priceless attention drawn from his work at critical moments when he
might be on the point of making profound discoveries. My father is a
very absent-minded man, as great scholars usually are, and when he is
interrupted he may even forget what he has just been thinking about.
Your letter was a very serious shock to him, and after reading it he
could not even drink his tea at supper or enjoy his cold ham. Time
and again he put his cup down and said to me in a trembling voice:
"Think of his calling me a famous liar!" Then he got up from the
table without eating anything and left the room. He turned at the
door and said to me, with a confused expression: "I _may_, once in my
life--but _he_ didn't know anything about _that_."
He shut his door and stayed in his library all evening, thinking
without nourishment.
What a viper you are to call my great father a liar.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_June 12._
DEAR BEN:
I knew I was in for it! I send another installment of incredible
letters from unbelievable people.
In my wanderings over the earth after the ferns I have innocently
brought my foot against an ant-hill of Chamberlains. I called the
head of the hill a florist and he is a botanist, and the whole hill
is frantic with fury. As far as heard from, there are only two ants
in the hill, but the two make a lively many in their letters. It's a
Southern vendetta and my end may draw nigh.
Now, too, the inevitable quarrel with Tilly is at hand. She has been
out of town for a house-party somewhere and is to return to-morrow.
When Tilly came to New York a few years ago she had not an
acquaintance; now I marvel at the world of people she knows. It is
the result of her never declining an invitation. Once I derided her
about this, and with her almost terrifying honesty she avowed the
reason: that no one ever knew what an acquaintanceship might lead to.
This principle, or lack of principle, has led her far. And wherever
she goes, she is welcomed afterwards. It is her mystery, her charm.
I often ask myself what is her charm. At least her charm, as all
charm, is victory. You are defeated by her, chained and dragged
along. Of course, I expect all this to be reversed after Tilly
marries me. Then I am to have my turn--she is to be led around,
dragged helpless by _my_ charm. Magnificent outlook!
To-morrow she is to return, and I shall have to tell her that it is
all over--our wonderful summer in England. It is gone, the whole
vision drifts away like a gorgeous cloud, carrying with it the bright
raindrops of her hopes.
I have never, by the way, mentioned to Tilly this matter of the
ferns. My first idea was to surprise her: as some day we strolled
through the Blackthorne garden he would point to the Kentucky
specimens flourishing there in honour of me. I have always observed
that any unexpected pleasure flushes her face with a new light, with
an effulgence of fresh beauty, just as every disappointment makes her
suddenly look old and rather ugly.
This was the first reason. Now I do not intend to tell her at all.
Disappointment will bring out her demand to know why she is
disappointed--naturally. But how am I to tell on the threshold of
marriage that it is all due to a misunderstanding about a handful of
ferns! It would be ridiculous. She would never believe
me--naturally. She would infer that I was keeping back the real
reason, as being too serious to be told.
Here, then, I am. But where am I?
BEVERLEY (complete and final
disappearance of the Magic Skin).
BEN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_June 13._
DEAR BEVERLEY:
You are perfectly right not to tell Tilly about the ferns. Here I
come in: there must always be things that a man must refuse to tell a
woman. As soon as he tells her everything, she puts her foot on his
neck. I have always refused even to tell Polly some things, not that
they might not be told, but that Polly must not be told them; not for
the things' sake, but for Polly's good--and for a man's peaceful
control of his own life.
For whatever else a woman marries in a man, one thing in him she must
marry: a rock. Times will come when she will storm and rage around
that rock; but the storms cannot last forever, and when they are
over, the rock will be there. By degrees there will be less storm.
Polly's very loyalty to me inspires her to take possession of my
whole life; to enter into all my affairs. I am to her a house, no
closet of which must remain locked. Thus there are certain closets
which she repeatedly tries to open. I can tell by her very
expression when she is going to try once more. Were they opened, she
would not find much; but it is much to be guarded that she shall not
open them.
The matter is too trivial to explain to Tilly as fact and too
important as principle.
Harbour no fear that Polly knows from me anything about the ferns!
When I am with Polly, my thoughts are not on the grass of the fields.
Let me hear at once how the trouble turns out with Tilly.
