His wife now in the earth a week or so,
Himself not well, the doctor there to quiet
His fears of sudden death, pains in the chest,
His manager had come--was made to wait
Until the doctor finished--brought the sheets
Which showed the advertising, circulation.
And Lowell studied them and said at last:
"That new reporter makes the Murray inquest
A thing of interest, does the public like it?"
To which the manager: "It sells the paper."
And then the great man: "It has served its use.
Now being nearly over, print these words:
The Murray inquest shows to what a length
Fantastic wit can go, it should be stopped."
An editorial later might be well:
Comment upon a father and a mother
Invaded in their privacy, and life
In intimate relations dragged to view
To sate the curious eye.
Next day the _Times_
Rebuked the coroner in these words. And then
Merival sent word: "I come to see you,
Or else you come to see me, or by process
If you refuse." And so the editor
Invited Merival to Sunnyside
To talk the matter out. This was the talk:
First Merival went over all the ground
In mild locution, what he sought to do.
How as departments in the war had studied
Disease and what not, tabulated facts,
He wished to make a start for knowing lives,
And finding remedies for lives. It's true
Not much might be accomplished, also true
The poet and the novelist gave thought,
Analysis to lives, yet who could tell
What system might grow up to find the fault
In marriage as it is, in rearing children
In motherhood, in homes; for Merival
By way of wit said to this dullest man:
"I know of mother and of home, of heaven
I've yet to learn." Whereat the great man winced,
To hear the home and motherhood so slurred,
And briefly said the _Times_ would go its way
To serve the public interests, and to foster
American ideals as he conceived them.
Then Merival who knew the great man's nature,
How small it was and barren, cold and dull,
And wedded to small things, to gold, and fear
Of change, and knew the life the woman lived,--
These seven days in the earth--with such a man,
Just by a zephyr of intangible thought
Veered round the talk to her, to voice a wonder
About the jet left turned, his deputy
Had overlooked a hose which she could drink
Gas from a jet. "You needn't touch the jet.
Just leave it as she left it--hide the hose,
And leave the gas on, put the woman in bed."
"This deputy," said Merival, "was slack
And let a verdict pass of accident."
"Oh yes" said Merival, "your servant told
About the hose, the _Times_ clutched in her hand.
And may I test this jet, while I am here?
Go up to see and test it?"
Whereupon
The great man with wide eyes stared in the eyes
Of Merival, was speechless for a moment,
Not knowing what to say, while Merival
Read something in his eyes, saw in his eyes
The secret beat to cover, saw the man
Turn head away which shook a little, saw
His chest expand for breath, and heard at last
The editor in four steel bullet words,
"It is not necessary."
Merival
Had trapped the solitary fox--arose
And going said: "If it was suicide
The inquest must be changed."
The editor
Looked through the window at the coroner
Walking the gravel walk, and saw his hand
Unlatch the iron gate, and saw him pass
From view behind the trees.
Then horror rose
Within his brain, a nameless horror took
The heart of him, for fear this coroner
Would dig this secret up, and show the world
The dead face of the woman self-destroyed,
And of the talk, which would not come to him,
To poison air he breathed no less, of why
This woman took her life; if for ill health
Then why ill health? O, well he knew at heart
What he had done to break her, starve her life.
And now accused himself too much for words,
Ways, temperament of him that murdered her,
For lovelessness, and for deliberate hands
That pushed her off and down.
He rode that day
To see his cattle, overlook the work,
But when night came with silence and the cry
Of night-hawks, and the elegy of leaves
Beneath the stars that looked so cold at him
As he turned seeking sleep, the dreaded pain
Grew stronger in his breast. Dawn came at last
And then the stir and voices of the maids.
And after breakfast in the carven room
Archibald Lowell standing by the mantel
In his great library, felt sudden pain;
Saw sudden darkness, nothing saw at once,
Lying upon the marble of the hearth;
His great head cut which struck the post of brass
In the hearth's railing--only a little blood!
Archibald Lowell being dead at last;
The _Times_ left to the holders of the stock
Who kept his policy, and kept the _Times_
As if the great man lived.
And Merival
Taking the doctor's word that death was caused
By angina pectoris, let it drop.
And went his way with Elenor Murray's case.
* * * * *
So Lowell's dead and buried; had to die,
But not through Elenor Murray. That's the Fate
That laughs at greatness, little things that sneak
From alien neighborhoods of life and kill.
