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diff --git a/old/60435-8.txt b/old/60435-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6446ab2..0000000 --- a/old/60435-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5821 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Emblems of Fidelity, by James Lane Allen - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Emblems of Fidelity - A Comedy in Letters - -Author: James Lane Allen - -Release Date: October 5, 2019 [EBook #60435] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMBLEMS OF FIDELITY *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines - - - - - - - - - - THE EMBLEMS OF - FIDELITY - - A Comedy in Letters - - BY - - JAMES LANE ALLEN - - AUTHOR OF - "THE KENTUCKY CARDINAL," - "THE KENTUCKY WARBLER," ETC. - - - There is nothing so ill-bred as audible - laughter.... I am sure that since I have - had the full use of my reason nobody has - ever heard me laugh. - --Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son. - - - - GARDEN CITY NEW YORK - DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY - 1919 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY - DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF - TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, - INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN - - - - - To - THE SPIRIT OF COMEDY - - INCOMPARABLE ALLY - OF VICTORY - - - - -LIST OF CHARACTERS - -EDWARD BLACKTHORNE...............Famous elderly English novelist - -BEVERLEY SANDS....................Rising young American novelist - -BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE....Practical lawyer, friend of Beverley Sands - -GEORGE MARIGOLD............................Fashionable physician - -CLAUDE MULLEN............Fashionable nerve-specialist, friend of - George Marigold - -RUFUS KENT.......................Long-winded president of a club - -NOAH CHAMBERLAIN......Very learned, very absent-minded professor - -PHILLIPS AND FAULDS.....................................Florists - -BURNS AND BRUCE.........................................Florists - -JUDD AND JUDD...........................................Florists - -ANDY PETERS..............................................Florist - -HODGE......................Stupid gardener of Edward Blackthorne - -TILLY SNOWDEN.............Dangerous sweetheart of Beverley Sands - -POLLY BOLES..........Dangerous sweetheart of Benjamin Doolittle, - friend of Tilly Snowden - -CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN......Very devoted, very proud sensitive - daughter of Noah Chamberlain - -ANNE RAEBURN..........Protective secretary of Edward Blackthorne - - - - -CONTENTS - -PART SECOND - -PART THIRD - - - - -THE EMBLEMS OF FIDELITY - - - -EDWARD BLACKTHORNE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _King Alfred's Wood, - Warwickshire, England, - May 1, 1910._ - -MY DEAR MR. SANDS: - -I have just read to the end of your latest novel and under the -outdoor influence of that Kentucky story have sat here at my windows -with my eyes on the English landscape of the first of May: on as much -of the landscape, at least, as lies within the grey, ivy-tumbled, -rose-besprinkled wall of a companionable old Warwickshire garden. - -You may or you may not know that I, too, am a novelist. The fact, -however negligible otherwise, may help to disarm you of some very -natural hostility at the approach of this letter from a stranger; for -you probably agree with me that the writing of novels--not, of -course, the mere odious manufacture of novels--results in the making -of friendly, brotherly men across the barriers of nations, and that -we may often do as fellow-craftsmen what we could do less well or not -do at all as fellow-creatures. - -I shall not loiter at the threshold of this letter to fatigue your -ear with particulars regarding the several parts of your story most -enjoyed, though I do pause there long enough to say that no admirable -human being has ever yet succeeded in wearying my own ears by any -such desirable procedure. In England, and I presume in the United -States, novelists have long noses for incense [poets, too, though of -course only in their inferior way]. I repeat that we English -novelists are a species of greyhound for running down on the most -distant horizon any scampering, half-terrified rabbit of a -compliment. But I freely confess that nature loaded me beyond the -tendency of being a mere greyhound. I am a veritable elephant in the -matter, being marvelously equipped with a huge, flexible proboscis -which is not only adapted to admit praise but is quite capable of -actively reaching around in every direction to procure it. Even the -greyhound cannot run forever; but an elephant, if he once possess it, -will wave such a proboscis till he dies. - -There are likely to be in any very readable book a few pages which -the reader feels tempted to tear out for the contrary reason, -perhaps, that he cannot tear them out of his tenderness. Some -haunting picture of the book-gallery that he would cut from the -frame. Should you be displeased by the discrimination, I shall trust -that you may be pleased nevertheless by the avowal that there is a -scene in your novel which has peculiarly ensnared my affections. - -At this point I think I can see you throw down my letter with more -insight into human nature than patience with its foibles. You toss -it aside and exclaim: "What does this Englishman drive at? Why does -he not at once say what he wants?" You are right. My letter is -perhaps no better than strangers' letters commonly are: coins, one -side of which is stamped with your image and the other side with -their image, especially theirs. - -I might as well, therefore, present to you my side of the coin with -the selfish image. Or, in terms of your blue-grass country life, you -are the horse in an open pasture and I am the stableman who schemes -to catch you: to do this, I approach, calling to you affectionately -and shaking a bundle of oats behind which is coiled a halter. You -are thinking that if I once clutch you by the mane you will get no -oats. But, my dear sir, you have from the very first word of this -letter already been nibbling the oats. And now you are my animal! - -There is, then, in your novel a remarkable description of a noonday -woodland scene somewhere on your enchanted Kentucky uplands--a cool, -moist forest spot. Into this scene you introduced some rare, -beautiful Kentucky ferns. I can _see_ the ferns! I can see the -sunlight striking through the waving treetops down upon them! Now, -as it happens, in the old garden under my windows, loving the shade -and moisture of its trees and its wall, I have a bank of ferns. They -are a marvelous company, in their way as good as Wordsworth's flock -of daffodils; for they have been collected out of England's best and -from other countries. - -Here, then, is literally the root of this letter: Will you send me -the root-stocks of some of those Kentucky ferns to grow and wave on -my Warwickshire fern bank? - -Do not suppose that my garden is on a small scale a public park or -exhibition, made as we have created Kensington Gardens. Everything -in it is, on the contrary, enriched with some personal association. -I began it when a young man in the following way: - -At that period I was much under the influence of the Barbizon -painters, and I sometimes entertained myself in the forests where -masters of that school had worked by hunting up what I supposed were -the scenes of some of Corot's masterpieces. - -Corot, if my eyes tell me the truth, painted trees as though he were -looking at enormous ferns. His ferns spring out of the soil and some -rise higher than others as trees; his trees descend through the air -and are lost lower down as ferns. One day I dug up some Corot ferns -for my good Warwickshire loam. Another winter Christine Nilsson was -singing at Covent Garden. I spent several evenings with her. When I -bade her good-bye, I asked her to send me some ferns from Norway in -memory of Balzac and _Seraphita_. Yet another winter, being still a -young man and he, alas! a much older one, I passed an evening in -Paris with Turgenieff. I would persist in talking about his novels -and I remember quoting these lines from one of them: "It was a -splendid clear morning; tiny mottled cloudlets hung like snipe in the -clear pale azure; a fine dew was sprinkled on the leaves and grass -and glistened like silver on the spiders' webs; the moist dark earth -seemed still to retain the rosy traces of the dawn; the songs of -larks showered down from all over the sky." - -He sat looking at me in surprised, touched silence. - -"But you left out something!" I suggested, with the bumptiousness of -a beginner in letters. He laughed slightly to himself--and perhaps -more at me--as he replied: "I must have left out a great deal"--he, -fiction's greatest master of compression. After a moment he inquired -with a kind of vast patient condescension: "What is it that you -definitely missed?" "Ferns," I replied. "Ferns were growing -thereabouts." He smiled reminiscently. "So there were," he replied, -smiling reminiscently. "If I knew where the spot was," I said, "I -should travel to it for some ferns." A mystical look came into his -eyes as he muttered rather to himself than for my ear: "That spot! -Where is that spot? That spot is all Russia!" In his exile, the -whole of Russia was to him one scene, one fatherland, one pain, one -passion. Sometime afterwards there reached me at home a hamper of -Russian fern-roots with Turgenieff's card. - -I tell you all this as I make the request, which is the body of this -letter and, I hope, its wings, in order that you may intimately -understand. I desire the ferns not only because you have interested -me in your Kentucky by making it a living, lovely reality, but -because I have become interested in your art and in you. While I -read your book I believed that I saw the hand of youth joyously at -work, creating where no hand had created before; or if on its chosen -scene it found a ruin, then joyously trying to re-create reality from -that ruin. But to create where no hand has created before, or to -create them again where human things lie in decay--that to me is the -true energy of literature. - -I should not omit to tell you that some of our most tight-islanded, -hard-headed reviewers have been praising your work as of the best -that reaches us from America. It was one such reviewer that first -guided me to your latest book. Now I myself have written to some of -our critics and have thrown my influence in favour of your fresh, -beautiful art, which can only come from a fresh, beautiful nature. - -Should you decide to bestow any notice upon this rather amazing -letter, you will bear in mind of course that there will be pounds -sterling for plants. Whatever character my deed or misdeed may later -assume, it must first and at least have the nature of a transaction -of the market-place. - -So, turn out as it may, or not turn out at all, - -I am, - - Gratefully yours, - EDWARD BLACKTHORNE. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO EDWARD BLACKTHORNE - - _Cathedral Heights, New York, - May 12, 1910._ - -MY DEAR MR. BLACKTHORNE: - -Your letter is as unreal to me as if I had, in some modern Æsop's -Fables, read how a whale, at ease in the depths of the sea, had taken -the trouble to turn entirely round to encourage a puffing young -porpoise; or of how a black oak, majestic dome of a forest, had on -some fine spring day looked down and complimented a small dogwood -tree upon its size and the purity of its blossoms. And yet, while -thus unreal, your letter is in its way the most encouragingly real -thing that has ever come into my life. Before I go further I should -like to say that I have read every book you have written and have -bought your books and given them away with such zeal and zest that -your American publishers should feel more interest in me than can -possibly be felt by the gentlemen who publish mine. - -It is too late to tell you this now. Too late, in bad taste. A -man's praise of another may not follow upon that man's praise of him. -Our virtues have their hour. If they do not act then, they are not -like clocks which may be set forward but resemble fruits which lose -their flavour when they pass into ripeness. Still, what I have said -is honest. You may remember that I am yet moving amid life's -uncertainties as a beginner, while you walk in quietness the world's -highway of a great career. My praise could have borne little to you; -yours brings everything to me. And you must reflect also that it is -just a little easier for any Englishman to write to an American in -this way. The American could but fear that his letter might -seriously disturb the repose of a gentleman who was reclining with -his head in Shakespeare's bosom; and Shakespeare's entire bosom in -this regard, as you know, Mr. Blackthorne, does stay in England. - -It will give me genuine pleasure to arrange for the shipment of the -ferns. A good many years have passed since I lived in Kentucky and I -am no longer in close touch with people and things down there. But -without doubt the matter can be managed through correspondence and -all that I await from you now is express instructions. The ferns -described in my book are not known to me by name. I have procured -and have mailed to you along with this, lest you may not have any, -some illustrated catalogues of American ferns, Kentucky ferns -included. You have but to send me a list of those you want. With -that in hand I shall know exactly how to proceed. - -You cannot possibly understand how happy I am that my work has the -approval of the English reviews, which still remain the best in the -world. To know that my Kentucky stories are liked in -England--England which, remaining true to so many great traditions, -holds fast to the classic tradition in her literature. - -The putting forth of your own personal influence in my behalf is a -source of joy and pride; and your wish to have Kentucky ferns growing -in your garden in token of me is the most inspiring event yet to mark -my life. - -I am, - - Sincerely yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - - - -EDWARD BLACKTHORNE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _King Alfred's Wood, - Warwickshire, England, - May 22, 1910._ - -MY DEAR SANDS: - -Your letter was brought out to me as I was hanging an old gate in a -clover-field canopied with skylarks. When I cannot make headway -against some obstruction in the development of a story, for instance, -putting the hinges of the narrative where the reader will not see any -hinges, I let the book alone and go out and do some piece of work, -surrounded by the creatures which succeed in all they undertake -through zest and joy. By the time I get back, the hinges of the book -have usually hung themselves without my knowing when or how. Hence -the paradox: we achieve the impossible by doing the possible; we -climb our mountain of troubles by walking away from it. - -It is splendid news that I am to get the Kentucky ferns. Thank you -for the catalogues. A list of those I most covet is enclosed. The -cost, shipping expenses included, will not, I fear, exceed five -pounds. Of course it would be a pleasure to pay fifty guineas, but I -suppose I must restrict myself to the despicable market price. -Shamefully cheap many of the dearest things in this world are; and -what exorbitant prices we pay for the worthless! - -A draft will be forwarded in advance upon receipt of the American -shipper's address. Or I could send it forthwith to you. Meantime -from now on I shall be remembering with impatience how many miles it -is across the Atlantic Ocean and at what a snail's pace American -ferns travel. These will be awaited like guests whom one goes to the -gate to meet. - -You do not know the names of those you describe so wonderfully! I am -glad. I abhor the names of my own. Of course, as they are bought, -memoranda must be depended upon by which to buy them. These data, -verified by catalogue, are inked on little wooden slabs as fern -headstones. When each fern is planted, into the soil beside it is -stuck its headstone, which, like that for a human being, tells the -name, not the nature, of what it memorialises. - -Hodge is the fellow who knows the ferns according to the slabs. It -is time you should know Hodge by his slab. No such being can yet be -found in the United States: your civilisation is too young. Hodge is -my British-Empire gardener; and as he now looks out for every -birthday much as for any total solar eclipse of the year--with a kind -of growing solicitude lest the sun or the birthday should finally, as -it passes, bowl him over for good--he announced to me with visible -relief the other day that he had successfully passed another total -natal eclipse; that he was fifty-eight. But Hodge is not fifty-eight -years old. The battle of Hastings was fought in 1066 and Hodge -without knowing it was beginning to be a well-grown lout then. For -Hodge is English landscape gardening in human shape. He is the -benevolent spirit of the English turf, a malign spirit to English -weeds. He is wall ivy, a root, a bulb, a rake, a wheelbarrow of -spring manure, a pile of autumn leaves, a crocus. In a distant -future mythology of our English rural life he will perhaps rank where -he belongs--as a luminary next in importance to the sun: a two-legged -god be-earthed in old clothes, with a stiff back, a stiff temper, the -jaw of the mastiff and the eye of a prophet. - -It is Hodge who does the slabs. He would not allow anything to come -into the garden without mastering that thing. For the sake of his -own authority he must subdue as much of the Latin language as invades -his territory along with the ferns. But I think nothing comparable -to such a struggle against overwhelming odds--Hodge's brain pitted -against the Latin names of the ferns--nothing comparable to the dull -fury of that onset is to be found in the history of man unless it be -England's war on Napoleon for twenty years. England did conquer -Napoleon and finally shut him up in a desolate, rocky place; and -Hodge has finally conquered the names of the ferns and shut them up -in a desolate, rocky place--his skull, his personal promontory. - -Nowadays you should see him meet me in a garden path when I come down -early some morning. You should see him plant himself before me and, -taking off his cap and scratching the back of his neck with the back -of his muddy thumb, make this announcement: "The _Asplenium -filix-faemina_ put up two new shoots last night, sir. Bishop's -crooks, I believe you calls 'em, sir." As though I were a farmer and -my shepherd should notify me that one of the ewes had dropped twin -lambs at three A.M. Hodge's tone implies more yet: the honour of the -shoots--a questionable honour--goes to Hodge as their botanical sire! - -When I receive visitors by reason of my books--and strangers do -sometimes make pilgrimages to me on account of my grove of "Black -Oaks"--if the day is pleasant, we have tea in the garden. While the -strangers drink tea, I begin to wave the well-known proboscis over -the company for any praise they may have brought along. Should this -seem adequate, I later reward them with a stroll. That is Hodge's -hour and opportunity. Unexpectedly, as it would appear, but -invariably, he steps out from some bush and takes his place behind me -as we move. - -When we reach the fern bank, the visitors regularly begin to inquire: -"What is the name of this fern?" I turn helplessly to Hodge much as -a drum-major, if asked by a by-stander what the music was that the -band had just been playing, might wheel in dismay to the nearest -horn. Hodge steps forward: now comes the reward of all his toil. -"That is the _Polydactulum cruciato-cristatum_, sir." "And what is -this one?" "That is the _Polypodium elegantissimum_, mum." Then you -would understand what it sometimes means to attain scholarship -without Oxford or Cambridge; what upon occasion it is to be a Roman -orator and a garden ass. - -You will be wondering why I am telling you this about Hodge. For the -very particular reason that Hodge will play a part, I know not what -part, in the pleasant business that has come up between us. He looms -as the danger between me and the American ferns after the ferns shall -have arrived here. It is a fact that very few foreign ferns have -ever done well in my garden, watch over them as closely as I may: -especially those planted in more recent years. Could you believe it -possible of human nature to refuse to water a fern, to deny a little -earth to the root of a fern? Actually to scrape the soil away from -it when there was nobody near to observe the deed, to jab at it with -a sharp trowel? I shall not press the matter further, for I -instinctively turn away from it. Perhaps each of us has within -himself some incomprehensible little terrible spot and I feel that -this is Hodge's spot. It is murder; Hodge is an assassin: he will -kill what he hates, if he dares. I have been so aroused to defend -his faithful character that I have devised two pleadings: first, -Hodge is the essence of British parliaments, the sum total of British -institutions; therefore he patriotically believes that things British -should be good enough for the British--of course, their own ferns. -At other times I am rather inclined to surmise that his malice and -murderous resentment are due to his inability to take on any more -Latin, least of all imported Latin. Hodge without doubt now defends -himself against any more Latin as a man with his back to the wall -fights for his life: the personal promontory will hold no more. - -You have written me an irresistible letter, though frankly I made no -effort to resist it. Your praise of my books instantly endeared you -to me. - -Since a first plunge into ferns, then, has already brought results so -agreeable and surprising, I am resolved to be bolder and to plunge a -second time and more deeply. - -Is there--how could there help being!--a _Mrs._ Beverley Sands? Mrs. -Blackthorne wishes to know. I read your letter to Mrs. Blackthorne. -Mrs. Blackthorne was charmed with it. Mrs. Blackthorne is charmed -with _you_. Mr. Blackthorne is charmed with you. And Mr. and Mrs. -Blackthorne would like to know whether there is a Mrs. Beverley Sands -and, if so, whether she and you will not some time follow the ferns -and come and take possession for a while of our English garden. - -You and I can go off to ourselves and discuss our "dogwoods" and -"black oaks"; and Mrs. Sands and Mrs. Blackthorne, at their tea -across the garden, can exchange copies of their highly illuminated -and privately circulated little masterpieces about their husbands. -(The husbands should always edit the masterpieces!) - -Both of you, will you come? - -Finally, as to your generous propaganda in behalf of my books and as -to the favourable reports which my publishers send me from time to -time in the guise of New World royalties, you may think of the -proboscis as now being leveled straight and rigid like a gun-barrel -toward the shores of the United States, whence blow gales scented -with so glorious a fragrance. I begin to feel that Columbus was not -mistaken: America is turning out to be a place worth while. - - Your deeply interested, - EDWARD BLACKTHORNE. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO TILLY SNOWDEN - - _June 3._ - -DEAR TILLY: - -Crown me with some kind of chaplet--nothing classic, nothing -sentimental, but something American and practical--say with twigs of -Kentucky sassafras or, better, with the leaves of that forest -favourite which in boyhood so fascinated me and lubricated me with -its inner bark--entwine me, O Tilly, with a garland of slippery elm -for the virtue of always making haste to share with you my slippery -pleasures! I write at full speed now to empty into your lap, a -wonderfully receptive lap, tidings of the fittest joy that has ever -come to me as your favourite author--and favourite young husband to -be. - -The great English novelist Blackthorne, many of whose books we have -read together (whenever you listened), recently stumbled over one of -my obstructive tales; one of my awkwardly placed literary hurdles on -the world's race-course of readers. As a result of his fall he got -up, dusted himself thoroughly of his surprise, and actually -despatched to me an acknowledgment of his thanks for the happy -accident. I replied with a volley of my own thanks, with salvos of -praise for him. Now he has written again, throwing wide open his -house and his heart, both of which appear to be large and admirably -suited to entertain suitable guests. - -At this crisis place your careful hands over your careful heart--can -you find where it is?--and draw "a deep, quivering breath," the -novelist's conventional breath for the excited heroine. Mr. -Blackthorne wishes to know whether there is a _Mrs._ Beverley Sands. -If there is, and he feels sure there must be, far-sighted man!--he -invites her, invites _us_, _Mrs._ Blackthorne invites _us_, should we -sometime be in England, to visit them at their beautiful, far-famed -country-house in Warwickshire. If, then, our often postponed -marriage, our despairingly postponed marriage, should be arranged to -madden me and gladden the rest of mankind before next summer, we -could, with our arms around one another's necks, be conveyed by steam -and electricity on our wedding journey to the Blackthorne entrance -and be there deposited, still oblivious of everything but ourselves. - -Think what it would mean to you to be launched upon the rosy sea of -English social life amid the orisons and benisons of such illustrious -literary personages. Think of those lovely English lawns, raked and -rolled for centuries, and of many-coloured _fêtes_ on them; of the -national tea and the national sandwiches; of national strawberries -and clotted cream and clotted crumpets; of Thackeray's flunkies still -flunkying and Queen Anne's fads yet fadding; of week-ends without -end--as Mrs. Beverley Sands. Behold yourself growing more and more a -celebrity, as the English mutton-chop or sirloined reviewers -gradually brought into public appreciation the vague potentialities, -not necessarily the bare actualities, of modest young Sands himself. -Eventually, no doubt, there would be a day for you at Sandringham -with the royal ladies. They would drive you over--I have not the -least idea how great the distance is--to drink tea at Stonehenge. -Imagine yourself, it having naturally turned into a rainy English -afternoon, imagine yourself seated under a heavy black-silk English -umbrella on a bare cromlech, the oldest throne in England, tearing at -an Anglo-Saxon muffin of purest strain and surrounded by male and -female admirers, all under heavy black-silk umbrellas--Spitalsfield, -I suppose--as Mrs. Beverley Sands. - -Remember, madam, or miss, that this foreign triumph, this career of -glory, comes to you strictly from me. To you, of yourself, it is -inaccessible. Look upon it as in part the property that I am to -settle upon you at the time of our union--my honours. You have -already understood from me that my entire estate, both my real estate -and my unreal estate, consists of future honours. Those I have just -described are an early payment on the marriage contract--foreign -exchange! - -What reply, then, in your behalf am I to send to the lofty and -benevolent Blackthornes? As matters halt between us--he also loves -who only writes and waits--I can merely inform Mr. Blackthorne that -there is a Mrs. Beverley Sands, but that she persists in remaining a -Miss Snowden. With this realisation of what you will lose as Miss -Snowden and will gain as Mrs. Sands, do you not think it wise--and -wise you are, Tilly--any longer to persist in your persistence? You -once, in a moment of weakness, confessed to me--think of your having -a moment of weakness!--you once confessed to me, though you may deny -it now (Balzac defines woman as the angel or devil who denies -everything when it suits her), you once confessed to me that you -feared your life would be taken up with two protracted pleasures, -each of which curtailed the other: the pleasure of being engaged to -me a long time and the pleasure of being married to me a long time. -Nerve yourself to shortening the first in order to enter upon the -compensations of the second. - -Yet remorse racks me even at the prospect of obliterating from the -world one whom I first knew and loved in it as Tilly Snowden. Where -will Tilly Snowden be when only Mrs. Beverley Sands is left? Where -will be that wild rose in a snow bank--the rose which was truly wild, -the snow bank which was not cold (or was it?)