BY GEORGE MACDONALD
Hector Macintosh was a young man about five-and-twenty, who, with theproclivities of the Celt, inherited also some of the consequentdisabilities, as well as some that were accidental. Among the rest wasa strong tendency to regard only the ideal, and turn away from anyauthority derived from an inferior source. His chief delight lay in theattempt to embody, in what seemed to him the natural form of verse, thethoughts in him constantly moving at least in the direction of theideal, even when he was most conscious of his inability to attain to theutterance of them. But it was only in the retirement of his own chamberthat he attempted their embodiment; of all things, he shrank from anycommunion whatever concerning these cherished matters. Nor, indeed, hadhe any friends who could tempt him to share with them what seemed to himhis best; so that, in truth, he was intimate with none. His mind woulddwell much upon love and friendship in the imaginary abstract, but ofneither had he had the smallest immediate experience. He had cherishedonly the ideals of the purest and highest sort of either passion, andseemed to find satisfaction enough in the endeavor to embody such inhis verse, without even imagining himself in communication with anyvisionary public. The era had not yet dawned when every scribbler isconsumed with the vain ambition of being recognized, not, indeed, aswhat he is, but as what he pictures himself in his secret sessions ofthought. That disease could hardly attack him while yet his veryimaginations recoiled from the thought of the inimical presence of astranger consciousness. Whether this was modesty, or had its hidden basein conceit, I am, with the few insights I have had into his mind, unableto determine.
That he had leisure for the indulgence of his bent was the result of hispeculiar position. He lived in the house of his father, and was in hisfather’s employment, so that he was able both to accommodate himself tohis father’s requirements and at the same time fully indulge his ownespecial taste. The elder Macintosh was a banker in one of the largercounty towns of Scotland—at least, such is the profession and positionthere accorded by popular consent to one who is, in fact, only abank-agent, for it is a post involving a good deal of influence and ayet greater responsibility. Of this responsibility, however, he hadallowed his son to feel nothing, merely using him as a clerk, andleaving him, as soon as the stated hour for his office-work expired,free in mind as well as body, until the new day should make a freshclaim upon his time and attention. His mother seldom saw him except atmeals, and, indeed, although he always behaved dutifully to her, therewas literally no intercommunion of thought or feeling between them—afact which probably had a good deal to do with the undeveloped conditionin which Hector found, or rather, did not find himself. Occasionally hismother wanted him to accompany her for a call, but he avoided yieldingas much as possible, and generally with success; for this was one of theclaims of social convention against which he steadily rebelled—the moredeterminedly that in none of his mother’s friends could he take thesmallest interest; for she was essentially a commonplace becauseambitious woman, without a spark of aspiration, and her friends were ofthe same sort, without regard for anything but what was—or, at least,they supposed to be—the fashion. Indeed, it was hard to understand howHector came ever to be born of such a woman, although in truth she wasof as pure Celtic origin as her husband—only blood is not spirit, andthat is often clearly manifest. His father, on the other hand, was notwithout some