Part 3

The Greeks seem to have thought about and observed this. From their keen vision none of the phenomena of life, apparently, was hid, and they were quite aware of this occasional confusion of the nature and person of the sex. As usual they typified it and invented legends about it, though they were not, of course, aware of its cause--the atavistic tendency to throw back to the primordial condition when both sexes existed in the same individual; but then they were poets and not scientists. They got at essential truths by instinct and revealed their knowledge by beautiful suggestion rather than by exact analysis. The dry-as-dusts fail even yet to see that their marbles and legends are as valuable in the study of life as German theses.

"The Sonnets from the Portuguese" give me the unwholesome, uncomfortable sense that one gets from those unlucky feminine men and masculine women. They mingle in a disagreeable fashion the pride and reserve of the woman who receives worship and the abandon and aggressiveness of the man who sues.

One wonders why women cannot write poetry?--or rather, to speak with more exactness--are never poets. Once or twice in their lives, perhaps, they may speak with sacred fire, but they are never, in the full meaning of the word, poets. They cannot rise out of themselves.

Gosse says of Mrs. Browning: "She was not striving to produce an effect; she was trying with all the effort of which her spirit was capable to say exactly what was in her heart."

There is the whole secret of the feminine failure in art. It always degenerates into an attempt to express, not humanity, but the individual woman. Woman is inevitably personal. She still sits alone at the door of her wigwam. Of humanity, she is ignorant, and to it is, moreover, indifferent.

Mrs. Browning was only once shaken out of herself--when she wrote that fine plaint "De Profundis"--voicing the griefs of the many in telling of her own. After all, a portrait of one's self only is not art, or is art in its most limited form. Aurora Leigh and all the rest are simply Elizabeth Barrett masking under other names. However much the hand may resemble Esau's, the voice is always the voice of Jacob.

Byron had these same feminine limitations--"dressing up" (as the children say) as a Pirate, a Turk, or the like, and reciting a rhymed Baedeker for the benefit of the untravelled; but whether Pirate or Giaour, always unmistakably Byron.

What the women with poetic gifts _can_ do is to translate delightfully. Mrs. Browning's translations of Heine are quite the best in existence. Emma Lazarus made an English version of "_Une Nuit de Mai_" that is almost more delightful than the original. She might have enriched our treasury of verse with priceless transferences; instead of which she wasted her gifts upon unimportant "expressions of herself."

November 20.

Two Siegfrieds.

A---- says there is no definite, abstract standard of beauty or perfection.

We were talking of Jean de Reszke's _Siegfried_. A---- was completely satisfied with it. I explained that he was so only because he had not seen Alvary in the part. A---- was sure that even if he had done so de Reszke might still be best to his taste; asserting again that there was no ideal good in art, but only preference. Of course he does say this for the very reason that I advanced--because he had not seen Alvary.

Poor beautiful young creature! He died recently in Germany in horrible, useless, ridiculous pain. Wagner, I am sure, would have thought him the ideal _Siegfried_, for he never made vocal gymnastics a fetish, but demanded satisfaction for the eye as much as for the ear.

Alvary's _Siegfried_ was the very embodiment of splendid, golden, joyous youth. Balmung beaten into shape, he sprang from the forge, whirling it and laughing at its glitter as an ecstatic child might. The splitting of the anvil was the mere sudden caprice of youthful bravado and mischief. He looked about for an instant to find something on which to test his new toy, and struck the iron in half as a boy would snip off the head of a daisy with his new whip. All his movements had the unpremeditatedness of youth.

Drunk with the struggle and the triumph of his contest with the dragon, he killed _Mime_ more to sate this new lust of power than to mete out justice or due punishment. He threw himself, sweating with exertion, and swelling with a new realization of his manhood, upon the grasses by the stream, and as the breezes cooled his body and spirit, and the soft peace of the green world stole upon him, romance woke in his face and voice: the rough uncouthness of boyhood fell away like a discarded garment.

Who that once saw and heard it can ever forget those fresh tones or that slim-waisted boy wandering away into the sunlit forest, his beautiful dreaming face lifted yearningly to the thrilling bird voice that sang of love?... Youth seeking passion--the sleeping woman ringed with fire.

Ah me!--all our hearts ached after him; after our own splendid moment.

It is useless to say that this is not absolute beauty. It is impossible that a heavy-footed tenor (whose belt would have served for a saddle girth) with a square Sclav head and pendulous cheeks can be equalized to the other by individual taste. Such taste is simply bad.

January 6.

A Door Ajar.

