ROMANCE
Affairs like these can only colour and illumine the upper side of the clouds, so far as American fiction is concerned. One might write a real novel of Regeneration, but the field of the story is not now for this; the arteries through which the public is reached by the publisher are not yet friendly to such a novel. We learn at Stonestudy to write what we please, but we are content with still small answers, at least for a time. We have ceased trying to force people to see the thing as we see it. For money to live by, to take our places comfortably in travel or sequestration, we retain the handicraft to write for markets that pay. We keep in touch with the world—that is practical mysticism. We rejoice in the dense pressures and tortures of world traffic. This is very calmly told, as it should be. My young associates learn it easily, performing the actions thereof, but for me, many years were required.
Long ago I wrote a novel about a man and woman coming to a fervent agreement to remain apart for a year before their mating, in order that they array themselves in fuller glory for each other, so that each day each would find the other more wonderful than yesterday. The novel furnished much adventure in the intervening year, otherwise it would have been still-born. What was the real theme to me apparently wasn't noted at all. Yet separation is as essential as companionship for the real Romance. A man who does life in a book must know this much, even if he use his knowledge sparingly. It's all a laugh in the higher workmanship. Romance—each has his idea of that. Each does his best by that. Here's a document of the day from John which gives his idea very well:
Since I was first with Steve and Fred and Irving and Shuk, I have had the great sense of wanting to be out and away from the world—to be with them one at a time. In the Rockies or in the misty isles of the sea! All of them have a different meaning and sense. One will mean the Rockies or the misty mountain, saddels, foamy bits and lathering horses. Another will mean the tarry smell of the hold of a ship, the flapping of sails in the moonlight, and the smell of black coffee coming up from the galleys. Another will mean the sun betin desert—camels, and men stooping over a fire. They are all my comrads.
Fred is a young sea-writer. We are great pals. We yousto go down and lie in the sand, read, talk and meditate; then a little later we would take exercise and a long swim, then rub each other down. They were wounderful days—those. I got right to the heart of Fred, and he did to me. He yousto come over at night and sleep with me. Those were the nights! I got so attached to him, but we had to go apart. He is in New York now, going to college, and I am here in California. It does not seem right for me to be in this God blest place in the Youneverse, and he in the slums of the world, going to college. But it is the Plan, or it would not be this way.
The new race will stay high all through partings; then they cannot last long—for there is nothing to stay away for. When pain leaves, then all will be ready for the road and the great comrads, horses and the road of greatness. It is all ahead. In the great future—all ahead—my comrads—all comrads—the world will be all comrads!
All our days, as tellers of tales, we try to tell, not stories, so much, as what Romance means to us. The very glory of life is that there are no two pictures the same.... To me, Romance means not to stay! It was hard to learn. Not to tarry in the senses, if for no other reason than to know the full beauty of the senses. One must not miss his train; one must not linger after curfew has sounded. There is no grey confronting of misery—like that of meeting one's own commonness catching up.
It's stiff grade work all the way, but there are heroic moments. We learn to take a supernal, rather than a sensuous joy. The most rending of lovers is the most passionate saint.... When Mohammed finally got his morals in working order, the desert was said to be full of slain....
There is something to do with martyrdom in my dream of Romance in later years. All pain and fear has gone out of that word—a singing about it. The name Kuru t'ul Ayn comes to my mind in thoughts of Romance—"Consolation of the Eyes," martyred soon after the Forerunner Bab had been shot in Tabriz. I cannot tell why exactly, save that she had beauty that had turned to loveliness, and many men had looked through the door of heaven in her eyes—some haunting mystery there of beauty and bestowal—the blending perhaps of the love of man and God in the same woman-heart, passion lifted remotely above the common rules of life, transcending every man-made institution.
One of the Little Girl's ideas of Romance is a hill cabin, an open door to the dusk,—baby heads weaving under her hands—warm air coming up from the valleys, but his step not coming that night.... Here is a suggestion from one of her letters: