James Ward

“ I saw him chasing a coyote, and the last I saw of it, by God, he was gaining on it." [Pg 9]
Dave paused and looked for the effect that would follow his words. But no effect came. James Ward was quietly curious, and that was all.
"Very remarkable, very remarkable," he murmured. "A wild man, you say. Why have you come to tell me?"
"To warn you of your danger. I'm something of a hard proposition myself, but I don't believe in killing people ... that is, unnecessarily. I realized that you was in danger. I thought I'd warn you. Honest, that's the game. ”

“ In the bungalow at Mill Valley he lived alone, save for Lee Sing, the Chinese cook and factotum, who knew much about the strangeness of his master, who was paid well for saying nothing, and who never did say anything. After the satisfaction of his nights, a morning's sleep, and a breakfast of Lee Sing's, James Ward crossed the bay to San Francisco on a midday ferryboat and went to the club and on to his office, as normal and conventional a man of business as could be found in the city. But as the evening lengthened, the night called to him. ”

“ By this, Marsham had collected his forces, and as he turned to the lamplight, Sir James saw a countenance that reassured him.
"I have no hope of persuading her. It will have to be faced."
"No, I fear there is no hope. She sees all such things in a false light. Forgive me--we must both speak plainly. She will shudder at the bare idea of Juliet Sparling's daughter as your wife; she will think it means a serious injury to your career--in reality it does nothing of the sort--and she will regard it as her duty to assert herself."
"You and Ferrier must do all you can for me," said Marsham, slowly. ”

“ Ward was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1814, and he also held the appointment of mezzotint-engraver to the prince regent and the Duke of York. He lived latterly in Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, and there he died suddenly on 1 Dec. 1826. In 1786 he married Maria Morland, sister of George Morland [q. v.] , who at the same time married Ward's sister Anne. Ward had two sons—Martin Theodore, noticed below, and William James [q. v.]
The son, Martin Theodore Ward (1799?–1874) , painter, was born about 1799. He studied under Landseer, and painted dogs and horses. ”

“ He answered Sir James in monosyllables, lying, dressed, upon his sofa, the neuralgic portion of the spine packed and cushioned from any possible friction, his forehead drawn and frowning.
Sir James shrank from asking him about himself. But it was useless to talk of politics; Oliver made no response, and was evidently no longer abreast even of the newspapers.
"Does your man read you the Times?" asked Sir James, noticing that it lay unopened beside him. ”

“ Birds, insects, stones, gems, trees, flowers and “weeds of glorious feature”; the countless phases of the earth, the sea, and the sky with its clouds, when rosy-fingered at the dawn, when sunlit in noon-day beauty, or when fringed with the gold and crimsoned fires of the dying day, afford the clearest evidence that nature delights in rich and bright, as well as in quiet schemes of colour harmony. ”

“ James held his own for a time with any farmer of the neighbourhood. But, by the irony of fate, the prosperity which his industry and tenacity deserved was filched from him little by little by the ill-health of his wife. She bore him two sons, Reuben and Alexander, and then she sank into a hopeless, fretful invalid, tormented by the internal ailment of which she ultimately died. But the small farmer who employs little or no labour is lost without an active wife. ”

“ Idleness? No! That way lies the end. To slacken the rush of life, for men of his sort, is to call on death--death, the secret pursuer, who is not far from each one of us. No, no! Fight on! It was only the long drudgery behind, under alien suns, together with the iron certainty of fresh drudgery ahead, that gave value, after all, to this rainy, this enchanting Piccadilly--that kept the string of feeling taut and all its notes clear.
"Going to bed, Sir Wilfrid?" said a voice behind him, as he turned down St. James's Street.
"Delafield!" The old man faced round with alacrity. ”

“ Marsham thought over it. Easy enough, if only the engagement were announced! But both agreed that silence was imperative. Whatever chance there might be with Lady Lucy would be entirely destroyed were the matter made public before her son had consulted her.
"Everybody here is on the tiptoe of expectation," said Sir James. "But that you know; you must face it somehow. Invent a letter from Ferrier--some party contretemps--anything!--I'll help you through. And if you see your mother in the morning, I will turn up in the afternoon." ”

