The issue would seem to show that he was not destined to communicate them directly to others—at least, in his own lifetime; and, indeed, no one was quicker at interpreting events than himself. He gave the enterprise a long and severe trial, but the resolute front with which he was met, showed him clearly that it was not to be. It may be that the record of his life, little as he ever imagined it would come before the world, may effect a part of what he himself prepared to do.
Occasionally, for he was of quick sensibilities, throughout this period he felt the bitterness of constant rebuff. The following letter he wrote me shows it:
"I am beginning to feel as if publishers had a code of signals or private marks like freemasonry, which they scribble sometimes, like the concealed marks on bank-notes, on the first page of a manuscript, so as to spare their brother publishers the trouble of looking through a manuscript which is below market value. I have never had a manuscript accepted which has been once refused; and I now eagerly scan the first page, to see if I can discover a wriggling mark in the margin or among the lines which is to tell Smith and Co. that Brown and Son has a very poor opinion of the book now under his consideration."
And again, quite as forcible is a little anecdote with which he begins an unfinished paper on "Genius." The story is, I now believe, his own; though, at the time, I fancied it was adopted:
"There was once a king who sat to listen to the sermon of a great preacher. From minute to minute the great words flowed on, consoling, wounding, helping, condemning, dividing the marrow from the bones; and the king wept and smiled.
"And at the end he sent for the preacher, and said, 'Sir, Christ is the only king; yet let me look at the book from which you made your discourse. The written words, though half despoiled of their grace, may perhaps strike an echo in my soul, which rings yet.'
"And for some time the preacher was unwilling, and parleyed with the king; but at the last he drew out a little pale book with faded characters traced in ink; and he opened it at a well-worn page, and held it out before the king.
"And the king looked, and saw nothing except the crabbed printed lines.
"So he said, 'Not your text-book, sir, but the book from which your arguments are rehearsed.'
"'Sire,' said the preacher, 'look but once more upon the book.' And he showed him that four of the words upon the page had a thin line drawn in ink below them. 'That was the writing of my discourse,' he said."