Martin did not like his sister.
5. Martin went to the Oakland Library because Ruth worked there.
6. Martin had rather delicate manners.
7. Martin did not want to go to the library any more.
8. He spent days and nights near Ruth’s neighbourhood.
9. Martin had not changed a bit.
11. Develop the following statements.
1. Martin awoke next morning from the rosy scenes of dream to a steamy atmosphere of his dwelling.
2. Gertrude liked her brother who was her favourite.
3. Martin decided to visit the Oakland Library.
4. The books seemed to press upon Martin and crush him.
5. He had not found what he wanted.
6. Martin dared not go near Ruth’s neighbourhood at day time.
7. Martin had undergone a moral revolution.
12. Retell the chapter from the persons of Martin Eden, Martin’s sister Gertrude, the librarian.
Chapter III
A week of heavy reading had passed since the evening he first met Ruth Morse, and still he dared not call. He did not know the proper time to call, nor was there anyone to tell him, and he was afraid of making a blunder. Having shaken himself free from his old companions and old ways of life, and having no new companions, nothing remained for him but to read, and the long hours he devoted to it would have ruined a dozen pairs of ordinary eyes. But his eyes were strong.
It seemed to him, by the end of the week, that he had lived centuries, so far behind were the old life and outlook. He attempted to read books that required years of preliminary specialisation. One day he would read a book of antiquated philosophy, and the next day one that was ultra-modern, so that his head would be whirling with the conflict and contradiction of ideas. He would sit up in bed, and the dictionary was in front of him more often than the book. He looked up so many new words that, when they recurred, he had forgotten their meaning, and had to look them up again. He devised the plan of writing definitions in a notebook, and filled page after page with them. And still he could not always understand what he read.
He read much poetry, finding his greatest joy in the simpler poets, who were more understandable. He loved beauty, and there he found beauty. Poetry, like music, stirred him profoundly; and though he did not know it, he was preparing his mind for the heavier work that would come later.
The man at the desk in the library had seen Martin there so often that he had become quite pleasant, always greeting him with a smile and a nod when he entered.
One day Martin blurted out:
“Say, there’s something I’d like to ask you.”
The man smiled and paid attention.
“When you meet a young lady an’ she asks you to call, how soon can you call?”
“Why, I’d say any time,” the man answered.
“What is the best time to call? The afternoon – not too close to meal-time? Or the evening? Or Sunday?”
“I’ll tell you,” the librarian said, with a brightening face. “You call her up on the telephone and find out.”
“I’ll do it,” he said, picking up his books and starting away.
He turned back and asked: “When you’re speakin’ to a young lady – say, for instance, Miss Lizzie Smith – do you say ‘Miss Lizzie’ or ‘Miss Smith?’”
“Say ‘Miss Smith,’” the librarian stated authoritatively. “Say ‘Miss Smith’ always – until you know her better.”
So it was that Martin Eden solved the problem.
“Come down any time; I’ll be at home all afternoon,” was Ruth’s reply over the telephone to his stammered request as to when he could return the books she had given him.
She met him at the door herself, and her woman’s eye took in immediately the creased trousers, and the slight, but indefinable, change in him for the better.
Once they were seated in the drawing-room, he began to get on easily. She made it easy for him. They talked first of the borrowed books; she led the conversation on from subject to subject, while she pondered the problem of how she could help him. She had thought of this often since their first meeting. She wanted to help him.
“I wonder if I can get some advice from you”, he said. “You remember the other time I was here I said I couldn’t talk about books and things because I didn’t know how? Well, I’ve ben doin’ a lot of thinkin’ ever since.I’ve ben to the library a whole lot, but most of the books I’ve tackled have ben over my head. Mebbe I’d better begin at the beginnin’. I’ve worked pretty hard ever since I was a kid, an’ since I’ve ben to the library, lookin’ with new eyes at books – an’ lookin’ at new books, too – I’ve concluded that I ain’t ben reading the right kind. But I ain’t got to the point yet. Here it is: I want to make my way to the kind of life you have in this house. Now, how am I goin’ to get it? Where do I begin? I’m willin’ to work. Once I get started, I’ll work night an’ day. Mebbe you think it’s funny, me askin’ you about all this. I know you’re the last person in the world I ought to ask, but I don’t know anybody else I could ask…”
His voice died away. He feared he had made a fool of himself. Ruth did not speak immediately. Her face was all sympathy when she did speak.
“What you need you realize yourself, and it is education. You should go back and finish grammar-school, and then go through the high school and University.”
“But that takes money,” he interrupted.
“Oh!” she cried, “I had not thought of that. But, then, you have relatives – somebody who could assist you?”
He shook his head.
“My father and mother are dead. I’ve two sisters – one married, an’ the other’ll get married soon, I suppose. Then I’ve a string of brothers – I’m the youngest – but they never helped nobody. The oldest died in India. Two are in South Africa now, an’ another’s on a whaling voyage, an’ one’s travellin’ with a circus – he does trapeze-work. An’ I guess I’m just like them. I’ve taken care of myself since I was eleven – that’s when my mother died. I’ve got to study by myself I guess, an’ what I want to know is where to begin.”
“I should say the first thing of all would be to get a grammar book. Your grammar is…” She had intended saying “awful,” but she amended it to, “is not particularly good.”
He flushed and sweated.
“I know I must talk a lot of slang an’ words you don’t understand. But, then, they’re only words I know… how to speak. I’ve got other words in my mind – picked ’emup from books – but I can’t pronounce ’em, so I don’t use ’em.”
“It isn’t what you say so much as how you say it. You don’t
