The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1888-06-15

which runs diagonally from the Bowery
into Grand street, and which still bears
the rather suggestive name of Henry
street, would find little there to remind
him that thirty years ago il was II domain
beloved by many of our most prosperous
md cultured citizens. True, the houses
are mostly wide of front and possess
Stoops and doorways which retain a Ger
tain dignity and grace OF outline But
shabbiness, neglect and occasionally some
thing worthy OF harsher name prevail
everywhere Henry street is now but q
lingy memento OF what it originally WAS
Thousands who once dwelt there with
ease, thrift, and even elegance as well,
have gone down into narrower and final
homes. Many whose early memories con-
meet them with il are domiciled in smarter
uptown localities. The stir and push of
all great cities has pathetically told upon
il, for nearly all great cities are remorse-
less with their souvenirs OF place and
habitation. A quarter that i classic from
reminisccnce to-day Is tomorrow STEPPED
in the dreary oblivion of decay and soil
ure-
IL is n little more than thirty years
since n gentleman named Campbell Law
renee dwelt here in Henry street with his
wife and one child, a boy. Campbell Law
renee had been what the worldly verdict
would easily pronounce fortunate man.
lie had left England, his native country,
at the age OF %, with the aim of seeking
livelihood here. He had been graduated
at Oxford, had strongly scholarly tastes,
and had embarked for these shores with
the idea OF securing n position rs teacher
in some New York school. Not n lofty
ambition truly, and yet Campbell Law
renee, believing that he could earn his
bread in no other way than as an instruc-
tor of young people, let his hopes Of the fu-
turs aspire toward the ultimate prOprie-
torship of n school modelled upon an ideal
plan OF his own.
These hopes were never fulfilled, but
realizatiOnS of a much richer and hand
somer sort came TO him with succeeding
years A certain lawyer of considerable
wealth, named Ezra Morton, who lived in
one of the large, quiet mansions which
then lined Henry street on either side,
had recently been stricken with n linger-
ing paralysis. Lawrence had brought n
letter to one OF Morton's friends. The in
valid gentleman was just then in need OF
asecretary. Lawrence's graceful and at
tractive presence, abetted by the prestige
of his Oxford training, secured him this
position n few weeks after his arrival. He
acquitted himself capably in his new ca.
the employer and his assistant. Old Mr.
Morton's days were numbered, but his
faculties were still clear and alert, and he
had always prided himself upon a quiet,
unerring Judgment of human character.
Before n year had passed, his respect for
Lawrence was no less thorough than the
trust which he reposed in him. The old
gentleman had single child, Rosa, aged
about IS, who had been motherless since
she was 4 little girl. Rosa Morton was
not a beauty in any forid or romantic
sense, and yet she had a winsome, wom-
anlv, cultured personality that inspired
love in the young secretary's heart after =
rather brief acquaintance. He began by
secretly smiling at what he termed her
''Americanisms" (and such national traits
at that remoter day were keener than in
these times of swift transatlantic goinGs
and comingS, but he soon ended in hon
estly loving them. Rosa was an heireSs;
she would have the Henry street house
and n certain fortune of a hundred thou
sand dollars besides. This meant ample
wealth for any New Yorker in the year
1855, and Rosa could easily have taken her
choice among well-to-do admirers. But
she preferred the penniless young man
from England, and soon found that her
preference was parentally sanctioned.
During the next year she and Lawrence
were married, n little while before the last
sudden stroke which terminated Mr.. Nor
toms life.
Lawrence now awoke, rs it were, to a
recognition OF the extraordinary kindness
of destiny. He had married where his
heart lay, md he had won a faithful, eK-
ceptional wife. But he also won while
still in early manhood, position, affiuence,
the most enviable mental and physical
IA.
and toll for mere daily sustenance. The
old ambitions died within him a natural
death, and new ones took their place He
had long ago despaired of ever securing
that placid leisure which he believed in
separable from all worthy literary pro-
ductiveness. But now the leisure once
believed unattainable met him on every
side with it's soft and welcome contact.
He could live his life Just as he had once
fondly dreamed OF living IL. And the
wife whose desires and purposes were only
too ready to blend their ardor with his
own smiled the most loving indulgence
upon the fresh future which had opened
before him.
A boy was born TO them in the second
year of their marriage. They named him
Gerald, after Lawrence's dead father in
England, who had been a rector in a small
lect and spotless character his American
lied son was never tired OF recalling with
filial praise. Gerald was the only child
given them and they both lavished upon
him untold love and tenderness.
Among all honors which a man of let
ters can ever be permitted to reap, that of
enrolment with the poets of his time was
to Campbell Lawrence most satisfactory
and enticing. He had till now looked
with n sort OF dubious reverence upon all
personal attempt TO achieve poetic fame
The fervor, the aspiration, perhaps even
the genuine ability, he argued, were all
within him; but would there not be the
audacity of desecration itself in mingling
those high and fine moods of the muse
with the jar and worry of practical self
support, It did not occur TO Lawrence
that il he had possessed the true voice Of
the poet his songs would have rung out
high and dulcet above all workaday dis
cords However, his environment, rs he
told himself had now become forcibly
stimulating. He fitted mp n room in the
house as his study, filed 10 with books,
and made IL one of those attractive re-
treats in which luxury is tempered by the
incest refinements of taste. Here he
would spend hours, writing his verses.
Often his wife would enter the apart
ment, his sole admitted and undisturbing
visitor during the period Of his labor. He
would sometimes continue wrising when
she appeared, and il she chose to seat her
self near him, he would stretch out his
nand and silently press her own. Or now
and then he would read her passages from
his work. She would always praise it. for il
always seemed to her rstrikingly worthy of
praise She was far from being ignorant or
uniettered, but il her fund of critical acr-
men had been much larger than IL was she
would no doubt have praised precisely the
same Love blinds us 10 many misdeeds
besides those embodied in the stanzas OF
our wives, husbands or sweethearts. Mrs