A LETTER TO LINCOLN
Reaching this point in my narrative I lean back in my chair--the coals
are dying down in the fireplace, Harriet long ago went to bed, and the
house is silent with a silence that one can hear--I lean back and think
again of that moment in Anthy's life.
I have before me an open letter, a letter so often opened and so often
folded again that the creases are worn thin. I keep it in the drawer of
my desk with a packet labelled, "Archives of the _Star_." There are
several of the old Captain's editorials, including the one entitled
"Fudge," and of course the one about Roosevelt, a number of Nort's early
manuscripts, Fergus's version of Mark Twain, and five letters in
Anthy's firm handwriting.
This is a very curious document, this letter I have before me. The
outside of the envelope bears the name of Abraham Lincoln, and the
letter itself begins: "Dear Mr. Lincoln." It is in Anthy's hand.
Ever since I began writing this narrative I have been impatient to reach
this moment, but now that I am here, I hesitate. It is no common matter
to put down the secret imaginings of a woman's soul.
We all lead double lives: that which our friends and neighbours know,
and that which is invisible within us. Acquaintance gives us the outward
aspects of our neighbours, with friendship we penetrate a little way
into the deeper life, but when we love there is no glen too secret for
us, no upland too elusive, and we worship at the altars of the eternal
woods. Long before I knew Anthy well I knew something of her deeper
life, something more than that which looked out of her still eyes or
marked her quiet countenance. The quality of Anthy's silences were a
sign: and I surprised once the look she had when walking alone in a
country road. People who are shallow, or whose inner lives are harassed
by forms of fear ("most men," as Thoreau says, "live lives of quiet
desperation") rarely care to be silent, rarely wish to be alone with
themselves; but it is the sign of a noble nature that it has made terms
with itself.
One of the tragedies of life, perhaps the supreme tragedy, is that we
should be unable to follow those we love to their serenest heights. I
once knew a man who had lived for twenty years with a woman, and never
got beyond what he could see with the eyes of the flesh. The gate to the
uplands of the soul long stood open to him (and stands open now no
more); he passed that way, too, but he never went in.
I do not wish to imply that Anthy was a mere dreamer. She was not,
decidedly; but she had, always, her places of retirement. From a child
she had friends of her own imagining. The first of them I have already
referred to, a certain Richard and Rachel who came out through the wall
near the stairway in her father's house, to be the confidants of a
lonely child. Others came later as she grew older. I know the names of
some of them, and just what they meant to Anthy at particular moments
in her life. They came to her, as friends come to us in real life, as we
are ripe for them.
It was some time after her father's death, when she felt very much
alone, that Anthy wrote her first letter to Mr. Lincoln. Her father had
made Lincoln one of the most vivid characters of her girlhood: a
portrait of him hung over the mantel in the living-room, and there was
another at the office. One day, almost involuntarily, she began a
letter:
DEAR MR. LINCOLN: I wish you were here. My father knew you
well and trusted you more than he trusted any other man. He
used to say that no other American who ever lived had such
an understanding of the hearts of people as you had. I think
you would understand some of the troubles I am now having
with the _Star_, and that you would help me to be sensible
and strong. When I was in college I thought I had begun to
know something, but since I have come back here I feel like
a very small girl again. I don't _know_ enough to run the
_Star_, and yet I cannot let it go----
[Illustration: _She turned around quickly--but there was no one there to
see_]
Once started, she poured out her very heart to Mr. Lincoln: and having
completed the letter she folded it, placed it in an envelope, on which
she wrote "Abraham Lincoln," and going to the mantel slipped it behind
Mr. Lincoln's picture. Then she turned around quickly, looked all
about--but there was no one there to see. She told me long afterward
that it seemed at first a little absurd to be actually writing letters
to Mr. Lincoln, but that it relieved her mind and made her feel more
cheerful in her loneliness. After that it became an almost daily
practice for her to pour out her thoughts and difficulties to Mr.
Lincoln. And the place behind the portrait was the post office. She said
that sometimes during the busiest parts of the day the thought would
suddenly flash across her mind that she would tell Mr. Lincoln this or
that, and it gave her a curious deep sense of comfort. Each evening she
destroyed the letter she had written on the day before--destroyed them
all, except those which lie here on my desk.
I am sure that this practice meant a great deal in Anthy's life. One
cannot know much about any great human being, think what he would do
under this or that circumstance, or what he would say if he were here,
without coming to be something like him. We are strangely influenced in
this world by those whom we admire most. Harriet and I know a little old
maid--I have written about her elsewhere--who has thought so much about
the Carpenter of Nazareth that she has come to be wonderfully like Him.
