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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31422-8.txt b/31422-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2762421 --- /dev/null +++ b/31422-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5278 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Kempton-Wace Letters, by +Jack London and Anna Strunsky + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Kempton-Wace Letters + +Author: Jack London + Anna Strunsky + +Release Date: February 27, 2010 [EBook #31422] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS + + * * * * * + +JACK LONDON'S BOOKS + +"_He opened windows for them upon the splendour and the savagery, the +pomp and the pitifulness that he had found in many corners of the earth. +He saw that in every scene, in every human activity there was an element +which lifted it into the region of the beautiful, and he made all his +readers see it, whether he was learned or ignorant; cultivated or only +just able to read. Full justice has never been done to him. There was no +silver in his purse, only gold._"--Hamilton Fyfe in "The Daily Mail." + + +The Valley of the Moon 7s. 6d. net and 4s. net + +Jerry of the Islands 7s. 6d. net and 2s. 6d. net + +Michael, Brother of Jerry 7s. 6d. net and 2s. net + +Hearts of Three 6s. net and 2s. 6d. net + +Island Tales 7s. 6d. net + +The Red One 6s. net and 2s. net + +The Acorn-Planter 3s. 6d. net + +The Little Lady of the Big House 6s. net and 2s. 6d. net + +[A]The Mutiny of the Elsinore 6s. net and 2s. net + +The Strength of the Strong 6s. net and 1s. 6d. net + +The Night-Born 6s. net and 2s. net + +[A]A Daughter of the Snows 7s. 6d. net and 2s. 6d. net + +Lost Face 6s. net and 1s. 6d. net + +South Sea Tales 6s. net and 1s. 6d. net + +When God Laughs 6s. net and 1s. 6d. net + +[A]Smoke Bellew 6s. net and 1s. 6d. net + +The Kempton-Wace Letters 2s. 6d. net + +Smoke and Shorty 6s. and 2s. 6d. net + +The Cruise of the Snark 2s. net + +The Cruise of the Dazzler 1s. 6d. net + +Turtles of Tasman 1s. 6d. net + +Before Adam 1s. 6d. net + +The Scarlet Plague 1s. 6d. net + +The God of His Fathers 1s. 6d. net + +Adventure 2s. net + +The House of Pride 1s. 6d. net + +Love of Life 1s. 6d. net + +A Son of the Sun 6s. net and 2s. net + +An Odyssey of the North 1s. 6d. net + +Children of the Frost 1s. 6d. net + +[A]John Barleycorn 6s. net and 2s. net + +[A]The Jacket 6s. net and 2s. net + +Revolution 2s. net + +War of the Classes 2s. net + +The Human Drift 6s. net and 2s. net + +The Iron Heel 2s. net + +The Road 2s. net + + +[A] Films have been founded on these novels + +MILLS & BOON, Ltd., 49 Rupert St., London, W.1. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS + +BY + +JACK LONDON +AND +ANNA STRUNSKY + + + "_And of naught else than Love would we + discourse._"--DANTE, Sonnet II. + + +MILLS & BOON, LIMITED 49 RUPERT STREET LONDON, W.1 + + +_Copyright in the United States of America, 1903, by the Macmillan +Company Printed in Great Britain by Love & Malcomson Ltd. London and +Redhill._ + + + + +KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS + + + + +I + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3 A QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +August 14, 19--. + +Yesterday I wrote formally, rising to the occasion like the conventional +happy father rather than the man who believes in the miracle and lives +for it. Yesterday I stinted myself. I took you in my arms, glad of what +is and stately with respect for the fulness of your manhood. It is +to-day that I let myself leap into yours in a passion of joy. I dwell on +what has come to pass and inflate myself with pride in your fulfilment, +more as a mother would, I think, and she your mother. + +But why did you not write before? After all, the great event was not +when you found your offer of marriage accepted, but when you found you +had fallen in love. Then was your hour. Then was the time for +congratulation, when the call was first sounded and the reveille of Time +and About fell upon your soul and the march to another's destiny was +begun. It is always more important to love than to be loved. I wish it +had been vouchsafed me to be by when your spirit of a sudden grew +willing to bestow itself without question or let or hope of return, when +the self broke up and you grew fain to beat out your strength in praise +and service for the woman who was soaring high in the blue wastes. You +have known her long, and you must have been hers long, yet no word of +her and of your love reached me. It was not kind to be silent. + +Barbara spoke yesterday of your fastidiousness, and we told each other +that you had gained a triumph of happiness in your love, for you are not +of those who cheat themselves. You choose rigorously, straining for the +heart of the end as do all rigorists who are also hedonists. Because we +are in possession of this bit of data as to your temperamental cosmos we +can congratulate you with the more abandon. Oh, Herbert, do you know +that this is a rampant spring, and that on leaving Barbara I tramped +out of the confines into the green, happier, it almost seems, than I +have ever been? Do you know that because you love a woman and she loves +you, and that because you are swept along by certain forces, that I am +happy and feel myself in sight of my portion of immortality on earth, +far more than because of my books, dear lad, far more? + +I wish I could fly England and get to you. Should I have a shade less of +you than formerly, if we were together now? From your too much green of +wealth, a barrenness of friendship? It does not matter; what is her gain +cannot be my loss. One power is mine,--without hindrance, in freedom and +in right, to say to Ellen's son, "Godspeed!" to place Hester Stebbins's +hand in his, and bid them forth to the sunrise, into the glory of day! + +Ever your devoted father, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +II + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +September 3, 19--. + +Here I am, back in the old quarters once more, with the old afternoon +climb across the campus and up into the sky, up to the old rooms, the +old books, and the old view. You poor fog-begirt Dane Kempton, could you +but have lounged with me on the window couch, an hour past, and watched +the light pass out of the day through the Golden Gate and the night +creep over the Berkeley Hills and down out of the east! Why should you +linger on there in London town! We grow away from each other, it +seems--you with your wonder-singing, I with my joyful science. + +Poesy and economics! Alack! alack! How did I escape you, Dane, when mind +and mood you mastered me? The auguries were fair. I, too, should have +been a singer, and lo, I strive for science. All my boyhood was singing, +what of you; and my father was a singer, too, in his own fine way. Dear +to me is your likening of him to Waring.--"What's become of Waring?" He +_was_ Waring. I can think of him only as one who went away, "chose land +travel or seafaring." + +Gwynne says I am sometimes almost a poet--Gwynne, you know, Arthur +Gwynne, who has come to live with me at The Ridge. "If it were not for +your dismal science," he is sure to add; and to fire him I lay it to the +defects of early training. I know he thinks that I never half +appreciated you, and that I do not appreciate you now. If you will +recollect, you praised his verses once. He cherishes that praise amongst +his sweetest treasures. Poor dear good old Gwynne, tender, sensitive, +shrinking, with the face of a seraph and the heart of a maid. Never were +two men more incongruously companioned. I love him for himself. He +tolerates me, I do secretly believe, because of you. He longs to meet +you,--he knew you well through my father,--and we often talk you over. +Be sure at every opportunity I tear off your halo and trundle it about. +Trust me, you receive scant courtesy. + +How I wander on. My pen is unruly after the long vacation; my thought +yet wayward, what of the fever of successful wooing. And besides, ... +how shall I say?... such was the gracious warmth of your letter, of both +your letters, that I am at a loss. I feel weak, inadequate. It almost +seems as though you had made a demand upon something that is not in me. +Ah, you poets! It would seem your delight in my marriage were greater +than mine. In my present mood, it is you who are young, you who love; I +who have lived and am old. + +Yes, I am going to be married. At this present moment, I doubt not, a +million men and women are saying the same thing. Hewers of wood and +drawers of water, princes and potentates, shy-shrinking maidens and +brazen-faced hussies, all saying, "I am going to be married." And all +looking forward to it as a crisis in their lives? No. After all, +marriage is the way of the world. Considered biologically, it is an +institution necessary for the perpetuation of the species. Why should it +be a crisis? These million men and women will marry, and the work of +the world go on just as it did before. Shuffle them about, and the work +of the world would yet go on. + +True, a month ago it did seem a crisis. I wrote you as much. It did seem +a disturbing element in my life-work. One cannot view with equanimity +that which appears to be totally disruptive of one's dear little system +of living. But it only appeared so; I lacked perspective, that was all. +As I look upon it now, everything fits well and all will run smoothly I +am sure. + +You know I had two years yet to work for my Doctorate. I still have +them. As you see, I am back to the old quarters, settled down in the old +groove, hammering away at the old grind. Nothing is changed. And besides +my own studies, I have taken up an assistant instructorship in the +Department of Economics. It is an ambitious course, and an important +one. I don't know how they ever came to confide it to me, or how I found +the temerity to attempt it,--which is neither here nor there. It is all +agreed. Hester is a sensible girl. + +The engagement is to be long. I shall continue my career as charted. Two +years from now, when I shall have become a Doctor of Social Sciences +(and candidate for numerous other things), I shall also become a +benedict. My marriage and the presumably necessary honeymoon chime in +with the summer vacation. There is no disturbing element even there. Oh, +we are very practical, Hester and I. And we are both strong enough to +lead each our own lives. + +Which reminds me that you have not asked about her. First, let me shock +you--she, too, is a scientist. It was in my undergraduate days that we +met, and ere the half-hour struck we were quarrelling felicitously over +Weismann and the neo-Darwinians. I was at Berkeley at the time, a +cocksure junior; and she, far maturer as a freshman, was at Stanford, +carrying more culture with her into her university than is given the +average student to carry out. + +Next, and here your arms open to her, she is a poet. Pre-eminently she +is a poet--this must be always understood. She is the greater poet, I +take it, in this dawning twentieth century, because she is a scientist; +not in spite of being a scientist as some would hold. How shall I +describe her? Perhaps as a George Eliot, fused with an Elizabeth +Barrett, with a hint of Huxley and a trace of Keats. I may say she is +something like all this, but I must say she is something other and +different. There is about her a certain lightsomeness, a glow or flash +almost Latin or oriental, or perhaps Celtic. Yes, that must be +it--Celtic. But the high-stomached Norman is there and the stubborn +Saxon. Her quickness and fine audacity are checked and poised, as it +were, by that certain conservatism which gives stability to purpose and +power to achievement. She is unafraid, and wide-looking and far-looking, +but she is not over-looking. The Saxon grapples with the Celt, and the +Norman forces the twain to do what the one would not dream of doing and +what the other would dream beyond and never do. Do you catch me? Her +most salient charm, is I think, her perfect poise, her exquisite +adjustment. + +Altogether she is a most wonderful woman, take my word for it. And after +all she is described vicariously. Though she has published nothing and +is exceeding shy, I shall send you some of her work. There will you find +and know her. She is waiting for stronger voice and sings softly as yet. +But hers will be no minor note, no middle flight. She is--well, she is +Hester. In two years we shall be married. Two years, Dane. Surely you +will be with us. + +One thing more; in your letter a certain undertone which I could not +fail to detect. A shade less of me than formerly?--I turn and look into +your face--Waring's handiwork you remember--his painter's fancy of you +in those golden days when I stood on the brink of the world, and you +showed me the delights of the world and the way of my feet therein. So I +turn and look, and look and wonder. _A shade less_ of me, of you? Poesy +and economics! Where lies the blame? + +HERBERT. + + + + +III + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +September 30, 19--. + +It is because you know not what you do that I cannot forgive you. Could +you know that your letter with its catalogue of advantages and +arrangements must offend me as much as it belies (let us hope) you and +the woman of your love, I would pardon the affront of it upon us all, +and ascribe the unseemly want of warmth to reserve or to the sadness +which grips the heart when joy is too palpitant. But something warns me +that you are unaware of the chill your words breathe, and that is a +lapse which it is impossible to meet with indulgence. + +"He does not love her," was Barbara's quick decision, and she laid the +open letter down with a definiteness which said that you, too, are laid +out and laid low. Your sister's very wrists can be articulate. However, +I laughed at her and she soon joined me. We do not mean to be +extravagant with our fears. Who shall prescribe the letters of lovers to +their sisters and foster-fathers? Yet there are some things their +letters should be incapable of saying, and amongst them that love is not +a crisis and a rebirth, but that it is common as the commonplace, a hit +or miss affair which "shuffling" could not affect. + +Barbara showed me your note to her. "Had I written like this of myself +and Earl--" + +"You could not," I objected. + +"Then Herbert should have been as little able to do it," she deduced +with emphasis. Here I might have told her that men and women are races +apart, but no one talks cant to Barbara. So I did not console her, and +it stands against you in our minds that on this critical occasion you +have baffled us with coldness. + +An absence of six years, broken into twice by a brief few months, must +work changes. When Barbara called your letter unnatural, she forgot how +little she knows what is natural to you. She and I have been wont to +predetermine you, your character, foothold, and outlook, by--say by the +fact that you knew your Wordsworth and that you knew him without being +able to take for yourself his austere peace. Youth which lives by hope +is riven by unrest. + + + "I made no vows; vows were made for me, + Bond unknown to me was given + That I should be, else sinning gently, + A dedicated spirit." + + +That pale sunrise seen from Mt. Tamalpais and your voice vibrant to +fierceness on the "else sinning gently"--to me the splendour of rose on +piled-up ridges of mist spoke all for you, so dear have you always been. +It rested on the possible wonder of your life. It threw you into the +scintillant Dawn with an abandon meet to a son of Waring. + +Tell me, do you still read your Wordsworth on your knees? I am bent with +regret for the time when your mind had no surprises for me, when the +days were flushed halcyon with my hope in you. I resent your development +if it is because of it that you speak prosaically of a prosaic marriage +and of a honeymoon simultaneous with the Degree. I think you are too +well pleased with the simultaneousness. + +Yet the fact of the letter is fair. It cannot be that the soul of it is +not. Hester Stebbins is a poet. I lean forward and think it out as I +did some days ago when the news came. I conjure up the look of love. If +the woman is content (how much more than content the feeling she bounds +with in knowing you hers as she is yours), what better test that all is +well? I conjure up the look of love. It is thus at meeting and thus at +parting. Even here, to-night, when all is chill and hard to understand, +I catch the flash and the warmth, and what I see restores you to me, but +how deep the plummet of my mind needed to sound before it reached you. +It is because you permitted yourself to speak when silence had expressed +you better. + +Show me the ideally real Hester Stebbins, the spark of fire which is +she. The storms have not broken over her head. She will laugh and make +poetry of her laughter. If before she met you she wept, that, too, will +help the smiling. There is laughter which is the echo of a Miserere +sobbed by the ages. Men chuckle in the irony of pain, and they smile +cold, lessoned smiles in resignation; they laugh in forgetfulness and +they laugh lest they die of sadness. A shrug of the shoulders, a +widening of the lips, a heaving forth of sound, and the life is saved. +The remedy is as drastic as are the drugs used for epilepsy, which in +quelling the spasm bring idiocy to the patient. If we are made idiots +by our laughter, we are paying dearly for the privilege of continuing in +life. + +Hester shall laugh because she is glad and must tell her joy, and she +will not lose it in the telling. Greet her for me and hasten to prove +yourself, for + + + "The Poet, gentle creature that he is, + Hath like the Lover, his unruly times; + His fits when he is neither sick nor well, + Though no distress be near him but his own + Unmanageable thoughts." + + +You will judge by this letter that I am neither sick nor well, and that +I reach for a distress which is not near. If I were Merchant rather than +Poet, it would be otherwise with me. + +DANE. + + + + +IV + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +October 27, 19--. + +Do I still read my Wordsworth on my knees? Well, we may as well have it +out. I have foreseen this day so long and shunned it that now I meet it +almost with extended hands. No, I do not read my Wordsworth on my knees. +My mind is filled with other things. I have not the time. I am not the +Herbert Wace of six years gone. It is fair that you should know this; +fair, also, that you should know the Herbert Wace of six years gone was +not quite the lad you deemed him. + +There is no more pathetic and terrible thing than the prejudice of love. +Both you and I have suffered from it. Six years ago, ay, and before +that, I felt and resented the growing difference between us. When under +your spell, it seemed that I was born to lisp in numbers and devote +myself to singing, that the world was good and all of it fit for +singing. But away from you, even then, doubts faced me, and I knew in +vague fashion that we lived in different worlds. At first in vague +fashion, I say; and when with you again, your spell dominated me and I +could not question. You were true, you were good, I argued, all that was +wonderful and glorious; therefore, you were also right. You mastered me +with your charm, as you were wont to master those who loved you. + +But there came times when your sympathy failed me and I stood alone on +outlooks I had achieved alone. There was no response from you. I could +not hear your voice. I looked down upon a real world; you were caught up +in a beautiful cloudland and shut away from me. Possibly it was because +life of itself appealed to you, while to me appealed the mechanics of +life. But be it as it may, yours was a world of ideas and fancies, mine +a world of things and facts. + +Enters here the prejudice of love. It was the lad that discovered our +difference and concealed; it was the man who was blind and could not +discover. There we erred, man and boy; and here, both men now, we make +all well again. + +Let me be explicit. Do you remember the passion with which I read the +"Intellectual Development of Europe?" I understood not the tithe of it, +but I was thrilled. My common sense was thrilled, I suppose; but it was +all very joyous, gripping hold of the tangible world for the first time. +And when I came to you, warm with the glow of adventure, you looked +blankly, then smiled indulgently and did not answer. You regarded my +ardour complacently. A passing humour of adolescence, you thought; and I +thought: "Dane does not read his Draper on his knees." Wordsworth was +great to me; Draper was great also. You had no patience with him, and I +know now, as I felt then, your consistent revolt against his +materialistic philosophy. + +Only the other day you complained of a letter of mine, calling it cold +and analytical. That I should be cold and analytical despite all the +prodding and pressing and moulding I have received at your hands, and +the hands of Waring, marks only more clearly our temperamental +difference; but it does not mark that one or the other of us is less a +dedicated spirit. If I have wandered away from the warmth of poesy and +become practical, have you not remained and become confirmed in all that +is beautifully impractical? If I have adventured in a new world of +common things, have you not lingered in the old world of great and +impossible things? If I have shivered in the gray dawn of a new day, +have you not crouched over the dying embers of the fire of yesterday? +Ah, Dane, you cannot rekindle that fire. The whirl of the world scatters +its ashes wide and far, like volcanic dust, to make beautiful crimson +sunsets for a time and then to vanish. + +None the less are you a dedicated spirit, priest that you are of a dying +faith. Your prayers are futile, your altars crumbling, and the light +flickers and drops down into night. Poetry is empty these days, empty +and worthless and dead. All the old-world epic and lyric-singing will +not put this very miserable earth of ours to rights. So long as the +singers sing of the things of yesterday, glorifying the things of +yesterday and lamenting their departure, so long will poetry be a vain +thing and without avail. The old world is dead, dead and buried along +with its heroes and Helens and knights and ladies and tournaments and +pageants. You cannot sing of the truth and wonder of to-day in terms of +yesterday. And no one will listen to your singing till you sing of +to-day in terms of to-day. + +This is the day of the common man. Do you glorify the common man? This +is the day of the machine. When have you sung of the machine? The +crusades are here again, not the Crusades of Christ but the Crusades of +the Machine--have you found motive in them for your song? We are +crusading to-day, not for the remission of sins, but for the abolition +of sinning, of economic and industrial sinning. The crusade to Christ's +sepulchre was paltry compared with the splendour and might of our +crusade to-day toward manhood. There are millions of us afoot. In the +stillness of the night have you never listened to the trampling of our +feet and been caught up by the glory and the romance of it? Oh, Dane! +Dane! Our captains sit in council, our heroes take the field, our +fighting men are buckling on their harness, our martyrs have already +died, and you are blind to it, blind to it all! + +We have no poets these days, and perforce we are singing with our hands. +The walking delegate is a greater singer and a finer singer than you, +Dane Kempton. The cold, analytical economist, delving in the dynamics +of society, is more the prophet than you. The carpenter at his bench, +the blacksmith by his forge, the boiler-maker clanging and clattering, +are all warbling more sweetly than you. The sledge-wielder pours out +more strength and certitude and joy in every blow than do you in your +whole sheaf of songs. Why, the very socialist agitator, hustled by the +police on a street corner amid the jeers of the mob, has caught the +romance of to-day as you have not caught it and where you have missed +it. He knows life and is living. Are you living, Dane Kempton? + +Forgive me. I had begun to explain and reconcile our difference. I find +I am lecturing and censuring you. In defending myself, I offend. But +this I wish to say: We are so made, you and I, that your function in +life is to dream, mine to work. That you failed to make a dreamer of me +is no cause for heartache and chagrin. What of my practical nature and +analytical mind, I have generalised in my own way upon the data of life +and achieved a different code from yours. Yet I seek truth as +passionately as you. I still believe myself to be a dedicated spirit. + +And what boots it, all of it? When the last word is said, we are two +men, by a thousand ties very dear to each other. There is room in our +hearts for each other as there is room in the world for both of us. +Though we have many things not in common, yet you are my dearest friend +on earth, you who have been a second father to me as well. + +You have long merited this explanation, and it was cowardly of me not to +have made it before. My hope is that I have been sufficiently clear for +you to understand. + +HERBERT. + + + + +V + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3 A QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +November 16, 19--. + +You sigh "Poesy and Economics," supplying the cause and thereby +admitting the fact. I wish you had shown some reluctance to see my +meaning, that you had preferred to waive the matter on the ground of +insufficient data, that you had been less eager to ferret out the +science of the thing. Do you remember how your boy's respect rose for +little Barbara whenever she cried when too readily forgiven? "She dreads +a double standard," you explained to me with generous heat. You +sympathised with her fear lest I demand less of her than of you, +honouring her insistence on an equality of duty as well as of privilege. +Is the man Herbert less proud than the child Barbara, that you speak of +a temperamental difference and ask for a special dispensation? + +You are not in love (this you say in not gainsaying my attack on you, +and so far I understand), because you are a student of Economics. At the +last I stop. What is this about economics and poesy? About your +emancipation from my riotously lyric sway? The hand of the forces by +which you have been moulded cannot detain you from going out upon the +love-quest. The fact of your preference for Draper cannot forestall your +spirit's need of love. There are many codes, but there is one law, +binding alike on the economist and poet. It springs out of the common +and unappeasable hunger, commanding that love seek love through night to +day and through day to night. + +Yet it is possible to put oneself outside the pale of the law, to refuse +the gift of life and snap the tie between time and space and creature. +It is possible to be too emaciated for interest or feeling. The men and +women of the People know neither love nor art because they are too +weary. They lie in sleep prostrate from great fatigue. Their bodies are +too much tried with the hungers of the body and their spirits too dimly +illumined with the hope of fair chances. It is also possible to fill +oneself so full with an interest that all else is crowded out. You have +done this. Like the cobbler who is a cobbler typically, the teacher who +is a pedagogue, the physician and the lawyer who are pathologists +merely, you are a fanatic of a text. You are in the toils of an idea, +the idea of selection, as I well know, and you exploit it like a drudge. +When a man finds that he cannot deal in petroleum without smelling of +it, it is time that he turn to something else. Every man is engaged in +the cause of keeping himself whole, in watching himself lest his man +turn machine, in watching lest the outside world assail the inner. +Nature spares the type, but the individual must spare himself. He is +strong who is sensitive and who responds subtly to everything in his +environment, but his response must be characteristic; he must sustain +his personality and become more himself through the years. He alone is +vital in the social scheme who lets nothing in him atrophy and who +persists in being varied from all others in the scale of character to +the degree of variability that was his at the beginning. + +I read in your letter nothing but a decision to stop short and give +over, as if you had strength for no more than your book and your +theory! You have become slave to a small point of inquiry, and you call +it the advance to a new time. "The crusade is on," you say. Coronation +rites for the commoners and destruction to superstition. I put my hand +out to you in joy. The joy is in unholy worship of a fetish, the pain +that there is no joy also deference to a fetish. Your creed thunders +"Thou shalt not." Love is a thing of yesterday. No room for anything +that intimately concerns the self. But what are the apostles of the +young thought preaching if it is not the right of men to their own, and +what would it avail them to come into their own if life be stripped of +romance? + +I am dissatisfied because you are willing to live as others must live. +You should stay aristocrat. Ferdinand Lassalle dressed with elegance for +his working-men audiences, with the hope, he said, of reminding them +that there was something better than their shabbiness. You are of the +favoured, Herbert. It devolves upon you to endear your life to yourself. +You do not agree with me. You do not believe that love is the law which +controls freedom and life. Slave to your theory and rebel to the law, +you lose your soul and imperil another's. + +"Gently! Gently!" I say to myself. Old sorrows and wrongs oppress me +and I grow harsh. My heat only helps to convince you that my position is +not based on the _rational rightness_ you hold so essential and that +therefore it is unlivable. I will state calmly, then, that it is wrong +to marry without love. "For the perpetuation of the species"--that is +noble of you! So you strip yourself of the thousand years of +civilisation that have fostered you, you abandon your prerogative as a +creature high in the scale of existence to obey an instinct and fulfil a +function? You say: "These men and women will marry, and the work of the +world go on just as it did before. Shuffle them about and the work of +the world would yet go on." And you are content. You feel no need of +anything different from this condition. + +Believe me, Herbert, these million men and women will not let you +shuffle them about. There are forces stronger than force, shadows more +real than reality. We know that the need of the unhungered for the one +friend, one comrade, one mate, is good. We honour the love that persists +in loving. More beautiful than starlight is the face of the lover when +the Voice and the Vision enfold him. The race is consecrated to the +worship of idea, and the lover who lays his all on the altar of romance +(which is idea) is at one with the race. The arms of the unloved girl +close about the formless air and more real than her loneliness and her +sorrow is the imagined embrace, the awaited warm, close pressure of the +hands, the fancied gaze. What does it mean? What secret was there for +Leonardo in Mona Lisa's smile, what for him in the motion of waters? You +cannot explain the bloom, the charm, the smile of life, that which rains +sunshine into our hearts, which tells us we are wise to hope and to have +faith, which buckles on us an armour of activity, which lights the fires +of the spirit, which gives us Godhead and renders us indomitable. +Comparative anatomy cannot reason it down. It is sensibility, romance, +idea. It is a fact of life toward which all other facts make. For the +flush of rose-light in the heavens, the touch of a hand, the colour and +shape of fruit, the tears that come for unnamed sorrows, the regrets of +old men, are more significant than all the building and inventing done +since the first social compact. + +Forgive my tediousness. I have flaunted these truisms before you in +order to exorcise that modern slang of yours which is more false than +the overstrained forms of a feudal France. To shut out glory is not to +be practical. You are not adjusting your life artistically; there is too +much strain, too little warmth, too much self-complacence. I see that +you are really younger than I thought. The world never censures the +crimes of the spirit. You are safe from the world's tongue lashings, and +in that safety is the danger against which my friendship warns you. + +I have been reading Hester's poems, and I know that she is like them, +nervous, vibrant, throbbing, sensitive. I have been reading your +letters, and I think her soul will escape yours. If you have not love +like hers, you have nothing with which to keep her. This I have +undertaken to say to you. It is a strange role, yet conventional. I am +the father whose matrimonial whims are not met by the son. The stock +measure is to disinherit. But the cause of our quarrel is somewhat +unusual, and I can be neither so practical nor so vulgar as to set about +making codicils. Love is of no value to financiers; there is no bank for +it nor may it be made over in a will. Rather is it carried on in the +blood, even as Barbara carried it on into the life of her girl-babe. +Your sister keeps me strong with the faith of love. May God be good to +her! It was five years ago that she came to me and whispered, "Earl." +When she saw I could not turn to her in joy, she leaned her little head +back against the roses of the porch and wept, more than was right, I +fear, for a girl just betrothed. Earl was a cripple and poor and +helpless, but Barbara knew better than we, for she knew how to give +herself. Poor little one, whom nobody congratulated! She sends you and +Hester her love, unfolding you both in her eager tenderness. + +DANE. + + + + +VI + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON. +November 19, 19--. + +Metaphysics is contagious. I caught it from Barbara, and I cannot resist +the impulse to pass it on, and to you of all others. + +The mood leapt upon Barbara out of the pages of "Katia," a story by +Tolstoy. To my mind, it is a painful tale of lovers who outlive their +love, killing it with their own hands, but the author means it to be a +happily ending novel. Tolstoy attempts to show that men and women can +find happiness only when they grow content to give over seeking love +from one another. They may keep the memory but must banish the hope. +"Hereafter, think of me only as the father of your children," and the +woman who had pined for that which had been theirs in the beginning of +their union weeps softly, and agrees. Tolstoy calls this peace, but for +Barbara and me this gain is loss, this end an end indeed, replete with +all the tragedy of ending. + +I found Barbara to-day on the last page of "Katia," and much disturbed. +"Dear, I saw a spirit break," she said. I waited before asking whose, +and when I did, she answered, "That of three-quarters of the world. The +ghost of a Dream walked to-day--when after the spirit broke, I saw +it--and myself and my Earl vanished in shadow. We and our love thinned +away before the thought-shape." + +"Your dreaming, Barbara, can scarce be better than your living." + +We looked long at each other. She knew herself a happy woman, yet to-day +the ghost had walked in the light, and her eyes were not held, and she +saw. Even her life was not sufficient, even her plans were paltry, even +her heart's love was cramped. Such times of seeing come to happy men and +to happy women. Barbara was reading the opinions of the world and the +acceptances of the world, and in disliking them she came to doubt +herself. Perhaps she, too, should be less at peace, she too may be +amongst Pharisees a Pharisee. + +"In the midst of the breaking of spirit, how can I know?" she demanded. +"Love is sure," I prompted, my hand on her forehead. "Earl and I are +sure, dear," she laughed low, and a drift of sobbing swept through the +music; "it is not that we are in doubt about ourselves, but sometimes, +like to-day, you understand, one finds oneself bitten by the sharp tooth +of the world, and a despair courses through the veins and blinds the +eyes, and then, in the midst of the bitterest throe, comes a great +visioning." + +I heard her and understood, and my heart leapt as it had not done for +long. Think of it, Herbert, fifty-three and still young! When was it +that I last fluttered with joy? Ah, yes, that time the summer and the +woods had a great deal to do with it, and a few words spoken by a boy. I +think Barbara's majesty of attainment through vicarious breaking of +spirit a greater cause for rejoicing. + +_And then, in the midst of the bitterest throe, came a great visioning._ +When pain is good and to be thanked for, how good life is! By this alone +may you know the proportion and the value of the good of being. +Three-quarters of the world are broken spirited, but from out the +wreckage a thought-shape, and it is well. The Vision fastens upon us, +and what was full seems shrunken, what whole and of all time a passing +bit, an untraceable flash. And that is well, for the dream recalls the +hope, and the heart grows hardy with hoping and dreaming. + +So Barbara. + +And you? You do not repine because of these things. Let the Grand Mujik +mutter a thousand heresies, let three-quarters of the world accept and +live them, you would not think the unaspiring three-quarters +broken-spirited. You would hail them right practical. And if you held a +thought as firmly as your sister holds the thought of love, and you +found yourself alone in your esteem of it, you would part from it and go +over to the others. You would not be the fanatic your sister is, to stay +so much the closer by it that of necessity she must doubt her own +allegiance, fearing in her devotion that, without knowing it, she, too, +is cold and but half alive. You would not see visions that would put +your best to shame. The thought-shape of the more you could be, were you +and the whole world finer and greater, would not walk before you. You +would rest content and assured, and--I regret your assurance. + +Always yours, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +VII + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +December 6, 19--. + +No, I am not in love. I am very thankful that I am not. I pride myself +on the fact. As you say, I may not be adjusting my life artistically to +its environment (there is room for discussion there), but I do know that +I am adjusting it scientifically. I am arranging my life so that I may +get the most out of it, while the one thing to disorder it, worse than +flood and fire and the public enemy, is love. + +I have told you, from time to time, of my book. I have decided to call +it "The Economic Man." I am going over the proofs now, and my brain is +in perfect working order. On the other hand, there is Professor Bidwell, +who is likewise correcting proofs. Poor devil, he is in despair. He can +do nothing with them. "I positively cannot think," he complains to me, +his hair rumpled and face flushed. He did not answer my knock the other +day, and I came upon him with the neglected proofs under his elbows and +his absent gaze directed through window and out of doors to some rosy +cloudland beyond my ken. "It will be a failure, I know it will," he +growled to me. "My brain is dull. It refuses to act. I cannot imagine +what has come over me." But I could imagine very easily. He is in love +(madly in love with what I take to be a very ordinary sort of girl), and +expects shortly to be married. "Postpone the book for a time," I +suggested. He looked at me for a moment, then brought his fist down on +the general disarray with a thumping "I will!" And take my word for it, +Dane, a year hence, when the very ordinary girl greets him with the +matronly kiss and his fever and folly have left him, he will take up the +book and make a success of it. + +Of course I am not in love. I have just come back from Hester--I ran +down Saturday to Stanford and stopped over Sunday. Time did not pass +tediously on the train. I did not look at my watch every other minute. I +read the morning papers with interest and without impatience. The +scenery was charming and I was unaware of the slightest hurry to reach +my destination. I remember noting, when I came up the gravel walk +between the rose-bushes, that my heart was not in my mouth as it should +have been according to convention. In fact, the sun was uncomfortable, +and I mopped my brow and decided that the roses stood in need of +trimming. And really, you know, I had seen brighter days, and fairer +views, and the world in more beautiful moods. + +And when Hester stood on the veranda and held out her hands, my heart +did not leap as though it were going to part company with me. Nor was I +dizzy with--rapture, I believe. Nor did all the world vanish, and +everything blot out, and leave only Hester standing there, lips curved +and arms outstretched in welcome. Oh, I saw the curved lips and +outstretched arms, and all the splendid young womanhood swaying there, +and I was pleased and all that; but I did not think it too wonderful and +impossible and miraculous and the rest of the fond rubbish I am sure +poor Bidwell thinks when his eyes are gladdened by his ordinary sort of +girl when he calls upon her. + +What a comely young woman, is what I thought as I pressed Hester's +hands; and none of the ordinary sort either. She has health and strength +and beauty and youth, and she will certainly make a most charming wife +and excellent mother. Thus I thought, and then we chatted, had lunch, +and passed a delightful afternoon together--an afternoon such as I might +pass with you, or any good comrade, or with my wife. + +All of which rational rightness is, I know, distasteful to you, Dane. +And I confess I depict it with brutal frankness, failing to give credit +to the gentler, tenderer side of me. Believe me, I am very fond of +Hester. I respect and admire her. I am proud of her, too, and proud of +myself that so fine a creature should find enough in me to be willing to +mate with me. It will be a happy marriage. There is nothing cramped or +narrow or incompatible about it. We know each other well--a wisdom that +is acquired by lovers only after marriage, and even then with the +likelihood of it being a painful wisdom. We, on the other hand, are not +blinded by love madness, and we see clearly and sanely and are confident +of our ability to live out the years together. + +HERBERT. + + + + +VIII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +December 11, 19--. + +I have been thinking about your romance and my rational rightness, and +so this letter. + +"_One loves because he loves: this explanation is, as yet, the most +serious and most decisive that has been found for the solution of this +problem._" I do not know who has said this, but it might well have been +you. And you might well say with Mlle. de Scudéri: "_Love is--I know not +what: which comes--I know not when: which is formed--I know not how: +which enchants--I know not by what: and which ends--I know not when or +why_." + +You explain love by asserting that it is not to be explained. And +therein lies our difference. You accept results; I search for causes. +You stop at the gate of the mystery, worshipful and content. I go on and +through, flinging the gate wide and formulating the law of the mystery +which is a mystery no longer. It is our way. You worship the idea; I +believe in the fact. If the stone fall, the wind blow, the grass and +green things sprout; if the inorganic be vitalised, and take on +sensibility, and perform functions, and die; if there be passions and +pains, dreams and ambitions, flickerings of infinity and glimmerings of +Godhead--it is for you to be smitten with the wonder of it and to +memorialise it in pretty song, while for me remains to classify it as so +much related phenomena, so much play and interplay of force and matter +in obedience to ascertainable law. + +There are two kinds of men: the wonderers and the doers; the feelers and +the thinkers; the emotionals and the intellectuals. You take an +emotional delight in living; I an intellectual delight. You feel a thing +to be beautiful and joyful; I seek to know why it is beautiful and +joyful. You are content that it is, no matter how it came to be; I, when +I have learned why, strive that we may have more beautiful and joyful +things. "The bloom, the charm, the smile of life" is all too wonderful +for you to know; to me it is chiefly wonderful because I may know. + +Oh, well, it is an ancient quarrel which neither you nor I shall +outlive. I am rational, you are romantic,--that is all there is to it. +You are more beautiful; I am more useful; and though you will not see it +and will never be able to see it, you and your beauty rest on me. I came +into the world before you, and I made the way for you. I was a hunter of +beasts and a fighter of men. I discovered fire and covered my nakedness +with the skins of animals. I builded cunning traps, and wove branches +and long grasses and rushes and reeds into the thatch and roof-tree. I +fashioned arrows and spears of bone and flint. I drew iron from the +earth, and broke the first ground, and planted the first seed. I gave +law and order to the tribe and taught it to fight with craft and wisdom. +I enabled the young men to grow strong and lusty, and the women to find +favour with them; and I gave safety to the women when their progeny came +forth, and safety to the progeny while it gathered strength and years. + +I did many things. Out of my blood and sweat and toil I made it possible +that all men need not all the time hunt and fish and fight. The muscle +and brain of every man were no longer called to satisfy the belly need. +And then, when of my blood and sweat and toil I had made room, you came, +high priest of mystery and things unknowable, singer of songs and seer +of visions. + +And I did you honour, and gave you place by feast and fire. And of the +meat I gave you the tenderest, and of the furs the softest. Need I say +that of women you took the fairest? And you sang of the souls of dead +men and of immortality, of the hidden things, and of the wonder; you +sang of voices whispering down the wind, of the secrets of light and +darkness, and the ripple of running fountains. You told of the powers +that pulsed the tides, swept the sun across the firmaments, and held the +stars in their courses. Ay, and you scaled the sky and created for me +the hierarchy of heaven. + +These things you did, Dane; but it was I who made you, and fed you, and +protected you. While you dreamed and sang, I laboured sore. And when +danger came, and there was a cry in the night, and women and children +huddling in fear, and strong men broken, and blare of trumpets and cry +of battle at the outer gate--you fled to your altars and called vainly +on your phantoms of earth and sea and sky. And I? I girded my loins, +and strapped my harness on, and smote in the fighting line; and died, +perchance, that you and the women and children might live. + +And in times of peace you throve and waxed fat. But only by our brain +and blood did we men of the fighting line make possible those times of +peace. And when you throve, you looked about you and saw the beauty of +the world and fancied yet greater beauty. And because of me your fancy +became fact, and marvels arose in stone and bronze and costly wood. + +And while your brows were bright, and you visioned things of the spirit, +and rose above time and space to probe eternity, I concerned myself with +the work of head and hand. I employed myself with the mastery of matter. +I studied the times and seasons and the crops, and made the earth +fruitful. I builded roads and bridges and moles, and won the secrets of +metals and virtues of the elements. Bit by bit, and with great travail, +I have conquered and enslaved the blind forces. I builded ships and +ventured the sea, and beyond the baths of sunset found new lands. I +conquered peoples, and organised nations and knit empires, and gave +periods of peace to vast territories. + +And the arts of peace flourished, and you multiplied yourself in divers +ways. You were priest and singer and dancer and musician. You expressed +your fancies in colours and metals and marbles. You wrote epics and +lyrics--ay, as you to-day write lyrics, Dane Kempton. And I multiplied +myself. I kept hunger afar off, and fire and sword from your habitation, +and the bondsmen in obedience under you. I solved methods of government +and invented systems of jurisprudence. Out of my toil sprang forms and +institutions. You sang of them and were the slave of them, but I was the +maker of them and the changer of them. + +You worshipped at the shrine of the idea. I sought the fact and the law +behind the fact. I was the worker and maker and liberator. You were +conventional. Tradition bound you. You were full bellied and content, +and you sang of the things that were. You were mastered by dogma. Did +the Mediæval Church say the earth was flat, you sang of an earth that +was flat, and danced and made your little shows on an earth that was +flat. And you helped to bind me with chains and burn me with fire when +my facts and the laws behind my facts shook your dogmas. Dante's highest +audacity could not transcend a material inferno. Milton could not shake +off Lucifer and hell. + +You were more beautiful. But not only was I more useful, but I made the +way for you that there might be greater beauty. You did not reck of +that. To you the heart was the seat of the emotions. I formulated the +circulation of the blood. You gave charms and indulgences to the world; +I gave it medicine and surgery. To you, famine and pestilence were acts +of providence and punishment of sin: I made the world a granary and +drained its cities. To you the mass of the people were poor lost +wretches who would be rewarded in paradise or baked in hell. You could +offer them no earthly happiness of decency. Forsooth, beggars as well as +kings were of divine right. But I shattered the royal prerogatives and +overturned the thrones of the one and lifted the other somewhat out of +the dirt. + +Nor is my work done. With my inventions and discoveries and rational +enterprise, I draw the world together and make it kin. The uplift is but +begun. And in the great world I am making I shall be as of old to you, +Dane. I, who have made you and freed you, shall give you space and +greater freedom. And, as of old, we shall quarrel as when first you came +to me and found me at my rude earth-work. You shall be the scorner of +matter, and I the master of matter. You may laugh at me and my work, but +you shall not be absent from the feast nor shall your voice be silent. +For, when I have conquered the globe, and enthralled the elements, and +harnessed the stars, you shall sing the epic of man, and as of old it +shall be of the deeds I have done. + +HERBERT. + + + + +IX + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +December 28, 19--. + +The curtain is rung down on an illusion, but it rises again on another, +this time, as before, with the look of the absolute Good and True upon +it. It is because we are at once actor and spectator that we find no +fault with blinking sight and slothful thought. We are finite branded +and content, except during the shrill, undermining moments when the +orchestra is tuning up. "Thus we half-men struggle." + +I follow your letter and wonder whether your illusions have qualities of +beauty which escape me. I give you the benefit of every doubt which it +is possible for me to harbour with regard to my own system of illusions. +You glorify the crowd practical. You attach yourself to the ranks that +carried thought into action. You inspire yourself with rugged strength +by dwelling on the achievements of ruggedness, forgetting that the +progress of the world is not marshalled by those who work with line and +rule. It was not his crew, but Columbus, who discovered America. The +crew stood between the Old and the New, as indeed the crew always does. +Between the idealist and his hope were hosts of practical enemies whom +he had to subdue before he reached land. But I must not fall into your +mistake of dividing men into categories. Men are not either intellectual +or emotional; they are both. It is a rounded not an angular development +which we follow. Feeling and thinking are not mutually exclusive, and +the great personality feels deeply because he thinks highly, feels +keenly because he sees widely. Common sense is not incompatible with +uncommon sense, evil does not of necessity attend beauty, nor weakness +the strength of genius. + +I shall sing of the deeds you have done if your deeds are worthy of +song. I shall sing a Song of the Sword, too, should the sword "thrust +through the fatuous, thrust through the fungous brood." Whatever helps +the races to better life sings itself into racial lore, and I alone +shall not refuse the tribute. When you come to see that the Iliad is as +great a gift to the race as the doings of Achilles, that the Iliads are +more significant than the doings they celebrate, you will cease to +classify men into doers and singers. You will cease to dishonour +yourself in the eyes of the singers with the hope that in so doing you +gain somewhat elsewhere. + +Professor Bidwell is in love and it interferes with his work. You have +the advantage of him there, no doubt. However, you lose more than you +gain. You have shattered the dream and have awakened. To what? What is +this reality in which your universe is hung? Where shine the stars of +your scientific heaven? By the beauty of your dreaming alone, Herbert, +shall you be judged and known. You dream that you have learned the +lesson, solved the problem, pierced the mystery, and become a prophet of +matter. But matter does not include spirit, so the motif of your dream +grows all confused. Your race epic omits the race. You sing the branch +and the leaf rather than the sunlit and tenebral wood. Bidwell thinks +his ordinary sort of girl a "lyric love, half angel and half bird, and +all a wonder and a wild desire." Bidwell exaggerates, perhaps, but +unless he feels this for his wife, he has no wife. Barbara obeyed the +voice of her heart. That sounds sentimental, but it is none the less a +courageous thing to do. I was inconsistent enough to be sorry because +she loved a crippled man. Bidwell and Barbara are wiser and happier than +you can be, Herbert, than you from whose hand the map of Parnassus Hill +has been filched. + +Is there one state of consciousness better than another? I think yes. +Better to have long, youthful thoughts and to thrill to vibrant emotions +than to grovel sluggishly; better to hope and dream and aspire and sway +to great harmonies than to be blind and deaf and dumb--better for the +type, better for the immortality of the world's soul. This to me is a +vital thought, therefore life or death is in the issue. For the rest I +know not. By the glimmer of light lent me, I can but guess greatness and +descry vagueness. You go further and would touch the phantasmagorial +veil. "Right!" I say, and I pray, "Godspeed." But there must be +intensity. Are you thrilled? Do you stretch out your arms and dream the +beauty? It is only when you gaze into a reality empty of the voices of +life that I would wake you to bid you dream better. + +Well, Herbert, I have quarrelled with you and shall to the end, I +promise. I wish I could take you away, hide you from your Hester's +sight, and pour my poetic spleen out on you. Oh, I shall torment you +into reason and passion! Whatever you may choose to be, you are my son. +I must take you and keep you as you are, of course, but I choose to tell +the truth to you though I do love you and hold you mine. Disagreeable of +me, but how else? + +DANE. + + + + +X + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON. +Sunday, January 1, 19--. + +Behold, I have lived! I press your face to the breathing, stinging roses +of my days, and bid you drink in the sweet and throb with the pain. What +is my philosophy but a translation of the facts which have stamped me? +Perhaps if I let you read these facts, you will the sooner come to share +my consecration and my faith. I must teach you to know that you are the +fact of my whole tangled web of facts, and that all that I have and am, +and all that might have been I and mine, stretches itself out in the +unmarked path which is before you. + +I take you back with me to the road, white with dust, upon which like a +Viking and like a feeble girl I have travelled. It is not long, but how +many paths, what byways and what turns! What sudden glimpses of sea and +sky, what inaccessibleness! Hark, from the wood on either side +murmurings of hope and hard sobbing of despair, young laughter of joy +and aged renunciations! See from amongst the pines the farewell gleam of +a white hand. All of it dear--dearly bought and precious and miraculous, +the heartache even as the gladness. + + + "Life is worth living + Through every grain of it, + From the foundations + To the last edge + Of the cornerstone, death." + + +Ay, through every grain of it. Even that morning in the wood, thirty +years ago, when your mother put her hand in mine and looked a great pity +into my eyes. Indeed, she loved me well, but romance shone on the brow +of John Wace. For her his face was sunlit, and she needs must take it +between her hands and hold it forever. He was her Siegfried, her master. +Thus the gods decreed, and we three obeyed. What else was there to do? +We must be honest before all, and Ellen did not love me any more, and I +must know it, and wipe out a past of deepest mutuality, and strengthen +and console and restore the woman whose hand held mine while her eyes +were turned elsewhere. + +Before that bright, black summer morning which saw me woman-pitied, I +knew I should have to renounce her. Their souls rushed together in their +first meeting. John had been away, knocking about museums and colleges, +and carrying on tempestuous radical work. He was splendidly picturesque. +I was a youth of twenty-three, almost ten years his junior, a boy full +of half-defined aims and groping powers, reaching toward what he had +firm in his grasp. Ellen talked of his coming, and she planned that she +should meet this my one friend in the environment she loved best--in my +rooms, whose atmosphere, she declared, belonged to an earlier time and +place. (She found in me Nolly Goldsmith and all of Grub Street.) So they +met at the tea-table in my study, and a great warmth stole over your +father. He spoke without looking at either of us, while Ellen looked as +if her destiny had just begun. + +Without, it rained. I strode to the window and in a dazed way stared at +the lamp-post which was sticking out its flaming little tongue to the +night. Why was I mocked? There was no mocking and there should have been +no bitterness. Of that there was none either, after a while. + +Ellen put her hand on my hair, and a strong primal emotion rose in me. +In that moment civilisation was as if it had not been. I reverted to the +primitive. The blood of forgotten ancestors, cave-men and river-men, +reasoned me my ethics. I turned to her, met her flushed cheeks and moved +being and the glory of dawning in her eyes. I measured my strength with +hers and your father's, Herbert. Easily, great strength was mine in my +passion, easily I could carry her off! + +You, too, have had moments of upheaval when you heard the growling of +the tiger and the bear, when the brute crowded out the man. Then your +soul writhed in derision, you scoffed at that which you had held to be +the nobility of the soul, and you minced words satirically over the +exquisiteness of the type which we have evolved. Then the experiment of +life turned farce, the heavens fell about your ears and "Fool!" was upon +your lips. Oh, the hurricane that sweeps over the soul when it is +cheated of its joy! In the first instant of Ellen's indifference, when I +felt myself pushed out of her life, I forgot everything but my desire. +I could not renounce her. I was in the throes of the passion for +ownership. + +Gentle girl between whom and myself there had been naught but sweetness +and fellowship! How often had we talked large (we were very young!) of +our sublimities and potentialities, how often had we pictured tragedies +of surrender and greatened in the speaking! Ah, it should come true. For +her and for me there must be miracles, and there were. So was the +strength of the spirit proven, so was it shown to be "pure waft of the +Will." So was I confirmed in the creed which believes that to keep we +must lose, and to live we must die. So was I assured that there may be +but one way, and that, the way of service. + +I did not grip her passionately in my arms. I withdrew; I did much to +make her task of leaving me an easy one. Were it not for my efforts, it +would have been harder for her to obey a mandate which made for my pain. +She could not quite drown an old, Puritan voice, speaking with the +authority of tradition, which bade her hold to her vows. Yes, I made it +easy for her. Harrow my soul with theories of selection and survival if +you dare! + +In those days the spires of the temple were golden, the shrine white. +The door was seen from every point in the fog-begirt world. We who +worshipped knew not of doubt. Stirred by the rumbling organ tones of +causes and ideas, we immolated our lives gladly. High priests of +thought, we swung the censers and rose on the breast of the incense. +Ellen and John and myself glorified God and enjoyed Him forever,--God, +the Type, the Final Humanity, the giant Body Soul of man. In our hearts +dwelt a religion which compelled us to serve the ideal. We strove to +become what organically we felt the "Human with his drippings of warm +tears" may become. We were the standard-bearers of the advancing margin +of the world. We were the high-water mark toward which all the tides +forever make. We were soldiers and priests. + +And so when Ellen loved, and lacked courage for her love, I helped her. +A past of kindness and ardour riveted her to my side. She knew that we +were in feeling and fact divorced from each other by virtue of her +stronger love for John, yet did she do battle with the rich young love. +For two years we had been close; she had been so much my friend, she +could not in maiden charity seal for me a so unwelcome fate. I had +awakened her slumbering soul with my first look into the sphinx wonder +of her eyes. For me she had become fire and dew, flame of the sun, and +flower of the hill. Without me to help her do it she could not leave me. + +To the master of matter this coping with spiritual abstractions must +appear like juggling with intellectual phantasmagoria. Yet I protest +that life is finally for intangible triumphs. Unnamed fragrances steal +upon the senses and the soul revels and greatens. Unseen hands draw us +to worlds afar, and we are gathered up in the dignity of the human +spirit. Unknown ideas attract and hold us, and we take our place in the +universe as intellectual factors. In giving up Ellen I helped her, and, +sacredly better still, I sent on into a world of vague thinking and weak +acting the impulse of devotion to revealed truth. + +She had a sweet way of sitting low and resting her head on my knee. She +sat through one whole day with me thus, and for hours I could have +thought her asleep were it not for the waves of feeling which surged in +her upturned face. Toward the end she raised her head, ecstasy in her +eyes and on her cheek and lip. "Dane, I love you. Dane! Dane!" The whole +of me was caught up in the accents of that tremulousness. She had know +John three months; but her love for him was young, it had come +unexpectedly, it was still unexpressed and ineffable. Her yearning for +him led to softness toward me, and though she rose out of her mood as +one does from a dream, the hours when we were like the angels, all love +and all speech, were mine. So much was vouchsafed me. + +Memories and echoes, gusts of sweet breath from the violets on your +mother's grave--the prophet of matter will have none of them, and, I +fear, will pity me that I am so much theirs. I am yours also, dear lad, +and I wish to serve you. + +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XI + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +January 20, 19--. + +I do not know whether to laugh or weep. I have just finished reading +your letter, and I can hardly think. Words seem to have lost their +meaning, and words, used as you use them, are without significance. You +appear to speak a tongue strangely familiar, yet one I cannot +understand. You are unintelligible, as, I dare say, I am to you. + +And small wonder that we are unintelligible. Our difference presents +itself quite clearly to the scientific mind, and somewhat in this +fashion: Man acquires knowledge of the outer world through his +sensations and perceptions. Sensation ends in sentiment, and perception +ends in reason. These are the two sides of man's nature, and the +individual is determined and ruled by whichever side in him happens to +be temperamentally dominant. I have already classed you as a feeler, +myself as a thinker. This is, I _think_ true. You, I am confident, +_feel_ it to be true. I reason why it is true. You accept it on faith as +true, lose sight of the argument forthwith, and proceed to express it in +emotional terms--which is to say that you take it to heart and feel +badly because it happens to be so. + +You feign to know this modern scientific slang, and you are contemptuous +of it because you do not know it. The terms I use freight no ideas to +you. They are sounds, rhythmic and musical, but they are not definite +symbols of thought. Their facts you do not grasp. For instance, the +prehensile organs of insects, the great toothed mandibles of the black +stag-beetle, the amorous din of the male cicada and the muteness of his +mate--these are facts which you cannot relate, one with the other, nor +can you generalise upon them. Let me add to these related characters, +and you cannot discern the law which is alike to all. What to you the +fluttering moth, decked in gold and crimson, brilliant, iridescent, +splendid? The beauty of it bids you bend to deity, otherwise it has no +worth; it is a stimulus to religion, and that is all. So with the +glowing incandescence of the stickleback and its polished scales of +silver. What make you of the hoarse voice of the gorilla? Is not the +dewlap of the ox inscrutable? the mane of the lion? the tusks of the +boar? the musk-sack of the deer? In the amethyst and sapphire of the +peacock's wing you find no rationality; to you it is a manifestation of +the wonder which is taboo. And so with the cock bird, displaying his +feathered ruffs and furbelows, dancing strange antics and spilling out +his heart in song. + +I, on the other hand, dare to gather all these phenomena together, and +find out the common truth, the common fact, the common law, which is +generalisation, which is Science. I learn that there are two functions +which all life must perform: Nutrition and Reproduction. And I learn +that in all life, the performance, according to time and space and +degree, is very like. The slug must take to itself food, else it will +perish; and so I. The slug must procreate its kind, or its kind will +perish; and so I. The need being the same, the only difference is in the +expression. In all life come times and seasons when the individuals are +aware of dim yearnings and blind compulsions and masterful desires. The +senses are quickened and alert to the call of kind. And just as the fish +and the reptile glimmeringly adumbrate man, so do these yearnings and +desires adumbrate what man in himself calls "love," spelled all out in +capitals. I repeat, the need is the same. From the amoeba, up the ladder +of life to you and me, comes this passion of perpetuation. And in +yourself, refine and sublimate as you will, it is none the less blind, +unreasoning, and compelling. + +And now we come to the point. In the development of life from low to +high, there came a dividing of the ways. Instinct, as a factor of +development, had its limitations. It culminated in that remarkable +mechanism, the bee-swarm. It could go no farther. In that direction life +was thwarted. But life, splendid and invincible, not to be thwarted, +changed the direction of its advance, and reason became the all-potent +developmental factor. Reason dawned far down in the scale of life; but +it culminates in man and the end is not yet. + +The lever in his arm he duplicates in wood and steel; the lenses in his +eyes in glass; the visual impressions of his brain on chemically +sensitised wood-pulp. He is able, reasoning from events and knowing the +law, to control the blind forces and direct their operation. Having +ascertained the laws of development, he is able to take hold of life and +mould and knead it into more beautiful and useful forms. Domestic +selection it is called. Does he wish horses which are fast, he selects +the fastest. He studies the physics of velocity in relation to equine +locomotion, and with an eye to withers, loins, hocks, and haunches, he +segregates his brood mares and his stallions. And behold, in the course +of a few years, he has a thoroughbred stock, swifter of foot than any +ever in the world before. + +Since he takes sexual selection into his own hands and scientifically +breeds the fish and the fowl, the beast and the vegetable, why may he +not scientifically breed his own kind? The fish and the fowl and the +beast and the vegetable obey dim yearnings and vague desires and +reproduce themselves. "Poor the reproduction," says Man to Mother +Nature; "allow me." And Mother Nature is thrust aside and exceeded by +this new creator, this Man-god. + +These yearnings and desires of the beast and the vegetable are the best +tools nature has succeeded in devising. Having devised them, she leaves +their operation to the blindness of chance. Steps in man and controls +and directs them. For the first time in the history of life conscious +intelligence forms and transforms life. These yearnings and desires, +promptings of the "abysmal fecundity," have in man evolved into what is +called "love." They arise in instinct and sensation and culminate in +sentiment and emotion. They master man, and the intellect of man, as +they master the beast and all the acts of the beast. And they operate in +the development of man with the same blindness of chance that they +operate in the development of the beast. + +Now this is the law: _Love, as a means for the perpetuation and +development of the human type, is very crude and open to improvement. +What the intellect of man has done with the beast, the intellect of man +may do with man_. + +It is a truism to say that my intellect is wiser than my emotions. So, +knowing the precise value and use of this erotic phenomenon, this sexual +madness, this love, I, for one, elect to choose my mate with my +intellect. Thus I choose Hester. And I do truly love her, but in the +intellectual sense and not the sense you fanatically demand. I am not +seized with a loutish vertigo when I look upon her and touch her hand. +Nor do I feel impelled to leave her presence if I would live, as did +Dante the presence of Beatrice; nor the painful confusion of Rousseau, +when, in the same room with Madame Goton, he seemed impelled to leap +into the flaming fireplace. But I do feel for Hester what happily mated +men and women, after they have lived down the passion, feel in the +afternoon of life. It is the affection of man for woman, which is +sanity. It is the sanity of intercourse which replaces love madness; the +sanity which comes upon sparrows after the ardour of mating, when they +leave off wrangling and chattering and set soberly to work to build +their nest for the coming brood. + +Pre-nuptial love is the madness of non-understanding and +part-understanding. Post-nuptial affection is the sanity of complete +understanding; it is based upon reason and service and healthy +sacrifice. The first is a blind mating of the blind; the second, a clear +and open-eyed union of male and female who find enough in common to +warrant that union. In a word and in the fullest sense of the word, it +is sex comradeship. Pre-nuptial love cannot survive marriage any +considerable time. It is doomed inexorably to flicker out, and when it +has flickered out it must be replaced by affection, or else the parties +to it must separate. We well know that many men and women, unable to +build up affection on the ruins of love, do separate, or if they do not, +continue to live together in cold tolerance or bitter hatred. + +Now, Hester is my mate. We have much in common. There is intellectual, +spiritual, and physical affinity. The caress of her voice and the feel +of her mind are pleasurable to me; likewise the touch of her hand (and +you know that in the union of man and woman the higher affinities are +not possible unless there first be physiological affinity). We shall go +through life as comrades go, hand in hand, Hester and I; and great +happiness will be ours. And because of all this I say you have no right +to challenge my happiness, and vex my days, and feel for me as one dead. + +My dear, bewildered Dane, come down out of the clouds. If I am wrong, I +have gone over the ground. Then do you go over that ground with me and +show where I am wrong. But do not pour out on me your romantic and +poetic spleen. Confine yourself to the Fact, man, to the irrefragable +Fact. + +HERBERT. + +Ah, your later letter has just arrived. I can only say that I +understand. But withal, I am pained that I am not nearer to you. These +intellectual phantasmagoria rise up like huge amorphous ghosts and hold +me from you. I cannot get through the mists and glooms to press your +hand and tell you how dear I hold you. Do, Dane, do let us cease from +this. Let us discuss no further. Let me care for Hester in my own way so +long as I do no sin and harm no one; and be you father to us, and bless +us who else must go unblessed. For Hester, also, is fatherless and +motherless, and you must be to her as you are to me. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XII + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +February 10, 19--. + +So we have got into an argument! I have been poring over your last two +or three letters, and they read like a set of briefs for a debate. +Doubtless mine have the same forensic quality. Our letters have become +rebuttals, pure and simple. This discovery gave my pen pause for a week. +It occurred to me that Walt Whitman must have meant didactic letters +too, when he said of the fretters of our little world, "They make me +sick talking of their duty to God." Yet friend should speak to friend, +should utter the word than which nothing is more sacred. "Let there be +light, and there was light"--a ripple of light, and a flash, then the +darkness broke and dispersed from the face of the waters. It was a +trumpet-call of words bringing drama into a nebulous creation. Let the +Word break up our night and let us not only grant, but avow the +conviction it brings us, no matter what the consequence. Let us worship +the irrefragable Fact. + +You hold that marriage is an institution having for its purpose the +perpetuation of the species, and that respect and affection are +sufficient to bring two people into this most intimate possible +relation. You also hold that the business of the world, pressing hard +upon men, makes "love from their lives a thing apart," and that this is +as it should be. Your letters are an exposition and a defence of what I +may loosely call the practical theory. You show that the world is for +work and workers, and that life is for results as seen in institutions +and visible achievements. I, on the other hand, maintain that it takes a +greater dowry to marry upon than affection, and that men love as +intensely and with as much abandon as women. People love in proportion +to the depth of their natures, and the finest man in the world has an +infinite capacity for giving and receiving love store. The spell is +strongest upon the finest. + +This, briefly, is what we have been saying to each other. You attack my +idealism, call me dreamer, and accuse me of being out of joint with the +time, which itself is rigorously in joint with the laws of growth. And +I class you with the Philistine because of your exaggeration of +practical values. I hold that it is gross to respect the fact tangible +at the expense of the feeling ineffable. + +In your last letter you exploit the theory of Nutrition and Reproduction +with a charm and warmth which helps me see you as I have so long known +you, and which tells me again that you are worth fighting for and +saving. But to trace love to its biologic beginning is not to deny its +existence. Love has a history as significant as that of life. When, eons +ago, the primitive man looked at his neighbour and recognised him as a +fellow to himself, consciousness of kind awoke and a cell was exploded +which functioned love. When, through the ages, economic forces taught +men the need of mutual aid, when everywhere in life the law of +development charged men with leanings and desires and outreachings, then +the sway of love began in life. What was subconscious became conscious, +what, back in the past, was a mere adumbration gloried out in Aurora +splendours. The love of a Juliet is the outgrowth of natural processes +manifesting themselves everywhere down the scale, but it is also the +gift of the last evolution, and it speaks to us from the topmost notch +in the scale. The charm of morning rests on a Juliet's love because its +hour is young and yet old, striking the time of the past and the future. +It is thus that the hunger of the race and the passion of the race +become in the individual the need for happiness. The need of the race +and the need of the individual are at once the same and different. + +What was the point of your letter? That sexual selection obtains? I +grant it. That it is incumbent upon us as intelligent men and women to +call to the aid of instinct our social wisdom? I grant and avow it. But +our social wisdom insists that we obey the choices of instinct; our +social wisdom is only another phase of our refinement, which, in +impelling us to a love of the beautiful, does not the less impel us to +love. Our social wisdom educates our taste without lessening our taste +for the thing. "Love a beautiful person nobly, but be sure you love +her," says our social wisdom with interesting tautology. Besides, you +are a heretic to your own breed, Herbert. It is you who would forsake +our present social wisdom, ruling modern men by laws which obtained in +primitive life. It is you who steadily hark back to the past, and to +states of consciousness which were but can never be again. The early +facts of biology cannot include that which transcends them. To borrow +from Ernest Seton Thompson, man is evolved with the lower orders in the +same way that water is changed into steam, and the nature of the change, +when it is effected, is as radical. Add a number of degrees of heat to +water and it is still water. Let one degree be wanting to the necessary +number, and the substance is still intact. Add the last degree, and +water is no longer water. From water to steam is a radical change and a +transformation. + +You agree to improve upon the beasts of the fields and upon our own race +in the past, and in this you go farther than you have need if marriage +is for nothing else than to serve the instinct for perpetuation. You +shew some respect for what is natural and instinctive, yet you say that +all would be as well if individual choice had not prevailed, and men and +women were "shuffled about." You draw up a cold programme for action in +affairs of the spirit and formulate a code of procedure in matters of +the heart. + +I have a programme too. Mine does not break with nature. On the +contrary, it obeys every instinct and listens to every call on the +senses. My love begins in my biologic self, grows with my growth, takes +its hues from visioned sunsets in corn-flower skies, its grace from +swaying rivers of grain seen in dreams. It is for me what it is for fish +and fowl, beast and vegetable. It is my passion for perpetuation, but it +is also something as different from this as I am different from beast +and vegetable. My love is "blind, unreasoning, and compelling," and for +that I trust it. I do not conceive myself Man-god, therefore I do not +say to Nature, "Allow me." I cannot be sure that when I say it in the +case of the horse, who obeys like me "dim yearning and vague desires," I +do not sacrifice him to a lust of my own. The lust for owning and +spoiling is hard to cope with. Perhaps a purer time is near, when, +upborne by a sense of the dignity of romance and the sacredness of life, +man will refrain from laying rough hands on his mute brothers. + +The romance which is my proof of the good of being does not rest on +passion. The unclean fires that consume the loutish and degenerate are +not of love. You quote instances of the hyperphysical and hysterical. +The feeling that I would have you obey for your soul's sake and without +which you are but half alive, is not the blind passion of an oversexed +sentimentalism. Rousseau was never in love in his life, though to say it +were to accuse him of perjury. + +One word more. Do you wish to know why I care? I care because I know you +to be of those who are capable of love. Probably it was one little twist +in your development that has turned you into alien ways of thinking and +living. Yes, and more than for this I care because you are the +fulfilment of a sacred past. You are the son of my sacrifice and your +mother's love. + +I care very much indeed. I do not wish you to awake some terrible night +to find that you had ended your romance before you had begun it. I vex +your days and call you dead? It is because I know the life that is by +the grace of God yours, and because I cannot bear to let you coffin it. +Herbert, there is misery when the blood pales, and the tears dry up, and +the flame of the heart sinks, and all that is left is a memory of a +thought--a memory of very long ago when one was young and might have +chosen to live. + +I am sorry we darken the days for each other. + +Your friend always, + +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XIII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +February 12, 19--. + +Barbara and Earl celebrated their anniversary yesterday. Invitations +were sent out, the guests consisting of Melville and myself. +"Anniversary of what?" we asked. For answer we received inscrutable +smiles. Birthdays are accidents of fate. You may regret the accident or +you may be thick enough in illusion to rejoice over it, but you cannot +in decency celebrate an occurrence wholly independent of personal +control and yet concerning itself with you! Leave the merrymaking for +appreciative friends. So rules Barbara. Not a birthday, then, nor the +date of their marriage. The occasion was in some flash struck from +Being, the memory of which enriches them,--in a mood that for an hour +held them in strong grasp, in the utterance of a word charged with +destiny, in the avowal of their love if their love awaited avowal. +Whatever the cause, they honoured it with a will. + +Barbara's eyes flashed, her cheeks were sweetly suffused, and her voice +was vibrant. Earl, too, was at his best. My heart loved this man who had +lain all his life with death. His health is at its bad worst this +winter, which fact made of the "Celebration" a rather heart-rending +affair. He has been obliged to abandon the _Journal_, but we hope he can +stay with the school. Meanwhile, his chronic invalidism of body and +purse does not too much affect him. He keeps his charm of tenderness and +strength. He rivets his pupils to him almost as he riveted his Barbara. + +I have discovered my proof of this couple's happiness. It is that I have +always taken it for granted. Simple, is it not? And absolute. Often in +their presence I catch myself imagining their mutual lives and seeing +vaguely the graces that each brings to each. "How she must delight him!" +I say. "How his eyes speak to her!" "They can never come to the end of +each other," and so on. The ordinary married couple so often brings a +sense of distressed surprise: "How can these two foot it together?" +"How did it happen?" "How can it go on?" + +Last night counted to me. Your father and I have had such evenings, but +I did not think I could do it all over again. We spoke with the fire +(and conceit) of young students, exciting ourselves with expired +theories, hoping old hopes, smarting under blows that perhaps had long +ceased to fall. What then? What if we were ill-read in the facts? We +could not have been wrong in the feeling. For the old hope that has been +proven vain, a new; for the ancient hurt, a modern wrong, as great and +as crying. It was good to feel that we had not grown too wise to harbour +thoughts of change and redress, or too much ironed out with doctrine to +be resigned. I confess it is long since I have eaten my heart in fury, +in impatience, in wildness, but last night we awoke the radical in one +another. We condemned the system. We placed ourselves outside the +régime, refusing aught at its hands, registering our protest, hating the +inordinate scheme of things only as hotly as we loved the juster Hand of +a future time. + +It is curious that we, offsprings of parvenue success, should be capable +of such repudiation. Barbara accepts the Management without the trouble +of a question. "What do you know? What do you know?" the girl demands, a +radiant little angel in white, and a conservative. "You must know +yourselves in the wrong, else would you smite your way through the +world." + +Ah, Barbara has yet to learn that it is hard to live. It is not so hard +to fight, and it is easy to rest neutral, but to be fighter and bearer +both, to stand staunch, holding ever to the issue, and yet, without +tameness, to take rebuff and wait, there's the true course and the +heroic. It is difficult when one has been conquered to know it. It is +difficult to honour an outgrown ideal, which cost us, nevertheless, +comfort and prestige--prizes which youth scorns and which oncoming age, +pathetically enough, holds dear. It is difficult to pull up when driving +too fast and too far, when galloping towards fanaticism, and it is +impossible to whip oneself into passion and martyrdom. It is difficult +to live, little Barbara. + +For me it is also difficult to report a social function. At this one +Browning presided, for Melville took up "Caponsacchi" and read it to us. +That voice of his is in itself an interpretation, but Browning needs +interpreting less than any other man who wrote great poems, because he +wrote the greatest. It was four in the morning when the "O great, just, +good God! Miserable me!" of the soldier-saint fell upon our ears. How we +had listened! Earl steadily paced the floor, Barbara leaned her cheek +upon my hand. Her soul was doing battle, and so was mine. We were all +fighting the gallant fight. Read "Pompilia" and you are filled with +reverence, read "Caponsacchi" and you are caught up by the spirit of +action. You must rise and forth to burn your way like he, though you may +have been too weary in spirit before to answer to your name when +opportunity called roll. + +It was Earl who broke the silence caused by the inner tumult. In a +dreamy voice, his eyes very eager and intent, he told us how at one time +he had gone up a hill that faced the house in which he lived. A hard +rain was driving, he fell at every step up the slippery steepness, but +at every step the beauty of it became more and more wondrous, hardly +bearable. The little village sank lower and lower, and about him were +soft hills, graceful and verdant, a stretch of water lying dark under +the clouded sky, and the mountain gray and watchful in the distance. It +was then, in the chill of a January rain, on an oak-clad hill of a +western spot, that he recognised the dear features of the Mother, knew +her his as hers he was, and loved her with passion. The sea is vast and +wondrous, but it is alien. It holds you apart; it is not of you. But the +gentle earth with her undulating form and the growing life in her lap, +soothes with wordless harmonies. It was then that he forgave the fate +which deformed him. A twisted oak, that is all--no less a tree and no +less beautiful in the landscape! And it was sufficient to live. In the +bosom of so much beauty sufficient also to die. As he stood, thinking it +out, feeling the wonder and the glory, at times sorry for those who can +see no longer the slanting sheets of rain and the grass at the feet, at +times feeling that since this is good, in some impalpable way oblivion +to all this may be also good, as he stood there, flushed with the +climbing and sad with great joy, the thought came: With whom? It cannot +be lived alone. With whom? He turned at the touch of an arm at his +shoulder to meet the smile and the look and the quick breath of her who +had sent herself his Eve. + +In the dawn stealing over the world of London, Earl told the story, and +there and then we saw it all--the hill in the heart of the hills, the +reconciled boy who had climbed its brow, the rain-drenched woman +hurrying to overtake him, with the gift of all of herself in her eyes. +We looked neither at Barbara nor at Earl. Possessed of the secret, we +spoke a few words and left. Our host had divulged what the anniversary +sought to celebrate. We understood and were glad. + +Good night, lad. Would you could have shared our heyday at the dawning! + +DANE. + + + + +XIV + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +February 31, 19--. + +Love is a something that begins in sensation and ends in sentiment. +Thanks to beautiful and permissible hyperbole, you have begun with +sensation in your description of love, and have ended with sentiment. +You have told me about love, in terms of love, which is a vain +performance and unscientific. Now let me make you a definition. _Love is +a disorder of mind and body, and is produced by passion under the +stimulus of imagination._ + +Love is a phase of the operation of the function of reproduction, and it +occurs solely in man. Love, adhering to the common understanding of the +term, is an emotional excitement which does not obtain among the lower +animals. The lower animals lack the stimulus of imagination, and with +them the passion for perpetuation remains a mere passion. But man has +developed imagination. The pure sexual passion is glossed over and +obscured by a cloud of fancies, mistaken yearnings, and distorted +dreams. And so well is the real intent of the function obscured, that it +is actually lost to him, especially during the period of love madness, +so that there seems an apparent divorce between the parts which go to +make up love, between passion and imagination. + +The romantic lover of to-day (expressing sensation in terms of +sentiment, and fondly imagining that he is reasoning) cannot reconcile +his soul-exaltation with bodily grossness, cannot conceive that soul can +turn body, and in the embrace of body tell out all the wonder of soul. +To all sensitive and spiritual men and women come times of anguish and +tears and self-revolt, when they are confounded and heart-broken by the +physical aspect of love. Poor men and women! they suffer keenly and +sincerely through lack of something more than a sentimental concept of +love. To them, body and soul appear things apart, to be kept apart, lest +the one contaminate the other. And in the end, loving well and truly, +they prove their love by enduring, though unable ever quite to shake off +the sense of sin and shame and personal degradation. They do not +understand life, that is the trouble. The beast, lacking imagination, +needs no rational rightness for the various acts of living, such as they +need, and which they do not possess. Because of their unchecked and +unbalanced imagination they mistake the half of life for the whole, and +when forced to face the whole are affrighted and shocked. They do not +reason that the need for perpetuation is the cause of passion; and that +human passion, working through imagination and worked upon by +imagination, becomes love. + +And while I am in this vein, I may as well deny that a greater spiritual +dowry than affection is required for marriage. (For that matter, I fail +to see anything so spiritual in erotic phenomena.) If a man may achieve +affection for a woman, without undergoing pre-nuptial madness,--if a man +may take the short cut, as it were,--then I see no reason why he should +not marry that woman. He is certainly justified, since affection is what +romantic love must evolve into after marriage. But do not mistake me, +Dane. I do not intend this sweepingly. It will not do for the whole +human herd; for at once enters that abhorrent thing you rightly fear, +the marriage for convenience. Alas, it too often masquerades under the +guise of romantic love. Certainly, every man is not capable of taking +this short cut and at the same time of avoiding a violation of true +sexual selection. Having little brain, the average man can only act in +line with sexual selection by undergoing the romantic love malady. But +for some few of us, and I dare to include myself, the short cut is +permissible. This short cut I shall take, and far be it from any worldly +sense of stocks and bonds and comfortable housekeeping. + +Marriage means less to man than to woman? Yes, by all means, at least to +the normal man or woman. As surely as reproduction is woman's peculiar +function, and nutrition man's, just so surely does marriage sum up more +to woman than to man. It becomes the whole life of the woman, while to +the man it is rather an episode, rather a mere side to his many-sided +life. Natural selection has made it so. The countless men of the past, +even from before the time they swung down out of the trees, who devoted +more time and energy to their love-affairs than to the winning of food +and shelter, died from innutrition in various ways. Only the men, normal +men, with a proper respect for the mechanism of life, survived and +perpetuated their kind. The chance was large that the abnormal lover did +not win a wife at all. At least it is so to-day. The abnormal lover is +not a successful bidder for women, and is usually passed by. + +But while we are on this topic, do not let us forget Dante Alighieri, +your prince of lovers. Has a suitable explanation ever occurred to you +concerning how he came to marry Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, who +bore him seven children, and was never once mentioned in the "Divina +Commedia?" You remember what he said of his first meeting with Beatrice, +"At that moment I saw most truly that the spirit of life which hath its +dwelling in the secretest chambers of the heart began to tremble so +violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith." And he +later had seven children by Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, and whom, +as the historian has recorded, "there was no reason to suppose other +than a good wife." + +As for the primitive, I hark back to it because we are still very +primitive. How many thousands years of culture, think you, have rubbed +and polished at our raw edges? One, probably; at the best, not more than +two. And that takes us back to screaming savagery, when, gross of body +and deed, we drank blood from the skulls of our enemies, and hailed as +highest paradise the orgies and carnage of Valhalla. And before that +time, think you, how many thousands of years of savagery did we endure? +and how many myriads of thousands in the long procession of life up from +the first vitalised inorganic? Two thousand years are an extremely thin +veneer with which to cover the many millions. + +And further, our much-vaunted two thousand years of culture is a thing +of the mind, an acquired character. We are not born with it. Each must +gather it for himself after he is born, from the spoken and written +words of his fellow and forerunners. Isolate a babe from all of its kind +and it will never learn to speak, and without speech words, it can never +think save in the concretest possible way. Yet it will possess all the +brute instincts and passions--the raw edges which do constantly shove +through the culture varnish of the civilised man. + +Our culture is the last to come, the first to go. I have seen it go from +a man in an hour, nay, on the instant. Our culture is nothing more than +the accumulated wisdom of the race. It is not part of us, not a thing or +attribute handed down from father to son. It is a something acquired in +varying degree by each individual for himself. Yes, I do well to hark +back to the primitive. It tells me where I am to-day and describes to me +the world I am living in. You, Dane, are hyper-refined, or refined +beyond the times. You are like the idealistic and advanced zealots, who, +when such action would mean destruction, advise these United States to +disarm in the face of the war-harnessed world. + +But no more of this jerky letter. Soon I shall proceed to make my +contention good. I shall show the higher part intellect plays in +conjugal love, the control, restraint, forbearance, sacrifice. And I +shall show that conjugal love is higher and finer than romantic love. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XV + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +March 15, 19--. + +Clyde Stebbins was here an hour after your theories and definitions +reached me. The fact that I had been reading treason against his sister +made me pick my subjects a little too carefully for smooth conversation. +Your letter, partly open, was on the table before us, and my eyes fell +upon it often as I wondered what it would mean to Hester's brother--if +he could read it. I no longer think only of you. + +I reject your definition of love. It is not a disorder of the mind and +body, nor is it solely the instrument of reproduction. I reject and +resent your distinction between the pre-nuptial and post-nuptial states +of feelings. Further, I hold that marriage may not be based on +affection alone, and I disagree with you that population is better than +principle. Children need not be brought into the world at any cost. + +Love is not a disorder, but a growth. There is spiritual as well as +physical growth. Some men and women never grow up strong enough to love. +Their development is arrested, or they are, from the beginning, poor +creatures born of starvelings, and perhaps fated to give birth to pale, +sapless beings like themselves. Others there are who love, and this is +no ill chance, no disease of the mind and body calling for psychiater +and physician. It is a strength, a becoming, a fulfilment. Let us reason +from the effect to the cause. How does this madness manifest itself? Not +in weakness. You never saw a man or woman in love who was the worse for +it. The lover carries all things before him, and not for himself alone, +but for a larger world than ever had been his. He who loves one must +perforce love all the world and all the unborn worlds. This is the way +life goes, which is another way of saying it is a scientific fact. That +which makes men capable of consecration is not a disorder of the mind +and body. It is the greatest of all forces, and it turns the wrangling +and grabbing human creature into an inspired poet. + +And the cause? The passion for perpetuation and the imagination. We +agree. But there are other and more immediate needs than the need of +perpetuation that call out love, needs that are peculiarly of the +present, being bound up with the steady outreaching for help, for +fellowship in the jerky journey through the universe. If love were no +more than an instrument of reproduction, you would be right in +maintaining that the fastidiousness I insist on is unnecessary and +unnatural. If love were that and that alone, there would be no love, +which is a paradox indeed. + + + "Because of our souls' yearning that we meet + And mix in soul through flesh, which yours and mine + Wear and impress, and make their visible selves,-- + All which means, for the love of you and me, + Let us become one flesh, being one soul." + + +I dare a formula: In the beginning love arose in the passion for +perpetuation; to-day, the passion for perpetuation arises in love. Just +as we put ourselves in the way of natural selection, pitting the +microcosm against the macrocosm in a passion of ethical feeling, just so +do we reverse for ourselves processes that seem indeed to have all the +force of law. This reversal is civilisation. + +The lover is impelled to perpetuate himself in the Here and the Now. The +law of life exacts from him the tribute of love. Imagination gives the +lover the key to the object of his love. He enters and he beholds only +the ideal which is hers; for him her clay self and the mere facts of her +do not exist. The conditions of love are inherent in civilisation. When +purpose is high and feeling rich, when "the everlasting possession of +the good" is desired, then is heard the I Am of love. + +Now to my definition. Negatively, love is not a disorder of the mind and +body, not a madness, since it arises in the eternally most valuable, +since it is the culmination of high processes, and since it makes for +sanity of vision and strength and happiness. Positively, love is the +awakening of the personality to the beauty and worth of some one being, +caused by the passion for perpetuation and by imagination. It is a +desire to hold to the good everlastingly, and to merge with it. + +Aristotle proved to the satisfaction of his time that women have fewer +teeth than men. Aristotle was a great man, and besides being a +philosopher was the foremost scientist of his day. I cannot help +thinking of this prodigious blunder. Perhaps (who knows?) the same +famous fate which a sexual classification of teeth enjoys awaits a +definition calling love a disorder. + +I will continue to-morrow. A note has just been given me calling me to +Earl, who is ill, but not seriously. Barbara has prescribed for him a +game of chess. The desire to see you again has got into my blood. I +think I shall be in the new West and with you before long. + +Your friend always, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XVI + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON. +Sunday morning. + +I must proceed with the three other points of my letter, so I shall stay +here and write, though there is a sharp breeze this morning and a +coquettishly escaping sunlight, and something tugs at me to go out upon +the city streets. It is not restlessness, but the love of the open. I am +fain to leave a walled house, and, better still, to get outside of the +walls within and join the city in friendship and let the city join me. I +never feel greater fellowship than when I walk-- + +Except when I write to you. Then do I greaten with the pride of life. My +sympathies quicken and I grow young again. I constitute myself advocate +of the world, and enthusiasm does not fail me in this high calling. It +is but natural that in the face of scepticism which I cannot share I +should feel greater faith, that in the face of revilement a sense of the +glory of the thing belittled should settle upon me. I turn zealot and +spend myself in long-drawn praising. I lay myself under a spell of +harmony because I am serving and defending and approving what I hold to +be good. + +So when you insist that romantic love is pre-nuptial and that it dies at +marriage as others suppose it to die at the approach of poverty, I grow +glad with the knowledge that this is not true. I scrutinize facts which +I hitherto took for granted, and become doubly sure. You dogmatise when +you say that the lover and the husband are mutually exclusive. If there +was love in the beginning, it will be at the end. Love doubles upon +itself. Propinquity tightens bonds and there is a steady blossoming of +the character in a radiant atmosphere. The marriages that fail are the +unions which are based on liking. In these, weariness must set in, for +marriage demands that men and women be all in all to each other, and +unless it be so with them, the lives of the "contracting parties" are, +by the laws of logic, and by the force of the laws of delicacy in the +art of living, forever spoilt. + +Yes, and people who truly love come to regret their married love, these +too. But these have at least begun well. Their lives are infinitely +richer for this fact. Their failure itself is made by it more bearable +than the failure of those others who act the vulgarian and demand so +little of life that even that little escapes them. No world-stains on +these who are, at least, would-be lovers. They stand mistaken but +irreproachable. It was neither their fault nor love's, and "life more +abundant" comes to them even with the mistake. + +You are consistent. Just as you maintain that love is passion, so do you +think that it is no more than a preliminary thrill. You note a change; +the flutter and the excitement felt in the presence of the unknown go, +and you do not know that they give place to the steadier joys of the +unknown, that after the promise comes the fulfilment, that the hope is +not more beautiful than the realisation, that there is divinity in both, +and that love does not disappoint. + +Tell me, are the placid marriages of affection you are preparing to +describe so very placid? Do these jog along so well? Is the control, +restraint, forbearance, sacrifice, of which you speak, as readily +practised for the person who is that to you which twenty others may +quite as easily be, as it is for the one beyond all whom you love and +deify, whom the laws of your being command that you serve, living and +dying? God knows, the average marriage does not exhibit a striking +picture of the practice of these virtues! Rather are such phrases ideals +on stilts on which suffering marital partners attempt to hobble across +their extremity. On the other hand, to some extent everybody practises +restraint and sacrifice since everybody is to some extent moral. But it +goes very hard with your average man and woman in your average marriage, +and there is a decided setting of the mouth and narrowing of the eyes +with the effort. + +Whatever placidity there is is attained by means of vampirism. Diderot, +the husband of a stupid seamstress, had no right to the love of a Mlle. +Voland. It was vampirism and sin to take all from this woman, and to +return her favour with so much less than all, as surely as cowardice and +selfishness are sin. But the illicit relation will exist because custom +cannot rid men and women of subtle sympathies and dear yearnings, +because men and women will love though the world consider it cheap and +mad. Individually, we have no difficulty in finding our happiness, but +we are made advance toward it through the twisted byways of an unfrank +world. "No straight road! Keep turning!" has been the scream of +convention since convention began. + +So for every commonplace marriage there is a canonised love, and the +story is told in the old Greek civilisation by the Hetairæ. You remember +how it reads in the history: "The low position generally assigned the +wife in the home had a most disastrous effect upon Greek morals. She +could exert no such elevating or refining influence as she casts over +the modern home. The men were led to seek social and intellectual +sympathy and companionship outside the family circle, among a class of +women known as Hetairæ, who were esteemed chiefly for their brilliancy +of intellect. As the most noted representative of this class stands +Aspasia, the friend of Pericles. The influence of the Hetairæ was most +harmful to social morality." And the practice persisted through many a +renaissance where Lauras and Beatrices were besung, down to the +brilliant encyclopædists of the eighteenth century with their avowed +loves, down to our Goethe and John Stuart Mill. All of these loves rose +in very different motives and environments, yet were they the same +fundamentally,--strong, sweet love between man and woman, very much +spoiled by the fact that custom permitted the loveless marriage at the +same time, but yet love which was good since it was the best that could +be had. And when the historian permits himself to say, "The influence of +the Hetairæ was most harmful to social morality," it is evident that he +also thinks that a marriage which compels husband or wife to seek soul's +help elsewhere than in their union is bad and wrong. + +To-day there is a change in attitude. Woman is new-born in strength and +dignity, and the highest chivalry the world has ever known is in +blossom. She is an equal, a comrade, a right regal person. She is no +longer a means but an end in herself, not alone fit to mother men but +fit to live in equality with men. I repeat, she is not a means but an +individual, with a soul of her own to rear. Because of the greater and +more general emancipation of woman the subtlety of modern love has +become possible. + +Now for the last point, the question of perpetuation. Just as function +precedes organ, so the love of life is inherent in the living for the +maintenance of life. But even the primitive man, in whom instinct is +strongest, proves himself capable of death. Some men have always been +able to give up their lives for some cause. (Indeed there is thought to +be suicide amongst animals.) And to-day we certainly no longer say a man +must live. Quite as often must he die. Men have found it wise to die at +the stake or on the gallows. If this be true of our relation to the life +which courses through us, how much more true is it of our instinct to +perpetuate ourselves, which pertains to the love of life biologically +only, which is often, in the social manifestation of that instinct, a +cold intellectual concept and never a dominating thought! We are not +driven to procreate. In fact, every child born into the world competes +hard for its morsel. Under our unimaginable economic régime all increase +in population is a menace. + +I call bringing children into the world a codfish act which causes an +overflux of vulgar little earthlings, if the process be not humanised +and spiritualised. If the child is conceived not in lust but in love, it +is rightly born. If it is the child of your ideal, the offspring of that +which is your truest life, then is your progeny your immortality, and +then, and then only, have you reason for pride and joy in that which you +have caused to be. + +My dear, dear Herbert, my love has not failed. This you must come to +understand. Love never fails. The children that might have been mine are +better unborn, since I could not give them a mother whom I loved. You +remind me that Dante married Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, and she +bore him seven children. Yet, Herbert, was this wife not mentioned in +the "Commedia," nor in "La Vita Nuova," nor anywhere else in his +writings. Dante was a Conformist. He was not in all respects above his +time; witness his theology. Convention permitted the dispassionate +marriage side by side with love. He was conventional, and the infinite +moment of meeting in paradise with his Lady was embittered by her "cold, +lessoned smiles." + + + "Ah, from what agonies of heart and brain, + What exultations trampling on despair, + What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, + What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, + Uprose this poem of the earth and air, + This mediaeval miracle of song!" + + +It was for Beatrice that this man vexed his spirit with immortal effort +and raised a Titan voice which yet is heard in charmed echoes. It was +for Beatrice that he descended into the dead regions and climbed the +hills of purgatory and soared towards the Rose of Paradise,--"And 'She, +where is She?' instantly I cried." + +Dante, our prince of lovers, might have lived better, but he loved well. + +This in answer to your letter. To meet your argument I have found it +best to employ something of your own method, but I cannot rid myself of +the feeling that I have vulgarised the subject by saying so much about +it. I fear my letter would provoke a smile from those who know love and +the wonder of its simplicity through all the subtlety. "We, in loving, +have no cause to speak so much!" would be their unanswerable criticism. +It is easier to live than to argue about life. + +The thought has suddenly assailed me that what I have said may sound +derogatory to Hester. Know, then, that I do not think there is a woman +in the world who is not capable of inspiring true and abiding love in +the heart of some man. Besides, Hester to me looms up as a heroine. Not +a hair's breadth of what I know of her that is not beautiful. My regret +is that she, who could be "a vision eterne," should be doomed to receive +episodically your considerate affection. She does not know your +programme. She is a girl who takes your love for granted in the same +way as she gives hers, without niggardliness. It is the woman who cannot +be content with less than all that is slowly starved to death on a +bread-and-water diet and who does not find it out until the end. + +Until the carnival time when you and Hester come to love each other, if +that time is to be, you two must be as separate in deed as you are in +fact. Forgive me and write soon. + +Yours ever, +DANE. + + + + +XVII + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +April 2, 19--. + +So you have met Hester's brother? Well, I have had an outing with +Hester. She loves me well, I know, and I cannot but confess a thrill at +the thought. On the other hand, well do I know the significance of that +love, the significance and the cause. Notwithstanding that wonderful +soul of hers, she is in no wise constituted differently from her +millions of sisters on the planet to-day. She loves--she knows not why; +she knows--only that she loves. In other words, she does not reason her +emotions. + +But let us reason, we men, after the manner of men. And be thou patient, +Dane, and follow me down and under the phenomena of love to things +sexless and loveless. And from there, as the proper point of departure, +let us return and chart love, its phases and occurrences, from its first +beginnings to its last manifestations. + +Things sexless and loveless! Yes, and as such may be classed the drops +of life known as unicellular organisms. Such a creature is a tiny cell, +capable of performing in itself all the functions of life. That one +pulsating morsel of matter is invested with an irritability which, as +Herbert Spencer says, enables it "to adjust the inner relations with +outer relations," to correspond to its environment--in short, to live. +That single cell contracts and recoils from the things in its +environment uncongenial to its constitution, and the things congenial it +draws to itself and absorbs. It has no mouth, no stomach, no alimentary +canal. It is all mouth, all stomach, all alimentary canal. + +But at that low plane the functions of life are few and simple. This bit +of vitalised inorganic has no sex, and because of that it cannot love. +Reproduction is growth. When it grows over-large it splits in half, and +where was one cell there are two. Nor can the parent cell be called +_mother_ or _father_: and for that matter, the parent cell cannot be +determined. The original cell split into two cells; one has as much +claim to parenthood as the other. + +It lives dimly, to be sure, this mote of life and light; but before it +is a vast evolution, Dane, on the pinnacle of which are to be found men +and women, Hester Stebbins, my mother, you! + +A step higher we find the cell cluster, and with it begins that +differentiation which has continued to this day and which still +continues. Simplicity has yielded to complexity and a new epoch of life +been inaugurated. The outer cells of the cluster are more exposed to +environmental forces than are the inner cells; they cohere more +tenaciously and a rudimentary skin is formed. Through the pores of this +skin food is absorbed, and in these food-absorbing pores is foreshadowed +the mouth. Division of labour has set in, and groups of cells specialise +in the performance of functions. Thus, a cell group forms the skinny +covering of the cluster, another cell group the mouth. And likewise, +internally, the stomach, a sac for the reception and digestion of food, +takes shape; and the juices of the body begin to circulate with greater +definiteness, breaking channels in their passage and keeping those +channels open. And, as the generations pass, still more groups of cells +segregate themselves from the mass, and the heart, the lungs, the +liver, and other internal organs are formed. The jelly-like organism +develops a bony structure, muscles by which to move itself, and a +nervous system-- + +Be not bored, Dane, and be not offended. These are our ancestors, and +their history is our history. Remember that as surely as we one day +swung down out of the trees and walked upright, just so surely, on a far +earlier day, did we crawl up out of the sea and achieve our first +adventure on land. + +But to be brief. In the course of specialisation of function, as I have +outlined, just as other organs arose, so arose sex-differentiation. +Previous to that time there was no sex. A single organism realised all +potentialities, fulfilled all functions. Male and female, the creative +factors, were incoherently commingled. Such an individual was both male +and female. It was complete in itself,--mark this, Dane, for here +individual completeness ends. + +The labour of reproduction was divided, and male and female, as separate +entities, came into the world. They shared the work of reproduction +between them. Neither was complete alone. Each was the complement of the +other. In times and seasons each felt a vital need for the other. And +in the satisfying of this vital need, of this yearning for completeness, +we have the first manifestation of love. Male and female loved they one +another--but dimly, Dane. We would not to-day call it love, yet it +foreshadowed love as the food-absorbing pore foreshadowed the mouth. + +As long and tedious as has been the development of this rudimentary love +to the highly evolved love of to-day, just so long and tedious would be +my sketch of that development. However, the factors may be hinted. The +increasing correspondence of life with its environment brought about +wider and wider generalisations upon that environment and the relations +of the individual to it. There is no missing link to the chain that +connects the first and lowest life to the last and the highest. There is +no gap between the physical and psychical. From _simple reflex action_, +on and up through _compound reflex action_, _instinct_, and _memory_, +the passage is made, without break, to _reason_. And hand in hand with +these, all acting and reacting upon one another, comes the development +of the imagination and of the higher passions, feelings, and emotions. +But all of this is in the books, and there is no need for me to go over +the ground. + +So let me sum up with an analysis of that most exquisite of poets' +themes, a maiden in love. In the first place, this maiden must come of +an ancestry mastered by the passion for perpetuation. It is only through +those so mastered that the line comes down. The individual perishes, you +know; for it is the race that lives. In this maiden is incorporated all +the experience of the race. This race experience is her heritage. Her +function is to pass it on to posterity. If she is disobedient, she is +unfruitful; her line ceases with her; and she is without avail among the +generations to come. And, be it not forgotten, there are many obedient +whose lines _will_ pass down. + +But this maiden is obedient. By her acts she will link the past to the +future, bind together the two eternities. But she is incomplete, this +maiden, and being immature she is unaware of her incompleteness. +Nevertheless she is the creature of the law of the race, and from her +infancy she prepares herself for the task she is to perform. Hers is a +certain definite organism, somewhat different from all other female +organisms. Consequently there is one male in all the world whose +organism is most nearly the complement of hers; one male for whom she +will feel the greatest, intensest, and most vital need; one male who of +all males is the fittest, organically, to be the father of her children. +And so, in pinafores and pigtails, she plays with little boys and likes +and dislikes according to her organic need. She comes in contact with +all manner of boys, from the butcher's boy to the son of her father's +friend; and likewise with men, from the gardener to her father's +associates. And she is more or less attracted by those who, in greater +or less degree, answer to her organic demand, or, as it were, organic +ideal. + +And upon creatures male she early proceeds to generalise. This kind of +man she likes, that she does not like; and this kind she likes more than +that kind. She does not know why she does this; nor, with the highest +probability, does she know she is doing it. She simply has her likes and +dislikes, that is all. She is the slave of the law, unwittingly +generalising upon sex-impressions against the day when she must identify +the male who most nearly completes her. + +She drifts across the magic borderland to womanhood, where dreams and +fancies rise and intermingle and the realities of life are lost. A +dissatisfaction and a restlessness come upon her. There seems no sanity +in things, and life is topsy-turvy. She is filled with vague, troubled +yearnings, and the woman in her quickens and cries out for unity. It is +an organic cry, old as the race, and she cannot shut out the sound of it +or still the clamour in her blood. + +But there is one male in all the world who is most nearly her +complement, and he may be over on the other side of the world where she +may not find him. So propinquity determines her fate. Of the males she +is in contact with, the one who can more nearly give her the +completeness she craves will be the one she loves. + +All of which is well and good in its way, but let us analyze further. +What is all this but the symptoms of an extreme over-excitation and +nervous disorder? The equilibrium of the organism has been overthrown +and there is a wild scrambling for the restoration of that equilibrium. +The choice made may be good or ill, as chance and time may dictate, but +the impelling excitement forces a choice. What if it be ill? What if +to-morrow a male who is a far better complement should appear? The time +is now. Nature is not neglectful, and well she knows the disaster of +delay. She is prodigal of the individual and is satisfied with one +match out of many mismatches, just as she is satisfied that of a million +cod eggs one only should develop into a full-grown cod. And so this love +of the human in no wise differs from that of the sparrow which forgets +preservation in procreation. Thus nature tricks her creatures and the +race lives on. + +For the lesser creatures the trick serves the purpose well. There is +need for a compelling madness, else would self-preservation overcome +procreation and there be no lesser creatures. And man is content to rest +coequal with the beast in the matter of mating. Notwithstanding his +intelligence, which has made him the master of matter and enabled him to +enslave the great blind forces, he is unable to perpetuate his species +without the aid of the impelling madness. Nay, men will not have it +otherwise; and when an individual urges that his reason has placed him +above the beast, and that, without the impelling madness, he can mate +with greater wisdom and potency, then the poets and singers rise up and +fling potsherds at him. To improve upon nature by draining a malarial +swamp is permitted him; to improve upon nature's methods and breed +swifter carrier-pigeons and finer horses than she has ever bred is also +permitted; but to improve upon nature in the breeding of the human, that +is a sacrilege which cannot be condoned! Down with him! He is a brute to +question our divine Love, God-given and glorious! + +Ah, Dane, remember the first dim yearning of divided life, and the soils +and smirches and frenzies put upon it by the spawn of multitudinous +generations. There is your love, the whole history of it. There is no +intrinsic shame in the thing itself, but the shame lies in that we are +not greater than it. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XVIII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +April 4, 19--. + +There were several things in your letter which I forgot to answer. Much +of beauty and wonder is there in what you have said, and unrelated facts +without end. Many of those facts I endorse heartily, but it seems to me +you fail to embody them in a coherent argument. + +I have stated, in so many words, that there are two functions common to +all life--nutrition and reproduction. Of this you have missed the +significance in your rejection of my definition of love, so I must +explain further. Unless these two functions be carried on, life must +perish from the planet. Therefore they are the most essential concerns +of life. The individual must preserve its own life and the life of its +kind. It is more prone to preserve its own life than the life of its +kind, less prone to sacrifice itself for its species. So natural +selection has developed a passion of madness which forces the individual +to make the sacrifice. In all forms of life below man the struggle for +existence is keen and merciless. The least weakness in an individual is +the signal for its destruction. Therefore it is counter to the welfare +of the individual to do aught that will tend to weaken it. On the other +hand, the law is that the individual must procreate. But procreation +means a weakening and a temporary state of helplessness. Problem: How +may the individual be brought to procreate? to do that which is inimical +to its welfare? Answer: It must be forced by something deeper than +reason, and that something is unreasoning passion. Did the individual +reason on the matter, it would certainly abstain. It is because the +passion is not rational that life has persisted to this day. Man, coming +up from the walks of lower life, brought with him this most necessary +passion. Developing imagination, he commingled the two; love was the +product. + +Now, because of our imagination, do not let us confuse the issue. The +great task demanded of man is reproduction. He is urged by passion to +perform this task. Passion, working through the imagination, produces +love. Passion is the impelling factor, imagination the disturbing +factor; and the disturbance of passion by imagination produces love. + +Stripped of all its superfluities, what function does love serve in the +scheme of life? That of reproduction. Nay, now, do not object, Dane; for +you state the same thing, though less clearly, in your own definition of +love. You say, "Love is the awakening of the personality to the beauty +and worth of some one being" and is a desire to merge the life with that +of the beloved being. In other words, your definition tells that the +passion for perpetuation is the cause of love, and perpetuation the end +to be accomplished. Thus nature tricks her creatures and the race lives +on. + +Then you say negatively, "Love is not a disorder of mind and body, not a +madness, since it arises in the eternally most valuable, since it is the +culmination of high processes, and since it makes for strength and +sanity of vision and happiness." I have shown the value of passion, and +the processes of which love is the culmination, and I have shown that +both are unreasoning and why they are unreasoning. Do you demonstrate +where I am wrong. + +Then again, you dare a formula: "In the beginning love arose in the +passion for perpetuation; to-day the passion for perpetuation arises in +love." It is clever, but is it true? Yes, as true as this formula I dare +to pattern after yours: In the beginning man ate because he was hungry; +to-day he is hungry because he eats. + +There are many things more I should like to answer, but I am writing +this 'twixt breakfast and lecture hour, and time presses and students +will not wait. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XIX + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +April 22, 19--. + +Nature tricks her creatures and the race lives on, and I, overcivilised, +decadent dreamer that I am, rejoice that the past binds us, am proud of +a history so old and so significant and of an heritage so marvellous. +Nature tricks her creatures and the race lives on, and I am prayerfully +grateful. The difference between us is that you are not. You are +suffering from what has been well called, the sadness of science. You +accept the thesis of a common origin only to regret it. You discover +that romance has a history, and lo! romance has vanished! You are a +Werther of science, sad to the heart with a melancholy all your own and +dropping inert tears on the shrine of your accumulated facts. + +In this you are with your generation. Just as every age has its +prevailing disease of the body so has it its characteristic spiritual +ailment. To-day we are in the throes of travail. In our arms is the +child of our ever-delving intellect, but another deliverance is about to +be and the suffering is great. After science comes the philosophy of +science. Our eyes are bathed in Revelation, but upon our ears the music +of the Word has not yet fallen. Until that time when the meaning of it +all shall flash out upon the world, the race will be hidebound in +callousness and in faint-hearted melancholy. As yet we do not know what +to do with all which we know, and we are afflicted with the pessimism of +inertia and the pessimism of dyspepsia. Intellectually, we have been +living too high the last hundred years or so. In this is the secret of +our difference. You insist upon cheapening life for yourself because it +has become evident to you that the phenomenon is common, and I, on the +other hand, shout its glory because it is universal. To myself I am +breathless with wonder, but to you and in my work I needs must shout it. + +Here let me be clear. I take it that you are under the sway of a +contemporary mood, that your position is an accidental phase of +to-day's materialism. Broadly, our quarrel is that of pessimism and +optimism, only your pessimism is unconscious, which makes it the more +dangerous to yourself. You are too sad to know that you are not happy or +to care. Does my diagnosis surprise you? Analyze the argument of your +last letter. You trace the growth of the emotion of love from protoplasm +to man. You follow the progress of the force which is stronger than +hunger and cold and swifter and more final than death, from its +potential state in the unicellular stage where life goes on by division, +up through the multifarious forms of instinctive animal mating, till you +reach the love of the sexes in the human world. And the exploring leads +you to the belief that nothing has been reserved for the human worth his +cherishing, to the conviction that the plan of life is simple and +unvaried and therefore unacceptable. + +You raise the wail of Ecclesiastes, "All is vanity and a striving after +wind, and there is no profit under the sun." The Preacher and Omar and +Swinburne are pathetically human, and we who are also human respond to +their finality, to their quizzical indifference and their stinging +resentment. We also say, "Vanity of vanities," and bow our heads +murmuring "Ilicet," and stretch out our hands to "turn down an empty +glass," but all this in twilight moods when a dimness as of dying rests +upon the soul. There are a few with whom it is always morning, and +others who remember something of the radiance of the young day even in +the heart of midnight. These disprove the postulates of sameness and +satiety, these are not smitten by the seen fact as are you of the +microscopic retina, these "see life steadily and see it whole." + +We need not fear the label of an idea. When I say that your position is +that of the pessimist, it is not more of an accusation than if I said it +was that of the optimist. The thing to concern oneself with is the +question, "which of these makes the nearer approach to the truth?" You +have been asking me, "What is love worth?" And you have answered your +question often enough and to your satisfaction, "In itself it is worth +nothing, being but the catspaw to scheming forces." With your denial of +any intrinsic beauty in the emotion, with your acceptance of it as an +unfortunate incident in human affairs, comes a vague hope that the race +will outgrow this force. Here is your rift in the cloud. You picture a +scientific Utopia where there are no lovers and no back-harkings to the +primitive passion, and you appoint yourself pioneer to the promised land +of the children of biology. + +Ah! I speak as if I were vexed instead of simply being sure I am in the +right. I wish to help you to see that there is another reading to your +facts. If love is essentially the same from protoplasm to man, it does +not for this reason become worthless. By virtue of being universal it is +enhanced and most divinely humanly binding. You tell me that love is +involuntary, compelled by external forces as old as time and as binding +as instinct, and I say that because of this, life is finally for love. +What! The cavemen, and the birds, too, and the fish and the plants, +forsooth! What! The inorganic, perhaps, as well as the organic, swayed +by this force which is wholly physical and yet wholly psychical! And +does it not fire you? You are not caught up and held by this giant fact? +You find that love is not sporadic, not individual, that it does not +begin with you or end with you, that it does not dissociate you, and you +do not warm to the world-organic kinship, you do not hear the overword +of the poets and philosophers of all times, you do not see the visions +that gladdened the star-forgotten nights of saints? + +The same surprise sweeps over the mind in reading Ecclesiastes. Is it a +sorry scheme of things that one generation goes and another comes and +the world abides forever? If the same generation peopled the earth for a +million years, the dignity of life would not be increased. It is not +necessary to have the assurance of eternal life as the dole for having +come to be, in order to live under the aspect of eternity. It is larger +to be short-lived, to be but a wave of the sea rolling for one sunful +day and starry night towards a great inclusiveness. It is a higher +majesty to be inalien and a part--a ringed ripple in the Vastness--than +to lie broad and smiling in meaningless endlessness. + +So it is a strange thing that men who are schooled by evolution to +relate themselves to all that exists, and to seek for new kinships, +should lament that there is no new thing under the sun. And whose eye +would be satisfied with seeing and whose ear with hearing? Who would +rather have the truth than the power to seek it? There is a way of +reading Ecclesiastes and Schopenhauer with a triumphant lilt in the +voice. After all, it is the modulation that carries the message of the +text. When you write the history of love, I find it fair reading. When +you tell me love is primal and engrossing, I hold it the more a sin to +crouch away from its fires. + +"Love is the assertion of the will to live as a definitely determined +individual." This is Schopenhauer's thesis and (unnecessarily enough) he +apologises for it, as if it belittled love to say that it affects man in +his _essentia æterna_. The genius of the race takes the lover conscript +and makes him a soldier in life's battalions. + +"The genius of the race," a metaphysical term, but meaning what you do +when you speak of the function of love. Schopenhauer is a pessimist +consciously, you, unconsciously; and you have both missed the living +value of your facts. "Love is ruled by race welfare," says Schopenhauer. +"It (the race welfare) alone corresponds to the profoundness with which +it is felt, to the seriousness with which it appears, to the importance +which it attributes even to the trifling details of its sphere and +occasion." Love concerns itself with "The composition of the next +generation," therefore you find it common as the commonplace, therefore +Schopenhauer regards it as a force treacherous to happiness, since to +live is to be miserable. "These lovers are the traitors who seek to +perpetuate the whole want and drudgery which would otherwise speedily +reach an end; this they wish to frustrate as others like them have +frustrated it before." + +Because love frustrates the death of the race, it is the joy of my +senses and the goal of my striving. + +Says Schopenhauer: "Through love man shows that the species lies closer +to him than the individual, and he lives more immediately in the former +than in the latter. Why does the lover hang with complete abandon on the +eyes of his chosen one, and is ready to make every sacrifice for her? +_Because it is his immortal part that longs after her, while it is +merely his mortal part that desires everything else._" Because this is +so, love is the God of my faith. + +You see where our subject takes us! And all the while I care nothing for +the points of argument except where they prick you from your position. +One must scale the skies and swim the seas in order to reach you. Well, +have I approached within your hearing? + +I was sitting amongst the fennel in Barbara's garden when your letter +was brought, and I read it twice to make sure I understood. When the +sun lies warm on waving fennel and a city is before you, mysterious in a +veil of mist, it is easier to feel love than to think about it. For a +while, it was difficult to see the bearing of the data which you +marshalled so well in defence of your denial. You went far in order to +answer why you are content to marry a woman you do not love. Your +methods are not the methods of the practical mind. I am glad for that. +You idealise your attitude, you go far back in time, you enmesh yourself +in theories and generalisations, you ride your imagination proudly, in +order to reconcile yourself to something which suggests itself as more +ideal than that for which the unreasoning heart hungers. You are sad, +but you are not practical and you are not blasé. + +Of Barbara, of myself, and of London doings, this is no time to write. +Tell Hester your friend thinks of her. + +Yours with great memories and greater hopes, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XX + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +May 18, 19--. + +I stand aloof and laugh at myself and you. Oh, believe me, I see it very +clearly myself in the heyday and cocksureness of youth, flinging at you, +with much energy and little skill, my immature generalisations from +science; and you with an elderly beneficence and tolerance, smiling +shrewdly and affectionately upon me, secure in the knowledge that sooner +or later I am sure to get through with it all and join you in your broad +and placid philosophy. It is the penalty age exacts from youth. Well, I +accept it. + +So I am suffering from the sadness of science. I had been prone to +ascribe my feelings to the passion of science. But it does not matter in +the least--only, somehow, I would rather you did not misunderstand me +so dreadfully. I do not raise the wail of Ecclesiastes. I am not sad, +but glad. I discover romance has a history, and in history I am quicker +to read the romance. I accept the thesis of a common origin, not to +regret it, but to make the best of it. That is the key to my life--to +make the best of it, but not drearily, with the passiveness of a slave, +but passionately and with desire. Invention is an artifice man employs +to overcome the roundabout. It is the short cut to satisfaction. It +makes man potent, so that he can do more things in a span. I am a worker +and doer. The common origin is not a despair to me; it has a value, and +it strengthens my arm in the work to be done. + +The play and interplay of force and matter we call "evolution." The more +man understands force and matter, and the play and interplay, the more +is he enabled to direct the trend of evolution, at least in human +affairs. Here is a great and weltering mass of individuals which we call +society. The problem is: How may it be directed so that the sum of its +happiness greatens? This is my work. I would invent, overcome the +roundabout, seek the short cut. And I consider all matter, all force, +all factors, so that I may invent wisely and justly. And considering +all factors, I consider romance, and I consider you. I weigh your value +in the scheme of things, and your necessity, and I find that you are +both valuable and necessary. + +But the history of progress is the history of the elimination of waste. +One boy, running twenty-five machines, turns out a thousand pairs of +socks a day. His granny toiled a thousand days to do the same. Waste has +been eliminated, the roundabout overcome. And so with romance. I strive +not to be blinded by its beauty, but to give it exact appraisal. +Oftentimes it is the roundabout, the wasteful, and must needs be +eliminated. Thus chivalry and its romance vanished before the chemist +and the engineer, before the man who mixed gunpowder and the man who dug +ditches. + +I melancholy? Sir, I have not the time--so may I model my answer after +the great Agassiz. I am not a Werther of science, but rather you are a +John Ruskin of these latter days. He wept at the profanation of the +world, at the steam-launches violating the sanctity of the Venetian +canals and the electric cars running beneath the shadow of the pyramids; +and you weep at the violation of like sanctities in the spiritual world. +A gondola is more beautiful, but the steam-launch takes one places, and +an electric car is more comfortable than the hump of a camel. It is too +bad, but waste romance, as waste energy, must be eliminated. + +Enough. I shall go on with the argument. I have drawn the line between +pre-nuptial love and post-nuptial love. The former, which is the real +sexual love, the love of which the poets sing and which "makes the world +go round," I have called romantic love. The latter, which in actuality +is sex comradeship, I call conjugal affection or friendship. To be more +definite, I shall call the one "love," the other "affection" or +"friendship." Now love is not affection or friendship, yet they are +ofttimes mistaken, one for the other, for it so happens that the +friendship, which is akin to conjugal affection, is in many instances +pre-nuptial in its development--a token, I take it, of the higher +evolution of the human, an audaciousness which dares to shake off the +blind passion and evade nature's trick as man evaded when he harnessed +steam and rested his feet. It is of common occurrence that a man and +woman, through long and tried friendship, reach a fine appreciation of +each other and marry; and the run of such marriages is the happiest. +Neither blinded nor frenzied by the unreasoned passion of love, they +have weighed each other,--faults, virtues, and all,--and found a +compatibility strong enough to withstand the strain of years and +misfortune, and wise enough to compromise the individual clashes which +must inevitably arise when soul shares never ending bed and board with +soul. They have achieved before marriage what the love-impelled man and +woman must achieve after marriage if they would continue to live +together; that is, they have sought and found compatibility before +binding themselves, instead of binding themselves first and then seeking +if there be compatibility or not. + +Let me apparently digress for the moment and bring all clear and +straight. The emotions have no basis in reason. We smile or are sad at +the manifestation of jealousy in another. We smile or are sad because of +the unreasonableness of it. Likewise we smile at the antics of the +lover. The absurdities he is guilty of, the capers he cuts, excite our +philosophic risibility. We say he is mad as a March hare. (Have you ever +wondered, Dane, why a March hare is deemed mad? The saying is a pregnant +one.) However, love, as you have tacitly agreed, is unreasonable. In +fact, in all the walks of animal life no rational sanction can be found +for the love-acts of the individual. Each love act is a hazarding of the +individual's life; this we know, and it is only impelled to perform such +acts because of the madness of the trick, which, though it strikes at +the particular life, makes for the general life. + +So I think there is no discussion over the fact that this emotion of +love has no basis in reason. As the old French proverb runs, "The first +sigh of love is the last of wisdom." On the other hand, the individual +not yet afflicted by love, or recovered from it, conducts his life in a +rational manner. Every act he performs has a basis in reason--so long as +it is not some other of the emotional acts. The stag, locking horns with +a rival over the possession of a doe, is highly irrational; but the same +stag, hiding its trail from the hounds by taking to water, is performing +a highly rational act. And so with the human. We model our lives on a +basis of reason--of the best reason we possess. We do not put the +scullery in the drawing-room, nor do we repair our bicycles in the +bedchamber. We strive not to exceed our income, and we deliberate long +before investing our savings. We demand good recommendations from our +cook, and take letters of introduction with us when we go abroad. We +overlook the petulant manner of our friend who rowed in the losing +barges at the race, and we forgive on the moment the sharp answer of the +man who has sat three nights by a sick-bed. And we do all this because +our acts have a basis in reason. + +Comes the lover, tricked by nature, blind of passion, impelled madly +toward the loved one. He is as blind to her salient imperfections as he +is to her petty vices. He does not interrogate her disposition and +temperament, or speculate as to how they will coördinate with his for +two score years and odd. He questions nothing, desires nothing, save to +possess her. And this is the paradox: _By nature he is driven to +contract a temporary tie, which, by social observance and demand, must +endure for a lifetime._ Too much stress cannot be laid upon this, Dane, +for herein lies the secret of the whole difficulty. + +But we go on with our lover. In the throes of desire--for desire is +pain, whether it be heart hunger or belly hunger--he seeks to possess +the loved one. The desire is a pain which seeks easement through +possession. Love cannot in its very nature be peaceful or content. It is +a restlessness, an unsatisfaction. I can grant a lasting love just as I +can grant a lasting satisfaction; but the lasting love cannot be +coupled with possession, for love is pain and desire, and possession is +easement and fulfilment. Pursuit and possession are accompanied by +states of consciousness so wide apart that they can never be united. +What is true of pursuit cannot be true of possession, no more than the +child, grasping the bright ball, can deem it the most wonderful thing in +the world--an appraisement which it certainly made when the ball was +beyond reach. + +Let us suppose the loved one is as madly impelled toward the lover. In a +few days, in an hour, nay, in an instant--for there is such a thing as +love at first sight--this man and woman, two unrelated individuals, who +may never have seen each other before, conceive a passion, greater, +intenser, than all other affections, friendships, and social relations. +So great, so intense is it, that the world could crumble to star-dust so +long as their souls rushed together. If necessary, they would break all +ties, forsake all friends, abandon all blood kin, run away from all +moral responsibilities. There can be no discussion, Dane. We see it +every day, for love is the most perfectly selfish thing in the universe. + +But this is easily reconcilable with the scheme of things. The true +lover is the child of nature. Natural selection has determined that +exogamy produces fitter progeny than endogamy. Cross fertilisation has +made stronger individuals and types, and likewise it has maintained +them. On the other hand, were family affection stronger than love, there +would be much intermarriage of blood relations and a consequent +weakening of the breed. And in such cases it would be stamped out by the +stronger-breeding exogamists. Here and there, even of old time, the wise +men recognised it; and we so recognise it to-day, as witness our bars +against consanguineous marriage. + +But be not misled into the belief that love is finer and higher than +affection and friendship, that the yielding to its blandishments is +higher wisdom on the part of our lovers. Not so; they are puppets and +know and think nothing about it. They come of those who yielded likewise +in the past. They obey forces beyond them, greater than they, their +kind, and all life, great as the great forces of the physical universe. +Our lovers are children of nature, natural and uninventive. Duty and +moral responsibility are less to them than passion. They will obey and +procreate, though the heavens roll up as a scroll and all things come to +judgment. And they are right if this is what we understand to be "the +bloom, the charm, the smile of life." + +Yet man is man because he chanced to develop intelligence instead of +instinct; otherwise he would to this day have remained among the +anthropoid apes. He has turned away from nature, become unnatural, as it +were, disliked the earth upon which he found himself, and changed the +face of it somewhat to his liking. His trend has been, and still is, to +perform more and more acts with a rational sanction. He has developed a +moral nature, made laws, and by the sheer force of his will and reason +curbed his lyings and his lusts. + +However, our lovers are natural and uninventive. They get married. +Pursuit, with all its Tantalus delights, its sighings and its songs, is +gone, never to return. And in its place is possession, which is +satisfaction, familiarity, knowledge. It heralds the return of +rationality, the return to duty of the weighing and measuring qualities +of the mind. Our lovers discover each other to be mere man and woman +after all. That ethereal substance which the man took for the body of +the loved one becomes flesh and blood, prone to the common weaknesses +and ills of flesh and blood. He, on the other hand, betrays little +petulancies of disposition, little faults and predispositions of which +she never dreamed in the pre-nuptial days, and which she now finds +eminently distasteful. But at first these things are not openly +unpleasant. There are no scenes. One or the other gives in on the +instant, without self-betrayal, and one or the other retires to have a +secret cry or to ruminate about it over a cigar--the first faint hints, +I may slyly suggest, of the return of rationality. _They are beginning +to think._ + +Ah, these are little things, you say. Precisely; wherefore I lay +emphasis upon them. The sum of the innumerable little things becomes a +mighty thing to test the human soul. Moreover, many a home has been +broken because of disagreement as to the uses or abuses of couch +cushions, and more than one divorce induced by the lingering of tobacco +odours in the curtains. + +If the marriage of our lovers conform to the majority of marriages, the +first year of their wedded life will determine whether they are able to +share bed and board through the lengthening years. For this first +year--often the first months of it--marks the transition from love to +conjugal affection, or witnesses a rupture which nothing less than +omnipotence can ever mend. In the first year a serious readjustment must +take place. Unreason, as a basis for the relation, must give way to +reason; blind, ignorant, selfish little love must flutter away, so that +friendship, clear-eyed and wise, may step in. There will come moments +when wills clash and desires do not chime; these must be moments of +sober thought and compromise, when one or the other sacrifices self on +the altar of their nascent friendship. Upon this ability to compromise +depends their married happiness. Returning to the rationality which they +forsook during mating-time, they cannot live a joint rational existence +without compromising. If they be compatible, they will gradually grow to +fit, each with the other, into the common life; compromise, on certain +definite points, will become automatic; and for the rest they will +exhibit a tacit and reasoned recognition of the imperfections and +frailties of life. + +All this reason will dictate. If they be incapable of rising to +compromise, sacrifice, and unselfishness, reason will dictate +separation. In such cases, when they will have become rational once +more, they will reason the impossibility of a continued relation and +give it up. In which case the true-love disciple may contend that there +was no real love in the beginning. But he is wrong. It was just as real +as that of any marriage, only it failed in the post-nuptial quest after +compatibility. In all marriages love--passionate, romantic love--must +disappear, to be replaced by conjugal affection or by nothing. The +former are the happy marriages, the latter the mistaken ones. + +As I close, the saying of La Bruyère comes to me, "The love which arises +suddenly takes longest to cure." This generalisation upon all the +love-affairs within the scope of a single lifetime cannot but be true, +and it is quite in line with the general argument. I have shown that the +love (so called) which grows slowly is akin to friendship, that it is +friendship, in fact, conjugal friendship. On the other hand, the more +sudden a love the more intense it must be; also the less rationality can +it have. And because of its intensity and unreasonableness, the longer +period must elapse ere its frenzy dies out and cool, calm thought comes +in. + +HERBERT. + +P.S.--My book is out--"The Economic Man." I send it to you. I cannot +imagine you will care for the thing. + + + + +XXI + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +May 26, 19--. + +"Pretty nineteen-year-old Louisa Naveret, because her slower-minded +fiancé, Charles J. Johnson, could not understand a joke, is dying with a +bullet in her brain, and he, her murderer, lies dead at the morgue. They +were to have been married to-day." + +From to-day's paper I quote the above introduction to a column +murder-sensation in simple life. Simple it was, and elemental--the man +loving steadily and doggedly and madly, after the manner of the male +before possession; the woman fluttering, and teasing, and tantalising, +after the manner of the female courting possession. They had been +engaged for some time. The woman loved the man and fully intended to +marry him. The engagement neared its close, and on the day before that +of the wedding, the man, slow minded, loving intensely, procured the +marriage licence. The woman read the document, and with the last coy +flutter before surrender told him that she would not marry him. + +"I meant it as a jest," she said as she lay on a cot at the receiving +hospital; but four bullets were in her body, and Charles J. Johnson, +clumsy and natural lover, lay dead in an adjoining room with the fifth +bullet in his brain. + +In this pitiful little tragedy appear two of the most salient +characteristics of love; namely, madness and selfishness. Let us analyze +Charles J. Johnson's condition. He was a lineman for a telegraph +company, healthy and strong, used to open-air life and hard work. He had +steady employment and good wages. Can't you see the man, content with a +good digestion, unailing body, and mild pleasures, and enjoying life +with bovine placidity? But pretty Louisa Naveret entered his life. The +"abysmal fecundity" was stirred and life clamoured to be created. +Peacefulness and content vanished. All the forces of his existence +impelled him to seize upon and possess "nineteen-year-old" Louisa +Naveret. He was afflicted with a disorder of mind and body, a madness +so great, a delusion so powerful, a pain and unrest so pressing, that +the possession of that particular "nineteen-year-old" woman became the +dearest thing in the world, dearer than life itself and more potent than +the "will to live." + +I do well to call love a madness. Any departure from rationality is +madness, and for a man of Charles J. Johnson's calibre, suicide is an +extremely irrational act. But he also killed Louisa Naveret, wherein he +was as selfish as he was mad. Convinced that he was not to possess her, +he was determined that no other man should possess her. + +While on this matter of love considered as a disorder of mind and body, +I recall a recent magazine article of Mr. Finck's, in which he analyzes +Sappho's conception of love. "In that famous poem of Sappho," he says, +"that has been so often declared a compendium of all the emotions that +make up love, I have not been able to find anything but a comic +catalogue of such feelings as might overwhelm a woman if she met a bear +in the woods--'deadly pallor,' 'a cold sweat,' 'a fluttering heart,' +'tongue paralyzed,' 'trembling all over,' 'a fainting fit.'" + +Dante suffered similarly from the disorder of love, if you will +recollect. In this connection may be cited the following passage from +Diderot's "Paradox of Acting ":-- + +"Take two lovers, both of whom have their declarations to make. Who will +come out of it best? Not I, I promise you. I remember that I approached +the beloved object with fear and trembling; my heart beat, my ideas grew +confused, my voice failed me, I mangled all I said; I cried _yes_ for +_no_; I made a thousand blunders; I was illimitably inept; I was absurd +from top to toe, and the more I saw it the more absurd I became. +Meanwhile, under my very eyes, a gay rival, light hearted and agreeable, +master of himself, pleased with himself, losing no opportunity for the +finest flattery, made himself entertaining and agreeable, enjoyed +himself; he implored the touch of a hand which was at once given him, he +sometimes caught it without asking leave, he kissed it once and again. +I, the while, alone in a corner, avoided a sight which irritated me; +stifling my sighs, cracking my fingers with grasping my wrists, plunged +in melancholy, covered with a cold sweat, I could neither show nor +conceal my vexation." + +Oh, the clamour of life to be born is a masterful thing, and so far as +the individual is concerned, a most irrational thing; and so far as the +world of beasts and emotional men and women is concerned, it is a most +necessary thing. That life may live and continue to live, a driving +force is needed that is greater than the puny will of life. And in the +disorder produced by the passion for perpetuation, whether or not +assisted by imagination, is found this driving force. As Ernest Haeckel, +that brave old hero of Jena, explains:-- + +"The irresistible passion that draws Edward to the sympathetic Otillia, +or Paris to Helen, and leaps all bounds of reason and morality, is the +same _powerful, unconscious_, attractive force which impels the living +spermatozoon to force an entrance into the ovum in the fertilisation of +the egg of the animal or plant--the same impetuous movement which unites +two atoms of hydrogen to one atom of oxygen for the formation of a +molecule of water." + +But with the advent of intellectual man, there is no longer need for +obeying blind and irresistible compulsion. Intellectual man, changing +the face of life with his inventions and artifices, performing telic +actions, adjusting himself and his concerns to remote ends and ultimate +compensations, will grapple with the problem of perpetuation as he has +grappled with that of gravitation. As he controls and directs the great +natural forces so that, instead of menacing, they are made to labour for +his safety and comfort, so will he control and direct the operation of +the reproductive force so that life will not only be perpetuated but +developed and made higher and finer. This is not more impossible than is +the steam-engine impossible or democracy impossible. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XXII + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +June 12, 19--. + +Please remember that these letters are written to you alone. I do not +think that there is less love in the world than ever before. I make you +representative of a class, which, in turn, is characteristic of the +modern scientific type, but I do not make you representative of all that +to-day's world has lived up to and lived down. So I do not join my +Ruskin in lamenting the past. To be sure, you are contemporary and you +are parvenu. What then? You are few, nevertheless, and like the parvenu +rich, you must pass into something quite unlike yourself. It is the law +of growth. I ask you to account for yourself as an individual. The thing +is fiercely personal. But you choose the roundabout method of answering +me. For a view of what in your eyes is pertinent to this matter, you +stretch a canvas wide as the world. You are resolved that your course +should dramatise the whole play and interplay of force and matter. It is +ideally ambitious of you and I am glad. It puts you in the ranks with +the students of the ideal tendencies. It shows that you are not always +impatient for short cuts, and that you begin to be of those who harness +"horses of the sun to plough in earth's rough furrows." + +Your letter sounds conclusive. Romance is waste, love is unreasoning; +compatibility alone is worth while. You think this, and are ready to +encrust yourself with what is conventional and practical. Ah, no, it is +not even decently conventional! The formal world pretends, at least, to +love. It also reaches for the fires that thrill and thaw, whereas you +stand before a cold hearth and think the chill well and welcome, since +you understand its cause. You have grasped part of a truth, and though +my mind complete your arc into the perfection of a circle, I cannot +place it about your head as a halo. My confusion comes from thinking of +you more than of my creed. A pregnant factor in our debate is the +debater. The Hafiz of the Hafiz maxims, the philosopher of your +philosophy happens to interest me. You have been building yourself up +before my eyes, and for watching I cannot speak. + +With what does romance interfere? If it implied a waste of vital force, +a giving up, a postponement of life, it were a roundabout path to +development and happiness. But we live most when we are most under its +sway, and it is for such self-promised sparks that we live at all. +Romance quickens and controls as does nothing else, and because of this +it is not only a means but an end in itself. It is stirred-up life. We +live most when we love most. The love of romance and the romance of love +is the only coin for which the heart-hurt sell their death. A trick? +Perhaps. The love of life is a trick to save the races from self-murder. +Nature makes legitimate her tricks. Let the Genius of the Race lure us +with passion and dreaming! We are not the losers by it. And if the dream +fades and we grow gray despite what has been lived, then it is something +to remember that soul and sense have leapt and pulsed. I am thankful +that romance has an aftermath, and that old men and women can prattle +about days that were robust. I am thankful that the soldiers of life are +at the end given a furlough in which to fondle the arms they wielded +with clumsiness and with spirit, and in which to pass themselves in +review before their pension expires and their days are over. Youth has +the romance of loving, and age the romance of remembering. + +Lovers are not always compatible, you say, and, before all, you insist +upon good partnership. How will you insure yourself against unfitness? +Surely not by a registering and weighing of qualities, not by bargaining +and speculating. We do not choose our wives as we do our saddle-horses; +we do not plan our marriages as we plan our houses. It may sound +paradoxical, but there is a higher compatibility than that of quality +and degree. It is not whether people can live together, but whether they +should live together. "It is an awkward thing to play with souls,"--you +override the fastidiousness of the soul in marrying your companion. +Unless you are an automaton, you cannot rest happy in the fact that you +and she do not disagree. For comfort's sake you would have a negative +dimension to your cosmos, forgetting that your longings and your needs +and, it may be, your dreams, are positive. If sex-comradeship and +affection were not as accidental and as dependent on mood as love +itself, your position would have much in its favour. You could then +arrange for compatibility in marriage. + +You speak of the methods in economics that conserve energy and capital, +such as the employ of the machine-guiding boy, which saves the labour +power of a hundred men, and you hold that in the realm of personal life +like methods may obtain with value and dignity. I can see how natural it +has become for you to take this viewpoint. One can be a zealot in +matters frigid. The law behind the fact has you in its coil, and your +passion goes to ice. You burn for that cold thing, compatibility. You, +too, are in the market-place bound to a stake--it is not for such as you +to escape the fire. If you look to compatibility and want it intensely, +as others want love, then you suffer, and from your standpoint (not +mine) you raise a vain cry; for compatibility, like everything else, is +illusory. The illusions of love are a strength, and the ways of love are +divine; through them we come to that feeling of completion which is +compatibility and which is as ineffable as the white-lipped promise of +waves heard by those who have also listened to weeping. Love is not +responsible for institutionalism. There would be no fewer marriages if +people married for convenience, nor would the law make such unions less +binding. It is not the fault of love that the great social paradox +exists. In the precipitancy of feeling, you say, the lover fastens upon +an unsuitable mate, and, with possession, love dies. Here I attack your +facts. If an awakening comes, it is not for either of these reasons. +Love is not essentially rational, but then it is love. There is some +consistency in affairs natural, and the esoteric draught that enchanted +at one time cannot poison at another. + +Love is not essentially rational, and it will not of a sudden become so +at the possession of the loved one. People who marry from convenience +may wake to find their union most inconvenient. "There are more things +in heaven and earth," and there are more intricacies of feeling and more +sloughs and depths, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. A definite +understanding as to sofa cushions and tobacco smoke does not always +insure unwearied forbearance and devotion. With love, on the other hand, +disappointment is very much less likely to spring up, for the reason +that it is free from calculation. Love is a sympathy. It takes hold, it +grows upon the soul and the senses, and it does not flee before argument +and explanation. + +Still less can I admit that possession kills love. Do we give up living +because the world is based on Will and Idea? Yet to will is to want, +Schopenhauer tells us, and to want is to be in pain. Do we know +ourselves in pain every minute of our lives? Hardly. This applies. You +hold that, with the fulfilled hope and the appeased hunger, indifference +takes the place of desire. It reads so in logic, but not in life. If +what is in our possession be good, we prize it more highly for its being +within reach. The good in our keeping does not sate; it pains with +divine hungers. We do not tire of what we have; we rise to it. We do not +know the sweetness of being steadfast until we are so impelled by the +love with which we have grown great. The lover may well say: "She was +not my ideal; before I knew her I was not great enough to think her. She +taught me." + +Besides, an acquaintance with your wife's faults does not kill your +love. You cannot turn from your brother or your friend if he commit even +a lurid act; you cannot turn from a stranger; much less can you turn +from your beloved. Herbert, when men set themselves to judge, they are +invariably ridiculous and an offence to high heaven. Believe me, it is +artificial. The true judge cares not for the fact of the deed, but for +its motive. And the lover knows the motive. He has the key to the life. +He knows his beloved, not as she is, but "as she was born to be." His +lips press and his arms enfold not her so much as the ideal of her, and +unless she unmake herself, he cannot unlove her. "To judge a man by the +fruit of his actions," says Professor Edward Howard Griggs, "it is +necessary to know all of the fruit, which is impossible. You can only +know what he eternally must be if you catch the aspect of his soul and +grow to understand his aspirations and his loves." To idealise, +therefore, is not to be blind, but to be far-seeing. + +There is another way of looking on this question of the paradox. Granted +that it is caused by romantic love, romantic love is still exclusively +the best thing in the world. You cannot pay too dearly for the good of +life. I know that the misery of being in the intimacy of wedlock with +one who is not loved is unutterable. It is to become degraded and +unrecognisable, it is to wear the brand of liar before God! The man +whose outer life belies the inner is an enforced suicide. There is +something of majesty on "laying one's self down with a will," and there +is something of strength in cloistering the body for the spirit's +health's sake, but to die when all within is warm and clamorous for life +is terrible. Such a death they die who are held together, not by the +bonds of the spirit, but by those of convention. They who would go from +each other and dare not, die the ignominious death of fear. The suicide +is contemptible, besides being pitiable, when he is hounded out of life +despite himself, when he is a little embezzler of a clerk who rushes +from the music hall to the Thames and thinks of the unfinished glass +with his last breath. No, I do not underestimate the tragedy of the +paradox. Yet I say that if love were accountable for it (which it is +not), it would still be folly to forswear love. Do you ask why? Because +its dangers are the dangers common to all life, and we are so made that +we cannot be frightened away from our portion of experience. We are as +loth to give up our nights as our days. The winters as the summers, all +the seasons and all the climes, the fears as the hopes, all the travail +of deepest, fullest living, we claim as our own forever. We guard +jealously our heritage of feeling. Would you for all the world sleep +rather than wake, forget rather than remember? Then cease the requiem +of your speech about the dangers of disillusion! + +Madness and selfishness were the cause of Louisa Naveret's death, and +the man who was mad and selfish was her lover. The poor man had not the +strength to renounce when he thought he found himself face to face with +the necessity of renouncing. But all lovers are not too weak to cope +with love. John Ruskin, if you remember, loved his wife, and he shot +neither himself, nor her, nor Millais. Charles J. Johnson is not a +Ruskin, and Ruskin's love was not a madness. + +And, Herbert, to me there is nothing comic in a stress of feeling. Let +the lover pale and flutter and faint; in the presence of his deity it is +an acceptable form of worship. The very self-possessed lover is more +preposterous! + +Your book has not yet reached me. To-morrow I shall write again, +providing I remember how to write a natural letter. + +Yours, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXIII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON. +June 20, 19--. + +There are impersonal hours when the things of the day drop below +consciousness and the spirit grows devotional and wends a pilgrimage to +larger spheres, there to sit apart. Such a respite was mine to-day. +There had been a call to rouse and put forth work, and I wrought with +all the puniness of my might (woe is me!), and earned my post at the +window that looks out upon the large things. The best of nights and days +of toil is that there comes a twilight in which fatigued eyes see clear. +I said it did not matter how you do about your marriage. Time may right +you in a way I cannot know. I said it did not matter if you are not +righted in this, there being so much that never rights itself. Both hope +and despair were followed by a calm of neutrality. The inquiry waited +no solution. The stress no longer touched me, and my twilight became +luminous. I saw things as from a height and forms dropped out of my +range, when Barbara came tugging at me, and my pale while of abstraction +was at an end. + +She wanted to know what troubled me. She made her way to me, hurried but +resolved, and stated her demand. "You catechised me yesterday; to-night +you shall answer." + +She had come to defend herself. My talk having of late taken on the +sameness of that of the man of one idea, Barbara was aroused. I was +gauging her because she distressed me, was her thought. (I had been +trying to find whether it is possible to live differently from her and +live happily and well.) "You think I am not close enough to Earl, +because I mourn for my little one, perhaps. You think me not +sufficiently happy to be wifely." Could I suppose aught else from such +an utterance but that there was an estrangement and hidden pain? How, +unless there were sorrow, could the woman see herself sorrowed for? My +mind leapt to possibilities. Little Barbara on the rack was more than I +could bear. I groped for her hands. It was a fault in her to be so much +on her guard. She had no sorrow to confess, and spoke--only to ward off +what was not directed toward her. + +"The tenour of your talk led me on to believe--" she stammered with hot +cheeks. It is a standing offence of hers to imagine herself accused, and +she admits it is a weakness born of lack of poise. "But I took all for +granted, I thought you fortunate beyond any other woman," I protested. +At this the radiance broke forth. I forgave the chill that her first +words on entering the room struck to my heart, and she forgot what she +had imagined. + +There is nothing more important than the play and interplay of feeling. +Were Barbara "unwifely," I could not blame her, but neither could I have +at hand my proof of dear miracles. My proof remained to me, for there +she stood, her face lifted toward mine, her mouth tremulous, her grey +eyes swimming. The mate woman was stirred. Barbara is twenty-six and has +been married seven years, and she still vibrates with the old wonder to +find herself loving and beloved. + +I meant to tell you of what we spoke later, in the hope that I could +show you a little better what I hold dear and why. But my hand grows +nerveless. The twilight of abstraction has set in. A little while ago +this hand was quick to rest on Barbara's as I called her my heroine. She +is that, not alone because she is pure and good and strong, but because +she can accept the test of her instincts. It takes both faith and +strength to obey oneself. "When shows break up, what but one's Self +remains?" asks Whitman. The shows are but shows for Barbara. Will I look +into your eyes on the morrow and find them, like hers, clear? Grant that +it be! + +DANE. + + + + +XXIV + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +July 1, 19--. + +Somewhere in Ward you may read, "It must constantly be borne in mind +that all progress consists in the arbitrary alteration, by human efforts +and devices, of the normal course of nature, so that civilisation is +wholly an artificial product." Why, Dane, this is large enough to base a +sociology upon. And I must ask you first, is it true? Second, do you +understand, do you appreciate, the tremendous significance of it? And +third, how can you bring your philosophy of love in accord with it? + +Romantic love is certainly not natural. It is an artifice, blunderingly +and unwittingly introduced by man into the natural order. Is this +audacious? Let us see. In a state of nature the love which obtains is +merely the passion for perpetuation devoid of all imagination. The male +possesses the prehensile organs and the superior strength. Beyond the +ardour of pursuit the female has no charms for him. But he is driven +irresistibly to pursuit. And by virtue of his prehensile organs and +superior strength he ravishes the females of his species and goes his +way. But life creeps slowly upward, increasing in complexity and +necessarily in intelligence. When some forgotten inventor of the older +world smote his rival or enemy with a branch of wood and found that it +was good and thereafter made a practice of smiting rivals and enemies +with branches of wood, then, and on that day, artificiality may be said +to have begun. Then, and on that day, was begun a revolution destined to +change the history of life. Then, and on that day, was laid the +cornerstone of that most tremendous of artifices, CIVILISATION! + +Trace it up. Our ape-like and arboreal ancestors entered upon the first +of many short cuts. To crack a marrow-bone with a rock was the act which +fathered the tool, and between the cracking of a marrow-bone and the +riding down town in an automobile lies only a difference of degree. The +one is crudely artificial, the other consummately artificial. That is +all. There have been improvements. The first inventors grasped that +truthful paradox, "the longest way round is the shortest way home," and +forsook the direct pursuit of happiness for the indirect pursuit of +happiness. If the happiness of a savage depended upon his crossing an +extensive body of water, he did not directly proceed to swim it, but +turned his back upon it, selected a tree from the forest, shaped it with +his rude tools and hollowed it out with fire, then launched it in the +water and paddled toward where his happiness lay. + +Now concerning love. In the state of nature it is a brutal passion, +nothing more. There is no romance attached. But life creeps upward, and +the gregarious human forms social groups the like of which never existed +before. Consider the family group, for instance. Such a group becomes in +itself an entity. By means of the group man is better enabled to pursue +happiness. But to maintain the group it must be regulated; so man +formulates rules, codes, dim ethical laws for the conduct of the group +members. Sexual ties are made less promiscuous and more orderly. A +greater privacy is observed. And out of order and privacy spring respect +and sacredness. + +But life creeps upward, and the family group itself becomes but a unit +of greater and greater groups. And rules and codes change in accordance, +until the marriage tie becomes possessed of a history and takes to +itself traditions. This history and these traditions form a great fund, +to which changing conditions and growing imagination constantly add. And +the traditions, more especially, bear heavily upon the individual, +overmastering his natural expression of the love instinct and forcing +him to an artificial expression of that love instinct. He loves, not as +his savage forebears loved, but as his group loves. And the love method +of his group is determined by its love traditions. Does the individual +compare his beloved's eyes to the stars--it is a trick of old time which +has come down to him. Does he serenade under her window or compose an +ode to her beauty or virtue--his father did it before him. In his +lover's voice throb the voices of myriads of lovers all dead and dust. +The singers of a thousand songs are the ghostly chorus to the song of +love he sings. His ideas, his very feelings are not his, but the ideas +and feelings of countless lovers who lived and loved and whose lives and +loves are remembered. Their mistaken facts and foolish precepts are +his, and likewise their imaginative absurdities and sentimental +philanderings. Without an erotic literature, a history of great loves +and lovers, a garland of love songs and ballads, a sheaf of spoken love +tales and adventures--without all this, which is the property of his +group, he could not possibly love in the way he does. + +To illustrate: Isolate a boy babe and a girl babe of cultured breed upon +a desert isle. Let them feed and grow strong on shell-fish and fruit; +but let them see none other of their species; hear no speech of mouth, +nor acquire knowledge in any way of their kind and the things their kind +has done. Well, and what then? They will grow to man and woman and mate +as the beasts mate, without romance and without imagination. Does the +woman oppose her will to that of the man--he will beat her. Does he +become over-violent in the manifestation of his regard, she will flee +away, if she can, to secret hiding-places. He will not compare her eyes +to the stars; nor will she dream that he is Apollo; nor will the pair +moon in the twilight over the love of Hero and Leander. And the many +monogamic generations out of which he has descended would fail to +prevent polygamy did another woman chance to strand on that particular +isle. + +It is the common practice of the man of the London slum to kick his wife +to death when she has offended him. And the man of the London slum is a +very natural beast who expresses himself in a very natural manner. He +has never heard of Hero and Leander, and the comparison of the missus' +eyes to the stars would to him be arrant bosh. The gentle, tender, +considerate male is an artificial product. And so is the romantic lover, +who is fashioned by the love traditions which come down to him and by +the erotic literature to which he has access. + +And now to the point. Romantic love being an artificial product, you +cannot base its retention upon the claim that it is natural. Your only +claim can be that it is the best possible artifice for the perpetuation +of life, or that it is the only perfect, all-sufficient, and +all-satisfying artifice that man can devise. On the one hand, for the +perpetuation of life, man demonstrates the inefficiency of romantic love +by his achievements in the domestic selection of animals. And on the +other hand, the very irrationality of romantic love will tend to its +gradual elimination as the human grows wiser and wiser. Also, because +it is such a crude artifice, it forces far too many to contract the +permanent marriage tie without possessing compatibility. During the time +romantic love runs its course in an individual, that individual is in a +diseased, abnormal, irrational condition. Mental or spiritual health, +which is rationality, makes for progress, and the future demands greater +and greater mental or spiritual health, greater and greater rationality. +The brain must dominate and direct both the individual and society in +the time to come, not the belly and the heart. Granted that the function +romantic love has served has been necessary; that is no reason to +conclude that it must always be necessary, that it is eternally +necessary. There is such a thing as rudimentary organs which served +functions long since fallen in disuse and now unremembered. + +The world has changed, Dane. Sense delights are no longer the sole end +of existence. The brain is triumphing over the belly and the heart. The +intellectual joy of living is finer and higher than the mere sexual joy +of living. Darwin, at the conclusion of his "Origin of Species," +experienced a nobler and more exquisite pleasure than did ever Solomon +with his thousand concubines and wives. And while our sense delights +themselves have become refined, their very refinement has been due to +the increasing dominion over them of the intellect. Our canons of art +are not founded on the heart. No emotion elaborated the laws of +composition. We cannot experience a sense of delight in any art object +unless it satisfies our intellectual discrimination. "He is a _natural_ +singer," we say of the poet who works unscientifically; "but he is lame, +his numbers halt, and he has no knowledge of technique." + +The intellect, not the heart, made man, and is continuing to make +him--ah, slowly, Dane, for life creeps slowly upward. The "Advanced +Margin" is a favourite shibboleth of yours. And I take it that the +Advanced Margin is that portion of our race which is more dominated by +intellect than the race proper. And I, as a member of that group, +propose to order my affairs in a rational manner. My reason tells me +that the mere passion of begetting and the paltry romance of pursuit are +not the greatest and most exquisite delights of living. Intellectual +delight is my bribe for living, and though the bargain be a hard one, I +shall endeavour to exact the last shekel which is my due. + +Wherefore I marry Hester Stebbins. I am not impelled by the archaic sex +madness of the beast, nor by the obsolescent romance madness of +later-day man. I contract a tie which my reason tells me is based upon +health and sanity and compatibility. My intellect shall delight in that +tie. My life shall be free and broad and great, and I will not be the +slave to the sense delights which chained my ancient ancestry. I reject +the heritage. I break the entail. And who are you to say I am unwise? + +HERBERT WACE. + + + + +XXV + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +July 5, 19--. + +I had not intended to answer your letter critically, but, on re-reading, +find I am forced to speak if for no other reason than your epithet +"parvenu." The word has no reproach. It was ever thus that the old and +perishing recognised the vigorous and new. Parvenu, upstart--the term is +replete with significance and health. I doubt not Elijah himself was +dubbed parvenu when he fluttered with his golden harp into that +bright-browed throng, pride-swollen for that they had fought with +Michael when Lucifer was hurled into hell. + +"We do not choose our wives as we buy our saddle-horses; we do not plan +our marriages as we do the building of our houses,"--so you say, and it +is said excellently. No better indictment of romantic love do I ask. And +oh, how many good men and women have I heard bitterly arraign society in +that in the begetting of children it does not exercise the judgment +which it exercises in breeding its horses and its dogs! Marriage is +something more than the mere pulsating to romance, the thrilling to +vague-sweet strains, the singing idly in empty days, the sating of self +with pleasure--what of the children? + +"Never mind the children," says selfish little Love. "It has been our +wont never to give any thought to the children; they were incidental. +Always have we sought our own pleasure; let us continue to seek our own +pleasure." So Society continues to breed its horses and dogs with +judgment and forethought and to trust to luck for its children. + +But it won't do, Dane. Life, in a sense, is living and surviving. And +all that makes for living and surviving is good. He who follows the fact +cannot go astray, while he who has no reverence for the fact wanders +afar. Chivalry went mad over an idea. It idealised, if you please. It +made of love a fine art, and countless knights-errant devoted themselves +to the service of the little god. It sentimentalised over ladies' +gloves and forgot to make for living and surviving. And while chivalry +committed suicide over its ladies' gloves, the stout, wooden-headed +burghers, with an eye to the facts of life, dickered and bickered in +trade. And on the wreck and ruin of chivalry they flaunted their parvenu +insolence. God, how they triumphed! The children and cobblers and +shop-keepers buying with the yellow gold the "thousand years old names!" +buying with their yellow gold the proud flesh and blood of their lords +to breed with them and theirs! patronising the arts, speaking a kind +word to science, and patting God on the back! But they triumphed, that +is the point. They reverenced the fact and made for living and +surviving. + +Love is life, you say, and you seem to hold it the achievement of +existence. But I cannot say that life is love. Life? It is a toy, i' +faith, given to us, we know not why, to play with as we chance to +please. Some elect to dream, some to love, and some to fight. Some +choose immediate happiness, and some ultimate happiness. One stakes the +Here and Now upon the Hereafter; another takes the Here and Now and lets +the Hereafter go. But each grasps the toy and does with it according to +his fancy And while none may know the end of life, all know that life +is the end of love. Love, poor little, crude little, love, is the means +to life--and so we complete the circle. Life? It is a toy, i' faith, +given us, we know not why, to play with as we chance to please. + +But this we know, that love is the means to life, and it is subject to +inevitable improvement. By our intellect will we improve upon it. Life +abundant! finer life! higher life! fuller life! When we scientifically +breed our race-horses and our draught-horses, we make for life abundant. +And when we come scientifically to breed the human, we shall make for +life abundant, for humanity abundant. + +You say an acquaintance with the petty vices of one's wife does not kill +one's love. Oh yes, it does, and out of the ashes of that love rises +affection, comradeship, in kind somewhat similar to the affection and +comradeship which I have for my brother. I do not _love_ my brother, and +it is because I do not love him, and because I do have _affection_ and +_comradeship_ for him, that I do not turn away when he commits even a +lurid act. Love, you will remember, takes its rise in the emotions, and +is unstable and wanton and capricious. But affection takes its rise in +the intellect, is based upon judgment of the brain. Love is unyielding +tyranny; affection is compromise. Love never compromises, no more than +does the mad little mating sparrow compromise. + +My brother?--I played with him as a boy. His weaknesses and faults +incensed and hurt me, as mine incensed and hurt him. Many were our +quarrels. But he had also good qualities which pleased me, and at times +performed gracious acts and even sacrifices. And I likewise. And with my +brain I weighed his weaknesses and faults against his gracious acts and +sacrifices, and I achieved a judgment upon him. The ethics of the family +group also contributed to this judgment. The duties of kinship and the +responsibilities of blood ties were impressed upon me. We grew up at our +mother's knee, and she and our father became factors in determining what +my conduct should be. They, too, taught me that my brother was my +brother, and that in so far as he was my brother, my relations with him +must be different from my relations with those who were not my brothers. +And all went to crystallise an intellectual judgment, or a set of +criteria, as it were, to guide all sane, unemotional acts and even to +control and repress any emotional acts. These criteria, I say, became +crystallised, became automatic in my thought processes. + +And now, in manhood, my brother commits a lurid act, an act repulsive to +me, one capable of arousing emotions of anger, of bitterness, of hatred. +I experience an emotional impulse to pour my wrath upon him, to be +bitter toward him, to hate him. Then I experience an intellectual +impulse. Whatever way I may act, I must first settle with my +crystallised criteria. The personal bonds of my boyhood and manhood +press upon me--the gracious acts and sacrifices and compromises, our +father and our mother, the duties of kinship and the responsibilities of +blood. Thus two counter-impulses strive with me. I desire to do two +counter things. Heart and head the fight is waged, and heart or head I +shall act according to which is the stronger impulse. And if my +affection be stronger, I shall not turn away, but clasp my brother in my +arms. + +I fear I have not made myself clear. It is difficult to write hurriedly +of things psychological, when the extreme demand is made upon intellect +and vocabulary; but at least you may roughly catch my drift. What I have +striven to say is, that I forgive my brother, not because I _love_ him, +but because of the _affection_ I bear him; also that this affection is +the product of reason, is the sum of the judgments I have achieved. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XXVI + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +July 21, 19--. + +"Progress is an arbitrary alteration, by human efforts and devices, of +the normal course of nature, so that civilisation is wholly an +artificial product." You ask me to consider this refracted bit of +sociology and by its light to cast out my exalted notion of love. As if +you have proven that love is incompatible with civilisation! We make +over life with each successive step, but we do not give over living. In +developing new forms and in establishing more and more subtle social +relations we are only building upon what we find ready to hand. The +paradox of creature and creator does not exist. When your sociologist +speaks of arbitrary alterations, he has reference to polities and +governments and criteria, to the material and ideal forces which a +progressive society may wield for itself. He cannot include under +progress an alteration of those needs of existence which make up the +quality of existence. Speak of a community which equally distributes the +products of labour and I will grant that there has been an arbitrary +alteration, the normal course of nature being that the stronger, openly, +and even with the common assent, takes to the repletion of his desire +from the weaker. But speak of a condition so progressive that it +subverts the need, so that where in the one case hunger was equitably +gratified, in the other, hunger was done away with, and I will say that +you are giving an Arabian Nights' entertainment. + +Love is of a piece with life, like hunger, like joy, like death. Your +progress cannot leave it behind; your civilisation must become the +exponent of it. + +Your last letter is formal and elaborate, and--equivocal. In it you +remind me, menacingly, of the possibilities of progress, you posit that +love is at best artificial, and you apotheosise the brain. As an +emancipated rationality, you say you cut yourself loose from the +convention of feeling. Progress cannot affect the need and the power to +love. This I have already stated. "How is it under our control to love +or not to love?" Life is elaborate or it is simple (it depends upon the +point of view), and you may call love the paraphernalia of its +wedding-feast or you may call it more--the Blood and Body of all that +quickens, a Transubstantiation which all accept, reverently or +irreverently, as the case may be. + +I can more readily conceive the existence of a central committee elected +for the purpose of regulating the marriages of a community, than of a +community satisfied with such a committee. There is no logic in social +events. The world persists in not taking the next step, and what to the +social scout looked a dusty bypath may prove to be the highway of +progress for the hoboing millions. Side issues are constantly cropping +up to knock out the main issues of the stump orator; so let us be +humble. For this reason I refuse to discuss possibilities in infinity. +You and I cannot have become products of an environment which is not in +existence. It is safe to suppose that our needs are like those of the +race and that in us nothing is vestigial that is active in others. You +cannot have become too rational to love. The device has not yet been +formed. + +You think I should take your word for it? But why? Have you never found +yourself in the wrong, never disobeyed your best promptings never meant +to take the good and grasped the bad? Is it not possible that you are +not yet awake, or, God pity you, that you are hidebound in the dogmatism +of your bit of thinking. + +It is for the second point of your letter that I called you equivocal. +Earlier in our discussion, I remember, you laid stress on the fact that +love is an instinct common to all forms of life; now you go to great +lengths in order to show that it is artificial. + +How do you differentiate between the artificial and nature? Surely a +development is not artificial because it is recent! Surely man is as +integral to life as his progenitors! When we come to civilisation, we +are face to face with the largest and subtlest thing in life, and the +civilisation of human society is not artificial. It is the fulfilment of +the nature of man, the promise made good, the career established, the +influence sent out. A universe of mind-stuff and a civilising force +constantly causing change, for change is growth, constantly compelling +expression of that change--to conceive it is to conceive infinitude. And +the purpose? Development, always development. To that end the individual +perishes, to that end the race is conserved, to that end the peril and +the sacrifice, and the agony of triumph in the overcharged heart at its +last bound. And what is this refining of the type, this goal for which +we all make with such tragic directness, but the gaining in the power to +love? We begin with love to end with greater love, and that is progress. +To write the epic of civilisation is a task for some giant artist who +shall combine in himself Homer and Shakespeare, and the work will be a +love story. + +We do not throw away the grain and keep the chaff, nor do we transmit +the "absurdities" and "philanderings" alone. If in the lover's voice +throb the voices of myriads of lovers, it is because he is stirred even +as they. If a ballad wakes a response in him, it is because its motif +has been singing itself of its own accord in his heart, and its rhythm +was the dream nightingale to which he bade Her hearken. Behind the +tradition lies the fact. The expression may be ephemeral, the song flat, +the motto conventional, but the feeling which prompted it is true. Else +it could not have survived. And it has more than survived. It has grown +with growth. For centuries it lodged in the nature of man, lulled in +acquiescence, then, when the sense of recognition awoke, back in those +wondrous young days, it wakened to pale life, and now the feeling is +man's whole support, giving him courage to work and purpose to live. + +But the half brute of the London slums kicks his wife when she offends +him and knows nothing of love. Well for the honour of love that it is +so! The half brute of the London slums had not food enough when a child, +and malnutrition is deadly. Later, he stole and lied in order to eat, +and he was bullied and kicked for it out of human shape. The trick was +passed on to him. The unfortunate of the London slums will push us all +from heaven's gate, because we do not do battle with the conditions that +make him. It is not such as he that should lead you to scorn love, for +he is a mistake and a crime. + +In your example of the isolated boy babe and girl babe we meet with a +different condition. The individual repeats the history of the race, and +as these have been left out by the civilising forces, they revert to +past racial states. For these it is natural to live stolidly--is it +therefore natural for us? The point I make is that our refinement, +crying in us with great voice, is as much a part of us as are the simple +few hungers of the racial infant. We are not the less natural for being +subtle. And can it not be that the face of romance reveals itself even +to savage eyes? According to the need is the power, and the early man +needs must hope and desire; he is curbed by waiting and taught by loss +in the hunting, he is hungry, and he dreams that he is feasting. This +dream is his romance--a red flicker in the dawn, then still the gray. To +suppose this is not to be unscientific, for what is true of us must have +had a beginning, and feeling, as well as being, cannot have been +spontaneously generated. + +There is an absolute gravitation to justice in nature. This was the +creed preached by Huxley to Kingsley a week after his boy's death. Grief +had turned the mind upon itself, and in the upheaval he formulated a +philosophy of faith and joy! + +Our reward is meted out according to our obedience to all of the law, +spiritual and physical. Nature keeps a ledger paying glad life's arrears +each minute of time. And the creed rises to my lips when I hear you cry +shame upon the delight of love. It must be good, this thing which is so +fraught with joy! You brand it sense delight, but all delight is of the +senses, and Darwin at the conclusion of "The Descent of Man," if he was +not overtaken by a feeling of incompleteness in the work and a +consuming fever for the further task, was glad in a human way, with the +senses and through the emotions. Darwin's supreme moment may have come +at quite a different time. What can we know of the moments of repletion +that fall into another's life? With Huxley we may only know that our +hearts bound high when we strike a chord of harmony and prove ourselves +obedient to "all of the law," and our hearts bound high when we love. It +is nature's way of showing her approval. Oh, the strength of love and +the miracles of its compensations! The sense of becoming that it gives, +even in its defeats, the gladness that ripples in its sob-strangled +throat! + +The day for asceticism is gone, or shall we say the night? We are not +afraid of sense delights. We are intent upon living on all sides of our +natures, roundly and naturally. You have a fine gospel of work and I +congratulate you upon it, but you make no mention of the purpose of it +all. It must not be work for work's sake. "When I heard the learned +astronomer--" says Whitman. Do you remember? He caught in one hour the +whole majesty, caught to himself the wonder that was unseen by the +watching astronomers. Somehow you feel the learned ones had made a +mistake in calculating so long that they had no time to see with +personal eyes the glory of the stars, and that Whitman had been +philosopher and had gained where they failed. The inspiration of the +poet, of the painter, of the economist, and biologist, is in the +revelation which they receive of what to do and why to do. For this +reason philosophy, which treats of the life and works of man, is in the +highest sense sociological. The generalisations of philosophy go to +improve our methods so that we may have greater proneness for sense of +delight and greater possibility for sense delight. Why, what else is +there? You are a poet, and you give an unrestorable day, when the sun is +shining and the hills lie purple in the distance, to writing a sonnet. +If you do so merely to employ yourself, it must be that the wolf of +despair is at your being's door. You have come to the end, and the sun +and the hills do not matter. You and they have parted company. But if +you write, impelled by the wish that others should read and recognise, +read and remember, and grow to know and feel better, and perhaps to love +the sun and hills better, then is yours a work of love, and it will be +made good to you, so that for the day which you have not seen, your +night shall be instinct with light. And if your labours are more +especially in the service of art, then, also, with each approach toward +expression, you are warmed through with the delight of achievement. + +Is my meaning quite dashed away by this torrent of speech? It is simply +this: Before we think we feel, and the end of thinking is feeling. The +century of Voltaire and Dr. Johnson held that man is rational, the +century of James, Ribot, Lange, and Wundt is thrilled to the heart with +the doctrine that first, last, and always man is emotional. To speak +loosely, the dimensions of the human cosmos are feeling, emotion, and +sensation. + +Build your fine structures. We like to see the foundations laid well and +the thick walls go up. Keep to your wizard inventions. We like to live +in a magic world. And ah, the indomitable machines with their austere +promise of free days for weary hands, and ah, the locomotives and the +ships steaming their ways toward intercourse, toward comity, toward +fellowship! We like the intricacy and the vastness of the world in which +we live. But "an unconsidered life is not fit to be lived by any man," +says Aristotle. We must consider the phenomenon, civilisation, searching +down for the nucleus of its worth. We will find that the stone +structure without hope were a pitiable thing, that the making of +compacts and the banking of capital, without hope, were pitiable. This +hope that is the life germane, the immortal flash of mortality, the most +keenly human point in all humanity, is the hope for greater and greater +social happiness. Our world is an ever unfinished house which we are +employed in building. If we are imbued with the spirit of the architect +and not of the hod-carrier, we will hope sweetly for the work. The house +beautiful will begin to mean our life, and each night we will consult +our drawings, looking to it that on the house built of our days the sun +shall wester, and that within shall be intimacy, and laughter, great +speech and close love, looking to it that the home be such as to better +to-day's tenant so that he be more loving and lovable than the one of +yesterday. + +We are wrong, perhaps. Long ago we were no less than now. When we +reached a hand in the darkness and grasped that of our fellow, the love +and the strongly frail human abandon were no less. We have not grown in +heart's munificence, perhaps. It is one of the illusions only. But the +hope is ours. For what do you hope? + +DANE. + + + + +XXVII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON. +July 22, 19--. + +Your birthday, Herbert, and for greeting I state that I walk your length +with you. A truce to quarrelling! It is now a year since you informed me +you were going to be married, and since then the gods have thundered +their laughter at the sight of two muttering men who sat themselves on +the axes of earth to dangle their legs into orbit vastness. Chronic +somnambulists that they are, they took their monopolist way thither in +their sleep. + +I cannot tell you how full of vagary the correspondence we have fallen +into seems to me. I deliberately attempted to write you into passion and +for months you deliberately continued to convict yourself out of your +own mouth, and we did not see that it was tragic and comic and +preposterous. Could we personify this our dealing, we would do well to +call it a kind of Caliban. And the tentacles we threw out, clawing at +everything, stealing for prop to our little theory all of man and God! +It is the conceit of us that I find utterly hopeless of grace. So I drop +my rôle of omniscience. I take my form off the hub, believing the system +will maintain its gravity though I go my private way, and I promise to +let you alone. Forgive me, and God bless you. Ah, yes, and many happy +returns of the day. All my heart in the blessing and the wish. + +I did some remembering to-day, dear lad. When you were born, I was five +years younger than you are now, yet I felt myself old. "If we were as +old as we feel, we would die of old age at twenty-one." My life seemed +all behind me, long, turbulent, packed with pain, useless. I spoke of +myself as if all were over. "It had been full of purpose, but what came +of it? A few rhymes and a spoilt hope." To my morbid fancy your having +come to be was a signal for me to go. I had no thought of dying, yet I +accepted you as the proof of my failure. In the exacting eyes of the +genius of the race I was insolvent. You were not mine. I looked into +Time, and saw none of me there. + +Yet the letter I wrote to your parents was sincere,--how else? And that +night and the next and the next, I wrote "Gentleman Adventurers," which +the critics called the epitome of all that is balladesque. One pitied +the dead because they could go forth no more on water and under sky. +This poem, written in a mood which beneficent nature sends on the +too-sick spirit, has served for more than a quarter of a century as the +complete and accepted catalogue of the reasons for living. Well, I must +not laugh at it. It may be true that the passion of my heart incarnated +itself in it beyond the rest, that my one song sang itself out those +first three days of your life. If so, it is true that love is never +cheated of its fruit, and that the joy which might have been for the +individual oozes out of him to the race, that the strength which would +have settled upon itself in the calm of satisfied hope, filters through +him outwards. + +Good night, lad. My hand is on your shoulder and I am loath to take it +off. For a while I would like what cannot be, to travel with you the +red-brown country-roads fragrant with hay, to cross the stiles and knock +upon the cabin doors, and enter where sorrow and where gladness is, big +with greeting and sure of welcome. I have often pleased myself with the +fancy that the outer aspects of life are patterned after the inner, so +that in the map of the spirit are to be found city and country, wood, +desert, and sea, so that we know these outer worlds through having +travelled the worlds within. Though I stay behind, my eyes can follow +you from this night's landmark along the stretch, on to the city +avenues, up the highways, tracing the twists of the bypaths, clambering +untrod trails of wilderness and mountain, on, on, till out upon the sea. + +In one of the near turnings a woman with waiting face smiles subtly. Her +hands beckon you to the tryst. Godspeed, my son. + +DANE. + + + + +XXVIII + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +August 6, 19--. + +As I have constantly insisted, our difference is temperamental. The +common words we lay hold of mean one thing to you and another thing to +me. I do not equivocate when I say that love is instinctive, and that +the latter-day expression of love is artificial. "Art," as I understand +the term in its broadness, contradistinguishes from nature. Whatever man +contrives or devises is an artifice, a thing of art not of nature, and +therefore artificial. + +As for ourselves, among animals we are the only real inventors and +artificers. Instead of hair and hide, we have soft skins, and we weave +cunning textures and wear wondrous garments. In cold weather, in place +of eating much fat meat, we keep ourselves warm by grate fires and +steam heat. We cut up our blood-dripping meat chunks with pieces of iron +hardened by fire and sharpened by stone, and we eat fish with a fork +instead of our fingers. We put a roof over our heads to keep out storm +and sunshine, sleep in pent rooms, and are afraid of the good night air +and the open sky. In short, we are consummately artificial. + +As I recollect, I have shown that the natural expression of the love +instinct is bestial and brutal and violent. I have shown how imagination +entered into the development of the expression of this love instinct +till it became _romantic_. And, in turn, I have shown how artificial was +the romantic expression of this love instinct, by isolating a boy babe +and a girl babe in a natural state wherein they expressed their love +instinct bestially and brutally and violently. As you say, they have +simply been "left out by the civilising force." And this civilising, or +socialising force is simply the sum of our many inventions. The isolated +pair merely expressed their instincts in the unartificial, natural way. +They had not been taught a certain particular fashion in which to +express those instincts as have you and I and all artificial beings been +taught. + +As Mr. Finck has said, "Not till Dante's 'Vita Nuova' appeared was the +gospel of modern love--the romantic adoration of a maiden by a +youth--revealed for the first time in definite language." + +Dante, and the men who foreshadowed and followed him, were inventors. +They introduced an artifice for protracting one of our most vital +pleasures. Well, they succeeded. And what of it? There are artifices and +artifices, and some are better than others. The automobile is a more +cunning artifice than the ox-cart, the subway than a palanquin. Devices +come and devices go. Change is the essence of progress. All is +development. The end of rapes and romances is the same--perpetuation. +There may be head love as well as heart love. And in the time to come, +when the brain ceases to be the servant of the belly, the head the +lackey of the heart, in that time stirpiculture, which is scientific +perpetuation, will take the place of romantic love. And in the present +there may be men ready for that time. There must be a beginning, else +would we still be jolting in ox-carts. And I am ready for that time now. + +You say, "Love is of a piece with life, like hunger, like joy, like +death." Quite true. And civilisation is merely the expression of +life--a variform utterance which includes love, and hunger, and joy, and +death. Else what is this civilisation for? How did it happen to be? And +I answer: It is the sum of the many inventions we have made to aid us in +our pursuit of life and love and joy. It helps us to live more +abundantly, to love more fruitfully, to joy more intelligently, and to +get grim old Death by his knotty throat and hold him at arm's length as +long as possible. + +I stated that "all progress consists in the arbitrary alteration, by +human efforts and devices, of the normal course of nature." This +sociological concept comes inevitably into accord with my philosophy of +love. It is the law of development, and all things of human life (which +includes love) come inside of it. Wherefore, certainly, I am not outside +our province when I demand of you to bring your philosophy of love into +like accord. + +Incidentally, I will state that I _have_ fallen in love. I have grown +feverish with desire, gone mad with dumb yearning. I have felt my +intellect lose dominion, and learned that I was only a garmented beast, +for all the many inventions very like the other beasts ungarmented. +Nay, I am no cold-blooded theorist, no thick-hided dogmatist; nor am I a +chastely simple young man mooning in virginal innocence. My +generalisations have been tempered in the heats of passion, and what I +know I know, and without hearsay. + +I have seen a learned man, drunk with wine, interrogate the new states +of consciousness of his unwonted condition, and so doing, gain a more +comprehensive psychological insight. So I, with my loves. I was impelled +toward the women I shall presently particularise. I asked why the +impulsion. I reasoned to see if there were a difference between these +illicit passions of mine and the illicit passions of my respectable and +respected friends. And I found no difference. Separated from codes and +conventions, shorn of imagination, divested of romance, stripped naked +down to the core of the matter, it was old Mother Nature crying through +us, every man and woman of us, for progeny. Her one unceasing and +eternal cry--PROGENY! PROGENY! PROGENY! + +Just as little girls, instinctively foreshadowing motherhood, play with +dolls, so children feel vague sex promptings, and in sweetly ridiculous +ways love and quarrel and make up after the approved fashion of lovers. +You loved little girls in pigtails and pinafores. We all did. And in our +lives there is nothing fairer and more joyful to look back upon than +those same little pigtails and pinafores. But I shall pass the child +loves by, and instance first my calf love. + +Do you remember the incident of the torn jacket and the blackened +eyes?--so inexplicable at the time. Try as you would, neither you nor +Waring could get anything out of me. Oh, believe me, it was tragic! I +was fifteen. Fifteen, and athrill with a strange new pulse; flushed, as +the dawn, with the promise of day. And, of course, I thought it was the +day, that I loved as a man loved, and that no man ever loved more. Well, +well, I laugh now. I was only fifteen--a young calf who went out and +butted heads with another calf in the back pasture. + +She was a demure little coquette, Celia Genoine, Professor Genoine's +daughter, if you will recollect. "Ah," I hear you remonstrate, "but she +was a woman." Just so. Fifteen and twenty-two is usually the way of calf +loves. I invested her with all the glow and colour of first youth, and +in her presence became a changed being. I blushed if she looked at me; +trembled at the touch of her hand or the scent of her hair. To be in +her presence was to be closeted with the awfulness and splendour of God. +I read immortality in her eyes. A smile from her blinded me, a gentle +word or caressing look and I went faint and dizzy, and I was content to +lurk in some corner and gaze upon her secretly with all my soul. And I +took long, solitary walks, with book of verse beneath my arm, and +learned to love as lovers had loved before me. + +Sufficient romance was engendered for me to pass more than one night +worshipping beneath her window. I mooned and sentimentalised and fell +into a gentle melancholy, until you and Waring began to worry over an +early decline, to consult specialists, and by trick and stratagem to +entice me into eating more and reading less. But she married--ah, I have +forgotten whom. Anyway, she married, and there was trouble about it, +too, and I bade adieu to love forever. + +Then came the love of my whelpage. I was twenty, and she a mad, wanton +creature, wonderful and unmoral and filled with life to the brim. My +blood pounds hot even now as I conjure her up. The ungarmented beast, my +dear Dane, the great primordial ungarmented beast, mighty to procreate, +indomitable in battle, invincible in love. Love? Do I not know it? Can +I not understand how that splendid fighting animal, Antony, quartered +the globe with his sword and pillowed his head between the slim breasts +of Egyptian Cleopatra while that hard-won world crashed to wrack and +ruin? + +As I say, This was the love of my whelpage, and it was vigorous, +masterful, masculine. There was no sentimentalising, no fond foolishness +of youth; nor was there that cool, calm poise which comes of the +calculation and discretion of age. Man and woman, we were in full tide, +strong, simple, and elemental. Life rioted in our veins; we were +a-bubble with the ferment; and it is out of such abundance that Mother +Nature has always exacted her progeny. From the strictly emotional and +naturalistic viewpoint, I must consider it, even now, the perfect love. +But it was decreed that I should develop into an intellectual animal, +and be something more than a mere unconscious puppet of the reproductive +forces. So head mastered my heart, and I laid the grip of my will over +the passion and went my way. + +And then came another man's wife, a proud-breasted woman, the perfect +mother, made pre-eminently to know the lip clasp of a child. You know +the kind, the type. "The mothers of men," I call them. And so long as +there are such women on this earth, that long may we keep faith in the +breed of men. The wanton was the Mate Woman, but this was the Mother +Woman, the last and highest and holiest in the hierarchy of life. In her +all criteria were satisfied, and I reasoned my need of her. + +And by this I take it that I was passing out of my blind puppetdom. I +was becoming a conscious selective factor in the scheme of reproduction, +choosing a mate, not in the lust of my eyes, but in the desire of my +fatherhood. Oh, Dane, she was glorious, but she was another man's wife. +Had I been living unartificially, in a state of nature, I would +certainly have brained her husband (a really splendid fellow), and +dragged her off with me shameless under the sky. Or had her husband not +been a man, or had he been but half a man, I doubt not that I would have +wrested her from him. As it was, I yearned dumbly and observed the +conventions. + +Nor are these experiences heart soils and smirches. They have educated +me, fitted me for that which is yet to be. And I have written of them to +show you that I am no closet naturalist, that I speak authoritatively +out of adequate understanding. Since the end of love, when all is said +and done, is progeny; and since the love of to-day is crude and +wasteful; as an inventor and artificer I take it upon myself to +substitute reasoned foresight and selection for the short-sighted and +blundering selection of Mother Nature. What would you? The old dame +would have made a mess of it had I let her have her way. She tried hard +to mate me with the wanton, for it was not her method to look into the +future to see if a better mother for my progeny awaited me. + +And now comes Hester. I approach her, not with the milk-and-water +ardours of first youth, nor with the lusty love madness of young +manhood, but as an intellectual man, seeking for self and mate the ripe +and rounded manhood and womanhood which comes only through the having of +children--children which must be properly born and bred. In this way, +and in this way only, can we fully express ourselves and the life that +is in us. We shall utter ourselves in the finest speech in the world, +and, our children being properly born and bred, it shall be in the +finest terms of the finest speech in the world. To do this is to have +lived. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XXIX + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +August 26, 19--. + +You insist that the question is not on the value of love but on the +significance of the artificial. Be that as it may. To me love is +integral with life, and to speak of civilising it away, seems, in point +of fact, as preposterous and as anomalous as a Hamletless play of +Hamlet. You forget that in developing you carry yourself along; you +change, yet you remain racial and natural. Else there were too many +missing links in all your departments. We read Homer to-day--telling +proof that the chain of sympathy stretches unbroken through epochs of +inventions and discoveries and revolutions. Truism that it is, it +presents itself with particular force at this stage. + +With how much force? We stand in danger of exaggerating these vociferous +thoughts. This question of naturalness as opposed to artificiality is +not immediately pertinent to our problem, nor is the matter of optimism +and pessimism, nor the biologic idea of survival. We should have looked +more to the way of love in the lives of men and women and become +historians of the method and conduct of the force. There would have been +less confusion. So I write, "Be that as it may," and go back to more +immediate considerations. And yet we were not far wrong! The little +flower in the crannied wall could tell what God and man is. This is of +all thoughts the most charged with truth. Let me understand one of your +conclusions, root and all, and all in all, and such is the gracious plan +of oneness in the branching and leafage and uptowering, that I must know +and name the tree. Your winding bypath, could I but follow it to the +end, must bring me to the highway of your thought, every step tell-tale +of the journey's destination. But soon I shall be with you (the fifth +of next month, after all; the arrangements as planned). Then we will +begin to know each other, and we will no longer be tormented by the +irksomeness of writing. Therefore, until easier and more fluent times, +to the heart of the subject straight. + +Your love-affairs--how well you have outgrown them and how ably you +criticise them! They have not withstood the test of time, for you bear +them no loyalty. Calfdom and whelpage, vagaries of adolescence, you call +them. You do not show them much respect! For this reason your examples +lose what weight they might have borne. They belong so wholly to the +past, they are mere wraiths of bygone stirrings, they cannot clothe you +with knowledge of love. Cold now, what boots it that you have been +afire? You cannot be taught by what is utterly over. + +You are catching what I aim to say, I hope, for I aim to say much. Put +it that instead of a girl whom you idealised, it was a principle--some +scheme of reform which you honoured with all the passion of young hope +and dream, and which knit your alert being into a Laocoon of striving. +Your maturer eyes see this ideal impossible and narrow. In no wise can +it satisfy your bolder reach and larger sympathy. But you do not laugh +at what has been. If you strove for it sincerely at any time, no matter +how remote, you could never again deride it. Because once you loved it +you are eternal keeper of the key to its good. What has been wholly +yours you never quite desert. Nothing has remained to you of your +love-affairs, therefore your recital of them is empty of meaning. If you +were in love to-day, and because of your philosophy you determined to do +battle with your feeling, your experience would be more authoritative. + +You have known love, and having known you refuse it. Henceforth, it must +be reason and not feeling. "What is your objection?" you ask. This +merely, that the thing cannot be. Marriage to be marriage must come +through love, through the reddest romance of love, through fire of the +spirit, yes, even through the love of calfdom and whelpage. Else it is a +mockery. Where is the woman of character who would sell the be-all and +end-all of her existence for a neat catalogue of possible advantages? +Where is the man who would frankly and without embellishment dare make +such proposal? You point to yourself. But you have never explained +yourself to Hester, and even to me you are embellishing the matter with +all the might in your persuasive pen. + +The ardours of calfdom and whelpage that you smile at I would have you +throb with. You underrate the firstlings of the heart, the rose and +white blossoming, the call upon the senses and the readiness to respond +and to fulfil, to give and to take, to be and make happy--the great +pride and utter abandon which is young love. At fifteen, fortunately for +the development of mind and character, hope is placed where hope must +pine. Love, then, is doomed to be tragic. The youth "attains to be +denied." But he sounds his depth. Thereafter, he knows what to expect of +himself. He has a precedent. After this he will count it a sin to +forget, and to accept the solace of mediocrity. In this lies the value +of the tragedy. + +I sometimes think that whatever is youngest is best. It is the young +that, timid and bold, pay greatest reverence to knowledge, receiving +without chill of prejudice and shameful cowardice of quibbling the brave +new thought. Wisdom may be of age, but passion for scholarships, +trail-breaking, and hardy prospecting in the treasure mines of research, +is of young pioneerhood alone. It is a youth who dares be radical, who +dares, in splendid largess, build mistake upon mistake, bleeding his +life out in service. And it is a youth, standing tiptoe upon the earth, +now waiting in unperturbed ease, now searching with unbridled zeal, who +is lover and mystic. "The best is yet to be," says Rabbi Ben Ezra, "the +last of life, for which the first is made." Yes, the last of life will +be good, but only if it is like youth, beating with its pulse and +instinct with its spirit. + +The unhappy youth is left on the battle-field but not to die. The +sword-thrusts challenge him to put forth greater strength in fiercer +wars. He learns hard and well. + +Indeed, I cannot leave this subject of first love. How do you know it +was not good for you to love as you did? It is strange you should +resolve to love no more because at one time you loved deeply enough +almost to remain in love. It cannot be that you have grown old and that +nature is resolving for you. You tell me of your experiences in order +that I may be convinced that you know whereof you speak and I listen in +wonder. Your conclusions are unwonted. + +Then something was amiss, for you have outgrown and forgotten, but how +is it with you in the present when your indifference waits not upon +time? You approach your future wife clothed in indifference as in mail, +and you do violence. How can I show you? I speak as I would to a child +to whom it is necessary to explain that it is bad to abandon an +education. Life is a school, and to me it seems that you are about to +resign long before diploma and degree, so I interpose. I was taught by +first love, and I honour that time beyond any other. I was Ellen's. I +have been lonely. For the mere human need, for the sake of that which to +the lonely is very dear, I have thought of marriage, but I remembered +and I refused to do violence to myself remembering. Long ago my standard +was established. I learned how deeply I could feel, and I refuse to +acknowledge myself bankrupt, I refuse to approach an honourable human +being with less than my all. Until my soul flower out again, until suns +flame about my head as in that dear yoretime, I shall keep teeming with +dreams and make no affront. I who have seen love, dare not live without +love. + +I would not give in to fate, Herbert. I would assert my manhood. I would +abide in the strength of the first output, going with the flush of the +first glow into the gloom. I would spurn the calm of compromise and +mediocrity and register a high claim. I would keep the peace with +Romance and fly her colours to the last. You have lived? It is well, and +it might have been better, but do not give over and talk of +stirpiculture. You are not wiser than the laws which made you. + +DANE. + + + + +XXX + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +September 18, 19--. + +How abominable I must seem to you, Dane! For certainly a creature is +abominable that lays rough hands on one's dearest possessions. I doubt +if even you realise how deeply you are stirred by my conduct towards +love. My marriage with Hester, considering the quality and degree of the +contracting parties, must appear as terrible to you as the sodomies that +caused God's ancient wrath to destroy cities. You see, I take your side +for the time, see with your eyes, live your thoughts, suffer what you +suffer; and then I become myself again and steel myself to continue in +what I think is the right. + +After all, mine is the harder part. There are easier tasks than those of +the illusion-shatterer. That which is established is hard to overthrow. +It has the nine points of possession, and woe to him who attempts its +disestablishment; for it will persist till it be drowned and washed away +in the blood of the reformers and radicals. + +Love is a convention. Men and women are attached to it as they are +attached to material things, as a king is attached to his crown or an +old family to its ancestral home. We have all been led to believe that +love is splendid and wonderful, and the greatest thing in the world, and +it pains us to part with it. Faith, we will not part with it. The man +who would bid us put it by is a knave and a fool, a vile, degraded +wretch, who will receive pardon neither in this world nor the next. + +This is nothing new. It is the attitude of the established whenever its +conventions are attacked. It was the attitude of the Jew toward Christ, +of the Roman toward the Christian, of the Christian toward the infidel +and the heretic. And it is sincere and natural. All things desire to +endure, and they die hard. Love will die hard, as died the idolatries +of our forefathers, the geocentric theory of the universe, and the +divine right of kings. + +So, I say, the rancour and warmth of the established when attacked is +sincere. The world is mastered by the convention of love, and when one +profanes love's Holy of Holies the world is unutterably shocked and +hurt. Love is a thing for lovers only. It must not be approached by the +sacrilegious scientist. Let him keep to his physics and chemistry, +things definite and solid and gross. Love is for ardent speculation, not +laboratory analysis. Love is (as the reverend prior and the learned +bodies told brother Lippo of man's soul):-- + + + "--a fire, smoke ... no, it's not ... + It's vapour done up like a new-born babe-- + (In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) + It's ... well, what matters talking, it's the soul!" + + +I thoroughly understand the popular sentimental repugnance to a +scientific discussion of love. Because I dissect love, and weigh and +calculate, it is denied that I am capable of experiencing love. It is +too radiant and glorious a thing for a dull clod like me to know. And +because I cannot experience love and be made mad by it, my fitness to +describe its phenomena is likewise denied. Only the lover may describe +love. And only the lunatic, I suppose, may compose a medical brochure on +insanity. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XXXI + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +October 7, 19--. + +It is true that you have a hard task before you, but it is not because +you are fighting convention and shattering illusion; it is because you +are assailing a good. Love has never acquired the prestige of the +established, and the run of marriages are prompted by advantage, +routine, or passion. So you are no innovator, Herbert. The idolatry of +love will not be overthrown by a drawn battle between those of the Faith +and those of the Reformation. Nothing so spectacular awaits us. + +I have a friend who has undertaken to translate "Inferno" into English, +keeping to the _terza rima_. "It is like climbing the Matterhorn," he +says gravely. "I get to places where I feel I can go neither forward nor +back. The task is prodigious." And it is. But whom will it concern if +he succeeds in going forward? There are few who will read his book. The +translation is of more importance to the translator than to anyone else. +Yet the professor's _magnum opus_ confers a degree upon us all. Because +a standard is upheld and a man is willing and able to climb a Matterhorn +of thought, we can ourselves stride forward with better courage. The +work will be an output of heroism, and it will ennoble even those who +will not know of it. + +I have another friend who ruined his life for love, so says the world +that you think steeped in the idolatry of love. A priest, who by a few +strokes was able to quell in America a strong and bitter movement, a +gifted orator, a man of giant powers, and who was won away at the age of +forty from his career by a mere girl. The girl planned nothing. She +found herself a force in his life almost despite herself. The mere fact +that she lived was enough to wrest this Titan from the arms of the +Church. He told me that she criticised him with the directness of a +simple nature, and that he came to understand her truths better than she +herself. I think she must have loved him at first, but she did not go +to him when all grew calm. I wish it could have been otherwise, and that +she could have brought him a woman's heart. + +The priest, as the professor, is a hero. Both made great outputs. + +There are few who can live like these. But because there are a few who +can love and work, the game is saved. And because there are a few of +these, we must ever quarrel with the many who are not like them. + + + "Give all to love; + Obey thy heart; + Friends, kindred, days, + Estate, good fame, + Plans, credit, and the Muse,-- + Nothing refuse." + + +Does this really seem such poor philosophy to you? And when, Herbert, +will you marry? + +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXXII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +November 20, 19--. + +Hester met me at the station, and we walked through the Arboretum to her +home on the campus. Then followed an evening together in the dormitory +parlour. I have just left her. Her face was tumultuously joyous when I +murmured my "At last!" Her tearful excitement was like Barbara's. You +did not tell me she is so young. You must have made her feel our +closeness, or she may have found a bit of my verse that all expressed +her, and presto, the whole-hearted one is my friend. Her poet is now her +father, brother, comrade,--what she chooses, and all she chooses. + +At one time, before we were well out of the Arboretum, our eyes met, and +there was something so sad and mild and strange in the burn of her gaze +that I felt her frank spirit was unveiling itself in an utterness of +speech. But I have become too much spoilt by mere length of living to be +able to remember back and recognise what young eyes mean when they look +like that. From London to Palo Alto is a short trip, if at the end of it +you meet a Hester. Yet I am sad. The mood crept on me the moment we grew +aware that evening had come, and we stopped a little in front of the +arch to observe the night-look of the foot-hills. Lights had begun to +appear in the corridors of the quadrangle, and here and there in a +professor's office, while Roble and Encina looked like lit-up ferries. +There was a spell of mystery and promise in the quiet which was deeper +for being suggestive of the seething student-life just subsided. It was +a silence that seemed to echo with bells and recitations, and babble and +laughter and heartache. I fell into thought. One generation cometh and +another passeth away. There is no respite. March with time and find +death, mayhap, before it has found you. As years ago the flamelet of the +street-lamp, so now these outposts of the colossal embryo of a world +derided me and seemed to point me out and away. The evening grew chill +with "a greeting in which no kindness is." + +"Your coming has been announced in every class, and your lecture is on +the bulletin-boards. After that, can you be depressed?" + +The light words were spoken low, as if doubtful whether they could be +taken in good part, and they came with something that was like music. +Was it the voice or some inexplicable feeling? I turned in wonder. Her +head was raised, and in the indistinctness I caught that sweet look of +hers which besought me, and which I answered without knowing to what +question. + +I owe you a great happiness. Good-night. + +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXXIII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +Wednesday. + +Last night I delivered my address to the student body. Behold the chapel +crowded to the doors, aisles and window-seats crammed, and faces peering +in from without, those of boys and girls who had perched themselves on +the outer sills. A student audience is at the same time most critical +and the most generous. I spoke on Literature and Democracy. + +Hester approved my effort. "How does it feel to be great?" she laughed. +"How does it feel to be cruel?" I retorted. "But think, Mr. Kempton, +when you visited the English classes you were just so much text for us. +It should count us a unit merely to have seen you." + +A memory stood up and had its revenge on me. It taunted me for the +half-expressed thought, for the fled insight, for the swelling note that +midmost broke. Praise the artist, and he feels himself betrayer. +Blear-eyed, the poet recalls the poem's sunrise, straightens himself +with the old pride, is held again by the splendour which forecasts the +about-to-be-steadier glory of day, and even with the recalling he +shrinks together before what he knows was a false dawn. There was never +a day. The song's note never sang itself at all. + +Hester looked up with that wistfulness which so draws me. Her look said: +"I pity you. I wish you were as happy as I." And a thought leaped out in +answer to her look which would have smote her had it spoken. It was, +"You, too, are awakened by a false dawning." Why is she so sure of +herself and of you? Is she sure? The puny bit of writing had a vigorous +rising. The ragged author was clad in it as in ermine. So the seeming +love makes a strong call, for a while holding the girl intent upon a +splendour of unfolding, her nature roused, her being expectant. But +later, for poet and lover, the failure and the waste! Were it otherwise +with your feeling for your betrothed, the comparison would not hold. + +Hester does not think these things, and she is beautiful and happy. + +Yours devotedly, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXXIV + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +Saturday. + +Her happiness wrung it from me. Before I could intervene, the question +asked itself, "How will it be with you in after years?" + +Straight the answer came, "There will be Herbert." + +Hester is proud. To-night I saw it in the lift of her chin, in the set +of her neck, in the brilliance of her cheek. She knows herself endowed. +So when she prattled with abandon of all you both meant to be and do, +her form erect before me, her hands eloquent with excitement, her voice +pleading for the right to her very conscious self-esteem, I asked her to +look still further. Further she saw you, and was content. + +That was before dinner. Later we were walking. "I have a friend in +Orion," she said. The witchery of starshine played in her eyes and +about her mouth. Where were you, Herbert? This night will never return. +Yet what has been was for you--the more, perhaps, that you seemed away. +So it is with lovers. She thinks you love her. + +"I am sorry for your mood," she said. "You are holding yourself to +account these days in a way I know." Then she spoke, and I learned with +new heaviness of spirit that she does know the way of it. You never +thought Hester had much to struggle with? + +"I am difficult," she said. And again, "There are times when no power +can hold me." Then she quoted Browning:-- + + + "Already how am I so far + Out of that minute? Must I go + Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, + Onward, whenever light winds blow, + Fixed by no friendly star?" + + +"Are you unhappy, Hester?" I asked. + +"Yes, but with no more reason than you for your unhappiness. Since you +have come here, you have renewed your demands upon yourself. You wish to +go to school with the youngest and find you cannot. You suffer because +more seems behind you than before." Her voice rose as if she were +fighting tears. It was different with her, I told her. Nothing was +behind her. + +"You test your work and I test my love. When you are sad, it is because +the soul of the song spent itself to gain body--" She did not finish. +Why is she sad? Because the soul of her love is narrower than she hoped? + +On our return from our walk she sank on the seat under the '95 oak. "Did +you think I meant I was always unhappy?" she asked. Her words seem +always to say more than her meaning. She imparts something of her own +elaborateness to them. I laughed. + +"How could I with the 'Herbert is' in my ears?" Then her love became +voluble. I forgot what I knew of your theories and grew aflame with her +ardour. I anticipated as largely as she. She was again possessed by her +hopes. + +There, under the shadow of the quadrangle which her young strides +measured, she spoke of what, with you in her life, the years must be. +Beyond words you are blessed, Herbert. But if she mistakes? + +D.K. + + + + +XXXV + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +November 27, 19--. + +Be outspoken! What will happen I can only surmise, but you must tell her +what she is to you. Set her right. + +This is the fourth letter in seven days about Hester. I am endeavouring +to make you acquainted with her. I had no need if you loved her. How she +loves you! Yet she thinks that your calm is depth, your silence prayer. +Her pride protects her, but she strains for the word which does not +come. She has never been quite sure, and I thank God for that. Hester +has been fearing somewhat, and she has been doubting, and it is this +that may save her when the night sets in and the storm breaks over her +head. + +You, too, are thankful that her instincts served her true and that she +never quite accepted the gift that seemed to have been proffered? + +You have a right to demand the reason for my renewed attack. It is +because I have learned the strength of her love. "You are blessed beyond +words," I said two days ago, but as you reject the blessing, Hester must +know it and you must tell her. Herbert, I am your friend. + +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXXVI + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +November 29, 19--. + +What a flutter of letters! And what a fluttery Dane Kempton it is! The +wine of our western sunshine has bitten into your blood and you are +grown over-warm. I am glad that you and Hester have found each other so +quickly and intimately; glad that you are under her charm, as I know her +to be under yours; but I am not glad when you spell yourself into her +and write out your heart's forebodings on her heart. For you are +strangely morbid, and you are certainly guilty of reading your own +doubts and fears into her unspoken and unguessed thoughts. + +Believe me, rather than the soul of her love seeming narrower than she +hopes, the truth is she gives her love little thought at all. She is +too busy--and too sensible. Like me, she has not the time. We are +workers, not dreamers; and the minutes are too full for us to lavish +them on an eternal weighing and measuring of heart throbs. + +Besides, Hester is too large for that sort of stuff. She is the last +woman in the world to peer down at the scales to see if she is getting +full value. We leave that to the lesser creatures, who spend their +courtship loudly protesting how unutterable, immeasurable, and +inextinguishable is their love, as though, forsooth, each dreaded lest +the other deem it a bad bargain. We do not bargain and chaffer over our +feelings, Hester and I. Surely you mistake, and stir storms in teacups. + +"Be outspoken," you say. If my conscience were not clear, I should be +troubled by that. As it is, what have I hidden? What sharp business have +I driven? And who is it that cried "cheated!"? Be outspoken--about what, +pray? + +You bid me tell her what she is to me. Which is to bid me tell her what +she already knows, to tell her that she is the Mother Woman; that of all +women she is dearest to me; that of all the walks of life, that one is +pleasantest wherein I may walk with her; that with her I shall find the +supreme expression of myself and the life that is in me; that in all +this I honour her in the finest, loftiest fashion that man can honour +woman. Tell her this, Dane. By all means tell her. + +"Ah, I do not mean that," I hear you say. Well, let me tell you what you +mean, in my own way, and bid you tell her for me. In the lust of my eyes +she is nothing to me. She is not a mere sense delight, a toy for the +debauchery of my intellect and the enthronement of emotion. She is not +the woman to make my pulse go fevered and me go mad. Nor is she the +woman to make me forget my manhood and pride, to tumble me down +doddering at her feet and gibbering like an ape. She is not the woman to +put my thoughts out of joint and the world out of gear, and so to +befuddle and make me drunk with the beast that is in me, that I am ready +to sacrifice truth, honesty, duty, and purpose for the sake of +possession. She is not the woman ever to make me swamp honour and poise +and right conduct in the vortex of blind sex passion. She is not the +woman to arouse in me such uncontrolled desire that for gratification I +would do one ill deed, or put the slightest hurt upon the least of +human creatures. She is not the most beautiful woman God Almighty ever +planted on His footstool. (There have been and are many women as true +and pure and noble). She is not the woman for whose bedazzlement I must +advertise the value of my goods by sweating sonnets to her, or shivering +serenades at her, or perpetuating follies for her. In short, she is not +anything to me that the woman of conventional love is to the man. + +And again, what _is_ she to me? She is my other self, as it were, my +good comrade, and fellow-worker and joy-sharer. With her woman she +complements my man and makes us one, and this is the highest civilised +sense of union. She is to me the culmination of the thousands of +generations of women. It took civilisation to make her, as it takes +civilisation to make our marriage. She is to me the partner in a +marriage of the gods, for we become gods, we half brutes, when we muzzle +the beast and are not menaced by his growls. Under heaven she is my wife +and the mother of my children. + +Tell her, then, tell her all you wish, you dear old fluttery, mothery +poet father--as though it made any difference. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XXXVII + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +December 3, 19--. + +Not three weeks ago you were sitting opposite me and speaking of Hester. +You admitted many things that night, amongst them that the girl never +carried you off your feet. You stated over again with precision all you +had written. You betrothed yourself, not because Hester is different +from everybody else in the world, but because she is like. You took her +for what is typical in her, not for what is individual. You preferred to +walk toward her before your steps were impelled, because you feared that +impulsion would preclude rational choice. With the hope of out-tricking +nature, you reached for Hester Stebbins, in order that there might be a +wall between your heart's fancy and yourself, should your heart become +rebellious. I was to understand that this is the new school, that so +live the masters of matter and of self. + +And as you spoke, I wondered about the woman Hester and the form of +love-making which existed between you, and whether she was simple and +without any charm despite her culture and her gift of song. "She either +loves him too well to know or to have the strength to care, or she is, +like him, of the new school," I thought. I sat and watched you, noting +your youth, surprised by the scorn in your eyes and the sadness on your +lips. You seemed hopeless and helpless. I closed my eyes. "What has he +left himself?" I kept asking. "How will he tread 'The paths gray heads +abhor?'" My own head bowed itself as before an irreparable loss. I had +rejoined the child of my care only to find him blasted as by grief, the +first sunshine smitten from his face and his heart weighted. One word, +one ray lighting your looks in a wonted way, one uncontrolled movement +of the hand, one little silence following the mention of her, would have +led me to believe that I had not understood and that all was well. The +night grew old with your plans and analyses. We parted with a sense of +shame upon us that we should have written and spoken so long and with +such heat, and to such little purpose. + +You do not see how this answers your last letter. I will tell you. It +shows you that you have explained yourself fully the night we spoke face +to face. + +You say that Hester is the woman to complement your man. This sounds +like a lover, only I happen to know that she is not the irresistible +woman. I found it out quite by accident--a few words dropped into a +letter, a corroboration of the fact and further committal, a protracted +defence of your position, running through a correspondence of over a +year, and, finally, a face-to-face declaration. What boots it now that +you write prettily? You do not love Hester. You want her to mother your +children, and you install her in your life for the purpose before the +need. + +Love is not lust, and it is good. The irresistible marriage, alone, is +the right one. Upon it, alone, does the sacrament rest. The chivalry of +your last letter refers less to the girl than to your own ends. It is +not because Hester is what she is, that "of all the walks in life that +one is pleasantest wherein you may walk with her," but because that walk +is the one you choose beyond any other for your wife to follow. The +mother woman is legion, and you refuse to specialise. + +Hester does not peer down at the scales to see if she is getting full +value, yet she does look to her dignity, and, being poor, will not +account herself rich. Hester has felt since you made known to her that +you wished her to be yours, that she counted punily in your scheme, that +you placed little of yourself in charge of her. She loved you and avowed +it, but she has never been happy. The tragedy of love is not (what it is +thought to be) the unreciprocated love, but the meagerly returned love. +It is better to be rejected, equal turned from equal, than to be held +with slim desire for slight purpose. Can you see this, Herbert? You are +hurting the girl's life. She will ask for what you withhold, though not +a word rise to her lips; will thirst for it through the years, will +herself grow cramped with your denial till her own love seem a thing of +dream, unstable and vague and illusive. And all the time you are gentle. +You are devoted to her interests, furthering her happiness to the best +in your power; but your power cannot touch her happiness. It is not what +you do; it is the motive to your acts, and Hester would know that she +has left you unmoved. You respect the function of motherhood, but you do +not love Hester. Tell her this, and prevent her from entering a union in +which she must feel herself half useful, half wifely, half happy, and +therefore all unhappy. + +It is not Hester's fault that you cannot love her, and perhaps it is not +her misfortune. There is no need for panic. Of two persons, one loving +and one loath, the indifferent one is in the right. Can a tree defend +itself from the hewer's axe? What would avail it, then, to feel pain at +the blows? It is beyond our control to love or not to love, and no +effort that we may put forth can draw love to us when it is denied. It +does not avail us to suffer from unrequited love. + +This which I have just said is an article of faith which the doctrine of +experience often contradicts, for there may be mistake, and the one who +does not love may be in the wrong. If only you could wait to see the +beauty which is she before you call her! A year later and Hester may +flower for you in a passionate blossoming; her face may challenge you to +live. A year later and you may find that she is indeed the woman to +guide you and to follow you; her voice a song; her eyes a light in the +day. As yet, you have not gauged her, and you would put her to small +uses. Stand aside, dear Herbert. It will be better. + +I have played a surly part. I may be accused of having been to you both +a Dmitri Roudin and an Iago. I beg you to believe that it has not been +easy for me. I have uttered the earnest word, have driven you on by the +goad of friendship, which drives far. I looked upon the days that came +tripping toward you out of the blue-white horizon of time and saw them +gray for a dear woman, gray and silent as the tomb over a dead love, and +heavy hearted for a man who is my son. + +Ever wholly yours, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXXVIII + +FROM HESTER STEBBINS TO HERBERT WACE + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +December 15, 19--. + +Over and ended. It shall be as I said last night. Herbert, there is no +call for anger; believe me, there is not. I am doing what I cannot help +doing. You have not changed, but my faith in you has, and I cannot +pretend to a happiness I do not feel. + +Oh, but I laugh, my very dear one, I laugh that I could seem to choose +to wrest myself from you. Did you at one time love me? That morning of +wild sunshine when you took my hand and asked me to be your wife seems +very long ago. I should have understood--the blame is all mine--I should +have known you did not love me, I should have been filled with anger and +shame instead of happiness. The blame is all mine. + +Last night, while you were speaking, I was standing in the window +wondering what all the trouble was about. I could afford to be calm +since I knew I was not hurting you very deeply. At most I was +disappointing a very self-sufficient man. How do women find courage, O +God, to take from men who love them the love they gave? No such ordeal +mine? + +Farewell, Herbert. Let us think calmly of each other since we have +helped each other for so long a stretch of life. Farewell, dear. + +Always your friend, +HESTER STEBBINS. + + + + +XXXIX + +FROM HESTER STEBBINS TO DANE KEMPTON + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +December 18, 19--. + +Herbert has analyzed the situation and has arrived at the conclusion +that my dissatisfaction arises in an inordinate desire for happiness. +You should not care so much about yourself, he says. Poor, dear, young +Herbert! He is very young and cannot as yet conceive how much there is +about oneself that demands care. I thought it out in the hills to-day. +It was gray and there was a fitful wind. What is this selfishness but a +prompting to make much of life? You and I and people of our kind are old +before our time, that is the reason we are not reckless. Our dreams +mature us. I was a mere girl when Herbert said he wished to marry me, +but I was old enough to grasp the full meaning of the pact, as he could +not grasp it. In a moment I had travelled my way to the grave and back. +I looked at the sheer, quick clouds that flitted past the blue, and I +felt that I had caught up with life; I had overtaken the wonders that +hung in the sky of my dreaming. Then I looked at him and the sunshine +got in my face and made me laugh (or cry)--I was so more than happy, +being so much too sure of his need of me. I am glad I walked to-day. The +view from the hills was beautiful. (You see I am not unhappy!) I stood +on a rock and looked about me, thinking of you, of Barbara,--I feel I +know her,--and of Herbert. He and I had often come to these spots. Oh, +the hungry memories! Yet what were we but a young man and a young woman, +who, without being battered into apathy by misfortune, without being +wearied or ill, were taking each other for better or for worse because +they seemed compatible? We were doing just that, to Herbert's certain +knowledge! I failed him; he hoped for more complaisance. Marriage is a +hazard, Mr. Kempton, confess it is, and a man does much when he binds +himself to make a woman the mother of his children--nay, the grandmother +of theirs, even that. What else and what more? I would never have been +wholly in my husband's life, comrade and fellow to it. Herbert knew this +clearly, and I vaguely but I acted with clearness on my vagueness. It +was hard to do. It has left me breathless and a little afraid to be +myself,--as if I had killed a dear thing,--and tearful, too, and +spasmodic for your sympathy and sanction. + +I told him that for a long time I did not understand, supposing myself +beloved and desired and chosen for him by God, thinking he yearned for +the subtlety and mystery of me, thinking all of him needed me and +cleaved earths and parted seas to come to me. Later, when I became +oppressed by a lack and was made to hear the stillness that followed my +unechoed words, I became grave and still myself. He had unloved me, I +said, and I waited. Something seemed pending, and meanwhile I could +love! I made much of every word of comfort that he dropped me, and dwelt +with hope on the future. All this I told Herbert the night when I +explained, and he turned pale. "You people fly away with yourselves. I +cannot follow you. What is wrong, Hester?" He smiled in his distress. +Yet was there in his softness an imperiousness, commanding me to be +other than I am, forbidding me the right to crave in secret what I had +made bold to ask for openly. His man was stronger than my woman, and I +leapt to him again. "My husband," I whispered, my hands in his. This, +even after I understood, dearest Mr. Kempton. + +It is a sorry tangle. If only one could suit feeling to theory! It is +not for a theory that I refuse to be Herbert's wife. Yet if I loved him +enough, I could give up love itself for him. He hinted it, looking as +from a distance at me in my attitude of protest and restraint. If I +loved him enough, I could forego love itself for him. Somewhere there is +a fault, it would seem, somewhere in my abandon is restraint, in my +love, self-seeking. Remorse overcame me just as he was about to leave, +and I schooled myself to think that there had been no affront, that it +honours a woman to be wanted no matter for what end, that every use is a +noble use, that we die the same, loved or used. If Herbert Wace wants a +wife and thinks me fitting, why, it is well. I thought all this and aged +as I thought. Nevertheless, my hand did not put itself out a second time +to detain the man who had forced me to face this. + +There is a youth here who loves me. If Herbert's face could shine like +his for one hour, I believe I would be happier than I have ever been. +And it would not spoil that happiness if this love were toward another +than myself. Say you believe me. You must know it of me that before +everything else in the world I pray that knowledge of love come to the +man over whom the love of my girlhood was spilled. + +Do you ask what is left me, dear friend? Work and tears and the intact +dream. Believe me, I am not pitiable. + +HESTER. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Kempton-Wace Letters, by +Jack London and Anna Strunsky + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS *** + +***** This file should be named 31422-8.txt or 31422-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/4/2/31422/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/31422-8.zip b/31422-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f22dcf --- /dev/null +++ b/31422-8.zip diff --git a/31422-h.zip b/31422-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f1898f --- /dev/null +++ b/31422-h.zip diff --git a/31422-h/31422-h.htm b/31422-h/31422-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60de8f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/31422-h/31422-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5365 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Kempton-Wace Letters, by Jack London and Anna Strunsky. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + hr.smler { width: 10%; } + hr.full { width: 100%; } + + table { width: 40em; border: none; } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0px; + } /* page numbers */ + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .block {margin: auto; text-align: center; width: 40em; border: solid 1px black;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .left {text-align: left;} + .tbrk {margin-bottom: 2em;} + .bold {font-weight: bold;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem div {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem div.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Kempton-Wace Letters, by +Jack London and Anna Strunsky + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Kempton-Wace Letters + +Author: Jack London + Anna Strunsky + +Release Date: February 27, 2010 [EBook #31422] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr /> + +<h1>THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS</h1> + +<hr /> + +<div class="block"> + +<h2>JACK LONDON'S BOOKS</h2> + +<p>"<i>He opened windows for them upon the splendour and the savagery, the +pomp and the pitifulness that he had found in many corners of the earth. +He saw that in every scene, in every human activity there was an element +which lifted it into the region of the beautiful, and he made all his +readers see it, whether he was learned or ignorant; cultivated or only +just able to read. Full justice has never been done to him. There was no +silver in his purse, only gold.</i>"—<span class="bold">Hamilton Fyfe in "The Daily Mail."</span></p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<table class="tbrk" summary="book list"> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Valley of the Moon</td> + <td class="right">7s. 6d. net and 4s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Jerry of the Islands</td> + <td class="right">7s. 6d. net and 2s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Michael, Brother of Jerry</td> + <td class="right">7s. 6d. net and 2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Hearts of Three</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 2s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Island Tales</td> + <td class="right">7s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Red One</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Acorn-Planter</td> + <td class="right">3s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Little Lady of the Big House</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 2s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><a href="#star">*</a>The Mutiny of the Elsinore</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Strength of the Strong</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Night-Born</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><a href="#star">*</a>A Daughter of the Snows</td> + <td class="right">7s. 6d. net and 2s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Lost Face</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">South Sea Tales</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">When God Laughs</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><a href="#star">*</a>Smoke Bellew</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Kempton-Wace Letters</td> + <td class="right">2s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Smoke and Shorty</td> + <td class="right">6s. and 2s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Cruise of the Snark</td> + <td class="right">2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Cruise of the Dazzler</td> + <td class="right">1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Turtles of Tasman</td> + <td class="right">1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Before Adam</td> + <td class="right">1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Scarlet Plague</td> + <td class="right">1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The God of His Fathers</td> + <td class="right">1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Adventure</td> + <td class="right">2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The House of Pride</td> + <td class="right">1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Love of Life</td> + <td class="right">1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">A Son of the Sun</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">An Odyssey of the North</td> + <td class="right">1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Children of the Frost</td> + <td class="right">1s. 6d. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><a href="#star">*</a>John Barleycorn</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"><a href="#star">*</a>The Jacket</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Revolution</td> + <td class="right">2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">War of the Classes</td> + <td class="right">2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Human Drift</td> + <td class="right">6s. net and 2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Iron Heel</td> + <td class="right">2s. net</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">The Road</td> + <td class="right">2s. net</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class="center"><a name="star" id="star">*</a> Films have been founded on these novels</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3>MILLS & BOON, Ltd., 49 Rupert St., London, W.1.</h3> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h1>THE KEMPTON-WACE</h1> + +<h1>LETTERS</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>JACK LONDON<br />AND<br />ANNA STRUNSKY</h2> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">"<i>And of naught else than Love would we<br /> +discourse.</i>"—<span class="smcap">Dante</span>, Sonnet II.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>MILLS & BOON, LIMITED<br />49 RUPERT STREET<br />LONDON, W.1</h3> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"><i>Copyright in the United States of America, 1903, by the Macmillan<br /> +Company Printed in Great Britain by Love & Malcomson Ltd.<br />London and Redhill.</i></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h1>KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS</h1> + +<h2>I</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">3 a Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.</span><br /> +August 14, 19—. </p> + +<p>Yesterday I wrote formally, rising to the occasion like the conventional +happy father rather than the man who believes in the miracle and lives +for it. Yesterday I stinted myself. I took you in my arms, glad of what +is and stately with respect for the fulness of your manhood. It is +to-day that I let myself leap into yours in a passion of joy. I dwell on +what has come to pass and inflate myself with pride in your fulfilment, +more as a mother would, I think, and she your mother.</p> + +<p>But why did you not write before? After all, the great event was not +when you found your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> offer of marriage accepted, but when you found you +had fallen in love. Then was your hour. Then was the time for +congratulation, when the call was first sounded and the reveille of Time +and About fell upon your soul and the march to another's destiny was +begun. It is always more important to love than to be loved. I wish it +had been vouchsafed me to be by when your spirit of a sudden grew +willing to bestow itself without question or let or hope of return, when +the self broke up and you grew fain to beat out your strength in praise +and service for the woman who was soaring high in the blue wastes. You +have known her long, and you must have been hers long, yet no word of +her and of your love reached me. It was not kind to be silent.</p> + +<p>Barbara spoke yesterday of your fastidiousness, and we told each other +that you had gained a triumph of happiness in your love, for you are not +of those who cheat themselves. You choose rigorously, straining for the +heart of the end as do all rigorists who are also hedonists. Because we +are in possession of this bit of data as to your temperamental cosmos we +can congratulate you with the more abandon. Oh, Herbert, do you know +that this is a rampant spring, and that on leaving Barbara I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> tramped +out of the confines into the green, happier, it almost seems, than I +have ever been? Do you know that because you love a woman and she loves +you, and that because you are swept along by certain forces, that I am +happy and feel myself in sight of my portion of immortality on earth, +far more than because of my books, dear lad, far more?</p> + +<p>I wish I could fly England and get to you. Should I have a shade less of +you than formerly, if we were together now? From your too much green of +wealth, a barrenness of friendship? It does not matter; what is her gain +cannot be my loss. One power is mine,—without hindrance, in freedom and +in right, to say to Ellen's son, "Godspeed!" to place Hester Stebbins's +hand in his, and bid them forth to the sunrise, into the glory of day!</p> + +<p class="right">Ever your devoted father, <br /> +<span class="smcap">Dane Kempton</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<h2>II</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +September 3, 19—. </p> + +<p>Here I am, back in the old quarters once more, with the old afternoon +climb across the campus and up into the sky, up to the old rooms, the +old books, and the old view. You poor fog-begirt Dane Kempton, could you +but have lounged with me on the window couch, an hour past, and watched +the light pass out of the day through the Golden Gate and the night +creep over the Berkeley Hills and down out of the east! Why should you +linger on there in London town! We grow away from each other, it +seems—you with your wonder-singing, I with my joyful science.</p> + +<p>Poesy and economics! Alack! alack! How did I escape you, Dane, when mind +and mood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> you mastered me? The auguries were fair. I, too, should have +been a singer, and lo, I strive for science. All my boyhood was singing, +what of you; and my father was a singer, too, in his own fine way. Dear +to me is your likening of him to Waring.—"What's become of Waring?" He +<i>was</i> Waring. I can think of him only as one who went away, "chose land +travel or seafaring."</p> + +<p>Gwynne says I am sometimes almost a poet—Gwynne, you know, Arthur +Gwynne, who has come to live with me at The Ridge. "If it were not for +your dismal science," he is sure to add; and to fire him I lay it to the +defects of early training. I know he thinks that I never half +appreciated you, and that I do not appreciate you now. If you will +recollect, you praised his verses once. He cherishes that praise amongst +his sweetest treasures. Poor dear good old Gwynne, tender, sensitive, +shrinking, with the face of a seraph and the heart of a maid. Never were +two men more incongruously companioned. I love him for himself. He +tolerates me, I do secretly believe, because of you. He longs to meet +you,—he knew you well through my father,—and we often talk you over. +Be sure at every opportunity I tear off your halo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> and trundle it about. +Trust me, you receive scant courtesy.</p> + +<p>How I wander on. My pen is unruly after the long vacation; my thought +yet wayward, what of the fever of successful wooing. And besides, ... +how shall I say?... such was the gracious warmth of your letter, of both +your letters, that I am at a loss. I feel weak, inadequate. It almost +seems as though you had made a demand upon something that is not in me. +Ah, you poets! It would seem your delight in my marriage were greater +than mine. In my present mood, it is you who are young, you who love; I +who have lived and am old.</p> + +<p>Yes, I am going to be married. At this present moment, I doubt not, a +million men and women are saying the same thing. Hewers of wood and +drawers of water, princes and potentates, shy-shrinking maidens and +brazen-faced hussies, all saying, "I am going to be married." And all +looking forward to it as a crisis in their lives? No. After all, +marriage is the way of the world. Considered biologically, it is an +institution necessary for the perpetuation of the species. Why should it +be a crisis? These million men and women will marry, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> the work of +the world go on just as it did before. Shuffle them about, and the work +of the world would yet go on.</p> + +<p>True, a month ago it did seem a crisis. I wrote you as much. It did seem +a disturbing element in my life-work. One cannot view with equanimity +that which appears to be totally disruptive of one's dear little system +of living. But it only appeared so; I lacked perspective, that was all. +As I look upon it now, everything fits well and all will run smoothly I am sure.</p> + +<p>You know I had two years yet to work for my Doctorate. I still have +them. As you see, I am back to the old quarters, settled down in the old +groove, hammering away at the old grind. Nothing is changed. And besides +my own studies, I have taken up an assistant instructorship in the +Department of Economics. It is an ambitious course, and an important +one. I don't know how they ever came to confide it to me, or how I found +the temerity to attempt it,—which is neither here nor there. It is all +agreed. Hester is a sensible girl.</p> + +<p>The engagement is to be long. I shall continue my career as charted. Two +years from now, when I shall have become a Doctor of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> Social Sciences +(and candidate for numerous other things), I shall also become a +benedict. My marriage and the presumably necessary honeymoon chime in +with the summer vacation. There is no disturbing element even there. Oh, +we are very practical, Hester and I. And we are both strong enough to +lead each our own lives.</p> + +<p>Which reminds me that you have not asked about her. First, let me shock +you—she, too, is a scientist. It was in my undergraduate days that we +met, and ere the half-hour struck we were quarrelling felicitously over +Weismann and the neo-Darwinians. I was at Berkeley at the time, a +cocksure junior; and she, far maturer as a freshman, was at Stanford, +carrying more culture with her into her university than is given the +average student to carry out.</p> + +<p>Next, and here your arms open to her, she is a poet. Pre-eminently she +is a poet—this must be always understood. She is the greater poet, I +take it, in this dawning twentieth century, because she is a scientist; +not in spite of being a scientist as some would hold. How shall I +describe her? Perhaps as a George Eliot, fused with an Elizabeth +Barrett, with a hint of Huxley and a trace of Keats. I may say she is +something like all this, but I must say she is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>something other and +different. There is about her a certain lightsomeness, a glow or flash +almost Latin or oriental, or perhaps Celtic. Yes, that must be +it—Celtic. But the high-stomached Norman is there and the stubborn +Saxon. Her quickness and fine audacity are checked and poised, as it +were, by that certain conservatism which gives stability to purpose and +power to achievement. She is unafraid, and wide-looking and far-looking, +but she is not over-looking. The Saxon grapples with the Celt, and the +Norman forces the twain to do what the one would not dream of doing and +what the other would dream beyond and never do. Do you catch me? Her +most salient charm, is I think, her perfect poise, her exquisite adjustment.</p> + +<p>Altogether she is a most wonderful woman, take my word for it. And after +all she is described vicariously. Though she has published nothing and +is exceeding shy, I shall send you some of her work. There will you find +and know her. She is waiting for stronger voice and sings softly as yet. +But hers will be no minor note, no middle flight. She is—well, she is +Hester. In two years we shall be married. Two years, Dane. Surely you will be with us.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p><p>One thing more; in your letter a certain undertone which I could not +fail to detect. A shade less of me than formerly?—I turn and look into +your face—Waring's handiwork you remember—his painter's fancy of you +in those golden days when I stood on the brink of the world, and you +showed me the delights of the world and the way of my feet therein. So I +turn and look, and look and wonder. <i>A shade less</i> of me, of you? Poesy +and economics! Where lies the blame?</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<h2>III</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +September 30, 19—. </p> + +<p>It is because you know not what you do that I cannot forgive you. Could +you know that your letter with its catalogue of advantages and +arrangements must offend me as much as it belies (let us hope) you and +the woman of your love, I would pardon the affront of it upon us all, +and ascribe the unseemly want of warmth to reserve or to the sadness +which grips the heart when joy is too palpitant. But something warns me +that you are unaware of the chill your words breathe, and that is a +lapse which it is impossible to meet with indulgence.</p> + +<p>"He does not love her," was Barbara's quick decision, and she laid the +open letter down with a definiteness which said that you, too, are laid +out and laid low. Your sister's very wrists can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> be articulate. However, +I laughed at her and she soon joined me. We do not mean to be +extravagant with our fears. Who shall prescribe the letters of lovers to +their sisters and foster-fathers? Yet there are some things their +letters should be incapable of saying, and amongst them that love is not +a crisis and a rebirth, but that it is common as the commonplace, a hit +or miss affair which "shuffling" could not affect.</p> + +<p>Barbara showed me your note to her. "Had I written like this of myself and Earl—"</p> + +<p>"You could not," I objected.</p> + +<p>"Then Herbert should have been as little able to do it," she deduced +with emphasis. Here I might have told her that men and women are races +apart, but no one talks cant to Barbara. So I did not console her, and +it stands against you in our minds that on this critical occasion you +have baffled us with coldness.</p> + +<p>An absence of six years, broken into twice by a brief few months, must +work changes. When Barbara called your letter unnatural, she forgot how +little she knows what is natural to you. She and I have been wont to +predetermine you, your character, foothold, and outlook, by—say by the +fact that you knew your Wordsworth and that you knew him without being +able to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> take for yourself his austere peace. Youth which lives by hope +is riven by unrest.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"I made no vows; vows were made for me,</div> +<div>Bond unknown to me was given</div> +<div class="i1">That I should be, else sinning gently,</div> +<div>A dedicated spirit."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>That pale sunrise seen from Mt. Tamalpais and your voice vibrant to +fierceness on the "else sinning gently"—to me the splendour of rose on +piled-up ridges of mist spoke all for you, so dear have you always been. +It rested on the possible wonder of your life. It threw you into the +scintillant Dawn with an abandon meet to a son of Waring.</p> + +<p>Tell me, do you still read your Wordsworth on your knees? I am bent with +regret for the time when your mind had no surprises for me, when the +days were flushed halcyon with my hope in you. I resent your development +if it is because of it that you speak prosaically of a prosaic marriage +and of a honeymoon simultaneous with the Degree. I think you are too +well pleased with the simultaneousness.</p> + +<p>Yet the fact of the letter is fair. It cannot be that the soul of it is +not. Hester Stebbins is a poet. I lean forward and think it out as I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +did some days ago when the news came. I conjure up the look of love. If +the woman is content (how much more than content the feeling she bounds +with in knowing you hers as she is yours), what better test that all is +well? I conjure up the look of love. It is thus at meeting and thus at +parting. Even here, to-night, when all is chill and hard to understand, +I catch the flash and the warmth, and what I see restores you to me, but +how deep the plummet of my mind needed to sound before it reached you. +It is because you permitted yourself to speak when silence had expressed you better.</p> + +<p>Show me the ideally real Hester Stebbins, the spark of fire which is +she. The storms have not broken over her head. She will laugh and make +poetry of her laughter. If before she met you she wept, that, too, will +help the smiling. There is laughter which is the echo of a Miserere +sobbed by the ages. Men chuckle in the irony of pain, and they smile +cold, lessoned smiles in resignation; they laugh in forgetfulness and +they laugh lest they die of sadness. A shrug of the shoulders, a +widening of the lips, a heaving forth of sound, and the life is saved. +The remedy is as drastic as are the drugs used for epilepsy, which in +quelling the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> spasm bring idiocy to the patient. If we are made idiots +by our laughter, we are paying dearly for the privilege of continuing in life.</p> + +<p>Hester shall laugh because she is glad and must tell her joy, and she +will not lose it in the telling. Greet her for me and hasten to prove yourself, for</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"The Poet, gentle creature that he is,</div> +<div>Hath like the Lover, his unruly times;</div> +<div>His fits when he is neither sick nor well,</div> +<div>Though no distress be near him but his own</div> +<div>Unmanageable thoughts."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>You will judge by this letter that I am neither sick nor well, and that +I reach for a distress which is not near. If I were Merchant rather than +Poet, it would be otherwise with me.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<h2>IV</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +October 27, 19—. </p> + +<p>Do I still read my Wordsworth on my knees? Well, we may as well have it +out. I have foreseen this day so long and shunned it that now I meet it +almost with extended hands. No, I do not read my Wordsworth on my knees. +My mind is filled with other things. I have not the time. I am not the +Herbert Wace of six years gone. It is fair that you should know this; +fair, also, that you should know the Herbert Wace of six years gone was +not quite the lad you deemed him.</p> + +<p>There is no more pathetic and terrible thing than the prejudice of love. +Both you and I have suffered from it. Six years ago, ay, and before +that, I felt and resented the growing difference<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> between us. When under +your spell, it seemed that I was born to lisp in numbers and devote +myself to singing, that the world was good and all of it fit for +singing. But away from you, even then, doubts faced me, and I knew in +vague fashion that we lived in different worlds. At first in vague +fashion, I say; and when with you again, your spell dominated me and I +could not question. You were true, you were good, I argued, all that was +wonderful and glorious; therefore, you were also right. You mastered me +with your charm, as you were wont to master those who loved you.</p> + +<p>But there came times when your sympathy failed me and I stood alone on +outlooks I had achieved alone. There was no response from you. I could +not hear your voice. I looked down upon a real world; you were caught up +in a beautiful cloudland and shut away from me. Possibly it was because +life of itself appealed to you, while to me appealed the mechanics of +life. But be it as it may, yours was a world of ideas and fancies, mine +a world of things and facts.</p> + +<p>Enters here the prejudice of love. It was the lad that discovered our +difference and concealed; it was the man who was blind and could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +discover. There we erred, man and boy; and here, both men now, we make all well again.</p> + +<p>Let me be explicit. Do you remember the passion with which I read the +"Intellectual Development of Europe?" I understood not the tithe of it, +but I was thrilled. My common sense was thrilled, I suppose; but it was +all very joyous, gripping hold of the tangible world for the first time. +And when I came to you, warm with the glow of adventure, you looked +blankly, then smiled indulgently and did not answer. You regarded my +ardour complacently. A passing humour of adolescence, you thought; and I +thought: "Dane does not read his Draper on his knees." Wordsworth was +great to me; Draper was great also. You had no patience with him, and I +know now, as I felt then, your consistent revolt against his +materialistic philosophy.</p> + +<p>Only the other day you complained of a letter of mine, calling it cold +and analytical. That I should be cold and analytical despite all the +prodding and pressing and moulding I have received at your hands, and +the hands of Waring, marks only more clearly our temperamental +difference; but it does not mark that one or the other of us is less a +dedicated spirit. If I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> wandered away from the warmth of poesy and +become practical, have you not remained and become confirmed in all that +is beautifully impractical? If I have adventured in a new world of +common things, have you not lingered in the old world of great and +impossible things? If I have shivered in the gray dawn of a new day, +have you not crouched over the dying embers of the fire of yesterday? +Ah, Dane, you cannot rekindle that fire. The whirl of the world scatters +its ashes wide and far, like volcanic dust, to make beautiful crimson +sunsets for a time and then to vanish.</p> + +<p>None the less are you a dedicated spirit, priest that you are of a dying +faith. Your prayers are futile, your altars crumbling, and the light +flickers and drops down into night. Poetry is empty these days, empty +and worthless and dead. All the old-world epic and lyric-singing will +not put this very miserable earth of ours to rights. So long as the +singers sing of the things of yesterday, glorifying the things of +yesterday and lamenting their departure, so long will poetry be a vain +thing and without avail. The old world is dead, dead and buried along +with its heroes and Helens and knights and ladies and tournaments and +pageants. You cannot sing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> of the truth and wonder of to-day in terms of +yesterday. And no one will listen to your singing till you sing of +to-day in terms of to-day.</p> + +<p>This is the day of the common man. Do you glorify the common man? This +is the day of the machine. When have you sung of the machine? The +crusades are here again, not the Crusades of Christ but the Crusades of +the Machine—have you found motive in them for your song? We are +crusading to-day, not for the remission of sins, but for the abolition +of sinning, of economic and industrial sinning. The crusade to Christ's +sepulchre was paltry compared with the splendour and might of our +crusade to-day toward manhood. There are millions of us afoot. In the +stillness of the night have you never listened to the trampling of our +feet and been caught up by the glory and the romance of it? Oh, Dane! +Dane! Our captains sit in council, our heroes take the field, our +fighting men are buckling on their harness, our martyrs have already +died, and you are blind to it, blind to it all!</p> + +<p>We have no poets these days, and perforce we are singing with our hands. +The walking delegate is a greater singer and a finer singer than you, +Dane Kempton. The cold, analytical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> economist, delving in the dynamics +of society, is more the prophet than you. The carpenter at his bench, +the blacksmith by his forge, the boiler-maker clanging and clattering, +are all warbling more sweetly than you. The sledge-wielder pours out +more strength and certitude and joy in every blow than do you in your +whole sheaf of songs. Why, the very socialist agitator, hustled by the +police on a street corner amid the jeers of the mob, has caught the +romance of to-day as you have not caught it and where you have missed +it. He knows life and is living. Are you living, Dane Kempton?</p> + +<p>Forgive me. I had begun to explain and reconcile our difference. I find +I am lecturing and censuring you. In defending myself, I offend. But +this I wish to say: We are so made, you and I, that your function in +life is to dream, mine to work. That you failed to make a dreamer of me +is no cause for heartache and chagrin. What of my practical nature and +analytical mind, I have generalised in my own way upon the data of life +and achieved a different code from yours. Yet I seek truth as +passionately as you. I still believe myself to be a dedicated spirit.</p> + +<p>And what boots it, all of it? When the last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> word is said, we are two +men, by a thousand ties very dear to each other. There is room in our +hearts for each other as there is room in the world for both of us. +Though we have many things not in common, yet you are my dearest friend +on earth, you who have been a second father to me as well.</p> + +<p>You have long merited this explanation, and it was cowardly of me not to +have made it before. My hope is that I have been sufficiently clear for you to understand.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<h2>V</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">3 a Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.</span><br /> +November 16, 19—. </p> + +<p>You sigh "Poesy and Economics," supplying the cause and thereby +admitting the fact. I wish you had shown some reluctance to see my +meaning, that you had preferred to waive the matter on the ground of +insufficient data, that you had been less eager to ferret out the +science of the thing. Do you remember how your boy's respect rose for +little Barbara whenever she cried when too readily forgiven? "She dreads +a double standard," you explained to me with generous heat. You +sympathised with her fear lest I demand less of her than of you, +honouring her insistence on an equality of duty as well as of privilege. +Is the man Herbert less proud than the child Barbara,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> that you speak of +a temperamental difference and ask for a special dispensation?</p> + +<p>You are not in love (this you say in not gainsaying my attack on you, +and so far I understand), because you are a student of Economics. At the +last I stop. What is this about economics and poesy? About your +emancipation from my riotously lyric sway? The hand of the forces by +which you have been moulded cannot detain you from going out upon the +love-quest. The fact of your preference for Draper cannot forestall your +spirit's need of love. There are many codes, but there is one law, +binding alike on the economist and poet. It springs out of the common +and unappeasable hunger, commanding that love seek love through night to +day and through day to night.</p> + +<p>Yet it is possible to put oneself outside the pale of the law, to refuse +the gift of life and snap the tie between time and space and creature. +It is possible to be too emaciated for interest or feeling. The men and +women of the People know neither love nor art because they are too +weary. They lie in sleep prostrate from great fatigue. Their bodies are +too much tried with the hungers of the body and their spirits too dimly +illumined with the hope of fair chances.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> It is also possible to fill +oneself so full with an interest that all else is crowded out. You have +done this. Like the cobbler who is a cobbler typically, the teacher who +is a pedagogue, the physician and the lawyer who are pathologists +merely, you are a fanatic of a text. You are in the toils of an idea, +the idea of selection, as I well know, and you exploit it like a drudge. +When a man finds that he cannot deal in petroleum without smelling of +it, it is time that he turn to something else. Every man is engaged in +the cause of keeping himself whole, in watching himself lest his man +turn machine, in watching lest the outside world assail the inner. +Nature spares the type, but the individual must spare himself. He is +strong who is sensitive and who responds subtly to everything in his +environment, but his response must be characteristic; he must sustain +his personality and become more himself through the years. He alone is +vital in the social scheme who lets nothing in him atrophy and who +persists in being varied from all others in the scale of character to +the degree of variability that was his at the beginning.</p> + +<p>I read in your letter nothing but a decision to stop short and give +over, as if you had strength for no more than your book and your +theory!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> You have become slave to a small point of inquiry, and you call +it the advance to a new time. "The crusade is on," you say. Coronation +rites for the commoners and destruction to superstition. I put my hand +out to you in joy. The joy is in unholy worship of a fetish, the pain +that there is no joy also deference to a fetish. Your creed thunders +"Thou shalt not." Love is a thing of yesterday. No room for anything +that intimately concerns the self. But what are the apostles of the +young thought preaching if it is not the right of men to their own, and +what would it avail them to come into their own if life be stripped of romance?</p> + +<p>I am dissatisfied because you are willing to live as others must live. +You should stay aristocrat. Ferdinand Lassalle dressed with elegance for +his working-men audiences, with the hope, he said, of reminding them +that there was something better than their shabbiness. You are of the +favoured, Herbert. It devolves upon you to endear your life to yourself. +You do not agree with me. You do not believe that love is the law which +controls freedom and life. Slave to your theory and rebel to the law, +you lose your soul and imperil another's.</p> + +<p>"Gently! Gently!" I say to myself. Old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> sorrows and wrongs oppress me +and I grow harsh. My heat only helps to convince you that my position is +not based on the <i>rational rightness</i> you hold so essential and that +therefore it is unlivable. I will state calmly, then, that it is wrong +to marry without love. "For the perpetuation of the species"—that is +noble of you! So you strip yourself of the thousand years of +civilisation that have fostered you, you abandon your prerogative as a +creature high in the scale of existence to obey an instinct and fulfil a +function? You say: "These men and women will marry, and the work of the +world go on just as it did before. Shuffle them about and the work of +the world would yet go on." And you are content. You feel no need of +anything different from this condition.</p> + +<p>Believe me, Herbert, these million men and women will not let you +shuffle them about. There are forces stronger than force, shadows more +real than reality. We know that the need of the unhungered for the one +friend, one comrade, one mate, is good. We honour the love that persists +in loving. More beautiful than starlight is the face of the lover when +the Voice and the Vision enfold him. The race is consecrated to the +worship of idea, and the lover who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> lays his all on the altar of romance +(which is idea) is at one with the race. The arms of the unloved girl +close about the formless air and more real than her loneliness and her +sorrow is the imagined embrace, the awaited warm, close pressure of the +hands, the fancied gaze. What does it mean? What secret was there for +Leonardo in Mona Lisa's smile, what for him in the motion of waters? You +cannot explain the bloom, the charm, the smile of life, that which rains +sunshine into our hearts, which tells us we are wise to hope and to have +faith, which buckles on us an armour of activity, which lights the fires +of the spirit, which gives us Godhead and renders us indomitable. +Comparative anatomy cannot reason it down. It is sensibility, romance, +idea. It is a fact of life toward which all other facts make. For the +flush of rose-light in the heavens, the touch of a hand, the colour and +shape of fruit, the tears that come for unnamed sorrows, the regrets of +old men, are more significant than all the building and inventing done +since the first social compact.</p> + +<p>Forgive my tediousness. I have flaunted these truisms before you in +order to exorcise that modern slang of yours which is more false than +the overstrained forms of a feudal France. To<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> shut out glory is not to +be practical. You are not adjusting your life artistically; there is too +much strain, too little warmth, too much self-complacence. I see that +you are really younger than I thought. The world never censures the +crimes of the spirit. You are safe from the world's tongue lashings, and +in that safety is the danger against which my friendship warns you.</p> + +<p>I have been reading Hester's poems, and I know that she is like them, +nervous, vibrant, throbbing, sensitive. I have been reading your +letters, and I think her soul will escape yours. If you have not love +like hers, you have nothing with which to keep her. This I have +undertaken to say to you. It is a strange role, yet conventional. I am +the father whose matrimonial whims are not met by the son. The stock +measure is to disinherit. But the cause of our quarrel is somewhat +unusual, and I can be neither so practical nor so vulgar as to set about +making codicils. Love is of no value to financiers; there is no bank for +it nor may it be made over in a will. Rather is it carried on in the +blood, even as Barbara carried it on into the life of her girl-babe. +Your sister keeps me strong with the faith of love. May God be good to +her! It was five years ago that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> came to me and whispered, "Earl." +When she saw I could not turn to her in joy, she leaned her little head +back against the roses of the porch and wept, more than was right, I +fear, for a girl just betrothed. Earl was a cripple and poor and +helpless, but Barbara knew better than we, for she knew how to give +herself. Poor little one, whom nobody congratulated! She sends you and +Hester her love, unfolding you both in her eager tenderness.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<h2>VI</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London.</span> <br /> +November 19, 19—. </p> + +<p>Metaphysics is contagious. I caught it from Barbara, and I cannot resist +the impulse to pass it on, and to you of all others.</p> + +<p>The mood leapt upon Barbara out of the pages of "Katia," a story by +Tolstoy. To my mind, it is a painful tale of lovers who outlive their +love, killing it with their own hands, but the author means it to be a +happily ending novel. Tolstoy attempts to show that men and women can +find happiness only when they grow content to give over seeking love +from one another. They may keep the memory but must banish the hope. +"Hereafter, think of me only as the father of your children," and the +woman who had pined for that which had been theirs in the beginning of +their union weeps softly, and agrees. Tolstoy calls this peace,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> but for +Barbara and me this gain is loss, this end an end indeed, replete with +all the tragedy of ending.