A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories

A Fearful Responsibility and
Other Stories, by

William D. Howells This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at
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Title: A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories
Author: William D. Howells
Release Date: January 20, 2007 [EBook #20403]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY ***

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A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY
AND OTHER STORIES

BY
WILLIAM D. HOWELLS
AUTHOR OF "THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK," "THE
UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY," ETC.
[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
BOSTON JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 1881
Copyright, 1881, BY W. D. HOWELLS.
All rights reserved.
UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

CONTENTS.
PAGE
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY 1
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE 165
TONELLI'S MARRIAGE 209

A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY.
I.
Every loyal American who went abroad during the first years of our
great war felt bound to make himself some excuse for turning his back
on his country in the hour of her trouble. But when Owen Elmore sailed,
no one else seemed to think that he needed excuse. All his friends said
it was the best thing for him to do; that he could have leisure and quiet

over there, and would be able to go on with his work.
At the risk of giving a farcical effect to my narrative, I am obliged to
confess that the work of which Elmore's friends spoke was a projected
history of Venice. So many literary Americans have projected such a
work that it may now fairly be regarded as a national enterprise. Elmore
was too obscure to have been announced in the usual way by the
newspapers as having this design; but it was well known in his town
that he was collecting materials when his professorship in the small
inland college with which he was connected lapsed through the
enlistment of nearly all the students. The president became colonel of
the college regiment; and in parting with Elmore, while their boys
waited on the campus without, he had said, "Now, Elmore, you must go
on with your history of Venice. Go to Venice and collect your materials
on the spot. We're coming through this all right. Mr. Seward puts it at
sixty days, but I'll give them six months to lay down their arms, and we
shall want you back at the end of the year. Don't you have any
compunctions about going. I know how you feel; but it is perfectly
right for you to keep out of it. Good-by." They wrung each other's
hands for the last time,--the president fell at Fort Donelson; but now
Elmore followed him to the door, and when he appeared there one of
the boyish captains shouted, "Three cheers for Professor Elmore!" and
the president called for the tiger, and led it, whirling his cap round his
head.
Elmore went back to his study, sick at heart. It grieved and vexed him
that even these had not thought that he should go to the war, and that
his inward struggle on that point had been idle so far as others were
concerned. He had been quite earnest in the matter; he had once almost
volunteered as a private soldier: he had consulted his doctor, who
sternly discouraged him. He would have been truly glad of any accident
that forced him into the ranks; but, as he used afterward to say, it was
not his idea of soldiership to enlist for the hospital. At the distance of
five hundred miles from the scene of hostilities, it was absurd to enter
the Home Guard; and, after all, there were, even at first, some selfish
people who went into the army, and some unselfish people who kept
out of it. Elmore's bronchitis was a disorder which active service would

undoubtedly have aggravated; as it was, he made a last effort to be of
use to our Government as a bearer of dispatches. Failing such an
appointment, he submitted to expatriation as he best could; and in Italy
he fought for our cause against the English, whom he found
everywhere all but in arms against us.
He sailed, in fine, with a very fair conscience. "I should be perfectly at
ease," he said to his wife, as the steamer dropped smoothly down to
Sandy Hook, "if I were sure that I was not glad to be getting away."
"You are not glad," she answered.
"I don't know, I don't