I must not close without making a profound obeisance to your new
acquaintances--the Chamberlains.
BEN.
TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES
_June 15._
DEAR POLLY:
Something extremely disagreeable has come up between Beverley and me.
He tells me we're not to go to England on our wedding journey as
anyone's guests: we travel as ordinary American tourists unknown to
all England.
You can well understand what this means to me: you have watched all
along how I have pinched on my small income to get ready for this
beautiful summer. There has been a quarrel of some kind between Mr.
Blackthorne and Beverley. Beverley refuses to tell me the nature of
the quarrel. I insisted that it was my right to know and he insisted
that it is a man's affair with another man and not any woman's
business. Think of a woman marrying a man who lays it down as a law
that his affairs are none of her business!
I gave Beverley to understand that our marriage was deferred for the
summer. He broke off the engagement.
I had not meant to tell you anything, since I am coming to-night. I
have merely wished you to understand how truly anxious I am to see
you, even forgetting your last letter--no, not forgetting it, but
overlooking it. Remember you _then_ broke an appointment with me;
_this_ time keep your appointment--being loyal! The messenger will
wait for your reply, stating whether the way is clear for me to come.
TILLY.
POLLY BOLES TO TILLY SNOWDEN
_June 15._
DEAR TILLY:
Dr. Mullen had an appointment with me for to-night, but I have
written to excuse myself, and I shall be waiting most impatiently.
The coast will be clear and I hope the night will be.
"The turnip," as you call it, will be empty; "the horse-radish" and
"the beets" will be still the same; "the wilted sunflower" will shed
its usual ray on our heads. No breeze will disturb us, for there
will be no fresh air. We shall have the long evening to ourselves,
and you can tell me just how it is that you two, _not_ heavy Tilly,
_not_ heavy Beverley, sat on opposite sides of the room and declared
to each other:
"I will not."
"I will not."
Since I have broken an engagement for you, be sure not to let any
later temptation elsewhere keep you away.
POLLY.
[Later in the day]
BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES
_June 13._
DEAR POLLY:
Beverley and Tilly have had the long-expected final flare-up.
Yesterday he wrote, asking me to come up as soon as I was through
with business. I spent last night with him.
We drew our chairs up to his opened window, turned out the lights,
got our cigars, and with our feet on the window-sills and our eyes on
the stars across the sky talked the long, quiet hours through.
He talked, not I. Little could I have said to him about the woman
who has played fast and loose with him while using him for her
convenience. He made it known at the outset that not a word was to
be spoken against her.
He just lay back in his big easy chair, with his feet on his
window-sill and his eyes on the stars, and built up his defence of
Tilly. All night he worked to repair wreckage.
As the grey of morning crept over the city his work was well done:
Tilly was restored to more than she had ever been. Silence fell upon
him as he sat there with his eyes on the reddening east; and it may
be that he saw her--now about to leave him at last--as some white,
angelic shape growing fainter and fainter as it vanished in the flush
of a new day.
You know what I think of this Tilly-angel. If there were any wings
anywhere around, it was those of an aeroplane leaving its hangar with
an early start to bring down some other victim: the angel-aeroplane
out after more prey. I think we both know who the prey will be.
The solemn influence of the night has rested on me. Were it
possible, I should feel even a higher respect for Beverley; there is
something in him that fills me with awe. He suffers. He could mend
Tilly but he cannot mend himself: in a way she has wrecked him.
Their quarrel brings me with an aching heart closer to you. I must
come to-night. The messenger will wait for a word that I may. And a
sudden strange chill of desolation as to life's brittle ties
frightens me into sending you some roses.
Your lover through many close and constant years,
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.
[Still later in the day]
POLLY BOLES TO TILLY SNOWDEN
_June 15._
DEAR, DEAR, DEAR TILLY:
An incredible thing has happened. Ben has just written that he
wishes to see me to-night. Will you, after all, wait until to-morrow
evening? My dear, I _have_ to ask this of you because there is
something very particular that Ben desires to talk to me about.
_To-morrow night_, then, without fail, you and I!
POLLY BOLES.
