 | CHAPTER XVIII.
LAUNT AND HELEN. A woman in armor |  |
18. CHAPTER XVIII.
LAUNT AND HELEN.
ON the last day of her betrothal year she
wrote a note to Stanthorne, lest matters
should call him elsewhere.
“Don't fail to give this evening to me,” she
wrote; “it is the anniversary of George's loss.
I mean always to keep this day sacred to Nina's
death and to him, but I cannot bear to spend
the evening of it alone. Bring your book reviews
and we will read them together.”
So Stanthorne came early, with an arm-load
of magazines and papers reaching nearly to his
chin.
His girl-wife heard him stamping the November
rime off his feet before he rang the bell, and
she opened the door for him herself.
He came in, ruddy and sharp from the wind,
threw his load on a table, turned her face up to
receive his frosty salutation, and took the throne-chair
waiting for him.
The room was light and warm. It was home!
tendencies which his daily codfish and editorial
grinds created. No matter how cross and lofty
a quill-driver he was in sanctum, this inner sanctum
was sure to soften his bristling quills to
cherub wings. His clear-cut lips parted with
boyish delight and his eyes danced before the
home blaze.
Helen wore a white dress looped with black
ribbons. When she had made Launt snug and
sat down near him, she put in his button-hole
a little bunch of white violets, tied with black.
There were white violets in her hair and snowdrops
at her throat. It was a night of memory
—she would not call it mourning. She had been
thinking all day of those she had lost, and had
bought for them such simple white blossoms as
she could find. Green leaves and living whiteness
were under the keen starlight of Nina's frost-sheet.
The little girl slept too deep to mind
such a Maying come to her in November, but
Helen was fain to put it there and to think that
Nina loved it.
Directly over the mantel-piece was a wreath
of white flowers and dark-green leaves, enclosing
two faces, a thin, girlish woman and a tiny
child, and odd things were mingled with the
colors of the wreath—such as a little top, a tin
whistle, a baby shoe, a black-touched frill.
Helen's quiet hushed Stanthorne. He pushed
she broke her own thought-vigil.
A little clock on the mantel ticked. The fire
roared up chimney. The young woman, with
her elbow on her knee and her chin dropped to
her palm, yet lingered in the aforetime.
For Nina she was always glad. But for
George? Her own future was so full of promise.
She should have Launt, a place of her
own, and perhaps little children to cling about
her, as George had done; yet from self and
hopes she turned her loyal heart backward, and
held to Nina's baby.
But hers was too healthy a nature to droop
brooding over anything long. Whatever her
hands could do to forward the interests she had
at heart would be done. When she felt helpless
she walked on faith, and, brittle as the world
considers it, it never broke under her. There
are people—may the Lord have mercy on them!
—who appear to have been made with their
faces turning backward—they do so bewail the
past. There is reason for weeping it. But life
is warfare; we shall all fall soon; let us not
spend all our time mopping our wounds and
singing death-songs. Those who fell in the
trenches don't want us to pause in the charge
and let human victories slip because they could
not be immortal here.
Before many minutes Helen caught up her old
motto of “Push ahead and do your best.” She
she could not help, and opened the piano to
render for him a little Nocturne which she had
just finished, and which was lying in manuscript
ready for the publisher.
Whether Launt was partial to her music, or
whether this last piece really had more power
from her skilled hand, it roused him quite up to
the pitch of enthusiasm, and framed his mind
well to meet the reviewers of his book.
For that darling of his thoughts was at last
come into the sunlight under the eyes of men.
“Now let us hear the critics,” said Helen,
coming back to her low seat, and piling the
books under his glowing face.
“I haven't looked at these reviews yet,” exclaimed
Launt. “I've kept my promise to read
them all with you first—faithfully. Just glanced
at my title and stowed them away. Now, don't
you think you ought to be very lenient in this
matter? I might have sifted them; kept back
all the bad and brought only the good, and so
have made you believe I'd done such a successful
thing that you'd give up to marry me to-morrow,
out of hand. But I was honest. I
didn't do that. And, therefore, I want special
grace from you, mademoiselle.”
“You shall have it, sir; and now to begin.”
They drew nearer and turned the leaves of
the first book. The fire roared—so did November
outside. He felt well intrenched—did
"'NOW LET US HEAR THE CRITICS,' SAID HELEN."
[Description: 494EAF. Illustration page. Image of a woman kneeling before a man in an armchair. He is holding a paper in his hands and there are other papers scattered about the chair.]
opinion which kills or makes alive in the world.
“Together, mind!” cried Helen, as he held
the columns at an angle and glanced jealously
along them. “If any man slashes, you mean
to conceal it from me, do you, and reveal only
the pattings?”