And Lowell leaves a will, to which a boy--
Who sold the _Times_ once, afterward the _Star_--
Is alien as this Elenor to the man
Who owned the _Times_. But still is brought in touch
With Lowell's will, because this Lowell died
Before he died. And Merival learns the facts
And brings them to the jury in these words:--
WIDOW FORTELKA
Marie Fortelka, widow, mother of Josef,
Now seventeen, an invalid at home
In a house, in Halstead Street, his running side
Aching with broken ribs, read in the _Times_
Of Lowell's death the editor, dressed herself
To call on William Rummler, legal mind
For Lowell and the _Times_.
It was a day
When fog hung over the city, and she thought
Of fogs in Germany whence she came, and thought
Of hard conditions there when she was young.
Then as her boy, this Josef, coughed, she looked
And felt a pang at heart, a rise of wrath,
And heard him moan for broken ribs and lungs
That had been bruised or mashed. America,
Oh yes, America, she said to self,
How is it different from the land I left?
And then her husband's memory came to mind:
How he had fled his country to be free,
And come to Philadelphia, with the thrill
Of new life found, looked at the famous Hall
Which gave the Declaration, cried and laughed
And said: "The country's free, and I am here,
I am free now, a man, no more a slave."
What did he find? A job, but prices high.
Wages decreased in winter, then a strike.
He joined the union, found himself in jail
For passing hand-bills which announced the strike,
And asked the public to take note, and punish
The corporation, not to trade with it,
For its injustice toward the laborers.
And in the court he heard the judge decide:
"Free speech cannot be used to gain the ends
Of ruin by conspiracy like this
Against a business. Men from foreign lands,
Of despot rule and poverty, who come
For liberty and means of life among us
Must learn that liberty is ordered liberty,
And is not license, freedom to commit
Injury to another."
So in jail
He lay his thirty days out, went to work
Where he could find it, found the union smashed,
Himself compelled to take what job he could,
What wages he was offered. And his children
Kept coming year by year till there were eight,
And Josef was but ten. And then he died
And left this helpless family, and the boy
Sold papers on the street, ten years of age,
The widow washed.
And first he sold the _Times_
And helped to spread the doctrines of the _Times_
Of ordered liberty and epicene
Reforms of this or that. But when the _Star_
With millions back of it broke in the field
He changed and sold the _Star_, too bad for him--
Discovered something:
Josef did not know
The corners of the street are free to all,
Or free to none, where newsboys stood and sold,
And kept their stands, or rather where the powers
That kept the great conspiracy of the press
Controlled the stands, and to prevent the _Star_
From gaining foot-hold. Not upon this corner
Nor on that corner, any corner in short
Shall newsboys sell the _Star_. But Josef felt,
Being a boy, indifferent to the rules,
Well founded, true or false, that all the corners
Were free to all, and for his daring, strength
Had been selected, picked to sell the _Star_,
And break the ground, gain place upon the stands.
He had been warned from corners, chased and boxed
By heavy fists from corners more than once
Before the day they felled him. On that day
A monster bully, once a pugilist,
Came on him selling the _Star_ and knocked him down,
Kicked in his ribs and broke a leg and cracked
His little skull.
And so they took him home
To Widow Fortelka and the sisters, brothers,
Whose bread he earned. And there he lay and moaned,
And when he sat up had a little cough,
Was short of breath.
And on this foggy day
When Widow Fortelka reads in the _Times_
That Lowell, the editor, is dead, he sits
With feet wrapped in a quilt and gets his breath
With open mouth, his face is brightly flushed;
A fetid sweetness fills the air of the room
That from his open mouth comes. Josef lingers
A few weeks yet--he has tuberculosis.
And so his mother looks at him, resolves
To call this day on William Rummler, see
If Lowell's death has changed the state of things;
And if the legal mind will not relent
Now that the mind that fed it lies in death.
It's true enough, she thinks, I was dismissed,
And sent away for good, but never mind.
It can't be true this pugilist went farther
Than the authority of his hiring, that's
The talk this lawyer gave her, used a word
She could not keep in mind--the lawyer said
_Respondeat superior_ in this case
Was not in point--and if it could be proved
This pugilist was hired by the _Times_,
No one could prove the _Times_ had hired him
To beat a boy, commit a crime. Well, then
"What was he hired for?" the widow asked.
And then she talked with newsboys, and they said
The papers had their sluggers, all of them,
Even the _Star_, and that was just a move
In getting circulation, keeping it.
And all these sluggers watched the stands and drove
The newsboys selling _Stars_ away.
No matter,
She could not argue with this lawyer Rummler,
Who said: "You must excuse me, go away,
I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do."
