(Vh o GIFT OF -5 V c- C c_ CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL But let me whisper something to you, O Wise One: When a woman is married she confesses to no one, not even to a broad- minded teak-wood Idol " (See page 351) CONI TONS -TO FAST LEE ILLUSTRATED FROM > jt BY FEED EOBIN6ON 111 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL BY MAEIAN LEE /* jf*~~ ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY FRED ROBINSON NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1906 iii COPYaiQHT, 1906, BT DOUBLKDAY, PAQK & COMPANY Published October, 1906 All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including th Scandinavian IV CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE i THE PLEASING AGE OF FORTY 3 ii JOE AND MA BELLE .... 16 in THE ANOMALOUS MB. MORRIS . 24 iv Two KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE 38 v MA BELLE AND TOM Discuss THE PROBLEM-NOVEL ... 46 vi THE VAGARIES OF CUPID . . 57 vn THE STORY OF A MARRIED LIFE 66 vin MUSINGS CONCERNING SECOND MARRIAGES. HILDA ... 86 ix A THANKSGIVING DINNER AND CONVERSATIONAL DESSERT . 99 x Music LAND AND A VISIT TO TOM 109 xi HILDA PLAYS AN ACCOMPANI- MENT 119 xn A COMEDY, A TRAGEDY, AND THE WAY OF THE FOOL . 128 242529 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE xiii CHRISTMAS, A WALK WITH TOM AND AN ANNUAL SETTLEMENT WITH THE FATES .... 143 xiv MA BELLE, HILDA AND TOM COME TO DINE, AND THEODORE MORRIS MAKES A MORNING CALL 152 xv A SOCIAL FUNCTION WHICH WAS TRULY SOCIAL 169 xvi MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EE- FRESHMENTS 191 xvii DOMESTIC CATACLYSMS, AND THEIR TREATMENT .... 205 xvm THROUGH THE PINE WOODS WITH TOM 210 xix A SKILFUL WOOING . . . .219 xx A NICE AFTERNOON. LOVE'S INITIATION FEE 232 xxi SACK-CLOTH AND ASHES . . . 246 xxn THE SPRINGTIME MADNESS . . 254 xxin THE IMPATIENCE OF MR. MOR- RIS LEADS TO A CHANGE IN CONFESSORS 260 xxiv MA BELLE'S STORY 265 vi CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE xxv THE VIOLIN MAKES LOYE TO THE PIANO WITH STARTLING RESULTS 283 xxvi A FLIGHT TO THE HILLS. FRIENDS' MEETING .... 292 xxvn MARIA DISCOURSES ON WIDOW- ERS. GERRITT HOWLAND COMES TO TEA 311 xxvin A BEWILDERING REVELATION . 327 xxix SOME VERY SATISFACTORY LET- TERS 337 xxx THE DAWN or A JUNE DAY AND A LAST CONFESSION . 345 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS " But let me whisper something to you, O Wise One : When a woman is married she confesses to no one, not even to a broad- minded teak- wood Idol" . . Frontispiece. FACING PAGE ' ' Come to think of it, you Poor Heathen, you do not know what a kiss is " . . 142 " But there seems to be no long stretch of experience's road where the slope is in the right direction!" 224 " Confessor, I wish I knew whether it is something or nothing that I sometimes see in Tom's eyes" 258 PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS THE IDOL, carved from teak- wood, and alleged to be the representation of some minor deity from a temple in Japan. MARIAN LEE, a widow of forty, who undertakes to ex- plain her social experiences to the Idol. The mar- ginal notes are supposed by Marian Lee to be the Idol's summaries of her nightly confessions. MRS. BELLE LEE, the mother-in-law of Marian, and fondly called by her " Ma Belle." TOM CARROLL, a lawyer and the loyal friend of Paul Lee, Marian's deceased husband. THEODORE MORRIS, a graduate student, and a special friend of Joe Stillman. ROBERT STILLMAN, the father of Marian Lee, and a pro- fessor in a college situated in the town where the scene of the story is laid. JOE STILLMAN, the young brother of Marian Lee, an undergraduate in the college. MILLIE VAN TYNE, a girl friend of Joe Stillman. HILDA VINCENT, a young woman, the intimate friend of Marian Lee. GERRITT ROWLAND, a Quaker preacher and successful worker among the poor of a great city. STEPHEN AND SYLVIA SOUTHARD, twin brother and sister of the mother of Marian Lee, and members of the Society of Friends. XI PROLOGUE YOU are so bewitchingly ugly and, withal, so delightfully smug. Your ears are long and ornamental; your eyes are turned upward dis- creetly and piously; your hair is arranged in neat rows like tiles and your nose is hopelessly retrousse. Your smile is wide, cheerful and full of meaning; your teeth are no respecters of tradition since they are not set opposite, one above the other, but alternate in a most original manner. You are doubled up and squatted on your tiny feet, your hands clasped over your knees in a way that suggests that you are suffer- ing an inward pain a suggestion belied by your comprehensive smile. You are a fascinating creation in teak-wood, and as you sit enthroned in your temple above my desk, you arouse in me strange thoughts and desires. When my polished and truly gentle friend, Mr. Otsaki, sent you to me from far Japan, he wrote that letter hidden beneath the rug under your feet, and it says : Dear Madam and kind Friend: I to-day send you idol as I promised. I secure him by bad PROLOGUE priest who sell worshipped idol for money. I think you like him very much. The priest say he is real idol of good health but I not sure. I have never worship idols because I Shinto; so I cannot tell you more except he is true idol. Please send my kind greetings your honored Father and Brother. Thanking you for your ever kindness to me I am always sincerely and humble your friend K. OTSAKL P.S. I could get you stone idol but he so heavy I think you like teak-wood him better to send to America K. 0. Scant information this about a real god. I do not know even your name or your specialty, and I am glad it is so; for you are my one and only idol and therefore must stand for all things. The more I look at you the mote I see to ad- mire. There is good humor and tolerance shin- ing through your ugliness. I detect in you a fair and unsqucamish spirit which leads you to deal with the good and evil of this world simply. Whatever you see you label truthfully; and you will never gnash your mismated teeth nor tear your tiled hair in horror and wrath if you chance to find wickedness sandwiched in virtue. Such PROLOGUE a one I have been longing for all my life someone to judge human experience fairly someone who neither excuses nor condemns the bad, but calls it by its honest name and lets it go someone who will not exalt nor disparage the good but will give it its just place in the economy of being. I have longed for a fair and unprejudiced judge of the vicissitudes of human experience and at last have found it in dispas- sionate teak-wood. But though you are all that I have longed for, I do not intend to worship you, nor say my prayers to you. Your work as a god you left behind you in the land of the lotus and the pine. You will have a different but no less onerous position in your new temple, for you are to be confessor to strictly honest confessions. I shall not come to you for absolution, although I may confess to you many venial sins. If I do tell you of my sins it will be for the sake of hearing them vocalised so that I may judge them for myself. So Mitch of our inner living is vague because it is never chained to judgment by words. Neither have I committed murder nor have I intentionally wronged my fellow-men; it is no weight of sin that impels ms to confession. It is simply a desire to walk in the light rather than in the darkness that makes me wish to place PROLOGUE before you the difficulties and perplexities of common-place experience to point out to you the confusing complexity of the straggling threads on the wrong side of monotonous, un- eventful daily life. Moreover, Idol, I desire to whisper to you some of the amusing things which I have discovered all by myself during the interesting days which have made for me my several years. CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL CHAPTER I THE PLEASING AGE OF FORTY SEPTEMBER IST : And finally, at forty, it has come to this I make confession to With gray heathen gods ! At ten I confided to my most hair > life becomes adored girl friend ; at twenty I confided all I amusing knew to my husband and could not understand why he was so bored ; at thirty I confided to no one, for I had discovered many things that were best not mentioned ; at forty I find my- self out of deep waters and sporting in the shallows. By the time the first gray hairs are earned, life becomes amusing, and one gayly waves a hand at it instead of wringing both 3 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL hands tragically because of it. This is the reason I make daily confession to a grinning teak- wood god. What I think is not worthy of serious confession, but must be told to one who smiles as if he understood. Father remarked to me across the break- fast table this morning : " Marian, you are getting to be a benign old party." But Joe took the matter up like the true young knight he is and said : " Nay, nay ! Mamie may be benign and she often is a party, but old never." I smiled at them both. Father knows that A year lived growing old is as comfortable as it is respect- is a year able and i nev itable. He knows that I look earned upon a year lived as a year earned j and that each year earned means greater treasure of experience and power laid up against time of need. It is only when growing old means cessation of development that it is to be v feared. But Joe, in his twentieth year, could hardly understand this, and he would not allow the epithet " old " to be applied to his playmate sister, even if she is twice his age and has been his mother as well. Dear Idol, 4 THE PLEASING AGE OF FORTY it was when I was a widow at twenty-four that I was old ; I was then so old that no matter how many years may be added to my life, I can never again be so old. Truth to tell, I am twenty years younger than I was then. The only bit I '11 confess to you this eve- ning of my fortieth birthday is that I have Lees as a always found it an illuminating experience mora ^'f actor to be obliged to drink to the dregs the vari- ^ ous concoctions I have made for myself, whether they have been of the intoxicating sort or the safer kind ; the lees of the oldest wine, by the way, being no worse than the last insipid mouthful of a lemon-soda. The one who luxuriously sips only the bead of Life's brew gains very little wisdom and small conception of that humorist Fate. I am glad that I have had what Joe would term " the sand " to drink to the last drop every experience of every day of my life and make no wry face. I am getting accustomed to " comfy " interested years and am quite reconciled to becoming versus interesting uninteresting, iust because it is so much CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL easier. It is much more worth while to be interested than to be interesting ; and it is more truly youthful also j for to be interested is natural, egotistical and delightful ; while to be interesting is unnatural, altruistic and a bore. SEPTEMBER 15TH : I may as well confess perturbing to-night in your capacious teak-wood ear caller ^^ ^ G c hi e f event of this day was a call from Tom Carroll. Not that Tom calls so seldom, as that a call from him is likely to turn out such a trying experience that it demands con- sideration. He was Paul's dearest friend and during our brief four years of married life he was almost a member of our household. He stood by me stanchly during the hard years which followed j but after a time we some- how drifted apart, and have never regained the old, familiar footing during these many, later years. Since I am confessing, I might as well say that this has always hurt me ; but it is his own choosing, so how can I help it ! You look vaguely questioning, as if you were wondering what this man is like 6 THE PLEASING AGE OF FORTY whose presence invites confession. I fear I can describe Mm to you but imperfectly. A man with c How shall I begin? He is broad-shouldered, nice smiu not too tall, and has clean shaven and clear- cut features ; he stands straight and looks the world in the face with keen gray eyes Two of his physical characteristics are strik- ing, his smile and his hands j in the latter, strength and sensitiveness unite to make that rarest of masculine attractions, beautiful hands. But how shall I convey to you all the subtlety of his smile ! It is a frank smile with the physical advantage of revealing perfect teeth j and yet despite the frankness there is in it a little cynicism ; not rank cynicism but tolerant, humorous cynicism, of the sort that comprehends all the world's weaknesses and shams and finds them worth smiling at. Tom is full of surprises, yet is often tediously disappointing. He is occasionally brusque An and arbitrary, yea. almost brutal ; I adjust intcrestin 9 perplexity myself patiently to this mood, when he un- expectedly says or does something which lifts him to the level of the truly great ; I re- 7 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL adjust myself to a properly worshipful atti- tude, when down he comes with a crash to the hopelessly commonplace. Sometimes we look at each other with understanding and ex- quisite sympathy j then, again, he fails utterly to comprehend my standpoint or to make me respect his. Thus it is that life with Tom in it is any- Being thing but monotonous. I have finally con- grateful c i u ^ e ^ y^t a f ter gji j am no rea j personality an arid experience to him. I am simply Paul's widow some- thing to look after and care for, but by no means somebody on my own account. Well, I suppose I ought to be grateful, but being grateful is sometimes a rather arid experi- ence. Now don't turn pale, little god, but it is the truth that I would sooner be down- right bad than grateful. There is something depressing in the way we have to be good and grateful whether we wish to or not. We are puny wretches and cowards to the Conventional- last degree when it comes to standing by ity a clue to ^^urg 35 opposed to convention. But why our intentions, rather than to do * rebel? Nature is a selfish brute; and our desires after all, conventionality is a blundering step 8 THE PLEASING AGE OF FORTY toward altruism an attempt to guide our- selves by rules that give others a clue to our intentions rather than our desires. SEPTEMBER 16TH : To-night, at Joe's earnest request, I broke my record of twenty years' Chaperoning, standing : I went as a chaperon to a dance a occupation given at his fraternity house, an experience I had sedulously avoided heretofore. How- ever, this time I went and sat in divers corners and tried to be interesting to whomsoever the tide of dance-program left stranded on my lonely shore. It was a painful and labored performance at best. I adore boys, and there were among those who sat beside me to-night several whom I might have stalked or baited to conversational capture had they been in the hunting grounds of my own drawing room. But they were hopelessly vapid and restless to-night ,* such a blight on social effort is the egotism of youth which devoutly believes that the sight of dizzy dancers is one of the coveted privileges of age. Thank heaven Joe is not a girl ! Henceforth the mamma of the girl of his choice may do his chaperoning. 9 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL The mother of the girl is the natural victim ; let the mother of boys be glad for what she is spared. One youth, rather more mature than the A beautiful others, a graduate student Joe says, interested man, a cum- me a ^tle. He is very handsome with berer of the earth rather delicate features, large brown eyes, and thin lips covered by a most correct moustache. I found him interesting because he was so wofully bored and not because he was beautiful a merely beautiful man being, in my opinion, a cumberer of the earth. He sat beside me a long time as immobile as your- self, my Graven Image, his eyes listlessly fol- lowing Millie Van Tyne as she two-stepped and blushed and flirted in a delightful and wholesome manner. A socially wholesome A wholesome girl, by the way, is likely to flirt just as a bird girl-flirt s i n gs or a flower blossoms j she does not have any designs on the hearts of men, but her high spirits and joyousness just froth over into flirtsomeness. Well, Sir Indifference sat at my side watching Millie and every time I made a desperate dash at conversation, he answered with all the conventional common- 10 THE PLEASING AGE OF FOETY place of a man come to life from a tailor's fashion plate. In comparison with him the little Bigelow boy, who guilelessly asked me if I did not wish that I were young so that I could dance, was a joy and relief. SEPTEMBER I?TH: Perhaps a supreme test of character is shown in our way of dealing Coping with a with inevitable nuisances. It is always a nuisance > a test of char- question how much one ought to endure pa- acter tiently and then what is wisest to do when one stops enduring. I might as well confess to you to-night, O Smiling Serenity ! that we are in the throes of enduring at the present time. My poor, sweet step-mamma's mother is making us a visit ; and she is an old lady with nerves that compass her about like a barbed wire fence and lacerate quite inci- dentally every one in her vicinity. Father has retired to his study and in- trenched himself behind a cold in the head The efficacy and reticence. Joe has suddenly developed a f sll/inin 9 conscientiousness about his college work which keeps him away from the bosom of his family pretty constantly. The servants are 11 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL in a state of sullen, sodden revolt. But I shine on unperturbed, simply because I can- not make up mind what to do that will prove more efficacious than shining. Tom Carroll called to-night and grandma improved the occasion to complain of many things; she finally capped the climax by insinuating, I do not know how, for Satan surely helps her to innuendo, that he had kept " Marian " waiting too long. But Tom is not one to be crushed by an attack like that and he answered cheerfully : " I am here, Madam, several times a week ; should Marian want me, all she has to do is to stoop and pick me up." He made me a profound bow and grandma looked trium- phant as if she had done me a great favor. When Tom went, I followed him to the door with some vague purpose of apologizing. " Confound it ! Marian why do you smile and endure it?" he whispered savagely. " My smile has become fixed so far as she The value oj a is concerned. I cannot change it even fixed smile though the muscles do ache." " All right, keep on being amiable and be 12 THE PLEASING AGE OF FOKTY trampled under foot if it suits you, " he ex- claimed with disgust. " Oh, don't scold me ! I cannot stand it ;" I cried nervously, and I fear the tears were An unexpect- near enough to my voice to dampen it j and e< * Jielp then and then something happened which had not happened before since Paul lay dead in the house and this man sought to comfort me he raised my hand to his lips. It was just a touch, not really a kiss. But the world seems a better place now; and my rasped nerves are all upholstered in velvet and grandma cannot reach them if she does her worst. Such is the help derived from the sympathy of an undemonstrative friend ! SEPTEMBER 18TH: "Wooden Image, do you realize how many of our mortal days we have The unusual to live through and how few we are privileged u * y a ways to truly live ? Days when one wishes at dawn that it were sunset because of the unsatis- fying hours which must intervene days of fretful, unexpected duties, that take one away from wholesome living. The unusual duty is almost always exhausting ; I detest the un- 13 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL usual with, a perfect detestation which ought to touch a sympathetic chord in your unvary- ing breast. I am never so well satisfied with my life as The way to when I drink it every day from day -dawn to quaff life's s tar-dawn in hearty, thirsty swallows, and brew find no time to sit and reflect upon the flavor and wonder if another brand had better suited me. I am convinced that productive labor is the Wood-carving best of all our activities to make the day influence happV and the night satisfie<L I have never ceased to be grateful that in those desperate days of my early widowhood I learned to use my hands to some purpose. Wood-carv- ing may not be the highest form of art, but it is one of Art's worthy ministers j and it has been the saving of me as surely as it has been the shaping of you, small god. I loved the work from the first, and the fact that I really achieved a fair success in it has always been a comfort to me. A woman is so given to frittering away her energies because of her many interests ! The diversity of her duties lead almost inevitably 14 THE PLEASING AGE OF FORTY to lack of definite purpose and concentration. Tom Carroll helped me to overcome these Feminine feminine disabilities ; I remember well, he f ritter ing said to me, "Don't be a woman in this one particular, Marian ; just taste the joy of doing something you do not have to do, suffi- ciently well so that it will be of value in the world's marts.' 7 But it happened" that no sooner had I really mastered my work than I was called home by the death of my dear little step-mother, and instead of carving wood I was obliged to give my energies to shaping Joe, which has proved a most absorb- ing occupation. 15 CHAPTER II JOE AND MA BELLE SEPTEMBER 18TH ( Continued) : Of one ,.,_ ,. JV thing I am entirely convinced : A woman versus cannot carry on a business successfully and be domesticity an efficient mistress of a house and train well a lively boy all simultaneously, unless she hath at her behest many ministers plenipo- tentiary. My first duties have always been the care of father and Joe and the home. But a thousand times I have thanked God that I had a work which I loved in a work- room away from the house and all its cares. That cosy, chip -littered room of mine in the second story of the carriage house has been a place where I could always find peace and comfort ; and more than all, strength for my duties as daughter, mother and housekeeper. Healing the It was the resting place where the collar-galls cottar-gate cooled and healed. 16 JOE AND MA BELLE I would prescribe as a means of preserving sanity and sound nerves to the wives and A prescrip- mothers of the land, that they each have tion f or P re ~ serving samty some avocation which may be pursued stead- fastly even though intermittently, apart from household duties. Such a work clears the mind and temper of tangles ; it is like the shadow of a rock in a weary land. I believe it was the knitting and the spinning and the weaving that enabled our great-grandmothers to bring up such large families with efficience and serenity j for these old-fashioned occu- pations have in them the mentally calming influence for which I am pleading. During all these years I have never been so perplexed about Joe nor so worried over Drop housekeeping trials that I have not been crawl out of able to find forgetfulness and rest when I barred that work-room door and took up my dear tools. Half the worries of life crawl away out of sight, the moment one drops them ; and even if one finds them again they seem to have shrunken. Thanks to this work more than to my wisdom, I have reared Joe in a manner which 17 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL even grandma declares a success. He is a The up-bring- fine, truthful, manly boy with one clear mg of Joe conce ption which is ethical in effect, if not inherently so : He takes the consequences of his own unwise acts like a man and a hero. I feel great pride when I note how I have taught him to measure the great world in his own little pint- cup of experience. His college chums aver that he is " level-headed " and I know he is warm hearted j and what more can a mother ask for in a son if he is warm hearted and level headed ! Thus it is that I do not worry much about Joe, even when I see him leading that silly little Dolly Pease into dim tete-a-tete corners as he did at the dance the other night. I asked him the next morning if he thought she appeared to a better advantage in dark places. He laughed at me and answered teasingly : "Mamie, do you remember what you told The sad re- me when I broke my arm sliding down the suits of lack b ann i s ter? You picked me up and sent for the doctor, but you said then gently but firmly what you said every time I complained 18 JOE AND MA BELLE about the pain too loudly afterward : ' Joe, this is what happens to a boy who tries to slide down bannisters when he hasn't grip enough to hold on. 7 Now, sister, if I have n't grip enough to hold on, I won't whimper, whatever breaks." I laughed and he knew that I understood. There is n't any doubt about it, children come into the world to educate their elders. When I think what my life might have been without the development which the care of Joe has brought to me, I quail before the prospect. Yes, Joe is a com- fort, even if he did remark irreverently about you, my Idol, that you look so embryonic that you ought to be kept in a bottle of alcohol. SEPTEMBER 19TH : The cricket-heart of Sep- tember is beating but slowly to-night ; the Nature's lower temperature cools somewhat the ar- songs f con ~ tent dor of the little fiddlers in the trees. What are the sounds of supreme content in nature in Japan, my Confessor ? Here we have this mo- notonous cadence of the little white crickets in the trees ; the sound of sleepily blinking cows chewing their cuds ; the purr of the cat on the 19 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL hearth-rug j the last peep of the chick as it nestles under the warm feathers of the mother hen 5 the soft beat of gentle waves on a sandy beach ; and perhaps the most contented and cosy sound of all is the hushed gurgle of the ice-bound brook. I feel in sympathy with all contented things to-night, for grandma went home this after- noon j and thank Providence ! I smiled on her from start to finish. I am constrained to be- lieve also that hidden somewhere in her rag- bag of nerves is a decided fondness for me. Father waxed cheerful at dinner to-night and, laying aside professorial dignity, acted like a boy with Joe. I inadvertently remarked that it was a wonder that a woman so unfit for enjoying life should have lived so long, and father added : " Maybe the fit who survive are the unfit A new theory who kill off everyone else.' 7 Thus encour- of 'the survival aged Joe spo k e up . of the fittest " Grandma is a case of give 7 em fits," at which I was obliged to assume an air of severity to restrain my naughty boys. But it certainly is strange how a woman with good 20 JOE AND MA BELLE intentions can manage to set all the nerves in her neighborhood on edge ! I have always Wicked had a theory that she was given morbidly to ^^ thinking of the most dreadful thing possible Meeting to say in a given situation, and then impul- sively blurting it out. I remember when, as a small girl, I went with my mother to Friends' Meeting I found the silence long and oppressive ; whereat I was wont to imagine what they all would do if I should jump up on the seat and shout and scream " darn ! darn ! darn ! " this word being my ideal of real pro- fanity. Sometimes it seemed as if I must do this just to see what would happen as the result. Since grandma has been here this time I have come to the conclusion that she talks on the same principle. SEPTEMBER 20TH : I went this afternoon to see my rnamma-in-law. In your country, A special kind Mr. Image, the mother-in-law is a great per- f a sonage ; but she is n't to be compared with mine, for mine is the most interesting woman that ever lived in any country. She is beau- tiful, too, with her white hair, rosy cheeks 21 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL and glowing, dark eyes. If there was ever a A "brick" tonic in human form, she is one ; she makes a defined f unn y pretense of being cynical, but she is the warmest hearted and most truly helpful per- son I know. She is a brick ! Now, of course, you poor Heathen, you do not know what that term means j but a brick is is some- body widely satisfactory ; and Ma Belle is a brick of gold in time of need, and also in time of need she is occasionally a brick-bat. "When I married her only son and so gained the right to call her " mother," I found that I could not, for some reason quite inexplicable, bring myself to call her so in a natural manner. I found instead, that I longed for a pet name for her which should be all my own, and which I need not share even with Paul. Ma Belle She was christened " Belle " and this name fits her perfectly, but of course I could not call her that ; so I called her ma belle at first be- cause she was "my beautiful." Later I changed it to Ma Belle because she soon came to be my own dear Mother Belle, the wisest and most adorable mother in the whole round world, and I know she likes to have me call her Ma Belle. 22 JOE AND MA BELLE She said to me in discusssing our recent visitor : "When the Recording Angel hands over the account of almost any mortal to the Insanity not a great Judge, he may say <Be merciful, for ******** this one is crazy' 5 and the Judge will answer : ( Forsooth, every one is crazy, that is no ex- cuse ' $ and he will be right too. Grandma Leech has a mania for disturbing all things that might otherwise be comfortable, and she ought to be punished ; and you, my dear Marian, have a mania for smiling at all things whether the Lord intended them to be smiled at or not, and you ought to be punished too. You might as well wear a painted grin, like a clown." " But Ma Belle," I interrupted, "the clown jingles his own bells, so his grin needs to be TWO different painted; but I let other folks do the jingling ^ f and therefore I laugh naturally." At which she smiled and said I was her " own child " 5 Ma Belle likes to have me talk back. 23 CHAPTER III THE ANOMALOUS ME. MORRIS SEPTEMBER 22ND : Did you ever happen ..* -,- to discover on the other side of the ptorations wor id that the ways of men are amazing strange and that this is the reason why a woman's experience with them is always like a voyage .of exploration ? This is true on our side of the world, anyway, and I went to-night on a voyage toward the north pole. That beautiful and correct youth, Mr. Theo- dore Morris called j he is the one I mentioned to you after I came home from the dance the other night. This evening he was still worse An appall- than before j he was simply a painted ship ingly polite on ^he painted ocean of conversation, so per- conversation fectly did he reflect himself in his talk. I do not believe that ever in my life before did I carry on such a stupidly conventional discourse. Neither my mind nor my tongue 24 THE ANOMALOUS ME. MOREIS are fitted to conventional grooves ; but this man is so forceful in his nerveless indifference A soul with a that he bowled me down the alley of twaddle moustache < anomaly. about weather, opera and lectures as if that were my natural path. While my words pattered along at a decent trot, I was, in my mind, trying to picture his soul j and I could not even imagine it without that carefully curled moustache. Even if you are made out of teak, you must know, little god, that a soul with a moustache is an anomaly. I can usually see how people's souls look ; the only features really necessary to a soul are eyes, the rest may well be veiled. Belle-mare's eyes would pierce all concealments and see things as they are. Tom's keen gray eyes must be quizzical and baffling even if they were the eyes of a soul ; but this man 's eyes, large and beautiful like those of a brunette bisque dollie his eyes do not belong to a soul nearly so much as does his moustache. Every attempt to see beyond the glass sur- face of those eyes was a futile search into nothingness. If he comes again, I will surely shock him, if I have to go back to my child- 25 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL ish naughtiness and shout "darn" in the midst of one of his formal sentences. SEPTEMBER 25TH : I feel introspective to- Beware of night and you had best stop grinning, woman m ^n- u overfill Image, for a woman in an in- trospective J mood trospective mood is to be shunned, by gods as well as by men. This is one of Fate's ironies, because a woman in introspective mood feels as if she were very, very interest- ing. Poor Paul ! How in my egotistical youth I must have bored him with introspec- tions j I wonder if he knows that, had he lived, his wife might have finally grown into knowledge and understanding, and have been a comfort to him instead of a perplexity. The slow beat of the cricket- oratorio seems Autumn's to-night like the dying pulse of summer. I h&raldmgs wa ik e a i n t o the country to-day and I found the golden-rod turned brown except here and there a spray that had hoarded its gold where the frost robber had not found it. The asters looked piteously out of what blue eyes there were left to them. But the maples, ah the maples ! My heart beat faster at the sight 26 THE ANOMALOUS ME. MORRIS of their blood-red branches ; there are some colors that one would be willing to die for, and glowing red is one of them. The birds were flocking for their fall migrations and never since spring has the air been so filled with their music ; yet these farewell choruses have a far different sound than the welcome songs of spring ; there is in them an unrest felt but hard to define it betokens the com- ing departure and the dread of wearisome journeys. On a hillside road which leads up to a crowning group of old pines, I was overtaken A surprising by Mr. Morris. He was not welcome, but com P ani n f the road with my usual polite mendacity I proceeded to hide the fact j he seemed quite inexplicably glad to have found me and strode on at my side. After a time, I realized with great sur- prise that he was entirely responsive to all of nature's appeals. He did not say much, but he made me perceive that he felt and knew all the little happenings in our environment. His eyes sought mine when a squirrel mock- ingly cast a chestnut burr in our path, and again when the sweet refrain of a meadow- 27 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL lark reached our ears ; and when we stopped for breath on the top of the hill, he gazed long at the scene before us and said musingly : " The valleys overflow with this purple haze like goblets filled to the brim ; I wonder if this autumnal splendor intoxicates you as it does me." There was a new light in his eyes as he said this, but trying to analyze it was like hunting for a star in a cloudy sky. After I returned home I was obliged to A punctured acknowledge to myself that this unwelcome conceit com p an i O n had been a help rather than a hindrance to my enjoyment of the walk. And now I am wondering how a being so super- ficial and mechanical can be so at home with nature. I fear I do not know much about the adjustments of the universe, after all. I get conceited occasionally, but my conceit is as soon punctured as a toy balloon ; and I am quite as content when it is all shriveled as it is to-night as when it is bouncing about tied by the string of my imagination. O ! you cheerful Heathen, I do not believe that in all your life before, you ever met such an absurd girl. Do not look so amazed, for I 28 THE ANOMALOUS MR. MORKIS mean just what I say" girl " ; as truly a girl as ever I was. I do not wonder that you roll A growth up your mysterious eyes at such a phenome- non : A girl who would not learn to grow old when the gray hairs came creeping into her black locks ; a girl who boldly declares the whole world is rose-color because she deliberately chooses to wear pink spectacles ; a girl who pillows her head trustfully on the bosom of humanity and maintains that the softness is in the cushion rather than in the head ; a girl who prizes more one genuine, healthy, happy emotion than all the wisdom of the ages; a girl stunted in growth by rank optimism and kept in eternal girlhood thereby. I am glad that you finally grin sympathetically, dear Idol, for I need sym- pathy to-night. SEPTEMBER 26TH: I am glad that I dis- covered some time since, that the human Tlie vagaries heart is the most mysterious of all the organs f the human heart vouchsafed to man, and most given to un- warranted vagaries, which it is manifestly the head's business to record. I can assure you, 29 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL my Confessor, much wisdom is likely to accrue from such anatomical studies. Tom Carroll and Millie Van Tyne were The outside-y here this evening. Millie and Joe are al- man ways quarreling $ and I have not yet been able to determine whether it is the quarrel of reciprocal attraction or just natural disagree- ment. Millie alluded to Mr. Morris as " the outside-y man" which rejoiced me exceed- ingly as a specific description. But Joe de- clared it a libel ; and said if she knew him as the boys did, she " would not say such a silly thing," at which Millie teasingly asked if "the boys" wound him up every morning and if he " runs " all day ; or if perchance his "works" were of the eight-day sort. Then Joe, Hushing with anger, retorted that men were not built on the plan of women's ton- gues. Tom's eyes twinkled with amusement as he listened to them but I was troubled and said under my breath, The Utter joy "Bad children : I wish they would n't." ofmisunder- G rea t g cott! ] ar i an WO uld you rob standings friends or lovers of the bitter joy of misunder- 30 THE ANOMALOUS ME. MOKEIS standing/ 7 he ejaculated in a voice so low that only I heard. OCTOBER 4TH : A boy's impractical dreams are mightily interesting, did you know it? A boy's What a pity you were not a boy before you visions were a god, for then you would know many things of which the gods never dream. I walked with Joe to-night in the starlight ; we wandered away to Pine Hill and he opened his heart to me with as much freedom as if I had been the sister of some other boy instead. He has arrived at the Napoleon-on-St. Helena age ; he stands apart, in self exile, with folded arms and knit brows, looking at the world from afar. He resents the bondage of respon- sibility and would live alone, stand alone and experience alone on his high pedestal of self. I was sympathetic, but I managed to present tactfully the argument that the use of a man The use of a to the world is measured by his bondage to man to the world is meas- it ; that standing alone is not strength unless ure ^ i y ^ s it be the useless strength of the obelisk which bondage to it suffices only to bear vain inscriptions until 31 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL wind and weather efface them ; that ability to stand alone is petty strength; while the ability to fit into one's own niche with one's fellow building-stones in the great world- structure, is true strength ; that the ability to bear the weight of others, stanchly ; and the ability to rest trustfully on one's foun- dations measure a person's true importance. He listened thoughtfully; and when we The eternal reached the brow of the hill I took his face in verities m j hands and turned his eyes so that they looked up, into the unfathomable heavens, and I said to him softly as I caressed his cheek : "The stars up there keep their courses only through bondage to other stars, and the eternal verities of worlds without number are the verities of your life and mine." When he bade me good-night, he put his arm around my neck and kissed me affection- ately; and that was his response to my sermon. OCTOBER 5TH : Good Idol, were you ever complimented in a truly malapropos fashion? Was your teak complexion ever 32 THE ANOMALOUS ME. MOEEIS called " pearly " or your eyes called " starry/' or your dumpy body spoken of as tl grace- TJie subtle ful"! I think compliments are really more flattery ofun ~ deserved com- pleasing when they are undeserved, for they are thus relegated to the realm of the ideal where any delightful fairy story may be true. While if a compliment is deserved, it does not mean so much ; for, after all is said, virtue is its own, and too often alas ! its only reward in this queer world. All of this discussion was caused by Joe's telling me to-day that Theodore Morris said to him that I was the most elegant and in- teresting woman he had ever met. " Elegant and interesting " forsooth ! And this is what I am coming to ! If you will be kind enough to excuse me I think I shall proceed to lay my elegant head on my interesting pillow and take a rest. OCTOBER GTH : I think as the years go by we should rejoice over the facility we gain in living ; we get a working knowledge of the tools at our command which is a great help. Now-a-days I feel so sure of myself and 33 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL so entirely secure and peaceful just because I am " getting used." In my earlier years of Sturm und Drang, I Bovine was wont to envy the cow which stood, ehew- seremty j n g ^er CU( j an( ^ g az i n g w ith great soft con- tented eyes into space and perhaps futurity j she seemed to me to be the embodiment of serene faith and satisfaction. Now I envy her no longer because I am her. Pardon my grammar, O most Worshipful ! However, a god prayed to for so many years in Japanese ought not to be disturbed by colloquial English and that fact adds much to the solace derived from coming to you with many and various confessions. By the way, I was about to tell you that Mr. Morris called to-night just as I was start- ing to make Ma Belle a visit, and I invited him to go with me. He was silent and apathetic during our stay, but Ma Belle and I did not mind, for we always find plenty of interesting things to talk about. I am pining to know what ma mdre thinks about the young man ; she is keen and never makes mistakes in judging people. 34 THE ANOMALOUS MR. MOKKIS OCTOBER TTH : Guess what she did say about him ! I went to see her to-day A sealed purposely to find out her impressions. She P rcelain box said: "My dear, that man is like a sealed porcelain box ; you cannot tell by the pretty painting on the outside what is going on in- side. Mark me, Marian, the one who breaks through the crust of this conventional Mr. Morris of yours is likely to be surprised." Last evening when the "porcelain box" and I returned from our call, we met Tom Carroll coming out of our house. He refused my invitation to come in and instead, took it for granted that Mr. Morris was going away also, and the two went down the avenue to- gether. To-night Tom called again, and asked quite casually : "Marian, what might be the name of the gilded youth I found lingering on your door- stone last evening f " I answered coldly, "You heard his name, you saw him and so you know all I can tell you." He smiled indulgently and continued teasingly : " Big girl, are n't you ashamed not to play 35 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL fair ! Why don 't you take some one of your size and leave little boys alone 1 " " I prefer little boys j they are far more in- Boys vs. Men teresting than men." He raised his eyebrows incredulously and I hastened to say " One sees in boys so much of promise." " And in men so little of fulfilment, I sup- pose you think." I looked out of the window with obvious patience and he continued, " O, you cheerful pessimist ! There is a mighty small chance of reforming you 5 the tail to your social kite has always been a string of boys. " " Glory be ! " I ejaculated ; then I asked with some asperity, " What have you against boys?" "I, Oh, I have n't any prejudice against A beguiling boys, nor against pollywogs either, for that callowness ma tter. What I complain of is that a woman of your age and wisdom should find such ap- parent satisfaction in callowness. Great Scott ! If I were like you in that particular I 'd be consistent and devote myself to calves. Just think how interesting a calf looks, gazing at you with wide open, unspeculative eyes, his 36 THE ANOMALOUS MR. MORRIS legs spread far apart to secure breadth of base as he now and then makes purposeless lunges Boys vs. at you, his tail shaking in infantile glee. Pic- calves ture it, Marian, and confess that a calf is the quintessence of youth and inexperience, and then explain, if you please, why you stop at boys when you might taste the intoxication of calves." I made no answer but fell back on my smile, which I knew would try him to the limit of A smile endurance. He once asked me if I set my smile with thumb-screws ; and I assured him that I set it despite thumb-screws and several other forms of torture. I smiled to-night because I did not know how to answer him. I have discovered that sometimes an accidental slip of the foot is likely to start a whole land- slide, and I make a practice of not precipi- tating anything that I cannot stay on top of. Healthful habit, that ; but it requires discre- tion and agility. 