Toward the end of 1918, and after a short and unexpected illness, our Toto,
who had walked beside us for over ten years, passed over. To write of it
even now is acute pain. The loss was like that of an only and uniquely
beloved child. We were stunned, and in spite of my philosophy I went to
pieces as I had never done in my life. It was over this heart-breaking
event that Mr. Saltus displayed his extraordinary qualities.
"I wish you would have little Totesy's body cremated and her ashes kept and
mingled with mine," he said.
Astonishment brought the reply,
"I never realized that you loved her so deeply."
"Nor did I until now, but it is not only that. Husbands may come and go,
but there can never be but one Toto," he said. "With whom do you wish to
be buried?"
I was silent.
"There, you have answered me," he said after a pause. "I am sure you are
planning to be buried in the Dogs' Cemetery in Hartsdale. Do as I ask. Let
Toto's ashes and mine be mingled,--then, no matter where you go or what you
do in the future, yours too will rest with mine at the last."
His wishes were carried out, and the ashes of the little being we loved so
deeply are mixed with his own. Under a modest head-stone on which is
engraved his name and the word "Eternamente," but a few feet from the
monument covering the remains of his brother Frank, their ashes rest
waiting to include my own.
This death cast a profound sadness over us. From comparative health, I went
into a state of collapse and prolapsis such as I had never suffered before.
Too ill and too indifferent even to speak, unless absolutely necessary,
our apartment became a place of silence. It was the most awful winter of
our lives, but to his credit it must be said that Mr. Saltus not only never
uttered a complaint but pretended all the time that his legs were rapidly
getting better.
An unfortunate lease chained us to the depressing surroundings. It scourged
Mr. Saltus' very soul to see me in such a condition and be powerless to
help, for all he ever asked of me was to smile. When I could not do that,
his world became night. He would sit beside my bed, the foot of which was
elevated to an uncomfortable degree, and chat at length and delightfully on
the interesting mysteries of antiquity in his effort to divert my mind.
It was then he started on "The Imperial Orgy." Taking some articles he had
written for Munsey's Magazine years before as a base, he undertook, with
the aid of some up-to-date books and notes he had gathered together during
the years, to make a volume. Writing was not as easy as it had once been.
It required an effort he had never before experienced. Added to this, he
took on a new job. For a man of letters it was an extraordinary thing.
Unacquainted with any detail of housekeeping, hating the petty,
uninteresting trifles necessary to it, it was a far step for him to
undertake ordering the meals and going to market. Upon occasions when for
one cause or another the maid failed to appear of a morning, he even made
my tea and toast and brought them to my bedside.
All the time he pretended to have a fancy for this. The shops on Amsterdam
Avenue in the immediate vicinity of our apartment got to know him well. Now
and again he would come in and say:--
"I went into a shop around the corner and a young lady jumped into my arms,
licked my nose and tickled my ear with her tail. Don't tell me I am not a
winner with the women."
I had to smile at that. The "young lady" was an Angora cat who embellished
a shop in the neighborhood. To the amusement of her owner and the
customers, she would jump on Mr. Saltus' shoulders as soon as he appeared,
and, wrapping herself about his neck like a scarf, would purr loudly. That
cat pleased him enormously, and he was never tired of telling me about her.
It was her purr which made him a constant patron of the shop.
Mr. Saltus had a profound interest in the enigmas of the past, and knowing
I was keen also, he would sit on the foot of my bed and chat for hours
concerning the Gates of Babylon, the astrological orientation of the
Pyramids, Tyre, Carthage and the Incas. He was at his best during these
times,--profound, epigrammatic and cynical by turns. The pity of it is that
he had no audience but myself. He could have held any assemblage
spell-bound for any length of time.
It was at this sad time, and during my breakdown which followed, that Mr.
Saltus gave fullest expression to the understanding, sympathetic and tender
side of his nature. These qualities he always possessed in a superlative
degree, and they were the leaven which made him unique among men. So
certain was I always of his attitude toward me, that it was my habit to run
to him with a cut finger or an obsolete word. Whatever the case, my needs
were answered immediately.
When I turned to him as usual, but with a breaking heart, he comforted me
as he alone could. Night after night, when sleep dissolved into a mirage,
he sat by my bed and read aloud to me. Algernon Blackwood was a great
favorite with both of us. Some novel of his was always on Mr. Saltus' desk.
I could not count the times he read the short stories in "Dr. Silence"
aloud to me, and after reading discussed the various themes on which they
were constructed. Talbot Mundy is another for whom Mr. Saltus had a great
admiration, and his books were substituted when we began to know "Dr.
Silence" by heart. He never asked me if I would like to have him read to
me, or what particular books I fancied. He always knew, and brought the
volume suited to my mood of the moment. Swinburne sang and scintillated
through him many and many an evening, and no one could give the lights and
shades, the flow and flavour of his verse, as Mr. Saltus did. He adored
Swinburne. At other times Keats' "Nightingale" trilled in the twilight.
This was when I could be read to and diverted, but there were times when I
was too ill and miserable to listen. Then Mr. Saltus would take me on his
lap and rock me as one would a child, singing little songs he made up as he
rocked. He had done this often during the years, but never with such
tenderness as at this time.
A friend of mine to whom I gave a rough draft of this biography to read,
said:
"Did you never do anything but quarrel with Mr. Saltus?"
That remark surprised me into reading it over in a new light. Then I saw
what she meant. So much of our life together was quiet, uneventful and
peaceful, that to bring out Mr. Saltus' many-sidedness, I have given
prominence to incidents of various kinds--exceptional happenings, rather
than our everyday life. As a matter of fact our life together was
exceptionally harmonious.
It has been said by my critics, and with a great deal of truth, that I am
the last woman on earth Mr. Saltus should have married. No one appreciates
this fact better than I do--and this in spite of our similar tastes and
temperament. A genius should never marry. There is that in his nature which
not only unfits him for the limitations of conventional existence, but
diverts and distracts his imaginative faculty and creative ability. If a
genius marries at all, it should be to find not only a pillow for his
moods, eccentricities and weariness, but a being who, merging her
personality in his, supplements, and that unconsciously, such qualities as
he may need in his work. The wife of a genius should lead his life
alone--be able to anticipate his needs and supply them, so unobtrusively
that he accepts her services without knowing it.
Although anxious to do this, I could not. It was temperamentally
impossible, however much I tried to bring it about. Many factors were at
the base of this inability,--my frailty as a child and the continuous care
given to me in consequence; added to this was the disparity in our ages,
which tinged Mr. Saltus' attitude toward me with that of a father. His
former unhappy marriages had left their mark, and made him desire to be
father, mother, husband and protector to me.
Coming into my life at the age and in the way he did, he was Edgar Saltus
the man, never the author, to me, his work being lost in his personality.
This was what he wanted, and, as he frequently expressed it:--
"To the world I am Edgar Saltus the author, but thank God, I can be merely
Mr. Me to you."
Times without number I tried to make myself over into the kind of wife a
literary man should have, but with the same results. However much I tried
to conceal these efforts, Mr. Saltus would see them and say:--
"Do stop trying to be somebody else, and be my little girl again. You think
you know the kind of a woman I should have married. Perhaps you do, but I
would have killed her ages and ages ago. Do be yourself. I wouldn't have
you changed by a hair."
However much he was deluded, it was by himself, for I always told him that
I was the last woman in the world he should have selected.