My child,—Your questions are delicious. What you felt on reading my letter? Yes, Sir Innocence, it hath a name: Jealousy. 'Tis a very legitimate passion, so I think, but it hath earned in the world a bad repute. You white-armored child! this meeting a soul so dense to its own emotions is like cooling drink in a desert. You complain because I am your senior and a trifle world-worn, and you do not know that you are complaining. You wish we had been born at the same minute. Pretty! poetic! but in plain prose, "I would you were not my elder!" And so would I; for if I were set back those five years, it would give me just five years more to hack away at my plays. I will not say how your moonings and mouthings would affect me; possibly then I might be caught by such pretty sweets. The last question of all: Does the world feel immortal pain at its heart? Frankly, yes. Nobody can be really happy except imbeciles and children; and not they, if they chance to be underfed. But be of good cheer. Only women ache all their lives long, every day of every year. They are an unintelligent lot, not to have learned self-protection. They wear their souls outside; and not being in the least original, they have not yet invented a thoroughly satisfactory coat of mail. For you, belonging to the lords of the earth, there will, after a time, be immunity. You will break your heart. (O, how infinitely wearisome to reflect that you have determined to break it about me!) Then you will waken to a vapid interest in work, discover your own nice talent for manipulating words, put all your past woes into verse, and by the time your reputation is made, you won't despise a good cigar and a club dinner. Nature has provided you as she has the lobster. Never fear; your claws will grow, though they may be often nipped. It is plain that you are to suffer, but I don't very much pity you. Unless you take to drink or any other unhygienic habit, you are sure to get something out of life. If you riddle your nerves, I won't answer for you. But, at the present moment, one thing must be done. Your letters must simply cease to be drenched with the night-dew of flimsy sentiment. Wring it out, and send them dry. Otherwise you get no answers. Do you hear, you gentle barbarian?
And I don't like your style overmuch. It isn't improving as I hoped. You don't want to drag out long, saccharine sentences, dripping with sugar as they crawl. Tell something! Let it be real,—or let it not be at all.
Francis Hume to Zoe Montrose
O the irony stamped on those four little letters! Real! And my whole heart in it, a man's whole heart. That means something. But I obey you. Last night I dreamed all night long, one picture after another. First came this: I stood upon a dusty way, and multitudes of people were passing. They looked like you and like my father, but they were sad. They were bowed down, and many of them carried great brown bundles on their backs, bundles of wood, it seemed to me, or withered grass. Then I, too, grew very sad and heavy because every one else seemed so; but suddenly my eye fell on a great light, and I wondered that I had not seen it before, and that none of them saw it. There, in the midst, by the roadside, stood the Apollo, warm, rosy, afire with life. His mantle was purple touched with rose: such color as we see in the east before the sun comes, and in the west after he is gone. His hair was long, and ran down his back in a great tawny river,—darker than yours,—and he stretched out his arm fearlessly holding the bow. Yet no one saw him but me. I fancied, even in my dream, that the arrow he would shoot might teach them a happier way to travel; but no one even knew he was there, or heard the twanging of the string or saw the cleaving of the arrow's flight. Then I sank down into darkness like a gulf, and only rose again to the splendor of another dream. The world seemed very large, larger than it does when you stand on the peak of Lone Mountain, with not a shade to cover you. There were many people, in an agony of terror and pain, as Pierre was the night after I found him wounded and delirious from his fight with the bears. The people were old, and poor, and shabby, but still they looked like you, and their agony was dreadful to behold. They were all gazing upward, and I, too, turned my eyes to see, and lo! the heavens were all burning and brazen, and I saw that the heat was greater than I could endure. The sorrow and fear of those about me grew more terrible; they wept and wrung their hands,—still like Pierre, when he imagined he was again pursued. One thought came over me; and it seemed to me more awful than anything I saw. The trees! the sweet, faithful trees in all their newest green. They would be burned too. There would be no more sunrise or sunset. This was the last day of all, and not only should we burn, but so, too, would the little tender leaves. I dropped on my face, and kept saying softly—for it seemed as if One heard as much as if I cried aloud—"Mighty One, save the trees, only save the trees!" I did not know to whom I spoke, but I kept on saying it into the hot earth; and presently I heard a great shout from the throats of all the people. I rose slowly to my knees, to my feet, and everybody was laughing and throwing their arms about in joy. Still they were looking up, and I looked, too; and there, in the midst of the burning sky, was one little cool, clear patch of blue, as large as a maple leaf, and it was spreading fast. A fresh wind sprang up and blew from the west; and as the blue spread, little white clouds arose and danced over it. Even before we could get used to so great a bliss, the heaven was all blue and fleecy-winged, and the happy trees rustled greenly.
Again I dropped adown that darkling sea of death in life, and rose up again to find myself in a boat, floating, floating, on the wavelike ripples of a larger lake. So I knew it was the sea. I was near the shore, but yet not going in; and as I turned my eyes that way, I saw a height overhung with sky so blue! I have never seen such sky. But beneath and built upon the height was something more radiant than the sky itself: a temple with a wilderness of columns and vistas of columned shade within. The temple was of marble, mellowed and creamy, and rosy also, from some inner light, it seemed to me: something that glowed perennially and generated beauty as it glowed. And as I looked, wonder-stricken and alive with pure delight, one of the columns melted into air, and in the larger space it gave, stood you, my lady, clothed in white falling in folds more wonderful than the whorling of a bud within its sheath. You held a cup, and reached it to me with a smile divinely kind. I rose and plunged; the water closed over me, and sleep enwrapped me over.
And then again I rose, and I knew I was in Paradise; for it was a sunny forest of newly-budded trees, and I heard strange music and knew you would be with me soon and that all would be infinitely well with us forever. I sank back into measureless peace, the perfect patience of waiting. As I lay there, one came toward me, and although I could not see his face, I knew, this is an angel! He asked me some question,—what, I cannot tell; but I was in love with my pleasure of mind, and told him what was only half true. (You know they were talking of truth and lies at the camp the other night, and I was puzzled. Now I know what it is to tell a half-truth.) But as I spoke, the leaves of the trees withered and fell, and the birds left their contented harmony and began screaming in discord. The angel was gone, and I knew that heaven was destroyed, and I had done it. I woke, grasping my arms so tightly with either hand that the pressure hurt. I was sobbing for breath. But I was alive, and my heaven lay yet before me.
Have I done well? Here have I written you page upon page, only to earn a letter in return, when I long to fill these sheets with hot protestations, with petitions for your gentle ruth. At first it was enough to love you. At first? for the instant of recognizing my royal destiny; but now I would have all. Love me! love me! my heart cries and cries, for unless you know me for your own, what shall hinder me from losing you in this whirling progress of the days. You will go away; I heard them talking about it this morning. What am I to do then, I ask you? What am I to do? Mateless, solitary, left in the nest I was so long in building, while you fly south, the sun upon your shining wings. What am I to do?
Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume
Your last letter pleased me very well, all save its note of melancholy. Byronism is out of fashion. It isn't vendible, or it won't be in a few years, mark my words. In the time that is coming, men-children will rise up in literature and slash and slay and troll out hearty songs, born in the childhood of the race, and tell us of the love of woman, and the joy of martial blows. No more splitting of psychological hairs! The reaction is coming, and I thank the gods who make for us to mar. Moreover, you were hysterical at the end. Reform it altogether. No woman of any sense of humor was ever won by tears in the man who should be fighting for her. Take Tristram of Brittany for your model, not some laddie who should be in petticoats. Else you will never win fair lady. I speak generally, for it is understood from the start that this specific fair lady is not to be won at all. Woo her you may, so you do it amusingly, robustly, with no whining like a hungry dog. She has little heart for "crumbling the hounds their messes." Now to business. I lay my commands upon you. A visitor is coming to camp: a man. While he is here, I shall have no time either to write or read, and I shall not visit the hollow tree. Moreover, you, as you be loyal and true, are to treat him fairly and kindly. If you hate my tendance of him as a stranger and a guest, you are to be only the more courteous. In short, as a knight peerless, you are to suffer manfully and in silence. For in silence lies the only true dignity left us by the chances of life. You see I own at once that you will suffer. That is inevitable; but I ask you to take the screw like a gentleman. There is no better word yet made.
To the Unknown Friend