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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
he wanted to add, and might have added had she proved
enthusiastic over what he had read to her.
But she was too busy in her mind, carving out a career for him that would
at least be possible, to ask what the ultimate something was which he had
hinted at. There was no career for him in literature. Of that she was
convinced. He had proved it to-day, with his amateurish and sophomoric
productions. He could talk well, but he was incapable of expressing
himself in a literary way. She compared Tennyson, and Browning, and her
favorite prose masters with him, and to his hopeless discredit. Yet she
did not tell him her whole mind. Her strange interest in him led her to
temporize. His desire to write was, after all, a little weakness which
he would grow out of in time. Then he would devote himself to the more
serious affairs of life. And he would succeed, too. She knew that. He
was so strong that he could not fail--if only he would drop writing.
"I wish you would show me all you write, Mr. Eden," she said.
He flushed with pleasure. She was interested, that much was sure. And
at least she had not given him a rejection slip. She had called certain
portions of his work beautiful, and that was the first encouragement he
had ever received from any one.
"I will," he said passionately. "And I promise you, Miss Morse, that I
will make good. I have come far, I know that; and I have far to go, and
I will cover it if I have to do it on my hands and knees." He held up a
bunch of manuscript. "Here are the Sea Lyrics. When you get home,
Ill turn them over to you to read at your leisure. And you must be sure
to tell me just what you think of them. What I need, you know, above all
things, is criticism. And do, please, be frank with me."
"I will be perfectly frank," she promised, with an uneasy conviction that
she had not been frank with him and with a doubt if she could be quite
frank with him the next time.
CHAPTER XV "The first battle, fought and finished," Martin said to the looking-glass ten days later. "But there will be a second battle, and a third battle, and battles to the end of time, unless--" He had not finished the sentence, but looked about the mean little room and let his eyes dwell sadly upon a heap of returned manuscripts, still in their long envelopes, which lay in a corner on the floor. He had no stamps with which to continue them on their travels, and for a week they had been piling up. More of them would come in on the morrow, and on the next day, and the next, till they were all in. And he would be unable to start them out again. He was a months rent behind on the typewriter, which he could not pay, having barely enough for the weeks board which was due and for the employment office fees. He sat down and regarded the table thoughtfully. There were ink stains upon it, and he suddenly discovered that he was fond of it. "Dear old table," he said, "Ive spent some happy hours with you, and youve been a pretty good friend when all is said and done. You never turned me down, never passed me out a reward-of-unmerit rejection slip, never complained about working overtime." He dropped his arms upon the table and buried his face in them. His throat was aching, and he wanted to cry. It reminded him of his first fight, when he was six years old, when he punched away with the tears running down his cheeks while the other boy, two years his elder, had beaten and pounded him into exhaustion. He saw the ring of boys, howling like barbarians as he went down at last, writhing in the throes of nausea, the blood streaming from his nose and the tears from his bruised eyes. "Poor little shaver," he murmured. "And youre just as badly licked now. Youre beaten to a pulp. Youre down and out." But the vision of that first fight still lingered Martin Eden page 61 Martin Eden page 63 |