the belief that you see life clearly and judge rightly the
fellow-beings whom you know. Those _you_ doubt ought to be doubted
and those _you_ trust ought to be trusted! Now I have travelled far
enough on life's road to have passed its many human figures--perhaps
all the human types that straggle along it in their many ways. No
figures on that road have been more noticeable to me than here and
there a man in whom I have discerned a broken cocksure.
You say you like biography: do you like to read the Life of Robert
Burns? And I wonder whether these words of his have ever guided you
in your outlook upon life:
"_Then gently scan your brother man_
* * * * *
_To step aside is human._"
I thank you again. I wish you well. And I hope that no experience,
striking at you out of life's uncertainties, may ever leave you one
of those noticeable men--a broken cocksure.
Your deeply obliged and very grateful,
EDWARD BLACKTHORNE.
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_June 30, 1912._
DEAR BEVERLEY:
About a month ago I took it upon myself to write the one letter that
had long been raging in my mind to Edward Blackthorne. And I sent
him all the fern letters. And then I drew up the whole case and
prosecuted him as your lawyer.
Of course I meant my letter to be an infernal machine that would blow
him to pieces. He merely inspected it, removed the fuse and inserted
a crank, and turned it into a music-box to grind out his praises.
And then the kind of music he ground out for me.
All day I have been ashamed to stand up and I've been ashamed to sit
down. He told me that my letter reminded him of a character in his
first novel--a woman called _Sal Blivvens_. ME--_Sal Blivvens!_
But of what use is it for us poor, common-clay, rough, ordinary men
who have no imagination--of what use is it for us to attack you
superior fellows who have it, have imagination? You are the Russians
of the human mind, and when attacked on your frontiers, you merely
retreat into a vast, unknown, uninvadable country. The further you
retire toward the interior of your mysterious kingdom, the nearer you
seem to approach the fortresses of your strength.
I am wiser--if no better. If ever again I feel like attacking any
stranger with a letter, I shall try to ascertain beforehand whether
he is an ordinary man like me or a genius. If he is a genius, I am
going to let him alone.
Yet, damn me if I, too, wouldn't like to see your man Blackthorne
now. Ask him some time whether a short visit from Benjamin Doolittle
could be arranged on any terms of international agreement.
Now for something on my level of ordinary life! A day or two ago I
was waiting in front of the residence of one of my uptown clients, a
few doors from the residence of your friend Dr. Marigold. While I
waited, he came out on the front steps with Dr. Mullen. As I drove
past, I leaned far out and made them a magnificent sweeping bow: one
can afford to be forgiving and magnanimous after he settled things to
his satisfaction. They did not return the bow but exchanged quiet
smiles. I confess the smiles have rankled. They seemed like saying:
he bows best who bows last.
You are the best thing in New York to me since Polly went away.
Without you both it would come near to being one vast solitude.
BEN (alias _Sal Blivvens_).
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE
_July 1, 1912._
DEAR BEN:
I wrote you this morning upon receipt of your letter telling me of
your own terrific letter to Mr. Blackthorne and of your merciless
arraignment of him. Let me say again that I wish to pour out my
gratitude to you for your motives and also, well, also my regret at
your action. Somehow I have been reminded of Voltaire's saying: he
had a brother who was such a fool that he started out to be perfect;
as a consequence the world knows nothing of Voltaire's brother: it
knows very well Voltaire with his faults.
The mail of yesterday which brought you Mr. Blackthorne's reply to
your arraignment brought me also a letter: he must have written to us
both instantly. His letter is the only one that I cannot send you;
you would not desire to read it. You are too big and generous, too
warmly human, too exuberantly vital, to care to lend ear to a great
man's chagrin and regret for an impulsive mistake. You are not
Cassius to carp at Caesar.
Now this afternoon a second letter comes from Mr. Blackthorne and
that I enclose: it will do you good to read it--it is not a black
passing cloud, it is steady human sunlight.
BEVERLEY.
[Enclosed letter from Edward Blackthorne]
MY DEAR MR. SANDS:
I follow up my letter of yesterday with the unexpected tidings of
to-day. I am willing to believe that these will interest you as
associated with your coming visit.
