This Elenor Murray

Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended

Twelve years or so, and I was running down,

Was tippling just a little every day;

And I came by this lot one afternoon

When school was out, a sunny afternoon.

The children had no place except the street

To play in; they were standing by the fence,

The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor

Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls

Standing around her, and I said to them:

"Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?"

And Elenor--she always was a leader,

And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on,"

And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children,

Some quicker and some slower, followed her.

Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor

Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed,

And said "What can they do? He says to do it,"

Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them

Were playing and were shouting in the lot.

And I stood there and watched them half malicious,

And half in pleasure watching them at play.

Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out.

And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you."

He drove them out and as they jumped the fence

Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me.

And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!"

And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray

And said, "You are the wildest of them all."

I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone.

I won this God damn land for those you serve,

They use it for a cow and nothing else,

And let these children run about the streets,

When there are grass and dandelions there

In plenty for these children, and the cow,

And space enough to play in without bothering

That solitary cow." I took his hands

Away from Elenor Murray; he and I

Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last

He walked away; the children scampered off.

Next day, however, they arrested me

For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_,

And fined me twenty dollars and the costs.

Since then the cow has all her way in there.

And Elenor Murray left this rotten place,

Went to the war, came home and died, and proved

She had the sense to leave so vile a world.

* * * * *

George Joslin ending up his days with dreams

Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk,

Stirred to a recollection of a face

He saw in Paris fifty years before,

Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's,

Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept

Mementos, treasures of the olden days.

And found a pamphlet, came to Merival,

With certain recollections, and with theories

Of Elenor Murray:--

GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN

Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture!

Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline,

A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck,

Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles

And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know

It looks like Elenor Murray.

Well, you see

I read each day about the inquest--good!

Dig out the truth, begin a system here

Of making family records, let us see

If we can do for people when we know

How best to do it, what is done for stock.

So build up Illinois, the nation too.

I read about you daily. And last night

When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_

Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord,

Where have I seen that face before? I thought

Through more than fifty years departed, sent

My mind through Europe and America

In all my travels, meetings, episodes.

I could not think. At last I opened up

A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos,

Picked up since 1860, and behold

I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken.

Here is your Elenor Murray born again,

As here might be your blackbird of this year

With spots of red upon his wings, the same

As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing

Out of the April of this year, repeating

The color, form of one you saw last year.

Repeating and the same, but not the same;

No two alike, you know. I'll come to that.

Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris

I saw La Menken, I'll return to this.

But just as Elenor Murray has her life

Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock--

And everyone has something in his life

Which takes him, makes him, is the image too

Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa,

Her notable first part as actress, emblem

Of spirit, character, and of omen too

Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end.

Who is La Menken? Symbol of America,

One phase of spirit! She was venturesome,

Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident,

And as she wrote of self, a vagabond,

A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame

Aspiring but disreputable, coming up

With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed,

But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued

In time of blossom. There are souls, you know,

Who have shed shapeless immaturities,

Betrayals of the seed before the blossom

Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection;

Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves

Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she,

Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her.

But being America and American,

Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves

With prodigal recklessness, in vital health

And unselective taste and vision mixed

Of beauty and of truth.

Who was La Menken?

She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five,

Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her

And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans.

She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba;

Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy,

And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age

Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him;

Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist.

They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet

Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner.

Now something happens, nothing in her birth

Or place of birth to prophesy her life

Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown,

A hand instead is darted from the curtain

That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks

A symbol on her heart and whispers to her:

You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this:

She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off,

And lash me to the horse. They were afraid,

But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night,

And after that succeeded, was the rage

And for her years remaining found herself

Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will,

Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself

With stronger will than vision, passion stronger

Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world,

Love, beauty, living, greater than her power.

And all the time she had the appetite

To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last,

She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend:

The soul and body do not fit each other--

A human spirit in a horse's flesh.

This is your Elenor Murray, in a way.

But to return to pansies, run your hand

Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy

With petals stunted, here's another one

All perfect but one petal, here's another

Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though.

And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye

With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray

Has something of the color and the form

Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy,

And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers

La Menken strove to be, and could not be,

Ended with being only of their kind.

And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray,

And people wept when poor La Menken died.

Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity,

It makes you overlook there are two hours:

The hour of joy, the hour of finding out

Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain.

We who inspect these lives behold the pain,

And see the error, do not keep in mind

The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed

With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens

Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn

For any other way--"this is the life"

I hear them say.

Well, now I go along.

La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends

Her pugilist away, tries once again

And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr--

And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco,

And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles.

She goes to Europe then--with husband? No!

James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage.

She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite

In London's grandest hostlery, entertains

Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read,

The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand

And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman;

And for a crest a horse's head surmounting

Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa,

And piles the money up.

Then next is Paris.

And there I saw her, 1866,

When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece,

The Prince Imperial were in a box.

She wandered to Vienna, there was ill,

Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave

In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards

Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got

A little stone with these words carved upon it:

"Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself

Knew nothing of herself.

But when in Paris

They sold her picture taken with her arms

Around Dumas, and photographs made up

Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well,

Of her and great Dumas, I have them home.

Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas,

Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens,

By his permission, mark you--don't you see

Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray

A miniature imperfect of La Menken?

She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her;

A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh;

A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive,

Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical,

Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy,

Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said

She had a nature spiritual, religious

Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle;

Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church,

And did not keep the faith, if truth be told.

Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet

La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts

For seers and for poets, lofty souls.

And who does that? A woman wholly bad?

Why no, a woman to be given life

Fit for her spirit in another realm

By God who will take notice, I believe.

Now listen if you will! "I know your soul.

It has met mine somewhere in starry space.

And you must often meet me, vagabond

Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents

Disreputable before the just. Just think

I am a linguist, write some poems too,

Can paint a little, model clay as well.

And yet for all these gropings of my soul

I am a vagabond, of little use.

My body and my soul are in a scramble

And do not fit each other--let them carve

Those words upon my stone, but also these

Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love

Whatever is good and beautiful in life;

And that my soul has sought them without rest.

Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you,

Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris

Then die content."

Now, Coroner Merival,

You're not the only man who wants to see,

Will work to make America a republic

Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success.

Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much,

Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth

Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived.

I care not how you view the lives of people,

As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith

So high above the pansy bed it sees

The streaked and stunted pansies filling in

The pattern that the perfect pansies outline,

Therefore are smiling, even indifferent

To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last

Because it could not be the flower it wished.

My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken

Goes out in sorrow, even while I know

They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled,

And either did not know, or did not care

The growing time was precious, and if wasted

Could never be regained. Look at La Menken

At seven years put in the ballet corps;

And look at Elenor Murray getting smut

Out of experience that made her wise.

What shall we do about it?--let it go?

And say there is no help, or say a republic,

Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm

Of rulership as president a list

Of men more able than the emperors,

Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too

The equal of the greatest, money makers,

And domineers of finance and economies

Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat

A country like this one must let its children

Waste as they wasted in the darker years

Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds

Who see salvation, progress in restraint,

Pre-empt the field of moulding human life?

Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds

Upon the task, as recently we built

An army for the war, equipped and fed it,

An army better than all other armies,

More powerful, more apt of hand and brain,

Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said

Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse

I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace

The skill and genius which we use in war,

Though it cost twenty billion, and why not?

Why every dollar, every drop of blood

For war like this to guard democracy,

And not so much or more to build the land,

Improve our blood, make individual

America and her race? And first to rout

Poverty and disease, give youth its chance,

And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys

Have huts for recreation, clergymen,

And is it more, less worth to furnish hands

Intimate, hearts intimate for the use

Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths

Who feel such vigor in their restless wings

They tumble out of crowded nests and fly

To fall in thickets, dash themselves against

Walls, trees?

I have a vision, Coroner,

Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun,

A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours

Made over as to people, boys and girls,

Conserved like forests, water power or mines;

Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies

Practiced in spirits, waste of human life,

Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers,

Avoided by a science, science of life,

Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war,

And billions for the flag--all well enough!

Some billions now to make democracy

Democracy in truth with us, and life

Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may,

And missing much, as this La Menken did.

I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies,

That have no use but just to piece the pattern.

Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then

Our human duty ends, the God in us

Will have it just this way, no other way.

And then we may accept so poor a world,

A republic so unfinished.

