Part 3
I do not know why, but for some reason your letter has not killed my hope. Perhaps it would have done so, but I took it into the woods, the deeper woods, where I have begun to go of late to be wholly alone. For now even the tents by day-light seem to me like multitudes of eyes, and my father, also, breaks in on my dream. So I carried it to the woods where the light flickered and the shadows of little leaves played upon their larger mates. They seemed to me like the phantasmagoria of being. I had not begun to think of such things till I saw you. Life has grown infinitely sad, as well as infinitely beautiful. It has a haze: the haze of twilight. Well, the letter! It jarred upon me; that is a matter of course. It removed you from me, immeasurably, with its hints of a knowledge which I may never attain. When shall I be your equal, even in the wisdom of this world? You have known so many people; I only one. That of itself makes me sad. And then when I came to the inexplicable fact that there was one you might love, I felt within me a savage pain, a rising of hot blood, such as I never knew. What was it? Has it a name? Does it mean a futile passion because life, destiny, have treated us so brutally, setting you there and me here, so that your loves grew away from me, and the tendrils of your nature twined another way? And thus I sat suffering. But soon the wood drew me into her arms. I have never thought much about beauty; it has always been about me. But of late it has spoken with a new voice. O the quivering of the blue sky-patches, the duskiness of shade! The tree-trunks were black from the morning rain, and everything set upon a stem waved and fluttered, though so slightly that it was rhythm and not motion. The faint shadow on the tiarella leaf seemed to me divine; the maiden-hair rustled greenly, and far off, in other arches, the thrush smote softly on his silver bells. And you were the soul of it. I should not have been surprised to see you there in some dim vista, with the sun upon your hair. But I shall never be surprised again at seeing you. You are in my world now; and my world cannot move without you. O, but I wish you were not so wise! I would you had never learned this strange and intricate game they call society. What profit is in it for you, but what infinite pain is there in it to me! These are the ironies of Those Who are above us. (That is my father's phrase; he talks of Them sometimes, in the night when he cannot sleep, and walks up and down the cabin as if he wished it were a world for width. The ironies of the immortal gods! I begin to understand my father a little now. I thought I understood him before.) We two, you and I, should have been born like twin birds in a nest, and gone singing away to the south. (Yet O my bird of the shining wing, O my bird! I would not have you other than you are.) We should have grown together, twin plants, from the sweet black earth, to twine and blossom and die. But it was not so to be; and therein I see what they call the hardships of life, and against such will I take my lance and shield, and ride forth. I will watch beside my arms, and draw down holiness from heaven, to be worthy to fight for you, and wear your favor. Not worthy of winning you--O, mistake me not in that! No heart was ever humbler than mine before its lady. Yet, as I am a man, my reward must come. I will win the world's delight, and I will wear her in the eye of the world: I, her plain and humble squire, whose only pride is to keep unsmirched for her fair sake. I have not your wisdom, but I begin to believe that I have a will to conquer; and it shall be bent upon my quest as if the world,--aye, and the sun!--were made for that. But tell me, you who know the lore of men, when we really begin to live, do we always ache so at the heart?
[Sidenote: _Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]
My child,--Your questions are delicious. What you felt on reading my letter? Yes, Sir Innocence, it hath a name: Jealousy. 'Tis a very legitimate passion, so I think, but it hath earned in the world a bad repute. You white-armored child! this meeting a soul so dense to its own emotions is like cooling drink in a desert. You complain because I am your senior and a trifle world-worn, and you do not know that you are complaining. You wish we had been born at the same minute. Pretty! poetic! but in plain prose, "I would you were not my elder!" And so would I; for if I were set back those five years, it would give me just five years more to hack away at my plays. I will not say how your moonings and mouthings would affect me; possibly then I might be caught by such pretty sweets. The last question of all: Does the world feel immortal pain at its heart? Frankly, yes. Nobody can be really happy except imbeciles and children; and not they, if they chance to be underfed. But be of good cheer. Only women ache all their lives long, every day of every year. They are an unintelligent lot, not to have learned self-protection. They wear their souls outside; and not being in the least original, they have not yet invented a thoroughly satisfactory coat of mail. For you, belonging to the lords of the earth, there will, after a time, be immunity. You will break your heart. (O, how infinitely wearisome to reflect that you have determined to break it about me!) Then you will waken to a vapid interest in work, discover your own nice talent for manipulating words, put all your past woes into verse, and by the time your reputation is made, you won't despise a good cigar and a club dinner. Nature has provided you as she has the lobster. Never fear; your claws will grow, though they may be often nipped. It is plain that you are to suffer, but I don't very much pity you. Unless you take to drink or any other unhygienic habit, you are sure to get something out of life. If you riddle your nerves, I won't answer for you. But, at the present moment, one thing must be done. Your letters must simply cease to be drenched with the night-dew of flimsy sentiment. Wring it out, and send them dry. Otherwise you get no answers. Do you hear, you gentle barbarian?
