success. Not long after the birth of their only child, a daughter,
he was “called to fill the chair” of archaeology in a newly founded
university; one of the kind which a State and a millionaire combine to
purchase ready-made. This one was handed down off the shelf in a more or
less chaotic condition, and for a period of years betrayed considerable
doubt as to its own intentions, undecided whether they were classical
or technical; and in the settlement of that doubt lay the secret of the
past of the one man in Plattville so unhappy as to possess a past. From
that settlement and his own preceding action resulted his downfall,
his disgrace with his wife's relatives, the loss of his wife, the rage,
surprise, and anguish of her sister, Martha, and Martha's husband, Henry
Sherwood, and the separation from his little daughter, which was by
far to him the hardest to bear. For Fisbee, in his own way, and without
consulting anybody--it never occurred to him, and he was supposed often
to forget that he had a wife and child--had informally turned over to
the university all the money which the banks had kindly taken care of,
and had given it to equip an expedition which never expedited. A new
president of the institution was installed; he talked to the trustees;
they met, and elected to become modern and practical and technical; they
abolished the course in fine arts, which abolished Fisbee's connection
with them, and they then employed his money to erect a building for the
mechanical engineering department. Fisbee was left with nothing. His
wife and her kinsfolk exhibited no brilliancy in holding a totally
irresponsible man down to responsibilities, and they made a tragedy of
a not surprising fiasco. Mrs. Fisbee had lived in her ambitions, and
she died of heartbreak over the discovery of what manner of man she had
married. But, before she died, she wisely provided for her daughter.
Fisbee told Parker the story after his own queer fashion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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