</p> + +<p>I found Barbara to-day on the last page of "Katia," and much disturbed. +"Dear, I saw a spirit break," she said. I waited before asking whose, +and when I did, she answered, "That of three-quarters of the world. The +ghost of a Dream walked to-day—when after the spirit broke, I saw +it—and myself and my Earl vanished in shadow. We and our love thinned +away before the thought-shape."</p> + +<p>"Your dreaming, Barbara, can scarce be better than your living."</p> + +<p>We looked long at each other. She knew herself a happy woman, yet to-day +the ghost had walked in the light, and her eyes were not held, and she +saw. Even her life was not sufficient, even her plans were paltry, even +her heart's love was cramped. Such times of seeing come to happy men and +to happy women. Barbara was reading the opinions of the world and the +acceptances of the world, and in disliking them she came to doubt +herself. Perhaps she, too, should be less at peace, she too may be +amongst Pharisees a Pharisee.</p> + +<p>"In the midst of the breaking of spirit, how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> can I know?" she demanded. +"Love is sure," I prompted, my hand on her forehead. "Earl and I are +sure, dear," she laughed low, and a drift of sobbing swept through the +music; "it is not that we are in doubt about ourselves, but sometimes, +like to-day, you understand, one finds oneself bitten by the sharp tooth +of the world, and a despair courses through the veins and blinds the +eyes, and then, in the midst of the bitterest throe, comes a great visioning."</p> + +<p>I heard her and understood, and my heart leapt as it had not done for +long. Think of it, Herbert, fifty-three and still young! When was it +that I last fluttered with joy? Ah, yes, that time the summer and the +woods had a great deal to do with it, and a few words spoken by a boy. I +think Barbara's majesty of attainment through vicarious breaking of +spirit a greater cause for rejoicing.</p> + +<p><i>And then, in the midst of the bitterest throe, came a great visioning.</i> +When pain is good and to be thanked for, how good life is! By this alone +may you know the proportion and the value of the good of being. +Three-quarters of the world are broken spirited, but from out the +wreckage a thought-shape, and it is well. The Vision fastens upon us, +and what was full seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> shrunken, what whole and of all time a passing +bit, an untraceable flash. And that is well, for the dream recalls the +hope, and the heart grows hardy with hoping and dreaming.</p> + +<p>So Barbara.</p> + +<p>And you? You do not repine because of these things. Let the Grand Mujik +mutter a thousand heresies, let three-quarters of the world accept and +live them, you would not think the unaspiring three-quarters +broken-spirited. You would hail them right practical. And if you held a +thought as firmly as your sister holds the thought of love, and you +found yourself alone in your esteem of it, you would part from it and go +over to the others. You would not be the fanatic your sister is, to stay +so much the closer by it that of necessity she must doubt her own +allegiance, fearing in her devotion that, without knowing it, she, too, +is cold and but half alive. You would not see visions that would put +your best to shame. The thought-shape of the more you could be, were you +and the whole world finer and greater, would not walk before you. You +would rest content and assured, and—I regret your assurance.</p> + +<p class="right">Always yours, <br /> +<span class="smcap">Dane Kempton</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<h2>VII</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +December 6, 19—. </p> + +<p>No, I am not in love. I am very thankful that I am not. I pride myself +on the fact. As you say, I may not be adjusting my life artistically to +its environment (there is room for discussion there), but I do know that +I am adjusting it scientifically. I am arranging my life so that I may +get the most out of it, while the one thing to disorder it, worse than +flood and fire and the public enemy, is love.</p> + +<p>I have told you, from time to time, of my book. I have decided to call +it "The Economic Man." I am going over the proofs now, and my brain is +in perfect working order. On the other hand, there is Professor Bidwell, +who is likewise correcting proofs. Poor devil, he is in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> despair. He can +do nothing with them. "I positively cannot think," he complains to me, +his hair rumpled and face flushed. He did not answer my knock the other +day, and I came upon him with the neglected proofs under his elbows and +his absent gaze directed through window and out of doors to some rosy +cloudland beyond my ken. "It will be a failure, I know it will," he +growled to me. "My brain is dull. It refuses to act. I cannot imagine +what has come over me." But I could imagine very easily. He is in love +(madly in love with what I take to be a very ordinary sort of girl), and +expects shortly to be married. "Postpone the book for a time," I +suggested. He looked at me for a moment, then brought his fist down on +the general disarray with a thumping "I will!" And take my word for it, +Dane, a year hence, when the very ordinary girl greets him with the +matronly kiss and his fever and folly have left him, he will take up the +book and make a success of it.</p> + +<p>Of course I am not in love. I have just come back from Hester—I ran +down Saturday to Stanford and stopped over Sunday. Time did not pass +tediously on the train. I did not look at my watch every other minute. I +read the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> morning papers with interest and without impatience. The +scenery was charming and I was unaware of the slightest hurry to reach +my destination. I remember noting, when I came up the gravel walk +between the rose-bushes, that my heart was not in my mouth as it should +have been according to convention. In fact, the sun was uncomfortable, +and I mopped my brow and decided that the roses stood in need of +trimming. And really, you know, I had seen brighter days, and fairer +views, and the world in more beautiful moods.</p> + +<p>And when Hester stood on the veranda and held out her hands, my heart +did not leap as though it were going to part company with me. Nor was I +dizzy with—rapture, I believe. Nor did all the world vanish, and +everything blot out, and leave only Hester standing there, lips curved +and arms outstretched in welcome. Oh, I saw the curved lips and +outstretched arms, and all the splendid young womanhood swaying there, +and I was pleased and all that; but I did not think it too wonderful and +impossible and miraculous and the rest of the fond rubbish I am sure +poor Bidwell thinks when his eyes are gladdened by his ordinary sort of +girl when he calls upon her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p><p>What a comely young woman, is what I thought as I pressed Hester's +hands; and none of the ordinary sort either. She has health and strength +and beauty and youth, and she will certainly make a most charming wife +and excellent mother. Thus I thought, and then we chatted, had lunch, +and passed a delightful afternoon together—an afternoon such as I might +pass with you, or any good comrade, or with my wife.</p> + +<p>All of which rational rightness is, I know, distasteful to you, Dane. +And I confess I depict it with brutal frankness, failing to give credit +to the gentler, tenderer side of me. Believe me, I am very fond of +Hester. I respect and admire her. I am proud of her, too, and proud of +myself that so fine a creature should find enough in me to be willing to +mate with me. It will be a happy marriage. There is nothing cramped or +narrow or incompatible about it. We know each other well—a wisdom that +is acquired by lovers only after marriage, and even then with the +likelihood of it being a painful wisdom. We, on the other hand, are not +blinded by love madness, and we see clearly and sanely and are confident +of our ability to live out the years together.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> + +<h2>VIII</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +December 11, 19—. </p> + +<p>I have been thinking about your romance and my rational rightness, and +so this letter.</p> + +<p>"<i>One loves because he loves: this explanation is, as yet, the most +serious and most decisive that has been found for the solution of this +problem.</i>" I do not know who has said this, but it might well have been +you. And you might well say with Mlle. de Scudéri: "<i>Love is—I know not +what: which comes—I know not when: which is formed—I know not how: +which enchants—I know not by what: and which ends—I know not when or why</i>."</p> + +<p>You explain love by asserting that it is not to be explained. And +therein lies our difference.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> You accept results; I search for causes. +You stop at the gate of the mystery, worshipful and content. I go on and +through, flinging the gate wide and formulating the law of the mystery +which is a mystery no longer. It is our way. You worship the idea; I +believe in the fact. If the stone fall, the wind blow, the grass and +green things sprout; if the inorganic be vitalised, and take on +sensibility, and perform functions, and die; if there be passions and +pains, dreams and ambitions, flickerings of infinity and glimmerings of +Godhead—it is for you to be smitten with the wonder of it and to +memorialise it in pretty song, while for me remains to classify it as so +much related phenomena, so much play and interplay of force and matter +in obedience to ascertainable law.</p> + +<p>There are two kinds of men: the wonderers and the doers; the feelers and +the thinkers; the emotionals and the intellectuals. You take an +emotional delight in living; I an intellectual delight. You feel a thing +to be beautiful and joyful; I seek to know why it is beautiful and +joyful. You are content that it is, no matter how it came to be; I, when +I have learned why, strive that we may have more beautiful and joyful +things. "The bloom, the charm, the smile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> of life" is all too wonderful +for you to know; to me it is chiefly wonderful because I may know.</p> + +<p>Oh, well, it is an ancient quarrel which neither you nor I shall +outlive. I am rational, you are romantic,—that is all there is to it. +You are more beautiful; I am more useful; and though you will not see it +and will never be able to see it, you and your beauty rest on me. I came +into the world before you, and I made the way for you. I was a hunter of +beasts and a fighter of men. I discovered fire and covered my nakedness +with the skins of animals. I builded cunning traps, and wove branches +and long grasses and rushes and reeds into the thatch and roof-tree. I +fashioned arrows and spears of bone and flint. I drew iron from the +earth, and broke the first ground, and planted the first seed. I gave +law and order to the tribe and taught it to fight with craft and wisdom. +I enabled the young men to grow strong and lusty, and the women to find +favour with them; and I gave safety to the women when their progeny came +forth, and safety to the progeny while it gathered strength and years.</p> + +<p>I did many things. Out of my blood and sweat and toil I made it possible +that all men need not all the time hunt and fish and fight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> The muscle +and brain of every man were no longer called to satisfy the belly need. +And then, when of my blood and sweat and toil I had made room, you came, +high priest of mystery and things unknowable, singer of songs and seer of visions.</p> + +<p>And I did you honour, and gave you place by feast and fire. And of the +meat I gave you the tenderest, and of the furs the softest. Need I say +that of women you took the fairest? And you sang of the souls of dead +men and of immortality, of the hidden things, and of the wonder; you +sang of voices whispering down the wind, of the secrets of light and +darkness, and the ripple of running fountains. You told of the powers +that pulsed the tides, swept the sun across the firmaments, and held the +stars in their courses. Ay, and you scaled the sky and created for me +the hierarchy of heaven.</p> + +<p>These things you did, Dane; but it was I who made you, and fed you, and +protected you. While you dreamed and sang, I laboured sore. And when +danger came, and there was a cry in the night, and women and children +huddling in fear, and strong men broken, and blare of trumpets and cry +of battle at the outer gate—you fled to your altars and called vainly +on your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> phantoms of earth and sea and sky. And I? I girded my loins, +and strapped my harness on, and smote in the fighting line; and died, +perchance, that you and the women and children might live.</p> + +<p>And in times of peace you throve and waxed fat. But only by our brain +and blood did we men of the fighting line make possible those times of +peace. And when you throve, you looked about you and saw the beauty of +the world and fancied yet greater beauty. And because of me your fancy +became fact, and marvels arose in stone and bronze and costly wood.</p> + +<p>And while your brows were bright, and you visioned things of the spirit, +and rose above time and space to probe eternity, I concerned myself with +the work of head and hand. I employed myself with the mastery of matter. +I studied the times and seasons and the crops, and made the earth +fruitful. I builded roads and bridges and moles, and won the secrets of +metals and virtues of the elements. Bit by bit, and with great travail, +I have conquered and enslaved the blind forces. I builded ships and +ventured the sea, and beyond the baths of sunset found new lands. I +conquered peoples, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> organised nations and knit empires, and gave +periods of peace to vast territories.</p> + +<p>And the arts of peace flourished, and you multiplied yourself in divers +ways. You were priest and singer and dancer and musician. You expressed +your fancies in colours and metals and marbles. You wrote epics and +lyrics—ay, as you to-day write lyrics, Dane Kempton. And I multiplied +myself. I kept hunger afar off, and fire and sword from your habitation, +and the bondsmen in obedience under you. I solved methods of government +and invented systems of jurisprudence. Out of my toil sprang forms and +institutions. You sang of them and were the slave of them, but I was the +maker of them and the changer of them.</p> + +<p>You worshipped at the shrine of the idea. I sought the fact and the law +behind the fact. I was the worker and maker and liberator. You were +conventional. Tradition bound you. You were full bellied and content, +and you sang of the things that were. You were mastered by dogma. Did +the Mediæval Church say the earth was flat, you sang of an earth that +was flat, and danced and made your little shows on an earth that was +flat. And you helped to bind me with chains and burn me with fire when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +my facts and the laws behind my facts shook your dogmas. Dante's highest +audacity could not transcend a material inferno. Milton could not shake +off Lucifer and hell.</p> + +<p>You were more beautiful. But not only was I more useful, but I made the +way for you that there might be greater beauty. You did not reck of +that. To you the heart was the seat of the emotions. I formulated the +circulation of the blood. You gave charms and indulgences to the world; +I gave it medicine and surgery. To you, famine and pestilence were acts +of providence and punishment of sin: I made the world a granary and +drained its cities. To you the mass of the people were poor lost +wretches who would be rewarded in paradise or baked in hell. You could +offer them no earthly happiness of decency. Forsooth, beggars as well as +kings were of divine right. But I shattered the royal prerogatives and +overturned the thrones of the one and lifted the other somewhat out of the dirt.</p> + +<p>Nor is my work done. With my inventions and discoveries and rational +enterprise, I draw the world together and make it kin. The uplift is but +begun. And in the great world I am making I shall be as of old to you, +Dane. I, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> have made you and freed you, shall give you space and +greater freedom. And, as of old, we shall quarrel as when first you came +to me and found me at my rude earth-work. You shall be the scorner of +matter, and I the master of matter. You may laugh at me and my work, but +you shall not be absent from the feast nor shall your voice be silent. +For, when I have conquered the globe, and enthralled the elements, and +harnessed the stars, you shall sing the epic of man, and as of old it +shall be of the deeds I have done.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<h2>IX</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">3a Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.</span><br /> +December 28, 19—. </p> + +<p>The curtain is rung down on an illusion, but it rises again on another, +this time, as before, with the look of the absolute Good and True upon +it. It is because we are at once actor and spectator that we find no +fault with blinking sight and slothful thought. We are finite branded +and content, except during the shrill, undermining moments when the +orchestra is tuning up. "Thus we half-men struggle."</p> + +<p>I follow your letter and wonder whether your illusions have qualities of +beauty which escape me. I give you the benefit of every doubt which it +is possible for me to harbour with regard to my own system of illusions. +You glorify the crowd practical. You attach yourself to the ranks that +carried thought into action. You inspire yourself with rugged strength +by dwelling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> on the achievements of ruggedness, forgetting that the +progress of the world is not marshalled by those who work with line and +rule. It was not his crew, but Columbus, who discovered America. The +crew stood between the Old and the New, as indeed the crew always does. +Between the idealist and his hope were hosts of practical enemies whom +he had to subdue before he reached land. But I must not fall into your +mistake of dividing men into categories. Men are not either intellectual +or emotional; they are both. It is a rounded not an angular development +which we follow. Feeling and thinking are not mutually exclusive, and +the great personality feels deeply because he thinks highly, feels +keenly because he sees widely. Common sense is not incompatible with +uncommon sense, evil does not of necessity attend beauty, nor weakness +the strength of genius.</p> + +<p>I shall sing of the deeds you have done if your deeds are worthy of +song. I shall sing a Song of the Sword, too, should the sword "thrust +through the fatuous, thrust through the fungous brood." Whatever helps +the races to better life sings itself into racial lore, and I alone +shall not refuse the tribute. When you come to see that the Iliad is as +great a gift to the race as the doings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> of Achilles, that the Iliads are +more significant than the doings they celebrate, you will cease to +classify men into doers and singers. You will cease to dishonour +yourself in the eyes of the singers with the hope that in so doing you +gain somewhat elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Professor Bidwell is in love and it interferes with his work. You have +the advantage of him there, no doubt. However, you lose more than you +gain. You have shattered the dream and have awakened. To what? What is +this reality in which your universe is hung? Where shine the stars of +your scientific heaven? By the beauty of your dreaming alone, Herbert, +shall you be judged and known. You dream that you have learned the +lesson, solved the problem, pierced the mystery, and become a prophet of +matter. But matter does not include spirit, so the motif of your dream +grows all confused. Your race epic omits the race. You sing the branch +and the leaf rather than the sunlit and tenebral wood. Bidwell thinks +his ordinary sort of girl a "lyric love, half angel and half bird, and +all a wonder and a wild desire." Bidwell exaggerates, perhaps, but +unless he feels this for his wife, he has no wife. Barbara obeyed the +voice of her heart. That sounds sentimental, but it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> none the less a +courageous thing to do. I was inconsistent enough to be sorry because +she loved a crippled man. Bidwell and Barbara are wiser and happier than +you can be, Herbert, than you from whose hand the map of Parnassus Hill has been filched.</p> + +<p>Is there one state of consciousness better than another? I think yes. +Better to have long, youthful thoughts and to thrill to vibrant emotions +than to grovel sluggishly; better to hope and dream and aspire and sway +to great harmonies than to be blind and deaf and dumb—better for the +type, better for the immortality of the world's soul. This to me is a +vital thought, therefore life or death is in the issue. For the rest I +know not. By the glimmer of light lent me, I can but guess greatness and +descry vagueness. You go further and would touch the phantasmagorial +veil. "Right!" I say, and I pray, "Godspeed." But there must be +intensity. Are you thrilled? Do you stretch out your arms and dream the +beauty? It is only when you gaze into a reality empty of the voices of +life that I would wake you to bid you dream better.</p> + +<p>Well, Herbert, I have quarrelled with you and shall to the end, I +promise. I wish I could take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> you away, hide you from your Hester's +sight, and pour my poetic spleen out on you. Oh, I shall torment you +into reason and passion! Whatever you may choose to be, you are my son. +I must take you and keep you as you are, of course, but I choose to tell +the truth to you though I do love you and hold you mine. Disagreeable of me, but how else?</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<h2>X</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London.</span> <br /> +Sunday, January 1, 19—. </p> + +<p>Behold, I have lived! I press your face to the breathing, stinging roses +of my days, and bid you drink in the sweet and throb with the pain. What +is my philosophy but a translation of the facts which have stamped me? +Perhaps if I let you read these facts, you will the sooner come to share +my consecration and my faith. I must teach you to know that you are the +fact of my whole tangled web of facts, and that all that I have and am, +and all that might have been I and mine, stretches itself out in the +unmarked path which is before you.</p> + +<p>I take you back with me to the road, white with dust, upon which like a +Viking and like a feeble girl I have travelled. It is not long, but how +many paths, what byways and what turns!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> What sudden glimpses of sea and +sky, what inaccessibleness! Hark, from the wood on either side +murmurings of hope and hard sobbing of despair, young laughter of joy +and aged renunciations! See from amongst the pines the farewell gleam of +a white hand. All of it dear—dearly bought and precious and miraculous, +the heartache even as the gladness.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Life is worth living</div> +<div>Through every grain of it,</div> +<div>From the foundations</div> +<div>To the last edge</div> +<div>Of the cornerstone, death."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Ay, through every grain of it. Even that morning in the wood, thirty +years ago, when your mother put her hand in mine and looked a great pity +into my eyes. Indeed, she loved me well, but romance shone on the brow +of John Wace. For her his face was sunlit, and she needs must take it +between her hands and hold it forever. He was her Siegfried, her master. +Thus the gods decreed, and we three obeyed. What else was there to do? +We must be honest before all, and Ellen did not love me any more, and I +must know it, and wipe out a past of deepest mutuality, and strengthen +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> console and restore the woman whose hand held mine while her eyes +were turned elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Before that bright, black summer morning which saw me woman-pitied, I +knew I should have to renounce her. Their souls rushed together in their +first meeting. John had been away, knocking about museums and colleges, +and carrying on tempestuous radical work. He was splendidly picturesque. +I was a youth of twenty-three, almost ten years his junior, a boy full +of half-defined aims and groping powers, reaching toward what he had +firm in his grasp. Ellen talked of his coming, and she planned that she +should meet this my one friend in the environment she loved best—in my +rooms, whose atmosphere, she declared, belonged to an earlier time and +place. (She found in me Nolly Goldsmith and all of Grub Street.) So they +met at the tea-table in my study, and a great warmth stole over your +father. He spoke without looking at either of us, while Ellen looked as +if her destiny had just begun.</p> + +<p>Without, it rained. I strode to the window and in a dazed way stared at +the lamp-post which was sticking out its flaming little tongue to the +night. Why was I mocked? There was no mocking and there should have been +no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>bitterness. Of that there was none either, after a while.</p> + +<p>Ellen put her hand on my hair, and a strong primal emotion rose in me. +In that moment civilisation was as if it had not been. I reverted to the +primitive. The blood of forgotten ancestors, cave-men and river-men, +reasoned me my ethics. I turned to her, met her flushed cheeks and moved +being and the glory of dawning in her eyes. I measured my strength with +hers and your father's, Herbert. Easily, great strength was mine in my +passion, easily I could carry her off!</p> + +<p>You, too, have had moments of upheaval when you heard the growling of +the tiger and the bear, when the brute crowded out the man. Then your +soul writhed in derision, you scoffed at that which you had held to be +the nobility of the soul, and you minced words satirically over the +exquisiteness of the type which we have evolved. Then the experiment of +life turned farce, the heavens fell about your ears and "Fool!" was upon +your lips. Oh, the hurricane that sweeps over the soul when it is +cheated of its joy! In the first instant of Ellen's indifference, when I +felt myself pushed out of her life, I forgot everything but my desire. +I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> could not renounce her. I was in the throes of the passion for +ownership.</p> + +<p>Gentle girl between whom and myself there had been naught but sweetness +and fellowship! How often had we talked large (we were very young!) of +our sublimities and potentialities, how often had we pictured tragedies +of surrender and greatened in the speaking! Ah, it should come true. For +her and for me there must be miracles, and there were. So was the +strength of the spirit proven, so was it shown to be "pure waft of the +Will." So was I confirmed in the creed which believes that to keep we +must lose, and to live we must die. So was I assured that there may be +but one way, and that, the way of service.</p> + +<p>I did not grip her passionately in my arms. I withdrew; I did much to +make her task of leaving me an easy one. Were it not for my efforts, it +would have been harder for her to obey a mandate which made for my pain. +She could not quite drown an old, Puritan voice, speaking with the +authority of tradition, which bade her hold to her vows. Yes, I made it +easy for her. Harrow my soul with theories of selection and survival if you dare!</p> + +<p>In those days the spires of the temple were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> golden, the shrine white. +The door was seen from every point in the fog-begirt world. We who +worshipped knew not of doubt. Stirred by the rumbling organ tones of +causes and ideas, we immolated our lives gladly. High priests of +thought, we swung the censers and rose on the breast of the incense. +Ellen and John and myself glorified God and enjoyed Him forever,—God, +the Type, the Final Humanity, the giant Body Soul of man. In our hearts +dwelt a religion which compelled us to serve the ideal. We strove to +become what organically we felt the "Human with his drippings of warm +tears" may become. We were the standard-bearers of the advancing margin +of the world. We were the high-water mark toward which all the tides +forever make. We were soldiers and priests.</p> + +<p>And so when Ellen loved, and lacked courage for her love, I helped her. +A past of kindness and ardour riveted her to my side. She knew that we +were in feeling and fact divorced from each other by virtue of her +stronger love for John, yet did she do battle with the rich young love. +For two years we had been close; she had been so much my friend, she +could not in maiden charity seal for me a so unwelcome fate. I had +awakened her slumbering soul with my first look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> into the sphinx wonder +of her eyes. For me she had become fire and dew, flame of the sun, and +flower of the hill. Without me to help her do it she could not leave me.</p> + +<p>To the master of matter this coping with spiritual abstractions must +appear like juggling with intellectual phantasmagoria. Yet I protest +that life is finally for intangible triumphs. Unnamed fragrances steal +upon the senses and the soul revels and greatens. Unseen hands draw us +to worlds afar, and we are gathered up in the dignity of the human +spirit. Unknown ideas attract and hold us, and we take our place in the +universe as intellectual factors. In giving up Ellen I helped her, and, +sacredly better still, I sent on into a world of vague thinking and weak +acting the impulse of devotion to revealed truth.</p> + +<p>She had a sweet way of sitting low and resting her head on my knee. She +sat through one whole day with me thus, and for hours I could have +thought her asleep were it not for the waves of feeling which surged in +her upturned face. Toward the end she raised her head, ecstasy in her +eyes and on her cheek and lip. "Dane, I love you. Dane! Dane!" The whole +of me was caught up in the accents of that tremulousness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> She had know +John three months; but her love for him was young, it had come +unexpectedly, it was still unexpressed and ineffable. Her yearning for +him led to softness toward me, and though she rose out of her mood as +one does from a dream, the hours when we were like the angels, all love +and all speech, were mine. So much was vouchsafed me.</p> + +<p>Memories and echoes, gusts of sweet breath from the violets on your +mother's grave—the prophet of matter will have none of them, and, I +fear, will pity me that I am so much theirs. I am yours also, dear lad, +and I wish to serve you.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane Kempton.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XI</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +January 20, 19—. </p> + +<p>I do not know whether to laugh or weep. I have just finished reading +your letter, and I can hardly think. Words seem to have lost their +meaning, and words, used as you use them, are without significance. You +appear to speak a tongue strangely familiar, yet one I cannot +understand. You are unintelligible, as, I dare say, I am to you.</p> + +<p>And small wonder that we are unintelligible. Our difference presents +itself quite clearly to the scientific mind, and somewhat in this +fashion: Man acquires knowledge of the outer world through his +sensations and perceptions. Sensation ends in sentiment, and perception +ends in reason. These are the two sides of man's nature, and the +individual is determined and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> ruled by whichever side in him happens to +be temperamentally dominant. I have already classed you as a feeler, +myself as a thinker. This is, I <i>think</i> true. You, I am confident, +<i>feel</i> it to be true. I reason why it is true. You accept it on faith as +true, lose sight of the argument forthwith, and proceed to express it in +emotional terms—which is to say that you take it to heart and feel +badly because it happens to be so.</p> + +<p>You feign to know this modern scientific slang, and you are contemptuous +of it because you do not know it. The terms I use freight no ideas to +you. They are sounds, rhythmic and musical, but they are not definite +symbols of thought. Their facts you do not grasp. For instance, the +prehensile organs of insects, the great toothed mandibles of the black +stag-beetle, the amorous din of the male cicada and the muteness of his +mate—these are facts which you cannot relate, one with the other, nor +can you generalise upon them. Let me add to these related characters, +and you cannot discern the law which is alike to all. What to you the +fluttering moth, decked in gold and crimson, brilliant, iridescent, +splendid? The beauty of it bids you bend to deity, otherwise it has no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +worth; it is a stimulus to religion, and that is all. So with the +glowing incandescence of the stickleback and its polished scales of +silver. What make you of the hoarse voice of the gorilla? Is not the +dewlap of the ox inscrutable? the mane of the lion? the tusks of the +boar? the musk-sack of the deer? In the amethyst and sapphire of the +peacock's wing you find no rationality; to you it is a manifestation of +the wonder which is taboo. And so with the cock bird, displaying his +feathered ruffs and furbelows, dancing strange antics and spilling out his heart in song.</p> + +<p>I, on the other hand, dare to gather all these phenomena together, and +find out the common truth, the common fact, the common law, which is +generalisation, which is Science. I learn that there are two functions +which all life must perform: Nutrition and Reproduction. And I learn +that in all life, the performance, according to time and space and +degree, is very like. The slug must take to itself food, else it will +perish; and so I. The slug must procreate its kind, or its kind will +perish; and so I. The need being the same, the only difference is in the +expression. In all life come times and seasons when the individuals are +aware of dim yearnings and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> blind compulsions and masterful desires. The +senses are quickened and alert to the call of kind. And just as the fish +and the reptile glimmeringly adumbrate man, so do these yearnings and +desires adumbrate what man in himself calls "love," spelled all out in +capitals. I repeat, the need is the same. From the amœba, up the +ladder of life to you and me, comes this passion of perpetuation. And in +yourself, refine and sublimate as you will, it is none the less blind, +unreasoning, and compelling.</p> + +<p>And now we come to the point. In the development of life from low to +high, there came a dividing of the ways. Instinct, as a factor of +development, had its limitations. It culminated in that remarkable +mechanism, the bee-swarm. It could go no farther. In that direction life +was thwarted. But life, splendid and invincible, not to be thwarted, +changed the direction of its advance, and reason became the all-potent +developmental factor. Reason dawned far down in the scale of life; but +it culminates in man and the end is not yet.</p> + +<p>The lever in his arm he duplicates in wood and steel; the lenses in his +eyes in glass; the visual impressions of his brain on chemically +sensitised wood-pulp. He is able, reasoning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> from events and knowing the +law, to control the blind forces and direct their operation. Having +ascertained the laws of development, he is able to take hold of life and +mould and knead it into more beautiful and useful forms. Domestic +selection it is called. Does he wish horses which are fast, he selects +the fastest. He studies the physics of velocity in relation to equine +locomotion, and with an eye to withers, loins, hocks, and haunches, he +segregates his brood mares and his stallions. And behold, in the course +of a few years, he has a thoroughbred stock, swifter of foot than any +ever in the world before.</p> + +<p>Since he takes sexual selection into his own hands and scientifically +breeds the fish and the fowl, the beast and the vegetable, why may he +not scientifically breed his own kind? The fish and the fowl and the +beast and the vegetable obey dim yearnings and vague desires and +reproduce themselves. "Poor the reproduction," says Man to Mother +Nature; "allow me." And Mother Nature is thrust aside and exceeded by +this new creator, this Man-god.</p> + +<p>These yearnings and desires of the beast and the vegetable are the best +tools nature has succeeded in devising. Having devised them, she leaves +their operation to the blindness of chance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Steps in man and controls +and directs them. For the first time in the history of life conscious +intelligence forms and transforms life. These yearnings and desires, +promptings of the "abysmal fecundity," have in man evolved into what is +called "love." They arise in instinct and sensation and culminate in +sentiment and emotion. They master man, and the intellect of man, as +they master the beast and all the acts of the beast. And they operate in +the development of man with the same blindness of chance that they +operate in the development of the beast.</p> + +<p>Now this is the law: <i>Love, as a means for the perpetuation and +development of the human type, is very crude and open to improvement. +What the intellect of man has done with the beast, the intellect of man +may do with man</i>.</p> + +<p>It is a truism to say that my intellect is wiser than my emotions. So, +knowing the precise value and use of this erotic phenomenon, this sexual +madness, this love, I, for one, elect to choose my mate with my +intellect. Thus I choose Hester. And I do truly love her, but in the +intellectual sense and not the sense you fanatically demand. I am not +seized with a loutish vertigo when I look upon her and touch her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> hand. +Nor do I feel impelled to leave her presence if I would live, as did +Dante the presence of Beatrice; nor the painful confusion of Rousseau, +when, in the same room with Madame Goton, he seemed impelled to leap +into the flaming fireplace. But I do feel for Hester what happily mated +men and women, after they have lived down the passion, feel in the +afternoon of life. It is the affection of man for woman, which is +sanity. It is the sanity of intercourse which replaces love madness; the +sanity which comes upon sparrows after the ardour of mating, when they +leave off wrangling and chattering and set soberly to work to build +their nest for the coming brood.</p> + +<p>Pre-nuptial love is the madness of non-understanding and +part-understanding. Post-nuptial affection is the sanity of complete +understanding; it is based upon reason and service and healthy +sacrifice. The first is a blind mating of the blind; the second, a clear +and open-eyed union of male and female who find enough in common to +warrant that union. In a word and in the fullest sense of the word, it +is sex comradeship. Pre-nuptial love cannot survive marriage any +considerable time. It is doomed inexorably to flicker out, and when it +has flickered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> out it must be replaced by affection, or else the parties +to it must separate. We well know that many men and women, unable to +build up affection on the ruins of love, do separate, or if they do not, +continue to live together in cold tolerance or bitter hatred.</p> + +<p>Now, Hester is my mate. We have much in common. There is intellectual, +spiritual, and physical affinity. The caress of her voice and the feel +of her mind are pleasurable to me; likewise the touch of her hand (and +you know that in the union of man and woman the higher affinities are +not possible unless there first be physiological affinity). We shall go +through life as comrades go, hand in hand, Hester and I; and great +happiness will be ours. And because of all this I say you have no right +to challenge my happiness, and vex my days, and feel for me as one dead.</p> + +<p>My dear, bewildered Dane, come down out of the clouds. If I am wrong, I +have gone over the ground. Then do you go over that ground with me and +show where I am wrong. But do not pour out on me your romantic and +poetic spleen. Confine yourself to the Fact, man, to the irrefragable Fact.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p><p>Ah, your later letter has just arrived. I can only say that I +understand. But withal, I am pained that I am not nearer to you. These +intellectual phantasmagoria rise up like huge amorphous ghosts and hold +me from you. I cannot get through the mists and glooms to press your +hand and tell you how dear I hold you. Do, Dane, do let us cease from +this. Let us discuss no further. Let me care for Hester in my own way so +long as I do no sin and harm no one; and be you father to us, and bless +us who else must go unblessed. For Hester, also, is fatherless and +motherless, and you must be to her as you are to me.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XII</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">3a Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.</span><br /> +February 10, 19—. </p> + +<p>So we have got into an argument! I have been poring over your last two +or three letters, and they read like a set of briefs for a debate. +Doubtless mine have the same forensic quality. Our letters have become +rebuttals, pure and simple. This discovery gave my pen pause for a week. +It occurred to me that Walt Whitman must have meant didactic letters +too, when he said of the fretters of our little world, "They make me +sick talking of their duty to God." Yet friend should speak to friend, +should utter the word than which nothing is more sacred. "Let there be +light, and there was light"—a ripple of light, and a flash, then the +darkness broke and dispersed from the face of the waters. It was a +trumpet-call of words bringing drama into a nebulous creation. Let the +Word break up our night and let us not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> only grant, but avow the +conviction it brings us, no matter what the consequence. Let us worship +the irrefragable Fact.</p> + +<p>You hold that marriage is an institution having for its purpose the +perpetuation of the species, and that respect and affection are +sufficient to bring two people into this most intimate possible +relation. You also hold that the business of the world, pressing hard +upon men, makes "love from their lives a thing apart," and that this is +as it should be. Your letters are an exposition and a defence of what I +may loosely call the practical theory. You show that the world is for +work and workers, and that life is for results as seen in institutions +and visible achievements. I, on the other hand, maintain that it takes a +greater dowry to marry upon than affection, and that men love as +intensely and with as much abandon as women. People love in proportion +to the depth of their natures, and the finest man in the world has an +infinite capacity for giving and receiving love store. The spell is +strongest upon the finest.</p> + +<p>This, briefly, is what we have been saying to each other. You attack my +idealism, call me dreamer, and accuse me of being out of joint with the +time, which itself is rigorously in joint<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> with the laws of growth. And +I class you with the Philistine because of your exaggeration of +practical values. I hold that it is gross to respect the fact tangible +at the expense of the feeling ineffable.</p> + +<p>In your last letter you exploit the theory of Nutrition and Reproduction +with a charm and warmth which helps me see you as I have so long known +you, and which tells me again that you are worth fighting for and +saving. But to trace love to its biologic beginning is not to deny its +existence. Love has a history as significant as that of life. When, eons +ago, the primitive man looked at his neighbour and recognised him as a +fellow to himself, consciousness of kind awoke and a cell was exploded +which functioned love. When, through the ages, economic forces taught +men the need of mutual aid, when everywhere in life the law of +development charged men with leanings and desires and outreachings, then +the sway of love began in life. What was subconscious became conscious, +what, back in the past, was a mere adumbration gloried out in Aurora +splendours. The love of a Juliet is the outgrowth of natural processes +manifesting themselves everywhere down the scale, but it is also the +gift of the last <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>evolution, and it speaks to us from the topmost notch +in the scale. The charm of morning rests on a Juliet's love because its +hour is young and yet old, striking the time of the past and the future. +It is thus that the hunger of the race and the passion of the race +become in the individual the need for happiness. The need of the race +and the need of the individual are at once the same and different.</p> + +<p>What was the point of your letter? That sexual selection obtains? I +grant it. That it is incumbent upon us as intelligent men and women to +call to the aid of instinct our social wisdom? I grant and avow it. But +our social wisdom insists that we obey the choices of instinct; our +social wisdom is only another phase of our refinement, which, in +impelling us to a love of the beautiful, does not the less impel us to +love. Our social wisdom educates our taste without lessening our taste +for the thing. "Love a beautiful person nobly, but be sure you love +her," says our social wisdom with interesting tautology. Besides, you +are a heretic to your own breed, Herbert. It is you who would forsake +our present social wisdom, ruling modern men by laws which obtained in +primitive life. It is you who steadily hark back to the past,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> and to +states of consciousness which were but can never be again. The early +facts of biology cannot include that which transcends them. To borrow +from Ernest Seton Thompson, man is evolved with the lower orders in the +same way that water is changed into steam, and the nature of the change, +when it is effected, is as radical. Add a number of degrees of heat to +water and it is still water. Let one degree be wanting to the necessary +number, and the substance is still intact. Add the last degree, and +water is no longer water. From water to steam is a radical change and a transformation.</p> + +<p>You agree to improve upon the beasts of the fields and upon our own race +in the past, and in this you go farther than you have need if marriage +is for nothing else than to serve the instinct for perpetuation. You +shew some respect for what is natural and instinctive, yet you say that +all would be as well if individual choice had not prevailed, and men and +women were "shuffled about." You draw up a cold programme for action in +affairs of the spirit and formulate a code of procedure in matters of the heart.</p> + +<p>I have a programme too. Mine does not break with nature. On the +contrary, it obeys every instinct and listens to every call on the +senses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> My love begins in my biologic self, grows with my growth, takes +its hues from visioned sunsets in corn-flower skies, its grace from +swaying rivers of grain seen in dreams. It is for me what it is for fish +and fowl, beast and vegetable. It is my passion for perpetuation, but it +is also something as different from this as I am different from beast +and vegetable. My love is "blind, unreasoning, and compelling," and for +that I trust it. I do not conceive myself Man-god, therefore I do not +say to Nature, "Allow me." I cannot be sure that when I say it in the +case of the horse, who obeys like me "dim yearning and vague desires," I +do not sacrifice him to a lust of my own. The lust for owning and +spoiling is hard to cope with. Perhaps a purer time is near, when, +upborne by a sense of the dignity of romance and the sacredness of life, +man will refrain from laying rough hands on his mute brothers.</p> + +<p>The romance which is my proof of the good of being does not rest on +passion. The unclean fires that consume the loutish and degenerate are +not of love. You quote instances of the hyperphysical and hysterical. +The feeling that I would have you obey for your soul's sake and without +which you are but half alive, is not the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> blind passion of an oversexed +sentimentalism. Rousseau was never in love in his life, though to say it +were to accuse him of perjury.</p> + +<p>One word more. Do you wish to know why I care? I care because I know you +to be of those who are capable of love. Probably it was one little twist +in your development that has turned you into alien ways of thinking and +living. Yes, and more than for this I care because you are the +fulfilment of a sacred past. You are the son of my sacrifice and your mother's love.</p> + +<p>I care very much indeed. I do not wish you to awake some terrible night +to find that you had ended your romance before you had begun it. I vex +your days and call you dead? It is because I know the life that is by +the grace of God yours, and because I cannot bear to let you coffin it. +Herbert, there is misery when the blood pales, and the tears dry up, and +the flame of the heart sinks, and all that is left is a memory of a +thought—a memory of very long ago when one was young and might have chosen to live.</p> + +<p>I am sorry we darken the days for each other.</p> + +<p class="right">Your friend always, <br /> +<span class="smcap">Dane Kempton</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XIII</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">3a Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.</span><br /> +February 12, 19—. </p> + +<p>Barbara and Earl celebrated their anniversary yesterday. Invitations +were sent out, the guests consisting of Melville and myself. +"Anniversary of what?" we asked. For answer we received inscrutable +smiles. Birthdays are accidents of fate. You may regret the accident or +you may be thick enough in illusion to rejoice over it, but you cannot +in decency celebrate an occurrence wholly independent of personal +control and yet concerning itself with you! Leave the merrymaking for +appreciative friends. So rules Barbara. Not a birthday, then, nor the +date of their marriage. The occasion was in some flash struck from +Being, the memory of which enriches them,—in a mood that for an hour +held them in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> strong grasp, in the utterance of a word charged with +destiny, in the avowal of their love if their love awaited avowal. +Whatever the cause, they honoured it with a will.</p> + +<p>Barbara's eyes flashed, her cheeks were sweetly suffused, and her voice +was vibrant. Earl, too, was at his best. My heart loved this man who had +lain all his life with death. His health is at its bad worst this +winter, which fact made of the "Celebration" a rather heart-rending +affair. He has been obliged to abandon the <i>Journal</i>, but we hope he can +stay with the school. Meanwhile, his chronic invalidism of body and +purse does not too much affect him. He keeps his charm of tenderness and +strength. He rivets his pupils to him almost as he riveted his Barbara.</p> + +<p>I have discovered my proof of this couple's happiness. It is that I have +always taken it for granted. Simple, is it not? And absolute. Often in +their presence I catch myself imagining their mutual lives and seeing +vaguely the graces that each brings to each. "How she must delight him!" +I say. "How his eyes speak to her!" "They can never come to the end of +each other," and so on. The ordinary married couple so often brings a +sense of distressed surprise: "How can these two foot it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> together?" +"How did it happen?" "How can it go on?"</p> + +<p>Last night counted to me. Your father and I have had such evenings, but +I did not think I could do it all over again. We spoke with the fire +(and conceit) of young students, exciting ourselves with expired +theories, hoping old hopes, smarting under blows that perhaps had long +ceased to fall. What then? What if we were ill-read in the facts? We +could not have been wrong in the feeling. For the old hope that has been +proven vain, a new; for the ancient hurt, a modern wrong, as great and +as crying. It was good to feel that we had not grown too wise to harbour +thoughts of change and redress, or too much ironed out with doctrine to +be resigned. I confess it is long since I have eaten my heart in fury, +in impatience, in wildness, but last night we awoke the radical in one +another. We condemned the system. We placed ourselves outside the +régime, refusing aught at its hands, registering our protest, hating the +inordinate scheme of things only as hotly as we loved the juster Hand of a future time.</p> + +<p>It is curious that we, offsprings of parvenue success, should be capable +of such repudiation. Barbara accepts the Management without the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> trouble +of a question. "What do you know? What do you know?" the girl demands, a +radiant little angel in white, and a conservative. "You must know +yourselves in the wrong, else would you smite your way through the world."</p> + +<p>Ah, Barbara has yet to learn that it is hard to live. It is not so hard +to fight, and it is easy to rest neutral, but to be fighter and bearer +both, to stand staunch, holding ever to the issue, and yet, without +tameness, to take rebuff and wait, there's the true course and the +heroic. It is difficult when one has been conquered to know it. It is +difficult to honour an outgrown ideal, which cost us, nevertheless, +comfort and prestige—prizes which youth scorns and which oncoming age, +pathetically enough, holds dear. It is difficult to pull up when driving +too fast and too far, when galloping towards fanaticism, and it is +impossible to whip oneself into passion and martyrdom. It is difficult +to live, little Barbara.</p> + +<p>For me it is also difficult to report a social function. At this one +Browning presided, for Melville took up "Caponsacchi" and read it to us. +That voice of his is in itself an interpretation, but Browning needs +interpreting less than any other man who wrote great poems, because he +wrote the greatest. It was four in the morning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> when the "O great, just, +good God! Miserable me!" of the soldier-saint fell upon our ears. How we +had listened! Earl steadily paced the floor, Barbara leaned her cheek +upon my hand. Her soul was doing battle, and so was mine. We were all +fighting the gallant fight. Read "Pompilia" and you are filled with +reverence, read "Caponsacchi" and you are caught up by the spirit of +action. You must rise and forth to burn your way like he, though you may +have been too weary in spirit before to answer to your name when +opportunity called roll.</p> + +<p>It was Earl who broke the silence caused by the inner tumult. In a +dreamy voice, his eyes very eager and intent, he told us how at one time +he had gone up a hill that faced the house in which he lived. A hard +rain was driving, he fell at every step up the slippery steepness, but +at every step the beauty of it became more and more wondrous, hardly +bearable. The little village sank lower and lower, and about him were +soft hills, graceful and verdant, a stretch of water lying dark under +the clouded sky, and the mountain gray and watchful in the distance. It +was then, in the chill of a January rain, on an oak-clad hill of a +western spot, that he recognised the dear features of the Mother, knew +her his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> as hers he was, and loved her with passion. The sea is vast and +wondrous, but it is alien. It holds you apart; it is not of you. But the +gentle earth with her undulating form and the growing life in her lap, +soothes with wordless harmonies. It was then that he forgave the fate +which deformed him. A twisted oak, that is all—no less a tree and no +less beautiful in the landscape! And it was sufficient to live. In the +bosom of so much beauty sufficient also to die. As he stood, thinking it +out, feeling the wonder and the glory, at times sorry for those who can +see no longer the slanting sheets of rain and the grass at the feet, at +times feeling that since this is good, in some impalpable way oblivion +to all this may be also good, as he stood there, flushed with the +climbing and sad with great joy, the thought came: With whom? It cannot +be lived alone. With whom? He turned at the touch of an arm at his +shoulder to meet the smile and the look and the quick breath of her who +had sent herself his Eve.</p> + +<p>In the dawn stealing over the world of London, Earl told the story, and +there and then we saw it all—the hill in the heart of the hills, the +reconciled boy who had climbed its brow, the rain-drenched woman +hurrying to overtake him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> with the gift of all of herself in her eyes. +We looked neither at Barbara nor at Earl. Possessed of the secret, we +spoke a few words and left. Our host had divulged what the anniversary +sought to celebrate. We understood and were glad.</p> + +<p>Good night, lad. Would you could have shared our heyday at the dawning!</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XIV</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +February 31, 19—. </p> + +<p>Love is a something that begins in sensation and ends in sentiment. +Thanks to beautiful and permissible hyperbole, you have begun with +sensation in your description of love, and have ended with sentiment. +You have told me about love, in terms of love, which is a vain +performance and unscientific. Now let me make you a definition. <i>Love is +a disorder of mind and body, and is produced by passion under the +stimulus of imagination.</i></p> + +<p>Love is a phase of the operation of the function of reproduction, and it +occurs solely in man. Love, adhering to the common understanding of the +term, is an emotional excitement which does not obtain among the lower +animals. The lower animals lack the stimulus of imagination,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> and with +them the passion for perpetuation remains a mere passion. But man has +developed imagination. The pure sexual passion is glossed over and +obscured by a cloud of fancies, mistaken yearnings, and distorted +dreams. And so well is the real intent of the function obscured, that it +is actually lost to him, especially during the period of love madness, +so that there seems an apparent divorce between the parts which go to +make up love, between passion and imagination.</p> + +<p>The romantic lover of to-day (expressing sensation in terms of +sentiment, and fondly imagining that he is reasoning) cannot reconcile +his soul-exaltation with bodily grossness, cannot conceive that soul can +turn body, and in the embrace of body tell out all the wonder of soul. +To all sensitive and spiritual men and women come times of anguish and +tears and self-revolt, when they are confounded and heart-broken by the +physical aspect of love. Poor men and women! they suffer keenly and +sincerely through lack of something more than a sentimental concept of +love. To them, body and soul appear things apart, to be kept apart, lest +the one contaminate the other. And in the end, loving well and truly, +they prove their love by enduring, though unable ever quite to shake off +the sense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> of sin and shame and personal degradation. They do not +understand life, that is the trouble. The beast, lacking imagination, +needs no rational rightness for the various acts of living, such as they +need, and which they do not possess. Because of their unchecked and +unbalanced imagination they mistake the half of life for the whole, and +when forced to face the whole are affrighted and shocked. They do not +reason that the need for perpetuation is the cause of passion; and that +human passion, working through imagination and worked upon by +imagination, becomes love.</p> + +<p>And while I am in this vein, I may as well deny that a greater spiritual +dowry than affection is required for marriage. (For that matter, I fail +to see anything so spiritual in erotic phenomena.) If a man may achieve +affection for a woman, without undergoing pre-nuptial madness,—if a man +may take the short cut, as it were,—then I see no reason why he should +not marry that woman. He is certainly justified, since affection is what +romantic love must evolve into after marriage. But do not mistake me, +Dane. I do not intend this sweepingly. It will not do for the whole +human herd; for at once enters that abhorrent thing you rightly fear, +the marriage for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> convenience. Alas, it too often masquerades under the +guise of romantic love. Certainly, every man is not capable of taking +this short cut and at the same time of avoiding a violation of true +sexual selection. Having little brain, the average man can only act in +line with sexual selection by undergoing the romantic love malady. But +for some few of us, and I dare to include myself, the short cut is +permissible. This short cut I shall take, and far be it from any worldly +sense of stocks and bonds and comfortable housekeeping.</p> + +<p>Marriage means less to man than to woman? Yes, by all means, at least to +the normal man or woman. As surely as reproduction is woman's peculiar +function, and nutrition man's, just so surely does marriage sum up more +to woman than to man. It becomes the whole life of the woman, while to +the man it is rather an episode, rather a mere side to his many-sided +life. Natural selection has made it so. The countless men of the past, +even from before the time they swung down out of the trees, who devoted +more time and energy to their love-affairs than to the winning of food +and shelter, died from innutrition in various ways. Only the men, normal +men, with a proper respect for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>mechanism of life, survived and +perpetuated their kind. The chance was large that the abnormal lover did +not win a wife at all. At least it is so to-day. The abnormal lover is +not a successful bidder for women, and is usually passed by.</p> + +<p>But while we are on this topic, do not let us forget Dante Alighieri, +your prince of lovers. Has a suitable explanation ever occurred to you +concerning how he came to marry Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, who +bore him seven children, and was never once mentioned in the "Divina +Commedia?" You remember what he said of his first meeting with Beatrice, +"At that moment I saw most truly that the spirit of life which hath its +dwelling in the secretest chambers of the heart began to tremble so +violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith." And he +later had seven children by Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, and whom, +as the historian has recorded, "there was no reason to suppose other +than a good wife."</p> + +<p>As for the primitive, I hark back to it because we are still very +primitive. How many thousands years of culture, think you, have rubbed +and polished at our raw edges? One, probably; at the best, not more than +two. And that takes us back to screaming savagery, when, gross of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> body +and deed, we drank blood from the skulls of our enemies, and hailed as +highest paradise the orgies and carnage of Valhalla. And before that +time, think you, how many thousands of years of savagery did we endure? +and how many myriads of thousands in the long procession of life up from +the first vitalised inorganic? Two thousand years are an extremely thin +veneer with which to cover the many millions.</p> + +<p>And further, our much-vaunted two thousand years of culture is a thing +of the mind, an acquired character. We are not born with it. Each must +gather it for himself after he is born, from the spoken and written +words of his fellow and forerunners. Isolate a babe from all of its kind +and it will never learn to speak, and without speech words, it can never +think save in the concretest possible way. Yet it will possess all the +brute instincts and passions—the raw edges which do constantly shove +through the culture varnish of the civilised man.</p> + +<p>Our culture is the last to come, the first to go. I have seen it go from +a man in an hour, nay, on the instant. Our culture is nothing more than +the accumulated wisdom of the race. It is not part of us, not a thing or +attribute handed down from father to son. It is a something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> acquired in +varying degree by each individual for himself. Yes, I do well to hark +back to the primitive. It tells me where I am to-day and describes to me +the world I am living in. You, Dane, are hyper-refined, or refined +beyond the times. You are like the idealistic and advanced zealots, who, +when such action would mean destruction, advise these United States to +disarm in the face of the war-harnessed world.</p> + +<p>But no more of this jerky letter. Soon I shall proceed to make my +contention good. I shall show the higher part intellect plays in +conjugal love, the control, restraint, forbearance, sacrifice. And I +shall show that conjugal love is higher and finer than romantic love.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XV</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">3a Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.</span><br /> +March 15, 19—. </p> + +<p>Clyde Stebbins was here an hour after your theories and definitions +reached me. The fact that I had been reading treason against his sister +made me pick my subjects a little too carefully for smooth conversation. +Your letter, partly open, was on the table before us, and my eyes fell +upon it often as I wondered what it would mean to Hester's brother—if +he could read it. I no longer think only of you.</p> + +<p>I reject your definition of love. It is not a disorder of the mind and +body, nor is it solely the instrument of reproduction. I reject and +resent your distinction between the pre-nuptial and post-nuptial states +of feelings. Further, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> hold that marriage may not be based on +affection alone, and I disagree with you that population is better than +principle. Children need not be brought into the world at any cost.</p> + +<p>Love is not a disorder, but a growth. There is spiritual as well as +physical growth. Some men and women never grow up strong enough to love. +Their development is arrested, or they are, from the beginning, poor +creatures born of starvelings, and perhaps fated to give birth to pale, +sapless beings like themselves. Others there are who love, and this is +no ill chance, no disease of the mind and body calling for psychiater +and physician. It is a strength, a becoming, a fulfilment. Let us reason +from the effect to the cause. How does this madness manifest itself? Not +in weakness. You never saw a man or woman in love who was the worse for +it. The lover carries all things before him, and not for himself alone, +but for a larger world than ever had been his. He who loves one must +perforce love all the world and all the unborn worlds. This is the way +life goes, which is another way of saying it is a scientific fact. That +which makes men capable of consecration is not a disorder of the mind +and body. It is the greatest of all forces, and it turns the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> wrangling +and grabbing human creature into an inspired poet.</p> + +<p>And the cause? The passion for perpetuation and the imagination. We +agree. But there are other and more immediate needs than the need of +perpetuation that call out love, needs that are peculiarly of the +present, being bound up with the steady outreaching for help, for +fellowship in the jerky journey through the universe. If love were no +more than an instrument of reproduction, you would be right in +maintaining that the fastidiousness I insist on is unnecessary and +unnatural. If love were that and that alone, there would be no love, +which is a paradox indeed.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Because of our souls' yearning that we meet</div> +<div>And mix in soul through flesh, which yours and mine</div> +<div>Wear and impress, and make their visible selves,—</div> +<div>All which means, for the love of you and me,</div> +<div>Let us become one flesh, being one soul."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>I dare a formula: In the beginning love arose in the passion for +perpetuation; to-day, the passion for perpetuation arises in love. Just +as we put ourselves in the way of natural selection, pitting the +microcosm against the macrocosm in a passion of ethical feeling, just so +do we reverse for ourselves processes that seem indeed to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> all the +force of law. This reversal is civilisation.</p> + +<p>The lover is impelled to perpetuate himself in the Here and the Now. The +law of life exacts from him the tribute of love. Imagination gives the +lover the key to the object of his love. He enters and he beholds only +the ideal which is hers; for him her clay self and the mere facts of her +do not exist. The conditions of love are inherent in civilisation. When +purpose is high and feeling rich, when "the everlasting possession of +the good" is desired, then is heard the I Am of love.</p> + +<p>Now to my definition. Negatively, love is not a disorder of the mind and +body, not a madness, since it arises in the eternally most valuable, +since it is the culmination of high processes, and since it makes for +sanity of vision and strength and happiness. Positively, love is the +awakening of the personality to the beauty and worth of some one being, +caused by the passion for perpetuation and by imagination. It is a +desire to hold to the good everlastingly, and to merge with it.</p> + +<p>Aristotle proved to the satisfaction of his time that women have fewer +teeth than men. Aristotle was a great man, and besides being a +philosopher was the foremost scientist of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> day. I cannot help +thinking of this prodigious blunder. Perhaps (who knows?) the same +famous fate which a sexual classification of teeth enjoys awaits a +definition calling love a disorder.</p> + +<p>I will continue to-morrow. A note has just been given me calling me to +Earl, who is ill, but not seriously. Barbara has prescribed for him a +game of chess. The desire to see you again has got into my blood. I +think I shall be in the new West and with you before long.</p> + +<p class="right">Your friend always, <br /> +<span class="smcap">Dane Kempton</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XVI</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London.</span> <br /> +Sunday morning. </p> + +<p>I must proceed with the three other points of my letter, so I shall stay +here and write, though there is a sharp breeze this morning and a +coquettishly escaping sunlight, and something tugs at me to go out upon +the city streets. It is not restlessness, but the love of the open. I am +fain to leave a walled house, and, better still, to get outside of the +walls within and join the city in friendship and let the city join me. I +never feel greater fellowship than when I walk—</p> + +<p>Except when I write to you. Then do I greaten with the pride of life. My +sympathies quicken and I grow young again. I constitute myself advocate +of the world, and enthusiasm does not fail me in this high calling. It +is but natural that in the face of scepticism which I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> cannot share I +should feel greater faith, that in the face of revilement a sense of the +glory of the thing belittled should settle upon me. I turn zealot and +spend myself in long-drawn praising. I lay myself under a spell of +harmony because I am serving and defending and approving what I hold to be good.</p> + +<p>So when you insist that romantic love is pre-nuptial and that it dies at +marriage as others suppose it to die at the approach of poverty, I grow +glad with the knowledge that this is not true. I scrutinize facts which +I hitherto took for granted, and become doubly sure. You dogmatise when +you say that the lover and the husband are mutually exclusive. If there +was love in the beginning, it will be at the end. Love doubles upon +itself. Propinquity tightens bonds and there is a steady blossoming of +the character in a radiant atmosphere. The marriages that fail are the +unions which are based on liking. In these, weariness must set in, for +marriage demands that men and women be all in all to each other, and +unless it be so with them, the lives of the "contracting parties" are, +by the laws of logic, and by the force of the laws of delicacy in the +art of living, forever spoilt.</p> + +<p>Yes, and people who truly love come to regret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> their married love, these +too. But these have at least begun well. Their lives are infinitely +richer for this fact. Their failure itself is made by it more bearable +than the failure of those others who act the vulgarian and demand so +little of life that even that little escapes them. No world-stains on +these who are, at least, would-be lovers. They stand mistaken but +irreproachable. It was neither their fault nor love's, and "life more +abundant" comes to them even with the mistake.</p> + +<p>You are consistent. Just as you maintain that love is passion, so do you +think that it is no more than a preliminary thrill. You note a change; +the flutter and the excitement felt in the presence of the unknown go, +and you do not know that they give place to the steadier joys of the +unknown, that after the promise comes the fulfilment, that the hope is +not more beautiful than the realisation, that there is divinity in both, +and that love does not disappoint.</p> + +<p>Tell me, are the placid marriages of affection you are preparing to +describe so very placid? Do these jog along so well? Is the control, +restraint, forbearance, sacrifice, of which you speak, as readily +practised for the person who is that to you which twenty others may +quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> as easily be, as it is for the one beyond all whom you love and +deify, whom the laws of your being command that you serve, living and +dying? God knows, the average marriage does not exhibit a striking +picture of the practice of these virtues! Rather are such phrases ideals +on stilts on which suffering marital partners attempt to hobble across +their extremity. On the other hand, to some extent everybody practises +restraint and sacrifice since everybody is to some extent moral. But it +goes very hard with your average man and woman in your average marriage, +and there is a decided setting of the mouth and narrowing of the eyes with the effort.</p> + +<p>Whatever placidity there is is attained by means of vampirism. Diderot, +the husband of a stupid seamstress, had no right to the love of a Mlle. +Voland. It was vampirism and sin to take all from this woman, and to +return her favour with so much less than all, as surely as cowardice and +selfishness are sin. But the illicit relation will exist because custom +cannot rid men and women of subtle sympathies and dear yearnings, +because men and women will love though the world consider it cheap and +mad. Individually, we have no difficulty in finding our happiness, but +we are made advance toward it through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> twisted byways of an unfrank +world. "No straight road! Keep turning!" has been the scream of +convention since convention began.</p> + +<p>So for every commonplace marriage there is a canonised love, and the +story is told in the old Greek civilisation by the Hetairæ. You remember +how it reads in the history: "The low position generally assigned the +wife in the home had a most disastrous effect upon Greek morals. She +could exert no such elevating or refining influence as she casts over +the modern home. The men were led to seek social and intellectual +sympathy and companionship outside the family circle, among a class of +women known as Hetairæ, who were esteemed chiefly for their brilliancy +of intellect. As the most noted representative of this class stands +Aspasia, the friend of Pericles. The influence of the Hetairæ was most +harmful to social morality." And the practice persisted through many a +renaissance where Lauras and Beatrices were besung, down to the +brilliant encyclopædists of the eighteenth century with their avowed +loves, down to our Goethe and John Stuart Mill. All of these loves rose +in very different motives and environments, yet were they the same +fundamentally,—strong, sweet love between man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> and woman, very much +spoiled by the fact that custom permitted the loveless marriage at the +same time, but yet love which was good since it was the best that could +be had. And when the historian permits himself to say, "The influence of +the Hetairæ was most harmful to social morality," it is evident that he +also thinks that a marriage which compels husband or wife to seek soul's +help elsewhere than in their union is bad and wrong.</p> + +<p>To-day there is a change in attitude. Woman is new-born in strength and +dignity, and the highest chivalry the world has ever known is in +blossom. She is an equal, a comrade, a right regal person. She is no +longer a means but an end in herself, not alone fit to mother men but +fit to live in equality with men. I repeat, she is not a means but an +individual, with a soul of her own to rear. Because of the greater and +more general emancipation of woman the subtlety of modern love has become possible.</p> + +<p>Now for the last point, the question of perpetuation. Just as function +precedes organ, so the love of life is inherent in the living for the +maintenance of life. But even the primitive man, in whom instinct is +strongest, proves himself capable of death. Some men have always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> been +able to give up their lives for some cause. (Indeed there is thought to +be suicide amongst animals.) And to-day we certainly no longer say a man +must live. Quite as often must he die. Men have found it wise to die at +the stake or on the gallows. If this be true of our relation to the life +which courses through us, how much more true is it of our instinct to +perpetuate ourselves, which pertains to the love of life biologically +only, which is often, in the social manifestation of that instinct, a +cold intellectual concept and never a dominating thought! We are not +driven to procreate. In fact, every child born into the world competes +hard for its morsel. Under our unimaginable economic régime all increase +in population is a menace.</p> + +<p>I call bringing children into the world a codfish act which causes an +overflux of vulgar little earthlings, if the process be not humanised +and spiritualised. If the child is conceived not in lust but in love, it +is rightly born. If it is the child of your ideal, the offspring of that +which is your truest life, then is your progeny your immortality, and +then, and then only, have you reason for pride and joy in that which you +have caused to be.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p><p>My dear, dear Herbert, my love has not failed. This you must come to +understand. Love never fails. The children that might have been mine are +better unborn, since I could not give them a mother whom I loved. You +remind me that Dante married Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, and she +bore him seven children. Yet, Herbert, was this wife not mentioned in +the "Commedia," nor in "La Vita Nuova," nor anywhere else in his +writings. Dante was a Conformist. He was not in all respects above his +time; witness his theology. Convention permitted the dispassionate +marriage side by side with love. He was conventional, and the infinite +moment of meeting in paradise with his Lady was embittered by her "cold, lessoned smiles."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Ah, from what agonies of heart and brain,</div> +<div>What exultations trampling on despair,</div> +<div>What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,</div> +<div>What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,</div> +<div>Uprose this poem of the earth and air,</div> +<div>This mediaeval miracle of song!"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>It was for Beatrice that this man vexed his spirit with immortal effort +and raised a Titan voice which yet is heard in charmed echoes. It was +for Beatrice that he descended into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> dead regions and climbed the +hills of purgatory and soared towards the Rose of Paradise,—"And 'She, +where is She?' instantly I cried."</p> + +<p>Dante, our prince of lovers, might have lived better, but he loved well.</p> + +<p>This in answer to your letter. To meet your argument I have found it +best to employ something of your own method, but I cannot rid myself of +the feeling that I have vulgarised the subject by saying so much about +it. I fear my letter would provoke a smile from those who know love and +the wonder of its simplicity through all the subtlety. "We, in loving, +have no cause to speak so much!" would be their unanswerable criticism. +It is easier to live than to argue about life.</p> + +<p>The thought has suddenly assailed me that what I have said may sound +derogatory to Hester. Know, then, that I do not think there is a woman +in the world who is not capable of inspiring true and abiding love in +the heart of some man. Besides, Hester to me looms up as a heroine. Not +a hair's breadth of what I know of her that is not beautiful. My regret +is that she, who could be "a vision eterne," should be doomed to receive +episodically your considerate affection. She does not know your +programme.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> She is a girl who takes your love for granted in the same +way as she gives hers, without niggardliness. It is the woman who cannot +be content with less than all that is slowly starved to death on a +bread-and-water diet and who does not find it out until the end.</p> + +<p>Until the carnival time when you and Hester come to love each other, if +that time is to be, you two must be as separate in deed as you are in +fact. Forgive me and write soon.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours ever, <br /> +<span class="smcap">Dane</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XVII</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +April 2, 19—. </p> + +<p>So you have met Hester's brother? Well, I have had an outing with +Hester. She loves me well, I know, and I cannot but confess a thrill at +the thought. On the other hand, well do I know the significance of that +love, the significance and the cause. Notwithstanding that wonderful +soul of hers, she is in no wise constituted differently from her +millions of sisters on the planet to-day. She loves—she knows not why; +she knows—only that she loves. In other words, she does not reason her emotions.</p> + +<p>But let us reason, we men, after the manner of men. And be thou patient, +Dane, and follow me down and under the phenomena of love to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> things +sexless and loveless. And from there, as the proper point of departure, +let us return and chart love, its phases and occurrences, from its first +beginnings to its last manifestations.</p> + +<p>Things sexless and loveless! Yes, and as such may be classed the drops +of life known as unicellular organisms. Such a creature is a tiny cell, +capable of performing in itself all the functions of life. That one +pulsating morsel of matter is invested with an irritability which, as +Herbert Spencer says, enables it "to adjust the inner relations with +outer relations," to correspond to its environment—in short, to live. +That single cell contracts and recoils from the things in its +environment uncongenial to its constitution, and the things congenial it +draws to itself and absorbs. It has no mouth, no stomach, no alimentary +canal. It is all mouth, all stomach, all alimentary canal.</p> + +<p>But at that low plane the functions of life are few and simple. This bit +of vitalised inorganic has no sex, and because of that it cannot love. +Reproduction is growth. When it grows over-large it splits in half, and +where was one cell there are two. Nor can the parent cell be called +<i>mother</i> or <i>father</i>: and for that matter, the parent cell cannot be +determined. The original cell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> split into two cells; one has as much +claim to parenthood as the other.</p> + +<p>It lives dimly, to be sure, this mote of life and light; but before it +is a vast evolution, Dane, on the pinnacle of which are to be found men +and women, Hester Stebbins, my mother, you!</p> + +<p>A step higher we find the cell cluster, and with it begins that +differentiation which has continued to this day and which still +continues. Simplicity has yielded to complexity and a new epoch of life +been inaugurated. The outer cells of the cluster are more exposed to +environmental forces than are the inner cells; they cohere more +tenaciously and a rudimentary skin is formed. Through the pores of this +skin food is absorbed, and in these food-absorbing pores is foreshadowed +the mouth. Division of labour has set in, and groups of cells specialise +in the performance of functions. Thus, a cell group forms the skinny +covering of the cluster, another cell group the mouth. And likewise, +internally, the stomach, a sac for the reception and digestion of food, +takes shape; and the juices of the body begin to circulate with greater +definiteness, breaking channels in their passage and keeping those +channels open. And, as the generations pass, still more groups of cells +segregate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> themselves from the mass, and the heart, the lungs, the +liver, and other internal organs are formed. The jelly-like organism +develops a bony structure, muscles by which to move itself, and a +nervous system—</p> + +<p>Be not bored, Dane, and be not offended. These are our ancestors, and +their history is our history. Remember that as surely as we one day +swung down out of the trees and walked upright, just so surely, on a far +earlier day, did we crawl up out of the sea and achieve our first adventure on land.</p> + +<p>But to be brief. In the course of specialisation of function, as I have +outlined, just as other organs arose, so arose sex-differentiation. +Previous to that time there was no sex. A single organism realised all +potentialities, fulfilled all functions. Male and female, the creative +factors, were incoherently commingled. Such an individual was both male +and female. It was complete in itself,—mark this, Dane, for here +individual completeness ends.</p> + +<p>The labour of reproduction was divided, and male and female, as separate +entities, came into the world. They shared the work of reproduction +between them. Neither was complete alone. Each was the complement of the +other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> In times and seasons each felt a vital need for the other. And +in the satisfying of this vital need, of this yearning for completeness, +we have the first manifestation of love. Male and female loved they one +another—but dimly, Dane. We would not to-day call it love, yet it +foreshadowed love as the food-absorbing pore foreshadowed the mouth.</p> + +<p>As long and tedious as has been the development of this rudimentary love +to the highly evolved love of to-day, just so long and tedious would be +my sketch of that development. However, the factors may be hinted. The +increasing correspondence of life with its environment brought about +wider and wider generalisations upon that environment and the relations +of the individual to it. There is no missing link to the chain that +connects the first and lowest life to the last and the highest. There is +no gap between the physical and psychical. From <i>simple reflex action</i>, +on and up through <i>compound reflex action</i>, <i>instinct</i>, and <i>memory</i>, +the passage is made, without break, to <i>reason</i>. And hand in hand with +these, all acting and reacting upon one another, comes the development +of the imagination and of the higher passions, feelings, and emotions. +But all of this is in the books, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> there is no need for me to go over +the ground.</p> + +<p>So let me sum up with an analysis of that most exquisite of poets' +themes, a maiden in love. In the first place, this maiden must come of +an ancestry mastered by the passion for perpetuation. It is only through +those so mastered that the line comes down. The individual perishes, you +know; for it is the race that lives. In this maiden is incorporated all +the experience of the race. This race experience is her heritage. Her +function is to pass it on to posterity. If she is disobedient, she is +unfruitful; her line ceases with her; and she is without avail among the +generations to come. And, be it not forgotten, there are many obedient +whose lines <i>will</i> pass down.</p> + +<p>But this maiden is obedient. By her acts she will link the past to the +future, bind together the two eternities. But she is incomplete, this +maiden, and being immature she is unaware of her incompleteness. +Nevertheless she is the creature of the law of the race, and from her +infancy she prepares herself for the task she is to perform. Hers is a +certain definite organism, somewhat different from all other female +organisms. Consequently there is one male in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> all the world whose +organism is most nearly the complement of hers; one male for whom she +will feel the greatest, intensest, and most vital need; one male who of +all males is the fittest, organically, to be the father of her children. +And so, in pinafores and pigtails, she plays with little boys and likes +and dislikes according to her organic need. She comes in contact with +all manner of boys, from the butcher's boy to the son of her father's +friend; and likewise with men, from the gardener to her father's +associates. And she is more or less attracted by those who, in greater +or less degree, answer to her organic demand, or, as it were, organic ideal.</p> + +<p>And upon creatures male she early proceeds to generalise. This kind of +man she likes, that she does not like; and this kind she likes more than +that kind. She does not know why she does this; nor, with the highest +probability, does she know she is doing it. She simply has her likes and +dislikes, that is all. She is the slave of the law, unwittingly +generalising upon sex-impressions against the day when she must identify +the male who most nearly completes her.</p> + +<p>She drifts across the magic borderland to womanhood, where dreams and +fancies rise and intermingle and the realities of life are lost. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +dissatisfaction and a restlessness come upon her. There seems no sanity +in things, and life is topsy-turvy. She is filled with vague, troubled +yearnings, and the woman in her quickens and cries out for unity. It is +an organic cry, old as the race, and she cannot shut out the sound of it +or still the clamour in her blood.</p> + +<p>But there is one male in all the world who is most nearly her +complement, and he may be over on the other side of the world where she +may not find him. So propinquity determines her fate. Of the males she +is in contact with, the one who can more nearly give her the +completeness she craves will be the one she loves.</p> + +<p>All of which is well and good in its way, but let us analyze further. +What is all this but the symptoms of an extreme over-excitation and +nervous disorder? The equilibrium of the organism has been overthrown +and there is a wild scrambling for the restoration of that equilibrium. +The choice made may be good or ill, as chance and time may dictate, but +the impelling excitement forces a choice. What if it be ill? What if +to-morrow a male who is a far better complement should appear? The time +is now. Nature is not neglectful, and well she knows the disaster of +delay. She is prodigal of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> the individual and is satisfied with one +match out of many mismatches, just as she is satisfied that of a million +cod eggs one only should develop into a full-grown cod. And so this love +of the human in no wise differs from that of the sparrow which forgets +preservation in procreation. Thus nature tricks her creatures and the race lives on.</p> + +<p>For the lesser creatures the trick serves the purpose well. There is +need for a compelling madness, else would self-preservation overcome +procreation and there be no lesser creatures. And man is content to rest +coequal with the beast in the matter of mating. Notwithstanding his +intelligence, which has made him the master of matter and enabled him to +enslave the great blind forces, he is unable to perpetuate his species +without the aid of the impelling madness. Nay, men will not have it +otherwise; and when an individual urges that his reason has placed him +above the beast, and that, without the impelling madness, he can mate +with greater wisdom and potency, then the poets and singers rise up and +fling potsherds at him. To improve upon nature by draining a malarial +swamp is permitted him; to improve upon nature's methods and breed +swifter <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>carrier-pigeons and finer horses than she has ever bred is also +permitted; but to improve upon nature in the breeding of the human, that +is a sacrilege which cannot be condoned! Down with him! He is a brute to +question our divine Love, God-given and glorious!</p> + +<p>Ah, Dane, remember the first dim yearning of divided life, and the soils +and smirches and frenzies put upon it by the spawn of multitudinous +generations. There is your love, the whole history of it. There is no +intrinsic shame in the thing itself, but the shame lies in that we are not greater than it.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XVIII</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +April 4, 19—. </p> + +<p>There were several things in your letter which I forgot to answer. Much +of beauty and wonder is there in what you have said, and unrelated facts +without end. Many of those facts I endorse heartily, but it seems to me +you fail to embody them in a coherent argument.</p> + +<p>I have stated, in so many words, that there are two functions common to +all life—nutrition and reproduction. Of this you have missed the +significance in your rejection of my definition of love, so I must +explain further. Unless these two functions be carried on, life must +perish from the planet. Therefore they are the most essential concerns +of life. The individual must preserve its own life and the life of its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +kind. It is more prone to preserve its own life than the life of its +kind, less prone to sacrifice itself for its species. So natural +selection has developed a passion of madness which forces the individual +to make the sacrifice. In all forms of life below man the struggle for +existence is keen and merciless. The least weakness in an individual is +the signal for its destruction. Therefore it is counter to the welfare +of the individual to do aught that will tend to weaken it. On the other +hand, the law is that the individual must procreate. But procreation +means a weakening and a temporary state of helplessness. Problem: How +may the individual be brought to procreate? to do that which is inimical +to its welfare? Answer: It must be forced by something deeper than +reason, and that something is unreasoning passion. Did the individual +reason on the matter, it would certainly abstain. It is because the +passion is not rational that life has persisted to this day. Man, coming +up from the walks of lower life, brought with him this most necessary +passion. Developing imagination, he commingled the two; love was the product.</p> + +<p>Now, because of our imagination, do not let us confuse the issue. The +great task demanded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> of man is reproduction. He is urged by passion to +perform this task. Passion, working through the imagination, produces +love. Passion is the impelling factor, imagination the disturbing +factor; and the disturbance of passion by imagination produces love.</p> + +<p>Stripped of all its superfluities, what function does love serve in the +scheme of life? That of reproduction. Nay, now, do not object, Dane; for +you state the same thing, though less clearly, in your own definition of +love. You say, "Love is the awakening of the personality to the beauty +and worth of some one being" and is a desire to merge the life with that +of the beloved being. In other words, your definition tells that the +passion for perpetuation is the cause of love, and perpetuation the end +to be accomplished. Thus nature tricks her creatures and the race lives on.</p> + +<p>Then you say negatively, "Love is not a disorder of mind and body, not a +madness, since it arises in the eternally most valuable, since it is the +culmination of high processes, and since it makes for strength and +sanity of vision and happiness." I have shown the value of passion, and +the processes of which love is the culmination, and I have shown that +both are unreasoning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> and why they are unreasoning. Do you demonstrate +where I am wrong.</p> + +<p>Then again, you dare a formula: "In the beginning love arose in the +passion for perpetuation; to-day the passion for perpetuation arises in +love." It is clever, but is it true? Yes, as true as this formula I dare +to pattern after yours: In the beginning man ate because he was hungry; +to-day he is hungry because he eats.</p> + +<p>There are many things more I should like to answer, but I am writing +this 'twixt breakfast and lecture hour, and time presses and students will not wait.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XIX</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">3a, Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.</span><br /> +April 22, 19—. </p> + +<p>Nature tricks her creatures and the race lives on, and I, overcivilised, +decadent dreamer that I am, rejoice that the past binds us, am proud of +a history so old and so significant and of an heritage so marvellous. +Nature tricks her creatures and the race lives on, and I am prayerfully +grateful. The difference between us is that you are not. You are +suffering from what has been well called, the sadness of science. You +accept the thesis of a common origin only to regret it. You discover +that romance has a history, and lo! romance has vanished! You are a +Werther of science, sad to the heart with a melancholy all your own and +dropping inert tears on the shrine of your accumulated facts.