Part 5 (1/2)
Others have been compelled to overcome a prejudice against what was base or unworthy in themselves, but I am forced to defend myself for my best heritage of understanding. Would it help me in your esteem if I flung away all my hard-won philosophy and ranged myself with the sentimentalists of the day? I will not believe it. I will fight this upstart folly while breath is in me, and I will teach you to fight it with me. This morning I took that poor book of Miss Addams's and, in place of what you sent me, wrote such a review as will quite astound the ”forty-million fool” you so despise--we agree there, at least. And all the while I was writing, I kept saying to myself, How will Jessica answer that? and, Will not Jessica believe now that my hatred of humanitarianism does not spring from selfishness or contempt, but from sympathy for mankind?
Yet if anything could bring me to hate my brothers it would be this monstrous certainty that my feeling towards them stands in the way of the one supreme, all consuming desire of my heart. I could cry out in the words of the _Imitation_:
”As often as I have gone among men, I have returned less a man”; for their foolish chatter has stolen from me the possession without which we are dwarfed and marred in our being. Your love is more to me than all the hopes of men. You must hearken to me. I have charged the winds with my pa.s.sion; the scent of flowers shall tell you the sweetness of love; you shall not walk among your beloved trees but their whispering shall repeat the words they heard me speak. I will wrap you about with fancies and dreams and pa.s.sionate thoughts till no way of escape is left you. You shall not read a book but some word of mine shall come between your eyes and the printed page. You shall not hear a simple song but you shall remember that music is the voice of love. You think that I have no heart for the many and can therefore have no heart for one. Dear girl, my love is so great that it has made me stronger a thousand times than you; there is no escape for you.
As I pa.s.sed the little goblin boy this morning I dropped a coin in his hand and said: ”It is from a lady in Georgia who loves you.” His face lighted up with surprise at the words (not at the money, for I have given him that before), and I was glad to extend the benediction of your sweetness a little further in the world. Believe me, I am not so foolish as to despise charity or true efforts to increase the comfort of the poor; but I know that poverty and pain and wretchedness can never be driven from the world by any besom of the law, and I do see that humanitarianism, sprung as it is from materialism and sentimentalism (what a demonic crew of _isms_!) has bartered away the one valid consolation of mankind for an impossible hope that begets only discontent and mutual hatred among men.
They are the followers of Simon Magus, these humanitarians; they would buy the gifts of Heaven with a price; and their creed is the real Simonism.
Have you ever read the _Imitation_, and do you remember these verses?
For though I alone possessed all the comforts of the world and might enjoy all the delights thereof, yet it is certain that they could endure but a little.
Wherefore, O my soul, thou canst not be fully comforted, nor be perfectly refreshed, save in G.o.d, the comforter of the poor and the helper of the humble.
Let temporal things be for use, but set thy desire on the eternal.
Man draweth nearer to G.o.d so as he departeth further from all earthly comfort.
You have taught me to love, dear Heart; and now, as you see, you are teaching me to be orthodox. Do not think I shall give you up; there is only one power greater than my desire, and that is Death. I would not end with so ill-omened a word, but rather with your own sweet name, Jessica.
XXI
JESSICA TO PHILIP
DEAR FATHER CONFESSOR:
You observe, I do not retaliate by addressing you as Dear Philip. After reflecting, I conclude that this would be an undue concession to make, while the above t.i.tle removes you to a safer sphere. It limits and qualifies your relations.h.i.+p and at the same time affords me the happy advantage of confessing my heart to you. Really, I have always felt the need of such an officer in my spiritual kingdom. I could never reconcile myself to the incongruity of confessing in our experience meetings. It seemed to me that sharing my confidence with so many people was heterodox to nature itself. For this reason I have always thought that while Protestantism is based upon a n.o.bler theory of the truth, Roman Catholicism is founded upon a much shrewder knowledge of human nature.
However, I do not come seeking absolution for any sins. Such shortcomings as I have are so personal, so really a part of dear me, that I should scarcely be complete without them. They are vixenish plagues of character that distinguish me from more conventional saints. But now that I have willed myself away from you, I need no longer conceal my heart. My love has been shriven, and, like a little white ghost out of heaven, must hark back to you occasionally for a blessing.
