_Marie's Revolt_
"The winners fall by the wayside," wrote Terry, "while the losers must
ever on--hearkening to some high request, hastening toward a nameless
goal. I am loser, for my motives are large and my actions small. In my
desire to embrace the universe I may neglect a comrade. I can be as hard
as my life and as cruel as its finish. I have only an ideal, and
whenever anything or anybody gets in the way of it I am ruthless in
feeling. I must not give up all that I have--what is in my imagination:
I have nothing else."
Yes, Terry is hard. He "passes up" remorselessly not only the
individual, but all society; but it is the hardness of the idealist, of
the man who is still religious in the sense that he sees a beyond-world
with which to compare this world and find it totally lacking. So, more
and more he "passed up" Marie, found her more and more lacking, more and
more human. The fact of her being a social outcast no longer had its
strong appeal. He became hard and cruel to her through idealism, just as
she had been hard and cruel to him through sensuality and false
philosophy. But her hardness never equalled his fine scorn.
For a year or two preceding this point in the situation I had been
living in Europe, and had met a good many men and women who had given a
larger part of their lives to the making of a social experiment. Some of
them, discouraged, had returned to a "bourgeois" manner of life, some
even to a "bourgeois" philosophy. Almost all of the anarchists I have
known lost their philosophy and enthusiasm with middle age, and
experience with the actual constitution of things, combined with
disillusion regarding the ideal. Most of them had been hurt or broken by
their attempt, but they all retained a certain something, a certain
remaining dignity of having struggled against the inevitable, and had
acquired insight into some of the deeper things in life, though having
lost some of the childlike simplicity which is a characteristic of the
social rebel.
I saw a great deal of an old Frenchman, who had known Bakunin, and had
been astute in the dangerous work of the "International" in England and
Germany. An associate of William Morris and the other English anarchists
who at that time called themselves socialists, my friend came in contact
with much that was distinguished in mind and energy; he afterward
carried the propaganda of revolutionary socialism to Germany, where he
was arrested and imprisoned for five years. He is now a handsome,
white-haired, well-preserved old man, with fine simple manners and joy
in simple things, love of children and of long conversations with
friends, good will and peace. He has retained a certain mild contempt
for the "bourgeois," for people who prefer an easy time in this world to
an attempt, even a foolish one, for radical improvement. But he knows
the world now, and I fancy many of his illusions are gone.
Another of my radical friends is now only thirty-six years old; but
already he is tired and discouraged, socially speaking. He is a
Frenchman, too, with all the easy mental grace and intellectual culture
of his race. Soon after his student days at the Sorbonne, the social
fever of our day, which burns in the blood of all who are sensitive,
took possession of him. Like Terry, he was drawn emotionally to an
interest in the social outcast; like Terry, a girl in that class
interested him, and he took up the cause of the girls, and led an attack
against the _policiers des moeurs_, the special police who attempt to
regulate prostitution in Paris. He spent all the money he had in the
attempt, lost his respectable friends, and, after several years of
fruitless effort, hope left him. When I met him he was living quietly,
in bohemian fashion, drawing a very small salary and devoting himself to
abstract philosophy, to science, and to pessimistic memories of the days
of his social enthusiasm, or what he now calls his social illusions.
One of the most pathetic social experiments I have known was made by a
young girl, whom I also knew at Paris. She generously determined that
she would have no sex prejudices; and for several years she strove
against the terribly strong social feeling in that regard. Not only
theoretically but practically she persisted in thinking and acting in a
way which the world calls immoral. She wanted to show that a girl could
be good and yet not what the world calls chaste. She did not believe
that sex-relations had anything to do with real morality. In one way,
she has been successful. She is as good now--better--as when she began
her experiment. She is broader and finer and bigger; but she has
suffered. She has been disappointed in her idealism, disappointed in the
way men have met her frank generosity, she has been injured in a worldly
way. Her strongest desires are those of all good women--she deeply wants
the necessary shelter for children and social quiet and pleasure, and
these essentials are denied her because of her idealism. She half feels
this now and is tired and discouraged.
Another woman who has paid heavily for her "social" interests is in
quite a different position. She is married to a man who is also a social
idealist. He is so emotionally occupied with "society" that nature and
life in its more eternal and necessary aspects touch him lightly. He
hardly realises their existence. She tries to follow him in this
direction; strains her woman's nature, which is a large one, to the
uttermost. It is probable that the loss of his child was due to this
idealistic contempt for old wisdom. Not a moment must be lost, not a
thought devoted to anything but the revolution; this necessitated
social activity, and that exclusively. Where was the opportunity for
the quiet development and care of an infant? The children of the
"radicals" are few, and as a rule do not grow up in the best conditions.