Hodge is dead. His last birthday, his final natal eclipse, has
bowled him over and left him darkened for good. He can trouble us no
more, but will now do his part as mould for the rose of York and the
rose of Lancaster. He will help to make a mound for some other
Englishman's ferns. When you come--and I know you will come--we
shall drink a cup of tea in the garden to his peaceful memory--and to
his troubled memory for Latin.
I am now waiting for you. Come, out of your younger world and with
your youth to an older world and to an older man. And let each of us
find in our meeting some presage of an alliance which ought to grow
always closer in the literatures of the two nations. Their
literatures hold their ideals; and if their ideals touch and mingle,
then nothing practical can long keep them far apart. If two oak
trees reach one another with their branches, they must meet in their
roots; for the branches are aerial roots and the roots are
underground branches.
Come. In the eagerness of my letter of yesterday to put myself not
in the right but less, if possible, in the wrong, I forgot the very
matter with which the right and the wrong originated.
_Will you, after all, send the ferns?_
The whole garden waits for them; a white light falls on the vacant
spot; a white light falls on your books in my library; a white light
falls on you,
I wait for you, both hands outstretched.
EDWARD BLACKTHORNE.
(Note penciled on the margin of the letter by Beverley Sands to Ben
Doolittle: "You will see that I am back where the whole thing
started; I have to begin all over again with the ferns. And now the
florists will be after me again. I feel this in the trembling marrow
of my bones, and my bones by this time are a wireless station on this
subject.")
BEVERLEY.
JUDD & JUDD TO BEVERLEY SANDS
DEAR SIR:
We take pleasure in enclosing our new catalogue for the coming
autumn, and should be pleased to receive any further commissions for
the European trade.
We repeat that we have no connection whatever with any house doing
business in the city under the name of Botany.
Respectfully yours,
JUDD & JUDD,
Per Q.
PHILLIPS & FAULDS TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_Louisville, Kentucky,
July 4th, 1912._
DEAR SIR:
Venturing to recall ourselves to your memory for the approaching
autumn season, in view of having been honoured upon a previous
occasion with your flattering patronage, and reasoning that our past
transactions have been mutually satisfactory, we avail ourselves of
this opportunity of reviving the conjunction heretofore existing
between us as most gratifying and thank you sincerely for past
favours. We hope to continue our pleasant relations and desire to
say that if you should contemplate arranging for the shipments of
plants of any description, we could afford you surprised satisfaction.
Respectfully yours,
PHILLIPS & FAULDS.
BURNS & BRUCE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_Dunkirk, Tennessee,
July 6, 1912._
DEAR SIR:
We are prepared to supply you with anything you need. Could ship
ferns to any country in Europe, having done so for the late Noah
Chamberlin, the well-known florist just across the State line, who
was a customer of ours.
old debts of Phillips and Faulds not yet paid, had to drop them
entirely.
Very truly yours,
BURNS & BRUCE.
If you need any forest trees, we could supply you with all the forest
trees you want, plenty of oaks, etc. plenty of elms, plenty of
walnuts, etc.
ANDY PETERS TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_Seminole, North Carolina,
July 7th, 1912._
DEAR SIR:
I have lately enlarged my business and will be able to handle any
orders you may give me. The orders which Miss Clara Louise
Chamberlain said you were to send have not yet turned up. I write to
you, because I have heard about you a great deal through Miss Clara
Louise, since her return from her visit to New York. She succeeded
in getting two or three donations of books for our library, and they
have now given her a place there. I was sorry to part with Miss
Clara Louise, but I had just married, and after the first few weeks I
expected my wife to become my assistant. I am not saying anything
against Miss Clara Louise, but she was expensive on my sweet violets,
especially on a Sunday, having the run of the flowers. She and Alice
didn't get along very well together, and I did have a bad set-back
with my violets while she was here.
Seedlins is one of my specialities. I make a speciality of seedlins.
If you want any seedlins, will you call on me? I am young and just
married and anxious to please, and I wish you would call on me when
you want anything green. Nothing dried.
Yours respectfully,
ANDY PETERS.
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_July 7th, 1912._
DEAR BEVERLEY:
It makes me a little sad to write. I suppose you saw in this
morning's paper the announcement of Tilly's marriage next week to Dr.
Marigold. Nevertheless--congratulations! You have lost years of
youth and happiness with some lovely woman on account of your
dalliance with her.