37 o CHAPTER IV TWO KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE CTOBEE, STH : I have been inanely good One of tJie in- \-S of late and I hope you have noticed it. conveniences Now hold Qn to QUr se lf. C ontrol while I COn- of being very lad fess that when I am stupid I am usually very good. This is n't because goodness is stupid, but somehow in my case it is almost always the direct result of unenterprising stupidity. Well, I am glad to have experienced this good " spell." I should like to average about me- dium on the day of judgment so as to keep with the crowd $ and one of the inconveniences of being very bad is that one is obliged to be very good in order to balance the sheet. Why should n't I be good? The world turns Life, like an its soft side toward me these days, and I ill-fitting loot sllould be ii evc it were made of eider-down if it 38 TWO KNIGHTS TO THE KESCUE were not for a sharp edge somewhere, always cutting into my heart. " What sharp edge? " do you ask f Oh, little god, if you ask ques- tions you are no better than a mere mortal ; and I will never confess to a cross-examiner, never. If you were made of flesh and blood instead of teak-wood, you would know that the happiest life is like an ill-fitting boot it is sure to pinch somewhere. I should like to take mine off, for a time, and rest. It is strange how this power of living comes and goes like tides at flood and ebb. Some- The vital flood times every experience is vital, strong, and worth while ; then follows a period of dreary listlessness. Happy thought ! I wonder if something in your eye suggested it ! I will gear my spiritual machinery like that of a tide-mill, and then both ebb and flood shall grind my grists ; anything, good or bad shall turn my wheels. I am coming to believe that the kind of force applied to living is neither God's concern nor man's, so long as the results are along the upward trend. OCTOBER 15TH: A breathlessly busy day, 39 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL and I am in a state of rebellion to-night To-day's mad against the mad hurry that possesses this day hurry an( j generation as, of old, devils possessed the swine. We are too busy to live, and have to get our experiences by hastily running over a card-catalogue of emotions. We know our joys and agonies by name, but we have no time to reach up and take from the shelf and study a genuine volume of life lore. To change the metaphor, we have no chance Telescoped to drift and rest. The current is so swift that we are obliged to keep steadily at the oars, drifting in rapids not being a safe pastime. In the land whence you came, Idol, the days are serenely lived hour by hour, and are not telescoped one on another as they are here. In that blessed land the angle of incident is no greater than the angle for reflection. Little god, let us go back there and stay ! All of this tirade comes from an attempt of father's to entertain his class, en masse, here at the house this evening ; the preparation for and the event itself have taken all my time and strength for two days. As an act of kindly intention on the part 40 TWO KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE of a professor toward his pupils ; and as a means of grace to the pupils, I fully approve An immobile of the function. But as a social effort it was www a weird affair. I cannot think of any gather- ing, so perfectly amicable, that was farther from social intercourse than the reception this evening. The young people were fine looking, for the most part, and doubtless in a less constrained situation would have been most brilliant in conversation. But there were such hordes of them that they could not find themselves ; they seemed to be rooted to their seats during all the earlier part of the evening ; whether they were helpless and could not move, or were happy and did not wish to was a problem I could not solve. Into this in-statu-quo company Joe brought Mr. Morris and a little later Tom drifted in. Two modern It seemed as if they both discovered my kniffht8 perilous situation as hostess at once and each went to work to help me in his own way. Mr. Morris soon had a group around the piano singing college songs with the joyous abandon characteristic of such singing. Tom went into the library and began talking j and in a 41 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL few moments lie had uprooted every person in the room much to the relief of the chairs and myself; Tom is a Pied Piper when he makes up his mind to be entertaining and these students gathered around him and very soon shouts of laughter from the group greeted my grateful ears. Tom is inimitable when he tells funny stories j his expression of countenance is serious, almost grave except for a latent twinkle in his eyes ; not until his listeners are laughing and the climax of the story safely passed does his smile show itself ; (I think I told you once that his smile is an exceedingly interesting performance to the on- looker). I had barely strength left to thank these TJie teacher's two who came to my rescue so nobly. But cheerful self- ^^ ^ were g father said with ft look immolation of perfect satisfaction : "I think they all had a most enjoyable evening, don't you think so?" and I was able to say " Surely they did." Dear old dad ! he lives for his pupils in a way they can never know. The hero on the battle-field lays down his life in one su- preme moment but the true teacher lays down 42 TWO KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE his life hour after hour, moment after mo- ment ; and when the last drop of his blood has been poured on this sacrificial altar of his life's work he is tossed aside by the powers that be, because, forsooth, "younger blood" is needed. But it is I, not father, who says these rebellious things. OCTOBER 22D : Tom came this morning early and took me for a drive and it was a The miracle memorable experience. Our road took us for f the mists miles along the river's bank, and then led us to the very top of Starrin's mountain. Nature had turned impressionist and splashed the hills with scarlet and wine-color, russet and yellow, olive and emerald. From our moun- tain top the valleys below seemed filled with morning mists fog-seas rifted here and there to give us glimpses of a sea-bottom of green pastures and still waters ; the sudden parting of these mist-billows seemed to me somewhat more of a miracle than the divid- ing of the water of the Ked Sea in days of old. I had a deeply satisfactory time with Mother 43 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL Nature this morning because I was happy ; Nature likes it is only when I am unhappy that she dis- good society Qwns me? and wiu haye naught of me< j must give myself to her without any reser- vations if I would experience the blessing of her companionship. Nature is no moralist ; she does not care whether I am good or bad ; all she asks is that I be happy and sympa- thetic. If I cannot be happy without being good, it is my affair and not hers ; she likes "good society " and is n't inquisitive about the wherefore. Well, I was " good society " to-day and I Masculine knew the wherefore if Nature did n't. Tom and feminine did not say much Ms dashing span of colts consciousness kept him pretty busy, but I knew his keen glance took in all that was worth seeing. Yet his attitude toward the beautiful world was widely different from that of Mr. Morris. The latter enjoys the color and beauty of autumn as he would a lovely woman in a more or less sensuous and personal way. Tom always comprehends something beyond the merely beautiful scene ; a barren desert would mean great things to him. And to-day 44 TWO KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE he was comprehending all things nature, me, the horses and yet he was so entirely unconscious of the comprehending ! Men, I have noticed, are usually unconscious of everything of importance ; and women on the other hand, are usually conscious of every- thing of no importance. And by these same tokens, to-day, Tom Carroll was a man, and Marian Lee a woman. 45 CHAPTER V MA BELLE AND TOM DISCUSS THE PROBLEM- NOVEL O 24TH : This afternoon Ma Belle came to see me and found me in the very good company of Mr. Omar Khayyam (al- though probably you and your brother gods would deem him lacking in true reverence). Ma Belle asked me at once : An Omar dis- " Why are you reading that book to-day f ' cussion u Q]^ because I am trying to find out what I am and who God is " I answered craftily, knowing that retribution would follow swiftly. "I can tell you what you are this We must make minute you are a goose. And as to who the best of the God may be -that is none of your business. scenery nor mine. It is our business to guide our little shallops adown the stream of the years as best we can and not be fidgeting over 46 DISCUSSING THE PROBLEM-NOVEL where we are going to land or where the river flows to. The scenery may be poor A mental just low meadows and marshes ; but it is our race - tracJcnot a good invest- business to make the best of it and the most men t beautiful of it too ; marshes are n't so bad at noon when the dragon-flies are glinting above the reeds, or at sunset when sluggish waters best reflect the sky. As to the Crea- tor, it is impertinent and futile curiosity on your part to be questioning about the way He runs the universe. If you go on like this your thoughts will make a race-track of your mind and gallop around and around on it, never arriving anywhere and wearing you out meanwhile. Turn your questionings out to pasture, my dear, and you will feel much more comfortable and live a healthier life." OCTOBER 30TH : Another call from Mr. Mor- ris this evening. I do not know why I Extreme unc- should discuss his calls with you, Small Idol, * ion when almost every evening the drawing-room is frequented by people far more interesting than he could ever be. There were several others here to-night ; someone of them had 47 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL been reading Lowell 's "Life and Letters," and the conversation turned upon his poetry. Mr. Morris took a volume of Lowell from the shelf in a manner at once certain and pur- poseful, gave it to me and said " Bead to us." I obeyed meekly and read portions of Under the Willows and a few of the shorter poems ; he then took the book from my hand, turned the leaves rapidly and returned it to me and commanded " Bead this." It was Extreme Unction, a poem which I was wont to read often in my unserene youth. As I read, some- thing of the old fire was rekindled in me ; when I finished, the room was quiet for an embarrassing moment, and then Joe relieved the situation by ejaculating " Gee whiz " j and we all smiled and were grateful for the chance this gave us to get back to the com- fortable level of the commonplace. Later, Mr. Morris quite deliberately seated A smoulder- himself at my side on the sofa and I suddenly ing fire felt that j ha d better nave been sea ted else- where. There was a glow smouldering some- where in his brown glass eyes and he murmured so that no one else could hear, " I knew you 48 DISCUSSING THE PROBLEM-NOVEL would read that poem just as you did " ; and someway, I did not feel like investigating the glow to find out whether it was on or beneath the surface of his eyes ; and I did not feel like asking him what he meant, or, what perplexed me more, the possible inter- est a poem of that character possessed for a painted porcelain box. 'Tis an uncertain world a regular gam- bling joint ! We cannot even think without This little staking something on the unknown. All the world ~ff ame wisdom concerning humanity which we may attain will never enable us to work out a system whereby we may safely bet on what is hidden in the soul of the next person we happen to meet. Since you are a god I wish you would tell me if you have found there is any certain per-cent in favor of the dealer in this world game ? I doubt it ! NOVEMBER TTH : Such a delightful eve- ning ! I wish that I had taken you in Some good my pocket to-night so that you might have caught for yourself the touch and go of con- versation, so impossible to repeat. I went 49 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL to Ma Belle's to dine and Tom was there ; he was not invited but he has always had the habit of dropping in for dinner whenever he chose. The two are truly devoted to each other ; Tom has given several reasons for his celibate condition, such as " I did not marry when I was a young fool, and now I am wait- ing until I shall be an old fool," or, "Too many attractive women j my affections are so scattered that if I should collect and bestow them upon only one woman, there would be twelve basketfuls left over and above what she could possibly use." But the reason he most often gives is that he was born too late to win Madam Lee, and in my heart I have always felt that they were mated in spirit. They fit each other socially, and each leads the other on to saying clever things. To- night, something was said about the problems of existence, and Tom said : " A true problem is one that has two solu- A peculiarity tions at least; and its peculiarity is that of some whichever wa y you solve it you wish you had problems tried the other." " That is because we never seem to know 50 DISCUSSING THE PROBLEM-NOVEL beforehand which is birth-right and which is pottage, and a mess is all we get out of it ; Birthright or the true philosopher takes the mess, what- # otta 9 e ever it may be, and believes it is the best thing in the world," said Ma Belle. " But how dare we be so mendacious with our own consciences?" I demanded. "A conscience what is that?" asked Tom with a good simulation of mystification. "A fakir with whom we eternally haggle, who says to us, do this or that thing and I Some defini- will give you for it an ounce of peace or a twns f conscience pennyweight of comfort," suavely explained Belle mere. " It ought to be a strong creative force ; but it is mostly a contemptible, irritating, little gad-fly, eternally dodging about to get its sting into the most sensitive spot," con- tinued Tom soberly. " I know what my conscience is," I ad- mitted ruefully ; " it is a headlight misplaced and carried at the rear of my earthly train, by means of which I am always discovering dangers and dreadful pitfalls in the road just passed in apparent safety ; and that is what 51 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL makes my repentance most perfunctory." Tom laughed and said : " Good girl ! I envy you. My conscience works thus : it permits me no comfort from conscious rectitude, and allows no reckless bliss when I finally get the bits in my teeth and speed along the path of forbidden de- lights ; the result is a wide and diversified discomfort." "Why don't you write an ethical novel for the instruction of both the good and the bad?" I hazarded. " Ethical novels have such a pernicious in- fluence" objected Ma Belle. " Heading one is like wading through the mire for the sake of cleaning one's soiled skirts at the end." "Oh, no!" said Tom, reassuringly, "when A new kind of I write one it will be most confoundingly ethical novel ethicaL j am wimng to admit that such books usually take the sinner by the hand and lead him on to iniquities which he had not before even dreamed of ; they find the narrow path by exploiting the broad way first. But my novel is going to get in its work be- hind the wayfarer j it will be no stumbling- 52 DISCUSSING THE PKOBLEM-NOVEL block but a boulder swiftly descending the downward path behind him, and he will have to accelerate his speed to save himself on higher ground. My novel shall clatter along at the erring man's heels at such a rate that he will soon find himself sprinting toward the pearly gates in a way that will surprise even St. Peter, who must have witnessed many a close finish." " Ethical novels are never read by the bad," explained Ma Belle, " they are read only by Tortlinsonls the good who long to be bad, but dare not j virtue they are read by the Tomlinsons, of whom we have too many in our very respectable midst." " I see " said Tom gravely, " you prefer a man to commit murder rather than read about it." " What I object to," she answered, " is leav- ing the drama of every -day life and going off and prancing up and down a paper stage. 1 ' " How could we, any of us, help prancing up and down with Sentimental Tommy ?" I Sentimental asked. "Oh, of course we could not," sighed Ma Belle, "because Sentimental Tommy is pranc- 53 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL ing around inside every one of us 5 I find it hard to forgive Barrie for stringing the typi- cal human heart up on a gate post and leav- ing it there bleeding and struggling. I dis- trust an author who has so little delicacy in the matter of turning the human soul inside out." " It was ruthless," agreed Tom, " but most authors now-a-days believe that souls rather than coats should be worn wrong side out, showing seams and motley linings j and the more they know the less can they be trusted to be decent with their knowledge." " Some people are so vain," interrupted Ma The wise and Belle, "that they look upon everything they kind ignore discover about folks as something to print and are silent something to put into words in public to make for themselves fame which ought to be shame. While a person who is both wise and kind ignores most of the things he finds out about people esprit du corps demands silence. Such knowledge ought to be promptly stored in our mental garrets, and never brought out even to be dusted, much less to be shown to the neighbors. The more one really knows, 54 DISCUSSING THE PROBLEM -NOVEL the more sedulously, because of noblesse oblige, should one refrain from mentioning it." And thus the evening passed in conversation which we three enjoyed. Somebody once said Three of a that we three always think the same, thoughts ***** and say the same things ; but neither Tom nor I can keep abreast of Ma Belle, and we are always infinitely content to trail along be- hind her. Tom and I came home by the light of the stars, which is the most beautiful and mys- Stars and terious light that shines upon this world ; I meteors adore the unreality of it. And, too, there is something about being consciously in the presence of so many worlds, and systems of worlds, that makes the ego dwindle to an in- finitesimal point, and naught seems of im- portance. We have no trouble in bearing our burdens when we see self in true perspect- ive, as the merest dot on a little world which is something less than a dot in the stellar uni- verse. A bright meteor shot from zenith to horizon, and Tom remarked : " Serves you right, little star ! That ? s what you get for coming too close to another 55 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL star ; you should have shunned such danger- ous company and then you might have con- tinued in your cheerful whirl in outer space !" " Outer darkness/ 7 I murmured, " I wonder if it found its own streak of light edifying or amusing." " Probably found it warm," said Tom, as he Some silences drew my arm closer within his j we walked are golden on ^ silence until we reacne d the house and bade each other a gentle " good night." Some silences are golden, little god ! 56 N CHAPTER VI THE VAGAEIES OF CUPID OVEMBEB 20TH : The last time I came to confession the world was all peaches Caviare and and cream ; but to-night it is all caviare and tobasco sauce tobasco sauce. Oh, you poor, innocent, heathen Idol, I never expected to pour into your help- less ears confessions of love affairs I am not quite so juvenile as that, I hope. I meant simply to tell you in abstract statements or in concrete words what I, and a few other people thought about the creaking mechanism of the social world. But queer things have happened to me, so queer that I must tell them to someone, and none but you are suffi- ciently discreet to be trusted with such a tale. Mr. Morris invited me to go to the opera with him this evening ; as Joe and Millie Van After the Tyne were to be of the party, I accepted the invitation, as I always do when Joe's friends 57 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL seek to entertain me. It was late when we returned, for the opera was poor and inter- minable ; so out of the kindness of my heart I asked Mr. Morris to come in and as soon as Joe should join us we would search the larder for some refreshments for the inner man. Owing to the frugality or the laziness of the A dark pro- new maid, whose personal equation I have not ending yet mastered? tlie light in the hall had been turned off. I went for a match and came back groping for the gas jet when my hand accidentally touched the young man's sleeve. In a breathless second, before I could realize what was happening, I was held fast in a pair of athletic arms and kisses were being depos- ited impartially upon my hair, nose, cheek and lips. I was so stupefied that it seemed an age before I recovered sufficiently to ex- tricate myself. Surprised ? Why, if the stiff, straight, carved, oaken chair in the hall had suddenly embraced me, I should not have been more surprised. I was so rigid with amazement that I failed to appreciate how unseemly it was. I mechanically struck a match and lighted the gas, went into the 58 THE VAGARIES OF CUPID drawing-room and turned on the light thert before I said or even thought anything. Then I turned and beheld my assailant quite at his ease, leaning his elbow on the mantel and looking intently at the embers in the grate I finally found my voice and said : "Mr. Morris, will you kindly explain to me what all this means ? " "It simply means that I love you," he replied in a monotone, as cold as if he were A well insu- reading the words carved in the marble of the latcd declar ~ ation of love mantel. I gasped with astonishment. It was as difficult to connect those cold words with love as it was to connect that frigid man with the anything but frigid kisses which made my face still tingle. "Love me," I cried "why, you might as Cupid, a poor well love your grandmother !" calculator " I do love her, but not as I love you." This without a trace of a smile. I made a vigorous effort for self-possession and at last said with a laugh which was half a sob of fright : " Well, love me if you must, but never, never kiss me again as long as you live ! " 59 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL Then he turned toward me a face still calm except for a flame in either cheek, and a look in his eyes that will never let me call them again " doll's eyes," and said in a low tense voice : " Oh, I know well enough that you will say A quite differ- it is a wild and foolish infatuation on my ent sort of part Maybe it is, but it is what I have been love affair waiting for all these years. I am no boy; I am twenty-eight years old with a business experience behind me after I left college which led me to come here for farther tech- nical training j you have made the mistake of persistently classing me with Joe and the other undergraduates. Moreover, I have had love-affairs before, but they were not like this. You fascinated me from the first night we met at that dance ; you say different things, you feel different things, and you live a more interesting and wider life than any other woman I have ever known ; and I love you, my lady, with all my heart. I am by no means a poor man, and I have no hindering family ties. I may marry when and whom I choose, and by the eternal heavens, Marian 60 THE VAGARIES OF CUPID Lee, I choose to marry you as soon as I can." This last was said with so much force that it seemed a command j and I was silent, wrestling with several surprising feminine emotions. He continued : " I know too well that I am not your equal j you have made good use of the dozen years A dangerous which lie between us, and I shall never catch understan(l - ing up. But I know I can make you happy j I have always felt it for I understand you to the last and least of your thoughts and emotions. You would be surprised if you knew how perfectly how entirely I under- stand you ; I have never dared to tell you lest you think me unpardonably impertinent. Though you may not love me now, Mrs. Lee, because loving me has been farthest from your thoughts or present considerations, yet you shall learn to love me ! Before God I swear it, you shall learn to love me ! " He strode over to where I was sitting and, placing his hand on my forehead, he turned my face so that my eyes met his ; what I saw rendered me silent, but there flashed through my mind, "Mark me, Marian, the one who breaks 61 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL through the crust of this conventional Mr. Morris of yours is likely to be surprised.'' After looking at me for a seemingly intermin- able time, he went back and again leaned upon the mantel. I finally " came to " and managed to falter out : " But I am pretty nearly old enough to be your mother." " Fortunately you are not " ; was all he replied. " But it is simply ridiculous in you to wish to marry a woman so much older than yourself." " It is not ridiculous for a man to marry Love vs. tomb- the woman he loves best; you will grant . stones that much, will you not? Cupid has never been noted for taking an interest in the re- spective ages of his victims ; his arrow is not a tombstone bearing inscriptions cetat 40, cetat 28." Having nothing to say to this statement, a silence fell between us which was broken by the sound of Joe's footsteps on the walk ; then he said : "I shall not press you for an answer. I shall not bore you with protestations ; but I 62 THE VAGARIES OF CUPID shall win you, my lady, in the very teeth of fate, I shall win you." Joe entered and exclaimed reproachfully, "But Marnie, have n't you anything for us to eat and drink? Theo looks awfully hungry, and I am sure that is what he is waiting for." " Yes, Joe, obviously that is what I have been waiting for," declared my companion The cover off with utter sang froid. I do not know what the P 1 * box happened after this. The porcelain box kept his cover on, and there was no self-conscious- ness or embarrassment in his manner 5 he went away without shaking hands, but with a cool " Thank you, good night." Now what in the world am I to do, little Wiseacre f Please stop smiling and give me a TOO near the little sensible advice ; this comes too near the rea>l ihing real thing to please me. In the first place, I have not the slightest idea of marrying His Lordship, I could not even imagine such a contingency ; but don't you dare to tell it to anyone, I may not be able to avoid it if he keeps on at this rate. There is something of Woman, stiU the savage left in every woman, however civi- a dava 9 6 63 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL lized she may appear to the public ; and she thoroughly enjoys the sensation of being clubbed into obedience by the male who sets himself up as her lord and master. Oh, I have had boys in love with me before Emotions on now ! It 15 a sign of a good, generous, normal dnu parade boy to fall in loye with ft woman old enougll so that he knows it is out of the question to marry her. I never worry when a boy falls in love with me, for it is sure to benefit him in the end ; it is a sort of a dress parade for his emotions. He tries to place his affections on me although he knows they do not fit well, pinching here and hanging loosely there ; but lie makes me wear them, willy nilly, until some fine day he suddenly discovers some girl whom he knows they were made for. Then he takes them off me at once, without any compunctions about my catching cold, and forthwith puts them on her, and I am the first one he calls on to admire the perfect fit. It never seemed worth while to worry A healthy about any of these boys j they were only exer- heart-exercise ^fog their hearts as a baby exercises and stretches its muscles. The only concern I had 64 THE VAGARIES OF CUPID in the matter was lest I fail in one jot or tittle in being the ideal woman j for, although the The inconve- boy may have longed for my love, yet had I nience f be ' ing a goddess given it I would have tumbled off my pedes- tal and crushed the youth in the process. All that he asked was to worship his goddess un disturbed by any of the facts of the case or by any display of human emotions on her part. But this affair is very different ; it is a man I have to deal with ; moreover he is a man Commanding with a dangerous way of subduing women- vs -P leadin ff folk he does not ask or plead, lie commands. 65 CHAPTER VII THE STORY OF A MARRIED LIFE NOVEMBER 20TH (Continued) : One mar- riage is all of this kind of experience that I have wished for in one life, little god ; I wonder what you would think about that marriage if I should tell you all that I know about it and all that it taught me ! I wonder how it would seem to put into words the memories and the lessons relating to it which have become shadowy dwellers in the realm of my inner consciousness. In a way I was a lonely child, for my A restricted mother died in my childhood ; and this ac- cMdhood counts f or mtl ch that you find in my nightly whisperings to you. I fell to the lot of a maiden aunt whose path was ever the narrow one of rectitude and propriety. My child- hood was restricted, but it was happy enouglu 06 THE STORY OF A MARRIED LIFE I was taught to knit and sew and embroider. I was also taught to play the piano after a Four years in fashion, though this was considered a radical leg measure by my Quaker relatives. When I was thirteen I was sent to a young ladies' semi- nary ; while there I became fired with the ambition to go to college, where in due time I spent four happy years. Do you know what a woman's college is, Heathen Idol ? It is a place where things are done according to ideals. Any place governed by women of high culture and aspirations is always dominated by feminine ideals, which, by the way, reach about two octaves higher on life's keys than the ideals of the world at large. It was no sinecure, the place of a student in a woman's college ; I felt in honor bound to work hard and achieve much, and, above all, to live on the high peaks in the rarefied air of exalted ideas. Yet the years were truly happy, largely be- cause of the congenial companionship I found there as well as the interesting work j they were years of faith in the world and of hal- lowed belief in man's knightly honor, noble deeds and chaste love years when the mil- 67 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL Geese and lennium seemed at hand years when all the swans g eese on the world-pond were graceful swans. Meantime father had married again, and my step-mother was not of the traditional kind. She was the gentlest, kindest most inefficient little lady who ever undertook to guide a step-child or bring up children of her own $ from the first she leaned on me help- lessly when I was at home. I was barely nineteen when I graduated Plans and from college and returned home filled with ambitions zea lous ambitions to keep on with certain favorite studies, and at the same time help mamma keep house and care for baby Joe. Thanks to Aunt Emily's early training, I was capable and methodical in household affairs j and I was really accomplishing what I had planned, to mamma's great delight, when I met Paul. I had never associated much with men or A girVs girl boys ; Aunt Emily had never allowed me to go to a co-educational school in my youth, because she had forsaken the ways of her an- cestors and had become a high-church woman. During my vacations with her or at home I 68 THE STOEY OF A MARRIED LIFE had little opportunity to meet and become acquainted with members of the opposite sex. The meeting Now that I was graduated, a great party was mth Paul made for me, and at this, my first plunge into the social world, I met Paul. He was hand- some enough to be any girl's ideal 5 he was a thoroughly healthy, athletic, wholesome young man, with little careless ways in deal- ing with women which always piqued as well as interested them. From the first he was to me a god straight from Olympus. Through lack of opportunity, I had never had sentimental relations with any man; and I had always been too sensible to indulge in them with women. Hence, it is little wonder that when the tide once started, it came in a flood and swept all before it. With Paul it was much the same ; we were both wildly in love, and The high tide as there was no good reason for waiting, we f ^ ve were married on my twentieth birthday. Does Your Teak-wood Highness perchance know what marriage is f In your home temple Marriage a did those weighed down by marital troubles com P ulsor y education ever place offerings before you ? I have vague ideas of what marriage is like under 69 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL the shadow of Fujiyama ; but I have a very definite notion of what it is like in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Here it is a compulsory education, and it is about the only institution we have which can be de- pended upon to inculcate wisdom and ripen character. But I had no such idea of marriage when I Matrimony's entered upon that honorable estate. To me, rule of three marr j a g e mea nt bliss unalloyed the multi- plying of the happiness of life into ecstacy, and the dividing of the trials of life into quite infinitesimal fractions. I knew that Paul did not have any faults, and I humbly hoped to eliminate my own through associa- tion with him. In fact, I in no wise differed in my views about marriage from any and every other person who marries for love. Luckily, the awakening usually comes gradu- ally ; but to a girl who has known only women it brings a terror which can only be realized through experience. I think I gained the first inkling of the Browning a truth through the discovery that Paul always sedative went ^ sleep ^en j read to him form 70 THE STOKY OF A MARKIED LIFE Browning. Paul was a college man, and I took it for granted that his literary tastes The gameness were of the highest character. Our courtship of Fra Lj Lippi had been so short and breathless that we had evidently never found time to talk of any- thing so tangible as literature. I naturally expected that our evenings together would be like those I had spent with Miss Murray, Marcia Burton and my other college friends when we gathered for mental refreshment in some cosy room of our dormitory. So ob- sessed was I with this idea that it took me a long time to realize that Paul was always bored by Browning. As I remember, he never found anything of interest written by that great poet except Fra Lippo .lAppi, and he ex- plained this exception by saying " The old duffer was so game/ 7 as if he felt he must apologize for his singular taste. In looking back from my present stand- point, I can understand that Paul must have Base-ball made a like unhappy discovery about me when he patiently tried to initiate me into brutal the mysteries of base-ball and foot-ball. For I unhesitatingly pronounced the one stupid 71 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL and the other brutal and after a few trials I declined to go with him to witness either. Paul took the matter with masculine philos- ophy and went cheerfully by himself to see his favorite games j he regarded my attitude as truly feminine and, therefore, to be tolerated and ignored. But I took no such comfortable view of his What a man shortcomings. I was crushed by the thought learns m ^at k e w j lom j worshipped had no tastes in college common with mine. I tried to discover what he had studied in college, and what he cared for ; I found his most vivid memories of his college days related to proud records made by the foot-ball team or the crew to both of which he had belonged. Incidentally he seemed to care for discussions of railroads, tariffs, or currency reform or supply and demand of various uninteresting commodities ; his only clear ideas of any historical period seemed to be connected with the making of tariff laws or experiments in inflating currency, which were the parts of history that I had skipped as far as I was allowed to. Secretly, I had always regarded political economy as a 72 THE STORY OF A MARRIED LIFE fertile field for the planting of personal opinions which could never reach the fruition An unripe of positive proof; so I had little patience harvest that my hero should care for this weedy harvest. My dear Idol, you are a stranger in this western world of progress and woman's WJiyawoman triumph : so I will tell you now that there is ^.^ a Philistine no Philistine among them all so intolerant and self-centered as the woman educated by and among women ; and the reason for this lies in the excess of feminine influence. It is largely because woman is not satisfied with less than knowing all at once. Man plods along in his investigations knowing that he will, at death, have pushed his way only a step or two into the great unknown. "Woman is impatient and naturally will study only along those lines where finality seems attain- able. And when she teaches, she holds her- self strictly to facts and deals only with what she deems known or knowable, and "what she don't know is n't knowledge." Her belief in what she has learned is vital ; there is a fierce earnestness in both teacher and pupil that 73 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL will not admit of anything that may not be Woman would learned and expressed with exactness, except reduce all in Qne cLi rec ti on . In religious speculation things to terms of i n thinking out the unknowable of the soul herself woman finds a deep satisfaction. But this comes from the same impatient desire to know all to express the workings of the universe in terms of herself. Having reduced everything in the known world to her own comprehen- sion, she reaches out after the first great cause and the final great results, and, unabashed, proceeds to grasp them in her own little hands. Woman is not a Philistine because of self-conceit ; on the contrary she walks with humility alon^ the paths of knowledge. But her standards are fixed and her faith in what she has been taught is literal, unyielding and unwavering. Such a Philistine was 1 5 the only women I Philistine had known who did not appreciate Browning wedded to did t h th temerity to confess it. The athlete only women I had known who cared naught for Shakespeare except when they saw his plays acted by a Booth or Irving were shallow and to be pitied. The only women I had 74 THE STORY OF A MARRIED LIFE known who cared nothing for the music of Richard Wagner were those who made no pretence to either musical taste or knowledge. Yet, here I was married to a man who went to sleep while listening to Browning's greatest poems, who had never read a Shakespeare play in his life, and who openly declared that Gilbert and Sullivan had done infinitely more for music and humanity than the great Wagner. Yet these differences were only the lesser and superficial ones with which I found The antipodal myself confronted. The vast difference in 'tan^ointsof man and wo- the antipodal standpoints of the masculine man and the feminine were a source of deeper per- plexity to me. One of the beautiful things about my friendship with women was the perfect understanding they accorded me j when I married I believed that in the man I loved I should always find the same delight- ful comprehension of myself. During our engagement I believed that I had it j I looked into Paul's eyes and saw it there ; I touched his hand and the sense of it thrilled me through and through. Little by little the 75 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL truth dawned upon me that Paul understood me not at all ; and worse than that, his mind was wont to wander to other things when I was trying to explain myself ; he apparently did not care to understand me. And more vital than all was the difference TJie difference between man's love and woman's love. The between man's conviction fi na n y came to me that what was love and wo- man's love of the spirit to me was merely of the senses to him ; and in the bitterness of my heart, I came to believe that man's love had for its basis utter selfishness. What would have been the outcome if I had brooded over these things alone and unaided, I do not know. But I had a strong and understanding friend in Paul's mother. She said to me one day rather abruptly : "Child, don't think that men and women are alike ; they are as different as the poles." "I am finding that out," I answered bit- terly. She looked at me keenly and said : " Marian, you are on the wrong track ; you A reconstruo- are trying to reconstruct your husband to fit Uon of ideals p ideals wMle it would be mucn more to neoessar* * the point to reconstruct your ideals to fit 76 THE STOKY OF A MARRIED LIFE your husband. Change your plan ; study your husband sympathetically j go over into his territory instead of trying to pull him over into yours. Paul is a good man and has good ability, although he is not very scholarly nor very profound. I know that, for I have watched him carefully from babyhood up ; but you will find that he has good judgment and common sense. You are cleverer than he, and for that reason you should be mistress of the situation. Study your husband, learn his needs and fill them ; and, I assure you, he will be as wax in your hands." " The one thing that I have beyond all despised is the woman who manages her hus- band," I exclaimed indignantly, " it is a sordid relation, and I will have none of it." "Tut, tut," said mamma, "There are two sides to that question j the management of the The right way woman who works her husband for her own 1 ^ an ^ e a husband selfish ends may deserve your contempt. But the management of the wife who is wise and unselfish and which has for its end the happiness of her husband and the peace of her home is something very different. There 77 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL was never yet a happy and harmonious Matrimony on marriage without much management on the the gobeUnk part of e i t her husband or wife or both ; and plan the one who does it the best is the one who wields the most power in the home as well as out of it. You know how the children make gobelinks by placing a drop of ink in a folded paper and then squeezing it into strange figures which are perfectly sym- metrical when the paper is unfolded ! Well, a successful marriage does not require that the two parties become exactly alike as are the two halves of a gobelink. You must be careful, Marian, you are building your hurts into a precipice which, all too soon, neither you nor Paul will be able to scale." " Paul does not and never can understand me," I cried j and she answered with deep meaning : " Ah, my dear, you would be most uncom- Tke wise wo- fortable if he did. That you could wish it man does not S h ws your profound ignorance of men : for wish to be too well under- the woman who really knows men, would not stood for worlds have herself translated over into the masculine understanding. Be thankful 78 THE STORY OF A MAKRIED LIFE that your husband does not understand you and never will. But are you sure that you are trying to understand Paul ? You can never do it from your own pinnacle. Come down, my dear, to the masculine level and begin like a child to learn your lesson." She came over to me and gave me one of her rare kisses and then said : " Forgive my Which is real lecture, child, but the test of character lies in and which is imitation f accepting and making the best of that which IS, and not in wearing one's self out against its immutability." She took my hand tenderly in hers and continued with a smile. " When little girls who love dolls see a baby they are wont to regard it as a real live dolly, and never for a moment realize that their doll is an imitation baby. Study your real, little girl, and see if your ideal has even the virtue of being a good imitation." There is no person so helpful to a wife as a wise, sympathetic mother-in-law. I pondered A wise woth- long on her words. The Is of my life seemed er - in - law a wife's best to be utter ruin of ideals and happiness ; if friend there was any way to make " the best of it " I was willing to try. CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL What at first amazes and then thwarts a Marts primi- woman in her attempt to understand a man tweness i a is that he is so primitive and simple, while stumbling Uock to sne i s so complex and intricate. This is quite women %$ much of an obstacle to woman's under- standing of man as to man's understanding of woman. I followed mamma's advice ; since Paul Base-ball vs. would not listen when I read Browning, I Browning soll g n t assiduously to find something to which he would listen with interest and pleasure. I discovered that he responded to Short Sixes and to Soldiers Three, and, to my surprise, I found wholesome happiness for myself in such reading. Since he repudiated Wagner, I played for him gay bits from Rubinstein and movements from the lighter operas. I ear- nestly put my well trained intellect to fathom- ing the mysteries of base-ball ; and I steeled my sensibilities until I could witness with- out flinching, gladiatorial combats between gigantic elevens. I secretly began reading Adams and Mill until I finally began to com- prehend something of the principles of politi- cal economy, and could listen intelligently 80 THE STORY OF A MAEEIED LIFE while Paul elucidated his views on various phases of this great science. I did ail of these Learning to things half-heartedly and solely because I be- Usten lieved mamma to be a very wise woman. But the results proved so gratifying that I was inspirited and mightily encouraged. Paul re- sponded quickly to my new attitude ; he was merry and truly happy in our home, and never again evinced restlessness when we spent evenings by ourselves. Then came to me what must always be the supreme experience of woman's life that of Motherhood motherhood. Perhaps of all the revelations the su P reme experience of that it brought to me the most precious was W0 man the true meaning of man's love. Paul was uplifted by the consciousness of the little life dependent upon him, and his tenderness and care for me were unbounded. When at last, he held our little daughter in. his arms, I felt that again he embodied my ideal of man- hood. The months which followed were the happiest of my life. Together we watched the entrancing baby ways with adoring eyes ; and the astonishing growth of baby intelli- gence with the rapturous sense of possession. 