This certainly is a terrible sacrifice entailed upon the social
idealist.
Writers in France and in Europe generally are much more interested in
radical ideas of society and politics than they are in this country. The
most distinguished among them are from the American point of view
radical, at least. There is hardly a play of note produced in France or
Germany that does not in some way trench upon modern social problems.
Anatole France is a philosophical anarchist, and so is Octave Misbeau.
It is not a disreputable thing to be so in France. An Emma Goldman there
would be an object of respect. The prime minister of France was
generally regarded as an anarchist before he went into office. A man of
the type of Herve would be deemed a madman here. Even a man as little
radical as Jaures would be considered a terrible social danger in
America and could not conceivably have the power he exerts in France,
where they have a respect for ideas as such.
But, combined with this interest in social things and this willingness
to entertain the most radical ideas, there is a note of pessimism and
disillusionment. Anatole France's work shows this double tendency well.
He reflects the social revolt and lack of respect for the old society in
a most subtle way, but also he mirrors the failing hope of the social
enthusiast. He has a deep sympathy for the social idealist, but nearly
every book suggests the inevitable wreckage of enthusiasm on the rocks
of actuality.
When, after an absence of several years, I returned from Europe and went
again to Chicago, I found Terry alone, disheartened, and different from
the Terry I had known. Soon I saw that in him had taken place a process
not unlike that which had happened to my friends abroad and which was
reflected in European literature. His letters and Marie's had already
indicated, as we have seen, his social disappointment. But I found him
more bitter even than I had expected; cut off even from the anarchists,
nourishing almost insanely his individuality, full of Nietzsche's
philosophy of egotism, rejecting everything passionately, turning from
his friends, turning from himself. Old society had long been dead for
him and now he had no hope for the new!
Besides, Marie was not with him: she had revolted and run away. I had
expected to see her in Chicago; she had written me that she would be
there, but when I arrived I learned from Terry and Katie that she had
gone away. During the few weeks preceding my return to Chicago, the
quarrels between the three had grown in poignancy. Terry, unlike some of
the disappointed anarchists I have known, could not settle back into an
easy acceptance of life. With him it was all or nothing. More and more
fiercely he rejected all society, even, as we have seen anarchist
society. Of course, Marie came more and more in the way of this general
anathema. She was young and pleasure-loving, and at last her nature
could no longer stand this general rejection, the absence of the simple
pleasures of life. It was not their quarrels, even when they came to
blows, that determined her action. It was a revolt from the radical
sterility of Terry's philosophy. Katie furnished her with the necessary
money, and she went away to California. There this tired creature, this
civilised product of the slums, this thoughtful prostitute, this
striving human being full of the desire for life and as eager for
excellence as is the moth for the star, went into camp, and there, in
the bosom of nature, her terrible fatigue was well expressed in the
great sense of relief that resulted: a new birth, as it were, a
refreshing reaction from slum life and overstrained mental intensity.
This new birth and this reaction from Terry's philosophy are well
expressed in her letters to Terry and to me. To me she wrote:
"I have not dared to write you before for fear of your anger toward me
for my abrupt dismissal of our plans of meeting, but I could not help
it. The life instinct in me would not be doomed, but was insistent in
its demands and made me flee from insanity and death. So here I am, far
away from civilisation, from the madding crowd, away up in the
mountains, making a last effort to live the straight free life of
Nature's children, a suckling at the breasts of Mother Earth. And truly
her milk is passing sweet and goes to the head like wine, for I feel
intoxicated with the beauty and joy of all things here in this new,
wonderful world. I did not know that such beauty existed, and my
appreciation of it is so intense that it produces sensations of physical
pain. I live much as the birds do, or at least try to--no thought of the
morrow, or of the past, except when I receive a letter from dear old
Katie or from Terry. Katie asks me if I have found a job yet, and Terry
has some sweet reflections about death or dead things. But I recover in
an amazingly short time from these blows, climb to the mountain-top,
extend my arms to the heavens, and embrace passionately the great,
grand, throbbing stillness.