* * * * *

Will Paget is another writer of letters

To Coroner Merival. The coroner

Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file

Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy

Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening

And reads this letter to the jurymen:

WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS

To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice

Dissentient from much that goes the rounds,

Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word:

Give men and women freedom, save the land

From dull theocracy--the theo, what?

A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say,

Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths,

And give them thrones of gold and ivory

From where with leaded sceptres they may whack

King Demos driven forth. You know the face?

The temples are like sea shells, hollows out,

Which narrow close the space for cortex cells.

There would be little brow if hair remained;

But hair is gone, because the dandruff came.

The eyes are close together like a weasel's;

The jaws are heavy, that is character;

The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken;

The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten.

Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules,

And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read,

Save what I tell you, never books that tell

Of men and women as they live and are.

Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray

The evil passions and satiric moods

Which mock this Christian nation and its hope.

Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer.

Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races.

Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play.

Thou shalt not bow to graven images

Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze.

Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings,

My name is legion, I am many, come

Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned,

And now the ruler of hogocracy,

Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts

Root up the truffles in your great republic,

And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms

Of people who fall over in the pen.

Hierarchies in my name are planted under

Your states political to sprout and take

The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!--

Thought must be free--unless your thought objects

To such dominion, and to literal faith

In an old book that never had a place

Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra.

So here is your theocracy and here

The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now

That people cry for war? You see that God

Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play

Or kindle spirit with a rapture save

A moral end's in view. All joy is sin,

Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks

Consent to be, save for itself. But war

Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that;

To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such,

Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed

By God and moral reasons, therefore war,

A game disguised as business, cosmic work

For great millenniums, no less relieves

The boredom of theocracies. But if

Your men and women had the chance to play,

Be free and spend superfluous energies,

In what I call the greatest game, that's Life,

Have life more freely, deeply, and you say

How would you like a war and lose a leg,

Or come from battle sick for all your years?

You would say no, unless you saw an issue,

Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say

The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold

All honest paganism in such things discarded

For God who comes in glory, trampling presses

Filled up with grapes of wrath.

Now hear me out:

I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only

That your hogocracy was grunting war

We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember

How dancing flourished madly in the land;

Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance,

And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic,

There's psychic secrets here. But then at last

What can you do with life? You're well and strong,

Flushed with desire, mad with appetites,

You turn this way and find a sign forbidden,

You turn that way and find the door is closed.

Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back,

Find work, develop character, restrain,

Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger

And thirst diminish with a tighter belt.

And none to say, take off the belt and eat,

Here's water for you.

Well, you have a war.

We used to say in foot ball kick their shins,

And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked

We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south

Who called us mud-sills in this freer north,

And mouthed democracy; and as for that

Their churches made of God a battle leader,

An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes,

They soon would wipe us up, they were the people.

But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch.

And why not? For a gun and uniform,

And bands that play are rapturous enough.

But when you get a bullet through the heart,

The game is not so funny as it was.

That's why I hated Germany and hate her,

And feel we could not let this German culture

Spread over earth. That culture was but this:

Life must have an expression and a game,

And war's the game, besides the prize is great

In land and treasure, commerce, let us play,

It lets the people's passions have a vent

When fires of life burn hot and hotter under

The kettle and the lid is clamped by work,

Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions.

Before this Elenor Murray woke to life

LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play.

It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats

Ran up and down the river--on the streets

You heard the cry of barkers, in the park

The band was playing, and you heard the ring

Of registers at fountains and buffets.

All this was shabby maybe, but observe

There are those souls who see the wrath of God

As blackest background to the light of soul:

And when the thunder rumbles and the storm

Comes up with lightning then they say to men

Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers,

You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root

From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf

In all theocracies, and throws a shadow

Upon all freedom.

Look at us to-day.

They say to me, see what a town we have:

The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys,

The banks full up of money, business good,

The workmen sober, going home at night,

No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing,

No drinking and no gaming and no vice.

No marriages contracted to be broken.

Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean!

And I reply, you like the stir of work,

But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke,

Your banks have money. Let me look behind

The door that closes on your man at home,

The wife and children there, what shall I find?

A sick man looks to health as it were all,

But when the fever leaves him and he feels

The store of strength in muscles slumbering

And waiting to be used, then something else

Than health is needful, he must have a way

To voice the life within him, and he wonders

Why health seemed so desirable before,

And all sufficient to him.