81 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL Then came the days of despair when she sickened. Dear Idol, sometime in your far away tem- The death of pie, a mother has stood before you mute with the First-born the despair t h at fin e d her breast when she gazed into the dull eyes of her sick baby ! Though she belonged to another race and another land, the feeling was the same, for it is ever the same when death claims the first- born. With the agony of grief, came to me the full realization of my utter dependence upon Paul's love. He was stronger than I j and for all my spiritual aspirations, his vision was clearer and his faith more firm than mine. Then came the second blow, a thousand times more terrible than the first. It was not of death that I meant to tell you ; The Suttee I meant only to say that as life threw wide of Gil lands Qpen ^ doQr to the h ap pi ness and growth of motherhood, it was closed and I was thrust back. As I was laboriously overcoming my selfishness and righting my ill-formed ideals, and saw before me the development and 82 THE STOKY OF A MAK&IED LIFE larger opportunities of wifehood, the black portal was again lowered before me and I must turn back alone. You did not come from the land of the suttee, yet I fancy that rite is not essentially different from the inner experience of any widow in any land who has fathomed the depths of a husband's tender- ness and has learned to depend upon his love. Some there be who are privileged to mourn as they long to mourn, yet who shall say that TJiepotent key it is loyal to the dead or best for the living ! Grief and loss are mystic keys, and they may lock us each in a lonely cell, or they may un- lock the gates that lead to a larger activity. One or the other must happen, since nothing can ever be again as it was before. Almost immediately, I was called home by the illness of my step-mother, and again was to encounter the dread mystery of death. I had no time for thought under the duties which fell upon my unused but willing shoul- ders. I went through the days unfalteringly, and all I knew was that I ached. The ego 83 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL was submerged in a dim sub-consciousBess oi pain and the days were too short for the work I had to do. There are some periods in life The welcome when one is grateful for the lash in the hand lash in the o f j) u ty . one welcomes the blows since they \and of Duty serve to hurry one on through the hours, un- til night and sleep of exhaustion shut the door behind a day full of ignored memories. Only a brief four years had elapsed since I left that home a bride, and again I was in it with the necessity upon me of giving constant care to my delicate baby brother and what of cheer was possible to my bereaved father. As I look back, I cannot remember how those first years were lived. I went on talking with people and being friends with people, kissing those I loved and helping those dependent up- on me but there was nothing of all this that was real. Acts are only real when we do them wholly and heartily j something was gone out of me so that I could not give myself entirely Tlie automa- to any one or anything I was an automaton. ton I stopped suffering because my powers for suffering seemed so utterly inadequate. I did not worry because I had lost the power of 84 THE STOEY OF A MARRIED LIFE worrying. I was not serene, I was simply stony. . . . After all this, do you think I am likely to marry again ? To take upon myself new and vital problems to solve at the expense of well earned serenity and arduously attained hap- piness? Verily, I say you nay. CHAPTER VIII MUSINGS CONCERNING SECOND MARRIAGES. HILDA NOVEMBER 21ST : You look wearily out ., of your upturned eyes to-night, you poor roses dear ^ and j fear tliat y OUr r le as con f essor j s becoming onerous ; but you must really con- tinue to listen. This morning there came for me a half bushel of Jacqueminot roses, superb flowers, and I tried to arrange them in the drawing room; but they would not disport themselves gracefully and I was as awkward in placing them as I am in placing their giver. All day I have been in a maze of bewilder- ment that I did not say to that man last night, " I shall never, never love you and I shall never, never marry you, and that ends the matter." I think the reason I did not say it was because I felt it would not make the 86 SECOND MARKIAGES. HILDA slightest impression upon Mm. I felt like a helpless baby last night and I have felt like a " fool "all day. After all, youth is the only safe period for being a fool. Then, it is somehow a serious Youth thepre business f it may be tragic j it is always dram- atic and there is always present the blessed unusedness which makes one wonder if any one had ever been such a fool before. But as the years go by the dramatic phase vanishes, and being a fool is simply being one. There is an uninteresting and arid quality in the experience that is not exhilarating ; and when one is two kinds of a fool, as I am this min- ute, the situation is, to say the least, not amusing. As age comes creeping on, there is only one reflection that, in the least, mitigates folly, and that is the beautiful inevitableness Being a fool of it ; it makes one wonder if, after all, being apart f the great scheme a fool at times is not an integral part of the O f things great scheme of things. Your Teak- wood Prescience has, I suppose, divined the two phases of my present folly. Thefastina- What do you think of a woman who cares ** of brinks for a man when she has not been invited to, 87 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL and then marries a man she does not care for, because she is invited to ? I note that you are turning pale at the contemplation of such a spectacle. Yet, do you really believe such things of me? Perhaps I am only on the brink ; being on the brink of a wild and fool- ish action is quite as fascinating and dangerous as hanging over the brink of a chasm, and gazing at the swirling waters below. Nay, Confessor, do not frown ! I still stand The culpabil- by my creed that a second marriage is a sign ^ No l ah that the gods fail utterl y to Aculeate wisdom in the human species through experience. If one has experienced one happy marriage, then one should thank heaven and be satisfied ; while if the marriage was unhappy, then one surely ought to thank heaven that it is over, and rest satisfied. The only excuse for second marriage seems to be based on that primal act of Noah's which sent all the crea- tures into the ark two by two. Please do not look so sleepy, I am not going to keep you awake until 2 A. M. as I did last night, for I am sleepy, myself, sir. 88 SECOND MARRIAGES. HILDA NOVEMBER 22D:-Do you feel pleasant this evening? I hope so, for I feel particularly pleasant and complacent. Mr. Morris called this afternoon and my heart was flint ; nay, more, it was a polished A heart hard brass ball, and when he attempted to make c iough to a tak* a, polish an impression upon it he saw simply his own distorted visage looking back at him. I at- tained this condition of polished safety by be ginning my day with calling things by their right names ; and when I call things by their right names, it is my equivalent for direct and forceful profanity. NOVEMBER 23D: Has it ever occurred to your oriental mind that I seem to be ac- A social quainted with very few people? Don't be misled ! I have so many people around me all the time that I give myself the luxury of ignoring them when I talk to you. I meant to confess mere abstractions to you and leave out people entirely $ but it has not seemed practical to do this in every case. As a matter of fact my chief fault is that I give 89 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL too much of my life away, and to too many people, I suspect. I often feel as if I were a sort of social lunch-counter, always so crowded that no one ever gets a square meal from it. Friends ought really to be an avocation in- stead of a steady occupation. NOVEMBER 24TH : I am going to introduce Hilda you to another person to-night my beauti- ful, my most interesting, my dearest Hilda. She has been across the seas six months, and now she is coming home, and her world re- joices. I have always felt that though you were a god, yet being a wooden one there was hardly enough of you to go around if I di- vided you among all 'of my valued friends. Therefore I have been careful as to which ones were permitted to enter your temple ; but for your own enjoyment, I must tell you of Hildegarde, mine own friend. When one woman calls another "dearest "Dearest friend" she may mean any one of several fnen an j^ings. She may mean by this term, her elastic term sentimental affinity the one towards whom she reaches with every emotion j or she may 90 . SECOND MAEEIAGES. HILDA mean anybody at all, for it is an expression that may be likened to a rubber band what it includes depends on how thin it is stretched. My dearest friend is not my affinity, for I have never had an affinity since I was in boarding school. In fact, Hilda and I seldom see things alike or like the same things, though we are usually interested in the same people. Hilda is the cleverest and most interesting woman in the world, except Ma Belle. She is years younger than I, but she is so clever Aman'sjudg- that this does not matter. Her judgment is ment and a woman's so excellent, and she sees so clearly the re- lation of things that she might almost be a man, were it not that she is the most womanly of women. She is fair to look upon, but her appearance is misleading ; her face is child- ishly round, and her eyes are large and heavenly blue with the innocent expression so often characteristic of near-sighted eyes. Her cheeks are pink and her hair is pale, soft, brown, almost golden. She looks out of her big blue eyes upon the world with the appar- ent artlessness of a babe ; and when she opens* her pretty lips, one expects that gentle, sugary 91 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL remarks will fall therefrom. Never was a Hildegarde's greater mistake ! She can be and often is tongue k een? i nc i s i ve and ruthless in her conversa- tion anent both things and people. Tom said of her once, " I fear not the wrath of God nor the tongues of men, but I quail before the tongue of Hildegarde Vincent." Not that she is cruel at heart, perish the thought ! But she has such a keen wit that her repartee is like lightning it illuminates fiercely and is likely to strike almost anywhere. She is a Hilda's most highly cultured young person also ; she culture seems t h ave imbibed the classics from baby- hood, and I have always had a theory that she only needed to wait until she had cut her teeth to converse fluently in Greek. Her literary tastes are so superior to my own that if she were not as modest as she is learned, she would make me feel that I am very crude, indeed. She loves music, and she plays the piano because she loves to and not because she has any ambition to become an artist. Therefore, she plays exquisitely and with an informing spirit. Hilda and I have spent many happy hours 92 SECOND MARRIAGES. HILDA together talking over the things that are worth while, but we are never sentimental. Hilda's No one could be sentimental with Hilda, not lovers even her lovers. Hilda does not take much interest in her lovers ; I am usually the one who is obliged to take interest in them. Many is the one I have had to gently but firmly re- fuse vicariously, before he gathered courage to ask and get his conge at first hand. I reproach Hilda with her heartlessness j and then she declares that the young men are Not a match- in love with me instead and accuses me of ma1cer f rom choice being a matchmaker. This last imputation I resent deeply. I would sooner be a dispenser of cold poison to a guileless populace, than to help to construct bonds which are as likely to chafe to the bone as to tether the wearers in flowery fields of joy. When once I indig- nantly repudiated the accusation she looked at me quizzically and said with great show of candor, "Why no, Marian, you are really no matchmaker, but are responsible for much falling in love. But you cannot help it ; you are a stimulating atmosphere, like the spring- A springtime time f such emotions just naturally grow and influence 93 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL flourish in your mere presence/ 7 and this is all the satisfaction I got for my rebellion. Hilda and I often discuss matters with a great deal of heat, for she has a fine spirit and plenty of temper ; but she is generous and in- finitely sympathetic and her friends find her altogether adorable. NOVEMBER 25TH : DidyourHighMightiness Receptions ever attend a reception ? Judging by the cut and the fixed of your coat ^ j slu) uld th i nk not . but judging smile by your fixed smile despite inner pangs Ishould say you might have had a long experience in receptions. I am just home from one with the babel of voices still ringing in my ears, and my head is dizzy with the gleam of bare shoulders, glittering pompons and whole cemeteries of tomb-stone shirt-fronts. When I see so many men in dress suits, I always wish that I could paint that wide expanse of Genre skirt- shirt-front with some genre picture which bosoms snou i(j represent the man behind it j for in- stance, I would paint on Theodore Morris 7 immaculate plaque a serpent and a dove. He evidently felt and rebelled against my flintiness 94 SECOND MAKKIAGES. HILDA and to-night he did not even try to see his re- flection in the polished brass ball, but instead Jealousy the saw himself reflected from a pair of saucy head - li 9 ht but not the engine blue eyes ; and he must have found it most satisfactory, judging by the time he devoted to this productive industry. I saw it all with entire placidity. One is grateful for the wisdom of years, sometimes ; I will never be driven to any action by jealousy. Jealousy is not love any more than the head-light is the engine 5 yet many have mistaken the one for the other and then have wondered why the train matrimonial did not move when hitched to it. As I was saying good night to my hostess, I saw the "porcelain box " coming towards me ; he not only came but took calm posses- sion of me, escorted me to the cloak room, and then tucked me carefully into the car- riage with his usual indifferent assurance. Oh, I am so tired ! It is rather hard to have lived so long that one's geese and one's Geese or swans are all geese alike. Perhaps wisdom swans * and experience are meant to give one a higher appreciation of geese rather than depreciation 95 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL of swans. The chief difference between them is that the swan has a neck like the serpent which beguiled Mother Eve, while the neck of the goose is hardly long enough to tie into bow-knots. But what have necks to do with the matter ! Geese are really much wiser and nobler creatures. There is a nice picture in our museum of a burial tablet of some ancient Greek maiden whereon she is depicted sitting with her pet goose at her side. On my burial tablet, there will need to be but one figure, and that will not be of the maiden. NOVEMBER 26TH : Did Your-Swan-ship ever AniceUndof know any geese in Japan? I have been goose ] iaun t e( j by visions of a whole flock of one particular goose all day. It has been a day full of places where I was needed and I think I filled the needs. Perhaps, after all, the real meaning of being a goose is the consciousness of having under one's quills sufficient down to pillow a whole world of unrest, or mayhap, only enough to pillow one dear, tired head. Father needed help to-day, as his instruc- tor was sick. So I averaged examination 96 SECOND MARRIAGES. HILDA papers and wrote reports, and to-night he is placidly smoking his pipe and reading The One sure Nation. Ma Belle had a sick headache: I source of dis- enchantment found her struggling to get up and go to a charity committee meeting, and she looked all she felt. I know of no ailment that com- petes with a sick-headache in the power to disenchant its victim with life, the world, and the eternal verities. So I coaxed Ma Belle to lie still and promised to do her vi- carious honor in the honorable committee ; with a groan of relief she sank back to her pillow and her misery. I do not much enjoy committee work ; I am by nature an unor- ganized being, and like to carry on my ac- tivities in my own way. But I stood up in that meeting most vigorously, and rushed business through, right over the prostrate forms of caprices, prejudices and qualms. So efficient was I that a lady came to me after- wards and said she hoped I would be made PerturUng chairman at the next meeting, and I stood success aghast before this misguided success I had achieved. Success is like lightning, one can never guess where it is going to strike. 97 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL Tom was here this evening ; he was mani- festly blue and it pleased him to allow me to minister unto him, probably because Ma Belle was ill. I made him " comfy " on the library sofa, and read to him cheerful stories from the last magazines. He was so grateful and dear that I was inspired to go skipping around on all sorts of emotional pinnacles, forgetting all about the years I have spent wandering bruised and battered in malarial valleys. 98 CHAPTER IX A THANKSGIVING DINNER AND CONVERSA- TIONAL DESSERT THANKSGIVING NIGHT : Do you have a day set apart in Japan for being thankful Thanksgiving whether you have anything to be thankful for or not ? I was the one this year to give the thanksgiving dinner for our small family. Of course Ma Belle was here and to my dis- may Joe insisted on inviting his beloved Theodore ; it is my private opinion that this artful gentleman has subsidized Joe. How- ever, I warned Joe saying : " Please make him understand he is your guest." " All right, Marnie, I will soak up all the credit for ttie dinner," he answered cheer- fully. The dinner was good, but I was a most A stupid hostess, I suffered a conversational 99 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL numbness which rendered me helpless. I felt as if my social paws were covered with dough so that I could not really take hold of any handle which the talk chanced to offer. Ma Belle was at her best and scintillated in a way to distract attention from my own unlighted wick. His Lordship was so evi- dently fascinated by her that I begin to see relief ahead $ he will transfer his age-ignoring affections to Ma Belle, who is not half so old as I any day, and is twice as interesting as I am at my best. We were discussing a cer- tain novel of purpose that people are reading and arguing about, and Ma Belle said : " There was something tonic in the strong, Be bad and stern creed of our Puritan ancestors which you will be sa |^ pi a i n iy . jf y OU d o wrong you will go made into a to hell. But the warning signal shining in lurid letters now is, if you do wrong you will be made into the chapters of a book j and it is enough to glue us fast to the page of virtue. Such a puerile nemesis as this makes one sick of the flowery paths of indulgence." Then up spoke the young man : " When I write a book, Madam Lee, you 100 A THANKSGIVING DINNER will certainly be in it, but it shall be a novel of delight and not of purpose." He received an interesting flash from mamma's black eyes for this and Joe said : " No use, Theo., you could never put Tante Belle in a book. You would have to tell un- true things all the time to convey a true idea of her. Tante Belle cannot be reduced to the English language." "Belle, you have attained ! " exclaimed father, "here are two youths making you the most beautiful compliments and I am longing to do the same but find that with age, what is in the heart is not so easily vocalized. Tell me how you manage it ? " " My decrepit head is dizzy with so many compliments. I will confide to you my secret, An Eobert it is that of the gambler who believes epitaph so enthusiastically in his own little pair of deuces that his opponents are led to believe he holds a royal flush. On my tombstone, Robert, I am going to have this inscription : ' Here lies a woman who bluffed so unflinch- ingly that her contemporaries were con- strained to admit that she had lived V " and 101 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL she gave father a look which I did not under- stand ; but I think he did for he flushed. In the drawing room Mr. Dresden China drew his chair rather closer to mine than was necessary. After a time Joe was called away, and father and Ma Belle became absorbed in discussing the question as to whether Indian Yogis are Christian Scientists, and my com- panion said in a low tone : " This is the thankfulest thanksgiving that Doubtful I have ever had ; but next year I shall be still reasons for more thankful." lemg thankful "How about the next one? "I asked per- versely. " The next year I shall be so happy that all the days which follow will be thanksgiving days," he answered with perfect assurance. I had a mind to ask him what he thought was going to happen j but I was afraid that, if I did, he would tell me, so I said : " This morning I was trying to ' think up ' my mercies in order to bring myself into a thanksgiving mood; but aside from health, strength and happiness and a few other incidentals, I found my inventory a short one." 102 A THANKSGIVING DINNER " Do you know that when you wear a blue dress your eyes are blue, and when you wear Chameleon a gray dress your eyes are gray ? " he asked, ^ es looking at me speculatively. " And when I wear a red dress my eyes are red?" " Your eyes are never read, by me at least," he retorted without a smile. " It is pusillanimous to retreat behind a pun," I objected. He answered with mean- ing: " My lady, when you fight with shafts of ridicule, you must expect to witness ridicu- lous retreats. However, please remember that I live to fight another day when victory shall be mine." " Will you wear laurel wreaths upon your brow, or carry laurel branches in your hands ? " I asked derisively. " I shall carry them in my heart where they belong, and where you can guard them," he A safe place answered. Then we looked at each other a * OT laurels moment ; I was curious to discover if his face said anything. In a way, it did j there were certain lines about his mouth which showed 103 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL determination and his eyes were steady and consequently soon put me on the defensive. I was glad that Joe returned just then and relieved the tension. Why are n't men straightforward and The missing logical I Why does n't the next thing natu- linkinmascu- rall f o n ow the preceding one with them? line character And this man is the most disconcerting of them all ; there is a link lost in the logic of his actions j the result is a breathless uncer- tainty as to what he will say and do next. I almost wish you were a man instead of an image, for then you possibly might explain to me these mysterious masculine vagaries. This evening Tom came, and he with Ma Belle shared our somewhat desultory thanksgiving supper Tom was in good spirits and said he had been having a fine holiday with his " things in law." Father and Tom smoked and we sat about the library fire and talked of many things ; among them, the question as to whether a holiday was a joy or a bore and an interference with work. " Is n't it fine that man is so adaptable that he has turned the primal curse into a final 104 A THANKSGIVING DINNER blessing? Almost all that the race asks now is to be allowed to work continuously/' mused The primal father. Ma Belle continued his thought : rse : a - ftnal blessing " Yes, and the best thing about work is that it is no moralist. It accepts skill as graciously from the hands of the prisoner in stripes as from the hands of the priest in robe and stole." "It seems to be the fate of man to want one thing and get another ; he longs for comfort Mankinds and ease and he gets discomfort and hard * oor bar 9 ains work ; and then he is obliged to humiliate himself by confessing that what he gets is better for him than what he wanted/' com- mented Tom. "It is a great step forward to be content with the result. Perhaps true wisdom lies in learning to exchange the something we desire for the something we get and not feel cheated," returned father. "Yes," replied Tom "our truest success evi- dently consists in winning the game by carom- Caroming ing against the immutable and being content a d ainst ** with skilful zig-zags instead of direct lines of victory." Then Joe remarked feelingly : "Gee ! After we have changed our point of 105 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL view so that our idea of paradise is hard labor, I hope there will be another Eve and another serpent, and that the resulting curse will be ' Go forth and take a rest. 7 " "It is not hard work nor overwork that is We should be the trouble/ 7 said Ma Belle, "it is the lack of well-balanced balance which worr i es , and wears us out. I have seen a certain toy sold upon the streets so weighted, that, however it tumbles, it always comes to rest head up and smiling. If we could only arrange our burdens likewise ; if they could be so balanced and adjusted that instead of oppressing us they would help us" "To bob up serenely ; that is a bully idea," interpolated Joe. She continued : "Ballast is not only good but necessary, The place for only the place for it is in the hold, evenly dis- ballast tributed ; it should not be festooned around the masts." Later, Joe went home with Ma Belle ; father fell asleep and snored, and I ignored with all my might, saying to Tom : " I am glad that you are so much happier to-day." 106 A THANKSGIVING DINNER "It is bravado," he answered gloomily, "the gods have been having some fun with me of late fun for them, I mean." "I wish you would tell me about it," I said wistfully. "Oh ! there is nothing to tell, except it is such a deuce of a job to keep the fiddler Paying the paid." fiddler "Heaven forbid that we cease dancing on that account," I murmured ; "after all, strength of character does not lie so much in not dancing, as it does in having the courage to grin when paying the fiddler." "Great Scott ! One would not kick so much if one simply danced ; but when one is obliged to don the cap and shake the bells to the time of the music, one has a right to feel injured." "Oh ! I don't know," I went on musingly, "the tyranny of the bells and bauble is most The tyranny alluring. We try to remember to be wise, of the cap and but the wide grin paralyzes thought ; and the silvery bells chime in our ears an enchanting music that makes us forget everything, and most of all our own folly." I arose and went over and shook father into 107 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL consciousness, and he exclaimed with ready sang froid : "I awake from dreams of thee, my dear ; but need I be awakened with so much ab- ruptness f " Soon after, Tom said good-night in a most casual manner and left me depressed, for some quite inexplicable reason. Now, you Squat Image, tell me, if you can, Life, a series how I am to make the grass of this day's ex- perience into the hay of wisdom! At best, this world is a place where one may seldom do the right thing at the right time ; and at the age of forty, one becomes resigned to all sorts of compromises, even to calling the same, Life. 108 CHAPTER X MUSIC LAND, AND A YISIT TO TOM DECEMBER 2D : I have been looking at you long this evening, and wondering if it is of any use to talk to you about music. I have heard your Japanese music, and I do not believe you could make me understand what it might mean to your soul, except that I could surely feel the minor wail in it. How- ever, considering that you are a god, and' a wooden one too, you can probably comprehend many things which I may not. I long to tell you about music, if there be any words in our language fit therefor. Music, What music is dear Idol, is another world a world that has place out in space ; and only one narrow bridge of sense connects that world with ours. Over this bridge we pass to and from that wonderful world, in which there is naught but 109 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL motion. There the soul is swayed and lifted That other to mysterious heights and then plunged into world of more mysterious depths : and again it is lifted music and gently cradled in the sustaining arms of sound. And when we pass over into that world we forget all that is or has been, and become unconscious of all else besides this realm of exquisite emotion. And because of this forgetting, the places where the spirit is chafed and worn are healed and made whole. Therefore is it that we of this restless western world have deep need and great love for music. You, perhaps, do not need it so much ; for your every-day world is steeped in calm, and for another world you have hasheesh. All of this is apropos of a concert which I Brutal attended this evening. Joe invited me to go, conversation and j sat - n the mi(M Qf Ms f raternity oui> fit" as he elegantly (?) describes his fellows. Strictly speaking, Mr. Morris sat constantly at my left, while Joe managed a succession of young men at my right. Some of these felt it incumbent upon them to entertain me lest I should be too much bored by the music ; and if I could have slain them cut their 110 MUSIC LAND, AND A VISIT TO TOM heads off then and there without making too much litter, I should cheerfully and unhesi- tatingly have done so. There is nothing so exasperating, when one is intent upon cross- ing the narrow bridge into that far-away world as to be haled back by brutal con versation. These kindly but misguided youths found one number of the program quite admirable. Piano It was when Professor Von Something or P rostration Other made an unprecedented attack upon the piano, and kept at it until the wires seemed quite unstrung j finally when he re- treated the poor instrument was obviously in a fit of nervous prostration. The wonderful thing about this concert was that the man at my left spoke only when it was right to speak, and several times he came to my aid in warding off my conversational boys, deftly reducing them to dumbness. He gave me the feeling of support by his sym- pathy 5 evidently his bridge is close to mine. I spoke to him but a conventional word about the concert, and yet when he wrapped my cloak around me he said : 1U CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "I never realized before that you cared Sympathy so much for music. I shall come sometime quite unex- and ^ for j made nQ answer SQ pectea long as he declared he was coming, there seemed little left for me to say. But on the way home I probed Joe, saying : "I did not know that Mr. Morris^was a musician ; does he play the banjo? " "Banjo ! Gee, would n't he like that ! He plays a violin made by some old Italian duffer. He thinks we fellows are n't good enough to listen to his music except on grand occasions. 'Usually he and Phil Schlegel go off together and play for hours with the door locked. Theo loves Phil's accompaniments and neither likes to have any one around listening ; but some of the fellows go and listen at the key -hole and they say that their play- ing is out of sight." "Naturally ! " I ejaculated crossly. I some- Too many way did not like the idea of his loving music Or belng a musician 5 he ou g ht to be contented with being a porcelain box without being an autoharp also. 112 MUSIC LAND, AND A VISIT TO TOM DECEMBER 4th. : I think I shall erect an altar to your Pagan Divinity, and burn things on it after the fashion of altars ; the first thing I shall burn is a letter I received to-day which says: PHI DELTA ALPHA LODGE, December 4th, 1904. My Ladye: I have been holding my pen over the paper for a long moment, while thinking how to A most 'fitly address you. "Dear "yea, verily, so deeply dear that the word quite fails to express it. I shall have to find some new word to express you as I know you. Any word would fit you so long as it were not used twice; dear, good, bad, cynic, opti- mist, adorable, and a whole dictionary full of others. That is why I find it so difficult to find one word that will fit the composite picture of you which is mine. Did you ever notice how much more beauti- ful is the composite photograph than any of those from which it is made ? It is because I comprehend your many-sidedness that my you is better and lovelier than any single phase of you could possibly be. I see the harder lines of your strength softened by your womanliness and tenderness; while your womanly qualities are more perfectly rounded be cause of the child that is still in you. 113 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL But I could write a volume without exhausting all I know of this interesting subject, and the object of this note is, after all, to tell you that I am called out of town for three days, and I would not have you forget me in that eon of absence. Do not forget me, my ladye, for it will not be of the slightest advantage to you if you do. Yours, faithfully, THEODORE MORRIS. Forget him, indeed ! Little god, have n't AtUrstfor you a phial of Lethe water in your pocket so the waters of ^^ vou can giye me a Lethe me the comfort of forgetting this same Theo- dore Morris for three days ? But meanwhile, please do not let me forget that too often what is meet for love is likely later to turn out meat for repentance. DECEMBER STH : I had another letter to- day from another man. Yea, from quite a different man, and therefore quite a differ- ent letter. I will read it to you, and I shall be greatly obliged if you will tell me what you really think about it. THE CLINTON, December 9th, 1904. Qh ! Madam Marian, knowest thou that I have 114 MUSIC LAND, AND A VISIT TO TOM sprained my ankle and lost my case ( a jury being just twelve times as idiotic as it would be if com- Quite another posed of one individual. ) kind of a I am laid up and obliged to spend my time in letter meditation. I am biffed by misfortune on both cheeks, and in my meditations I have been trying to gather figs from thistles. It is a great advantage to have all of one's miseries coincident and contemporaneous, so I plan to stop smoking unless you and your Ma Belle come to see me and cheer me sufficiently so that I shall be courageous enough to retain one pleasure in life. Yours, TOM. P. S. My philosophy seems quite inadequate to-night for the demands upon it ; it has spells of this sort ; 'tis a slumpy philosophy. T. 0. Of course we went. ,Tom has some attrac- tive bachelor apartments with some beauti- An interesting ful rugs on the floors and some delightful mstt pictures on the walls. He was lying on the sofa attired in a most becoming brown velvet smoking jacket. It is such a pity men cannot wear the smoking jacket at social functions in- stead of the foolish garment customary. 115 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL Ma Belle sat by his side and patted his hand in an entrancing manner j and he was miserable enough to be a small boy and be glad. Ma Belle is not wasteful of her caresses and they have all the value of conserved boons. " What have you been thinking about now that you have had nothing to do but think ? " she asked. " Wondering where the hole in the center Profitless of the maelstrom leads to," he answered speculations whimsica u y . " I think the rim would be a more interest- ing subject for speculation/ 7 suggested I. " Anyway, I think you might put your leisure to better use by just loafing and inviting your soul." " It has been so long since I sent such an A mislaid invitation that I fear I have lost the address," address he returned. " Tom, where is a certain document that you were to let me have this week f If it is at hand I might as well take it now and save you further trouble, " asked Ma Belle. " It is in the library desk," he answered. 116 MUSIC LAND, AND A VISIT TO TOM " Marian, will you be so kind as to step into the other room and bring me a paper tied with red tape that is in the middle pigeon- hole of the lower row in the desk by the window f " I entered the library with a conscious pleasure in the richness of color which per- The room vaded the place. There was a harmony be- tween hangings, rugs and furniture that per- mitted no one thing to be.prominent in claim- ing the attention of the observer a har- mony which mellowed and enhanced the attractiveness of the room. The desk was of handsomely carved mahogany one that Tom had found in Florence years before ; the num- ber of crowns wrought into the carving showed that it had once been used by royalty. As I reached for the paper the lace in my sleeve caught the top of the ornate silver inkstand ; I made a spasmodic but successful effort to avert the threatened calamity, and I must have accidentally touched a hidden spring ; a part of the beautifully patterned secret front below the pigeonholes fell back on its hinges revealing an inner compartment. 117 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL What I saw there I could not help seeing : a Lilies-of-the- bunch of sere and yellowed lilies-of-the-valley Valley tied with a f ade( j purp i e ribbon. I hastily lifted the door to its place and came back to the other room with a queer, guilty feeling which I cannot describe, nor quite account for. Tom was manifestly cheered by our visit ; but that was mostly due to Ma Belle's efforts. I could say but little, for I was deeply an- noyed at my awkward intrusion into Tom's private affairs. I should have felt more honest to confess the blunder at once, but that would have been absolutely impossible. But ever since, I have been in a daze won- dering, and wondering, 118 CHAPTER XI HILDA PLAYS AN ACCOMPANIMENT DECEMBER STH : Smile, smile, please smile. For if gods smile not at the ways of men and women, pray, who may? This morning I had a telephone message from Mr. Morris telling me of his return and ask- ing if he and Mr. Schlegel might come this evening and play for me ; of course I said I should be most happy, though as a matter of fact I was quite the reverse. Hilda was to spend the afternoon and evening with me for our first long visit since her return. Moreover, I would not for worlds have Hilda The most guess the infatuation of that most embarrass- cruel f ali criticism ing youth. She would either make sarcastic remarks, or think them, which is really worse. The cruelest thing in the world is the un- spoken criticism of a devoted and loyal friend, when intimacy lays bare the vulnerable spot. 119 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL It sometimes comes to me like the vision Eeasons of a nightmare that I shall finally probably inexplicable yield and marry Theodore Morris. And then the thought occurs to me that if I do, Hilda and Tom and my other friends will naturally have to know about it, and I suddenly realize how utterly preposterous such an act would be. I think I might marry him if no one ex- cept you were ever to know about it, though why I would do it is beyond my fathoming. I did not mention to Hilda during the after- Brown eyes noon that I expected any callers in the evening, and blue though I thought of it several times. Mr. Mor- ris arrived rather early and alone except for his violin, which is evidently a creature of much personality to its owner. I introduced him to Hilda, and his inscrutable brown eyes looked into her quite inscrutable blue ones ; but what the owner of either pair of eyes thought I had no way of discovering. He was more taciturn than usual and was A social evidently annoyed that I was not alone, and acrobat j-fcat ^j s accompanist did not come. Hilda was not interested and stupidly said nothing to re- lieve the situation. Therefore I felt it incuin- 120 HILDA PLAYS AN ACCOMPANIMENT bent upon me to break the tension by various socially acrobatic feats, which Mr. Morris re- Reluctant garded in sphinx-like silence, and Hilda with musicians speculative amusement. Their combined atti- tudes led me on to higher leaps and to a final trapeze performance, during which I swung giddily from the new Dante collection in the University library to the antics of the last minstrel show. At length I gave up from sheer exhaustion, when I was suddenly in- spired to suggest that Hilda play the accom- paniment and that we have music imme- diately. Mr. Morris looked supercilious and doubtful and Hilda was unfeignedly wrathful. Then I grew serene and insistent and felt re- venged for having been obliged to exhibit myself in the ring of their mutual silence. Hilda went grudgingly to the piano, saying : " I hope you will understand, Mr. Morris, that I am your involuntary accomplice." He said not a word but I noticed with a chuckle that he looked his music over and selected the most difficult piece in his roll. If it had been something simple and easy, it is possible that Hilda would have at the last moment refused 121 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL to play at all. But when she saw those pages of notes that looked as if they .had hysteria, she sat down on the piano stool with decision, and her pretty lips took on an expression of stern determination which meant accomplish- ment. Hilda is what I could never be an ideal The ideal accompanist ; she subordinates herself not accompanist alone to the music? but also to the mood of her companion. Their first page together was executed almost as perfectly as if they had been in the habit of playing with each other for weeks. This success had its influence upon them and I felt the barriers between them melting away in harmony. They both played superbly, and I, unno- Music de- ticed, threw myself upon the sofa and covered mands but with hands while j listened . I one sense am a truly primitive being and I cannot listen to music and see anything whatever coincidently. I am either seeing all things and hearing nothing or hearing all things and seeing nothing. Therefore, I like best to close my eyes, and then cross the bridge to music land without faltering or wavering. They 122 HILDA PLAYS AN ACCOMPANIMENT played on and on, and finally concluded with Handel's sonata in A major. So moved had I been with their music that I felt I must be careful or I should say something senti- mental ; so I made my thanks quite com- monplace, and the conversation, much lim- bered by the music, became fairly interesting. Since Hilda had been so recently in Ger- many, we naturally questioned her about the music she had heard while there ; she was most enthusiastic over the Probe concerts and the opera. She turned to me and said : " I thought of you, Marian, when I heard your favorite Trompeter von Saekkingen, and Vicarious experienced several thrills for you ; although thrills when they sung, 'Es ist im Leben doch so hdsslich eingerichtetj I did not wipe my eyes nor blow my nose as did the sentimental damsel next to me. By the way, that night we sat up in the fourth gallery and our seats cost eighty pfennige each ; we nibbled lemon drops and looked down at the Parterre- Frem- den-Loge and the Balkon erster Rang, where you and I in our opulent youth were wont to disport ourselves. Theater prices have gone 123 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL up since those happy days, so we clomb to the tip-top for fun and experiment. The air was not so bad considering that it was German, but the bench was too narrow for anything save penance." ".What is the matter with the German atmosphere, is it thick with anything besides harmony ? " asked Mr. Morris. " It seems to me," answered Hilda thought- TJw fully, "that the Germans are peculiar in elements in t keir relations to the elements. They seem Deutschland to be able to do without air, fire or water in their habitations and daily lives, and make up for it by their love for the dear earth." " How cruel of you," I exclaimed, " when you know that the German attitude toward music is ideal ! " " I was speaking of their relation to the elements u and not to the Muses," corrected Hilda. It was rather late when Mr. Morris went away. I was for some mysterious reason im- pelled to follow him to the door and say : " Thank you, it was heavenly ! " " It was heaven to play when you were 124 HILDA PLAYS AN ACCOMPANIMENT listening," he answered in a tone as low as my own, and then I wished I had had sense A fatuous enough to have kept still. I do not under- Romance stand in the least why I followed him to the door and made that insane remark : it is an- other instance of my infinite capacity for fatuity. When I came back to the parlor I ex- perienced a sense of uneasiness and guilt j but as usual, I covered my perturbation with cheerful volubility. I asked with a candid glibness which surprised even my accustomed self: " Hilda, what do you think of that An un- youth ? " satisfactory conversation " He plays extremely well," was her non- committal reply. I went on : " I am glad Phil Schlegel did not come, for I never heard you play better." " Thanks, where did you find His Lord- ship?" " He is one of Joe's friends," I answered mechanically, and the conversation drifted to other channels. But I had an inner conviction that we were both consciously avoiding any 125 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL discussion of Theodore Morris. Now please Auricular tell me why she did not wish to talk with me expansion abont Mm ? Does she suspect anytlling f j do not believe it. What is there to suspect ! Nothing at all ! I will tell you a secret which I discovered some time since : Some of the heart's experiences are auricular and some ventricular ; but it is only once in a lifetime that the whole heart is concerned. And I have a foreboding that this affair of mine with Theodore Morris is a case of auricular expan- sion, and that it will surely result in the devel- opment of some baleful itis which cannot be either cured or endured. DECEMBER 9TH : I am glad you receive my confidences so understandingly ; it encourages me to give you details. At breakfast this morning, Joe asked Hilda what she thought of his friend whom she met last evening. " Perfeckly booful," she replied promptly. Joe did not like to hear baby-talk applied to his hero ; so he asked diplomatically : " Is n't he a fine violinist ? " 126 HILDA PLAYS AN ACCOMPANIMENT " Yes/' said Hilda, with a reticence of some unguessable portent. The whole day has seemed unreal, espe- cially since Hilda went home this morning. Dreaming Many times I have found myself dreaming of witn eyes open the music of last evening dreaming with my eyes open. That is what I am doing with this man all the time dreaming with my eyes open. The best I can say of such a day as this, is, that though it shortens my life by twenty- four hours, I am glad it is over. Not that it was an especially hard day but it was be- wildering and listless ; and now I listen while the tatters of this battered caravanserai flap dubiously with every wind that blows. 