THREE LETTERS
_Walter Egremont to Mrs. Ormonde._
'Where I to spend the rest of my natural life in this country--which
assuredly I have no intention of doing--I think I should never settle
down to an hour's indulgence of those tastes which were born in me, and
which, in spite of all neglect, are in fact as strong as ever. I cannot
read the books I wish to read; I cannot even think the thoughts I wish
to think. As I have told you, the volumes I brought out with me lay in
their packing-cases for more than six months after my arrival, and for
all the use I have made of them in this second six months they might be
still there. The shelves in the room which I call my library are
furnished, but I dare not look how much dust they have accumulated.
'I read scarcely anything but newspapers--it is I who write the words.
Newspapers at morning, newspapers at night. Yes, one exception; I have
spent a good deal of time of late over Walt Whitman (you know him, of
course, by name, though I dare say you have never looked into his
works), and I expect that I shall spend a good deal more; I suspect,
indeed, that he will in the end come to mean much to me. But I cannot
write of him yet; I am struggling with him, struggling with myself as
regards him; in a month or so I shall have more to say. It is perfectly
true, then, that till quite recently I have read but newspapers. The
people about me scarcely by any chance read anything else, and the
influence of surroundings has from the first been very strong upon me.
You have complained frequently that I say nothing to you about my
_self_; it is one of the signs of my condition that with difficulty I
think of that self, and to pen words about it has been quite
impossible. I long constantly for the old world and the old moods, but
I cannot imagine myself back into them. I would give anything to lock
my door at night, and take down my Euripides; if I get as far as the
shelf, my hand drops.
'I begin to see a meaning in this phase of my life. I have been
learning something about the latter end of the nineteenth century, its
civilisation, its possibilities, and the subject has a keen interest
for me. Is it new, then? you will ask. To tell you the truth, I knew
nothing whatever about it until I came and began to work in America. I
am in the mood for frankness, and I won't spare myself. All my
so-called study of modern life in former days was the merest
dilettantism, mere conceit and boyish pedantry. I travelled, and the
fact that wherever I went I took a small classical library with me was
symbolical of my state of mind. I saw everything through old-world
spectacles. Even in America I could not get rid of my pedantry, as you
will recognise clearly enough if you look back to the letters I wrote
you at that time. I came then with theories in my head of what American
civilisation must be, and everything that I saw I made fit in with my
preconceptions. This time I came with my mind a blank. I was ill, and
had not a theory left in me on any subject in the universe. For the
first time in my life I was suffering all that a man can suffer; when
the Atlantic roared about me, I scarcely cared whether it engulfed me
or not. Getting back my health, I began to see with new eyes, and have
since been looking my hardest. And I have still not a theory on any
subject in the universe.
'In fact, I believe that for me the day of theories has gone by. I note
phenomena, and muse about them, and not a few interest me extremely.
The interest is enough. I am not a practical man; I am not a
philosopher. I may, indeed, have a good deal of the poet's mind, but
the poet's faculty is denied to me. It only remains to me to study the
word in its relations to my personality, that I may henceforth avoid
the absurdities to which I have such a deplorable leaning.
'Do you know what I ought to have been?--a schoolmaster. That is to
say, if I wished to do any work of direct good to my fellows in the
world. I could have taught boys well, better than I shall ever do
anything else. I could not only have taught them--the 'gerund-grinding'
of Thomas Carlyle--but could have inspired them with love of learning,
at all events such as were capable of being so inspired. My class of
working men in Lambeth exercised this faculty to some extent. When I
was teaching them English Literature, I was doing, as far as it went,
good and sound work. When I drifted into 'Thoughts for the
Present'--Heaven forgive me!--I made an ass of myself, that's the long
and short of it. My ears tingle as I remember those evenings.
'I am infinitely more human than I was; I can even laugh heartily at
American humour, and that I take to be a sign of health. Health is what
I have gained. The devotion of eight or ten hours a day to the work of
the factory has been the best medicine any one could have prescribed to
me. It was you who prescribed it, and it was your crowning act of
kindness to me, dear Mrs. Ormonde. It is possible that I have grown
coarser; indeed, I know that I associate on terms of equality and
friendliness with men from whom I should formerly have shrunk. I can
get angry, and stand on my rights, and bluster if need be, and on the
whole I think I am no worse for that. My ear is not offended if I hear
myself called 'boss;' why should it be? it is a word as well as
another. Nay, I have even felt something like excitement when listening
to political speeches, in which frequent mention was made of 'the great
State of Pennsylvania.' Well, it _is_ a great State, or the phrase has
no meaning in any application. Will not this early life of the New
World some day be studied with reverence and enthusiasm? I try to see
things as they are.
