VIII
Dear Corydon:
You tell me in your last letter that you are leaving all who love
you; and you ask "How do you know that because you love beauty, you
will love _me_?"
I have been thinking a good deal about this; I do not believe,
Corydon, that a man more haunted by the madness of desire ever lived
upon earth than I. And when I get at the essence of myself, I do not
believe that I am a kind man; I think that a person with less
patience for human hearts never existed, perhaps with less feeling.
There is only one thing in the world that I can be sure of, or that
you can, my fidelity to my ideal! I know that however often I may
fail or weaken, however many mistakes I may make, my hunger for the
things of the soul will _never_ leave me, and that night and day I
shall work for them. I do not believe I have the right to promise
you anything else, I have no right to dream of anything else; this
is not my pleasure, as I feel it, it is a frenzy, it is that to
which some blind and nameless and merciless impulse drives me. And I
may try to persuade myself all my life that I love you, Corydon, and
nothing else, and want nothing else; and all the time in the depths
of my heart I hear these words from my conscience--"You are a fool."
I love power, I love life, and seek them and strive for them, and
care for nothing else and never have; and nothing else can satisfy
me. And I cannot give any other love than this, any other promise.
IX
My dear Corydon:
I have been taking a walk this morning, thinking about us, and that
I had treated you fearfully. The whole truth of it all is this--that
I am so raw and so young and so helpless (and you are as much, if
not more so) that I cannot, to save my life, be sure if my love for
you is what it ought to be, or even if I could love any one as I
ought. And I am so wretchedly dissatisfied! Do you know that for two
weeks I have been trying to write a passage of my book--and before
God, I _cannot!_ I have not the power, I have not the life!
Dear Corydon, it comes to me that you are _miserable_ to be in love
with me--that I had no right to put this burden on your shoulders. I
would say better things if I could, but I think that our marriage
will be a setting out across a wild ocean in the dark! It is for you
to be the heroine, to dare the voyage if you choose. These sound
like wild words, but they are the truth of my life, and I dare not
say any others. Can a girl who has been brought up in gentleness and
sweetness, in innocence of life and of pain--can she say things,
feel things like these?
X
Thyrsis:
God did not endow me with your tongue, or else it would not be the
great effort it is to me to tell you some of the thoughts that have
rushed through my mind in the last hour.
It is an hour since I began to read your letter of Horrible Truth.
Now it seems to me it might have been in the last year, in the last
century. Actually I feel like a stranger to myself; and my movements
are very slow. First, I will tell you that I believe in God, oh, so
implicitly--this thought gives me infinite hope. I long to let you
know as much of my heart as I can, if I am to be your life-companion,
as I firmly believe I am to be. I have such a strange calmness now,
and I imagine that I must feel very much the way Rip Van Winkle did
when he awoke. I want to try to show you my heart--it is right that
I should try, is it not?
Know that I have placed much faith and trust in you, in anything
that you did. If you opened one door to me and told me it led to the
great and permanent truth, I believed you absolutely. If you hauled
me back and put me through an opposite one, telling me that there my
road lay, I believed you with equal faith. Now, now, at the end of
an hour, I am, through you, convinced of one door, the only and true
entrance; and I am as sure as I am that the sun is shining at this
moment, that nothing in God's world can ever again make me lose
sight of it. I have found that _you_ can lose sight of it,
Thyrsis,--something shows me that I have in the last month been more
right than you. Yes, I have, Thyrsis, though you may not know it.
And the reason I couldn't stay right was because I am not strong
enough to grasp my good impulses, and keep hold of them: because I
have not enough faith in the soul within me.
I will try to tell you what I have felt since reading your letter.
All is so disgustingly calm in me now. But listen, I believe I have
had a little glimpse this afternoon of what it is to _feel_; and
because of that knowledge I now am not afraid to tell you that I
claim something of God and life--that I can get it if you can. This
has been very strong in me at moments, but, as I tell you, I have
not yet learned to hold my glimpses of truth--they seem to come to
me, and as quickly disappear.
I began to read your letter, and I cannot describe to you the
convulsion that came over me. It seemed that I had the feeling of an
empty skull on a desert; such a feeling--you can never have it! All
the horror and despair! I tried to form my thoughts and tell myself
it was not true. I tried to pray, and I did pray--out loud--and
asked God to give me strength to read the letter.
I tried to use all the penetration I was capable of, to find out one
thing, whether you were purely and unreservedly sincere in it. I
wondered whether you really wished to live your life alone, but
could not find the courage to tell me so. I firmly believe that no
failure in the future, no disgust or helplessness, could ever bring
me the complete anguish of those moments.
Can you realize what such a thing meant to me, Thyrsis?
Last spring, I had succeeded in bringing myself into an almost
complete state of coma--I saw that I could do nothing, and because I
would not endure such profitless pain I drugged myself to sleep. And
you, you fiend, waked me up; and may your soul be thrice cursed if
you have only pulled the doll to pieces _to see what it was made
of!_ Know, you that have a soul which says it lives and
suffers--that I can't go to sleep again! There is no joy for me in
mother or father, in friends or admiration--I can tolerate nothing
that I tolerated before you came with your cursed or blessed fire!
Also, if you do not marry me, or if I do not find some man who has
your strength and desire for life, and who will take me and help me
to learn, I shall die without having lived.--And I cried out in
misery--only forty-two years, only forty-two little years, and I
shall be an old woman of sixty! Only forty-two years in which to
learn to live!
I believe if I had you here now I could almost strangle you. We may
kill each other some day. I sometimes feel that there is nothing
that will give me any relief, that I cannot breathe, I cannot
support my body. But these are foolish and unprofitable
feelings--and I believe I will yet be saved, if not by you, perhaps
by myself. I think some heavenly aid came to me to-day. I asked for
it, I simply said it _must_ come--and now I am able to bear myself
and look around me, and say that the secret of my liberation is not
death but life.
Please realize, Thyrsis, that I know you do not need me, that I
cannot either entertain you or help you. My dear, do you not know
that I have been conscious of this from the very beginning--and it
has been this thought that has often made me worry, and doubt, and
question. And then I have told myself that you had found _something_
in me to love; and that I also was very hungry to know about life
and God; and that if you loved me enough to believe I was not dross,
we might, with our untiring devotion--well, we might be right in
going with each other. And now--would you rather I should tell you I
will not marry you, be my desire, or effort, what it may? I do not
know--even though I want to live so terribly. I have no word, no
proof to give!
And now, Thyrsis, I have no more strength to write. I only wish I
had some power to make you know what I have felt this afternoon--I
think if I could, you would have no more doubt of me. And I believe
it is my God-given right not to doubt myself.
I will write no more--I have written enough to make you answer one
of two things. "Come with me," or, "I would rather go alone." I know
which one it will be, even now in my wretchedness. The sky is so
blue this evening, and everything is so beautiful--and I am trying
so hard to be right, to feel strong and confident!
XI
Dear Thyrsis:
I have just arisen. I woke in the middle of the night, and there was
a spectre sitting by my bedside to frighten me; he succeeded at
first, but I managed finally to get rid of him, and to find some
peace. Many of your sentences came to me, and I was able to get
behind the words, and I saw plainly that the letters were just what
you should have written, and that they could not but benefit me.
They have accomplished their purpose, I believe--they are burned
into my soul, and have placed me rightly in our relation. I shall
simply never trust the permission you may give me, in the future, to
rest or be satisfied. I shall only hate you, for the pain of some of
your words I shall _never_ forget.
The memory of the first two pages of your letter will always put me
in mortal terror of you. For the rest, I am very grateful, and I
will try to show you how I love your ideal. I can never repay you as
long as I live for letting me come with you. Oh Thyrsis, I am sure
that I will never think or care whether you love me or not, if only
I may go with you and learn how to strive!
I tore up all your love-letters this morning. I kept the last
letter--though I do not think I could bear to read it over. I should
be afraid of again going through with that despair. Oh, I beg for
the time when I shall be obliged to waste none of my minutes--and
when I shall have no opportunity of writing you! What _time_ I have
spent over your letters and mine!
XII
Dear Thyrsis:
I am restlessly waiting for the supper-bell to ring, and my head is
aching intensely, and I am generally topsy-turvy. Alas! alas! the
distance that separates us and our understanding!
I received a letter to-day while I was studying--but said I would
not open it for a week, that I wanted strength to study. Well, I
studied all the afternoon and found it none too easy. When I came
home, I thought perhaps it was better to read your letter, which I
grimly did.
Do you know, you are keeping me on the rack, literally on the rack,
and my flesh and blood do not seem to be able to stand it--my body
seems to be the organ that first fails me, my brain is never so
tired as my body. I love to think that you are not less merciful to
me than you would be to yourself, I feel that you could not have
used more cruel whips to yourself. Do you suppose that any disgust,
scolding, or malediction to me could, as your wife, hurt me, as your
doubt of me hurts me now?
And I just begin to read your letter again, and I tell you, you are
a fool. You say you do not know whether you could love any one as
you ought--well, I, with all my weakness, know whether _I_ can love,
and I love you a thousand times more than you have given me cause
to. And you are so _hungry!_ Will you always starve because you are
blind? As to being _satisfied,_ how could you be? But you say you
will love me as much as I deserve. How much do I deserve--do you
know? I sometimes cry out against you and long to get hold of you.
If you have genius, why doesn't it give you some inkling whether you
are a man with a heart, not only a stupid boy? And then I see it all
plainly, or think I do, and know that you are trying so hard to be
right towards us, because you think you love me the way other people
love; and you know if I am weak, it would degrade your genius; and
you cannot be sure of my character or strength. You cannot know
whether I realize the life I am selecting--you have found it hard,
and you have every reason to think that I will find it ten times
harder; and you love me in a way that is not the highest,--but yet
you love me enough, thank God, to tell me the whole truth!
I have come to a pass where I can say to myself with truth, that I
do not care how much or how little you love me. That depends upon
_you_, as well as myself. I believe the time will come, when you
will love me as you ought, and I say this in perfect calm
conviction, in all my weakness, and with all my maudlin habits
clinging to me. Strangely enough your doubt of me has made me rise
up in arms to champion my cause, or else I should lie down forever
in the dust, and deny my God.