127 CHAPTER XII A COMEDY, A TRAGEDY, AND THE WAY OF THE FOOL DECEMBER 10TH : I do not Suppose JOU ever went to a play f Or was, perchance, the procession of humanity before your shrine as good as a play to you? To-night Joe, Mr. Morris, Hilda and myself went to hear Nance Oldfield which was wholly delightful, and Made- laine, which was wholly depressing. Between the acts Mr. Morris was thoughtfully looking at the audience through the reversed opera glasses ; I asked the reason for this original performance, and he murmured : "I am trying to put all those people so far away that I can believe you and I are alone." He then turned directly to Hilda, with whom he had been carrying on a spirited conversa- tion, and asked, platitudinously : 128 THE WAY OF THE FOOL "I suppose you speak German fluently? " "Too fluently, alas ! " sighed Hilda. "I had no end of trials because of this ease." "For instance!" "Well, one day I had ordered some beautiful roses to deck the table of my salon for ex- Hilda and tht pected guests, but the roses came not ; I waxed German nervous and was on the point of starting for 9lffut the flower shop when I met a servant in the hall bearing two packages of flowers and who seemed to be looking for some one to rid her of her burden. With a cry of joy, I seized one parcel and beat a triumphant retreat. The roses were not the kind I had ordered, but I thought they had been sent as substi- tutes. A little later the roses I had ordered came, and the messenger knew nothing of those I already had. All the afternoon I won- Misapplied dered whose roses I had rifled from the help- roses less Dienstmadchen and pictured him or her foaming at the mouth with vexation. That evening our bell rang, and a tall and inoffen- sive young fellow asked in German if a few roses he had ordered might perchance have here I cut in with artless glee, and tried to 129 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL. express in hasty but well-chosen terms my distress at having abducted his roses. I has- tened to bring him the flowers and to explain the situation in language that would have brought tears to the eyes of a Goethe or a Schiller, and was winding up with a fervid peroration imploring his pardon, and assuring him of my undiminished esteem for his nation and himself, when he suddenly stemmed the tide of my eloquence by remarking in the most English of English : " l It does not matter ; I thank you very A safe though much. Good evening. 7 I longed then for frail founda- tlie dear dead past w ken my vocabulary was twn limited to guten Morgen and danJce schon, for even I could not have conversed indefinitely on that frail foundation." We all laughed, and even while we were laughing Mr. Morris turned toward me and said in his peculiar sotto voce, a way he has of saying things to me without moving his lips and with perfectly expressionless face, so that any one sitting near and looking directly at him would not know that he was speaking : "How superb you are to-night! You 130 THE WAY OF THE FOOL should always wear that exquisite shade of Conversation gray ; it just matches your eyes and hair as f w two your pink roses match your cheeks. I am sure I shall write a poem myself on < My Lady Gray-gown/ " And while I was listening to this absurd talk, I felt myself blush and I felt as fluttery as if I had been sixteen. Meanwhile I appre- ciated fully just the kind of idiot I was. Oh, dear ! I sometimes feel as if I had enough of Life's irony on hand to create a trust ! Between the plays, Tom, who had escorted Ma Belle, came over to visit us and sat for a moment on the railing of our loge in my im- mediate vicinity. "Do you know that you are sitting on the brink ? " I asked with severity. "If you fall Several kinds over, you will be drowned in that sea of humanity." "Don't trouble yourself, I can swim in that sea all right. My real danger lies in carefully sitting on the brink, a far more dangerous pastime than falling over." "Why do you talk enigmas to me who never guessed one in my life? " I asked obtusely. 131 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "Ah, Marian, are n't you ashamed to wrest compliments from me by unfairly pushing me when you see me sitting on the brink? To be explicit, you are looking so particularly radiant to-night, that " "That will do/' I interrupted, "I shall pon- der the matter and perhaps I may be able to guess the reason for such unprecedented re- marks." "No, you will never guess j for, Madam Very, very Marian, you are very, very stupid." And stupid nen i W ondered what he did mean. The last play of the evening was Madelaine, a strong presentation of the old, old story she loving so much that she must weep and upbraid, and he be bored thereby ; a story that has been played over and over since the creation of the first man and woman. For do -j ou know it, little god, man loves to fight and do strong, physically aggressive things for a woman, but he does not want her When she "wopsed" around him, tangling his feet, and loves too hindering his arms meanwhile. And yet, a much true woman was never yet born who did not have it in her to passionately desire to 132 THE WAY OF THE FOOL tangle and hinder the man she loves. Why is this so ? You nor all your fellow gods could not tell. And it is a wise woman who guards carefully that tendency in herself without asking counsel of either gods or men. No one can be powerful and masterful when really in love ; it somehow sweeps out A dangerous the foundations from under one's feet, leaving s P eculation nothing to stand on. I wonder how it would seem to be married to a man and not love him so much but that I could make life inter- esting every day ; to be able to give him the constant impression that however much he already had of me, it was but a small part of ' what there remained to attain, and in all ways give over my energies to beguiling him. Fascinating vista, that ! I am almost afraid that I shall try it. I wish you would give me a little advice for the strengthening of my vertebral column; it is so limp that it manifestly needs starch. What a delightful idea ! A backbone freshly laundered ! After the play we all felt downcast, and The Mr. Morris proposed that we "get the taste staurant waiter's hero out of our mouths " by a supper at Trascati's j 133 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL and at our urgent invitation Ma Belle and Tom joined us. We found a screened alcove in the gay little restaurant which gave us a happy sense of privacy. It was a pleasure to me to witness the skill with which Mr. Morris ordered the supper skill that obvi- ously made a mighty impression upon the waiter. Probably it is more difficult to be a hero to a restaurant waiter these days, than to one's own valet. I thought I had never seen both Ma Belle and Hilda so beautiful. Ma Belle wore a bodice of wine- colored velvet and some hand- some old lace ; her dark, expressive eyes were full of scintillations and so was her wit. Hilda's gown was of pale -blue, fluffy material which made her head look like that of a rosy cherub over a blue cloud. The expression of her big blue eyes was more than usually innocent and guileless and I predicted trouble ahead. Ma Belle was indignant at having had her feelings lacerated by the play, and said: "I detest these social plays. If we must have tragedy let us have the real thing, like 134 THE WAY OF THE FOOL Julius Caesar, where we would feel hurt if the play did not end with the stage heaped high The only with the murdered and the dead. The only le o itimate tragedy legitimate fool on the stage is a Touchstone or a Costard. I object to all others, and I especially object to this Madelaine because she was so drearily real." "Let 7 s have a round-table on the interest- ing subject of fools," suggested Joe, "we can A round-table drown the pangs of hunger by telling about all the kinds of fools there are. Gee, I wish my rhetoric Prof, could hear that sentence, drown the pangs ! Tante Belle you begin and tell us what constitutes a fool." "A fool," answered Ma Belle, "is a person who takes infinite pains to do something which neither he nor anybody else wishes to have done. A fool builds his mills on the theory that water runs up hill instead of down." "It seems to me, the difference between a wise person and a foolish one is that Two ways of when the former meets with the inevitable, meetin 9^e inevitable he turns his back upon it and looks in the opposite direction ; while the latter always 135 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL kicks it hard and then says 'damn' because it hurt his foot/ 7 said Tom. Mr. Morris toyed thoughtfully with his fork and then said smoothly : "A fool is constantly aware of the pain in Unexpected his own heart ; the wise feel only the pain in anatomical the h ea rts of others. That is, a fool may help knowledge others, but cannot help himself." We were all silent for a moment ; we were rather stunned, I suspect, to discover that this man knew any- thing about hearts and their troubles. Hilda relieved the situation by declaring impress- ively : "A fool does not count his steps as he as- The step that cends life's dark stairway, and he only knows is n't there wiL en he reaches the top, by the jar that comes from trying to ascend a step which is n't there." "That is a description of an optimist," I objected. " You tell us what an optimist is, Madam Lee," said Mr. Morris. A successful "Oh, an optimist is one who is always try- -[ n g O ma k e apple-sauce out of the apples of 136 THE WAY OF THE FOOL Sodom," answered Ma Belle with a smile. "Marian is a good example." "Joe, you have not yet defined a fool," said I, trying to distract the attention from my optimism. "A fool spends so much time making his living that he has no time to live." Joe's air of superiority as he delivered this made us all laugh. Then Mr. Morris turned to me, "Mrs. Lee, I am curious to know what your definition is of this most interesting species which we are discussing." I looked him straight in the eyes as I said : "I agree with Ma Belle, a fool does things she does not wish to do, just because she is a Food for fool," and I thought if he understood me as "ft***** well as he pretended to he might find food for reflection in my remark. "After all these definitions, almost am I persuaded to be a fool," he answered gaily. Ma Belle laughed and said : "I hold that one owes it to one's self to be a The debt to fool now and then, but one surely owes it to sel f and to society society not to act like one." 137 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "It is the wise who are glad when the oys- ters are served," said Tom, dryly, as the waiter appeared. "While we were still at table, the clock struck for midnight, and Tom asked thoughtfully, "Will some one please tell me whether mid- night belongs to the day before or the day after?" "It is the time divide," said Hilda, "on one Midnight the side of it flows the stream of yesterday, on time divide the other the brook of to-morrow." "Not always," ventured I, "for sometimes it brings reminiscences and philosophizing over the day passed, and then it is a part of yesterday j and sometimes it brings vows for future improvement, which annexes it to the morrow." "Yes," agreed Tom," it depends upon the notch of the clock where we begin to tear the days apart." "It is not the clock but sleep that separates our days," said Mr. Morris. "Then insomnia would make life one long Hilda's day," pertly remarked Hilda. He answered insomnia witll pos itiveness : 138 THE WAY OF THE FOOL "You never had insomnia, Miss Vincent, how do you know ? " Hilda opened her inno- cent eyes at their widest and said : "How little you understand me, Mr. Mor- ris, I never by any chance sleep ; I lie awake every night meditating on how farther to pur- sue the primrose path of joy." "Then it is not your sins which keep you awake ! " he asked lamely. "Not the sins I have committed, but those I hope to commit," murmured Hilda sweetly $ he looked at her keenly, and I wondered what he would do if she should really unsheath her claws for his edification. Tom said smilingly : "An interesting vista, that ; won't you please tell us the very worst sin you ever were guilty of? " "Murdered little children for the corals on their necks," promptly responded Hilda. "The very first time that I ever saw you I recognized you as Gentle Alice Brown," de- Tlic Bab clared Mr. Morris, impressively. Ma Belle Ballads in *" porcelain box and I exchanged glances ; the porcelain box evidently contained the Bab Ballads among other surprising things. 139 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL As the four of us drove home we let Hilda out first. While we waited for Joe to return from escorting her to the door, Mr. Morris took the seat that she had vacated at my side, and said, with quite appalling tenderness : " My lady, you have made me very happy to-night." "You have great powers for concealing A deceptive your feelings. I should never have suspected calm j^j. vou were an i m ated by anything save your natural calm," was my supercilious reply. " What would you have me do, pipe on a An obvious reed and dance like a faun when I am happy ? indiscretion Natural calm j Natural and perpetual tur- moil rather ! I fear my lady has made little progress in understanding me. I have never experienced a day of calm since I was born that I can remember." There was a note of despondency in his voice as he said this which touched me, and as we heard Joe's approaching footsteps I did a per- fectly insane thing I for one brief second let my hand rest upon his j and I believe that 140 THE WAY OF THE FOOL he understood that it was an act of contrition. I am perfectly well aware that my attitude toward him is perverse and often unjust, but how can I help it ! When we arrived at our gate, Joe stopped to pay the cabman, and Mr. Morris went The man with me to the door, helping me skilfully lcnows up the steps by holding my arm, although I was wrapped in a swathing cocoon of opera cloak. How is it that some men know how to do all those things which add to a woman's comfort, and some others just as good and just as tender are so helpless and awkward ? Perhaps the skill comes from much practice ? Perish the thought ! In that case a woman might prefer the unskilful. " >T is a poor thing, but mine own," is the creed feminine. However, I am not feminine in this respect ; I like the man who knows. If he has spent his life in the practice which makes perfect, then will I gladly avail myself of the fruits thereof, nor spend my energies speculating on how many teachers he may hay* had. When my Sir Gallant bade me good night, he 141 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL kissed my hand, though, of course I wore a glove. I have just been examining the glove to see if there were holes burned in it. Come to think of it, you Poor Heathen, you A Uss do not know what a kiss is ! How I am to explained enlighten your oriental intelligence on this point without kissing you, I fail to see. A kiss is an invention of mortals so that they should never be envious of the gods. It is a compensation for having to live in this " vale of tears." It is the divine seal set upon human lips, and there is no revealing what it covers. It is the focal point of the physical and the spiritual j yet, like all the gifts of mortals it has been dragged into the mire and the commonplace. All mankind's be- longings, like water, seem to seek the lowest level, ah me I 142 CHAPTER XIII CHRISTMAS, A WALK WITH TOM AND AN AN- NUAL SETTLEMENT WITH THE FATES I confess that I have retained the attitude of a child about this day j Differing I look forward to it with breathlessly joyful views f . , Christmas expectation ; and any Christmas present how- ever worthless intrinsically, or embarrassing in its uselessness is, to me, a source of true delight, and I spend the day in gloating. I enjoy the preceding weeks of making and buying things, as Hilda says, to put people under obligations to me, and make them " go staggering on a whole year under the burden/* Hilda does not take my view of Christmas ; she said yesterday : " I should like to abolish the whole cycle of presentations ; the only thing I really enjoy about Christmas is getting the letters, which mostly do not come because my friends have been busy making 143 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL useless and futile presents instead of writing them." I imagine that if the Christmas cele- bration had been kept spiritual instead of physical in its manifestations, it would have been better for most " grown-ups." And yet Christmas is the only instance in this matter- of-fact land of a child holiday carried over into all ages. I did have one little mental struggle this Courage year while planning my gifts : I could not make U P mv mind whether I should send Theodore Morris a present or not. I was certain that he would send me something in a way that I could not refuse without making myself disagreeable, and I haven't moral courage enough to bring myself to be dis- agreeable, no matter what happens. I solved my problem by sending T. M. a Mosher book. Heaven bless Mr. Mosher for making pretty and unusual books \ He has thereby helped me out of many a dilemma. The book I sent was The Kaziddhj of Sir Kichard Burton, which seemed sufficiently impersonal for the situation. As I feared, a present came from the young man and of course it was very per* 144 CHRISTMAS sonal a gray fan, exquisite enough for a fairy princess; with it came a card bearing A fan with a the inscription, " A fan for My Lady Gray- messa 9 e gown ; may it keep her brow cool and her heart warm for the giver." I thought as I gazed at the dainty web that what I needed most was sure aid in keeping my head cool in my relations with the giver. This evening I received a special delivery letter from New York, where he has gone for the holidays, and it says : ff Dear My Lady, thank you for this little volume so beautiful without, and so philosophic within. It came just as I started and has been the com- panion of my journey. "I have been so happy all day that I had small need of philosophy, so I have been reveling in the beauty of the verse. I gazed out of the window, and watched the river, turbid but luminous like amber ; and the white sycamores along its banka joined hands, and danced for me stately minuets against a moving curtain painted with dull blue hills and sodden skies. "All day long, whether reading or looking out of the window, I have dreamed of My Lady, and have murmured over and over : 145 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL 'All other life is living Death, A world where none but Phantoms dwell, A wind, a sound, a voice, a breath, A tinkling of a camel bell. 7 Yours " T. M." Oh, you prescient bit of wood, will you tell " The tinkling me whether it is T. M. who is listening to the f ^ ieil tinklin S of the camel bell > or is it; ^ or mayhap both ? After I had read this letter twice, I longed for a spot in a desert without a caravan, a camel, or even a coyote between me and the horizon. To turn to a more agreeable topic, Tom The giver of sent me a beautifully illustrated edition of "Waiden" Walden. That was just like Tom; there is nothing hectic or feverish about him or his relations to people ; he is devoted to Thoreau, the man who said " I could tame a hyena more easily than my friend." Nice Christmas day! DECEMBER 26TH : It has snowed all day great, feathery, lazy flakes, which did not seem to care whether they were coming from 140 CHRISTMAS or going to the skies. Hilda spent the morn- ing with me, and it is a great pity that you A disturbing were unable to hear all that we said. We let reticence the years lapse and were girls together, and nothing in the world below or the heavens above was safe from us, our interests and opinions. Once I said to Hilda tentatively, " What do you think of Mr. Morris ? " " Mr. Morris ! Why, I have n't thought much about him," quoth the provoking Hilda, and the conversation lagged. This reticence on Hilda's part seems to me portentous and makes me uneasy. She may suspect the truth, but I doubt it 5 she is far more likely to suspect that I am trying to get her interested in him. This afternoon Tom telephoned me that he was coming at three o'clock to take me for a A snowy walk walk. That is just like Tom ; no one else would have thought of taking me to walk on such a day. I was ready in short dress and high gaiters when he came, and we walked up the river path through a world carved from crystal. The white hills were crowned and girdled with purple forests, pale purple now 147 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL behind the bridal veil which obscured them. Achieving the Strange how every shadow in a snowy land- purples sca p e i s purple ! It is a fine thing to be able to see the purple in the shadows, little god ; when one has achieved the purples, one is then ready to live. The weeds by the roadside were so covered The ice- that they made strange towers and minarets, bound brook as if thev were temp i es f rom your Orient wrought in alabaster instead of ivory. The wily hemlocks had drooped their arms and let slide the snow burden which the helpless pines still bore in tufts on each individual tassel. As we climbed the hill, we ventured down the soft cushioned bank to the rift made by the brook, and we heard it tinkle con- tentedly beneath its snow-weighted roof. Did you ever break the ice on a still pool, and see the strange figures that decorate the ceil- ing of the brook's temple f As a child, I be- lieved that these frescoes were wrought by naiads, but now I know better, and I said as we listened : "The reason why the brook is so happy is that it sings the song of joyful achievement 148 CHRISTMAS while it works." We noted that a vireo's nest neatly hung in a beech sapling was the base of a column of snow, and Tom said : "That is a cold burden for a nest once kept Tlie winter warm by a mother's breast." nest "It is soft and white and not too heavy j better be that way than to be empty," I answered. "What do you know about it," he asked rather sternly. "Nothing, I was only making entertaining conversation." "Marian Lee, you are sometimes most con- foundedly flippant, do you realize it? " "Let 's forget we are grown up, and have fun ; let 's hold hands and run down hill ! " pleaded I. "Let's," he shouted, and suiting the action to the word, down we came through the soft snow and involuntarily sat in the great drift at the bottom, breathless and laughing When we came to the main road we brushed each other off so as to look as decorous as possible when we returned. As Tom left me he said with his most winning smile : 149 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "Nice little girl, will you go sleigh-riding A nice time with me pretty soon? " "Nice old boy, I will." I feel rather hazy about your knowledge of snowj do they have beautiful, cozy snow- storms in Japan? If so, there is no need to tell you that they are the most wonderful things that ever happened. JANUARY IST : On this day I always square The Fates accounts with the Fates, those "subtle girls" are "subtle ^ Henley calls them> I WO nder which of the girls" three is the most difficult to deal with ! I rather like Clotho, with her spinning, even if she does give me a tangled skein ; and I have no quarrel with Lachesis, though she is a roue, a gambler and a cheat, tossing loaded dice to cast the lots of men. But Atropos, the Inevitable, is the one against whom I rebel ; she is always sitting there with her shears ready to snip the threads just as they become most interesting. The other Fates are the givers of gifts, even though the same be of doubtful value ; but dreary old Atropos takes away ; she is the end the blank, dead end of things. Well, I fear it is a fact that during the past 150 CHEISTMAS twelve months I have learned some brand- new and quite undesirable facts about my- obliged to self, and if you do not know what they are take tlie cue I shall not tell you. It has always been my faulty way to "make believe" that I am whatever it suits circumstances to make me. The moment that some chance happening gives me the cue, I dash madly on to the stage, and seem to have no choice, but must play the part allotted to me whether it is really mine or not. Too often am I swept on and on without volition, a leaf on the stream of circumstance. The But I accept the fact with less regret than safeguard of indifference formerly. Maybe it is because I have be- come hardened by witnessing the performance so often ; and maybe it is because of an in- difference which may be the precursor of reformation. If one looks with apathy upon the result of an action, one may hope to look with apathy upon the reason for the action. Only the most beautiful road tempts the feet to wander into by-ways leading over green meadows and hills. But when in the desert, there is no incentive to go out of the straight and narrow trail. 151 CHAPTER XIV MA BELLE, HILDA AND TOM COME TO DINE, AND THEODORE MORRIS MAKES A MORNING CALL DECEMBER 29TH : The Mother Beautiful . ..... and Tom and Hilda were here to dinner pursuit of j-kig even j n g. M a Belle seems tired : any happiness guaranteed shadow on her face troubles me, for I do not know what I should do if I did not have her. She was as delightful as ever in her talk ; when we wished her a happy new year, she said : "The constitution of the United States does not guarantee us the right of happiness, but the right to the pursuit of happiness instead, and I am still in keen pursuit, thank you." " Were Washington and Jefferson then subtle jokers, and did they know that the pursuit is far more interesting than the ful- filment? " asked father. "You bet, I am going on the warpath for 152 A DINNER PARTY AND A CALLER it this year and I '11 snatch a whole bunch, see if I don't," declared Joe, in college vernac- ular. "Don't aim too high," cautioned Tom. " Each one starts out believing that he is on his own private trail for happiness, but he We all belong belongs to the procession just the same." to the procession added father. "Yes," agreed Ma Belle, "can and must are high fences, and the whole herd is driven between them ; if an individual thinks he is an exception and tries to force his way through a broken panel anywhere, he is a pig and delays the progress of the herd and has to amble on eventually, all the more tired because of his break for freedom." "True," mused father, "the individual seems of little consequence in the great Firing the scheme, except perhaps as a cog in the wheel en ff ine f progress of development ; or, to change the metaphor, he may be a bit of fuel thrust into the fire- box of the engine of progress." "Optimist ! " ejaculated Ma Belle, and we all laughed. "Anyway," said father, turning to Joe, "the individual who thinks his happiness 153 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL is the end and aim of creation is likely to be surprised soon or late." "I 'm that individual all right, Pater, let the surprise come. Hoop-la !" replied Joe. "Ma Belle, what makes you look so tired to-night V I asked solicitously. "I am tired ; I spent the morning address- The hidden ing the envelopes for the invitations to my wheels of reception< AH t h e t j me i was doing it I social functions thought, 'such a waste of good, precious stamps' ; for when they who receive these in- vitations which cost me mental anguish, sticky fingers and four cents each, read them they will say ' Humph ! ? It is the way of the world social : one half spends its time, strength and money doing things for the other half which make it exclaim ' Humph ! ' and then the other half feels it necessary to return the com- plimentary with like results." "That may be true of other people's recep- tions, but not of yours, Mrs. Lee," declared Hilda. "The special use of such functions is a sub- ject for prayerful reflection," rejoined Ma Belle j "usually, the giving or attending them 154 A DINNER PARTY AND A CALLER results in a tedium that makes us sing Te Deum when they are over. I never give a Tedium then reception without wishing for the power of 6 Deum the lower animals to reproduce lost parts, so that I could divide myself into at least six sections, and let each one develop into a com- plete individual j then there might be enough of me to meet the necessities of the occasion." "There could never be too many of you, Tante Belle," said Joe, who is a devoted knight of Ma Belle's. "I think I would rather there were only one of you, Madam Lee," avowed Tom with unction, and she flushed a little at the compli ment. "I know exactly what you mean, Mrs. Lee," said Hilda, "at the end of such a func- tion the hostess knows just how an orange ought to feel when it is separated into sec- tionsthat is, naturally enough divided, but helplessly scattered." "One always wonders what he is going to talk about at a reception," sighed father. "Conversation substance, like manna, seems Manna for to come by miracle," answered Hilda. conversation 155 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " And occasionally the miracle is not a miraculous success," ventured I. " The whole social outfit is a regular fencing match," declared Joe, and I knew he was thinking of Millie. " In that case it is a pity that the fencing rules do not obtain so that when we are hit we might put a finger on the spot and cry, Houche' or <pass6' or <trop bas!" added Tom sympathetically. " It is a game without rules and without A game umpire," responded Joe feelingly, and Tom without rules cont i nu ed: " The true skill of the game lies in experi- encing and ignoring." " Surely," said I, " it is far easier to ignore than to raise one's voice and howl, is n't it ? " " Yes," said Tom, " and it sometimes requires more bravery to run away than it does to stay and fight." Tiie people "People with a sense of humor have no with a sense Business to get into the social world," declared of humor Ma Belle. " True," added father, " the people without a sense of humor are the happiest and there- 153 A DINNER PARTY AND A CALLER fore better fitted for association with their kind." " The compensation of those who have a sense of humor lies in a special devel- opment of the vertebral column which enables them to bear unhappiness with keener zest than the matter-of-fact experience in happi- ness," remarked Hilda, and I said with some severity : " Hilda, I am sure you have cultivated your humorous vertebrae to that extent that they wag you." " There be those whom I will refrain from mentioning who have beautiful, long, graceful A vertebral Watteau plaits instead of backbones," she Watteau plait replied, and I had to join the laugh. " My poor amiability is a target for all my friends to try their skill upon," I exclaimed ruefully. " Little skill is required, dear," said Hilda as she put a loving arm around my waist, "your amiability envelopes us all like a mantle of charity, and we love to cuddle down in it even if we do abuse it." " Daughter, I could not manage my recep- 157 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL tion at all without you there to pour oil on the An cosy creaking axles," and Ma Belle looked affec- person tj ona tely at me as she said it. "On judgment day you will be able to say, ( O Judge, I have been mighty easy for your earthly creatures to get along with, and there must be place in the heavenly machinery for lubricator as well as for cranks.' " " Mamie is n't so dead easy as you all seem Flinty inside to think," declared Joe feelingly, " you would sing a different tune if she had brought you-all up. She is flinty inside though she appears so soft and cushiony, I can tell you that right now." Father looked at Joe with a twinkle of mischief in his eye, and said : " Did I not hear you say the other day, my son, in the presence of a certain young person, that when you married you were going to marry a woman who rested you. You had best be careful, now that you know pillows may be filled with other things than down." " By jingo ! I would rather marry a buzz- Jofg choice saw than a feather bed any day," was Joe's rather belligerent answer ; then feeling that 158 A DINNER PAKTY AND A CALLER he had perhaps cast some reflections upon me, he added, "Mamie, you are an angel, even if you are not a down-pillow, and an angel is a darn fine person to have around." " If all of you do not stop teasing me, I will take my dolls and leave," I complained. " Dont ! " pleaded Tom, " Stay, and I will be an angel too, so you wont be so lonesome." Now, Image with long sagacious ears, I must confess to you that I was teased by this con- Naive human versation. I know I enjoy being praised, yet wa * ttr<? praise slides off me like water from the back of the traditional duck. My faults and my virtues are dovetailed together so perfectly that a coat of blame or praise spread upon me is likely to be applied to the wrong spot and no one realizes the fact as keenly as I do. But this is also true the less I believe in myself, the more I long to have others believe in me. Human nature is so naive ! Con- sciousness of failure does not prevent us from feeling that we ought to have all the per- quisites of success. Tell me, is it a subject 159 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL for laughter or tears, this unreasonable human nature which is so absurd ? But how can you know, since you are merely a god ! JANUARY 3RD : Good evening, Wooden Ser- The dynamics enity, how are you to-night ? As for me, of crossness my day began stupid but j redeemed it to wickedness. It was a day of cross-purposes and has a cross lady at the end of it. Cross- ness is a queer emotion ; it is like a real force within one which explodes j it is as if one's nerves were all tied in hard knots and then suddenly loosed. Queer creatures, we mortals, each one of us just a colony of nerves which may go on a strike at any moment. Believe me, there are some advantages in being com- posed of placid teak- wood. Theodore Morris arrived in town at eight A gift of the this morning and at ten he was calling on gods me. Well is he named Theodore, for he is surely a gift of the gods j it is the only pos- sible way to explain him. He came forward to meet me as I entered the room, took both my hands and my only safety lay in looking distinctly non-kissable. 160 A DINNER PARTY AND A CALLER He certainly does feel and reflect my moods with startling readiness. But some day his strong individuality will rise up and overflow my moods as a river its banks ; I know it ! He drew up two easy chairs in front of the fire j seating me in one, he stretched out luxuriously in the other. " My lady, you are looking fine this morn- ing j you are like an oriental princess in that crimson embroidered creation you are wear- ing." " Did you ever hear of an oriental princess who had gray locks and was forty years old? " I asked rather acidly. " Oh, there are certain advantages pos- sessed by oriental princesses of which we may not have heard," he answered smoothly. I was silent and looked steadily into the fire and he asked : " Of what are you thinking ? " " I never think any more j the longer one lives the thicker come the brickbats of ex- why we may perience about one's ears and one is obliged not think to keep dodging and stop thinking." " My lady is a pessimist this morning." 161 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " Some one says that a pessimist is one who has seen an optimist," returned I pointedly. " Look at me well, then, for I am he ; I am happy and as serene as a June sky." " How have you achieved it ? " " Oh, it is a plan. I go about the world like a waiter in a dining-car with my feet wide apart to guard against an upset. I make my base unnaturally broad so as to stand the jar and not lose my balance nor spill over, whatever happens." " So that is your philosophy of life ! " " No, I have n't any. A philosophy of life A philosophy is like a bicycle ; it goes well on the level and of life like a down hm and oyer d roads but with the Ucycle up-hill and the mud, one must needs get off and push. However, one does not need a philosophy in heaven, where I am this morn- ing." " I see no golden streets, and hear no harp- strings vibrating," I returned perversely. " Why should the two senses of sight and hearing persist in the next world, and the senses of touch, taste and smell be lost ? " " Because the two former take us outside 162 A DINNER PAETY AND A CALLER of ourselves and the latter keep us within ourselves." " Happy thought, dear lady, but why not picture heaven as a place of soft fabrics, The senses velvety and satiny textures and downy cush- needed in heaven ions; and also a place of delectable viands and above all, of enrapturing odors, helio- trope, violet and rose. Why, the fragrance of English violets takes me out of myself as much as does a Beethoven sonata; and to touch your garment is heaven for me," he laid his finger on my sleeve ; and I was silent, pondering on this utterly inexplicable power of another personality to touch and awaken unsuspected sides of one's nature. " It is all a dream," I answered. Ji I have worked hard for this wide-awake world, and it owes me at least a dream," he only the said softly as his hand clasped mine. " I re- member that some one has said that only the tangible is frangible, the impalpable abides." We heard Hilda's voice outside; his hand slid off mine like smoke, and he arose alert and courtly to greet her. Though I was in a state of inner embarrassment I knew 163 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL I was calm in appearance, and greeted her placidly. It is my way to be calm on the crust when I am seething beneath. "Why are you two cooped up here this morning, when the outside world is so glorious!" she asked breezily. "We are loafing. What have you been doing these two days ! " I asked. *Me ! I have been busy getting back into things again and I have so many interests that I feel like this nice scorpion on your oriental rug, as if I had a claw hooked on each of the eight corners of the universe." "Her universe is an octagon," murmured An octagonal Mr. Morris, "and I could have sworn that it universe was square . "Thank you," replied Hilda, "four sides more than you divined. I am not surprised ! Well, yesterday I went to church to see Jeannie Harvey married." "A cheerful pastime j what did you think about during the ceremony ? " I asked. The new "I meditated on the futility of vows, and marriage concluded I should make the ritual say <I take thee, Jeannie, to be my wedded wife and 164 A DINNER PARTY AND A CALIER to get along with as best I can as long as I can.'" "My goodness ! " I ejaculated. "Do not be profane," warned Hilda. "There is so little of it that the oath is a mild one," I explained. "Often there is enough of it to swear at," she answered pointedly. "Please let my goodness rest and tell us what else you have been doing." "I am sure you have heard me say that I wished I were a Digger squaw, when the burden of being respectable became too onerous. Last night I was not respectable without the trouble of transmigrating, for I went to hear the 'Lord Trillions/ " "Rather light opera," laughed Mr. Morris. "Light-headed but not light-hearted j the music worthless, the dancing infamous, and Savagery the humor, horse-play. No real Digger squaw P r6 / cra6fe decadence could have been induced to sit through it. I am more sure than ever that when I take my final leave of respectability, I shall take to the woods and savagery rather than to the footlights and decadence." 165 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "You look fresh and happy this morning," suggested Mr. Morris admiringly. "That is because Joe chanced to overtake Joe in the me this morning when I was carrying a bas- rdle of j, e j. o f ea tables to poor Bridget Carnahan. Columbus Joe is always an inspiration to me ; no one encourages me in the path of virtue as he does. "Whenever he discovers me doing anything commendable, he is so pleased and enthusiastic that I feel as abashed as if I had never done a good deed before. Most of my friends take it for granted that I am likely to display cer- tain virtues, but he, never ! He discovers them anew every time ; Joe is the Columbus of my virtues." "I thought I was the Columbus of your virtues, because I make them stand on end by making them boil," said I. Sterilized "Boiling virtues must sterilize them," re- virtues mar k e( i Mr. Morris thoughtfully. "Go a step farther and make them anti- septic. What a safe and attractive place this world would be if it were the abode of anti- septic virtues," quoth Hilda. "Virtue is mostly inertia," said Mr. Morris. 166 A DINNER PARTY AND A CALLER "So is vice," I added. "Virtue is commendable when it is worn inside, like the pearl in the oyster, and not on the outside like the quills on the fretful porcupine," adjured Hilda. "Many a time have I been impaled there- on," I murmured. "It was your just deserts; you are so soft that impalement is inevitable," said Hilda looking at me affectionately. "Miss Vincent, when shall we give Mrs. Lee another concert? I have not touched my His hear fa heart's desire for three weeks, and I long to desire have it in my hands again." "How fortunate to be able to buy one's heart's desire at any price ! " exclaimed Hilda. "Mine cost me more than I was willing to pay, for it belonged to my old teacher, Herr Stainer, and I purchased it from his heirs. Half the happiness of owning it was lost be- cause he was gone." "The world drives hard bargains," said Hilda with unexpected sympathy. " Strange, is it not," said I, " how happiness Tlie relativity is meted out to us by making us choose be- f ha PP iness 167 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL tween the greater and lesser hurts. Joy never seems to be perfect ; it is joy simply by con- trast." " I refuse to listen to such cynical remarks," said the gentleman, rising to go, " I fear if I stay I shall become inoculated," and he bade us a cheerful farewell. But was n't it a queer conversation? 168 CHAPTER XV A SOCIAL FUNCTION WHICH WAS TRULY SOCIAL JANUARY 10TH : It is 1 o'clock A.M. and the bell in the tower is telling it abroad Ma Belle's over the starlit valley. There are receptions rece P twn and receptions, oh, hand-carved god ! Ma Belle's belong to the latter class and all others to the former. Ma Belle knows how to get inter- esting people ont and how to make uninterest- ing people interesting. Although it is so late, I am too excited to sleep. My thoughts and feelings seem to be whirling around many storm centers like a compound cyclone ; so I think I will tell you all about Ma Belle's re- ception, and perhaps that will make me sleepy, especially if you look weary and bored. You should have seen Ma Belle to-night and her house too, for then you could better Tfie manage- understand what I have to tell you about this ment f trains wonderful party. Ma Belle was clad in a 169 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL creamy velvet robe that trailed after her tall The ideal and almost girlishly slender form as if it loved hostess t(X g ome W0 men just haul their trains after them by brute force ; while others wear trains which flow after them with the sinuous grace- fulness of a stream gladly flowing seaward. Ma Belle wears the latter kind always. To-night the rich old lace on her corsage was the back- ground for one large, perfect, pale-pink rose. Her beautiful white hair was crowned with a wide comb of delicately wrought silver. Her cheeks were flushed and her dark eyes ablaze with excitement. Oh yes, Ma Belle has some wrinkles in her face, since you are so impolite as to ask ; but they are of the right sort sim- ply the delicate outlines of character. If she had one wrinkle less, she would be so much the less beautiful. No other woman present could compare with her in attractiveness. When she greeted people, she said some little word that made each guest feel received. Ma Belle is like a diamond, she has a different facet to sparkle under the ray of every indi- vidual she meets. Ma Belle's is the most interesting house that 170 A TRULY SOCIAL FUNCTION I was ever in. It is a long, low house on a hill, and consists of a series of large, comfort- TJw ideal able, homey rooms. There is no library in 1louse it, but there are fire-places with great com- fortable chairs in front of them ; and books are scattered over the house, almost every corner affording place for a bookshelf cun- ningly contrived to entice the book lover. Ma Belle says she would not dream of segre- gating her books in one room any more than she would her friends. She says that books do not like to have other incompatible books Incompatible in their neighborhood, and that she can volumes imagine the suffering that would result from placing Kipling by the side of Matthew Arnold, or Stevenson by Jane Austen j she says that most libraries impress her with an atmosphere of mute endurance. Thus it hap- pens that in Ma Belle's home there are con- genial books and congenial pictures, and here and there a piece of statuary, like the " Nar- cissus " and the "Winged Victory." It is quite impossible for any one to be stiff and formal in such a sympathetic atmosphere, and that is the reason, I think, why almost every one 171 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL I talked with, to-night said real, and interest- An ing things to me. No matter what sort of undesirable peop i e Ma Belle brings together, they never combination form that impossible combination which is like soup seasoned with tea, and which is too often encountered on the social menu. My first experience this evening was a walk An through the conservatory with Professor May- impersonal ^^ wllo is cu itured and thoughtful and has soulful eyes, and yet is impersonal to a degree that would make a disembodied ghost envious. As I grow older, I have a higher appreciation of impersonal attitudes and opinions. I am getting so that I can converse vivaciously with an idea whether it be male, female, or neuter, or whether it be on two legs or six. He was saying : " As the years go by we realize that life is so crowded that it is impossible to attain much development j most of our powers lie dormant because we do not have time to do ourselves justice. We are like < laboring 7 students, we have to spend so much time earn- ing the bread of life that we do not have 172 A TRULY SOCIAL FUNCTION time to study our lessons and make the bril- liant showing we ought." "Let us hope that the Recording Angel has a different marking system than we have," I A superior ventured comfortingly ; "we focus on the ex- *y stem f marking ceptional ; if we do our lessons very well or very badly, we think about these occasions with pride or shame ; but the greatest Teacher must take into account the average work, day by day, and let latent possibilities count for something. Any one can easily see that no life may be measured by its failures and still have excuse for existence. Failure is nega- Failure is tive and we should be judged by our positive achievements.' J "I grant you that, but a talent in a napkin is useless no matter who knows that it is there. My ideal of heaven is a place where there is time and incentive for us each to grow to full stature in every possibility. I always think of these things when I come to Madam Lee's, because it seems to me that she has achieved on earth all that I hope to in heaven." 