“Nay, I will drink fair, Sairey,” laughed
Launt, “share and share alike.” So they
spread the leaves, and every gleaned number was
to be cast over against them by Helen.
“I made it,” prefaced Launt, shading the first
review with his hand, “as good as I could.
We know it's not a startling little book, don't
we, girl-wife? But there's some thought and
some human nature about it. Men and women
are writing books to-day full of bad passions,
which, like crooked glasses, distort the sight of
all who look through them. And books with
one idea floating in a sea of words—mental
spoon-victuals—of which the children do not
get all. My book cannot be classed with these,
for I drew it out of Nature's best, and packed it
close.”
“Review of his own work, in the Little Boston
Courier, by Lancelot Stanthorne himself,” remarked
Helen, laughing. “How long you hang
on the brink of these men's opinions. Pluck
up, dear boy. Kiss me. Now plunge.”
Launt kissed her.
“But we'll wait a bit about plunging,” said
vast tomes of agricultural and Patent-office reports,
and that I could conscientiously say my
book is not one of these.
“It is not a romance. It is not a homily.”
With his disengaged hand he took up from the
table a copy of the important work, a thin, nervous-looking
volume. “It is that common
plodder, the story.
“The Story is immortal. He sprung in remote
antiquity, and he will march on, tickling
the ears of human-kind long after you and I are
shelved away, girl-wife. Because he is so unpretending
he creeps into the good-will of small and
great. He has many vile imitators who tramp
along the by-ways of literature and get him into
bad reputation. But Simon Pure Story is one of
the dearest friends of the race. He soothes it in
its squalling infancy; he mellows the leisure of its
toiling manhood; he glorifies the lips of its helpless
old age.
“There are those who say that the Muse degrades
herself when she sends Story out with a
moral in his fist. However that may be, he has
grown so dear a fellow we generally embrace
him in spite of the moral—and do our best to
evade that.”
“If you indulged in as many figures and fine
flights in your book,” rallied Helen, “I'm afraid
they have dealt hard with you.”
“Every nation has its stories,” pursued Launt,
races may be traced through the similarity of
their legends. Who places the story in the
lower ranks of literature? It is the people's favorite.
I had rather live with the people than
with their critics. The story, by its very brevity
and simplicity, appeals to a people who get
up and lie down quickly—who must read as
they run.
“To be a writer of stories is, then, a high calling.
Sermons go in at one ear and out at the
other, unless shot from the mouth of eloquence.
Poetry is luxury above the masses. Philosophy
cannot find many disciples who have leisure to
sit in the shade and converse with him. But
Story has winged slippers. He runs about here
and there; he gives a touch—a shake; he
laughs into the eyes of the laboring ranks; he
costs them little and solaces them much.
“Let no man think he writes to be forgotten.
We say a story is written to-day, published to-morrow,
and buried the day after. But this is
not true. Alas! what insufferable trash I can
remember reading long ago which haunts me
yet. What we read grows in us, and is in time
transmitted by us. So every one who writes
achieves some sort of immortality—woe the day!
“After all, success is only graded.”
“And what kind of success,” asked Helen,
smoothing his nervous fingers, “is best?”
Stanthorne drew his brows and was grave.
“Pens are moving all over the world,” he
said. “Some of them will sweep like strong
fingers across the harp of a whole people, and
waken renown. And others will touch only a
few strings, but make a sweet undertone. While
a few will strike only one swift, strong note—the
song or proverb of a century—and be heard no
more.
“I do not know which I had rather do. But
it seems to me those authors must be happiest
who enter the hearts of their readers. Men will
throw stones at eminence. But they will bless
with tears that hand which touches the sorrow,
love, and promise of their mortal lives.
“But as I was remarking,” broke off Launt,
“this little book of mine went forth in the fond
belief that he was the genuine Story. Let us see
now what the keepers of the people's taste have
to say about him—if anything. And now remember,”
he laughed, “if the preponderance of
these august opinions is on my side, you are to
reward my merit, aren't you?”
“Wait,” cried Helen; “let it be fair. We'll
balance the accounts. I'll mark three papers,
Good, Bad, Indifferent. We'll put the favorable
reviews on Good, the unfavorable ones on Bad,
and the snubs or passings-over on Indifferent.
In the end we'll take the average. There, that's
business-like, now.”
“Kiss you and then plunge, you said, didn't
you?” inquired Launt.
So he acted accordingly.
“The great gun of the Atlantic coast speaks:
“`Sorrel-Top. By Lancelot Stanthorne. Phillinger
Brothers.
“`There is power in this little volume which
promises much for the future of its author. It
does not pretend to take rank as a novel. But
as an American story it is fresh and stirring.”'
“That's good!” exclaimed Helen, patting
Launt's shoulder; “I'll put that on the credit
side.”
