"The night wind idling down the dusty street"--You do make patterns out
of the dictionary which please me. But I know that irritates you, for
words are not what you are paying attention to--of course--if they
were, yours wouldn't be so wonderful. It's the wind of the spirit that
blows them into beautiful shapes for you, I suppose. To let that go,
for it's immaterial--you think I might have a job? I? That I might do
a real thing for anybody ever? If you only knew me. If you only could
see the mountains of whipped cream and Maraschino cherries, the cliffs
of French clothes and automobiles, the morasses of afternoon teas and
dances and calls and luxury in general that lie between me and any
usefulness. It's the maddest dream that I, with my bones and my money
and my bringing up, all my crippling ailments, could ever, _ever_ climb
those mountains and cliffs and wade through those bogs. It's mad, I
say, you visionary, you man on the other side of all that, who are
living, who are doing things. I never can--I never can. And yet, it's
so terrible, it's so horrible, so frightening, so desperate, sometimes,
to be drowning in luxury. I woke in the night last night and before my
eyes had opened I had flung out my hand and cried out loud in the dark:
"What shall I do with my life--Oh what shall I do with my life?" And
it isn't just me--though that's the burning, close question to my
simple selfishness. But it's a lot of women--a lot. We're waking all
over the world. We want to help, to be worth while; to help, to count.
It won't do much longer to know French and Italian and play middling
tennis and be on the Altar Society. You know what I mean. All
that--yes--but beyond that the power which a real person carries into
all that to make it big. The stronger you are the better your work is.
I want to be strong, to be useful, to touch things with a personality
which will move them, make them go, widen them. How? How can I? What
can I do, ever? Oh what _can_ I do--_what_ can I do--with my life! I
thought that day in August that it was only my illness, and my tie to
an unloved man, but it's more than that. You have broadened the field
of my longing, my restlessness, till it covers--everything. Help me
then, for you have waked me to this want, question, agony. It's not
only if I may kill my life--it's what I can do if I don't kill it.
What can I do? Do you feel how that's a sharp, vital question to me?
It's out of the deep I'm calling to you--do you know that? And it's my
voice, but it's the voice of thousands--_now_ you're in trouble. Now
you wish you'd let me alone, for here we are at the woman question! I
can see you shy at that. But I'm not going to pin you, for you only
contracted to help me; I'll shake off the other thousands for the
present. And, anyhow, can you help me? Oh, you have--you've delayed
my--crime, I suppose it is. You've given me glimpses of vistas; you've
set me reading books; widened every sort of horizon; you've even made
me dream of a vague, possible work, for me. Yes, I've been dreaming
that; a specific thing which I might do, even I, if I could cancel some
house-parties, and a trip to France, and the hunting. But even if I
could possibly give up those things, there's Uncle Ted. He's not well,
and my dream would involve leaving him. And I'm all he has. We two
are startlingly alone. After all, you see, it's a dream; I'm not big
enough to do more than that--dream idly. Robin has a queer scheme just
now. There's a bone-ologist here, the most famous one of the planet,
exported from France, to cure the small son of one of the trillionaires
with which this place reeks, and Robin insists that I see that
bone-ologist about my bones. It's unpleasant, and I hate doctors and I
don't know if I will. But Robin is very firm and insists on my telling
Uncle Ted otherwise. I can't bother Uncle Ted. So I may do it. Yet,
if the great man pronounced, as he would, that the other doctors were
right, it would be almost going through the first hideous shock over
again. So I may _not_ do it. I must stop writing. I have a guest and
must do a party for her. She's a California heiress--oh fabulously
rich--much richer than I. With splendid bones. I gave her a dance
last night and this morning she's off on my best hunter with my
fiancé--save the mark! He admires her, and she certainly is a nice
girl, and lovely to look at, with eyes like those young mediaeval,
brainless Madonnas. I'm so glad to have someone else play with
him--with Alec. I dread him so. I hate, I _hate_ to let him--kiss me.
There. If you were a real man I couldn't have exploded into that.
You're only the spirit of a thunder-storm, you know; I'll never see you
again on earth; I can say anything. I do say anything, don't I? I can
say--I do say--that you have dragged me from the bottomless pit; that
if any good comes of me it is your good--that you--being a shadow, a
memory, an incident--are yet the central figure of this world to me.
If I fall back into the pit, that is not your affair--mine, mine only.
The light that shines around you for me is the only kindly light that
may save me. But it may not. I may fall back. I have the toy in the
drawer yet--covered with letters. Good-by--I am yours always,