"I don't know and I don't care," she replied. "I wish the immortal
infant would let you alone." She stooped and kissed his brow, and
wrung his hand silently, and went out into the storm. He heard her
close the street door and heard the rusty click of her cotton
umbrella as she raised it. Then he turned to the table at his
elbow and kindled his deep-bowled pipe and drew over his legs the
skirts of his long gown, coarse, austere, sombre.
He looked comfortable. A rainy night may depress a woman nursing a
sick child that is not her own--a child already fighting for its
feeble, unclaimed, repudiated life, in a world of weeping clouds;
but such a night diffuses cheer when the raindrops are heard
tapping the roof above beloved bookshelves, tapping the
window-panes; when there is low music in the gutter on the back
porch; when a student lamp, throwing its shadow over the ceiling
and the walls, reserves its exclusive lustre for lustrous
pages--pages over which men for centuries have gladly burnt out the
oil of their brief lamps, their iron and bronze, their silver and
gold and jewelled lamps--many-colored eyes of the nights of ages.
It was now middle September of another year and Professor Hardage
had entered upon the work of another session. The interval had
left no outward mark on him. The mind stays young a long time when
nourished by a body such as his; and the body stays young a long
time when mastered by such a mind. Day by day faithfully to do
one's work and to be restless for no more; without bitterness to
accept obscurity for ambition; to possess all vital passions and to
govern them; to stand on the world's thoroughfare and see the young
generations hurrying by, and to put into the hands of a youth here
and there a light which will burn long after our own personal taper
is extinguished; to look back upon the years already gone as not
without usefulness and honor, and forward to what may remain as
safe at least from failure or any form of shame, and thus for one's
self to feel the humility of the part before the greatness of the
whole of life, and yet the privileges and duties of the individual
to the race--this brings blessedness if it does not always bring
happiness, and it had brought both to him.
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