Corydon, Thyrsis, and Craig settled themselves in the little cottage on the edge of the Forest of Arden. Springtime had come, and the Arden folk were giving Midsummer Night’s Dream; Corydon was Titania, in yellow tights and a golden crown. At this juncture came Harry Kemp, having completed another year at the University of Kansas; he was lugging two suitcases full of books and manuscripts, plus an extra blue shirt and a pair of socks. There was a girl at Arden who was a lover of poetry, and Thyrsis, fond matchmaker, had the idea that the poet might become interested in this girl. But the fates had other plans, and were not slow to reveal them. Corydon was interested in the poet.
It was during this time that Harry Kemp wrote a sonnet to Thyrsis and handed it to him with the words, “You may publish this some day.” It will not be ranked as a great sonnet, but it is curious as a part of the story; so, after Harry’s death, his permission is accepted.
Child, wandering down the great world for a day
And with a child’s soul seeing thru and thru
The passing prejudice to Truth’s own view.
Immortal spirit robed in mortal day,
Striving to find and follow the one way
That is your way, none other’s—to be true
To that which makes a sincere man of you!
Still be yourself, and let tongues say their say!
Still fling the seed with daring hand abroad,
And, then, mayhap, the Race to come will be
Gladdened, with ripened fruit and bursting pod
Of Love, and Brotherhood, and Liberty—
Open to Nature and Her Laws from God
As spreading gulfs lie open to the Sea!
III
Corydon went to New York, to the apartment of her mother and father, which was vacant in the summer. Harry followed her; and then came Thyrsis, and the great divorce scandal burst upon the world. It was made by the newspapers, so the story had to be told in The Brass Check. There seems no good reason to repeat it here; suffice it to say that Thyrsis found himself presented in the capitalist press as having taught his wife free love and then repudiated her when she took him at his word. The newspapers invented statements, they set traps, and betrayed confidences—and when they got through with their victim, they had turned his hair gray.
Corydon and Harry fled from the storm. But after a few days they came back; and then there were interviews of many columns, and Sunday-supplement pages with many pictures, in the course of which the great American public learned all about Thyrsis’ dietetic eccentricities and his objections to coffee and cigarettes. Corydon caused vast glee to the New York smart set by describing her life partner as “an essential monogamist”; those who read and laughed did not remember that only last week they had read that he was a “free lover.” As a matter of fact, neither the writers nor the readers knew what was meant by either term, so the incongruity did not trouble them.
Thyrsis filed suit for divorce in New York state, which is ruled by Catholic laws, administered by Catholic judges. If in his writings you find a certain acerbity toward the Catholic political machine, bear in mind these experiences, which seared into a writer’s soul scars never to be effaced. The Catholic judge appointed a “referee” to hear testimony in the case, and this referee, moved by stupidity plus idle curiosity, asked Thyrsis questions concerning his wife’s actions that under the New York law the husband was not permitted to answer. But the referee demanded that they be answered, and what was Thyrsis to do? He answered; so the Catholic judge had a pretext upon which to reject the recommendation of his referee.
The court and the referee had between them several hundred dollars of Thyrsis’ hard-earned money, which, under the law, they were permitted to keep—even though Thyrsis got no divorce. He filed another suit and paid more money, and waited another three or four months, in the midst of journalistic excursions and alarms. Another referee took testimony, and this time was careful to ask only the exactly prescribed questions; in due course another decision was handed down by another Catholic judge, who had also been “seen” by parties interested. This time the decision was that Thyrsis had failed to beat up his wife, or to choke or stab or poison her, or otherwise manifest masculine resentment at her unfaithfulness; therefore he was suspected of “collusion,” and the application was again denied. Of course the judge did not literally say that Thyrsis should have behaved in those violent ways; but that was the only possible implication of his decision. When a husband was fair and decent, desiring his dissatisfied wife to find happiness if she could—that was a dangerous and unorthodox kind of behavior, suggestive of “radical” ideas. Men and women suspected of harboring such ideas should be punished by being tied together in the holy bonds of matrimony and left to tear each other to pieces like the Kilkenny cats.
In February 1912 Thyrsis took his son and departed for Europe, traveling second-class in a third-class Italian steamer; sick in body and soul, and not sure whether he was going to live or die, nor caring very much. He had managed to borrow a little money for the trip, and he had a job, writing monthly articles for Physical Culture Magazine for a hundred and fifty dollars each. As a writer of books he was destroyed, and nobody thought he would ever have a public again. Mitchell Kennerley, publisher of Love’s Pilgrimage, remarked, “If people can read about you for two cents, they are not going to pay a dollar and a half to do it.” Love’s Pilgrimage had been published a month or two before the divorce scandal broke and had started as a whirlwind success—selling a thousand copies a week. The week after the scandal broke, it dropped dead, and the publisher did not sell a hundred copies in a year.