mean, in my own way, and bid you tell her for me. In the lust of my eyes
she is nothing to me. She is not a mere sense delight, a toy for the
debauchery of my intellect and the enthronement of emotion. She is not
the woman to make my pulse go fevered and me go mad. Nor is she the
woman to make me forget my manhood and pride, to tumble me down
doddering at her feet and gibbering like an ape. She is not the woman to
put my thoughts out of joint and the world out of gear, and so to
befuddle and make me drunk with the beast that is in me, that I am ready
to sacrifice truth, honesty, duty, and purpose for the sake of
possession. She is not the woman ever to make me swamp honour and poise
and right conduct in the vortex of blind sex passion. She is not the
woman to arouse in me such uncontrolled desire that for gratification I
would do one ill deed, or put the slightest hurt upon the least of
human creatures. She is not the most beautiful woman God Almighty ever
planted on His footstool. (There have been and are many women as true
and pure and noble). She is not the woman for whose bedazzlement I must
advertise the value of my goods by sweating sonnets to her, or shivering
serenades at her, or perpetuating follies for her. In short, she is not
anything to me that the woman of conventional love is to the man.
And again, what _is_ she to me? She is my other self, as it were, my
good comrade, and fellow-worker and joy-sharer. With her woman she
complements my man and makes us one, and this is the highest civilised
sense of union. She is to me the culmination of the thousands of
generations of women. It took civilisation to make her, as it takes
civilisation to make our marriage. She is to me the partner in a
marriage of the gods, for we become gods, we half brutes, when we muzzle
the beast and are not menaced by his growls. Under heaven she is my wife
and the mother of my children.
Tell her, then, tell her all you wish, you dear old fluttery, mothery
poet father--as though it made any difference.
HERBERT.
XXXVII
FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE
STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
December 3, 19--.
Not three weeks ago you were sitting opposite me and speaking of Hester.
You admitted many things that night, amongst them that the girl never
carried you off your feet. You stated over again with precision all you
had written. You betrothed yourself, not because Hester is different
from everybody else in the world, but because she is like. You took her
for what is typical in her, not for what is individual. You preferred to
walk toward her before your steps were impelled, because you feared that
impulsion would preclude rational choice. With the hope of out-tricking
nature, you reached for Hester Stebbins, in order that there might be a
wall between your heart's fancy and yourself, should your heart become
rebellious. I was to understand that this is the new school, that so
live the masters of matter and of self.
And as you spoke, I wondered about the woman Hester and the form of
love-making which existed between you, and whether she was simple and
without any charm despite her culture and her gift of song. "She either
loves him too well to know or to have the strength to care, or she is,
like him, of the new school," I thought. I sat and watched you, noting
your youth, surprised by the scorn in your eyes and the sadness on your
lips. You seemed hopeless and helpless. I closed my eyes. "What has he
left himself?" I kept asking. "How will he tread 'The paths gray heads
abhor?'" My own head bowed itself as before an irreparable loss. I had
rejoined the child of my care only to find him blasted as by grief, the
first sunshine smitten from his face and his heart weighted. One word,
one ray lighting your looks in a wonted way, one uncontrolled movement
of the hand, one little silence following the mention of her, would have
led me to believe that I had not understood and that all was well. The
night grew old with your plans and analyses. We parted with a sense of
shame upon us that we should have written and spoken so long and with
such heat, and to such little purpose.
You do not see how this answers your last letter. I will tell you. It
shows you that you have explained yourself fully the night we spoke face
to face.
You say that Hester is the woman to complement your man. This sounds
like a lover, only I happen to know that she is not the irresistible
woman. I found it out quite by accident--a few words dropped into a
letter, a corroboration of the fact and further committal, a protracted
defence of your position, running through a correspondence of over a
year, and, finally, a face-to-face declaration. What boots it now that
you write prettily? You do not love Hester. You want her to mother your
children, and you install her in your life for the purpose before the
need.