173 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL He was right. That defines Ma Belle per- fectlyshe is the woman who has achieved. My next encounter was with Marvin Gray, Occidental a keen, placid and most handsome Quaker, a placidity f r i en d o f Ma Belle from childhood. You do not know what I mean by Quaker do you? "Well, a Quaker is the embodiment of occi- dental instead of oriental placidity a person who reckons with the fates and refuses to be disturbed by the results. Not a stoic, nay, nay ! A stoic is one who says when his heart aches, "Let it ache ! " and endures. A Quaker says, "I will regard only the spirit ; I will flow around the obstacles in my path like water, always obeying the inner, divine man- date, and not waste my strength in useless rebellion, but use all experience for growth in Marvin Gray, grace." I have always enjoyed Marvin Gray Quaker because his presence enfolds me like a mantle of rest; and he talks to me in the sweet "plain" language which my mother used. I greeted him with : "I have not seen thee until now to wish thee a happy new year ; may the coming year bring thee fulfilment of thy dearest wish," 174 A TKTILY SOCIAL FUNCTION "Thee should have made certain about the nature of the wish before thee said that," he Fulfilment returned in a sweet and resonant voice. "I death to aspiration do not believe it would be good for any one to get his dearest wish. I shall wish more wisely for thee : May thy dearest wish ever keep thy heart warm and hopeful by never being fulfilled. Fulfilment is death to a wish, and I would keep thy dearest wish in the blossom stage, a source of interest and in- spiration for a long time before it reaches fru- ition." "I am afraid thee thinks that small crops are all I deserve ; too many of my wishes are all petals and no fruit," I answered ruefully. "Thee is not yet old enough to appreciate the value of wishes unfulfilled," said he, a The secret of sweet smile breaking the firm contour of his a life lips. "It is only while we are longing for what may not be that we can live close to humanity and still keep our sympathies fresh for our fellow men." I looked up into the depths of his calm gray eyes and wondered if that had been the secret of his own noble life of helpfulness. 175 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL We were interrupted and I passed on conscious of an inner glow, as if his sunshine had ripened the side of me that was turned toward him. Next there fell to my lot a callow psycholo- The murky gist who was not a very promising social ob- depths of the . t j p^hed to the straits of shocking thought of J ages him by declaring myself an apostle of medi- ocrity. He evidently considered himself so unusual that my words were nothing less than heresy. While I was enjoying his discomfi- ture, Dr. McGregor joined us, and my com- panion turned with relief and evident rever- ence to the head of his department. Dr. McGregor is really a great manj and I have always thought it a pity that he should be sailing his boat on philosophy's stagnant pool where his own thinking must ever be mir- rored in the murky depths of what others have thought. For he is a man to be out in the sea of positive action, buffeting wind and wave and all there is for a strong man to buffet ; but now his buffeting is all within himself, and his delicately lined face and rest- less eyes show it." "I am glad you have come," I exclaimed, 176 A TRULY SOCIAL FUNCTION "I hope you will help me to convince this young man of the true worth of the extra- The great ordinarily ordinary j and that there is very value f the little use for the exceptional in this old world- cushion ; help me to reveal to him the great value of mere stuffing." "No use ! Leave him to find the value of it after he realizes he is it, as all the rest of us have done. First we dream we are the 6 stuff/ and finally in raw humility learn to add the i ing.' Come with me, I want to show you something." As we passed on he continued, "You were wasting your breath ! And, my dear girl, you ought to realize that wisdom born of experience has in it the ring of cynicism when it is repeated for the edifi- cation of the innocent." "It is the only way to get even with the teacher," said I. "He irritated me ; and I am not a 'dear girl,' I am becoming truly aged, and this is the evidence of it : Once every human being was an object of breathless interest to me. Now I call some stupid, some tiresome and some with half-baked ideals, irritating." 177 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "Wait a little, if he willlive, lie must learn. Ideals a Too soon his ideals will cease their work as goad instead insp i ra tion and begin that of tormentors. of an inspiration Instead of leading him, they will get behind and goad him upward, making progress a pain instead of a joy." I made no answer, for Dr. McGregor always Perfect compliments my comprehension of him by frankness not talking to me ^^h an a pp a lli ng frankness. a perfect success And after such a bitter speech as that I al- ways feel that I would not be so frank even to the Lord in my prayers. No amount of sympathy or imagination can change ego to tu, and therefore absolute frankness is never a perfect success. He led me to the " Indian corner " of Ma A Buddha Belle's study. There is a luxurious divan from covere c[ with silk, embroidered with stripes of Mandalay barbarous yellow ; in front of it stretches a great tiger skin, the snarling jaws and cruel eyes of the mounted head rebelling openly against the peaceful service of a foot-stool. At the end of the divan is a book-case which I carved for Ma Belle with a design of ele- phant heads. On its shelves are various his- 178 A TRULY SOCIAL FUNCTION tories of India, books of oriental religions and philosophy, and a set of Kipling's writings, while on the top is a reclining Buddha carved in alabaster ; above him is suspended a pea- cock-feather punkah with its myriad eyes. "Help me to admire this Buddha," he commanded. "He came from Mandalay," I explained. "Look once at the graceful crudity of him and his gold embroidered toga and his elab- orate cap adorning his traditionally swollen head." "Yes, that extra head of Buddha's looks like a coiffure and Madam Lee is driven al- most wild by people who ask 'Who is she?'" "She, indeed I " he ejaculated in scorn. "Never she even though he has round cheeks A Nirvana and leans serenely his head upon his hand. smile That inscrutable smile and the mysterious eyes that see Mrvana prove him Buddha. He says as plainly as may be, 1 1 see all things as they are; and you, O mortals, know no more of what is than do the ants in yonder mound know of the movements of the stars. 7 " "He is made of alabaster j let me place a 179 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL light behind him and you will see that he is translucent/' exclaimed I, for I was very proud of this Buddha. The "To have a God one can see through, even advantage of dimly, must be a comfort." muttered the man translucent Dwmity at my side. Ma Belle says of Dr. McGregor that he thinks too much ; that he is like a horse fallen in the harness the only way to get him on his feet is to sit on his head ; that if he would only go out and work with a spade and pick- axe for a year he would be the sweetest and sanest of men. As I drifted away from Dr. McGregor I ISxerescent found myself consciously veering to the left erudition k ecause I saw Professor Plumb advancing at the right. Professor Plumb is regarded as a very learned man, but his learning is no real part of himself it is an abnormal growth ; and although I am somewhat facile in per- forming social feats, I never did feel at ease while conversing with an excrescence. So I steered my course toward a big man whose massive head, crowned with touseled curls, towered above the assemblage. He is 180 A TRULY SOCIAL FUNCTION Mr. Walton who lives on a great farm near our town. There is something about him that A child of is vigorous and virile and makes me always conscious that he is a man. He is on the most intimate terms with Mother Nature, so I touched his arm and said : " What are you doing in the madding crowd, you who belong out among the trees ? " " Wishing that men were trees," was the prompt reply. " And women ? " " Birds," he returned cheerfully. " Ducks or geese ? " I queried. " You are a bad lady, and if you are not careful, I will wish you into a blue jay." " Why ? " I remonstrated. " Because you have on such a heavenly blue gown and have such bad manners." " My gown is n't blue, it is gray." " It is just the bluish shimmering color that is on the blue jay's wing," he declared positively. " Egotist ! " I upbraided, "to set yourself up to judge of my manners." 181 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " Egotism is all right/ 7 he argued, " when it Obnoxious looks you square in the eye and refuses to egotism ] 3U ^g e> j^ j s obnoxious only when it is ram- pant self-conceit, or when it turns tail and sneaks off. The very worst of egotists are those whose egotism is always skulking around afraid of being kicked." I laughed appreci- atively, and said : "Let's not talk about folk; let's talk about trees instead. What news have you of them t " " The latest news I got from the mountain The latest yesterday ; there I observed that old hem- newsofthe } oc k s are hopeless pessimists and young trees hemlocks are cheerful optimists. I saw an old one and a young one standing side by side ; there was a dreary drooping of the boughs of the old one as if in memory of years of snow storms ; a sullen attitude as if the corners of its mouth were drawn down in stoical disbelief of the world. While the young one lifted its pretty branches eagerly upward, as if longing for all that the world can give, even of snow." " I told you to talk of trees, not men." 182 A TRULY SOCIAL FUNCTION " You are impertinent, Madam Blue Jay 5 I am telling the truth about trees ; because it happens to be a human truth also is not of the slightest moment to me." " Come over to the music room, I hear some singing/ 7 I urged. " Not I," he declared with disdain. " Music hath its charms to soothe the savage breast," I said warningly. " By that same token I am no savage/' he Not a savage answered with a laugh as he passed on. On the way to the music room I was stopped by Mr. Day, the artist, who is a most The artistic fascinating individual sympathetic, respon- tem P erament sive, impulsive and capricious a child in all things save experience. He is very depen- dent on his strong, serene wife ; and in some way the golden thread of her love has guided her through the maze of his infinite un- expectedness. " How is the last picture coming on f " I asked. " Nothing doing ! " he answered despon- dently. " What is the subject ? " 183 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " Oh, the same old landscape j I cannot do anything else. Life is like an echo cave j we stand at the entrance in glad youth and shout j and all that comes after is simply reverberation, echo after echo, each time fainter until the end is reached." " I judge from that remark that you have reached the crisis," I replied understandingly. " That is the worst of it j I am getting so Nonpareil that all of my crises are spelled in plain cnses non p are ii instead of italics or pica ; life is scarcely worth the trouble when one's crises are set up in nonpareil." " I know what is the matter with you," I cried, " the Lady Day has gone off for a visit." " Yes," he answered with a brilliant smile, " Annie Laurie is away, and I have arrived at that stage of dumb commonplaceness that I wrote her a letter this morning telling her I loved her, and blotted it, by Jove, with a blotter advertising royal salad dressing. Was n't that the limit ? " " She is a wonderful woman," I said with enthusiasm. 184 A TRULY SOCIAL FUNCTION " No words to describe her with ! Among her other qualities she is a natural gambler ; A charming the source and advent of the next dollar is to ff ambler her an occasion of perennial joy and interest. She is Helen of Troy and Pierpont Morgan combined." " With such a wife you do not need to make any resolutions for the new year/ 7 I said with an attempt at gaiety. But he re- fused to be cheered and went on : " Is n't it alarming how all our fine plans and promises to ourselves slip out of our grasp like a handful of sand the harder we hold it the more it sifts between the fingers ; the more tightly we grasp the more we feel it ooze, becoming less and less." " You are tired to-night," I said sooth- ingly. " That 's so," he acquiesced cheerfully, " I am tired and I long to rest for months with TJie futile use nothing to do except to trifle in pastels with oj?a head the colors of God's world and listen to Cleo- patra sing. If I could do that I should soon get my head back on my shoulders. Of late I have been doing my work with my hands 185 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL and meanwhile towing niy head around after me at the end of a string, which is a damn futile way to use a head. There, don't be shocked ! I have to swear once in a while ; and I might as well for I am bound eventu- ally to suffer the tortures of the wicked and what is even worse the oblivion of the unfit." " Wait until the Queen of Sheba returns and brings you back your pink spectacles." " Pink spectacles are made of the pigment The of red blood corpuscles, did you know that ? composition ^3 mv re ^ corpuscles have gone on a strike spectacles l eav i n g the white ones in possession, and that is why my world is all clay color." " Just like the wabbly clay marbles that I used to pat up, and which always cracked when I baked them," I murmured sympathetically. " By jingo ! you are almost as nice as the Compelling Czarina," he replied gratefully. Meanwhile music we ha^ b een pushing music-ward, and arrived in time to hear the last line of a song and the polite patter of applause which followed. Then I heard the tentative tuning of a violin, and when we gained sight of the piano there 186 A TRULY SOCIAL FUNCTION sat Hilda looking as pleasant as a May morn- ing, and Theodore Morris pointing at some- thing on the sheet of music before her with his bow 5 in a moment they broke with a fine swing into a Schubert sonata. So well they played that silence fell on the chattering assembly, a tribute not always paid to music at our receptions. " Who is that man?" asked Mr. Day, when the last strain of music had died away, leav- ing us all satisfied and silent before we remembered to spoil it all by applauding in our noisy American way. " His name is Morris, and he is a special friend of Joe's," I answered nonchalantly. " He looks too sleek to make such music j but, by Jove, he must have an artistic upset Internally inside, quite out of sight," declared he. We artistic were approached by Mrs. Durland, petite and vivacious. Mr. Walton says that when she cocks her little head on one side and looks at him, he always expects her to say, " chick- a-dee-dee." " Is n't that man a miracle ! " she asked, her bright eyes dancing. 187 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " Why a miracle f " exclaimed I. " I always maintained than nothing short of a miracle would make Hilda Vincent play in public, so it is evident that he is it." " I think my mamma-in-law is the miracle T}M origin of in this instance," I averred. the miracle u Don ? t be too sure j I never saw Hilda look so radiant as she does to-night," replied Mrs. Durland. " Dressed as she is in a soft white cloud, she looks like a blooming angel," mused the artist. Hilda was smiling back at all the con- gratulating people gathered around her, and was introducing Mr. Morris right and left ; and I could imagine his wholly empty and trite replies to their praises. As the twain came toward us, I stepped forward extend- ing a hand to each. "It was surely a great triumph, for you stilled the multitude," I said warmly. "I am so excited," replied Hilda, "that I Hilda's am meditating a concert tour j even now I can concert tour see mv h an a bni s twining around telephone poles and climbing board fences." "I hope you will take me along, Miss Vin- cent," said Mr. Morris, lackadaisically. 188 A TRULY SOCIAL FUNCTION "Oh, no, you are too dangerous a rival," cried Hilda, " all that applause was yours to- night. I could n't think of taking an eclipse along, it would n't be professional." Mr. Day and Mr. Morris talked together for a few moments while Hilda, Mrs. Durland and I chatted. Afterwards when Mr. Day passed on with me he asked : "Of what sort of stuff is that fiddler of yours made anyway?" "I have never tested his composition," I answered with conscious irritation. "Shall we go and get some litmus paper to see whether it turns blue or red in his vicinity? " "I should say he was made of asbestos and stuffed with ice," rejoined Mr. Day specula- Asbestos and tively. Then Mrs. Walton joined us j she is %CG a small lady with a most expressive face, and a tired little wrinkle between her languorous A sense of dark eyes. Mrs. Walton has a nestful of humor pleasing in a children, but we never get tired of hearing parent her tell about them, for she has a sense of humor as well as a sense of perspective which most parents seem to lack when talking about their children. So we hastened to ask her for the latest bit of news of her brood. 189 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "I do not know what to do with Gertrude," said she in a plaintive, child-like voice. "However bad she is, she never repents. She may be led to concede that she will never commit a particular sin again, but I think she is always glad that she committed it once ; she regards every naughty act as just that much treasure laid up in spite of fate and me. Yes- terday she and Dorothy were very naughty, and I placed each in a corner, face to the wall and told them to stand there until they felt repentant. Dorothy can always repent as soon as she is hurt, so she was soon free. But Gertrude remained obdurate until she swayed and tottered from standing so long j I felt sorry for her and thought I would help her by prompting her conscience into imme- diate activity, so I asked, ' Gertrude, do you not feel miserable ? ' i Nowhere 'cept in my legs/ promptly replied the hardened little sinner." There was a certain subdued quality in the laughter which followed this story. So many of us had experienced that sort of repentance ourselves. 190 CHAPTER XVI MENTAL AND PHYSICAL REFRESHMENTS JANUARY 10TH (Continued') : I saw Pro- fessor Wolcott coming toward me, smiling as ever. Professor Wolcott considers the world too infinitesimal to scowl at. When he reached me he proffered me his arm and said : "Come, Mrs. Lee, there are several delect- able things in the dining room that were fore- A delightful ordained from the beginning of the world escort to refresh you and me." I went with him gladly ; there is something about Professor Wolcott that touches the deeps, even if the conversation remains in the shallows. "I have not seen you for a long time," said I, "tell me the news of yourself, and how you are enjoying your work, and what you do for play, and all about everything." 191 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "Work is going very well," he answered, Well his fine face lighting up. "I have most satis- sculptured factory classes and though I dare not hope ignorance that I have set up within the minds of my pupils altars of enlightenment, yet I fondly believe that I have chiseled their ignorance into more picturesque forms and more inter- esting shapes." "Education for most of us, I fear, means erosion instead of building up," I answered with an appreciative laugh, "there is not much difference between teacher and pupil, between youth and age in that respect is there? Do you know of any differences be- tween youth and age in any respect, if so please tell me what they are ! " "One difference is that when we are young How age it seems difficult to really live anything, life differs from seems SQ far beyond ^ so out of reac]l? ^ if it were at the end of the rainbow. But when we are old it is difficult for us not to live all things, we are so intimate with living. When we are young there is a wide chasm between dreaming and living ; but when we are old and life gets worn in its bearings, the ma- 192 MENTAL REFRESHMENTS chinery goes so easily that our dreams materi- alize while we are dreaming them." "That is because our dreams come to be limited and narrowed to the bounds of sordid possibility. I often think that it would have simplified matters if we could all have been cut from the same pattern like these cham- pagne wafers, for instance." " We are, and that is another difference be- tween youth and age. Youth deems itself cut after a unique pattern, while age feels a kin- ship to all the world and looks askance at the unique." "Like Joe's description of an entertain- ment last night he averred that it was ' aw- fully unique.' " " Great Scott ! What are you people doing, anyway, mixing philosophy with ice-cream," said Tom's voice behind us. " I call it the height of egotism to philosophize while eat- ing." " Certainly it is," rejoined Professor Wol- cott, "a good healthy ego is able at any A healthy time to pat its stomach with one hand and e 9 rub its head with the other." 193 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "We were discussing the very personal topic of growing old," I explained. " What could you youngsters possibly find Life grows to say on that subject?" asked Tom supe- riorly. " Now I know something about it ; I discovered that something was the matter with life not long since, and upon investiga- ting found that it was merely growing bald. Hard, bare facts are no longer disguised by the perfumed and curly locks of youth ; but they appear now in all their prominences and depressions like the plaster model of the phrenologist." " Will you cover it with a skull cap of phil- osophy or a wig of optimism ? " asked Pro^ fessor Wolcott. " A halo of glamour, if you please," an- A halo of swered Tom. " By the way, Professor, I heard glamour |_ ne j n t eres ti n g news yesterday that you were writing a book." " Yes," admitted the accused, " the mania of the century was upon me and I felt that I should go sane if I did not straightway write a book." "What is it about? " queried I. 194 MENTAL REFRESHMENTS " Man." "Ethnological rather than humanitarian," I hazarded. "Why do you say that?" he demanded with asperity " my interest in humanity is almost inhuman at times." " I do not see how you find time to write books," I argued. "I do not see how any HOW professor in a live college finds time for writ- P r f essors ing. Father said yesterday that his work was so in arrears that it was heaped mountain- high on all sides of him, and Joe irreverently advised that he burrow in it and hibernate like a woodchuck. I should like to have you tell me where you found the time and energy to write a book." " All things take time and energy," he ar- gued, " even keeping still and resting require time and energy." " The energy being mainly directed to ward- ing off interruptions," suggested I. " It seems Life too rapid to me that our day and generation are singu- f r t1lou 9 llt to take toll larly unproductive of thought. We are all so busy with actual living that there is little chance for thought to take toll." 195 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "That >s right," said Tom, "most of us go Human through the day as if we were shot from a projectiles gun . not only s | lot but witn a screw mo tion, so that we bore our way through the business of the day without let or hindrance." " And when the work of the day is children," chimed in Mrs. Walton who had been listen- ing, " one has the added task of dodging all obstacles when speeding like a ball, which is manifestly not the nature of projectiles." As we left the dining-room, Tom and I drifted off together. " I have not seen you since New Year's," said I reproachfully. " I hope that none of your vows were made for the purpose of excluding me." " I seriously considered the making of such a vow, but broke it before I made it, which was a prompt conservation of energy," he replied. I had not expected he would say just this, and I went on, hurriedly : "What a pity that the years cannot be sliced completely apart at the New Year like pieces of bread ! Unfinished u The first order of the New Year is to pro- business cee ^ with the unfinished business, always. 196 MENTAL REFRESHMENTS "Like weaving a pattern, one must always finish what one has been foolish enough to be- gin, and put the finishing touches to the figure, no matter how tired one may be of it." "Mercy on us, Marian, what have you been doing that you speak of it in that lugubrious tone?" "Nothing at all, just thinking," I answered guardedly. "Thinking about things is most confound- edly disagreeable, usually," he replied with unction. "One could be so cheerfully sinful, worse than conscience if it were not for thinking about it. Think- ing is worse than conscience j conscience is only concerned with ethics and altruism, while thinking includes these and also the conscious- ness of the spectacle one is making of one's self meanwhile." "Yes, that is just it," complained I. "Being bad is not uncomfortable, it is too often sheer The agonizing joy ; it is the getting to be good again that momentof trie tvtcfccd hurts, just as coming to consciousness after drowning is agonizing." "How did you happen to find that out* You never 'came to, 7 you know you never did." 197 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "Tom, I am 'coining to 7 this minute ; we are both bad ; for here we stand talking our own talk when Ma Belle especially commanded that we ' mingle."' "I have mingled to-night with so much Social energy and enthusiasm that already I feel dilution ^ji^ed, and am a mere trituration of my own self. However, I will do as I am bid, and will go and mingle some more," grumbled Tom as he left me. I passed on, meeting and stopping to speak Under- to many, and almost unconsciously avoiding s others. Strange and unmapped are the under- currents of the social sea, that flow straight from one individual to another and yet seem never to touch other individuals at all. Some whom I met I compassed, and to some I was barely tangent and was more than satisfied with merest tangency. I had almost reached the music room again when a firm hand took my arm from behind and the voice of Theo- dore Morris murmured in my ear : "You are working too hard to-night, my lady, come with me for a moment and rest." He drew my arm through his and led me to a 198 MENTAL REFRESHMENTS window seat, away from the throng. As he piled soft cushions behind me he continued, "Now rest ; you need not say a word, and I will talk stupid talk which will require no mental effort, on your part, as listener." "I am tired ! " I acknowledged as I leaned back luxuriously, " I am tired in that queer, Politeness quivery fashion which comes when one's f**9v*& politeness aches from steady strain. I wish I knew more about the polite nerves and muscles ; I can feel them in my anatomy but I do not know where they are exactly. I sometimes get so tired that I wish I were made of papier mache like Dr. Wilde's manikin, so that I could take myself apart and lay each piece off by itself to rest. You have had a pleasant evening I hope ! " "If I have not, there was good reason for it and I am making up for it now. As I saw Gayety minus you pass from one to another to-night, smiling % and sparkling and so eagerly sought, I felt old a hundred years old and worn out. I have been meditating on the futility of gayety when the verve has gone out of it. By Jove, it is too much like beer which has stood long 199 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL in the open glass ; it is not good enough to drink for pleasure and it is too mild to effect nausea. It is simply colossally insipid. All the evening I have had the feeling of alleged pleasure. To act the part well enough to de- ceive others is easy ; but to act so well that one's self is deceived is rather difficult." "Except when the red light is turned on," I interrupted. A stimulant " Yes, red light is a bracer," he admitted. "I do not like what you have been saying the least bit," I remonstrated. "Everyone ought to be deliriously happy at Madam Lee's reception." "The fault is with myself," he hastened to say, "Madam Lee is superb ; had I been able to remain in her neighborhood I must cer- tainly have lived up to my privileges. The trouble is I struck an arid place to-night. "Did you ever notice that sometimes the Arid places outlook is just teeming with interest ; and then some morning one awakes to find the whole thing bare, stale, flat and unprofitable. One day the scenery is all high mountains, and the next it is all sand dunes. And I have 200 MENTAL EEFBESHMEKTS been wandering among sand dunes all day." I looked at him for a moment perplexed, and then said provokingly, with obvious conde- scension : " Poor boy ! It is almost as hard to get ready to live as it is to live, is n't it ? " " You are naughty, my lady, and you know it ; and you ought to be punished," he said, half angry and half laughing. " It is punishment enough to know that you have been so miserable," I answered softly. He looked comforted and took the seat at my side. " You are skilled in the art of kissing the place to make it well. I am at this moment On a thin having a perfectly blissful time. My lady, c you are entrancing in that gown ! If you had let me see more of you I should have found my sand dunes blossoming like a garden." " This is the first time this evening that you have evinced the slightest desire to see me." " What mendacity ! " he murmured. " I am glad that you commanded me to 201 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL sit down/' I admitted. " I like to be ordered to do things." " I love to boss," he interrupted. " People are beginning to go ! " I ex- claimed, rising. " Allans," he said resignedly, and together we sought Ma Belle. We found her, and Mr. Morris expressed his thanks for a pleasant evening in a most felicitous manner. Tom and I remained until all the guests had departed. I think that both of us wished to make sure that our dear one was not too tired after all her hospitable exertion. Tom said: " Fair hostess, it was a great success. You are simply buried beneath a mountain of compliments ; not even your head shows above the heap." A head above " You are mistaken, Tom, I always keep compliments my head above com pii me nts," she replied with a vivid smile. " By Jove, you do that ! " asserted Tom. Then I kissed her and told her it was the most interesting reception I had ever at- tended. 202 MENTAL REFRESHMENTS u Then I know you were particularly inter- esting," answered she. " For a reception is Wherein a like everything else in life-you get out of it only what you put into it." other "Are you very tired?" I asked solici- tously. " I feel like this poor rose," she answered, taking the flower from her corsage, " my petals are not only limp but shriveled." " Your simile is good, Mrs. Lee, the rose is sweeter than when it was fresh," said Tom gravely, taking the rose from her hand. Ma Belle was silent, and I wondered if her eyes were just a little moist when she bade us good night. Tom and I were both silent for a time after we got into the carriage ; finally he said : " You are tired, are n't you little girl f " " Tired to death of myself, Tom." " Now what has she been doing to make herself tired of her blessed self f " mused Tom. " I shall never, never tell ! " I asserted with energy. " Then I shall have to find out all by my A disturbing lonely." proposition 203 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " Oh, don't ! " I cried in a panic. " I do not want you to be tired of me, too." " You need not fear that, ever, Marian," he A comforting said gravely as he helped me out of the car- good mglit r j age? an( j there was sympathy and almost tenderness in his tones as he bade me good night. And so, taking all things into considera- tion, it is no wonder that I cannot sleep, and that I am keeping Your Matchless Ugliness awake while the sma 7 hours have grown greater. 204 CHAPTER XVII DOMESTIC CATACLYSMS, AND THEIR TREAT- MENT JANUARY 20TH: Wise one, A suppose in the land of castes, whence you came, the Mistress from serving people are in such a state of heredi- necessit y servant from tary subjugation that the ways of households choice go on steadily with no upsets. Far different is it in this land where the mistress is mistress by necessity and the servant is servant by choice. It has always been a source of pride to me that my household folk are happy and devoted to the family interests. But this does not save me from an occasional day of extreme annoyance when everything goes wrong. There is hoodoo in the very atmos- phere and friction between every two contiguous parts of the household machinery, and the creaking thereof is nerve-lacerating. 205 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL The only really strong point in my character, I daresay, is that I have learned to keep serene when everything around me is seething and bubbling. That is what I did to-day when everything about the house went wrong, but I did not know that anyone in the family realized it. Therefore I was amused and a little gratified by a conversation which took place to-night when Ma Belle and Tom joined us around the study fire. " What has happened to you to-day ? " asked Ma Belle. " We have been suffering a domestic cata- clysm," I answered with feeling, and Tom exclaimed, " What do I hear ? I had the impression A rift in tlie that your domestic affairs always ran smoothly. lute Your housekeeping is famed for its perfection, and now I am informed that there is a rift in the * lute. I am deeply pained. Please explain what you mean by cataclysms." " Well, this morning the coffee was muddy A household and refused to pour through the spout but hoodoo came out o f t ne top and burned my hand. The chops were burned and the rolls heavy 206 DOMESTIC CATACLYSMS and even the amiable pater remonstrated. Mary was sulky and my sunny Maggie turned vixenish. When the exquisite Mrs. Delavan called, I discovered too late that there was dust on the piano deep enough to preserve cuneiform inscriptions ; the fire-place was a desert of discouraged looking cinders and ashes, and the flowers in the vases were too far gone for anything save mementoes." " Yes," interrupted Joe, " and at luncheon the salad had so little dressing, that it was A scandalous positively indecent for it to appear in polite salad society ; and the custard was as curdled as was Mary's temper when, a little later, she smashed the meat platter to smithereens." " Did the Irish temperament have anything to do with the slump ? " asked Ma Belle. " I think not," I answered with decision. " Such days come without regard to tempera- The Irish ments. We are altogether too prone to blame the Irish temperament for too many things that go wrong. After all is said, the Irish temperament is essentially the artistic temperament except that it is less self-centered. Those possessed of it are sympathetic, humor- 207 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL ous, making light of burdens j imaginative and therefore often not strictly truthful ; not because they mean to be untruthful but The truth too because the bare truth seldom satisfies the bare (j rama tic demands of a situation. Moreover^ they are likely to experience sudden changes in points of view ; and there is a certain lack of sequence in their acts, a sort of an undis- tributed middle in their logic which is discon- certing to the prosaic Anglo-Saxon who is wont to call them unreliable, which is unjust." " Bravo ! " cried Tom, " I am glad my forebears were Irish." " I wish you would tell us how you managed your cataclysm," said Ma Belle. "I'll tell that story," said Joe. "She Pleasing started in by being entertaining to beat the lubrication band she helped Mary dust, conversing with her vivaciously meanwhile, with marked and gratifying results. Then she went into the kitchen and was so ' fly J and diverting that she soon had Maggie in high feather. Marnie does not save up all her social ammunition for company, but uses it instead as Fourth of July fireworks in the household realm." 208 DOMESTIC CATACLYSMS " That 's true," added father, " and she never finds fault at the moment a thing goes wrong, Constructive but waits until the annoyance of the failure ******** has passed from the mind of the servant as well as her own. This is the way she manages to make her criticisms constructive instead of destructive." " Eight you are, Professor," pursued the ir- reverent Joe. " 1 7 11 tell you how she does it : TJie reduction She takes the domestic cataclysm in her arms l a domestic and pats it on the back until it changes to a cataclysm kittyclysm ; and then she gently strokes the fur the right way until there is nothing left but the wide smile of the Cheshire cat." We all laughed and the conversation drifted to more interesting channels. When Ma Belle and Tom were getting ready to depart, the latter said to me when no one else heard : "Madam Marian, I wish I were a cata- clysm," and he looked at me, his face lighted with his most delightful smile. "Why take such extreme measures?" I asked audaciously. His smile suddenly went An audacious out, and his face looked worn and tired as he bade me good night. 209 CHAPTER XVIII THROUGH THE PINE WOODS WITH TOM T^EBRUARY20TH : Since teak- wood neither February JL freezes nor melts, I imagine that your Gra- premonitions c i ous Presence is not much interested in the weather ; however, since these confessions are mine and not yours, I take the liberty of stat- ing that we have had a short respite from cold weather, and for a day or two we have dared to have February-ish thoughts of spring. And to-day Tom came after me for the long promised drive to the pine woods. We started at four o'clock. The air was al- An most balmy and the sleighing was perfect. accomplished Tom tucked me j n care fiilly for he knows I am driver a luxurious body and that I love to have about me the warm, furry skins that once kept warm the howling wolf. The horses were in gay 210 A DEIVE WITH TOM spirits and gave Tom plenty of chances to show his superb skill as a driver j there is between him and his horses a perfect under- standing, and he never uses the whip except when teaching them to obey his voice. This once accomplished, his voice is the controlling power and his driving is a work of art. "What a delightful sensation after such an awful day as I have had ! " I exclaimed with a sigh of contentment. "What has made her day so awful? " Tom asked soothingly. "A day spent with the oughts, social oughts, business oughts, household oughts, An expert and all this array of oughts added together accountant has produced naught save weariness." "I don't see it that way at all, little woman. I place you as the numeral at the left of all those naughts and it makes a big figure. Great Scott, Marian, you never did know how to count? " "Thank you," I murmured meekly. "I hope you do not think that I was complaining. It is only that I sometimes feel that under the pressure of these outside oughts the inside 211 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL decencies get crowded into a small corner ; somehow it hurts one's self-respect." "Better say vanity is hurt. Each and every woman nowadays is perfectly sure that she can do all the things there are to do in this big world j and when she finds this an impossible achievement, her vanity is hurt, eh?" "Oh, well ! The difference between self- Vanity or self- respect and vanity is merely one of degree, I respect? suppose j vanity craves the approval of the world at large and self-respect demands the approval of self as well ; it is a little more subjective, that is all." "Oh, you bad little cynic ! " exclaimed Tom, with a most dramatic gritting of the teeth. "No, I am not a cynic ; but as the years go The wrong on I find new powers in myself for transmut- Und f ing the gold of enthusiasm into the lead of alchemy commonplace a sort of back-action alchemy that has never received as much attention from philosophers as it deserves." We were now climbing the hill. It had 212 A DKIVE WITH TOM been a soft, mild day, save for erratic, furtive snow squalls which threatened to turn to rain. An impres- ts we gained the crest of a knoll, Tom stopped the horses while we looked at the scene below us. The hills on the far horizon were dimly veiled in storm clouds so that they seemed very distant ; the nearer hills were in shadow j the forests scattered over them, outlined by snowy fields, were a vivid blue-purplesuch a color as only an impres- sionist dares to paint j and yet it was so in harmony with the landscape and sky that it was beyond the reach of any impressionist. While I was reveling in this marvelous color, the sun rifted the clouds, and a field of sun- shine sprang into being just beyond the purple. It was all so beautiful that the tears came into my eyes. " It is beautiful, is it not ? " said Tom ; as I did not answer, he looked at me and then added remorsefully : "I am a blunderer, Marian. How is it that you who revel in the subtle suggestiveness of elisions ever came to be friends with me, who, like an overgrown boy 213 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL in the reading class spell all my words out letter by letter, syllable by syllable, at the top of my voice ? " A very good " I suspect it is because I enjoy your voice/' reason j answered with a contented laugh. " Nice girl ! " said Tom as he reached for Evergreen the robes to fold them closer around me. We twilight S p ed onwar( j ^ii we reached a high plateau, and there massed darkly against the northern horizon were the pine woods. The setting sun threw slant beams athwart its blackness touching the nearer trees into soft billows of light, and then disappearing left all in shadow. It was deep twilight in the woods as we entered ; the almost oppressive silence was broken only by the sound of the horses 7 hoofs on the scant snow of the needle-car- peted road. On either side dimly visible were innumerable columns holding aloft the black canopy, which was broken in a tasseled fresco above our heads, against a sky beset with stars which had been invisible to us until then. Almost imperceptibly we became conscious of a faint, far, mysterious sound a sibilant 214 A DRIVE WITH TOM breathing somewhere aloft which grew louder as it came nearer, until, like a great surf on a TJie song of rocky shore, it seemed to break above our the P ines heads, and then recede, leaving us again in silence. Tom murmured, " I left the bells off the horses to-night that we might hear this." Again and again as we passed on, came that all-pervading, mysterious flood and ebb of sound. It was overwhelming to the spirit j I felt awed, as if I had unwittingly shared a service in some vast, secret temple of the gods. It was almost a relief when we emerged into the after-glow of the sunset and felt that we were again in our own world. For some time we were both silent and then Tom said softly : " I knew you would like it." " Why, Oh why did you never bring me here before ? " I asked aggrieved. Tom ignored the question and said : " I often come here ; a drive through those woods seems to simplify life." His answer TJiepine gave me a vague sensation of unrest, mak- woods , , , ,..., - , . . simplify life ing me feel anew hew little of his inner 215 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL life I was permitted to know. I said with a sigh: " I cannot realize that anyone ever passed through those woods before, since the world began. I felt immersed in primeval soli- tude." The moon, still a crescent, was hanging against the luminous green of the western hori- zon, as we descended the hill, following a stream in its downward course. The water, turbulent beneath its ice-bonds, was struggling for release. While we listened to its rebel- lious murmur, Tom said : " Water is a comforting element, it is so The comfort confoundingly simple in its action ; it flows of obeying ^own hill without ever questioning whether the law of nature it might not be better to flow up hill instead." unquestion- u Yes, its philosophy puts in neither dams ing y nor pumps," I answered sympathetically. " I do not believe in a philosophy that thwarts nature's laws for unnatural ends, I'll be hanged if I do," said Tom grimly. Just then a meteor drew a luminous line on the sky, and I said musingly : 216 A DEIVE WITH TOM " The sky is careless of her stars to-night tossing them down to us through the ether." We were crossing a bridge, and Tom ex- claimed : "Yes, look down there in that still pool and see two of them which have just dropped in ; there they are and, by Jove ! they are shining shining up as brightly as if they were in the sky." as wett as down "It is a fine achievement to be able to shine up as well as down, is n't it?" "'I guess you know more than I do about that, little girl," said Tom. I cannot quite understand why I so enjoy having Tom call me "little girl," for I am not a girl, neither am I very little ; but when he calls me this I am conscious of a sudden and large increase in my psychic income. When we finally reached the city street, I felt as if I had awakened from a dream. As Tom assisted me to alight I said, "How can I ever thank you*? " "You do not need to," he answered, and I knew it was true. And now while thinking it all over, I am wondering what I have ever 217 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL done that I should gain from this world such A glimpse of a beautiful experience as I have had this Walhalla care for us and give us once in a life-time a glimpse of Walhalla. That expresses it! I feel the same elation that I always experience when I listen to the Walhalla motif, suddenly enfolding in its exquisite harmonies the vast restlessness of the Wagner music. 