Yes, I forgot it, and I certainly ask your pardon for my
neglect. But I can't say that as it's turned out I altogether regret
it. I can talk with you a great deal better than I could write to
you in regard to your"--Sewell hesitated between the words poems and
verses, and finally said--"work. I have blamed myself a great deal,"
he continued, wincing under the hurt which he felt that he must be
inflicting on the young man as well as himself, "for not being more
frank with you when I saw you at home in September. I hope your
mother is well?"
"She's middling," said Barker, "but my married sister that came to
live with us since you was there has had a good deal of sickness in
her family. Her husband's laid up with the rheumatism most of the
time."
"Oh!" murmured Sewell sympathetically. "Well! I ought to have told
you at that time that I could not see much hope of your doing
acceptable work in a literary way; and if I had supposed that you
ever expected to exercise your faculty of versifying to any serious
purpose,--for anything but your own pleasure and entertainment,--I
should certainly have done so. And I tell you now that the specimens
of the long poem you have sent me give me even less reason to
encourage you than the things you read me at home."
Sewell expected the audible crash of Barker's air-castles to break
the silence which the young man suffered to follow upon these words;
but nothing of the kind happened, and for all that he could see,
Barker remained wholly unaffected by what he had said.
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26