Love is not lust, and it is good. The irresistible marriage, alone, is
the right one. Upon it, alone, does the sacrament rest. The chivalry of
your last letter refers less to the girl than to your own ends. It is
not because Hester is what she is, that "of all the walks in life that
one is pleasantest wherein you may walk with her," but because that walk
is the one you choose beyond any other for your wife to follow. The
mother woman is legion, and you refuse to specialise.
Hester does not peer down at the scales to see if she is getting full
value, yet she does look to her dignity, and, being poor, will not
account herself rich. Hester has felt since you made known to her that
you wished her to be yours, that she counted punily in your scheme, that
you placed little of yourself in charge of her. She loved you and avowed
it, but she has never been happy. The tragedy of love is not (what it is
thought to be) the unreciprocated love, but the meagerly returned love.
It is better to be rejected, equal turned from equal, than to be held
with slim desire for slight purpose. Can you see this, Herbert? You are
hurting the girl's life. She will ask for what you withhold, though not
a word rise to her lips; will thirst for it through the years, will
herself grow cramped with your denial till her own love seem a thing of
dream, unstable and vague and illusive. And all the time you are gentle.
You are devoted to her interests, furthering her happiness to the best
in your power; but your power cannot touch her happiness. It is not what
you do; it is the motive to your acts, and Hester would know that she
has left you unmoved. You respect the function of motherhood, but you do
not love Hester. Tell her this, and prevent her from entering a union in
which she must feel herself half useful, half wifely, half happy, and
therefore all unhappy.
It is not Hester's fault that you cannot love her, and perhaps it is not
her misfortune. There is no need for panic. Of two persons, one loving
and one loath, the indifferent one is in the right. Can a tree defend
itself from the hewer's axe? What would avail it, then, to feel pain at
the blows? It is beyond our control to love or not to love, and no
effort that we may put forth can draw love to us when it is denied. It
does not avail us to suffer from unrequited love.
This which I have just said is an article of faith which the doctrine of
experience often contradicts, for there may be mistake, and the one who
does not love may be in the wrong. If only you could wait to see the
beauty which is she before you call her! A year later and Hester may
flower for you in a passionate blossoming; her face may challenge you to
live. A year later and you may find that she is indeed the woman to
guide you and to follow you; her voice a song; her eyes a light in the
day. As yet, you have not gauged her, and you would put her to small
uses. Stand aside, dear Herbert. It will be better.
I have played a surly part. I may be accused of having been to you both
a Dmitri Roudin and an Iago. I beg you to believe that it has not been
easy for me. I have uttered the earnest word, have driven you on by the
goad of friendship, which drives far. I looked upon the days that came
tripping toward you out of the blue-white horizon of time and saw them
gray for a dear woman, gray and silent as the tomb over a dead love, and
heavy hearted for a man who is my son.
Ever wholly yours,
DANE KEMPTON.
XXXVIII
FROM HESTER STEBBINS TO HERBERT WACE
STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
December 15, 19--.
Over and ended. It shall be as I said last night. Herbert, there is no
call for anger; believe me, there is not. I am doing what I cannot help
doing. You have not changed, but my faith in you has, and I cannot
pretend to a happiness I do not feel.
Oh, but I laugh, my very dear one, I laugh that I could seem to choose
to wrest myself from you. Did you at one time love me? That morning of
wild sunshine when you took my hand and asked me to be your wife seems
very long ago. I should have understood--the blame is all mine--I should
have known you did not love me, I should have been filled with anger and
shame instead of happiness. The blame is all mine.
Last night, while you were speaking, I was standing in the window
wondering what all the trouble was about. I could afford to be calm
since I knew I was not hurting you very deeply. At most I was
disappointing a very self-sufficient man. How do women find courage, O
God, to take from men who love them the love they gave? No such ordeal
mine?
Farewell, Herbert. Let us think calmly of each other since we have
helped each other for so long a stretch of life. Farewell, dear.
Always your friend,
HESTER STEBBINS.
XXXIX
FROM HESTER STEBBINS TO DANE KEMPTON
STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
December 18, 19--.
Herbert has analyzed the situation and has arrived at the conclusion
that my dissatisfaction arises in an inordinate desire for happiness.