It would be impossible for any one to understand Anthy, or, indeed, the
life of the _Star_, or Nort, without knowing of the deep inner forces
which were influencing her. I know now why she maintained through all
the earlier days, those trying days, the front of quiet courage.
And so I come to the letter open here on my desk. It is the one that
Anthy wrote on the night that Nort went home with her for the first
time. It is not a long letter, and was evidently written hastily at the
little table I have so often seen, at which I once sat quietly for a
long time, where one may easily glance up at the portrait over the
mantel. It is the first letter in which she ever referred at any great
length to Nort. And this is the letter:
DEAR MR. LINCOLN: Well, we have had a wonderful day! We
finished the setting of the poetry, of which I told you,
early in the afternoon, but the last paper was not folded
until after nine o'clock this evening.
I am uncertain whether we have done wisely or not. My father
would never have dreamed of anything so _different_, and Ed
Smith will probably be horrified. We may have been too
easily carried away by our irrepressible Vagabond, but if I
had the decision to make again, I should do exactly what I
have done. It's a sort of Declaration of Independence!
Our Vagabond came home with me this evening. Probably I
should not have let him, but there's no harm done: he didn't
know, most of the time, whether I was with him or he was
alone. What a dreamer he is, anyway! We started talking
about the _Star_, but no one heavenly body will long satisfy
him. He soon soared away in the blue firmament, touched
lightly upon a constellation or two, and was getting ready
to settle the problems of the universe--when we arrived at
the gate. I had some trouble to get him down to solid earth
again. _He is no tramp printer_, of that I am certain. He
has completely won over Uncle Newt, and his way with Fergus
passeth understanding. Fergus trots around like a collie
dog, rather cross, but faithful. David looks at him with
that contemplative, humorous, philosophical expression he
has, and isn't the least bit fooled. As for me, what _shall_
I do with him and Ed Smith and Uncle Newt all in the office
together! One can see that he has some fine qualities and
impractical ideas--only he needs some one to take care of
him and keep him out of mischief. He deserves the comment
which Miss Bacon, our Latin professor, used to make in her
dry way about some of the men who called on the girls at
college: "Very interesting, very interesting, but very
young." What a spectacle he was when he came to us first!
It is a pity that a man like that, so full of ideas and
enthusiasm, should be so irresponsible! He has a very fine
head and really wonderful eyes!
To-morrow promises to be an interesting day. I wonder what
we shall hear from our poetry!
Your friend,
A. D.
I have always thought that Nort was a little abashed at the way in which
he talked to Anthy on that first evening, though he never admitted it in
so many words. And an incident occurred the next day that caused him to
take a new attitude toward her. Up to this time he had treated her just
like any other member of the staff, with easy, off-hand freedom. One of
the visitors inquired:
"May I see the proprietor of the _Star_?"
Fergus replied: "Miss Doane will be here in a few minutes."
It struck Nort all in a heap. She _was_ the proprietor, and, therefore,
his employer. It gave him a curious, and rather unpleasant, twinge
inside somewhere; yes, and it hurt a little, but wound up by being
irresistibly funny. She was his "boss," this girl, she actually paid him
his wages. She could discharge him, too, by George! He stopped suddenly
and went off into a wild shout of laughter. Fergus took his pipe out of
his mouth, held it a moment while he looked Nort over, and then, slowly
nodding his head but saying never a word, put it back again.
Now, if there was anything in this world that irked the Nort of those
days it was the feeling of restraint, of being reined in. All that day,
in spite of varied excitements which followed the publication of the
poetry, Nort was overcome from time to time by the thought of Anthy as
his "boss," and, in spite of all he could do, there were other feelings,
curious, inexplicable feelings, mingled with the amusement he felt.
It was inevitable that Nort should somehow act upon the impulse of this
new thought. His eager mind played with it, suggesting a thousand
amusing plans. Here was a situation that had possibilities.
In the middle of the afternoon Nort suddenly pretended to be out of a
job, and walking up to Anthy's desk he stood up very straight and stiff,
and pulling at a lock of hair over his forehead, said very respectfully:
"What shall I do next, miss?"
Anthy glanced up at him. It rather offended his vanity that she seemed
so surprised to see him there. Evidently he was very far from her
thoughts. His face was as sober and as blank as the face of nature, but
Anthy saw the spark in his eyes--and the challenge--though she did not
know exactly what he meant.
He pulled his forelock again, and in a voice still more subdued and
respectful, repeated:
"What shall I do next, miss?"
There was a slightly higher colour in Anthy's face, but she looked
squarely into his eyes and said quietly:
"You'd better help Fergus clean up the press."
I shall never forget the look of puzzled wonder and chagrin in Nort's
face as he turned away. Anthy went back to her work with apparent
unconcern.
[Illustration]