Her sacrifice in that, and if I think
She found expression there--yes, of a kind,
But not the kind she hungered for, not music.
She found adventure there, excitement too.
That uses up the soul's power, takes the place
Of better self-expression. But you see
I do not think self-immolation life,
I know it to be death. Now, look a minute:
Why did she join the church? why to forget!
Why did she go to war? why to forget.
And at the last, this thing called sacrifice
Rose up with meaning in her eyes. You see
They tell around here now she often said:
"I'm going to the war to be swept under."
Now comes your Christian idea: Let me die,
But die in service of the race, in giving
I waste myself for others, give myself!
Let God take notice, and reward the gift!
This is the failure's recourse often-times,
A prodigal flinging of the self--let God
Find what He can of good, or find all good.
I have abandoned all control, all thought
Of finding my soul otherwise, if here
I find my soul, a doubt that makes the gift
Not less abandoned.
This is foolish talk
I know you think, I think it is myself,
At least in part. I know I'm right, however,
In guessing off the reason of her failure,
If failure it is. But pshaw, why talk of failure
About a woman born to live the life
She lived, which could not have been different,
Much different under any circumstance?
She might have married, had a home and children,
What of it? As it is she makes a story,
A flute sound in our symphony--all right!
And I confess, in spite of all I've said,
The profit, the success, may not be known
To any but one's self. Now look at me,
By all accounts I am a failure--look!
For forty years just making poor ends meet,
My love all spent in making good pianos.
I thrill all over picking spruce and wires,
And putting them together--all my love
Gone into this, no head at all for business.
I keep no books, they cheat me out of rent.
I don't know how to sell pianos, when
I sell one I have trouble oftentimes
In getting pay for it. But just the same
I sit here with myself, I know myself,
I've found myself, and when collectors come
I can say come to-morrow, turn about,
And run the scale, or improvise, and smile,
Forget the world!
* * * * *
The three arose and left.
Llewellyn George said: "That's a rarity,
That man is like a precious flower you find
Way off among the weeds and rocky soil,
Grown from a seed blown out of paradise;
I want to call again."
So thus they knew
This much of Elenor Murray's music life.
But on a day a party talk at tea,
Of Elenor Murray and her singing voice
And how she tried to train it--just a riffle
Which passed unknown of Merival. For you know
Your name may come up in a thousand places
At earth's ends, though you live, and do not die
And make a great sensation for a day.
And all unknown to Merival for good
This talk of Lilli Alm and Ludwig Haibt:
LILLI ALM
In Lola Schaefer's studio in the Tower,
Tea being served to painters, poets, singers,
Herr Ludwig Haibt, a none too welcome guest,
Of vital body, brisk, too loud of voice,
And Lilli Alm crossed swords.
It came about
When Ludwig Haibt said: "Have you read the papers
About this Elenor Murray?" And then said:
"I tried to train her voice--she was a failure."
And Lilli Alm who taught the art of song
Looked at him half contemptuous and said:
"Why did she fail?" To which Herr Ludwig answered
"She tried too hard. She made her throat too tense,
And made its muscles stiff by too much thought,
Anxiety for song, the vocal triumph."
"O, yes, I understand," said Lilli Aim.
Then stabbing him she added, "since you dropped
The Perfect Institute, and dropped the idea
Which stresses training muscles of the tongue,
And all that thing, be fair and shoulder half
The failure of poor Elenor Murray on
Your system's failure. For I chanced to know
The girl myself. She started work with me,
And I am sure that if I had been able--
With time enough I could have done it too--
To rid her mind of muscles and to fix
The thought alone of music in her mind,
She would have sung. Now listen, Ludwig Haibt,
You've come around to see that song's the thing.
I take a pupil and I say to her:
The mind must fix itself on music, say
I would make song, pure tones and beautiful;
That comes from spirit, from the Plato rapture,
Which gets the idea. It is well to know
Some physiology, I grant, to know
When, how to move the vocal organs, feel
How they are moving, through the ear to place
These organs in relation, and to know
The soft palate is drawn against the hard;
The tongue can take positions numerous,
Can be used at the root, a throaty voice;
Or with the tip, produce expressiveness.
But what must we avoid?--rigidity.
