The Jessica Letters Part 5

Others have been compelled to overcome a prejudice against what was base or unworthy in themselves, but I am forced to defend myself for my best heritage of understanding. Would it help me in your esteem if I flung away all my hard-won philosophy and ranged myself with the sentimentalists of the day? I will not believe it. I will fight this upstart folly while breath is in me, and I will teach you to fight it with me. This morning I took that poor book of Miss Addams's and, in place of what you sent me, wrote such a review as will quite astound the "forty-million fool" you so despise--we agree there, at least. And all the while I was writing, I kept saying to myself, How will Jessica answer that? and, Will not Jessica believe now that my hatred of humanitarianism does not spring from selfishness or contempt, but from sympathy for mankind?

Yet if anything could bring me to hate my brothers it would be this monstrous certainty that my feeling towards them stands in the way of the one supreme, all consuming desire of my heart. I could cry out in the words of the _Imitation_:

"As often as I have gone among men, I have returned less a man"; for their foolish chatter has stolen from me the possession without which we are dwarfed and marred in our being. Your love is more to me than all the hopes of men. You must hearken to me. I have charged the winds with my pa.s.sion; the scent of flowers shall tell you the sweetness of love; you shall not walk among your beloved trees but their whispering shall repeat the words they heard me speak. I will wrap you about with fancies and dreams and pa.s.sionate thoughts till no way of escape is left you. You shall not read a book but some word of mine shall come between your eyes and the printed page. You shall not hear a simple song but you shall remember that music is the voice of love. You think that I have no heart for the many and can therefore have no heart for one. Dear girl, my love is so great that it has made me stronger a thousand times than you; there is no escape for you.

As I pa.s.sed the little goblin boy this morning I dropped a coin in his hand and said: "It is from a lady in Georgia who loves you." His face lighted up with surprise at the words (not at the money, for I have given him that before), and I was glad to extend the benediction of your sweetness a little further in the world. Believe me, I am not so foolish as to despise charity or true efforts to increase the comfort of the poor; but I know that poverty and pain and wretchedness can never be driven from the world by any besom of the law, and I do see that humanitarianism, sprung as it is from materialism and sentimentalism (what a demonic crew of _isms_!) has bartered away the one valid consolation of mankind for an impossible hope that begets only discontent and mutual hatred among men.

They are the followers of Simon Magus, these humanitarians; they would buy the gifts of Heaven with a price; and their creed is the real Simonism.

Have you ever read the _Imitation_, and do you remember these verses?

For though I alone possessed all the comforts of the world and might enjoy all the delights thereof, yet it is certain that they could endure but a little.

Wherefore, O my soul, thou canst not be fully comforted, nor be perfectly refreshed, save in G.o.d, the comforter of the poor and the helper of the humble.

Let temporal things be for use, but set thy desire on the eternal.

Man draweth nearer to G.o.d so as he departeth further from all earthly comfort.

You have taught me to love, dear Heart; and now, as you see, you are teaching me to be orthodox. Do not think I shall give you up; there is only one power greater than my desire, and that is Death. I would not end with so ill-omened a word, but rather with your own sweet name, Jessica.

XXI

JESSICA TO PHILIP

DEAR FATHER CONFESSOR:

You observe, I do not retaliate by addressing you as Dear Philip. After reflecting, I conclude that this would be an undue concession to make, while the above t.i.tle removes you to a safer sphere. It limits and qualifies your relations.h.i.+p and at the same time affords me the happy advantage of confessing my heart to you. Really, I have always felt the need of such an officer in my spiritual kingdom. I could never reconcile myself to the incongruity of confessing in our experience meetings. It seemed to me that sharing my confidence with so many people was heterodox to nature itself. For this reason I have always thought that while Protestantism is based upon a n.o.bler theory of the truth, Roman Catholicism is founded upon a much shrewder knowledge of human nature.

However, I do not come seeking absolution for any sins. Such shortcomings as I have are so personal, so really a part of dear me, that I should scarcely be complete without them. They are vixenish plagues of character that distinguish me from more conventional saints. But now that I have willed myself away from you, I need no longer conceal my heart. My love has been shriven, and, like a little white ghost out of heaven, must hark back to you occasionally for a blessing.