I wonder whether it is my love for you that makes me believe? I
cling to you, as a mother might cling to her child; I cling to you
as the embodiment, the promise, of all I will ever find true in
life. I look to live in you, to fulfil all my possibilities in you,
and if you die or forsake me, all my hope is gone, and I am dead.
This is a letter in which I have no scorn or doubt, or ridicule of
myself, as formerly.
And then you ask me, "Can a girl brought up in gentleness and
sweetness, and innocence of life and of pain, can she say things,
feel things like these?" It is the gentleness and sweetness and
innocence that are galling to me. I can tolerate no more of them.
They have warped me, they have given me no chance. But I have had
some pain in my life, and since I have known you I have known more
about pain and what it brings, and leaves.--And now I am feeling
ill, and I cannot control that. Oh, God!
XIII
Dearest Corydon:
I have a chance to finish the first part of my book to-day, and save
myself from Hades; and here I am writing to you--just a line. (Of
course it turned out to be six pages!)
Your last letter was very noble; I can only say to you, that the
treatment which makes you upbraid me is not done for _my_ sake; that
the life which I live is not lived for _my_ sake. You say perhaps
you are better than I; it is very possible--I often think so myself;
but that is nothing to the point. I should be very wretched if I sat
down to think what I am. Oblige me by being better than my ideal--if
you can! You must understand, dearest, that behind all that I am
doing, there is truth to the soul; and that truth to the soul is
love, and the only love. I am seeking for nothing but the privilege
of treating you as myself; and rest assured, that if I treat you any
differently it will be better than I treat myself! There is no peril
in our life except that!
Some day you will understand that I can sometimes feel about myself
that I am utterly hateful, utterly false, utterly shallow and _bad_;
and that to get away from myself would be all that I desire in life.
I cannot imagine my having such opinion of you; but some
dissatisfaction--just a little--I may have. Only let us love
perfection, you and I, with all our souls, and I think our love for
each other may safely be allowed to take care of itself. Remember
the two ships in Clough's poem, which parted, but sailed by the
compass, and reached the same port.
I shall spend no more time comforting you about this.
And dear Corydon, when you are angry at my doubting your power, and
say that I do not know you, I can only reply--Why of course I don't,
and neither do you. You find your own self out little by little--why
get angry with me because I don't know it until you tell me? You are
a grown woman compared to what you were three months ago; and this
character that you ask me to know--well, it takes years of hard
labor to prove a character.
XIV
Dearest Corydon:
Do you ever realize how much _faith_ in you I have? As utterly
different is your whole life, as if you had been in another world;
and through all the wilderness that I have travelled, I hope to drag
you. But I cannot carry you, or take you; I must trust in the frenzy
of your grip upon me. There is nothing else you could have that I
would trust. You might be wonderfully clever and wonderfully
wise--and I could do nothing with you. Do you remember Beethoven's
saying, that he would like to take a certain woman, if he had time,
and marry her and break her heart, so that she might be able to
sing?
Ah dear heart, I wish you could read in my words what I feel! I
wonder if I am dreaming when I live in this ideal of what a woman's
love can be--so complete and so utter a surrender, so complete a
forgetting, a losing of the self, so complete a living in another
heart! I am not afraid to ask just this from a woman--from you! For
I have enough heart's passion to satisfy every thirst that you may
feel. Ah, Corydon, I want you! I am drunk with the thought of
_making_ a woman to love. I wonder if any man ever thought of that
before! Artists go about the world with the great hunger of their
hearts, and expecting to find by chance another soul like the one
they have spent years in making beautiful and swift and strong; but
has anyone ever thought that instead of writing books that no one
understands, he might be making another kind of an artwork--one
that would be alive, and with sacred possibilities of its own?
XV
DEAR THYRSIS:
Your last letters have been very beautiful. I see one thing--though
you inform me that you believe you are a hard man, your natural
gentleness and sympathy of heart would be the ruin of both of us in
the future if I would permit it. But I think you can trust me, not
ever as long as I live to lead you into weakness. My desperateness,
before I received your letter saying that I might come with you, was
rather dreadful; it made me doubt myself, for it was so difficult to
keep myself from going to pieces. I have been wicked enough, to
wonder whether I could ever make you feel as I felt for two days--if
I could only bring to your heart that one pang, the only real one I
ever felt in my life! But it taught me one thing, that the only road
toward realization of life and one's self is through suffering. I
found out that I could bear, for it seems to me as I look back at
that horrible nightmare, that it was almost by a superhuman effort I
was able to read the letter at all. But enough of that!
I think I have effectually cured myself of any weak yearning for
your love. I go to you in gratefulness, knowing what I lack and what
you need. Anything my love can do for you, it shall do. It may have
some power--I sometimes think that it could have more than you
realize.
I suppose every woman has thought that the man she loved was her
very life, but I do not think it of you, I simply _know_ it. I must
go with you, whether I loved you or not.
Meanwhile my love has assumed a strength to me that I never felt
before. I don't know how my wild and incoherent letters have
affected you, but there were many times when I longed to get hold of
you, literally, and simply shake into you some recognition of my
soul. Oh, I am afraid you couldn't get away from me; the more
merciless you are to me, the wilder I get.
I am possessed by so many opposite moods and influences. I am afraid
of you a little. I never know what you are going to do to me.