? I think I should -easily become reconciled to your being known, say, as Madame Snowden, -so that you might still stand out in your own right and wild-rose -individuality. We could visit England as the rising American author, -Beverley Sands, and his lovely risen wife, Madame Snowden. Everybody -would then be asking who the mysterious Madame Snowden was, and I -should relate that she was a retired opera singer--having retired -before she advanced. - -By the way, you confided to me some time ago that you were not very -well. You always _look_ well, mighty well to _me_, Tilly. Perfectly -well to _me_. Can your indisposition be imaginary? Or is it merely -fashionable? Or--is it something else? What of late has sickened me -is an idea of yours that you might sometime consult Doctor G. M. -Tilly! Tilly! If you knew the pains that rack me when I think of -that charlatan's door being closed behind you as a patient of his! - -Tell me it isn't true, and answer about the beautiful Blackthornes! - -Your easy and your uneasy - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _"Slippery Elm" Apartments, - June 4._ - -I am perfectly willing, Beverley, to crown you with slippery elm--you -seem to think I keep it on hand, dwell in a bower of it--if it is the -leaf you sigh for. But please do not try to crown me with a wig of -your creative hair; that is, with your literary honours. - -How wonderfully the impressions of childhood disappear from memory -like breaths on a warm mirror, but long afterwards return to their -shapes if the glass be coldly breathed upon! As I read your letter, -at least as I read the very chilly Blackthorne parts of your letter, -I remembered, probably for the first time in years, a friend of my -mother's. - -She had been inveigled to become the wife, that is, the legally -installed life-assistant, of an exceedingly popular minister; and -when I was a little girl, but not too little to understand--was I -ever too little to understand?--she used to slip across the street to -our house and in confidence to my mother pour out her sense of humour -at the part assigned her by the hired wedding march and evangelical -housekeeping. I recall one of those half-whispered, always -half-whispered, confidences--for how often in life one feels guilty -when telling the truth and innocent when lying! - -On this particular morning she and my mother laughed till they were -weary, while I danced round them with delight at the idea of having -even the tip of my small but very active finger in any pie that -savoured of mischief. She had been telling my mother that if, some -Sunday, her husband accidentally preached a sermon which brought -people into the church, she felt sure of soon receiving a turkey. If -he made a rousing plea for foreign missions, she might possibly look -out for a pair of ducks. Her destiny, as she viewed it, was to be -merely a strip of worthless territory lying alongside the land of -Canaan; people simply walked over her, tramped across her, on their -way to Canaan, carrying all sorts of bountiful things to Canaan, her -husband. - -That childish nonsense comes back to me strangely, and yet not -strangely as I think of your funny letter, your very, very funny -letter, about the Blackthornes' invitation to me because I am not -myself but am possibly a Mrs.--well, _some_ Mrs. Sands. The English -scenes you describe I see but too vividly: it is Canaan and his strip -all over again--there on the English lawns; a great many heavy -English people are tramping heavily over me on their way to Canaan. -The fabulous tea at Sandringham would be Canaan's cup, and at -Stonehenge it would be Canaan's muffin that at last choked to death -the ill-fated Tilly Snowden. - -In order to escape such a fate, Tilly Snowden, then, begs that you -will thank the Blackthornes, Mr. and Mrs., as best you can for their -invitation; as best she can she thanks you; but for the present, and -for how much of the future she does not know, she prefers to remain -what is very necessary to her independence and therefore to her -happiness; and also what is quite pleasing to her ear--the wild rose -in the snow bank (cold or not cold, according to the sun). - -In other words, my dear Beverley, it is true that I have more than -once postponed the date of our marriage. I have never said why; -perhaps I myself have never known just why. But at least do not -expect me to shorten the engagement in order that I may secure some -share of your literary honours. As a little girl I always despised -queens who were crowned with their husbands. It seemed to me that -the queen was crowned with what was left over and was merely allowed -to sit on the corner of the throne as the poor connection. - - -P.S.--Still, I _would_ like to go to England. I mean, of course, I -wish _we_ could go on our wedding journey! If I got ready, could I -rely upon _you_? I have always wished to visit England without being -debarred from its social life. Seriously, the invitation of the -Blackthornes looks to me like an opportunity and an advantage not to -be thrown away. Wisdom never wastes, and you say I am wise! - -It is true that I have not been feeling very well. And it is true -that I have consulted Dr. Marigold and am now a patient of his. That -dreaded door has closed behind me! I have been alone with him! The -diagnosis at least was delightful. He made it appear like opening a -golden door upon a charming landscape. I had but to step outdoors -and look around with a pleasant smile and say: "Why, Health, my -former friend, how do you do! Why did you go back on me?" He tells -me my trouble is a mild form of auto-intoxication. I said to him -that _must_ be the disease; namely, that it was _mild_. Never in my -life had I had anything that was mild! Disease from my birth up had -attacked me only in its most virulent form: so had health. I had -always enjoyed--and suffered from--virulent health. I am going to -take the Bulgar bacillus. - -Why do _you_ dislike Dr. Marigold? Popular physicians are naturally -hated by unpopular physicians. But how does _he_ run against or run -over you? - -Which of your books was it the condescending Englishman liked? -Suppose you send me a copy. Why not send me a copy of each of your -books? Those you gave me as they came out seem to have disappeared. - -The wild rose is now going to pour down her graceful stalk a tubeful -of the Balkan bacillus. - -More trouble with the Balkans! - - TILLY - - (auto-intoxicated, not otherwise - intoxicated! Thank Heaven at least - for _that_!). - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _June 3._ - -DEAR BEN: - -A bolt of divine lightning has struck me out of the smiling blue, a -benign fulmination from an Olympian. - -To descend the long slope of Olympus to you. A few days ago I -received a letter from the great English novelist, Edward -Blackthorne, in praise of my work. The great Edward reads my books -and the great Ben Doolittle doesn't--score heavily for the aforesaid -illustrious Eddy. - -Of course I have for years known that you do not cast your legal or -illegal eyes on fiction, though not long ago I heard you admit that -you had read "Ten Thousand a Year." On the ground, that it is a -lawyer's novel: which is no ground at all, a mere mental bog. My own -opinion of why you read it is that you were in search of information -how to make the ten thousand! As a literary performance your reading -"Ten Thousand a Year" may be likened to the movement of a land-turtle -which has crossed to the opposite side of his dusty road to bite off -a new kind of weed, waddling along his slow way under the -impenetrable roof of his own back. - -For, my dear Ben, whom I love and trust as I love and trust no other -human being in this world, do you know what I think of you as most -truly being? The very finest possible specimen of the highest order -of human land-turtle. A land-turtle is a creature that lives under a -shovel turned upside down over it, called its back; and a human -land-turtle is a fellow who thrives under the roof of the five senses -and the practical. Never does a turtle get from under his carapace, -and never does the man-turtle get beyond the shovel of his five -senses. Of course you realise that not during our friendship have I -paid you so extravagant a compliment. For the human race has to be -largely made up of millions of land-turtles. They cause the world to -go slowly, and it is the admirable stability of their lives neither -to soar nor to sink. You are a land-turtle, Benjamin Doolittle, -Esquire; you live under the shell of the practical; that is, you have -no imagination; that is, you do not read fiction; that is, you do not -read Me! Therefore I harbour no grievance against you, but cherish -all the confidence and love in the world for you. But, mind you, -only as an unparalleled creeping thing. - -To get on with the business of this letter: the English novelist laid -aside his enthusiasm for my work long enough to make a request: he -asked me to send him some Kentucky ferns for his garden. Owing to my -long absence from Kentucky I am no longer in touch with people and -things down there. But you left that better land only a few years -ago. I recollect that of old you manifested a weakness for sending -flowers to womankind--another evidence, by the way, of lack of -imagination. Such conduct shows a mere botanical estimate of the -grand passion. The only true lovers, the only real lovers, that -women ever have are men of imagination. Why should these men send a -common florist's flowers! They grow and offer their own--the roses -of Elysium! - -To pass on, you must still have clinging to your memory, like bats to -a darkened, disused wall, the addresses of various Louisville -florists who, by daylight or candlelight and no light at all, were -the former emissaries of your folly and your fickleness. Will you -send me at once the address of a firm in whose hands I could safely -entrust this very high-minded international piece of business? - -Inasmuch as you are now a New York lawyer and inasmuch as New York -lawyers charge for everything--concentration of mind, if they have -any mind, tax on memory and tax on income, their powers of locomotion -and of prevarication, club dues and death dues, time and tumult, -strikes and strokes, and all other items of haste and waste, you are -authorised to regard this letter a professional demand and to let me -have a reasonable bill at a not too early date. Charge for whatever -you will, but, I charge you, charge me not for your friendship. -"Naught that makes life most worth while can be had for gold." -(Rather elegant extract from one of my novels which you disdain to -read!) - -I shall be greatly obliged if you will let me have an immediate reply. - - BEVERLEY. - - -How is the fair Polly Boles? Still pretending to quarrel? And do -you still keep up the pretence? - -Predestined magpies! - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _150 Broad Street, - June 5._ - -DEAR BEVERLEY: - -Your highly complimentary and philosophical missive is before my eyes. - -You understand French, not I. But I have accumulated a few -quotations which I sometimes venture to use in writing, never in my -proud oral delivery. If I pronounced to the French the French with -which I am familiar, the French themselves would drive their own -vernacular out of their land--over into Germany! Here is one of -those fond inaudible phrases: - - _A chaque oiseau - Son nid est beau._ - - -That is to say, in Greek, every Diogenes prefers his own tub. - -The lines are a trophy captured at a college-club dinner the other -night. One of the speakers launched the linguistic marvel on the -blue cloud of smoke and it went bumping around the heads of the -guests without finding any head to enter, like a cork bobbing about -the edges of a pond, trying in vain to strike a place to land. But -everybody cheered uproariously, made happy by the discovery that -someone actually could say something at a New York dinner that nobody -had heard before. One man next to the speaker (of course coached -beforehand) passed a translation to his elbow neighbour. It made its -way down the table to me at the other end and I, in the New York way, -laid it up for future use at a dinner in some other city. Meantime I -use it now on you. - -It is true that I arrived in New York from Kentucky some years ago. -It is likewise undeniable that for some years previous thereto I had -dealings with Louisville florists. But I affirm now, and all these -variegated gentlemen, if they _are_ gentlemen, would gladly come on -to New York as my witnesses and bear me out in the joyful affidavit, -that whatever folly or recklessness or madness marked my behaviour, -never once did I commit the futility, the imbecility, of trafficking -in ferns. - -A great English novelist--ferns! A rising young American -novelist--ferns! Frogstools, mushrooms, fungi! Man alive, why don't -you ship him a dray-load of Kentucky spiderwebs? Or if they should -be too gross for his delicate soul, a birdcage containing a pair of -warbling young bluegrass moonbeams? - -I am a _land_-turtle, am I? If it be so, thank God! If I have no -imagination, thank God! If I live and move and have my being under -the shovel of the five senses and of the practical, thank God! But, -my good fellow, whom I love and trust as I love and trust no other -man, if I am a turtle, do you know what I think of you as most truly -being? - -A poor, harmless tinker. - -You, with your pastime of fabricating novels, dwell in a little -workshop of the imagination; you tinker with what you are pleased to -call human lives, reality, truth. On your shop door should hang a -sign to catch the eye: "Tinkering done here. Noble, splendid -tinkering. No matter who you are, what your past career or present -extremity, come in and let the owner of this shop make your -acquaintance and he will work you over into something finer than you -have ever been or in this world will ever be. For he will make you -into an unfallen original or into a perfected final. If you have -never had a chance to do your best in life, he will give you that -chance in a story. All unfortunates, all the broken-down, especially -welcome. Everybody made over to be as everybody should be by -Beverley Sands." - -But, brother, the sole thing with which you, the tinker, do business -is the sole thing with which I, the turtle, do not do business. I, -as a lawyer, cannot tamper with human life, actuality, truth. During -the years that I have been an attorney never have I had a case in -court without first of all things looking for the element of -imagination in it and trying to stamp that element out of the case -and kick it out of the courtroom: that lurking scoundrel, that -indefatigable mischief-maker, your beautiful and beloved patron -power--imagination. - -Going on to testify out of my experience as a land-turtle, I depose -the following, having kissed the Bible, to wit: that during the -turtle's travels he sooner or later crosses the tracks of most of the -other animal creatures and gets to know them and their ways. But -there is one path of one creature marked for unique renown among -nose-bearing men: that of a graceful, agile, little black-and-white -piece of soft-furred nocturnal innocence--surnamed the polecat. - -Now the imagination, as long as it is favourably disposed, may in -your profession be the harmless bird of paradise or whatever winged -thing you will that soars innocently toward bright skies; but, once -unkindly disposed, it is in my profession, and in every other, the -polecat of the human faculties. When it has testified against you, -it vanishes from the scene, but the whole atmosphere reeks with its -testimony. - -Hence it is that I go gunning first for this same little animal whose -common den is the lawsuit. His abode is everywhere, though you never -seem to have encountered him in your work and walks. If you should -do so, if you should ever run into the polecat of a hostile -imagination, oh, then, my dear fellow, may the land-turtle be able to -crawl to you and stand by you in that hour! - -But--the tinker to his work, the turtle to his! _A chaque oiseau_! -Diogenes, your tub! - -As to the fern business, I'll inquire of Polly. I paid for the -flowers, _she_ got them. Anybody can receive money for blossoms, but -only a statesman and a Christian, I suppose, can fill an order for -flowers with equity and fresh buds. Go ahead and try Phillips & -Faulds. You could reasonably rely upon them to fill any order that -you might place in their hands, however nonsensical-comical, -billy-goatian-satirical it may be. They'd send your Englishman an -opossum with a pouch full of blooming hyacinths if that would quiet -his longing and make him happy. I should think it might. - -We are, sir, your obliged counsel and turtle, - - BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE. - -How is the fair Tilly Snowden? Still cooing? Are you still cooing? - -Uncertain doves! - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES - - _150 Broad Street, - June 5._ - -DEAR POLLY: - -I send you some red roses to go with your black hair and your black -eyes, never so black as when black with temper. When may I come to -see you? Why not to-morrow night? - -Another matter, not so vital but still important: a few years before -we left Louisville to seek our fortunes (and misfortunes) in New -York, I at different times employed divers common carriers known as -florists to convey to you inflammatory symbols of those emotions that -could not be depicted in writing fluid. In other words, I hired -those mercenaries to impress my infatuation upon you in terms of -their costliest, most sensational merchandise. You should be -prepared to say which of these florists struck you as the best -business agent. - -Would you send me the address of that man or of that firm? -Immediately you will want to know why. Always suspicious! Let the -suspicions be quieted; it is not I, it is Beverley. Some -foggy-headed Englishman has besought him to ship him (the foggy one) -some Kentucky vegetation all the way across the broad Atlantic to his -wet domain--interlocking literary idiots! Beverley appeals to me, I -to you, the highest court in everything. - -Are you still enjoying the umbrageous society of that giraffe-headed -jackass, Doctor Claude Mullen? Can you still tolerate his -unimpassioned propinquity and futile gyrations? _He_ a nerve -specialist! The only nerve in his practice is _his_ nerve. Doesn't -my love satisfy you? Isn't there enough of it? Isn't it the right -kind? Will it ever give out? - -Your reply, then, will cover four points: to thank me for the red -roses; to say when I may come to see you; to send me the address of -the Louisville florist who became most favourably known to you -through a reckless devotion; and to explain your patience with that -unhappy fool. - -Thy sworn and thy swain, - - BEN DOOLITTLE. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _The Franklin Flats, - June 6._ - -MY DEAR BEN: - -Your writing to me for the name of a Louisville florist is one of -your flimsiest subterfuges. What you wished to receive from me was a -letter of reassurance. You were disagreeable on your last visit and -you have since been concerned as to how I felt about it afterwards. -Now you try to conciliate me by invoking my aid as indispensable. -That is like you men! If one of you can but make a woman forget, if -he can but lead her to forgive him, by flattering her with the idea -that she is indispensable! And that is like woman! I see her figure -standing on the long road of time: dumbly, patiently standing there, -waiting for some male to pass along and permit her to accompany him -as his indispensable fellow-traveller. I am now to be put in a good -humour by being honoured with your request that I supply you with the -name of a florist. - -Well, you poor, uninformed Ben, I'll supply you. All the Louisville -florists, as I thought at the time, carried out their instructions -faithfully; that is, from each I occasionally received flowers not -fresh. Did it occur to me to blame the florists? Never! I did what -a woman always does: she thinks less of--well, she doesn't think less -of the _florist_! - -Be this as it may, Beverley might try Phillips & Faulds for whatever -he is to export. As nearly as I now remember they sent the biggest -boxes of whatever you ordered! - -I have an appointment for to-morrow night, but I think I can arrange -to divide the evening, giving you the later half. It shall be for -you to say whether the best half was _yours_. That will depend upon -_you_. - -I still enjoy the "umbrageous society" of Dr. Claude Mullen because -he loves me and I do not love him. The fascination of his presence -lies in my indifference. Perhaps women are so seldom safe with the -men who love them, that any one of us feels herself entitled to make -the most of a rare chance! I am not only safe, I am entertained. As -I go down into the parlour, I almost feel that I ought to buy a -ticket to a performance in my own private theatre. - -Ben, dear, are you going to commit the folly of being jealous? If I -had to marry _him_, do you know what my first wifely present would -be? A liberal transfusion of my own blood! As soon as I enter the -room, what fascinates me are his lower eyelids, which hold little -cupfuls of sentimental fluid. I am always expecting the little pools -to run over: then there would be tears. The night he goes for -good--perhaps they will be tears that night. - -If you ask me how can I, if I feel thus about him, still encourage -his visits, I have simply to say that I don't know. When it comes to -what a woman will "receive" in such cases, the ground she walks on is -very uncertain to her own feet. It may be that the one thing she -forever craves and forever fears not to get is absolute certainty, -certainty that some day love for her will not be over, everything be -not ended she knows not why. Dr. Mullen's love is pitiful, and as -long as a man's love is pitiful at least a woman can be sure of it. -Therefore he is irresistible--as my guest! - -The roses are glorious. I bury my face in them down to the thorns. -And then I come over and sign my name as the indispensable - - POLLY BOLES. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO TILLY SNOWDEN - - _June 6._ - -DEAR TILLY: - -I have had a note from Beverley, asking whether he could come this -evening. I have written that I have an appointment, but I did not -enlighten him as to the appointment being with you. Why not let him -suffer awhile? I will explain afterwards. I told him that I could -perhaps arrange to divide the evening; would you mind? And would you -mind coming early? I will do as much for you some time, and _I -suspect I couldn't do more_! - - -P.S.--Rather than come for the first half of the evening perhaps you -would prefer to _postpone_ your visit _altogether_. It would suit me -just as well; _better_ in fact. There really was something very -_particular_, Tilly dear, that I wanted to talk to Ben about to-night. - -I shall not look for you at all _this_ evening, _best_ of friends. - - POLLY BOLES. - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES - - _June 6._ - -DEAR POLLY: - -The very particular something to talk to Ben about to-night is the -identical something for every other night. And nothing could be more -characteristic of you, as soon as you heard that my visit would clash -with one of his, than your eagerness to push me partly out of the -house in a hurried letter and then push me completely out in a quiet -postscript. Being a woman, I understand your temptation and your -tactics. I fully sympathise with you. - -Continue in ease of mind, my most trusted intimate. I shall not drop -in to interrupt you and Ben--both not so young as you once were and -both getting stout--heavy Polly, heavy Ben--as you sit side by side -in your little Franklin Flat parlour. That parlour always suggests -to me an enormous turnip hollowed out square: with no windows; with a -hole on one side to come in and a hole on the other side to go out; -upholstered in enormous bunches of beets and horse-radish, and -lighted with a wilted electric sunflower. There you two will sit -to-night, heavy Polly, heavy Ben, suffocating for fresh air and -murmuring to each other as you have murmured for years: - -"I do! I do!" - -"I do! I do!" - -One sentence in your letter, Polly dear, takes your photograph like a -camera; the result is a striking likeness. That sentence is this: - -"Why not let him suffer awhile? I will explain afterwards." - -That is exactly what you will do, what you would always do: explain -afterwards. In other words, you plot to make Ben jealous but fear to -make him too jealous lest he desert you. If on the evening of this -visit you should forget "to explain," and if during the night you -should remember, you would, if need were, walk barefoot through the -streets in your nightgown and tap on his window-shutter, if you could -reach it, and say: "Ben, that appointment wasn't with any other man; -it was with Tilly. I could not sleep until I had told you!" - -That is, you have already disposed of yourself, breath and soul, to -Ben; and while you are waiting for the marriage ceremony, you have -espoused in his behalf what you consider your best and strongest -trait--loyalty. Under the goadings of this vampire trait you will, a -few years after marriage, have devoured all there is of Ben alive and -will have taken your seat beside what are virtually his bones. As -the years pass, the more ravenously you will preside over the bones. -Never shall the world say that Polly Boles was disloyal to whatever -was left of her dear Ben Doolittle! - -_Your loyalty_! I believe the first I saw of it was years ago one -night in Louisville when you and I were planning to come to New York -to live. Naturally we were much concerned by the difficulties of -choosing our respective New York residences and we had written on and -had received thumb-nailed libraries of romance about different -places. As you looked over the recommendations of each, you came -upon one called The Franklin Flats. The circular contained -appropriate quotations from Poor Richard's Almanac. I remember how -your face brightened as you said: "This ought to be the very thing." -One of the quotations on the circular ran somewhat thus: "Beware of -meat twice boiled"; and you said in consequence: "So they must have a -good restaurant!" - -In other words, you believed that a house named after Franklin could -but resemble Franklin. A building put up in New York by a Tammany -contractor, if named after Benjamin Franklin and advertised with -quotations from Franklin's works, would embody the traits of that -remote national hero! To your mind--not to your imagination, for you -haven't any--to your mind, and you have a great deal of mind, the -bell-boys, the superintendent, the scrub woman, the chambermaids, the -flunkied knave who stands at the front door--all these were loyally -congregated as about a beloved mausoleum. You are still in the -Franklin Flats! I know what you have long suffered there; but move -away! Not Polly Boles. She will be loyal to the building as long as -the building stands by the contractor and the contractor stands by -profits and losses. - -While on the subject of loyalty, not your loyalty but woman's -loyalty, I mean to finish with it. And I shall go on to say that -occasionally I have sat behind a plate-glass window in some Fifth -Avenue shop and have studied woman's organised loyalty, unionised -loyalty, standardised loyalty. This takes effect in those -processions that now and then sweep up the Avenue as though they were -Crusaders to the Holy Sepulchre. The marchers try first not to look -self-conscious; all try, secondly, to look devoted to "the cause." -But beneath all other expressions and differences of expression I -have always seen one reigning look as plainly as though it were -printed in enormous letters on a banner flying over their heads: - -"Strictly Monogamous Women." - -At such times I have felt a wild desire, when I should hear of the -next parade, to organise a company of unenthralled young girls who -with unfettered natures and unfettered features should tramp up the -Avenue under their own colours. If the women before them--those -loyal ones--would actually carry, as they should, a banner with the -legend I have described, then my company of girls should unfurl to -the breeze their flag with the truth blazoned on it: - -"Not Necessarily Monogamous!" - -The honest human crowd, watching and applauding us, would pack the -Avenue from sidewalks to roofs. - -Between you and me everything seems to be summed up in one -difference: all my life I have wanted to go barefoot and all your -life, no matter what the weather, you have been solicitous to put on -goloshes. - -My very nature is rooted in rebellion that in a world alive and -running over with irresistible people, a woman must be doomed to find -her chief happiness in just one! The heart going out to so many in -succession, and the hand held by one; year after year your hand held -by the first man who impulsively got possession of it. Every -instinct of my nature would be to jerk my hand away and be free! To -give it again and again. - -This subject weighs crushingly on me as I struggle with this letter -because I have tidings for you about myself. I am to write words -which I have long doubted I should ever write, life's most iron-bound -words. Polly, I suppose I am going to be married at last. Of course -it is Beverley. Not without waverings, not without misgivings. But -I'd feel those, be the man whoever he might. Why I feel thus I do -not know, but I know I feel. I tell you this first because it was -you who brought Beverley and me together, who have always believed in -his career. (Though I think that of late you have believed more in -him and less in me.) I, too, am beginning to believe in his career. -He has lately ascertained that his work is making a splendid -impression in England. If he succeeds in England, he will succeed in -this country. He has received an invitation to visit some delightful -and very influential people in England and "to bring me along!" -Think of anybody bringing _me_ along! If we should be entertained by -these people [they are the Blackthornes], such is English social -life, that we should also get to know the white Thornes and the red -Thornes--the whole social forest. The iron rule of my childhood was -economy; and the influence of that iron rule over me is inexorable -still: I cannot even contemplate such prodigal wastage in life as not -to accept this invitation and gather in its wealth of consequences. - -More news of me, very, very important: _at last_ I have made the -acquaintance of George Marigold. I have become one of his patients. - -Beverley is furious. I enclose a letter from him. You need not -return it. I shall not answer it. I shall leave things to his -imagination and his imagination will give him no rest. - -If Ben hurled at _you_ a jealous letter about Dr. Mullen, you would -immediately write to remove his jealousy. You would even ridicule -Dr. Mullen to win greater favour in Ben's eyes. That is, you would -do an abominable thing, never doubting that Ben would admire you the -more. And you would be right; for as Ben observed you tear Dr. -Mullen to pieces to feed his vanity, he would lean back in his chair -and chuckle within himself: "Glorious, staunch old Polly!" - -And what you would do in this instance you will do all your life: you -will practise disloyalty to every other human being, as in this -letter you have practised it with me, for the sake of loyalty to Ben: -your most pronounced, most horrible trait. - - TILLY SNOWDEN. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO TILLY SNOWDEN - - _June 7._ - -DEAR TILLY: - -I return Beverley's letter. Without comment, since I did not read -it. You know how I love Beverley, respect him, believe in him. I -have a feeling for him unlike that for any other human being, not -even Ben; I look upon him as set apart and sacred because he has -genius and belongs to the world. - -As for his faults, those that I have not already noticed I prefer to -find out for myself. I have never cared to discover any human -being's failings through a third person. Instead of getting -acquainted with the pardonable traits of the abused, I might really -be introduced to the _abominable traits of the abuser_. - -_Once more_, you think you are going to marry Beverley! I shall -reserve my congratulations for the _event itself_. - -Thank you for surrendering your claim on my friendship and society -last night. Ben and I had a most satisfactory evening, and when not -suffocating we murmured "I do" to our hearts' content. - -Next time, should your visits clash, I'll push _him_ out. Yet I feel -in honour bound to say that this is only my present state of mind. I -might weaken at the last moment--even in the Franklin Flats. - -As to some things in your letter, I have long since learned not to -bestow too much attention upon anything you say. You court a kind of -irresponsibility in language. With your inborn and over-indulged -willfulness you love to break through the actual and to revel in the -imaginary. I have become rather used to this as one of your growing -traits and I am therefore not surprised that in this letter you say -things which, if seriously spoken, would insult your sex and would -make them recoil from you--or make them wish to burn you at the -stake. When you march up Fifth Avenue with your company of girls in -that kind of procession, there will not be any Fifth Avenue: you will -be tramping through the slums where you belong. - -All this, I repeat, is merely your way--to take things out in -talking. But we can make words our playthings in life's shallows -until words wreck us as their playthings in life's deeps. - -Still, in return for your compliments to me, _which, of course, you -really mean_, I paid you one the other night when thinking of you -quite by myself. It was this: nature seems to leave something out of -each of us, but we presently discover that she perversely put it -where it does not belong. - -What she left out of you, my dear, was the domestic tea-kettle. -There isn't even any place for one. But she made up for lack of the -kettle _by rather overdoing the stove_! - - Your _discreet_ friend, - POLLY BOLES. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO PHILLIPS & FAULDS - - _Cathedral Heights, New York, - June 7, 1900._ - -GENTLEMEN: - -A former customer of yours, Mr. Benjamin Doolittle, has suggested -your firm as reliable agents to carry out an important commission, -which I herewith describe: - -I enclose a list of Kentucky ferns. I desire you to make a -collection of these ferns and to ship them, expenses prepaid, to -Edward Blackthorne, Esquire, King Alfred's Wood, Warwickshire, -England. The cost is not to exceed twenty-five dollars. To furnish -you the needed guarantee, as well as to avoid unnecessary -correspondence, I herewith enclose, payable to your order, my check -for that amount. - -Will you let me have a prompt reply, stating whether you will -undertake this commission and see it through? - - Very truly yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - - - -PHILLIPS & FAULDS TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Louisville, Ky., - June 10, 1900._ - -DEAR SIR: - -Your valued letter with check for $25 received. We handle most of -the ferns on the list, and know the others and can easily get them. - -You may rely upon your valued order receiving the best attention. -Thanking you for the same, - - Yours very truly, - PHILLIPS & FAULDS. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO EDWARD BLACKTHORNE - - _Cathedral Heights, New York, - June 15, 1910._ - -MY DEAR MR. BLACKTHORNE: - -Your second letter came into the port of my life like an argosy from -a rich land. I think you must have sent it with some remembrance of -your own youth, or out of your mature knowledge of youth itself; how -too often it walks the shore of its rocky world, cutting its bare -feet on sharp stones, as it strains its eyes toward things far beyond -its horizon but not beyond its faith and hope. Some day its ship -comes in and it sets sail toward the distant ideal. How much the -opening of the door of your friendship, of your life, means to me! A -new consecration envelops the world that I am to be the guest of a -great man. If words do not say more, it is because words say so -little. - -Delay has been unavoidable in any mere formal acknowledgment of your -letter. You spoke in it of the hinges of a book. My silence has -been due to the arrangement of hinges for the shipment of the ferns. -I wished to insure their safe transoceanic passage and some inquiries -had to be made in Kentucky. - -You may rely upon it that the matter will receive the best attention. -In good time the ferns, having reached the end of their journey, will -find themselves put down in your garden as helpless immigrants. From -what outlook I can obtain upon the scene of their reception, they -should lack only hands to reach confidingly to you and lack only feet -to run with all their might away from Hodge. - -I acknowledge--with the utmost thanks--the unusual and beautiful -courtesy of Mrs. Blackthorne's and your invitation to my wife, if I -have one, and to me. It is the dilemma of my life, at the age of -twenty-seven, to be obliged to say that such a being as Mrs. Sands -exists, but that nevertheless there is no such person. - -Can you imagine a man's stretching out his hand to pluck a peach and -just before he touched the peach, finding only the bough of the tree? -Then, as from disappointment he was about to break off the offensive -bough, seeing again the dangling peach? Can you imagine this -situation to be of long continuance, during which he could neither -take hold of the peach nor let go of the tree--nor go away? If you -can, you will understand what I mean when I say that my bride -persists in remaining unwed and I persist in wooing. I do not know -why; she protests that she does not know; but we do know that life is -short, love shorter, that time flies, and we are not husband and wife. - -If she remains undecided when Summer returns, I hope Mrs. Blackthorne -and you will let me come alone. - -Thus I can thank you with certainty for one with the hope that I may -yet thank you for two. - -I am, - - Sincerely yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - -P.S.--Can you pardon the informality of a postscript? - -As far as I can see clearly into a cloudy situation, marriage is -denied me on account of the whole unhappy history of woman--which is -pretty hard. But a good many American ladies--the one I woo among -them--are indignant just now that they are being crowded out of their -destinies by husbands--or even possibly by bachelors. These ladies -deliver lectures to one another with discontented eloquence and rouse -their auditresses to feministic frenzy by reminding them that for -ages woman has walked in the shadow of man and that the time has come -for the worm [the woman] to turn on the shadow or to crawl out of it. - -My dear Mr. Blackthorne, I need hardly say that the only two shadows -I could ever think of casting on the woman I married would be that of -my umbrella whenever it rained, and that of her parasol whenever the -sun shone. But I do maintain that if there is not enough sunshine -for the men and women in the world, if there has to be some casting -of shadows in the competition and the crowding, I do maintain that -the casting of the shadow would better be left to the man. He has -had long training, terrific experience, in this mortal business of -casting the shadow, has learned how to moderate it and to hold it -steady! The woman at least knows where it is to be found, should she -wish to avail herself of it. But what would be the state of a man in -his need of his spouse's penumbra? He would be out of breath with -running to keep up with the penumbra or to find where it was for the -time being! - -I have seen some of these husbands who live--or have gradually died -out--in the shadow of their wives; they are nature's subdued farewell -to men and gentlemen. - - - - -DIARY OF BEVERLEY SANDS - - _June 16._ - -A remarkable thing has lately happened to me. - -One of my Kentucky novels, upon being republished in London some -months ago, fell into the hands of a sympathetic reviewer. This -critic's praise later made its way to the stately library of Edward -Blackthorne. What especially induced the latter to read the book, I -infer, were lines quoted by the reviewer from my description of a -woodland scene with ferns in it: the mighty novelist, as it happens, -is himself interested in ferns. He consequently wrote to some other -English authors and critics, calling attention to my work, and he -sent a letter to me, asking for some ferns for his garden. - -This recognition in England hilariously affected my friends over -here. Tilly, whose mind suggests to me a delicately poised pair of -golden balances for weighing delight against delight (always her most -vital affair), when this honour for me fell into the scales, found -them inclined in my favour. If it be true, as I have often thought, -that she has long been holding on to me merely until she could take -sure hold of someone else of more splendid worldly consequence, she -suddenly at least tightened her temporary grasp. Polly, good, solid -Polly, wholesome and dependable as a well-browned whole-wheat baker's -loaf weighing a hundred and sixty pounds, when she heard of it, gave -me a Bohemian supper in her Franklin Flat parlour, inviting only a -few undersized people, inasmuch as she and Ben, the chief personages -of the entertainment, took up most of the room. We were so packed -in, that literally it was a night in Bohemia _aux sardines_. - -Since the good news from England came over, Ben, with his big, round, -clean-shaven, ruddy face and short, reddish curly hair, which makes -him look like a thirty-five-year-old Bacchus who had never drunk a -drop--even Ben has beamed on me like a mellower orb. He is as -ashamed as ever of my books, but is beginning to feel proud that so -many more people are being fooled by them. Several times lately I -have caught his eyes resting on me with an expression of affectionate -doubt as to whether after all he might be mistaken in not having -thought more of me. But he dies hard. My publisher, who is a human -refrigerator containing a mental thermometer, which rises or falls -toward like or dislike over a background for book-sales, got wind of -the matter and promptly invited me to one of his thermometric -club-lunches--always an occasion for acute gastritis. - -Rumour of my fame has permeated my club, where, of course, the -leading English reviews are kept on file. Some of the members must -have seen the favourable criticisms. One night I became aware as I -passed through the rooms that club heroes seated here and there threw -glances of fresh interest toward me and exchanged auspicious words. -The president--who for so long a time has styled himself the Nestor -of the club that he now believes it is the members who do this, the -garrulous old president, whose weaknesses have made holes in him -through which his virtues sometimes leak out and get away, met me -under the main chandelier and congratulated me in tones so -intentionally audible that they violated the rules but were not -punishable under his personal privileges. - -There was a sinister incident: two members whom Ben and I wish to -kick because they have had the audacity to make the acquaintance of -Tilly and Polly, and whom we despise also because they are -fashionable charlatans in their profession--these two with dark looks -saw the president congratulate me. - -More good fortune yet to come! The ferns which I am sending Mr. -Blackthorne will soon be growing in his garden. The illustrious man -has many visitors; he leads them, if he likes, to his fern bank. -"These," he will some day say, "came from Christine Nilsson. These -are from Barbizon in memory of Corot. These were sent me by -Turgenieff. And these," he will add, turning to his guests, "these -came from a young American novelist, a Kentuckian, whose work I -greatly respect: you must read his books." The guests separate to -their homes to pursue the subject. Spreading fame--may it spread! -Last of all, the stirring effect of this on me, who now run toward -glory as Anacreon said Cupid ran toward Venus--with both feet and -wings. - -The ironic fact about all this commotion affecting so many solid, -substantial people--the ironic fact is this: - -_There was no woodland scene and there were no ferns._ - -Here I reach the curious part of my story. - -When I was a country lad of some seventeen years in Kentucky, one -August afternoon I was on my way home from a tramp of several miles. -My course lay through patches of woods--last scant vestiges of the -primeval forest--and through fields garnered of summer grain or green -with the crops of coming autumn. Now and then I climbed a fence and -crossed an old woods-pasture where stock grazed. - -The August sky was clear and the sun beat down with terrific heat. I -had been walking for hours and parching thirst came upon me. - -This led me to remember how once these rich uplands had been the vast -rolling forest that stretched from far-off eastern mountains to -far-off western rivers, and how under its shade, out of the rock, -everywhere bubbled crystal springs. A land of swift forest streams -diamond bright, drinking places of the bold game. - -The sun beat down on me in the treeless open field. My feet struck -into a path. It, too, became a reminder: it had once been a trail of -the wild animals of that verdurous wilderness. I followed its -windings--a sort of gully--down a long, gentle slope. The windings -had no meaning now: the path could better have been straight; it was -devious because the feet that first marked it off had threaded their -way crookedly hither and thither past the thick-set trees. - -I reached the spring--a dry spot under the hot sun; no tree -overshadowing it, no vegetation around it, not a blade of grass; only -dust in which were footprints of the stock which could not break the -habit of coming to it but quenched their thirst elsewhere. The -bulged front of some limestone rock showed where the ancient mouth of -the spring had been. Enough moisture still trickled forth to wet a -few clods. Hovering over these, rising and sinking, a little -quivering jet of gold, a flock of butterflies. The grey stalk of a -single dead weed projected across the choked orifice of the fountain -and one long, brown grasshopper--spirit of summer dryness--had -crawled out to the edge and sat motionless. - -A few yards away a young sycamore had sprung up from some -wind-carried seed. Its grey-green leaves threw a thin scarred shadow -on the dry grass and I went over and lay down under it to rest--my -eyes fixed on the forest ruin. - -Years followed with their changes. I being in New York with my heart -set on building whatever share I could of American literature upon -Kentucky foundations, I at work on a novel, remembered that hot -August afternoon, the dry spring, and in imagination restored the -scene as it had been in the Kentucky of the pioneers. - -I now await with eagerness all further felicities that may originate -in a woodland scene that did not exist. What else will grow for me -out of ferns that never grew? - - - - -PART SECOND - - - -EDWARD BLACKTHORNE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _King Alfred's Wood, - Warwickshire, England, - May 1, 1911._ - -DEAR SIR: - -It is the first of the faithful leafy May again. I sit at my windows -as on this day a year ago and look out with thankfulness upon what a -man may call the honour of the vegetable world. - -A year ago to-day I, misled by a book of yours or by some books--for -I believe I read more than one of them--I, betrayed by the phrase -that when we touch a book we touch a man, overstepped the boundaries -of caution as to having any dealings with glib, plausible strangers -and wrote you a letter. I made a request of you in that letter. I -thought the request bore with it a suitable reward: that I should be -grateful if you would undertake to have some ferns sent to me for my -collection. - -Your sleek reply led me still further astray and I wrote again. I -drew my English cloak from my shoulders and spread it on the ground -for you to step on. I threw open to you the doors of my hospitality, -good-fellowship. - -That was last May. Now it is May again. And now I know to a -certainty what for months I have been coming to realise always with -deeper shame: that you gave me your word and did not keep your word; -doubtless never meant to keep it. - -Why, then, write you about this act of dishonour now? How justify a -letter to a man I feel obliged to describe as I describe you? - -The reason is this, if you can appreciate such a reason. My nature -refuses to let go a half-done deed. I remain annoyed by an -abandoned, a violated, bond. Once in a wood I came upon a partly -chopped-down tree, and I must needs go far and fetch an axe and -finish the job. What I have begun to build I must build at till the -pattern is wrought out. Otherwise I should weaken, soften, lose the -stamina of resolution. The upright moral skeleton within me would -decay and crumble and I should sink down and flop like a human frog. - -Since, then, you dropped the matter in your way--without so much as a -thought of a man's obligation to himself--I dismiss it in my -way--with the few words necessary to enable me to rid my mind of it -and of such a character. - -I wish merely to say, then, that I despise as I despise nothing else -the ragged edge of a man's behaviour. I put your conduct before you -in this way: do you happen to know of a common cabbage in anybody's -truck patch? Observe that not even a common cabbage starts out to do -a thing and fails to do it if it can. You must have some kind of -perception of an oak tree. Think what would become of human beings -in houses if builders were deceived as to the trusty fibre of sound -oak? Do you ever see a grape-vine? Consider how it takes hold and -will not be shaken loose by the capricious compelling winds. In your -country have you the plover? Think what would be the plover's fate, -if it did not steer straight through time and space to a distant -shore. Why, some day pick up merely a piece of common quartz. Study -its powers of crystallisation. And reflect that a man ranks high or -low in the scale of character according to his possession or his lack -of the powers of crystallisation. If the forces of his mind can -assume fixity around an idea, if they can adjust themselves -unalterably about a plan, expect something of him. If they run -through his hours like water, if memory is a millstream, if -remembrance floats forever away, expect nothing. - -Simple, primitive folk long ago interpreted for themselves the -characters of familiar plants about them. Do you know what to them -the fern stood for? The fern stood for Fidelity. Those true, -constant souls would have said that you had been unfaithful even with -nature's emblems of Fidelity. - -The English sky is clear to-day. The sunlight falls in a white -radiance on my plants. I sit at my windows with my grateful eyes on -honest out-of-doors. There is a shadow on a certain spot in the -garden; I dislike to look at it. There is a shadow on the place -where your books once stood on my library shelves. Your specious -books!--your cleverly manufactured books!--but there are successful -scamps in every profession. - -I am, - - Very truly yours, - EDWARD BLACKTHORNE. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO EDWARD BLACKTHORNE - - _Cathedral Heights, - May 10, 1911._ - -DEAR SIR: - -I wish to inform you that I have just received from you a letter in -which you attack my character. I wish in reply further to inform you -that I have never felt called upon to defend my character. Nor will -I, even with this letter of yours as evidence, attack your character. - -I am, - - Very truly yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _May 13, 1911._ - -DEAR BEN: - -I ask your attention to the enclosed letter from Mr. Edward -Blackthorne. By way of contrast and also of reminder, lest you may -have forgotten, I send you two other letters received from him last -year. I shared with you at the time the agreeable purport of these -earlier letters. This last letter came three days ago and for three -days I have been trying to quiet down sufficiently even to write to -you about it. At last I am able to do so. - -You will see that Mr. Blackthorne has never received the ferns. Then -where have they been all this time? I took it for granted that they -had been shipped. The order was last spring placed with the -Louisville firm recommended by you. They guaranteed the execution of -the order. I forwarded to them my cheque. They cashed my cheque. -The voucher was duly returned to me cancelled through my bank. I -could not suppose they would take my cheque unless they had shipped -the plants. They even wrote me again in the Autumn of their own -accord, stating that the ferns were about to be sent on--Autumn being -the most favourable season. Then where are the ferns? - -I felt so sure of their having reached Mr. Blackthorne that I -harboured a certain grievance and confess that I tried to make -generous allowance for him as a genius in his never having -acknowledged their arrival. - -I have demanded of Phillips & Faulds an immediate explanation. As -soon as they reply I shall let you hear further. The fault may be -with them; in the slipshod Southern way they may have been negligent. -My cheque may even have gone as a bridal present to some junior -member of the firm or to help pay the funeral expenses of the senior -member. - -There is trouble somewhere behind and I think there is trouble ahead. - -Premonitions are for nervous or over-sanguine ladies; but if some -lady will kindly lend me one of her premonitions, I shall admit that -I have it and on the strength of it--or the weakness--declare my -belief that the mystery of the ferns is going to uncover some curious -and funny things. - -As to the rest of Mr. Blackthorne's letter: after these days of -turbulence, I have come to see my way clear to interpret it thus: a -great man, holding a great place in the world, offered his best to a -stranger and the stranger, as the great man believes, turned his back -on it. That is the grievance, the insult. If anything could be -worse, it is my seeming discourtesy to Mrs. Blackthorne, since the -invitation came also from her. In a word, here is a genius who -strove to advance my work and me, and he feels himself outraged in -his kindness, his hospitality, his friendship and his family--in all -his best. - -But of course that is the hardest of all human things to stand. Men -who have treated each other but fairly well or even badly in ordinary -matters often in time become friends. But who of us ever forgives -the person that slights our best? Out of a rebuff like that arises -such life-long unforgiveness, estrangement, hatred, that Holy Writ -itself doubtless for this very reason took pains to issue its -warning--no pearls before swine! And perhaps of all known pearls a -great native British pearl is the most prized by its British -possessor! - -The reaction, then, from Mr. Blackthorne's best has been his worst: -if I did not merit his best, I deserve his worst; hence his last -letter. God have mercy on the man who deserved that letter! You -will have observed that his leading trait as revealed in all his -letters is enormous self-love. That's because he is a genius. -Genius _has_ to have enormous self-love. Beware the person who has -none! Without self-love no one ever wins any other's love. - -Thus the mighty English archer with his mighty bow shot his mighty -arrow--but at an innocent person. - -Still the arrow of this letter, though it misses me, kills my plans. -The first trouble will be Tilly. Our marriage had been finally fixed -for June, and our plans embraced a wedding journey to England and the -acceptance of the invitation of the Blackthornes. The prospect of -this wonderful English summer--I might as well admit it--was one -thing that finally steadied all her wavering as to marriage. - -Now the disappointment: no Blackthornes, no English celebrities to -greet us as American celebrities, no courtesies from critics, no -lawns, no tea nor toast nor being toasted. Merely two unknown, -impoverished young Yankee tourists, trying to get out of chilly -England what can be gotten by anybody with a few, a very few, dollars. - -But Tilly dreads disappointment as she dreads disease. To her -disappointment is a disease in the character of the person who -inflicts the disappointment. Once I tried to get you to read one of -Balzac's masterpieces, _The Magic Skin_. I told you enough about it -to enable you to understand what I now say: that ever since I became -engaged to Tilly I have been to her as a magic skin which, as she -cautiously watches it, has always shrunk a little whenever I have -encountered a defeat or brought her a disappointment. No later -success, on the contrary, ever re-expands the shrunken skin: it -remains shrunken where each latest disappointment has left it. - -Now when I tell her of my downfall and the collapse of the gorgeous -summer plans! - - BEVERLEY - (the Expanding Scamp and the - Shrinking Skin). - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _May 14th._ - -DEAR BEVERLEY: - -I have