After the Storm - Page 104/141

Hartley Emerson, under the influence of business and domestic

trouble, matured rapidly, and became grave, silent and reflective

beyond men of his years. Companionable he was by nature, and during

the last year that Irene was with him, failing to receive social

sympathy at home, he had joined a club of young men, whose

association was based on a declared ambition for literary

excellence. From this club he withdrew himself; it did not meet the

wants of his higher nature, but offered much that stimulated the

grosser appetites and passions. Now he gave himself up to earnest

self-improvement, and found in the higher and wider range of thought

which came as the result a partial compensation for what he had

lost. But he was not happy; far, very far from it. And there were

seasons when the past came back upon him in such a flood that all

the barriers of indifference which he had raised for self-protection

were swept away, and he had to build them up again in sadness of

spirit. So the time wore on with him, and troubled life-experiences

were doing their work upon his character.