I feel, I cannot help but feel, that I am part of your life, now,
you could not neglect me any more than you could your own soul. I
consider you just as responsible for mine as you are for your own. I
say this with no doubts, but know that it is true, and you must know
it.
XVI
DEAR THYRSIS:
You certainly have a wonderful task in store for me, and I pray God
to give me strength for it. I can see very plainly that you expect
to find the essence of my soul better than yours, because it seems
that you are making my task harder than yours.
Do you know, I have actually found myself asking, at times, with a
certain defiant rage--if you were actually going to give love to
your princess before you had made her suffer! So far you have not
made her suffer at all. I had become quite excited over this idea
--though perhaps I had no right to. I suppose it is all right,
because she is an imaginary person, and you can endow her with all
the perfections you please. She is triumphant and thrilling, and
worthy of love--whereas I am just little Corydon, whom you have
known all your life, and who is stupid and helpless, and impossible
to imagine romances about! Is that the way of it?
XVII
MY DEAREST THYRSIS:
A long letter has just come to me. I always receive your letters
with many palpitations, and by the time I get through reading, my
cheeks are flaming. It is too bad it takes letters so long to go to
and fro.
I have finally come to bear the attitude towards myself, that I
would to a naughty child. I will have no nonsense, and all my
absurdities and inefficiencies _must_ be cured. I think I have come
to know myself a little better within the last few days. I know that
I have no right to quick victories, or any happiness at all, even
your love. I tell you truly, if it were only possible, I would go
away this minute--do you hear?--oh! to some lonely place, and then I
would do something with myself. I want to be alone, alone--I want to
be face to face with myself, and God, if possible! I have come to
the conclusion that I can do anything I must do. I think (I am not
sure) I could give you up, if I were obliged to, and go away by
myself and try alone. If I do not have you, I must have solitude.
XVIII
MY DEAREST CORYDON:
Thinking about my work this morning, and how hard it was, and how
much strength it would take, my thoughts turned to you, and I
discovered, as never before, just how I like to think of you. It
seemed to me that you were part of the raw material that I had to
use; that I had mastered you, and was going to make you what you had
to be. And there woke in my heart at those words a fierceness of
purpose that I had never felt in my life before--I was quite mad
with it; and you cried out to escape me, but I would not let you go,
but held you right tightly in my arms. And so--I do not mean to let
you go! I shall bear you away with me, and make you what I wish. And
the promise of marriage that I make you is just this: not that I
love you--I do not love you; but what I wish the woman to be whom I
am to love--that I will make you!
And do not ever dare to ask me for any other promise, for you will
not get it. You will come with this.
XIX
MY THYRSIS:
I had an _iron grip_ at my heart just now, as I was trying to study.
I had a foreboding of something--and then I came home and found
your letter telling me I was yours, and I _must._ At last I may go
to you the way I wish! My love, my love, I do not care what you are,
or what you do to me, as long as I may go with you.
How I laugh at myself as I say it! You have mastered me to worship
your _life_--not you. I shall not work for your love, I shall work
to live. Our love will be one of the incidents of our life.
Meanwhile, I may go with you, that is all that I say--I sing it. I
may go with you, not to happiness, but to necessity!
And now that cursed German! It hangs over my head like a sword of
Damocles I have heard of--though I don't know why it was held over
his head!
You think our love was settling into the cooing state! Dear me,
Thyrsis, I hope I will not always have to yell to you over a foggy
ocean!
XX
DEAR THYRSIS:
Can you imagine what it must be to be shut up in a little room on a
rainy night, with the children and people screaming under your
window? That is my position now.
I find myself hard to manage at times. I want to become discouraged
or melancholy or disgusted, but I drive myself better than I used
to. I even was happy a little for a few moments to-night. I was
playing one of my piano-pieces, and I found myself imagining all
sorts of things. But this happens very seldom, and only lasts for a
moment. I often wonder at myself. Two months ago I did not love you
one particle; I love you now, so that--so that it is impossible for
me to do anything else. In fact I did not realize how much I loved
you until that terrible moment when I read you did not love me. I
saw how impossible it will be to cease to love you, no matter what
you do to me. I do not know _why_ it is; I simply know it is, and
perhaps some day I may teach _you_ how to love. I do not imagine you
know how very well, at present--no, Thyrsis, I don't.
I know your true self now, and I love it better than ever I loved
the other. I say it with a certain grimness. I know you, your real
self, and I love it.
Know, oh, my Beloved, that in the last three months you have grown
to me from a boy into a man, into my husband! When I think of you as
you were at first you seem a child compared to what you are now.
XXI
DEAREST LOVE:
Last night, as I went to sleep, I was thinking of you and our
problem, and there were all sorts of uncertainties; but one thing I
have to tell you, my Corydon--that it came to me how sweet and
true, and how pure and good you have been; and I loved you very,
very much indeed. I thought: I should like to tell her that, and ask
her always to be so noble and unselfish. Can you not realize how all
your deficiencies are as nothing to me, in the sight of that one
unapproachable perfection? For my Corydon is all devotion and love,
and pure, pure, maiden goodness! And there is quite a whole heart
full of feeling for you in that, and I wish I had you here to tell
you.