He flushed as he picked up the next:
“`Sorrel-Top. By Lancelot Stanthorne.
Phillinger Brothers.
“`While we all watch in expectation of the
Great American Novel, it is annoying to have
such puny volumes as this thrust upon our criticism.
There is altogether too much writing in
this age of the world. When a man has nothing
to say why must he labor on a treatise or a
romance—or, as in this instance, a vapid tale—
to prove that he can say nothing!
“`The heroine of “Sorrel-Top”—Janet Angelhood—is
the most impossible character we
ever encountered in fiction. The whole book is
nothing but a group of lay figures on which the
author spreads his sickly rags of fancy.”'
Thus, through a column and a half, did this
editor tilt at “Sorrel-Top,” by Lancelot Stanthorne.
“Never mind,” exclaimed Helen, as she made
Bluebeard, dear,” running a finger across his
smooth lip. “The man had certainly eaten a
bad dinner. I've read your book, and it is
good. Forgive his dyspepsia.”
“And he didn't know how to judge my
thoughts, either,” added Launt, swelling with
self-consolation. “If he had a place like this to
rush into, and such a life as mine, he'd find my
book more natural.”
“Pass on. The Philadelphia Flame says:
`This book presents a strong contrast to another
work of fiction which comes to our table
with it. “Sorrel-Top” is jerky, unfinished in
style, while “Bungalow” flows as smoothly as
a river. The author of the first has, however,
some power in the delineation of character, and
were it not for the liberties he takes with established
English we might pronounce very favorably
on his work.”'
“Is that good or bad?” inquired Launt,
doubting.
“I don't know,” replied Helen. “Perhaps
we'd better put it on Indifferent.”
“No; that's to be kept sacred to the silent
men. But this can't go on Good and Bad at
one and the same time. I'll tell you what we'll
do, girl-wife,” cried Launt. “We'll toss up a
penny for it. Heads, Good; Tails, Bad. (I
hope it'll be heads.)”
“Here, let me toss it!” exclaimed Helen;
“your hand's partial.”
Up it went, and came down with the liberty
head obscured.
“You didn't toss fair!” cried Launt. “Let
me try it; I can do better than that. There!
Heads! Good! I told you so. Put it down on
the credit side.”
So Helen put it down on the credit side and
they proceeded.
There were kind criticisms and snubs; gushing
eulogies (from new-fledged editors) and
gruff barks (from old, quill-worn ones). And
there was some passing over without any notice.
“That most unkindest cut of all,” sighed Launt
with a tragic wag of the head.
Some reviewers accused him of “aiming at
the very foundations of society,” with intent to
demolish the same; and others “could see no
object in all this twaddle!”
Two hours and a half passed before they sifted
all and balanced the scales.
“Taking the average of all that has been said
—good or bad—and what was left unsaid,” concluded
Helen, “you've written a fair book, in
the opinion of those who consider themselves
judges.”
“I didn't bring the sky down,” suggested
Launt.
“Nor quite tear up the foundations of society,”
added Helen; “but I'm pleased, and very
book had failed instead of having been fairly
received, you could have afforded it. Some
men's stumbling-blocks are merely your spurs.
In short,” panted Helen past the arms with
which he smothered her—because her heart-flattery
was so sweet to him—“you are the
most gifted and satisfactory boy in all the United
States, and I will marry you with all my heart,
some day.”
“Some day!” echoed Launt, leaning back
against his throne and trying to look reproachful.
“You have rung SOME DAY in my ears till
all my thoughts its melancholy cadence bears.
My very writing is partaking of Some-day's dun
hue. By the way, that reminds me. I've a
manuscript in my pocket which I wish you'd
patiently listen to.”
“Very well. Produce it. But, Launt, dear,
it isn't a geological paper for that scientific
publication, is it? I don't want to hear about
ichthyo-thingums, etc., to-night.”
“No; it's no scientific paper. It's quite the
reverse. It's a sketch; you might call it an
outline for a story. Do you remember that
wild, mountainous region where you carried
little George last year?”
“Yes,” replied Helen sadly.
“And you remember I explored it a week
or two last summer, while off for a rest. And
did I tell you about the old woman—your old
of mysteries and legends now. I sat at her feet
—figuratively speaking—and imbibed the lore
of the mountains, from which I have prepared
several papers, and this is one. An outline
which I mean to work up fully if you think it
worth the trouble.”
Launt spread out his manuscript and drew
Helen nearer to him. He coughed a preparatory
ahem! and opened his lips to give the
skeleton thought a way of egress, when the
door-bell startled them by a long quivering
clang, and put a veto on further literary proceedings.
| CHAPTER XVIII.
LAUNT AND HELEN. A woman in armor | |