"I have been here now a whole month and have not yet wearied of it for a
moment. Each day brings a new, wonderful experience; and each day I feel
a real part of the great wonderful scheme of things. Indeed, I am
becoming a part of nature. I have grown so straight and tall, and so
beautifully thin and supple that I can dart in and out of the stream
without bumping myself against the rocks, can climb steep hills, and let
the winds blow me where they will. I should not be at all surprised to
awaken some morning and find that I had become one of the tall reeds
that sway to and fro along the banks of our mountain stream.
"In one of my brief periods of returning civilisation, just after
receiving a terrible letter from Terry, I had myself weighed at the
store and post-office of the town not far away from our camp; my weight
was exactly eighty pounds! It seemed to me that I was fading away into
something wild and strange. But I have never felt such physical and
mental well-being since I can remember. I hardly need to eat, but our
camp cook actually forces me to swallow something. He is a German
'radical' of the old school. Frightfully tired of the radical bunch as I
am, I like this simple old man. He is like a part of Nature, has lived
on her bosom all his life, and loves her and no other. We have visitors
at our camp occasionally, and they bring things to eat and drink. When
they are gone, the cook and I live on what is left and get along as best
we may. There are lots of wild fruits and nuts growing about here and
they are delicious. Neither of us has any money nor care for the morrow.
"After I arrived here, all the bitterness of life vanished. I thought
and felt very beautifully of Terry, and always shall, for I have made an
ideal of him, and his grand, noble head, like a blazing tiger-lily
perched upon a delicate and slender stem, will always be for me the
greatest, most wonderful recollection of all the years. But I have no
longer any desire to be with him, yet I do love and adore him, my own
wonderful, sweet, great Terry!"
To Terry she wrote: "I am intoxicated by all this beauty and love the
very air and earth. I feel the ecstasy of the aesthetic fanatic. Were I
not disturbed by thoughts of you, I would indeed become another Eve
before the fall, though I have strange desires and my blood beats as in
the veins of married women. But no lovers can quench my fever. All the
tiresome males are far away and I feel new-born and free. The air is
scented with balsam and bey, and a pure crystal stream flows through
this valley between two hills covered with giant redwood trees, and rare
orchids of the most curious shape and colour toss wantonly in the breeze
on the tree and hilltops. Birds and fishes and reptiles disport
themselves in the sunshine, and giant butterflies of the most marvellous
colours flutter so bravely among the ferns and flowers. There are no
tents here in our camp, but we are covered with the fragrant branches of
the spicy pines and nutmeg trees. It is a Paradise, and I think of you
always when I am in the midst of beauty.
"My trip here included an eighteen-mile walk--in one day--think of that!
I am getting as thin and strong as a greyhound. I don't wear clothes at
all, but when I do, it is the old man's overalls, which I put on to go
to town to get groceries or call for the mail. At night, our old cook
builds a huge fire of redwood logs, and then his tongue loosens and he
quotes poetry by the column or talks of his experience as a preacher,
actor, village schoolmaster, and vagabond. Without a cent he travels all
over California, as strong and rugged as any redwood tree that grows in
this wonderful valley.
"It is so secluded here that no one would suspect campers were about.
The trail leads down a steep descent. How stately it is between the huge
stems of the trees, along our beautiful creek, cool and clear as
crystal, and filled with trout and other fishes. There I sit in the sun
and allow the water to pour over my shoulders."
In another letter to Terry she writes:
"Our sylvan retreat has been somewhat disturbed by the advent of Mrs.
Johns, her children and her dog. Annie is also here, but they will not
remain long, it is too quiet, too lonely, and the nights are too
mysterious and uncanny, strange noises to disturb the slumbers of the
timid. And besides there is nothing to do, no hurry or bustle or
activity. The spirit of repose, of rest, of sweet laziness broods over
this spot, inviting us to dream away the hours among the spicy pine
trees. And for two such active ladies it is very dull here. Even when
they go to town they return disgusted and weary in spirit because of the
slowness of the natives, who are half Spanish, half Mexican. Even the
beautiful trail winding in and out among the mountains does not
compensate them for the dreadful slowness of the natives. I, however,
love this slowness and converse amicably with the natives. And when I am
a little active I go fishing, or climb about, or take a lesson in
Spanish from my old philosopher-cook. I am now learning a little peasant
song, the refrain being, 'Hula, tula, Palomita,' and it does sound so
beautiful that I repeat it over and over. It means, 'Fly, fly, little
dove!'