duly pondered the letters you send. - - "Fie, fee, fo, fum, - I smell the blood of an Englishman!" - -If you do not mind, I shall keep these documents from him in my -possession. And suppose you send me all later letters, whether from -him or from anyone else, that bear on this matter. It begins to grow -interesting and I believe it will bear watching. Make me, then, as -your lawyer, the custodian of all pertinent and impertinent papers. -They can go into the locker where I keep your immortal but -impecunious Will. Some day I might have to appear in court, I with -my shovel and five senses and no imagination, to plead _une cause -célèbre_ (a little more of my scant intimate French). - -The explanation I give of this gratuitously insulting letter is that -at last you have run into a hostile human imagination in the person -of an old literary polecat, an aged book-skunk. Of course if I could -decorate my style after the manner of your highly creative gentlemen, -I might say that you had unwarily crossed the nocturnal path of his -touchy moonlit mephitic highness. - -I am not surprised, of course, that this letter has caused you to -think still more highly of its writer. I tell you that is your -profession--to tinker--to turn reality into something better than -reality. - -Some day I expect to see you emerge from your shop with a fish story. -Intending buyers will find that you have entered deeply into the -ideals and difficulties of the man-eating shark: how he could not -swim freely for whales in his track and could not breathe freely for -minnows in his mouth; how he got pinched from behind by the malice of -the lobster and got shocked on each side by the eccentricities of the -eel. The other fish did not appreciate him and he grew -embittered--and then only began to bite. You will make over the -actual shark and exhibit him to your reader as the ideal shark--a -kind of beloved disciple of the sea, the St. John of fish. - -Anything imaginative that you might make out of a shark would be a -minor achievement compared with what you have done for this -Englishman. Might the day come, the avenging day, when Benjamin -Doolittle could get a chance to write him just one letter! May the -god of battles somehow bring about a meeting between the middle-aged -land-turtle and the aged skunk! On that field of Mars somebody's fur -will have to fly and it will not be the turtle's, for he hasn't any. - -You speak of a trouble that looms up in your love affair: let it -loom. The nearer it looms, the better for you. I have repeatedly -warned you that you have bound your life and happiness to the wrong -person, and the person is constantly becoming worse. Detach your -apparatus of dreams at last from her. Take off your glorious rainbow -world-goggles and see the truth before it is too late. Do not fail, -unless you object, to send me all letters incoming about the -ferns--those now celebrated bushes. - - BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE. - - - - -PHILLIPS & FAULDS TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _May 13, 1911._ - -DEAR SIR: - -We acknowledge receipt of your letter of May 10 relative to an order -for ferns. - -It is decidedly rough. The senior member of our firm who formerly -had charge of this branch of our business has been seriously ill for -several months, and it was only after we had communicated with him at -home in bed that we were able to extract from him anything at all -concerning your esteemed order. - -He informs us that he turned the order over to Messrs. Burns & Bruce, -native fern collectors of Dunkirk, Tenn., who wrote that they would -gather the ferns and forward them to the designated address. He -likewise informs us that inasmuch as the firm of Burns & Bruce, as we -know only too well, has long been indebted to this firm for a -considerable amount, he calculated that they would willingly ship the -ferns in partial liquidation of our old claims. - -It seems, as he tells us, that they did actually gather the ferns and -get them ready for shipment, but at the last minute changed their -mind and called on our firm for payment. There the matter was -unexpectedly dropped owing to the sudden illness of the aforesaid -member of our house, and we knew nothing at all of what had -transpired until your letter led us to obtain from him at his bedside -the statements above detailed. - -An additional embarrassment to the unusually prosperous course of our -business was occasioned by the marriage of a junior member of the -firm and his consequent absence for a considerable time, which -resulted in an augmentation of the expenses of our establishment and -an unfortunate diminution of our profits. - -In view of the illness of the senior member of our house and in view -of the marriage of a junior member and in view of the losses and -expenses consequent thereon, and in view of the subsequent withdrawal -of both from active participation in the conduct of the affairs of -our firm, and in view also of a disagreement which arose between both -members and the other members as to the financial basis of a -settlement on which the withdrawal could take place, our affairs have -of necessity been thrown into court in litigation and are still in -litigation up to this date. - -Regretting that you should have been seemingly inconvenienced in the -slightest degree by the apparent neglect of a former member of our -firm, we desire to add that as soon as matters can be taken out of -court our firm will be reorganised and that we shall continue to -give, as heretofore, the most scrupulous attention to all orders -received. - -But we repeat that your letter is pretty rough. - - Very truly yours, - PHILLIPS & FAULDS. - - - - -BURNS & BRUCE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Dunkirk, Tenn., - May 20, 1911._ - -DEAR SIR: - -Your letter to hand. Phillips & Faulds gave us the order for the -ferns. Owing to extreme drought last Fall the ferns withered earlier -than usual and it was unsafe to ship at that time; in the Winter the -weather was so severe that even in February we were unable to make -any digging, as the frost had not disappeared. When at last we got -the ferns ready, we called on them for payment and they wouldn't pay. -Phillips & Faulds are not good paying bills and we could not put -ourselves to expense filling their new order for ferns, not wishing -to take more risk. old, old accounts against them unpaid, and could -not afford to ship more. proved very unsatisfactory and had to drop -them entirely. - -Are already out of pocket the cost of the ferns, worthless to us when -Phillips & Faulds dodged and wouldn't pay, pretending we owed them -because they won't pay their bills. If you do not wish to have any -further dealings with them you might write to Noah Chamberlain at -Seminole, North Carolina, just over the state line, not far from -here, an authority on American ferns. We have sometimes collected -rare ferns for him to ship to England and other European countries. -Vouch for him as an honest man. Always paid his bills, old accounts -against Phillips & Faulds unpaid; dropped them entirely. - - Very truly yours, - BURNS & BRUCE. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _May 24._ - -DEAR BEN: - -You requested me to send you for possible future reference all -incoming letters upon the subject of the ferns. Here are two more -that have just fluttered down from the blue heaven of the unexpected -or been thrust up from the lower regions through a crack in the -earth's surface. - -Spare a few minutes to admire the rippling eloquence of Messrs. -Phillips & Faulds. When the eloquence has ceased to ripple and -settles down to stay, their letter has the cold purity of a -whitewashed rotten Kentucky fence. They and another firm of florists -have a law-suit as to which owes the other, and they meantime compel -me, an innocent bystander, to deliver to them my pocketbook. - -Will you please immediately bring suit against Phillips & Faulds on -behalf of my valuable twenty-five dollars and invaluable indignation? -Bring suit against and bring your boot against them if you can. My -ducats! Have my ducats out of them or their peace by day and night. - -The other letter seems of an unhewn probity that wins my confidence. -That is to say, Burns & Bruce, whoever they are, assure me that I -ought to believe, and with all my heart I do now believe, in the -existence, just over the Tennessee state line, of a florist of good -character and a business head. Thus I now press on over the -Tennessee state line into North Carolina. - -For the ferns must be sent to Mr. Blackthorne; more than ever they -must go to him now. Not the entire British army drawn up on the -white cliffs of Dover could keep me from landing them on the British -Isle. Even if I had to cross over to England, travel to his home, -put the ferns down before him or throw them at his head and walk out -of his house without a word. - -I told you I had a borrowed premonition that there would be trouble -ahead: now it is not a premonition, it is my belief and terror. I -have grown to stand in dread of all florists, and I approach this -third one with my hat in my hand (also with my other hand on my -pocketbook). - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO NOAH CHAMBERLAIN - - _Cathedral Heights, New York, - May 25, 1911._ - -DEAR SIR: - -You have been recommended to me by Messrs. Burns & Bruce, of Dunkirk, -Tennessee, as a nurseryman who can be relied upon to keep his word -and to carry out his business obligations. - -Accepting at its face value their high testimonial as to your -trustworthiness, I desire to place with you the following order: - -Messrs. Burns & Bruce, acting upon my request, have forwarded to you -a list of rare Kentucky ferns. I desire you to collect these ferns -and to ship them to Mr. Edward Blackthorne, Esq., King Alfred's Wood, -Warwickshire, England. As a guaranty of good faith on my part, I -enclose in payment my check for twenty-five dollars. Will you have -the kindness to let me know at once whether you will undertake this -commission and give it the strictest attention? - - Very truly yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - - - -NOAH CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Seminole, North Carolina, - May 29._ - -SIR: - -I have received your letter with your check in it. - -You are the first person that ever offered me money as a florist. I -am not a florist, if I must take time to inform you. I had supposed -it to be generally known throughout the United States and in Europe -that I am professor of botany in this college, and have been for the -past fifteen years. If Burns & Bruce really told you I am a -florist--and I doubt it--they must be greater ignoramuses than I took -them to be. I always knew that they did not have much sense, but I -thought they had a little. It is true that they have at different -times gathered specimens of ferns for me, and more than once have -shipped them to Europe. But I never imagined they were fools enough -to think this made me a florist. My collection of ferns embraces -dried specimens for study in my classrooms and specimens growing on -the college grounds. The ferns I have shipped to Europe have been -sent to friends and correspondents. The President of the Royal -Botanical Society of Great Britain is an old friend of mine. I have -sent him some and I have also sent some to friends in Norway and -Sweden and to other scientific students of botany. - -It only shows that your next-door neighbour may know nothing about -you, especially if you are a little over your neighbour's head. - -My daughter, who is my secretary, will return your check, but I -thought I had better write and tell you myself that I am not a -florist. - - Yours truly, - NOAH CHAMBERLAIN, A.M., B.S., Litt.D. - - - - -CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Seminole, North Carolina, - May 29._ - -SIR: - -I can but express my intense indignation, as Professor Chamberlain's -only daughter, that you should send a sum of money to my -distinguished father to hire his services as a nurseryman. I had -supposed that my father was known to the entire intelligent American -public as an eminent scientist, to be ranked with such men as Dana -and Gray and Alexander von Humboldt. - -People of our means and social position in the South do not peddle -bulbs. We do not reside at the entrance to a cemetery and earn our -bread by making funeral wreaths and crosses. - -You must be some kind of nonentity. - -Your cheque is pinned to this letter. - - CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO NOAH CHAMBERLAIN - - _June 3._ - -DEAR SIR: - -I am deeply mortified at having believed Messrs. Burns & Bruce to be -well-informed and truthful Southern gentlemen. I find that it is no -longer safe for me to believe anybody--not about nurserymen. I am -not sure now that I should believe you. You say you are a famous -botanist, but you may be merely a famous liar, known as such to -various learned bodies in Europe. Proof to the contrary is -necessary, and you must admit that your letter does not furnish me -with that proof. - -Still I am going to believe you and I renew the assurance of my -mortification that I have innocently caused you the chagrin of -discovering that you are not so well known, at least in this country, -as you supposed. I suffer from the same chagrin: many of us do; it -is the tie that binds: blest be the tie. - -I shall be extremely obliged if you will have the kindness to return -to me the list of ferns forwarded to you by Messrs. Burns & Bruce, -and for that purpose you will please to find enclosed an envelope -addressed and stamped. - -I acknowledge the return of my cheque, which occasions me some -surprise and not a little pleasure. - -Allow me once more to regret that through my incurable habit of -believing strangers, believing everybody, I was misled into taking -the lower view of you as a florist instead of the higher view as a -botanist. But you must admit that I was right in classification and -wrong only in elevation. - - Very truly yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS, A.B. (merely). - - - - -NOAH CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _June 8._ - -SIR: - -I know nothing about any list of ferns. Stop writing to me. - - NOAH CHAMBERLAIN. - - - - -CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _June 8._ - -SIR: - -It is excruciating the way you continue to persecute my great father. -What is wrong with you? What started you to begin on us in this way? -We never heard of _you_. Would you let my dear father alone? - -He is a very deep student and it is intolerable for me to see his -priceless attention drawn from his work at critical moments when he -might be on the point of making profound discoveries. My father is a -very absent-minded man, as great scholars usually are, and when he is -interrupted he may even forget what he has just been thinking about. - -Your letter was a very serious shock to him, and after reading it he -could not even drink his tea at supper or enjoy his cold ham. Time -and again he put his cup down and said to me in a trembling voice: -"Think of his calling me a famous liar!" Then he got up from the -table without eating anything and left the room. He turned at the -door and said to me, with a confused expression: "I _may_, once in my -life--but _he_ didn't know anything about _that_." - -He shut his door and stayed in his library all evening, thinking -without nourishment. - -What a viper you are to call my great father a liar. - - CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _June 12._ - -DEAR BEN: - -I knew I was in for it! I send another installment of incredible -letters from unbelievable people. - -In my wanderings over the earth after the ferns I have innocently -brought my foot against an ant-hill of Chamberlains. I called the -head of the hill a florist and he is a botanist, and the whole hill -is frantic with fury. As far as heard from, there are only two ants -in the hill, but the two make a lively many in their letters. It's a -Southern vendetta and my end may draw nigh. - -Now, too, the inevitable quarrel with Tilly is at hand. She has been -out of town for a house-party somewhere and is to return to-morrow. -When Tilly came to New York a few years ago she had not an -acquaintance; now I marvel at the world of people she knows. It is -the result of her never declining an invitation. Once I derided her -about this, and with her almost terrifying honesty she avowed the -reason: that no one ever knew what an acquaintanceship might lead to. -This principle, or lack of principle, has led her far. And wherever -she goes, she is welcomed afterwards. It is her mystery, her charm. -I often ask myself what is her charm. At least her charm, as all -charm, is victory. You are defeated by her, chained and dragged -along. Of course, I expect all this to be reversed after Tilly -marries me. Then I am to have my turn--she is to be led around, -dragged helpless by _my_ charm. Magnificent outlook! - -To-morrow she is to return, and I shall have to tell her that it is -all over--our wonderful summer in England. It is gone, the whole -vision drifts away like a gorgeous cloud, carrying with it the bright -raindrops of her hopes. - -I have never, by the way, mentioned to Tilly this matter of the -ferns. My first idea was to surprise her: as some day we strolled -through the Blackthorne garden he would point to the Kentucky -specimens flourishing there in honour of me. I have always observed -that any unexpected pleasure flushes her face with a new light, with -an effulgence of fresh beauty, just as every disappointment makes her -suddenly look old and rather ugly. - -This was the first reason. Now I do not intend to tell her at all. -Disappointment will bring out her demand to know why she is -disappointed--naturally. But how am I to tell on the threshold of -marriage that it is all due to a misunderstanding about a handful of -ferns! It would be ridiculous. She would never believe -me--naturally. She would infer that I was keeping back the real -reason, as being too serious to be told. - -Here, then, I am. But where am I? - - BEVERLEY (complete and final - disappearance of the Magic Skin). - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - -_June 13._ - -DEAR BEVERLEY: - -You are perfectly right not to tell Tilly about the ferns. Here I -come in: there must always be things that a man must refuse to tell a -woman. As soon as he tells her everything, she puts her foot on his -neck. I have always refused even to tell Polly some things, not that -they might not be told, but that Polly must not be told them; not for -the things' sake, but for Polly's good--and for a man's peaceful -control of his own life. - -For whatever else a woman marries in a man, one thing in him she must -marry: a rock. Times will come when she will storm and rage around -that rock; but the storms cannot last forever, and when they are -over, the rock will be there. By degrees there will be less storm. -Polly's very loyalty to me inspires her to take possession of my -whole life; to enter into all my affairs. I am to her a house, no -closet of which must remain locked. Thus there are certain closets -which she repeatedly tries to open. I can tell by her very -expression when she is going to try once more. Were they opened, she -would not find much; but it is much to be guarded that she shall not -open them. - -The matter is too trivial to explain to Tilly as fact and too -important as principle. - -Harbour no fear that Polly knows from me anything about the ferns! -When I am with Polly, my thoughts are not on the grass of the fields. - -Let me hear at once how the trouble turns out with Tilly. - -I must not close without making a profound obeisance to your new -acquaintances--the Chamberlains. - - BEN. - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES - - _June 15._ - -DEAR POLLY: - -Something extremely disagreeable has come up between Beverley and me. -He tells me we're not to go to England on our wedding journey as -anyone's guests: we travel as ordinary American tourists unknown to -all England. - -You can well understand what this means to me: you have watched all -along how I have pinched on my small income to get ready for this -beautiful summer. There has been a quarrel of some kind between Mr. -Blackthorne and Beverley. Beverley refuses to tell me the nature of -the quarrel. I insisted that it was my right to know and he insisted -that it is a man's affair with another man and not any woman's -business. Think of a woman marrying a man who lays it down as a law -that his affairs are none of her business! - -I gave Beverley to understand that our marriage was deferred for the -summer. He broke off the engagement. - -I had not meant to tell you anything, since I am coming to-night. I -have merely wished you to understand how truly anxious I am to see -you, even forgetting your last letter--no, not forgetting it, but -overlooking it. Remember you _then_ broke an appointment with me; -_this_ time keep your appointment--being loyal! The messenger will -wait for your reply, stating whether the way is clear for me to come. - - TILLY. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO TILLY SNOWDEN - - _June 15._ - -DEAR TILLY: - -Dr. Mullen had an appointment with me for to-night, but I have -written to excuse myself, and I shall be waiting most impatiently. -The coast will be clear and I hope the night will be. - -"The turnip," as you call it, will be empty; "the horse-radish" and -"the beets" will be still the same; "the wilted sunflower" will shed -its usual ray on our heads. No breeze will disturb us, for there -will be no fresh air. We shall have the long evening to ourselves, -and you can tell me just how it is that you two, _not_ heavy Tilly, -_not_ heavy Beverley, sat on opposite sides of the room and declared -to each other: - -"I will not." - -"I will not." - -Since I have broken an engagement for you, be sure not to let any -later temptation elsewhere keep you away. - - POLLY. - - -[Later in the day] - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES - - _June 13._ - -DEAR POLLY: - -Beverley and Tilly have had the long-expected final flare-up. -Yesterday he wrote, asking me to come up as soon as I was through -with business. I spent last night with him. - -We drew our chairs up to his opened window, turned out the lights, -got our cigars, and with our feet on the window-sills and our eyes on -the stars across the sky talked the long, quiet hours through. - -He talked, not I. Little could I have said to him about the woman -who has played fast and loose with him while using him for her -convenience. He made it known at the outset that not a word was to -be spoken against her. - -He just lay back in his big easy chair, with his feet on his -window-sill and his eyes on the stars, and built up his defence of -Tilly. All night he worked to repair wreckage. - -As the grey of morning crept over the city his work was well done: -Tilly was restored to more than she had ever been. Silence fell upon -him as he sat there with his eyes on the reddening east; and it may -be that he saw her--now about to leave him at last--as some white, -angelic shape growing fainter and fainter as it vanished in the flush -of a new day. - -You know what I think of this Tilly-angel. If there were any wings -anywhere around, it was those of an aeroplane leaving its hangar with -an early start to bring down some other victim: the angel-aeroplane -out after more prey. I think we both know who the prey will be. - -The solemn influence of the night has rested on me. Were it -possible, I should feel even a higher respect for Beverley; there is -something in him that fills me with awe. He suffers. He could mend -Tilly but he cannot mend himself: in a way she has wrecked him. - -Their quarrel brings me with an aching heart closer to you. I must -come to-night. The messenger will wait for a word that I may. And a -sudden strange chill of desolation as to life's brittle ties -frightens me into sending you some roses. - -Your lover through many close and constant years, - - BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE. - - -[Still later in the day] - - -POLLY BOLES TO TILLY SNOWDEN - - _June 15._ - -DEAR, DEAR, DEAR TILLY: - -An incredible thing has happened. Ben has just written that he -wishes to see me to-night. Will you, after all, wait until to-morrow -evening? My dear, I _have_ to ask this of you because there is -something very particular that Ben desires to talk to me about. - -_To-morrow night_, then, without fail, you and I! - - POLLY BOLES. - - - - - POLLY BOLES AND BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO - BEVERLEY SANDS - -[Late at night of the same day] - - _June 15._ - -DEAR BEVERLEY: - -We have talked the matter over and send you our conjoined -congratulations that your engagement is broken off and your immediate -peril ended. But our immediate caution is that the end of the -betrothal will not necessarily mean the end of entanglement: the -tempter will at once turn away from you in pursuit of another man. -She will begin to weave her web about _him_. But if possible she -will still hold _you_ to that web by a single thread. Now, more than -ever, you will need to be on your guard, if such a thing is possible -to such a nature as yours. - -Not until obliged will she ever let you go completely. She hath a -devil--perhaps the most famous devil in all the world--the love -devil. And all devils, famous or not famous, are poor quitters. - - (Signed) - POLLY BOLES for Ben Doolittle. - BEN DOOLITTLE for Polly Boles. - (His handwriting; her ideas - and language.) - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO DR. MARIGOLD - -MY DEAR DR. MARIGOLD: - -This is the third time within the past several months that I have -requested you to let me have your bill for professional services. I -shall not suppose that you have relied upon my willingness to remain -under an obligation of this kind; nor do I like to think I have -counted for so little among your many patients that you have not -cared whether I paid you or not. If your motive has been kindness, I -must plainly tell you that I do not desire such kindness; and if -there has been no motive at all, but simply indifference, I must -remind you that this indifference means disrespect and that I resent -it. - -The things you have indirectly done for me in other ways--the songs, -the books and magazines, the flowers--these I accept with warm -responsive hands and a lavish mind. - -And with words not yet uttered, perhaps never to be uttered. - - Yours sincerely, - TILLY SNOWDEN. - -_June the Seventeenth._ - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO DR. MARIGOLD - -MY DEAR DR. MARIGOLD: - -I have your bill and I make the due remittance with all due thanks. - -Your note pleasantly reassures me how greatly you are obliged that I -could put you in correspondence with some Kentucky cousins about the -purchase of a Kentucky saddle-horse. It was a pleasure; in fact, a -matter of some pride to do this, and I am delighted that they could -furnish you a horse you approve. - -While taking my customary walk in the Park yesterday morning, I had a -chance to see you and your new mount making acquaintance with one -another. I can pay you no higher compliment than to say that you -ride like a Kentuckian. - -Unconsciously, I suppose, it has become a habit of mine to choose the -footways through the Park which skirt the bridle path, drawn to them -by my childhood habit and girlish love of riding. Even to see from -day to day what one once had but no longer has is to keep alive hope -that one may some day have it again. - -You should some time go to Kentucky and ride there. My cousins will -look to that. - - Yours sincerely, - TILLY SNOWDEN. - -_June the Eighteenth._ - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO DR. MARIGOLD - -MY DEAR DR. MARIGOLD: - -I was passing this morning and witnessed the accident, and I must -express my condolences for what might have been and congratulations -upon what was. - -You certainly fell well--not unlike a Kentuckian! - -I feel sure that my cousins could not have known the horse was -tricky. Any horse is tricky to the end of his days and the end of -his road. He may not show any tricks at home, but becomes tricky in -new places. (Can this be the reason that he is called the most human -of beasts?) - -You buying a Kentucky horse brings freshly to my mind that of late -you have expressed growing interest in Kentucky. More than once, -also (since you have begun to visit me), you have asked me to tell -you about my life there. Frankly, this is because I am something of -a mystery and you would like to have the mystery cleared up. You -wish to find out, without letting