POLLY BOLES AND BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO
BEVERLEY SANDS
[Late at night of the same day]
_June 15._
DEAR BEVERLEY:
We have talked the matter over and send you our conjoined
congratulations that your engagement is broken off and your immediate
peril ended. But our immediate caution is that the end of the
betrothal will not necessarily mean the end of entanglement: the
tempter will at once turn away from you in pursuit of another man.
She will begin to weave her web about _him_. But if possible she
will still hold _you_ to that web by a single thread. Now, more than
ever, you will need to be on your guard, if such a thing is possible
to such a nature as yours.
Not until obliged will she ever let you go completely. She hath a
devil--perhaps the most famous devil in all the world--the love
devil. And all devils, famous or not famous, are poor quitters.
(Signed)
POLLY BOLES for Ben Doolittle.
BEN DOOLITTLE for Polly Boles.
(His handwriting; her ideas
and language.)
TILLY SNOWDEN TO DR. MARIGOLD
MY DEAR DR. MARIGOLD:
This is the third time within the past several months that I have
requested you to let me have your bill for professional services. I
shall not suppose that you have relied upon my willingness to remain
under an obligation of this kind; nor do I like to think I have
counted for so little among your many patients that you have not
cared whether I paid you or not. If your motive has been kindness, I
must plainly tell you that I do not desire such kindness; and if
there has been no motive at all, but simply indifference, I must
remind you that this indifference means disrespect and that I resent
it.
The things you have indirectly done for me in other ways--the songs,
the books and magazines, the flowers--these I accept with warm
responsive hands and a lavish mind.
And with words not yet uttered, perhaps never to be uttered.
Yours sincerely,
TILLY SNOWDEN.
_June the Seventeenth._
TILLY SNOWDEN TO DR. MARIGOLD
MY DEAR DR. MARIGOLD:
I have your bill and I make the due remittance with all due thanks.
Your note pleasantly reassures me how greatly you are obliged that I
could put you in correspondence with some Kentucky cousins about the
purchase of a Kentucky saddle-horse. It was a pleasure; in fact, a
matter of some pride to do this, and I am delighted that they could
furnish you a horse you approve.
While taking my customary walk in the Park yesterday morning, I had a
chance to see you and your new mount making acquaintance with one
another. I can pay you no higher compliment than to say that you
ride like a Kentuckian.
Unconsciously, I suppose, it has become a habit of mine to choose the
footways through the Park which skirt the bridle path, drawn to them
by my childhood habit and girlish love of riding. Even to see from
day to day what one once had but no longer has is to keep alive hope
that one may some day have it again.
You should some time go to Kentucky and ride there. My cousins will
look to that.
Yours sincerely,
TILLY SNOWDEN.
_June the Eighteenth._
TILLY SNOWDEN TO DR. MARIGOLD
MY DEAR DR. MARIGOLD:
I was passing this morning and witnessed the accident, and I must
express my condolences for what might have been and congratulations
upon what was.
You certainly fell well--not unlike a Kentuckian!
I feel sure that my cousins could not have known the horse was
tricky. Any horse is tricky to the end of his days and the end of
his road. He may not show any tricks at home, but becomes tricky in
new places. (Can this be the reason that he is called the most human
of beasts?)
You buying a Kentucky horse brings freshly to my mind that of late
you have expressed growing interest in Kentucky. More than once,
also (since you have begun to visit me), you have asked me to tell
you about my life there. Frankly, this is because I am something of
a mystery and you would like to have the mystery cleared up. You
wish to find out, without letting me know you are finding out,
whether there is not something _wrong_ about me, some _risk_ for you
in visiting me. That is because you have never known anybody like
me. I frighten you because I am not afraid of people, not afraid of
life. You are used to people who are afraid, especially to women who
are afraid. You yourself are horribly afraid of nearly everything.
Suppose I do tell you a little about my life, though it may not
greatly explain why I am without fear; still, the land and the people
might mean something; they ought to mean much.