XXII
MY CORYDON:
I am coming more and more to realize myself, and what is the single
faculty I have been given. I think of a dear clergyman friend I used
to have, and I realize what a _loving_ heart is--what it is to
delight in a human soul for its own sake, and to be kind to it, fond
of it. And I know that there could not be a man with less of that
than I have. Certainly I know this, I never did love a soul for its
own sake, and don't think I could. I love beauty, and truth, and
power, and I hate everything else, if it come across my way. If I
had to live the life of that clergyman friend I should be insane in
a month. I see this as something very hateful; but there is only one
thing I can do, to see that I hate my own self more than I hate any
other self--and work, work, for the thing I love.
You asked me once to tell you if your death would make any
difference to me. If you were to die to-morrow I should feel that a
sacred opportunity was gone out of my life, that all my efforts must
have less result forever after. But I do not think I should stop
working a day.
I love you because you are something upon which I may exert the
force of my will. I honestly believe that the truest word, the
nearest to my character, I ever spoke. If I care about you it is for
one thing, and one only--because you are a soul hungry for life,
because you are capable of sacrifice and high effort, because you
are sensitive and eager. I love you and honor you for this; I take
you to my bosom, I give all my life to your service; and I shall
make you a perfect woman, or else kill you.
You must understand what I want; I want no concrete thing, no dozen
languages to throw you into despair. I want effort, effort,
_effort!_ That's all. And I believe that you might be a stronger
soul than I at this moment, if only you chose to hunt yourself out
and fight! That is truly what I feel about you, and that is why I
love you.
XXIII
DEAREST THYRSIS:
I have no more to say, my precious one; I bow in joy before your
will, your certainty, your power. Let it be so, I shall adore you as
I so long to do.
You are giving me all I could ask for. What more could I wish from
you, dear Thyrsis, than to know you will never leave my side? I will
try not to do any more bemoaning of my shortcomings. To-night I
reached a wonderful security and almost sublimity, until I could
have fallen on my face and praised God for His mercy. I talked out
loud to myself, I exhorted myself, I explained to myself what is my
beauty and possibility in life--the _reason_ for which I was born. I
was quite lifted out of myself, by a conviction that came like a
benediction, that the essence of my soul was good and pure, and that
if anybody upon earth had the power to reach God, it was myself.
Dear God, _how_ I have spent the years of my life! like an imbecile!
But you--if you take me, I shall go mad--I shall love you like a
tigress! I shall implore you to invent any way that will enable me
to realize life! Oh, if you take me, how madly I shall love you! I
fancy myself seeing you now, and I don't know what I should do--I
love you so dreadfully! I think of you, and everything about you
seems so wondrously beautiful to me!
I almost have a feeling that I have no right to love you so much.
Oh, tell me, do you want me to love you as I can? Already you seem
part of me, mine--mine! And it is wonderful how you help me.
XXIV
Thyrsis:
I spent the whole day in the park without a bite to eat, because I
did not want to take the trouble to come home after it, and I only
had five cents. I have tried, oh, tried to control myself and make
myself saner. I am seized with occasional fits of the horrors, and
of wild cravings for you, until I could scream. It is so unbearable,
and I almost want to die. Oh, but I do _not_ want to die! My
imagination has become so fevered in the last few days--if I do not
see you soon, I know not what will become of me!
I have never loved you so wildly--though I have always longed for
you. I sometimes feel now as if my brain were utterly wrecked. I
know not what is the matter; I gasp, when I think of you. I am
convinced of heaven and hell almost in the same breath--experience
each in rapid succession. One touch of your hand and one look, I
think would cure me. I seem as if in a thunder-storm--pitchy
blackness with flashes of light--and in the flashes I see you, my
beloved!
XXV
Thyrsis:
I am atrociously weary of being able to depend upon myself not at
all; but oh, how marvellously sweet and good you are to me! I shall
never be able to pay you for your help!
Dear Heaven, what a cup of bitterness I have drunk, since I last saw
you! Dearest, you have really torn me to pieces, unwittingly. But
now I am healed, and I may go on in your blessed sight, with my
terrors gone forever.
And then I actually wonder if you have an earthly form! It will be
very strange to see you and touch you, I sometimes wake up with a
start at the thought of it!
XXVI
Thyrsis:
Here I am, the most restless and miserable and uncomfortable and
pining of creatures--a very Dido! Are you satisfied, now that you
have made it almost impossible for me to put my mind on anything but
you, you? I spend hours reading one page of my book.
I was reading peaceably just now, and I suddenly thought how I would
feel if I saw you coming in at the door. I started and could hardly
believe that I will really see you--in something besides visions.
When night comes I usually get fidgety, and can hardly realize I do
not need to worry over phantoms. Then I go on with "Classicism and
Romanticism in Music," and I think of you--and read a line and think
of you! You see, it doesn't do for me to be too intense, for I just
devour myself, and that is all. My only idea of a vent is to knock
my head against something.
I suppose it is the inevitable result of caring for someone you
cannot see. Here I might be studying now, but what do I do? I go
around seeking rest--and I write you a dozen times a day, and use up
all the stamps in the house.
