Having been subject to these inspirational attacks for many
years, I had decided to take them in hand, and, if they must come,
derive some benefit from them. An idea suggested itself. Claude
Lorraine, it is said, never put the figures in his landscapes, but left
that work for some brother artist. Now I could bring together material
for an article; the inspiration, the picturing should be mine, but John
should put in the figures. In other words, he should polish it, write
the introduction and the _finis_, and send it out to the public, as the
work of 'my wife and I.'
Then a question occurred: how should we divide the honors, supposing
such an article should really find its way into print? Would there not
be material for a standard quarrel in the fact that neither could claim
sole proprietorship? What would be John's sensation, should any one say
to him: 'Mr. ----, I have just been reading your wife's last article;
capital thing!' and, _vice versa_, imagine the same thing said of me.
Could I preserve amiability under such circumstances, and would not the
result be, a divorce in a year, and a furious lawsuit as to the
ownership of the copyright? John certainly is magnanimous, I thought,
but no one cares for divided honors, and there is that middle-aged
relation of his, with a figure like a vinegar cruet, and a voice as acid
as its contents, who never comes here for a day without doing her best
to set us by the ears, and who, in the beginning of our married life,
when we did not understand each other quite so well as now, sometimes
succeeded, to her intense satisfaction.
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