I have been reading Pater's "Greek Studies"; a volume which an amiable friend presented to me as a Christmas gift.

It affects me physically as well as mentally. I must lay the book down now and then, because I find my heart beats and my temples grow moist. It is as if its covers were doors opening into the other world--that world that is always just beyond one.

I don't know whether it is a common experience, but from my earliest childhood I have always had a sort of belief that if one stooped very low, held one's breath, and made a bold spring, one would break through and under the barrier, and be _There_!

Or one might go very suddenly around a corner and be _There_. Always there was the sensation that it was lying just beyond, just outside of one's self, and that only a certain heaviness of the flesh, a certain lack of concentration of attention, prevented one's participation in it.

Twice the door almost opened. I sprang in spirit to cross the threshold, and there was--nothing. The door was slammed in my face, but I never forgot that I had nearly got through. It was like death. As if one's brain and heart had suddenly grown vast and vapourized. Pater's book rouses some echo of those sensations.

I can't define what the other life is. It is all around me. I feel it in the water when I swim--a sentiency. If I could only look close enough into the shifting depths, I should see--a hand clasped quickly enough would grasp--what always just evades.

I feel it around me, breathing and watching in the woods. It is what I cannot quite catch in the talk of the birds. It is what the animals say with their eyes.

The Greeks understood it. They called it Pan, and Cybele, and Dionysus, or dryads in the woods, or nymphs in the fountain, but those were only terms by which they tried to express the inexpressible. It is so subtle--so intoxicating. It is like love--a reblending with all the elements of nature. One aches and strains toward it, and yet feels a delicious, shuddering reluctance to know.

January 7.

At Time of Death.

Oh High Heart of mine, Now list to a wonder! Thou shalt vent thy great rages In lightning and thunder. And the force of thy fury, more mighty than they, Shall rock mountains, and rip them asunder.

When thou weepest, oh Heart! All thy bitter deploring In the white whirling rains Shall have anguished outpouring. And the salt and the sound of thy grief, like the sea, Shake the night with its sullen wild roaring.

When thou lovest, oh Heart! Into sudden fierce flower, 'Neath thy passionate breath In one rapturous hour, Earth shall blossom, all crimson and trembling with love, Stirred to heart by thy rage and thy power.

Then, high Heart, be brave! This death is but rending Of limits that vexed, And the ultimate blending With the cosmical passions of Nature thine own, Made immortal, insatiate, unending.

January 10.

The Curse of Babel.

Boutet de Monvel, who had been lending H---- a polite but obviously fatigued attention, got up with alacrity as the clock struck ten and bowed himself out, with that military bend of the hips characteristic of French salutes. H---- passed his handkerchief around the top of his collar and said:

"_Damn_ Babel!"

We all laughed.

"Now, here," said H----, indignantly, "is a man with a beautiful mind, a man full of beautiful thoughts and visions, and because of those infernal French verb inflections, because they will call tables and chairs 'he' and 'she' instead of 'it,' I can't communicate with him without boring him to death. We English-speaking people are a great deal more lenient. Some of the pleasantest talks I've ever had have been with foreigners who waded through a slaughter of my native tongue to a positive throne in my respect. But no foreigner can ever tolerate broken French or Spanish. They jump to the immediate conclusion that a man who can't speak their abominable gibberish correctly must be either a boor or a fool, and they don't take the pains to conceal that impression. Why don't they learn to speak English, so that a human being could talk to them?"

R---- told a story of recent experience in Italy, which he thought suggested an equal arrogance in the Anglo-Saxon.

He had watched a young woman, an American, on the railway platform at Naples, explaining in lucid English to the porter her wishes concerning her luggage. The porter stared, shrugged, and seized a bag. The girl caught his arm.

"Put that down," she said sternly. "I mean that to go in the carriage with me. Those two trunks are to be labelled for Rome and put in the van."

The porter began to gesticulate and gabble.

"There's no use making so much noise," she commented contemptuously. "Just do as I tell you and don't lose time."

The Italian hunched his shoulders, threw his hands out in fan-like gestures, and made volcanic appeals to heaven. R----, who is shy, but chivalrous, and who speaks six Italian dialects, felt called upon to take part.

"Excuse me, Madam," he said, "but you seem to be having some difficulty with your luggage. As I speak Italian, perhaps I may be of service to you."

The girl turned a cold eye upon him and waved him away.

"Thank you," she said, "you are very kind, but all the world has got to speak English eventually, and there is no use indulging these people in their ridiculous Italian now!"

January 14.

The Fourth Dimension.