Now at last, you will let her alone, and you will soon find--Nature
will quickly drive you to find--the one you deserve to marry.
It looks selfish at such a moment to set my happiness over against
your unhappiness, but I've just had news, that at last, after
lingering so long and a little mysteriously in Louisville, Polly is
coming. Polly is coming with her wedding clothes. We long ago
decided to have no wedding. All that we have long wished is to marry
one another. Mr. Blackthorne called me a cocksure. Well, Polly is
another cocksure. We shall jog along as a perfectly satisfied couple
of cocksures on the cocksure road. (I hope to God Polly will never
find out that she married _Sal Blivvens_.)
Dear fellow, truest of comrades among men, it is inevitable that I
reluctantly leave you somewhat behind, desert you a little, as the
friend who marries.
One awful thought freezes me to my chair this hot July day. You have
never said a word about Miss Clara Louise Chamberlain, since the day
of my hypothetical charge to the jury. Can it be possible that you
followed her up? Did you feed her any more cheques? I have often
warned you against Tilly, as inconstant. But, my dear fellow,
remember there is a worse extreme than in inconstancy--Clara Louise
would be sealing wax. You would merely be marrying 115 pounds of
sealing wax. Every time she sputtered in conversation, she'd seal
you the tighter.
Polly is coming with her wedding clothes.
BEN.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_July 8._
DEAR BEN:
I saw the announcement in the morning paper about Tilly.
It wouldn't be worth while to write how I feel.
It is true that I traced Miss Chamberlain, homeless in New York. And
I saw her. As to whether I have been feeding cheques to her, that is
solely a question of my royalties. Royalties are human gratitude;
why should not the dews of gratitude fall on one so parched?
Besides, I don't owe you anything, gentleman.
Yes, I feel you're going--you're passing on to Polly. I append a
trifle which explains itself, and am, making the best of everything,
the same
BEVERLEY SANDS.
_A Meditation in Verse_
(_Dedicated to Benjamin Doolittle as showing his
favourite weakness_)
_How can I mind the law's delay,
Or what a jury thinks it knows,
Or what some fool of a judge may say?
Polly comes with the wedding clothes._
_Time, who cheated me so long,
Kept me waiting mid life's snows,
I forgive and forget your wrong:
Polly comes with the wedding clothes._
_Winter's lonely sky is gone,
July blazes with the rose,
All the world looks smiling on
At Polly in her wedding clothes._
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
[A hurried letter by messenger]
_July 10, 1912._
Polly reached New York two days ago. I went up that night. She had
gone out--alone. She did not return that night. I found this out
when I went up yesterday morning and asked for her. She has not been
there since she left. They know nothing about her. I have
telegraphed Louisville. They have sent me no word. Come down at
once.
BEN.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE
[Hurried letter by messenger]
_July 10, 1912._
DEAR BEN:
Is anything wrong about Polly?
I met her on the street yesterday. She tried to pass without
speaking. I called to her but she walked on. I called again and she
turned, hesitatingly, then came back very slowly to meet me half-way.
You know how composed her manner always is. But she could not
control her emotion: she was deeply, visibly troubled. Strange as it
may seem, while I thought of the mystery of her trouble, I could but
notice a trifle, as at such moments one often does: she was
beautifully dressed: a new charm, a youthful freshness, was all over
her as for some impending ceremony. We have always thought of Polly
as one of the women who are above dress. Such disregard was in a way
a verification of her character, the adornment of her sincerity. Now
she was beautifully dressed.
"But what is the meaning of all this?" I asked, frankly mystified.
Something in her manner checked the question, forced back my words.
"You will hear," she said, with quivering lips. She looked me
searchingly all over the face as for the sake of dear old times now
ended. Then she turned off abruptly. I watched her in sheer
amazement till she disappeared.
I have been waiting to hear from you, but cannot wait any longer.
What does it mean? Why don't you tell me?
BEVERLEY.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE
_July 11._
I have with incredible eyes this instant read this cutting from the
morning paper:
Miss Polly Boles married yesterday at the City Hall in Jersey City to
Dr. Claude Mullen.
She must have been on her way when I saw her.
I have read the announcement without being able to believe it--with
some kind of death in life at my heart.