“ Nora listened to this flow of sweet unreason without staying her hand in the work, which, as she perceived the drift of his talk, she had rapidly caught up, but with a beating heart and a sense of rising tears. It was a ravishing mixture of passion and reason, the agony of a restless soul. Of old, she had thought of Hubert's nature as immutably placid and fixed; it gave her the notion of lucid depth and soundless volume. But of late, with greater nearness, she had seen the ripples on its surface and heard it beating its banks. ”

“ I had the wit to see, but I lacked the courage to do,—and yet I have been called reckless, irreverent, audacious. My dear Nora, I am the veriest coward on earth; pity me, if you don't despise me. There are men born to imagine things, others born to do them. ”

“ Sir James suddenly threw out a restless foot, which caught Lady Lucy's fox terrier, who was snoozing under the tea-table. He hastily apologized, and the speaker resumed:
"But, in my opinion, she would do a far nobler thing if she regarded herself as bound to some extent to bear her mother's burden--to pay her mother's debt to society. It may sound harsh--but is it? Is a dedicated life necessarily an unhappy life? Would not everybody respect and revere her? She would sacrifice herself, as the Sister of Mercy does, or the missionary, and she would find her reward. ”

“ But, in any case, you have forgotten Miss Mallory's own fortune."
"It has never entered into my thoughts!" cried Marsham, with an emphasis which Sir James knew to be honest. "But, in any case, I cannot live upon my wife. If I could not find something to do, I should certainly give up politics."
His tone had become a little dry and bitter, his aspect gray.
Sir James surveyed him a moment--pondering.
"You will find plenty of ways out, Oliver--plenty! The sympathy of all the world will be with you. You have won a beautiful and noble creature. She has been brought up under a more than Greek fate. ”

“ Sir James had rather coldly acknowledged the letter, with the remark that few words were best on a subject so painful; and since then there had been no intimacy between the two men. Marsham could only think with discomfort of the scene at Felton Park, when a man of passionate nature and romantic heart had allowed him access to the most sacred and tragic memories of his life. ”

“ Roger was a practical man; as he went he gathered facts and noted manners and customs; but the muse of observation for him was the little girl at home, the ripening companion of his own ripe years. It was for her sake that he collected impressions and laid up treasure. He had determined that she should be a lovely woman and a perfect wife; but to be worthy of such a woman as his fancy foreshadowed, he himself had much to learn. To be a good husband, one must first be a wise man; to educate her, he should first educate himself. ”

“ She had reached that charming girlish moment when the crudity of childhood begins to be faintly tempered by the sense of sex. She was coming fast, too, into her woman's heritage of garrulity. She entertained him for a whole morning; she took him into her confidence; she rattled and prattled unceasingly upon all the swarming little school interests,—her likes and aversions, her hopes and fears, her friends and teachers, her studies and story-books. Roger sat grinning in high enchantment; she seemed to him the very genius of girlhood. ”

“ Roger felt as if he were now establishing himself in society in behalf of that larger personality into which his narrow singleness was destined to expand. He was paving the way for Nora. It seemed to him that she might find it an easy way to tread. He compared her attentively with every young girl he met; many were prettier, some possessed in larger degree the air of "brightness"; but none revealed that deep-shrined natural force, lurking in the shadow of modesty like a statue in a recess, which you hardly know whether to denominate humility or pride. ”

“ Some people think me a clergyman, Nora," he said, lowering his voice with a hint of mock humility. "But do you know you are formidable, with your fierce friendships and your jealous suspicions? If you doubt of me, well and good. Let me walk like an Homeric god in a cloud; without my cloud, I should be sadly ungodlike. Indeed, for that matter, I doubt of myself. But I don't really undervalue Roger. I love him, I admire him, I envy him. I would give the world to be able to exchange my restless imagination for his silent, sturdy usefulness. ”