I lunched with Mary R---- yesterday and heard a curious story. Mrs. M----, who is ordinarily so amusing, seemed _distrait_ and disturbed all through the meal, and when the other women had gone, Mary, who is extremely sensitive and sympathetic to the state of mind of everyone about her, led Mrs. M----, in a manner fascinating in its skilfulness, to unpack her overladen spirit.

She said: "I have been spending the morning with a friend, who is half mad with melancholia. She has had a terrible experience. She is a Philadelphia woman. Her husband was a manufacturer of window glass. He died about five years ago from typhoid fever and left her with a small fortune and two daughters; one fourteen years old, one seventeen--nice, rosy, wholesome, well brought up girls. They had always wanted to travel, but during her husband's lifetime he was too busy and she would never leave him. About a year after his death, they concluded, as the lease of their house had run out, to store their furniture and go abroad for a time, with the idea that the girls could perfect themselves in languages and music and see something of the world.

I don't want you to think there was anything sensational about them. They were just quiet, middle-class Philadelphians,--you know the type,--modest, conventional, devoted to the proprieties. That's what makes their story all the more tragic.

They arrived in London; took quiet lodgings in Dover Street, and concluded to spend six months in England, seeing the sights, and making these London lodgings their headquarters. They had been there all through the month of May, doing picture galleries, churches, and the museums, and occasionally a theatre. One Saturday they had tickets for a concert, and as the place was near and the day was fine, they decided to walk to the place where the concert was to be given, stopping at a shop in Regent street on the way to give an order about something being made there. I don't know what it was, or where the shop was situated, but at all events the three were walking abreast, the girls chattering and joking about the order. The sidewalk was very crowded, so that the mother stepped ahead, but heard her daughters' voices at her elbow for several minutes.

The street grew clearer as she went, and she turned to beckon the girls alongside again. She didn't see them, and stood a few moments for them to catch up. After waiting awhile she walked back and still missed them. It occurred to her that they might have passed ahead without her noticing it, and gone on to the shop where they had planned to stop, so she went there and waited twenty minutes. Then she imagined they might have missed their way, and gone to the concert hall to wait for her. By this time she felt sufficient anxiety to hail a cab, but no one had seen them at the concert hall, and she herself had all three of the tickets, so she returned to their lodgings, sure that they would turn up there eventually in any case.

At six o'clock they were still absent, and really frightened by this time she visited all the near-by police stations, but could get no news of them.

That was four years ago, and from that day to this she has never seen or heard of them. She has travelled all over Europe and returned twice to America, has advertised in every possible way, and has employed the best detectives of both continents. Now she has come back for the third time, utterly broken in health and fortune. Their home in Philadelphia has become a boarding-house, and she has taken a room and will spend the rest of her life there, hoping that in that way, if they ever return, they may be able to reach her. Nearly all her money has gone in the search, and her mind is almost equally a wreck. She goes over to Philadelphia this afternoon, and I went in the morning to tell her good-by."

Mary said--her lips were white--"But, good heavens, Emily! where could the girls have gone?"

"That's the terrible part of it," Mrs. M---- answered. "One can't imagine. They were both so young. It was in a foreign country: they had no money. As far as the mother knew, neither had, nor could have had, any reason for going, nor anyone a reason for taking them. If one only had gone one might suspect a lover, or a sudden aberration of mind, but there were two; it was in broad daylight. Three minutes before they had been beside her. There was no struggle, no accident. No one could have silently carried off or made way with _two_ grown girls in Regent Street in midday. One minute they were there, laughing, happy, and commonplace, and the next minute they had vanished utterly and forever, without a word or a cry."

"But why has one never heard of it?" I said.

"Well, of course, the mother kept it out of the papers. For a long time she feared they might have been the victims of the sort of person who preys on young girls, and dreaded that there should be a scandal by which their lives should be ruined if they ever returned. To-day I think she would be glad to find them even in the lowest brothel, if she might only see them again."

"Hadn't any of the police or detectives a theory?"

"Oh, thousands at first, but they never bore any fruit. Consider all the circumstances. They were sensible, self-reliant American girls. By this time, if they were alive, they would have found some means of communicating with their mother. She has published guarded appeals, which they would understand, and always in the English language, in about every paper in this country and Europe."

"But what do you think?"

"What can one think? Can you conceive of any solution when you consider all the facts?"

"Has the mother no theory?"

"Well, she has, but then she is hardly sensible, you know, after the strain of such an experience. You've heard of the Fourth Dimension, haven't you? She says if that's not the explanation, she cannot imagine any other. She doesn't really believe it, I think, but she says if they did not stumble into it, where are they? And what answer can one give her?"