To begin with, then, when your letter came this morning, I took just a peep inside to see if it was good, and then hurried away to our forest to enjoy it, for I always feel more at home with you there. And although the season is so far advanced that the whole earth is chilled and desolate, my heart was like the springtide, swelling with gladness. Joy reached to my vagabond heels, and I had much ado to maintain the resignation gait of a minister's daughter through the village streets. And once out of sight I kissed my hand quickly over my shoulder till my face burned. For had you not promised to attend me? "I will wrap you about with fancies and dreams," you said. I was like a young-lady comet drawing after me a luminous trail of love. I began to comprehend the advantages of my position, to rejoice in my sacrifice. I caught the finer aspiration of love, like one who lays down his life and finds it again in n.o.bler forms.

Brave, good father, this thing that you have revealed to me is like a sweet eternity. It neither begins nor ends: only we do that. When our time comes we are swept into the current of it, happy, predestined atoms, and afterwards we are lost out of it like the leaves on the trees. But love is like the wind in their branches; it never is gone. So it seems to me now when all my heart's leaves are stirred to gladness by the dear gale of love.

But do not despise me, O sage in the upper chamber, for my selfishness. I keep far to the windward of you because I was made for love, not for sacrifice. The altar of your soul life is very fine, very beautiful, but I am too much alive to be offered up on such a table. Suppose I trusted you, gave myself with my heart, and in after years you should fall upon the idea of expurgating all sensations, all heresies, all affections from your life as the Brahmins do, what then would become of poor Jessica? I should sit upon your altar like a withered fairy, casting dust over my unhallowed head and calling down elfish curses upon you. Ah me! when I come upon a splendid man-statue that suddenly glows into living heart and flesh, I may wonder and love, but I should never trust myself in the arms of that phenomenon, lest, being clasped there, he should as suddenly turn back to his native stone and freeze the life in me!

Have you noticed that I tell you nothing of the village doings here, the little church sociables and a thousand commonplace details that go to make up the sum of existence amid such surroundings? It is because I do not really live among them. My mind is alien to these narrow margins of society and religion. But it is always of the little forest that I tell you, as if that were my real home, as indeed it is. And it is the dearer to me now that we have walked through it together. So in each letter you may expect a report of how things go there. This morning, as I looked about at the sober ground covered thick with dying leaves, I thought of what a gallant display of autumnal colors we had on that morning. Our little friends of the summer time are flitting here and there through the naked branches in silent confusion. There are no green boughs behind which to conceal their orchestral moods. Besides, their inspiration is gone, their singing hearts are benumbed by the cold. But for your letter thrust somewhere I could not have escaped the ghost of sadness that seemed to haunt the earth and sky. Suddenly, as I stood in the midst of it all, a cardinal flashed like a red spark into a tall pine, fluffed out his breast, and swept the forest with a defiant note of melody. It was a challenge to the long winter time, a prophecy of spring and of high green trees, and of a mate cloistered now far away in the wilderness: "You shall not hear a simple song, but you shall remember that music is the voice of love," whispered the letter against my heart. What a brave thing is life when we have love and the hope of spring latent within us! I admit, as I listened to the little red troubadour of the pine, that, had you been as near as the dreams and fancies that wrapped me about, this fight in me for freedom would have been at an end. Do not trust these feeble moods of mine, however; not one of them would last half the length of time you would need to make the journey from New York to Morningtown!

So! you have written such a review of Miss Addams's book as will astonish the "average reader," and all the while you wondered: "How will Jessica answer that?" Abridged, this is her opinion: That an editor should be careful how he kicks his heels at the spirit of his age. The world has an ancient and effective way of dealing with such heroes.

No, I am not familiar with the _Imitation_. But I gather from the pa.s.sages you quote that it is a spiritual exercise prepared for those who "possess all the comforts of this life," and are weary enough of them to pa.s.s on to the philosophy of renunciation. But you should remember that the Hull-House cla.s.ses have not had the necessary experience with comforts.

Renunciation is impossible for them, for they have nothing to give up.

My love to the little goblin boy.