And I don't like your style overmuch. It isn't improving as I hoped. You don't want to drag out long, saccharine sentences, dripping with sugar as they crawl. Tell something! Let it be real,--or let it not be at all.
[Sidenote: _Francis Hume to Zoe Montrose_]
O the irony stamped on those four little letters! Real! And my whole heart in it, a man's whole heart. That means something. But I obey you. Last night I dreamed all night long, one picture after another. First came this: I stood upon a dusty way, and multitudes of people were passing. They looked like you and like my father, but they were sad. They were bowed down, and many of them carried great brown bundles on their backs, bundles of wood, it seemed to me, or withered grass. Then I, too, grew very sad and heavy because every one else seemed so; but suddenly my eye fell on a great light, and I wondered that I had not seen it before, and that none of them saw it. There, in the midst, by the roadside, stood the Apollo, warm, rosy, afire with life. His mantle was purple touched with rose: such color as we see in the east before the sun comes, and in the west after he is gone. His hair was long, and ran down his back in a great tawny river,--darker than yours,--and he stretched out his arm fearlessly holding the bow. Yet no one saw him but me. I fancied, even in my dream, that the arrow he would shoot might teach them a happier way to travel; but no one even knew he was there, or heard the twanging of the string or saw the cleaving of the arrow's flight. Then I sank down into darkness like a gulf, and only rose again to the splendor of another dream. The world seemed very large, larger than it does when you stand on the peak of Lone Mountain, with not a shade to cover you. There were many people, in an agony of terror and pain, as Pierre was the night after I found him wounded and delirious from his fight with the bears. The people were old, and poor, and shabby, but still they looked like you, and their agony was dreadful to behold. They were all gazing upward, and I, too, turned my eyes to see, and lo! the heavens were all burning and brazen, and I saw that the heat was greater than I could endure. The sorrow and fear of those about me grew more terrible; they wept and wrung their hands,--still like Pierre, when he imagined he was again pursued. One thought came over me; and it seemed to me more awful than anything I saw. The trees! the sweet, faithful trees in all their newest green. They would be burned too. There would be no more sunrise or sunset. This was the last day of all, and not only should we burn, but so, too, would the little tender leaves. I dropped on my face, and kept saying softly--for it seemed as if One heard as much as if I cried aloud--"Mighty One, save the trees, only save the trees!" I did not know to whom I spoke, but I kept on saying it into the hot earth; and presently I heard a great shout from the throats of all the people. I rose slowly to my knees, to my feet, and everybody was laughing and throwing their arms about in joy. Still they were looking up, and I looked, too; and there, in the midst of the burning sky, was one little cool, clear patch of blue, as large as a maple leaf, and it was spreading fast. A fresh wind sprang up and blew from the west; and as the blue spread, little white clouds arose and danced over it. Even before we could get used to so great a bliss, the heaven was all blue and fleecy-winged, and the happy trees rustled greenly.
Again I dropped adown that darkling sea of death in life, and rose up again to find myself in a boat, floating, floating, on the wavelike ripples of a larger lake. So I knew it was the sea. I was near the shore, but yet not going in; and as I turned my eyes that way, I saw a height overhung with sky so blue! I have never seen such sky. But beneath and built upon the height was something more radiant than the sky itself: a temple with a wilderness of columns and vistas of columned shade within. The temple was of marble, mellowed and creamy, and rosy also, from some inner light, it seemed to me: something that glowed perennially and generated beauty as it glowed. And as I looked, wonder-stricken and alive with pure delight, one of the columns melted into air, and in the larger space it gave, stood you, my lady, clothed in white falling in folds more wonderful than the whorling of a bud within its sheath. You held a cup, and reached it to me with a smile divinely kind. I rose and plunged; the water closed over me, and sleep enwrapped me over.
And then again I rose, and I knew I was in Paradise; for it was a sunny forest of newly-budded trees, and I heard strange music and knew you would be with me soon and that all would be infinitely well with us forever. I sank back into measureless peace, the perfect patience of waiting. As I lay there, one came toward me, and although I could not see his face, I knew, this is an angel! He asked me some question,--what, I cannot tell; but I was in love with my pleasure of mind, and told him what was only half true. (You know they were talking of truth and lies at the camp the other night, and I was puzzled. Now I know what it is to tell a half-truth.) But as I spoke, the leaves of the trees withered and fell, and the birds left their contented harmony and began screaming in discord. The angel was gone, and I knew that heaven was destroyed, and I had done it. I woke, grasping my arms so tightly with either hand that the pressure hurt. I was sobbing for breath. But I was alive, and my heaven lay yet before me.