By this time it was late, and I came away. Outside the sun was shining and the trolley cars buzzing by. The theory of the Fourth Dimension seemed absurd, but I wondered where those poor young girls could have gone, and felt an oppression in my breathing.

January 23.

The Ant and the Lark.

Who, I wonder, was the stupid phrase-maker guilty of saying that Genius was only an infinite capacity for taking pains? And yet Shakespeare, according to tradition, never blotted a line. How much pains had the little Mozart taken when he began his first concert tour? Creation comes swiftly and with heat. The man who must take infinite pains in production is never a genius. Indeed, when one sees how little the creation of beauty, harmony, or ideas is related to their human creator, how little, in a way, he seems related to them, one is almost inclined to imagine that somewhere there exists a great reservoir of force and that the "genius" is merely a cock through which the creative fluid runs. He happens to be the cock that is "turned on" while the handles of the others are left untouched.

* * * * *

There was once a very ambitious and industrious Ant. Its home was in a field where the grass and flowers bloomed.

This Ant had convictions as to the best uses of life, and wasted no time. So many hours a day she devoted to the improvement of her mind, and so many to her life labour, which was to build an ant-hill. Early and late she toiled, and as she toiled she thought very deeply, elaborating numerous excellent and noble theories. All her theories concerned the best use of opportunities, and the doing of some work which should make the world better because she had existed.

Once in a long while, when quite worn out by her labours, she would climb to the top of a blade of grass, and look out into the world. Sometimes the sun was just rising and the field was damascened with the blue and white cups of morning-glories, and sometimes it was evening and the moon silvered the dew-hung grass, which palpitated with fireflies. At such times a divine yearning and great longing filled the heart of the tired little emmet, and she would hurry down to her work at once, saying bravely to herself:

"If I waste a moment my hill will never be high enough to look out upon this beautiful world." And so would toil on without ceasing, taking the greatest pains with every grain of sand, fitting and refitting it into its place with infinite pains, and comforting herself for her slow progress by saying:

"I am really not very old yet. I still have a great many days in which to complete my work." And would make some excuse to herself for going down to stand on the ground beside it and gain encouragement by noting how much greater was the hill than her own stature, and then went happily back to her task.

Near the Ant's hill a lark had built its home--a careless body, who roughly kicked out the earth for a nest, and who, being dull as she sat on her eggs, conversed at times with the Ant, for whom the matron manifested an ill-concealed contempt.

"In heaven's name!" she said, "What is the use of wearing yourself to skin and bone working on that hill? Isn't it quite big enough for your uses already?"

"Yes," replied the Ant, patiently, "but it is every one's duty to make the world as beautiful as they can, and I want to build the biggest and most beautiful ant-hill in the world. And oh!"--she cried, clasping her little paws and with a hungry look in her eyes--"I do so want to be famous!"

"Fiddle-de-dee!" answered the brown bird, contemptuously. "Famous!--what is that? Are you wearing yourself out for such nonsense? As for me, give me a fat worm for breakfast and luck with my eggs, and it's all I ask." Saying which, she tucked her head under her wing and went to sleep, while the Ant hurried away to finish the daily task she set herself.

In course of time a young lark was hatched. A great red, sprawling, featherless thing, with a big bill and no idea but worms. The Ant used to try sometimes, when his mother was absent hunting food, to teach the ugly young thing some of her own excellent theories, but the bird only blinked sleepily and scornfully and never answered a word, so the Ant was reluctantly obliged to give up the hope of ever inspiring him with the nobler ambitions of life.

She was growing much encouraged about her own work. All the other ants in the field wondered at and admired it, and as one could nearly see out above the grasses by standing upon her hill on tiptoe, the happy insect began to dream of immortality.

By this time, too, the young lark had grown feathers, and one morning he stumbled out of the nest, fluttered a moment to try his wings, and suddenly, bursting into a flood of song, soared upward into the sunlit blue.

The Ant fell to the earth, breathless and paralyzed, but in a moment, stifling her pain and despair, she rose up and began, from mere habit, fitting more grains of sand into her unfinished hill.

A Poet walked in the field that day, meditating some verses upon the divine gift of genius. He cried aloud with joy at the lark's song, and while he gazed upward stumbled over the Ant's hill and demolished it, but in his note-book he wrote:

"Oh, miracle of Genius, that lifts the Sons of God on golden pinions to the gates of heaven, while the dull myriads toil futilely at Babels below."

January 29.

The Döppelganger.