'Social problems are here in plenty. Indeed, it looks very much as if
America would sooner have reached an acute stage of social conflict
than the old countries; naturally, as it is the refuge of these who
abandon the old world in disgust. American equality is a mere phrase;
there is as much brutal injustice here as elsewhere. But I can no
longer rave on the subject; the injustice is a _fact_, and only other
facts will replace it; I concern myself only with facts. And the great
fact of all is the contemptibleness of average humanity. I will submit
for your reverent consideration the name of a great American
philanthropist--Cornelius Vanderbilt. Personally he was a disgusting
brute; ignorant, base, a boor in his manners, a blackguard in his
language; he had little if any natural affection, and to those who
offended him he was a relentless barbarian. Yet the man was a great
philanthropist, and became so by the piling up of millions of dollars.
Of course he did that for his own vulgar satisfaction, though
personally he could not use the money when he had it; no matter, he has
aided civilisation enormously. He as good as created the steamship
industry in America; he reorganised the railway system with admirable
results; by adding so much to the circulating capital of the country,
he provided well-paid employment for unnumbered men. Thousands of homes
should bless the name of Vanderbilt--and what is the state of a world
in which such a man can do such good by such means? Well, I have
nothing to say to it. It is merely part of the tremendous present,
which interests me.
'And I once stood up in my pulpit, and with mild assurance addressed
myself to the task of improving the world! Do not make fun of me when
we meet again, dear friend; I am too bitterly ashamed of myself.
'It seems a long time since you told me anything of Thyrza. I do not
like to receive a letter from you in which there is no mention of her
name. Does she still find a resource in her music? Are you still kind
to her? Yes, kind I know you are, but are you gentle and affectionate,
doing your utmost to make her forget that she is alone? You do not see
her very frequently, I fear. I beg you to write to her often, the
helpful letters you can write to those whom you love. She can repay you
for all trouble with one look of gratitude.'
(_Three months later_.)
'I am sending you Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass.' I see from your last
letter that you have not yet got the book, and have it you must. It is
idle to say that you cannot take up new things, that you doubt whether
he has any significance for _you_, and so on. You have heart and brain,
therefore his significance for you will be profound.
'I would not write much about him hitherto; for I dreaded the smile on
your face at a new enthusiasm. I wished, too, to test this influence
upon myself thoroughly; I assure you that it is easier for me now to be
sceptical than to open my heart generously to any one who in our day
declares himself a message-bringer to mankind. You know how cautiously
I have proceeded with this American _vates_. At first I found so much
to repel me, yet from the first also I was conscious of a new music,
and then the clamour of the vulgar against the man was quite enough to
oblige me to give him careful attention. If one goes on the assumption
that the ill word of the mob is equivalent to high praise, one will
not, as a rule, be far wrong, in matters of literature. I have studied
Whitman, enjoyed him, felt his force and his value. And, speaking with
all seriousness, I believe that he has helped me, and will help me,
inestimably, in my endeavour to become a sound and mature man.
'For in him I have met with one who is, first and foremost, a man, a
large, healthy, simple, powerful, full-developed man. Bead his poem
called 'A Song of Joys'--what glorious energy of delight, what
boundless sympathy, what _sense_, what _spirit_! He knows the truth of
the life that is in all things. From joy in a railway train 'the
laughing locomotive! To push with resistless way and speed off in the
distance'--to joy in fields and hillsides, joy in 'the dropping of
rain-drops in a song,' joy in the fighter's strength, joy in the life
of the fisherman, in every form of active being--aye, and
Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart,
Joys of the solitary work, the spirit bow'd yet proud, the
suffering and the struggle;
The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings
day or night;
Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres Time and Space!
What would not I give to know the completeness of manhood implied in
all that? Such an ideal of course is not a new-created thing for me,
but I never _felt_ it as in Whitman's work. It is so foreign to my own
habits of thought. I have always been so narrow, in a sense so
provincial. And indeed I doubt whether Whitman would have appealed to
me as he now does had I read him for the first time in England and
under the old conditions. These fifteen months of practical business
life in America has swept my brain of much that was mere prejudice,
even when I thought it worship. I was a pedantic starveling; now, at
all events, I _see_ the world about me, and all the goodliness of it.
Then I am far healthier in body than I was, which goes for much. It
would be no hardship to me to take an axe and go off to labour on the
Pacific coast; nay, a year so spent would do me a vast amount of good.
'I wonder whether you have read any of the twaddle that is written
about Whitman's grossness, his materialism, and so forth? If so, read
his poems now, and tell me how they impress you. Is he not _all_
spirit, rightly understood? For to him the body with its energies is
but manifestation of that something invisible which we call human soul.
