A professional man of strong opinions and with the courage of his convictions married Jess, and very nearly succeeded in forcing her on his social set, but she died nine months after her marriage day while the fight was still going on. Had she lived she would probably have been stoned. To me she is a very pleasant memory; a very unfortunate woman with a great character.
It seems to me that a great deal of our boasted virtue is nothing but very dangerous ignorance. Many marriages turn out very unhappily for no cause but the want of necessary knowledge of the affairs of sex. If men entered the state of marriage in the condition of blind ignorance in which most women enter, there would be a far greater percentage of unhappy marriages than there are.
I was cast for one of the end men in a large amateur minstrel show this winter. Muriel was greatly pleased, and was sure my comic songs would make a great hit. I bought a beautiful tambourine and thumped it diligently in the cellar daily. But alas! After three rehearsals I was asked to resign my chair to a fellow who had the nerve I lacked. I was quite confident that I could do it, and have done it many times since, but at the time I still blushed like a girl, although I was nearly twenty, and a chap who blushes is hardly fit for an end man in a minstrel show.
It took years of struggle before I conquered the characteristic something in my mental make-up which caused me to lack confidence in myself, and made me shy, shrinking and fearful.
If you take the doings of this very eventful year into consideration you will not think it surprising that at the Christmas examinations I was handicapped with three supplementaries, or that in the following spring I was plucked once more. This time I expected it, and was not cast down. I realised that getting an education in the college way was not for me. Father and mother were, of course, somewhat discouraged, but they had seen it coming.
CHAPTER VIII
Father had become the owner, through one of his numerous business deals, of what would be considered to-day a one-horse saw mill. It was situated about ninety miles from Montreal, near a little village of one thousand souls. I had been there for short visits on several occasions, and liked the roughness and freedom of the place. The manager of this mill (one Mason) and I liked each other. I amused him and he interested me. He was a huge man with a face smothered in black whiskers. He looked like a hairy Mephisto, but had the tender nature of a dove.
After my second fiasco at M’Gill, my father said to me:
“Well, Jack, what do you propose to do now?”
He said other things also which it is not necessary to detail, except that they were to the point, more than to my credit or his.