Mrs. Andrews had gone to the vault where the body of her son had been temporarily placed, and Edna was alone with the editor.
"You ought to look into your papers; they contain very gratifying intelligence for you. Your last book has gone through ten editions, and your praises are chanted all over your native land. Surely, if ever a woman had adulation enough to render her perfectly happy and pardonably proud, you are the fortunate individual. Already your numerous readers are inquiring when you will give them another book."
She leaned her head back against her chair, and the little hands caressed each other as they rested on her knee, while her countenance was eloquent with humble gratitude for the success that God had permitted to crown her efforts; but she was silent.
"Do you intend to write a book of travels, embracing the incidents that have marked your tour? I see the public expect it."
"No, sir. It seems now a mere matter of course that all scribblers who come to Europe, should afflict the reading world with an account of what they saw or failed to see. So many noble books have been already published, thoroughly describing this continent, that I have not the temerity, the presumption to attempt to retouch the grand old word-pictures. At present, I expect to write nothing. I want to study some subjects that greatly interest me, and I shall try to inform and improve myself, and keep silent until I see some phase of truth neglected, or some new aspect of error threatening mischief in society. Indeed, I have great cause for gratitude in my literary career. At the beginning I felt apprehensive that I was destined to sit always under the left hand of fortune, whom Michael Angelo designed as a lovely woman seated on a revolving wheel, throwing crowns and laurel wreaths from her right hand, while only thorns dropped in a sharp, stinging shower from the other; but, after a time, the wheel turned, and now I feel only the soft pattering of the laurel leaves. God knows I do most earnestly appreciate His abundant blessing upon what I have thus far striven to effect; but, until I see my way clearly to some subject of importance which a woman's hand may touch, I shall not take up my pen. Books seem such holy things to me, destined to plead either for or against their creators in the final tribunal, that I dare not lightly or hastily attempt to write them; and I can not help thinking that the author who is less earnestly and solemnly impressed with the gravity, and, I may almost say, the sanctity of his or her work, is unworthy of it, and of public confidence. I dare not, even if I could, dash off articles and books as the rower shakes water-drops from his oars; and I humbly acknowledge that what success I may have achieved is owing to hard, faithful work. I have received so many kind letters from children, that some time, if I live to be wise enough, I want to write a book especially for them. I am afraid to attempt it just now; for it requires more mature judgment and experience, and greater versatility of talent to write successfully for children than for grown persons. In the latter, one is privileged to assume native intelligence and cultivation; but the tender, untutored minds of the former permit no such margin; and this fact necessitates clearness and simplicity of style, and power of illustration that seem to me very rare. As yet I am conscious of my incapacity for the mission of preparing juvenile books; but perhaps, if I study closely the characteristics of young people, I shall learn to understand them more thoroughly. So much depends on the proper training of our American youth, especially in view of the great political questions that now agitate the country, that I confess I feel some anxiety on the subject."