I was born of not very poor and immensely respectable parents in a
poor and not very respectable county of Kentucky. The first thing I
remember about life, my first social consciousness, was the discovery
that I was entangled in a series of sisters: there were six of us. I
was as nearly as possible at the middle of the procession--with three
older and two younger, so that I was crowded both by what was before
and by what was behind. I early learned to fight for the
present--against both the past and the future--learned to seize what
I could, lest it be seized either by hands reaching backward or by
hands reaching forward. Literally, I opened my eyes upon life's
insatiate competition and I began to practise at home the game of the
world.
Why my mother bore only daughters will have to be referred to the new
science which takes as its field the forces and the mysteries that
are sovereign between the nuptials and the cradle. But the reason,
as openly laughed about in the family when the family grew old enough
to laugh, as laughed about in the neighbourhood, was this:
Even before marriage my father and my mother had waged a violent
discussion about woman's suffrage. You may not know that in Kentucky
from the first the cause of female suffrage has been upheld by a
strong minority of strong women, a true pioneer movement toward the
nation's future now near. It seems that my father, who was a
brilliant lawyer, always browbeat my mother in argument, overwhelmed
her, crushed her. Unconvinced, in resentful silence, she quietly
rocked on her side of the fireplace and looked deep into the coals.
But regularly when the time came she replied to all his arguments by
presenting him with another suffragette! Throughout her life she
declined even to bear him a son to continue the argument! Her six
daughters--she would gladly have had twelve if she could--were her
triumphant squad for the armies of the great rebellion.
Does this help to explain me to you?
What next I relate about my early life is something that you perhaps
have never given a thought to--children's pets and playthings: it
explains a great deal. Have you ever thought of a vital difference
between country children and town children? Country children more
quickly throw away their dolls, if they have them, and attach their
sympathies to living objects. A child's love of a doll is at best a
sham: a little master-drama of the child's imagination trying to fill
two roles--its own and the role of something which cannot respond.
But a child's love of a living creature, which it chooses as the
object of its love and play and protection, is stimulating, healthful
and kicking with reality: because it is vitalised by reciprocity in
the playmate, now affectionate and now hostile, but always
representing something intensely alive--which is the whole main thing.
We are just beginning to find out that the dramas of childhood are
the playgrounds of life's battlefields. The ones prepare for the
others. A nature that will cling to a rag doll without any return,
will cling to a rag husband without any return. A child's loyalty to
an automaton prepares a woman for endurance of an automaton. Dolls
have been the undoing and the death of many wives.
A multitude of dolls would have been needed to supply the six
destructive little girls of my mother's household. We soon broke our
china tea sets or, more gladly, smashed one another's. For whatever
reason, all lifeless pets, all shams, were quickly swept out of the
house and the little scattering herd of us turned our restless and
insatiate natures loose upon life itself. Sooner or later we petted
nearly everything on the farm. My father was a director of the
County Fair, and I remember that one autumn, about fair-time, we
roped off a corner of the yard and held a prize exhibition of our
favourites that year. They comprised a kitten, a duck, a pullet, a
calf, a lamb and a puppy.
Sooner or later our living playthings outgrew us or died or were sold
or made their sacrificial way to the kitchen. Were we disconsolate?
Not a bit. Did we go down to the branch and gather there under an
old weeping willow? Quite the contrary. Our hearts thrived on death
and destruction, annihilation released us from old ties, change gave
us another chance, and we provided substitutes and continued our
devotion.
And I think this explains a good deal. And these two experiences of
my childhood, taken together, explain me better than anything else I
know. Competition first taught me to seize what I wanted before
anyone else could seize it. Natural changes next taught me to be
prepared at any moment to give that up without vain regret and to
seize something else. Thus I seemed to learn life's lesson as I
learned to walk: that what you love will not last long, and that long
love is possible only when you love often.
So many women know this; how few admit it!
Sincerely yours,
TILLY SNOWDEN.
_June the Nineteenth._
TILLY SNOWDEN TO DR. MARIGOLD
MY DEAR DR. MARIGOLD:
You sail to-morrow. And to-morrow I go away for the summer: first to
some friends, then further away to other friends, then still further
away to other friends: a summer pageant of brilliant changes.
There is no reason why I should write to you. Your stateroom will be
filled with flowers; you will have letters and telegrams; friends
will wave to you from the pier. My letter may be lost among the
others, but at least it will have been written, and writing it is its
pleasure to me.
