In editorial comment came the following brief remark: We gladly give Mr. Ivison's communication a prominent place. It is not our intention to "strike" any one, but merely to record each day's events as they come to us. With the best intentions mistakes are sometimes made. We have no possible motive for not wishing young Haldane well--we do wish him success in achieving a better future than his past actions have led us to expect. The city would be much better off if all of his class were equally ready to go to work.
Here at least was some recognition. The fact that he was working, and willing to work, had been plainly stated, and this fact is an essential foundation-stone in the building up of a reputation which the world will respect.
Although the discharge of the leading persecutor, and Mr. Ivison's letter, did not add to Haldane's popularity at the mill, they led to his being severely let alone at first, and an increasingly frank and affable manner on the part of the young man, as he gained in patience and serenity, gradually disarmed those who were not vindictive and blind from prejudice.
Poor Mrs. Haldane seemed destined to be her son's evil genius to the end. When people take a false view of life there seems a fatality in all their actions. The very fact that they are not in accord with what is right and true causes the most important steps of their lives to appear ill-timed, injudicious, and unnatural. That they are well-meaning and sincere does not help matters much, if both tact and sound principles are wanting. Mrs. Haldane belonged to the class that are sure that everything is right which seems right to them. True, it was a queer little jumble of religious prejudices and conventional notions that combined to produce her conclusions; but when once they were reached, no matter how absurd or defective they appeared to others, she had no more doubt of them than of the Copernican system.
Her motherly feelings had made her willing to take her son to some hiding-place in Europe; but since that could not be, and perhaps was not best, she had thoroughly settled it in her mind that he should accept of her offer and live at her expense the undemonstrative life of an oyster in the social and moral ooze of the obscurest mud-bank he could find. In this way the terrible world might be led to eventually leave off talking and thinking of the Haldane family--a consummation that appeared to her worth any sacrifice. When the morning paper brought another vile story (copied from the Hillaton "Courier") of her son's misdoings, her adverse view of his plans and character was confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt. She felt that there was a fatality about the place and its associations for him, and her one hope was to get him away.