And if that girl was over-zealous, then
So much the more her teaching should have kept
Mind off the larynx and the tongue, and fixed
Upon the spiritual matters, so to give
The snake-like power of loosening, contracting
The muscles used for singing. Ludwig Haibt,
I can forgive your system, since abandoned,
I can't forgive your words to-day who say
This woman failed for trying over much,
When I know that your system made her throw
An energy truly wonderful on muscles;
And when I think of your book where you said:
The singing voice is the result, observe
Of physical conditions, like the strings
Or tubes of brass. While granting that it's well
To know the art of tuning up the strings,
And how to place them; after all the art
Of tuning and of placing comes from mind,
The idea, and the art of making song
Is just the breathing of the perfect spirit
Upon the strings. The throat is but the leaves,
Let them be flexible, the mouth's the flower,
The tone the perfume. And your olden way
Of harping on the larynx--well, since you
Turned from it, I'm ungenerous perhaps
To scold you thus to-day.
But this I say,
Let us be frank as teachers: Take the fetich
Of breathing and see how you cripple talent,
Or take that matter of the laryngyscope,
Whereby you photograph a singer's throat,
Caruso's, Galli Curci's at the moment
Of greatest beauty in song, and thus preserve
In photographs before you how the muscles
Looked and were placed that moment. Then attempt
To get the like effect by placing them
In similar fashion. Oh, you know, Herr Ludwig,
These fetiches go by. One thing remains:
The idea in the soul of beauty, music,
The hope to give it forth.
Alas! to think
So many souls are wasted while we teach
This thing or that. The strong survive, of course.
But take this Elenor Murray--why, that girl
Was just a flame, I never saw such hunger
For self-development, and beauty, richness,
In all experience in life--I knew her,
That's why I say so--take her as I say,
And put her to a practice--yours we'll say--
Where this great zeal she had is turned and pressed
Upon the physical, just the very thing
To make her throat constrict, and fill her up
With over anxiety and make her fail.
When had she come to me at first this passion
Directed to the beauty, the idea
Had put her soul at ease to ease her body,
Which gradually and beautifully had answered
That flame of hers.
Well, Ludwig Haibt, you're punished
For wasting several years upon a system
Since put away as half erroneous,
If not quite worthless. But I must confess,
Since I have censured you, to my own sin.
This girl ran out of money, came to me
And told me so. To which I said: "Too bad,
You will have money later, when you do,
Come back to me." She stood a silent moment,
Her hand upon the knob, I saw her tears,
Just little dim tears, then she said good-bye
And vanished from me.
Well, I now repent.
I who have thought of beauty all my life,
And taught the art of sound made beautiful,
Let slip a chance for beauty--why, I think,
A beauty just as great as song! You see
I had a chance to serve a hungering soul--
I could have said just let the money go,
Or let it go until you get the money.
I let that chance for beauty slip. Even now
I see poor Elenor Murray at the door,
Who paused, no doubt, in hope that I would say
What I thought not to say.
So, Ludwig Haibt,
We are a poor lot--let us have some tea!
"We are a poor lot," Ludwig Haibt replied.
"But since this is confessional, I absolve you,
If you'll permit me, from your sin. Will you
Absolve me, if I say I'm sorry too?
I'll tell you something, it is really true:--
I changed my system more I think because
Of what I learned from teaching Elenor Murray
Than on account of any other person.
She demonstrated better where my system
Was lacking than all pupils that I had.
And so I changed it; and of course I say
The thing is music, just as poets say
The thing is beauty, not the rhyme and words,
With which they bring it, instruments that's all,
And not the thing--but beauty."
So they talked,
Forgave each other. And that very day
Two priests were talking of confessionals
A mile or so from the Tower, where Lilli Alm
And Ludwig Haibt were having tea. You say
The coroner was ignorant of this!
What is the part it plays with Elenor Murray?
Or with the inquest? Wait a little yet
And see if Merival has told to him
What thing of value touching Elenor Murray
Is lodged in Father Whimsett's heart or words.