218 CHAPTER XIX A SKILFUL WOOING MARCH IST : My confessor, do you ever feel a nameless terror inspired by the Wind- wind? Just listen to it now howling around worshi P the sharp corners of our gables, shrieking and roaring the while it is trying to lift the scant snow from the hills and deposit it in the valley below ! Look once at the great balsam firs in front of the window bend and stretch out their short arms helplessly to the blast, com- plaining meanwhile in deep sighs ! The wind excites me and makes me afraid. If I were to worship any of the natural forces I should have to be a wind-worshipper. I have not been making many confessions of late, have I? The reason is that I do not know what to confess ; and there is so much of perplexity in my daily life that I do not wish to relive it again at night in confessions. 219 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL Earely a day goes by without a call or some token from Theodore Morris. These tokens which he sends evince his skill as a wooer. One day it is a bunch of violets or a single rose ; the next, a book of poems or the latest novel ; the next day may bring some witticism clipped from a paper or perhaps a picture cut from a magazine. In some forgotten moment I must have expressed to him my love for trees, and the fascination which felines possess for me, for he is constantly sending me pic- tures of trees, from the pine to the lombardy poplar j and pictures of cats from slinking leopards and snarling tigers to wee pussy-cats. His plan seems to be that no day shall go by without bringing me something which shall turn my thoughts toward him. As often as twice a week he and Hilda have Music, the played for me delectable music ; music which, only bond j am gi a( j to say, was so superb that it ren- dered me quite oblivious to my devoted virtuoso. So far as I am able to discern, he and Hilda have only one bond holding them together and that is their music. Their con- versation is mostly superficial, mere persiflage. 220 A SKILFUL WOOING On the other hand he never suffers from her asperities, and there is a fine gravity in his real attitude toward her, which their non- sensical conversation never quite hides. Hilda refuses to tell what she thinks of him ; when I ask her, she says that she has not thought about him, and looks bored. The fact which confronts me is that his love-making of late has been of the most We are insidious and fascinating kind. I cannot carved oy reason it out why I find it so fascinating to -heredity be made love to ; my common sense and all the wisdom there is in me say it is utter folly. Ah me ! Long ago I gave up the doctrine of free will j we are marionettes carved by heredity, and we are obliged to dance when circumstances pull the strings. I have evidently inherited my attitude to- ward love-making from all of my feminine ancestors, back to the time of Eve, who varied the monotony of Eden by listening to the flatteries of the serpent. It is no more than fair to myself to state that Theodore Morris' power over me is not entirely due to his masterly love-making j he 221 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL makes me like Mm without any regard to The subtle what he does or is. His ascendency over me force of a was w(m ^ ^e most subtle force I ever en- personality countered a force I have not been able to analyze or explain. Probably one of its ele- ments comes from the remarkable way he seems to understand me ; he really knows me far better than does father or Joe. It is one of the amazing mysteries of this amazing world that those about us read only certain obvious chapters of our personality, and some stranger discovers the hidden page of which we, ourselves, are scarcely conscious ! Evidently I am an open book to T. M. from preface to appendix ; and it is insidiously The flattery flattering to be so deftly understood. More- of being over ^ j s so nov el t o fi n( j a man w h o really understood cares to take the trouble to understand a woman that it is no wonder I am impressed by the phenomenon. Common sense is chiefly valuable as a The active or means of accurate nomenclature ; and my passive voice commoll se nse tells me that I am quite as ofamo much of an idiot as the maiden in her teens who mistakes the passive for the active voice 222 A SKILFUL WOOING in conjugating amo. I am perfectly aware I am taking great pains to go out of my way to make myself trouble ; I am consciously allowing myself to be deflected misery- ward. It is shilly-shallying which saps the moral strength. The half-and-half attitude is a The dangers most dangerous one ; strength can be frittered of indecision away much more surely than it can be torn away. I realize all this but it does not seem to help much. And all this is happening to me j after all my experience, all my resolves, and all my Every decade wisdom which I have been wont to define so we molt our , feelings and airily as " knowledge changed into activity." interests Keally the death and burial of a person is no more terrifying than this death which comes to us periodically in matters of feeling while we live. We practically suffer reincarna- tion every decade. We grow on and on, like Jack's bean-stalk, until our cotyledons are so far below that we cannot discern their shrunken shapes. Woe is me ! I felicitated myself that after the fortieth mile stone No easy grade was passed I should find an easy down-hill on the road of experience grade whereon I could safely coast while 223 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL, enjoying the scenery. But there seems to be no long stretch of experience's road where the slope is in the right direction ! MAKCH 2ND : A certain grimness in your Spring smile to-night, My Confessor, leads me to prophecies ^jujr ^ a ^ y OU jnight appreciate a specific confession as to the methods pursued by T. M. when wooing. He came this afternoon and insisted that I go with him for a walk j he de- clared that the snow was melted from the north bank of the river and that it was a prime necessity that we go and examine it. As we followed the river path there was a suggestion of spring in the " phoebe " song of the chickadee, and the trill which a nuthatch had substituted for his usual nasal monosylla- ble. Notwithstanding the scene was all that he had promised, mi-lord was gloomy and silent j he is always silent when he does not feel like speaking, but there was in his silence this afternoon something which suggested anew that his ways were devious ; and as usual this deviousness was a temptation to me. It is always a danger to me not to know just 224 " But there seems to be no long stretch of experience's road where the slope is in the right direction ! " A SKILFUL WOOING where I am in any particular experience; it goads me on to desperate deeds to relieve Maddening the uncertainty. I imagine that woman's uncertaint y most reprehensible acts have often been the results of maddening uncertainty. This may account for what I said, since nothing else can. " Why are you so silent and gloomy ? " I asked in tones as tender as if they had been parboiled. " 'T is the silence of happiness my lady," he responded while the line between his eyes deepened. " Nonsense ! You are not conscious of me at all ; you are simply and obviously con- scious of yourself and your own thoughts." " How can I tell, since the consciousness of A pretty you is almost self-consciousness," he answered s P eech musingly. " That is a pretty speech but not very con- vincing." " I did not expect you to believe it ; I offered it for your inspection as a single ray taken from the halo which you have thrown around my thoughts." 225 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " You are hopelessly blind, did you know it?' 7 "Yea, verily," he answered, "I cannot see Glamour- clearly because my eyes are dimmed with the glamour of happiness to come." Then his mood changed suddenly and he became an intensely conscious part of the world about us j he whistled the chickadee song until we were followed by the beguiled titmouse. Once he placed his hand suddenly on mine to stay my steps while we listened to a woodpecker sounding his roll on the dead branch of a hickory just in front of us ; incidentally, he did not let go of my hand until I took it The writing away. We climbed the bank, following the ly the brook- course o f a brook beset with fascinating tracks side of beasties along its snowy rim, and my com- panion turned hunter and resolved these trails into those made by squirrel, mouse and bunny. The day grew sombre suddenly $ as we at- tained a sightly point we beheld the clouds in gray billows hung low over hills forebodingly blue ; then for a moment the sun appeared again and sent adrift down the valley a few stray rays of sunlight which, in passing, 226 A SKILFUL WOOING touched the purple forests into golden, the snow to silver and the winding river to bur- A usurped nished bronze. "We found a dry stump all t flounced and furbelowed with fungi which he declared was a Druid throne and which I at once usurped. "No queen was ever so satisfied with her kingdom as I with this/' I averred, pointing to the valley under its changing hues. "You have come into only a small part of your kingdom, dear queen j the rest is wait- ing, are you never coming to claim it?" These words were uttered in a passionate whisper as he drew close to me, and for one brief moment I saw what seemed desperation in those un- fathomable eyes. Confessor, no one but you A perilous shall ever know how near I came to saying at moment that moment just two words, "I come." The situation demanded it, and I longed to know what would really happen if I said them ; but some remnant of common sense restrained my dramatic curiosity and saved me. "No use ! " I sighed. "I could not find a competent chancellor of the exchequer j be- sides, it would be such a task to decide what 227 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL style of crown would be most becoming to me." "You are frivolous, my lady, horribly frivo- lous.-- "Do you not suppose that the boundaries of The question her kingdom are of less importance to any of crown- q ueen than the becomingness of her crown ? " jewels I demanded indignantly ; then I asked with mock impressiveness, "What jewels would you really advise for my crown, dewdrops or snow crystals?" "Opals, my lady, surely opals above all others." "Why, pray?" The opal "The opal epitomizes love it is always the typifies love same? an( j ve t nev er quite the same." "For instance?" "One moment it is pale and pure, the next it is green and restful, then blue and deep and then purple and rich. It flashes for a moment with the yellow rays of happiness the while it hides in its depths the red glow of human passion, and the topaz glitter of jeal- ousy. It is changeful and abiding, perhaps abiding because changeful." He said this 228 A SKILFUL WOOING slowly and impersonally while looking at a magnificent opal set in the ring on his third finger. It was an interesting interpretation of the stone, but I thought a change in the tenor of the conversation desirable. "On the whole, I think I prefer the red feathers which crown yonder woodpecker; they would surely be becoming and would not weigh down the royal head," I exclaimed gayly, as I abdicated my throne and turned my steps homeward. Again he became silent and moody, striding along at my side as if he were going to war instead of rambling for pleasure. I began to chatter ; "A walk like this makes for freedom from carking care. I have quite forgotten how des- The crowded perately busy I was this morning, and how my moments march moments marched lockstep, each jostling the one ahead in a most trying and rude manner. I should like my moments to be polite and courteous to each other ; I should rather have them dance grave minuets than mad jigs." "As the moment is bent, the day is inclined," he muttered. " Yes, I sometimes believe that with all my 229 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL hurry and worry I shall be reduced to a mere wraith, transparent and impalpable." " Never fear, my lady, you will remain The security opaque for some time yet," he interrupted of opacity with evident irritation. " Thanks," I murmured fervently. When we arrived home I invited him to stay to dinner and he accepted without enthusiasm. Later Hilda came and the evening was made rapturous with their music. Except when playing, Mr. Morris was obviously gloomy during the entire evening 5 and Hilda was quiet and wholly uninteresting. I cannot say that I am really any farther Kismet along the fatal path I am treading than I was this morning, and yet I feel that I am. A new comprehension of the word " kismet " is coming to me. I suppose a trout hooked securely to a long line made fast to a beauti- ful, flexible bamboo rod says to itself " This is nothing, I shall soon get away ! " and there- upon makes sundry wild rushes this way and that and later, when it is lifted flopping into the net, it might, if it could speak, give a brand- new definition to that queer word kismet. 230 A SKILFUL WOOING MARCH 15TH .-Nearly two weeks since I confessed, is n't it ? Well, though it has been a tempestuous March, my path has been strewn with the blossoms of narcissus and I am drunk with their fragrance. It seems to me that of late there is a veil hung between Hilda and myself. We see Gambling each other often, and we talk as usual, and yet with there is always present somewhat of con- straint. It may be that my attitude toward my own affairs is responsible for it. I would gladly turn to Hilda for advice in solving my most perplexing problem, only at bottom I know that I desire neither help nor advice. I am playing fan-tan with destiny and I will play it alone. Besides, I could not endure Hilda's scathing criticism of my folly. I believe if she and T. M. were better friends I should feel more like confiding the question to her 5 but they seem strangers to each other except when playing together. One might think that music would limber their recipro- cal indifference, but music land is far from this world and has little to do with it. 231 CHAPTER XX A NICE AFTERNOON. LOVE'S INITIATION FEE M "ARCH 16TH: Such a delightful after- noon ! Hilda and I were sewing comfortably before the fire when Ma Belle came in. She has been having a most trying experience with a sister-in-law who is always in trouble and always asking for advice which she never by any chance follows. To-day Ma Belle evidently came to me for comfort, for she was obviously downcast when she came in. " What new misfortune has come to Aunt Emma," I asked. " She never has new misfortunes," averred inherent Ma Belle, " her misfortunes are inherent and misfortunes were born with her, being a part and parcel 232 A NICE AFTERNOON of her permanent condition. She is like a sore thumb ; every time anything in her vicinity moves she gets a whack." " She always seems meekness personified,' 7 said Hilda." " That is one of her vices," declared ma mere. u I get irritable in the presence of Her cross, a that self-effacing attitude. The more she a P n f offence effaces herself, the more aggressive she really is. Instead of bearing her cross she uses it as a weapon of offence, batting every one with it who is unlucky enough to be in her proximity. Her warped judgment and twisted ideals are the result of her belief in her own meekness. The fatal Whatever she does she knows is right. Great eddies in the wake of action heavens ! It almost comforts me for never doing what I know is right." " I never thought Aunt Emma sufficiently decisive to be even self-complacent," said I with a smile. " Oh, she is n't decisive," groaned Ma Belle, " she is always flopping around in the etcetera of events." " As for that," I argued with a guilty conscience, "it is astonishing how little of 233 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL good or ill any of us do under the stress of decisive action, and how much of both we do when drifting around in the currents set up by such action." " I see plainly that Aunt Emma is likely to be the origin of a philosophy," laughed Hilda. " Let 's not argue j I came here to be soothed and to receive sympathy and support," said Ma Belle with a long and deep sigh. "Please hem this napkin for me," said I, Plain sewing "there is nothing so soothing to lacerated cmg feminine nerves as nice plain sewing ; it is like smoking for calming masculine ner- vousness." Ma Belle smiled and seated her- self comfortably to her task. "We have reason to be thankful that when the recording angel scores he does not have to bother with the whys and wherefores ; this is no more than fair since our virtuous deeds are quite as often the results of accident as are our sins," said I after we had been sewing in silence for some time. Virtues "Listen to my aphorism : My sins are inci- acddental, fl en |- a i ^o my virtues, and my virtues are sins incidental mostly accidental to my sins ! " declared Hilda grandly. 234 A NICE AFTEBNOON "That sounds impressive," said Ma Belle, "but I never shall be reconciled to the waste- The glut of ful plan of this universe. We all live and ready-made experience store up experience for nothing apparently since those we would guide will have none of it, and we mostly attain it too late to make it of much use to ourselves. Why must each one experience all things for himself as if there were not a world full of ready-made experience waiting for him f " "It is necessary in order to develop indi viduality," I ventured tritely. "Oh, I am tired of this modern plea for the individual," Ma Belle exclaimed vindictively. The "When stripped of sophistry it means that the individual has the right to follow every gence selfish desire and investigate every temptation to get out of it all there is in it for him. That is what most people mean when they declare they are following the ideals of Goethe and Browning (and for which they ought to be The sued for libel). Such people seem to think needs prun- that the individual ought to be developed in ing rat h er every way except along the line of responsi- than develop- Wld bility to others. An individuality does not 235 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL need developing, it needs trimming down so that it will fit other individuals instead of impaling them." "Happy thought ! " cried Hilda, "each of us trimmed down to a hexagon so we fit like the cells of a honeycomb. But, Mrs. Lee, where would the fun come in ? " "Freedom from moral and physical restraint A new is not what you are pleased to call <fun, 7 " definition of argued ma m ^ It ^ only by being in bond . age to all sorts of restraints that we may even recognize l fun ' when we meet it. License is not ' fun/ but dodging our inevitable responsi- bilities is glorious l fun 7 ; that 's why I am en- joying you two sirens here when I ought to be visiting with Emma." "Fun is the nap we steal after the rising bell rings," said Hilda appreciatively. Ma Belle continued : "Being good is not ' fun J ; neither is being The rapture bad ' fun ' j but trying to be good and being of the broken^ bad without trying solves the fun pro blem for ever and ever. Freedom is tiresome and commonplace j 7 t is the broken link in the chain of bondage which is rapture." 236 A NICE AFTERNOON " Ma Belle, I am convinced you have done some great and good thing for Aunt Emma. It is always a sign you have been busy with good works when you make cynical remarks," I declared with emphasis. "I have to get even some way/' she answered with a smile that to me is the most beautiful smile in the world. "Truth com- pels me to state that I did have an interview with Emma this morning wherein I gently but firmly called her attention to some large facts. She is so concerned with the pebbles in her path that she gives no attention to the boulders until they block her way and then she sulks and feels abused. I have been dreading this interview for a week." " I have often meditated upon the fit moment psychologically for doing a dis- Tliefit agreeable thing remarked Hilda musingly. mo ^^fo a dreaded "If it is done at once it costs a terrible wrench to the feelings and great moral effort, and when done scarcely affords the relief it might if it had been dreaded for a longer period. On the other hand, if it is not done until the last possible moment one gets so in the habit 237 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL of dreading it that the feeling persists long after. There must be a right time some- where between the two extremes." "It requires rare judgment to elect the moment ; there are no compensations at any time. 'Must ' is master and no reward offered," rejoined Ma Belle crisply. "If I were to start life anew, I should never do a disagreeable thing, nor experience a dis- agreeable sensation if I could help it," I de- clared with positiveness. "A flabbiness would result which would make your present weak amiability seem like cast iron," said Hilda. "Try it once : just scrupulously avoid all The placid the ' have to's ' and likewise the 'want to's > and space lying sai j a i on g placidly in the easy current which between tt h ave to winds between these outer and inner man- and"want dates. This would be far better than the periodical re-ossification of the vertebral col- umn which you practice so strenuously," said I. "Marian, you are mistaken ; Hilda never needs such refurbishing," suggested Ma Belle, with a smile. "Little do you know about it, Mrs. Lee j 1 238 A NICE AFTERNOON need it this minute. You would both be hor- rified if you knew how weak and wabbly I really am," answered Hilda, soberly. Just then the daily token from Mr. Morris appeared in the guise of a bunch of violets. Malapropos Though I experienced the most painful embar- vtolet8 rassment, I was on guard and quite uncon- cernedly placed them in a vase on the table, saying as I did so : "That confession of yours, Hilda, affords me supreme comfort." Ma Belle picked up the card that came with the violets and re- marked : "It seems to me, Marian, that this young man is a most devoted admirer of yours." I looked straight into her eyes and think she understood me a little when I said, "He is here at the house so much with Joe that I suppose he thinks it good form to be espe- cially polite to his hostess." She answered with a laugh : "I was trying to tease you, Marian j your accessibility has always been a source of Squatter amusement to me. You are like government sover *ignty land : all that anyone has to do who desires 239 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL you for a friend is to come along and stake out his claim." " That is true," I admitted with some asperity, "and I occasionally experience a squatter." Hilda to the "I think Mr. Morris would feel greatly rescue complimented if he could hear this conver- sation," said Hilda, with pronounced sarcasm. "It is my private opinion, Hilda," I answered dryly, "that he would not care a rap about this conversation or any other of which he was the chief topic. In all my life I have never before met a youth who is so little affected by things outside of himself as is this same Theodore Morris. He pursues his own path, fixedly and undeviating in a way that is appalling to witness." "It seems to me from the little I know of him that he is quite justified in so doing," declared Hilda, belligerently. I was surprised, and I think Ma Belle was also a little startled ; but I cannot hide from myself that I was gratified as well as surprised. In thinking the matter over I am at loss to know to what to attribute this defense of Hilda's j but sooner 240 LOVE'S INITIATION FEE or later I shall discover the reason for it. People tell me that my instincts and intui- Intuition or tions are marvelously correct, and I never * gm dispute them. But, Own Idol, I can tell you that I have n't in my possession an instinct or an intuition worthy the name. I am simply quick to observe, and I bring what I observe before the eyes of judgment, and finally reach conclusions which are. correct, unless they concern myself. I have no judgment what- ever in assorting and defining tlje facts I discover about myself. I have always sailed under sealed orders ; and to-night it seems to me that these orders were taken from the grab-bag of the Parcse sisters. MARCH I?TH : Do you know that we really never get to understand people unless we have Love, the a chance to see how they act under the strain P restidi v ita >- tor and stress of a love affair ? And even then we understand but little. I have ever been a close student of Joe all his life, and I under- stand him and his motives and his emotions absolutely ; and yet now that he is in love he seems like a stranger to me. On his affec- 241 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL tionate side lie has always been sweet, gentle and leadable ; now that he loves a woman I find him harsh and almost cruel in his attitude toward her. Last evening after he came home from the Joe in the opera whither he escorted Dolly Pease, he tmls confessed to me his love for Millie Van Tyne. I was somewhat surprised, for if Joe and Millie love each other the fact has not been apparent to the eye of the public. It is true that they quarrel almost constantly, but quarreling is by no means synonymous with loving. Joe has thought he was in love at least twice before, but in each case it was a gentle and sentimental relationship, with none of the pepper and spice in it which seems to have characterized this affair with Millie. So when he told me his feelings I ex- pressed my surprise by saying : " If you are in love with Millie, what in the world are- you taking Dolly to the opera for?" " It is a good thing for a girl who thinks she is the only pebble on your beach to learn that there may be yet other pebbles," he an- swered with a superior air. 242 LOVE'S INITIATION FEE " True/' agreed I, " that is the proper treatment for girls ; it keeps them from The proper tossing their heads in premature pride and tre ^ tment for spilling their milk like the milk-maid of * ai whom our ancestors were wont to read in their spelling books." " I do not know much about milk-maids but I know a few things about fair maids ; in fact, one or two of them have taught me lessons which I trust I do not need to learn twice ; " he answered morosely. " Well, my dear," said I, " I am glad to see that you have not lost your head even if you have lost your heart. But I must confess I shall have more faith in your love for Millie when you become a little more humble in spirit." " I shall never be humble with her ! Why, Marnie, when she teases me and quarrels with Ttie method of me as she so constantly does I feel like putting l ^^ f both arms around her and crushing the life out of her to punish her and make her keep still." " I am not sure but your instinct is right," I admitted, " she is a girl who needs heroic treatment." 243 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " She is going to get it," he replied curtly, and his beautiful finely chiselled lips set in a hard straight line which, at once, made me Millie's stanch ally. I hope she will lead him a breathless chase and bring him to his knees in the end. I know what is good for him even if he is my own boy. MARCH 18TH : By the way, Uncurious Pardonable One, I wonder if you know that ever since curiosity T Morris to ia me so calmly that he had had many love affairs, I have always wished to know the particulars. Not that I care about the persons concerned, or the stories thereof, but I am dying of curiosity to know just what he would say about these experiences. I am not so naive as to ask him to talk about them, but several times I have made it per- fectly easy for him to do so, by alluding rather teasingly to his frittered affections. But the effectual way he puts up the sign, " No trespass," is only equalled by the way he No avoids trespassing on my own preserves. trespassing M a yk e h e believes that at my age there is no grass left because of the many foot paths 244 LOVE'S INITIATION FEE through it j it would be just like his callow superciliousness to think so. This may all be enigmatical to you, Mr. Idol, but it is quite luminous with meaning to me. 245 CHAPTER XXI SACK-CLOTH AND ASHES "ARCH 24TH : If I did not have you, I would naturally confess to the flames Flame which lap up the offerings of wood which I fascination pj ace nightly upon my hearth. I wonder if it is the darting fire-tongues which hold me spellbound while life and its perplexities ebb away, leaving nothing thinkable or dreamable in their place, or is it something more subtle ? Time thus spent is not measured by moments nor hours nor even by eternity. It comes nearer Nirvana than anything else vouch- safed to us mortals of the Occident. I have spent such an evening alone before Upsetting the my fire and have just watched the embers turn temper-box f rom glow to gray. It has been the only happy part of my day. I have been ill and not very patient, any little annoyance up- setting my temper-box and giving my en- 246 SACK-CLOTH AND ASHES viromnent a hot sprinkle. Duties undone the letters I ought to have written, the work The neurotic I ought to have accomplished, the word I Ori 9 in f conscience ought to have said, the deeds I ought to have performed, all of these have hung over me to-day like a black cloud, shutting out all vision of blue sky. Yet my sins of omission are no greater to-day than they were last week when I was serene and cheerful. There is a weird connection between con- science and disordered nerves that makes the outlook for the origin of conscience rather dubious. I realize I have been mighty inhospitable in spirit of late toward the world at large ; I Ashes mis- have ceased to be an organ with the vox humana stop in working order ; although it is true that I have treated most people around me with a decency becoming to that arch- hypocrite, the altruist. So I have been indulging in sack-cloth and ashes as is fitting for a sinner in Lent ; and I feel that I shall adopt a permanent costume of sack-cloth and a permanent diet of ashes. Please do not interrupt me by stating that ashes are not 247 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL for eating ; it matters not whether they are for outer or inner application. I know the taste of ashes perfectly, and I also know where the sack -cloth abrades the flesh. Ma Belle is out of town, and Hilda has Inconsistent given me but brief moments of light during longings the long four days of my niness. The house, except this my own room, is overflowing with the flowers which Theodore Morris has sent. I would have none of them in sight ; I felt too cross to look at them. I have longed for some sign of sympathy from another source and have been cast down and miserable be- cause I did not get it. It is strange how our longings of the moment distort our perspec- tive. I ought to be glad that this sign has been denied me, considering the port to which I am drifting. MARCH 25TH : I have felt very much better to-day and took luncheon with the family. But when Mr. Morris called, I sent word that I was not able to see him 5 the bouquet of sweet peas in front of your tiny feet was his response. 248 SACK-CLOTH AND ASHES Late in the afternoon Tom called. I meditated on the question as to whether I A difference ought to go down at all ; and if I did conclude in tke treat ~ ment of to go whether I should wear the black robe catters I had on or don a new lavender tea-gown of a most beguiling pattern. Then I called my- self an idiot, and snatching a few pink pea blossoms for the throat of my gown, I hurried down stairs. Tom came forward to meet me and said quite anxiously : "I did not know you had been ill until an hour ago." "I have been ill for months," I asserted reproachfully. "I have been so ill that I even Obsequies went so far as to plan my own funeral, and worse than that is far worse than dying. I can think of confronting my recording angel with equani- mity, and of my possible or even probable future state with composure ; but when I contemplate my own funeral, my heart quails. And this time one of the poignant discom- forts of the situation was that you would probably learn of the obsequies first through the daily paper." "The moral of which is?" 249 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "That yon stay away from your friends too much." "I have been so confoundedly busy of late Rude treat- that I stand George Washington on his head mentfor the ever y time I put a stamp on an envelope. I Father of his country am in sucn a hurry, a summary treatment which makes him obviously red in the face," answered Tom with an apologetic laugh ; then he continued, soberly, "By Jove ! it is awful the way this inevitable old world works itself in between friends with its wedges of work and care, driving them in by the impact of busy hours." "Yes, and there is a certain expedient in- difference that comes between friends which is unnatural and horrible like some monster with gnarled, twisted limbs and leer-eyed." "So long as it is not green-eyed we need not fear," answered he with a laugh. "You are mistaken, sir, the green-eyed The green- monster is far less to be feared, for it is never eyed com- bom of indifference." pared with other "You make me feel complimented by im- monsters plying that you have missed me." "Why should n't I miss you? " I asked with 250 SACK-CLOTH AND ASHES asperity. " Ma Belle is away, Hilda is busy, and Joe and father are here only at meals, and you have shown no sign that you were aware of my existence. I have felt abused and lonesome.' 7 "I met a beautiful young man turning his steps hither this afternoon," he said teasingly. " Then you have seen more than I have," I returned boldly, " for no beautiful young man has crossed my range of vision." " His flowers had better luck than he, then," quoth Tom, significantly glancing at my sweet peas. " Because I hastily adorned myself with the nearest thing at hand so I should not look so The way of a much like a disturbed ghost when I came woman with flowers down to see you, please do not make me feel foolish," said I, slipping out of the corner into which he had pushed me. " Cruel woman, to wear one man's flowers to make yourself beautiful in another man's eyes ! " " True, the ways of a woman with flowers be strange ! Oh, please stop teasing, and let J s talk about things that are worth while." 251 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " I saw a ' glue bird and a wobbin ' to-day/' he quoted. " Tell me where and what they were doing." " The blue bird was singing a querly note Things worth from the apple tree and the robin was dancing w **k a glide on the lawn. And it is time you were well and went walking with me to the woods on South Hill to find if any hepaticas have dared yet to lift their heads." And then we had a real and happy visit, and I was greatly cheered by it, and am not a bit ashamed to own it. APRIL TTH : It is two weeks since I told you A fugue things, is n't it? The fact is, I am so per- instead of plexed t b at j nad ra ther forget than confess. a symphony My self -song has become a theme for a fugue when I long to have it made into a symphony ; it simply repeats over and over with infinite variations the same tedious questions. Too much of my time is given to T. M. He comes and I do not know how to send him away or else I do not wish to. He often makes violent love to me, but almost as often 252 SACK-CLOTH AND ASHES sits wrapped in gloom like an invisible cloak. Occasionally I have sane moments and see Wings or things as they are. Methinks Titania now ears and then must have gotten a distinct view of Bottom's ears ; and in her heart of hearts must have acknowledged that they were bona fide ears ; and even thinking of how long and silky they were did not entirely reassure her. Alas, that I, too, should be studying ears and trying to make them seem like wings ! 253 A 1 CHAPTER XXII THE SPRINGTIME MADNESS PRIL 10TH : Do you realize that spring has come ? Do your innermost teak The spring particles vibrate to the sounds of revivified song of the k e j n g f There is a peculiar unction to the trolley uproll of your eyes which leads me to infer that you, like the rest of us, are ready to stop existing and begin living. Tom came this afternoon to take me for the promised tramp for hepaticas. As he came in, he found father and myself on the porch in a sunny corner and he greeted us with : " It is so obviously and enthusiastically spring time to-day that I have had to exert self- control to keep from drinking the bottle of green ink on my desk. Even the trolley is singing a spring song, just listen to it ! " " I never suspected a trolley car of senti- ment before," said father. 254 THE SPRINGTIME MADNESS " Which goes to prove that we are likely to misunderstand our nearest neighbors and most familiar associates," I suggested. " I, too, have succumbed to the day," admitted father shame-facedly. " I went this More spring morning and purchased some implements madnSS which look like agricultural tools afflicted with paresis, and as soon as I can recovei from the self-consciousness induced by the purchase I shall hie me hence and learn to play golf." " It is the spring madness ! There is no foretelling what form it may take !" rejoined Tom comfortingly. Then, turning to me, " Madam Marian, there are some pinky posies on the south exposure of South Hill, come and help me pick them." We left father to the rueful contemplation of his new enterprise and were soon beyond the bounds of our little city. As we climbed the fence which separates the pasture from the woodland, Tom said : " Jove ! Listen to that robin once. Are n't his remarks pat <? " A robin ' s " What does he say t " 255 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " Are you deaf, Marian ? Does lie not say plainly, ( Here you are, here you are, sweet, sweet, sweet.' I don't wonder the little beggar blushes." "That is a polite translation of yours," I an- swered gayly, "and it is true, too, for here we are and it is surely sweet," and I stooped to pluck the downy stem of a hepatica blossom. "Why don't the sculptors use hepatica The Hepatica leaves for their cornices and capitals!" asked instead of the T picking one of the purple-brown leaves. Acanthus "I never touch the soft stem of this posy without thinking of baby fingers," I answered irrelevantly. "And you have never ceased to mourn her loss during all these years ! " Tom stood on a knoll looking down at me wistfully as he asked this question j meanwhile the robin sang "sweet, sweet, sweet." "I have always missed her and have al- ways loved her," I answered steadily. "You have always been a spendthrift of A spendthrift love. Have you no fears of being beggared ? " of love Then without waiting for a reply he went on : "God ! what hostages we have to give if we 256 THE SPKINGTIME MADNESS truly live. I often wonder how we dare to love at all." "Loving is not based upon daring," I re- monstrated. "Sometimes it is," lie muttered. "Love is worth all it costs," I said firmly. "You are brave to say so. We set our little lights upon the hill, but how little we shine compared with what we suffer." "And yet there are those who believe that suffering may be conserved in shining ! But The radiant we came out to be happy and care free, and ener oy f suffering here we are roiling up the deeps. Queer, is n't it, how conquered emotions have recru- descence on the most malapropos occasions? " "Good Heaven, yes ! And when one goes on year after year with eyes always blinded by the smoke of battle, it is rather appalling to contemplate the number and variety of sub- dued emotions which are likely to haunt one's path. The other night after hearing that tragedy so superbly played, I thought how terrible and tragic on the stage are sin and death and the aching heart, and how trivial and commonplace they are in real life." 257 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "It is because on the stage we see them in Seal life not true perspective ; but while living them we properly h our through blindly, feeling all, but staged seeing and understanding only a little of the deeper relation of our experience to the moral world. We are at too close range for true perspective. Ah, here is a crimson cup ! " I exclaimed, as I lifted from its bed of leaves a decayed branch which bore a delicate flesh- A fairy colored crimson-lined peziza cup. "I never beaker G0l ^^ ^ e ma a e to believe that this is a fungus ; I still hold my childish belief that it is a fairy beaker. I promise you if you will drink from this you will experience enchantment." "I am too old for enchantment," he de- murred. "You are not too old ! " I asserted indig- nantly. "I am getting to be reverend in spots," he maintained. "They are so few and far between they do not affect the ensemble," I declared, and thus our talk drifted to trivialities as we turned our steps homeward with our treasures from woodland. 258 '* Confessor, I wish I knew whether it is something or nothing that I sometimes see in Tom's eyes " THE SPRINGTIME MADNESS Confessor, I wish I knew whether it is something or nothing that I sometimes see in Something or Tom's eyes. If it is something, it is tanta- nothin 9 lizingly elusive ; if it is nothing, I have wasted too much time trying to make something of it. Life would indeed be dull without enigmas, and this one is likely to remain a perennial source of interest. 