Oh well, I dare say if you wished me to love you, you have
accomplished your purpose most successfully. There is nothing in
life but you, and to suddenly acquire a new self is most startling,
and something hard to believe. Thyrsis, I simply cannot realize that
I may go to you and find peace and security.
XXVII
MY DEAREST CORYDON:
I have just a few words to say. I have two weeks left in which to
shake off my shoulders the fearful animal that has been tearing me.
_For just three weeks to-day,_ not a line written!
The task seems almost beyond my powers. God, will people ever know
how I have worked over this book!
But unless you develop some new doubt, or I persist in writing
letters, I ought to get it done now. I shall see you as soon as I
have finished, and meantime I shall write no letters.
XXVIII
DEAR THYRSIS:
I would give a great deal to let you know how I have struggled and
suffered.
I have had almost _more_ than I could bear--the more horrible
because the more unreasonable. You must know it. If it disturbs you,
please put the letter away until a favorable time. I account my
trouble greatly physical--I have never been in such a nervous state.
The murky despair that has come over me--that I have writhed and
struggled in, as in the clutches of some fiend! It seems to me I
have experienced every torment of each successive stage of Dante's
Inferno. I know what is the emotion of a soul in all the bloom and
hope of youth, condemned _to die_.
I woke up in the middle of the night last night--and felt as if a
monster sat by to throw a black cloth over me and smother me. I got
up and shook myself, and my heart was beating violently.
I managed to get myself free. This morning I am better. God in
Heaven only knows--I would rather be torn limb from limb, yes,
honestly, than endure the blackness of soul that I have had through
all these years of strife and failure by myself.
Dearest Thyrsis:
Perhaps if I have written to you a few words, I shall be able to put
my mind on study--as so far I have not done. I actually to-night
have been indulging in all sorts of romantic moods about you. I felt
in a singing mood, and when I came up from dinner I put on a
beautiful dress, just for fun, and I looked quite radiant. I dreamed
of you, and imagined that you were at my feet, in true Romeo
fashion--and I was your Juliet. I imagined--I couldn't help thinking
of this, and I knew I ought to be doing something else! Oh, but how
I want a poor taste of joy! You were my Romeo to-night--you were
beautiful and young and loving; and well, I had one dream of youth
and happiness before my miseries begin.
I have felt that we were very near to each other lately. You have
shown me the tenderness of your heart, and I love you quite
rapturously. I love your goodness, your sympathy--perhaps when I see
you I can tell you!
XXX
DEAREST THYRSIS:
I received a postal just now, saying that you were coming soon. I
had my usual queer faintness. It was like receiving word from the
dead--it seemed such centuries--aeons--since I heard from you! I
send you this batch of notes I have written you at various times, a
sort of mental itinerary, for my mind has traveled into all sorts of
queer places, back and forth. I tell you that without your continual
influence, I am lost in doubt and uncertainty. Please try to
understand these notes and my fits of love and fear.
XXXI
DEAR THYRSIS:
I am in one of my cast-iron moods, this morning--in a fighting
mood, I do not care with whom or what. You, even you, have not
altogether understood me--you have often given me a dog's portion.
I have been a slave, a cowering kitten before you, and you
(unwittingly I know) have done much to destroy all my courage and
hope and love--by what you call making me aware of your higher self.
Fortunately I _know_ what your higher self is, quite as well as you
do, if not a little better--and I know that it is the self that most
strengthens my love and courage, the self that most fills me with
life. I have a right to life as well as you, and a right to the love
in you that most inspires me. I feel I am capable of judging this,
in spite of all my lack of education, and my inability to follow you
in your intellectual life.
I have thought lately that you were able to make yourself believe
that you were anything you wished to think yourself. Whenever you
wring my heart and deprive me of strength, I shall go somewhere
alone, and when I have controlled myself, come back to you.
You say you are master--but it must be master of the right. I want
strength, and why you should think it right ever to have helped to
throw me into more despair, I do not know. The reason I have written
all this is because such ideas have come to me lately, and a fear
that sometimes you might resort to your unloving methods, with the
thought of its being right. I tell you I would rather stay at home,
than ever go through with some of the pangs you have cost me, in
what you called your higher moods. You must not gainsay me, that I
am also capable of respecting high moods and bowing before them; but
it would seem to me that they are only high if they are a source of
inspiration and joy to me.
Because we love each other, would that be any reason why we must
dote upon each other, or sink from our high resolves? I cannot see
why our love for each other should not always be a means of our
reaching our higher selves. You need not answer this letter--but
when you come back, tell me whether what I say impresses you as
being right or wrong--if there is not some justification in it. But
perhaps I should wait. I have no right to disturb you now.
XXXII
THYRSIS:
I woke up this morning with the feeling that I did not love you.
That same thing has happened to me two or three times, and I do not
understand it.
It must be because at the present moment you do not love _me!_ You
are writing your book, and telling yourself that you cannot love me
as you ought! Is this so? It is only a surmise on my part, and I do
not know, but I should not be surprised if you were. I only know
that the one thing that can bring us together is love, and I do not
love you now. Perhaps you can explain it to me. I write this
absolutely without emotion.
I tell you there have been things horribly wrong about you. You have
done anything but inspire love in my heart--you have never seen me
with love in my heart. Until lately, I never have felt any love for
you; before, I simply compelled myself to think I loved you, because
my life seemed to depend upon it. There have been many times when,
as I look back, you seem to me to have been base.