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p><p>In this you are with your generation. Just as every age has its +prevailing disease of the body so has it its characteristic spiritual +ailment. To-day we are in the throes of travail. In our arms is the +child of our ever-delving intellect, but another deliverance is about to +be and the suffering is great. After science comes the philosophy of +science. Our eyes are bathed in Revelation, but upon our ears the music +of the Word has not yet fallen. Until that time when the meaning of it +all shall flash out upon the world, the race will be hidebound in +callousness and in faint-hearted melancholy. As yet we do not know what +to do with all which we know, and we are afflicted with the pessimism of +inertia and the pessimism of dyspepsia. Intellectually, we have been +living too high the last hundred years or so. In this is the secret of +our difference. You insist upon cheapening life for yourself because it +has become evident to you that the phenomenon is common, and I, on the +other hand, shout its glory because it is universal. To myself I am +breathless with wonder, but to you and in my work I needs must shout it.</p> + +<p>Here let me be clear. I take it that you are under the sway of a +contemporary mood, that your position is an accidental phase of +to-day's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> materialism. Broadly, our quarrel is that of pessimism and +optimism, only your pessimism is unconscious, which makes it the more +dangerous to yourself. You are too sad to know that you are not happy or +to care. Does my diagnosis surprise you? Analyze the argument of your +last letter. You trace the growth of the emotion of love from protoplasm +to man. You follow the progress of the force which is stronger than +hunger and cold and swifter and more final than death, from its +potential state in the unicellular stage where life goes on by division, +up through the multifarious forms of instinctive animal mating, till you +reach the love of the sexes in the human world. And the exploring leads +you to the belief that nothing has been reserved for the human worth his +cherishing, to the conviction that the plan of life is simple and +unvaried and therefore unacceptable.</p> + +<p>You raise the wail of Ecclesiastes, "All is vanity and a striving after +wind, and there is no profit under the sun." The Preacher and Omar and +Swinburne are pathetically human, and we who are also human respond to +their finality, to their quizzical indifference and their stinging +resentment. We also say, "Vanity of vanities," and bow our heads +murmuring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> "Ilicet," and stretch out our hands to "turn down an empty +glass," but all this in twilight moods when a dimness as of dying rests +upon the soul. There are a few with whom it is always morning, and +others who remember something of the radiance of the young day even in +the heart of midnight. These disprove the postulates of sameness and +satiety, these are not smitten by the seen fact as are you of the +microscopic retina, these "see life steadily and see it whole."</p> + +<p>We need not fear the label of an idea. When I say that your position is +that of the pessimist, it is not more of an accusation than if I said it +was that of the optimist. The thing to concern oneself with is the +question, "which of these makes the nearer approach to the truth?" You +have been asking me, "What is love worth?" And you have answered your +question often enough and to your satisfaction, "In itself it is worth +nothing, being but the catspaw to scheming forces." With your denial of +any intrinsic beauty in the emotion, with your acceptance of it as an +unfortunate incident in human affairs, comes a vague hope that the race +will outgrow this force. Here is your rift in the cloud. You picture a +scientific Utopia where there are no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> lovers and no back-harkings to the +primitive passion, and you appoint yourself pioneer to the promised land +of the children of biology.</p> + +<p>Ah! I speak as if I were vexed instead of simply being sure I am in the +right. I wish to help you to see that there is another reading to your +facts. If love is essentially the same from protoplasm to man, it does +not for this reason become worthless. By virtue of being universal it is +enhanced and most divinely humanly binding. You tell me that love is +involuntary, compelled by external forces as old as time and as binding +as instinct, and I say that because of this, life is finally for love. +What! The cavemen, and the birds, too, and the fish and the plants, +forsooth! What! The inorganic, perhaps, as well as the organic, swayed +by this force which is wholly physical and yet wholly psychical! And +does it not fire you? You are not caught up and held by this giant fact? +You find that love is not sporadic, not individual, that it does not +begin with you or end with you, that it does not dissociate you, and you +do not warm to the world-organic kinship, you do not hear the overword +of the poets and philosophers of all times, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> do not see the visions +that gladdened the star-forgotten nights of saints?</p> + +<p>The same surprise sweeps over the mind in reading Ecclesiastes. Is it a +sorry scheme of things that one generation goes and another comes and +the world abides forever? If the same generation peopled the earth for a +million years, the dignity of life would not be increased. It is not +necessary to have the assurance of eternal life as the dole for having +come to be, in order to live under the aspect of eternity. It is larger +to be short-lived, to be but a wave of the sea rolling for one sunful +day and starry night towards a great inclusiveness. It is a higher +majesty to be inalien and a part—a ringed ripple in the Vastness—than +to lie broad and smiling in meaningless endlessness.</p> + +<p>So it is a strange thing that men who are schooled by evolution to +relate themselves to all that exists, and to seek for new kinships, +should lament that there is no new thing under the sun. And whose eye +would be satisfied with seeing and whose ear with hearing? Who would +rather have the truth than the power to seek it? There is a way of +reading Ecclesiastes and Schopenhauer with a triumphant lilt in the +voice. After all, it is the modulation that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> carries the message of the +text. When you write the history of love, I find it fair reading. When +you tell me love is primal and engrossing, I hold it the more a sin to +crouch away from its fires.</p> + +<p>"Love is the assertion of the will to live as a definitely determined +individual." This is Schopenhauer's thesis and (unnecessarily enough) he +apologises for it, as if it belittled love to say that it affects man in +his <i>essentia æterna</i>. The genius of the race takes the lover conscript +and makes him a soldier in life's battalions.</p> + +<p>"The genius of the race," a metaphysical term, but meaning what you do +when you speak of the function of love. Schopenhauer is a pessimist +consciously, you, unconsciously; and you have both missed the living +value of your facts. "Love is ruled by race welfare," says Schopenhauer. +"It (the race welfare) alone corresponds to the profoundness with which +it is felt, to the seriousness with which it appears, to the importance +which it attributes even to the trifling details of its sphere and +occasion." Love concerns itself with "The composition of the next +generation," therefore you find it common as the commonplace, therefore +Schopenhauer regards it as a force treacherous to happiness, since to +live is to be miserable. "These lovers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> are the traitors who seek to +perpetuate the whole want and drudgery which would otherwise speedily +reach an end; this they wish to frustrate as others like them have +frustrated it before."</p> + +<p>Because love frustrates the death of the race, it is the joy of my +senses and the goal of my striving.</p> + +<p>Says Schopenhauer: "Through love man shows that the species lies closer +to him than the individual, and he lives more immediately in the former +than in the latter. Why does the lover hang with complete abandon on the +eyes of his chosen one, and is ready to make every sacrifice for her? +<i>Because it is his immortal part that longs after her, while it is +merely his mortal part that desires everything else.</i>" Because this is +so, love is the God of my faith.</p> + +<p>You see where our subject takes us! And all the while I care nothing for +the points of argument except where they prick you from your position. +One must scale the skies and swim the seas in order to reach you. Well, +have I approached within your hearing?</p> + +<p>I was sitting amongst the fennel in Barbara's garden when your letter +was brought, and I read it twice to make sure I understood. When<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> the +sun lies warm on waving fennel and a city is before you, mysterious in a +veil of mist, it is easier to feel love than to think about it. For a +while, it was difficult to see the bearing of the data which you +marshalled so well in defence of your denial. You went far in order to +answer why you are content to marry a woman you do not love. Your +methods are not the methods of the practical mind. I am glad for that. +You idealise your attitude, you go far back in time, you enmesh yourself +in theories and generalisations, you ride your imagination proudly, in +order to reconcile yourself to something which suggests itself as more +ideal than that for which the unreasoning heart hungers. You are sad, +but you are not practical and you are not blasé.</p> + +<p>Of Barbara, of myself, and of London doings, this is no time to write. +Tell Hester your friend thinks of her.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours with great memories and greater hopes, <br /> +<span class="smcap">Dane Kempton</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XX</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +May 18, 19—. </p> + +<p>I stand aloof and laugh at myself and you. Oh, believe me, I see it very +clearly myself in the heyday and cocksureness of youth, flinging at you, +with much energy and little skill, my immature generalisations from +science; and you with an elderly beneficence and tolerance, smiling +shrewdly and affectionately upon me, secure in the knowledge that sooner +or later I am sure to get through with it all and join you in your broad +and placid philosophy. It is the penalty age exacts from youth. Well, I accept it.</p> + +<p>So I am suffering from the sadness of science. I had been prone to +ascribe my feelings to the passion of science. But it does not matter in +the least—only, somehow, I would rather you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> did not misunderstand me +so dreadfully. I do not raise the wail of Ecclesiastes. I am not sad, +but glad. I discover romance has a history, and in history I am quicker +to read the romance. I accept the thesis of a common origin, not to +regret it, but to make the best of it. That is the key to my life—to +make the best of it, but not drearily, with the passiveness of a slave, +but passionately and with desire. Invention is an artifice man employs +to overcome the roundabout. It is the short cut to satisfaction. It +makes man potent, so that he can do more things in a span. I am a worker +and doer. The common origin is not a despair to me; it has a value, and +it strengthens my arm in the work to be done.</p> + +<p>The play and interplay of force and matter we call "evolution." The more +man understands force and matter, and the play and interplay, the more +is he enabled to direct the trend of evolution, at least in human +affairs. Here is a great and weltering mass of individuals which we call +society. The problem is: How may it be directed so that the sum of its +happiness greatens? This is my work. I would invent, overcome the +roundabout, seek the short cut. And I consider all matter, all force, +all factors, so that I may invent wisely and justly. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> considering +all factors, I consider romance, and I consider you. I weigh your value +in the scheme of things, and your necessity, and I find that you are +both valuable and necessary.</p> + +<p>But the history of progress is the history of the elimination of waste. +One boy, running twenty-five machines, turns out a thousand pairs of +socks a day. His granny toiled a thousand days to do the same. Waste has +been eliminated, the roundabout overcome. And so with romance. I strive +not to be blinded by its beauty, but to give it exact appraisal. +Oftentimes it is the roundabout, the wasteful, and must needs be +eliminated. Thus chivalry and its romance vanished before the chemist +and the engineer, before the man who mixed gunpowder and the man who dug ditches.</p> + +<p>I melancholy? Sir, I have not the time—so may I model my answer after +the great Agassiz. I am not a Werther of science, but rather you are a +John Ruskin of these latter days. He wept at the profanation of the +world, at the steam-launches violating the sanctity of the Venetian +canals and the electric cars running beneath the shadow of the pyramids; +and you weep at the violation of like sanctities in the spiritual world. +A gondola is more beautiful,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> but the steam-launch takes one places, and +an electric car is more comfortable than the hump of a camel. It is too +bad, but waste romance, as waste energy, must be eliminated.</p> + +<p>Enough. I shall go on with the argument. I have drawn the line between +pre-nuptial love and post-nuptial love. The former, which is the real +sexual love, the love of which the poets sing and which "makes the world +go round," I have called romantic love. The latter, which in actuality +is sex comradeship, I call conjugal affection or friendship. To be more +definite, I shall call the one "love," the other "affection" or +"friendship." Now love is not affection or friendship, yet they are +ofttimes mistaken, one for the other, for it so happens that the +friendship, which is akin to conjugal affection, is in many instances +pre-nuptial in its development—a token, I take it, of the higher +evolution of the human, an audaciousness which dares to shake off the +blind passion and evade nature's trick as man evaded when he harnessed +steam and rested his feet. It is of common occurrence that a man and +woman, through long and tried friendship, reach a fine appreciation of +each other and marry; and the run of such marriages is the happiest. +Neither blinded nor frenzied by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> unreasoned passion of love, they +have weighed each other,—faults, virtues, and all,—and found a +compatibility strong enough to withstand the strain of years and +misfortune, and wise enough to compromise the individual clashes which +must inevitably arise when soul shares never ending bed and board with +soul. They have achieved before marriage what the love-impelled man and +woman must achieve after marriage if they would continue to live +together; that is, they have sought and found compatibility before +binding themselves, instead of binding themselves first and then seeking +if there be compatibility or not.</p> + +<p>Let me apparently digress for the moment and bring all clear and +straight. The emotions have no basis in reason. We smile or are sad at +the manifestation of jealousy in another. We smile or are sad because of +the unreasonableness of it. Likewise we smile at the antics of the +lover. The absurdities he is guilty of, the capers he cuts, excite our +philosophic risibility. We say he is mad as a March hare. (Have you ever +wondered, Dane, why a March hare is deemed mad? The saying is a pregnant +one.) However, love, as you have tacitly agreed, is unreasonable. In +fact, in all the walks of animal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> life no rational sanction can be found +for the love-acts of the individual. Each love act is a hazarding of the +individual's life; this we know, and it is only impelled to perform such +acts because of the madness of the trick, which, though it strikes at +the particular life, makes for the general life.</p> + +<p>So I think there is no discussion over the fact that this emotion of +love has no basis in reason. As the old French proverb runs, "The first +sigh of love is the last of wisdom." On the other hand, the individual +not yet afflicted by love, or recovered from it, conducts his life in a +rational manner. Every act he performs has a basis in reason—so long as +it is not some other of the emotional acts. The stag, locking horns with +a rival over the possession of a doe, is highly irrational; but the same +stag, hiding its trail from the hounds by taking to water, is performing +a highly rational act. And so with the human. We model our lives on a +basis of reason—of the best reason we possess. We do not put the +scullery in the drawing-room, nor do we repair our bicycles in the +bedchamber. We strive not to exceed our income, and we deliberate long +before investing our savings. We demand good recommendations from our +cook, and take letters of introduction with us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> when we go abroad. We +overlook the petulant manner of our friend who rowed in the losing +barges at the race, and we forgive on the moment the sharp answer of the +man who has sat three nights by a sick-bed. And we do all this because +our acts have a basis in reason.</p> + +<p>Comes the lover, tricked by nature, blind of passion, impelled madly +toward the loved one. He is as blind to her salient imperfections as he +is to her petty vices. He does not interrogate her disposition and +temperament, or speculate as to how they will coördinate with his for +two score years and odd. He questions nothing, desires nothing, save to +possess her. And this is the paradox: <i>By nature he is driven to +contract a temporary tie, which, by social observance and demand, must +endure for a lifetime.</i> Too much stress cannot be laid upon this, Dane, +for herein lies the secret of the whole difficulty.</p> + +<p>But we go on with our lover. In the throes of desire—for desire is +pain, whether it be heart hunger or belly hunger—he seeks to possess +the loved one. The desire is a pain which seeks easement through +possession. Love cannot in its very nature be peaceful or content. It is +a restlessness, an unsatisfaction. I can grant a lasting love just as I +can grant a lasting satisfaction; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> the lasting love cannot be +coupled with possession, for love is pain and desire, and possession is +easement and fulfilment. Pursuit and possession are accompanied by +states of consciousness so wide apart that they can never be united. +What is true of pursuit cannot be true of possession, no more than the +child, grasping the bright ball, can deem it the most wonderful thing in +the world—an appraisement which it certainly made when the ball was beyond reach.</p> + +<p>Let us suppose the loved one is as madly impelled toward the lover. In a +few days, in an hour, nay, in an instant—for there is such a thing as +love at first sight—this man and woman, two unrelated individuals, who +may never have seen each other before, conceive a passion, greater, +intenser, than all other affections, friendships, and social relations. +So great, so intense is it, that the world could crumble to star-dust so +long as their souls rushed together. If necessary, they would break all +ties, forsake all friends, abandon all blood kin, run away from all +moral responsibilities. There can be no discussion, Dane. We see it +every day, for love is the most perfectly selfish thing in the universe.</p> + +<p>But this is easily reconcilable with the scheme of things. The true +lover is the child of nature. Natural selection has determined that +exogamy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> produces fitter progeny than endogamy. Cross fertilisation has +made stronger individuals and types, and likewise it has maintained +them. On the other hand, were family affection stronger than love, there +would be much intermarriage of blood relations and a consequent +weakening of the breed. And in such cases it would be stamped out by the +stronger-breeding exogamists. Here and there, even of old time, the wise +men recognised it; and we so recognise it to-day, as witness our bars +against consanguineous marriage.</p> + +<p>But be not misled into the belief that love is finer and higher than +affection and friendship, that the yielding to its blandishments is +higher wisdom on the part of our lovers. Not so; they are puppets and +know and think nothing about it. They come of those who yielded likewise +in the past. They obey forces beyond them, greater than they, their +kind, and all life, great as the great forces of the physical universe. +Our lovers are children of nature, natural and uninventive. Duty and +moral responsibility are less to them than passion. They will obey and +procreate, though the heavens roll up as a scroll and all things come to +judgment. And they are right if this is what we understand to be "the +bloom, the charm, the smile of life."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p><p>Yet man is man because he chanced to develop intelligence instead of +instinct; otherwise he would to this day have remained among the +anthropoid apes. He has turned away from nature, become unnatural, as it +were, disliked the earth upon which he found himself, and changed the +face of it somewhat to his liking. His trend has been, and still is, to +perform more and more acts with a rational sanction. He has developed a +moral nature, made laws, and by the sheer force of his will and reason +curbed his lyings and his lusts.</p> + +<p>However, our lovers are natural and uninventive. They get married. +Pursuit, with all its Tantalus delights, its sighings and its songs, is +gone, never to return. And in its place is possession, which is +satisfaction, familiarity, knowledge. It heralds the return of +rationality, the return to duty of the weighing and measuring qualities +of the mind. Our lovers discover each other to be mere man and woman +after all. That ethereal substance which the man took for the body of +the loved one becomes flesh and blood, prone to the common weaknesses +and ills of flesh and blood. He, on the other hand, betrays little +petulancies of disposition, little faults and predispositions of which +she never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> dreamed in the pre-nuptial days, and which she now finds +eminently distasteful. But at first these things are not openly +unpleasant. There are no scenes. One or the other gives in on the +instant, without self-betrayal, and one or the other retires to have a +secret cry or to ruminate about it over a cigar—the first faint hints, +I may slyly suggest, of the return of rationality. <i>They are beginning to think.</i></p> + +<p>Ah, these are little things, you say. Precisely; wherefore I lay +emphasis upon them. The sum of the innumerable little things becomes a +mighty thing to test the human soul. Moreover, many a home has been +broken because of disagreement as to the uses or abuses of couch +cushions, and more than one divorce induced by the lingering of tobacco +odours in the curtains.</p> + +<p>If the marriage of our lovers conform to the majority of marriages, the +first year of their wedded life will determine whether they are able to +share bed and board through the lengthening years. For this first +year—often the first months of it—marks the transition from love to +conjugal affection, or witnesses a rupture which nothing less than +omnipotence can ever mend. In the first year a serious readjustment must +take place. Unreason, as a basis for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> relation, must give way to +reason; blind, ignorant, selfish little love must flutter away, so that +friendship, clear-eyed and wise, may step in. There will come moments +when wills clash and desires do not chime; these must be moments of +sober thought and compromise, when one or the other sacrifices self on +the altar of their nascent friendship. Upon this ability to compromise +depends their married happiness. Returning to the rationality which they +forsook during mating-time, they cannot live a joint rational existence +without compromising. If they be compatible, they will gradually grow to +fit, each with the other, into the common life; compromise, on certain +definite points, will become automatic; and for the rest they will +exhibit a tacit and reasoned recognition of the imperfections and frailties of life.</p> + +<p>All this reason will dictate. If they be incapable of rising to +compromise, sacrifice, and unselfishness, reason will dictate +separation. In such cases, when they will have become rational once +more, they will reason the impossibility of a continued relation and +give it up. In which case the true-love disciple may contend that there +was no real love in the beginning. But he is wrong. It was just as real +as that of any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> marriage, only it failed in the post-nuptial quest after +compatibility. In all marriages love—passionate, romantic love—must +disappear, to be replaced by conjugal affection or by nothing. The +former are the happy marriages, the latter the mistaken ones.</p> + +<p>As I close, the saying of La Bruyère comes to me, "The love which arises +suddenly takes longest to cure." This generalisation upon all the +love-affairs within the scope of a single lifetime cannot but be true, +and it is quite in line with the general argument. I have shown that the +love (so called) which grows slowly is akin to friendship, that it is +friendship, in fact, conjugal friendship. On the other hand, the more +sudden a love the more intense it must be; also the less rationality can +it have. And because of its intensity and unreasonableness, the longer +period must elapse ere its frenzy dies out and cool, calm thought comes +in.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<p>P.S.—My book is out—"The Economic Man." I send it to you. I cannot +imagine you will care for the thing.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXI</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +May 26, 19—. </p> + +<p>"Pretty nineteen-year-old Louisa Naveret, because her slower-minded +fiancé, Charles J. Johnson, could not understand a joke, is dying with a +bullet in her brain, and he, her murderer, lies dead at the morgue. They +were to have been married to-day."</p> + +<p>From to-day's paper I quote the above introduction to a column +murder-sensation in simple life. Simple it was, and elemental—the man +loving steadily and doggedly and madly, after the manner of the male +before possession; the woman fluttering, and teasing, and tantalising, +after the manner of the female courting possession. They had been +engaged for some time. The woman loved the man and fully intended to +marry him. The engagement neared its close,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> and on the day before that +of the wedding, the man, slow minded, loving intensely, procured the +marriage licence. The woman read the document, and with the last coy +flutter before surrender told him that she would not marry him.</p> + +<p>"I meant it as a jest," she said as she lay on a cot at the receiving +hospital; but four bullets were in her body, and Charles J. Johnson, +clumsy and natural lover, lay dead in an adjoining room with the fifth +bullet in his brain.</p> + +<p>In this pitiful little tragedy appear two of the most salient +characteristics of love; namely, madness and selfishness. Let us analyze +Charles J. Johnson's condition. He was a lineman for a telegraph +company, healthy and strong, used to open-air life and hard work. He had +steady employment and good wages. Can't you see the man, content with a +good digestion, unailing body, and mild pleasures, and enjoying life +with bovine placidity? But pretty Louisa Naveret entered his life. The +"abysmal fecundity" was stirred and life clamoured to be created. +Peacefulness and content vanished. All the forces of his existence +impelled him to seize upon and possess "nineteen-year-old" Louisa +Naveret. He was afflicted with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> a disorder of mind and body, a madness +so great, a delusion so powerful, a pain and unrest so pressing, that +the possession of that particular "nineteen-year-old" woman became the +dearest thing in the world, dearer than life itself and more potent than +the "will to live."</p> + +<p>I do well to call love a madness. Any departure from rationality is +madness, and for a man of Charles J. Johnson's calibre, suicide is an +extremely irrational act. But he also killed Louisa Naveret, wherein he +was as selfish as he was mad. Convinced that he was not to possess her, +he was determined that no other man should possess her.</p> + +<p>While on this matter of love considered as a disorder of mind and body, +I recall a recent magazine article of Mr. Finck's, in which he analyzes +Sappho's conception of love. "In that famous poem of Sappho," he says, +"that has been so often declared a compendium of all the emotions that +make up love, I have not been able to find anything but a comic +catalogue of such feelings as might overwhelm a woman if she met a bear +in the woods—'deadly pallor,' 'a cold sweat,' 'a fluttering heart,' +'tongue paralyzed,' 'trembling all over,' 'a fainting fit.'"</p> + +<p>Dante suffered similarly from the disorder of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> love, if you will +recollect. In this connection may be cited the following passage from +Diderot's "Paradox of Acting ":—</p> + +<p>"Take two lovers, both of whom have their declarations to make. Who will +come out of it best? Not I, I promise you. I remember that I approached +the beloved object with fear and trembling; my heart beat, my ideas grew +confused, my voice failed me, I mangled all I said; I cried <i>yes</i> for +<i>no</i>; I made a thousand blunders; I was illimitably inept; I was absurd +from top to toe, and the more I saw it the more absurd I became. +Meanwhile, under my very eyes, a gay rival, light hearted and agreeable, +master of himself, pleased with himself, losing no opportunity for the +finest flattery, made himself entertaining and agreeable, enjoyed +himself; he implored the touch of a hand which was at once given him, he +sometimes caught it without asking leave, he kissed it once and again. +I, the while, alone in a corner, avoided a sight which irritated me; +stifling my sighs, cracking my fingers with grasping my wrists, plunged +in melancholy, covered with a cold sweat, I could neither show nor +conceal my vexation."</p> + +<p>Oh, the clamour of life to be born is a masterful thing, and so far as +the individual is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>concerned, a most irrational thing; and so far as the +world of beasts and emotional men and women is concerned, it is a most +necessary thing. That life may live and continue to live, a driving +force is needed that is greater than the puny will of life. And in the +disorder produced by the passion for perpetuation, whether or not +assisted by imagination, is found this driving force. As Ernest Haeckel, +that brave old hero of Jena, explains:—</p> + +<p>"The irresistible passion that draws Edward to the sympathetic Otillia, +or Paris to Helen, and leaps all bounds of reason and morality, is the +same <i>powerful, unconscious</i>, attractive force which impels the living +spermatozoon to force an entrance into the ovum in the fertilisation of +the egg of the animal or plant—the same impetuous movement which unites +two atoms of hydrogen to one atom of oxygen for the formation of a +molecule of water."</p> + +<p>But with the advent of intellectual man, there is no longer need for +obeying blind and irresistible compulsion. Intellectual man, changing +the face of life with his inventions and artifices, performing telic +actions, adjusting himself and his concerns to remote ends and ultimate +compensations, will grapple with the problem of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> perpetuation as he has +grappled with that of gravitation. As he controls and directs the great +natural forces so that, instead of menacing, they are made to labour for +his safety and comfort, so will he control and direct the operation of +the reproductive force so that life will not only be perpetuated but +developed and made higher and finer. This is not more impossible than is +the steam-engine impossible or democracy impossible.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXII</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">3a, Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.</span><br /> +June 12, 19—. </p> + +<p>Please remember that these letters are written to you alone. I do not +think that there is less love in the world than ever before. I make you +representative of a class, which, in turn, is characteristic of the +modern scientific type, but I do not make you representative of all that +to-day's world has lived up to and lived down. So I do not join my +Ruskin in lamenting the past. To be sure, you are contemporary and you +are parvenu. What then? You are few, nevertheless, and like the parvenu +rich, you must pass into something quite unlike yourself. It is the law +of growth. I ask you to account for yourself as an individual. The thing +is fiercely personal. But you choose the roundabout method of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> answering +me. For a view of what in your eyes is pertinent to this matter, you +stretch a canvas wide as the world. You are resolved that your course +should dramatise the whole play and interplay of force and matter. It is +ideally ambitious of you and I am glad. It puts you in the ranks with +the students of the ideal tendencies. It shows that you are not always +impatient for short cuts, and that you begin to be of those who harness +"horses of the sun to plough in earth's rough furrows."</p> + +<p>Your letter sounds conclusive. Romance is waste, love is unreasoning; +compatibility alone is worth while. You think this, and are ready to +encrust yourself with what is conventional and practical. Ah, no, it is +not even decently conventional! The formal world pretends, at least, to +love. It also reaches for the fires that thrill and thaw, whereas you +stand before a cold hearth and think the chill well and welcome, since +you understand its cause. You have grasped part of a truth, and though +my mind complete your arc into the perfection of a circle, I cannot +place it about your head as a halo. My confusion comes from thinking of +you more than of my creed. A pregnant factor in our debate is the +debater. The Hafiz of the Hafiz<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> maxims, the philosopher of your +philosophy happens to interest me. You have been building yourself up +before my eyes, and for watching I cannot speak.</p> + +<p>With what does romance interfere? If it implied a waste of vital force, +a giving up, a postponement of life, it were a roundabout path to +development and happiness. But we live most when we are most under its +sway, and it is for such self-promised sparks that we live at all. +Romance quickens and controls as does nothing else, and because of this +it is not only a means but an end in itself. It is stirred-up life. We +live most when we love most. The love of romance and the romance of love +is the only coin for which the heart-hurt sell their death. A trick? +Perhaps. The love of life is a trick to save the races from self-murder. +Nature makes legitimate her tricks. Let the Genius of the Race lure us +with passion and dreaming! We are not the losers by it. And if the dream +fades and we grow gray despite what has been lived, then it is something +to remember that soul and sense have leapt and pulsed. I am thankful +that romance has an aftermath, and that old men and women can prattle +about days that were robust. I am thankful that the soldiers of life are +at the end<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> given a furlough in which to fondle the arms they wielded +with clumsiness and with spirit, and in which to pass themselves in +review before their pension expires and their days are over. Youth has +the romance of loving, and age the romance of remembering.</p> + +<p>Lovers are not always compatible, you say, and, before all, you insist +upon good partnership. How will you insure yourself against unfitness? +Surely not by a registering and weighing of qualities, not by bargaining +and speculating. We do not choose our wives as we do our saddle-horses; +we do not plan our marriages as we plan our houses. It may sound +paradoxical, but there is a higher compatibility than that of quality +and degree. It is not whether people can live together, but whether they +should live together. "It is an awkward thing to play with souls,"—you +override the fastidiousness of the soul in marrying your companion. +Unless you are an automaton, you cannot rest happy in the fact that you +and she do not disagree. For comfort's sake you would have a negative +dimension to your cosmos, forgetting that your longings and your needs +and, it may be, your dreams, are positive. If sex-comradeship and +affection were not as accidental and as dependent on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> mood as love +itself, your position would have much in its favour. You could then +arrange for compatibility in marriage.</p> + +<p>You speak of the methods in economics that conserve energy and capital, +such as the employ of the machine-guiding boy, which saves the labour +power of a hundred men, and you hold that in the realm of personal life +like methods may obtain with value and dignity. I can see how natural it +has become for you to take this viewpoint. One can be a zealot in +matters frigid. The law behind the fact has you in its coil, and your +passion goes to ice. You burn for that cold thing, compatibility. You, +too, are in the market-place bound to a stake—it is not for such as you +to escape the fire. If you look to compatibility and want it intensely, +as others want love, then you suffer, and from your standpoint (not +mine) you raise a vain cry; for compatibility, like everything else, is +illusory. The illusions of love are a strength, and the ways of love are +divine; through them we come to that feeling of completion which is +compatibility and which is as ineffable as the white-lipped promise of +waves heard by those who have also listened to weeping. Love is not +responsible for institutionalism. There would be no fewer marriages if +people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> married for convenience, nor would the law make such unions less +binding. It is not the fault of love that the great social paradox +exists. In the precipitancy of feeling, you say, the lover fastens upon +an unsuitable mate, and, with possession, love dies. Here I attack your +facts. If an awakening comes, it is not for either of these reasons. +Love is not essentially rational, but then it is love. There is some +consistency in affairs natural, and the esoteric draught that enchanted +at one time cannot poison at another.</p> + +<p>Love is not essentially rational, and it will not of a sudden become so +at the possession of the loved one. People who marry from convenience +may wake to find their union most inconvenient. "There are more things +in heaven and earth," and there are more intricacies of feeling and more +sloughs and depths, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. A definite +understanding as to sofa cushions and tobacco smoke does not always +insure unwearied forbearance and devotion. With love, on the other hand, +disappointment is very much less likely to spring up, for the reason +that it is free from calculation. Love is a sympathy. It takes hold, it +grows upon the soul and the senses, and it does not flee before argument and explanation.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p><p>Still less can I admit that possession kills love. Do we give up living +because the world is based on Will and Idea? Yet to will is to want, +Schopenhauer tells us, and to want is to be in pain. Do we know +ourselves in pain every minute of our lives? Hardly. This applies. You +hold that, with the fulfilled hope and the appeased hunger, indifference +takes the place of desire. It reads so in logic, but not in life. If +what is in our possession be good, we prize it more highly for its being +within reach. The good in our keeping does not sate; it pains with +divine hungers. We do not tire of what we have; we rise to it. We do not +know the sweetness of being steadfast until we are so impelled by the +love with which we have grown great. The lover may well say: "She was +not my ideal; before I knew her I was not great enough to think her. She taught me."</p> + +<p>Besides, an acquaintance with your wife's faults does not kill your +love. You cannot turn from your brother or your friend if he commit even +a lurid act; you cannot turn from a stranger; much less can you turn +from your beloved. Herbert, when men set themselves to judge, they are +invariably ridiculous and an offence to high heaven. Believe me, it is +artificial. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> true judge cares not for the fact of the deed, but for +its motive. And the lover knows the motive. He has the key to the life. +He knows his beloved, not as she is, but "as she was born to be." His +lips press and his arms enfold not her so much as the ideal of her, and +unless she unmake herself, he cannot unlove her. "To judge a man by the +fruit of his actions," says Professor Edward Howard Griggs, "it is +necessary to know all of the fruit, which is impossible. You can only +know what he eternally must be if you catch the aspect of his soul and +grow to understand his aspirations and his loves." To idealise, +therefore, is not to be blind, but to be far-seeing.</p> + +<p>There is another way of looking on this question of the paradox. Granted +that it is caused by romantic love, romantic love is still exclusively +the best thing in the world. You cannot pay too dearly for the good of +life. I know that the misery of being in the intimacy of wedlock with +one who is not loved is unutterable. It is to become degraded and +unrecognisable, it is to wear the brand of liar before God! The man +whose outer life belies the inner is an enforced suicide. There is +something of majesty on "laying one's self down with a will," and there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +is something of strength in cloistering the body for the spirit's +health's sake, but to die when all within is warm and clamorous for life +is terrible. Such a death they die who are held together, not by the +bonds of the spirit, but by those of convention. They who would go from +each other and dare not, die the ignominious death of fear. The suicide +is contemptible, besides being pitiable, when he is hounded out of life +despite himself, when he is a little embezzler of a clerk who rushes +from the music hall to the Thames and thinks of the unfinished glass +with his last breath. No, I do not underestimate the tragedy of the +paradox. Yet I say that if love were accountable for it (which it is +not), it would still be folly to forswear love. Do you ask why? Because +its dangers are the dangers common to all life, and we are so made that +we cannot be frightened away from our portion of experience. We are as +loth to give up our nights as our days. The winters as the summers, all +the seasons and all the climes, the fears as the hopes, all the travail +of deepest, fullest living, we claim as our own forever. We guard +jealously our heritage of feeling. Would you for all the world sleep +rather than wake, forget rather than remember? Then cease the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> requiem +of your speech about the dangers of disillusion!</p> + +<p>Madness and selfishness were the cause of Louisa Naveret's death, and +the man who was mad and selfish was her lover. The poor man had not the +strength to renounce when he thought he found himself face to face with +the necessity of renouncing. But all lovers are not too weak to cope +with love. John Ruskin, if you remember, loved his wife, and he shot +neither himself, nor her, nor Millais. Charles J. Johnson is not a +Ruskin, and Ruskin's love was not a madness.</p> + +<p>And, Herbert, to me there is nothing comic in a stress of feeling. Let +the lover pale and flutter and faint; in the presence of his deity it is +an acceptable form of worship. The very self-possessed lover is more preposterous!</p> + +<p>Your book has not yet reached me. To-morrow I shall write again, +providing I remember how to write a natural letter.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, <br /> +<span class="smcap">Dane Kempton</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXIII</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London.</span> <br /> +June 20, 19—. </p> + +<p>There are impersonal hours when the things of the day drop below +consciousness and the spirit grows devotional and wends a pilgrimage to +larger spheres, there to sit apart. Such a respite was mine to-day. +There had been a call to rouse and put forth work, and I wrought with +all the puniness of my might (woe is me!), and earned my post at the +window that looks out upon the large things. The best of nights and days +of toil is that there comes a twilight in which fatigued eyes see clear. +I said it did not matter how you do about your marriage. Time may right +you in a way I cannot know. I said it did not matter if you are not +righted in this, there being so much that never rights itself. Both hope +and despair were followed by a calm of neutrality.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> The inquiry waited +no solution. The stress no longer touched me, and my twilight became +luminous. I saw things as from a height and forms dropped out of my +range, when Barbara came tugging at me, and my pale while of abstraction was at an end.</p> + +<p>She wanted to know what troubled me. She made her way to me, hurried but +resolved, and stated her demand. "You catechised me yesterday; to-night you shall answer."</p> + +<p>She had come to defend herself. My talk having of late taken on the +sameness of that of the man of one idea, Barbara was aroused. I was +gauging her because she distressed me, was her thought. (I had been +trying to find whether it is possible to live differently from her and +live happily and well.) "You think I am not close enough to Earl, +because I mourn for my little one, perhaps. You think me not +sufficiently happy to be wifely." Could I suppose aught else from such +an utterance but that there was an estrangement and hidden pain? How, +unless there were sorrow, could the woman see herself sorrowed for? My +mind leapt to possibilities. Little Barbara on the rack was more than I +could bear. I groped for her hands. It was a fault in her to be so much +on her guard. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> had no sorrow to confess, and spoke—only to ward off +what was not directed toward her.</p> + +<p>"The tenour of your talk led me on to believe—" she stammered with hot +cheeks. It is a standing offence of hers to imagine herself accused, and +she admits it is a weakness born of lack of poise. "But I took all for +granted, I thought you fortunate beyond any other woman," I protested. +At this the radiance broke forth. I forgave the chill that her first +words on entering the room struck to my heart, and she forgot what she had imagined.</p> + +<p>There is nothing more important than the play and interplay of feeling. +Were Barbara "unwifely," I could not blame her, but neither could I have +at hand my proof of dear miracles. My proof remained to me, for there +she stood, her face lifted toward mine, her mouth tremulous, her grey +eyes swimming. The mate woman was stirred. Barbara is twenty-six and has +been married seven years, and she still vibrates with the old wonder to +find herself loving and beloved.</p> + +<p>I meant to tell you of what we spoke later, in the hope that I could +show you a little better what I hold dear and why. But my hand grows +nerveless. The twilight of abstraction has set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> in. A little while ago +this hand was quick to rest on Barbara's as I called her my heroine. She +is that, not alone because she is pure and good and strong, but because +she can accept the test of her instincts. It takes both faith and +strength to obey oneself. "When shows break up, what but one's Self +remains?" asks Whitman. The shows are but shows for Barbara. Will I look +into your eyes on the morrow and find them, like hers, clear? Grant that it be!</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXIV</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +July 1, 19—. </p> + +<p>Somewhere in Ward you may read, "It must constantly be borne in mind +that all progress consists in the arbitrary alteration, by human efforts +and devices, of the normal course of nature, so that civilisation is +wholly an artificial product." Why, Dane, this is large enough to base a +sociology upon. And I must ask you first, is it true? Second, do you +understand, do you appreciate, the tremendous significance of it? And +third, how can you bring your philosophy of love in accord with it?</p> + +<p>Romantic love is certainly not natural. It is an artifice, blunderingly +and unwittingly introduced by man into the natural order. Is this +audacious? Let us see. In a state of nature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> the love which obtains is +merely the passion for perpetuation devoid of all imagination. The male +possesses the prehensile organs and the superior strength. Beyond the +ardour of pursuit the female has no charms for him. But he is driven +irresistibly to pursuit. And by virtue of his prehensile organs and +superior strength he ravishes the females of his species and goes his +way. But life creeps slowly upward, increasing in complexity and +necessarily in intelligence. When some forgotten inventor of the older +world smote his rival or enemy with a branch of wood and found that it +was good and thereafter made a practice of smiting rivals and enemies +with branches of wood, then, and on that day, artificiality may be said +to have begun. Then, and on that day, was begun a revolution destined to +change the history of life. Then, and on that day, was laid the +cornerstone of that most tremendous of artifices, CIVILISATION!</p> + +<p>Trace it up. Our ape-like and arboreal ancestors entered upon the first +of many short cuts. To crack a marrow-bone with a rock was the act which +fathered the tool, and between the cracking of a marrow-bone and the +riding down town in an automobile lies only a difference of degree. The +one is crudely artificial, the other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>consummately artificial. That is +all. There have been improvements. The first inventors grasped that +truthful paradox, "the longest way round is the shortest way home," and +forsook the direct pursuit of happiness for the indirect pursuit of +happiness. If the happiness of a savage depended upon his crossing an +extensive body of water, he did not directly proceed to swim it, but +turned his back upon it, selected a tree from the forest, shaped it with +his rude tools and hollowed it out with fire, then launched it in the +water and paddled toward where his happiness lay.</p> + +<p>Now concerning love. In the state of nature it is a brutal passion, +nothing more. There is no romance attached. But life creeps upward, and +the gregarious human forms social groups the like of which never existed +before. Consider the family group, for instance. Such a group becomes in +itself an entity. By means of the group man is better enabled to pursue +happiness. But to maintain the group it must be regulated; so man +formulates rules, codes, dim ethical laws for the conduct of the group +members. Sexual ties are made less promiscuous and more orderly. A +greater privacy is observed. And out of order and privacy spring respect and sacredness.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p><p>But life creeps upward, and the family group itself becomes but a unit +of greater and greater groups. And rules and codes change in accordance, +until the marriage tie becomes possessed of a history and takes to +itself traditions. This history and these traditions form a great fund, +to which changing conditions and growing imagination constantly add. And +the traditions, more especially, bear heavily upon the individual, +overmastering his natural expression of the love instinct and forcing +him to an artificial expression of that love instinct. He loves, not as +his savage forebears loved, but as his group loves. And the love method +of his group is determined by its love traditions. Does the individual +compare his beloved's eyes to the stars—it is a trick of old time which +has come down to him. Does he serenade under her window or compose an +ode to her beauty or virtue—his father did it before him. In his +lover's voice throb the voices of myriads of lovers all dead and dust. +The singers of a thousand songs are the ghostly chorus to the song of +love he sings. His ideas, his very feelings are not his, but the ideas +and feelings of countless lovers who lived and loved and whose lives and +loves are remembered. Their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>mistaken facts and foolish precepts are +his, and likewise their imaginative absurdities and sentimental +philanderings. Without an erotic literature, a history of great loves +and lovers, a garland of love songs and ballads, a sheaf of spoken love +tales and adventures—without all this, which is the property of his +group, he could not possibly love in the way he does.</p> + +<p>To illustrate: Isolate a boy babe and a girl babe of cultured breed upon +a desert isle. Let them feed and grow strong on shell-fish and fruit; +but let them see none other of their species; hear no speech of mouth, +nor acquire knowledge in any way of their kind and the things their kind +has done. Well, and what then? They will grow to man and woman and mate +as the beasts mate, without romance and without imagination. Does the +woman oppose her will to that of the man—he will beat her. Does he +become over-violent in the manifestation of his regard, she will flee +away, if she can, to secret hiding-places. He will not compare her eyes +to the stars; nor will she dream that he is Apollo; nor will the pair +moon in the twilight over the love of Hero and Leander. And the many +monogamic generations out of which he has descended would fail to +prevent polygamy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> did another woman chance to strand on that particular +isle.</p> + +<p>It is the common practice of the man of the London slum to kick his wife +to death when she has offended him. And the man of the London slum is a +very natural beast who expresses himself in a very natural manner. He +has never heard of Hero and Leander, and the comparison of the missus' +eyes to the stars would to him be arrant bosh. The gentle, tender, +considerate male is an artificial product. And so is the romantic lover, +who is fashioned by the love traditions which come down to him and by +the erotic literature to which he has access.</p> + +<p>And now to the point. Romantic love being an artificial product, you +cannot base its retention upon the claim that it is natural. Your only +claim can be that it is the best possible artifice for the perpetuation +of life, or that it is the only perfect, all-sufficient, and +all-satisfying artifice that man can devise. On the one hand, for the +perpetuation of life, man demonstrates the inefficiency of romantic love +by his achievements in the domestic selection of animals. And on the +other hand, the very irrationality of romantic love will tend to its +gradual elimination as the human grows wiser and wiser. Also, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>because +it is such a crude artifice, it forces far too many to contract the +permanent marriage tie without possessing compatibility. During the time +romantic love runs its course in an individual, that individual is in a +diseased, abnormal, irrational condition. Mental or spiritual health, +which is rationality, makes for progress, and the future demands greater +and greater mental or spiritual health, greater and greater rationality. +The brain must dominate and direct both the individual and society in +the time to come, not the belly and the heart. Granted that the function +romantic love has served has been necessary; that is no reason to +conclude that it must always be necessary, that it is eternally +necessary. There is such a thing as rudimentary organs which served +functions long since fallen in disuse and now unremembered.</p> + +<p>The world has changed, Dane. Sense delights are no longer the sole end +of existence. The brain is triumphing over the belly and the heart. The +intellectual joy of living is finer and higher than the mere sexual joy +of living. Darwin, at the conclusion of his "Origin of Species," +experienced a nobler and more exquisite pleasure than did ever Solomon +with his thousand concubines and wives. And while our sense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> delights +themselves have become refined, their very refinement has been due to +the increasing dominion over them of the intellect. Our canons of art +are not founded on the heart. No emotion elaborated the laws of +composition. We cannot experience a sense of delight in any art object +unless it satisfies our intellectual discrimination. "He is a <i>natural</i> +singer," we say of the poet who works unscientifically; "but he is lame, +his numbers halt, and he has no knowledge of technique."</p> + +<p>The intellect, not the heart, made man, and is continuing to make +him—ah, slowly, Dane, for life creeps slowly upward. The "Advanced +Margin" is a favourite shibboleth of yours. And I take it that the +Advanced Margin is that portion of our race which is more dominated by +intellect than the race proper. And I, as a member of that group, +propose to order my affairs in a rational manner. My reason tells me +that the mere passion of begetting and the paltry romance of pursuit are +not the greatest and most exquisite delights of living. Intellectual +delight is my bribe for living, and though the bargain be a hard one, I +shall endeavour to exact the last shekel which is my due.</p> + +<p>Wherefore I marry Hester Stebbins. I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> not impelled by the archaic sex +madness of the beast, nor by the obsolescent romance madness of +later-day man. I contract a tie which my reason tells me is based upon +health and sanity and compatibility. My intellect shall delight in that +tie. My life shall be free and broad and great, and I will not be the +slave to the sense delights which chained my ancient ancestry. I reject +the heritage. I break the entail. And who are you to say I am unwise?</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert Wace.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXV</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +July 5, 19—. </p> + +<p>I had not intended to answer your letter critically, but, on re-reading, +find I am forced to speak if for no other reason than your epithet +"parvenu." The word has no reproach. It was ever thus that the old and +perishing recognised the vigorous and new. Parvenu, upstart—the term is +replete with significance and health. I doubt not Elijah himself was +dubbed parvenu when he fluttered with his golden harp into that +bright-browed throng, pride-swollen for that they had fought with +Michael when Lucifer was hurled into hell.</p> + +<p>"We do not choose our wives as we buy our saddle-horses; we do not plan +our marriages as we do the building of our houses,"—so you say,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> and it +is said excellently. No better indictment of romantic love do I ask. And +oh, how many good men and women have I heard bitterly arraign society in +that in the begetting of children it does not exercise the judgment +which it exercises in breeding its horses and its dogs! Marriage is +something more than the mere pulsating to romance, the thrilling to +vague-sweet strains, the singing idly in empty days, the sating of self +with pleasure—what of the children?</p> + +<p>"Never mind the children," says selfish little Love. "It has been our +wont never to give any thought to the children; they were incidental. +Always have we sought our own pleasure; let us continue to seek our own +pleasure." So Society continues to breed its horses and dogs with +judgment and forethought and to trust to luck for its children.</p> + +<p>But it won't do, Dane. Life, in a sense, is living and surviving. And +all that makes for living and surviving is good. He who follows the fact +cannot go astray, while he who has no reverence for the fact wanders +afar. Chivalry went mad over an idea. It idealised, if you please. It +made of love a fine art, and countless knights-errant devoted themselves +to the service of the little god. It sentimentalised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> over ladies' +gloves and forgot to make for living and surviving. And while chivalry +committed suicide over its ladies' gloves, the stout, wooden-headed +burghers, with an eye to the facts of life, dickered and bickered in +trade. And on the wreck and ruin of chivalry they flaunted their parvenu +insolence. God, how they triumphed! The children and cobblers and +shop-keepers buying with the yellow gold the "thousand years old names!" +buying with their yellow gold the proud flesh and blood of their lords +to breed with them and theirs! patronising the arts, speaking a kind +word to science, and patting God on the back! But they triumphed, that +is the point. They reverenced the fact and made for living and surviving.</p> + +<p>Love is life, you say, and you seem to hold it the achievement of +existence. But I cannot say that life is love. Life? It is a toy, i' +faith, given to us, we know not why, to play with as we chance to +please. Some elect to dream, some to love, and some to fight. Some +choose immediate happiness, and some ultimate happiness. One stakes the +Here and Now upon the Hereafter; another takes the Here and Now and lets +the Hereafter go. But each grasps the toy and does with it according to +his fancy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> And while none may know the end of life, all know that life +is the end of love. Love, poor little, crude little, love, is the means +to life—and so we complete the circle. Life? It is a toy, i' faith, +given us, we know not why, to play with as we chance to please.</p> + +<p>But this we know, that love is the means to life, and it is subject to +inevitable improvement. By our intellect will we improve upon it. Life +abundant! finer life! higher life! fuller life! When we scientifically +breed our race-horses and our draught-horses, we make for life abundant. +And when we come scientifically to breed the human, we shall make for +life abundant, for humanity abundant.</p> + +<p>You say an acquaintance with the petty vices of one's wife does not kill +one's love. Oh yes, it does, and out of the ashes of that love rises +affection, comradeship, in kind somewhat similar to the affection and +comradeship which I have for my brother. I do not <i>love</i> my brother, and +it is because I do not love him, and because I do have <i>affection</i> and +<i>comradeship</i> for him, that I do not turn away when he commits even a +lurid act. Love, you will remember, takes its rise in the emotions, and +is unstable and wanton and capricious. But affection takes its rise in +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> intellect, is based upon judgment of the brain. Love is unyielding +tyranny; affection is compromise. Love never compromises, no more than +does the mad little mating sparrow compromise.</p> + +<p>My brother?—I played with him as a boy. His weaknesses and faults +incensed and hurt me, as mine incensed and hurt him. Many were our +quarrels. But he had also good qualities which pleased me, and at times +performed gracious acts and even sacrifices. And I likewise. And with my +brain I weighed his weaknesses and faults against his gracious acts and +sacrifices, and I achieved a judgment upon him. The ethics of the family +group also contributed to this judgment. The duties of kinship and the +responsibilities of blood ties were impressed upon me. We grew up at our +mother's knee, and she and our father became factors in determining what +my conduct should be. They, too, taught me that my brother was my +brother, and that in so far as he was my brother, my relations with him +must be different from my relations with those who were not my brothers. +And all went to crystallise an intellectual judgment, or a set of +criteria, as it were, to guide all sane, unemotional acts and even to +control and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>repress any emotional acts. These criteria, I say, became +crystallised, became automatic in my thought processes.</p> + +<p>And now, in manhood, my brother commits a lurid act, an act repulsive to +me, one capable of arousing emotions of anger, of bitterness, of hatred. +I experience an emotional impulse to pour my wrath upon him, to be +bitter toward him, to hate him. Then I experience an intellectual +impulse. Whatever way I may act, I must first settle with my +crystallised criteria. The personal bonds of my boyhood and manhood +press upon me—the gracious acts and sacrifices and compromises, our +father and our mother, the duties of kinship and the responsibilities of +blood. Thus two counter-impulses strive with me. I desire to do two +counter things. Heart and head the fight is waged, and heart or head I +shall act according to which is the stronger impulse. And if my +affection be stronger, I shall not turn away, but clasp my brother in my arms.</p> + +<p>I fear I have not made myself clear. It is difficult to write hurriedly +of things psychological, when the extreme demand is made upon intellect +and vocabulary; but at least you may roughly catch my drift. What I have +striven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> to say is, that I forgive my brother, not because I <i>love</i> him, +but because of the <i>affection</i> I bear him; also that this affection is +the product of reason, is the sum of the judgments I have achieved.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXVI</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">3a, Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.</span><br /> +July 21, 19—. </p> + +<p>"Progress is an arbitrary alteration, by human efforts and devices, of +the normal course of nature, so that civilisation is wholly an +artificial product." You ask me to consider this refracted bit of +sociology and by its light to cast out my exalted notion of love. As if +you have proven that love is incompatible with civilisation! We make +over life with each successive step, but we do not give over living. In +developing new forms and in establishing more and more subtle social +relations we are only building upon what we find ready to hand. The +paradox of creature and creator does not exist. When your sociologist +speaks of arbitrary alterations, he has reference to polities and +governments and criteria, to the material and ideal forces which a +progressive society may wield for itself. He cannot include under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +progress an alteration of those needs of existence which make up the +quality of existence. Speak of a community which equally distributes the +products of labour and I will grant that there has been an arbitrary +alteration, the normal course of nature being that the stronger, openly, +and even with the common assent, takes to the repletion of his desire +from the weaker. But speak of a condition so progressive that it +subverts the need, so that where in the one case hunger was equitably +gratified, in the other, hunger was done away with, and I will say that +you are giving an Arabian Nights' entertainment.</p> + +<p>Love is of a piece with life, like hunger, like joy, like death. Your +progress cannot leave it behind; your civilisation must become the +exponent of it.</p> + +<p>Your last letter is formal and elaborate, and—equivocal. In it you +remind me, menacingly, of the possibilities of progress, you posit that +love is at best artificial, and you apotheosise the brain. As an +emancipated rationality, you say you cut yourself loose from the +convention of feeling. Progress cannot affect the need and the power to +love. This I have already stated. "How is it under our control to love +or not to love?" Life is elaborate or it is simple (it depends upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> the +point of view), and you may call love the paraphernalia of its +wedding-feast or you may call it more—the Blood and Body of all that +quickens, a Transubstantiation which all accept, reverently or +irreverently, as the case may be.</p> + +<p>I can more readily conceive the existence of a central committee elected +for the purpose of regulating the marriages of a community, than of a +community satisfied with such a committee. There is no logic in social +events. The world persists in not taking the next step, and what to the +social scout looked a dusty bypath may prove to be the highway of +progress for the hoboing millions. Side issues are constantly cropping +up to knock out the main issues of the stump orator; so let us be +humble. For this reason I refuse to discuss possibilities in infinity. +You and I cannot have become products of an environment which is not in +existence. It is safe to suppose that our needs are like those of the +race and that in us nothing is vestigial that is active in others. You +cannot have become too rational to love. The device has not yet been formed.</p> + +<p>You think I should take your word for it? But why? Have you never found +yourself in the wrong, never disobeyed your best promptings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> never meant +to take the good and grasped the bad? Is it not possible that you are +not yet awake, or, God pity you, that you are hidebound in the dogmatism +of your bit of thinking.</p> + +<p>It is for the second point of your letter that I called you equivocal. +Earlier in our discussion, I remember, you laid stress on the fact that +love is an instinct common to all forms of life; now you go to great +lengths in order to show that it is artificial.</p> + +<p>How do you differentiate between the artificial and nature? Surely a +development is not artificial because it is recent! Surely man is as +integral to life as his progenitors! When we come to civilisation, we +are face to face with the largest and subtlest thing in life, and the +civilisation of human society is not artificial. It is the fulfilment of +the nature of man, the promise made good, the career established, the +influence sent out. A universe of mind-stuff and a civilising force +constantly causing change, for change is growth, constantly compelling +expression of that change—to conceive it is to conceive infinitude. And +the purpose? Development, always development. To that end the individual +perishes, to that end the race is conserved, to that end the peril and +the sacrifice, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> agony of triumph in the overcharged heart at its +last bound. And what is this refining of the type, this goal for which +we all make with such tragic directness, but the gaining in the power to +love? We begin with love to end with greater love, and that is progress. +To write the epic of civilisation is a task for some giant artist who +shall combine in himself Homer and Shakespeare, and the work will be a love story.</p> + +<p>We do not throw away the grain and keep the chaff, nor do we transmit +the "absurdities" and "philanderings" alone. If in the lover's voice +throb the voices of myriads of lovers, it is because he is stirred even +as they. If a ballad wakes a response in him, it is because its motif +has been singing itself of its own accord in his heart, and its rhythm +was the dream nightingale to which he bade Her hearken. Behind the +tradition lies the fact. The expression may be ephemeral, the song flat, +the motto conventional, but the feeling which prompted it is true. Else +it could not have survived. And it has more than survived. It has grown +with growth. For centuries it lodged in the nature of man, lulled in +acquiescence, then, when the sense of recognition awoke, back in those +wondrous young days, it wakened to pale life, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> now the feeling is +man's whole support, giving him courage to work and purpose to live.</p> + +<p>But the half brute of the London slums kicks his wife when she offends +him and knows nothing of love. Well for the honour of love that it is +so! The half brute of the London slums had not food enough when a child, +and malnutrition is deadly. Later, he stole and lied in order to eat, +and he was bullied and kicked for it out of human shape. The trick was +passed on to him. The unfortunate of the London slums will push us all +from heaven's gate, because we do not do battle with the conditions that +make him. It is not such as he that should lead you to scorn love, for +he is a mistake and a crime.</p> + +<p>In your example of the isolated boy babe and girl babe we meet with a +different condition. The individual repeats the history of the race, and +as these have been left out by the civilising forces, they revert to +past racial states. For these it is natural to live stolidly—is it +therefore natural for us? The point I make is that our refinement, +crying in us with great voice, is as much a part of us as are the simple +few hungers of the racial infant. We are not the less natural for being +subtle. And can it not be that the face of romance reveals itself even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +to savage eyes? According to the need is the power, and the early man +needs must hope and desire; he is curbed by waiting and taught by loss +in the hunting, he is hungry, and he dreams that he is feasting. This +dream is his romance—a red flicker in the dawn, then still the gray. To +suppose this is not to be unscientific, for what is true of us must have +had a beginning, and feeling, as well as being, cannot have been +spontaneously generated.</p> + +<p>There is an absolute gravitation to justice in nature. This was the +creed preached by Huxley to Kingsley a week after his boy's death. Grief +had turned the mind upon itself, and in the upheaval he formulated a +philosophy of faith and joy!</p> + +<p>Our reward is meted out according to our obedience to all of the law, +spiritual and physical. Nature keeps a ledger paying glad life's arrears +each minute of time. And the creed rises to my lips when I hear you cry +shame upon the delight of love. It must be good, this thing which is so +fraught with joy! You brand it sense delight, but all delight is of the +senses, and Darwin at the conclusion of "The Descent of Man," if he was +not overtaken by a feeling of incompleteness in the work and a +consuming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> fever for the further task, was glad in a human way, with the +senses and through the emotions. Darwin's supreme moment may have come +at quite a different time. What can we know of the moments of repletion +that fall into another's life? With Huxley we may only know that our +hearts bound high when we strike a chord of harmony and prove ourselves +obedient to "all of the law," and our hearts bound high when we love. It +is nature's way of showing her approval. Oh, the strength of love and +the miracles of its compensations! The sense of becoming that it gives, +even in its defeats, the gladness that ripples in its sob-strangled throat!</p> + +<p>The day for asceticism is gone, or shall we say the night? We are not +afraid of sense delights. We are intent upon living on all sides of our +natures, roundly and naturally. You have a fine gospel of work and I +congratulate you upon it, but you make no mention of the purpose of it +all. It must not be work for work's sake. "When I heard the learned +astronomer—" says Whitman. Do you remember? He caught in one hour the +whole majesty, caught to himself the wonder that was unseen by the +watching astronomers. Somehow you feel the learned ones had made a +mistake in calculating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> so long that they had no time to see with +personal eyes the glory of the stars, and that Whitman had been +philosopher and had gained where they failed. The inspiration of the +poet, of the painter, of the economist, and biologist, is in the +revelation which they receive of what to do and why to do. For this +reason philosophy, which treats of the life and works of man, is in the +highest sense sociological. The generalisations of philosophy go to +improve our methods so that we may have greater proneness for sense of +delight and greater possibility for sense delight. Why, what else is +there? You are a poet, and you give an unrestorable day, when the sun is +shining and the hills lie purple in the distance, to writing a sonnet. +If you do so merely to employ yourself, it must be that the wolf of +despair is at your being's door. You have come to the end, and the sun +and the hills do not matter. You and they have parted company. But if +you write, impelled by the wish that others should read and recognise, +read and remember, and grow to know and feel better, and perhaps to love +the sun and hills better, then is yours a work of love, and it will be +made good to you, so that for the day which you have not seen, your +night shall be instinct with light.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> And if your labours are more +especially in the service of art, then, also, with each approach toward +expression, you are warmed through with the delight of achievement.</p> + +<p>Is my meaning quite dashed away by this torrent of speech? It is simply +this: Before we think we feel, and the end of thinking is feeling. The +century of Voltaire and Dr. Johnson held that man is rational, the +century of James, Ribot, Lange, and Wundt is thrilled to the heart with +the doctrine that first, last, and always man is emotional. To speak +loosely, the dimensions of the human cosmos are feeling, emotion, and sensation.</p> + +<p>Build your fine structures. We like to see the foundations laid well and +the thick walls go up. Keep to your wizard inventions. We like to live +in a magic world. And ah, the indomitable machines with their austere +promise of free days for weary hands, and ah, the locomotives and the +ships steaming their ways toward intercourse, toward comity, toward +fellowship! We like the intricacy and the vastness of the world in which +we live. But "an unconsidered life is not fit to be lived by any man," +says Aristotle. We must consider the phenomenon, civilisation, searching +down for the nucleus of its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> worth. We will find that the stone +structure without hope were a pitiable thing, that the making of +compacts and the banking of capital, without hope, were pitiable. This +hope that is the life germane, the immortal flash of mortality, the most +keenly human point in all humanity, is the hope for greater and greater +social happiness. Our world is an ever unfinished house which we are +employed in building. If we are imbued with the spirit of the architect +and not of the hod-carrier, we will hope sweetly for the work. The house +beautiful will begin to mean our life, and each night we will consult +our drawings, looking to it that on the house built of our days the sun +shall wester, and that within shall be intimacy, and laughter, great +speech and close love, looking to it that the home be such as to better +to-day's tenant so that he be more loving and lovable than the one of yesterday.</p> + +<p>We are wrong, perhaps. Long ago we were no less than now. When we +reached a hand in the darkness and grasped that of our fellow, the love +and the strongly frail human abandon were no less. We have not grown in +heart's munificence, perhaps. It is one of the illusions only. But the +hope is ours. For what do you hope?</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXVII</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London.</span> <br /> +July 22, 19—. </p> + +<p>Your birthday, Herbert, and for greeting I state that I walk your length +with you. A truce to quarrelling! It is now a year since you informed me +you were going to be married, and since then the gods have thundered +their laughter at the sight of two muttering men who sat themselves on +the axes of earth to dangle their legs into orbit vastness. Chronic +somnambulists that they are, they took their monopolist way thither in their sleep.</p> + +<p>I cannot tell you how full of vagary the correspondence we have fallen +into seems to me. I deliberately attempted to write you into passion and +for months you deliberately continued to convict yourself out of your +own mouth, and we did not see that it was tragic and comic and +preposterous. Could we personify this our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>dealing, we would do well to +call it a kind of Caliban. And the tentacles we threw out, clawing at +everything, stealing for prop to our little theory all of man and God! +It is the conceit of us that I find utterly hopeless of grace. So I drop +my rôle of omniscience. I take my form off the hub, believing the system +will maintain its gravity though I go my private way, and I promise to +let you alone. Forgive me, and God bless you. Ah, yes, and many happy +returns of the day. All my heart in the blessing and the wish.</p> + +<p>I did some remembering to-day, dear lad. When you were born, I was five +years younger than you are now, yet I felt myself old. "If we were as +old as we feel, we would die of old age at twenty-one." My life seemed +all behind me, long, turbulent, packed with pain, useless. I spoke of +myself as if all were over. "It had been full of purpose, but what came +of it? A few rhymes and a spoilt hope." To my morbid fancy your having +come to be was a signal for me to go. I had no thought of dying, yet I +accepted you as the proof of my failure. In the exacting eyes of the +genius of the race I was insolvent. You were not mine. I looked into +Time, and saw none of me there.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p><p>Yet the letter I wrote to your parents was sincere,—how else? And that +night and the next and the next, I wrote "Gentleman Adventurers," which +the critics called the epitome of all that is balladesque. One pitied +the dead because they could go forth no more on water and under sky. +This poem, written in a mood which beneficent nature sends on the +too-sick spirit, has served for more than a quarter of a century as the +complete and accepted catalogue of the reasons for living. Well, I must +not laugh at it. It may be true that the passion of my heart incarnated +itself in it beyond the rest, that my one song sang itself out those +first three days of your life. If so, it is true that love is never +cheated of its fruit, and that the joy which might have been for the +individual oozes out of him to the race, that the strength which would +have settled upon itself in the calm of satisfied hope, filters through him outwards.</p> + +<p>Good night, lad. My hand is on your shoulder and I am loath to take it +off. For a while I would like what cannot be, to travel with you the +red-brown country-roads fragrant with hay, to cross the stiles and knock +upon the cabin doors, and enter where sorrow and where gladness is, big +with greeting and sure of welcome.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> I have often pleased myself with the +fancy that the outer aspects of life are patterned after the inner, so +that in the map of the spirit are to be found city and country, wood, +desert, and sea, so that we know these outer worlds through having +travelled the worlds within. Though I stay behind, my eyes can follow +you from this night's landmark along the stretch, on to the city +avenues, up the highways, tracing the twists of the bypaths, clambering +untrod trails of wilderness and mountain, on, on, till out upon the sea.</p> + +<p>In one of the near turnings a woman with waiting face smiles subtly. Her +hands beckon you to the tryst. Godspeed, my son.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +August 6, 19—. </p> + +<p>As I have constantly insisted, our difference is temperamental. The +common words we lay hold of mean one thing to you and another thing to +me. I do not equivocate when I say that love is instinctive, and that +the latter-day expression of love is artificial. "Art," as I understand +the term in its broadness, contradistinguishes from nature. Whatever man +contrives or devises is an artifice, a thing of art not of nature, and +therefore artificial.</p> + +<p>As for ourselves, among animals we are the only real inventors and +artificers. Instead of hair and hide, we have soft skins, and we weave +cunning textures and wear wondrous garments. In cold weather, in place +of eating much fat meat, we keep ourselves warm by grate fires and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +steam heat. We cut up our blood-dripping meat chunks with pieces of iron +hardened by fire and sharpened by stone, and we eat fish with a fork +instead of our fingers. We put a roof over our heads to keep out storm +and sunshine, sleep in pent rooms, and are afraid of the good night air +and the open sky. In short, we are consummately artificial.</p> + +<p>As I recollect, I have shown that the natural expression of the love +instinct is bestial and brutal and violent. I have shown how imagination +entered into the development of the expression of this love instinct +till it became <i>romantic</i>. And, in turn, I have shown how artificial was +the romantic expression of this love instinct, by isolating a boy babe +and a girl babe in a natural state wherein they expressed their love +instinct bestially and brutally and violently. As you say, they have +simply been "left out by the civilising force." And this civilising, or +socialising force is simply the sum of our many inventions. The isolated +pair merely expressed their instincts in the unartificial, natural way. +They had not been taught a certain particular fashion in which to +express those instincts as have you and I and all artificial beings been taught.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p><p>As Mr. Finck has said, "Not till Dante's 'Vita Nuova' appeared was the +gospel of modern love—the romantic adoration of a maiden by a +youth—revealed for the first time in definite language."</p> + +<p>Dante, and the men who foreshadowed and followed him, were inventors. +They introduced an artifice for protracting one of our most vital +pleasures. Well, they succeeded. And what of it? There are artifices and +artifices, and some are better than others. The automobile is a more +cunning artifice than the ox-cart, the subway than a palanquin. Devices +come and devices go. Change is the essence of progress. All is +development. The end of rapes and romances is the same—perpetuation. +There may be head love as well as heart love. And in the time to come, +when the brain ceases to be the servant of the belly, the head the +lackey of the heart, in that time stirpiculture, which is scientific +perpetuation, will take the place of romantic love. And in the present +there may be men ready for that time. There must be a beginning, else +would we still be jolting in ox-carts. And I am ready for that time now.</p> + +<p>You say, "Love is of a piece with life, like hunger, like joy, like +death." Quite true. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> civilisation is merely the expression of +life—a variform utterance which includes love, and hunger, and joy, and +death. Else what is this civilisation for? How did it happen to be? And +I answer: It is the sum of the many inventions we have made to aid us in +our pursuit of life and love and joy. It helps us to live more +abundantly, to love more fruitfully, to joy more intelligently, and to +get grim old Death by his knotty throat and hold him at arm's length as long as possible.</p> + +<p>I stated that "all progress consists in the arbitrary alteration, by +human efforts and devices, of the normal course of nature." This +sociological concept comes inevitably into accord with my philosophy of +love. It is the law of development, and all things of human life (which +includes love) come inside of it. Wherefore, certainly, I am not outside +our province when I demand of you to bring your philosophy of love into like accord.</p> + +<p>Incidentally, I will state that I <i>have</i> fallen in love. I have grown +feverish with desire, gone mad with dumb yearning. I have felt my +intellect lose dominion, and learned that I was only a garmented beast, +for all the many inventions very like the other beasts ungarmented.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +Nay, I am no cold-blooded theorist, no thick-hided dogmatist; nor am I a +chastely simple young man mooning in virginal innocence. My +generalisations have been tempered in the heats of passion, and what I +know I know, and without hearsay.</p> + +<p>I have seen a learned man, drunk with wine, interrogate the new states +of consciousness of his unwonted condition, and so doing, gain a more +comprehensive psychological insight. So I, with my loves. I was impelled +toward the women I shall presently particularise. I asked why the +impulsion. I reasoned to see if there were a difference between these +illicit passions of mine and the illicit passions of my respectable and +respected friends. And I found no difference. Separated from codes and +conventions, shorn of imagination, divested of romance, stripped naked +down to the core of the matter, it was old Mother Nature crying through +us, every man and woman of us, for progeny. Her one unceasing and +eternal cry—<span class="smcap">Progeny! Progeny! Progeny!</span></p> + +<p>Just as little girls, instinctively foreshadowing motherhood, play with +dolls, so children feel vague sex promptings, and in sweetly ridiculous +ways love and quarrel and make up after the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> approved fashion of lovers. +You loved little girls in pigtails and pinafores. We all did. And in our +lives there is nothing fairer and more joyful to look back upon than +those same little pigtails and pinafores. But I shall pass the child +loves by, and instance first my calf love.</p> + +<p>Do you remember the incident of the torn jacket and the blackened +eyes?—so inexplicable at the time. Try as you would, neither you nor +Waring could get anything out of me. Oh, believe me, it was tragic! I +was fifteen. Fifteen, and athrill with a strange new pulse; flushed, as +the dawn, with the promise of day. And, of course, I thought it was the +day, that I loved as a man loved, and that no man ever loved more. Well, +well, I laugh now. I was only fifteen—a young calf who went out and +butted heads with another calf in the back pasture.</p> + +<p>She was a demure little coquette, Celia Genoine, Professor Genoine's +daughter, if you will recollect. "Ah," I hear you remonstrate, "but she +was a woman." Just so. Fifteen and twenty-two is usually the way of calf +loves. I invested her with all the glow and colour of first youth, and +in her presence became a changed being. I blushed if she looked at me; +trembled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> at the touch of her hand or the scent of her hair. To be in +her presence was to be closeted with the awfulness and splendour of God. +I read immortality in her eyes. A smile from her blinded me, a gentle +word or caressing look and I went faint and dizzy, and I was content to +lurk in some corner and gaze upon her secretly with all my soul. And I +took long, solitary walks, with book of verse beneath my arm, and +learned to love as lovers had loved before me.</p> + +<p>Sufficient romance was engendered for me to pass more than one night +worshipping beneath her window. I mooned and sentimentalised and fell +into a gentle melancholy, until you and Waring began to worry over an +early decline, to consult specialists, and by trick and stratagem to +entice me into eating more and reading less. But she married—ah, I have +forgotten whom. Anyway, she married, and there was trouble about it, +too, and I bade adieu to love forever.</p> + +<p>Then came the love of my whelpage. I was twenty, and she a mad, wanton +creature, wonderful and unmoral and filled with life to the brim. My +blood pounds hot even now as I conjure her up. The ungarmented beast, my +dear Dane, the great primordial ungarmented beast, mighty to procreate, +indomitable in battle, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>invincible in love. Love? Do I not know it? Can +I not understand how that splendid fighting animal, Antony, quartered +the globe with his sword and pillowed his head between the slim breasts +of Egyptian Cleopatra while that hard-won world crashed to wrack and ruin?</p> + +<p>As I say, This was the love of my whelpage, and it was vigorous, +masterful, masculine. There was no sentimentalising, no fond foolishness +of youth; nor was there that cool, calm poise which comes of the +calculation and discretion of age. Man and woman, we were in full tide, +strong, simple, and elemental. Life rioted in our veins; we were +a-bubble with the ferment; and it is out of such abundance that Mother +Nature has always exacted her progeny. From the strictly emotional and +naturalistic viewpoint, I must consider it, even now, the perfect love. +But it was decreed that I should develop into an intellectual animal, +and be something more than a mere unconscious puppet of the reproductive +forces. So head mastered my heart, and I laid the grip of my will over +the passion and went my way.</p> + +<p>And then came another man's wife, a proud-breasted woman, the perfect +mother, made pre-eminently to know the lip clasp of a child. You know +the kind, the type. "The mothers of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> men," I call them. And so long as +there are such women on this earth, that long may we keep faith in the +breed of men. The wanton was the Mate Woman, but this was the Mother +Woman, the last and highest and holiest in the hierarchy of life. In her +all criteria were satisfied, and I reasoned my need of her.</p> + +<p>And by this I take it that I was passing out of my blind puppetdom. I +was becoming a conscious selective factor in the scheme of reproduction, +choosing a mate, not in the lust of my eyes, but in the desire of my +fatherhood. Oh, Dane, she was glorious, but she was another man's wife. +Had I been living unartificially, in a state of nature, I would +certainly have brained her husband (a really splendid fellow), and +dragged her off with me shameless under the sky. Or had her husband not +been a man, or had he been but half a man, I doubt not that I would have +wrested her from him. As it was, I yearned dumbly and observed the conventions.</p> + +<p>Nor are these experiences heart soils and smirches. They have educated +me, fitted me for that which is yet to be. And I have written of them to +show you that I am no closet naturalist, that I speak authoritatively +out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> adequate understanding. Since the end of love, when all is said +and done, is progeny; and since the love of to-day is crude and +wasteful; as an inventor and artificer I take it upon myself to +substitute reasoned foresight and selection for the short-sighted and +blundering selection of Mother Nature. What would you? The old dame +would have made a mess of it had I let her have her way. She tried hard +to mate me with the wanton, for it was not her method to look into the +future to see if a better mother for my progeny awaited me.</p> + +<p>And now comes Hester. I approach her, not with the milk-and-water +ardours of first youth, nor with the lusty love madness of young +manhood, but as an intellectual man, seeking for self and mate the ripe +and rounded manhood and womanhood which comes only through the having of +children—children which must be properly born and bred. In this way, +and in this way only, can we fully express ourselves and the life that +is in us. We shall utter ourselves in the finest speech in the world, +and, our children being properly born and bred, it shall be in the +finest terms of the finest speech in the world. To do this is to have lived.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXIX</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">3a, Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.</span><br /> +August 26, 19—. </p> + +<p>You insist that the question is not on the value of love but on the +significance of the artificial. Be that as it may. To me love is +integral with life, and to speak of civilising it away, seems, in point +of fact, as preposterous and as anomalous as a Hamletless play of +Hamlet. You forget that in developing you carry yourself along; you +change, yet you remain racial and natural. Else there were too many +missing links in all your departments. We read Homer to-day—telling +proof that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> the chain of sympathy stretches unbroken through epochs of +inventions and discoveries and revolutions. Truism that it is, it +presents itself with particular force at this stage.</p> + +<p>With how much force? We stand in danger of exaggerating these vociferous +thoughts. This question of naturalness as opposed to artificiality is +not immediately pertinent to our problem, nor is the matter of optimism +and pessimism, nor the biologic idea of survival. We should have looked +more to the way of love in the lives of men and women and become +historians of the method and conduct of the force. There would have been +less confusion. So I write, "Be that as it may," and go back to more +immediate considerations. And yet we were not far wrong! The little +flower in the crannied wall could tell what God and man is. This is of +all thoughts the most charged with truth. Let me understand one of your +conclusions, root and all, and all in all, and such is the gracious plan +of oneness in the branching and leafage and uptowering, that I must know +and name the tree. Your winding bypath, could I but follow it to the +end, must bring me to the highway of your thought, every step tell-tale +of the journey's destination. But soon I shall be with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> you (the fifth +of next month, after all; the arrangements as planned). Then we will +begin to know each other, and we will no longer be tormented by the +irksomeness of writing. Therefore, until easier and more fluent times, +to the heart of the subject straight.</p> + +<p>Your love-affairs—how well you have outgrown them and how ably you +criticise them! They have not withstood the test of time, for you bear +them no loyalty. Calfdom and whelpage, vagaries of adolescence, you call +them. You do not show them much respect! For this reason your examples +lose what weight they might have borne. They belong so wholly to the +past, they are mere wraiths of bygone stirrings, they cannot clothe you +with knowledge of love. Cold now, what boots it that you have been +afire? You cannot be taught by what is utterly over.