Part 11

Here’s Marian’s letter, which a ragged child Brought running, just as Romney at the porch Looked out expectant of the bride. He sent The letter to me by his friend Lord Howe Some two hours after, folded in a sheet On which his well-known hand had left a word. Here’s Marian’s letter. ‘Noble friend, dear saint, Be patient with me. Never think me vile, Who might to-morrow morning be your wife But that I loved you more than such a name. Farewell, my Romney. Let me write it once,— My Romney. ‘’Tis so pretty a coupled word, I have no heart to pluck it with a blot. We say ‘my God’ sometimes, upon our knees, Who is not therefore vexed: so bear with it ... And me. I know I’m foolish, weak, and vain; Yet most of all I’m angry with myself For losing your last footstep on the stair, That last time of your coming,—yesterday! The very first time I lost step of yours, (Its sweetness comes the next to what you speak) But yesterday sobs took me by the throat, And cut me off from music. ‘Mister Leigh, You’ll set me down as wrong in many things. You’ve praised me, sir, for truth,—and now you’ll learn I had not courage to be rightly true. I once began to tell you how she came, The woman ... and you stared upon the floor In one of your fixed thoughts ... which put me out For that day. After, some one spoke of me, So wisely, and of you, so tenderly, Persuading me to silence for your sake ... Well, well! it seems this moment I was wrong In keeping back from telling you the truth: There might be truth betwixt us two, at least, If nothing else. And yet ’twas dangerous. Suppose a real angel came from heaven To live with men and women! he’d go mad, If no considerate hand should tie a blind Across his piercing eyes. ’Tis thus with you: You see us too much in your heavenly light; I always thought so, angel,—and indeed There’s danger that you beat yourself to death Against the edges of this alien world, In some divine and fluttering pity. ‘Yes, It would be dreadful for a friend of yours, To see all England thrust you out of doors And mock you from the windows. You might say, Or think (that’s worse), ‘There’s some one in the house I miss and love still.’ Dreadful! ‘Very kind, I pray you mark, was Lady Waldemar. She came to see me nine times, rather ten— So beautiful, she hurts me like the day Let suddenly on sick eyes. ‘Most kind of all, Your cousin!—ah, most like you! Ere you came She kissed me mouth to mouth: I felt her soul Dip through her serious lips in holy fire. God help me, but it made me arrogant; I almost told her that you would not lose By taking me to wife: though, ever since, I’ve pondered much a certain thing she asked ... ‘He loves you, Marian?’ ... in a sort of mild Derisive sadness ... as a mother asks Her babe, ‘You’ll touch that star, you think?’ ‘Farewell! I know I never touched it. This is worst: Babes grow, and lose the hope of things above; A silver threepence sets them leaping high— But no more stars! mark that. I’ve writ all night, And told you nothing. God, if I could die, And let this letter break off innocent Just here! But no—for your sake ... Here’s the last: I never could be happy as your wife, I never could be harmless as your friend, I never will look more into your face, Till God says, ‘Look!’ I charge you, seek me not, Nor vex yourself with lamentable thoughts That peradventure I have come to grief; Be sure I’m well, I’m merry, I’m at ease, But such a long way, long way, long way off, I think you’ll find me sooner in my grave, And that’s my choice, observe. For what remains, An over-generous friend will care for me, And keep me happy ... happier.... There’s a blot! This ink runs thick ... we light girls lightly weep ... And keep me happier ... was the thing to say, ... Than as your wife I could be!—O, my star, My saint, my soul! for surely you’re my soul, Through whom God touched me! I am not so lost I cannot thank you for the good you did, The tears you stopped, which fell down bitterly, Like these—the times you made me weep for joy At hoping I should learn to write your notes And save the tiring of your eyes, at night; And most for that sweet thrice you kissed my lips And said ‘Dear Marian.’ ’Twould be hard to read, This letter, for a reader half as learn’d, But you’ll be sure to master it, in spite Of ups and downs. My hand shakes, I am blind, I’m poor at writing, at the best,—and yet I tried to make my _g_s the way you showed. Farewell—Christ love you.—Say ‘poor Marian’ now.’

