As phrases from the Declaration of '76 have entered into the national language, so phrases from Dr. Ulswater's great speech are embedded in Zionville usage. “Centripetal point of envious resort,” were words to be remembered and repeated. “Here we lay,” said Dr. Ulswater, “the cornerstone of our fame,” and Zionville roared simultaneously! “He means Hannah!”
“Born in purple of an extinct American dynasty,” said Dr. Ulswater, “she, whom we here deposit, is henceforth become the symbol around which the affections of this democratic community are gathered, the cynosure of our pride, the nucleus of our respectful regrets.”
The statesmen of Zionville, then, saw and grasped their opportunity,—Zionville's peculiar gifts, her imaginative reach and supple unity of action being with them. They demonstrated this fact, this principle, in the floating of a municipal enterprise, namely, the automatic action of the newspaper paragraph.
Now, no one questions the talents, no one grudges the praise, of Sadler, of William C. Jones, of Louisa. They foresaw an automatic paragraph in Hannah Atkins. They developed and put that automatic paragraph in action. But the question is: What seminal mind first bore this seed? Where lay that creative spark of genius, of forecasting insight and prophetic statemanship? Who first conceived the idea?
Susannah and I have long been married. We still occupy each other's horizon. In the same way Dr. Ulswater is apt to see Mrs. Ulswater on the horizon. She is perhaps a superstition of his.
And yet, whenever I hear the Burial debated, and the idea of it traced through William C. Jones, Louisa, and Sadler, I seem to see, talking with Sadler in the evening on the deck of the Violetta, a small, thin, quiet woman, knitting, sewing. Sadler himself does not remember what she said. Probably her words were few. He remembers that it was there certain things took shape in his mind. He remembers describing Zionville to her, and how his sentiments got lively while he did so, and that Mrs. Ulswater was interested, and little by little he saw it all, clear as a map, before him. Was Mrs. Uls-water's then the seminal mind? If you ask her, she says “Fiddlesticks!” If you ask Dr. Ulswater, he says, “Not one imaginable, remote doubt of it!”
I say nothing. Only I see Mrs. Ulswater on the deck of the Violetta, knitting, sewing.
Even so she sits to-day, knitting, or sewing, on the porch of the stone house on the hillside. Below lies the city of Zionville, busy, booming, with its trolley line and electric lights, which I put in for The Union Electric. On the further hillside stands the Sanatarium; built and managed by the Uls-waters. Mrs. Ulswater sits in her rocking chair, caring nothing for bronze statues, little known of newspaper paragraphs, knitting the welfare of her fellow men, sewing, embroidering their destinies, mending their misfortunes. Forward and back goes the restless thrusting thimble; the fine needle glitters, is gone, and reappears.
So Athens lay below the Acropolis, where stood the bronze statue of presiding Pallas, leaning on her spear. It was an idle weapon. The main business of Pallas was to take in glory. Looked at in one way, it was a foolish business. In Zionville Mrs. Uls-water turns all that over to Hannah Atkins, to any one who can stand it. Mrs. Ulswater is a deity from Ohio, and does not care for the parti-coloured bubble of glory.