George MacDonald

Far Above Rubies George MacDonald

Hector Macintosh was a young man about five-and-twenty, who, with the proclivities of the Celt, inherited also some of the consequent disabilities, as well as some that were accidental. Among therest was a strong tendency to regard only the ideal, and turn away from any authority derived from aninferior source. His chief delight lay in the attempt to embody, in what seemed to him the naturalform of verse, the thoughts in him constantly moving at least in the direction of the ideal, even whenhe was most conscious of his inability to attain to the utterance of them. But it was only in theretirement of his own chamber that he attempted their embodiment; of all things, he shrank from anycommunion whatever concerning these cherished matters. Nor, indeed, had he any friends who couldtempt him to share with them what seemed to him his best; so that, in truth, he was intimate withnone. His mind would dwell much upon love and friendship in the imaginary abstract, but of neitherhad he had the smallest immediate experience. He had cherished only the ideals of the purest andhighest sort of either passion, and seemed to find satisfaction enough in the endeavor to embody suchin his verse, without even imagining himself in communication with any visionary public. The erahad not yet dawned when every scribbler is consumed with the vain ambition of being recognized, not, indeed, as what he is, but as what he pictures himself in his secret sessions of thought. Thatdisease could hardly attack him while yet his very imaginations recoiled from the thought of theinimical presence of a stranger consciousness. Whether this was modesty, or had its hidden base inconceit, I am, with the few insights I have had into his mind, unable to determin