Now don't say What on earth does the woman want? because it seems to meso plain. What the woman wants is that present and future poets shouldwrap themselves sternly in an impenetrable veil of anonymity. Theywon't, but she can go on praying that they will. They won't, because ofthe power of the passing moment, because of the pleasantness of praise,of recognition, of personal influence, and, I suppose, but I'm not sure,of money. Do you remember that merry rhymer Prior, how he sang
'Tis long ago Since gods came down incognito?
Well, I wish with all my heart they had gone on doing it a littlelonger. He wasn't, I think, deploring what I deplore, the absence of asense for the anonymous in gods, of a sense of the dignity ofseparation, of retirement, of mystery, wherever there is even one sparkof the Divine; I think he thought they had all been, and that neitherincognito nor in any other form would they appear again. He implied, andso joined himself across the centuries to the Walrus and the Carpenter,that there were no gods to come. Well, he has been dead over a hundredand eighty years, and they have simply flocked since then. I'd like towrite the great names on this page, the names of the poets, first andgreatest of the gods, to raise it to dignity and confound the ghost ofPrior, but I won't out of consideration for you.
Does not my enthusiasm, my mountain energy, make you groan with thedeadly fatigue of him who has to listen and cannot share? I'll leaveoff. My letter is growing unbecomingly fat. The air up here is sobracing that my very unhappinesses seem after all full of zest, veryvocal, healthy griefs, really almost enjoying themselves. I'll go backto my pots. I'm busy today, though you mightn't think it, making applejelly out of our very own apples. I'll go back to my pots andforget--no, I won't make a feeble joke I was just going to make, becauseof what I know your face would look like when you read it. After all, Ibelieve I'm more than a little bit frightened of you.
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
XLVII
Galgenberg, Sept. 30th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--How nice of you to be so kind, to write soconsolingly, to be so patient in explaining where I am thinking wrong. Iburned the book in the kitchen fire, and felt great satisfaction inclearing the house of its presence. You are right; I have no concernwith the body of a poet--all my concern is with his soul, and the twoshall be severely separated. I am glad you agree with me that poetsshould be anonymous, but you seem to have even less hope that they everwill be than I have. At least I pray that they may; you apparently takeno steps whatever to bring it about. You say that experience teachesthat we must not expect too much of gods; that the possible pangs ofposterity often leave them cold; that they are blind to the merits ofbushels, and discern neither honor nor profit in the use of thosevessels of extinguishment; you fear that they will not change, and youexhort me to see to it that their weakness shall not be an occasion formy stumbling. That is very sensible advice. But before your kind lettercame a few fresh autumn mornings had cleared a good deal of my firstdejection away. If the gods won't hide themselves I can after all shutmy eyes. If I may not rejoice in the divine in them with undistractedattention I will try at least to get all the warmth I can from itsburning. And I can imitate my own dainty and diligent bees, and takecare to be absorbed only in their honey. You make me ashamed of my follyin thinking I could never read Burns again now that I know about hissins. I did secretly think so. I was sure of it. I felt quite sick tosee him tumbled from his altar into the mud. Your letter shows me thatonce again I have been foolish. Why, it has verged on idiocy. I myselfhave laughed at people in Jena, strictly pious people, who will not readGoethe, who have a personally vindictive feeling against him because ofhis different love-affairs, and I have listened astonished to the furywith which the proposal of a few universal-minded persons to give Heinea statue was opposed, and to the tone almost of hatred with which oneman whenever his name is mentioned calls out _Schmutzfink_. About ourpoets I have been from the beginning quite sane. But yours were somehowmore sacred to me; sacred, I suppose, because they were more mysterious,more distant,--glorious angel-trumpets through which God sent Hismessages. I was so glad, I whose tendency is, I am afraid, to laugh andcriticise, to possess one thing at which I could not laugh, to have awhole tract of beauty in which I could walk seriously, with downcasteyes; and I thought I was never going to be able to be serious thereagain. It was a passing fit, a violent revulsion. If I like carefully