FATHER WHIMSETT
Looking like Raphael's Perugino, eyes
So slightly, subtly aquiline, as brown
As a buck-eye, amorous, flamed, but lightly dimmed
Through thought of self while sitting for the artist;
A nose well bridged with bone for will, the nostrils
Distended as if sniffing diaphanous fire;
A very bow for lips, the under lip
Rich, kissable like a woman's; heavy cheeks
Propped with a rounded tower of flesh for neck:
Thus Perugino looked, says Raphael,
And thus looked Father Whimsett at his desk,
With vertical creases, where the nose and brow
Together come, between the eye-brows slanting
Unequally, half clown-wise, half Mephisto,
With just a touch of that abandoned humor,
And laughter at the world, the race of men,
Mephisto had for mischief, which the priest
Has for a sense which looks upon the dream
And smiles, yet pities those who move in it.
And Father Whimsett smokes and reads and smiles.
He soon will hold confessional. For days
he has heard nothing but complaints of lovers,
And searched for nullities, impediments,
Through which to give sore stricken hearts relief:
There was the youth too drunk to know he married
A woman never baptized. Now the youth
Has found another--oh this is the one!
And comes and says: Oh, holy father, help me,
May I be free to marry her I love,
And get the church's blessing when a court
Dissolves the civil contract? Holy Father,
I knew not what I did, cannot remember
Where I was married, when, my mind's a blank--
It was the drink, you know.
And so it goes,
The will is eyeless through concupiscence,
And that absolves the soul that's penitent.
And Father Whimsett reads his Latin books,
Searches for subtleties for faithful souls,
Whereby the faithful souls may have their wish,
Yet keep the gospel, too.
These Latin books
Leave him fatigued, but not fatigued to turn
Plotinus, Xenophon, Boccacio,
Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris.
And just this moment Father Whimsett reads
Catullus, killing time, before he hears
Confession, gets the music of Catullus
Along the light that enters at the eye:
Etherial strings plucked by the intellect
To vibrate to the inner ear. At times
He must re-light his half-forgot cigar.
And while the music of the Latin verse,
Which is an echo, as he stops to light
His half-forgot cigar, is wafted through
His meditation, as a tune is heard
After the keys are stayed, it blends, becomes
The soul, interpretation of these stories,
Which lovers tell him in these later days.
And now the clock upon the mantel chimes
The quarter of the hour. Up goes Catullus
By Ovid on the shelf. The dead cigar
Is thrown away. He rises from the chair--
When Father Conway enters, just to visit
Some idle moments, smoke and have a talk.
And Father Whimsett takes his seat again,
Waves Father Conway to a comfort chair,
Says "Have a smoke," and Father Conway smokes,
And sees Catullus, says you read Catullus,
And lays the morning _Times_ upon the table,
And says to Father Whimsett: "Every day
The _Times_ has stories better than Catullus,
And episodes which Horace would have used.
I wish we had a poet who would take
This city of Chicago, write it up,
The old Chicago, and the new Chicago,
The race track, old cafes and gambling places,
The prize fights, wrestling matches, sporting houses,
As Horace wrote up Rome. Or if we had
A Virgil he would find an epic theme
In this American matter, typical
Of our America, one phase or more
Concerning Elenor Murray. Here to-day
There is a story, of some letters found
In Arthur Fouche's mansion, under the floor,
Sensational, dramatic.
Father Whimsett
Looked steadily at Father Conway, blew
A funnel of tobacco smoke and said:
I scarcely read the _Times_ these days, too busy--
I've had a run of rich confessionals.
The war is ended, but they still come on,
And most are lovers in the coils of love.
I had one yesterday that made me think
Of one I had a year ago last spring,
The point was this: they say forgive me father,
For I have sinned, then as the case proceeds
A greater sin comes forth, I mean the sin
Of saying sin is good, cannot be sin:
I loved the man, or how can love be sin?
Well, as a human soul I see the point,
But have no option, must lay to and say
Acknowledgment, contrition and the promise
To sin no more, is necessary to
Win absolution. Now to show the matter,
Here comes a woman, says I leave for France
To serve, to die. I have a premonition
That I shall die abroad; or if I live,
I have had fears, I shall be taken, wronged,
So driven by this honor to destroy
Myself, goes on and says, I tell you all
These fears of mine that you may search my heart,
More gladly may absolve me. Then she says,
These fears worked in my soul until I took
The step which I confess, before I leave.
I wait and she proceeds:
"O, holy father,
There is a man whom I have loved for years,
These five years past, such hopeless, happy years.
I love him and he loves me, holy father.
He holds me sacred as his wife, he loves me
With the most holy love. It cannot be
That any love like ours is guilty love,
Can have no other quality than good,
If it be love."
