With thirty-five years' difference in their ages, and meeting him only when he was past middle life, she saw in him a great teacher--and he saw in her a rarely sensitive soul full of possibilities.
These potentialities were developed after Miss S---- went to New York, and soon placed her in a position of importance and responsibility.
She could not see in Mr. Saltus, as I did, a being who step by step had mounted a ladder of light on the rungs of his dead selves. She saw only the finished product, for the process of refinement, by which his greater qualities had been separated from the lesser, covered a long period of years.
Some of those who read this biography will say that Mr. Saltus may have been glad to escape at times from a home where animals were given so much attention. This remark has in fact been made to me by those who can judge only from the surface of things. The fabric of this criticism is, however, less substantial than moonlight. During the latter years of Mr. Saltus' life much of Miss S----'s time was spent abroad. When Mr. Saltus saw her, as he did frequently during her intermissions in New York, he but left his home environment to go into a similar one. High-strung, nervous and temperamental, Miss S---- had the animal complex as strongly as I. Her apartment was never without one or two pets whose comfort, well being and happiness were her constant pre-occupation. Had he found these conditions under his own roof unpleasant, he would not have gone out of his way to duplicate them elsewhere.
Not long after Mr. Saltus' death, Miss S----and myself visited the Bide-a-Wee Home for Animals, of which I was a director. On our return home we noticed a poor lost cat trying to cross the street through densely congested traffic. With one accord we stood still, holding our breath, our hands clenched in agony, till the cat reached the further side in safety. Our reactions were not only immediate, but identical.
I make no attempt to go into the whys and wherefores of it all, nor do I offer an explanation. The facts are as I have stated. An elucidation of them is work for a psychiatrist.
Toward the end of 1918, and after a short and unexpected illness, our Toto, who had walked beside us for over ten years, passed over. To write of it even now is acute pain. The loss was like that of an only and uniquely beloved child. We were stunned, and in spite of my philosophy I went to pieces as I had never done in my life. It was over this heart-breaking event that Mr. Saltus displayed his extraordinary qualities.