Now Widow Fortelka had never heard
Of Elenor Murray, had not read a line
Of Elenor Murray's death beside the river.
She was as ignorant of the interview
Between the coroner and this editor
Who died next morning fearing Merival
Would dig up Mrs. Lowell and expose
Her suicide, as conferences of spirits
Directing matters in another world.
Her thought was moulded no less by the riffles
That spread from Elenor Murray and her death.
And she resolved to see this lawyer Rummler,
And try again to get a settlement
To help her dying boy. And so she went.
That morning Rummler coming into town
Had met a cynic friend upon the train
Who used his tongue as freely as his mood
Moved him to use it. So he said to Rummler:
"I see your client died--a hell of a life
That fellow lived, a critic in our midst
Both hated and caressed. And I suppose
You drew his will and know it, I will bet,
If he left anything to charity,
Or to the city, it is some narcotic
To keep things as they are, the ailing body
To dull and bring forgetfulness of pain.
He was a fine albino of the soul,
No pigment in his genesis to give
Color to hair or eyes, he had no gonads."
And William Rummler laughed and said, "You'll see
What Lowell did when I probate the will."
Then William Rummler thought that very moment
Of plans whereby his legal mind could thrive
Upon the building of the big hotel
To Lowell's memory, for perpetual use
Of the Y. M. C. A., the seminary, too,
In Moody's memory for an orthodox
Instruction in the bible.
With such things
In mind, this William Rummler opened the door,
And stepped into his office, got a shock
From seeing Widow Fortelka on the bench,
Where clients waited, waiting there for him.
She rose and greeted him, and William Rummler
Who in a stronger moment might have said:
"You must excuse me, I have told you, madam,
I can do nothing for you," let her follow
Into his private office and sit down
And there renew her suit.
She said to him:
"My boy is dying now, I think his ribs
Were driven in his lungs and punctured them.
He coughs the worst stuff up you ever saw.
And has an awful fever, sweats his clothes
Right through, is breathless, cannot live a month.
And I know you can help me. Mr. Lowell,
So you told me, refused a settlement,
Because this pugilist was never hired
To beat my boy, or any boy; for fear
It would be an admission, and be talked of,
And lead another to demand some money.
But now he's dead, and surely you are free
To help me some, so that this month or two,
While my boy Joe is dying he can have
What milk he wants and food, and when he dies,
A decent coffin, burial. Then perhaps
There will be something left to help me with--
I wash to feed the children, as you know."
And William Rummler looked at her and thought
For one brief moment with his lawyer mind
About this horror, while the widow wept,
And as she wept a culprit mood was his
For thinking of the truth, for well he knew
This slugger had been hired for such deeds,
And here was one result. And in his pain
The cynic words his friend had said to him
Upon the train began to stir, and then
He felt a rush of feeling, blood, and thought
Of clause thirteen in Lowell's will, which gave
The trustees power, and he was chief trustee,
To give some worthy charity once a year,
Not to exceed a thousand dollars. So
He thought to self, "This is a charity.
I will advance the money, get it back
As soon as I probate the will."
At last
He broke this moment's musing and spoke up:
"Your case appeals to me. You may step out,
And wait till I prepare the papers, then
I'll have a check made for a thousand dollars."
Widow Fortelka rose up and took
The crucifix she wore and kissed it, wept
And left the room.
* * * * *
Now here's the case of Percy Ferguson
You'd think his life was safe from Elenor Murray.
No preacher ever ran a prettier boat
Than Percy Ferguson, all painted white
With polished railings, flying at the fore
The red and white and blue. Such little waves
Set dancing by the death of Elenor Murray
To sink so fine a boat, and leave the Reverend
To swim to shore! he couldn't walk the waves!
REV. PERCY FERGUSON
The Rev. Percy Ferguson, patrician
Vicar of Christ, companion of the strong,
And member of the inner shrine, where men
Observe the rituals of the golden calf;
A dilettante, and writer for the press
Upon such themes as optimism, order,
Obedience, beauty, law, while Elenor Murray's
Life was being weighed by Merival
Preached in disparagement of Merival
Upon a fatal Sunday, as it chanced,
Too near to doom's day for the clergyman.
For, as the word had gone about that waste
In lives preoccupied this Merival,
And many talked of waste, and spoke a life
Where waste had been in whole or part--the pulpit
Should take a hand, thought Ferguson. And so
The Reverend Percy Ferguson preached thus
To a great audience and fashionable:
"The hour's need is a firmer faith in Christ,
A closer hold on God, belief again
In sin's reality; the age's vice
Is laughter over sin, the attitude
That sin is not!" And then to prove that sin
Is something real, he spoke of money sins
That bring the money panics, of the beauty
That lust corrupts, wound up with Athen's story,
Which sin decayed. And touching on this waste,
Which was the current talk, what is this waste
Except a sin in life, the moral law
Transgressed, God mocked, the order of man's life,
And God's will disobeyed? Show me a life
That lives through Christ and none shall find a waste.
This clergyman some fifteen years before
Went on a hunt for Alma Bell, who taught
The art department of the school, and found
Enough to scare the school directors that
She burned with lawless love for Elenor Murray.
And made it seem the teacher's reprimand
In school of Elenor Murray for her ways
Of strolling, riding with young men at night,
Was moved by jealousy of Elenor Murray,
Being herself in love with Elenor Murray.
This clergyman laid what he found before
The school directors, Alma Bell was sent
Out of the school her way, and disappeared....
But now, though fifteen years had passed, the story
Of Alma Bell and Elenor Murray crept
Like poisonous mist, scarce seen, around LeRoy.
It had been so always. And all these years
No one would touch or talk in open words
The loathsome matter, since girls grown to women,
And married in the town might have their names
Relinked to Alma Bell's. And was it true
That Elenor Murray strayed as a young girl
In those far days of strolls and buggy rides?
But after Percy Ferguson had thundered
Against the inquest, Warren Henderson,
A banker of the city, who had dealt
In paper of the clergyman, and knew
The clergyman had interests near Victoria,
Was playing at the money game, and knew
He tottered on the brink, and held to hands
That feared to hold him longer--Henderson,
A wise man, cynical, contemptuous
Of frocks so sure of ways to avoid the waste,
So unforgiving of the tangled moods
And baffled eyes of men; contemptuous
Of frocks so avid for the downy beds,
Place, honors, money, admiration, praise,
Much wished to see the clergyman come down
And lay his life beside the other sinners.
But more he knew, admired this Alma Bell,
Did not believe she burned with guilty love
For Elenor Murray, thought the moral hunt
Or Alma Bell had made a waste of life,
As ignorance might pluck a flower for thinking
It was a weed; on Elenor Murray too
Had brought a waste, by scenting up her life
With something faint but ineradicable.
And Warren Henderson would have revenge,
And waited till old Jacob Bangs should fix
His name to paper once again of Ferguson's
To tell old Jacob Bangs he should be wary,
Since banks and agencies were tremulous
With hints of failure at Victoria.
So meeting Jacob Bangs the banker told him
What things were bruited, and warned the man
To fix his name no more to Ferguson's paper.
It was the very day the clergyman
Sought Jacob Bangs to get his signature
Upon a note for money at the bank.
And Jacob Bangs was silent and evasive,
Demurred a little and refused at last.
Which sent the anxious clergyman adrift
To look for other help. He looked and looked,
And found no other help. Associates
Depending more on men than God, fell down,
And in a day the bubble burst. The _Times_
Had columns of the story.
In a week,
At Sunday service Percy Ferguson
Stood in the pulpit to confess his sin,
The Murray jury sat and fed their joy
For hearing Ferguson confess his sin.
This is the way he did it:
"First, my friends,
I do not say I have betrayed the trust
My friends have given me. Some years ago
I thought to make provision for my wife,
I wished to start some certain young men right.
I had another plan I can't disclose,
Not selfish, you'll believe me. So I took
My savings made as lecturer and writer
And put them in this venture. I'm ashamed
To say how great those savings were, in view
Of what the poor earn, those who work with hands!
Ashamed too, when I think these savings grew
Because I spoke the things the rich desired.
And squared my words with what the strong would have--
Therein Christ was betrayed. The end has come.
I too have been betrayed, my confidence
Wronged by my fellows in the enterprise.
I hope to pay my debts. Hard poverty
Has come to me to bring me back to Christ."
"But listen now: These years I lived perturbed,
Lest this life which I grew into would mould
Young men and ministers, lead them astray
To public life, sensation, lecture platforms,
Prosperity, away from Christ-like service,
Obscure and gentle. To those souls I owe
My heart's confession: I have loved my books
More than the poor, position more than service,
Office and honor over love of men;
Lived thus when all my strength belonged to thought,
To work for schools, the sick, the poor, the friendless,
To boys and girls with hungry minds. My friends,
Here I abase my soul before God's throne,
And ask forgiveness for the pious zeal
With which I smote the soul of Alma Bell,
And smudged the robe of Elenor Murray. God,
Thou, who has taken Elenor Murray home,
After great service in the war, O grant
Thy servant yet to kneel before the soul
Of Elenor Murray. For who am I to judge?
