"Timrod! Oh, Edwin, he is the one I am most interested in in all South Carolina," and Mrs. Green joined Dum to view the bust from all angles. Of course, all of us followed.
"'Through clouds and through sunshine, in peace and in war, amid the stress of poverty and the storm of civil strife, his soul never faltered,'" read Mrs. Green from the inscription on the monument of one of the truest poets of the South. "'To his poetic mission he was faithful to the end. In life and in death he was "Not disobedient unto the heavenly vision."'"
I whipped out my little notebook and began feverishly to copy the tribute. I found Mrs. Green doing the same thing in a similar little book.
"'Not disobedient to the heavenly vision'! I should like to have such a thing on my monument. I used to think that just so I could make a lot of money I wouldn't mind what kind of stuff I wrote; but now I do want to live up to an ideal," she exclaimed to me. "Do you feel that way?"
"I don't know whether I do or not. I don't believe I could stand the stress of having my manuscript rejected time after time and the storm of returning it again and again. I am afraid I'd be willing to have written the Elsie books just to have made as much money as they say the author of them has made. I know that sounds pretty bad, but——"
"I understand, my dear. I fancy my feeling as I do is something that has come to me just because the making of money is not of as much importance to me as it used to be. There was a time in my girlhood when I would have written Elsie books or even worse with joy just to make the money."
"I can't quite believe it. You look so spirituelle, and I believe you have always been obedient to the heavenly vision."
"Look on this side," said my new friend, laughing and blushing in such a girlish way that it seemed ridiculous to talk of her girlhood as though it had passed. "This inscription is more utilitarian:
"'This memorial has been erected with the proceeds of the recent sale of a very large edition of the author's poems, by the Timrod Memorial Association, of South Carolina.'
"and then: