My dear Alec,
You will have anticipated my decision. No other was possible for me. I have not made many sacrifices just to set them aside when a temptation of need occurs. Indeed, even writing thus of ‘sacrifices’ seems to me unworthy: these things are nothing, and have brought me far more than I lost, if not in outward fortune. It is right, though, to say that the decision is due to no form of mental obstinacy or arrogance. Rightly or wrongly, I am conscious of something to be done—to be done by one side of me, by one half of me, by the true inward self as I believe—(apart from the overwhelmingly felt mystery of a dual self, and a reminiscent life, and a woman’s life and nature within, concurring with and oftenest dominating the other)—and rightly or wrongly I believe that this, and the style so strangely born of this inward life, depend upon my aloofness and spiritual isolation as F. M. To betray publicly the private life and constrained ideal of that inward self, for a reward’s sake, would be a poor collapse. And if I feel all this, as I felt it from the first (and the nominal beginning was no literary adventure, but a deep spiritual impulse and compelling circumstances of a nature upon which I must be silent) how much more must I feel it now, when an added and great responsibility to others has come to me, through the winning of so already large and deepening a circle of those of like ideals or at least like sympathies in our own country, and in America—and I allude as much or more to those who while caring for the outer raiment think of and need most the spirit within that raiment, which I hope will grow fairer and simpler and finer still, if such is the will of the controlling divine wills that, above the maze, watch us in our troubled wilderness.
That is why I said that I could not adopt the suggestion, despite promise of the desired pension, even were that tenfold, or any sum. As to ‘name and fame,’ well, that is not my business. I am glad and content to be a ‘messenger,’ an interpreter it may be. Probably a wide repute would be bad for the work I have to do. Friends I want to gain, to win more and more, and, in reason, “to do well”: but this is always secondary to the deep compelling motive. In a word, and quite simply, I believe that a spirit has breathed to me, or entered me, or that my soul remembers or has awaked (the phraseology matters little)—and, that being so, that my concern is not to think of myself or my ‘name’ or ‘reward,’ but to do (with what renunciation, financial and other, may be necessary) my truest and best.
And then, believing this, I have faith you see in the inward destiny. I smiled when I put down your long, affectionate, and good letter. But it was not a smile of bitterness: it was of serene acceptance and confidence. And the words that came to my mind were those in the last chorus of Oedipus at Kolônos,
“Be no more troubled, and no longer lament, for all these things will be accomplished.”
Then, too, there’s the finitude of all things. Why should one bother deeply when time is so brief. Even the gods passed, you know, or changed from form to form. I used to remember Renan’s ‘Prayer on the Acropolis’ by heart, and I recall those words “Tout n’est ici-bas que symbole et que songe. Les dieux passent comme les hommes et il ne serait pas bon qu’ils fussent eternels.” ...
Elizabeth, who is on a visit to Fife, will, I know, whole-heartedly endorse my decision.
Again all my gratitude and affection, dear Alec,
Your friend,
Will.