In Prescott’s day she was free to say what she thought ought to be said. Now, she was frequently brought to book for utterances far too bold, in the opinion of the proprietors of the paper, who insisted on a close connection between the counting room and editorial desk. As a result of constantly trimming to suit the fitful breezes of public taste, the Register was losing ground. Strange law that governs the minds of men! Kowtow to them and they despise and neglect you. Defy them and they respect and court you.
No; she must not stay with the Register. Internal wranglings were shaking it. An eruption might take place any day, changing the whole face of its affairs.
For her salvation, intellectual and physical, she must go. Yet habit, friendship and a horrible dread of facing new difficulties put up a plea for her to stay. No; she must go, no matter what she had to meet, loneliness, humiliation, disappointment, defeat, want, death itself. MUST. Something told her that in a way that brooked no contradiction.
But she was so tired—more tired than any one dreamed, in spite of her almost jaunty cheerfulness.
And what had she as financial armor for the new battle about to begin? Grimly she smiled as she cast her mind’s eye in that direction. A few dollars only. “Verily industry and talent combined are richly rewarded,” she said. Yet she had made reputation; she was considered successful. However, many a slave to the pen knows that reputation and money do not always go hand in hand. Besides this imposing capital she had her experience and the knowledge of her own powers which it had brought. Valuable capital, to be sure. Yet experience brings us another gift which helps to weaken us by counteracting our faith in ourselves, and that is a knowledge of the difficulties, a bold outlining of the greatness of the task.
What else had she wherewith to gird herself for that trip into the unexplored, so sure to involve risks of many kinds?
In the teeth of a wish to find a quiet place and there lie down, closing her eyes to the world forever,—in the face of a weariness untellable, she knew that within the hidden depths of herself, under all the scars, disappointments and fatigues was courage.
What other prop had she? A strong, an invincible one—the knowledge that eternal being and her being were one and the same, and that she was never alone or dependent on herself, however much this seemed to be the case; that living, loving souls, angels, if you choose, had charge concerning her and that the everlasting arms of universal love were ever about her.
She would go to New York, a field of many gleaners, truly, but big, and therefore of promise. The needle of her destiny pointed in that direction. There was its magnet. With the decision came peace.
Yet day after day she lingered, telling no one of her decision, and feeling that she belonged neither to the place she was in nor to that for which she was bound—a curious, detached sort of existence such as had ever been hers, when she must tear herself from an accustomed place and seek an unaccustomed one. The work of uprooting herself involved pains and groans like those of a great tree, when torn up by a storm.