To begin with, then, when your letter came this morning, I took just a peep inside to see if it was good, and then hurried away to our forest to enjoy it, for I always feel more at home with you there. And although the season is so far advanced that the whole earth is chilled and desolate, my heart was like the springtide, swelling with gladness. Joy reached to my vagabond heels, and I had much ado to maintain the resignation gait of a minister's daughter through the village streets. And once out of sight I kissed my hand quickly over my shoulder till my face burned. For had you not promised to attend me? ”I will wrap you about with fancies and dreams,” you said. I was like a young-lady comet drawing after me a luminous trail of love. I began to comprehend the advantages of my position, to rejoice in my sacrifice. I caught the finer aspiration of love, like one who lays down his life and finds it again in n.o.bler forms.
Brave, good father, this thing that you have revealed to me is like a sweet eternity. It neither begins nor ends: only we do that. When our time comes we are swept into the current of it, happy, predestined atoms, and afterwards we are lost out of it like the leaves on the trees. But love is like the wind in their branches; it never is gone. So it seems to me now when all my heart's leaves are stirred to gladness by the dear gale of love.
But do not despise me, O sage in the upper chamber, for my selfishness. I keep far to the windward of you because I was made for love, not for sacrifice. The altar of your soul life is very fine, very beautiful, but I am too much alive to be offered up on such a table. Suppose I trusted you, gave myself with my heart, and in after years you should fall upon the idea of expurgating all sensations, all heresies, all affections from your life as the Brahmins do, what then would become of poor Jessica? I should sit upon your altar like a withered fairy, casting dust over my unhallowed head and calling down elfish curses upon you. Ah me! when I come upon a splendid man-statue that suddenly glows into living heart and flesh, I may wonder and love, but I should never trust myself in the arms of that phenomenon, lest, being clasped there, he should as suddenly turn back to his native stone and freeze the life in me!
Have you noticed that I tell you nothing of the village doings here, the little church sociables and a thousand commonplace details that go to make up the sum of existence amid such surroundings? It is because I do not really live among them. My mind is alien to these narrow margins of society and religion. But it is always of the little forest that I tell you, as if that were my real home, as indeed it is. And it is the dearer to me now that we have walked through it together. So in each letter you may expect a report of how things go there. This morning, as I looked about at the sober ground covered thick with dying leaves, I thought of what a gallant display of autumnal colors we had on that morning. Our little friends of the summer time are flitting here and there through the naked branches in silent confusion. There are no green boughs behind which to conceal their orchestral moods. Besides, their inspiration is gone, their singing hearts are benumbed by the cold. But for your letter thrust somewhere I could not have escaped the ghost of sadness that seemed to haunt the earth and sky. Suddenly, as I stood in the midst of it all, a cardinal flashed like a red spark into a tall pine, fluffed out his breast, and swept the forest with a defiant note of melody. It was a challenge to the long winter time, a prophecy of spring and of high green trees, and of a mate cloistered now far away in the wilderness: ”You shall not hear a simple song, but you shall remember that music is the voice of love,” whispered the letter against my heart. What a brave thing is life when we have love and the hope of spring latent within us! I admit, as I listened to the little red troubadour of the pine, that, had you been as near as the dreams and fancies that wrapped me about, this fight in me for freedom would have been at an end. Do not trust these feeble moods of mine, however; not one of them would last half the length of time you would need to make the journey from New York to Morningtown!
So! you have written such a review of Miss Addams's book as will astonish the ”average reader,” and all the while you wondered: ”How will Jessica answer that?” Abridged, this is her opinion: That an editor should be careful how he kicks his heels at the spirit of his age. The world has an ancient and effective way of dealing with such heroes.
No, I am not familiar with the _Imitation_. But I gather from the pa.s.sages you quote that it is a spiritual exercise prepared for those who ”possess all the comforts of this life,” and are weary enough of them to pa.s.s on to the philosophy of renunciation. But you should remember that the Hull-House cla.s.ses have not had the necessary experience with comforts.
Renunciation is impossible for them, for they have nothing to give up.
My love to the little goblin boy.