toseparate my own soul and body, why should I not do the same with thoseof other sinners? It has always seemed to me so quaint the way we admit,the good nature with which we reiterate, that we are all wretchedsinners. We do it with such an immense complacency. We agree soheartily, with such comfortable, regretful sighs, when anybody tells usso; but with only one wretched sinner are we of a real patience. Withhim, indeed, our patience is boundless. I know this, I have always knownit, and I will not now, at an age when it is my hope to grow every yeara little better, forget it and be as insolently intolerant as the manwho shudders at the name of Heine, will not read a line of him and callshim _Schmutzfink_. That writer's books you tell me about, the books thevirtuous in England will not read because his private life wasdisgraceful, beautiful books, you say, into which went his best, inwhich his spirit showed how bright it was, how he had kept it apart andclean, I shall get them all and read them all. No sinner, cursed with abody at variance with his soul and able in spite of it to hear the musicof heaven and give it exquisite expression, shall ever again beidentified by me with what at such great pains he has kept white. I knowat least three German writers to whom the same thing happened, men wholive badly and write nobly. My heart goes out to them. I think of themlame and handicapped, leading their Muse by the hand with anxious careso that her shining feet, set among the grass and daisies along theroadside, shall not be dimmed by the foulness through which theythemselves are splashing. They are caked with impurities, but with thetenderest watchfulness they keep her clean. She is their gift to theworld, the gift of their best, of their angel, of their share ofdivinity. And the respectable, afraid for their respectability, turntheir backs in horror and go and read without blinking ugly thingswritten by other respectables. Why, no priest at the altar, howeverunworthy, can hinder the worshipper from taking away with him as great aload of blessings as he will carry. And a rose is not less lovelybecause its roots are in corruption. And God Himself was found once in amanger. Thank you, and good-by.
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
XLVIII
Galgenberg, Oct. 8th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--We are very happy here just now because Papa's newbook, at which he has been working two years, is finished. I am copyingit out, and until that is done we shall indulge in the pleasantestday-dreams. It is our time, this interval between the finishing of abook of his and its offer to a publisher, for being riotously happy. Webuild the most outrageous castles in the air. Nothing is certain, andeverything is possible. The pains of composition are over, and the painsof rejection are not begun. Each time we suppose they never will, andthat at last ears will be found respectfully ready to absorb his views.Few and far between have the ears been till now. His books have fallenas flat as books can fall. Nobody wanted to hear all, or even half, thathe could tell them about Goethe. Jena shrugged its shoulders, the largerworld was blank. The books have brought us no fame, no money, sometragic hours, but much interest and amusement. Always tragic hours havecome when Papa clutched at his hair and raved rude things about theGerman public; and when the money didn't appear there have beenuncomfortable moments. But these pass; Papa leaves his hair alone; andthe balance remains on the side of nice things. We don't really want anymore money, and Papa is kept busy and happy, and just to see him soeager, so full of his work, seems to warm the house with pleasantsunshine. Once, for one book, a check did come; and when we all rushedto look we found it was for two marks and thirty pfennings--' being theamount due,' said the accompanying stony letter, 'on royalties for thefirst year of publication.' Papa thought this much worse than no checkat all, and took
it round to the publisher in the molten frame of mindof one who has been insulted. The publisher put his thumbs in thearmholes of his waistcoat, leaned back in his chair, gazed withrefreshing coolness at Papa who was very hot, and said that as tradewent it was quite a good check and that he had sent one that verymorning to another author--a Jena celebrity who employs his leisurewriting books about the Universe--for ninety pfennings.
Papa came home beaming with the delicious feeling that money was flowingin and that he was having a boom. The universe man was a contemptuousacquaintance who had been heard to speak lightly of Papa's books. Papafelt all the sweetness of success, of triumph over a disagreeable rival;and since then we have looked upon that special book as his _opusmagnum_.