Poor Marian!—wanton Marian!—was it so, Or so? For days, her touching, foolish lines We mused on with conjectural fantasy, As if some riddle of a summer-cloud On which one tries unlike similitudes Of now a spotted Hydra-skin cast off, And now a screen of carven ivory That shuts the heavens’ conventual secrets up From mortals over-bold. We sought the sense: She loved him so perhaps, (such words mean love,) That, worked on by some shrewd perfidious tongue, (And then I thought of Lady Waldemar) She left him, not to hurt him; or perhaps She loved one in her class,—or did not love, But mused upon her wild bad tramping life, Until the free blood fluttered at her heart, And black bread eaten by the road-side hedge Seemed sweeter than being put to Romney’s school Of philanthropical self-sacrifice, Irrevocably.—Girls are girls, beside, Thought I, and like a wedding by one rule. You seldom catch these birds, except with chaff: They feel it almost an immoral thing To go out and be married in broad day, Unless some winning special flattery should Excuse them to themselves for’t, ... ‘No one parts Her hair with such a silver line as you, One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown!’ Or else ... ‘You bite your lip in such a way, It spoils me for the smiling of the rest’— And so on. Then a worthless gaud or two, To keep for love,—a ribbon for the neck, Or some glass pin,—they have their weight with girls.

And Romney sought her many days and weeks: He sifted all the refuse of the town, Explored the trains, enquired among the ships, And felt the country through from end to end; No Marian!—Though I hinted what I knew,— A friend of his had reasons of her own For throwing back the match—he would not hear: The lady had been ailing ever since, The shock had harmed her. Something in his tone Repressed me; something in me shamed my doubt To a sigh, repressed too. He went on to say That, putting questions where his Marian lodged, He found she had received for visitors, Besides himself and Lady Waldemar And, that once, me—a dubious woman dressed Beyond us both. The rings upon her hands Had dazed the children when she threw them pence; ‘She wore her bonnet as the queen might hers, To show the crown,’ they said,—‘a scarlet crown Of roses that had never been in bud.’

When Romney told me that,—for now and then He came to tell me how the search advanced, His voice dropped: I bent forward for the rest: The woman had been with her, it appeared, At first from week to week, then day by day, And last, ’twas sure ... I looked upon the ground To escape the anguish of his eyes, and asked As low as when you speak to mourners new Of those they cannot bear yet to call dead, ‘If Marian had as much as named to him A certain Rose, an early friend of hers, A ruined creature.’ ‘Never,’—Starting up He strode from side to side about the room, Most like some prisoned lion sprung awake, Who has felt the desert sting him through his dreams. ‘What was I to her, that she should tell me aught? A friend! was _I_ a friend? I see all clear. Such devils would pull angels out of heaven, Provided they could reach them; ’tis their pride; And that’s the odds ’twixt soul and body-plague! The veriest slave who drops in Cairo’s street, Cries, ‘Stand off from me,’ to the passengers; While these blotched souls are eager to infect, And blow their bad breath in a sister’s face As if they got some ease by it.’ I broke through. ‘Some natures catch no plagues. I’ve read of babes Found whole and sleeping by the spotted breast Of one a full day dead. I hold it true, As I’m a woman and know womanhood, That Marian Erle, however lured from place, Deceived in way, keeps pure in aim and heart, As snow that’s drifted from the garden-bank To the open road.’ ’Twas hard to hear him laugh. ‘The figure’s happy. Well—a dozen carts And trampers will secure you presently A fine white snow-drift. Leave it there, your snow! ’Twill pass for soot ere sunset. Pure in aim? She’s pure in aim, I grant you,—like myself, Who thought to take the world upon my back To carry it o’er a chasm of social ill, And end by letting slip through impotence A single soul, a child’s weight in a soul, Straight down the pit of hell! yes, I and she Have reason to be proud of our pure aims.’ Then softly, as the last repenting drops Of a thunder-shower, he added, ‘The poor child; Poor Marian! ’twas a luckless day for her, When first she chanced on my philanthropy.’

He drew a chair beside me, and sate down; And I, instinctively, as women use Before a sweet friend’s grief,—when, in his ear, They hum the tune of comfort, though themselves Most ignorant of the special words of such, And quiet so and fortify his brain And give it time and strength for feeling out To reach the availing sense beyond that sound,— Went murmuring to him, what, if written here, Would seem not much, yet fetched him better help Than, peradventure, if it had been more.

I’ve known the pregnant thinkers of this time, And stood by breathless, hanging on their lips, When some chromatic sequence of fine thought In learned modulation phrased itself To an unconjectured harmony of truth. And yet I’ve been more moved, more raised, I say, By a simple word ... a broken easy thing, A three-years infant might say after you,— A look, a sigh, a touch upon the palm, Which meant less than ‘I love you’ ... than by all The full-voiced rhetoric of those master-mouths.