259 CHAPTEE XXIII THE IMPATIENCE OF MR. MORRIS LEADS TO A CHANGE IN CONFESSORS M AY 25TH : I have been sitting in the window-seat for an hour, listening to Some things the flood of waters in the ravine. The mur- unlike water mur Qf flowi water affects me differently at cannot go on forever different times. Sometimes I could worship water because it flows on forever, and some- times I hate it because it flows on forever. One thing is borne in upon me at the pres- ent moment, and that is I cannot go on for- ever with Theodore Morris as I have been going on of late. I must decide soon ; and I am much farther from a decision than I was on that highly entertaining evening after the opera, when he declared his unsus- pected and undesired love. The fact that I am so much farther away from a decision is 260 A CHANGE IN CONFESSORS what alarms me. It shows how far I have been swept beyond the right landing by the current of his will and desire. He seems to have changed greatly during the past two months. From being calm and A melancholy superior, he has become moody, taciturn and in fl unce gloomy. If this is the result of loving me, he will probably be reduced to melancholia if I marry him which is a flippant remark about a most serious matter, Most Solemn Image. To-night I experienced a highly dramatic moment that makes me shiver when I think A civilized of it. There were several people here for the duo Ding evening and we had had much music. T. M. lingered after the others had gone and fol- lowed me to the door, where I had given Hilda into the quite obviously devoted care of Phil. Schlegel, who is with her much of late. We stood on the porch and watched the two disappear down the walk, PhiFs tall form bending gallantly above Hilda as if she had warped him in her direction. There were chairs on the porch and the night was warm, so I proposed that we sit for a little while. He neither accepted my invitation 261 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL nor allowed me to seat myself ; instead, he took my hands in his usual masterly way, and for the first time addressed me by my given name, which intimidated me more than I would be willing to have him know. It was a civilized and polite way of clubbing me into silence and obedience. " Marian, are you never going to give me my answer ? " he asked hoarsely. " I do not think you have ever asked me for an answer," I replied, parrying. " Every day I have asked it," he continued A dramatic impetuously. " A thousand times I have moment asked - t . j naye watched and wa i te d for it through the interminable days of long months. Cannot you see that I am miserable and wretched and am wearing out under the stress of waiting ? I think you do not under- stand how much I need your love just now. It would prove my salvation and strength in ways of which you do not dream j Marian, do not keep me waiting longer !" As he grew more vehement and his agita- tion became more apparent, I waxed cool and self-possessed. My hands were still in 262 A CHANGE IN CONFESSORS his grasp, but they were passive and unrespons- ive while I answered him : " I have not given you my decision, Theo- dore, because I have not known my own mind. Be patient with me for a little while yet ! I am sorry that you must suffer and wait, but I am trying to be true to myself and to you. I promise you an answer very soon." My voice was calm and soothing but his trembled as he answered : " Heaven help you to decide aright ! I will never again be so weak and childishly Help from impatient." Then he bade me good-night above much needed and went his way, leaving me to think again how different he is from what he formerly was. Two months ago I could have pre- dicted that his answer would have been: " There is but one way to decide you are mine and you do love me." Instead of which he says, " Heaven help you to decide aright." I suppose you must have noticed, "Wise Confessor, that from first to last this man has Not enough of been beyond my comprehension. Life with comfortable him would have too little of the comfort of monotony, I fear. And I think you will 263 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL agree that an aged lady of my habits had best not embark on a voyage that is likely to be tempestuous, with nothing to steer by except a demagnetized compass which has evidently lost its hold on the pole star entirely. I have just come to a conclusion, which I A confessor am sure is a good one. I will go to Ma Belle with a heart with the whole matter perf^s s h e in her ^nstead of a wisdom, can set me straight. What though I was the wife of her only son ! She will meet the question without prejudice. Ma Belle has the tender heart of a woman, but she regards things impersonally, like a wise man ; she will consider my problem as ab- stractly as if she had never seen me before, and as vitally as if I were her own daughter. You have been very good to confess to, Idol, but that unimpaired grin of yours has irritated me a little of late. I shall prob- ably come back to you again as soon as you will wish to see me, for I think you are get- ting a little tired of me, as well. 264 CHAPTEE XXIV MA BELLE'S STORY MAY 30TH : Dear Confessor, I think if I did not have you to turn to to-night I should be lost. I will try to give you that conversation with Ma Belle which occurred yesterday, word for word j and perhaps thus I may come to a different conclusion from that forced upon me at the time. I found her radiant in a white gown with a bunch of lilies- of-the- valley on her bosom. Ma Belle's She prolongs the season of these, her favorite leloved flowers flowers ; and always wears them from the first daring bloom of April to the last lingering blossom of June. I did not wait for formali- ties, but said to her at once : " Ma Belle, I am in trouble and I need you. When can you talk to me ? " " Come with me to my room," she an- swered, giving me a keen glance that was 265 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL like an X-ray turned upon my inner turmoil. Ma Belle's room is like herself, restful. The prevailing color in it is heavenly blue, yet there is no one thing which displays this color obtrusively ; it is like being enfolded in a bit of sky to enter the room. She placed me in an easy chair, bolted the door and seated herself at my side. She knew in- stinctively that looking me in the face would disconcert me. fl I do not know where to begin," I fal- tered. " Begin in the middle,' 7 she suggested A good place practically, and I felt helped; but my voice to begin was h oarse with terror when I finally said : " My trouble is an absurd one ; the simple fact is Theodore Morris has been foolish enough to fall in love with me and rash enough to insist that I shall marry him." " All of which goes to show that Mr. Morris is a young man of excellent taste, to fall in love with and wish to marry the most entrancing little woman in the whole world," she answered affectionately and as reassur- ingly as if it were a merely commonplace in- 266 MA BELLE'S STOKY stead of a monstrous fact that I was telling to her. After a moment of silence she went This world a on, Marian. I have been surprised that $ lace f or living loves you have not married again, and I hope you have understood me well enough to believe that I should always be happy in your hap- piness. You were a good wife to Paul j but this world is a place for living loves rather than for those that are dead. While we stay here it is right that we live strongly and completely, and if I could have my choice I would prefer to see you happily married. But tell me, what does the heart of my little girl say to the demands of this young man ! " She so rarely calls me her " little girl " that I felt at once the support of her tenderness, and I turned and faced her as I answered : " Honestly, I do not know. He is a power- ful man and a masterly, interesting lover; and I have been more or less carried away from my moorings by him. But Ma Belle, what do you think of a woman marrying a man twelve years her junior? It seems to me preposterous and unthinkable. Did you Tlie age ever hear of anything so foolish?" She again smiled brightly, as she answered : 267 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " Marian, I have discovered that the modern The modern Lorelei may have silver hair and a silver Lorelei CQml) with wnic k slie seems to be able to lure innocent young sailors to an untimely landing. It takes a weird philosophy to account for the vagaries of the human heart ; therefore I cannot explain why in these de- generate days, certain young men seem to find most attractive the women who have lived and known. The girl of sixteen which so dominated the novels of my youth is sel- dom heard of now ; and although the present day novelist has not yet developed the hardi- hood to weave a romance about the youth of twenty and the woman of forty, yet the situ- ation is common enough and certainly has in it dramatic possibilities." " How do you explain such unnatural social phenomena ? " I interrupted. She answered slowly and thoughtfully : " I have thought about it much, and the only Wisdom vs. explanation I can find is that youth and beauty innocence no i on g er satisfy a certain type of young man who may be found in numbers to-day. He prefers wisdom to innocence j maturity to 268 MA BELLE'S STORY beauty; eyes that see through, him rather than those which gaze at him in adoration. Kuby lips offer to him but slight attraction compared to lips which utter clever things ; and above all a man likes to be mothered by the woman he loves, and that undoubtedly accounts for much. "Then, too, a man does not keep his different kinds of loving as distinct as does a woman. A man's loves She knows her own heart ; and if she regards not weU classified a man with daughterly, sisterly or friendly affection, she does not confuse it with love. But a man never forgets that he is a man, and the moment his heart is open toward a woman, the sex relation intrudes itself whether it has any right to or not. A man is too much dominated by sex conscious- ness to be able to discriminate clearly." "Then you believe it unsafe to depend up- on the love of a man so much younger ! " I interrupted. "I will not say that, because I have known many instances where it has proved as firm Begging the as a rock for the foundation of a happy married life. It depends upon the character 269 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL of the man and of the woman, which is beg- ging the question." "What then do you think of Mr. Morris and me as candidates for such a marriage f " I demanded bluntly. Ma Belle arose with distinct agitation and went over to the window and stood there looking out, while her hands clasped and un- clasped nervously ; after a time she came back and standing before me said with obvious effort : "Marian, dear child, I cannot help you by Ma Belle's deciding for you , but if my own experience story w in ^ip y OU ^ vou skau k ave ^ I will tell you what I thought never to tell to any one. You shall know my judgment about my own life, and perhaps that will help you." "Do not tell me if it hurts you to do it," I cried. "Yes, Marian, I owe it to you to tell you, and I shall tell you even though it hurts. You are so dear to me, so truly my own child that my experience belongs to you, and you shall get what of help it affords." We were silent for a moment, then she began : 270 MA BELLE'S STORY "I am supposed to approve of marriage ; but if serene happiness were the only thing A well worth while in life I should certainly never lalanced ration for advise anybody to get married. However, mankind as a well balanced ration of joy, care and pain seem the best nourishment for the growth of the human soul, I can conscientiously recom- mend marriage as a 'good provider.' You know that I was left a widow when Paul was ten years old. My married life had not been a very happy one ; Paul's father was a brilliant man and not a bad one, but he had feelings instead of judgment. Though I put my best abilities to the task, I could never predict what he would do or desire next. I Marriage soon grew to humor him as if he were a child, compromises and in that attitude lay all the possibilities for happiness in our married life. I believe he was as happy with me as he could have been with anyone, nor do I believe that he missed the respect and honor which I would have so gladly given him. "When all was over, I found that I had relied on myself so long, and so little on him that I took up the duties of life alone with no 271 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL special effort. I devoted myself to the rear- Tlie length of ing and education of Paul, and you know the ear ' rest. I need not have lived alone, Marian, for good men and true have loved me and have shown it by their lives. The heart-cycle is ordinarily not very extended and I am bound to admit that the heart masculine is a swift repeater ; but, Marian, two men whom I honor have remained single because of love of me. (I thought of Marvin Gray.) "It was after you and Paul were married Love fills that I came to know well a man only a few the void years older than Paill fcirasetf. i cannot tell you the kind of man he was and is for various reasons. He came into my life when it was empty. (Dear Ma Belle, how little did she let us feel the emptiness of her life after I took Paul !) He understood me, a fact which seemed to me most marvellous ; and without intrusion he came into my life and filled my thoughts. He was wonderful in his instincts and intuitions, and he had the elements of greatness in his character. "I was forty-four and he thirty when he told me that he loved me and entreated me to be 272 MA BELLE'S STORY his wife. I loved him as I have loved no other man, and I told him so. I struggled as when Love you are struggling with the same problem, ** in ^ attle only my heart pleaded for him as your heart does not plead for Theodore Morris. "I would not yield because I measured the results that would follow this disparity of An evidence ages after marriage. I did not feel equal to fjji rowin 9 old the strain of beginning life again with him. I think a chief evidence of growing old is an unwillingness to pay for experiences what they cost. I was too set in my own grooves to change and be his wife. How could I spend my energies making myself attractive, beautiful and interesting so that he would never miss what a younger woman would give him ? I had lived that phase of my life once, and did not feel equal to living it over again. The handicap seemed too great and, Marian, Woman's I sent him away. After Paul died he came handica P back to me ; and that time it was harder to deny him than it had been before. But my decision was made and I would not yield to him nor to my own heart. "Ever since that time, I have questioned 273 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL the wisdom of my decision. I have been lonely, The barter of so lonely for him. And though the wisdom of happiness for the world would approve my act. I am still wisdom wondering if I did not do a vital and per- manent wrong. He has never married, and has gone bravely on with his work as I knew he would. I should hold in contempt a man who did not live strongly because I could not live at his side. "Marian, neither he nor anyone else has ever known the heights and depths of my madness. Sometimes I see him and we speak of our love j and the moments spent with him are so ecstatically happy that I cannot re- member them afterwards. "I hope that you will go home and think When the over carefully what I have said before you teart pleads make your decision. If I thought that you loved Mr. Morris as I have loved my lover all these years, I would say, marry him and defy the world and common sense." She was silent for a moment and then said : "I know you are wondering who this man is, but, of course I cannot tell you. I will only say that though you may have seen him, you do not know him." 274 MA BELLE'S STOEY f arose too overcome with surprise and awe to say anything, but I knew she understood. She came with me to the door, and as we stood there hand in hand, I again was con- scious of her loveliness which age could not dim, and my heart went out to that man who loved her. As I left her I took a spray of the lilies from her bosom at which she whispered as a flush crept over her face : "The room was filled with the odor of lilies- of-the- valley, and I wore them the night he LiUes-of-the - told me that he loved me. They were in valley bloom again when he came back to me, and that is why I love them." I kissed her and came away in a daze, hold- ing in my hand helplessly the delicate flowei I had taken. The world grew dark and I could not see where I was walking, for I had suddenly remembered that bunch of faded lilies-of-the-valley inadvertently discovered in Tom Carroll's desk and then I knew. MAY 31ST : She said I did not know him, d*ar Ma Belle, that lie was so white that it A shining He fairly shone ! Of course she would not let me 275 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL suspect that it was Tom. For the sake of helping me she could confide to me her own story, but his secret must be kept inviolate. It is all so plain now, for every word she said applies to him perfectly. He is a few years older than Paul, who was born before Ma Belle was eighteen. And how could Tom be with her so intimately and not love her, for she is the most interesting woman in the whole round world. If they had married she would have retained all her charm for him, even if she lived to the age of ninety. Any one associated with her would have to be blind and deaf not to love her. Tom Carroll could not help it, and so he has gone on nobly and bravely, living his life parallel with that of the woman he loves, even though he might not live it with her. As for myself, it does not matter. I have Between the not been so foolish as to care so much that I upper and the canno t meet this revelation as becomes his nether mill-stones friend and her daughter. Nor do I think I have anything to repent ; how could I help caring very much for a man so true and strong a man so brave and unselfish as he ? 276 MA BELLE'S STOKY I am glad that I had discernment enough to comprehend his nobility and care for him as I have done. I trust in the end I shall prove myself worthy of these two, who have turned so resolutely away from the tragedy of their two lives and have with steady eyes confronted the future, each alone. JUNE IST : To-day there came a package from Ma Belle, and a little note which says : DEAR MARIAN: I told you that no one knew the heights and depths of nay madness. I found to-day these Life-Wood a verses and I send them to you and hope that you stultifying will read them. They are not poetry, for they injc were written in my life's blood and life's blood is a stultifying ink. True art can only come through distance and perspective ; but these were written at the storm center. I think it is a relief to have you know the truth. Lovingly, MA BELLE. I have read these verses and I will read them again to you, my Confessor. Not be- cause you will appreciate them but because it hurts to read them. I do not think I am 277 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL jealous. Jealousy is such a mean, insane Better have emotion that we had better have remained remained g re g ar i ous than to have developed so con- gregarious temptible a passion. But it all hurts, and I wish I could get away from it. These verses reveal to me a woman I have Woman's never known. We women understand each limits in ot ] ier exce pt on one side, and that we never understand- ing woman understand. A man understands this side first of all, though he may be unable to com- prehend anything else in us. LILIES-OF-THE-VALLEY. White, gleaming lily bells Your fairy music wells Into a chime Of perfume on the air, Proclaiming everywhere Glad spring-time. As o'er my senses steals The incense of your peals, My breath comes fast ; A flood-tide beats and breaks Against a heart that aches ; Your subtle fragrance makes Me live the past. 278 MA BELLE'S STOKY Ring, pearly lily bells, The saddest of your knells For me, your friend, For a love born not to die, For a grief without a cry, For a soul that questions," Why?" Unto the end, May, 1886. BARREN VICTORY. I have conquered ; the battle is done ; I gaze on the field of my slain. By counting my loss, I have won ; Despair is the meed of my gain. The struggle was bitter, and now Pale Victory stands at my side; Though laurels are fresh on her brow, They fail her grim visage to hide. I have conquered. Henceforth I may dream How precious, how infinite sweet Would life and this empty world seem Had the rapture been mine of defeat. July, 1890. GOOD NIGHT. Dear heart, you said " good night," And the dim stars vaguely watched You vanish from my sight. 279 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL Good night, yea, surely good, Because you came God-sent And by my side had stood. Good night, yea, night for ay, For when you left me there, You took with you the day. October, 1889. A BIRTHDAY GREETING. What have the years unto thee given? A life fair and strong ! Yea, though to it belong that human strength temptation riven, Which faceth bravely wrong. What shall the years unto thee bring ? The subtle gift to know That other lives are built by gaunt strife's meas- uring, The fairest even so. What doth the heart that loves thee so Bring unto thee this day ? One happy thought, I pray ! It would bring weal ; it bringeth woe, And love and love alway. December, 1894. 280 MA BELLE'S STOKY BOWED DOWN. Thy burdens bow thee down, Beloved, But I cannot repine, Since only when thy head is bowed My eyes may look in thine. And when thy eyes meet mine, Beloved, Life's better gifts I see : Great life and love, and the loneliness Of a Gethsemane. January, 1897. THE LOVING CUP. Wherefore hath our loving cup Of jewelled handles three? A guest this night sits at our board, With veiled form and dark eyes lowered, Sweetheart, who may she be ? We rise to drink, and lift the cup By jewelled handles three. Sweetheart, >t is Fate ; she giveth first The cup unto our lips athirst, Then drinks to thee and me. 281 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL The draught within the loving cup, Which brimmeth o'er for three, Was drawn from Lethe's darkened stream, And now, sweetheart, life is the dream, Love, the reality. Jane, 1896. OUR STARS. Where are our stars to-night, sweetheart? The clouds are hanging low, Gray clouds that move not hence, sweetheart, Though driving west- winds blow. Are your skies dark or bright, sweetheart? Alas ! I may not know. When my stars are lost from sight, sweetheart, My heart doth make this plea To the powers of might and night, sweetheart, That you the stars still see. God keep you in the light, sweetheart, Though darkness falls on me. June, 1903. 282 CHAPTER XXV THE VIOLIN MAKES LOVE TO THE PIANO WITH STARTLING RESULTS JUNE 3D: Dear Confessor, after all you are my only help. Ma Belle instead of The best helping, has made it worse. I met Theodore down town to-day when I was trying to keep my mind on some necessary marketing and shopping. He gave me one long and ques- tioning look and then took his place at my side without asking leave, and I at once felt the sympathy and help which he was mutely offering to me. Every cadence of his voice in our very commonplace conversation told me that he was giving himself to me because I was in need ; he comforted the bare and aching place and I let myself rest, sustained by his ministrations. Though no word of deeper meaning was said, I came home cheered The dangers and strengthened by his subtle understanding of me. 283 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL In the whirlpool of emotion in which I Thecondi- have been helplessly drifting around and ^^niarriagl aroun( l since that day with mamma, I had almost forgotten that this problem of T. M. is immediately before me. The temptation is to take what comforts and helps j I feel the instinct of seeking shelter in his arms from this tempest of loneliness and despair. Under the stress of it all it is hard to remem- ber the great truth that marriage is never true and right unless the two give equally, even though they take unequally. I am afraid of my own weakness afraid that I shall yield to his will rather than to my own sense of right and justice. JUNE 4TH : Oh, how can mortals be so blind, so blind ! It seems as if there were nothing left for me these days but shock after shock of awakening. All day yesterday I wrestled with my prob- Perilous lem, and the more I wrestled, the more restlessness rec ki ess j became. There is a factor of rest- lessness in recklessness which is most danger- ous. We do not so much desire to do reck- 284 THE VIOLIN MAKES LOVE TO PIANO less deeds as to do something, no matter what, to change present conditions. Last night Theodore came with his violin to play for me, " If we could only be left alone for a few moments," he whispered. But Hilda chanced to come in and of course the two played together. I was relieved by Hilda's opportune appearance for, truth to tell, I was afraid of being left alone with him and his heart-pleading violin 5 I felt the need of a brief reprieve. Somewhat late in the evening we three were left alone j as the two began playing the Perfec music they knew I loved best I, as usual, curled up on the sofa and shut my eyes to listen. At first they did not play as well as usual, but finally it went better and it seemed to me that I had never heard them play so perfectly ; they were evidently attuned to each other's moods. They played Chopin's Nocturnes and Preludes, Godard's Berceuse, and The Swan by Saint Saens, and a Beet- hoven Sonata. I did not care for their music, although I realized that it had never before been so 285 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL thrilling. I could not find even the this- Love crosses world end of my bridge to music land. I fl % e ' I was weltering in my own inner misery and musvc land could not be called out of myself. Restlessly I opened my eyes and looked at the players j they were under the full blaze of the Wels- bach light and were both facing nearly in my direction. They had just finished the Aria on the G string and Hilda was as pale as death. In strong contrast his face was aglow ; there was fire in his eyes, a bright color burned in his usually pale cheeks, and even his moustache could not hide the tremulous tenderness of his lips. For the first time I saw his inner being revealed in his features. As he placed another piece of music on the The piano in front of her, his hands were trembling heart-plead- SQ that t]ie slieet was s h a ki ng . as he leaned ing violin over to put it in place his eyes must have sought hers ; I could not see his face for the moment but Hilda's was in fall view, and a wave of red surged over it from brow to chin, then retreated leaving it more pallid than before. They began playing Beethoven's Adelaida, and never in my life had I heard 286 THE VIOLIN MAKES LOVE TO PIANO such impassioned music. The violin pleaded and pleaded until its heart seemed breaking j the piano responded sweet and profoundly sad 5 and I was overcome by the music even as I lay there stupefied by my discovery. As soon as I could think, it all became plain ; and I had now gained the key to the A quite mysterious moods and actions of this man ^^ who had been wooing me. At first he be- situation lieved he loved me, and was calm and master- ful and sure in his methods for winning me. After Hilda came and they played together so constantly, he became moody and grim, and his wooing was evidently mere bravado to convince himself that he was loyal to me. I must have been mad not to have seen it all long ago. Whatever the music this night revealed to them of heart-struggle and love, I do not know ; but it cleared my understanding, brought back my self-control, re-established my sanity and made me at once master of the situation. Before the last bars of Adelaida were finished, I arose and thought- fully tipped over a chair on my way toward 287 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL the piano and the absorbed musicians. As they stopped playing I exclaimed : " Oh, that wretched chair ! Please for- give me and it ! You two have fairly out- done yourselves to-night making music for me, and I can find no words to fittingly thank you with. I am certainly the most favored mortal in the whole world." And thus by cheerful commonplaces, I The safe brought them back to earth and its realities. nplwe I sent them home together, too, knowing well that despite the longing in his heart, he would be true to his avowal to me. I must confess also that I am quite willing to have him suffer a little ; it will widen and deepen his channel. Since I have come to my room, I have A proper written him a letter. It is thus I give him relation to ^ freedom without allowing him to sus- tho secrets of others pect that I know the truth. It is a great source of personal power to know the secrets of others' lives, but it is vastly embarrassing to have them know that you have discovered such secrets independently. Listen to this 288 THE VIOLIN MAKES LOVE TO PIANO letter, Confessor, and I am very certain you will hardly dare to call me guileless. MY DEAR THEODORE : You have asked me for an answer to a very momentous question, and I have been coming to j guileful this answer little by little. I do not suppose you letter will ever know what a temptation you have been to me with your sympathy, understanding and love. But I have finally achieved sufficient strength to do what is right and be true to myself and to you. I knew from the first that I could never love you as a wife ought to love ; but your love for me was so sweet and so comforting when I was needing comfort that I almost forgot what I could give in return. It was a mirage, dear friend, and we have both ^ mirage wandered on and on toward it, hoping to see it materialize. But it remained always on our hori- zon ; at best, it was a paradise picture upside down. I am going away from you, for I will not place myself in a position to be again tempted. And I believe with all my heart that when I come back we shall be better friends than ever before ; and that all temptation to twist our friendship into something closer will have been laid low. Faithfully yours, MARIAN. 289 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL I am going away so that he shall not see lack of me until he has had time- to orient himself. [ el f~ Probably he does not understand himself, comprehen- sion men seldom do in such crises. I remem- ber well when I read the Choir Invisible, I thought how true to man's nature was the character of John Gray. He thought he was in love with Amy when he was really in love with the Madam ; and he afterwards married another woman and was perfectly happy. Over and over I have been amazed at a man's capability for loving two or three simultane- ously. With women it is far different : they love tandem, even though they change teams A gratuitous often. All this sounds heartless and flippant, and Remark but !t is a natural reaction. No one but you, My Confessor, knows how truly relieved I am to have the Theodore Morris problem solve itself. When I think how near I came to spoiling his life and mine, I shiver. He was never in my straight road ; I found him when I was making a detour by a devious and blind A Hind trail trail. I believe I could endure living the truth however hard it might be ; but it seems a quite unnecessary waste of energy to go 290 THE VIOLIN MAKES LOVE TO PIANO out of my way in order to endure the hard- ship of living a lie. And yet the discovery which I made to- night was a shock to me ; not a terrible shock, An but the sort that comes from sitting on the Dominions experience floor instead of the chair one expects to sit on. There is a most ignominious feeling about it all. If you knew women well, you might think that though I love not my lover, I still might Love that is not like to yield him to another woman. But tru cann <>t fo T _ alienated this is not so j I would be entirely content and happy to see Theodore and Hilda happy to- gether as husband and wife. I do not think there is any jealousy in my composition, be- cause of my sincere belief that if a love is mine, it cannot be alienated ; -and if it belongs to another, I do not desire it. And, too, I love Hilda and I love Ma Belle. Moreover, my creed has always been to face things as they are and not to cover my eyes with my hands in order not to see them. But it hurts to face some things, little god, it hurts ! 291 CHAPTER XXVI JL FLIGHT TO THE HILLS. FRIENDS' MEETING JUNE 6TH : I hope your sudden flight across country to this beautiful spot, and An excellent the exchange of your carven temple for a cement s ^ e ^ adorned with a linen lambrequin broi- dered with extraordinary fuchsias has not made you either dizzy or irritable, My Con- fessor. You see, I could not help eloping with you. As you may have inferred, life has been a little too much for me of late, so I gathered up the fragments of myself and brought them away j and here, in this limpid quiet and peacefulness, I will set them to- gether again and trust that ultimately not a crack will be discernible. From your shelf beneath my little uneven Mine own hills mirror, which makes me look as wobbly as I feel, you may look out between snowy cur- tains across a grassy dooryard, thence across 292 A FLIGHT T0 THE HILLS a valley to a range of eastern hills. One of the pleasantest physical sensations of my life was the feeling of the soft knot-grass beneath my little bare feet, when in my child- hood I was allowed to remove my shoes and stockings and play for a brief but rapturous hour in this sunny dooryard. And those are mine own hills which I lived with and dreamed with during the years of girlhood, when all the great world that lay beyond that hor- izon was one of high hopes and entrancing happiness. Now that I know just what there is in that great world, I hurry back to love my hills still more for what they fence out. This is my life-saving-station, and I came none too soon. The lady with fair face and quirly white hair, who asked in a tone of amazement this Aunt Sylvia morning concerning Your Serene Highness, "What on the broad footstool is this thing on your shelf, Marian?" is Aunt Sylvia. She and Uncle Stephen came here to live when Aunt Emily died, and they are a part of the beauty, the peace and the healing which over- flows the place. These two wholesome, youth- 293 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL ful elderly ones are twins, and have lived Uncle Stephen together, barring the two brief years of Uncle Stephen's married life, since they were born. I can see Uncle Stephen now, smoking his pipe in his big chair on the porch of the L. His cheeks are rosy and his blue eyes are merry as he looks up at the robin in her nest above his head ; and his voice is soft and reassuring as he greets a hen, coming slowly toward him with stately step and sidewise stare to discover if he has anything in his pocket for her to eat. And now he has taken up his New York Evening Post and is nod- ding vigorously as he reads some editorial. Editorial The pepper-sauce of that editorial page is yeppev e ^^ as necessarv to his happiness as his daily meat. I came without warning, as I usually do ; and my welcome was as warm as if specially prepared. Aunt Sylvia tucked me into bed last night as she used to when as a girl I spent my vacations here. And I put my head on that blessed pillow and slept as I have not slept before for weeks. 294 A FLIGHT TO THE HILLS JUNE TTH : I wish I had taken you with, me this morning, to the great woods on the The ministry "templed hills." Though the sun was shining, f the birds the leaf-canopy above me was so thick that I was walking in twilight. I found a tree bent into a seat, into which I used to clamber with a sense of happy proprietorship, and there I sat me down to listen to the bird concert. A vireo was asking querulous questions in the distance j a wood thrush near by gave out his notes boldly, fortissimo 5 a veery was so in love with his song that he repeated it four times, lingeringly; and now and then a hermit thrush sent his heavenly voice echoing through the twilight spaces, music so exquisite that we might not bear more than a single phrase. Then, lest I be drunk with melody, the oven bird called "teacher, teacher," to bring me back to earth. Yes, back to earth j but not A good place an earth of trouble and perplexity ; an earth, to lwe m instead, where green forests grow beset with meadows aglow with buttercups, overarched with blue skies. You who know something of my inner tur- moil during the preceding days, may have 295 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL difficulty in understanding how I have so Antiseptic suddenly changed my inner as well as my thinking outer WQrld j t is my wa ^ deap j d() ^ when T am hit, not to stay and waste myself in fur- ther struggle, but to flee from the battle field, turn my face to green fields and sunny skies ; and by keeping my thoughts thoroughly an- tiseptic, let the hurts heal through Nature's own kindly treatment. The Master evinced his wisdom when he Conscience went to the desert to be tempted, it was much 1 apogee sa f er y^^ ^ o h ave remained in the haunts of men j never to be alone is in itself demoral- izing. Though this beautiful spot is hardly a desert, yet for me it is the delectable land of nowhere j and the logical and delightful thing to do is to subside into a nobody. No introspec- tions, no retrospections, no sack-cloth 5 and ashes but an aid to the general fertility of the spiritual outlook. Even conscience soon be- comes obsolete, because there is nothing here to exercise it. I suspect that hermits originally dwelt in hermitages so as to get away from all need of a conscience. 296 A FLIGHT TO THE HILLS JUNE STH : This morning I went with Uncle Stephen to hoe corn ; it was planted in a Hoeing small field on the hill that faces the east, corn from which may be seen the windings of the creek around the bases of the interlacing hills. The corn was just peeping from the soft, purple mold, and Uncle Stephen ex plained : " All the rest of the corn on the farm is drilled in with a planter, and is harrowed and Friendly cultivated according to new-fangled notions ; battle but I plant and hoe this piece every year be- cause I like to. If I could not give my old back some good stiff exercise hoeing corn, I am afraid I should soon get decrepit and useless." He gently smoothed the fresh earth around the tender plants, proving skilfully that a hoe may caress as well as cut, and continued : "Thee knows the only fighting Friends may indulge in is against weeds, and their only ap- proved weapon is the hoe. I love to work with the corn j I think it is a beautiful plant from the time it sprouts until it is harvested. I like to think of it as the plant which gave our Pilgrim Fathers sustenance during those 297 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL first hard years, growing cheerfully for them between the stumps of their clearings where no civilized grain could grow. Did thee ever hear the ripening grain talk ? It has a lan- guage of its own, and I often stand and listen to it whispering and whispering in corn talk, and wish I understood it better than I do." Dear Uncle Stephen ! He should have been Living poetry using a pen instead of a hoe ; but he is one of instead of tlie bi esse( i ones w h o ij ve poe try instead of writing it writing it. I sat under a tree at the edge of the field, and watched his sturdy arms in their snowy sleeves work havoc in the weed ranks ; meanwhile I gave myself over to the beguilement of the meadow-larks' refrain. There are no words to express what their song means to me, perhaps 'happy tears would express it better than anything else. JUNE 9TH : This morning Aunt Sylvia said to me in her humorous way, " What a fine world this would be if there The curse of were no ( buts ' or l ifs ' in it no conjunctions conjunctions a t a ll except 'and.' I have always believed that conjunctions were the first inventions of 298 A FLIGHT TO THE HILLS the serpent. When his poor victims were put out of Eden, he hurled a lot of conjunctions after them by way of emphasizing their fallen condition." That was a fine conception, little god j how true that a happy and consistent world would Nice, serene need no conjunction but nice, serene "and." " an d" Listen now : Marian was born, and grew up, and was naughty, and was good, and was happy at times, and died peacefully, and evanesced into Nirvana. Does n't that sound easy and simple? Well, in this place, I shall soon eliminate my " buts " and " ifs, " and " fors." I have had a restful day ; I spent a good share of it in the hammock, gazing idly at the The song of upland seas of meadow-grass undulating in the f 6 summer wind. I could not think for listening world to the bobolinks ; ever since I was a child the bobolink song has tinkled itself joyously into the uttermost parts of my being. I gave my- self up to it to-day and have grown in grace because of it. Who says this is a hard and perplexing world f It is a world exactly right ; I am proud to be in any world that has in it a bobolink. 299 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL JUNE HTH : A most interesting Sabbath Organized day ! It never occurred to me before, but of worship course you? b e i n g a Benighted Heathen, do do not know what Sunday is, do you ? We people of the western world are prone to organization j and so we organize our worship, and put it all in one day of every seven, and call that day Sunday. This morning I hope you noticed the utter A First-day stillness which pervaded this house j even pilgrimage Maria in the k i tcnen did not rattle the dishes and pans as is her wont on week days. At ten the great carriage drawn by the plump farm-horses was at the door j there was room in it for us all including Maria, and James the hired man, and Eleazer, the hired boy. It was a soft, misty morning and as we drove along by lush meadows, the trees were mere shadows in the fog. We dropped Maria at the Methodist, and James at the Baptist church, but Eleazer went on with us to the Quaker meeting house where I used to go when a child. It was as bare and as clean and peaceful as ever, but there were fewer people within it than of yore. Aunt Sylvia 300 A FLIGHT TO THE HILLS and Uncle Stephen sat on the high seats, facing the congregation, and a few other placid faces that I remembered looked down upon us from that eminence. The meeting began and we sat long in silence. No temptation came to me now to Quaker break that blessed silence with profane shout- meetin 9 ing ; it permeated my soul comfortingly. After Uncle Josiah Palmer had prayed, even as he used to pray employing the same words and thoughts, the sun broke through the clouds and illumined the room. In this flood of light there arose a man whom I did not knowj his thin, sensitive face showed deep lines but it shone with peace and was as beautiful and clean cut as a cameo. There was something that smacked of the world and its vanities in his well fitting suit of gray, his white vest and the jaunty *roll to the wide brim of his hat which he held in his hand as he talked 5 in a voice musical and vibrant he said : " 'To give unto them beauty for ashes ; the oil of joy for mourning ; the garment of praise An interesting for the spirit of heaviness.' How are we to P reacher 301 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL do these good works for our fellow men of Hardly an which Isaiah tells us ? Is it by following our orthodox QWn ( j ev j ous W ays, or by running along the sermon smoothly beaten track of the wisdom of others ? Nay, nay, wisdom was never meant for paving our ways ; wisdom is the final com- pensation which we attain at the end of our journey over the rough, unbroken paths of self. "Wisdom is the highest gift of discipline. Which, think you, gained most, Lazarus to whom all gifts were denied or Midas whose wish was fulfilled ? We know not which gives us the greater discipline, to get what we desire or to be denied it ; both are good if thereby we gain wisdom. Even the exchange of integrity for wisdom may not be a poor barter for some souls, since wisdom brings a wider comprehension of our fellow men, and the temptations which beset them. What though we lose tiie qualities which we most prize, if by so doing we may be led to help the fallen ! I would call no barter poor, if it assured me that sympathy and understanding which would permit another soul to stand naked before me and say ( See me as I am. 7 302 A FLIGHT TO THE HILLS Greatness may come to us when we least suspect it and when we feel most bitterly tfoe Greatness enormity of our failures. For, how a man may come must be like God, to lead another to say in W GX C ud his presence l See me as I am 7 ! " He sat down j a bumble-bee buzzed up and down a pane ; through the open doors we The soul heard a chipping sparrow singing like a happy ^ athed in grasshopper in the lilacs, and an oriole in the elms trying a bit of the Waldvogel's song in Siegfried. And yet all these sounds but emphasized the silence which laved the spirit as does the cool waters of a wayside brook, the tired and soiled feet of the way- farer on dusty highways. Aunt Sylvia arose, her pretty hair escaping from her plain bonnet and curling in a most The Spirit worldly way about her sweet face. The Spirit mooes Aunt Sylvia moved her to say : " Many among us who are able to keep the letter of the law, suffer be- cause we are not able to keep the spirit of it as well. Let us beware of vain reasoning ! Tlie letter of the law is meant as a guide for our acts in dealing with our fellow men. The spirit of the law is our own struggle for in* 303 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL terpretation of the law to ourselves. A hair's breadth lying between ' did > and i did not ' is as good as all space so far as our relations to others are concerned. So let us not reproach ourselves that we keep only the letter of the law ; if we keep it well and prayerfully, after a time rebellion will cease and we shall be at one with the spirit." After she ceased speaking, Uncle Stephen The Friendly arose and began the hand-shaking which in- hand-shaking dicated that the mee ting was at an end. Many came forward to greet me in the true Friendly way ; among them were the friends of my mother whom I had known when a ' child. Finally, the stranger who had spoken such extraordinary sentiments for a Friend, came forward and Aunt Sylvia introduced him thus : " Marian, thee surely remembers Gerritt An old Howland." I smiled involuntarily, for that playmate name brought back vividly an incident of my early life. Aunt Emily, who had withdrawn from the Friends to join the Epis- copal church, felt thereby justified in enjoy- ing to a certain extent the vanities of the 304 A FLIGHT TO THE HILLS world. At my earnest insistence she had allowed me the privilege of wearing a hoop- skirt, which at that time was more or less the fashion. One day when I was dressed in my diminutive hoops Gerritt Howland and his sister came visiting ; the latter was near my own age, and Gerritt was a great overgrown boy several years my senior. But he conde- scended to play with us and in teaching us the game of " Follow my leader," led to the roof of the hen-house and leaped thence to the ground. I was not to be outdone, even by a big boy, and so I followed him ; but I was not to the crinoline born and as I jumped from the roof a huge nail in the gable caught Annoying my hoops and there I hung suspended head sus P ense downward, until my elders rescued me to my intense mortification, and the abolishment forever of hoops. Could it be that this man, strong and beautiful of face, the daring preacher of amazing doctrines, had developed from the lively boy whose chubby face I re- member so well ? He took my hand and greeted me gravely, saying : " I remember well my little playmate, and 305 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL I am glad to meet her again." There was a magnetic quality in the man that made his commonplace words mean much, and his clasp of my hand sent an electric thrill along my arm. I could hardly wait until we were on our way home to ask what could be told of Gerritt Howland. Aunt Sylvia replied : "It takes a great deal to teach some people The hard just ordinary common-sense truths, and Ger- school of ritt was one O f tliat sort He grew up ^3 and rebellious and finally left home and went to the city. "What happened to him there we never knew, but a good many years ago he met with a great change of heart and mind. He is doing a good work in the great city i settlement 7 work people call it, but it makes him cross to hear it called by that name, for some reason or other. He spends a part of every summer with his sister, Letitia, who is a widow and lives on the old homestead. He is a great help to her in carrying on the place ; and he is the best preacher we have had in meeting for many a year." " A man who has had to struggle for his 306 A FLIGHT TO THE HILLS upward trend, knows how to reach the souls of other stragglers," I declared. Uncle Stephen responded, teasingly : " Sylvia does n't care about his faults as long as he looks handsome and preaches well. Good and The Eussians have a proverb. 'Not dear be- and good f cause good, but good because dear. 7 " " Nonsense, Stephen ! Thee likes to hear Gerritt preach as well as I do, and thee knows thee does j he is moved to say things which are true and interesting." "There are two things which make a man interesting to a woman, Sylvia ; one is for her TWO diverse to discover in him a weakness when she knows P atJls to woman's he has great strength j the other is for her to discover strength in him when she knows he is very weak. To which class does thee claim that Gerritt belongs?" asked Uncle Stephen with a wicked little twinkle in his blue eyes. Aunt Sylvia retorted : "Just being interesting, anyhow, is a vir- tue in this commonplace world." One virtue "A virtue that brings its own reward ^ re f , reward readily.