Her
grandfather had been a pillar of the Presbyterian ministry, and the idea
of her lecturing on Darwin or Herbert Spencer was deeply shocking to her
mother and aunts. In one sense the family had staked its literary as well
as its spiritual hopes on the literal inspiration of Genesis: what became
of "The Fall of Man" in the light of modern exegesis?
The upshot of it was that she had ceased to lecture because she could no
longer sell tickets enough to pay for the hire of a lecture-hall; and as
for the managers, they wouldn't look at her. She had tried her luck all
through the Eastern States and as far south as Washington; but it was of
no use, and unless she could get hold of some new subjects--or, better
still, of some new audiences--she must simply go out of the business. That
would mean the failure of all she had worked for, since Lancelot would
have to leave Harvard. She paused, and wept some of the unbecoming tears
that spring from real grief. Lancelot, it appeared, was to be a genius. He
had passed his opening examinations brilliantly; he had "literary gifts";
he had written beautiful poetry, much of which his mother had copied out,
in reverentially slanting characters, in a velvet-bound volume which she
drew from a locked drawer.
Lancelot's verse struck me as nothing more alarming than growing-pains;
but it was not to learn this that she had summoned me. What she wanted was
to be assured that he was worth working for, an assurance which I managed
to convey by the simple stratagem of remarking that the poems reminded me
of Swinburne--and so they did, as well as of Browning, Tennyson, Rossetti,
and all the other poets who supply young authors with original
inspirations.
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