‘Ah dear Aurora,’ he began at last, His pale lips fumbling for a sort of smile, ‘Your printer’s devils have not spoilt your heart: That’s well. And who knows but, long years ago, When you and I talked, you were somewhat right In being so peevish with me? You, at least, Have ruined no one through your dreams! Instead, You’ve helped the facile youth to live youth’s day With innocent distraction, still perhaps Suggestive of things better than your rhymes. The little shepherd-maiden, eight years old, I’ve seen upon the mountains of Vaucluse, Asleep i’ the sun, her head upon her knees, The flocks all scattered,—is more laudable Than any sheep-dog trained imperfectly, Who bites the kids through too much zeal.’ ‘I look As if I had slept, then?’ He was touched at once By something in my face. Indeed ’twas sure That he and I,—despite a year or two Of younger life on my side, and on his, The heaping of the years’ work on the days,— The three-hour speeches from the member’s seat, The hot committees, in and out the House, The pamphlets, ‘Arguments,’ ‘Collective Views,’ Tossed out as straw before sick houses, just To show one’s sick and so be trod to dirt, And no more use,—through this world’s underground The burrowing, groping effort, whence the arm And heart come bleeding,—sure, that he and I Were, after all, unequally fatigued! That he, in his developed manhood, stood A little sunburnt by the glare of life; While I ... it seemed no sun had shone on me, So many seasons I had forgot my Springs; My cheeks had pined and perished from their orbs, And all the youth-blood in them had grown white As dew on autumn cyclamens: alone My eyes and forehead answered for my face.

He said ... ‘Aurora, you are changed—are ill!’

‘Not so, my cousin,—only not asleep!’ I answered, smiling gently. ‘Let it be. You scarcely found the poet of Vaucluse As drowsy as the shepherds. What is art, But life upon the larger scale, the higher, When, graduating up in a spiral line Of still expanding and ascending gyres, It pushes toward the intense significance Of all things, hungry for the Infinite? Art’s life,—and where we live, we suffer and toil.’

He seemed to sift me with his painful eyes. ‘Alas! you take it gravely; you refuse Your dreamland, right of common, and green rest. You break the mythic turf where danced the nymphs, With crooked ploughs of actual life,—let in The axes to the legendary woods, To pay the head-tax. You are fallen indeed On evil days, you poets, if yourselves Can praise that art of yours no otherwise; And, if you cannot, ... better take a trade And be of use! ’twere cheaper for your youth.’

‘Of use!’ I softly echoed, ‘there’s the point We sweep about for ever in argument; Like swallows, which the exasperate, dying year Sets spinning in black circles, round and round, Preparing for far flights o’er unknown seas. And we ... where tend we?’ ‘Where?’ he said, and sighed. ‘The whole creation, from the hour we are born, Perplexes us with questions. Not a stone But cries behind us, every weary step, ‘Where, where?’ I leave stones to reply to stones. Enough for me and for my fleshly heart To harken the invocations of my kind, When men catch hold upon my shuddering nerves And shriek, ‘What help? what hope? what bread i’ the house, What fire i’ the frost?’ There must be some response, Though mine fail utterly. This social Sphinx, Who sits between the sepulchres and stews, Makes mock and mow against the crystal heavens, And bullies God,—exacts a word at least From each man standing on the side of God, However paying a sphinx-price for it. We pay it also if we hold our peace, In pangs and pity. Let me speak and die. Alas! you’ll say, I speak and kill, instead.’

I pressed in there; ‘The best men, doing their best, Know peradventure least of what they do: Men usefullest i’ the world, are simply used; The nail that holds the wood, must pierce it first, And He alone who wields the hammer, sees The work advanced by the earliest blow. Take heart.’

‘Ah, if I could have taken yours!’ he said, ‘But that’s past now,’ Then rising ... ‘I will take At least your kindness and encouragement. I thank you. Dear, be happy. Sing your songs, If that’s your way! but sometimes slumber too, Nor tire too much with following, out of breath, The rhymes upon your mountains of Delight. Reflect, if Art be, in truth, the higher life, You need the lower life to stand upon, In order to reach up unto that higher; And none can stand a-tiptoe in the place He cannot stand in with two stable feet. Remember then!—for Art’s sake, hold your life.’

We parted so. I held him in respect. I comprehended what he was in heart And sacrificial greatness. Ay, but _he_ Supposed me a thing too small to deign to know: He blew me, plainly, from the crucible, As some intruding, interrupting fly Not worth the pains of his analysis Absorbed on nobler subjects. Hurt a fly! He would not for the world: he’s pitiful To flies even. ‘Sing,’ says he, ‘and teaze me still, If that’s your way, poor insect.’ That's your way!

FIFTH BOOK.

AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope To speak my poems in mysterious tune With man and nature,—with the lava-lymph That trickles from successive galaxies Still drop by drop adown the finger of God, In still new worlds?—with summer-days in this, That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful?— With spring’s delicious trouble in the ground Tormented by the quickened blood of roots, And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves In token of the harvest-time of flowers?— With winters and with autumns,—and beyond, With the human heart’s large seasons,—when it hopes And fears, joys, grieves, and loves?—with all that strain Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh In a sacrament of souls? with mother’s breasts, Which, round the new-made creatures hanging there, Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres?— With multitudinous life, and finally With the great out-goings of ecstatic souls, Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame, Their radiant faces upward, burn away This dark of the body, issuing on a world Beyond our mortal?—can I speak my verse So plainly in tune to these things and the rest, That men shall feel it catch them on the quick, As having the same warrant over them To hold and move them, if they will or no, Alike imperious as the primal rhythm Of that theurgic nature? I must fail, Who fail at the beginning to hold and move One man,—and he my cousin, and he my friend, And he born tender, made intelligent, Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides Of difficult questions; yet, obtuse to _me_,— Of _me_, incurious! likes me very well, And wishes me a paradise of good, Good looks, good means, and good digestion!—ay, But otherwise evades me, puts me off With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness,— Too light a book for a grave man’s reading! Go, Aurora Leigh: be humble. There it is; We women are too apt to look to one, Which proves a certain impotence in art. We strain our natures at doing something great, Far less because it’s something great to do, Than, haply, that we, so, commend ourselves As being not small, and more appreciable To some one friend. We must have mediators Betwixt our highest conscience and the judge; Some sweet saint’s blood must quicken in our palms, Or all the life in heaven seems slow and cold: Good only, being perceived as the end of good, And God alone pleased,—that’s too poor, we think, And not enough for us, by any means. Ay—Romney, I remember, told me once We miss the abstract, when we comprehend! We miss it most when we aspire, ... and fail.

Yet, so, I will not.—This vile woman’s way Of trailing garments, shall not trip me up. I’ll have no traffic with the personal thought In art’s pure temple. Must I work in vain, Without the approbation of a man? It cannot be; it shall not. Fame itself, That approbation of the general race, Presents a poor end, (though the arrow speed, Shot straight with vigorous finger to the white,) And the highest fame was never reached except By what was aimed above it. Art for art, And good for God Himself, the essential Good! We’ll keep our aims sublime, our eyes erect, Although our woman-hands should shake and fail; And if we fail.... But must we?— Shall I fail? The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, ‘Let no one be called happy till his death.’ To which I add,—Let no one till his death Be called unhappy. Measure not the work Until the day’s out and the labour done; Then bring your gauges. If the day’s work’s scant, Why, call it scant; affect no compromise; And, in that we have nobly striven at least, Deal with us nobly, women though we be, And honour us with truth, if not with praise.

My ballads prospered; but the ballad’s race Is rapid for a poet who bears weights Of thought and golden image. He can stand Like Atlas, in the sonnet,—and support His own heavens pregnant with dynastic stars; But then he must stand still, nor take a step.

In that descriptive poem called ‘The Hills,’ The prospects were too far and indistinct. ’Tis true my critics said, ‘A fine view, that!’ The public scarcely cared to climb the book For even the finest; and the public’s right, A tree’s mere firewood, unless humanised; Which well the Greeks knew, when they stirred the bark With close-pressed bosoms of subsiding nymphs, And made the forest-rivers garrulous With babble of gods. For us, we are called to mark A still more intimate humanity In this inferior nature,—or, ourselves, Must fall like dead leaves trodden underfoot By veritabler artists. Earth, shut up By Adam, like a fakir in a box Left too long buried, remained stiff and dry, A mere dumb corpse, till Christ the Lord came down, Unlocked the doors, forced open the blank eyes, And used his kingly chrisms to straighten out The leathery tongue turned back into the throat: Since when, she lives, remembers, palpitates In every limb, aspires in every breath, Embraces infinite relations. Now, We want no half-gods, Panomphæan Joves, Fauns, Naiads, Tritons, Oreads and the rest, To take possession of a senseless world To unnatural vampire-uses. See the earth, The body of our body, the green earth, Indubitably human, like this flesh And these articulated veins through which Our heart drives blood! there’s not a flower of spring, That dies ere June, but vaunts itself allied By issue and symbol, by significance And correspondence, to that spirit-world Outside the limits of our space and time, Whereto we are bound. Let poets give it voice With human meanings; else they miss the thought, And henceforth step down lower, stand confessed Instructed poorly for interpreters,— Thrown out by an easy cowslip in the text.

Even so my pastoral failed: it was a book Of surface-pictures—pretty, cold, and false With literal transcript,—the worse done, I think, For being not ill-done. Let me set my mark Against such doings, and do otherwise. This strikes me.—If the public whom we know, Could catch me at such admissions, I should pass For being right modest. Yet how proud we are, In daring to look down upon ourselves!