me know you are finding out, -whether there is not something _wrong_ about me, some _risk_ for you -in visiting me. That is because you have never known anybody like -me. I frighten you because I am not afraid of people, not afraid of -life. You are used to people who are afraid, especially to women who -are afraid. You yourself are horribly afraid of nearly everything. - -Suppose I do tell you a little about my life, though it may not -greatly explain why I am without fear; still, the land and the people -might mean something; they ought to mean much. - -I was born of not very poor and immensely respectable parents in a -poor and not very respectable county of Kentucky. The first thing I -remember about life, my first social consciousness, was the discovery -that I was entangled in a series of sisters: there were six of us. I -was as nearly as possible at the middle of the procession--with three -older and two younger, so that I was crowded both by what was before -and by what was behind. I early learned to fight for the -present--against both the past and the future--learned to seize what -I could, lest it be seized either by hands reaching backward or by -hands reaching forward. Literally, I opened my eyes upon life's -insatiate competition and I began to practise at home the game of the -world. - -Why my mother bore only daughters will have to be referred to the new -science which takes as its field the forces and the mysteries that -are sovereign between the nuptials and the cradle. But the reason, -as openly laughed about in the family when the family grew old enough -to laugh, as laughed about in the neighbourhood, was this: - -Even before marriage my father and my mother had waged a violent -discussion about woman's suffrage. You may not know that in Kentucky -from the first the cause of female suffrage has been upheld by a -strong minority of strong women, a true pioneer movement toward the -nation's future now near. It seems that my father, who was a -brilliant lawyer, always browbeat my mother in argument, overwhelmed -her, crushed her. Unconvinced, in resentful silence, she quietly -rocked on her side of the fireplace and looked deep into the coals. -But regularly when the time came she replied to all his arguments by -presenting him with another suffragette! Throughout her life she -declined even to bear him a son to continue the argument! Her six -daughters--she would gladly have had twelve if she could--were her -triumphant squad for the armies of the great rebellion. - -Does this help to explain me to you? - -What next I relate about my early life is something that you perhaps -have never given a thought to--children's pets and playthings: it -explains a great deal. Have you ever thought of a vital difference -between country children and town children? Country children more -quickly throw away their dolls, if they have them, and attach their -sympathies to living objects. A child's love of a doll is at best a -sham: a little master-drama of the child's imagination trying to fill -two roles--its own and the role of something which cannot respond. -But a child's love of a living creature, which it chooses as the -object of its love and play and protection, is stimulating, healthful -and kicking with reality: because it is vitalised by reciprocity in -the playmate, now affectionate and now hostile, but always -representing something intensely alive--which is the whole main thing. - -We are just beginning to find out that the dramas of childhood are -the playgrounds of life's battlefields. The ones prepare for the -others. A nature that will cling to a rag doll without any return, -will cling to a rag husband without any return. A child's loyalty to -an automaton prepares a woman for endurance of an automaton. Dolls -have been the undoing and the death of many wives. - -A multitude of dolls would have been needed to supply the six -destructive little girls of my mother's household. We soon broke our -china tea sets or, more gladly, smashed one another's. For whatever -reason, all lifeless pets, all shams, were quickly swept out of the -house and the little scattering herd of us turned our restless and -insatiate natures loose upon life itself. Sooner or later we petted -nearly everything on the farm. My father was a director of the -County Fair, and I remember that one autumn, about fair-time, we -roped off a corner of the yard and held a prize exhibition of our -favourites that year. They comprised a kitten, a duck, a pullet, a -calf, a lamb and a puppy. - -Sooner or later our living playthings outgrew us or died or were sold -or made their sacrificial way to the kitchen. Were we disconsolate? -Not a bit. Did we go down to the branch and gather there under an -old weeping willow? Quite the contrary. Our hearts thrived on death -and destruction, annihilation released us from old ties, change gave -us another chance, and we provided substitutes and continued our -devotion. - -And I think this explains a good deal. And these two experiences of -my childhood, taken together, explain me better than anything else I -know. Competition first taught me to seize what I wanted before -anyone else could seize it. Natural changes next taught me to be -prepared at any moment to give that up without vain regret and to -seize something else. Thus I seemed to learn life's lesson as I -learned to walk: that what you love will not last long, and that long -love is possible only when you love often. - -So many women know this; how few admit it! - - Sincerely yours, - TILLY SNOWDEN. - -_June the Nineteenth._ - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO DR. MARIGOLD - -MY DEAR DR. MARIGOLD: - -You sail to-morrow. And to-morrow I go away for the summer: first to -some friends, then further away to other friends, then still further -away to other friends: a summer pageant of brilliant changes. - -There is no reason why I should write to you. Your stateroom will be -filled with flowers; you will have letters and telegrams; friends -will wave to you from the pier. My letter may be lost among the -others, but at least it will have been written, and writing it is its -pleasure to me. - -I was to go to England this summer, was to go as a bride. A few -nights since I decided not to go because I did not approve of the -bridegroom. - -We marvel at life's coincidences: one evening, not long ago, while -speaking of your expected summer in England, you mentioned that you -planned to make a pilgrimage to see Edward Blackthorne. You were to -join some American friends over there and take them with you. That -is the coincidence: _I_ was to visit the Blackthornes this very -summer, not as a stranger pilgrim, but as an invited guest--with the -groom whom I have rejected. - -It is like scattering words before the obvious to say that I wish you -a pleasant summer. Not a forgetful one. To aid memory, as you, some -night on the passage across, lean far over and look down at the -phosphorescent couch of the sea for its recumbent Venus of the deep, -remember that the Venus of modern life is the American woman. - -Am I to see you when autumn, if nothing else, brings you home--see -you not at all or seldom or often? - -At least this will remind you that I merely say _au revoir_. - -Adrift for the summer rather than be an unwilling bride. - - TILLY SNOWDEN. - -_June twenty-first._ - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _June 21._ - -DEAR BEVERLEY: - -Since life separated us the other night I have not heard from you. I -have not expected a letter, nor do you expect one from me. But I am -going away to-morrow for the summer and my heart has a few words for -you which must be spoken. - -It was not disappointment about the summer in England, not even your -refusal to explain why you disappointed me, that held the main reason -of my drawing back. I am in the mood to-night to tell you some -things very frankly: - -Twice before I knew you, I was engaged to be married and twice as the -wedding drew near I drew away from it. It is an old, old feeling of -mine, though I am so young, that if married I should not long be -happy. Of course I should be happy for a while. But _afterwards_! -The interminable, intolerable _afterwards_! The same person year in -and year out--I should be stifled. Each of the men to whom I was -engaged had given me before marriage all that he had to give: the -rest I did not care for; after marriage with either I foresaw only -staleness, his limitations, monotony. - -Believe this, then: there are things in you that I cling to, other -things in you that do not draw me at all. And I cling more to life -than to you, more than to any one person. How can any one person -ever be all to me, all that I am meant for, and _I will live_! - -Why should we women be forced to spend our lives beside the first -spring where one happened to fill one's cup at life's dawn! Why be -doomed to die in old age at the same spring! With all my soul I -believe that the world which has slowly thrown off so many tyrannies -is about to throw off other tyrannies. It has been so harsh toward -happiness, so compassionate toward misery and wrong. Yet happiness -is life's finest victory: for ages we have been trying to defeat our -one best victory--our natural happiness! - -A brief cup of joy filled at life's morning--then to go thirsty for -the rest of the long, hot, weary day! Why not goblet after goblet at -spring after spring--there are so many springs! And thirst is so -eager for them! - -Come to see me in the autumn. For I will not, cannot, give you up. -And when you come, do not seek to renew the engagement. Let that go -whither it has gone. But come to see me. - -For I love you. - - TILLY. - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES - - _June 21._ - -POLLY BOLES: - -This is good-bye to you for the summer and, better than that, it is -good-bye to you for life. Why not, in parting, face the truth that -we have long hated each other and have used our acquaintanceship and -our letters to express our hatred? How could there ever have been -any friendship between you and me? - -Let me tell you of the detestable little signs that I have noticed in -you for years. Are you aware that all the time you have occupied -your apartment, you have never changed the arrangement of your -furniture? As soon as your guests are gone, you push every chair -where it was before. For years your one seat has been the same end -of the same frayed sofa. Many a time I have noted your disquietude -if any guest happened to sit there and forced you to sit elsewhere. -For years you have worn the same breast-pin, though you have several. -The idea of your being inconstant to a breast-pin! You pride -yourself in such externals of faithfulness. - -You soul of perfidy! - -I leave you undisturbed to innumerable appointments with Ben, and -with the same particular something to talk about, falsest woman I -have ever known. - -Have you confided to Ben Doolittle the fact that you are secretly -receiving almost constant attentions from Dr. Mullen? Will you tell -him? _Or shall I?_ - - TILLY SNOWDEN. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _June 23rd._ - -DEAR BEN: - -I am worried. - -I begin to feel doubtful as to what course I should pursue with Dr. -Claude Mullen. Of late he has been coming too often. He has been -writing to me too often. He appears to be losing control of himself. -Things cannot go on as they are and they must not get worse. What I -could not foresee is his determination to hold _me_ responsible for -his being in love with me! He insists that _I_ encouraged him and am -now unfair--_me_ unfair! Of course I have _never_ encouraged his -visits; out of simple goodness of heart I have _tolerated_ them. Now -the reward of my _kindness_ is that he holds me responsible and -guilty. He is trying, in other words, to take advantage of my -_sympathy_ for him. I _do_ feel sorry for him! - -I have not been cruel enough to dismiss him. His last letter is -enclosed: it will give you some idea----! - -Can you advise me what to do? I have always relied upon _your_ -judgment in everything. - - Faithfully yours, - POLLY. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES - -[Penciled in Court Room] - - _June 24th._ - -DEAR POLLY: - -Certainly I can advise you. My advice is: tell him to take a cab and -drive straight to the nearest institution for the weak-minded, engage -a room, lock himself in and pray God to give him some sense. Tell -him to stay secluded there until that prayer is answered. The -Almighty himself couldn't answer his prayer until after his death, -and by that time he'd be out of the way anyhow and you wouldn't mind. - -I return his funeral oration unread, since I did not wish to attract -attention to myself as moved to tears in open court. - - BEN. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES - -[Evening of the same day] - -POLLY, DEAREST, MOST FAITHFUL OF WOMEN: - -This is a night I have long waited for and worked for. - -You have understood why during these years I have never asked you to -set a day for our marriage. It has been a long, hard struggle, for -me coming here poor, to make a living and a practice and a name. You -know I have had as my goal not a living for one but a living for -two--and for more than two--for our little ones. When I married you, -I meant to rescue you from the Franklin Flats, all flats. - -But with these two hands of mine I have laid hold of the affairs of -this world and shaken them until they have heeded me and my strength. -I have won, I am independent, I am my own man and my own master, and -I am ready to be your husband as through it all I have been your -lover. - -Name the day when I can be both. - -Yet the day must be distant: I am to leave this firm and establish my -own and I want that done first. Some months must yet pass. Any day -of next Spring, then--so far away but nearer than any other Spring -during these impatient years. - -Polly, constant one, I am your constant lover, - - BEN DOOLITTLE. - -Roses to you. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _June 24._ - -Oh, BEN, BEN, BEN! - -My heart answers you. It leaps forward to the day. I have set the -day in my heart and sealed it on my lips. Come and break that seal. -To-night I shall tear two of the rosebuds apart and mingle their -petals on my pillow. - - POLLY. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES - -_June 26._ - -It occurs to me that our engagement might furnish you the means of -getting rid of your prostrated nerve specialist. Write him to come -to see you: tell him you have some joyful news that must be imparted -at once. When he arrives announce to him that you have named the day -of your marriage to me. To _me_, tell him! Then let him take -himself off. You say he complains that all this is getting on his -nerves. Anything that could sit on his nerves would be a mighty -small animal. - - BEN. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _June 27._ - -Our engagement has only made him more determined. He persists in -visiting me. His loyalty is touching. Suppose the next time he -comes I arrange for you to come. Your meeting him here might have -the desired effect. - - POLLY BOLES. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES - -_June 28._ - -It would certainly have the desired effect, but perhaps not exactly -the effect he desires. Madam, would you wish to see the nerve -filaments of your fond specialist scattered over your carpet as his -life's deplorable arcana? No, Polly, not that! - -Make this suggestion to him: that in order to give him a chance to be -near you--but not too near--you do offer him for the first year after -our marriage--only one year, mind you--you do offer him, with my -consent and at a good salary, the position of our furnace-man, since -he so loves to warm himself with our fires. It would enable him to -keep up his habit of getting down on his knees and puffing for you. - - BEN. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES - - _July 14._ - -DEAR POLLY: - -It occurs to me just at the moment that not for some days have I -heard you speak of your racked--or wrecked--nerve specialist. Has he -learned to control his microscopic attachment? Has he found an -antidote for the bacillus of his anaemic love? - -Polly, my woman, if he is still bothering you, let me know at once. -It has been my joy hitherto to share your troubles; henceforth it is -my privilege to take them on two uncrushable shoulders. - -At the drop of your hat I'll even meet him in your flat any night you -say, and we'll all compete for the consequences. - -I. s. y. s. r. r. (You have long since learned what that means.) - - Your man, - BEN D. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _July 15._ - -DEAREST BEN: - -You need not give another thought to Dr. Mullen. He does not annoy -me any more. He can drop finally out of our correspondence. - -Not an hour these days but my thoughts hover about you. Never so -vividly as now does there rise before me the whole picture of our -past--of all these years together. And I am ever thinking of the day -to which we both look forward as the one on which our paths promise -to blend and our lives are pledged to meet. - - Your devoted - POLLY. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO JUDD & JUDD - - _July 16._ - -DEAR SIRS: - -Yesterday while walking along the street I found my attention most -favourably drawn to the appearance of your business establishment: to -the tubs of plants at the entrance, the vines and flowers in the -windows, and the classic Italian statuary properly mildewed. -Therefore I venture to write. - -Do you know anything about ferns, especially Kentucky ferns? Do you -ever collect them and ship them? I wish to place an order for some -Kentucky ferns to be sent to England. I had a list of those I -desired, but this has been mislaid, and I should have to rely upon -the shipper to make, out of his knowledge, a collection that would -represent the best of the Kentucky flora. Could you do this? - -One more question, and you will please reply clearly and honestly. I -notice that your firm speak of themselves as landscape architects. -This leads me to inquire whether you have ever had any connection -with Botany. You may not understand the question and you are not -required to understand it: I simply request you to answer it. - - Very truly yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - - - -JUDD & JUDD TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _July 17._ - -DEAR SIR: - -Your esteemed favour to hand. We gather and ship ferns and other -plants, subject to order, to any address, native or foreign, with the -least possible delay, and we shall be pleased to execute any -commission which you may entrust to us. - -With reference to your other inquiry, we ask leave to state that we -have never had the slightest connection with any other concern doing -business in the city under the firm-name of Botany. We do not even -find them in the telephone directory. - -Awaiting your courteous order, we are - - Very truly yours, - JUDD & JUDD. - Per Q. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO "JUDD & JUDD, PER Q." - - _July 18._ - -DEAR SIRS: - -I am greatly pleased to hear that you have no connection with any -other house doing business under the firm-name of Botany, and I -accordingly feel willing to risk giving you the following order: That -you will make a collection of the most highly prized varieties of -Kentucky ferns and ship them, expenses prepaid, to this address, -namely: Mr. Edward Blackthorne, King Alfred's Wood, Warwickshire, -England. - -As a guaranty of good faith and as the means to simplify matters -without further correspondence, I take pleasure in enclosing my -cheque for $25. - -You will please advise me when the ferns are ready to be shipped, as -I wish to come down and see to it myself that they actually do get -off. - - Very truly yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - - - -CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Seminole, North Carolina, - July 18._ - -DEAR SIR: - -I met with the melancholy misfortune a few weeks ago of losing my -great father. Since his death I have been slowly going over his -papers. He left a large mass of them in disorder, for his was too -active a mind to pause long enough to put things in order. - -In a bundle of notes I have come across a letter to him from Burns & -Bruce with the list of ferns in it that they sent him and that had -been misplaced. My dear father was a very absent-minded scholar, as -is natural. He had penciled a query regarding one of the ferns on -the list, and I suppose, while looking up the doubtful point, he had -laid the list down to pursue some other idea that suddenly attracted -him and then forgot what he had been doing. My father worked over -many ideas and moved with perfect ease from one to another, being -equally at home with everything great--a mental giant. - -I send the list back to you that it may remind you what a trouble and -affliction you have been. Do not acknowledge the receipt of it, for -I do not wish to hear from you. - - CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO JUDD & JUDD - - _July 21._ - -DEAR SIRS: - -I wish to take up immediately my commission placed a few days ago. I -referred in my first letter to a mislaid list of ferns. This has -just turned up and is herewith enclosed, and I now wish you to make a -collection of the ferns called for on this list. - -Please advise me at once whether you will do this. - - Very truly yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - - - -JUDD & JUDD TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _July 22._ - -DEAR SIR: - -Your letter to hand, with the list of ferns enclosed. We shall be -pleased to cancel the original order, part of which we advise you had -already been filled. It does not comprise the plants called for on -the list. - -This will involve some slight additional expense, and if agreeable, -we shall be pleased to have you enclose your cheque for the slight -extra amount as per enclosed bill. - - Very truly yours, - JUDD & JUDD. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO JUDD & JUDD - - _July 23._ - -DEAR SIRS: - -I have your letter and I take the greatest possible pleasure in -enclosing my cheque to cover the additional expense, as you kindly -suggest. - - Very truly yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _October 30._ - -DEAR BEN: - -They are gone! They're off! They have weighed anchor! They have -sailed; they have departed! - -I went down and watched the steamer out of sight. Packed around me -at the end of the pier were people, waving hats and handkerchiefs, -some laughing, some with tears on their cheeks, some with farewells -quivering on their dumb mouths. But everybody forgot his joy or his -trouble to look at me: I out-waved, out-shouted them all. An old New -York Harbour gull, which is the last creature in the world to be -surprised at anything, flew up and glanced at me with a jaded eye. - -I have felt ever since as if the steamer's anchor had been taken from -around my neck. I have become as human cork which no storm, no -leaden weight, could ever sink. Come what will to me now from -Nature's unkinder powers! Let my next pair of shoes be made of -briers, my next waistcoat of rag weed! Fasten every morning around -my neck a collar of the scaly-bark hickory! See to it that my -undershirts be made of the honey-locust! For olives serve me green -persimmons; if I must be poulticed, swab me in poultices of pawpaws! -But for the rest of my days may the Maker of the world in His -occasional benevolence save me from the things on it that look frail -and harmless like ferns. - -Come up to dinner! Come, all there is of you! We'll open the -friendly door of some friendly place and I'll dine you on everything -commensurate with your simplicity. I'll open a magnum or a -magnissimum. I'll open a new subway and roll down into it for joy. - -They are gone to him, his emblems of fidelity. I don't care what he -does with them. They will for the rest of his days admonish him that -in his letter to me he sinned against the highest law of his own -gloriously endowed nature: - -_Le Génie Oblige_ - -Accept this phrase, framed by me for your pilgrim's script of wayside -French sayings. Accept it and translate it to mean that he who has -genius, no matter what the world may do to him, no matter what ruin -Nature may work in him, that he who has genius, is under obligation -so long as he lives to do nothing mean and to do nothing meanly. - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -ANNE RAEBURN TO EDWARD BLACKTHORNE IN ITALY - - _King Alfred's Wood, - Warwickshire, England, - November 30._ - -MY DEAR MR. BLACKTHORNE: - -I continue my chronicles of an English country-place during the -absence of its master, with the hope that the reading of the -chronicles may cause him to hasten his return. - -An amusing, perhaps a rather grave, matter passed under my -observation yesterday. The afternoon was clear and mild and I had -taken my work out into the garden. From where I sat I could see -Hodge at work with his spade some distance away. Quite -unconsciously, I suppose, I lifted my eyes at intervals to look -toward him, for by degrees I became aware that Hodge at intervals was -looking toward me. I noticed that he was red in the face, which is -always a sign of his anger; apparently he wavered as to whether he -should or should not do a debatable thing. Finally lifting his spade -high and bringing it down with such force that he sent it deep into -the mould where it stood upright, he started toward me. - -You know how, as he approaches anyone, he loosens his cap from his -forehead and scrapes the back of his neck with the back of his thumb. -As he stood before me he did this now. Then he made the following -announcement in the voice of an aggrieved bully: - -"The _Scolopendium vulgare_ put up two new shoots after he went away, -mum. Bishop's crooks he calls 'em, mum." - -I replied that I was glad to hear the ferns were thrifty. He, -jerking his thumb toward the fern bank, added still more resentfully: - -"The _Adiantum nigrum_ put up some, mum." - -I replied that I should announce to you the good news. - -Plainly this was not what he had come to tell me, for he stood -embarrassed but not budging, his eyes blazing with a kind of stupid -fury. At last he brought out his trouble. - -It seems that one day last week a hamper of ferns arrived for you -from New York, with only the names of the shippers, charges prepaid. -I was not at home, having that day gone to the Vicar's with some -marmalade; so Hodge took it upon himself to receive the hamper. By -his confession he unwrapped the package and discovering the contents -to be a collection of fern-roots, with the list of the Latin names -attached, he re-wrapped them and re-shipped them to the forwarding -agents--charges to be collected in New York. - -This is now Hodge's plight: he is uncertain whether the plants were -some you had ordered, or were a gift to you from some friend, or -merely a gratuitous advertisement by an American nurseryman. Whether -yours or another's, of much value to you or none, he resolved that -they should not enter the garden. There was no place for them in the -garden without there being a place for their Latin names in his head, -and his head would hold no more. At least his temper is the same -that has incited all English rebellion: human nature need not stand -for it! - -The skies are wistful some days with blue that is always brushed over -by clouds: England's same still blue beyond her changing vapours. -The evenings are cosy with lamps and November fires and with new -books that no hand opens. A few late flowers still bloom, loyal to -youth in a world that asks of them now only their old age. The birds -sit silent with ruffled feathers and look sturdy and established on -the bare shrubs: liberals in spring, conservatives in autumn, wise in -season. The larger trees strip their summer flippancies from them -garment by garment and stand in their noble nakedness, a challenge to -the cold. - -The dogs began to wait for you the day you left. They wait still, -resolved at any cost to show that they can be patient; that is, -well-bred. The one of them who has the higher intelligence! The -other evening I filled and lighted your pipe and held it out to him -as I have often seen you do. He struck the floor softly with the tip -of his tail and smiled with his eyes very tenderly at me, as saying: -"You want to see whether I remember that _he_ did that; of course I -remember." Then, with a sudden suspicion that he was possibly being -very stupid, with quick, gruff bark he ran out of the room to make -sure. Back he came, his face in broad silent laughter at himself and -his eyes announcing to me--"Not yet." - -Do not all these things touch you with homesickness amid the -desolation of the Grand Canal--with the shallow Venetian songs that -patter upon the ear but do not reach down into strong Northern -English hearts? - -I have already written this morning to Mrs. Blackthorne. As each of -you hands my letters to the other, these petty chronicles, sent out -divided here in England, become united in a foreign land. - -I am, dear Mr. Blackthorne, - - Respectfully yours, - ANNE RAEBURN. - - - - -JUDD & JUDD TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _December 27._ - -DEAR SIR: - -We have to report that the ferns recently shipped to a designated -address in England in accordance with your instructions have been -returned with charges for return shipment to be collected at our -office. We enclose our bill for these charges and ask your attention -to it at your early convenience. The ferns are ruined and worthless -to us. - - Very truly yours, - JUDD & JUDD. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO JUDD & JUDD - - _December 30._ - -DEAR SIRS: - -I am very much obliged to you for your letter and I take the greatest -pleasure imaginable in enclosing my cheque to cover the charges of -the return shipment. - - Very truly yours, - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _December 28._ - -DEAR BEN: - -_The ferns have come back to me from England!_ - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _December 29._ - -DEAR BEVERLEY: - -I am with you, brother, to the last root. But don't send any more -ferns to anybody--don't try to, for God's sake! I'm with you! _J'y -suis, J'y reste_. (French forever! _Boutez en avant, mon_ French!) - -By the way, our advice is that you drop the suit against Phillips & -Faulds. They are engaged in a lawsuit and as we look over the -distant Louisville battlefield, we can see only the wounded and the -dying--and the poor. Would you squeeze a druggist's sponge for live -tadpoles? Whatever you got, you wouldn't get tadpoles, not live ones. - -Our fee is $50; hadn't you better stop at $50 and think yourself -lucky? _Monsieur a bien tombé_. - -Any more fern letters? Don't forget them. - - BEN DOOLITTLE. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _December 30._ - -DEAR BEN: - -I take your advice, of course, about dropping the suit against -Phillips & Faulds, and I take pleasure in enclosing you my cheque for -$50--damn them. That's $75--damn them. And if anybody else anywhere -around hasn't received a cheque from me for nothing, let him or her -rise, and him or her will get one. - -No more letters yet. But I feel a disturbance in the marrow of my -bones and doubtless others are on the way, as one more spell of bad -weather--another storm for me. - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Seminole, North Carolina, - December 25._ - -SIR: - -This is Christmas Day, when every one is thinking of peace and good -will on earth. It makes me think of you. I cannot forget you, my -feeling is too bitter for oblivion, for it was you who were -instrumental in bringing about my father's death. One damp night I -heard him get up and then I heard him fall, and rushing to him to see -what was the matter, I found that he had stumbled down the three -steps which led from his bedroom to his library, and had rolled over -on the floor, with his candle burning on the carpet beside him. I -lifted him up and asked him what he was doing out of bed and he said -he had some kind of recollection about a list of ferns; it worried -him and he could not sleep. - -The fall was a great shock to his nervous system and to mine, and a -few days after that he contracted pneumonia from the cold, being -already troubled with lumbago. - -My father's life-work, which will never be finished now, was to be -called "Approximations to Consciousness in Plants." He believed that -bushes knew a great deal of what is going on around them, and that -trees sometimes have queer notions which cause them to grow crooked, -and that ferns are most intelligent beings. It was while thus -engaged, in a weakened condition with this work on "Consciousness in -Plants," that he suddenly lost consciousness himself and did not -afterwards regain it as an earthly creature. - -I shall always remember you for having been instrumental in his -death. This is the kind of Christmas Day you have presented to me. - - CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. - - - - -CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Seminole, North Carolina, - January 7._ - -DEAR SIR: - -Necessity knows no law, and I have become a sad victim of necessity, -hence this appeal to you. - -My wonderful father left me in our proud social position without -means. I was thrown by his death upon my own resources, and I have -none but my natural faculties and my wonderful experience as his -secretary. - -With these I had to make my way to a livelihood and deep as was the -humiliation of a proud, sensitive daughter of the South and of such a -father, I have been forced to come down to a position I never -expected to occupy. I have accepted a menial engagement in a small -florist establishment of young Mr. Andy Peters, of this place. - -Mr. Andy Peters was one of my father's students of Botany. He -sometimes stayed to supper, though, of course, my father did not look -upon him as our social equal, and cautioned me against receiving his -attentions, not that I needed the caution, for I repeatedly watched -them sitting together and they were most uncongenial. My father's -acquaintance with him made it easier for me to enter his -establishment. I am to be his secretary and aid him with my -knowledge of plants and especially to bring the influence of my -social position to bear on his business. - -Since you were the instrument of my father's death, you should be -willing to aid me in my efforts to improve my condition in life. I -write to say that it would be as little as you could do to place your -future commissions for ferns with Mr. Andy Peters. He has just gone -into the florist's business and these would help him and be a -recommendation to me for bringing in custom. He might raise my -salary, which is so small that it is galling. - -While father remained on earth and roved the campus, he filled my -life completely. I have nothing to fill me now but orders for Mr. -Andy Peters. - -Hoping for an early reply, - - A proud daughter of the Southland, - CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _January 10._ - -DEAR BEN: - -The tumult in my bones was a well-advised monitor. More fern letters -_were_ on the way: I enclose them. - -You will discover from the earlier of these two documents that during -a late unconscious scrimmage in North Carolina I murdered an aged -botanist of international reputation. At least one wish of my life -is gratified: that if I ever had to kill anybody, it would be some -one who was great. You will gather from this letter that, all -unaware of what I was doing, I tripped him up, rolled him downstairs, -knocked his candle out of his hand and, as he lay on his back all -learned and amazed, I attacked him with pneumonia, while lumbago -undid him from below. - -You will likewise observe that his daughter seems to be an American -relative of Hamlet--she has a "harp" in her head: she harps on the -father. - -One thing I cannot get out of _my_ head: have you noticed anything -wrong at the Club? Two or three evenings, as we have gone in to -dinner, have you noticed anything wrong? Those two charlatans put -their heads together last night: their two heads put together do not -make one complete head--that may be the trouble; beware of less than -one good full-weight head. Something is wrong and I believe they are -the dark forces: have you observed anything? - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _January 11._ - -DEAR BEVERLEY: - -The letters are filed away with their predecessors. - -If I am any judge of human nature, you will receive others from this -daughter of the South in the same strain. - -If her great father (local meaning, old dad) is really dead, he -probably sawed his head off against a tight clothes-line in the -back-yard some dark night, while on his way to their gooseberry -bushes to see if they had any sense. - -More likely he hurled himself headlong into eternity to get rid of -her--rolled down the steps with sheer delight and reached for -pneumonia with a glad hand to escape his own offspring and her -endless society. - -The most terrifying thing to me about this new Clara is her Great -Desert dryness; no drop of humour ever bedewed her mind. I believe -those eminent gentlemen who call themselves biologists have recently -discovered that the human system, if deprived of water, will convert -part of its dry food into water. - -I wish these gentlemen would study the contrariwise case of Clara: -she would convert a drink of water into a mouthful of sawdust. - -Humour has long been codified by me as one of nature's most solemn -gifts. I divide all witnesses into two classes: those who, while -giving testimony or being examined or cross-examined, cause laughter -in the courtroom at others. The second class turn all laughter -against themselves. That is why the gift of humour is so grave--it -keeps us from making ourselves ridiculous. A Frenchman (still my -French) has recently pointed out that the reason we laugh is to drive -things out of the world, to jolly them out of existence and have a -good time as we do it. Therefore not to be laughed at is to survive. - -Beware of this new Clara! War breeds two kinds of people: heroes and -shams--the heroic and the mock heroic. You and I know the Civil War -bred two kinds of burlesque Southerner: the post-bellum Colonel and -the spurious proud daughter of the Southland. Proud, sensitive -Southern people do not go around proclaiming that they are proud and -sensitive. And that word--Southland! Hang the word and shoot the -man who made it. There are no proud daughters of the Westland or of -the Northland. Beware of this new Clara! This breath of the Desert! - -Yes, I have noticed something wrong in the Club. I have hesitated -about speaking to you of it. I do not know what it means, but my -suspicions lie where yours lie--with those two wallpaper doctors. - - BEN. - - - - -RUFUS KENT TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _The Great Dipper, - January 12._ - -MY DEAR MR. SANDS: - -I have been President of this Club so long--they have refused to have -any other president during my lifetime and call me its Nestor--that -whenever I am present my visits are apt to consist of interruptions. -To-night it is raining and not many members are scattered through the -rooms. I shall be at leisure to answer your very grave letter. (I -see, however, that I am going to be interrupted.) ... - -My dear Mr. Sands, you are a comparatively new member and much -allowance must be made for your lack of experience with the -traditions of this Club. You ask: "What is this gossip about? Who -started it; what did he start it with?" - -My dear Mr. Sands, there is no gossip in this Club. It would not be -tolerated. We have here only the criticism of life. This Club is -The Great Dipper. The origin of the name has now become obscure. It -may first have been adopted to mean that the members would constitute -a star-system--a human constellation; it may be otherwise interpreted -as the wit of some one of the founders who wished to declare in -advance that the Club would be a big, long-handled spoon; with which -any member could dip into the ocean of human affairs and ladle out -what he required for an evening's conversation. - -No gossip here, then. The criticism of life only. What is said in -the Club would embrace many volumes. In fact I myself have perhaps -discoursed to the vast extent of whole shelves full. Probably had -the Club undertaken to bind its conversation, the clubhouse would not -hold the books. But not a word of gossip. - -I now come to the subject of your letter, and this is what I have -ascertained: - -During the past summer one of the members of the Club (no name, of -course, can be called) was travelling in England. Three or four -American tourists joined him at one place or another, and these, -finding themselves in one of those enchanted regions of England to -which nearly all tourists go and which in our time is made more -famous by the novels of Edward Blackthorne--whom I met in England and -many of whose works are read here in the Club by admirers of his -genius--this group of American tourists naturally went to call on him -at his home. They were very hospitably received; there was a great -deal of praise of him and praise everywhere in the world is -hospitably received, so I hear. It was a pleasant afternoon; the -American visitors had tea with Mr. and Mrs. Blackthorne in their -garden. Afterwards Mr. Blackthorne took them for a stroll. - -There had been some discussion, as it seems, of English and of -American fiction, of the younger men coming on in the two -literatures. One of the visitors innocently inquired of Mr. -Blackthorne whether he knew of your work. Instantly all noticed a -change in his manner: plainly the subject was distasteful, and he put -it away from him with some vague rejoinder in a curt undertone. At -once some one of the visitors conceived the idea of getting at the -reason for Mr. Blackthorne's unaccountable hostility. But his -evident resolve was not to be drawn out. - -As they strolled through the garden, they paused to admire his -collection of ferns, and he impulsively turned to the American who -had been questioning him and pointed to a little spot. - -"That," he said, "was once reserved for some ferns which your young -American novelist promised to send me." - -The whole company gathered curiously about the spot and all naturally -asked, "But where are the ferns?" - -Mr. Blackthorne without a word and with an air of regret that even so -little had escaped him, led the party further away. - -That is all. Perhaps that is what you hear in the Club: the hum of -the hive that a member should have acted in some disagreeable, -unaccountable way toward a very great man whose work so many of us -revere. You have merely run into the universal instinct of human -nature to think evil of human nature. Emerson had about as good an -opinion of it as any man that ever lived, and he called it a -scoundrel. It is one of the greatest of mysteries that we are born -with a poor opinion of one another and begin to show it as babies. -If you do not think that babies despise one another, put a lot of -them together for a few hours and see how much good opinion is left. - -I feel bound to say that your letter is most unbridled. There cannot -be many things with which the people of Kentucky are more familiar -than the bridle, yet they always impress outsiders as the most -unbridled of Americans. I _will_ add, however, that patrician blood, -ancestral blood, is always unbridled. Otherwise I might not now be -styled the Nestor of this Club. Only some kind of youthful Hector in -this world ever makes one of its aged Nestors. I am interrupted -again.... - -I must conclude my letter rather abruptly. My advice to you is not -to pay the slightest attention to all this miserable gossip in the -Club. I am too used to that sort of thing here to notice it myself. -And will you not at an early date give me the pleasure of your -company at dinner? - - Faithfully yours, - RUFUS KENT. - - - - -PART THIRD - - - -CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Seminole, North Carolina, - May 1, 1912_ - -MY DEAR SIR: - -This small greenhouse of Mr. Andy Peters is a stifling, lonesome -place. His acquaintances are not the class of people who buy flowers -unless there is a death in the family. He has no social position, -and receives very few orders in that way. I do what I can for him -through my social connections. Time hangs heavily on my hands and I -have little to do but think of my lot. - -When Mr. Peters and I are not busy, I do not find him companionable. -He does not possess the requisite attainments. We have a small -library in this town, and I thought I would take up reading. I have -always felt so much at home with all literature. I asked the -librarian to suggest something new in fiction and she urged me to -read a novel by young Mr. Beverley Sands, the Kentucky novelist. I -write now to inquire whether you are the Mr. Beverley Sands who wrote -the novel. If you are, I wish to tell you how glad I am that I have -long had the pleasure of your acquaintance. Your story comes quite -close to me. You understand what it means to be a proud daughter of -the Southland who is thrown upon her own resources. Your heroine and -I are most alike. There is a wonderful description in your book of a -woodland scene with ferns in it. - -Would you mind my sending you my own copy of your book, to have you -write in it some little inscription such as the following: "For Miss -Clara Louise Chamberlain with the compliments of Beverley Sands." - -Your story gives me a different feeling from what I have hitherto -entertained toward you. You may not have understood my first letters -to you. The poor and proud and sensitive are so often misunderstood. -You have so truly appreciated me in drawing the heroine of your book -that I feel as much attracted to you now as I was repelled from you -formerly. - - Respectfully yours, - CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. - - - - -CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _May 10, 1912._ - -MY DEAR MR. SANDS: - -I wish to thank you for putting your name in my copy of your story. -Your kindness encourages me to believe that you are all that your -readers would naturally think you to be. And I feel that I can reach -out to you for sympathy. - -The longer I remain in this place, the more out of place I feel. But -my main trouble is that I have never been able to meet the whole -expense of my father's funeral, though no one knows this but the -undertaker, unless he has told it. He is quite capable of doing such -a thing. The other day he passed me, sitting on his hearse, and he -gave me a look that was meant to remind me of my debt and that was -most uncomplimentary. - -And yet I was not extravagant. Any ignorant observer of the -procession would never have supposed that my father was a thinker of -any consequence. The faculty of the college attended, but they did -not make as much of a show as at Commencement. They never do at -funerals. - -Far be it from me to place myself under obligation to anyone, least -of all to a stranger, by receiving aid. I do not ask it. I now wish -that I had never spoken to you of your having been instrumental in my -father's death. - - A proud daughter of the Southland, - CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. - - - - -CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _May 17, 1912._ - -MY DEAR MR. SANDS: - -I have received your cheque and I think what you have done is most -appropriate. - -Since I wrote you last, my position in this establishment has become -still more embarrassing. Mr. Andy Peters has begun to offer me his -attentions. I have done nothing to bring about this infatuation for -me and I regard it as most inopportune. - -I should like to leave here and take a position in New York. If I -could find a situation there as secretary to some gentleman, my -experience as my great father's secretary would of course qualify me -to succeed as his. You may not have cordially responded to my first -letters, but you cannot deny that they were well written. If the -gentleman were a married man, I could assure the family beforehand -that there would be no occasion for jealousy on his wife's part, as -so often happens with secretaries, I have heard. If he should have -lost his wife and should have little children, I do love little -children. While not acting as his secretary, I could be acting with -the children. - -If my grey-haired father, who is now beyond the blue skies, were only -back in North Carolina! - - CLARA LOUISE. - - - - -CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _May 21, 1912._ - -MY DEAR MR. SANDS: - -I have been forced to leave forever the greenhouse of Mr. Andy Peters -and am now thrown upon my own resources without a roof over my proud -head. - -Mr. Andy Peters is a confirmed rascal. I almost feel that I shall -have to do something desperate if I am to succeed. - - CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _May 24, 1912._ - -DEAR BEN: - -Clara Louise Chamberlain is in New York! God Almighty! - -I have been so taken up lately with other things that I have -forgotten to send you a little bundle of letters from her. You will -discover from one of these that I gave her a cheque. I know you will -say it was folly, perhaps criminal folly; but I _was_ in a way -"instrumental" in bringing about the great botanist's demise. - -If I had described no ferns, there would have been no fern trouble, -no fern list. The old gentleman would not have forgotten the list, -if I had not had it sent to him; hence he would not have gotten up at -midnight to search for it, would not have fallen downstairs, might -never have had pneumonia. I can never be acquitted of -responsibility! Besides, she praised my novel (something you have -never done!): that alone was worth nearly a hundred dollars to me! -Now she is here and she writes, asking me to help her to find -employment, as she is without means. - -But I can't have that woman as _my_ secretary! I dictate my novels. -Novels are matters of the emotions. The secretary of a novelist must -not interfere with the flow of his emotions. If I were dictating to -this woman, she would be like an organ-grinder, and I should be -nothing but a little hollow-eyed monkey, wondering what next to do, -and too terrified not to do something; my poor brain would be unable -even to hesitate about an idea for fear she would think my ideas had -given out. Besides she would be the living presence of this whole -Pharaoh's plague of Nile Green ferns. - -Let her be _your_ secretary, will you? In your mere lawyer's work, -you do not have any emotions. Give her a job, for God's sake! And -remember you have never refused me anything in your life. I enclose -her address and please don't send it back to me. - -For I am sick, just sick! I am going to undress and get in bed and -send for the doctor and stretch myself out under my bolster and die -my innocent death. And God have mercy on all of you! But I already -know, when I open my eyes in Eternity, what will be the first thing -I'll see. O Lord, I wonder if there is anything but ferns in heaven -and hell! - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN - - _May 25, 1912._ - -DEAR MADAM: - -Mr. Beverley Sands is very much indisposed just at the present time, -and has been kind enough to write me with the request that I interest -myself in securing for you a position as private secretary. Nothing -permanent is before me this morning, but I write to say that I could -give you some work to-morrow for the time at least, if you will -kindly call at these offices at ten o'clock. - - Very truly yours, - BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _May 27, 1912._ - -DEAR BEVERLEY: - -If you keep on getting into trouble, some day you'll get in and never -get out. You sent her a cheque! Didn't you know that in doing this -you had sent her a blank cheque, which she could afterwards fill in -at any cost to your peace? If you are going to distribute cheques to -young ladies merely because their fathers die, I shall take steps to -have you placed in my legal possession as an adult infant. - -Here's what I've done--I wrote to your ward, asking her to present -herself at this office at ten o'clock yesterday morning. She was -here punctually. I had left instructions that she should be shown at -once into my private office. - -When she entered, I said good morning, and pointed to a typewriter -and to some matter which I asked her to copy. Meantime I finished -writing a hypothetical address to a hypothetical jury in a -hypothetical case, at the same time making it as little like an -actual address to a jury as possible and as little like law as -possible. - -Then I asked her to receive the dictation of the address, which was -as follows: - -"I beg you now to take a good look at this young woman--young, but -old enough to know what she, is doing. You will not discover in her -appearance, gentlemen, any marks of the adventuress. But you are men -of too much experience not to know that the adventuress does not -reveal her marks. As for my client, he is a perfectly innocent man. -Worse than innocent; he is, on account of a certain inborn weakness, -a rather helpless human being whenever his sympathies are appealed -to, or if anyone looks at him pleasantly, or but speaks a kind word. -In a moment of such weakness he yielded to this woman's appeal to his -sympathies. At once she converted his generosity into a claim, and -now she has begun to press that claim. But that is an old story: the -greater your kindness to certain people, the more certain they become -that your kindness is simply their due. The better you are, the -worse you must have been. Your present virtues are your -acknowledgment of former shortcomings. It has become the design of -this adventuress--my client having once shown her unmerited -kindness--it has now become her apparent design to force upon him the -responsibility of her support and her welfare. - -"You know how often this is done in New York City, which is not only -Babylon for the adventurer and adventuress, but their Garden of Eden, -since here they are truly at large with the serpent. You are aware -that the adventuress never operates, except in a large city, just as -the charlatan of every profession operates in the large city. Little -towns have no adventuresses and no charlatans; they are not to be -found there because there they would be found out. What I ask is -that you protect my client as you would have my client, were he a -juryman, help to protect innocent men like you. I ask then that this -woman be sentenced to pay a fine of twenty-five dollars and be -further sentenced to hard labor in the penitentiary for a term of one -year. - -"No, I do not ask that. For this young woman is not yet a bad woman. -But unless she stops right here in her career, she is likely to -become a bad woman. I do ask that you sentence her to pay a few -tears of penitence and to go home, and there be strictly confined to -wiser, better thoughts." - -When I had dictated this, I asked her to read it over to me; she did -so in faltering tones. Then I bade her good morning, said there was -no more work for the day, instructed her that when she was through -with copying the work already assigned, the head-clerk would receive -it and pay for it, and requested her to return at ten o'clock this -morning. - -This morning she did not come. I called up her address; she had left -there. Nothing was known of her. - -If you ever write to her again--! And since you, without visible -means of support, are so fond of sending cheques to everybody, why -not send one to me! Am I to go on defending you for nothing? - -Your obedient counsel and turtle, - - BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _May 28, 1912._ - -DEAR BEN: - -What have you done, what have you done, what have you done! That -green child turned loose in New York, not knowing a soul and not -having a cent! Suppose anything happens to her--how shall I feel -then! Of course, you meant well, but my dear fellow, wasn't it a -terrible, an inhuman thing to do! Just imagine--but then you _can't_ -imagine, _can't_ imagine, _can't_ imagine! - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _May 29, 1912._ - -MY DEAR BEVERLEY: - -I am sorry that my bungling efforts in your behalf should have proved -such a miscalculation. But as you forgive everybody sooner or later -perhaps you will in time pardon even me. - - Your respectful erring servant, - BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE. - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES - - _May 30, 1912._ - -POLLY BOLES: - -The sight of a letter from me will cause a violent disturbance of -your routine existence. Our "friendship" worked itself to an open -and honourable end about the time I went away last summer and showed -itself to be honest hatred. Since my return in the autumn I have -been absorbed in many delightful ways and you, doubtless, have been -loyally imbedded in the end of the same frayed sofa, with your -furniture arranged as for years past, and with the same breastpin on -your constant heart. Whenever we have met, you have let me know that -the formidable back of Polly Boles was henceforth to be turned on me. - -I write because I will not come to see you. My only