Take this girl:

Why do you marvel that she rode at night

With any man who came along? Good God,

If I were born a woman and they put me

In a theocracy, hogocracy,

I'd do the first thing that came in my mind

To give my soul expression. Don't you think

You're something of a bully and a coward

To ask such model living from this girl

When you, my grunting hogos, run the land

And bring us scandals like the times of Grant,

And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys,

When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff

Concerning loot and plunder, malversation,

That riots in your cities, printed daily?

I roll the panoramic story out

To Washington the great--what do I see?

It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry;

But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember

How little flies and big were buzzing once

Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith;

And beating wings, already gummed with sweet,

Until their little bellies touched the glue,

They sought to fill their bellies with--at last

Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up

And spoken of in sacred whispers.

Well,

I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling,

If that be really true. I understand

What drove her to the war. I think she knew

Too much to marry, settle down and live

Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos.

I wish we had a dozen Elenor Murrays

In every village in this land of Demos

To down Theocracy, which is just as bad

As Prussianism, is no different

From Prussianism. And I fear but this

As fruitage of the war: that men and women

Will have burnt on their souls the words ceramic

That war's the thing, and this theocracy,

Where generous outlets for the soul are stopped

Will keep the words in mind. When boredom comes,

And grows intolerable, you'll see the land

Go forth to war to get a thrill and live--

Unless we work for freedom, for delight

And self-expression.

* * * * *

Dwight Henry is another writer of letters,

Stirred by the Murray inquest; writes a screed

"The House that Jack Built," read by Merival

To entertain his jury, in these words:

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT

Why don't they come to me to find the cause

Of Elenor Murray's death? The house is first;

That is the world, and Jack is God, you know;

The malt is linen, purple, wine and food,

The rats that get the malt are nobles, lords,

Those who had feudal dues and hunting rights,

And privileges, first nights, all the rest.

The cats are your Voltaires, Rousseaus; the dogs,

Your jailers, Louis, Fredericks and such.

And O, you blessed cow, you common people,

Whom maidens all forlorn attend and milk.

Here is your Elenor Murray who gives hands,

Brain, heart and spirit to the task of milking,

And straining milk that other lips may drink,

Revive and flourish, wedding, if she weds,

The tattered man in church, which is your priest

Shaven and shorn, and wakened with the sun

By the cock, theology that keeps the house

Well timed and ruled for honor unto Jack,

Who must have order, rising on the hour,

And ceremony for his house.

If rats

Had never lived, or left the malt alone,

This girl had lived. Let's trace the story down:

We went to France to fight, we go to France

To get the origin of Elenor's death.

It's 1750, say, the malt of France

And Europe, too, is over-run by rats;

The nobles and the clergy own the land,

Exact the taxes, drink the luscious milk

Of the crumpled horns. But cats come slinking by

Called Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau. Now look!

Cat Diderot goes after war and taxes,

The slave trade, privilege, the merchant stomach.

In England, too, there is a sly grimalkin,

Who poisons rats with most malicious thoughts,

And bears the name of Adam--Adam Smith,

By Jack named Adam just to signify

His sinful nature. But the cat Voltaire

Says Adam never fell, that man is good,

An honest merchant better than a king,

And shaven priests are worse than parasites.

He rubs his glossy coat against the legs

Of Quakers, loving natures, loathes the trade

Of war, and runs with velvet feet across

The whole of Europe, scaring rats to death.

The cat Rousseau is instinct like a cat,

And purrs that man born free is still in chains

Here in this house that Jack built. Consequence?

There is such squeaking, running of the rats,

The cats in North America wake up

And drive the English rats out; then the dogs

Grow cautious of the cats, poor simple Louis

Convokes a French assembly to preserve

The malt against the rats and give the cow

Whose milk is growing blue and thin some malt.

And all at once rats, cats and dogs, the cow,

The shaven priest, the maiden all forlorn,

The tattered man, the cock, are in a hubbub

Of squeaking, caterwauling, barking, lowing,

With cock-a-doodles, curses, prayers and shrieks

Ascending from the melee. In a word,

You have a revolution.