Sally, friend of my youth, patient receptacle of all my moods and tenses, I was falling in love. At least, I felt myself slipping. All these four years I have intended Michael Daragh to be an interesting character part in my drama of New York, down in the cast as "her best friend." He is threatening to take the lead, and it isn't going to do at all. Sally, the man's goodness is simply ghastly; I couldn't endure having a husband so incontestibly better than I am. Why, you know that all my life I've been "a wonderful influence for good" with mankind! Didn't I always coax sling shots away from bad little boys and make them sign up for the S.P.C.A.? And wasn't I always getting bad big boys to smoke less and drink less and pass ex'es and dance with wallflowers and write to their mothers? Really, when I think of the twigs I've bent and the trees I've inclined, I feel that there should be a tablet erected to me somewhere. But the woman who weds Michael Daragh, I don't care who she is (lie: I care enormously!) will always be burning incense to him in her lesser soul, always straining on tiptoe to breathe the air in which he lives and moves and has his being.
Michael Daragh, that time he renounced the flesh-pots and "took to bride the Ladye Povertye with perfect blithenesse," did it so thoroughly that any literal spouse will be only a sort of morganatic wife, anyway. I don't mean that he might not adore her and be wonderful to her after he'd ministered unto a drove of sticky immigrants and a Settlement full of drab down-and-outs and an Agnes Chatterton Home full of Fallen Sisters, but he would really expect her to prefer having him assist at the arrival of the eleventh little Lascanowitz in a moldy cellar to keeping a birthday dinner date with her.
Now, Sally dear, in these four years since I left my village home (soft chords) I have labored somewhat, and I confess that I have frankly looked forward to matrimony as a sort of glorified vacation. I couldn't ever give up my work, of course,—it wouldn't give me up—and I don't crave to "sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam and live upon strawberries, sugar and cream" exclusively, but somewhere in the middle ground between that and washing dishes and "feeding the swine," I did visualize a sort of gracious lady leisure, with a vague, worshipful being in the background making me "take care of myself."
Therefore, feeling myself melting unduly on the Irish question, I fly while there is yet time.
Much love, old dear!
Jane.
December 8th.
That was a silly screed, yesterday, Sally dearest, but getting it off my chest was a great relief. And at that it wasn't a complete confession. There was another reason for a strategic retreat. The other reason was Rodney Harrison. Yes, the House of Harrison has capitulated, handsomely, lavishly, Mater and Pater as well, but I'm very sure that I can never be theirs. Just as I feel that Michael Daragh is too good for me, so do I feel that Rodney Harrison is not quite good enough! I mean by that not quite concerned enough with drying the world's tears. With—as G.B.S. says—"a character that needs looking after as much as my own," I feel I should have some one a little less Philistine than the cheerful Rodney. At any rate, I needed perspective on the whole situation, and who knows but I shall meet my nice new fate on this romantic pilgrimage? (Sounds more like eighteen than twenty-eight, doesn't it?) But, seriously, I've been so constantly with Michael Daragh and Rodney in these four years that I know every dip and spur, every line and leaf of their mental scenery; fresh fields and pastures new are what I need. And "one meets so many delightful people in traveling—" as witness the good Budders and their niece, Miss Vail ('sh ... they say she's a writer!)
Something, which is to say, somebody, may turn up at any moment.
Yours, Micawber-ing,