Well may you preach, while you are alone, and are monarch of
yourself. I shall have to have more of a chance than has ever come
to me, before I will bear your displeasure or your exhortations. If
you come to me and speak to me of the high, proud self that I must
reach, every vestige of love for you will leave my heart, and I
would as soon marry a stone pillar!
Great Heaven, what strange moods I have! I picture our meeting each
other, unmoved by love; you determined, energetic, indifferent to
all things, myself included; and I disappointed, but with a hardness
in my heart--no tears!
I am indulging now in the most lifeless and gloomy of broodings; if
you do not come back to me, the only soul I can love, if you are not
joyful and strong, sincere, sympathetic, and loving, all of these--I
shall know it is a farce for me to ever hope to gain any life with
_you_. I do not believe that any woman can grow without love, and a
great deal of it. Why do you suppose I am writing all this--I, who
have felt such deep and true love for you? I have no courage--the
dampness of the day has settled into my soul--and I shall be joyless
until there is no more cursed doubt of you and your love for me.
XXXIII
Dear Corydon: Against resolutions, I am writing to you again. I
thought of you--there is a boat up the lake to-day with some
hunters, and if I finish this letter, I can send it in by them as
they pass. I have many things to tell you, and you must think about
them.
This is one of my paralyzing letters. It will reach you Monday. I
can't tell where I may be then. I have been wrestling with the end
of the book, and I am wild with rage at my impotence. The fact has
come to me that no amount of will is enough, because all my life is
cowardly and false. I have found myself wanting _to sneak through
this work_, and come home and enjoy myself; and you can't sneak with
God, and that's all. I cannot come home beaten, and so here I am,
still struggling--and with snow on the ground, and the shack so cold
that I sit half in the fire-place.
I think of you, and at times when my soul is afire, I imagine I can
do anything. I see that you are helpless, but I think that I can
change your whole being, and _make_ you what I wish. But then that
feeling dies out, and I think of you as you _are_, and with despair.
I do not allude to any of your "deficiencies"--music, learning, and
other stuff. I mean your life-force, or your lack of it. I see that
you have learned nothing of the unspeakable, unattainable thing for
which I am panting. And it has come to me that I dare not marry you,
that I should be binding my life to ruin. My head is surging with
plans, and a whole infinity of future, and I simply cannot carry any
woman with me on this journey.
As I say this, I see the tears of despair in your eyes. I can only
tell you what I am--God made me for an _artist,_ not a _lover!_ I
have not deep feelings--I do not care for human suffering; I can
_work,_ that is all. Art is no respecter of persons, and neither am
I--I labor for something which is not of self, and requires denial
of self. And as I think about you, the feeling comes to me that it
is not this you want, that I should make you utterly wretched if I
married you. You love _love;_ you do not wish to fling yourself into
a struggle such as my life must be. I see that in all your letters
--your terror of this highest self of mine. If you married me, you
would have to fight a battle that would almost kill you. You would
have to wear your heart out, night and day--you would have to lose
yourself and your feelings--fling away everything, and live in
self-contempt and effort. You would have to know it--I can't help
it--that I love life, and that to human hearts I owe no allegiance;
that to me they are simply impatience and vexation.
Do you want such a life? If you can learn to love it for what it
is--a wild, unnatural, but royal life--very well. If you are coming
to me with pleading eyes, secretly wishing for affection, and in
terror of me when you don't get it, then God help you, that is all!
You are a child, and you can not dream what I mean. But every day I
learn something more of a great savage force of mine, that will
stand out against the rest of this world, that is burning me up,
that is driving me mad. One of two things it will do to you--it will
make you the same kind of creature, or it will tear the soul out of
you. Do you understand that? And nothing will stop it--it cares for
nothing in the world but the utterance of itself! And if you wish to
marry me, it will be with no promise of mine save to wreak it upon
you! To take you, and make you just such a creature, kill or
cure--nothing else! Not one instant's patience--but just one
insistent, frantic demand that you succeed--and fiery, writhing
disgust with you when you do not succeed--disgust that will make you
scream--and make you live! Do you understand this--and do you get
any idea of the temper behind this? And how it seems to you, I don't
know--it is the only kind of truth I am capable of; I shall simply
fling naked the force of my passionate, raging will, and punish you
with it each instant of your life--until you understand it, and love
it, and worship it, as I do.
Now, I don't know what you will think about this letter--and I don't
care. It is here--and you must take it. It does not come to you for
criticism, any more than it would come for criticism to the world.
It will rule the world. If I marry you I must live all my soul
before you, and you must share it; if you think you can do this
without first having suffered, having first torn loose your own
crushed self, you are mistaken. But remember this--I shall demand
from you just as much fire as I give; you may say you _cannot_, you
may weep and say you cannot--I will gnash my teeth at you and say
you _must_.
Perhaps I'm a fool to think I can do this. At any rate, I don't want
to do anything else; I am a fool to think of doing anything else,
and you to let me.