Have I done well? Here have I written you page upon page, only to earn a letter in return, when I long to fill these sheets with hot protestations, with petitions for your gentle ruth. At first it was enough to love you. At first? for the instant of recognizing my royal destiny; but now I would have all. Love me! love me! my heart cries and cries, for unless you know me for your own, what shall hinder me from losing you in this whirling progress of the days. You will go away; I heard them talking about it this morning. What am I to do then, I ask you? What am I to do? Mateless, solitary, left in the nest I was so long in building, while you fly south, the sun upon your shining wings. _What am I to do?_
[Sidenote: _Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]
Your last letter pleased me very well, all save its note of melancholy. Byronism is out of fashion. It isn't vendible, or it won't be in a few years, mark my words. In the time that is coming, men-children will rise up in literature and slash and slay and troll out hearty songs, born in the childhood of the race, and tell us of the love of woman, and the joy of martial blows. No more splitting of psychological hairs! The reaction is coming, and I thank the gods who make for us to mar. Moreover, you were hysterical at the end. Reform it altogether. No woman of any sense of humor was ever won by tears in the man who should be fighting for her. Take Tristram of Brittany for your model, not some laddie who should be in petticoats. Else you will never win fair lady. I speak generally, for it is understood from the start that this specific fair lady is not to be won at all. Woo her you may, so you do it amusingly, robustly, with no whining like a hungry dog. She has little heart for "crumbling the hounds their messes." Now to business. I lay my commands upon you. A visitor is coming to camp: a man. While he is here, I shall have no time either to write or read, and I shall not visit the hollow tree. Moreover, you, as you be loyal and true, are to treat him fairly and kindly. If you hate my tendance of him as a stranger and a guest, you are to be only the more courteous. In short, as a knight peerless, you are to suffer manfully and in silence. For in silence lies the only true dignity left us by the chances of life. You see I own at once that you will suffer. That is inevitable; but I ask you to take the screw like a gentleman. There is no better word yet made.
[Sidenote: _To the Unknown Friend_]
I am forbidden to write her. I must speak to some one, to something. He came three days ago. He is tall, black-eyed, with a laugh that rings. When I hear that laugh, I cannot even moisten my dry tongue. I have learned the meaning of hate. Yesterday she ran to the spring to bring him a glass of water. (He lay lazily and let her.) I followed.
"Is that the man you said you might love?" I whispered.
It looked as if the whisper burned her cheek. She turned red to the roots of her yellow hair. She could not look at me.
"Sir Knight," she said at last, "in the world we do not ask such things."
So I knew.
As to my manner, I think I have obeyed her. At least, I have been silent. But if this is to be my portion, death must come soon. For all my body is under the sway of this great trouble. I cannot eat. My hands seem helpless, they are so cold. My throat is choked. When have I slept? I think my father knows, and, though I cannot speak to him, understands, if a man for whom life is over can ever understand one at the beginning. Yet how can he? how can he? For my mother loved him, and gave herself to him. There is in all the world no sorrow like this of mine. To stand by and see another man help her into the boat and row away! To see him pin a flower in her hair with those daring hands! And I would have died to do it. Yet last night, as I stormed through the forest like the north wind that hates the clinging leaves, blind in the darkness, blind from within,--and only through some forest instinct keeping myself from crashing into tree and bush,--a moment of calm enwrapped me as quickly as if a gossamer veil had fallen from above. I seemed to see the meaning of things, the true meaning and value. That he should give her a flower, should take her hand, should win her smile--nay, the touch of her cheek, her lips--words I can scarcely write, even here,--what are these perishable gifts? Gauds of time! Did some poet say that, or have I made the phrase? The foolish broidery on the web of life, to wear and wear with years! But what lies behind to engender the token--ah, that is the eternal! I cannot penetrate her heart to see the living thoughts that thus denote themselves; but I know my own. I challenge time itself to match them with a brood more great. My love, my faith in her, my sacrifice, these are giants, springing into sudden Titanic birth, and Homer's heroes are pygmies to them. So the night calmed me, and I thanked God (did I ever write that word before? Did I ever really think it?) that my soul was born. But in the morning the mood had passed. I knew still what I had learned, but I could not feel it. My father, my dear father! He sits all day with Homer open on his knee, and does not read. Once after the others had been here, and he saw me wince when she and the man went laughing off together, he said to me, almost as if he were afraid to say it:--
"Don't overestimate the little familiarities of social life." He said it, but I could not answer.
