Van Berg knew that the word "discouragement"was in the dictionary,and he supposed he understood its meaning,but Ida Mayhew's farewell letter proved to him that he was mistaken.There are some things we never learn until taught by the severe logic of events and experience.There had been nothing in his own history or character that enabled him to realize the dreary sinking of heart--the paralyzing despondency of those who believe or fear that they have been defeated and thwarted in life.Through the weaknesses and dangers of early life he had been shielded with loving vigilance.
His mind and taste had been fostered with untiring care,and yet every new development praised as unstintedly as if all were of native growth.Fortunately he abounded in virile force and good sense,and so gradually passed from self-complacency and conceit to the self-reliance and courage of a strong man,who,while aware of his ability and vantage-ground,also recognizes the fact that nothing can take the place of skillfully directed industry in well-defined directions.The confidence that had been created by the favorable conditions of his lot had been increased far more by the knowledge that he could go out into the world and hold his own among men on the common ground of hard work and innate strength.
He expected esteem,respectful courtesy--and even admiration--as a matter of course.They were in part his birthright and partly the result of his own achievement,and he received them as quietly as his customary income.Their presence was like his excellent health,to which he scarcely gave a thought,but their withdrawal would have affected him keenly,although he had never considered the possibility of such a thing.
What in him was confidence and self-reliance had been in Ida little else than vanity and pride,and these,circumstances had enabled him to wound unto death.He had,from the first,calmly and philosophically recognized the fact that he must break down,in part,the Chinese wall of her self-approval,before any elevating ideas and ennobling impulses could enter,and as much through unforeseen events as by his effort,this had been done to a degree that threatened results that appalled him.He had been taught thoroughly that faulty and ignorant as she undoubtedly was,she was by no means shallow or weak.To his mind the depth of her despondency was the measure of her power to realize her imperfection,for he now supposed her depression was caused immediately by the fact that she had been so harshly misjudged,but in the main because of her resemblance to the flower he had tossed away and which he now remembered,with deep satisfaction,was in his note-book,ready to aid in the reassuring and encouraging work upon which he was eager to enter.
He did not dream that by tactics the reverse of those pursued by her numerous admirers he had won her heart,and that the apparent hopelessness of her passion had outweighed all other burdens.
Her kindest sentiment towards him,he believed,was the cold respect,mingled with fear and dislike,in which a sever but honest critic is sometimes held;and as he recalled his course towards her he now felt that she had little reason for even this degree of regard.
He had awakened her sleeping mind not to an atmosphere of kindness and sympathy like that in which the beauty in the fabled castle had revived,but to a biting frost of harsh criticism and unjust suspicion.That there seemed,at the time,good reason for these on his part did not make it any easier for her to bear them;and in the fact that he had so misunderstood and wronged her,his confidence in his own sagacity received the severest shock it had ever experienced.He felt that he could never go forward in life with his old assured tread and manner.