What was I then to judge? who coveted honors,
When solitude, where I might dwell apart,
And listen to the voice of God was mine,
By calling and for seeking. I have broken
The oath I took to take no purse or scrip.
I have loved money, even while I knew
No servant of Christ can work for Christ and strive
For money. And if anywhere there be
A noble boy who would become a minister,
Who has heard me, or read my books, and grown
Thereby to cherish secular ideas
Of Christ's work in the world, to him I say:
Repent the thought, reject me; there are men
And women missionaries, here, abroad,
And nameless workers in poor settlements
Whose latchets to stoop down and to unloose
I am unworthy."
"Gift of life too short!
O, beautiful gift of God, too brief at best,
For all a man can do, how have I wasted
This precious gift! How wasted it in pride,
In seeking out the powerful, the great,
The hands with honors, gold to give--when nothing
Is profitable to a servant of the Christ
Except to shepherd Christ's poor. O, young men,
Interpret not your ministry in terms
Of intellect alone, forefront the heart,
That at the end of life you may look up
And say to God: Behind these are the sheep
Thou gavest me, and not a one is lost."
"As to my enemies, for enemies
A clergyman must have whose fault is mine,
Plato would have us harden hearts to sorrow.
And Zeno roofs of slate for souls to slide
The storm of evil--Christ in sorrow did
For evil good. For me, my prayer is this,
My faith as well, that I may be perfected
Through suffering."
That ended the confession.
Then "Love Divine, All Love Excelling" sounded.
The congregation rose, and some went up
To take the pastor's hand, but others left
To think the matter over.
For some said:
"He married fortunate." And others said:
"We know through Jacob Bangs he has investments
In wheat lands, what's the truth? In any case
What avarice is this that made him anxious
About the comfort of his wife and family?
The thing won't work. He's only middle way
In solving his soul's problem. This confession
Is just a poor beginning." Others said:
"He drove out Alma Bell, let's drive him out."
And others said: "you note we never heard
About this speculation till it failed,
And he was brought to grief. If it had prospered
The man had never told, what do you think?"
But in a year as health failed, Ferguson
Took leave of absence, and the silence of life
Which closes over men, however noisy
With sermons, lectures, covered him. His riffle
Died out in distant waters.
There was a Doctor Burke lived at LeRoy,
Neurologist and student. On a night
When Merival had the jury at his house,
Llewellyn George was telling of his travels
In China and Japan, had mutual friends
With Franklin Hollister, the cousin of Elenor,
And son of dead Corinne, who hid her letters
Under the eaves. The talk went wide and far.
For David Borrow, sunny pessimist,
Thrust logic words at Maiworm, the juryman;
And said our life was bad, and must be so,
While Maiworm trusted God, said life was good.
And Winthrop Marion let play his wit,
The riches of his reading over all.
Thus as they talked this Doctor Burke came in.
"You'll pardon this intrusion, I'll go on
If this is secret business. Let me say
This inquest holds my interest and I've come
To tell of Elenor's ancestry." Thus he spoke.
"There'll be another time if I must go."
And Merival spoke up and said: "why stay
And tell us what you know, or think," and so
The coroner and jury sat and heard:--
DR. BURKE
You've heard of potters' wheels and potters' hands.
I had a dream that told the human tale
As well as potters' wheels or potters' hands.
I saw a great hand slopping plasmic jelly
Around the low sides of a giant bowl.
A drop would fly upon the giant table,
And quick the drop would twist up into form,
Become homonculus and wave its hands,
Brandish a little pistol, shoot a creature,
Upspringing from another drop of plasm,
Slopped on the giant table. Other drops,
Flying as water from a grinding stone,
Out of the giant bowl, took little crowns
And put them on their heads and mounted thrones,
And lorded little armies. Some became
Half-drooped and sickly things, like poisoned flies.
And others stood on lighted faggots, others
Fed and commanded, others served and starved,
But many joined the throng of animate drops,
And hurried on the phantom quest.
You see,
Whether you call it potter's hand or hand
That stirs, to no end, jelly in the bowl,
You have the force outside and not inside.
Invest it with a malice, wanton humor,
Which likes to see the plasmic jelly slop,
And rain in drops upon the giant table,
And does not care what happens in the world,
That giant table.