"The fishing I do not care for much. It is exciting for a time, but
soon grows a bit too strenuous for my lazy temper. The little stream is
filled with trout; one has flies for bait which have to be kept on the
move continually. Walking and jerking the lines out of the water
continually soon makes my arms and legs tired. I like best of all to lie
in a bed of fragrant leaves, my head in the shade and the rest of me in
the sun, the murmur of the brook in my ears, the skies mirrored in my
eyes, fantastic dreams in my mind--in these you are seldom absent. At
night I sleep as I have never slept--a deep, dreamless slumber. I awake
to a cold plunge in the stream. Oh, it just suits me! I am tired of
people, tired of tears and laughter, of men that 'laugh and weep,' and
'of what may come hereafter, for men that sow to reap.'"
A letter from Terry came like a dart into her solitude and for a moment
disturbed her mood--her deeply hygienic, fruitful mood. She wrote to
him:
"Your letter was a dreadful, an overwhelming shock. It aroused passions
in me which I thought were laid to rest. But, after getting very drunk,
I had sense enough to sleep over it, so that this morning I am almost
my new self again. Last night I felt like cursing you with all the
wrath of the earth and heaven. The last three weeks I have been camping
here, caught in the spell of the wonder and beauty of nature. I have
written you the half crazy rhapsodies of a girl intoxicated with the joy
of life and health. Now I do indeed think that life is beautiful and
worth the living. No, I do not worry about you. I am as happy and
care-free as the birds, and live in and for the moment. Everything in
the past is dead. Only when your letter came, these old things of my old
self raised their heads for a little time, but they too shall die
speedily, if I mistake not. Life is too wonderful, too beautiful to be
marred thus by the ends of frayed and worn-out passions, by memories or
regrets of you. I have become happy, healthy, and free, free without
hardness, and in my freedom and joy I have found my love, my beautiful
Terry, whom I may love passionately, tenderly and for ever, the dear
ideal one. Is it not wonderful? I crown myself with flowers and go forth
to meet him every day. I kneel at his feet and caress his dear hands.
For I love him dearly, this very new Terry. Yet, my dear, if you should
come near me, I mean, you, my old poisonous Terry, I would flee from you
as from a pest. I would loath myself and the sun and flowers and all the
other beautiful things of earth. I do not think of you at all, my old
Terry, but I think of you and love and adore you, my new, wonderful
Terry, and I make myself beautiful for you. So, my dear old Terry, I
will leave you to 'lice and liberty,' to your 'hard free life,' and I
will now lave myself with the pure crystal waters and make myself clean
again, and then look on the sun once more and dream again of my own
adorable Terry."
In this letter, Marie said, by implication, a deep truth about social
revolt. She could never have lived her life without him, this strange,
poetic man. He awoke in this outcast, rather vicious girl, a keen
longing for the excellent, for the pleasures of the intelligence and the
temperament; he gave her an assured sense of her own essential dignity
and worth; defended her against the society that rejected her. This was
a truly Christ-like thing to do, and this she could never forget or do
without. So, in her wilderness, she holds fast to her ideal Terry. But
with this idealist she could not live, practically. The growing
irritation felt by him because of his radical mal-adjustment to this
world rendered him step by step more impossible to live with. Harshness,
injustice, became forced upon him as qualities of his acts. How could he
be fair when he had no understanding of the nature of actuality? It is
probable that no woman can ever get so far away from actuality as a few
rare idealists of the male sex. Marie's relative good sense, her
vitality and love of life, finally rebelled against an idealism so
exquisite that it became cruelty and almost madness. And this is the way
with the world. The world cannot, in the end, endure the idealist,
though it has great need of him. The world can endure a certain amount
of irritation, a certain amount of fundamental revolt, but when that
revolt reaches the point of absolute rejection, the world rebels, the
worm turns. Marie represents the world and the worm.
Plato said there should be no poets in his Republic. Poets are too
disturbing, they fit into no social organisation, for the truth they see
is larger and often other than the truth of mankind's housekeeping, of
human society. So they are against society. They are for nature, both
God's nature and man's nature, but man's organisation arouses their
passionate hostility. Therefore, said Plato, let us have no poets in our
Republic. But Plato was a poet, and he probably knew that poets, though
inimical to the actual working of any actual society, yet are necessary
to keep alive the deeper ideals of humankind, to arouse perpetually the
instinct for something better than what we have, something deeply
better, something radically better, not the mere improvements,
palliatives, of the practical man and the conservative, bourgeois
reformer.