening. He was awkward and, as the office was small, continually knocked against things. “What a fool I am to be talking,” he said. “That is not my object in coming here and forcing my acquaintanceship upon you. I have something else in mind. You are a reporter just as I was once and you have attracted my attention. You may end by becoming just such another fool. ”

“ He wanted to talk to someone, and he chose the young newspaper reporter because the two happened to be thrown together at a time when the younger man was in a mood to understand.
Youthful sadness, young man’s sadness, the sadness of a growing boy in a village at the year’s end, opened the lips of the old man. The sadness was in the heart of George Willard and was without meaning, but it appealed to Enoch Robinson. ”

“ With all his heart he wants to come close to some other human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another. If he prefers that the other be a woman, that is because he believes that a woman will be gentle, that she will understand. He wants, most of all, understanding.
When the moment of sophistication came to George Willard his mind turned to Helen White, the Winesburg banker's daughter. Always he had been conscious of the girl growing into womanhood as he grew into manhood. ”

“ "You will have to know life," she declared, and her voice trembled with earnestness. She took hold of George Willard's shoulders and turned him about so that she could look into his eyes. A passer-by might have thought them about to embrace. "If you are to become a writer you'll have to stop fooling with words," she explained. "It. would be better to give up the notion of writing until you are better prepared. Now it's time to be living. I don't want to frighten you, but I would like to make you understand the import of what you think of attempting. ”

“ In youth there are always two forces fighting in people. The warm unthinking little animal struggles against the thing that reflects and remembers, and the older, the more sophisticated thing had possession of George Willard. ”

“ There would be a new vegetable kingdom you see. It’s interesting, eh? It’s an idea. Wait till you see Sarah, she’ll get the idea. She’ll be interested. Sarah is always interested in ideas. You can’t be too smart for Sarah, now can you? Of course you can’t. You know that.”
ADVENTURE
Alice Hindman, a woman of twenty-seven when George Willard was a mere boy, had lived in Winesburg all her life. She clerked in Winney’s Dry Goods Store and lived with her mother, who had married a second husband.
Alice’s step-father was a carriage painter, and given to drink. His story is an odd one. ”

“ On the evening before we left Fort Benton George Steell had begged my uncle to leave Is-spai-u in his care. "You know how flies swarm about a molasses keg. Well, so will the hostiles swarm about you down there when they learn that the runner is with you. Be sensible for once, Wesley, and let me have him until your fort is completed." ”

“ The Association employed George Weiblen, whose family had operated the quarry at Stone Mountain, to assemble a crew and get the mountain ready. In 37 years the steel supports for the stairway had rusted out and required replacing, as did the steel cables and scaffolding. Bids were asked for a 400-foot elevator up to the carving, and when the costs seemed entirely too high, a prefabricated elevator was ordered, and the work crew put it up in 28 days. It was the world’s highest outside elevator.
A skilled carver was hired to begin the carving. ”

“ Amusement at this frankness glimmered in Willard's eyes.
"You're like all ignorant people. You think in order to stand hardship a man should be able to toss a sack of flour in his teeth or juggle a cask of salt-horse."
"Sure t'ing," grinned Pierre. "That's right. Look at me. Mebbe you hear 'bout Pierre 'Feroce' sometime, eh?"
"Oh, yes; everybody knows you; knows you're a big bully. I've seen you drink a quart of this wood alcohol they call whisky up here, and then jump the bar from a stand, but you're all animal—you haven't the refinement and the culture that makes real strength. ”

“ He was much in public life, and a reputation for high and honorable principle was all the religion to which he aspired. It is not strange therefore that Willard was ignorant of those consoling truths which formed the support of Eliza in her dark hour of trial.
In his view, she was a perfect being. He questioned the justice of the decree which was about to consign her to an early grave. He questioned the right of the Great Disposer to take from him his portion and destroy his hope. ”