Oh, Ben, Ben, Ben! So betrayed! I am coming at once.
BEVERLEY.
DIARY OF BEVERLEY SANDS
_July 18._
The ferns have had their ironic way with us and have wrought out
their bitter comedy to its end. The little group of us who were the
unsuspecting players are henceforth scattered, to come together in
the human playhouse not again. The stage is empty, the curtain waits
to descend, and I, who innocently brought the drama on, am left the
solitary figure to speak the epilogue ere I, too, depart to go my
separate road.
This is Tilly's wedding day. How beautiful the morning is for her!
The whole sky is one exquisite blue--no sign of any storm-plan far or
near. The July air blows as cool as early May. I sit at my window
writing and it flows over me in soft waves, the fragrances of the
green park below my window enter my room and encircle me like living
human tendernesses. At this moment, I suppose, Tilly is dressing for
her wedding, and I--God knows why--am thinking of old-time Kentucky
gardens in one of which she played as a child. Tilly, a little girl
romping in her mother's garden--Tilly before she was old enough to
know anything of the world--anything of love--now, as she dresses for
her wedding--I cannot shut out that vision of early purity.
Yesterday a note came from her. I had had no word since the day I
openly ridiculed the man she is to marry. But yesterday she sent me
this message:
"Come to-night and say good-bye."
She was not in her rooms to greet me. I waited. Moments passed,
long moments of intense expectancy. She did not enter. I fixed my
eyes on her door. Once I saw it pushed open a little way, then
closed. Again it was opened and again it was held as though for lack
of will or through quickly changing impulses. Then it was opened and
she entered and came toward me, not looking at me, but with her face
turned aside. She advanced a few paces and with some swift,
imperious rebellion, she turned and passed out of the room and then
came quickly back. She had caught up her bridal veil. She held the
wreath in her hand and as she approached me, I know not with what
sudden emotion she threw a corner of the veil over her head and face
and shoulders. And she stood before me with I know not what struggle
tearing her heart. Almost in a whisper she said:
"Lift my veil."
I lifted her veil and laid it back over her forehead. She closed her
eyes as tears welled out of them.
"Kiss me," she said.
I would have taken her in my arms as mine at that moment for all
time, but she stepped back and turned away, fading from me rather
than walking, with her veil pressed like a handkerchief to her eyes.
The door closed on her.
I waited. She did not come again.
Now she is dressing for the marriage ceremony. A friend gives her a
house wedding. The company of guests will be restricted, everything
will be exquisite, there will be youth and beauty and distinction.
There will be no love. She marries as one who steps through a
beautiful arch further along one's path.
Whither that path leads, I do not know; from what may lie at the end
of it I turn away and shudder.
My thought of Tilly on her wedding morning is of one exiled from
happiness because nature withheld from her the one thing needed to
make her all but perfect: that needful thing was just a little more
constancy. It is her doom, forever to stretch out her hand toward a
brimming goblet, but ere she can bring it to her lips it drops from
her hand. Forever her hand stretched out toward joy and forever joy
shattered at her feet.
American scientists have lately discovered or seem about to discover,
some new fact in Nature--the butterfly migrates. What we have
thought to be the bright-winged inhabitant of a single summer in a
single zone follows summer's retreating wave and so dwells in a
summer that is perpetual. If Tilly is the psyche of life's fields,
then she seeks perpetual summer as the law of her own being. All our
lives move along old, old paths. There is no new path for any of us.
If Tilly's fate is the butterfly path, who can judge her harshly?
Not I.
They sail away at once on their wedding journey. He has wealth and
social influence of the fashionable sort which overflows into the
social mirrors of metropolitan journalism: the papers found space for
their plans of travel: England and Scotland, France and Switzerland,
Austria and Germany, Bohemia and Poland, Russia, Italy and
Sicily--home. The great world-path of the human butterfly, seeking
summer with insatiate quest.
Home to his practice with that still fluttering psyche! And then the
path--the domestic path--stretching straight onward across the fields
of life--what of his psyche then? Will she fold her wings on a
bed-post--year after year slowly opening and unfolding those
brilliant wings amid the cob-webs of the same bed-post?...