[Sidenote: _Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]
Well--child! (You are nothing more--nothing!) Our guest has gone. Now let us hope you will straightway begin to get back your color. You look like the travesty of Hope Deferred. Dress you for Pierrot, and you'd serve well for the ghost of youthful folly. But you have behaved excellently. Socially speaking, you have watched beside your arms. Consider yourself knighted. Shall I tell you a secret? The Forest of Arden is not a proper trysting-place for folk who have met in the town; at least, if one of them has been learning the sweet directness of the woods. For I, whom this man somewhat enchains and always did,--when I saw him among the trees, I knew he was very worldly and a trifle fat! And he does not swim well. And he slept o' mornings, and I could not help thinking of you wandering--albeit like a zany whose bauble is hid--in the dewy brake. Understand plainly, you are at this moment dear to me. The thought of you is sweet as Endymion to Diana; yet I who am no Dian, but a poor _fin de siecle_ spinster, her being distorted by culture, would withdraw from you were you here, as the chaste huntress from Actaeon. I like you; but I mean nothing by the saying, nothing, nothing! Nay, and I said "I love," it would be but lightly, as if we were both in a little play: a play which nobody wrote, and no man saw acted, and which the actors themselves will speedily forget. Think of the thistle-downiest thing you ever saw, the most fleeting: the glow that rises in the sunset sky and flees before the sight. That is what I mean when I say you are dear to me. Do not make me repent having said it.
[Sidenote: _Francis Hume to Zoe Montrose_]
June was it, June, sweet mistress of the changing year, (She of the brow serene, unpressed by cypress fear, Nor darkened under bitter bud and leaf By earth's old travail and the gray world's grief,-- Delighted by her changeful diadem And fringed with roses round her mantle hem,) Who laid thy hand in mine, And said, with voice divine, Like low-toned winds that wander to and fro Searching out reedy pipes wherein to blow: "This is your sacrament. Drink ye, and be content. This is life's flowering. Now are ye queen and king."
O thought too poor and pale! O words that wanly fail For godlike Love's divine expressing, And all the rhythm of his sweet confessing, Whose full-voiced cry should be Harmonious ecstasy.
Now are ye rulers of the upper air; And though men surge below, not one shall dare To scale the summit of your mystic height, Nor breathe your breath, nor face your burning light. The seed shall break for you, the seasons pass, And you, serene, shall view as in a glass The moving pageant of the happy year, Fleeting from naked twig and garment sere, To wrap itself in snows, to dream and dream On budding boughs, and all the elusive gleam Of happy rivers kissed By sweet, bewildering mist. And so to dream again, and rise in power To the full glory of a new birth-hour. The earth is thine, the starry spaces even, The hour is thine, and maketh its own heaven--
I to write a marriage song, I! Shall mortal man hymn worthily his own love? Yet here is the initial note, the first faint stammering. Remember this, my love, my lady, my soul,--if I had known what your consent would be, I could never have waited for it all these years, here in the still woods. I should have died of hunger. Think of it! one only can bring bread for me, one only give me to drink. Be merciful to me, my bread-giver! One word--not on paper! One minute--let me see you alone!
[Sidenote: _Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]
Do not write verse until you fail to express yourself in prose. Verse should glide full-winged over the surface of the waters where the spirit of God lies sleeping. It should deal carelessly with poor things like prepositions and pronouns. They are but the spray-bubbles beaten back by its wings. Your smaller words are staffs falling as regularly and heavily as a tread on a board walk. Your phrases march; they do not fly. You will say that these lines were written under a pressure of strong emotion; but that's no reason. So might a prosy divine put forth his religion as an excuse for prosing. Have your emotion, but keep it to yourself if you can express it no better than this. It is neither "_magnifique_," nor is it--literature. Nor does your prose entirely please me. Look how it is tinged with its own sweetness. Everything is superlative. You are not content to say a thing in one way; you must say it in three, and then overload it with metaphor till the understanding balks at it. You write like this:--
"The night burned clear, illumined by a million stars. Memory was with me, and love; they, the divine. I was restless; I could not sleep. I came out of my chamber, impatient, praying for dawn."
Your images hunt in couples, and it won't do, save in the Psalms. Simplicity, simplicity! that must be our aim. That makes a sentence read as if it had stood immemorially, as if it formed an integral part of the Creator's speech when He overlooked His work and found it good. (You see I fall into your trick of repeated images. Indeed, it is one of the queer coincidences of fate that our phrasing should be much alike.) This same simplicity it is which shall make Ruskin a monument of white, like an angel with carven wings, when Sartor Resartus lies howling, with none so poor to patch him. Ah! and by the way--very much by the way--don't be feverish again. Don't take my idle words of last time for more than they are worth. I told you they meant nothing. When will you believe?
[Sidenote: _Francis Hume to Zoe Montrose_]
Their nothing is my all. You have declared it. The words lie in my hand. Discourse to a man upon rhetoric, when your own letter says, "You are dear to me"! We will talk this out. We will, I say. If not alone, before them all. Come into the woods with me to-night at nine, and with only the dark for witness you shall swear to me love--or denial.
[Sidenote: _Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]