</p> + +<p>You are catching what I aim to say, I hope, for I aim to say much. Put +it that instead of a girl whom you idealised, it was a principle—some +scheme of reform which you honoured with all the passion of young hope +and dream, and which knit your alert being into a Laocoon of striving. +Your maturer eyes see this ideal impossible and narrow. In no wise can +it satisfy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> your bolder reach and larger sympathy. But you do not laugh +at what has been. If you strove for it sincerely at any time, no matter +how remote, you could never again deride it. Because once you loved it +you are eternal keeper of the key to its good. What has been wholly +yours you never quite desert. Nothing has remained to you of your +love-affairs, therefore your recital of them is empty of meaning. If you +were in love to-day, and because of your philosophy you determined to do +battle with your feeling, your experience would be more authoritative.</p> + +<p>You have known love, and having known you refuse it. Henceforth, it must +be reason and not feeling. "What is your objection?" you ask. This +merely, that the thing cannot be. Marriage to be marriage must come +through love, through the reddest romance of love, through fire of the +spirit, yes, even through the love of calfdom and whelpage. Else it is a +mockery. Where is the woman of character who would sell the be-all and +end-all of her existence for a neat catalogue of possible advantages? +Where is the man who would frankly and without embellishment dare make +such proposal? You point to yourself. But you have never explained +yourself to Hester, and even to me you are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> embellishing the matter with +all the might in your persuasive pen.</p> + +<p>The ardours of calfdom and whelpage that you smile at I would have you +throb with. You underrate the firstlings of the heart, the rose and +white blossoming, the call upon the senses and the readiness to respond +and to fulfil, to give and to take, to be and make happy—the great +pride and utter abandon which is young love. At fifteen, fortunately for +the development of mind and character, hope is placed where hope must +pine. Love, then, is doomed to be tragic. The youth "attains to be +denied." But he sounds his depth. Thereafter, he knows what to expect of +himself. He has a precedent. After this he will count it a sin to +forget, and to accept the solace of mediocrity. In this lies the value of the tragedy.</p> + +<p>I sometimes think that whatever is youngest is best. It is the young +that, timid and bold, pay greatest reverence to knowledge, receiving +without chill of prejudice and shameful cowardice of quibbling the brave +new thought. Wisdom may be of age, but passion for scholarships, +trail-breaking, and hardy prospecting in the treasure mines of research, +is of young pioneerhood alone. It is a youth who dares be radical,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> who +dares, in splendid largess, build mistake upon mistake, bleeding his +life out in service. And it is a youth, standing tiptoe upon the earth, +now waiting in unperturbed ease, now searching with unbridled zeal, who +is lover and mystic. "The best is yet to be," says Rabbi Ben Ezra, "the +last of life, for which the first is made." Yes, the last of life will +be good, but only if it is like youth, beating with its pulse and +instinct with its spirit.</p> + +<p>The unhappy youth is left on the battle-field but not to die. The +sword-thrusts challenge him to put forth greater strength in fiercer +wars. He learns hard and well.</p> + +<p>Indeed, I cannot leave this subject of first love. How do you know it +was not good for you to love as you did? It is strange you should +resolve to love no more because at one time you loved deeply enough +almost to remain in love. It cannot be that you have grown old and that +nature is resolving for you. You tell me of your experiences in order +that I may be convinced that you know whereof you speak and I listen in +wonder. Your conclusions are unwonted.</p> + +<p>Then something was amiss, for you have outgrown and forgotten, but how +is it with you in the present when your indifference waits not upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +time? You approach your future wife clothed in indifference as in mail, +and you do violence. How can I show you? I speak as I would to a child +to whom it is necessary to explain that it is bad to abandon an +education. Life is a school, and to me it seems that you are about to +resign long before diploma and degree, so I interpose. I was taught by +first love, and I honour that time beyond any other. I was Ellen's. I +have been lonely. For the mere human need, for the sake of that which to +the lonely is very dear, I have thought of marriage, but I remembered +and I refused to do violence to myself remembering. Long ago my standard +was established. I learned how deeply I could feel, and I refuse to +acknowledge myself bankrupt, I refuse to approach an honourable human +being with less than my all. Until my soul flower out again, until suns +flame about my head as in that dear yoretime, I shall keep teeming with +dreams and make no affront. I who have seen love, dare not live without love.</p> + +<p>I would not give in to fate, Herbert. I would assert my manhood. I would +abide in the strength of the first output, going with the flush of the +first glow into the gloom. I would spurn the calm of compromise and +mediocrity and register a high claim. I would keep the peace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> with +Romance and fly her colours to the last. You have lived? It is well, and +it might have been better, but do not give over and talk of +stirpiculture. You are not wiser than the laws which made you.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXX</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +September 18, 19—. </p> + +<p>How abominable I must seem to you, Dane! For certainly a creature is +abominable that lays rough hands on one's dearest possessions. I doubt +if even you realise how deeply you are stirred by my conduct towards +love. My marriage with Hester, considering the quality and degree of the +contracting parties, must appear as terrible to you as the sodomies that +caused God's ancient wrath to destroy cities. You see, I take your side +for the time, see with your eyes, live your thoughts, suffer what you +suffer; and then I become <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>myself again and steel myself to continue in +what I think is the right.</p> + +<p>After all, mine is the harder part. There are easier tasks than those of +the illusion-shatterer. That which is established is hard to overthrow. +It has the nine points of possession, and woe to him who attempts its +disestablishment; for it will persist till it be drowned and washed away +in the blood of the reformers and radicals.</p> + +<p>Love is a convention. Men and women are attached to it as they are +attached to material things, as a king is attached to his crown or an +old family to its ancestral home. We have all been led to believe that +love is splendid and wonderful, and the greatest thing in the world, and +it pains us to part with it. Faith, we will not part with it. The man +who would bid us put it by is a knave and a fool, a vile, degraded +wretch, who will receive pardon neither in this world nor the next.</p> + +<p>This is nothing new. It is the attitude of the established whenever its +conventions are attacked. It was the attitude of the Jew toward Christ, +of the Roman toward the Christian, of the Christian toward the infidel +and the heretic. And it is sincere and natural. All things desire to +endure, and they die hard. Love will die<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> hard, as died the idolatries +of our forefathers, the geocentric theory of the universe, and the +divine right of kings.</p> + +<p>So, I say, the rancour and warmth of the established when attacked is +sincere. The world is mastered by the convention of love, and when one +profanes love's Holy of Holies the world is unutterably shocked and +hurt. Love is a thing for lovers only. It must not be approached by the +sacrilegious scientist. Let him keep to his physics and chemistry, +things definite and solid and gross. Love is for ardent speculation, not +laboratory analysis. Love is (as the reverend prior and the learned +bodies told brother Lippo of man's soul):—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"—a fire, smoke ... no, it's not ...</div> +<div>It's vapour done up like a new-born babe—</div> +<div>(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth)</div> +<div>It's ... well, what matters talking, it's the soul!"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>I thoroughly understand the popular sentimental repugnance to a +scientific discussion of love. Because I dissect love, and weigh and +calculate, it is denied that I am capable of experiencing love. It is +too radiant and glorious a thing for a dull clod like me to know. And +because I cannot experience love and be made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> mad by it, my fitness to +describe its phenomena is likewise denied. Only the lover may describe +love. And only the lunatic, I suppose, may compose a medical brochure on insanity.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXXI</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">London,</span> <br /> +October 7, 19—. </p> + +<p>It is true that you have a hard task before you, but it is not because +you are fighting convention and shattering illusion; it is because you +are assailing a good. Love has never acquired the prestige of the +established, and the run of marriages are prompted by advantage, +routine, or passion. So you are no innovator, Herbert. The idolatry of +love will not be overthrown by a drawn battle between those of the Faith +and those of the Reformation. Nothing so spectacular awaits us.</p> + +<p>I have a friend who has undertaken to translate "Inferno" into English, +keeping to the <i>terza rima</i>. "It is like climbing the Matterhorn," he +says gravely. "I get to places where I feel I can go neither forward nor +back. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> task is prodigious." And it is. But whom will it concern if +he succeeds in going forward? There are few who will read his book. The +translation is of more importance to the translator than to anyone else. +Yet the professor's <i>magnum opus</i> confers a degree upon us all. Because +a standard is upheld and a man is willing and able to climb a Matterhorn +of thought, we can ourselves stride forward with better courage. The +work will be an output of heroism, and it will ennoble even those who +will not know of it.</p> + +<p>I have another friend who ruined his life for love, so says the world +that you think steeped in the idolatry of love. A priest, who by a few +strokes was able to quell in America a strong and bitter movement, a +gifted orator, a man of giant powers, and who was won away at the age of +forty from his career by a mere girl. The girl planned nothing. She +found herself a force in his life almost despite herself. The mere fact +that she lived was enough to wrest this Titan from the arms of the +Church. He told me that she criticised him with the directness of a +simple nature, and that he came to understand her truths better than she +herself. I think she must have loved him at first, but she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> did not go +to him when all grew calm. I wish it could have been otherwise, and that +she could have brought him a woman's heart.</p> + +<p>The priest, as the professor, is a hero. Both made great outputs.</p> + +<p>There are few who can live like these. But because there are a few who +can love and work, the game is saved. And because there are a few of +these, we must ever quarrel with the many who are not like them.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Give all to love;</div> +<div>Obey thy heart;</div> +<div>Friends, kindred, days,</div> +<div>Estate, good fame,</div> +<div>Plans, credit, and the Muse,—</div> +<div>Nothing refuse."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Does this really seem such poor philosophy to you? And when, Herbert, will you marry?</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane Kempton.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXXII</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Stanford University.</span><br /> +November 20, 19—. </p> + +<p>Hester met me at the station, and we walked through the Arboretum to her +home on the campus. Then followed an evening together in the dormitory +parlour. I have just left her. Her face was tumultuously joyous when I +murmured my "At last!" Her tearful excitement was like Barbara's. You +did not tell me she is so young. You must have made her feel our +closeness, or she may have found a bit of my verse that all expressed +her, and presto, the whole-hearted one is my friend. Her poet is now her +father, brother, comrade,—what she chooses, and all she chooses.</p> + +<p>At one time, before we were well out of the Arboretum, our eyes met, and +there was something so sad and mild and strange in the burn of her gaze +that I felt her frank spirit was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> unveiling itself in an utterness of +speech. But I have become too much spoilt by mere length of living to be +able to remember back and recognise what young eyes mean when they look +like that. From London to Palo Alto is a short trip, if at the end of it +you meet a Hester. Yet I am sad. The mood crept on me the moment we grew +aware that evening had come, and we stopped a little in front of the +arch to observe the night-look of the foot-hills. Lights had begun to +appear in the corridors of the quadrangle, and here and there in a +professor's office, while Roble and Encina looked like lit-up ferries. +There was a spell of mystery and promise in the quiet which was deeper +for being suggestive of the seething student-life just subsided. It was +a silence that seemed to echo with bells and recitations, and babble and +laughter and heartache. I fell into thought. One generation cometh and +another passeth away. There is no respite. March with time and find +death, mayhap, before it has found you. As years ago the flamelet of the +street-lamp, so now these outposts of the colossal embryo of a world +derided me and seemed to point me out and away. The evening grew chill +with "a greeting in which no kindness is."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p><p>"Your coming has been announced in every class, and your lecture is on +the bulletin-boards. After that, can you be depressed?"</p> + +<p>The light words were spoken low, as if doubtful whether they could be +taken in good part, and they came with something that was like music. +Was it the voice or some inexplicable feeling? I turned in wonder. Her +head was raised, and in the indistinctness I caught that sweet look of +hers which besought me, and which I answered without knowing to what question.</p> + +<p>I owe you a great happiness. Good-night.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane Kempton.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXXIII</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Stanford University.</span><br /> +Wednesday. </p> + +<p>Last night I delivered my address to the student body. Behold the chapel +crowded to the doors, aisles and window-seats crammed, and faces peering +in from without, those of boys and girls who had perched themselves on +the outer sills. A student audience is at the same time most critical +and the most generous. I spoke on Literature and Democracy.</p> + +<p>Hester approved my effort. "How does it feel to be great?" she laughed. +"How does it feel to be cruel?" I retorted. "But think, Mr. Kempton, +when you visited the English classes you were just so much text for us. +It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> should count us a unit merely to have seen you."</p> + +<p>A memory stood up and had its revenge on me. It taunted me for the +half-expressed thought, for the fled insight, for the swelling note that +midmost broke. Praise the artist, and he feels himself betrayer. +Blear-eyed, the poet recalls the poem's sunrise, straightens himself +with the old pride, is held again by the splendour which forecasts the +about-to-be-steadier glory of day, and even with the recalling he +shrinks together before what he knows was a false dawn. There was never +a day. The song's note never sang itself at all.</p> + +<p>Hester looked up with that wistfulness which so draws me. Her look said: +"I pity you. I wish you were as happy as I." And a thought leaped out in +answer to her look which would have smote her had it spoken. It was, +"You, too, are awakened by a false dawning." Why is she so sure of +herself and of you? Is she sure? The puny bit of writing had a vigorous +rising. The ragged author was clad in it as in ermine. So the seeming +love makes a strong call, for a while holding the girl intent upon a +splendour of unfolding, her nature roused, her being expectant. But +later, for poet and lover, the failure and the waste! Were it otherwise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +with your feeling for your betrothed, the comparison would not hold.</p> + +<p>Hester does not think these things, and she is beautiful and happy.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours devotedly, <br /> +<span class="smcap">Dane Kempton</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXXIV</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Stanford University.</span><br /> +Saturday. </p> + +<p>Her happiness wrung it from me. Before I could intervene, the question +asked itself, "How will it be with you in after years?"</p> + +<p>Straight the answer came, "There will be Herbert."</p> + +<p>Hester is proud. To-night I saw it in the lift of her chin, in the set +of her neck, in the brilliance of her cheek. She knows herself endowed. +So when she prattled with abandon of all you both meant to be and do, +her form erect before me, her hands eloquent with excitement, her voice +pleading for the right to her very conscious self-esteem, I asked her to +look still further. Further she saw you, and was content.</p> + +<p>That was before dinner. Later we were walking. "I have a friend in +Orion," she said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> The witchery of starshine played in her eyes and +about her mouth. Where were you, Herbert? This night will never return. +Yet what has been was for you—the more, perhaps, that you seemed away. +So it is with lovers. She thinks you love her.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry for your mood," she said. "You are holding yourself to +account these days in a way I know." Then she spoke, and I learned with +new heaviness of spirit that she does know the way of it. You never +thought Hester had much to struggle with?</p> + +<p>"I am difficult," she said. And again, "There are times when no power +can hold me." Then she quoted Browning:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Already how am I so far</div> +<div>Out of that minute? Must I go</div> +<div>Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,</div> +<div>Onward, whenever light winds blow,</div> +<div>Fixed by no friendly star?"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>"Are you unhappy, Hester?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but with no more reason than you for your unhappiness. Since you +have come here, you have renewed your demands upon yourself. You wish to +go to school with the youngest and find you cannot. You suffer because +more seems behind you than before." Her voice rose as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> she were +fighting tears. It was different with her, I told her. Nothing was behind her.</p> + +<p>"You test your work and I test my love. When you are sad, it is because +the soul of the song spent itself to gain body—" She did not finish. +Why is she sad? Because the soul of her love is narrower than she hoped?</p> + +<p>On our return from our walk she sank on the seat under the '95 oak. "Did +you think I meant I was always unhappy?" she asked. Her words seem +always to say more than her meaning. She imparts something of her own +elaborateness to them. I laughed.</p> + +<p>"How could I with the 'Herbert is' in my ears?" Then her love became +voluble. I forgot what I knew of your theories and grew aflame with her +ardour. I anticipated as largely as she. She was again possessed by her hopes.</p> + +<p>There, under the shadow of the quadrangle which her young strides +measured, she spoke of what, with you in her life, the years must be. +Beyond words you are blessed, Herbert. But if she mistakes?</p> + +<p class="right">D.K.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXXV</h2> + +<h3>FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Stanford University.</span><br /> +November 27, 19—. </p> + +<p>Be outspoken! What will happen I can only surmise, but you must tell her +what she is to you. Set her right.</p> + +<p>This is the fourth letter in seven days about Hester. I am endeavouring +to make you acquainted with her. I had no need if you loved her. How she +loves you! Yet she thinks that your calm is depth, your silence prayer. +Her pride protects her, but she strains for the word which does not +come. She has never been quite sure, and I thank God for that. Hester +has been fearing somewhat, and she has been doubting, and it is this +that may save her when the night sets in and the storm breaks over her head.</p> + +<p>You, too, are thankful that her instincts served<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> her true and that she +never quite accepted the gift that seemed to have been proffered?</p> + +<p>You have a right to demand the reason for my renewed attack. It is +because I have learned the strength of her love. "You are blessed beyond +words," I said two days ago, but as you reject the blessing, Hester must +know it and you must tell her. Herbert, I am your friend.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dane Kempton.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXXVI</h2> + +<h3>FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Ridge,</span> <br /> +<span class="smcap">Berkeley, California</span>.<br /> +November 29, 19—. </p> + +<p>What a flutter of letters! And what a fluttery Dane Kempton it is! The +wine of our western sunshine has bitten into your blood and you are +grown over-warm. I am glad that you and Hester have found each other so +quickly and intimately; glad that you are under her charm, as I know her +to be under yours; but I am not glad when you spell yourself into her +and write out your heart's forebodings on her heart. For you are +strangely morbid, and you are certainly guilty of reading your own +doubts and fears into her unspoken and unguessed thoughts.</p> + +<p>Believe me, rather than the soul of her love seeming narrower than she +hopes, the truth is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> she gives her love little thought at all. She is +too busy—and too sensible. Like me, she has not the time. We are +workers, not dreamers; and the minutes are too full for us to lavish +them on an eternal weighing and measuring of heart throbs.</p> + +<p>Besides, Hester is too large for that sort of stuff. She is the last +woman in the world to peer down at the scales to see if she is getting +full value. We leave that to the lesser creatures, who spend their +courtship loudly protesting how unutterable, immeasurable, and +inextinguishable is their love, as though, forsooth, each dreaded lest +the other deem it a bad bargain. We do not bargain and chaffer over our +feelings, Hester and I. Surely you mistake, and stir storms in teacups.</p> + +<p>"Be outspoken," you say. If my conscience were not clear, I should be +troubled by that. As it is, what have I hidden? What sharp business have +I driven? And who is it that cried "cheated!"? Be outspoken—about what, pray?</p> + +<p>You bid me tell her what she is to me. Which is to bid me tell her what +she already knows, to tell her that she is the Mother Woman; that of all +women she is dearest to me; that of all the walks of life, that one is +pleasantest wherein<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> I may walk with her; that with her I shall find the +supreme expression of myself and the life that is in me; that in all +this I honour her in the finest, loftiest fashion that man can honour +woman. Tell her this, Dane. By all means tell her.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I do not mean that," I hear you say. Well, let me tell you what you +mean, in my own way, and bid you tell her for me. In the lust of my eyes +she is nothing to me. She is not a mere sense delight, a toy for the +debauchery of my intellect and the enthronement of emotion. She is not +the woman to make my pulse go fevered and me go mad. Nor is she the +woman to make me forget my manhood and pride, to tumble me down +doddering at her feet and gibbering like an ape. She is not the woman to +put my thoughts out of joint and the world out of gear, and so to +befuddle and make me drunk with the beast that is in me, that I am ready +to sacrifice truth, honesty, duty, and purpose for the sake of +possession. She is not the woman ever to make me swamp honour and poise +and right conduct in the vortex of blind sex passion. She is not the +woman to arouse in me such uncontrolled desire that for gratification I +would do one ill deed, or put the slightest hurt upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> the least of +human creatures. She is not the most beautiful woman God Almighty ever +planted on His footstool. (There have been and are many women as true +and pure and noble). She is not the woman for whose bedazzlement I must +advertise the value of my goods by sweating sonnets to her, or shivering +serenades at her, or perpetuating follies for her. In short, she is not +anything to me that the woman of conventional love is to the man.</p> + +<p>And again, what <i>is</i> she to me? She is my other self, as it were, my +good comrade, and fellow-worker and joy-sharer. With her woman she +complements my man and makes us one, and this is the highest civilised +sense of union. She is to me the culmination of the thousands of +generations of women. It took civilisation to make her, as it takes +civilisation to make our marriage. She is to me the partner in a +marriage of the gods, for we become gods, we half brutes, when we muzzle +the beast and are not menaced by his growls. Under heaven she is my wife +and the mother of my children.</p> + +<p>Tell her, then, tell her all you wish, you dear old fluttery, mothery +poet father—as though it made any difference.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Herbert.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXXVII</h2> + +<h3>FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Stanford University.</span><br /> +December 3, 19—. </p> + +<p>Not three weeks ago you were sitting opposite me and speaking of Hester. +You admitted many things that night, amongst them that the girl never +carried you off your feet. You stated over again with precision all you +had written. You betrothed yourself, not because Hester is different +from everybody else in the world, but because she is like. You took her +for what is typical in her, not for what is individual. You preferred to +walk toward her before your steps were impelled, because you feared that +impulsion would preclude rational choice. With the hope of out-tricking +nature, you reached for Hester Stebbins, in order that there might be a +wall between your heart's fancy and yourself, should your heart become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +rebellious. I was to understand that this is the new school, that so +live the masters of matter and of self.</p> + +<p>And as you spoke, I wondered about the woman Hester and the form of +love-making which existed between you, and whether she was simple and +without any charm despite her culture and her gift of song. "She either +loves him too well to know or to have the strength to care, or she is, +like him, of the new school," I thought. I sat and watched you, noting +your youth, surprised by the scorn in your eyes and the sadness on your +lips. You seemed hopeless and helpless. I closed my eyes. "What has he +left himself?" I kept asking. "How will he tread 'The paths gray heads +abhor?'" My own head bowed itself as before an irreparable loss. I had +rejoined the child of my care only to find him blasted as by grief, the +first sunshine smitten from his face and his heart weighted. One word, +one ray lighting your looks in a wonted way, one uncontrolled movement +of the hand, one little silence following the mention of her, would have +led me to believe that I had not understood and that all was well. The +night grew old with your plans and analyses. We parted with a sense of +shame upon us that we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> should have written and spoken so long and with +such heat, and to such little purpose.</p> + +<p>You do not see how this answers your last letter. I will tell you. It +shows you that you have explained yourself fully the night we spoke face to face.</p> + +<p>You say that Hester is the woman to complement your man. This sounds +like a lover, only I happen to know that she is not the irresistible +woman. I found it out quite by accident—a few words dropped into a +letter, a corroboration of the fact and further committal, a protracted +defence of your position, running through a correspondence of over a +year, and, finally, a face-to-face declaration. What boots it now that +you write prettily? You do not love Hester. You want her to mother your +children, and you install her in your life for the purpose before the need.</p> + +<p>Love is not lust, and it is good. The irresistible marriage, alone, is +the right one. Upon it, alone, does the sacrament rest. The chivalry of +your last letter refers less to the girl than to your own ends. It is +not because Hester is what she is, that "of all the walks in life that +one is pleasantest wherein you may walk with her," but because that walk +is the one you choose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> beyond any other for your wife to follow. The +mother woman is legion, and you refuse to specialise.</p> + +<p>Hester does not peer down at the scales to see if she is getting full +value, yet she does look to her dignity, and, being poor, will not +account herself rich. Hester has felt since you made known to her that +you wished her to be yours, that she counted punily in your scheme, that +you placed little of yourself in charge of her. She loved you and avowed +it, but she has never been happy. The tragedy of love is not (what it is +thought to be) the unreciprocated love, but the meagerly returned love. +It is better to be rejected, equal turned from equal, than to be held +with slim desire for slight purpose. Can you see this, Herbert? You are +hurting the girl's life. She will ask for what you withhold, though not +a word rise to her lips; will thirst for it through the years, will +herself grow cramped with your denial till her own love seem a thing of +dream, unstable and vague and illusive. And all the time you are gentle. +You are devoted to her interests, furthering her happiness to the best +in your power; but your power cannot touch her happiness. It is not what +you do; it is the motive to your acts, and Hester would know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> that she +has left you unmoved. You respect the function of motherhood, but you do +not love Hester. Tell her this, and prevent her from entering a union in +which she must feel herself half useful, half wifely, half happy, and +therefore all unhappy.</p> + +<p>It is not Hester's fault that you cannot love her, and perhaps it is not +her misfortune. There is no need for panic. Of two persons, one loving +and one loath, the indifferent one is in the right. Can a tree defend +itself from the hewer's axe? What would avail it, then, to feel pain at +the blows? It is beyond our control to love or not to love, and no +effort that we may put forth can draw love to us when it is denied. It +does not avail us to suffer from unrequited love.</p> + +<p>This which I have just said is an article of faith which the doctrine of +experience often contradicts, for there may be mistake, and the one who +does not love may be in the wrong. If only you could wait to see the +beauty which is she before you call her! A year later and Hester may +flower for you in a passionate blossoming; her face may challenge you to +live. A year later and you may find that she is indeed the woman to +guide you and to follow you; her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> voice a song; her eyes a light in the +day. As yet, you have not gauged her, and you would put her to small +uses. Stand aside, dear Herbert. It will be better.</p> + +<p>I have played a surly part. I may be accused of having been to you both +a Dmitri Roudin and an Iago. I beg you to believe that it has not been +easy for me. I have uttered the earnest word, have driven you on by the +goad of friendship, which drives far. I looked upon the days that came +tripping toward you out of the blue-white horizon of time and saw them +gray for a dear woman, gray and silent as the tomb over a dead love, and +heavy hearted for a man who is my son.</p> + +<p class="right">Ever wholly yours, <br /> +<span class="smcap">Dane Kempton</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXXVIII</h2> + +<h3>FROM HESTER STEBBINS TO HERBERT WACE</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Stanford University.</span><br /> +December 15, 19—. </p> + +<p>Over and ended. It shall be as I said last night. Herbert, there is no +call for anger; believe me, there is not. I am doing what I cannot help +doing. You have not changed, but my faith in you has, and I cannot +pretend to a happiness I do not feel.</p> + +<p>Oh, but I laugh, my very dear one, I laugh that I could seem to choose +to wrest myself from you. Did you at one time love me? That morning of +wild sunshine when you took my hand and asked me to be your wife seems +very long ago. I should have understood—the blame is all mine—I should +have known you did not love me, I should have been filled with anger and +shame instead of happiness. The blame is all mine.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p><p>Last night, while you were speaking, I was standing in the window +wondering what all the trouble was about. I could afford to be calm +since I knew I was not hurting you very deeply. At most I was +disappointing a very self-sufficient man. How do women find courage, O +God, to take from men who love them the love they gave? No such ordeal mine?</p> + +<p>Farewell, Herbert. Let us think calmly of each other since we have +helped each other for so long a stretch of life. Farewell, dear.</p> + +<p class="right">Always your friend, <br /> +<span class="smcap">Hester Stebbins</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XXXIX</h2> + +<h3>FROM HESTER STEBBINS TO DANE KEMPTON</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Stanford University.</span><br /> +December 18, 19—. </p> + +<p>Herbert has analyzed the situation and has arrived at the conclusion +that my dissatisfaction arises in an inordinate desire for happiness. +You should not care so much about yourself, he says. Poor, dear, young +Herbert! He is very young and cannot as yet conceive how much there is +about oneself that demands care. I thought it out in the hills to-day. +It was gray and there was a fitful wind. What is this selfishness but a +prompting to make much of life? You and I and people of our kind are old +before our time, that is the reason we are not reckless. Our dreams +mature us. I was a mere girl when Herbert said he wished to marry me, +but I was old enough to grasp the full meaning of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> pact, as he could +not grasp it. In a moment I had travelled my way to the grave and back. +I looked at the sheer, quick clouds that flitted past the blue, and I +felt that I had caught up with life; I had overtaken the wonders that +hung in the sky of my dreaming. Then I looked at him and the sunshine +got in my face and made me laugh (or cry)—I was so more than happy, +being so much too sure of his need of me. I am glad I walked to-day. The +view from the hills was beautiful. (You see I am not unhappy!) I stood +on a rock and looked about me, thinking of you, of Barbara,—I feel I +know her,—and of Herbert. He and I had often come to these spots. Oh, +the hungry memories! Yet what were we but a young man and a young woman, +who, without being battered into apathy by misfortune, without being +wearied or ill, were taking each other for better or for worse because +they seemed compatible? We were doing just that, to Herbert's certain +knowledge! I failed him; he hoped for more complaisance. Marriage is a +hazard, Mr. Kempton, confess it is, and a man does much when he binds +himself to make a woman the mother of his children—nay, the grandmother +of theirs, even that. What else and what more? I would never have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +wholly in my husband's life, comrade and fellow to it. Herbert knew this +clearly, and I vaguely but I acted with clearness on my vagueness. It +was hard to do. It has left me breathless and a little afraid to be +myself,—as if I had killed a dear thing,—and tearful, too, and +spasmodic for your sympathy and sanction.</p> + +<p>I told him that for a long time I did not understand, supposing myself +beloved and desired and chosen for him by God, thinking he yearned for +the subtlety and mystery of me, thinking all of him needed me and +cleaved earths and parted seas to come to me. Later, when I became +oppressed by a lack and was made to hear the stillness that followed my +unechoed words, I became grave and still myself. He had unloved me, I +said, and I waited. Something seemed pending, and meanwhile I could +love! I made much of every word of comfort that he dropped me, and dwelt +with hope on the future. All this I told Herbert the night when I +explained, and he turned pale. "You people fly away with yourselves. I +cannot follow you. What is wrong, Hester?" He smiled in his distress. +Yet was there in his softness an imperiousness, commanding me to be +other than I am, forbidding me the right to crave in secret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> what I had +made bold to ask for openly. His man was stronger than my woman, and I +leapt to him again. "My husband," I whispered, my hands in his. This, +even after I understood, dearest Mr. Kempton.</p> + +<p>It is a sorry tangle. If only one could suit feeling to theory! It is +not for a theory that I refuse to be Herbert's wife. Yet if I loved him +enough, I could give up love itself for him. He hinted it, looking as +from a distance at me in my attitude of protest and restraint. If I +loved him enough, I could forego love itself for him. Somewhere there is +a fault, it would seem, somewhere in my abandon is restraint, in my +love, self-seeking. Remorse overcame me just as he was about to leave, +and I schooled myself to think that there had been no affront, that it +honours a woman to be wanted no matter for what end, that every use is a +noble use, that we die the same, loved or used. If Herbert Wace wants a +wife and thinks me fitting, why, it is well. I thought all this and aged +as I thought. Nevertheless, my hand did not put itself out a second time +to detain the man who had forced me to face this.</p> + +<p>There is a youth here who loves me. If Herbert's face could shine like +his for one hour,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> I believe I would be happier than I have ever been. +And it would not spoil that happiness if this love were toward another +than myself. Say you believe me. You must know it of me that before +everything else in the world I pray that knowledge of love come to the +man over whom the love of my girlhood was spilled.</p> + +<p>Do you ask what is left me, dear friend? Work and tears and the intact +dream. Believe me, I am not pitiable.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hester.</span></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Kempton-Wace Letters, by +Jack London and Anna Strunsky + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS *** + +***** This file should be named 31422-h.htm or 31422-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/4/2/31422/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Kempton-Wace Letters + +Author: Jack London + Anna Strunsky + +Release Date: February 27, 2010 [EBook #31422] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS + + * * * * * + +JACK LONDON'S BOOKS + +"_He opened windows for them upon the splendour and the savagery, the +pomp and the pitifulness that he had found in many corners of the earth. +He saw that in every scene, in every human activity there was an element +which lifted it into the region of the beautiful, and he made all his +readers see it, whether he was learned or ignorant; cultivated or only +just able to read. Full justice has never been done to him. There was no +silver in his purse, only gold._"--Hamilton Fyfe in "The Daily Mail." + + +The Valley of the Moon 7s. 6d. net and 4s. net + +Jerry of the Islands 7s. 6d. net and 2s. 6d. net + +Michael, Brother of Jerry 7s. 6d. net and 2s. net + +Hearts of Three 6s. net and 2s. 6d. net + +Island Tales 7s. 6d. net + +The Red One 6s. net and 2s. net + +The Acorn-Planter 3s. 6d. net + +The Little Lady of the Big House 6s. net and 2s. 6d. net + +[A]The Mutiny of the Elsinore 6s. net and 2s. net + +The Strength of the Strong 6s. net and 1s. 6d. net + +The Night-Born 6s. net and 2s. net + +[A]A Daughter of the Snows 7s. 6d. net and 2s. 6d. net + +Lost Face 6s. net and 1s. 6d. net + +South Sea Tales 6s. net and 1s. 6d. net + +When God Laughs 6s. net and 1s. 6d. net + +[A]Smoke Bellew 6s. net and 1s. 6d. net + +The Kempton-Wace Letters 2s. 6d. net + +Smoke and Shorty 6s. and 2s. 6d. net + +The Cruise of the Snark 2s. net + +The Cruise of the Dazzler 1s. 6d. net + +Turtles of Tasman 1s. 6d. net + +Before Adam 1s. 6d. net + +The Scarlet Plague 1s. 6d. net + +The God of His Fathers 1s. 6d. net + +Adventure 2s. net + +The House of Pride 1s. 6d. net + +Love of Life 1s. 6d. net + +A Son of the Sun 6s. net and 2s. net + +An Odyssey of the North 1s. 6d. net + +Children of the Frost 1s. 6d. net + +[A]John Barleycorn 6s. net and 2s. net + +[A]The Jacket 6s. net and 2s. net + +Revolution 2s. net + +War of the Classes 2s. net + +The Human Drift 6s. net and 2s. net + +The Iron Heel 2s. net + +The Road 2s. net + + +[A] Films have been founded on these novels + +MILLS & BOON, Ltd., 49 Rupert St., London, W.1. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS + +BY + +JACK LONDON +AND +ANNA STRUNSKY + + + "_And of naught else than Love would we + discourse._"--DANTE, Sonnet II. + + +MILLS & BOON, LIMITED 49 RUPERT STREET LONDON, W.1 + + +_Copyright in the United States of America, 1903, by the Macmillan +Company Printed in Great Britain by Love & Malcomson Ltd. London and +Redhill._ + + + + +KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS + + + + +I + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3 A QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +August 14, 19--. + +Yesterday I wrote formally, rising to the occasion like the conventional +happy father rather than the man who believes in the miracle and lives +for it. Yesterday I stinted myself. I took you in my arms, glad of what +is and stately with respect for the fulness of your manhood. It is +to-day that I let myself leap into yours in a passion of joy. I dwell on +what has come to pass and inflate myself with pride in your fulfilment, +more as a mother would, I think, and she your mother. + +But why did you not write before? After all, the great event was not +when you found your offer of marriage accepted, but when you found you +had fallen in love. Then was your hour. Then was the time for +congratulation, when the call was first sounded and the reveille of Time +and About fell upon your soul and the march to another's destiny was +begun. It is always more important to love than to be loved. I wish it +had been vouchsafed me to be by when your spirit of a sudden grew +willing to bestow itself without question or let or hope of return, when +the self broke up and you grew fain to beat out your strength in praise +and service for the woman who was soaring high in the blue wastes. You +have known her long, and you must have been hers long, yet no word of +her and of your love reached me. It was not kind to be silent. + +Barbara spoke yesterday of your fastidiousness, and we told each other +that you had gained a triumph of happiness in your love, for you are not +of those who cheat themselves. You choose rigorously, straining for the +heart of the end as do all rigorists who are also hedonists. Because we +are in possession of this bit of data as to your temperamental cosmos we +can congratulate you with the more abandon. Oh, Herbert, do you know +that this is a rampant spring, and that on leaving Barbara I tramped +out of the confines into the green, happier, it almost seems, than I +have ever been? Do you know that because you love a woman and she loves +you, and that because you are swept along by certain forces, that I am +happy and feel myself in sight of my portion of immortality on earth, +far more than because of my books, dear lad, far more? + +I wish I could fly England and get to you. Should I have a shade less of +you than formerly, if we were together now? From your too much green of +wealth, a barrenness of friendship? It does not matter; what is her gain +cannot be my loss. One power is mine,--without hindrance, in freedom and +in right, to say to Ellen's son, "Godspeed!" to place Hester Stebbins's +hand in his, and bid them forth to the sunrise, into the glory of day! + +Ever your devoted father, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +II + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +September 3, 19--. + +Here I am, back in the old quarters once more, with the old afternoon +climb across the campus and up into the sky, up to the old rooms, the +old books, and the old view. You poor fog-begirt Dane Kempton, could you +but have lounged with me on the window couch, an hour past, and watched +the light pass out of the day through the Golden Gate and the night +creep over the Berkeley Hills and down out of the east! Why should you +linger on there in London town! We grow away from each other, it +seems--you with your wonder-singing, I with my joyful science. + +Poesy and economics! Alack! alack! How did I escape you, Dane, when mind +and mood you mastered me? The auguries were fair. I, too, should have +been a singer, and lo, I strive for science. All my boyhood was singing, +what of you; and my father was a singer, too, in his own fine way. Dear +to me is your likening of him to Waring.--"What's become of Waring?" He +_was_ Waring. I can think of him only as one who went away, "chose land +travel or seafaring." + +Gwynne says I am sometimes almost a poet--Gwynne, you know, Arthur +Gwynne, who has come to live with me at The Ridge. "If it were not for +your dismal science," he is sure to add; and to fire him I lay it to the +defects of early training. I know he thinks that I never half +appreciated you, and that I do not appreciate you now. If you will +recollect, you praised his verses once. He cherishes that praise amongst +his sweetest treasures. Poor dear good old Gwynne, tender, sensitive, +shrinking, with the face of a seraph and the heart of a maid. Never were +two men more incongruously companioned. I love him for himself. He +tolerates me, I do secretly believe, because of you. He longs to meet +you,--he knew you well through my father,--and we often talk you over. +Be sure at every opportunity I tear off your halo and trundle it about. +Trust me, you receive scant courtesy. + +How I wander on. My pen is unruly after the long vacation; my thought +yet wayward, what of the fever of successful wooing. And besides, ... +how shall I say?... such was the gracious warmth of your letter, of both +your letters, that I am at a loss. I feel weak, inadequate. It almost +seems as though you had made a demand upon something that is not in me. +Ah, you poets! It would seem your delight in my marriage were greater +than mine. In my present mood, it is you who are young, you who love; I +who have lived and am old. + +Yes, I am going to be married. At this present moment, I doubt not, a +million men and women are saying the same thing. Hewers of wood and +drawers of water, princes and potentates, shy-shrinking maidens and +brazen-faced hussies, all saying, "I am going to be married." And all +looking forward to it as a crisis in their lives? No. After all, +marriage is the way of the world. Considered biologically, it is an +institution necessary for the perpetuation of the species. Why should it +be a crisis? These million men and women will marry, and the work of +the world go on just as it did before. Shuffle them about, and the work +of the world would yet go on. + +True, a month ago it did seem a crisis. I wrote you as much. It did seem +a disturbing element in my life-work. One cannot view with equanimity +that which appears to be totally disruptive of one's dear little system +of living. But it only appeared so; I lacked perspective, that was all. +As I look upon it now, everything fits well and all will run smoothly I +am sure. + +You know I had two years yet to work for my Doctorate. I still have +them. As you see, I am back to the old quarters, settled down in the old +groove, hammering away at the old grind. Nothing is changed. And besides +my own studies, I have taken up an assistant instructorship in the +Department of Economics. It is an ambitious course, and an important +one. I don't know how they ever came to confide it to me, or how I found +the temerity to attempt it,--which is neither here nor there. It is all +agreed. Hester is a sensible girl. + +The engagement is to be long. I shall continue my career as charted. Two +years from now, when I shall have become a Doctor of Social Sciences +(and candidate for numerous other things), I shall also become a +benedict. My marriage and the presumably necessary honeymoon chime in +with the summer vacation. There is no disturbing element even there. Oh, +we are very practical, Hester and I. And we are both strong enough to +lead each our own lives. + +Which reminds me that you have not asked about her. First, let me shock +you--she, too, is a scientist. It was in my undergraduate days that we +met, and ere the half-hour struck we were quarrelling felicitously over +Weismann and the neo-Darwinians. I was at Berkeley at the time, a +cocksure junior; and she, far maturer as a freshman, was at Stanford, +carrying more culture with her into her university than is given the +average student to carry out. + +Next, and here your arms open to her, she is a poet. Pre-eminently she +is a poet--this must be always understood. She is the greater poet, I +take it, in this dawning twentieth century, because she is a scientist; +not in spite of being a scientist as some would hold. How shall I +describe her? Perhaps as a George Eliot, fused with an Elizabeth +Barrett, with a hint of Huxley and a trace of Keats. I may say she is +something like all this, but I must say she is something other and +different. There is about her a certain lightsomeness, a glow or flash +almost Latin or oriental, or perhaps Celtic. Yes, that must be +it--Celtic. But the high-stomached Norman is there and the stubborn +Saxon. Her quickness and fine audacity are checked and poised, as it +were, by that certain conservatism which gives stability to purpose and +power to achievement. She is unafraid, and wide-looking and far-looking, +but she is not over-looking. The Saxon grapples with the Celt, and the +Norman forces the twain to do what the one would not dream of doing and +what the other would dream beyond and never do. Do you catch me? Her +most salient charm, is I think, her perfect poise, her exquisite +adjustment. + +Altogether she is a most wonderful woman, take my word for it. And after +all she is described vicariously. Though she has published nothing and +is exceeding shy, I shall send you some of her work. There will you find +and know her. She is waiting for stronger voice and sings softly as yet. +But hers will be no minor note, no middle flight. She is--well, she is +Hester. In two years we shall be married. Two years, Dane. Surely you +will be with us. + +One thing more; in your letter a certain undertone which I could not +fail to detect. A shade less of me than formerly?--I turn and look into +your face--Waring's handiwork you remember--his painter's fancy of you +in those golden days when I stood on the brink of the world, and you +showed me the delights of the world and the way of my feet therein. So I +turn and look, and look and wonder. _A shade less_ of me, of you? Poesy +and economics! Where lies the blame? + +HERBERT. + + + + +III + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +September 30, 19--. + +It is because you know not what you do that I cannot forgive you. Could +you know that your letter with its catalogue of advantages and +arrangements must offend me as much as it belies (let us hope) you and +the woman of your love, I would pardon the affront of it upon us all, +and ascribe the unseemly want of warmth to reserve or to the sadness +which grips the heart when joy is too palpitant. But something warns me +that you are unaware of the chill your words breathe, and that is a +lapse which it is impossible to meet with indulgence. + +"He does not love her," was Barbara's quick decision, and she laid the +open letter down with a definiteness which said that you, too, are laid +out and laid low. Your sister's very wrists can be articulate. However, +I laughed at her and she soon joined me. We do not mean to be +extravagant with our fears. Who shall prescribe the letters of lovers to +their sisters and foster-fathers? Yet there are some things their +letters should be incapable of saying, and amongst them that love is not +a crisis and a rebirth, but that it is common as the commonplace, a hit +or miss affair which "shuffling" could not affect. + +Barbara showed me your note to her. "Had I written like this of myself +and Earl--" + +"You could not," I objected. + +"Then Herbert should have been as little able to do it," she deduced +with emphasis. Here I might have told her that men and women are races +apart, but no one talks cant to Barbara. So I did not console her, and +it stands against you in our minds that on this critical occasion you +have baffled us with coldness. + +An absence of six years, broken into twice by a brief few months, must +work changes. When Barbara called your letter unnatural, she forgot how +little she knows what is natural to you. She and I have been wont to +predetermine you, your character, foothold, and outlook, by--say by the +fact that you knew your Wordsworth and that you knew him without being +able to take for yourself his austere peace. Youth which lives by hope +is riven by unrest. + + + "I made no vows; vows were made for me, + Bond unknown to me was given + That I should be, else sinning gently, + A dedicated spirit." + + +That pale sunrise seen from Mt. Tamalpais and your voice vibrant to +fierceness on the "else sinning gently"--to me the splendour of rose on +piled-up ridges of mist spoke all for you, so dear have you always been. +It rested on the possible wonder of your life. It threw you into the +scintillant Dawn with an abandon meet to a son of Waring. + +Tell me, do you still read your Wordsworth on your knees? I am bent with +regret for the time when your mind had no surprises for me, when the +days were flushed halcyon with my hope in you. I resent your development +if it is because of it that you speak prosaically of a prosaic marriage +and of a honeymoon simultaneous with the Degree. I think you are too +well pleased with the simultaneousness. + +Yet the fact of the letter is fair. It cannot be that the soul of it is +not. Hester Stebbins is a poet. I lean forward and think it out as I +did some days ago when the news came. I conjure up the look of love. If +the woman is content (how much more than content the feeling she bounds +with in knowing you hers as she is yours), what better test that all is +well? I conjure up the look of love. It is thus at meeting and thus at +parting. Even here, to-night, when all is chill and hard to understand, +I catch the flash and the warmth, and what I see restores you to me, but +how deep the plummet of my mind needed to sound before it reached you. +It is because you permitted yourself to speak when silence had expressed +you better. + +Show me the ideally real Hester Stebbins, the spark of fire which is +she. The storms have not broken over her head. She will laugh and make +poetry of her laughter. If before she met you she wept, that, too, will +help the smiling. There is laughter which is the echo of a Miserere +sobbed by the ages. Men chuckle in the irony of pain, and they smile +cold, lessoned smiles in resignation; they laugh in forgetfulness and +they laugh lest they die of sadness. A shrug of the shoulders, a +widening of the lips, a heaving forth of sound, and the life is saved. +The remedy is as drastic as are the drugs used for epilepsy, which in +quelling the spasm bring idiocy to the patient. If we are made idiots +by our laughter, we are paying dearly for the privilege of continuing in +life. + +Hester shall laugh because she is glad and must tell her joy, and she +will not lose it in the telling. Greet her for me and hasten to prove +yourself, for + + + "The Poet, gentle creature that he is, + Hath like the Lover, his unruly times; + His fits when he is neither sick nor well, + Though no distress be near him but his own + Unmanageable thoughts." + + +You will judge by this letter that I am neither sick nor well, and that +I reach for a distress which is not near. If I were Merchant rather than +Poet, it would be otherwise with me. + +DANE. + + + + +IV + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +October 27, 19--. + +Do I still read my Wordsworth on my knees? Well, we may as well have it +out. I have foreseen this day so long and shunned it that now I meet it +almost with extended hands. No, I do not read my Wordsworth on my knees. +My mind is filled with other things. I have not the time. I am not the +Herbert Wace of six years gone. It is fair that you should know this; +fair, also, that you should know the Herbert Wace of six years gone was +not quite the lad you deemed him. + +There is no more pathetic and terrible thing than the prejudice of love. +Both you and I have suffered from it. Six years ago, ay, and before +that, I felt and resented the growing difference between us. When under +your spell, it seemed that I was born to lisp in numbers and devote +myself to singing, that the world was good and all of it fit for +singing. But away from you, even then, doubts faced me, and I knew in +vague fashion that we lived in different worlds. At first in vague +fashion, I say; and when with you again, your spell dominated me and I +could not question. You were true, you were good, I argued, all that was +wonderful and glorious; therefore, you were also right. You mastered me +with your charm, as you were wont to master those who loved you. + +But there came times when your sympathy failed me and I stood alone on +outlooks I had achieved alone. There was no response from you. I could +not hear your voice. I looked down upon a real world; you were caught up +in a beautiful cloudland and shut away from me. Possibly it was because +life of itself appealed to you, while to me appealed the mechanics of +life. But be it as it may, yours was a world of ideas and fancies, mine +a world of things and facts. + +Enters here the prejudice of love. It was the lad that discovered our +difference and concealed; it was the man who was blind and could not +discover. There we erred, man and boy; and here, both men now, we make +all well again. + +Let me be explicit. Do you remember the passion with which I read the +"Intellectual Development of Europe?" I understood not the tithe of it, +but I was thrilled. My common sense was thrilled, I suppose; but it was +all very joyous, gripping hold of the tangible world for the first time. +And when I came to you, warm with the glow of adventure, you looked +blankly, then smiled indulgently and did not answer. You regarded my +ardour complacently. A passing humour of adolescence, you thought; and I +thought: "Dane does not read his Draper on his knees." Wordsworth was +great to me; Draper was great also. You had no patience with him, and I +know now, as I felt then, your consistent revolt against his +materialistic philosophy. + +Only the other day you complained of a letter of mine, calling it cold +and analytical. That I should be cold and analytical despite all the +prodding and pressing and moulding I have received at your hands, and +the hands of Waring, marks only more clearly our temperamental +difference; but it does not mark that one or the other of us is less a +dedicated spirit. If I have wandered away from the warmth of poesy and +become practical, have you not remained and become confirmed in all that +is beautifully impractical? If I have adventured in a new world of +common things, have you not lingered in the old world of great and +impossible things? If I have shivered in the gray dawn of a new day, +have you not crouched over the dying embers of the fire of yesterday? +Ah, Dane, you cannot rekindle that fire. The whirl of the world scatters +its ashes wide and far, like volcanic dust, to make beautiful crimson +sunsets for a time and then to vanish. + +None the less are you a dedicated spirit, priest that you are of a dying +faith. Your prayers are futile, your altars crumbling, and the light +flickers and drops down into night. Poetry is empty these days, empty +and worthless and dead. All the old-world epic and lyric-singing will +not put this very miserable earth of ours to rights. So long as the +singers sing of the things of yesterday, glorifying the things of +yesterday and lamenting their departure, so long will poetry be a vain +thing and without avail. The old world is dead, dead and buried along +with its heroes and Helens and knights and ladies and tournaments and +pageants. You cannot sing of the truth and wonder of to-day in terms of +yesterday. And no one will listen to your singing till you sing of +to-day in terms of to-day. + +This is the day of the common man. Do you glorify the common man? This +is the day of the machine. When have you sung of the machine? The +crusades are here again, not the Crusades of Christ but the Crusades of +the Machine--have you found motive in them for your song? We are +crusading to-day, not for the remission of sins, but for the abolition +of sinning, of economic and industrial sinning. The crusade to Christ's +sepulchre was paltry compared with the splendour and might of our +crusade to-day toward manhood. There are millions of us afoot. In the +stillness of the night have you never listened to the trampling of our +feet and been caught up by the glory and the romance of it? Oh, Dane! +Dane! Our captains sit in council, our heroes take the field, our +fighting men are buckling on their harness, our martyrs have already +died, and you are blind to it, blind to it all! + +We have no poets these days, and perforce we are singing with our hands. +The walking delegate is a greater singer and a finer singer than you, +Dane Kempton. The cold, analytical economist, delving in the dynamics +of society, is more the prophet than you. The carpenter at his bench, +the blacksmith by his forge, the boiler-maker clanging and clattering, +are all warbling more sweetly than you. The sledge-wielder pours out +more strength and certitude and joy in every blow than do you in your +whole sheaf of songs. Why, the very socialist agitator, hustled by the +police on a street corner amid the jeers of the mob, has caught the +romance of to-day as you have not caught it and where you have missed +it. He knows life and is living. Are you living, Dane Kempton? + +Forgive me. I had begun to explain and reconcile our difference. I find +I am lecturing and censuring you. In defending myself, I offend. But +this I wish to say: We are so made, you and I, that your function in +life is to dream, mine to work. That you failed to make a dreamer of me +is no cause for heartache and chagrin. What of my practical nature and +analytical mind, I have generalised in my own way upon the data of life +and achieved a different code from yours. Yet I seek truth as +passionately as you. I still believe myself to be a dedicated spirit. + +And what boots it, all of it? When the last word is said, we are two +men, by a thousand ties very dear to each other. There is room in our +hearts for each other as there is room in the world for both of us. +Though we have many things not in common, yet you are my dearest friend +on earth, you who have been a second father to me as well. + +You have long merited this explanation, and it was cowardly of me not to +have made it before. My hope is that I have been sufficiently clear for +you to understand. + +HERBERT. + + + + +V + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3 A QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +November 16, 19--. + +You sigh "Poesy and Economics," supplying the cause and thereby +admitting the fact. I wish you had shown some reluctance to see my +meaning, that you had preferred to waive the matter on the ground of +insufficient data, that you had been less eager to ferret out the +science of the thing. Do you remember how your boy's respect rose for +little Barbara whenever she cried when too readily forgiven? "She dreads +a double standard," you explained to me with generous heat. You +sympathised with her fear lest I demand less of her than of you, +honouring her insistence on an equality of duty as well as of privilege. +Is the man Herbert less proud than the child Barbara, that you speak of +a temperamental difference and ask for a special dispensation? + +You are not in love (this you say in not gainsaying my attack on you, +and so far I understand), because you are a student of Economics. At the +last I stop. What is this about economics and poesy? About your +emancipation from my riotously lyric sway? The hand of the forces by +which you have been moulded cannot detain you from going out upon the +love-quest. The fact of your preference for Draper cannot forestall your +spirit's need of love. There are many codes, but there is one law, +binding alike on the economist and poet. It springs out of the common +and unappeasable hunger, commanding that love seek love through night to +day and through day to night. + +Yet it is possible to put oneself outside the pale of the law, to refuse +the gift of life and snap the tie between time and space and creature. +It is possible to be too emaciated for interest or feeling. The men and +women of the People know neither love nor art because they are too +weary. They lie in sleep prostrate from great fatigue. Their bodies are +too much tried with the hungers of the body and their spirits too dimly +illumined with the hope of fair chances. It is also possible to fill +oneself so full with an interest that all else is crowded out. You have +done this. Like the cobbler who is a cobbler typically, the teacher who +is a pedagogue, the physician and the lawyer who are pathologists +merely, you are a fanatic of a text. You are in the toils of an idea, +the idea of selection, as I well know, and you exploit it like a drudge. +When a man finds that he cannot deal in petroleum without smelling of +it, it is time that he turn to something else. Every man is engaged in +the cause of keeping himself whole, in watching himself lest his man +turn machine, in watching lest the outside world assail the inner. +Nature spares the type, but the individual must spare himself. He is +strong who is sensitive and who responds subtly to everything in his +environment, but his response must be characteristic; he must sustain +his personality and become more himself through the years. He alone is +vital in the social scheme who lets nothing in him atrophy and who +persists in being varied from all others in the scale of character to +the degree of variability that was his at the beginning. + +I read in your letter nothing but a decision to stop short and give +over, as if you had strength for no more than your book and your +theory! You have become slave to a small point of inquiry, and you call +it the advance to a new time. "The crusade is on," you say. Coronation +rites for the commoners and destruction to superstition. I put my hand +out to you in joy. The joy is in unholy worship of a fetish, the pain +that there is no joy also deference to a fetish. Your creed thunders +"Thou shalt not." Love is a thing of yesterday. No room for anything +that intimately concerns the self. But what are the apostles of the +young thought preaching if it is not the right of men to their own, and +what would it avail them to come into their own if life be stripped of +romance? + +I am dissatisfied because you are willing to live as others must live. +You should stay aristocrat. Ferdinand Lassalle dressed with elegance for +his working-men audiences, with the hope, he said, of reminding them +that there was something better than their shabbiness. You are of the +favoured, Herbert. It devolves upon you to endear your life to yourself. +You do not agree with me. You do not believe that love is the law which +controls freedom and life. Slave to your theory and rebel to the law, +you lose your soul and imperil another's. + +"Gently! Gently!" I say to myself. Old sorrows and wrongs oppress me +and I grow harsh. My heat only helps to convince you that my position is +not based on the _rational rightness_ you hold so essential and that +therefore it is unlivable. I will state calmly, then, that it is wrong +to marry without love. "For the perpetuation of the species"--that is +noble of you! So you strip yourself of the thousand years of +civilisation that have fostered you, you abandon your prerogative as a +creature high in the scale of existence to obey an instinct and fulfil a +function? You say: "These men and women will marry, and the work of the +world go on just as it did before. Shuffle them about and the work of +the world would yet go on." And you are content. You feel no need of +anything different from this condition. + +Believe me, Herbert, these million men and women will not let you +shuffle them about. There are forces stronger than force, shadows more +real than reality. We know that the need of the unhungered for the one +friend, one comrade, one mate, is good. We honour the love that persists +in loving. More beautiful than starlight is the face of the lover when +the Voice and the Vision enfold him. The race is consecrated to the +worship of idea, and the lover who lays his all on the altar of romance +(which is idea) is at one with the race. The arms of the unloved girl +close about the formless air and more real than her loneliness and her +sorrow is the imagined embrace, the awaited warm, close pressure of the +hands, the fancied gaze. What does it mean? What secret was there for +Leonardo in Mona Lisa's smile, what for him in the motion of waters? You +cannot explain the bloom, the charm, the smile of life, that which rains +sunshine into our hearts, which tells us we are wise to hope and to have +faith, which buckles on us an armour of activity, which lights the fires +of the spirit, which gives us Godhead and renders us indomitable. +Comparative anatomy cannot reason it down. It is sensibility, romance, +idea. It is a fact of life toward which all other facts make. For the +flush of rose-light in the heavens, the touch of a hand, the colour and +shape of fruit, the tears that come for unnamed sorrows, the regrets of +old men, are more significant than all the building and inventing done +since the first social compact. + +Forgive my tediousness. I have flaunted these truisms before you in +order to exorcise that modern slang of yours which is more false than +the overstrained forms of a feudal France. To shut out glory is not to +be practical. You are not adjusting your life artistically; there is too +much strain, too little warmth, too much self-complacence. I see that +you are really younger than I thought. The world never censures the +crimes of the spirit. You are safe from the world's tongue lashings, and +in that safety is the danger against which my friendship warns you. + +I have been reading Hester's poems, and I know that she is like them, +nervous, vibrant, throbbing, sensitive. I have been reading your +letters, and I think her soul will escape yours. If you have not love +like hers, you have nothing with which to keep her. This I have +undertaken to say to you. It is a strange role, yet conventional. I am +the father whose matrimonial whims are not met by the son. The stock +measure is to disinherit. But the cause of our quarrel is somewhat +unusual, and I can be neither so practical nor so vulgar as to set about +making codicils. Love is of no value to financiers; there is no bank for +it nor may it be made over in a will. Rather is it carried on in the +blood, even as Barbara carried it on into the life of her girl-babe. +Your sister keeps me strong with the faith of love. May God be good to +her! It was five years ago that she came to me and whispered, "Earl." +When she saw I could not turn to her in joy, she leaned her little head +back against the roses of the porch and wept, more than was right, I +fear, for a girl just betrothed. Earl was a cripple and poor and +helpless, but Barbara knew better than we, for she knew how to give +herself. Poor little one, whom nobody congratulated! She sends you and +Hester her love, unfolding you both in her eager tenderness. + +DANE. + + + + +VI + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON. +November 19, 19--. + +Metaphysics is contagious. I caught it from Barbara, and I cannot resist +the impulse to pass it on, and to you of all others. + +The mood leapt upon Barbara out of the pages of "Katia," a story by +Tolstoy. To my mind, it is a painful tale of lovers who outlive their +love, killing it with their own hands, but the author means it to be a +happily ending novel. Tolstoy attempts to show that men and women can +find happiness only when they grow content to give over seeking love +from one another. They may keep the memory but must banish the hope. +"Hereafter, think of me only as the father of your children," and the +woman who had pined for that which had been theirs in the beginning of +their union weeps softly, and agrees. Tolstoy calls this peace, but for +Barbara and me this gain is loss, this end an end indeed, replete with +all the tragedy of ending. + +I found Barbara to-day on the last page of "Katia," and much disturbed. +"Dear, I saw a spirit break," she said. I waited before asking whose, +and when I did, she answered, "That of three-quarters of the world. The +ghost of a Dream walked to-day--when after the spirit broke, I saw +it--and myself and my Earl vanished in shadow. We and our love thinned +away before the thought-shape." + +"Your dreaming, Barbara, can scarce be better than your living." + +We looked long at each other. She knew herself a happy woman, yet to-day +the ghost had walked in the light, and her eyes were not held, and she +saw. Even her life was not sufficient, even her plans were paltry, even +her heart's love was cramped. Such times of seeing come to happy men and +to happy women. Barbara was reading the opinions of the world and the +acceptances of the world, and in disliking them she came to doubt +herself. Perhaps she, too, should be less at peace, she too may be +amongst Pharisees a Pharisee. + +"In the midst of the breaking of spirit, how can I know?" she demanded. +"Love is sure," I prompted, my hand on her forehead. "Earl and I are +sure, dear," she laughed low, and a drift of sobbing swept through the +music; "it is not that we are in doubt about ourselves, but sometimes, +like to-day, you understand, one finds oneself bitten by the sharp tooth +of the world, and a despair courses through the veins and blinds the +eyes, and then, in the midst of the bitterest throe, comes a great +visioning." + +I heard her and understood, and my heart leapt as it had not done for +long. Think of it, Herbert, fifty-three and still young! When was it +that I last fluttered with joy? Ah, yes, that time the summer and the +woods had a great deal to do with it, and a few words spoken by a boy. I +think Barbara's majesty of attainment through vicarious breaking of +spirit a greater cause for rejoicing. + +_And then, in the midst of the bitterest throe, came a great visioning._ +When pain is good and to be thanked for, how good life is! By this alone +may you know the proportion and the value of the good of being. +Three-quarters of the world are broken spirited, but from out the +wreckage a thought-shape, and it is well. The Vision fastens upon us, +and what was full seems shrunken, what whole and of all time a passing +bit, an untraceable flash. And that is well, for the dream recalls the +hope, and the heart grows hardy with hoping and dreaming. + +So Barbara. + +And you? You do not repine because of these things. Let the Grand Mujik +mutter a thousand heresies, let three-quarters of the world accept and +live them, you would not think the unaspiring three-quarters +broken-spirited. You would hail them right practical. And if you held a +thought as firmly as your sister holds the thought of love, and you +found yourself alone in your esteem of it, you would part from it and go +over to the others. You would not be the fanatic your sister is, to stay +so much the closer by it that of necessity she must doubt her own +allegiance, fearing in her devotion that, without knowing it, she, too, +is cold and but half alive. You would not see visions that would put +your best to shame. The thought-shape of the more you could be, were you +and the whole world finer and greater, would not walk before you. You +would rest content and assured, and--I regret your assurance. + +Always yours, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +VII + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +December 6, 19--. + +No, I am not in love. I am very thankful that I am not. I pride myself +on the fact. As you say, I may not be adjusting my life artistically to +its environment (there is room for discussion there), but I do know that +I am adjusting it scientifically. I am arranging my life so that I may +get the most out of it, while the one thing to disorder it, worse than +flood and fire and the public enemy, is love. + +I have told you, from time to time, of my book. I have decided to call +it "The Economic Man." I am going over the proofs now, and my brain is +in perfect working order. On the other hand, there is Professor Bidwell, +who is likewise correcting proofs. Poor devil, he is in despair. He can +do nothing with them. "I positively cannot think," he complains to me, +his hair rumpled and face flushed. He did not answer my knock the other +day, and I came upon him with the neglected proofs under his elbows and +his absent gaze directed through window and out of doors to some rosy +cloudland beyond my ken. "It will be a failure, I know it will," he +growled to me. "My brain is dull. It refuses to act. I cannot imagine +what has come over me." But I could imagine very easily. He is in love +(madly in love with what I take to be a very ordinary sort of girl), and +expects shortly to be married. "Postpone the book for a time," I +suggested. He looked at me for a moment, then brought his fist down on +the general disarray with a thumping "I will!" And take my word for it, +Dane, a year hence, when the very ordinary girl greets him with the +matronly kiss and his fever and folly have left him, he will take up the +book and make a success of it. + +Of course I am not in love. I have just come back from Hester--I ran +down Saturday to Stanford and stopped over Sunday. Time did not pass +tediously on the train. I did not look at my watch every other minute. I +read the morning papers with interest and without impatience. The +scenery was charming and I was unaware of the slightest hurry to reach +my destination. I remember noting, when I came up the gravel walk +between the rose-bushes, that my heart was not in my mouth as it should +have been according to convention. In fact, the sun was uncomfortable, +and I mopped my brow and decided that the roses stood in need of +trimming. And really, you know, I had seen brighter days, and fairer +views, and the world in more beautiful moods. + +And when Hester stood on the veranda and held out her hands, my heart +did not leap as though it were going to part company with me. Nor was I +dizzy with--rapture, I believe. Nor did all the world vanish, and +everything blot out, and leave only Hester standing there, lips curved +and arms outstretched in welcome. Oh, I saw the curved lips and +outstretched arms, and all the splendid young womanhood swaying there, +and I was pleased and all that; but I did not think it too wonderful and +impossible and miraculous and the rest of the fond rubbish I am sure +poor Bidwell thinks when his eyes are gladdened by his ordinary sort of +girl when he calls upon her. + +What a comely young woman, is what I thought as I pressed Hester's +hands; and none of the ordinary sort either. She has health and strength +and beauty and youth, and she will certainly make a most charming wife +and excellent mother. Thus I thought, and then we chatted, had lunch, +and passed a delightful afternoon together--an afternoon such as I might +pass with you, or any good comrade, or with my wife. + +All of which rational rightness is, I know, distasteful to you, Dane. +And I confess I depict it with brutal frankness, failing to give credit +to the gentler, tenderer side of me. Believe me, I am very fond of +Hester. I respect and admire her. I am proud of her, too, and proud of +myself that so fine a creature should find enough in me to be willing to +mate with me. It will be a happy marriage. There is nothing cramped or +narrow or incompatible about it. We know each other well--a wisdom that +is acquired by lovers only after marriage, and even then with the +likelihood of it being a painful wisdom. We, on the other hand, are not +blinded by love madness, and we see clearly and sanely and are confident +of our ability to live out the years together. + +HERBERT. + + + + +VIII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +December 11, 19--. + +I have been thinking about your romance and my rational rightness, and +so this letter. + +"_One loves because he loves: this explanation is, as yet, the most +serious and most decisive that has been found for the solution of this +problem._" I do not know who has said this, but it might well have been +you. And you might well say with Mlle. de Scuderi: "_Love is--I know not +what: which comes--I know not when: which is formed--I know not how: +which enchants--I know not by what: and which ends--I know not when or +why_." + +You explain love by asserting that it is not to be explained. And +therein lies our difference. You accept results; I search for causes. +You stop at the gate of the mystery, worshipful and content. I go on and +through, flinging the gate wide and formulating the law of the mystery +which is a mystery no longer. It is our way. You worship the idea; I +believe in the fact. If the stone fall, the wind blow, the grass and +green things sprout; if the inorganic be vitalised, and take on +sensibility, and perform functions, and die; if there be passions and +pains, dreams and ambitions, flickerings of infinity and glimmerings of +Godhead--it is for you to be smitten with the wonder of it and to +memorialise it in pretty song, while for me remains to classify it as so +much related phenomena, so much play and interplay of force and matter +in obedience to ascertainable law. + +There are two kinds of men: the wonderers and the doers; the feelers and +the thinkers; the emotionals and the intellectuals. You take an +emotional delight in living; I an intellectual delight. You feel a thing +to be beautiful and joyful; I seek to know why it is beautiful and +joyful. You are content that it is, no matter how it came to be; I, when +I have learned why, strive that we may have more beautiful and joyful +things. "The bloom, the charm, the smile of life" is all too wonderful +for you to know; to me it is chiefly wonderful because I may know. + +Oh, well, it is an ancient quarrel which neither you nor I shall +outlive. I am rational, you are romantic,--that is all there is to it. +You are more beautiful; I am more useful; and though you will not see it +and will never be able to see it, you and your beauty rest on me. I came +into the world before you, and I made the way for you. I was a hunter of +beasts and a fighter of men. I discovered fire and covered my nakedness +with the skins of animals. I builded cunning traps, and wove branches +and long grasses and rushes and reeds into the thatch and roof-tree. I +fashioned arrows and spears of bone and flint. I drew iron from the +earth, and broke the first ground, and planted the first seed. I gave +law and order to the tribe and taught it to fight with craft and wisdom. +I enabled the young men to grow strong and lusty, and the women to find +favour with them; and I gave safety to the women when their progeny came +forth, and safety to the progeny while it gathered strength and years. + +I did many things. Out of my blood and sweat and toil I made it possible +that all men need not all the time hunt and fish and fight. The muscle +and brain of every man were no longer called to satisfy the belly need. +And then, when of my blood and sweat and toil I had made room, you came, +high priest of mystery and things unknowable, singer of songs and seer +of visions. + +And I did you honour, and gave you place by feast and fire. And of the +meat I gave you the tenderest, and of the furs the softest. Need I say +that of women you took the fairest? And you sang of the souls of dead +men and of immortality, of the hidden things, and of the wonder; you +sang of voices whispering down the wind, of the secrets of light and +darkness, and the ripple of running fountains. You told of the powers +that pulsed the tides, swept the sun across the firmaments, and held the +stars in their courses. Ay, and you scaled the sky and created for me +the hierarchy of heaven. + +These things you did, Dane; but it was I who made you, and fed you, and +protected you. While you dreamed and sang, I laboured sore. And when +danger came, and there was a cry in the night, and women and children +huddling in fear, and strong men broken, and blare of trumpets and cry +of battle at the outer gate--you fled to your altars and called vainly +on your phantoms of earth and sea and sky. And I? I girded my loins, +and strapped my harness on, and smote in the fighting line; and died, +perchance, that you and the women and children might live. + +And in times of peace you throve and waxed fat. But only by our brain +and blood did we men of the fighting line make possible those times of +peace. And when you throve, you looked about you and saw the beauty of +the world and fancied yet greater beauty. And because of me your fancy +became fact, and marvels arose in stone and bronze and costly wood. + +And while your brows were bright, and you visioned things of the spirit, +and rose above time and space to probe eternity, I concerned myself with +the work of head and hand. I employed myself with the mastery of matter. +I studied the times and seasons and the crops, and made the earth +fruitful. I builded roads and bridges and moles, and won the secrets of +metals and virtues of the elements. Bit by bit, and with great travail, +I have conquered and enslaved the blind forces. I builded ships and +ventured the sea, and beyond the baths of sunset found new lands. I +conquered peoples, and organised nations and knit empires, and gave +periods of peace to vast territories. + +And the arts of peace flourished, and you multiplied yourself in divers +ways. You were priest and singer and dancer and musician. You expressed +your fancies in colours and metals and marbles. You wrote epics and +lyrics--ay, as you to-day write lyrics, Dane Kempton. And I multiplied +myself. I kept hunger afar off, and fire and sword from your habitation, +and the bondsmen in obedience under you. I solved methods of government +and invented systems of jurisprudence. Out of my toil sprang forms and +institutions. You sang of them and were the slave of them, but I was the +maker of them and the changer of them. + +You worshipped at the shrine of the idea. I sought the fact and the law +behind the fact. I was the worker and maker and liberator. You were +conventional. Tradition bound you. You were full bellied and content, +and you sang of the things that were. You were mastered by dogma. Did +the Mediaeval Church say the earth was flat, you sang of an earth that +was flat, and danced and made your little shows on an earth that was +flat. And you helped to bind me with chains and burn me with fire when +my facts and the laws behind my facts shook your dogmas. Dante's highest +audacity could not transcend a material inferno. Milton could not shake +off Lucifer and hell. + +You were more beautiful. But not only was I more useful, but I made the +way for you that there might be greater beauty. You did not reck of +that. To you the heart was the seat of the emotions. I formulated the +circulation of the blood. You gave charms and indulgences to the world; +I gave it medicine and surgery. To you, famine and pestilence were acts +of providence and punishment of sin: I made the world a granary and +drained its cities. To you the mass of the people were poor lost +wretches who would be rewarded in paradise or baked in hell. You could +offer them no earthly happiness of decency. Forsooth, beggars as well as +kings were of divine right. But I shattered the royal prerogatives and +overturned the thrones of the one and lifted the other somewhat out of +the dirt. + +Nor is my work done. With my inventions and discoveries and rational +enterprise, I draw the world together and make it kin. The uplift is but +begun. And in the great world I am making I shall be as of old to you, +Dane. I, who have made you and freed you, shall give you space and +greater freedom. And, as of old, we shall quarrel as when first you came +to me and found me at my rude earth-work. You shall be the scorner of +matter, and I the master of matter. You may laugh at me and my work, but +you shall not be absent from the feast nor shall your voice be silent. +For, when I have conquered the globe, and enthralled the elements, and +harnessed the stars, you shall sing the epic of man, and as of old it +shall be of the deeds I have done. + +HERBERT. + + + + +IX + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +December 28, 19--. + +The curtain is rung down on an illusion, but it rises again on another, +this time, as before, with the look of the absolute Good and True upon +it. It is because we are at once actor and spectator that we find no +fault with blinking sight and slothful thought. We are finite branded +and content, except during the shrill, undermining moments when the +orchestra is tuning up. "Thus we half-men struggle." + +I follow your letter and wonder whether your illusions have qualities of +beauty which escape me. I give you the benefit of every doubt which it +is possible for me to harbour with regard to my own system of illusions. +You glorify the crowd practical. You attach yourself to the ranks that +carried thought into action. You inspire yourself with rugged strength +by dwelling on the achievements of ruggedness, forgetting that the +progress of the world is not marshalled by those who work with line and +rule. It was not his crew, but Columbus, who discovered America. The +crew stood between the Old and the New, as indeed the crew always does. +Between the idealist and his hope were hosts of practical enemies whom +he had to subdue before he reached land. But I must not fall into your +mistake of dividing men into categories. Men are not either intellectual +or emotional; they are both. It is a rounded not an angular development +which we follow. Feeling and thinking are not mutually exclusive, and +the great personality feels deeply because he thinks highly, feels +keenly because he sees widely. Common sense is not incompatible with +uncommon sense, evil does not of necessity attend beauty, nor weakness +the strength of genius. + +I shall sing of the deeds you have done if your deeds are worthy of +song. I shall sing a Song of the Sword, too, should the sword "thrust +through the fatuous, thrust through the fungous brood." Whatever helps +the races to better life sings itself into racial lore, and I alone +shall not refuse the tribute. When you come to see that the Iliad is as +great a gift to the race as the doings of Achilles, that the Iliads are +more significant than the doings they celebrate, you will cease to +classify men into doers and singers. You will cease to dishonour +yourself in the eyes of the singers with the hope that in so doing you +gain somewhat elsewhere. + +Professor Bidwell is in love and it interferes with his work. You have +the advantage of him there, no doubt. However, you lose more than you +gain. You have shattered the dream and have awakened. To what? What is +this reality in which your universe is hung? Where shine the stars of +your scientific heaven? By the beauty of your dreaming alone, Herbert, +shall you be judged and known. You dream that you have learned the +lesson, solved the problem, pierced the mystery, and become a prophet of +matter. But matter does not include spirit, so the motif of your dream +grows all confused. Your race epic omits the race. You sing the branch +and the leaf rather than the sunlit and tenebral wood. Bidwell thinks +his ordinary sort of girl a "lyric love, half angel and half bird, and +all a wonder and a wild desire." Bidwell exaggerates, perhaps, but +unless he feels this for his wife, he has no wife. Barbara obeyed the +voice of her heart. That sounds sentimental, but it is none the less a +courageous thing to do. I was inconsistent enough to be sorry because +she loved a crippled man. Bidwell and Barbara are wiser and happier than +you can be, Herbert, than you from whose hand the map of Parnassus Hill +has been filched. + +Is there one state of consciousness better than another? I think yes. +Better to have long, youthful thoughts and to thrill to vibrant emotions +than to grovel sluggishly; better to hope and dream and aspire and sway +to great harmonies than to be blind and deaf and dumb--better for the +type, better for the immortality of the world's soul. This to me is a +vital thought, therefore life or death is in the issue. For the rest I +know not. By the glimmer of light lent me, I can but guess greatness and +descry vagueness. You go further and would touch the phantasmagorial +veil. "Right!" I say, and I pray, "Godspeed." But there must be +intensity. Are you thrilled? Do you stretch out your arms and dream the +beauty? It is only when you gaze into a reality empty of the voices of +life that I would wake you to bid you dream better. + +Well, Herbert, I have quarrelled with you and shall to the end, I +promise. I wish I could take you away, hide you from your Hester's +sight, and pour my poetic spleen out on you. Oh, I shall torment you +into reason and passion! Whatever you may choose to be, you are my son. +I must take you and keep you as you are, of course, but I choose to tell +the truth to you though I do love you and hold you mine. Disagreeable of +me, but how else? + +DANE. + + + + +X + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON. +Sunday, January 1, 19--. + +Behold, I have lived! I press your face to the breathing, stinging roses +of my days, and bid you drink in the sweet and throb with the pain. What +is my philosophy but a translation of the facts which have stamped me? +Perhaps if I let you read these facts, you will the sooner come to share +my consecration and my faith. I must teach you to know that you are the +fact of my whole tangled web of facts, and that all that I have and am, +and all that might have been I and mine, stretches itself out in the +unmarked path which is before you. + +I take you back with me to the road, white with dust, upon which like a +Viking and like a feeble girl I have travelled. It is not long, but how +many paths, what byways and what turns! What sudden glimpses of sea and +sky, what inaccessibleness! Hark, from the wood on either side +murmurings of hope and hard sobbing of despair, young laughter of joy +and aged renunciations! See from amongst the pines the farewell gleam of +a white hand. All of it dear--dearly bought and precious and miraculous, +the heartache even as the gladness. + + + "Life is worth living + Through every grain of it, + From the foundations + To the last edge + Of the cornerstone, death." + + +Ay, through every grain of it. Even that morning in the wood, thirty +years ago, when your mother put her hand in mine and looked a great pity +into my eyes. Indeed, she loved me well, but romance shone on the brow +of John Wace. For her his face was sunlit, and she needs must take it +between her hands and hold it forever. He was her Siegfried, her master. +Thus the gods decreed, and we three obeyed. What else was there to do? +We must be honest before all, and Ellen did not love me any more, and I +must know it, and wipe out a past of deepest mutuality, and strengthen +and console and restore the woman whose hand held mine while her eyes +were turned elsewhere. + +Before that bright, black summer morning which saw me woman-pitied, I +knew I should have to renounce her. Their souls rushed together in their +first meeting. John had been away, knocking about museums and colleges, +and carrying on tempestuous radical work. He was splendidly picturesque. +I was a youth of twenty-three, almost ten years his junior, a boy full +of half-defined aims and groping powers, reaching toward what he had +firm in his grasp. Ellen talked of his coming, and she planned that she +should meet this my one friend in the environment she loved best--in my +rooms, whose atmosphere, she declared, belonged to an earlier time and +place. (She found in me Nolly Goldsmith and all of Grub Street.) So they +met at the tea-table in my study, and a great warmth stole over your +father. He spoke without looking at either of us, while Ellen looked as +if her destiny had just begun. + +Without, it rained. I strode to the window and in a dazed way stared at +the lamp-post which was sticking out its flaming little tongue to the +night. Why was I mocked? There was no mocking and there should have been +no bitterness. Of that there was none either, after a while. + +Ellen put her hand on my hair, and a strong primal emotion rose in me. +In that moment civilisation was as if it had not been. I reverted to the +primitive. The blood of forgotten ancestors, cave-men and river-men, +reasoned me my ethics. I turned to her, met her flushed cheeks and moved +being and the glory of dawning in her eyes. I measured my strength with +hers and your father's, Herbert. Easily, great strength was mine in my +passion, easily I could carry her off! + +You, too, have had moments of upheaval when you heard the growling of +the tiger and the bear, when the brute crowded out the man. Then your +soul writhed in derision, you scoffed at that which you had held to be +the nobility of the soul, and you minced words satirically over the +exquisiteness of the type which we have evolved. Then the experiment of +life turned farce, the heavens fell about your ears and "Fool!" was upon +your lips. Oh, the hurricane that sweeps over the soul when it is +cheated of its joy! In the first instant of Ellen's indifference, when I +felt myself pushed out of her life, I forgot everything but my desire. +I could not renounce her. I was in the throes of the passion for +ownership. + +Gentle girl between whom and myself there had been naught but sweetness +and fellowship! How often had we talked large (we were very young!) of +our sublimities and potentialities, how often had we pictured tragedies +of surrender and greatened in the speaking! Ah, it should come true. For +her and for me there must be miracles, and there were. So was the +strength of the spirit proven, so was it shown to be "pure waft of the +Will." So was I confirmed in the creed which believes that to keep we +must lose, and to live we must die. So was I assured that there may be +but one way, and that, the way of service. + +I did not grip her passionately in my arms. I withdrew; I did much to +make her task of leaving me an easy one. Were it not for my efforts, it +would have been harder for her to obey a mandate which made for my pain. +She could not quite drown an old, Puritan voice, speaking with the +authority of tradition, which bade her hold to her vows. Yes, I made it +easy for her. Harrow my soul with theories of selection and survival if +you dare! + +In those days the spires of the temple were golden, the shrine white. +The door was seen from every point in the fog-begirt world. We who +worshipped knew not of doubt. Stirred by the rumbling organ tones of +causes and ideas, we immolated our lives gladly. High priests of +thought, we swung the censers and rose on the breast of the incense. +Ellen and John and myself glorified God and enjoyed Him forever,--God, +the Type, the Final Humanity, the giant Body Soul of man. In our hearts +dwelt a religion which compelled us to serve the ideal. We strove to +become what organically we felt the "Human with his drippings of warm +tears" may become. We were the standard-bearers of the advancing margin +of the world. We were the high-water mark toward which all the tides +forever make. We were soldiers and priests. + +And so when Ellen loved, and lacked courage for her love, I helped her. +A past of kindness and ardour riveted her to my side. She knew that we +were in feeling and fact divorced from each other by virtue of her +stronger love for John, yet did she do battle with the rich young love. +For two years we had been close; she had been so much my friend, she +could not in maiden charity seal for me a so unwelcome fate. I had +awakened her slumbering soul with my first look into the sphinx wonder +of her eyes. For me she had become fire and dew, flame of the sun, and +flower of the hill. Without me to help her do it she could not leave me. + +To the master of matter this coping with spiritual abstractions must +appear like juggling with intellectual phantasmagoria. Yet I protest +that life is finally for intangible triumphs. Unnamed fragrances steal +upon the senses and the soul revels and greatens. Unseen hands draw us +to worlds afar, and we are gathered up in the dignity of the human +spirit. Unknown ideas attract and hold us, and we take our place in the +universe as intellectual factors. In giving up Ellen I helped her, and, +sacredly better still, I sent on into a world of vague thinking and weak +acting the impulse of devotion to revealed truth. + +She had a sweet way of sitting low and resting her head on my knee. She +sat through one whole day with me thus, and for hours I could have +thought her asleep were it not for the waves of feeling which surged in +her upturned face. Toward the end she raised her head, ecstasy in her +eyes and on her cheek and lip. "Dane, I love you. Dane! Dane!" The whole +of me was caught up in the accents of that tremulousness. She had know +John three months; but her love for him was young, it had come +unexpectedly, it was still unexpressed and ineffable. Her yearning for +him led to softness toward me, and though she rose out of her mood as +one does from a dream, the hours when we were like the angels, all love +and all speech, were mine. So much was vouchsafed me. + +Memories and echoes, gusts of sweet breath from the violets on your +mother's grave--the prophet of matter will have none of them, and, I +fear, will pity me that I am so much theirs. I am yours also, dear lad, +and I wish to serve you. + +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XI + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +January 20, 19--. + +I do not know whether to laugh or weep. I have just finished reading +your letter, and I can hardly think. Words seem to have lost their +meaning, and words, used as you use them, are without significance. You +appear to speak a tongue strangely familiar, yet one I cannot +understand. You are unintelligible, as, I dare say, I am to you. + +And small wonder that we are unintelligible. Our difference presents +itself quite clearly to the scientific mind, and somewhat in this +fashion: Man acquires knowledge of the outer world through his +sensations and perceptions. Sensation ends in sentiment, and perception +ends in reason. These are the two sides of man's nature, and the +individual is determined and ruled by whichever side in him happens to +be temperamentally dominant. I have already classed you as a feeler, +myself as a thinker. This is, I _think_ true. You, I am confident, +_feel_ it to be true. I reason why it is true. You accept it on faith as +true, lose sight of the argument forthwith, and proceed to express it in +emotional terms--which is to say that you take it to heart and feel +badly because it happens to be so. + +You feign to know this modern scientific slang, and you are contemptuous +of it because you do not know it. The terms I use freight no ideas to +you. They are sounds, rhythmic and musical, but they are not definite +symbols of thought. Their facts you do not grasp. For instance, the +prehensile organs of insects, the great toothed mandibles of the black +stag-beetle, the amorous din of the male cicada and the muteness of his +mate--these are facts which you cannot relate, one with the other, nor +can you generalise upon them. Let me add to these related characters, +and you cannot discern the law which is alike to all. What to you the +fluttering moth, decked in gold and crimson, brilliant, iridescent, +splendid? The beauty of it bids you bend to deity, otherwise it has no +worth; it is a stimulus to religion, and that is all. So with the +glowing incandescence of the stickleback and its polished scales of +silver. What make you of the hoarse voice of the gorilla? Is not the +dewlap of the ox inscrutable? the mane of the lion? the tusks of the +boar? the musk-sack of the deer? In the amethyst and sapphire of the +peacock's wing you find no rationality; to you it is a manifestation of +the wonder which is taboo. And so with the cock bird, displaying his +feathered ruffs and furbelows, dancing strange antics and spilling out +his heart in song. + +I, on the other hand, dare to gather all these phenomena together, and +find out the common truth, the common fact, the common law, which is +generalisation, which is Science. I learn that there are two functions +which all life must perform: Nutrition and Reproduction. And I learn +that in all life, the performance, according to time and space and +degree, is very like. The slug must take to itself food, else it will +perish; and so I. The slug must procreate its kind, or its kind will +perish; and so I. The need being the same, the only difference is in the +expression. In all life come times and seasons when the individuals are +aware of dim yearnings and blind compulsions and masterful desires. The +senses are quickened and alert to the call of kind. And just as the fish +and the reptile glimmeringly adumbrate man, so do these yearnings and +desires adumbrate what man in himself calls "love," spelled all out in +capitals. I repeat, the need is the same. From the amoeba, up the ladder +of life to you and me, comes this passion of perpetuation. And in +yourself, refine and sublimate as you will, it is none the less blind, +unreasoning, and compelling. + +And now we come to the point. In the development of life from low to +high, there came a dividing of the ways. Instinct, as a factor of +development, had its limitations. It culminated in that remarkable +mechanism, the bee-swarm. It could go no farther. In that direction life +was thwarted. But life, splendid and invincible, not to be thwarted, +changed the direction of its advance, and reason became the all-potent +developmental factor. Reason dawned far down in the scale of life; but +it culminates in man and the end is not yet. + +The lever in his arm he duplicates in wood and steel; the lenses in his +eyes in glass; the visual impressions of his brain on chemically +sensitised wood-pulp. He is able, reasoning from events and knowing the +law, to control the blind forces and direct their operation. Having +ascertained the laws of development, he is able to take hold of life and +mould and knead it into more beautiful and useful forms. Domestic +selection it is called. Does he wish horses which are fast, he selects +the fastest. He studies the physics of velocity in relation to equine +locomotion, and with an eye to withers, loins, hocks, and haunches, he +segregates his brood mares and his stallions. And behold, in the course +of a few years, he has a thoroughbred stock, swifter of foot than any +ever in the world before. + +Since he takes sexual selection into his own hands and scientifically +breeds the fish and the fowl, the beast and the vegetable, why may he +not scientifically breed his own kind? The fish and the fowl and the +beast and the vegetable obey dim yearnings and vague desires and +reproduce themselves. "Poor the reproduction," says Man to Mother +Nature; "allow me." And Mother Nature is thrust aside and exceeded by +this new creator, this Man-god. + +These yearnings and desires of the beast and the vegetable are the best +tools nature has succeeded in devising. Having devised them, she leaves +their operation to the blindness of chance. Steps in man and controls +and directs them. For the first time in the history of life conscious +intelligence forms and transforms life. These yearnings and desires, +promptings of the "abysmal fecundity," have in man evolved into what is +called "love." They arise in instinct and sensation and culminate in +sentiment and emotion. They master man, and the intellect of man, as +they master the beast and all the acts of the beast. And they operate in +the development of man with the same blindness of chance that they +operate in the development of the beast. + +Now this is the law: _Love, as a means for the perpetuation and +development of the human type, is very crude and open to improvement. +What the intellect of man has done with the beast, the intellect of man +may do with man_. + +It is a truism to say that my intellect is wiser than my emotions. So, +knowing the precise value and use of this erotic phenomenon, this sexual +madness, this love, I, for one, elect to choose my mate with my +intellect. Thus I choose Hester. And I do truly love her, but in the +intellectual sense and not the sense you fanatically demand. I am not +seized with a loutish vertigo when I look upon her and touch her hand. +Nor do I feel impelled to leave her presence if I would live, as did +Dante the presence of Beatrice; nor the painful confusion of Rousseau, +when, in the same room with Madame Goton, he seemed impelled to leap +into the flaming fireplace. But I do feel for Hester what happily mated +men and women, after they have lived down the passion, feel in the +afternoon of life. It is the affection of man for woman, which is +sanity. It is the sanity of intercourse which replaces love madness; the +sanity which comes upon sparrows after the ardour of mating, when they +leave off wrangling and chattering and set soberly to work to build +their nest for the coming brood. + +Pre-nuptial love is the madness of non-understanding and +part-understanding. Post-nuptial affection is the sanity of complete +understanding; it is based upon reason and service and healthy +sacrifice. The first is a blind mating of the blind; the second, a clear +and open-eyed union of male and female who find enough in common to +warrant that union. In a word and in the fullest sense of the word, it +is sex comradeship. Pre-nuptial love cannot survive marriage any +considerable time. It is doomed inexorably to flicker out, and when it +has flickered out it must be replaced by affection, or else the parties +to it must separate. We well know that many men and women, unable to +build up affection on the ruins of love, do separate, or if they do not, +continue to live together in cold tolerance or bitter hatred. + +Now, Hester is my mate. We have much in common. There is intellectual, +spiritual, and physical affinity. The caress of her voice and the feel +of her mind are pleasurable to me; likewise the touch of her hand (and +you know that in the union of man and woman the higher affinities are +not possible unless there first be physiological affinity). We shall go +through life as comrades go, hand in hand, Hester and I; and great +happiness will be ours. And because of all this I say you have no right +to challenge my happiness, and vex my days, and feel for me as one dead. + +My dear, bewildered Dane, come down out of the clouds. If I am wrong, I +have gone over the ground. Then do you go over that ground with me and +show where I am wrong. But do not pour out on me your romantic and +poetic spleen. Confine yourself to the Fact, man, to the irrefragable +Fact. + +HERBERT. + +Ah, your later letter has just arrived. I can only say that I +understand. But withal, I am pained that I am not nearer to you. These +intellectual phantasmagoria rise up like huge amorphous ghosts and hold +me from you. I cannot get through the mists and glooms to press your +hand and tell you how dear I hold you. Do, Dane, do let us cease from +this. Let us discuss no further. Let me care for Hester in my own way so +long as I do no sin and harm no one; and be you father to us, and bless +us who else must go unblessed. For Hester, also, is fatherless and +motherless, and you must be to her as you are to me. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XII + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +February 10, 19--. + +So we have got into an argument! I have been poring over your last two +or three letters, and they read like a set of briefs for a debate. +Doubtless mine have the same forensic quality. Our letters have become +rebuttals, pure and simple. This discovery gave my pen pause for a week. +It occurred to me that Walt Whitman must have meant didactic letters +too, when he said of the fretters of our little world, "They make me +sick talking of their duty to God." Yet friend should speak to friend, +should utter the word than which nothing is more sacred. "Let there be +light, and there was light"--a ripple of light, and a flash, then the +darkness broke and dispersed from the face of the waters. It was a +trumpet-call of words bringing drama into a nebulous creation. Let the +Word break up our night and let us not only grant, but avow the +conviction it brings us, no matter what the consequence. Let us worship +the irrefragable Fact. + +You hold that marriage is an institution having for its purpose the +perpetuation of the species, and that respect and affection are +sufficient to bring two people into this most intimate possible +relation. You also hold that the business of the world, pressing hard +upon men, makes "love from their lives a thing apart," and that this is +as it should be. Your letters are an exposition and a defence of what I +may loosely call the practical theory. You show that the world is for +work and workers, and that life is for results as seen in institutions +and visible achievements. I, on the other hand, maintain that it takes a +greater dowry to marry upon than affection, and that men love as +intensely and with as much abandon as women. People love in proportion +to the depth of their natures, and the finest man in the world has an +infinite capacity for giving and receiving love store. The spell is +strongest upon the finest. + +This, briefly, is what we have been saying to each other. You attack my +idealism, call me dreamer, and accuse me of being out of joint with the +time, which itself is rigorously in joint with the laws of growth. And +I class you with the Philistine because of your exaggeration of +practical values. I hold that it is gross to respect the fact tangible +at the expense of the feeling ineffable. + +In your last letter you exploit the theory of Nutrition and Reproduction +with a charm and warmth which helps me see you as I have so long known +you, and which tells me again that you are worth fighting for and +saving. But to trace love to its biologic beginning is not to deny its +existence. Love has a history as significant as that of life. When, eons +ago, the primitive man looked at his neighbour and recognised him as a +fellow to himself, consciousness of kind awoke and a cell was exploded +which functioned love. When, through the ages, economic forces taught +men the need of mutual aid, when everywhere in life the law of +development charged men with leanings and desires and outreachings, then +the sway of love began in life. What was subconscious became conscious, +what, back in the past, was a mere adumbration gloried out in Aurora +splendours. The love of a Juliet is the outgrowth of natural processes +manifesting themselves everywhere down the scale, but it is also the +gift of the last evolution, and it speaks to us from the topmost notch +in the scale. The charm of morning rests on a Juliet's love because its +hour is young and yet old, striking the time of the past and the future. +It is thus that the hunger of the race and the passion of the race +become in the individual the need for happiness. The need of the race +and the need of the individual are at once the same and different. + +What was the point of your letter? That sexual selection obtains? I +grant it. That it is incumbent upon us as intelligent men and women to +call to the aid of instinct our social wisdom? I grant and avow it. But +our social wisdom insists that we obey the choices of instinct; our +social wisdom is only another phase of our refinement, which, in +impelling us to a love of the beautiful, does not the less impel us to +love. Our social wisdom educates our taste without lessening our taste +for the thing. "Love a beautiful person nobly, but be sure you love +her," says our social wisdom with interesting tautology. Besides, you +are a heretic to your own breed, Herbert. It is you who would forsake +our present social wisdom, ruling modern men by laws which obtained in +primitive life. It is you who steadily hark back to the past, and to +states of consciousness which were but can never be again. The early +facts of biology cannot include that which transcends them. To borrow +from Ernest Seton Thompson, man is evolved with the lower orders in the +same way that water is changed into steam, and the nature of the change, +when it is effected, is as radical. Add a number of degrees of heat to +water and it is still water. Let one degree be wanting to the necessary +number, and the substance is still intact. Add the last degree, and +water is no longer water. From water to steam is a radical change and a +transformation. + +You agree to improve upon the beasts of the fields and upon our own race +in the past, and in this you go farther than you have need if marriage +is for nothing else than to serve the instinct for perpetuation. You +shew some respect for what is natural and instinctive, yet you say that +all would be as well if individual choice had not prevailed, and men and +women were "shuffled about." You draw up a cold programme for action in +affairs of the spirit and formulate a code of procedure in matters of +the heart. + +I have a programme too. Mine does not break with nature. On the +contrary, it obeys every instinct and listens to every call on the +senses. My love begins in my biologic self, grows with my growth, takes +its hues from visioned sunsets in corn-flower skies, its grace from +swaying rivers of grain seen in dreams. It is for me what it is for fish +and fowl, beast and vegetable. It is my passion for perpetuation, but it +is also something as different from this as I am different from beast +and vegetable. My love is "blind, unreasoning, and compelling," and for +that I trust it. I do not conceive myself Man-god, therefore I do not +say to Nature, "Allow me." I cannot be sure that when I say it in the +case of the horse, who obeys like me "dim yearning and vague desires," I +do not sacrifice him to a lust of my own. The lust for owning and +spoiling is hard to cope with. Perhaps a purer time is near, when, +upborne by a sense of the dignity of romance and the sacredness of life, +man will refrain from laying rough hands on his mute brothers. + +The romance which is my proof of the good of being does not rest on +passion. The unclean fires that consume the loutish and degenerate are +not of love. You quote instances of the hyperphysical and hysterical. +The feeling that I would have you obey for your soul's sake and without +which you are but half alive, is not the blind passion of an oversexed +sentimentalism. Rousseau was never in love in his life, though to say it +were to accuse him of perjury. + +One word more. Do you wish to know why I care? I care because I know you +to be of those who are capable of love. Probably it was one little twist +in your development that has turned you into alien ways of thinking and +living. Yes, and more than for this I care because you are the +fulfilment of a sacred past. You are the son of my sacrifice and your +mother's love. + +I care very much indeed. I do not wish you to awake some terrible night +to find that you had ended your romance before you had begun it. I vex +your days and call you dead? It is because I know the life that is by +the grace of God yours, and because I cannot bear to let you coffin it. +Herbert, there is misery when the blood pales, and the tears dry up, and +the flame of the heart sinks, and all that is left is a memory of a +thought--a memory of very long ago when one was young and might have +chosen to live. + +I am sorry we darken the days for each other. + +Your friend always, + +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XIII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +February 12, 19--. + +Barbara and Earl celebrated their anniversary yesterday. Invitations +were sent out, the guests consisting of Melville and myself. +"Anniversary of what?" we asked. For answer we received inscrutable +smiles. Birthdays are accidents of fate. You may regret the accident or +you may be thick enough in illusion to rejoice over it, but you cannot +in decency celebrate an occurrence wholly independent of personal +control and yet concerning itself with you! Leave the merrymaking for +appreciative friends. So rules Barbara. Not a birthday, then, nor the +date of their marriage. The occasion was in some flash struck from +Being, the memory of which enriches them,--in a mood that for an hour +held them in strong grasp, in the utterance of a word charged with +destiny, in the avowal of their love if their love awaited avowal. +Whatever the cause, they honoured it with a will. + +Barbara's eyes flashed, her cheeks were sweetly suffused, and her voice +was vibrant. Earl, too, was at his best. My heart loved this man who had +lain all his life with death. His health is at its bad worst this +winter, which fact made of the "Celebration" a rather heart-rending +affair. He has been obliged to abandon the _Journal_, but we hope he can +stay with the school. Meanwhile, his chronic invalidism of body and +purse does not too much affect him. He keeps his charm of tenderness and +strength. He rivets his pupils to him almost as he riveted his Barbara. + +I have discovered my proof of this couple's happiness. It is that I have +always taken it for granted. Simple, is it not? And absolute. Often in +their presence I catch myself imagining their mutual lives and seeing +vaguely the graces that each brings to each. "How she must delight him!" +I say. "How his eyes speak to her!" "They can never come to the end of +each other," and so on. The ordinary married couple so often brings a +sense of distressed surprise: "How can these two foot it together?" +"How did it happen?" "How can it go on?" + +Last night counted to me. Your father and I have had such evenings, but +I did not think I could do it all over again. We spoke with the fire +(and conceit) of young students, exciting ourselves with expired +theories, hoping old hopes, smarting under blows that perhaps had long +ceased to fall. What then? What if we were ill-read in the facts? We +could not have been wrong in the feeling. For the old hope that has been +proven vain, a new; for the ancient hurt, a modern wrong, as great and +as crying. It was good to feel that we had not grown too wise to harbour +thoughts of change and redress, or too much ironed out with doctrine to +be resigned. I confess it is long since I have eaten my heart in fury, +in impatience, in wildness, but last night we awoke the radical in one +another. We condemned the system. We placed ourselves outside the +regime, refusing aught at its hands, registering our protest, hating the +inordinate scheme of things only as hotly as we loved the juster Hand of +a future time. + +It is curious that we, offsprings of parvenue success, should be capable +of such repudiation. Barbara accepts the Management without the trouble +of a question. "What do you know? What do you know?" the girl demands, a +radiant little angel in white, and a conservative. "You must know +yourselves in the wrong, else would you smite your way through the +world." + +Ah, Barbara has yet to learn that it is hard to live. It is not so hard +to fight, and it is easy to rest neutral, but to be fighter and bearer +both, to stand staunch, holding ever to the issue, and yet, without +tameness, to take rebuff and wait, there's the true course and the +heroic. It is difficult when one has been conquered to know it. It is +difficult to honour an outgrown ideal, which cost us, nevertheless, +comfort and prestige--prizes which youth scorns and which oncoming age, +pathetically enough, holds dear. It is difficult to pull up when driving +too fast and too far, when galloping towards fanaticism, and it is +impossible to whip oneself into passion and martyrdom. It is difficult +to live, little Barbara. + +For me it is also difficult to report a social function. At this one +Browning presided, for Melville took up "Caponsacchi" and read it to us. +That voice of his is in itself an interpretation, but Browning needs +interpreting less than any other man who wrote great poems, because he +wrote the greatest. It was four in the morning when the "O great, just, +good God! Miserable me!" of the soldier-saint fell upon our ears. How we +had listened! Earl steadily paced the floor, Barbara leaned her cheek +upon my hand. Her soul was doing battle, and so was mine. We were all +fighting the gallant fight. Read "Pompilia" and you are filled with +reverence, read "Caponsacchi" and you are caught up by the spirit of +action. You must rise and forth to burn your way like he, though you may +have been too weary in spirit before to answer to your name when +opportunity called roll. + +It was Earl who broke the silence caused by the inner tumult. In a +dreamy voice, his eyes very eager and intent, he told us how at one time +he had gone up a hill that faced the house in which he lived. A hard +rain was driving, he fell at every step up the slippery steepness, but +at every step the beauty of it became more and more wondrous, hardly +bearable. The little village sank lower and lower, and about him were +soft hills, graceful and verdant, a stretch of water lying dark under +the clouded sky, and the mountain gray and watchful in the distance. It +was then, in the chill of a January rain, on an oak-clad hill of a +western spot, that he recognised the dear features of the Mother, knew +her his as hers he was, and loved her with passion. The sea is vast and +wondrous, but it is alien. It holds you apart; it is not of you. But the +gentle earth with her undulating form and the growing life in her lap, +soothes with wordless harmonies. It was then that he forgave the fate +which deformed him. A twisted oak, that is all--no less a tree and no +less beautiful in the landscape! And it was sufficient to live. In the +bosom of so much beauty sufficient also to die. As he stood, thinking it +out, feeling the wonder and the glory, at times sorry for those who can +see no longer the slanting sheets of rain and the grass at the feet, at +times feeling that since this is good, in some impalpable way oblivion +to all this may be also good, as he stood there, flushed with the +climbing and sad with great joy, the thought came: With whom? It cannot +be lived alone. With whom? He turned at the touch of an arm at his +shoulder to meet the smile and the look and the quick breath of her who +had sent herself his Eve. + +In the dawn stealing over the world of London, Earl told the story, and +there and then we saw it all--the hill in the heart of the hills, the +reconciled boy who had climbed its brow, the rain-drenched woman +hurrying to overtake him, with the gift of all of herself in her eyes. +We looked neither at Barbara nor at Earl. Possessed of the secret, we +spoke a few words and left. Our host had divulged what the anniversary +sought to celebrate. We understood and were glad. + +Good night, lad. Would you could have shared our heyday at the dawning! + +DANE. + + + + +XIV + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +February 31, 19--. + +Love is a something that begins in sensation and ends in sentiment. +Thanks to beautiful and permissible hyperbole, you have begun with +sensation in your description of love, and have ended with sentiment. +You have told me about love, in terms of love, which is a vain +performance and unscientific. Now let me make you a definition. _Love is +a disorder of mind and body, and is produced by passion under the +stimulus of imagination._ + +Love is a phase of the operation of the function of reproduction, and it +occurs solely in man. Love, adhering to the common understanding of the +term, is an emotional excitement which does not obtain among the lower +animals. The lower animals lack the stimulus of imagination, and with +them the passion for perpetuation remains a mere passion. But man has +developed imagination. The pure sexual passion is glossed over and +obscured by a cloud of fancies, mistaken yearnings, and distorted +dreams. And so well is the real intent of the function obscured, that it +is actually lost to him, especially during the period of love madness, +so that there seems an apparent divorce between the parts which go to +make up love, between passion and imagination. + +The romantic lover of to-day (expressing sensation in terms of +sentiment, and fondly imagining that he is reasoning) cannot reconcile +his soul-exaltation with bodily grossness, cannot conceive that soul can +turn body, and in the embrace of body tell out all the wonder of soul. +To all sensitive and spiritual men and women come times of anguish and +tears and self-revolt, when they are confounded and heart-broken by the +physical aspect of love. Poor men and women! they suffer keenly and +sincerely through lack of something more than a sentimental concept of +love. To them, body and soul appear things apart, to be kept apart, lest +the one contaminate the other. And in the end, loving well and truly, +they prove their love by enduring, though unable ever quite to shake off +the sense of sin and shame and personal degradation. They do not +understand life, that is the trouble. The beast, lacking imagination, +needs no rational rightness for the various acts of living, such as they +need, and which they do not possess. Because of their unchecked and +unbalanced imagination they mistake the half of life for the whole, and +when forced to face the whole are affrighted and shocked. They do not +reason that the need for perpetuation is the cause of passion; and that +human passion, working through imagination and worked upon by +imagination, becomes love. + +And while I am in this vein, I may as well deny that a greater spiritual +dowry than affection is required for marriage. (For that matter, I fail +to see anything so spiritual in erotic phenomena.) If a man may achieve +affection for a woman, without undergoing pre-nuptial madness,--if a man +may take the short cut, as it were,--then I see no reason why he should +not marry that woman. He is certainly justified, since affection is what +romantic love must evolve into after marriage. But do not mistake me, +Dane. I do not intend this sweepingly. It will not do for the whole +human herd; for at once enters that abhorrent thing you rightly fear, +the marriage for convenience. Alas, it too often masquerades under the +guise of romantic love. Certainly, every man is not capable of taking +this short cut and at the same time of avoiding a violation of true +sexual selection. Having little brain, the average man can only act in +line with sexual selection by undergoing the romantic love malady. But +for some few of us, and I dare to include myself, the short cut is +permissible. This short cut I shall take, and far be it from any worldly +sense of stocks and bonds and comfortable housekeeping. + +Marriage means less to man than to woman? Yes, by all means, at least to +the normal man or woman. As surely as reproduction is woman's peculiar +function, and nutrition man's, just so surely does marriage sum up more +to woman than to man. It becomes the whole life of the woman, while to +the man it is rather an episode, rather a mere side to his many-sided +life. Natural selection has made it so. The countless men of the past, +even from before the time they swung down out of the trees, who devoted +more time and energy to their love-affairs than to the winning of food +and shelter, died from innutrition in various ways. Only the men, normal +men, with a proper respect for the mechanism of life, survived and +perpetuated their kind. The chance was large that the abnormal lover did +not win a wife at all. At least it is so to-day. The abnormal lover is +not a successful bidder for women, and is usually passed by. + +But while we are on this topic, do not let us forget Dante Alighieri, +your prince of lovers. Has a suitable explanation ever occurred to you +concerning how he came to marry Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, who +bore him seven children, and was never once mentioned in the "Divina +Commedia?" You remember what he said of his first meeting with Beatrice, +"At that moment I saw most truly that the spirit of life which hath its +dwelling in the secretest chambers of the heart began to tremble so +violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith." And he +later had seven children by Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, and whom, +as the historian has recorded, "there was no reason to suppose other +than a good wife." + +As for the primitive, I hark back to it because we are still very +primitive. How many thousands years of culture, think you, have rubbed +and polished at our raw edges? One, probably; at the best, not more than +two. And that takes us back to screaming savagery, when, gross of body +and deed, we drank blood from the skulls of our enemies, and hailed as +highest paradise the orgies and carnage of Valhalla. And before that +time, think you, how many thousands of years of savagery did we endure? +and how many myriads of thousands in the long procession of life up from +the first vitalised inorganic? Two thousand years are an extremely thin +veneer with which to cover the many millions. + +And further, our much-vaunted two thousand years of culture is a thing +of the mind, an acquired character. We are not born with it. Each must +gather it for himself after he is born, from the spoken and written +words of his fellow and forerunners. Isolate a babe from all of its kind +and it will never learn to speak, and without speech words, it can never +think save in the concretest possible way. Yet it will possess all the +brute instincts and passions--the raw edges which do constantly shove +through the culture varnish of the civilised man. + +Our culture is the last to come, the first to go. I have seen it go from +a man in an hour, nay, on the instant. Our culture is nothing more than +the accumulated wisdom of the race. It is not part of us, not a thing or +attribute handed down from father to son. It is a something acquired in +varying degree by each individual for himself. Yes, I do well to hark +back to the primitive. It tells me where I am to-day and describes to me +the world I am living in. You, Dane, are hyper-refined, or refined +beyond the times. You are like the idealistic and advanced zealots, who, +when such action would mean destruction, advise these United States to +disarm in the face of the war-harnessed world. + +But no more of this jerky letter. Soon I shall proceed to make my +contention good. I shall show the higher part intellect plays in +conjugal love, the control, restraint, forbearance, sacrifice. And I +shall show that conjugal love is higher and finer than romantic love. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XV + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +March 15, 19--. + +Clyde Stebbins was here an hour after your theories and definitions +reached me. The fact that I had been reading treason against his sister +made me pick my subjects a little too carefully for smooth conversation. +Your letter, partly open, was on the table before us, and my eyes fell +upon it often as I wondered what it would mean to Hester's brother--if +he could read it. I no longer think only of you. + +I reject your definition of love. It is not a disorder of the mind and +body, nor is it solely the instrument of reproduction. I reject and +resent your distinction between the pre-nuptial and post-nuptial states +of feelings. Further, I hold that marriage may not be based on +affection alone, and I disagree with you that population is better than +principle. Children need not be brought into the world at any cost. + +Love is not a disorder, but a growth. There is spiritual as well as +physical growth. Some men and women never grow up strong enough to love. +Their development is arrested, or they are, from the beginning, poor +creatures born of starvelings, and perhaps fated to give birth to pale, +sapless beings like themselves. Others there are who love, and this is +no ill chance, no disease of the mind and body calling for psychiater +and physician. It is a strength, a becoming, a fulfilment. Let us reason +from the effect to the cause. How does this madness manifest itself? Not +in weakness. You never saw a man or woman in love who was the worse for +it. The lover carries all things before him, and not for himself alone, +but for a larger world than ever had been his. He who loves one must +perforce love all the world and all the unborn worlds. This is the way +life goes, which is another way of saying it is a scientific fact. That +which makes men capable of consecration is not a disorder of the mind +and body. It is the greatest of all forces, and it turns the wrangling +and grabbing human creature into an inspired poet. + +And the cause? The passion for perpetuation and the imagination. We +agree. But there are other and more immediate needs than the need of +perpetuation that call out love, needs that are peculiarly of the +present, being bound up with the steady outreaching for help, for +fellowship in the jerky journey through the universe. If love were no +more than an instrument of reproduction, you would be right in +maintaining that the fastidiousness I insist on is unnecessary and +unnatural. If love were that and that alone, there would be no love, +which is a paradox indeed. + + + "Because of our souls' yearning that we meet + And mix in soul through flesh, which yours and mine + Wear and impress, and make their visible selves,-- + All which means, for the love of you and me, + Let us become one flesh, being one soul." + + +I dare a formula: In the beginning love arose in the passion for +perpetuation; to-day, the passion for perpetuation arises in love. Just +as we put ourselves in the way of natural selection, pitting the +microcosm against the macrocosm in a passion of ethical feeling, just so +do we reverse for ourselves processes that seem indeed to have all the +force of law. This reversal is civilisation. + +The lover is impelled to perpetuate himself in the Here and the Now. The +law of life exacts from him the tribute of love. Imagination gives the +lover the key to the object of his love. He enters and he beholds only +the ideal which is hers; for him her clay self and the mere facts of her +do not exist. The conditions of love are inherent in civilisation. When +purpose is high and feeling rich, when "the everlasting possession of +the good" is desired, then is heard the I Am of love. + +Now to my definition. Negatively, love is not a disorder of the mind and +body, not a madness, since it arises in the eternally most valuable, +since it is the culmination of high processes, and since it makes for +sanity of vision and strength and happiness. Positively, love is the +awakening of the personality to the beauty and worth of some one being, +caused by the passion for perpetuation and by imagination. It is a +desire to hold to the good everlastingly, and to merge with it. + +Aristotle proved to the satisfaction of his time that women have fewer +teeth than men. Aristotle was a great man, and besides being a +philosopher was the foremost scientist of his day. I cannot help +thinking of this prodigious blunder. Perhaps (who knows?) the same +famous fate which a sexual classification of teeth enjoys awaits a +definition calling love a disorder. + +I will continue to-morrow. A note has just been given me calling me to +Earl, who is ill, but not seriously. Barbara has prescribed for him a +game of chess. The desire to see you again has got into my blood. I +think I shall be in the new West and with you before long. + +Your friend always, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XVI + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON. +Sunday morning. + +I must proceed with the three other points of my letter, so I shall stay +here and write, though there is a sharp breeze this morning and a +coquettishly escaping sunlight, and something tugs at me to go out upon +the city streets. It is not restlessness, but the love of the open. I am +fain to leave a walled house, and, better still, to get outside of the +walls within and join the city in friendship and let the city join me. I +never feel greater fellowship than when I walk-- + +Except when I write to you. Then do I greaten with the pride of life. My +sympathies quicken and I grow young again. I constitute myself advocate +of the world, and enthusiasm does not fail me in this high calling. It +is but natural that in the face of scepticism which I cannot share I +should feel greater faith, that in the face of revilement a sense of the +glory of the thing belittled should settle upon me. I turn zealot and +spend myself in long-drawn praising. I lay myself under a spell of +harmony because I am serving and defending and approving what I hold to +be good. + +So when you insist that romantic love is pre-nuptial and that it dies at +marriage as others suppose it to die at the approach of poverty, I grow +glad with the knowledge that this is not true. I scrutinize facts which +I hitherto took for granted, and become doubly sure. You dogmatise when +you say that the lover and the husband are mutually exclusive. If there +was love in the beginning, it will be at the end. Love doubles upon +itself. Propinquity tightens bonds and there is a steady blossoming of +the character in a radiant atmosphere. The marriages that fail are the +unions which are based on liking. In these, weariness must set in, for +marriage demands that men and women be all in all to each other, and +unless it be so with them, the lives of the "contracting parties" are, +by the laws of logic, and by the force of the laws of delicacy in the +art of living, forever spoilt. + +Yes, and people who truly love come to regret their married love, these +too. But these have at least begun well. Their lives are infinitely +richer for this fact. Their failure itself is made by it more bearable +than the failure of those others who act the vulgarian and demand so +little of life that even that little escapes them. No world-stains on +these who are, at least, would-be lovers. They stand mistaken but +irreproachable. It was neither their fault nor love's, and "life more +abundant" comes to them even with the mistake. + +You are consistent. Just as you maintain that love is passion, so do you +think that it is no more than a preliminary thrill. You note a change; +the flutter and the excitement felt in the presence of the unknown go, +and you do not know that they give place to the steadier joys of the +unknown, that after the promise comes the fulfilment, that the hope is +not more beautiful than the realisation, that there is divinity in both, +and that love does not disappoint. + +Tell me, are the placid marriages of affection you are preparing to +describe so very placid? Do these jog along so well? Is the control, +restraint, forbearance, sacrifice, of which you speak, as readily +practised for the person who is that to you which twenty others may +quite as easily be, as it is for the one beyond all whom you love and +deify, whom the laws of your being command that you serve, living and +dying? God knows, the average marriage does not exhibit a striking +picture of the practice of these virtues! Rather are such phrases ideals +on stilts on which suffering marital partners attempt to hobble across +their extremity. On the other hand, to some extent everybody practises +restraint and sacrifice since everybody is to some extent moral. But it +goes very hard with your average man and woman in your average marriage, +and there is a decided setting of the mouth and narrowing of the eyes +with the effort. + +Whatever placidity there is is attained by means of vampirism. Diderot, +the husband of a stupid seamstress, had no right to the love of a Mlle. +Voland. It was vampirism and sin to take all from this woman, and to +return her favour with so much less than all, as surely as cowardice and +selfishness are sin. But the illicit relation will exist because custom +cannot rid men and women of subtle sympathies and dear yearnings, +because men and women will love though the world consider it cheap and +mad. Individually, we have no difficulty in finding our happiness, but +we are made advance toward it through the twisted byways of an unfrank +world. "No straight road! Keep turning!" has been the scream of +convention since convention began. + +So for every commonplace marriage there is a canonised love, and the +story is told in the old Greek civilisation by the Hetairae. You remember +how it reads in the history: "The low position generally assigned the +wife in the home had a most disastrous effect upon Greek morals. She +could exert no such elevating or refining influence as she casts over +the modern home. The men were led to seek social and intellectual +sympathy and companionship outside the family circle, among a class of +women known as Hetairae, who were esteemed chiefly for their brilliancy +of intellect. As the most noted representative of this class stands +Aspasia, the friend of Pericles. The influence of the Hetairae was most +harmful to social morality." And the practice persisted through many a +renaissance where Lauras and Beatrices were besung, down to the +brilliant encyclopaedists of the eighteenth century with their avowed +loves, down to our Goethe and John Stuart Mill. All of these loves rose +in very different motives and environments, yet were they the same +fundamentally,--strong, sweet love between man and woman, very much +spoiled by the fact that custom permitted the loveless marriage at the +same time, but yet love which was good since it was the best that could +be had. And when the historian permits himself to say, "The influence of +the Hetairae was most harmful to social morality," it is evident that he +also thinks that a marriage which compels husband or wife to seek soul's +help elsewhere than in their union is bad and wrong. + +To-day there is a change in attitude. Woman is new-born in strength and +dignity, and the highest chivalry the world has ever known is in +blossom. She is an equal, a comrade, a right regal person. She is no +longer a means but an end in herself, not alone fit to mother men but +fit to live in equality with men. I repeat, she is not a means but an +individual, with a soul of her own to rear. Because of the greater and +more general emancipation of woman the subtlety of modern love has +become possible. + +Now for the last point, the question of perpetuation. Just as function +precedes organ, so the love of life is inherent in the living for the +maintenance of life. But even the primitive man, in whom instinct is +strongest, proves himself capable of death. Some men have always been +able to give up their lives for some cause. (Indeed there is thought to +be suicide amongst animals.) And to-day we certainly no longer say a man +must live. Quite as often must he die. Men have found it wise to die at +the stake or on the gallows. If this be true of our relation to the life +which courses through us, how much more true is it of our instinct to +perpetuate ourselves, which pertains to the love of life biologically +only, which is often, in the social manifestation of that instinct, a +cold intellectual concept and never a dominating thought! We are not +driven to procreate. In fact, every child born into the world competes +hard for its morsel. Under our unimaginable economic regime all increase +in population is a menace. + +I call bringing children into the world a codfish act which causes an +overflux of vulgar little earthlings, if the process be not humanised +and spiritualised. If the child is conceived not in lust but in love, it +is rightly born. If it is the child of your ideal, the offspring of that +which is your truest life, then is your progeny your immortality, and +then, and then only, have you reason for pride and joy in that which you +have caused to be. + +My dear, dear Herbert, my love has not failed. This you must come to +understand. Love never fails. The children that might have been mine are +better unborn, since I could not give them a mother whom I loved. You +remind me that Dante married Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, and she +bore him seven children. Yet, Herbert, was this wife not mentioned in +the "Commedia," nor in "La Vita Nuova," nor anywhere else in his +writings. Dante was a Conformist. He was not in all respects above his +time; witness his theology. Convention permitted the dispassionate +marriage side by side with love. He was conventional, and the infinite +moment of meeting in paradise with his Lady was embittered by her "cold, +lessoned smiles." + + + "Ah, from what agonies of heart and brain, + What exultations trampling on despair, + What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, + What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, + Uprose this poem of the earth and air, + This mediaeval miracle of song!" + + +It was for Beatrice that this man vexed his spirit with immortal effort +and raised a Titan voice which yet is heard in charmed echoes. It was +for Beatrice that he descended into the dead regions and climbed the +hills of purgatory and soared towards the Rose of Paradise,--"And 'She, +where is She?' instantly I cried." + +Dante, our prince of lovers, might have lived better, but he loved well. + +This in answer to your letter. To meet your argument I have found it +best to employ something of your own method, but I cannot rid myself of +the feeling that I have vulgarised the subject by saying so much about +it. I fear my letter would provoke a smile from those who know love and +the wonder of its simplicity through all the subtlety. "We, in loving, +have no cause to speak so much!" would be their unanswerable criticism. +It is easier to live than to argue about life. + +The thought has suddenly assailed me that what I have said may sound +derogatory to Hester. Know, then, that I do not think there is a woman +in the world who is not capable of inspiring true and abiding love in +the heart of some man. Besides, Hester to me looms up as a heroine. Not +a hair's breadth of what I know of her that is not beautiful. My regret +is that she, who could be "a vision eterne," should be doomed to receive +episodically your considerate affection. She does not know your +programme. She is a girl who takes your love for granted in the same +way as she gives hers, without niggardliness. It is the woman who cannot +be content with less than all that is slowly starved to death on a +bread-and-water diet and who does not find it out until the end. + +Until the carnival time when you and Hester come to love each other, if +that time is to be, you two must be as separate in deed as you are in +fact. Forgive me and write soon. + +Yours ever, +DANE. + + + + +XVII + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +April 2, 19--. + +So you have met Hester's brother? Well, I have had an outing with +Hester. She loves me well, I know, and I cannot but confess a thrill at +the thought. On the other hand, well do I know the significance of that +love, the significance and the cause. Notwithstanding that wonderful +soul of hers, she is in no wise constituted differently from her +millions of sisters on the planet to-day. She loves--she knows not why; +she knows--only that she loves. In other words, she does not reason her +emotions. + +But let us reason, we men, after the manner of men. And be thou patient, +Dane, and follow me down and under the phenomena of love to things +sexless and loveless. And from there, as the proper point of departure, +let us return and chart love, its phases and occurrences, from its first +beginnings to its last manifestations. + +Things sexless and loveless! Yes, and as such may be classed the drops +of life known as unicellular organisms. Such a creature is a tiny cell, +capable of performing in itself all the functions of life. That one +pulsating morsel of matter is invested with an irritability which, as +Herbert Spencer says, enables it "to adjust the inner relations with +outer relations," to correspond to its environment--in short, to live. +That single cell contracts and recoils from the things in its +environment uncongenial to its constitution, and the things congenial it +draws to itself and absorbs. It has no mouth, no stomach, no alimentary +canal. It is all mouth, all stomach, all alimentary canal. + +But at that low plane the functions of life are few and simple. This bit +of vitalised inorganic has no sex, and because of that it cannot love. +Reproduction is growth. When it grows over-large it splits in half, and +where was one cell there are two. Nor can the parent cell be called +_mother_ or _father_: and for that matter, the parent cell cannot be +determined. The original cell split into two cells; one has as much +claim to parenthood as the other. + +It lives dimly, to be sure, this mote of life and light; but before it +is a vast evolution, Dane, on the pinnacle of which are to be found men +and women, Hester Stebbins, my mother, you! + +A step higher we find the cell cluster, and with it begins that +differentiation which has continued to this day and which still +continues. Simplicity has yielded to complexity and a new epoch of life +been inaugurated. The outer cells of the cluster are more exposed to +environmental forces than are the inner cells; they cohere more +tenaciously and a rudimentary skin is formed. Through the pores of this +skin food is absorbed, and in these food-absorbing pores is foreshadowed +the mouth. Division of labour has set in, and groups of cells specialise +in the performance of functions. Thus, a cell group forms the skinny +covering of the cluster, another cell group the mouth. And likewise, +internally, the stomach, a sac for the reception and digestion of food, +takes shape; and the juices of the body begin to circulate with greater +definiteness, breaking channels in their passage and keeping those +channels open. And, as the generations pass, still more groups of cells +segregate themselves from the mass, and the heart, the lungs, the +liver, and other internal organs are formed. The jelly-like organism +develops a bony structure, muscles by which to move itself, and a +nervous system-- + +Be not bored, Dane, and be not offended. These are our ancestors, and +their history is our history. Remember that as surely as we one day +swung down out of the trees and walked upright, just so surely, on a far +earlier day, did we crawl up out of the sea and achieve our first +adventure on land. + +But to be brief. In the course of specialisation of function, as I have +outlined, just as other organs arose, so arose sex-differentiation. +Previous to that time there was no sex. A single organism realised all +potentialities, fulfilled all functions. Male and female, the creative +factors, were incoherently commingled. Such an individual was both male +and female. It was complete in itself,--mark this, Dane, for here +individual completeness ends. + +The labour of reproduction was divided, and male and female, as separate +entities, came into the world. They shared the work of reproduction +between them. Neither was complete alone. Each was the complement of the +other. In times and seasons each felt a vital need for the other. And +in the satisfying of this vital need, of this yearning for completeness, +we have the first manifestation of love. Male and female loved they one +another--but dimly, Dane. We would not to-day call it love, yet it +foreshadowed love as the food-absorbing pore foreshadowed the mouth. + +As long and tedious as has been the development of this rudimentary love +to the highly evolved love of to-day, just so long and tedious would be +my sketch of that development. However, the factors may be hinted. The +increasing correspondence of life with its environment brought about +wider and wider generalisations upon that environment and the relations +of the individual to it. There is no missing link to the chain that +connects the first and lowest life to the last and the highest. There is +no gap between the physical and psychical. From _simple reflex action_, +on and up through _compound reflex action_, _instinct_, and _memory_, +the passage is made, without break, to _reason_. And hand in hand with +these, all acting and reacting upon one another, comes the development +of the imagination and of the higher passions, feelings, and emotions. +But all of this is in the books, and there is no need for me to go over +the ground. + +So let me sum up with an analysis of that most exquisite of poets' +themes, a maiden in love. In the first place, this maiden must come of +an ancestry mastered by the passion for perpetuation. It is only through +those so mastered that the line comes down. The individual perishes, you +know; for it is the race that lives. In this maiden is incorporated all +the experience of the race. This race experience is her heritage. Her +function is to pass it on to posterity. If she is disobedient, she is +unfruitful; her line ceases with her; and she is without avail among the +generations to come. And, be it not forgotten, there are many obedient +whose lines _will_ pass down. + +But this maiden is obedient. By her acts she will link the past to the +future, bind together the two eternities. But she is incomplete, this +maiden, and being immature she is unaware of her incompleteness. +Nevertheless she is the creature of the law of the race, and from her +infancy she prepares herself for the task she is to perform. Hers is a +certain definite organism, somewhat different from all other female +organisms. Consequently there is one male in all the world whose +organism is most nearly the complement of hers; one male for whom she +will feel the greatest, intensest, and most vital need; one male who of +all males is the fittest, organically, to be the father of her children. +And so, in pinafores and pigtails, she plays with little boys and likes +and dislikes according to her organic need. She comes in contact with +all manner of boys, from the butcher's boy to the son of her father's +friend; and likewise with men, from the gardener to her father's +associates. And she is more or less attracted by those who, in greater +or less degree, answer to her organic demand, or, as it were, organic +ideal. + +And upon creatures male she early proceeds to generalise. This kind of +man she likes, that she does not like; and this kind she likes more than +that kind. She does not know why she does this; nor, with the highest +probability, does she know she is doing it. She simply has her likes and +dislikes, that is all. She is the slave of the law, unwittingly +generalising upon sex-impressions against the day when she must identify +the male who most nearly completes her. + +She drifts across the magic borderland to womanhood, where dreams and +fancies rise and intermingle and the realities of life are lost. A +dissatisfaction and a restlessness come upon her. There seems no sanity +in things, and life is topsy-turvy. She is filled with vague, troubled +yearnings, and the woman in her quickens and cries out for unity. It is +an organic cry, old as the race, and she cannot shut out the sound of it +or still the clamour in her blood. + +But there is one male in all the world who is most nearly her +complement, and he may be over on the other side of the world where she +may not find him. So propinquity determines her fate. Of the males she +is in contact with, the one who can more nearly give her the +completeness she craves will be the one she loves. + +All of which is well and good in its way, but let us analyze further. +What is all this but the symptoms of an extreme over-excitation and +nervous disorder? The equilibrium of the organism has been overthrown +and there is a wild scrambling for the restoration of that equilibrium. +The choice made may be good or ill, as chance and time may dictate, but +the impelling excitement forces a choice. What if it be ill? What if +to-morrow a male who is a far better complement should appear? The time +is now. Nature is not neglectful, and well she knows the disaster of +delay. She is prodigal of the individual and is satisfied with one +match out of many mismatches, just as she is satisfied that of a million +cod eggs one only should develop into a full-grown cod. And so this love +of the human in no wise differs from that of the sparrow which forgets +preservation in procreation. Thus nature tricks her creatures and the +race lives on. + +For the lesser creatures the trick serves the purpose well. There is +need for a compelling madness, else would self-preservation overcome +procreation and there be no lesser creatures. And man is content to rest +coequal with the beast in the matter of mating. Notwithstanding his +intelligence, which has made him the master of matter and enabled him to +enslave the great blind forces, he is unable to perpetuate his species +without the aid of the impelling madness. Nay, men will not have it +otherwise; and when an individual urges that his reason has placed him +above the beast, and that, without the impelling madness, he can mate +with greater wisdom and potency, then the poets and singers rise up and +fling potsherds at him. To improve upon nature by draining a malarial +swamp is permitted him; to improve upon nature's methods and breed +swifter carrier-pigeons and finer horses than she has ever bred is also +permitted; but to improve upon nature in the breeding of the human, that +is a sacrilege which cannot be condoned! Down with him! He is a brute to +question our divine Love, God-given and glorious! + +Ah, Dane, remember the first dim yearning of divided life, and the soils +and smirches and frenzies put upon it by the spawn of multitudinous +generations. There is your love, the whole history of it. There is no +intrinsic shame in the thing itself, but the shame lies in that we are +not greater than it. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XVIII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +April 4, 19--. + +There were several things in your letter which I forgot to answer. Much +of beauty and wonder is there in what you have said, and unrelated facts +without end. Many of those facts I endorse heartily, but it seems to me +you fail to embody them in a coherent argument. + +I have stated, in so many words, that there are two functions common to +all life--nutrition and reproduction. Of this you have missed the +significance in your rejection of my definition of love, so I must +explain further. Unless these two functions be carried on, life must +perish from the planet. Therefore they are the most essential concerns +of life. The individual must preserve its own life and the life of its +kind. It is more prone to preserve its own life than the life of its +kind, less prone to sacrifice itself for its species. So natural +selection has developed a passion of madness which forces the individual +to make the sacrifice. In all forms of life below man the struggle for +existence is keen and merciless. The least weakness in an individual is +the signal for its destruction. Therefore it is counter to the welfare +of the individual to do aught that will tend to weaken it. On the other +hand, the law is that the individual must procreate. But procreation +means a weakening and a temporary state of helplessness. Problem: How +may the individual be brought to procreate? to do that which is inimical +to its welfare? Answer: It must be forced by something deeper than +reason, and that something is unreasoning passion. Did the individual +reason on the matter, it would certainly abstain. It is because the +passion is not rational that life has persisted to this day. Man, coming +up from the walks of lower life, brought with him this most necessary +passion. Developing imagination, he commingled the two; love was the +product. + +Now, because of our imagination, do not let us confuse the issue. The +great task demanded of man is reproduction. He is urged by passion to +perform this task. Passion, working through the imagination, produces +love. Passion is the impelling factor, imagination the disturbing +factor; and the disturbance of passion by imagination produces love. + +Stripped of all its superfluities, what function does love serve in the +scheme of life? That of reproduction. Nay, now, do not object, Dane; for +you state the same thing, though less clearly, in your own definition of +love. You say, "Love is the awakening of the personality to the beauty +and worth of some one being" and is a desire to merge the life with that +of the beloved being. In other words, your definition tells that the +passion for perpetuation is the cause of love, and perpetuation the end +to be accomplished. Thus nature tricks her creatures and the race lives +on. + +Then you say negatively, "Love is not a disorder of mind and body, not a +madness, since it arises in the eternally most valuable, since it is the +culmination of high processes, and since it makes for strength and +sanity of vision and happiness." I have shown the value of passion, and +the processes of which love is the culmination, and I have shown that +both are unreasoning and why they are unreasoning. Do you demonstrate +where I am wrong. + +Then again, you dare a formula: "In the beginning love arose in the +passion for perpetuation; to-day the passion for perpetuation arises in +love." It is clever, but is it true? Yes, as true as this formula I dare +to pattern after yours: In the beginning man ate because he was hungry; +to-day he is hungry because he eats. + +There are many things more I should like to answer, but I am writing +this 'twixt breakfast and lecture hour, and time presses and students +will not wait. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XIX + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +April 22, 19--. + +Nature tricks her creatures and the race lives on, and I, overcivilised, +decadent dreamer that I am, rejoice that the past binds us, am proud of +a history so old and so significant and of an heritage so marvellous. +Nature tricks her creatures and the race lives on, and I am prayerfully +grateful. The difference between us is that you are not. You are +suffering from what has been well called, the sadness of science. You +accept the thesis of a common origin only to regret it. You discover +that romance has a history, and lo! romance has vanished! You are a +Werther of science, sad to the heart with a melancholy all your own and +dropping inert tears on the shrine of your accumulated facts. + +In this you are with your generation. Just as every age has its +prevailing disease of the body so has it its characteristic spiritual +ailment. To-day we are in the throes of travail. In our arms is the +child of our ever-delving intellect, but another deliverance is about to +be and the suffering is great. After science comes the philosophy of +science. Our eyes are bathed in Revelation, but upon our ears the music +of the Word has not yet fallen. Until that time when the meaning of it +all shall flash out upon the world, the race will be hidebound in +callousness and in faint-hearted melancholy. As yet we do not know what +to do with all which we know, and we are afflicted with the pessimism of +inertia and the pessimism of dyspepsia. Intellectually, we have been +living too high the last hundred years or so. In this is the secret of +our difference. You insist upon cheapening life for yourself because it +has become evident to you that the phenomenon is common, and I, on the +other hand, shout its glory because it is universal. To myself I am +breathless with wonder, but to you and in my work I needs must shout it. + +Here let me be clear. I take it that you are under the sway of a +contemporary mood, that your position is an accidental phase of +to-day's materialism. Broadly, our quarrel is that of pessimism and +optimism, only your pessimism is unconscious, which makes it the more +dangerous to yourself. You are too sad to know that you are not happy or +to care. Does my diagnosis surprise you? Analyze the argument of your +last letter. You trace the growth of the emotion of love from protoplasm +to man. You follow the progress of the force which is stronger than +hunger and cold and swifter and more final than death, from its +potential state in the unicellular stage where life goes on by division, +up through the multifarious forms of instinctive animal mating, till you +reach the love of the sexes in the human world. And the exploring leads +you to the belief that nothing has been reserved for the human worth his +cherishing, to the conviction that the plan of life is simple and +unvaried and therefore unacceptable. + +You raise the wail of Ecclesiastes, "All is vanity and a striving after +wind, and there is no profit under the sun." The Preacher and Omar and +Swinburne are pathetically human, and we who are also human respond to +their finality, to their quizzical indifference and their stinging +resentment. We also say, "Vanity of vanities," and bow our heads +murmuring "Ilicet," and stretch out our hands to "turn down an empty +glass," but all this in twilight moods when a dimness as of dying rests +upon the soul. There are a few with whom it is always morning, and +others who remember something of the radiance of the young day even in +the heart of midnight. These disprove the postulates of sameness and +satiety, these are not smitten by the seen fact as are you of the +microscopic retina, these "see life steadily and see it whole." + +We need not fear the label of an idea. When I say that your position is +that of the pessimist, it is not more of an accusation than if I said it +was that of the optimist. The thing to concern oneself with is the +question, "which of these makes the nearer approach to the truth?" You +have been asking me, "What is love worth?" And you have answered your +question often enough and to your satisfaction, "In itself it is worth +nothing, being but the catspaw to scheming forces." With your denial of +any intrinsic beauty in the emotion, with your acceptance of it as an +unfortunate incident in human affairs, comes a vague hope that the race +will outgrow this force. Here is your rift in the cloud. You picture a +scientific Utopia where there are no lovers and no back-harkings to the +primitive passion, and you appoint yourself pioneer to the promised land +of the children of biology. + +Ah! I speak as if I were vexed instead of simply being sure I am in the +right. I wish to help you to see that there is another reading to your +facts. If love is essentially the same from protoplasm to man, it does +not for this reason become worthless. By virtue of being universal it is +enhanced and most divinely humanly binding. You tell me that love is +involuntary, compelled by external forces as old as time and as binding +as instinct, and I say that because of this, life is finally for love. +What! The cavemen, and the birds, too, and the fish and the plants, +forsooth! What! The inorganic, perhaps, as well as the organic, swayed +by this force which is wholly physical and yet wholly psychical! And +does it not fire you? You are not caught up and held by this giant fact? +You find that love is not sporadic, not individual, that it does not +begin with you or end with you, that it does not dissociate you, and you +do not warm to the world-organic kinship, you do not hear the overword +of the poets and philosophers of all times, you do not see the visions +that gladdened the star-forgotten nights of saints? + +The same surprise sweeps over the mind in reading Ecclesiastes. Is it a +sorry scheme of things that one generation goes and another comes and +the world abides forever? If the same generation peopled the earth for a +million years, the dignity of life would not be increased. It is not +necessary to have the assurance of eternal life as the dole for having +come to be, in order to live under the aspect of eternity. It is larger +to be short-lived, to be but a wave of the sea rolling for one sunful +day and starry night towards a great inclusiveness. It is a higher +majesty to be inalien and a part--a ringed ripple in the Vastness--than +to lie broad and smiling in meaningless endlessness. + +So it is a strange thing that men who are schooled by evolution to +relate themselves to all that exists, and to seek for new kinships, +should lament that there is no new thing under the sun. And whose eye +would be satisfied with seeing and whose ear with hearing? Who would +rather have the truth than the power to seek it? There is a way of +reading Ecclesiastes and Schopenhauer with a triumphant lilt in the +voice. After all, it is the modulation that carries the message of the +text. When you write the history of love, I find it fair reading. When +you tell me love is primal and engrossing, I hold it the more a sin to +crouch away from its fires. + +"Love is the assertion of the will to live as a definitely determined +individual." This is Schopenhauer's thesis and (unnecessarily enough) he +apologises for it, as if it belittled love to say that it affects man in +his _essentia aeterna_. The genius of the race takes the lover conscript +and makes him a soldier in life's battalions. + +"The genius of the race," a metaphysical term, but meaning what you do +when you speak of the function of love. Schopenhauer is a pessimist +consciously, you, unconsciously; and you have both missed the living +value of your facts. "Love is ruled by race welfare," says Schopenhauer. +"It (the race welfare) alone corresponds to the profoundness with which +it is felt, to the seriousness with which it appears, to the importance +which it attributes even to the trifling details of its sphere and +occasion." Love concerns itself with "The composition of the next +generation," therefore you find it common as the commonplace, therefore +Schopenhauer regards it as a force treacherous to happiness, since to +live is to be miserable. "These lovers are the traitors who seek to +perpetuate the whole want and drudgery which would otherwise speedily +reach an end; this they wish to frustrate as others like them have +frustrated it before." + +Because love frustrates the death of the race, it is the joy of my +senses and the goal of my striving. + +Says Schopenhauer: "Through love man shows that the species lies closer +to him than the individual, and he lives more immediately in the former +than in the latter. Why does the lover hang with complete abandon on the +eyes of his chosen one, and is ready to make every sacrifice for her? +_Because it is his immortal part that longs after her, while it is +merely his mortal part that desires everything else._" Because this is +so, love is the God of my faith. + +You see where our subject takes us! And all the while I care nothing for +the points of argument except where they prick you from your position. +One must scale the skies and swim the seas in order to reach you. Well, +have I approached within your hearing? + +I was sitting amongst the fennel in Barbara's garden when your letter +was brought, and I read it twice to make sure I understood. When the +sun lies warm on waving fennel and a city is before you, mysterious in a +veil of mist, it is easier to feel love than to think about it. For a +while, it was difficult to see the bearing of the data which you +marshalled so well in defence of your denial. You went far in order to +answer why you are content to marry a woman you do not love. Your +methods are not the methods of the practical mind. I am glad for that. +You idealise your attitude, you go far back in time, you enmesh yourself +in theories and generalisations, you ride your imagination proudly, in +order to reconcile yourself to something which suggests itself as more +ideal than that for which the unreasoning heart hungers. You are sad, +but you are not practical and you are not blase. + +Of Barbara, of myself, and of London doings, this is no time to write. +Tell Hester your friend thinks of her. + +Yours with great memories and greater hopes, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XX + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +May 18, 19--. + +I stand aloof and laugh at myself and you. Oh, believe me, I see it very +clearly myself in the heyday and cocksureness of youth, flinging at you, +with much energy and little skill, my immature generalisations from +science; and you with an elderly beneficence and tolerance, smiling +shrewdly and affectionately upon me, secure in the knowledge that sooner +or later I am sure to get through with it all and join you in your broad +and placid philosophy. It is the penalty age exacts from youth. Well, I +accept it. + +So I am suffering from the sadness of science. I had been prone to +ascribe my feelings to the passion of science. But it does not matter in +the least--only, somehow, I would rather you did not misunderstand me +so dreadfully. I do not raise the wail of Ecclesiastes. I am not sad, +but glad. I discover romance has a history, and in history I am quicker +to read the romance. I accept the thesis of a common origin, not to +regret it, but to make the best of it. That is the key to my life--to +make the best of it, but not drearily, with the passiveness of a slave, +but passionately and with desire. Invention is an artifice man employs +to overcome the roundabout. It is the short cut to satisfaction. It +makes man potent, so that he can do more things in a span. I am a worker +and doer. The common origin is not a despair to me; it has a value, and +it strengthens my arm in the work to be done. + +The play and interplay of force and matter we call "evolution." The more +man understands force and matter, and the play and interplay, the more +is he enabled to direct the trend of evolution, at least in human +affairs. Here is a great and weltering mass of individuals which we call +society. The problem is: How may it be directed so that the sum of its +happiness greatens? This is my work. I would invent, overcome the +roundabout, seek the short cut. And I consider all matter, all force, +all factors, so that I may invent wisely and justly. And considering +all factors, I consider romance, and I consider you. I weigh your value +in the scheme of things, and your necessity, and I find that you are +both valuable and necessary. + +But the history of progress is the history of the elimination of waste. +One boy, running twenty-five machines, turns out a thousand pairs of +socks a day. His granny toiled a thousand days to do the same. Waste has +been eliminated, the roundabout overcome. And so with romance. I strive +not to be blinded by its beauty, but to give it exact appraisal. +Oftentimes it is the roundabout, the wasteful, and must needs be +eliminated. Thus chivalry and its romance vanished before the chemist +and the engineer, before the man who mixed gunpowder and the man who dug +ditches. + +I melancholy? Sir, I have not the time--so may I model my answer after +the great Agassiz. I am not a Werther of science, but rather you are a +John Ruskin of these latter days. He wept at the profanation of the +world, at the steam-launches violating the sanctity of the Venetian +canals and the electric cars running beneath the shadow of the pyramids; +and you weep at the violation of like sanctities in the spiritual world. +A gondola is more beautiful, but the steam-launch takes one places, and +an electric car is more comfortable than the hump of a camel. It is too +bad, but waste romance, as waste energy, must be eliminated. + +Enough. I shall go on with the argument. I have drawn the line between +pre-nuptial love and post-nuptial love. The former, which is the real +sexual love, the love of which the poets sing and which "makes the world +go round," I have called romantic love. The latter, which in actuality +is sex comradeship, I call conjugal affection or friendship. To be more +definite, I shall call the one "love," the other "affection" or +"friendship." Now love is not affection or friendship, yet they are +ofttimes mistaken, one for the other, for it so happens that the +friendship, which is akin to conjugal affection, is in many instances +pre-nuptial in its development--a token, I take it, of the higher +evolution of the human, an audaciousness which dares to shake off the +blind passion and evade nature's trick as man evaded when he harnessed +steam and rested his feet. It is of common occurrence that a man and +woman, through long and tried friendship, reach a fine appreciation of +each other and marry; and the run of such marriages is the happiest. +Neither blinded nor frenzied by the unreasoned passion of love, they +have weighed each other,--faults, virtues, and all,--and found a +compatibility strong enough to withstand the strain of years and +misfortune, and wise enough to compromise the individual clashes which +must inevitably arise when soul shares never ending bed and board with +soul. They have achieved before marriage what the love-impelled man and +woman must achieve after marriage if they would continue to live +together; that is, they have sought and found compatibility before +binding themselves, instead of binding themselves first and then seeking +if there be compatibility or not. + +Let me apparently digress for the moment and bring all clear and +straight. The emotions have no basis in reason. We smile or are sad at +the manifestation of jealousy in another. We smile or are sad because of +the unreasonableness of it. Likewise we smile at the antics of the +lover. The absurdities he is guilty of, the capers he cuts, excite our +philosophic risibility. We say he is mad as a March hare. (Have you ever +wondered, Dane, why a March hare is deemed mad? The saying is a pregnant +one.) However, love, as you have tacitly agreed, is unreasonable. In +fact, in all the walks of animal life no rational sanction can be found +for the love-acts of the individual. Each love act is a hazarding of the +individual's life; this we know, and it is only impelled to perform such +acts because of the madness of the trick, which, though it strikes at +the particular life, makes for the general life. + +So I think there is no discussion over the fact that this emotion of +love has no basis in reason. As the old French proverb runs, "The first +sigh of love is the last of wisdom." On the other hand, the individual +not yet afflicted by love, or recovered from it, conducts his life in a +rational manner. Every act he performs has a basis in reason--so long as +it is not some other of the emotional acts. The stag, locking horns with +a rival over the possession of a doe, is highly irrational; but the same +stag, hiding its trail from the hounds by taking to water, is performing +a highly rational act. And so with the human. We model our lives on a +basis of reason--of the best reason we possess. We do not put the +scullery in the drawing-room, nor do we repair our bicycles in the +bedchamber. We strive not to exceed our income, and we deliberate long +before investing our savings. We demand good recommendations from our +cook, and take letters of introduction with us when we go abroad. We +overlook the petulant manner of our friend who rowed in the losing +barges at the race, and we forgive on the moment the sharp answer of the +man who has sat three nights by a sick-bed. And we do all this because +our acts have a basis in reason. + +Comes the lover, tricked by nature, blind of passion, impelled madly +toward the loved one. He is as blind to her salient imperfections as he +is to her petty vices. He does not interrogate her disposition and +temperament, or speculate as to how they will cooerdinate with his for +two score years and odd. He questions nothing, desires nothing, save to +possess her. And this is the paradox: _By nature he is driven to +contract a temporary tie, which, by social observance and demand, must +endure for a lifetime._ Too much stress cannot be laid upon this, Dane, +for herein lies the secret of the whole difficulty. + +But we go on with our lover. In the throes of desire--for desire is +pain, whether it be heart hunger or belly hunger--he seeks to possess +the loved one. The desire is a pain which seeks easement through +possession. Love cannot in its very nature be peaceful or content. It is +a restlessness, an unsatisfaction. I can grant a lasting love just as I +can grant a lasting satisfaction; but the lasting love cannot be +coupled with possession, for love is pain and desire, and possession is +easement and fulfilment. Pursuit and possession are accompanied by +states of consciousness so wide apart that they can never be united. +What is true of pursuit cannot be true of possession, no more than the +child, grasping the bright ball, can deem it the most wonderful thing in +the world--an appraisement which it certainly made when the ball was +beyond reach. + +Let us suppose the loved one is as madly impelled toward the lover. In a +few days, in an hour, nay, in an instant--for there is such a thing as +love at first sight--this man and woman, two unrelated individuals, who +may never have seen each other before, conceive a passion, greater, +intenser, than all other affections, friendships, and social relations. +So great, so intense is it, that the world could crumble to star-dust so +long as their souls rushed together. If necessary, they would break all +ties, forsake all friends, abandon all blood kin, run away from all +moral responsibilities. There can be no discussion, Dane. We see it +every day, for love is the most perfectly selfish thing in the universe. + +But this is easily reconcilable with the scheme of things. The true +lover is the child of nature. Natural selection has determined that +exogamy produces fitter progeny than endogamy. Cross fertilisation has +made stronger individuals and types, and likewise it has maintained +them. On the other hand, were family affection stronger than love, there +would be much intermarriage of blood relations and a consequent +weakening of the breed. And in such cases it would be stamped out by the +stronger-breeding exogamists. Here and there, even of old time, the wise +men recognised it; and we so recognise it to-day, as witness our bars +against consanguineous marriage. + +But be not misled into the belief that love is finer and higher than +affection and friendship, that the yielding to its blandishments is +higher wisdom on the part of our lovers. Not so; they are puppets and +know and think nothing about it. They come of those who yielded likewise +in the past. They obey forces beyond them, greater than they, their +kind, and all life, great as the great forces of the physical universe. +Our lovers are children of nature, natural and uninventive. Duty and +moral responsibility are less to them than passion. They will obey and +procreate, though the heavens roll up as a scroll and all things come to +judgment. And they are right if this is what we understand to be "the +bloom, the charm, the smile of life." + +Yet man is man because he chanced to develop intelligence instead of +instinct; otherwise he would to this day have remained among the +anthropoid apes. He has turned away from nature, become unnatural, as it +were, disliked the earth upon which he found himself, and changed the +face of it somewhat to his liking. His trend has been, and still is, to +perform more and more acts with a rational sanction. He has developed a +moral nature, made laws, and by the sheer force of his will and reason +curbed his lyings and his lusts. + +However, our lovers are natural and uninventive. They get married. +Pursuit, with all its Tantalus delights, its sighings and its songs, is +gone, never to return. And in its place is possession, which is +satisfaction, familiarity, knowledge. It heralds the return of +rationality, the return to duty of the weighing and measuring qualities +of the mind. Our lovers discover each other to be mere man and woman +after all. That ethereal substance which the man took for the body of +the loved one becomes flesh and blood, prone to the common weaknesses +and ills of flesh and blood. He, on the other hand, betrays little +petulancies of disposition, little faults and predispositions of which +she never dreamed in the pre-nuptial days, and which she now finds +eminently distasteful. But at first these things are not openly +unpleasant. There are no scenes. One or the other gives in on the +instant, without self-betrayal, and one or the other retires to have a +secret cry or to ruminate about it over a cigar--the first faint hints, +I may slyly suggest, of the return of rationality. _They are beginning +to think._ + +Ah, these are little things, you say. Precisely; wherefore I lay +emphasis upon them. The sum of the innumerable little things becomes a +mighty thing to test the human soul. Moreover, many a home has been +broken because of disagreement as to the uses or abuses of couch +cushions, and more than one divorce induced by the lingering of tobacco +odours in the curtains. + +If the marriage of our lovers conform to the majority of marriages, the +first year of their wedded life will determine whether they are able to +share bed and board through the lengthening years. For this first +year--often the first months of it--marks the transition from love to +conjugal affection, or witnesses a rupture which nothing less than +omnipotence can ever mend. In the first year a serious readjustment must +take place. Unreason, as a basis for the relation, must give way to +reason; blind, ignorant, selfish little love must flutter away, so that +friendship, clear-eyed and wise, may step in. There will come moments +when wills clash and desires do not chime; these must be moments of +sober thought and compromise, when one or the other sacrifices self on +the altar of their nascent friendship. Upon this ability to compromise +depends their married happiness. Returning to the rationality which they +forsook during mating-time, they cannot live a joint rational existence +without compromising. If they be compatible, they will gradually grow to +fit, each with the other, into the common life; compromise, on certain +definite points, will become automatic; and for the rest they will +exhibit a tacit and reasoned recognition of the imperfections and +frailties of life. + +All this reason will dictate. If they be incapable of rising to +compromise, sacrifice, and unselfishness, reason will dictate +separation. In such cases, when they will have become rational once +more, they will reason the impossibility of a continued relation and +give it up. In which case the true-love disciple may contend that there +was no real love in the beginning. But he is wrong. It was just as real +as that of any marriage, only it failed in the post-nuptial quest after +compatibility. In all marriages love--passionate, romantic love--must +disappear, to be replaced by conjugal affection or by nothing. The +former are the happy marriages, the latter the mistaken ones. + +As I close, the saying of La Bruyere comes to me, "The love which arises +suddenly takes longest to cure." This generalisation upon all the +love-affairs within the scope of a single lifetime cannot but be true, +and it is quite in line with the general argument. I have shown that the +love (so called) which grows slowly is akin to friendship, that it is +friendship, in fact, conjugal friendship. On the other hand, the more +sudden a love the more intense it must be; also the less rationality can +it have. And because of its intensity and unreasonableness, the longer +period must elapse ere its frenzy dies out and cool, calm thought comes +in. + +HERBERT. + +P.S.--My book is out--"The Economic Man." I send it to you. I cannot +imagine you will care for the thing. + + + + +XXI + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +May 26, 19--. + +"Pretty nineteen-year-old Louisa Naveret, because her slower-minded +fiance, Charles J. Johnson, could not understand a joke, is dying with a +bullet in her brain, and he, her murderer, lies dead at the morgue. They +were to have been married to-day." + +From to-day's paper I quote the above introduction to a column +murder-sensation in simple life. Simple it was, and elemental--the man +loving steadily and doggedly and madly, after the manner of the male +before possession; the woman fluttering, and teasing, and tantalising, +after the manner of the female courting possession. They had been +engaged for some time. The woman loved the man and fully intended to +marry him. The engagement neared its close, and on the day before that +of the wedding, the man, slow minded, loving intensely, procured the +marriage licence. The woman read the document, and with the last coy +flutter before surrender told him that she would not marry him. + +"I meant it as a jest," she said as she lay on a cot at the receiving +hospital; but four bullets were in her body, and Charles J. Johnson, +clumsy and natural lover, lay dead in an adjoining room with the fifth +bullet in his brain. + +In this pitiful little tragedy appear two of the most salient +characteristics of love; namely, madness and selfishness. Let us analyze +Charles J. Johnson's condition. He was a lineman for a telegraph +company, healthy and strong, used to open-air life and hard work. He had +steady employment and good wages. Can't you see the man, content with a +good digestion, unailing body, and mild pleasures, and enjoying life +with bovine placidity? But pretty Louisa Naveret entered his life. The +"abysmal fecundity" was stirred and life clamoured to be created. +Peacefulness and content vanished. All the forces of his existence +impelled him to seize upon and possess "nineteen-year-old" Louisa +Naveret. He was afflicted with a disorder of mind and body, a madness +so great, a delusion so powerful, a pain and unrest so pressing, that +the possession of that particular "nineteen-year-old" woman became the +dearest thing in the world, dearer than life itself and more potent than +the "will to live." + +I do well to call love a madness. Any departure from rationality is +madness, and for a man of Charles J. Johnson's calibre, suicide is an +extremely irrational act. But he also killed Louisa Naveret, wherein he +was as selfish as he was mad. Convinced that he was not to possess her, +he was determined that no other man should possess her. + +While on this matter of love considered as a disorder of mind and body, +I recall a recent magazine article of Mr. Finck's, in which he analyzes +Sappho's conception of love. "In that famous poem of Sappho," he says, +"that has been so often declared a compendium of all the emotions that +make up love, I have not been able to find anything but a comic +catalogue of such feelings as might overwhelm a woman if she met a bear +in the woods--'deadly pallor,' 'a cold sweat,' 'a fluttering heart,' +'tongue paralyzed,' 'trembling all over,' 'a fainting fit.'" + +Dante suffered similarly from the disorder of love, if you will +recollect. In this connection may be cited the following passage from +Diderot's "Paradox of Acting ":-- + +"Take two lovers, both of whom have their declarations to make. Who will +come out of it best? Not I, I promise you. I remember that I approached +the beloved object with fear and trembling; my heart beat, my ideas grew +confused, my voice failed me, I mangled all I said; I cried _yes_ for +_no_; I made a thousand blunders; I was illimitably inept; I was absurd +from top to toe, and the more I saw it the more absurd I became. +Meanwhile, under my very eyes, a gay rival, light hearted and agreeable, +master of himself, pleased with himself, losing no opportunity for the +finest flattery, made himself entertaining and agreeable, enjoyed +himself; he implored the touch of a hand which was at once given him, he +sometimes caught it without asking leave, he kissed it once and again. +I, the while, alone in a corner, avoided a sight which irritated me; +stifling my sighs, cracking my fingers with grasping my wrists, plunged +in melancholy, covered with a cold sweat, I could neither show nor +conceal my vexation." + +Oh, the clamour of life to be born is a masterful thing, and so far as +the individual is concerned, a most irrational thing; and so far as the +world of beasts and emotional men and women is concerned, it is a most +necessary thing. That life may live and continue to live, a driving +force is needed that is greater than the puny will of life. And in the +disorder produced by the passion for perpetuation, whether or not +assisted by imagination, is found this driving force. As Ernest Haeckel, +that brave old hero of Jena, explains:-- + +"The irresistible passion that draws Edward to the sympathetic Otillia, +or Paris to Helen, and leaps all bounds of reason and morality, is the +same _powerful, unconscious_, attractive force which impels the living +spermatozoon to force an entrance into the ovum in the fertilisation of +the egg of the animal or plant--the same impetuous movement which unites +two atoms of hydrogen to one atom of oxygen for the formation of a +molecule of water." + +But with the advent of intellectual man, there is no longer need for +obeying blind and irresistible compulsion. Intellectual man, changing +the face of life with his inventions and artifices, performing telic +actions, adjusting himself and his concerns to remote ends and ultimate +compensations, will grapple with the problem of perpetuation as he has +grappled with that of gravitation. As he controls and directs the great +natural forces so that, instead of menacing, they are made to labour for +his safety and comfort, so will he control and direct the operation of +the reproductive force so that life will not only be perpetuated but +developed and made higher and finer. This is not more impossible than is +the steam-engine impossible or democracy impossible. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XXII + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +June 12, 19--. + +Please remember that these letters are written to you alone. I do not +think that there is less love in the world than ever before. I make you +representative of a class, which, in turn, is characteristic of the +modern scientific type, but I do not make you representative of all that +to-day's world has lived up to and lived down. So I do not join my +Ruskin in lamenting the past. To be sure, you are contemporary and you +are parvenu. What then? You are few, nevertheless, and like the parvenu +rich, you must pass into something quite unlike yourself. It is the law +of growth. I ask you to account for yourself as an individual. The thing +is fiercely personal. But you choose the roundabout method of answering +me. For a view of what in your eyes is pertinent to this matter, you +stretch a canvas wide as the world. You are resolved that your course +should dramatise the whole play and interplay of force and matter. It is +ideally ambitious of you and I am glad. It puts you in the ranks with +the students of the ideal tendencies. It shows that you are not always +impatient for short cuts, and that you begin to be of those who harness +"horses of the sun to plough in earth's rough furrows." + +Your letter sounds conclusive. Romance is waste, love is unreasoning; +compatibility alone is worth while. You think this, and are ready to +encrust yourself with what is conventional and practical. Ah, no, it is +not even decently conventional! The formal world pretends, at least, to +love. It also reaches for the fires that thrill and thaw, whereas you +stand before a cold hearth and think the chill well and welcome, since +you understand its cause. You have grasped part of a truth, and though +my mind complete your arc into the perfection of a circle, I cannot +place it about your head as a halo. My confusion comes from thinking of +you more than of my creed. A pregnant factor in our debate is the +debater. The Hafiz of the Hafiz maxims, the philosopher of your +philosophy happens to interest me. You have been building yourself up +before my eyes, and for watching I cannot speak. + +With what does romance interfere? If it implied a waste of vital force, +a giving up, a postponement of life, it were a roundabout path to +development and happiness. But we live most when we are most under its +sway, and it is for such self-promised sparks that we live at all. +Romance quickens and controls as does nothing else, and because of this +it is not only a means but an end in itself. It is stirred-up life. We +live most when we love most. The love of romance and the romance of love +is the only coin for which the heart-hurt sell their death. A trick? +Perhaps. The love of life is a trick to save the races from self-murder. +Nature makes legitimate her tricks. Let the Genius of the Race lure us +with passion and dreaming! We are not the losers by it. And if the dream +fades and we grow gray despite what has been lived, then it is something +to remember that soul and sense have leapt and pulsed. I am thankful +that romance has an aftermath, and that old men and women can prattle +about days that were robust. I am thankful that the soldiers of life are +at the end given a furlough in which to fondle the arms they wielded +with clumsiness and with spirit, and in which to pass themselves in +review before their pension expires and their days are over. Youth has +the romance of loving, and age the romance of remembering. + +Lovers are not always compatible, you say, and, before all, you insist +upon good partnership. How will you insure yourself against unfitness? +Surely not by a registering and weighing of qualities, not by bargaining +and speculating. We do not choose our wives as we do our saddle-horses; +we do not plan our marriages as we plan our houses. It may sound +paradoxical, but there is a higher compatibility than that of quality +and degree. It is not whether people can live together, but whether they +should live together. "It is an awkward thing to play with souls,"--you +override the fastidiousness of the soul in marrying your companion. +Unless you are an automaton, you cannot rest happy in the fact that you +and she do not disagree. For comfort's sake you would have a negative +dimension to your cosmos, forgetting that your longings and your needs +and, it may be, your dreams, are positive. If sex-comradeship and +affection were not as accidental and as dependent on mood as love +itself, your position would have much in its favour. You could then +arrange for compatibility in marriage. + +You speak of the methods in economics that conserve energy and capital, +such as the employ of the machine-guiding boy, which saves the labour +power of a hundred men, and you hold that in the realm of personal life +like methods may obtain with value and dignity. I can see how natural it +has become for you to take this viewpoint. One can be a zealot in +matters frigid. The law behind the fact has you in its coil, and your +passion goes to ice. You burn for that cold thing, compatibility. You, +too, are in the market-place bound to a stake--it is not for such as you +to escape the fire. If you look to compatibility and want it intensely, +as others want love, then you suffer, and from your standpoint (not +mine) you raise a vain cry; for compatibility, like everything else, is +illusory. The illusions of love are a strength, and the ways of love are +divine; through them we come to that feeling of completion which is +compatibility and which is as ineffable as the white-lipped promise of +waves heard by those who have also listened to weeping. Love is not +responsible for institutionalism. There would be no fewer marriages if +people married for convenience, nor would the law make such unions less +binding. It is not the fault of love that the great social paradox +exists. In the precipitancy of feeling, you say, the lover fastens upon +an unsuitable mate, and, with possession, love dies. Here I attack your +facts. If an awakening comes, it is not for either of these reasons. +Love is not essentially rational, but then it is love. There is some +consistency in affairs natural, and the esoteric draught that enchanted +at one time cannot poison at another. + +Love is not essentially rational, and it will not of a sudden become so +at the possession of the loved one. People who marry from convenience +may wake to find their union most inconvenient. "There are more things +in heaven and earth," and there are more intricacies of feeling and more +sloughs and depths, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. A definite +understanding as to sofa cushions and tobacco smoke does not always +insure unwearied forbearance and devotion. With love, on the other hand, +disappointment is very much less likely to spring up, for the reason +that it is free from calculation. Love is a sympathy. It takes hold, it +grows upon the soul and the senses, and it does not flee before argument +and explanation. + +Still less can I admit that possession kills love. Do we give up living +because the world is based on Will and Idea? Yet to will is to want, +Schopenhauer tells us, and to want is to be in pain. Do we know +ourselves in pain every minute of our lives? Hardly. This applies. You +hold that, with the fulfilled hope and the appeased hunger, indifference +takes the place of desire. It reads so in logic, but not in life. If +what is in our possession be good, we prize it more highly for its being +within reach. The good in our keeping does not sate; it pains with +divine hungers. We do not tire of what we have; we rise to it. We do not +know the sweetness of being steadfast until we are so impelled by the +love with which we have grown great. The lover may well say: "She was +not my ideal; before I knew her I was not great enough to think her. She +taught me." + +Besides, an acquaintance with your wife's faults does not kill your +love. You cannot turn from your brother or your friend if he commit even +a lurid act; you cannot turn from a stranger; much less can you turn +from your beloved. Herbert, when men set themselves to judge, they are +invariably ridiculous and an offence to high heaven. Believe me, it is +artificial. The true judge cares not for the fact of the deed, but for +its motive. And the lover knows the motive. He has the key to the life. +He knows his beloved, not as she is, but "as she was born to be." His +lips press and his arms enfold not her so much as the ideal of her, and +unless she unmake herself, he cannot unlove her. "To judge a man by the +fruit of his actions," says Professor Edward Howard Griggs, "it is +necessary to know all of the fruit, which is impossible. You can only +know what he eternally must be if you catch the aspect of his soul and +grow to understand his aspirations and his loves." To idealise, +therefore, is not to be blind, but to be far-seeing. + +There is another way of looking on this question of the paradox. Granted +that it is caused by romantic love, romantic love is still exclusively +the best thing in the world. You cannot pay too dearly for the good of +life. I know that the misery of being in the intimacy of wedlock with +one who is not loved is unutterable. It is to become degraded and +unrecognisable, it is to wear the brand of liar before God! The man +whose outer life belies the inner is an enforced suicide. There is +something of majesty on "laying one's self down with a will," and there +is something of strength in cloistering the body for the spirit's +health's sake, but to die when all within is warm and clamorous for life +is terrible. Such a death they die who are held together, not by the +bonds of the spirit, but by those of convention. They who would go from +each other and dare not, die the ignominious death of fear. The suicide +is contemptible, besides being pitiable, when he is hounded out of life +despite himself, when he is a little embezzler of a clerk who rushes +from the music hall to the Thames and thinks of the unfinished glass +with his last breath. No, I do not underestimate the tragedy of the +paradox. Yet I say that if love were accountable for it (which it is +not), it would still be folly to forswear love. Do you ask why? Because +its dangers are the dangers common to all life, and we are so made that +we cannot be frightened away from our portion of experience. We are as +loth to give up our nights as our days. The winters as the summers, all +the seasons and all the climes, the fears as the hopes, all the travail +of deepest, fullest living, we claim as our own forever. We guard +jealously our heritage of feeling. Would you for all the world sleep +rather than wake, forget rather than remember? Then cease the requiem +of your speech about the dangers of disillusion! + +Madness and selfishness were the cause of Louisa Naveret's death, and +the man who was mad and selfish was her lover. The poor man had not the +strength to renounce when he thought he found himself face to face with +the necessity of renouncing. But all lovers are not too weak to cope +with love. John Ruskin, if you remember, loved his wife, and he shot +neither himself, nor her, nor Millais. Charles J. Johnson is not a +Ruskin, and Ruskin's love was not a madness. + +And, Herbert, to me there is nothing comic in a stress of feeling. Let +the lover pale and flutter and faint; in the presence of his deity it is +an acceptable form of worship. The very self-possessed lover is more +preposterous! + +Your book has not yet reached me. To-morrow I shall write again, +providing I remember how to write a natural letter. + +Yours, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXIII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON. +June 20, 19--. + +There are impersonal hours when the things of the day drop below +consciousness and the spirit grows devotional and wends a pilgrimage to +larger spheres, there to sit apart. Such a respite was mine to-day. +There had been a call to rouse and put forth work, and I wrought with +all the puniness of my might (woe is me!), and earned my post at the +window that looks out upon the large things. The best of nights and days +of toil is that there comes a twilight in which fatigued eyes see clear. +I said it did not matter how you do about your marriage. Time may right +you in a way I cannot know. I said it did not matter if you are not +righted in this, there being so much that never rights itself. Both hope +and despair were followed by a calm of neutrality. The inquiry waited +no solution. The stress no longer touched me, and my twilight became +luminous. I saw things as from a height and forms dropped out of my +range, when Barbara came tugging at me, and my pale while of abstraction +was at an end. + +She wanted to know what troubled me. She made her way to me, hurried but +resolved, and stated her demand. "You catechised me yesterday; to-night +you shall answer." + +She had come to defend herself. My talk having of late taken on the +sameness of that of the man of one idea, Barbara was aroused. I was +gauging her because she distressed me, was her thought. (I had been +trying to find whether it is possible to live differently from her and +live happily and well.) "You think I am not close enough to Earl, +because I mourn for my little one, perhaps. You think me not +sufficiently happy to be wifely." Could I suppose aught else from such +an utterance but that there was an estrangement and hidden pain? How, +unless there were sorrow, could the woman see herself sorrowed for? My +mind leapt to possibilities. Little Barbara on the rack was more than I +could bear. I groped for her hands. It was a fault in her to be so much +on her guard. She had no sorrow to confess, and spoke--only to ward off +what was not directed toward her. + +"The tenour of your talk led me on to believe--" she stammered with hot +cheeks. It is a standing offence of hers to imagine herself accused, and +she admits it is a weakness born of lack of poise. "But I took all for +granted, I thought you fortunate beyond any other woman," I protested. +At this the radiance broke forth. I forgave the chill that her first +words on entering the room struck to my heart, and she forgot what she +had imagined. + +There is nothing more important than the play and interplay of feeling. +Were Barbara "unwifely," I could not blame her, but neither could I have +at hand my proof of dear miracles. My proof remained to me, for there +she stood, her face lifted toward mine, her mouth tremulous, her grey +eyes swimming. The mate woman was stirred. Barbara is twenty-six and has +been married seven years, and she still vibrates with the old wonder to +find herself loving and beloved. + +I meant to tell you of what we spoke later, in the hope that I could +show you a little better what I hold dear and why. But my hand grows +nerveless. The twilight of abstraction has set in. A little while ago +this hand was quick to rest on Barbara's as I called her my heroine. She +is that, not alone because she is pure and good and strong, but because +she can accept the test of her instincts. It takes both faith and +strength to obey oneself. "When shows break up, what but one's Self +remains?" asks Whitman. The shows are but shows for Barbara. Will I look +into your eyes on the morrow and find them, like hers, clear? Grant that +it be! + +DANE. + + + + +XXIV + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +July 1, 19--. + +Somewhere in Ward you may read, "It must constantly be borne in mind +that all progress consists in the arbitrary alteration, by human efforts +and devices, of the normal course of nature, so that civilisation is +wholly an artificial product." Why, Dane, this is large enough to base a +sociology upon. And I must ask you first, is it true? Second, do you +understand, do you appreciate, the tremendous significance of it? And +third, how can you bring your philosophy of love in accord with it? + +Romantic love is certainly not natural. It is an artifice, blunderingly +and unwittingly introduced by man into the natural order. Is this +audacious? Let us see. In a state of nature the love which obtains is +merely the passion for perpetuation devoid of all imagination. The male +possesses the prehensile organs and the superior strength. Beyond the +ardour of pursuit the female has no charms for him. But he is driven +irresistibly to pursuit. And by virtue of his prehensile organs and +superior strength he ravishes the females of his species and goes his +way. But life creeps slowly upward, increasing in complexity and +necessarily in intelligence. When some forgotten inventor of the older +world smote his rival or enemy with a branch of wood and found that it +was good and thereafter made a practice of smiting rivals and enemies +with branches of wood, then, and on that day, artificiality may be said +to have begun. Then, and on that day, was begun a revolution destined to +change the history of life. Then, and on that day, was laid the +cornerstone of that most tremendous of artifices, CIVILISATION! + +Trace it up. Our ape-like and arboreal ancestors entered upon the first +of many short cuts. To crack a marrow-bone with a rock was the act which +fathered the tool, and between the cracking of a marrow-bone and the +riding down town in an automobile lies only a difference of degree. The +one is crudely artificial, the other consummately artificial. That is +all. There have been improvements. The first inventors grasped that +truthful paradox, "the longest way round is the shortest way home," and +forsook the direct pursuit of happiness for the indirect pursuit of +happiness. If the happiness of a savage depended upon his crossing an +extensive body of water, he did not directly proceed to swim it, but +turned his back upon it, selected a tree from the forest, shaped it with +his rude tools and hollowed it out with fire, then launched it in the +water and paddled toward where his happiness lay. + +Now concerning love. In the state of nature it is a brutal passion, +nothing more. There is no romance attached. But life creeps upward, and +the gregarious human forms social groups the like of which never existed +before. Consider the family group, for instance. Such a group becomes in +itself an entity. By means of the group man is better enabled to pursue +happiness. But to maintain the group it must be regulated; so man +formulates rules, codes, dim ethical laws for the conduct of the group +members. Sexual ties are made less promiscuous and more orderly. A +greater privacy is observed. And out of order and privacy spring respect +and sacredness. + +But life creeps upward, and the family group itself becomes but a unit +of greater and greater groups. And rules and codes change in accordance, +until the marriage tie becomes possessed of a history and takes to +itself traditions. This history and these traditions form a great fund, +to which changing conditions and growing imagination constantly add. And +the traditions, more especially, bear heavily upon the individual, +overmastering his natural expression of the love instinct and forcing +him to an artificial expression of that love instinct. He loves, not as +his savage forebears loved, but as his group loves. And the love method +of his group is determined by its love traditions. Does the individual +compare his beloved's eyes to the stars--it is a trick of old time which +has come down to him. Does he serenade under her window or compose an +ode to her beauty or virtue--his father did it before him. In his +lover's voice throb the voices of myriads of lovers all dead and dust. +The singers of a thousand songs are the ghostly chorus to the song of +love he sings. His ideas, his very feelings are not his, but the ideas +and feelings of countless lovers who lived and loved and whose lives and +loves are remembered. Their mistaken facts and foolish precepts are +his, and likewise their imaginative absurdities and sentimental +philanderings. Without an erotic literature, a history of great loves +and lovers, a garland of love songs and ballads, a sheaf of spoken love +tales and adventures--without all this, which is the property of his +group, he could not possibly love in the way he does. + +To illustrate: Isolate a boy babe and a girl babe of cultured breed upon +a desert isle. Let them feed and grow strong on shell-fish and fruit; +but let them see none other of their species; hear no speech of mouth, +nor acquire knowledge in any way of their kind and the things their kind +has done. Well, and what then? They will grow to man and woman and mate +as the beasts mate, without romance and without imagination. Does the +woman oppose her will to that of the man--he will beat her. Does he +become over-violent in the manifestation of his regard, she will flee +away, if she can, to secret hiding-places. He will not compare her eyes +to the stars; nor will she dream that he is Apollo; nor will the pair +moon in the twilight over the love of Hero and Leander. And the many +monogamic generations out of which he has descended would fail to +prevent polygamy did another woman chance to strand on that particular +isle. + +It is the common practice of the man of the London slum to kick his wife +to death when she has offended him. And the man of the London slum is a +very natural beast who expresses himself in a very natural manner. He +has never heard of Hero and Leander, and the comparison of the missus' +eyes to the stars would to him be arrant bosh. The gentle, tender, +considerate male is an artificial product. And so is the romantic lover, +who is fashioned by the love traditions which come down to him and by +the erotic literature to which he has access. + +And now to the point. Romantic love being an artificial product, you +cannot base its retention upon the claim that it is natural. Your only +claim can be that it is the best possible artifice for the perpetuation +of life, or that it is the only perfect, all-sufficient, and +all-satisfying artifice that man can devise. On the one hand, for the +perpetuation of life, man demonstrates the inefficiency of romantic love +by his achievements in the domestic selection of animals. And on the +other hand, the very irrationality of romantic love will tend to its +gradual elimination as the human grows wiser and wiser. Also, because +it is such a crude artifice, it forces far too many to contract the +permanent marriage tie without possessing compatibility. During the time +romantic love runs its course in an individual, that individual is in a +diseased, abnormal, irrational condition. Mental or spiritual health, +which is rationality, makes for progress, and the future demands greater +and greater mental or spiritual health, greater and greater rationality. +The brain must dominate and direct both the individual and society in +the time to come, not the belly and the heart. Granted that the function +romantic love has served has been necessary; that is no reason to +conclude that it must always be necessary, that it is eternally +necessary. There is such a thing as rudimentary organs which served +functions long since fallen in disuse and now unremembered. + +The world has changed, Dane. Sense delights are no longer the sole end +of existence. The brain is triumphing over the belly and the heart. The +intellectual joy of living is finer and higher than the mere sexual joy +of living. Darwin, at the conclusion of his "Origin of Species," +experienced a nobler and more exquisite pleasure than did ever Solomon +with his thousand concubines and wives. And while our sense delights +themselves have become refined, their very refinement has been due to +the increasing dominion over them of the intellect. Our canons of art +are not founded on the heart. No emotion elaborated the laws of +composition. We cannot experience a sense of delight in any art object +unless it satisfies our intellectual discrimination. "He is a _natural_ +singer," we say of the poet who works unscientifically; "but he is lame, +his numbers halt, and he has no knowledge of technique." + +The intellect, not the heart, made man, and is continuing to make +him--ah, slowly, Dane, for life creeps slowly upward. The "Advanced +Margin" is a favourite shibboleth of yours. And I take it that the +Advanced Margin is that portion of our race which is more dominated by +intellect than the race proper. And I, as a member of that group, +propose to order my affairs in a rational manner. My reason tells me +that the mere passion of begetting and the paltry romance of pursuit are +not the greatest and most exquisite delights of living. Intellectual +delight is my bribe for living, and though the bargain be a hard one, I +shall endeavour to exact the last shekel which is my due. + +Wherefore I marry Hester Stebbins. I am not impelled by the archaic sex +madness of the beast, nor by the obsolescent romance madness of +later-day man. I contract a tie which my reason tells me is based upon +health and sanity and compatibility. My intellect shall delight in that +tie. My life shall be free and broad and great, and I will not be the +slave to the sense delights which chained my ancient ancestry. I reject +the heritage. I break the entail. And who are you to say I am unwise? + +HERBERT WACE. + + + + +XXV + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +July 5, 19--. + +I had not intended to answer your letter critically, but, on re-reading, +find I am forced to speak if for no other reason than your epithet +"parvenu." The word has no reproach. It was ever thus that the old and +perishing recognised the vigorous and new. Parvenu, upstart--the term is +replete with significance and health. I doubt not Elijah himself was +dubbed parvenu when he fluttered with his golden harp into that +bright-browed throng, pride-swollen for that they had fought with +Michael when Lucifer was hurled into hell. + +"We do not choose our wives as we buy our saddle-horses; we do not plan +our marriages as we do the building of our houses,"--so you say, and it +is said excellently. No better indictment of romantic love do I ask. And +oh, how many good men and women have I heard bitterly arraign society in +that in the begetting of children it does not exercise the judgment +which it exercises in breeding its horses and its dogs! Marriage is +something more than the mere pulsating to romance, the thrilling to +vague-sweet strains, the singing idly in empty days, the sating of self +with pleasure--what of the children? + +"Never mind the children," says selfish little Love. "It has been our +wont never to give any thought to the children; they were incidental. +Always have we sought our own pleasure; let us continue to seek our own +pleasure." So Society continues to breed its horses and dogs with +judgment and forethought and to trust to luck for its children. + +But it won't do, Dane. Life, in a sense, is living and surviving. And +all that makes for living and surviving is good. He who follows the fact +cannot go astray, while he who has no reverence for the fact wanders +afar. Chivalry went mad over an idea. It idealised, if you please. It +made of love a fine art, and countless knights-errant devoted themselves +to the service of the little god. It sentimentalised over ladies' +gloves and forgot to make for living and surviving. And while chivalry +committed suicide over its ladies' gloves, the stout, wooden-headed +burghers, with an eye to the facts of life, dickered and bickered in +trade. And on the wreck and ruin of chivalry they flaunted their parvenu +insolence. God, how they triumphed! The children and cobblers and +shop-keepers buying with the yellow gold the "thousand years old names!" +buying with their yellow gold the proud flesh and blood of their lords +to breed with them and theirs! patronising the arts, speaking a kind +word to science, and patting God on the back! But they triumphed, that +is the point. They reverenced the fact and made for living and +surviving. + +Love is life, you say, and you seem to hold it the achievement of +existence. But I cannot say that life is love. Life? It is a toy, i' +faith, given to us, we know not why, to play with as we chance to +please. Some elect to dream, some to love, and some to fight. Some +choose immediate happiness, and some ultimate happiness. One stakes the +Here and Now upon the Hereafter; another takes the Here and Now and lets +the Hereafter go. But each grasps the toy and does with it according to +his fancy And while none may know the end of life, all know that life +is the end of love. Love, poor little, crude little, love, is the means +to life--and so we complete the circle. Life? It is a toy, i' faith, +given us, we know not why, to play with as we chance to please. + +But this we know, that love is the means to life, and it is subject to +inevitable improvement. By our intellect will we improve upon it. Life +abundant! finer life! higher life! fuller life! When we scientifically +breed our race-horses and our draught-horses, we make for life abundant. +And when we come scientifically to breed the human, we shall make for +life abundant, for humanity abundant. + +You say an acquaintance with the petty vices of one's wife does not kill +one's love. Oh yes, it does, and out of the ashes of that love rises +affection, comradeship, in kind somewhat similar to the affection and +comradeship which I have for my brother. I do not _love_ my brother, and +it is because I do not love him, and because I do have _affection_ and +_comradeship_ for him, that I do not turn away when he commits even a +lurid act. Love, you will remember, takes its rise in the emotions, and +is unstable and wanton and capricious. But affection takes its rise in +the intellect, is based upon judgment of the brain. Love is unyielding +tyranny; affection is compromise. Love never compromises, no more than +does the mad little mating sparrow compromise. + +My brother?--I played with him as a boy. His weaknesses and faults +incensed and hurt me, as mine incensed and hurt him. Many were our +quarrels. But he had also good qualities which pleased me, and at times +performed gracious acts and even sacrifices. And I likewise. And with my +brain I weighed his weaknesses and faults against his gracious acts and +sacrifices, and I achieved a judgment upon him. The ethics of the family +group also contributed to this judgment. The duties of kinship and the +responsibilities of blood ties were impressed upon me. We grew up at our +mother's knee, and she and our father became factors in determining what +my conduct should be. They, too, taught me that my brother was my +brother, and that in so far as he was my brother, my relations with him +must be different from my relations with those who were not my brothers. +And all went to crystallise an intellectual judgment, or a set of +criteria, as it were, to guide all sane, unemotional acts and even to +control and repress any emotional acts. These criteria, I say, became +crystallised, became automatic in my thought processes. + +And now, in manhood, my brother commits a lurid act, an act repulsive to +me, one capable of arousing emotions of anger, of bitterness, of hatred. +I experience an emotional impulse to pour my wrath upon him, to be +bitter toward him, to hate him. Then I experience an intellectual +impulse. Whatever way I may act, I must first settle with my +crystallised criteria. The personal bonds of my boyhood and manhood +press upon me--the gracious acts and sacrifices and compromises, our +father and our mother, the duties of kinship and the responsibilities of +blood. Thus two counter-impulses strive with me. I desire to do two +counter things. Heart and head the fight is waged, and heart or head I +shall act according to which is the stronger impulse. And if my +affection be stronger, I shall not turn away, but clasp my brother in my +arms. + +I fear I have not made myself clear. It is difficult to write hurriedly +of things psychological, when the extreme demand is made upon intellect +and vocabulary; but at least you may roughly catch my drift. What I have +striven to say is, that I forgive my brother, not because I _love_ him, +but because of the _affection_ I bear him; also that this affection is +the product of reason, is the sum of the judgments I have achieved. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XXVI + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +July 21, 19--. + +"Progress is an arbitrary alteration, by human efforts and devices, of +the normal course of nature, so that civilisation is wholly an +artificial product." You ask me to consider this refracted bit of +sociology and by its light to cast out my exalted notion of love. As if +you have proven that love is incompatible with civilisation! We make +over life with each successive step, but we do not give over living. In +developing new forms and in establishing more and more subtle social +relations we are only building upon what we find ready to hand. The +paradox of creature and creator does not exist. When your sociologist +speaks of arbitrary alterations, he has reference to polities and +governments and criteria, to the material and ideal forces which a +progressive society may wield for itself. He cannot include under +progress an alteration of those needs of existence which make up the +quality of existence. Speak of a community which equally distributes the +products of labour and I will grant that there has been an arbitrary +alteration, the normal course of nature being that the stronger, openly, +and even with the common assent, takes to the repletion of his desire +from the weaker. But speak of a condition so progressive that it +subverts the need, so that where in the one case hunger was equitably +gratified, in the other, hunger was done away with, and I will say that +you are giving an Arabian Nights' entertainment. + +Love is of a piece with life, like hunger, like joy, like death. Your +progress cannot leave it behind; your civilisation must become the +exponent of it. + +Your last letter is formal and elaborate, and--equivocal. In it you +remind me, menacingly, of the possibilities of progress, you posit that +love is at best artificial, and you apotheosise the brain. As an +emancipated rationality, you say you cut yourself loose from the +convention of feeling. Progress cannot affect the need and the power to +love. This I have already stated. "How is it under our control to love +or not to love?" Life is elaborate or it is simple (it depends upon the +point of view), and you may call love the paraphernalia of its +wedding-feast or you may call it more--the Blood and Body of all that +quickens, a Transubstantiation which all accept, reverently or +irreverently, as the case may be. + +I can more readily conceive the existence of a central committee elected +for the purpose of regulating the marriages of a community, than of a +community satisfied with such a committee. There is no logic in social +events. The world persists in not taking the next step, and what to the +social scout looked a dusty bypath may prove to be the highway of +progress for the hoboing millions. Side issues are constantly cropping +up to knock out the main issues of the stump orator; so let us be +humble. For this reason I refuse to discuss possibilities in infinity. +You and I cannot have become products of an environment which is not in +existence. It is safe to suppose that our needs are like those of the +race and that in us nothing is vestigial that is active in others. You +cannot have become too rational to love. The device has not yet been +formed. + +You think I should take your word for it? But why? Have you never found +yourself in the wrong, never disobeyed your best promptings never meant +to take the good and grasped the bad? Is it not possible that you are +not yet awake, or, God pity you, that you are hidebound in the dogmatism +of your bit of thinking. + +It is for the second point of your letter that I called you equivocal. +Earlier in our discussion, I remember, you laid stress on the fact that +love is an instinct common to all forms of life; now you go to great +lengths in order to show that it is artificial. + +How do you differentiate between the artificial and nature? Surely a +development is not artificial because it is recent! Surely man is as +integral to life as his progenitors! When we come to civilisation, we +are face to face with the largest and subtlest thing in life, and the +civilisation of human society is not artificial. It is the fulfilment of +the nature of man, the promise made good, the career established, the +influence sent out. A universe of mind-stuff and a civilising force +constantly causing change, for change is growth, constantly compelling +expression of that change--to conceive it is to conceive infinitude. And +the purpose? Development, always development. To that end the individual +perishes, to that end the race is conserved, to that end the peril and +the sacrifice, and the agony of triumph in the overcharged heart at its +last bound. And what is this refining of the type, this goal for which +we all make with such tragic directness, but the gaining in the power to +love? We begin with love to end with greater love, and that is progress. +To write the epic of civilisation is a task for some giant artist who +shall combine in himself Homer and Shakespeare, and the work will be a +love story. + +We do not throw away the grain and keep the chaff, nor do we transmit +the "absurdities" and "philanderings" alone. If in the lover's voice +throb the voices of myriads of lovers, it is because he is stirred even +as they. If a ballad wakes a response in him, it is because its motif +has been singing itself of its own accord in his heart, and its rhythm +was the dream nightingale to which he bade Her hearken. Behind the +tradition lies the fact. The expression may be ephemeral, the song flat, +the motto conventional, but the feeling which prompted it is true. Else +it could not have survived. And it has more than survived. It has grown +with growth. For centuries it lodged in the nature of man, lulled in +acquiescence, then, when the sense of recognition awoke, back in those +wondrous young days, it wakened to pale life, and now the feeling is +man's whole support, giving him courage to work and purpose to live. + +But the half brute of the London slums kicks his wife when she offends +him and knows nothing of love. Well for the honour of love that it is +so! The half brute of the London slums had not food enough when a child, +and malnutrition is deadly. Later, he stole and lied in order to eat, +and he was bullied and kicked for it out of human shape. The trick was +passed on to him. The unfortunate of the London slums will push us all +from heaven's gate, because we do not do battle with the conditions that +make him. It is not such as he that should lead you to scorn love, for +he is a mistake and a crime. + +In your example of the isolated boy babe and girl babe we meet with a +different condition. The individual repeats the history of the race, and +as these have been left out by the civilising forces, they revert to +past racial states. For these it is natural to live stolidly--is it +therefore natural for us? The point I make is that our refinement, +crying in us with great voice, is as much a part of us as are the simple +few hungers of the racial infant. We are not the less natural for being +subtle. And can it not be that the face of romance reveals itself even +to savage eyes? According to the need is the power, and the early man +needs must hope and desire; he is curbed by waiting and taught by loss +in the hunting, he is hungry, and he dreams that he is feasting. This +dream is his romance--a red flicker in the dawn, then still the gray. To +suppose this is not to be unscientific, for what is true of us must have +had a beginning, and feeling, as well as being, cannot have been +spontaneously generated. + +There is an absolute gravitation to justice in nature. This was the +creed preached by Huxley to Kingsley a week after his boy's death. Grief +had turned the mind upon itself, and in the upheaval he formulated a +philosophy of faith and joy! + +Our reward is meted out according to our obedience to all of the law, +spiritual and physical. Nature keeps a ledger paying glad life's arrears +each minute of time. And the creed rises to my lips when I hear you cry +shame upon the delight of love. It must be good, this thing which is so +fraught with joy! You brand it sense delight, but all delight is of the +senses, and Darwin at the conclusion of "The Descent of Man," if he was +not overtaken by a feeling of incompleteness in the work and a +consuming fever for the further task, was glad in a human way, with the +senses and through the emotions. Darwin's supreme moment may have come +at quite a different time. What can we know of the moments of repletion +that fall into another's life? With Huxley we may only know that our +hearts bound high when we strike a chord of harmony and prove ourselves +obedient to "all of the law," and our hearts bound high when we love. It +is nature's way of showing her approval. Oh, the strength of love and +the miracles of its compensations! The sense of becoming that it gives, +even in its defeats, the gladness that ripples in its sob-strangled +throat! + +The day for asceticism is gone, or shall we say the night? We are not +afraid of sense delights. We are intent upon living on all sides of our +natures, roundly and naturally. You have a fine gospel of work and I +congratulate you upon it, but you make no mention of the purpose of it +all. It must not be work for work's sake. "When I heard the learned +astronomer--" says Whitman. Do you remember? He caught in one hour the +whole majesty, caught to himself the wonder that was unseen by the +watching astronomers. Somehow you feel the learned ones had made a +mistake in calculating so long that they had no time to see with +personal eyes the glory of the stars, and that Whitman had been +philosopher and had gained where they failed. The inspiration of the +poet, of the painter, of the economist, and biologist, is in the +revelation which they receive of what to do and why to do. For this +reason philosophy, which treats of the life and works of man, is in the +highest sense sociological. The generalisations of philosophy go to +improve our methods so that we may have greater proneness for sense of +delight and greater possibility for sense delight. Why, what else is +there? You are a poet, and you give an unrestorable day, when the sun is +shining and the hills lie purple in the distance, to writing a sonnet. +If you do so merely to employ yourself, it must be that the wolf of +despair is at your being's door. You have come to the end, and the sun +and the hills do not matter. You and they have parted company. But if +you write, impelled by the wish that others should read and recognise, +read and remember, and grow to know and feel better, and perhaps to love +the sun and hills better, then is yours a work of love, and it will be +made good to you, so that for the day which you have not seen, your +night shall be instinct with light. And if your labours are more +especially in the service of art, then, also, with each approach toward +expression, you are warmed through with the delight of achievement. + +Is my meaning quite dashed away by this torrent of speech? It is simply +this: Before we think we feel, and the end of thinking is feeling. The +century of Voltaire and Dr. Johnson held that man is rational, the +century of James, Ribot, Lange, and Wundt is thrilled to the heart with +the doctrine that first, last, and always man is emotional. To speak +loosely, the dimensions of the human cosmos are feeling, emotion, and +sensation. + +Build your fine structures. We like to see the foundations laid well and +the thick walls go up. Keep to your wizard inventions. We like to live +in a magic world. And ah, the indomitable machines with their austere +promise of free days for weary hands, and ah, the locomotives and the +ships steaming their ways toward intercourse, toward comity, toward +fellowship! We like the intricacy and the vastness of the world in which +we live. But "an unconsidered life is not fit to be lived by any man," +says Aristotle. We must consider the phenomenon, civilisation, searching +down for the nucleus of its worth. We will find that the stone +structure without hope were a pitiable thing, that the making of +compacts and the banking of capital, without hope, were pitiable. This +hope that is the life germane, the immortal flash of mortality, the most +keenly human point in all humanity, is the hope for greater and greater +social happiness. Our world is an ever unfinished house which we are +employed in building. If we are imbued with the spirit of the architect +and not of the hod-carrier, we will hope sweetly for the work. The house +beautiful will begin to mean our life, and each night we will consult +our drawings, looking to it that on the house built of our days the sun +shall wester, and that within shall be intimacy, and laughter, great +speech and close love, looking to it that the home be such as to better +to-day's tenant so that he be more loving and lovable than the one of +yesterday. + +We are wrong, perhaps. Long ago we were no less than now. When we +reached a hand in the darkness and grasped that of our fellow, the love +and the strongly frail human abandon were no less. We have not grown in +heart's munificence, perhaps. It is one of the illusions only. But the +hope is ours. For what do you hope? + +DANE. + + + + +XXVII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +LONDON. +July 22, 19--. + +Your birthday, Herbert, and for greeting I state that I walk your length +with you. A truce to quarrelling! It is now a year since you informed me +you were going to be married, and since then the gods have thundered +their laughter at the sight of two muttering men who sat themselves on +the axes of earth to dangle their legs into orbit vastness. Chronic +somnambulists that they are, they took their monopolist way thither in +their sleep. + +I cannot tell you how full of vagary the correspondence we have fallen +into seems to me. I deliberately attempted to write you into passion and +for months you deliberately continued to convict yourself out of your +own mouth, and we did not see that it was tragic and comic and +preposterous. Could we personify this our dealing, we would do well to +call it a kind of Caliban. And the tentacles we threw out, clawing at +everything, stealing for prop to our little theory all of man and God! +It is the conceit of us that I find utterly hopeless of grace. So I drop +my role of omniscience. I take my form off the hub, believing the system +will maintain its gravity though I go my private way, and I promise to +let you alone. Forgive me, and God bless you. Ah, yes, and many happy +returns of the day. All my heart in the blessing and the wish. + +I did some remembering to-day, dear lad. When you were born, I was five +years younger than you are now, yet I felt myself old. "If we were as +old as we feel, we would die of old age at twenty-one." My life seemed +all behind me, long, turbulent, packed with pain, useless. I spoke of +myself as if all were over. "It had been full of purpose, but what came +of it? A few rhymes and a spoilt hope." To my morbid fancy your having +come to be was a signal for me to go. I had no thought of dying, yet I +accepted you as the proof of my failure. In the exacting eyes of the +genius of the race I was insolvent. You were not mine. I looked into +Time, and saw none of me there. + +Yet the letter I wrote to your parents was sincere,--how else? And that +night and the next and the next, I wrote "Gentleman Adventurers," which +the critics called the epitome of all that is balladesque. One pitied +the dead because they could go forth no more on water and under sky. +This poem, written in a mood which beneficent nature sends on the +too-sick spirit, has served for more than a quarter of a century as the +complete and accepted catalogue of the reasons for living. Well, I must +not laugh at it. It may be true that the passion of my heart incarnated +itself in it beyond the rest, that my one song sang itself out those +first three days of your life. If so, it is true that love is never +cheated of its fruit, and that the joy which might have been for the +individual oozes out of him to the race, that the strength which would +have settled upon itself in the calm of satisfied hope, filters through +him outwards. + +Good night, lad. My hand is on your shoulder and I am loath to take it +off. For a while I would like what cannot be, to travel with you the +red-brown country-roads fragrant with hay, to cross the stiles and knock +upon the cabin doors, and enter where sorrow and where gladness is, big +with greeting and sure of welcome. I have often pleased myself with the +fancy that the outer aspects of life are patterned after the inner, so +that in the map of the spirit are to be found city and country, wood, +desert, and sea, so that we know these outer worlds through having +travelled the worlds within. Though I stay behind, my eyes can follow +you from this night's landmark along the stretch, on to the city +avenues, up the highways, tracing the twists of the bypaths, clambering +untrod trails of wilderness and mountain, on, on, till out upon the sea. + +In one of the near turnings a woman with waiting face smiles subtly. Her +hands beckon you to the tryst. Godspeed, my son. + +DANE. + + + + +XXVIII + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +August 6, 19--. + +As I have constantly insisted, our difference is temperamental. The +common words we lay hold of mean one thing to you and another thing to +me. I do not equivocate when I say that love is instinctive, and that +the latter-day expression of love is artificial. "Art," as I understand +the term in its broadness, contradistinguishes from nature. Whatever man +contrives or devises is an artifice, a thing of art not of nature, and +therefore artificial. + +As for ourselves, among animals we are the only real inventors and +artificers. Instead of hair and hide, we have soft skins, and we weave +cunning textures and wear wondrous garments. In cold weather, in place +of eating much fat meat, we keep ourselves warm by grate fires and +steam heat. We cut up our blood-dripping meat chunks with pieces of iron +hardened by fire and sharpened by stone, and we eat fish with a fork +instead of our fingers. We put a roof over our heads to keep out storm +and sunshine, sleep in pent rooms, and are afraid of the good night air +and the open sky. In short, we are consummately artificial. + +As I recollect, I have shown that the natural expression of the love +instinct is bestial and brutal and violent. I have shown how imagination +entered into the development of the expression of this love instinct +till it became _romantic_. And, in turn, I have shown how artificial was +the romantic expression of this love instinct, by isolating a boy babe +and a girl babe in a natural state wherein they expressed their love +instinct bestially and brutally and violently. As you say, they have +simply been "left out by the civilising force." And this civilising, or +socialising force is simply the sum of our many inventions. The isolated +pair merely expressed their instincts in the unartificial, natural way. +They had not been taught a certain particular fashion in which to +express those instincts as have you and I and all artificial beings been +taught. + +As Mr. Finck has said, "Not till Dante's 'Vita Nuova' appeared was the +gospel of modern love--the romantic adoration of a maiden by a +youth--revealed for the first time in definite language." + +Dante, and the men who foreshadowed and followed him, were inventors. +They introduced an artifice for protracting one of our most vital +pleasures. Well, they succeeded. And what of it? There are artifices and +artifices, and some are better than others. The automobile is a more +cunning artifice than the ox-cart, the subway than a palanquin. Devices +come and devices go. Change is the essence of progress. All is +development. The end of rapes and romances is the same--perpetuation. +There may be head love as well as heart love. And in the time to come, +when the brain ceases to be the servant of the belly, the head the +lackey of the heart, in that time stirpiculture, which is scientific +perpetuation, will take the place of romantic love. And in the present +there may be men ready for that time. There must be a beginning, else +would we still be jolting in ox-carts. And I am ready for that time now. + +You say, "Love is of a piece with life, like hunger, like joy, like +death." Quite true. And civilisation is merely the expression of +life--a variform utterance which includes love, and hunger, and joy, and +death. Else what is this civilisation for? How did it happen to be? And +I answer: It is the sum of the many inventions we have made to aid us in +our pursuit of life and love and joy. It helps us to live more +abundantly, to love more fruitfully, to joy more intelligently, and to +get grim old Death by his knotty throat and hold him at arm's length as +long as possible. + +I stated that "all progress consists in the arbitrary alteration, by +human efforts and devices, of the normal course of nature." This +sociological concept comes inevitably into accord with my philosophy of +love. It is the law of development, and all things of human life (which +includes love) come inside of it. Wherefore, certainly, I am not outside +our province when I demand of you to bring your philosophy of love into +like accord. + +Incidentally, I will state that I _have_ fallen in love. I have grown +feverish with desire, gone mad with dumb yearning. I have felt my +intellect lose dominion, and learned that I was only a garmented beast, +for all the many inventions very like the other beasts ungarmented. +Nay, I am no cold-blooded theorist, no thick-hided dogmatist; nor am I a +chastely simple young man mooning in virginal innocence. My +generalisations have been tempered in the heats of passion, and what I +know I know, and without hearsay. + +I have seen a learned man, drunk with wine, interrogate the new states +of consciousness of his unwonted condition, and so doing, gain a more +comprehensive psychological insight. So I, with my loves. I was impelled +toward the women I shall presently particularise. I asked why the +impulsion. I reasoned to see if there were a difference between these +illicit passions of mine and the illicit passions of my respectable and +respected friends. And I found no difference. Separated from codes and +conventions, shorn of imagination, divested of romance, stripped naked +down to the core of the matter, it was old Mother Nature crying through +us, every man and woman of us, for progeny. Her one unceasing and +eternal cry--PROGENY! PROGENY! PROGENY! + +Just as little girls, instinctively foreshadowing motherhood, play with +dolls, so children feel vague sex promptings, and in sweetly ridiculous +ways love and quarrel and make up after the approved fashion of lovers. +You loved little girls in pigtails and pinafores. We all did. And in our +lives there is nothing fairer and more joyful to look back upon than +those same little pigtails and pinafores. But I shall pass the child +loves by, and instance first my calf love. + +Do you remember the incident of the torn jacket and the blackened +eyes?--so inexplicable at the time. Try as you would, neither you nor +Waring could get anything out of me. Oh, believe me, it was tragic! I +was fifteen. Fifteen, and athrill with a strange new pulse; flushed, as +the dawn, with the promise of day. And, of course, I thought it was the +day, that I loved as a man loved, and that no man ever loved more. Well, +well, I laugh now. I was only fifteen--a young calf who went out and +butted heads with another calf in the back pasture. + +She was a demure little coquette, Celia Genoine, Professor Genoine's +daughter, if you will recollect. "Ah," I hear you remonstrate, "but she +was a woman." Just so. Fifteen and twenty-two is usually the way of calf +loves. I invested her with all the glow and colour of first youth, and +in her presence became a changed being. I blushed if she looked at me; +trembled at the touch of her hand or the scent of her hair. To be in +her presence was to be closeted with the awfulness and splendour of God. +I read immortality in her eyes. A smile from her blinded me, a gentle +word or caressing look and I went faint and dizzy, and I was content to +lurk in some corner and gaze upon her secretly with all my soul. And I +took long, solitary walks, with book of verse beneath my arm, and +learned to love as lovers had loved before me. + +Sufficient romance was engendered for me to pass more than one night +worshipping beneath her window. I mooned and sentimentalised and fell +into a gentle melancholy, until you and Waring began to worry over an +early decline, to consult specialists, and by trick and stratagem to +entice me into eating more and reading less. But she married--ah, I have +forgotten whom. Anyway, she married, and there was trouble about it, +too, and I bade adieu to love forever. + +Then came the love of my whelpage. I was twenty, and she a mad, wanton +creature, wonderful and unmoral and filled with life to the brim. My +blood pounds hot even now as I conjure her up. The ungarmented beast, my +dear Dane, the great primordial ungarmented beast, mighty to procreate, +indomitable in battle, invincible in love. Love? Do I not know it? Can +I not understand how that splendid fighting animal, Antony, quartered +the globe with his sword and pillowed his head between the slim breasts +of Egyptian Cleopatra while that hard-won world crashed to wrack and +ruin? + +As I say, This was the love of my whelpage, and it was vigorous, +masterful, masculine. There was no sentimentalising, no fond foolishness +of youth; nor was there that cool, calm poise which comes of the +calculation and discretion of age. Man and woman, we were in full tide, +strong, simple, and elemental. Life rioted in our veins; we were +a-bubble with the ferment; and it is out of such abundance that Mother +Nature has always exacted her progeny. From the strictly emotional and +naturalistic viewpoint, I must consider it, even now, the perfect love. +But it was decreed that I should develop into an intellectual animal, +and be something more than a mere unconscious puppet of the reproductive +forces. So head mastered my heart, and I laid the grip of my will over +the passion and went my way. + +And then came another man's wife, a proud-breasted woman, the perfect +mother, made pre-eminently to know the lip clasp of a child. You know +the kind, the type. "The mothers of men," I call them. And so long as +there are such women on this earth, that long may we keep faith in the +breed of men. The wanton was the Mate Woman, but this was the Mother +Woman, the last and highest and holiest in the hierarchy of life. In her +all criteria were satisfied, and I reasoned my need of her. + +And by this I take it that I was passing out of my blind puppetdom. I +was becoming a conscious selective factor in the scheme of reproduction, +choosing a mate, not in the lust of my eyes, but in the desire of my +fatherhood. Oh, Dane, she was glorious, but she was another man's wife. +Had I been living unartificially, in a state of nature, I would +certainly have brained her husband (a really splendid fellow), and +dragged her off with me shameless under the sky. Or had her husband not +been a man, or had he been but half a man, I doubt not that I would have +wrested her from him. As it was, I yearned dumbly and observed the +conventions. + +Nor are these experiences heart soils and smirches. They have educated +me, fitted me for that which is yet to be. And I have written of them to +show you that I am no closet naturalist, that I speak authoritatively +out of adequate understanding. Since the end of love, when all is said +and done, is progeny; and since the love of to-day is crude and +wasteful; as an inventor and artificer I take it upon myself to +substitute reasoned foresight and selection for the short-sighted and +blundering selection of Mother Nature. What would you? The old dame +would have made a mess of it had I let her have her way. She tried hard +to mate me with the wanton, for it was not her method to look into the +future to see if a better mother for my progeny awaited me. + +And now comes Hester. I approach her, not with the milk-and-water +ardours of first youth, nor with the lusty love madness of young +manhood, but as an intellectual man, seeking for self and mate the ripe +and rounded manhood and womanhood which comes only through the having of +children--children which must be properly born and bred. In this way, +and in this way only, can we fully express ourselves and the life that +is in us. We shall utter ourselves in the finest speech in the world, +and, our children being properly born and bred, it shall be in the +finest terms of the finest speech in the world. To do this is to have +lived. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XXIX + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W. +August 26, 19--. + +You insist that the question is not on the value of love but on the +significance of the artificial. Be that as it may. To me love is +integral with life, and to speak of civilising it away, seems, in point +of fact, as preposterous and as anomalous as a Hamletless play of +Hamlet. You forget that in developing you carry yourself along; you +change, yet you remain racial and natural. Else there were too many +missing links in all your departments. We read Homer to-day--telling +proof that the chain of sympathy stretches unbroken through epochs of +inventions and discoveries and revolutions. Truism that it is, it +presents itself with particular force at this stage. + +With how much force? We stand in danger of exaggerating these vociferous +thoughts. This question of naturalness as opposed to artificiality is +not immediately pertinent to our problem, nor is the matter of optimism +and pessimism, nor the biologic idea of survival. We should have looked +more to the way of love in the lives of men and women and become +historians of the method and conduct of the force. There would have been +less confusion. So I write, "Be that as it may," and go back to more +immediate considerations. And yet we were not far wrong! The little +flower in the crannied wall could tell what God and man is. This is of +all thoughts the most charged with truth. Let me understand one of your +conclusions, root and all, and all in all, and such is the gracious plan +of oneness in the branching and leafage and uptowering, that I must know +and name the tree. Your winding bypath, could I but follow it to the +end, must bring me to the highway of your thought, every step tell-tale +of the journey's destination. But soon I shall be with you (the fifth +of next month, after all; the arrangements as planned). Then we will +begin to know each other, and we will no longer be tormented by the +irksomeness of writing. Therefore, until easier and more fluent times, +to the heart of the subject straight. + +Your love-affairs--how well you have outgrown them and how ably you +criticise them! They have not withstood the test of time, for you bear +them no loyalty. Calfdom and whelpage, vagaries of adolescence, you call +them. You do not show them much respect! For this reason your examples +lose what weight they might have borne. They belong so wholly to the +past, they are mere wraiths of bygone stirrings, they cannot clothe you +with knowledge of love. Cold now, what boots it that you have been +afire? You cannot be taught by what is utterly over. + +You are catching what I aim to say, I hope, for I aim to say much. Put +it that instead of a girl whom you idealised, it was a principle--some +scheme of reform which you honoured with all the passion of young hope +and dream, and which knit your alert being into a Laocoon of striving. +Your maturer eyes see this ideal impossible and narrow. In no wise can +it satisfy your bolder reach and larger sympathy. But you do not laugh +at what has been. If you strove for it sincerely at any time, no matter +how remote, you could never again deride it. Because once you loved it +you are eternal keeper of the key to its good. What has been wholly +yours you never quite desert. Nothing has remained to you of your +love-affairs, therefore your recital of them is empty of meaning. If you +were in love to-day, and because of your philosophy you determined to do +battle with your feeling, your experience would be more authoritative. + +You have known love, and having known you refuse it. Henceforth, it must +be reason and not feeling. "What is your objection?" you ask. This +merely, that the thing cannot be. Marriage to be marriage must come +through love, through the reddest romance of love, through fire of the +spirit, yes, even through the love of calfdom and whelpage. Else it is a +mockery. Where is the woman of character who would sell the be-all and +end-all of her existence for a neat catalogue of possible advantages? +Where is the man who would frankly and without embellishment dare make +such proposal? You point to yourself. But you have never explained +yourself to Hester, and even to me you are embellishing the matter with +all the might in your persuasive pen. + +The ardours of calfdom and whelpage that you smile at I would have you +throb with. You underrate the firstlings of the heart, the rose and +white blossoming, the call upon the senses and the readiness to respond +and to fulfil, to give and to take, to be and make happy--the great +pride and utter abandon which is young love. At fifteen, fortunately for +the development of mind and character, hope is placed where hope must +pine. Love, then, is doomed to be tragic. The youth "attains to be +denied." But he sounds his depth. Thereafter, he knows what to expect of +himself. He has a precedent. After this he will count it a sin to +forget, and to accept the solace of mediocrity. In this lies the value +of the tragedy. + +I sometimes think that whatever is youngest is best. It is the young +that, timid and bold, pay greatest reverence to knowledge, receiving +without chill of prejudice and shameful cowardice of quibbling the brave +new thought. Wisdom may be of age, but passion for scholarships, +trail-breaking, and hardy prospecting in the treasure mines of research, +is of young pioneerhood alone. It is a youth who dares be radical, who +dares, in splendid largess, build mistake upon mistake, bleeding his +life out in service. And it is a youth, standing tiptoe upon the earth, +now waiting in unperturbed ease, now searching with unbridled zeal, who +is lover and mystic. "The best is yet to be," says Rabbi Ben Ezra, "the +last of life, for which the first is made." Yes, the last of life will +be good, but only if it is like youth, beating with its pulse and +instinct with its spirit. + +The unhappy youth is left on the battle-field but not to die. The +sword-thrusts challenge him to put forth greater strength in fiercer +wars. He learns hard and well. + +Indeed, I cannot leave this subject of first love. How do you know it +was not good for you to love as you did? It is strange you should +resolve to love no more because at one time you loved deeply enough +almost to remain in love. It cannot be that you have grown old and that +nature is resolving for you. You tell me of your experiences in order +that I may be convinced that you know whereof you speak and I listen in +wonder. Your conclusions are unwonted. + +Then something was amiss, for you have outgrown and forgotten, but how +is it with you in the present when your indifference waits not upon +time? You approach your future wife clothed in indifference as in mail, +and you do violence. How can I show you? I speak as I would to a child +to whom it is necessary to explain that it is bad to abandon an +education. Life is a school, and to me it seems that you are about to +resign long before diploma and degree, so I interpose. I was taught by +first love, and I honour that time beyond any other. I was Ellen's. I +have been lonely. For the mere human need, for the sake of that which to +the lonely is very dear, I have thought of marriage, but I remembered +and I refused to do violence to myself remembering. Long ago my standard +was established. I learned how deeply I could feel, and I refuse to +acknowledge myself bankrupt, I refuse to approach an honourable human +being with less than my all. Until my soul flower out again, until suns +flame about my head as in that dear yoretime, I shall keep teeming with +dreams and make no affront. I who have seen love, dare not live without +love. + +I would not give in to fate, Herbert. I would assert my manhood. I would +abide in the strength of the first output, going with the flush of the +first glow into the gloom. I would spurn the calm of compromise and +mediocrity and register a high claim. I would keep the peace with +Romance and fly her colours to the last. You have lived? It is well, and +it might have been better, but do not give over and talk of +stirpiculture. You are not wiser than the laws which made you. + +DANE. + + + + +XXX + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +September 18, 19--. + +How abominable I must seem to you, Dane! For certainly a creature is +abominable that lays rough hands on one's dearest possessions. I doubt +if even you realise how deeply you are stirred by my conduct towards +love. My marriage with Hester, considering the quality and degree of the +contracting parties, must appear as terrible to you as the sodomies that +caused God's ancient wrath to destroy cities. You see, I take your side +for the time, see with your eyes, live your thoughts, suffer what you +suffer; and then I become myself again and steel myself to continue in +what I think is the right. + +After all, mine is the harder part. There are easier tasks than those of +the illusion-shatterer. That which is established is hard to overthrow. +It has the nine points of possession, and woe to him who attempts its +disestablishment; for it will persist till it be drowned and washed away +in the blood of the reformers and radicals. + +Love is a convention. Men and women are attached to it as they are +attached to material things, as a king is attached to his crown or an +old family to its ancestral home. We have all been led to believe that +love is splendid and wonderful, and the greatest thing in the world, and +it pains us to part with it. Faith, we will not part with it. The man +who would bid us put it by is a knave and a fool, a vile, degraded +wretch, who will receive pardon neither in this world nor the next. + +This is nothing new. It is the attitude of the established whenever its +conventions are attacked. It was the attitude of the Jew toward Christ, +of the Roman toward the Christian, of the Christian toward the infidel +and the heretic. And it is sincere and natural. All things desire to +endure, and they die hard. Love will die hard, as died the idolatries +of our forefathers, the geocentric theory of the universe, and the +divine right of kings. + +So, I say, the rancour and warmth of the established when attacked is +sincere. The world is mastered by the convention of love, and when one +profanes love's Holy of Holies the world is unutterably shocked and +hurt. Love is a thing for lovers only. It must not be approached by the +sacrilegious scientist. Let him keep to his physics and chemistry, +things definite and solid and gross. Love is for ardent speculation, not +laboratory analysis. Love is (as the reverend prior and the learned +bodies told brother Lippo of man's soul):-- + + + "--a fire, smoke ... no, it's not ... + It's vapour done up like a new-born babe-- + (In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) + It's ... well, what matters talking, it's the soul!" + + +I thoroughly understand the popular sentimental repugnance to a +scientific discussion of love. Because I dissect love, and weigh and +calculate, it is denied that I am capable of experiencing love. It is +too radiant and glorious a thing for a dull clod like me to know. And +because I cannot experience love and be made mad by it, my fitness to +describe its phenomena is likewise denied. Only the lover may describe +love. And only the lunatic, I suppose, may compose a medical brochure on +insanity. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XXXI + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +LONDON, +October 7, 19--. + +It is true that you have a hard task before you, but it is not because +you are fighting convention and shattering illusion; it is because you +are assailing a good. Love has never acquired the prestige of the +established, and the run of marriages are prompted by advantage, +routine, or passion. So you are no innovator, Herbert. The idolatry of +love will not be overthrown by a drawn battle between those of the Faith +and those of the Reformation. Nothing so spectacular awaits us. + +I have a friend who has undertaken to translate "Inferno" into English, +keeping to the _terza rima_. "It is like climbing the Matterhorn," he +says gravely. "I get to places where I feel I can go neither forward nor +back. The task is prodigious." And it is. But whom will it concern if +he succeeds in going forward? There are few who will read his book. The +translation is of more importance to the translator than to anyone else. +Yet the professor's _magnum opus_ confers a degree upon us all. Because +a standard is upheld and a man is willing and able to climb a Matterhorn +of thought, we can ourselves stride forward with better courage. The +work will be an output of heroism, and it will ennoble even those who +will not know of it. + +I have another friend who ruined his life for love, so says the world +that you think steeped in the idolatry of love. A priest, who by a few +strokes was able to quell in America a strong and bitter movement, a +gifted orator, a man of giant powers, and who was won away at the age of +forty from his career by a mere girl. The girl planned nothing. She +found herself a force in his life almost despite herself. The mere fact +that she lived was enough to wrest this Titan from the arms of the +Church. He told me that she criticised him with the directness of a +simple nature, and that he came to understand her truths better than she +herself. I think she must have loved him at first, but she did not go +to him when all grew calm. I wish it could have been otherwise, and that +she could have brought him a woman's heart. + +The priest, as the professor, is a hero. Both made great outputs. + +There are few who can live like these. But because there are a few who +can love and work, the game is saved. And because there are a few of +these, we must ever quarrel with the many who are not like them. + + + "Give all to love; + Obey thy heart; + Friends, kindred, days, + Estate, good fame, + Plans, credit, and the Muse,-- + Nothing refuse." + + +Does this really seem such poor philosophy to you? And when, Herbert, +will you marry? + +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXXII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +November 20, 19--. + +Hester met me at the station, and we walked through the Arboretum to her +home on the campus. Then followed an evening together in the dormitory +parlour. I have just left her. Her face was tumultuously joyous when I +murmured my "At last!" Her tearful excitement was like Barbara's. You +did not tell me she is so young. You must have made her feel our +closeness, or she may have found a bit of my verse that all expressed +her, and presto, the whole-hearted one is my friend. Her poet is now her +father, brother, comrade,--what she chooses, and all she chooses. + +At one time, before we were well out of the Arboretum, our eyes met, and +there was something so sad and mild and strange in the burn of her gaze +that I felt her frank spirit was unveiling itself in an utterness of +speech. But I have become too much spoilt by mere length of living to be +able to remember back and recognise what young eyes mean when they look +like that. From London to Palo Alto is a short trip, if at the end of it +you meet a Hester. Yet I am sad. The mood crept on me the moment we grew +aware that evening had come, and we stopped a little in front of the +arch to observe the night-look of the foot-hills. Lights had begun to +appear in the corridors of the quadrangle, and here and there in a +professor's office, while Roble and Encina looked like lit-up ferries. +There was a spell of mystery and promise in the quiet which was deeper +for being suggestive of the seething student-life just subsided. It was +a silence that seemed to echo with bells and recitations, and babble and +laughter and heartache. I fell into thought. One generation cometh and +another passeth away. There is no respite. March with time and find +death, mayhap, before it has found you. As years ago the flamelet of the +street-lamp, so now these outposts of the colossal embryo of a world +derided me and seemed to point me out and away. The evening grew chill +with "a greeting in which no kindness is." + +"Your coming has been announced in every class, and your lecture is on +the bulletin-boards. After that, can you be depressed?" + +The light words were spoken low, as if doubtful whether they could be +taken in good part, and they came with something that was like music. +Was it the voice or some inexplicable feeling? I turned in wonder. Her +head was raised, and in the indistinctness I caught that sweet look of +hers which besought me, and which I answered without knowing to what +question. + +I owe you a great happiness. Good-night. + +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXXIII + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +Wednesday. + +Last night I delivered my address to the student body. Behold the chapel +crowded to the doors, aisles and window-seats crammed, and faces peering +in from without, those of boys and girls who had perched themselves on +the outer sills. A student audience is at the same time most critical +and the most generous. I spoke on Literature and Democracy. + +Hester approved my effort. "How does it feel to be great?" she laughed. +"How does it feel to be cruel?" I retorted. "But think, Mr. Kempton, +when you visited the English classes you were just so much text for us. +It should count us a unit merely to have seen you." + +A memory stood up and had its revenge on me. It taunted me for the +half-expressed thought, for the fled insight, for the swelling note that +midmost broke. Praise the artist, and he feels himself betrayer. +Blear-eyed, the poet recalls the poem's sunrise, straightens himself +with the old pride, is held again by the splendour which forecasts the +about-to-be-steadier glory of day, and even with the recalling he +shrinks together before what he knows was a false dawn. There was never +a day. The song's note never sang itself at all. + +Hester looked up with that wistfulness which so draws me. Her look said: +"I pity you. I wish you were as happy as I." And a thought leaped out in +answer to her look which would have smote her had it spoken. It was, +"You, too, are awakened by a false dawning." Why is she so sure of +herself and of you? Is she sure? The puny bit of writing had a vigorous +rising. The ragged author was clad in it as in ermine. So the seeming +love makes a strong call, for a while holding the girl intent upon a +splendour of unfolding, her nature roused, her being expectant. But +later, for poet and lover, the failure and the waste! Were it otherwise +with your feeling for your betrothed, the comparison would not hold. + +Hester does not think these things, and she is beautiful and happy. + +Yours devotedly, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXXIV + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +Saturday. + +Her happiness wrung it from me. Before I could intervene, the question +asked itself, "How will it be with you in after years?" + +Straight the answer came, "There will be Herbert." + +Hester is proud. To-night I saw it in the lift of her chin, in the set +of her neck, in the brilliance of her cheek. She knows herself endowed. +So when she prattled with abandon of all you both meant to be and do, +her form erect before me, her hands eloquent with excitement, her voice +pleading for the right to her very conscious self-esteem, I asked her to +look still further. Further she saw you, and was content. + +That was before dinner. Later we were walking. "I have a friend in +Orion," she said. The witchery of starshine played in her eyes and +about her mouth. Where were you, Herbert? This night will never return. +Yet what has been was for you--the more, perhaps, that you seemed away. +So it is with lovers. She thinks you love her. + +"I am sorry for your mood," she said. "You are holding yourself to +account these days in a way I know." Then she spoke, and I learned with +new heaviness of spirit that she does know the way of it. You never +thought Hester had much to struggle with? + +"I am difficult," she said. And again, "There are times when no power +can hold me." Then she quoted Browning:-- + + + "Already how am I so far + Out of that minute? Must I go + Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, + Onward, whenever light winds blow, + Fixed by no friendly star?" + + +"Are you unhappy, Hester?" I asked. + +"Yes, but with no more reason than you for your unhappiness. Since you +have come here, you have renewed your demands upon yourself. You wish to +go to school with the youngest and find you cannot. You suffer because +more seems behind you than before." Her voice rose as if she were +fighting tears. It was different with her, I told her. Nothing was +behind her. + +"You test your work and I test my love. When you are sad, it is because +the soul of the song spent itself to gain body--" She did not finish. +Why is she sad? Because the soul of her love is narrower than she hoped? + +On our return from our walk she sank on the seat under the '95 oak. "Did +you think I meant I was always unhappy?" she asked. Her words seem +always to say more than her meaning. She imparts something of her own +elaborateness to them. I laughed. + +"How could I with the 'Herbert is' in my ears?" Then her love became +voluble. I forgot what I knew of your theories and grew aflame with her +ardour. I anticipated as largely as she. She was again possessed by her +hopes. + +There, under the shadow of the quadrangle which her young strides +measured, she spoke of what, with you in her life, the years must be. +Beyond words you are blessed, Herbert. But if she mistakes? + +D.K. + + + + +XXXV + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +November 27, 19--. + +Be outspoken! What will happen I can only surmise, but you must tell her +what she is to you. Set her right. + +This is the fourth letter in seven days about Hester. I am endeavouring +to make you acquainted with her. I had no need if you loved her. How she +loves you! Yet she thinks that your calm is depth, your silence prayer. +Her pride protects her, but she strains for the word which does not +come. She has never been quite sure, and I thank God for that. Hester +has been fearing somewhat, and she has been doubting, and it is this +that may save her when the night sets in and the storm breaks over her +head. + +You, too, are thankful that her instincts served her true and that she +never quite accepted the gift that seemed to have been proffered? + +You have a right to demand the reason for my renewed attack. It is +because I have learned the strength of her love. "You are blessed beyond +words," I said two days ago, but as you reject the blessing, Hester must +know it and you must tell her. Herbert, I am your friend. + +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXXVI + +FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON + + +THE RIDGE, +BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. +November 29, 19--. + +What a flutter of letters! And what a fluttery Dane Kempton it is! The +wine of our western sunshine has bitten into your blood and you are +grown over-warm. I am glad that you and Hester have found each other so +quickly and intimately; glad that you are under her charm, as I know her +to be under yours; but I am not glad when you spell yourself into her +and write out your heart's forebodings on her heart. For you are +strangely morbid, and you are certainly guilty of reading your own +doubts and fears into her unspoken and unguessed thoughts. + +Believe me, rather than the soul of her love seeming narrower than she +hopes, the truth is she gives her love little thought at all. She is +too busy--and too sensible. Like me, she has not the time. We are +workers, not dreamers; and the minutes are too full for us to lavish +them on an eternal weighing and measuring of heart throbs. + +Besides, Hester is too large for that sort of stuff. She is the last +woman in the world to peer down at the scales to see if she is getting +full value. We leave that to the lesser creatures, who spend their +courtship loudly protesting how unutterable, immeasurable, and +inextinguishable is their love, as though, forsooth, each dreaded lest +the other deem it a bad bargain. We do not bargain and chaffer over our +feelings, Hester and I. Surely you mistake, and stir storms in teacups. + +"Be outspoken," you say. If my conscience were not clear, I should be +troubled by that. As it is, what have I hidden? What sharp business have +I driven? And who is it that cried "cheated!"? Be outspoken--about what, +pray? + +You bid me tell her what she is to me. Which is to bid me tell her what +she already knows, to tell her that she is the Mother Woman; that of all +women she is dearest to me; that of all the walks of life, that one is +pleasantest wherein I may walk with her; that with her I shall find the +supreme expression of myself and the life that is in me; that in all +this I honour her in the finest, loftiest fashion that man can honour +woman. Tell her this, Dane. By all means tell her. + +"Ah, I do not mean that," I hear you say. Well, let me tell you what you +mean, in my own way, and bid you tell her for me. In the lust of my eyes +she is nothing to me. She is not a mere sense delight, a toy for the +debauchery of my intellect and the enthronement of emotion. She is not +the woman to make my pulse go fevered and me go mad. Nor is she the +woman to make me forget my manhood and pride, to tumble me down +doddering at her feet and gibbering like an ape. She is not the woman to +put my thoughts out of joint and the world out of gear, and so to +befuddle and make me drunk with the beast that is in me, that I am ready +to sacrifice truth, honesty, duty, and purpose for the sake of +possession. She is not the woman ever to make me swamp honour and poise +and right conduct in the vortex of blind sex passion. She is not the +woman to arouse in me such uncontrolled desire that for gratification I +would do one ill deed, or put the slightest hurt upon the least of +human creatures. She is not the most beautiful woman God Almighty ever +planted on His footstool. (There have been and are many women as true +and pure and noble). She is not the woman for whose bedazzlement I must +advertise the value of my goods by sweating sonnets to her, or shivering +serenades at her, or perpetuating follies for her. In short, she is not +anything to me that the woman of conventional love is to the man. + +And again, what _is_ she to me? She is my other self, as it were, my +good comrade, and fellow-worker and joy-sharer. With her woman she +complements my man and makes us one, and this is the highest civilised +sense of union. She is to me the culmination of the thousands of +generations of women. It took civilisation to make her, as it takes +civilisation to make our marriage. She is to me the partner in a +marriage of the gods, for we become gods, we half brutes, when we muzzle +the beast and are not menaced by his growls. Under heaven she is my wife +and the mother of my children. + +Tell her, then, tell her all you wish, you dear old fluttery, mothery +poet father--as though it made any difference. + +HERBERT. + + + + +XXXVII + +FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +December 3, 19--. + +Not three weeks ago you were sitting opposite me and speaking of Hester. +You admitted many things that night, amongst them that the girl never +carried you off your feet. You stated over again with precision all you +had written. You betrothed yourself, not because Hester is different +from everybody else in the world, but because she is like. You took her +for what is typical in her, not for what is individual. You preferred to +walk toward her before your steps were impelled, because you feared that +impulsion would preclude rational choice. With the hope of out-tricking +nature, you reached for Hester Stebbins, in order that there might be a +wall between your heart's fancy and yourself, should your heart become +rebellious. I was to understand that this is the new school, that so +live the masters of matter and of self. + +And as you spoke, I wondered about the woman Hester and the form of +love-making which existed between you, and whether she was simple and +without any charm despite her culture and her gift of song. "She either +loves him too well to know or to have the strength to care, or she is, +like him, of the new school," I thought. I sat and watched you, noting +your youth, surprised by the scorn in your eyes and the sadness on your +lips. You seemed hopeless and helpless. I closed my eyes. "What has he +left himself?" I kept asking. "How will he tread 'The paths gray heads +abhor?'" My own head bowed itself as before an irreparable loss. I had +rejoined the child of my care only to find him blasted as by grief, the +first sunshine smitten from his face and his heart weighted. One word, +one ray lighting your looks in a wonted way, one uncontrolled movement +of the hand, one little silence following the mention of her, would have +led me to believe that I had not understood and that all was well. The +night grew old with your plans and analyses. We parted with a sense of +shame upon us that we should have written and spoken so long and with +such heat, and to such little purpose. + +You do not see how this answers your last letter. I will tell you. It +shows you that you have explained yourself fully the night we spoke face +to face. + +You say that Hester is the woman to complement your man. This sounds +like a lover, only I happen to know that she is not the irresistible +woman. I found it out quite by accident--a few words dropped into a +letter, a corroboration of the fact and further committal, a protracted +defence of your position, running through a correspondence of over a +year, and, finally, a face-to-face declaration. What boots it now that +you write prettily? You do not love Hester. You want her to mother your +children, and you install her in your life for the purpose before the +need. + +Love is not lust, and it is good. The irresistible marriage, alone, is +the right one. Upon it, alone, does the sacrament rest. The chivalry of +your last letter refers less to the girl than to your own ends. It is +not because Hester is what she is, that "of all the walks in life that +one is pleasantest wherein you may walk with her," but because that walk +is the one you choose beyond any other for your wife to follow. The +mother woman is legion, and you refuse to specialise. + +Hester does not peer down at the scales to see if she is getting full +value, yet she does look to her dignity, and, being poor, will not +account herself rich. Hester has felt since you made known to her that +you wished her to be yours, that she counted punily in your scheme, that +you placed little of yourself in charge of her. She loved you and avowed +it, but she has never been happy. The tragedy of love is not (what it is +thought to be) the unreciprocated love, but the meagerly returned love. +It is better to be rejected, equal turned from equal, than to be held +with slim desire for slight purpose. Can you see this, Herbert? You are +hurting the girl's life. She will ask for what you withhold, though not +a word rise to her lips; will thirst for it through the years, will +herself grow cramped with your denial till her own love seem a thing of +dream, unstable and vague and illusive. And all the time you are gentle. +You are devoted to her interests, furthering her happiness to the best +in your power; but your power cannot touch her happiness. It is not what +you do; it is the motive to your acts, and Hester would know that she +has left you unmoved. You respect the function of motherhood, but you do +not love Hester. Tell her this, and prevent her from entering a union in +which she must feel herself half useful, half wifely, half happy, and +therefore all unhappy. + +It is not Hester's fault that you cannot love her, and perhaps it is not +her misfortune. There is no need for panic. Of two persons, one loving +and one loath, the indifferent one is in the right. Can a tree defend +itself from the hewer's axe? What would avail it, then, to feel pain at +the blows? It is beyond our control to love or not to love, and no +effort that we may put forth can draw love to us when it is denied. It +does not avail us to suffer from unrequited love. + +This which I have just said is an article of faith which the doctrine of +experience often contradicts, for there may be mistake, and the one who +does not love may be in the wrong. If only you could wait to see the +beauty which is she before you call her! A year later and Hester may +flower for you in a passionate blossoming; her face may challenge you to +live. A year later and you may find that she is indeed the woman to +guide you and to follow you; her voice a song; her eyes a light in the +day. As yet, you have not gauged her, and you would put her to small +uses. Stand aside, dear Herbert. It will be better. + +I have played a surly part. I may be accused of having been to you both +a Dmitri Roudin and an Iago. I beg you to believe that it has not been +easy for me. I have uttered the earnest word, have driven you on by the +goad of friendship, which drives far. I looked upon the days that came +tripping toward you out of the blue-white horizon of time and saw them +gray for a dear woman, gray and silent as the tomb over a dead love, and +heavy hearted for a man who is my son. + +Ever wholly yours, +DANE KEMPTON. + + + + +XXXVIII + +FROM HESTER STEBBINS TO HERBERT WACE + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +December 15, 19--. + +Over and ended. It shall be as I said last night. Herbert, there is no +call for anger; believe me, there is not. I am doing what I cannot help +doing. You have not changed, but my faith in you has, and I cannot +pretend to a happiness I do not feel. + +Oh, but I laugh, my very dear one, I laugh that I could seem to choose +to wrest myself from you. Did you at one time love me? That morning of +wild sunshine when you took my hand and asked me to be your wife seems +very long ago. I should have understood--the blame is all mine--I should +have known you did not love me, I should have been filled with anger and +shame instead of happiness. The blame is all mine. + +Last night, while you were speaking, I was standing in the window +wondering what all the trouble was about. I could afford to be calm +since I knew I was not hurting you very deeply. At most I was +disappointing a very self-sufficient man. How do women find courage, O +God, to take from men who love them the love they gave? No such ordeal +mine? + +Farewell, Herbert. Let us think calmly of each other since we have +helped each other for so long a stretch of life. Farewell, dear. + +Always your friend, +HESTER STEBBINS. + + + + +XXXIX + +FROM HESTER STEBBINS TO DANE KEMPTON + + +STANFORD UNIVERSITY. +December 18, 19--. + +Herbert has analyzed the situation and has arrived at the conclusion +that my dissatisfaction arises in an inordinate desire for happiness. +You should not care so much about yourself, he says. Poor, dear, young +Herbert! He is very young and cannot as yet conceive how much there is +about oneself that demands care. I thought it out in the hills to-day. +It was gray and there was a fitful wind. What is this selfishness but a +prompting to make much of life? You and I and people of our kind are old +before our time, that is the reason we are not reckless. Our dreams +mature us. I was a mere girl when Herbert said he wished to marry me, +but I was old enough to grasp the full meaning of the pact, as he could +not grasp it. In a moment I had travelled my way to the grave and back. +I looked at the sheer, quick clouds that flitted past the blue, and I +felt that I had caught up with life; I had overtaken the wonders that +hung in the sky of my dreaming. Then I looked at him and the sunshine +got in my face and made me laugh (or cry)--I was so more than happy, +being so much too sure of his need of me. I am glad I walked to-day. The +view from the hills was beautiful. (You see I am not unhappy!) I stood +on a rock and looked about me, thinking of you, of Barbara,--I feel I +know her,--and of Herbert. He and I had often come to these spots. Oh, +the hungry memories! Yet what were we but a young man and a young woman, +who, without being battered into apathy by misfortune, without being +wearied or ill, were taking each other for better or for worse because +they seemed compatible? We were doing just that, to Herbert's certain +knowledge! I failed him; he hoped for more complaisance. Marriage is a +hazard, Mr. Kempton, confess it is, and a man does much when he binds +himself to make a woman the mother of his children--nay, the grandmother +of theirs, even that. What else and what more? I would never have been +wholly in my husband's life, comrade and fellow to it. Herbert knew this +clearly, and I vaguely but I acted with clearness on my vagueness. It +was hard to do. It has left me breathless and a little afraid to be +myself,--as if I had killed a dear thing,--and tearful, too, and +spasmodic for your sympathy and sanction. + +I told him that for a long time I did not understand, supposing myself +beloved and desired and chosen for him by God, thinking he yearned for +the subtlety and mystery of me, thinking all of him needed me and +cleaved earths and parted seas to come to me. Later, when I became +oppressed by a lack and was made to hear the stillness that followed my +unechoed words, I became grave and still myself. He had unloved me, I +said, and I waited. Something seemed pending, and meanwhile I could +love! I made much of every word of comfort that he dropped me, and dwelt +with hope on the future. All this I told Herbert the night when I +explained, and he turned pale. "You people fly away with yourselves. I +cannot follow you. What is wrong, Hester?" He smiled in his distress. +Yet was there in his softness an imperiousness, commanding me to be +other than I am, forbidding me the right to crave in secret what I had +made bold to ask for openly. His man was stronger than my woman, and I +leapt to him again. "My husband," I whispered, my hands in his. This, +even after I understood, dearest Mr. Kempton. + +It is a sorry tangle. If only one could suit feeling to theory! It is +not for a theory that I refuse to be Herbert's wife. Yet if I loved him +enough, I could give up love itself for him. He hinted it, looking as +from a distance at me in my attitude of protest and restraint. If I +loved him enough, I could forego love itself for him. Somewhere there is +a fault, it would seem, somewhere in my abandon is restraint, in my +love, self-seeking. Remorse overcame me just as he was about to leave, +and I schooled myself to think that there had been no affront, that it +honours a woman to be wanted no matter for what end, that every use is a +noble use, that we die the same, loved or used. If Herbert Wace wants a +wife and thinks me fitting, why, it is well. I thought all this and aged +as I thought. Nevertheless, my hand did not put itself out a second time +to detain the man who had forced me to face this. + +There is a youth here who loves me. If Herbert's face could shine like +his for one hour, I believe I would be happier than I have ever been. +And it would not spoil that happiness if this love were toward another +than myself. Say you believe me. You must know it of me that before +everything else in the world I pray that knowledge of love come to the +man over whom the love of my girlhood was spilled. + +Do you ask what is left me, dear friend? Work and tears and the intact +dream. Believe me, I am not pitiable. + +HESTER. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Kempton-Wace Letters, by +Jack London and Anna Strunsky + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS *** + +***** This file should be named 31422.txt or 31422.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/4/2/31422/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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