Fifteen Days: An Extract from Edward Colvil's JournalPutnam, Mary Lowell
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Fifteen Days: An Extract from Edward Colvil's Journal
Putnam, Mary Lowell
Diary fiction; Slavery -- United States -- Fiction
On Tuesday, the ninth, the first day of the new arrangement, Harry
went away as soon as breakfast was over. The Doctor rose, as if going
to his room, hesitated, and sat down again. I saw that he had
something to say to me, and waited. My thoughts went back to the
conversation of the afternoon before. Had I really displeased him? He
spoke seriously, but very kindly.
"Harry has no need of incitement in the direction of"----
He stopped, as if for a word which should be true at once to his pride
and his disapprobation. He did not find it, and began over again:--
"It is the office of friendship to restrain even from generous error.
It is possible to err on the side of too great disinterestedness. A
man such as Harry will be, while living for himself,--living nobly and
wisely as he must live,--is living for others; he has no need to
become a crusader."
"Harry will be what he was meant to be; you would not have him force
himself to become anything else?"
"No, I would not," the Doctor answered confidently, yet with a little
sadness in his voice. "It almost seems," he added, a moment after,
"that the qualities which fit a man for a higher sphere are
incompatible with his success in this."
"Not, perhaps, with what Harry would call success."
"I am ambitious for him; I own it. And so are you, though you do not
own it. You want to see him recognized for what he is."
Certainly it is natural to wish that others should love what we love,
should admire what we admire. Our desire of sympathy, our regard for
justice, both ask it. But we must have trust.
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies;
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove."
I could not answer the Doctor immediately. "Whatever course Harry may
take," I said at last, "his power will make itself felt. He will
disappoint neither of us."
"He has never given me a disappointment yet; though I prepare myself
for one, whenever he begins anything new. We have no right to expect
everything of one; but, whatever he is doing, it seems as if that was
what he was most meant to do."
"It is in part his simple-mindedness, his freedom from the disturbing
influence of self-love, which gives him this security of success in
what he undertakes. You have said that Harry was one to take his own
path. I will trust him to find it and hold to it."
"I must come to that," answered the Doctor, whose anxiety had
gradually dissipated itself. "I don't know why I should hope to guide
him now, if I could not when he was seven years old. On the infantile
scale his characteristics were then just what they are now, and one of
them certainly always was to have a way of his own.
"'The hero's blood is not to be controlled;
In childhood even 'tis manly masterful.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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