The Zeit-Geist | Page 5

futile."
We came out of the shrubbery upon a bank that dropped before us to a
level lawn. I found myself in the midst of a company of people among
whom were the other members of the new School Council. Below,
upon the lawn, there was a little spectacle going on for our
entertainment--a morris-dance, simply and gracefully performed by
young people dressed in quaintly fashioned frocks of calico; there was
good music too--one or two instruments, to which they danced. Round
the other side of the grass an avenue of stately Canadian maples shut in
the view, except where the river or the pale blue of the eastern horizon
was seen in glimpses through their branches. Behind us the sun's
declining rays fell upon an old-fashioned garden of holly-hocks and
asters, so that the effect, as one caught it turning sideways, was like
light upon a stained-glass window, so rich were the dyes. I saw all this
only as one sees the surroundings of some object that interests
supremely.
The man who had been walking with me said simply, "This is my
wife."
Before me stood a woman who had the power that some few women
have of making all those whom they gather round them speak out
clearly and freshly the best that is in them.
Ah! we live in a new country. Its streets are not paved with gold, nor is
prosperity to be attained without toil; but it gives this one
advantage--room for growth; whatever virtue a soul contains may reach
its full height and fragrance and colour, if it will.
I did not know then that the beginning of this provincial salon, which
Toyner's wife had kept about her for so many years, and to which she

gave a genuine brilliance, however raw the material, had been a
wooden shanty, in which a small income was made by the sale of
home-brewed beer.
I always remember Ann Toyner as I saw her that first time. Her eyes
were black and still bright; but when I looked at them I remembered the
little children that had died in her arms, and I knew that her hopes had
not died with them, but by that suffering had been transformed. As I
heard her talk, my own hopes lifted themselves above their ordinary
level.
Husband and wife stood together, and I noticed that the white shawl
that was crossed Quakerwise over her thin shoulders seemed like a
counterpart of his careful dress, that the white tresses that were
beginning to show among her black ones were almost like a reflection
of his white hair. I felt that in some curious way, although each had so
distinct and strong a personality, they were only perfect as a part of the
character which in their union formed a perfect whole. They stood erect
and looked at us with frank, kindly eyes; we all found to our surprise
that we were saying what we thought and felt, and not what we
supposed we ought to say.
As I talked and looked at them, the words that I had heard came back to
my mind. "His wife is the daughter of a murderer, and he has come up
from the lowest, vilest life." Some indistinct thought worked through
my mind whose only expression was a disconnected phrase: "I saw a
new heaven and a new earth."
In the years since then I have learned to know the story of Toyner and
his wife. Now that they are gone away from us, I will tell what I know.
His was a life which shows that a man cut off from all contact with his
brother-thinkers may still be worked upon by the great over-soul of
thought: his is the story of a weak man who lived a strong life in a
strength greater than his own.
CHAPTER II.
In the days when there were not many people in Fentown Falls, and

when much money was made by the lumber trade, Bartholomew
Toyner's father grew rich. He was a Scotchman, not without some
education, and was ambitious for his son; but he was a hard,
ill-tempered man, and consequently neither his example nor his
precepts carried any weight whatever with the son when he was grown.
The mother, who had begun life cheerfully and sensibly, showed the
weakness of her character in that she became habitually peevish. She
had enough to make her so. All her pleasure in life was centred in her
son Bart. Bart came out of school to lounge upon the streets, to smoke
immoderately, and to drink such large quantities of what went into the
country by the name of "Jamaica," that in a few years it came to pass
that he was nearly always drunk.
Poor Bart! the rum habit worked