A Fountain Sealed

by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

Her mother did not raise her eyes. "I don't think that your father was a man of sufficient distinction to justify the publishing of his biography."

At this Mr. Potts breathed a deep, indignant volume of sound, louder than a sigh, less articulate than a groan, through the forests of his beard.

"Sufficient distinction, Mrs. Upton! Sufficient distinction! You evidently are quite ignorant of how great was the distinction of your late husband. Ask us what that distinction was—ask any of his large circle of friends. It was a distinction not of mind only, nor of birth and breeding—though that was of the highest that this country has fostered—but it was a distinction also of soul and spirit. Your husband, Mrs. Upton, fought with speech and pen the iniquities of his country, the country that, as Miss Imogen has said, he loved and served. He served, he loved, with mind and heart and hand. He was the moving spirit in all the great causes of his day, the vitalizing influence that poured faith and will-power into them. He founded the cooperative community of Clackville; he organized the society of the 'Doers' among our young men;—he was a patron of the arts; talent was fostered, cheered on its way by him;—I can speak personally of three young friends of mine—noble boys—whom he sent to Paris at his own expense for the study of music and painting; when the great American picture is painted, the great American symphony composed, it will be, in all probability, to your husband that the country will owe the unveiling of its power. And above all, Mrs. Upton, above all,"—Mr. Potts's voice dropped to a thunderous solemnity,—"his character, his personality, his spirit, were as a light shining in darkness to all who had the good fortune to know him, and that light cannot, shall not, be cribbed, cabined and confined to a merely private capacity. It is a public possession and belongs to his country and to his age."

Tison, all unheeded now, had leapt to the floor and, during this address, had stood directly in front of the speaker, barking furiously until Imogen, her lips compressed, her forehead flushed, stooped, picked him up, and flung him out of the room.

Mrs. Upton had sat quite motionless, only lifting her glance now and then to Mr. Potts's shaking beard and flashing eye. And, after another pause, in which only Mr. Potts's deep breathing was heard,—and the desperate scratching at the door of the banished Tison,—she said in somber tones:—"I think you forget, Mr. Potts, that I was never one of my husband's appreciators. I am sorry to be forced to recall this fact to your memory."

It had been in all their memories, of course, a vague, hovering uncertainty, a dark suspicion that one put aside and would not look at. But to have it now placed before them, and in these cold, these somber tones, was to receive an icy douche of reality, to be convicted of over-ready hope, over-generous confidence.

It was Imogen, again, who found words for the indignant deputation: "Is that lamentable fact any reason why those who do appreciate him should not share their knowledge with others?"

"I think it is;—I hope so, Imogen," her mother replied, not raising her eyes to her.

"You tell us that your own ignorance and blindness is to prevent us from writing my father's life?"

"My opinion of your father's relative insignificance is, I think, a sufficient reason."