I was to go to England this summer, was to go as a bride. A few
nights since I decided not to go because I did not approve of the
bridegroom.
We marvel at life's coincidences: one evening, not long ago, while
speaking of your expected summer in England, you mentioned that you
planned to make a pilgrimage to see Edward Blackthorne. You were to
join some American friends over there and take them with you. That
is the coincidence: _I_ was to visit the Blackthornes this very
summer, not as a stranger pilgrim, but as an invited guest--with the
groom whom I have rejected.
It is like scattering words before the obvious to say that I wish you
a pleasant summer. Not a forgetful one. To aid memory, as you, some
night on the passage across, lean far over and look down at the
phosphorescent couch of the sea for its recumbent Venus of the deep,
remember that the Venus of modern life is the American woman.
Am I to see you when autumn, if nothing else, brings you home--see
you not at all or seldom or often?
At least this will remind you that I merely say _au revoir_.
Adrift for the summer rather than be an unwilling bride.
TILLY SNOWDEN.
_June twenty-first._
TILLY SNOWDEN TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_June 21._
DEAR BEVERLEY:
Since life separated us the other night I have not heard from you. I
have not expected a letter, nor do you expect one from me. But I am
going away to-morrow for the summer and my heart has a few words for
you which must be spoken.
It was not disappointment about the summer in England, not even your
refusal to explain why you disappointed me, that held the main reason
of my drawing back. I am in the mood to-night to tell you some
things very frankly:
Twice before I knew you, I was engaged to be married and twice as the
wedding drew near I drew away from it. It is an old, old feeling of
mine, though I am so young, that if married I should not long be
happy. Of course I should be happy for a while. But _afterwards_!
The interminable, intolerable _afterwards_! The same person year in
and year out--I should be stifled. Each of the men to whom I was
engaged had given me before marriage all that he had to give: the
rest I did not care for; after marriage with either I foresaw only
staleness, his limitations, monotony.
Believe this, then: there are things in you that I cling to, other
things in you that do not draw me at all. And I cling more to life
than to you, more than to any one person. How can any one person
ever be all to me, all that I am meant for, and _I will live_!
Why should we women be forced to spend our lives beside the first
spring where one happened to fill one's cup at life's dawn! Why be
doomed to die in old age at the same spring! With all my soul I
believe that the world which has slowly thrown off so many tyrannies
is about to throw off other tyrannies. It has been so harsh toward
happiness, so compassionate toward misery and wrong. Yet happiness
is life's finest victory: for ages we have been trying to defeat our
one best victory--our natural happiness!
A brief cup of joy filled at life's morning--then to go thirsty for
the rest of the long, hot, weary day! Why not goblet after goblet at
spring after spring--there are so many springs! And thirst is so
eager for them!
Come to see me in the autumn. For I will not, cannot, give you up.
And when you come, do not seek to renew the engagement. Let that go
whither it has gone. But come to see me.
For I love you.
TILLY.
TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES
_June 21._
POLLY BOLES:
This is good-bye to you for the summer and, better than that, it is
good-bye to you for life. Why not, in parting, face the truth that
we have long hated each other and have used our acquaintanceship and
our letters to express our hatred? How could there ever have been
any friendship between you and me?
Let me tell you of the detestable little signs that I have noticed in
you for years. Are you aware that all the time you have occupied
your apartment, you have never changed the arrangement of your
furniture? As soon as your guests are gone, you push every chair
where it was before. For years your one seat has been the same end
of the same frayed sofa. Many a time I have noted your disquietude
if any guest happened to sit there and forced you to sit elsewhere.
For years you have worn the same breast-pin, though you have several.
The idea of your being inconstant to a breast-pin! You pride
yourself in such externals of faithfulness.
You soul of perfidy!
I leave you undisturbed to innumerable appointments with Ben, and
with the same particular something to talk about, falsest woman I
have ever known.
Have you confided to Ben Doolittle the fact that you are secretly
receiving almost constant attentions from Dr. Mullen? Will you tell
him? _Or shall I?_
TILLY SNOWDEN.
POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_June 23rd._
DEAR BEN:
I am worried.