I cannot write of human life unless I can forgive life. How forgive
unless I can understand? I have wrought with all that is within me
to understand Polly--her treachery up to the last moment, her
betrayal of Ben's devotion. What I have made out dimly, darkly,
doubtfully, is this: Her whole character seems built upon one trait,
one virtue--loyalty. She was disloyal to Ben because she had come to
believe that he was disloyal to her sovereign excellence. There were
things in his life which he persistently refused to tell; perhaps
every day there were mere trifles which he did not share with
her--why should he? On a certain memorable morning she discovered
that for years he had been keeping from her some affairs of mine:
that was his loyalty to me; she thought it was his disloyalty to her.
I cannot well picture Polly as a lute, but I think that was the rift
in the lute. Still a man must not surrender himself wholly into the
keeping of the woman he loves; let him, and he becomes anything in
her life but a man.
Meantime Polly found near by another suitor who offered her all he
was--what little there was of him--one of those man-climbers who must
run over the sheltering wall of some woman. Thus there was gratified
in Polly her one passion for marrying--that she should possess a pet.
Now she possesses one, owns him, can turn him round and round, can
turn him inside out, can see all there is of him as she sees her
pocket-handkerchief, her breast-pin, her coffee cup, or any little
familiar piece of property which she can become more and more
attached to as the years go by for the reason that it will never
surprise her, never puzzle her, never change except by wearing out.
This will be the end of the friendship between Drs. Marigold and
Mullen: their wives will see to that. So much the better: scattered
impostors do least harm.
I have struggled to understand the mystery of her choice as to how
she should be married. Surely marriage, in the existence of any one,
is the hour when romance buds on the most prosaic stalk. It budded
for Polly and she eloped! It was a short troubled flight of her
heavy mind without the wings of imagination. She got as far as the
nearest City Hall. Instead of a minister she chose to be married by
a Justice of the Peace: Ben had been unjust, she would be married by
the figure of Justice as a penal ceremony executed over Ben: she
mailed him a paper and left him to understand that she had fled from
him to Justice and Peace! Polly's poetry!
A line in an evening paper lets me know that she and the Doctor have
gone for their honeymoon to Ocean Grove. When Polly first came North
to live and the first summer came round she decided to spend it at
Ocean Grove, with the idea, I think, that she would get a grove and
an ocean with one railway ticket, without having to change; she could
settle in a grove with an ocean and in an ocean with a grove. What
her disappointment was I do not know, but every summer she has gone
back to Ocean Grove--the Franklin Flats by the sea....
Yesterday I said good-bye to Ben. I had spent part of every evening
with him since Polly's marriage--silent, empty evenings--a quiet,
stunned man. Confidence in himself blasted out of him, confidence in
human nature, in the world. With no imagination in him to deal with
the reasons of Polly's desertion--just a passive acceptance of it as
a wall accepts a hole in it made by a cannon ball.
Her name was never called. A stunned, silent man. Clear, joyous
steady light in his eyes gone--an uncertain look in them. Strangest
of all, a reserve in his voice, hesitation. And courtesy for bluff
warm confidence--courtesy as of one who stumblingly reflects that he
must begin to be careful with everybody.
His active nature meantime kept on. Life swept him forward--nature
did--whether he would or not. I went down late one evening.
Evidently he had been working in his room all day; the things Polly
must have sent him during all those years were gone. He had on new
slippers, a fresh robe, taking the place of the slippers and the robe
she had made for him. Often I have seen him tuck the robe in about
his neck as a man might reach for the arms of a woman to draw them
about his throat as she leans over him from behind.
During our talk that evening he began strangely to speak of things
that had taken place years before in Kentucky, in his youth, on the
farm; did I remember this in Kentucky, could I recall that? His mind
had gone back to old certainties. It was like his walking away from
present ruins toward things still unharmed--never to be harmed.
Early next morning he surprised me by coming up, dressed for travel,
holding a grip.
"I am going to Kentucky," he said.
I went to the train with him. His reserve deepened on the way; if he
had plans, he did not share them with me.
What I make out of it is that he will come back married. No
engagement this time, no waiting. Swift marriage for what marriage
will sadly bring him. I think she will be young--this time. But she
will be, as nearly as possible, like Polly. Any other kind of woman
now would leave him a desolate, empty-hearted man for life. He
thinks he will be getting some one to take Polly's place. In reality
it will be his second attempt to marry Polly.