“ Lucinda therefore was gracious.
For Roger it seemed as if life had begun afresh and the world had put on a new face. High above the level horizon now, clearly defined against the empty sky, rose this small commanding figure, with the added magnitude that objects acquire in this position. She gave him a great deal to think about. The child a man begets and rears weaves its existence insensibly into the tissue of his life, so that he becomes trained by fine degrees to the paternal office. But Roger had to skip experience, and spring with a bound into the paternal consciousness. ”

“ She was admitted by her old friend Lucinda, who, between trouble and wonder, found a thousand things to say. Nora's beauty had never received warmer tribute than the affectionate marvellings of this old woman who had known her early plainness so well. She led her into the drawing-room, opened the windows and turned her about in the light, patted her braided tresses, and rejoiced with motherly unction in her tallness and straightness and elegance. Of Roger she spoke with tearful eyes. ”

“ There is a copy of Latin verses by Ward before James Robothum's ‘Pleausaunt and wittie Playe of the Cheastes [i.e. chess] ... Lately translated out of Italian into French: and now set furth in Englishe,’ London, 1562. Possibly Ward translated the French (Ames, Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, ii. 803–4) . ‘Gods Arrowes, or two Sermons concerning the Visitation of God by the Pestilence,’ London, 1607, 8vo, attributed in the ‘British Museum Catalogue’ to William Warde, are by a London minister of that name who can hardly have been identical with the Cambridge professor. ”

“ "Are you using me simply as a vulgar tool? Don't you care for me the least little bit? Let me suggest that for a girl in your—your ambiguous position, you are several shades too proud. Don't go back to Roger in a hurry! You are not the immaculate young person you were but two short days ago. Who am I, what am I, to the people whose opinion you care for? A very low fellow, my dear; and yet, in the eyes of the world, you have certainly taken up with me. If you are not prepared to do more, you should have done less. Nora, Nora," ”

“ Returning to America, he spent two years in New York and Boston, continuing his Sanskrit and Zend studies under Professor Lanman of Harvard. No other American novelist save Mr. James has had so cosmopolitan a training. Relating a story of a Persian jewel merchant’s adventure in India to his uncle, Samuel Ward, he was advised to make a novel of it ”

“ Ward at Borough Farm, and remained ever afterwards on cordial, not to say familiar, terms with her; Charles Dudley Warner, Mrs. Wharton, the William James’s, and many more. But the most intimate of all were certain women: that inseparable and delightful pair, Mrs. Fields and Miss Sarah Orne Jewett (the writer of New England stories) , who twice found their way to Stocks, and many times to Grosvenor Place, and lastly that other Bostonian, Miss Sara Norton, whose friendship for Dorothy made her almost as another daughter during her visits to Stocks, to Levens, or to the Villa Bonaventura. ”

“ Ward's great-great-grandfather Welcome Potter had in 1785 married a certain "Ann Tillinghast, daughter to Mrs. Eliza, daughter to Capt. James Tillinghast," of whose paternity the family had preserved no trace. Late in 1918, whilst examining a volume of original town records in manuscript, the young genealogist encountered an entry describing a legal change of name, by which in 1772 a Mrs. Eliza Curwen, widow of Joseph Curwen, resumed, along with her seven-year-old daughter Ann, her maiden name of Tillinghast ”

“ On the other hand, we have some gigantic masterpieces in the Tate and National Galleries which I [3] think will bear the test of time in their power and excellence. "Power," to quote a contemporary account of James' life, "was the keynote of his work, he loved to paint mighty bulls and fiery stallions, picturing their brutal strength as no one has done before or since." ”

“ Warde!" exclaimed Sir Edward Digby; "I cannot suppose that you really have the power; or, perhaps, after all, you do not know the whole circumstances."
"Hush, hush, young man!" answered Warde, with a wave of the hand; "I know all, I see all, where you know little or nothing. You are a good youth, as the world goes--better than most of your bad class and station; but these matters are above you. Listen to me, Leyton. Did not Edith tell you that her father had worked upon her, by fears for his safety--for his honour--for his life, perhaps?" ”