Well, here's a pretty soul
To sit in the confessional! So I say,
Why do you come to me? Loving your sin,
Confessing it, denying it in one breath,
Leaves you in sin without forgiveness.
Well, then she tacks about and says "I sinned,
And I am sorry. Wait a minute, father,
And see the flesh and spirit mixed again."
She wants to tell me all, I let her go.
And so she says: "His wife's an invalid,
Has been no wife to him. Besides," she says--
Now watch this thrust to pierce my holy shield--
"She is not in the church's eye his wife,
She never was baptized"--I almost laughed,
But answered her, You think adultery
Is less adultery in a case like this?
"Well, no," she says, "but could he be divorced
The church would marry us." Go on, I said,
And then she paused a little and went on:
"I said I loved this man, and it is true,
And years ago I gave myself to him,
And then his wife found out there was a woman--
But not that I was the woman--years ago
At confirmation I confessed it all,
Need only say this time I gave him up,
And crushed him out with work--was chaste for years.
And then I met a man, a different man
Who stirred me otherwise, kept after me.
At last I weakened, sinned three months ago,
And suffered for it. For he took me, left me.
As if he wanted body of me alone,
And was not pleased with that. And after that,
I think that I was mad, a furious passion
Was kindled by this second man, and left
With nothing to employ its flame. Two weeks
Went by, he did not seek me out, none knew
The hour of our departure. Then I thought
How little I had been to this first lover,
And of the years when I denied him--so
To recompense his love, to serve him, father,
Yes, to allay this passion newly raised
By this new lover, whom I thought I loved,
I went to my old lover, free of will,
And took his lips and said to him, O take me,
I am yours to do with as you choose to-night.
He turned as pale as snow and shook with fear,
His heart beat in his throat. I terrified him
With this great will of mine in this small body.
I went on while he stood there by the window,
His back toward me. Make me wholly yours,
Take no precaution, prudence throw away
As mean, unworthy. Let your life precede,
Forestall the intruder's, if one be. And if
A child must be, yours shall it be."
"He turned,
And took me in his arms...."
"And so to make
As nearly as might be a marriage, father,
I took--but let me tell you: I had thought
His wife might die at any time, so thinking
During these years I had bought bridal things;
A veil, embroideries, silk lingerie.
And I took to our room my negligee,
Boudoir cap, satin slippers, so to make
All beautiful as we were married, father.
How have I sinned? I cannot deem it wrong.
Do I not soil my soul with penitence,
And smut this loveliness with penitence?
Can I regret my work, nor take a hurt
Upon my very soul? How keep it clean
Confessing what I did (if I thought so)
As evil and unclean?"
The devil again
Entered with casuistry, as you perceive.
And so to make an end, I said to her,
You must bring to this sacrament a heart
Contrite and humble, promise me beside
To sin no more. The case is in your hands,
You can confess with lips, deny with heart,
God only knows, I don't, it's on your soul
To speak the truth or lie to me. Confess
And I'll absolve you.--For in truth my heart
Was touched by what she said, her lovely voice.
But now the story deepened. For she said,
I have not told you all. And she renewed:
"Suppose you pack your trunk and have your lunch,
Go to the station, but no train arrives,
And there you wait and wait, until you're hungry,
And nothing to do but wait, no place to lunch,
You cannot leave the station, lest the train
Should come while you are gone. Well, so it was,
The weeks went by, and still we were not called.
And I had closed my old life, sat and waited
The time of leaving to begin new life.
And after I had sinned with my first lover,
Parted from him, said farewell, ended it,
Could not go back to him, at least could think
Of no way to return that would not dull
The hour we lived together, look, this man,
This second lover looks me up again
And overwhelms me with a flaming passion.
It seemed he had thought over what I was,
Become all fire for me. He came to me,
And said, I love you, love you, looked at me,
And I could see the love-light in his eyes,
The light that woman knows. Well, I was weak,
Lonely and bored. He stirred my love besides;
And then a curious thought came in my brain:
The spirit is not found save through the flesh,
O holy father, and I thought to self,
Bring, as you may, these trials close together
In point of time and see where spirit is,
Where flesh directs to spirit most. And so
I went with him again, and found in truth
I loved him, he was mine and I was his,
We two were for each other, my old lover
Was just my love's beginning, not my love
Fully and wholly, rapturously, this man
Body and spirit harmonized with me.