motive is that -you will forward my letter to Ben Doolittle, whom you have so -prejudiced against me, that I cannot even write to him. - -My letter concerns Beverley. You do not know that since our -engagement was broken last summer he has regularly visited me: we -have enjoyed one another in ways that are not fetters. Your -friendship for Beverley of course has lasted with the constancy of a -wooden pulpit curved behind the head and shoulders of a minister. -Ben Doolittle's affection for him is as splendid a thing as one ever -sees in life. I write for the sake of us all. - -Have you been with Beverley of late? If so, have you noticed -anything peculiar? Has Ben seen him? Has Ben spoken to you of a -change? I shall describe as if to you both what occurred to-night -during Beverley's visit: he has just gone. - -As soon as I entered the parlours I discovered that he was not wholly -himself and instantly recollected that he had not for some time -seemed perfectly natural. Repeatedly within the last few months it -has become increasingly plain that something preyed upon his mind. -When I entered the rooms this evening, although he made a quick, -clever effort to throw it off, he was in this same mood of peculiar -brooding. - -Someone--I shall not say who--had sent me some flowers during the -day. I took them down with me, as I often do. I think that -Beverley, on account of his preoccupation, did not at first notice -that I had brought any flowers; he remained unaware, I feel sure, -that I placed the vase on the table near which we sat. But a few -minutes later he caught sight of them--a handful of roses of the -colour of the wild-rose, with some white spray and a few ferns. - -When his eyes fell upon the ferns our conversation snapped like a -thread. Painful silence followed. The look with which one -recognises some object that persistently annoys came into his eyes: -it was the identical expression I had already remarked when he was -gazing as on vacancy. He continued absorbed, disregardful of my -presence, until his silence became discourteous. My inquiry for the -reason of his strange action was evaded by a slight laugh. - -This evasion irritated me still more. You know I never trust or -respect people who gloss. His rejoinder was gloss. He was taking it -for granted that having exposed to me something he preferred to -conceal, he would receive my aid to cover this up: I was to join him -in the ceremony of gloss. - -As a sign of my displeasure I carried the flowers across the room to -the mantelpiece. - -But the gaiety and carelessness of the evening were gone. When two -people have known each other long and intimately, nothing so quickly -separates them as the discovery by one that just beneath the surface -of their intercourse the other keeps something hidden. The -carelessness of the evening was gone, a sense of restraint followed -which each of us recognised by periods of silence. To escape from -this I soon afterward for a moment went up to my room. - -I now come to the incident which explains why I think my letter -should be sent to Ben Doolittle. - -As I re-entered the parlours Beverley was standing before the vase of -flowers on the mantelpiece. His back was turned toward me. He did -not see me or hear me. I was about to speak when I discovered that -he was muttering to himself and making gestures at the ferns. -Fragments of expression straggled from him and the names of strange -people. I shall not undertake to write down his incoherent -mutterings, yet such was the stimulation of my memory due to shock -that I recall many of these. - -You ought to know by this time that I am by nature fearless; yet -something swifter and stranger than fear took possession of me and I -slipped from the parlours and ran half-way up the stairs. Then, with -a stronger dread of what otherwise might happen, I returned. - -Beverley was sitting where I had left him when I quitted the parlours -first. He had the air of merely expecting my re-entrance. I think -this is what shocked me most: that he could play two parts with such -ready concealment, successful cunning. - -Now that he is gone and the whole evening becomes so vivid a memory, -I am urged by a feeling of uneasiness to reach Ben Doolittle with -this letter, since there is no one else to whom I can turn. - -Beverley left abruptly; my manner may have forced that. Certainly -for the first time in all these years we separated with a sudden -feeling of positive anger. If he calls again, I shall be excused. - -Act as you think best. And remember, please, under what stress of -feeling I must be to write another letter to you. _To you!_ - - TILLY SNOWDEN. - - - - -TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES - -[A second letter enclosed in the preceding one] - -My letter of last night was written from impulse. This morning I was -so ill that I asked Dr. Marigold to come to see me. I had to -explain. He looked grave and finally asked whether he might speak to -Dr. Mullen: he thought it advisable; Dr. Mullen could better counsel -what should be done. Later he called me up to inquire whether Dr. -Mullen and he could call together. - -Dr. Mullen asked me to go over what had occurred the evening before. -Dr. Marigold and he went across the room and consulted. Dr. Mullen -then asked me who Beverley's physician was. I said I thought -Beverley had never been ill in his life. He asked whether Ben -Doolittle knew or had better not be told. - -Again I leave the matter to Ben and you. - -But I have thought it necessary to put down on a separate paper the -questions which Dr. Mullen asked with my reply to each. For I do not -wish Ben Doolittle to think I said anything about Beverley that I -would be unwilling for him or for anyone else to know. - - TILLY SNOWDEN. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO TILLY SNOWDEN - - _June 2, 1912._ - -TILLY SNOWDEN: - -A telegram from Louisville has reached me this morning, announcing -the dangerous illness of my mother, and I go to her by the earliest -train. I have merely to say that I have sent your letters to Ben. - -I shall add, however, that the formidable back of Polly Boles seems -to absorb a good deal of your attention. At least my formidable back -is a safe back. It is not an uncontrollable back. It may be spoken -of, but at least it is never publicly talked about. It does not lead -me into temptation; it is not a scandal. On the whole, I console -myself with the knowledge that very few women have gotten into -trouble on account of their _backs_. If history speaks truly, quite -a few notorious ones have come to grief--but _you_ will understand. - - POLLY BOLES. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _June 2, 1912._ - -DEAR BEN: - -I find bad news does not come single. I have a telegram from -Louisville with the news of my mother's illness and start by the -first train. Just after receiving it I had a letter from Tilly, -which I enclose. - -I, too, have noticed for some time that Beverley has been troubled. -Have you seen him of late? Have you noticed anything wrong? What do -you think of Tilly's letter? Write me at once. I should go to see -him myself but for the news from Louisville. I have always thought -Beverley health itself. Would it be possible for him to have a -breakdown? I shall be wretched about him until I hear from you. -What do you make out of the questions Dr. Mullen asked Tilly and her -replies? - -Are you going to write to me every day while I am gone? - - POLLY. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO PHILLIPS & FAULDS - - _June 4, 1912._ - -DEAR SIRS: - -I desire to recall myself to you as a former Louisville patron of -your flourishing business and also as more recently the New York -lawyer who brought unsuccessful suit against you on behalf of one of -his clients. - -You will find enclosed my cheque, and you are requested to send the -value of it in long-stemmed red roses to Miss Boles--the same address -as in former years. - -If the stems of your roses do not happen to be long, make them long. -(You know the wires.) - -Very truly yours, - - BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES - - _June 4, 1912._ - -DEAR POLLY: - -You will have had my telegram of sympathy with you in your mother's -illness, and of my unspeakable surprise that you could go away -without letting me see you. - -Have I seen Beverley of late? I have seen him early and late. And I -have read Tilly's much mystified and much-mistaken letters. If -Beverley is crazy, a Kentucky cornfield is crazy, all roast beef is a -lunatic, every Irish potato has a screw loose and the Atlantic Ocean -is badly balanced. - -I happen to hold the key to Beverley's comic behaviour in Tilly's -parlour. - -As to the questions put to Tilly by that dilution of all fools, -Claude Mullen--your favourite nerve specialist and former suitor--I -have just this to say: - -All these mutterings of Beverley--during one of the gambols in -Tilly's parlours, which he naturally reserves for me--all these -fragmentary expressions relate to real people and to actual things -that you and Tilly have never known anything about. - -Men must not bother their women by telling them everything. That, by -the way, has been an old bone of contention between you and me, -Polly, my chosen rib--a silent bone, but still sometimes, I fear, a -slightly rheumatic bone. But when will a woman learn that her -heavenly charm to a man lies in the thought that he can place her and -keep her in a world, into which his troubles cannot come. Thus he -escapes from them himself. Let him once tell his troubles to her and -she becomes the mirror of them--and possibly the worst kind of mirror. - -Beverley has told Tilly nothing of all this entanglement with ferns, -I have not told you. All four of us have thereby been the happier. - -But through Tilly's misunderstanding those two mischief-making -charlatans, Marigold and Mullen, have now come into the case; and it -is of the utmost importance that I deal with these two gentlemen at -once; to that end I cut this letter short and start after them. - -Oh, but why did you go away without good-bye? - - BEN. - - - - -BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES - - _June 5, 1912._ - -DEAR POLLY: - -I go on where I left off yesterday. - -I did what I thought I should never do during my long and memorable -life: I called on your esteemed ex-acquaintance, Dr. Claude Mullen. -I explained how I came to do so, and I desired of him an opinion as -to Beverley. He suggested that more evidence would be required -before an opinion could be given. What evidence, I suggested, and -how to be gotten? He thought the case was one that could best be -further studied if the person were put under secret -observation--since he revealed himself apparently only when alone. I -urged him to take control of the matter, took upon myself, as -Beverley's friend, authority to empower him to go on. He advised -that a dictograph be installed in Beverley's room. It would be a -good idea to send him a good big bunch of ferns also: the ferns, the -dictograph, Beverley alone with them--a clear field. - -I explained to Beverley, and we went out and bought a dictograph, and -he concealed it where, of course, he could not find it! - -In the evening we had a glorious dinner, returned to his rooms, and -while I smoked in silence, he, in great peace of mind and profound -satisfaction with the world in general, poured into the dictograph -his long pent-up opinion of our two dear old friends, Marigold and -Mullen. He roared it into the machine, shouted it, raved it, -soliloquised it. I had in advance requested him to add my opinion of -your former suitor. Each of us had long been waiting for so good a -chance and he took full advantage of the opportunity. The next -morning I notified Dr. Mullen that Beverley had raved during the -night, and that the machine was full of his queer things. - -At the appointed hour this morning we assembled in Beverley's rooms. -I had cleared away his big centre table, all the rubbish of papers -amid which he lives, including some invaluable manuscripts of his -worthless novels. I had taken the cylinders out of the dictograph -and had put them in a dictophone, and there on the table lay that -Pandora's box of information with a horn attached to it. - -Dr. Mullen arrived, bringing with him the truly great New York nerve -specialist and scientist whom he relies upon to pilot him in -difficult cases. Dr. Marigold had brought the truly great physician -and scientist who pilots him. At Beverley's request, I had invited -the president of his Club, and he had brought along two Club -affinities; three gossips. - -I sent Beverley to Brooklyn for the day. - -We seated ourselves, and on the still air of the room that unearthly -asthmatic horn began to deliver Beverley's opinion. Instantly there -was an uproar. There was a scuffle. It was almost a general fight. -Drs. Marigold and Mullen had jumped to their feet and shouted their -furious protests. One of them started to leave the room. He -couldn't, I had locked the door. One slammed at the machine--he was -restrained--everybody else wanted to hear Beverley out. And amid the -riot Beverley kept on his peaceful way, grinding out his healthy -vituperation. - -That will do, Polly, my dear. You will never hear anything more of -Beverley's being in bad health--not from those two rear-admirals of -diagnosis--away in the rear. Another happy result; it saves him at -last from Tilly. Her act was one that he will never forgive. His -act she will never forgive. The last tie between them is severed now. - -But all this is nothing, nothing, nothing! I am lost without you. - - BEN. - -P.S. Now that I have disposed of two of Beverley's detractors, in a -day or two I am going to demolish the third one--an Englishman over -on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I have long waited for the -chance to write him just one letter: he's the chief calumniator. - - - - -POLLY BOLES TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE - - _Louisville, Kentucky, - June 9, 1912._ - -DEAR BEN: - -I cannot tell you what a relief it brought me to hear that Beverley -is well. Of course it was all bound to be a mistake. - -At the same time your letters have made me very unhappy. Was it -quite fair? Was it open? Was it quite what anyone would have -expected of Beverley and you? - -Nothing leaves me so undone as what I am not used to in people. I do -not like surprises and I do not like changes. I feel helpless unless -I can foresee what my friends will do and can know what to expect of -them. Frankly, your letters have been a painful shock to me. - -I foresee one thing: this will bring Tilly and Dr. Marigold more -closely together. She will feel sorry for him, and a woman's sense -of fair play will carry her over to his side. You men do not know -what fair play is or, if you do, you don't care. Only a woman knows -and cares. Please don't keep after Dr. Mullen on my account. Why -should you persecute him because he loved me? - -Dr. Marigold will want revenge on Beverley, and he will have his -revenge--in some way. - -Your letters have left me wretched. If you surprise me in this way, -how might you not surprise me still further? Oh, if we could only -understand everybody perfectly, and if everything would only settle -and stay settled! - -My mother is much improved and she has urged me--the doctor says her -recovery, though sure, will be gradual--to spend at least a month -with her. To-day I have decided to do so. It will be of so much -interest to her if I have my wedding clothes made here. You know how -few they will be. My dresses last so long, and I dislike changes. I -have found my same dear old mantua-maker and she is delighted and -proud. But she insists that since I went to New York I have dropped -behind and that I will not do even for Louisville. - -On my way to her I so enjoy looking at old Louisville houses, left -among the new ones. They seem so faithful! My dear old mantua-maker -and the dear old houses--they are the real Louisville. - -My mother joins me in love to you. - - Sincerely yours, - POLLY BOLES. - - - - -BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO EDWARD BLACKTHORNE - - _150 Wall Street, New York, - June 10, 1912._ - - Edward Blackthorne, Esq., - King Alfred's Wood, - Warwickshire, England. - -MY DEAR SIR: - -I am a stranger to you. I should have been content to remain a -stranger. A grave matter which I have had no hand in shaping causes -me to write you this one letter--there being no discoverable -likelihood that I shall ever feel painfully obliged to write you a -second. - -You are a stranger to me. But you are, I have heard, a great man. -That, of course, means that you are a famous man, otherwise I should -never have heard that you are a great one. You hold a very -distinguished place in your country, in the world; people go on -pilgrimages to you. The thing that has made you famous and that -attracts pilgrims are your novels. - -I do not read novels. They contain, I understand, the lives of -imaginary people. I am satisfied to read the lives of actual people -and I do read much biography. One of the Lives I like to study is -that of Samuel Johnson, and I recall just here some words of his to -the effect that he did not feel bound to honour a man who clapped a -hump on his shoulder and another hump on his leg and shouted he was -Richard the Third. I take the liberty of saying that I share Dr. -Johnson's opinion as to puppets, either on the stage or in fiction. -The life of the actual Richard interests me, but the life of -Shakespeare's Richard doesn't. I should have liked to read the -actual life of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. - -I have never been able to get a clear idea what a novelist is. The -novelists that I superficially encounter seem to have no clear idea -what they are themselves. No two of them agree. But each of them -agrees that _his_ duty and business in life is to imagine things and -then notify people that those things are true and that -they--people--should buy those things and be grateful for them and -look up to the superior person who concocted them and wrote them down. - -I have observed that there is danger in many people causing any one -person to think himself a superior person unless he _is_ a superior -person. If he really is what is thought of him, no harm is done him. -But if he is widely regarded a superior person and is not a superior -person, harm may result to him. For whenever any person is praised -beyond his deserts, he is not lifted up by such praise any more than -the stature of a man is increased by thickening the heels of his -shoes. On the contrary, he is apt to be lowered by over-praise. -For, prodded by adulation, he may lay aside his ordinary image and -assume, as far as he can, the guise of some inferior creature which -more glaringly expresses what he is--as the peacock, the owl, the -porcupine, the lamb, the bulldog, the ass. I have seen all these. I -have seen the strutting peacock novelist, the solemn, speechless owl -novelist, the fretful porcupine novelist, the spring-lamb novelist, -the ferocious, jealous bulldog novelist, and the sacred ass novelist. -And many others. - -You may begin to wonder why I am led into these reflections in this -letter. The reason is, I have been wondering into what kind of -inferior creature your fame--your over-praise--has lowered _you_. -Frankly, I perfectly know; I will not name the animal. But I feel -sure that he is a highly offensive small beast. - -If you feel disposed to read further, I shall explain. - -I have in my legal possession three letters of yours. They were -written to a young gentleman whom I have known now for a good many -years, whose character I know about as well as any one man can know -another's, and for whom increasing knowledge has always led me to -feel increasing respect. The young man is Mr. Beverley Sands. You -may now realise what I am coming to. - -The first of these letters of yours reveals you as a stranger seeking -the acquaintance of Mr. Sands--to a certain limit: you asked of him a -courtesy and you offered courtesies in exchange. That is common -enough and natural, and fair, and human. But what I have noticed is -your doing this with the air of the superior person. Mr. Sands, -being a novelist, is of course a superior person. Therefore, you -felt called upon to introduce yourself to him as a _more_ superior -person. That is, you condescended to be gracious. You made it a -virtue in you to ask a favour of him. You expected him to be -delighted that you allowed him to serve you. - -In the second letter you go further. He wafted some incense toward -you and you got on your knees to this incense. You get up and offer -him more courtesies--all courtesies. Because he praised you, you -even wish him to visit you. - -Now the third letter. The favour you asked of Mr. Sands was that he -send you some ferns. By no fault of his except too much confidence -in the agents he employed (he over-trusts everyone and over-trusted -you), by no other fault of his the ferns were not sent. You waited, -time passed, you grew impatient, you grew suspicious of Mr. Sands, -you felt slighted, you became piqued in your vanity, wounded in your -self-love, you became resentful, you became furious, you became -revengeful, you became abusive. You told him that he had never meant -to keep his word, that you had kicked his books out of your library, -that he might profitably study the moral sensitiveness of a head of -cabbage. - -During the summer American tourists visited you--pilgrims of your -fame. You took advantage of their visit to promulgate mysteriously -your hostility to Mr. Sands. Not by one explicit word, you -understand. Your exalted imagination merely lied on him, and you -entrusted to other imaginations the duty of scattering broadcast your -noble lie. They did this--some of them happening not to be friends -of Mr. Sands--and as a result of the false light you threw upon his -character, he now in the minds of many persons rests under a cloud. -And that cloud is never going to be dispelled. - -Enclosed you will please find copies of these three letters of yours; -would you mind reading them over? And you will find also a packet of -letters which will enable you to understand why the ferns never -reached you and the whole entanglement of the case. And finally, you -will find enclosed a brief with which, were I to appear in Court -against you, as Mr. Sands's lawyer, I should hold you up to public -view as what you are. - -I shall merely add that I have often met you in the courtroom as the -kind of criminal who believes without evidence and who distrusts -without reason; who is, therefore, ready to blast a character upon -suspicion. If he dislikes the person, in the absence of evidence -against him, he draws upon the dark traits of his own nature to -furnish the evidence. - -I have written because I am a friend of Mr. Sands. - -I am, as to you, - - Merely, - BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE. - - - - -EDWARD BLACKTHORNE TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE - - _King Alfred's Wood, - Warwickshire, England, - June 21, 1912._ - - Benjamin Doolittle, - 150 Wall Street, - New York City. - -MY DEAR SIR: - -You state in your letter, which I have just laid down, that you are a -stranger to me. There is no conceivable reason why I should wish to -offer you the slightest rudeness--even that of crossing your -word--yet may I say, that I know you perfectly? If you had -unfortunately read some of my very despicable novels, you might have -found, scattered here and there, everything that you have said in -your letter, and almost in your very words. That is, I have two or -three times drawn your portrait, or at least drawn at it; and thus -while you are indeed a stranger to me in name, I feel bound to say -that you are an old acquaintance in nature. - -You cannot for a moment imagine--however, you despise imagination and -I withdraw the offensive word--you cannot for a moment suppose that I -can have any motive in being discourteous, and I shall, therefore, go -on to say, but only with your permission, that the first time I -attempted to sketch you, was in a very early piece of work; I was a -youthful novelist, at the outset of my career. I projected a story -entitled: "_The Married Cross-Purposes of Ned and Sal Blivvens._" I -feel bound to say that you in your letter pleasantly remind me of the -_Sal Blivvens_ of my story. In Sal's eyes poor Ned's failing was -this: as twenty-one human shillings he never made an exact human -guinea--his shillings ran a few pence over, or they fell a few pence -short. That is, Ned never did just enough of anything, or said just -enough, but either too much or too little to suit _Sal_. He never -had just one idea about any one thing, but two or three ideas; he -never felt in just one way about any one thing, but had mixed -feelings, a variety of feelings. He was not a yard measure or a pint -measure or a pound measure; he overflowed or he didn't fill, and any -one thing in him always ran into other things in him. - -Being a young novelist I was not satisfied to offer _Sal_ to the -world on her own account, but I must try to make her more credible -and formidable by following her into the next generation, and giving -her a son who inherited her traits. Thus I had _Tommy Blivvens_. -When Tommy was old enough to receive his first allowance of Christmas -pudding, he proceeded to take the pudding to pieces. He picked out -all the raisins and made a little pile of them. And made a little -separate pile of the currants, and another pile of the almonds, and -another of the citron, or of whatever else there was to separate. -Then in profound satisfaction he ate them, pile by pile, as a -philosopher of the sure. - -Thus--and I insist I mean no disrespect--your letter does revive for -me a little innocent laughter at my early literary vision of a human -baggage--friend of my youthful days and artistic enthusiasm--_Sal -Blivvens_. I arranged that when _Ned_ died, his neighbours all felt -sorry and wished him a green turf for his grave. _Sal_, I felt sure, -survived him as one who all her life walks past every human heart and -enters none--being always dead-sure, always dead-right; for the human -heart rejects perfection in any human being. - -I recognise you as belonging to the large tough family of the human -cocksures. _Sal Blivvens_ belonged to it--dead-sure, dead-right, -every time. We have many of the cocksures in England, you must have -many of them in the United States. The cocksures are people who have -no dim borderland around their minds, no twilight between day and -darkness. They see everything as they see a highly coloured rug on a -well-lighted floor. There is either rug or no rug, either floor or -no floor. No part of the floor could possibly be rug and no part of -the rug could possibly be floor. A cocksure, as a lawyer, is the -natural prosecuting attorney of human nature's natural misgivings and -wiser doubts and nobler errors. How the American cocksures of their -day despised the man Washington, who often prayed for guidance; with -what contempt they blasted the character of your Abraham Lincoln, -whose patient soul inhabited the border of a divine disquietude and -whose public life was the patient study of hesitation. - -I have taken notice of the peculiarly American character of your -cocksureness: it magnifies and qualifies a man to step by the mile, -to sit down by the acre, to utter things by the ton. Do you happen -to know Michael Angelo's _Moses_? I always think of an American -cocksure as looking like Michael Angelo's _Moses_--colossal -law-giver, a hyper-stupendous fellow. And I have often thought that -a regiment of American cocksures would be the most terrific spectacle -on a battlefield that the rest of the human race could ever face. -Just now it has occurred to me that it was your great Emerson who -spoke best on the weakness of the superlative--the cocksure is the -human superlative. - -As to your letter: You declare you know nothing about novels, but -your arraignment of the novelist is exact. You are dead-sure that -you are perfectly right about me. Your arraignment of me is exact. -You are conscious of no more moral perturbation as to justice than -exists in a monkey wrench. But that is the nature of the -cocksure--his conclusions have to him the validity of a hardware -store. - -This, however, is nothing. I clear it away in order to tell you that -I am filled with admiration of your loyalty to your friend, and of -the savage ferocity with which you attack me as his enemy. That -makes you a friend worth having, and I wish you were to be numbered -among mine; there are none too many such in this world. Next, I wish -to assure you that I have studied your brief against me and confess -that you have made out the case. I fell into a grave mistake, I -wronged your friend deeply, I hope not irreparably, and it was a -poor, sorry, shabby business. I am about to write to Mr. Sands. If -he is what you say he is, then in an instant he will forgive -me--though you never may. I shall ask him, as I could not have asked -him before, whether he will not come to visit me. My house, my -hospitality, all that I have and all that I am, shall be his. I -shall take every step possible to undo what I thoughtlessly, -impulsively did. I shall write to the President of his Club. - -One exception is filed to a specification in your brief: no such -things took place in my garden upon the visit of the American -tourists, as you declare. I did not promulgate any mysterious -hostility to Mr. Sands. You tell me that among those tourists were -persons hostile to Mr. Sands. It was these hostile persons who -misinterpreted and exaggerated whatever took place. You knew these -persons to be enemies of Mr. Sands's and then you accepted their -testimony as true--being a cocksure. - -A final word to you. Your whole character and happiness rests upon -the belief that you see life clearly and judge rightly the -fellow-beings whom you know. Those _you_ doubt ought to be doubted -and those _you_ trust ought to be trusted! Now I have travelled far -enough on life's road to have passed its many human figures--perhaps -all the human types that straggle along it in their many ways. No -figures on that road have been more noticeable to me than here and -there a man in whom I have discerned a broken cocksure. - -You say you like biography: do you like to read the Life of Robert -Burns? And I wonder whether these words of his have ever guided you -in your outlook upon life: - - "_Then gently scan your brother man_ - * * * * * - _To step aside is human._" - - -I thank you again. I wish you well. And I hope that no experience, -striking at you out of life's uncertainties, may ever leave you one -of those noticeable men--a broken cocksure. - -Your deeply obliged and very grateful, - - EDWARD BLACKTHORNE. - - - - -BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _June 30, 1912._ - -DEAR BEVERLEY: - -About a month ago I took it upon myself to write the one letter that -had long been raging in my mind to Edward Blackthorne. And I sent -him all the fern letters. And then I drew up the whole case and -prosecuted him as your lawyer. - -Of course I meant my letter to be an infernal machine that would blow -him to pieces. He merely inspected it, removed the fuse and inserted -a crank, and turned it into a music-box to grind out his praises. - -And then the kind of music he ground out for me. - -All day I have been ashamed to stand up and I've been ashamed to sit -down. He told me that my letter reminded him of a character in his -first novel--a woman called _Sal Blivvens_. ME--_Sal Blivvens!_ - -But of what use is it for us poor, common-clay, rough, ordinary men -who have no imagination--of what use is it for us to attack you -superior fellows who have it, have imagination? You are the Russians -of the human mind, and when attacked on your frontiers, you merely -retreat into a vast, unknown, uninvadable country. The further you -retire toward the interior of your mysterious kingdom, the nearer you -seem to approach the fortresses of your strength. - -I am wiser--if no better. If ever again I feel like attacking any -stranger with a letter, I shall try to ascertain beforehand whether -he is an ordinary man like me or a genius. If he is a genius, I am -going to let him alone. - -Yet, damn me if I, too, wouldn't like to see your man Blackthorne -now. Ask him some time whether a short visit from Benjamin Doolittle -could be arranged on any terms of international agreement. - -Now for something on my level of ordinary life! A day or two ago I -was waiting in front of the residence of one of my uptown clients, a -few doors from the residence of your friend Dr. Marigold. While I -waited, he came out on the front steps with Dr. Mullen. As I drove -past, I leaned far out and made them a magnificent sweeping bow: one -can afford to be forgiving and magnanimous after he settled things to -his satisfaction. They did not return the bow but exchanged quiet -smiles. I confess the smiles have rankled. They seemed like saying: -he bows best who bows last. - -You are the best thing in New York to me since Polly went away. -Without you both it would come near to being one vast solitude. - - BEN (alias _Sal Blivvens_). - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE - - _July 1, 1912._ - -DEAR BEN: - -I wrote you this morning upon receipt of your letter telling me of -your own terrific letter to Mr. Blackthorne and of your merciless -arraignment of him. Let me say again that I wish to pour out my -gratitude to you for your motives and also, well, also my regret at -your action. Somehow I have been reminded of Voltaire's saying: he -had a brother who was such a fool that he started out to be perfect; -as a consequence the world knows nothing of Voltaire's brother: it -knows very well Voltaire with his faults. - -The mail of yesterday which brought you Mr. Blackthorne's reply to -your arraignment brought me also a letter: he must have written to us -both instantly. His letter is the only one that I cannot send you; -you would not desire to read it. You are too big and generous, too -warmly human, too exuberantly vital, to care to lend ear to a great -man's chagrin and regret for an impulsive mistake. You are not -Cassius to carp at Caesar. - -Now this afternoon a second letter comes from Mr. Blackthorne and -that I enclose: it will do you good to read it--it is not a black -passing cloud, it is steady human sunlight. - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -[Enclosed letter from Edward Blackthorne] - -MY DEAR MR. SANDS: - -I follow up my letter of yesterday with the unexpected tidings of -to-day. I am willing to believe that these will interest you as -associated with your coming visit. - -Hodge is dead. His last birthday, his final natal eclipse, has -bowled him over and left him darkened for good. He can trouble us no -more, but will now do his part as mould for the rose of York and the -rose of Lancaster. He will help to make a mound for some other -Englishman's ferns. When you come--and I know you will come--we -shall drink a cup of tea in the garden to his peaceful memory--and to -his troubled memory for Latin. - -I am now waiting for you. Come, out of your younger world and with -your youth to an older world and to an older man. And let each of us -find in our meeting some presage of an alliance which ought to grow -always closer in the literatures of the two nations. Their -literatures hold their ideals; and if their ideals touch and mingle, -then nothing practical can long keep them far apart. If two oak -trees reach one another with their branches, they must meet in their -roots; for the branches are aerial roots and the roots are -underground branches. - -Come. In the eagerness of my letter of yesterday to put myself not -in the right but less, if possible, in the wrong, I forgot the very -matter with which the right and the wrong originated. - -_Will you, after all, send the ferns?_ - -The whole garden waits for them; a white light falls on the vacant -spot; a white light falls on your books in my library; a white light -falls on you, - -I wait for you, both hands outstretched. - - EDWARD BLACKTHORNE. - - -(Note penciled on the margin of the letter by Beverley Sands to Ben -Doolittle: "You will see that I am back where the whole thing -started; I have to begin all over again with the ferns. And now the -florists will be after me again. I feel this in the trembling marrow -of my bones, and my bones by this time are a wireless station on this -subject.") - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -JUDD & JUDD TO BEVERLEY SANDS - -DEAR SIR: - -We take pleasure in enclosing our new catalogue for the coming -autumn, and should be pleased to receive any further commissions for -the European trade. - -We repeat that we have no connection whatever with any house doing -business in the city under the name of Botany. - - Respectfully yours, - JUDD & JUDD, - Per Q. - - - - -PHILLIPS & FAULDS TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Louisville, Kentucky, - July 4th, 1912._ - - -DEAR SIR: - -Venturing to recall ourselves to your memory for the approaching -autumn season, in view of having been honoured upon a previous -occasion with your flattering patronage, and reasoning that our past -transactions have been mutually satisfactory, we avail ourselves of -this opportunity of reviving the conjunction heretofore existing -between us as most gratifying and thank you sincerely for past -favours. We hope to continue our pleasant relations and desire to -say that if you should contemplate arranging for the shipments of -plants of any description, we could afford you surprised satisfaction. - - Respectfully yours, - PHILLIPS & FAULDS. - - - - -BURNS & BRUCE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Dunkirk, Tennessee, - July 6, 1912._ - -DEAR SIR: - -We are prepared to supply you with anything you need. Could ship -ferns to any country in Europe, having done so for the late Noah -Chamberlin, the well-known florist just across the State line, who -was a customer of ours. - -old debts of Phillips and Faulds not yet paid, had to drop them -entirely. - - Very truly yours, - BURNS & BRUCE. - -If you need any forest trees, we could supply you with all the forest -trees you want, plenty of oaks, etc. plenty of elms, plenty of -walnuts, etc. - - - - -ANDY PETERS TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _Seminole, North Carolina, - July 7th, 1912._ - -DEAR SIR: - -I have lately enlarged my business and will be able to handle any -orders you may give me. The orders which Miss Clara Louise -Chamberlain said you were to send have not yet turned up. I write to -you, because I have heard about you a great deal through Miss Clara -Louise, since her return from her visit to New York. She succeeded -in getting two or three donations of books for our library, and they -have now given her a place there. I was sorry to part with Miss -Clara Louise, but I had just married, and after the first few weeks I -expected my wife to become my assistant. I am not saying anything -against Miss Clara Louise, but she was expensive on my sweet violets, -especially on a Sunday, having the run of the flowers. She and Alice -didn't get along very well together, and I did have a bad set-back -with my violets while she was here. - -Seedlins is one of my specialities. I make a speciality of seedlins. -If you want any seedlins, will you call on me? I am young and just -married and anxious to please, and I wish you would call on me when -you want anything green. Nothing dried. - - Yours respectfully, - ANDY PETERS. - - - - -BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - - _July 7th, 1912._ - -DEAR BEVERLEY: - -It makes me a little sad to write. I suppose you saw in this -morning's paper the announcement of Tilly's marriage next week to Dr. -Marigold. Nevertheless--congratulations! You have lost years of -youth and happiness with some lovely woman on account of your -dalliance with her. - -Now at last, you will let her alone, and you will soon find--Nature -will quickly drive you to find--the one you deserve to marry. - -It looks selfish at such a moment to set my happiness over against -your unhappiness, but I've just had news, that at last, after -lingering so long and a little mysteriously in Louisville, Polly is -coming. Polly is coming with her wedding clothes. We long ago -decided to have no wedding. All that we have long wished is to marry -one another. Mr. Blackthorne called me a cocksure. Well, Polly is -another cocksure. We shall jog along as a perfectly satisfied couple -of cocksures on the cocksure road. (I hope to God Polly will never -find out that she married _Sal Blivvens_.) - -Dear fellow, truest of comrades among men, it is inevitable that I -reluctantly leave you somewhat behind, desert you a little, as the -friend who marries. - -One awful thought freezes me to my chair this hot July day. You have -never said a word about Miss Clara Louise Chamberlain, since the day -of my hypothetical charge to the jury. Can it be possible that you -followed her up? Did you feed her any more cheques? I have often -warned you against Tilly, as inconstant. But, my dear fellow, -remember there is a worse extreme than in inconstancy--Clara Louise -would be sealing wax. You would merely be marrying 115 pounds of -sealing wax. Every time she sputtered in conversation, she'd seal -you the tighter. - -Polly is coming with her wedding clothes. - - BEN. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - - _July 8._ - -DEAR BEN: - -I saw the announcement in the morning paper about Tilly. - -It wouldn't be worth while to write how I feel. - -It is true that I traced Miss Chamberlain, homeless in New York. And -I saw her. As to whether I have been feeding cheques to her, that is -solely a question of my royalties. Royalties are human gratitude; -why should not the dews of gratitude fall on one so parched? -Besides, I don't owe you anything, gentleman. - -Yes, I feel you're going--you're passing on to Polly. I append a -trifle which explains itself, and am, making the best of everything, -the same - - BEVERLEY SANDS. - - - - - _A Meditation in Verse_ - (_Dedicated to Benjamin Doolittle as showing his - favourite weakness_) - - _How can I mind the law's delay, - Or what a jury thinks it knows, - Or what some fool of a judge may say? - Polly comes with the wedding clothes._ - - _Time, who cheated me so long, - Kept me waiting mid life's snows, - I forgive and forget your wrong: - Polly comes with the wedding clothes._ - - _Winter's lonely sky is gone, - July blazes with the rose, - All the world looks smiling on - At Polly in her wedding clothes._ - - - - -BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS - -[A hurried letter by messenger] - - _July 10, 1912._ - -Polly reached New York two days ago. I went up that night. She had -gone out--alone. She did not return that night. I found this out -when I went up yesterday morning and asked for her. She has not been -there since she left. They know nothing about her. I have -telegraphed Louisville. They have sent me no word. Come down at -once. - -BEN. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE - -[Hurried letter by messenger] - - _July 10, 1912._ - -DEAR BEN: - -Is anything wrong about Polly? - -I met her on the street yesterday. She tried to pass without -speaking. I called to her but she walked on. I called again and she -turned, hesitatingly, then came back very slowly to meet me half-way. -You know how composed her manner always is. But she could not -control her emotion: she was deeply, visibly troubled. Strange as it -may seem, while I thought of the mystery of her trouble, I could but -notice a trifle, as at such moments one often does: she was -beautifully dressed: a new charm, a youthful freshness, was all over -her as for some impending ceremony. We have always thought of Polly -as one of the women who are above dress. Such disregard was in a way -a verification of her character, the adornment of her sincerity. Now -she was beautifully dressed. - -"But what is the meaning of all this?" I asked, frankly mystified. - -Something in her manner checked the question, forced back my words. - -"You will hear," she said, with quivering lips. She looked me -searchingly all over the face as for the sake of dear old times now -ended. Then she turned off abruptly. I watched her in sheer -amazement till she disappeared. - -I have been waiting to hear from you, but cannot wait any longer. -What does it mean? Why don't you tell me? - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -BEVERLEY SANDS TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE - - _July 11._ - -I have with incredible eyes this instant read this cutting from the -morning paper: - -Miss Polly Boles married yesterday at the City Hall in Jersey City to -Dr. Claude Mullen. - -She must have been on her way when I saw her. - -I have read the announcement without being able to believe it--with -some kind of death in life at my heart. - -Oh, Ben, Ben, Ben! So betrayed! I am coming at once. - - BEVERLEY. - - - - -DIARY OF BEVERLEY SANDS - - _July 18._ - -The ferns have had their ironic way with us and have wrought out -their bitter comedy to its end. The little group of us who were the -unsuspecting players are henceforth scattered, to come together in -the human playhouse not again. The stage is empty, the curtain waits -to descend, and I, who innocently brought the drama on, am left the -solitary figure to speak the epilogue ere I, too, depart to go my -separate road. - -This is Tilly's wedding day. How beautiful the morning is for her! -The whole sky is one exquisite blue--no sign of any storm-plan far or -near. The July air blows as cool as early May. I sit at my window -writing and it flows over me in soft waves, the fragrances of the -green park below my window enter my room and encircle me like living -human tendernesses. At this moment, I suppose, Tilly is dressing for -her wedding, and I--God knows why--am thinking of old-time Kentucky -gardens in one of which she played as a child. Tilly, a little girl -romping in her mother's garden--Tilly before she was old enough to -know anything of the world--anything of love--now, as she dresses for -her wedding--I cannot shut out that vision of early purity. - -Yesterday a note came from her. I had had no word since the day I -openly ridiculed the man she is to marry. But yesterday she sent me -this message: - -"Come to-night and say good-bye." - -She was not in her rooms to greet me. I waited. Moments passed, -long moments of intense expectancy. She did not enter. I fixed my -eyes on her door. Once I saw it pushed open a little way, then -closed. Again it was opened and again it was held as though for lack -of will or through quickly changing impulses. Then it was opened and -she entered and came toward me, not looking at me, but with her face -turned aside. She advanced a few paces and with some swift, -imperious rebellion, she turned and passed out of the room and then -came quickly back. She had caught up her bridal veil. She held the -wreath in her hand and as she approached me, I know not with what -sudden emotion she threw a corner of the veil over her head and face -and shoulders. And she stood before me with I know not what struggle -tearing her heart. Almost in a whisper she said: - -"Lift my veil." - -I lifted her veil and laid it back over her forehead. She closed her -eyes as tears welled out of them. - -"Kiss me," she said. - -I would have taken her in my arms as mine at that moment for all -time, but she stepped back and turned away, fading from me rather -than walking, with her veil pressed like a handkerchief to her eyes. -The door closed on her. - -I waited. She did not come again. - -Now she is dressing for the marriage ceremony. A friend gives her a -house wedding. The company of guests will be restricted, everything -will be exquisite, there will be youth and beauty and distinction. -There will be no love. She marries as one who steps through a -beautiful arch further along one's path. - -Whither that path leads, I do not know; from what may lie at the end -of it I turn away and shudder. - -My thought of Tilly on her wedding morning is of one exiled from -happiness because nature withheld from her the one thing needed to -make her all but perfect: that needful thing was just a little more -constancy. It is her doom, forever to stretch out her hand toward a -brimming goblet, but ere she can bring it to her lips it drops from -her hand. Forever her hand stretched out toward joy and forever joy -shattered at her feet. - -American scientists have lately discovered or seem about to discover, -some new fact in Nature--the butterfly migrates. What we have -thought to be the bright-winged inhabitant of a single summer in a -single zone follows summer's retreating wave and so dwells in a -summer that is perpetual. If Tilly is the psyche of life's fields, -then she seeks perpetual summer as the law of her own being. All our -lives move along old, old paths. There is no new path for any of us. -If Tilly's fate is the butterfly path, who can judge her harshly? -Not I. - -They sail away at once on their wedding journey. He has wealth and -social influence of the fashionable sort which overflows into the -social mirrors of metropolitan journalism: the papers found space for -their plans of travel: England and Scotland, France and Switzerland, -Austria and Germany, Bohemia and Poland, Russia, Italy and -Sicily--home. The great world-path of the human butterfly, seeking -summer with insatiate quest. - -Home to his practice with that still fluttering psyche! And then the -path--the domestic path--stretching straight onward across the fields -of life--what of his psyche then? Will she fold her wings on a -bed-post--year after year slowly opening and unfolding those -brilliant wings amid the cob-webs of the same bed-post?... - -I cannot write of human life unless I can forgive life. How forgive -unless I can understand? I have wrought with all that is within me -to understand Polly--her treachery up to the last moment, her -betrayal of Ben's devotion. What I have made out dimly, darkly, -doubtfully, is this: Her whole character seems built upon one trait, -one virtue--loyalty. She was disloyal to Ben because she had come to -believe that he was disloyal to her sovereign excellence. There were -things in his life which he persistently refused to tell; perhaps -every day there were mere trifles which he did not share with -her--why should he? On a certain memorable morning she discovered -that for years he had been keeping from her some affairs of mine: -that was his loyalty to me; she thought it was his disloyalty to her. - -I cannot well picture Polly as a lute, but I think that was the rift -in the lute. Still a man must not surrender himself wholly into the -keeping of the woman he loves; let him, and he becomes anything in -her life but a man. - -Meantime Polly found near by another suitor who offered her all he -was--what little there was of him--one of those man-climbers who must -run over the sheltering wall of some woman. Thus there was gratified -in Polly her one passion for marrying--that she should possess a pet. -Now she possesses one, owns him, can turn him round and round, can -turn him inside out, can see all there is of him as she sees her -pocket-handkerchief, her breast-pin, her coffee cup, or any little -familiar piece of property which she can become more and more -attached to as the years go by for the reason that it will never -surprise her, never puzzle her, never change except by wearing out. - -This will be the end of the friendship between Drs. Marigold and -Mullen: their wives will see to that. So much the better: scattered -impostors do least harm. - -I have struggled to understand the mystery of her choice as to how -she should be married. Surely marriage, in the existence of any one, -is the hour when romance buds on the most prosaic stalk. It budded -for Polly and she eloped! It was a short troubled flight of her -heavy mind without the wings of imagination. She got as far as the -nearest City Hall. Instead of a minister she chose to be married by -a Justice of the Peace: Ben had been unjust, she would be married by -the figure of Justice as a penal ceremony executed over Ben: she -mailed him a paper and left him to understand that she had fled from -him to Justice and Peace! Polly's poetry! - -A line in an evening paper lets me know that she and the Doctor have -gone for their honeymoon to Ocean Grove. When Polly first came North -to live and the first summer came round she decided to spend it at -Ocean Grove, with the idea, I think, that she would get a grove and -an ocean with one railway ticket, without having to change; she could -settle in a grove with an ocean and in an ocean with a grove. What -her disappointment was I do not know, but every summer she has gone -back to Ocean Grove--the Franklin Flats by the sea.... - -Yesterday I said good-bye to Ben. I had spent part of every evening -with him since Polly's marriage--silent, empty evenings--a quiet, -stunned man. Confidence in himself blasted out of him, confidence in -human nature, in the world. With no imagination in him to deal with -the reasons of Polly's desertion--just a passive acceptance of it as -a wall accepts a hole in it made by a cannon ball. - -Her name was never called. A stunned, silent man. Clear, joyous -steady light in his eyes gone--an uncertain look in them. Strangest -of all, a reserve in his voice, hesitation. And courtesy for bluff -warm confidence--courtesy as of one who stumblingly reflects that he -must begin to be careful with everybody. - -His active nature meantime kept on. Life swept him forward--nature -did--whether he would or not. I went down late one evening. -Evidently he had been working in his room all day; the things Polly -must have sent him during all those years were gone. He had on new -slippers, a fresh robe, taking the place of the slippers and the robe -she had made for him. Often I have seen him tuck the robe in about -his neck as a man might reach for the arms of a woman to draw them -about his throat as she leans over him from behind. - -During our talk that evening he began strangely to speak of things -that had taken place years before in Kentucky, in his youth, on the -farm; did I remember this in Kentucky, could I recall that? His mind -had gone back to old certainties. It was like his walking away from -present ruins toward things still unharmed--never to be harmed. - -Early next morning he surprised me by coming up, dressed for travel, -holding a grip. - -"I am going to Kentucky," he said. - -I went to the train with him. His reserve deepened on the way; if he -had plans, he did not share them with me. - -What I make out of it is that he will come back married. No -engagement this time, no waiting. Swift marriage for what marriage -will sadly bring him. I think she will be young--this time. But she -will be, as nearly as possible, like Polly. Any other kind of woman -now would leave him a desolate, empty-hearted man for life. He -thinks he will be getting some one to take Polly's place. In reality -it will be his second attempt to marry Polly. - -I am bidding farewell the little group of us. Some one else will -have to write of me. How can I write of myself? This I will say: -that I think that I am a sheep whose fate it is to leave a little of -his wool on every bramble. - -I sail next week for England to make my visit to Mr. Blackthorne--at -last. Another letter has come from him. He has thrown himself into -the generous work of seeing that my visit to him shall make me known. -He tells me there will be a house party, a week-end; some of the -great critics will be there, some writers. "You must be found out in -England widely and at once," he writes. - -My heart swells as one who feels himself climbing toward a height. -There is kindled in me that strangest of all the flames that burn in -the human heart, the shining thought that my life is destined to be -more than mine, that my work will make its way into other minds and -mingle with the better, happier impulses of other lives. - -The ironic ferns have had their way with us. But after all has it -not been for the best? Have they not even in their irony been the -emblems of fidelity? - -They have found us out, they have played upon our weaknesses, they -have exaggerated our virtues until these became vices, they have -separated us and set us going our diverging ways. - -But while we human beings are moving in every direction over the -earth, the earth without our being conscious of it is carrying us in -one same direction. So as we follow the different pathways of our -lives which appear to lead toward unfaithfulness to one another, may -it not be true that to the Power which sets us all in motion and -drives us whither it will all our lives are the Emblems of Fidelity? - - -THE END - - - - - THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS - GARDEN CITY, N. Y. - - - - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Emblems of Fidelity, by James Lane Allen - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMBLEMS OF FIDELITY *** - -***** This file should be named 60435-8.txt or 60435-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/4/3/60435/ - -Produced by Al Haines -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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