Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-05-06

arranged so as to iali in with her slight
est wish. Her first husband had had
very little to offer her, when put i'll
comparison with Alan Stacey. Captain
Conway had been elderly, rough. plain
and only comparatively well off. He
had demanded impossible things and
when he discovered that his desires
werr impossible Of qualification his love
for the girl whom he had sworn 10 pro
tect and cherish had been curiously in
terminsled with an absolute hatred.
His was the kind of nature which to
begin with SAYS. Il will teach you to
love me- and afterward. IF l cannot
teach you to love me. | will kill you'll"
His was the lind Of nature which says,
IF | cannot bend, will break" the
nature which looks at every situation
of life frcin its own standpoint and
judges all the world entirely by its own
doings. 1t is always this kind of ma
ture which is inherently dominant and
essentially donineering. And how diff
ferent was Alan Stacey! He. gifted, in
tellectual and brilliant, was content to
lay everything at the feet of the woman
he loved--all the fanfe he had won, the
position lie had made, the wealth he
had amassed. His desire was not to be
his wife's master, hut her knight; not
to feel that he was conferring honor
and status upon her, but to assume al
ways that in giving herself tG him she
WAS laying him under an everlasting
and delightful obligation.
1t was bat natural that Mary was
not only filled with love, but with a
boundless and unbounded admiration.
This was the man at whose feet she
would have been content to sit for the
rest of her life, not daring TO lift her
eyes higher than his knees This was
her king among men, gifted and blessed
with the right royal Inheritance of
genius This man who asked so little,
who gave so much, was not one who
had power only over handful of men.
No. the name with which he was en-
dowed was one which was known and
known approvingly throughout the
world known wherever the English
language was spoken; nay, more than
known, for it was loved.
! do not wish 10 portray the charac
ter of Alan Stacey as that of a perfect
being. Indeed | must own, what Mary
had found out very early III her knOwl
edge of him, that his besetting sin was
idleness, which is the besetting sin of
most spinners of stories. He was beset,
too. with idleness of two kinds the
genuine and ordinary sort and the idle
ness which affiicts the brain worker 1t
is only Your nollUdies who are thorough
ly industrious in art. Great genius is
always SrlhjeCt to what it usually calls
'.idleness - in other words, to brain
fag. TO my mind the most pathetic rec
ord that we have of George Eliot is
where she conveys in letter to friend
that she has no natural desire for work
and has to fog her brain continually so
that she may get her promised task
completed in time. She, too. speaks of
it as idleness. And with that same kind
of idleness Alan Stacey was continually
afflicted as he was with a real love of
doing nothing
In times gone by he had many day
sat down TO work in the morning, say
ing: Now, Mrs Conway, | have got
to work today; have got to work hard.
Now, you keep me up to it. y And no
sooner had Mary inscribed half Il dozen
lines in her nuteluok than he would get
up and say. BY .Jove, there's another
robin hnildiliS its nest in that holly
bush" or sGme suchrenark, which was
interesting enough in itself, but which
did not help upon its way the story then
in hand. And often and often Mary had
had all her work cut ont TO keep him
chained to his task. and after they had
come to an understanding with one an
other it seemed to her as if he never
meant to worl: again, as if he could not
keep his mind off their plans for the
future, and as ii any and every subject
was mure interesting to him than the