And so pure is the soul in him, so mighty, so tender, so infinitely
sympathetic, that it may stand for Humanity itself. I am often moved
profoundly by his words. He makes me feel that I am a very part of the
universe, and that in health I can deny kinship with nothing that
exists. I believe that he for the first time has spoken with the very
voice of nature; forests and seas sing to us through him, and through
him the healthy, unconscious man, 'the average man,' utters what before
he had no voice to tell of, his secret aspirations, his mute love and
praise.
'Look you! I write a sort of essay, and in doing so prove that I am
myself still. Were it not that I have mercy on you, I could preach on
even as I used to do to my class in Lambeth. Ha, if I had known Whitman
then! I believe that by persuading those men to read him, and helping
them to understand him, I should really have done an honest day's work.
There were some who could have relished his meaning, and whose lives he
would have helped. For there it is; Whitman helps one; he is a tonic
beyond all to be found in the druggist's shop. I imagine that to live
with the man himself for a few days would be the best thing that could
befall an invalid; surely vital force would come out of him.
'He makes one ashamed to groan at anything. Whatever comes to us is in
the order of things, and the sound man accepts it as his lot. Yes, even
Death--of which he says noble things. The old melodious weeping of the
poets--Moschus over his mallows, and Catullus with his '_Soles occidere
et redire possunt_'--Whitman has no touch of that. Noble grief there is
in him, and noble melancholy can come upon him, but acquiescence is his
last word. He holds that all is good, because it exists, for everything
plays its part in the scheme of nature. When his day comes, he will
die, as the greatest have done before him, and there will be no puny
repining at the order of things.
'Has he then made me a thorough-going optimist? Scarcely, for the
willow cannot become the oak, Your old name for me was 'The Idealist,'
and I suppose in a measure I deserved it; I know I did in the most
foolish sense of the word. And in my idealism was of course implied a
good deal of optimism. But shall I tell you what was there in a yet
larger measure? That which is termed self-conceit. An enemy speaking of
me now--Dalmaine for example, if he chose to tell the truth--would say
that a business life in America has taken a great deal of the humbug
out of me. I shall always be rather a weak mortal, shall always be
marked by that blend of pessimism and optimism which necessarily marks
the man to whom, in his heart, the beautiful is of supreme import,
shall always be prone to accesses of morbid feeling, and in them, I
dare say, find after all my highest pleasure. Nay, it is certain that
Moschus and Gatullus will always be more loved by me than Whitman. For
all this, I am not what I was, and I am a completer man than I was. I
shall remain here yet nine months, and who can say what further change
may go on in me?
'Now to another subject. It gladdens me to hear what you say of Thyrza,
that she seems both well and happy. I envy you the delight of hearing
her sing. It is a beautiful thing that in this way she has found
expression for that poetry which I always read in her face. By-the-by,
does she still meet her sister away from the place where she lives? Is
that still necessary? However, all these details are in your judgment.
The great thing is that she is happy in her life, that she has found a
great interest.
'I wish to know--I beg you to answer me--whether she has ever spoken of
me. When I used to press you to speak on this subject, you always
ignored that part of my letter. Need you still do so? Will you not tell
me whether she has asked about me, has spoken in any way of me? To be
sure you must betray no confidences; yet perhaps it will not be doing
so.
'Read Whitman; try to sympathise with me as I now am. You know that I
am anything but low-spirited, yet in very truth I have no single
companion here to whom I can speak of intimate things, and, except on
business, I write absolutely to no one in England save to you. And
intellectual sympathy I do need; I scarcely think I could live on
through my life without it.
'Another thing, and the last. You have never once spoken of Miss
Newthorpe, nor have I, in all this long time. I pray you tell me
something of her. It is very likely that she's married--to whom, now?
Her husband should be an interesting man, one I should like some day to
know. Or is she another example of the unaccountable things women will
do in marriage? Pray Heaven not!'
(_Eight months after the last_.)
'I have just been reading a leader in the _New York Herald_ wherein
there is mention of Dalmaine's factory bill. Dalmaine is spoken of with
extreme respect; his measure is one of those which 'largely testify to
the practical wisdom and beneficence of the spirit which prevails in
British legislation.' This kind of thing it is, says the writer, which
keeps England in such freedom from the social disturbance so rife on
the continent of Europe, and from which America has so much to fear.
Seriously, this is all very right and just: Dalmaine is deserving well
of his country. But the amazing fact is that _such_ a man comes forward
to perform such services. However, it is only the Vanderbilt business
over again. These men are the practical philanthropists, and to sneer
at them is very much the same as to speak contemptuously of the
rain-shower which aids the growth of the corn.