While I copy he comes in and out to ask me where I have got to and if Ilike it. I assure him that I think it delightful, and so honestly I doin a way, but I don't think it will be the public's way. It begins bytelling the reader, presumably a person in search of information aboutGoethe, that Jena is a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, of whomnineteen thousand are apparently professors. The town certainly doesgive you that impression as you walk about its little streets and atevery corner meet the same battered-looking persons in black you met atthe corner before, but what has that to do with Goethe? And the pagesthat follow have nothing to do with him either that I can see, being adisquisition on the origin and evolution of the felt hats the professorswear--dingy, slouchy things--winding up with an explanation of theirsymbolism and inevitableness, based on a carefully drawn parallelbetween them and the kind of brains they have to cover. From this point,the point of the head-wear of the learned in our present year, he has towork back all the way to Goethe in Jena a century ago. It takes himseveral chapters to get back, for he doesn't go straight, beingconstitutionally unable to resist turning aside down the green lanes ofmoralizing that branch so seductively off the main road and lead him atlast very far afield; and when he does arrive he is rather breathless,and flutters for some time round the impassive giant waiting to bedescribed, jerking out little anecdotes, very pleasant little anecdotes,but quite unconnected with his patient subject, before he has got hiswind and can begin.
He is rosy with hope about this book. 'All Jena will read it,' he says,'because they will like to hear about themselves'--I wonder if theywill--'and all Germany will read it because it will like to hear aboutGoethe.'
'It has heard a good deal about him already, you know Papachen,' I say,trying gently to suggest certain possibilities.
'England might like to have it. There has been nothing since that manLewes, and never anything really thorough. A good translation,Rose-Marie--what do you think of that as an agreeable task for youduring the approaching winter evenings? It is a matter worthy ofconsideration. You will like a share in the work, a finger in theliterary pie, will you not?'
'Of course I would. But let me copy now, darling. I'm not half through.'
He says that if those blind and prejudiced persons, publishers, won'trisk bringing it out he'll bring it out at his own expense sooner thanprevent the world's rightly knowing what Goethe said and did in Jena; sothere's a serious eventuality ahead of us! We really will have to liveon lettuces, and in grimmest earnest this time. I hope he won't want tokeep race-horses next. Well, one thing has happened that will go alittle way toward meeting new expenses,--I go down every day now andread English with Vicki, at the desire of her mother, for two hours, hermother having come to the conclusion that it is better to legalize, asit were, my relations with Vicki who flatly refused to keep away fromus. So I am a bread-winner, and can do something to help Papa. It istrue I can't help much, for what I earn is fifty pfennings each time,and as the reading of English on Sundays is not considered nice I canonly altogether make three marks a week. But it is something, and it iseasily earned, and last Sunday, which was the end of my first week, Ibought the whole of the Sunday food with it, dinner and supper for us,and beer for Johanna's lover, who says he cannot love her unless thebeer is a particular sort and has been kept for a fortnight properlycold in the coal-hole.
Since I have read with Vicki Frau von Lindeberg is quite different. Sheis courteous with the careful courtesy decent people show theirdependents; kindly, even gracious at times. She is present at thereading, darning socks and ancient sheets with her carefully keptfingers, and she treats me absolutely as though I were attached to herhousehold as governess. She is no longer afraid we will want to beequals. She asks me quite often after the health of him she calls mygood father. And when a cousin of hers came last week to stay a night, afemale Dammerlitz on her way to a place where you drink waters and getrid of yourself, she presented me to her with pleasant condescension asthe _kleine Englaenderin_ engaged as her daughter's companion. '_Einerecht Hebe Hausgenossin,'_ she was pleased to add, gently nodding herhead at each word; and the cousin went away convinced I was a residentofficial and that the tales she had heard about the Lindeberg's povertycouldn't be true.
'It's not scriptural,' I complained to Vicki, stirred to honestindignation.
'You mean, to say things not quite--not quite?' said Vicki.
'Such big ones,' I fumed. 'I'm not little. I'm not English. I'm not a_Hausgenossin_. Why such unnecessary ones?'
'Now, Rose-Marie, you do know why Mamma said "little."'
'It's a term of condescension?'
'And _Englaenderins_ are rather grand things to have in the house, youknow--expensive, I mean. Always dearer than natives. Mamma only wantsCousin Mienchen to suppose we are well off.'
'Oh,' said I.
'You don't mind?' said Vicki, rather timidly taking my hand.
'It doesn't hurt me,' said I, putting a little stress on the me, astress implying infinite possible hurt to Frau von Lindeberg's soul.
'It is horrid,' murmured Vicki, her head drooping over her book. 'I wishwe didn't always pretend we're not poor. We are. Poor as mice. And itmakes us so sensitive about it, so afraid of anything's being noticed.We spend our lives on tenterhooks--not nice things at all to spend one'slife on.'
