An Ambitious Man

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A happy little sparrow chirped upon the window sill, and some children ran across the street bare-headed, exulting in the soft air. All was innocence and sweetness. Mind and morals are greatly influenced by weather. Many things seem right in the fog and gloom, which we know to be wrong in the clear light of a sunny morning. The events of the previous day came back to Joy’s mind as she stood by the window, and stirred her with a sense of strangeness and terror. The thought of the step she had resolved to take brought a sudden trembling to her limbs. It seemed to her the eyes of God were piercing into her heart, and she was afraid.

Joy had from her early girlhood been an earnest and sincere follower of the Christian religion. The embodiment of love and sympathy herself, it was natural for her to believe in the God of Love and to worship Him in outward forms, as well as in her secret soul. It was the deep and earnest fervour of religion in her heart, which rendered her music so unusual and so inspiring. There never was, is not and never can be greatness in any art where religious feeling is lacking.

There must be the consciousness of the Infinite, in the mind which produces infinite results.

Though the artist be gifted beyond all other men, though he toil unremittingly, so long as he says, “Behold what I, the gifted and tireless toiler, can achieve,” he shall produce but mediocre and ephemeral results. It is when he says reverently, “Behold what powers greater than I shall achieve through me, the instrument,” that he becomes great and men marvel at his power.

Joy’s religious nature found expression in her music, and so something more than a harmony of beautiful sounds impressed her hearers.

The first severe blow to her faith in the church as a divine institution, was when her rector and her lover left her alone in the hour of her darkest trials, because he knew the story of her mother’s life. His hesitancy to make her his wife she understood, but his absolute desertion of her at such a time, seemed inconsistent with his calling as a disciple of the Christ.

The second blow came in her dismissal from the position of organist at the Beryngford Church, after the presence of the Baroness in the town.

A disgust for human laws, and a bitter resentment towards society took possession of her. When a gentle and loving nature is roused to anger and indignation, it is often capable of extremes of action; and Arthur Stuart had made his proposition of flight to Joy Irving in an hour when her high-wrought emotions and intensely strung nerves made any desperate act possible to her. The sight of his face, with its evidences of severe suffering, awoke all her smouldering passion for the man; and the thought that he was ready to tread his creed under his feet and to defy society for her sake, stirred her with a wild joy. God had seemed very far away, and human love was very precious; too precious to be thrown away in obedience to any man-made law.

But somehow this morning God seemed nearer, and the consciousness of what she had promised to do terrified her. Disturbed by her thoughts, she turned towards her toilet-table and caught sight of the letter of dismissal from the church committee. It acted upon her like an electric shock. Resentment and indignation re-enthroned themselves in her bosom.

“Is it to cater to the opinions and prejudices of people like these that I hesitate to take the happiness offered me?” she cried, as she tore the letter in bits and cast it beneath her feet. Arthur Stuart appeared to her once more, in the light of a delivering angel. Yes, she would go with him to the ends of the earth. It was her inheritance to lead a lawless life. Nothing else was possible for her. God must see how she had been hemmed in by circumstances, how she had been goaded and driven from the paths of peace and purity where she had wished to dwell. God was not a man, and He would be merciful in judging her.