I _cannot_ be false to my art without having a reaction of disgust,
and you cannot marry me, unless you understand that. When I sat down
to this letter I called myself mad for trying to tie my life to
yours. Now I am interested in you again. You may wish to make this
cast still; and oh, of course I shall drop back as usual, and you'll
be happy, and I'll be your "Romeo"!
_Ugh_--how I hated that letter! _"Romeo"_ indeed! Wouldn't we have a
fine sentimental time--you with your prettiest dress on, and I
holding you in my arms and telling you how much I loved you!
XXXIV
MY DEAR THYRSIS:
I shall be your wife. This thought takes hold of me firmly and
calmly, and I have no tears, nor fright, nor uncertainty. I
suffered, of course, while I read your letter, and my self-control
toppled, but no "tears of despair" came into my eyes. I am not
despairing--I shall be your wife, and I shall feel that for many
years one of my greatest efforts will be to prevent you from
becoming my "Romeo." I am very weak and human, and you become that
easily--do you know it?
Rejoice, I have gained my self-control, and well, I am going to be
your wife. Or else (it comes to me quite as a matter of course,
without any feeling of it being unnatural or unusual) I shall not
care to live. But after all, I do not fear that I shall die--I shall
be your wife. You may even gainsay it, you may _even_ tell me I
shall ruin your life, you may _even_ tell me that you refuse to take
me--but sooner or later I shall be your wife. I say it with perfect
certainty, and almost composure.
It is unfortunate that at such a time as this I cannot see you--it
is quite cruelly wicked. There is so much to say, not all in _your_
favor either. Some day I shall learn to bring out and keep before me
that higher self of yours, which _now_ I do not fear. I also have a
higher self, though it does not show itself very often. It is a self
which can meet that self of yours without flinching, but which loves
it, and stretches out its arms to it--which knows that without that
self of yours it cannot, _will_ not live. It is hard to realize such
a thing, but I beseech you no longer, I am going with you. You see
now, I have no fear of your not taking me--I simply have no fear of
this.
If I had, I could not write you this way. But you have been the
means of showing me I _can_ awaken, and that I was not meant to live
the life of the people around me. Chance tried hard to put me to
sleep forever, but you have roused me. Dear me, how I smile to
myself at my confidence! But I am so sure--this feeling would not be
in my heart if it had no meaning! I was not meant for this life I am
leading. I am not afraid because I have no proof that I am a genius,
and no prospect of being one at present. I do not know whether what
you have must come as an inspiration direct from God, I do not know
whether I am _capable_ of winning any of this life that you are
seeking; but I do know this--I'm going to have the chance to try,
and you are going to give it to me. Do you suppose I could tell you
that I am willing to stay at home and let you leave me?
I have not even any fear now of your wishing to leave me. Why, I
wouldn't hold my life at a pennyworth if you were out of it!
"You are my only means of breathing, you fool," I thought. I
sometimes wonder how you could think of leaving me, when I feel as I
do at present. I ask myself why it is that you know nothing of it,
and why it does not make you put out your hand in gladness to
me--how you could write me that all my letters showed you I did not
want to struggle to lead your life!
My words are failing me now--this is probably the reason you know
nothing about me.
Besides, when I have written you before this, I have been worrying
and doubting and afraid. I am none of these now; and I do not
believe I am deluding myself--in fact I _know_ I am not. _I shall
be your wife._ It is indeed a pity I cannot talk to you now--yes, a
very great pity. It is also rather incomprehensible, that you can
imagine leaving me _now._ And all my letters have told you that I
wish to be petted and cuddled, did they? If you were here, I do not
know that it would do any good to give my feelings vent, it would
profit me nothing to strike you, and what could I do? I cannot hate
you--it is not natural that one should hate one's husband.
Some day, oh, _some_ day, I tell myself--you will no lonnger play
and trifle with me and my soul!
Did you really think you are going to put me to sleep again? Surely
my life is something; and you have given me some reason for its
existence. I can hardly tell you what I wish to say; people run in
and out, and I am bothered--I suppose this is one of my tasks. But
do you not see that you have taken the responsibility of a soul into
your hands? I cannot live without you. What is it--do creatures go
around the world struggling and saying they must live, and are they
only pitiful fools for trying?
And are you one of God's chosen ones? Will you tell me, "Corydon,
you simply cannot live my life--you are not fit?" Dear Thyrsis, I
actually believe that if you should tell me that now, I should laugh
with joy, for I would see that I had gained one victory, that of
proving to you your own weakness and stupidity. And I should not let
you discourage me. I should throw my arms around your neck, and
cling to you until you had promised to take me. After all, it is a
small boon to ask the privilege of trying to live, it cannot but be
a glory to you to help me; and if I do not make you waste your time
or money, how can I hinder you?
Ask yourself how you have treated me--have I not suffered a little?
Though I may have been miserably weak, have I not now a little
courage? Why do the moments blind you so, that you can speak to me
as though I were a sawdust doll?
There is only one thing that I will let myself do. I know that you
are strong and brave, and that I can be if I go with you; and I am
going with you--there simply is no other alternative--for I love
you! Yes, dear, I saw it very plainly as I read your letter to-day.
I seem to feel very differently about it all now. I know we _cannot_
sit still and love each other--this costs me no pang. You need not
love me one bit; I may simply belong to you, we may simply belong to
each other.