XXII

PHILIP TO JESSICA

MY DEAR JESSICA:

Did ever "Father Confessor" have so sweet and so wilful a sinner to shrive! Your only sin is that you love me, and do you think I shall grant absolution for that? As I read your letter with its wayward confession, it seemed to me indeed that I was in some temple of the G.o.ds instead of this book-littered den, and the rumble of the street was transfigured into the sound of triumphant music. And all the while the voice of the little penitent, hidden from my eyes, but almost within reach of my breath, murmured in my ears: "I love you, I love you, and that is my sin." Dear girl, when you have given me your heart, do you suppose I shall be slow to confiscate your will? It is not lawful that a man's, or a woman's, heart and will should be at enmity with each other. I know that your will is strong, but I know, too, that your heart is stronger. Why did you turn me away without one word of hope or consolation when I visited you in Morningtown? Out of the great store of happiness that G.o.d has given you, could you not spare one little morsel? Ah, I would not offer you up a sacrifice on the altar of any spiritual creed, but take you with me into that upper chamber that looks toward the golden sunrise. I would share your happiness and give you in return a portion in the hope that I too have found. With you at my side I could walk through the world, (for I am not such a recluse as you might suppose,) knowing that the desire of all men's hearts had fallen to me, and that my life was consecrated henceforth to n.o.ble uses. And yet to-day I am very sad.

Let me tell you a little story of the way your admired Simonians act when their general promulgations of brotherhood are brought to an individual test. Our proprietor and manager, a smooth-faced, meek-eyed Jew, who has made himself right with this world, at least, is much concerned with charities and civic meetings and reform clubs and progress societies and the preaching of universal democracy, and all that,--a veritable Pharisee among the humanitarians. He often asks me to give a good word to some Simoniacal book. Well, I have a poor broken-down Irishman named O'Meara, who reviews a certain cla.s.s of publications for me. He is the kind of man you would never expect to meet in this country: a relic of eighteenth-century Grub Street,--a man who reads Latin and Greek, who can quote pages of the Fathers, who has a high ideal of literature and conscience in writing, and withal a victim to the demon whiskey that has dragged him down to the very gutter. His life has been a mystery to me, and some feeling of shame has kept him from ever telling me where and how he lives. At intervals he comes shuffling into my office, with bleared eyes and palsied hand, and for charity's sake I give him a book to review--and not exactly for charity either, for he does his work well. Two or three weeks ago our Simoniacal manager came into my office and asked me who that tramp was whom he had seen several times go away with books. I told him the whole story, thinking to arouse his sympathy. What was my surprise when he broke out into a mild stream of abuse--the more startling because he ordinarily says so little--against allowing such besotted tramps to come into the offices! When a man drank himself into such a state as that there was no doing anything with him, etc. O'Meara came back in a day or two with his "copy," and I told him that the chief had ordered me to cut him off. Poor wretch! he said never a word for himself, but turned and shambled guiltily out of the room--I shall never forget the sound of his trailing, despondent feet.

I heard no more from him until yesterday, when the office boy came in and told me a beggar child insisted on seeing me. What was my astonishment when it proved to be our goblin boy, who had been sent to ask me to come to his father; and his father was O'Meara! It all seemed as unsubstantial as a dream. I went with the child, of course. He guided me through the dark entry where I had seen him so often, in behind a great printing house, to a foul court hidden away from the street like some criminal outlaw. I will not try to describe the noisomeness of that reeking hole. I found O'Meara lying on a heap of sacks in a mouldering closet which was entirely dark save for what little light came through the doorway.

Darkness, indeed, was his only comfort. He would not shake hands with me, for he has, withal, the instincts of a gentleman, and it seemed as if the shame of his whole degraded life lay with him before me in his misery. His tragedy will have been played out in a day or two, I think; and I wish the memory of it might also pa.s.s from my mind. What shall I do with the goblin boy? The hatefulness of it all stands between me and my thoughts of you. I cannot harden myself yet for a while to dream of pure beauty. I read your letter over and over, but its sweet medicament cannot purge my breast. Not even the acknowledgment of your love can drown these sighs I have heard.