I found him through the love of my old lover,
And knew by contrast, memory of the two
And this immediate comparison
Of spirits and of bodies, that this man
Who left me, whom I turned from to the first,
As I have tried to tell you, was the one.
O holy father, he is married, too.
And as I leave for France this ends as well;
No child in me from either. I confess
That I have sinned most grievously, I repent
And promise I shall sin no more."
And so,
I gave her absolution. Well, you see
The church was dark, but I knew who it was,
I knew the voice. She left. Another penitent
Entered with a story. What is this?
Here is a woman who's promiscuous.
Tried number one and then tries number two,
And comes and tells me, she has taken proof,
Weighed evidence of spirit and of body,
And thinks she knows at last, affirms as much.
Such conduct will not do, that's plain enough,
Not even if the truth of love is known
This way, no other way.
Then Father Conway
Began as follows: "I've a case like that,
A woman married, but she found her husband
Was just the cup of Tantulus and so...."
But Father Whimsett said, "Why, look at that,
I'm over-due a quarter of an hour.
Come in to-morrow, father, tell me then."
The two priests rose and left the room together.
JOHN CAMPBELL AND CARL EATON
Carl Eaton and John Campbell both were raised
With Elenor Murray in LeRoy. The mother
Of Eaton lived there; but these boys had gone,
Now grown to manhood to Chicago, where
They kept the old days of companionship.
And Mrs. Eaton saw the coroner,
And told him how she saved her son from Elenor,
And broke their troth--because upon a time
Elenor Murray, though betrothed, to Carl
Went riding with John Campbell, and returned
At two o'clock in the morning, drunk, and stood
Helpless and weary, holding to the gate.
For which she broke the engagement of her son
To Elenor Murray. That was truth to her,
And truth to Merival, for the time, at least.
But this John Campbell and Carl Eaton meet
One evening at a table drinking beer,
And talk about the inquest, Elenor;
Since much is published in the _Times_ to stir
Their memories of her. And John speaks up:
"Well, Carl, now Elenor Murray is no more,
And we are friends so long, I'd like to know
What do you think of her?"
"About the time,
That May before she finished High School, Elenor
Broke loose, ran wild, do you remember, Carl?
She had some trouble in her home, I heard--
She told me so. That Alma Bell affair
Made all the fellows wonder, as you know,
What kind of game she was, if she was game
For me, or you, or anyone. Besides
She had flirting eye, a winning laugh,
And she was eighteen, and a cherry ripe.
This Alma Bell affair and ills at home
Made her spurt up and dart out like a fuse
Which burns to powder wet and powder heated
Until it burns; she burned, you see, and stopped
When principles or something quenched the flame.
I walked with her from school a time or two,
When she was hinting, flirting with her eyes,
I know it now, but what a dunce I was,
As most men when they're twenty."
"Well, now listen!
A little later on an evening,
I see her buggy riding with Roy Green,
That rake, do you remember him, deadbeat,
Half drunkard then, corrupted piece of flesh?
She sat up in defiance by his side,
Her chin stuck out to tell the staring ones:
Go talk or censure to your heart's content.
And people stood and stared to see her pass
And shook their heads and wondered."
"Afterward
I learned from her this was the night at home
Her father and her mother had a quarrel.
Her mother asked her father to buy Elenor
A new dress for commencement, and the father
Was drinking and rebuffed her, so they quarreled.
And rode with him to shame her father, coming
After a long ride in the country home
At ten o'clock or so."
"Well, then I thought,
If she will ride with Roy Green, I go back
To hinting and to flirting eyes and guess
The girl will ride with me, or something more.
So I begin to circle round the girl,
And walk with her, and take her riding too.
She drops Roy Green for me--what does he care?
He's had enough of her or never cared--
Which is it? there's the secret for a man
As long as women interest him--who knows
What the precedent fellow was to her?
Roy Green takes to another and another.
He died a year ago, as you'll remember,
What were his secrets, agony? he seemed
A man to me who lived and never thought."
"So Elenor Murray went with me. Oh, well,
She gave me kisses, let me hold her tight,
We used to stop along the country ways
And kiss as long as we had breath to kiss,
And she would gasp and tremble."