Such,
he knew, was the root of her appeal for Essie, rather than a cold,
dogmatic conception. Self-effacement.
At this a restive state followed; personally he had no confidence in the
sacrifice of individual aims and happiness. Any course of that sort, he
told himself, in the management of his practical affairs, would have
resulted in his failure. There were a hundred men in the country
plotting for his overthrow, anxious to take his position, scheming to
undersell him, to discover the secret of the quality of his iron rails.
Others he had deliberately, necessarily, ruined. No good would have been
served by his stepping aside, allowing smaller men to flourish and annoy
him, cut down his production by inconsiderable sales. He, and his
family, had built a great, yes, and beneficial, industry by ruthlessly
beating out a broad and broader way for their progress. It was needful
to gaze fixedly at the end desirable and move in the straightest line
possible.
Susan stopped by the way. A thousand little acts of alleviation, at
best temporary, interrupted her living. Children, not hers, dragged at
her skirt. How much better for her to have a child of her own. Their
child! A great deal that had been vague in his thoughts became concrete
at that last period; not only the possible succession of the iron, but
the comprehension that a child now, before the increasing sterility of
multiplying years, would be an image of all his inmost craving and which
must else be lost.
Pages:
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251