An assistant
professorship, then a full professorship--these were successive
stations already marked by him on the clear track of life; and he
was now moving toward them with straight and steady aim. Sometimes
we encounter personalities which seem to move through the discords
of this life as though guided by laws of harmony; they know neither
outward check nor inward swerving, and are endowed with that
peaceful passion for toil which does the world's work and is one of
the marks of genius.
He was one of these--a growth of the new time not comprehended by
his mother. She could neither understand it nor him. The pain
which this had given him at first he had soon outgrown; and what
might have been a tragedy to another nature melted away in the
steady sunlight of his entire reasonableness. Perhaps he realized
that the scientific son can never be the idol of a household until
he is born of scientific parents.
As mother and elder son now turned to greet him, the mother was not
herself aware that she still leaned upon the arm of Rowan and that
Dent walked into the breakfast room alone.
Less than usual was said during the meal. They were a reserved
household, inclined to the small nobilities of silence. (It is
questionable whether talkative families ever have much to say.)
This morning each had especial reason for self-communing.
When they had finished breakfast and came out into the hall. Dent
paused at one of the parlor doors.
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