But the
reviewers, seeming to have forgotten their first favorable reception of
him, now began to find nothing but faults in his work, pointing out only
what they judged ill contrived and worse executed in his conceptions,
and that in a tone to convey the impression that he had somehow wheedled
certain of them into their former friendly utterances concerning him.
And about the same time it so happened that business began to fall away
rapidly from the bank of which his father held the chief country agency,
so that he was no longer able to continue to Hector his former subsidy,
the announcement of which discouraging fact was accompanied by a lecture
on the desirableness of a change in his choice of subject as well as in
his style; if he continued to write as he had been doing of late, no one
would be left, his father said, to read what he wrote!
And now it began to be evident what a happy thing it was for Hector that
Annie was now at his side to help him. For, as his courage sank, and he
saw Annie began to feel straitened in her housekeeping, he saw also how
her courage arose and shone. But he grew more and more discouraged,
until it was all that Annie could do to hold him back from despair. At
length, however, she began to feel that possibly there might be some
truth in what his father had written to him, and a new departure ought
to be attempted. She could not herself believe that her husband was
limited to any style or subject for the embodiment of his thoughts; he
who had written so well in one fashion might write at least well, if not
as well, in another! Had she not heard him say that verse was the best
practice for writing prose?
Gently, therefore, and cautiously she approached the matter with him,
only to find at first, as she had expected, that he but recoiled from
the suggestion with increase of discouragement.
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