He could make the fierce,
shrewd, artisan nature flash out into fire--not always celestial, nor
always, either, infernal. So he agitated and lived--how, I know not. That
he did do so, is evident from the fact that he and Katie are at this moment
playing chess in the cabin, before my eyes, and making love, all the while,
as if they had not been married a week.... Ah, well!
I, however, had to do more than get my bread; I had to pay off these
fearful eleven pounds odd, which, now that all the excitement of my stay at
D * * * had been so sadly quenched, lay like lead upon my memory. My list
of subscribers filled slowly, and I had no power of increasing it by any
canvassings of my own. My uncle, indeed, had promised to take two copies,
and my cousin one; not wishing, of course, to be so uncommercial as to run
any risk, before they had seen whether my poems would succeed. But, with
those exceptions, the dean had it all his own way; and he could not be
expected to forego his own literary labours for my sake; so, through all
that glaring summer, and sad foggy autumn, and nipping winter, I had to
get my bread as I best could--by my pen.
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