** 307 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL "Stephen, thee is so exasperating," said Aunt Sylvia placidly. "I am not exasperating, I am only just," he argued. "Sympathy and charity are the upholstery A thin of the judgment seat, Stephen ; and thee >d cushion Better be careful or thy cushion will be very thin," was Aunt Sylvia's last word. The chief entertainment of the two is teasing each other. The gay yellow and white, many-gabled cottage came in sight ; this house was Aunt Emily's first venture after she withdrew from the Friends. I spoke of it and Aunt Sylvia said, in smiling reminiscence : "Yes, Emily grew tired of plainness. I Aunt Emily's remember perfectly her first worldly dress j it dash for was a combination of brilliant green and sal- mon pink and Stephen told her that she looked like a lobster salad in it. And then she must build this house different in form and gayer in color than any other in the country. It was as if all the rebellion against plainness which had been tempting the family for generations found expression in her. Thee 308 A FLIGHT TO THE HILLS remembers how passionately she loved rit- ualism and no church could be too ' high ' for Too much of her. Once mother visited Emily in the city an entertain - ment and they attended service which was very elaborate and long ; after they returned home, Emily felt very happy and triumphant and asked, 'Did you ever witness anything so interesting or beautiful ? 7 'Yes, Emily/ said mother ' it was both interesting and beauti- ful, but it was no way to spend the Sabbath. 7 " "Perhaps it is because Sylvia has been able to conscientiously live in a gay house which she could not help inheriting, that she has been able to retain Tier plain ways," said Uncle Stephen mischievously. JUNE 12TH: Little god, maybe you know more about the impulses of little beings than Singed wings I do ; if so I wish you would tell me why, on a damp, warm night like this, the small, winged creatures hurl themselves so enthusi- astically into the flame of my lamp, as they are doing this moment, leaving as a result of the blissful holocaust nothing but a bad odor! Is it not a pity that singed wings are quite as 309 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL malodorous as other singed substances ? Some Life's of these flame-loving moths, having failed to antitheses j nc i nera te themselves in the lamp, seem wild not limited to mankind with desire to commit suicide in my ink bottle. I wonder if it is because of disappointment in not reaching the light that they choose as an alternative, liquid darkness ! Life seems full of antitheses, even for moths. I will close my window and prevent this wild self-destruction j and now they are beating their wings against the glass and cannot understand what deters them. One great ^noctuid flutters up and down the pane, his eyes like rubies, afire with desire. What good fortune for him that the glass is there, although I know he hates it. What is that you say, Impertinent Idol? An unkind That I ought to understand from experience confessor ^ G jj an g ers o f fluttering around flame, the ignominy of singed wings, and the relief to be found in ink? And that I should appreciate to the fullest extent the blessedness of the restraining pane? I did not dream that you could be so inconsiderate as to say such cruel things to one who has evidently con- fessed to you not wisely, but too much. 310 CHAPTER XXVII MARIA DISCOURSES ON WIDOWERS. GERRITT HOWLAND COMES TO TEA JUNE 13TH ; Everything here conduces to cheerfulness and a wholesome attitude Maria toward life. Even Maria, our hired girl, is an influence in this direction j the word "girl" as applied to her is purely a matter of custom and has no reference to her age, for she is a woman of fifty, keen and capable and of the good old New England type. Her large, airy kitchen with its yellow painted floor and win- dows hung with white muslin curtains is one of the pleasantest rooms I was ever in. I like to assist her in the dish-washing, or sit in her comfortably cushioned Boston rocker watch- ing her deft movements while I talk with her. This morning Uncle Stephen in passing through the kitchen remarked on the great 311 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL amount of rain we have had this season, and Maria answered, "We ought to be thankful ! Last year it An was so dry here that the buckwheat was so embarrassing small the bees ^^ t t downon tneir hands crop and knees to get the honey ; and folks talked of lathering and shaving the fields in order to harvest the crop." Maria is very devoted to Uncle Stephen and Widowers as said of him one day, "Stephen Southard is the seen by Maria salt of tlie eartll? and a most re markable be- having widower. He hain't ever looked at a woman since that little, pale-faced, curly- haired wife of his'n died. Now most men, just as soon as they are widowers, start on the dead run for the first woman that heaves into sight ; they are lots different in that respect from widows, who always wait and pick and choose the man they want, if he 's to be had. But a widower ain't no wise particular about the 'who,' his mind is so set on the 'what.' Land sakes ! I don't wonder most married women die hard ; I suppose they are thinking about what spectacles their husbands will be making of theirselves as soon as their eyes close and 312 GERRITT HOWLAND COMES TO TEA afore they fairly reach the first landing on the golden stairs. If I ever get married I am goin' to outlive the unfortunit man just so that folks won't find out what a fool he nat- urally is when he is left alone." "I wonder that you did not get married long ago, Maria ; Aunt Sylvia says you have had many good chances," I said, hoping to lead her on further. "I don't know about the goodness of my chances! Sometimes all it takes to make a A poor show circus out of life is two fools and a ring ; and I 've always been afraid it would n't be worth the price of admission," quoth Maria. JUNE 14TH : I spent this sultry afternoon in the hammock in the orchard. A weak An afternoon little breeze felt its way around and touched my face with cool, listless fingers. The hens trailed past me in Indian file, each one keep- ing a suspicious eye upon me as she passed, with beak open, gasping for breath. A vireo in the tree above me remarked with sweet garrulousness, "Wait, may-be ; wait, may- be," as if I had not already had too much of 313 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL waiting and maybes ! Two yellow butterflies zigzagged down the orchard aisle and called my attention to a view of the hills through the vista of brown-green apple branches. These hills are not great and rugged, but are softened and beautified by long life. They are rounded and meadowed and forested, even to the high far ones which mingle with the clouds that pile up, and cushion the horizon. They are the kind of hills which the drifting cloud-shadows love to caress. So I looked at them and forgot the heat of the day and the fret of existence, and my afternoon was serene. My serenity has vanished to-night for I am CJiain physically afraid ! I wonder if thunder af- lightning f ec ^ s your teak sensibilities unpleasantly ! I hope not, since I must get courage from you to face that great black cloud which walls up the western horizon, wherein the lightning makes jagged gates which shut with a crash that makes the earth tremble. To be blotted out by a thunder-bolt always seemed to me to be an unwarrantable intrusion upon human rights. I think I will keep awake to-night and 314 GERRITT HOWLAND COMES TO TEA watch this lightning, lest it lap me up as a cat laps milk. JUNE 15TH : Gerritt Howland and his sister were invited here to-night, and it was a Company for most interesting occasion. What, with all of tea our many-course dinners, have we which can compete with one of these old-fashioned teas : grandmother's china, as thin as a wafer ; beautiful old linen, polished as only Maria's iron can polish ; biscuits and honey fit for the gods ; ham sliced so thin it resembled rose leaves, and damson preserves, delicious be yond description. But even the feast was not what made this evening so interesting j although it did add an artistic element not to be ignored, with Uncle Stephen in his fresh gray linen suit at the head of the table, oppo- site Aunt Sylvia arrayed in her white muslin with "lavender sprigs " trailing through it. After tea we sat on the piazza, Uncle Stephen smoking his dear pipe and our guest a cigar which suggested the city club. Gerritt sat near me and in some break in the general conversation I asked : 315 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL " Were there ever anywhere else such east- ern hills for western shadows to climb t " " They remind me of Indian sachems around a camp fire, with their heads bowed upon their knees/ 7 he replied. "Yesterday I climbed to the top of the west hill and was surprised to find that this eastern range looks like veritable mountains." "One of the interesting facts about hills, as An evidence well as about some other things, is that the of having j^^ we get the higher they seem. Some- attained a higher plane times we may doubt our growth upward, but if we find our horizon widening, and the world in our neighborhood seeming to uplift, then may we be comforted." " I wish I had thy power of coining inner experience into the currency of speech," I replied enviously. " Gerritt, she has hit the nail on the head," said Uncle Stephen, who had been listening. " Whatever people may say about inspiration, it is chiefly the gift of speech which makes the preacher." " Uncle Stephen believes in the inalienable right of asses to bray," laughed Gerrit, and 316 GEKEITT HOWLAKD COMES TO TEA Uncle chuckled appeciatively. Then I took up the cudgels : "After all, true speech is inspiration j a silent realm stretches in limitless space The coining around each of us ; and only through the gift f the 9 u silence into of genius is some word brought over from that speech realm of silence to the realm of the senses. The one true word is said and the millions who are dumb, rejoice." " Thee will spoil Gerritt, Marian, as all the rest of us do,' 7 said Letitia fondly. " It depends upon what a man thinks of himself, and not upon what others think of what spoils him, whether he can be spoiled or not," an- a man swered Gerritt soberly ; then turning to me, " Marian, let ? s go and climb the big gray boul- der where we used to play ; perhaps it may be smaller than it was in those days." " Better go and look at the hen-house, too," suggested Uncle Stephen, laughing, as we left the porch. " I wanted to talk to thee alone, Marian Lee," said Gerritt as we followed the pasture A compre- path up the hill. " I saw in thy face when I hens * ve question met thee on First Day, that thee has discov- 317 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL ered for thyself what sort of a world it is that lies over there beyond these hills, and I wanted a chance to ask thee what were thy conclu- sions." " I found it a volcanic old ball, and have spent most of my years schooling myself to walk on hot lava," said I, laughing. "And the serenity that shines from thy face means simply that thee has become ac- customed?" " It is not the serenity of cold storage, if that is what thee means," I answered, still scoffing. "And thee, what has thee found in that world beyond the hills?" " That in it we manage somehow to do all What we of the things of which we, at first, disapprove, found in the ail( j thereby grow into great knowledge and world beyond the Mils wisdom, and learn for a certainty the reasons for our disapproval." " And the good of it and the bad ? " queried I. " Oh, the unhappiness of being good and bad for others when we are simply being our- selves ! " " True, personal influence is an appalling 318 GEREITT HOWLAND COMES TO TEA mystery. It is the splash made by the peb- ble, and the resulting waves may require a life- time to measure," I acquiesced. " It would surely be vastly better if we could grow up without exerting influence ; Uneasy lies and wait until we are ripe before we splash the head that wears an into other people's lives;" He turned and in-growing looked at me earnestly, " One thing I am crown sure of, thee has lived facing the world, not thyself. Thine is not the uneasy head that wears an in-growing crown ! " " No, I do not spend my time dropping plummets into my inner deeps. Deeps were not made just for fathoming, but to sail over with a fair wind. But, tell me if thee can, what is all this discipline of experience for? " " That we may finally be neither too narrow to comprehend nor too broad to discrimi- nate." " If that is the end in view, I fear too many of us are bowed and broken reeds. Has thee discovered any good use for broken reeds ? " I asked lightly. " For Pan to pipe on if they are broken in right lengths," he replied in the same vein ; 319 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL then added more seriously, " If the tone be The tuning of good, why need we ask what broke the reed ? Pan-pipes Thee remem k ers j n the old grammar the definition of a verb as signifying ( to be, to do, to suffer > ? Reverse the order and it is a good formula for making character. To A verb suffer first, then, as a resource, to do all the formula ftdngs which one can lay hands to, and then finally, to be." We were now standing by the boulder, and he leaped to the top with his old agility, and extending his hand said, merrily : " Come up, little playmate ! " then when I stood at his side he continued, almost tenderly, " I cannot tell in mere words how glad I am to have my playmate with me again." " Jump me down and I will race thee back to the house," I commanded, and suiting the action to the word, we soon arrived at the porch, flushed and breathless. " Thee is not good any more j thee used to let me beat thee down the hill," I declared reproachfully. Too true to be " I am no longer too good to be true," he laughed. 320 GERKITT ROWLAND COMES TO TEA " Thee had better be careful and not be too true to be good," cautioned Aunt Sylvia, fall- ing in with our mood ; Gerritt glanced at me appreciatively. The remainder of the visit was pleasing in every particular. Gerritt proved a mental stimulus to the others as well as to myself j as they were leaving he said to me so that no one else heard, " I shall see thee again very soon." I have been thinking it all over since I came up to my room, and find that instead of A being as pleased as I ought to be with such blunder an evening, I am fearful and half annoyed. This question of sex is, in this day of social complexity, a disturbing element. What a pity it is, Mr. Teak-wood, that protoplasm should have split, back in geologic times, and thus have been obliged to climb down the lad- der of the ages on two feet instead of sliding down on one. If it had put all its energies into roots, stems and leaves, and had avoided meddling with vertebrae and souls and human beings, this would have been a peaceful and well-behaved planet, and a credit to the solar system. 321 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL All this means that I should like nothing The trail of better than to be Gerritt Holland's play- the serpent mate . but because I am a self-conscious woman, I am obliged to think absurd, self- conceited, foreboding thoughts about the possibility of his falling in love with me ; I am disgusted ! At the same time I know that there was more in Gerritt's greeting than the mere pleasure of renewing an old acquain- tance. All too soon this Eden of mine will, I fear, develop a serpent. However, I will not worry about it. If I have stumbled upon the trail of that " most subtle of all beasts," as the Bible naively calls it, there is only the merest tip of its tail in sight ; so I will ignore it and go on with my happy forgetfulness of life and its duties. JtnsrE 16TH : Do you not think it wonderful Through sense that I have shed all my perplexities like soiled to spirit g armen ts 7 an( j ji ve so wholly in the present ? All this day I have given myself over to June and its glory without reserve. I reveled in the fragrance of the old-fashioned cinnamon roses which hedge one side of the lawn. The 322 GEREITT HOW-LAND COMES TO TEA green of the meadows, the blue of the sky, and the blood-red petals of the great peonies made me breathless with excitement. When I leaned against the old sycamore by the brook, and stroked the soft velvet of its trunk freshly freed from bark, I had a sudden com- prehension of the riotous blisses of the satyrs. The songs of the bobolink, oriole and meadow- lark thrilled and filled me with ecstacy. All of these appeals to the senses intoxicate me ; and then, by some strange alchemy, sensuous joy is transmuted into spiritual strength and refreshment. JUNE I?TH : No letter has come to me until to-day. I told the family not to write unless Postal I was needed. So when Uncle Stephen held * ondage up this letter, as he drove into the yard this afternoon, I went out to get it with a reluc- tance that would have surprised him if he had noticed it. But my feelings were quite un- necessary, for the letter is a most amusing one from Joe. I suppose you will understand, Wise One, that Joe means to convey to us the information that Millie will have none of 323 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL him 5 but that he has not lost courage, and that, in the end, he expects to win. DEAR MARNEB : A June-bug has just made me a visit, and I have -^ been making some interesting and illuminating Coleopterous observations upon his personality and methods. I always did admire the aplomb with which a June- bug encounters facts. He comes sailing in through the window, never doubting that the earth and all thereon is his, and flies about in cheerful zig-zags, proclaiming by his buzz that his path is toward the light. Bang,he goes into the wall ! this is his first fact, and the frankness with which he admits it is beautiful to behold ; he falls backward heavily, waves his legs in the air in a manful effort to right himself. Then he dazedly folds his wings, tucking them untidily beneath his wing-covers, and sits down to think, and readjust his philosophy on a new basis which shall take account of this newly discovered fact. After a few moments of contemplation he lifts one A philosophy j e g high in the air, in a most derisive gesture, as which ignores much as to ^y . oh pghaw ! I would not give a fig for a philosophy of life that could be affected by anything so sordid as a fact ! " And up he flies with courage unabated and starts all over again. What though he is next prostrated through loftily ignor- ing the chandelier ; the result is the same. The 324 GEEEITT HOWLAND COMES TO TEA light is to him the only thing in the universe that is worth while, and knocking himself senseless Tlic light the against stupid obstacles is only incidental to final on ty thing attainment. He knows that true victory lies in the struggle rather than in the attainment and I have just addressed him thus : " Oh, noble June-bug ! Teach me to develop a philosophy of action which shall not be weak and paltry enough to be affected by facts. Teach me to fold my wings and meditate calmly when I am overwhelmed and astounded by the unexpected and the calamitous. Teach me to pursue my way undaunted by [stunning failures. Let me sit at your six feet and learn truest wis- dom ! Hope you are having a bully time, Marnissima, but it is darned lonesome here without you. Your loving BRUDDEB. P.S. Excuse pencil. My fountain pen was profoundly j^ e ^uimn affected when it discovered my plot to write to qualities of you ; and it wept tears of darkness, then became comatose. How like mankind is a fountain pen, the emptier it is, the more it gives down ! Apho- rism ! Ha ha ! Mine, ho ho ! J. S. JUNE 18 : Another comforting service in the dear, plain old meeting house. Gerritt spoke 325 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL even better than last week. He came home The wicked with us to dinner and fitted into our quiet tip of the Fij^t j) ay afternoon with rare tact But I serpent's tail . was too conscious of that wee tip of the ser- pent's tail to be quite as free with him as I was before j but I think he did not realize that I was different in my attitude towards him. 326 CHAPTER XXVIII A BEWILDERING REVELATION JUNE 20TH: Keats calls the private ideas of a man about Ms own life, his Weeding a philosophic back garden. I went out in mine P hilos phw lack-garden to-day and pulled up a suspicion by the roots and planted in its place a broad, humorous smile. Heaven be praised for a sense of hu- mor ! It helps when all else fails. Gerritt came over this morning and invited me to go for a drive in a low old phaeton drawn by a stout old horse which drove her- self, and would brook no interference from the one who held the reins. I had qualms about going with him ; but I went because I did not know what else to do, my usual reason for doing unwise things. "We took the valley road j there was not enough breeze to flutter the weakest-minded 327 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL poplar leaf j the bobolinks were gurgling ec- statically in the meadows, and the orioles wove their gold in and out the roadside tap- estries. My companion looked at me approv- ingly and said : "Marian Lee, I like to see thee in white j Kindly that soft hat of thine looks like a bit of treatment yonder cloud plucked from the sky, and is vastly becoming to thee. Life has patted thy face with gentle hands into fair roundness, instead of writing all over it with lines of care." "I fear thee finds my face lacking in char- acter, then,' 7 ventured I. "By no means ; not for years have I seen a face that so attracts me because of the char- acter delineated in it as does thine." " Gerritt, thee must not talk so to me j it is not good for me to listen to such flattery," I rejoined with some severity. " "What an utter barrier is worldly conven- The Chinese tionality," he answered with an impatient wall of social frown> A man and a WO man may walk to- cowventwns gether arm in arm and be good friends and yet there is between them always a Chinese 328 A BEWILDERING REVELATION wall that holds them forever apart. Let us be brave and understand each other Marian !" " Very well, thee begin," I replied. " Thee is afraid of me, Marian Lee." " No, I am not," I denied hotly. " Yes, thee is afraid I will fall in love with thee." "I fear thee has taken leave of thy senses, to talk like that," I asserted with spirit, but with guilty conscience. " Now thee is not honest," he averred, looking at me grimly. " Well, what is thee going to do about it," I demanded. " I invited thee to go with me this morn- ing on purpose to tell thee something which Gerritt will make thee honest with me and make batters th * wall down thee trust me and thyself and our relations so that we may be happy playmates as of old." " I am listening, declare the magic words," I replied, with a bravado which the occasion seemed to require. "I belong heart and soul to another woman. And though thee has a dimple in thy cheek and wears a beguiling hat, I could not if I 329 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL tried give thee more than a playmate's hon- est admiration and affection.' 7 " I did not know thee was to be married," I faltered, for his announcement took my breath away, it was so unexpected. " I shall never be married. But for twenty A declaration long years I have belonged to a woman, and another ^ cou ^ no mor ^ sunder the ties which bind woman me to her, than could this world of ours de- flect from its orbit. It is a long story, Marian, and I do not mean to tell it to thee, nor to any one else. She whom I love is peerless, the one woman above all others to those fortunate enough to know her. She is, beautiful and wise and good, and so clever that there is interest and fascination in her least word. " "When I first loved her I was most un- The miracle worthy, but through loving her I have grown of love somew ] ia t 7 1 trust. A man must have a stead- fast purpose to thread his deeds upon, like beads upon a string, and my purpose has been to become worthy of her love which she gave me unquestioningly. Her love wrought a miracle in me. I stood before her with only 330 A BEWILDERING REVELATION a broken loaf and one little fish, and lo ! I had basketfuls for the multitude." "But why did thee not marry her 1 " I cried, trying to fit his revelation to ordinary ex- perience. " There was a barrier, and we could not marry j but thee must not think that it was because she belonged to another man she could never, under any circumstances become involved in a dishonorable relation. But though the barrier still holds us asunder, I am happy in loving her. At first it was not so ; there were years full of loneliness and, I fear, recklessness ; but there came a harvest The cost of after the harrowing, though I sometimes re- t G arvest sented the thought that the harvest should be rich when I suffered so keenly for its cul- tivation. But in the end I was glad to yield any harvest to a world in which she lives." " If you still love each other, after all these years, the barrier has no right to be there. If I were a man in thy place I would sweep that barrier out of existence unless I could leap over it," I declared with heat. "That would be unworthy, and perhaps 331 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL not for the best," he answered thoughtfully. A satisfying " The grooves of our lives are set, and I think /cWfOttflfCclfyG am loved and the knowledge satisfies my heart. What can my material life possibly have to do with my love ! If I wore upon my life by chafing at its logical and natural development, or by evolving sorrow where there is no sorrow, then would I sin against her, myself and humanity. What folly to mix the distinctly independent affairs of the spiritual and material worlds ! All the selfish yearning and desire of my earlier years have come to seem as but a tattered garment which temporarily obscured what is beautiful, true and everlasting." As he said this he turned upon me his glowing, magnetic eyes, and his face was transfigured. It is a beauti- ful face, always ; but then it radiated spiritual light, and looked as must the face of an The face angel. While still holding me spellbound transfiaured -n -i i j J.-L -n ^y ' ' with his gaze, he went on in a voice of thrill- ing sweetness : " Oh, Marian Lee, I am happy every day of my life ! I look at and bless the sky, be 332 A BEWILDERING REVELATION it blue or gray, because it holds within its arch her whom I love, and me, loving her. Ttie paltry I bless the earth, because somewhere it re- love f mere propinquity sponds to her footsteps. No matter how hard the day or burdensome the care, the con- sciousness of her and her love gives me cour- age to go on. I lean against her love when I am weary and it supports me j when I fall, I reach up and lift myself again to my feet by the strength of it. Those who depend upon daily association for the life of love know little of its true strength, or its power over the human soul. If I never saw her nor heard from her again, it would be just the same. She and I belong to eternity and there- fore must our love be eternal." " Does thee never, never, see her? " I asked breathlessly. A fleeting smile hovered about his lips, as if in tender memory, and lie said in a dreamy tone as if to himself : " Every year when the lilies-of-the-valley bloom, we two make a pilgrimage to a little Lflies-of-tho* town nestled by a stream in a beautiful val- ley, and there amid the fragrance of the ex- quisite lily bells, we have one day together." 333 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL At the mention of these fateful flowers, I grew dizzy j my head and my heart were in a confused whirl. Could it be this man instead of Tom Carroll ? I tried to think, but I was too dazed. I knew that Ma Belle had some acquaintance with Gerritt Howland. I knew also that, t only a short time since, she sud- denly made a short visit to a friend in western New York. I remembered that she had in previous years made similar visits to this friend ; but my knowledge of the friend and the town was vague. Ma Belle has a way of forefending curiosity concerning things which she would rather keep secret, by making the matter so smoothly commonplace that there is no point upon which curiosity may im- pinge. The more clearly I was able to think about A breathless it all, the firmer became the conviction that discovery ^^ man was -^ i over? and w h a t s h e had said about my acquaintance with him was the simple truth and not a shining lie. And yet, so utterly had I given myself over to the be- lief that Tom belonged to her in the truest, deepest way that I could not at once divest 334 A BEWILDERING REVELATION myself of it. I was incoherent and mostly silent during the remainder of the drive, but A tangent I slipped my hand into Gerritt's alongside wnpatty the rein, and thus showed him my sympathy and trust. As I left him I said : " I thank thee, Gerritt, for telling me this, and I honor thee with all my heart and soul." "Thank thee, playmate,' 7 he replied. "I am glad I have won thee back again, though I had to show thee my scars to accomplish it." " Yes, and I have to-day discovered that a halo may emanate from scars that shine," I Scars that said softly, and we bade each other good-bye shine with a long, warm hand-clasp. When I went into the house, I wished to escape from sight in order to think it all over and try to realize what it all meant to me, but Aunt Sylvia called me upstairs to the garret where she was overhauling trunks. She had found there a pretty pink muslin dress of Aunt Emily's, which was made in a fashion very like that in vogue at the present time ; she was quite excited over her find and insisted on trying it on me at once ; I was A gratuitous grateful that her attention was focussed on a 335 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL pink dress rather than on a pink face, for I somehow felt as guilty as if Gerritt Howland had confessed the love which I feared he would, instead of the love which I never sus- pected. Aunt Sylvia attributed the flush in my cheeks to the becoming color of the dress ; she declared the fit perfect and that Maria should launder this treasure trove at once so that I could wear it during my visit. She did not need to explain how it was that rose- A Friendly colored garb should please Quaker eyes. I weakness a i wa y S k new that Aunt Emily's worldly gowns were as great a delight to Aunt Sylvia as they were to the owner. CHAPTER XXIX SOME VERY SATISFACTORY LETTERS JUNE 21ST : Dear Idol, three letters came to-day, each quite characteristic of its writer, and all of them giving evidence that my flight to this delectable land was for the good of others as well as for my own spiritual refreshment. Even Joe and father may profit somewhat by my absence since I can make them happier than ever when I return to them; my perplexities for the past months have alienated my attention from my very own family. Here is Joe's letter : DEAR MARNIE : The June-bug tactics are winning the game. Millie has not said * yes ' as yet ; but her ' no is reiterated diminuendo. She is surely capitulating, after having spread a stiff brand of agony over yours truly for the past three months. 337 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL If you stay away very much longer, the pater and I will both get married or else take to the tall grass ; we need feminine influence to brace us up. If there is any way in which I can stimulate your interest in your forlorn men-folk, just let me know and I will be at ifc. Your loving, lonesome JOSEPH STILLMAN, ESQ. I confess I dreaded to open the letter from Not even a Theodore Morris j when one buries some gravestone fl^Dgs, one would rather that the earth were stamped down above them, and that there should never be any sign of them anywhere or any more. On the whole, though, the letter is a relief ; I think you will see why. MARIAN: Since your letter came I have been trying to realize what it means. That I have failed in gain- ing the greatest desire of my life must be some- how my own fault. I felt so sure of winning you at first ; later, I grew to doubt myself and my power to make you happy. Had you been here, I might have pleaded with A far more you to give me more time before you decided. satisfactory But after these days of thinking it over, I believe friend than l Qwe it to to accept your decision as final. lover , , Do not stay away on my account. Come back 338 SOME VERY SATISFACTORY LETTERS soon and I will promise to be to you a more suc- cessful and satisfactory friend than I have been lover. Yours faithfully, THEODORE. I think this letter shows plainly that he is conscious of his feelings toward Hilda, and Happiness that he has been fighting them down because ^ tlie horizon of loyalty to me. Hilda's letter confirms this impression, and I think you will agree with me that the near future holds great happiness for her ; she says : DEARLY BELOVED : I venture to break in on your rest with the statement that we are desolate without you. I went over to your house last evening ; your pa's hair was standing on end because he had been run- ning his fingers through it trying to think up means of placating Maggie and Mary who had been quarrelling ; he was wearing his dressing gown down stairs and had been having interviews with students while thus arrayed. Cigar ashes were liberally distributed over the study table. 'Joe was smoking with his heels elevated to the top of your best mahogany chair; and both allowed that you had best come home immediately if you would prevent the complete demoralization of your entire establishment. 339 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL If you could see the forlorn way your devoted Hilda knight, Mr. Morris, prowls around, you would feel elucidates a tug at your heart strings, if perchance your heart the situation has any strin g g attached to it. I am doing my prettiest to console him; yesterday I took him for a long walk over South hill. He is a sympathetic chap to be out of doors with, is n't he ? We are practicing like mad almost every evening on some new music, so that we may give you the concert of your life when you get back. I talk to him about A very you, making praiseful and therefore unveracious discreet remarks anent your appearance and character, and young m n ^ e answers not one word. He simply looks far away, and says nothing. I hope you are having a beautiful time, and that you are getting the much-needed rest. I trust you will come back to us soon with verve radiating like a nimbus from your blessed person. Devotedly and lovingly, HILDA. Most Discreet of Confessors ! I will admit that the way T. M. has of never speaking of his own private experiences is a comfort to me now. I blush with contrition when I remember how I once complained to you about his steadfast defence of his own pre- serves. I know now, and I rejoice that I do 340 SOME VEKY SATISFACTORY LETTERS know, that lie will never by word nor sign re- veal to Hilda the experience which lies be- tween him and me. His lips are clamped tight for all eternity. Heaven be praised ! Some men, usually reliable, are led in the first flush of loving, to talk freely of past loves Hi-advised for the sake of the last love ; not so much for con fi d < her edification as for the comfort of talking about intimate things with her. Rarely does such confession justify itself, or lead to aught but the later undoing of him who confesses. If he does not marry the woman to whom he has detailed these intimate experiences, he has reason to be sorry that she knows so much ; and if he does marry her, then all the more does he have reason to be sorry that she knows so much. Women are still more prone than men to break this seal of secrecy which the honorable Men, uneasy would seem bound to keep intact, since such con f es$ors confessions always involve two. Fortunately, women have been more or less protected from this temptation to treason, because of the reluc- tance of men to become their confessors. Nothing bores a man so much as to listen to 341 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL a woman talk about a love of which, he him- self is not the sole object. JUNE 22D: This evening after Aunt and Uncle had gone to call on a convalescing neighbor, Gerritt Howland came. His face was more eloquent than ever as I gave him both my hands in greeting ; for I was very glad to see him, since I had come to the determination to tell him what I knew. So with a little catch in my breath because of my excitement and temerity, I began with- out preface or warning. "Gerritt, I know who she is ; only a little In medias res time ago she told me her side of the story for the sake of helping me in 'a crisis of my own life. I was so stupid the other day, not to know that it was she when thee was telling me of her, for every word thee said of her was true." "Yes, Marian, I knew it," he answered with A mutual love an illuminating smile. "I did not speak to thee of her wonderful letters which come to me every month of the year, keeping me close to her life and giving me the sustaining com- 342 SOME VERY SATISFACTORY LETTERS fort which I need in my arduous work with my fellow-men. Her last letter told me of her confession to thee j and I was very glad, for I think it will be a comfort to her to speak of her inner life to thee whom she loves more than any other woman." "I can understand now how true was all thee said yesterday ; for it would mean more Hidden to any man to be truly loved by her than it would to be married to any other woman in the whole world. I have no words to express my own adoration of her. It almost makes my heart stop beating when I think of what thee and thy love have meant to her all these years. I have always felt that she drew her life from hidden springs, and now I am be- ginning to comprehend." A silence full of feeling fell, not between us but encompassing us around and holding us near to each other because both our hearts were turned toward her. After a time I went on, hesitatingly, fearing lest I might not be saying the right word : "I believe that she needs thee and needs thy presence more during these later years 343 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL since she has not been so strong. I feel this A deep-laid deeply as I look back over the past year in scheme j. ne light of my new knowledge. And I have dared to dream during the past twenty-four hours, that, through me, she may have thee with her more. Thee shall often be my guest ? if I can have my way, and thus give her more of the companionship for which I know she yearns." " We shall see, dear little schemer, we shall see ! " he replied tenderly, though enigmati- cally. And then the sound of approaching Toices told us that our talk was at an end. 344 CHAPTER XXX THE DAWN OP A JUNE DAY AND A LAST CONFESSION JUNE 23D : To-day came another letter! However many times I read it, I cannot comprehend all it means. Teach me, I pray yon, its reality. MABIAN: Last evening I spent with Madam Lee and she told me something which has shaken me to the His letter foundation. That you should seriously consider marrying again is almost beyond my powers of conception. That you should hesitate a moment in giving his conge to this presuming young Apollo (confound him!) gave me the shock of my life. Marian, I fear I have been blind and a fool; but thanks to Madam Lee, I am just beginning to see. I fear I have always loved you, dear, since those days when you, a poor little broken-hearted creature turned to me for help and comfort. I will speak plainly Marian, at the risk of hurting 345 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL you: I was Paul's dearest friend; and, because he was dead, I could not feel that I had any more right to win the love of his wife than if he had been living. During all these years I have lived on, taking A sacrifice to only what I thought was right from his mother loyalty an( j bi s wife, giving up the dearest wish of a man's heart for wife and home, because I could not give to another what I might not give to you. Some- times I have felt in you the possibility of giving to me what I longed for; at such times I have fought for self-control and there have been days and weeks when I remained away from you in order to get strength to be with you again without betraying myself and him. Last night, Paul's mother brought me to judg- Ulies-of-the- ment. She believes I have done you wrong be- v alley cause I have not offered to you the love which is yours despite myself, and the protection and devotion which I long to give you. Dear, I do not even remember how long I have consciously loved you thus ; but there is in my desk a withered bunch of flowers tied with a purple ribbon, which you wore one night fifteen years ago, and which fell at my feet for me to treasure because it had been so near to you. That you have looked upon the matter very differently and probably more sanely than have I, is shown by the fact that you have considered the 346 A LAST CONFESSION possibility of marrying again. Marian, do you not know in your heart of hearts that you belong to me now ? You are mine by all that is sacred by all the denied longing of these many years. My ^eart demands you every moment, and I am coming to you to give to you, if you will deign to take him, the man who has done you wrong while trying to do right. T. L. O. My Confessor, how am I to orient myself again with happiness ? For many years I Too great have stanchly faced loss and loneliness but MRP*** I find myself afraid and bewildered in the presence of great joy. I cannot even dream what to-morrow will bring. JUNE 24TH : Last night I slept only spas- modically. I heard the shriek of the midnight Couleur de train from the city and it sent a thrill quaver- r ing into my fitful dream. This morning I heard the first notes of the bird concert and I arose and plaited my hair, girl-fashion and tied it with a rose-red ribbon ; and I put on the rose-colored dress which was Aunt Emily's. There was no hue but couleur de rose 347 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL that was fitting to wear at the dawn of this morning. I stole out of the house, across the dewless The grass and hurried down the road in the dim dawn-wind light. I was restless and found sweet com- panionship in the dawn-wind, which is different from any other wind that blows. It comes in the faint light of the morning when the world is so expectantly still, and by its presence heralds the coming of the day. It does not stir the branches, but it sets the leaves astir. It is the very essence of unrest ; it goes in and out the leaves turning them white-side out as if in search of something beneath them. It is fitful, shaking one tree into a blur of whiteness and ignoring its nearest neighbors. The sound of it is a whisper of restlessness j and as it reaches the ear, the heart responds with a thrill of inquietude over the immutable law of awakening. I passed on with this companion of my mood, the vagrant dawn -wind, and tried to unite myself to the whole awakening world, so that I might be large enough to comprehend the 348 A LAST CONFESSION joy which was coming to me. Was it your occult influence, or sheer prescience that sent me hurrying on eager feet, under the rosy light of the dawn, to meet my love f I know not ; but out of the fleeing shadows he came, and as he drew near he cried : " Is it a vision of a dream or is it Marian ! " I said naught, but went unto him j and while he held me close, he let his heart over- Tte dawn flow in two syllables, the beginning words on the page of my new book of life. JUNE 25TH : Dear Idol, I confess in meter to-night. I fain would be June's own interpreter, And put in words the soul that underlies jwu The glorious green that stretches to the skies, regnant Enfolding hill and vale as if it were A sentient mantle, wove from threads astir With throbbing life. 'T is June which deifies All earth and makes us Pantheists, likewise Awakes the poet in each worshipper. O glinting leaf with vagrant breeze atilt ! Thy joyous thrill I fain would incarnate. 349 CONFESSIONS TO A HEATHEN IDOL O swaying bird that sends the blithe June lilt From tip of fine-spun larch ! show me the gate Which leads from heart to voice. Teach an thou wilt How I may too great joy to song translate. SEPTEMBER IST, 1906 : One year ago to-day An ambushed I began my confessions to you, O Idol ! And pathway nQ Qne WOI Q ( J ever guess by looking at the two of us that we had traversed so in- timately, together the year's ambushed path- way. And now despite my former tenet that Noah's fatuity was responsible for second marriages, I am married again. But you, above all others, Dear Confessor, will under- stand that getting married to Tom is quite a different matter from getting married to anybody else whomsoever. Probably, taking matters by and large, Old Noah was justified. This day I make my last confession to you. A last I feel that before I abandon you, I should like confession ^ Q tell vou t kat love is widely and deeply comfortable when one knows how to take it. The noblesse oblige of it is not hard outside pressure, but is instead, an inside power of 350 A LAST CONFESSION growing a natural and therefore an uncon- scious uplifting. I do not cease my confessions because I believe that I shall have nothing of deepest The reason a interest to confess. Far from it ! Married wife need8 confessor life is always the beginning and not the end of interesting and perplexing experiences. But let me whisper something to you, Wise One : "When a woman is married she confesses to no one, not even to a broad-minded teak- wood idol. The right kind of a wife never confesses even to herself. That is a funda- mental part of true marriage never con- fessing. You may see with those uplifted eyes of yours what you will of my present all- embracing happiness, or of my future efforts to keep it intact. See what you may, and set me a good example by smiling on and on des- pite inner pangs 5 and above all remember this, my last word to you : Life with all its Why life is so blisses and sorrows, its ecstasies and common- good places is mightily worth while to us mortals, because, bad or good, it is ever and always so surprisingly interesting. 351 HOME USE CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT MAIN LIBRARY This book is due on the last date stamped below. 1-month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405. 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk. Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date. ALL BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO RECALL 7 DAYS AFTER DATE CHECKED OUT. APR1 197f. ~ 1 ". ., 2'] LD21 A-40m 8/75 General Library (S7737L) University of California Berkeley : :