'I have written very short letters lately. Business has claimed me
night and day. We have had sundry difficulties of late, which you
certainly would not thank me for explaining, and I am only just
beginning to feel that if I take my due sleep at night I am doing
nothing wrong. For months I have been the man of business, pure and
simple. I have exerted myself to over-reach people, and have fumed
because others all but succeeded in over-reaching me. I have lived the
life of a cunning and laborious animal. Well, I have my profit of it in
several ways, but I think I have had about enough of it for the present.
'I shall be in England in a month.
'Whether I shall remain there long, is uncertain. But at all events I
shall not be back here again for some time. One of our London men is
coming to take my place. I have compliments from my fellows in the
firm;--it makes me feel that I must have sunk low.
'And now to the subject which I really took up my pen to write about. I
am very glad that you speak of letting Lydia visit her sister before
long. I remember well how much they are to each other. It has been no
less than heroism in Thyrza to submit to practical separation for so
long a time, at your mere bidding, without explanation asked or given.
'Shall you speak of me to Thyrza before my return? No, I suppose you
will take no such responsibility. I don't know what your mind is now on
this matter, but in any case you have performed your part right
generously and nobly, and it is a very pleasant thought to me that
through her life Thyrza will regard you as her dearest friend, the one
to whom she owes most. It will be a never-falling source of sympathy
between her and myself.
'Do you think she _expects_ my coming before long? Does such
expectation explain her constant cheerfulness?--otherwise, I do not
quite understand her, and have long felt it a difficulty. I put
absolute faith in all you tell me of her--need I say that? But, if
indeed she looks forward to seeing me, in what manner has she conceived
that hope? I confess I did not think that her nature was of the kind
which can derive sufficient support from hope alone, hope which comes
of mere wish. It would be so very different if any word had even passed
between us which her memory could store up as encouragement. In that
case she would hope on for years, her own fidelity making it impossible
for her to suspect me of unfaithfulness. That, I believe, is in her
character. You remember that, in my raving, I accused myself to you and
said that I was conscious of having allowed her to read my thoughts. I
cannot now be sure whether that was true or not; I heartily wish I
could. Still, I am sure that I did not purposely lead her to think I
was in love with her. And, as things turned out, nothing subsequently
happened to give her that idea; at all events, nothing I ever knew of.
True, I made confession to Grail, but he would not have spoken of it to
Thyrza, even if he had had opportunity, which you are convinced he has
not. And you say it is equally certain that Lydia Trent would not help
her to such knowledge. We can only conclude that the fact of your
adopting her, as it were, makes her hope that she is being prepared for
something in the future.
'Well, I know it is not impossible that she has forgotten me, in the
lover's sense. I am not so conceited as to believe that a girl who has
once conceived a liking for me must necessarily hold me in her heart
for ever. There would be nothing strange, certainly nothing unworthy,
in her putting away all thought of one who, for anything she knew, had
never dreamed of loving her. I wonder what your own belief is? But do
not write about this. I shall see you very soon. I mean to be in
England just before the appointed day, and to come to you at once.
'The future puzzles me a little at times, and yet after all it will be
very simple. When a man marries the duties of life are suddenly made
very plain. Formerly it was my incessant question: What ought I to do
with myself, with my time, with my money? And of course, being what I
am and living in our age, I drove on the rocks of philanthropic
enterprise. No more risk of that. The one task before me is to make a
woman as happy as by all endeavour I may; to think of nothing in this
world until her heart is at rest; to sacrifice everything to her
advancement; and therein, easily enough, to find my own happiness. The
circumstances of my marriage will give me more opportunity of making
this aim predominant than men usually have. Thyrza will need to be
taught much, and will be eager to learn. I think I shall take a house
not far from London, and live there quietly for two or three years. It
has occurred to me to bring her here, but I had rather she developed
her intellectual life in England. It is scarcely probable that, after
once quitting it, I shall return to this humdrum business; I have vast
arrears to make up in all my natural pursuits, and with Thyrza to bear
me company in the fields, I am not very likely to go back of my own
will to a factory. So that, after all, the future is clear enough; more
peaceful and more fruitful than ever the past was. You will often come
to us, will you not? It will be a joy to open our door to you, and to
seat you at our table. And in the evenings Thyrza shall sing to us.
'By-the-by, suppose when I offer myself to her, she refuses to marry
me!--Is it possible? Is it impossible? Of course, if her contentment
has nothing to do with hope of seeing me again, then my appearance will
only surprise and alarm and trouble her.
'Things must rest till I see you. I will cable from New York when I am
starting for Europe. I shall be glad to see England again, glad to
leave trade behind me, thrice glad to hold your hand.'