Hector's next book, although never so popular as in any outward sense to
be called a success, yet was not quite a failure even in regard to the
money it brought him, and even at the present day has not ceased to
bring in something. Doubtless it has faults not a few, but, happily, the
man who knows them best is he who wrote it, and he has never had to
repent that he did write it. And now he has an audience on which he can
depend to welcome whatever he writes. That he has enemies as well goes
without saying, but they are rather scorners than revilers, and they
have not yet caused him to retaliate once by criticising any work of
theirs. Neither, I believe, has he ever failed to recognize what of
genuine and good work most of them have produced. One of the best
results to himself of his constant endeavor to avoid jealousy is that he
is still able to write verse, and continues to take more pleasure in it
than in telling his tales. And still his own test of the success of any
of his books is the degree to which he enjoyed it himself while writing
it.
His legacy has long been spent, and he has often been in straits since;
but he has always gathered good from those straits, and has never again
felt as if slow walls were closing in upon him to crush him. And he has
hopes by God's help, and with Annie's, of getting through at last,
without ever having dishonored his high calling.
The last time I saw him, he introduced his wife to me--having just been
telling me his and her story--with the rather enigmatical words:
"This is my wife.
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