You should not care so much about yourself, he says. Poor, dear, young
Herbert! He is very young and cannot as yet conceive how much there is
about oneself that demands care. I thought it out in the hills to-day.
It was gray and there was a fitful wind. What is this selfishness but a
prompting to make much of life? You and I and people of our kind are old
before our time, that is the reason we are not reckless. Our dreams
mature us. I was a mere girl when Herbert said he wished to marry me,
but I was old enough to grasp the full meaning of the pact, as he could
not grasp it. In a moment I had travelled my way to the grave and back.
I looked at the sheer, quick clouds that flitted past the blue, and I
felt that I had caught up with life; I had overtaken the wonders that
hung in the sky of my dreaming. Then I looked at him and the sunshine
got in my face and made me laugh (or cry)--I was so more than happy,
being so much too sure of his need of me. I am glad I walked to-day. The
view from the hills was beautiful. (You see I am not unhappy!) I stood
on a rock and looked about me, thinking of you, of Barbara,--I feel I
know her,--and of Herbert. He and I had often come to these spots. Oh,
the hungry memories! Yet what were we but a young man and a young woman,
who, without being battered into apathy by misfortune, without being
wearied or ill, were taking each other for better or for worse because
they seemed compatible? We were doing just that, to Herbert's certain
knowledge! I failed him; he hoped for more complaisance. Marriage is a
hazard, Mr. Kempton, confess it is, and a man does much when he binds
himself to make a woman the mother of his children--nay, the grandmother
of theirs, even that. What else and what more? I would never have been
wholly in my husband's life, comrade and fellow to it. Herbert knew this
clearly, and I vaguely but I acted with clearness on my vagueness. It
was hard to do. It has left me breathless and a little afraid to be
myself,--as if I had killed a dear thing,--and tearful, too, and
spasmodic for your sympathy and sanction.
I told him that for a long time I did not understand, supposing myself
beloved and desired and chosen for him by God, thinking he yearned for
the subtlety and mystery of me, thinking all of him needed me and
cleaved earths and parted seas to come to me. Later, when I became
oppressed by a lack and was made to hear the stillness that followed my
unechoed words, I became grave and still myself. He had unloved me, I
said, and I waited. Something seemed pending, and meanwhile I could
love! I made much of every word of comfort that he dropped me, and dwelt
with hope on the future. All this I told Herbert the night when I
explained, and he turned pale. "You people fly away with yourselves. I
cannot follow you. What is wrong, Hester?" He smiled in his distress.
Yet was there in his softness an imperiousness, commanding me to be
other than I am, forbidding me the right to crave in secret what I had
made bold to ask for openly. His man was stronger than my woman, and I
leapt to him again. "My husband," I whispered, my hands in his. This,
even after I understood, dearest Mr. Kempton.
It is a sorry tangle. If only one could suit feeling to theory! It is
not for a theory that I refuse to be Herbert's wife. Yet if I loved him
enough, I could give up love itself for him. He hinted it, looking as
from a distance at me in my attitude of protest and restraint. If I
loved him enough, I could forego love itself for him. Somewhere there is
a fault, it would seem, somewhere in my abandon is restraint, in my
love, self-seeking. Remorse overcame me just as he was about to leave,
and I schooled myself to think that there had been no affront, that it
honours a woman to be wanted no matter for what end, that every use is a
noble use, that we die the same, loved or used. If Herbert Wace wants a
wife and thinks me fitting, why, it is well. I thought all this and aged
as I thought. Nevertheless, my hand did not put itself out a second time
to detain the man who had forced me to face this.
There is a youth here who loves me. If Herbert's face could shine like
his for one hour, I believe I would be happier than I have ever been.
And it would not spoil that happiness if this love were toward another
than myself. Say you believe me. You must know it of me that before
everything else in the world I pray that knowledge of love come to the
man over whom the love of my girlhood was spilled.
Do you ask what is left me, dear friend? Work and tears and the intact
dream. Believe me, I am not pitiable.
HESTER.