XXIII

JESSICA TO PHILIP

MY DEAR MR. PHILIP TOWERS:

You lack the proper ethical pose of a Father Confessor. I have excommunicated you. The charge against you is that you take an audacious advantage of the confessional, not to bless me, but to rejoice in my romantic vagrancy. For a man giving himself airs in the "upper chamber,"

you have very human ways, and I begin to suspect you only keep your creed and philosophy up there.

But you are greatly mistaken if you think you can ever wheedle me into such a sunrise attic. I can be domesticated, but not etherealised. And you hold strange doctrines for an ascetic. You think that because I love it will be easy to "confiscate" my will. Even _I_ know better than that. We live to conquer our hearts. There is no freedom of mind and spirit till that decisive battle has been fought and won. My heart is a gay vagabond, ready to dance before the door of your tent, but my will is better disciplined. It weighs and counts the costs and rejects this sentimental bargain, because, O Stranger to my soul, I doubt if you can pay the interest love demands upon so large an investment. There is not enough of you; and your capital consists in something less vital,--in wind-cooled philosophies, and the pa.s.sions of an occult spirit ever ready to escape into mysticism. Why will you not be content with a companions.h.i.+p on this basis? You keep your wings and you wish mine also. Well, you shall not have them! I have no disposition to simulate the example of those small insects who come out in early spring with splendid wings, make one flight far enough through the sunlight to lose them, and crawl all the remainder of their days in the domestic dust of their little tenements.

Besides, does not the science of biology teach that romantic love, in the very nature of things, is transient?--a little heathen angel that we entertain unawares, who comes and goes at will? I cannot tell you what satisfaction and what distress that theory has caused me of late. I would have my own heart free, but I am willing to move my little heaven and earth to prolong your bondage. Selfish?--I know, but consider upon what loneliness and terror such selfishness is based. A man is always sufficient unto himself, particularly if he can abstract and divert himself into a line of thought as you are able to do, but a woman without a lover is a pathetic thing. There is no real reason for her existence; all her little miracles of expression and posing are for naught. She is a sort of prima donna lost out of the play. There is no one to give her the happy cue to the whole meaning of life. Oh, my Love! I _cannot_ live without a lover. Do not bereave me! I should shrivel up, I am sure,--grow old and sour and sad. I might even become a deaconess with Hull-House propensities. I am a nave beggar, you see; I ask all you have, and admit that I am unwilling to give in return what I myself have.

Your account of O'Meara interests me. But what right have you to slip out of your stern character as a merely spiritual man, and a.s.sume the guise of a good Samaritan? Really it is not fair; your tender compa.s.sion is illogical, and, however benign, I cannot accept it as evidence in your favour. But your account of the poor man's distress touched my heart. And you ask me what ought to be done with the little goblin boy. Dear Philip, could _we_ not adopt him? Think how many years then, we should have to correspond in and to dispute with each other about his upbringing! I would make the jackets and you should furnish the ethics for him. You should provide a home for him, and I would give a little of the warmth that any woman's tenderness imparts to any child. I will begin at once with a maternal dictation,--he must be sent into the country. For children are like lambs, I think; they also need to grow up in a green field, and to gambol there. He must have no cares, no obligations--just be encouraged to let go all the good and evil there is in him. When he has expanded to his natural size morally and physically, we can tell better what to do with him. Are you laughing at me, or are you scandalised at such a proposition?

Then why did you ask my advice? When a child is without parents, is it not better to provide him with a pair of them, even if one is a wizard who knows how to metamorphose himself into many different personalities, such as sage, mystic, lover, good Samaritan, and I know not how many more?

XXIV

PHILIP TO JESSICA

[THIS LETTER WAS WRITTEN BEFORE THE PRECEDING LETTER OF JESSICA'S, BUT WAS NOT RECEIVED UNTIL LATER.]

DEAR JESSICA:

I often wonder whether I have made it quite clear to you why it is possible to hold in high esteem personally the workers of Hull House and these other philanthropists, while detesting their views as formulated into a dogma. Just after I had sent off my last letter to you I met with something in a morning paper which will throw light on my position. In an address before Princeton Theological Seminary Dr. Lyman Abbott is reported to have used these words:

"To follow Christ is, first of all, to give yourself to the service of G.o.d by serving your fellow-men. This is more important than the question of the Trinity, of the atonement, or of creeds."