'Wriggly, uncomfortable things,' I agreed.
'I believe Cousin Mienchen isn't in the least taken in, for all ourpains.'
'I don't believe people ever are,' said I; and we drifted into aconsideration of the probable height of our temperatures and color ofour ears if we could know how much the world we pose to really knowsabout us, if we could hear with what thoroughness those of our doingsand even of our thoughts that we believed so secret are discussed.
Frau von Lindeberg wasn't there, being too busy arranging comforts forher cousin's journey to preside, and so it was that we driftedunhindered from Milton into the foggier regions of private wisdom. Weare neither of us wise, but it is surprising how talking to a friend,even to a friend as unwise as yourself, clears up your brains and letsin new light. That is one of the reasons why I like writing to you andgetting your letters; only you mustn't be offended at my bracketing you,you splendid young man, with poor Vicki and poor myself in the classUnwise. Heaven knows I mean nothing to do with book-learning, in which,I am aware, you most beautifully excel.
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
XLIX
Galgenberg, Oct. 9th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--I am very sorry indeed to hear that yourengagement is broken off. I feared something of the sort was going tohappen because of all the things you nearly said and didn't in yourletters lately. Are you very much troubled and worried? Please let meturn into the elder sister for a little again and give you the smallrelief of having an attentive listener. It seems to have been rather anunsatisfactory time for you all along. I don't really quite know what tosay. I am anyhow most sincerely sorry, but I find it extraordinarilydifficult to talk about Miss Cheriton. It is of course lamentable thatour writing to each other should have been, as you say it was, so oftenthe cause of quarrels. You never told me so, or I would at once havestopped. You fill several pages with surprise that a girl of twenty-twocan be so different from what she app
ears, that so soft and tender anoutside can have beneath it such unfathomable depths of hardness. Ithink you have probably gone to the other extreme now, and because youadmired so much are all the more violently critical. It is probable thatMiss Cheriton is all that you first thought her, unusually charming andsympathetic and lovable, and your characters simply didn't suit eachother. Don't think too unkindly in your first anger. I am so very sorry;sorry for you, who must feel as if your life had been convulsed by anearthquake, and all its familiar features disarranged; sorry for yourfather's disappointment; sorry for Miss Cheriton, who must have beenwretched. But how infinitely wiser to draw back in time and not, forwant of courage, drift on into that supreme catastrophe, marriage. Youmustn't suppose me cynical in calling it a catastrophe--perhaps I meanit only in its harmless sense of _denouement_; and if I don't I can'tsee that it is cynical to recognize a spade when you see it as certainlya spade. But do not let yourself go to bitterness, and so turn into acynic yourself. You say Miss Cheriton apparently prefers a duke, and arevery angry. But why if, as you declare, you have not really loved herfor months past, are you angry? Why should she not prefer a duke?Perhaps he is quite a nice one, and you may be certain she felt at once,the very instant, when you left off caring for her. About such things itis as difficult for a woman to be mistaken as it is for a barometer tobe hoodwinked in matters meteorologic. It was that, and never the duke,that first influenced her. I am as sure of it as if I could see into herheart. Of course she loved you. But no girl with a spark of decencywould cling on to a reluctant lover. What an exceedingly poor thing ingirls she would be who did. I can't tell you how much ashamed I am ofthat sort of girl, the girl who clings, who follows, who laments,--as ifthe world, the splendid, amazing world, were empty of everything but onesingle man, and there were no sun shining, no birds singing, no windsblowing, no hills to climb, no trees to sit under, no books to read, nofriends to be with, no work to do, no heaven to go to. I feel now forthe first time that I would like to know Miss Cheriton. But it is reallyalmost impossibly difficult to write this letter; each thing I say seemssomething I had better not have said. Write to me about your troubles asoften as you feel it helps you, and believe that I do most heartilysympathize with you both, but don't mind, and forgive me, if my answersare not satisfactory. I am unpracticed and ill at ease, clumsy, limited,in this matter of frank writing about feelings, a matter in which you sofar surpass me. But I am always most sincerely your friend,