He was a slightly older
man, with a greater experience of men, and a good deal wider range of
interests, as could hardly fail to be the case with a Londoner. But the
surprising thing to both of them was that they had so many feelings in
common, giving rise to many judgments and preferences also in common; so
that Hector had now a companion in whom to find the sympathy necessary
to the ripening of his taste in such a delicate pursuit as that of
verse; and their proclivities being alike, they ran together like two
drops on a pane of glass; whence it came that at length, in the
confident expectation of understanding and sympathy, Hector found
himself submitting to his friend's judgment the poem he had produced
when first grown aware that he was in love with Annie Melville; although
such was his sensitiveness in the matter of his own productions that
hitherto he had not yet ventured on the experiment with Annie herself.
His new friend read, was delighted; read again, and spoke out his
pleasure; and then first Hector knew the power of sympathy to double the
consciousness of one's own faculty. He took up again the work he had
looked upon as finished, and went over it afresh with wider eyes, keener
judgment, and clearer purpose; when the result was that, through the
criticisms passed upon it by his friend, and the reflection of the poem
afresh in his own questioning mind, he found many things that had to be
reconsidered; after which he committed the manuscript, carefully and
very legibly re-written, once more to his friend, who, having read it
yet again, was more thoroughly pleased with it than before, and proposed
to Hector to show it to another friend to whom the ear of a certain
publisher lay open.
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