“ And thus the days pass by, each one stealing a hope from the watcher's heart, and so many hours from Willard's life. Their patience does not waver, nor does his quiet courage. He knows that the world is fair outside, that the Southern sky is blue and bright—that flowers are blossoming, that birds are singing—knows, too, that all "Creation's deep musical chorus, unintermitting, goes up into Heaven," and is fain to go with it. Very bravely and contentedly he breasts the dark waters, knowing that a strong arm upholds him, even His who said to the ocean's tumult ”

“ He thinks he knows it all and is working the stock market at arm’s length. I know, myself, that one bucket shop let him down for sixteen thousand in a single blind pool. Willard seems to have played fox with you folks in Palermo through it all, and, of course, he’s had a great start of you with his reputation and all that. But if he’s your town treasurer, as I hear he is, and custodian of about all the funds of widows and orphans and old codgers in your town, give him a looking over and do it right away. ”

“ He is the most accomplished murderer on the modern stage, and really, if one were forced to die a violent death, Mr. Willard seems to be the individual one would naturally select to perform the necessary, but unpleasant, operation. It does not in [Pg 137] the least matter to an Olympic audience how he comes to be the proprietor of a low Thames-side tavern when he seems better qualified to lead a cotillon in quite a fashionable West-End Square. ”

“ All night the north wind shouted, and, as the next day waned with its violence undiminished, the frost crept in upon them till they rolled and tossed shivering. Twice they essayed to crawl out, but were driven back to cower for endless, hopeless hours.
It is in such black, aimless times that thought becomes distorted. Willard felt his mind wandering through bleak dreams and tortured fancies, always to find himself harping on his early argument with Pierre: "It's the mind that counts." ”

“ And of all his foes, himself is the worst, the most inveterate. That wise and noble woman, Frances E. Willard, condensed the question of progression when she said, "Our problem consists in saving man from himself." That has ever been the problem whether undertaken designedly by such superior characters as Miss Willard or the spontaneous operation of the postulated forces of evolution. ”

“ Once out of the shelter of the house, the storm struck them with full force, and Willard realised that he was well-nigh strangled in the clutches of a genuine Maine gale.
"What folly!" he gasped, crowding his hat over his eyes and struggling to gain his wonted consciousness of superiority. "Come back instantly, Miss Storrs! Your mother——"
"Come! come!" she interrupted, pulling him along.
He stared at her in amazement. Her eyes were wide open and almost black with excitement. Her face gleamed like ivory in the cold light. Her lips were parted and curved in a happy smile. ”

“ The now distinct voice of the wind grew to a long, minor wail, that rose and fell with rhythmic regularity. As she paused with uplifted finger near him, Willard felt with amazement a compelling force, a personality more intense, for the time, than his own. Then, as the blast, with a shriek that echoed for a moment with startling distinctness from every side, dashed the elm branches against the house itself, she turned abruptly and left the room. ”

“ His partner in business, Captain Samuel Ward, cast his lot with the patriot party, but his son, Levi Willard, Jr., graduated at Harvard College in 1775, joined his uncle Abijah, and went to England and there remained until 1785, when he returned and died five years later.
Abel Willard, though equally graced by nature with the physical gifts that distinguished his brothers, unlike them chose the arts of peace rather than those of war. He was born at Lancaster on January 12, 1731-2, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1752, ranking third in the class. ”

“ He was made a Lord of the Bedchamber, a Member of the Privy Council, and afterwards Master of the Horse, [5] and Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire. He lived in great magnificence at Wallingford House; a tenement next to York House, intended to be the habitable and useful appendage to that palace.
He was henceforth, until he proved treacherous to his sovereign, the brightest ornament of Whitehall. Beauty of person was hereditary: his father was styled the 'handsomest-bodied man in England,' and George Villiers the younger equalled George Villiers the elder in all personal accomplishments. ”

“ The complexion of George Villiers was singularly clear and beautiful, his forehead high and smooth, his eyes dark and full of intelligence and sweetness, whilst the perfect oval of his face, and delicate turn of features, fine, yet noble, and the air of refinement which characterised both his countenance and his bearing, rendered him one of the most attractive of human beings. ”