  HERMIA SUYDAM
GERTRUDE FRANKLIN ATHERTON AUTHOR OF “WHAT DREAMS MAY COME”
THE CURRENT LITERATURE PUBLISHING CO NEW YORK, SAN FRANCISCO, LONDON, AND PARIS Copyright, 1889.
The Current Literature Publishing Co.
[All rights reserved.]
Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York. Table of Contents
FROM HERBERT SPENCER’S CHAPTER ON “THE WILL.” To say that the performance of the action is the result of his free will is to say that he determines the cohesion of the psychical states which arouse the action; and as these psychical states constitute himself at the moment, this is to say that these psychical states determine their own cohesion, which is absurd. These cohesions have been determined by experiences—the greater part of them, constituting what we call his natural character, by the experiences of antecedent organisms, and the rest by his own experiences. The changes which at each moment take place in his consciousness are produced by this infinitude of previous experiences registered in his nervous structure, co-operating with the immediate impressions on his senses; the effects of these combined factors being in every sense qualified by the psychical state, general or local, of his organism. HERMIA SUYDAM A SECOND AVENUE HOUSEHOLD. When Crosby Suydam died and left exactly enough money to bury himself, his widow returned to New York, and, taking her two little girls by the hand, presented herself at the old Suydam mansion on Second Avenue. “You must either take care of us or see us go to the poor-house,” she said to her brother-in-law; “I am not strong enough to work, and my relatives are as poor as myself.” And she sank into one of the library chairs with that air of indifference and physical weakness which makes a man more helpless than defiance or curse. Did John Suydam still, in his withered, yellow frame, carry a shrunken remnant of that pliable organ called the heart? His brother’s widow did not add this problem to the others of her vexed existence—she had done with problems forever—but in his little world the legend was whispered that, many years before, the last fragment had dried and crumbled to dust. It must be either dust or a fossil; and, if the latter, it would surely play a merry clack and rattle with its housing skeleton every time the old man drew a long breath or hobbled across the room. John Suydam’s age was another problem. His neighbors said that the little yellow old man was their parents’ contemporary. That he had ever had any youth those parents denied. He was many years older than Crosby Suydam, however, and the world had blamed him sharply for his treatment of his younger brother. Crosby had been wealthy when he married, and a great favorite. Some resentment was felt when he chose a New England girl for his wife; but Mrs. Suydam entertained so charmingly that society quickly forgave both, and filled their drawing-rooms whenever bidden. For ten years these two young people were illuminating stars in the firmament of New York society; then they swept down the horizon like meteors on a summer’s night. Crosby had withdrawn his fortune from the securities in which his father had left it, and blown bubbles up and down Wall street for a year or so. At the end of that time he possessed neither bubbles nor suds. He drifted to Brooklyn, and for ten years more, struggled along, at one clerkship or another, his brother never lending him a dollar, nor offering him the shelter of his roof. He dropped out of life as he had dropped out of the world, which had long since forgotten both him and his unhappy young wife. But, if John Suydam had no heart, he had pride. New York, in his opinion, should have been called Suydam, and the thought of one of his name in the poor-house aroused a passion stronger than avarice. He told his sister-in-law that she could stay, that he would give her food and shelter and a hundred dollars a year on condition that she would take care of her own rooms—he could not afford another servant. It was a strange household. Mrs. Suydam sat up in her room all day with her two little girls and in her passive, mechanical way, heard their lessons, or helped them make their clothes. Her brother she met only at the table. At those awful meals not a word was ever spoken. John, who had atrocious table manners, crunched his food audibly for a half-hour at breakfast, an hour and a half at dinner, and an hour at supper. Mrs. Suydam, whose one desire was to die, accepted the hint he unconsciously gave, and swallowed her food whole; if longevity and mastication were correlatives, it was a poor rule that would not work both ways. She died before the year was out; not of indigestion, however, but of relaxation from the terrible strain to which her delicate constitution had been subjected during the ten preceding years. John Suydam had her put in the family vault, under St. Mark’s, as economically as possible, then groaned in spirit as he thought of the two children left on his hands. He soon discovered that they would give him no trouble. Bessie Suydam was a motherly child, and adversity had filled many of the little store-rooms in her brain with a fund of common-sense, which, in happier conditions, might have been carried by. She was sixteen and Hermia was nine. The day after the funeral she slipped into her mother’s place, and her little sister never missed the maternal care. Their life was monotonous. Bessie did not know her neighbors, although her grandparents and theirs had played together. When Mrs. Suydam had come to live under her brother-in-law’s roof, the neighborhood had put its dislike of John Suydam aside and called at once. It neither saw Mrs. Suydam, nor did its kindness ever receive the slightest notice; and, with a sigh of relief, it forgot both her and her children. A few months after Mrs. Suydam’s death another slight change occurred in the household. A fourth mendicant relative appeared and asked for help. He was a distant cousin, and had been a schoolmate of John Suydam in that boyhood in which no one but himself believed. He had spent his life in the thankless treadmill of the teacher. Several years before, he had been pushed out of the mill by younger propounders of more fashionable methods, and after his savings were spent he had no resource but John Suydam. Suydam treated him better than might have been expected. These two girls, whom a malignant fate had flung upon his protection, must be educated, and he was unwilling to incur the expenses of a school or governess. The advent of William Crosby laid the question at rest. John told him that he would give him a home and a hundred dollars a year if he would educate his nieces, and the old man was glad to consent. The professor taught the girls conscientiously, and threw some sunshine into their lives. He took them for a long walk every day, and showed them all the libraries, the picture galleries, and the shops. In spite of the meanness of her garb, Bessie attracted some attention during these ramblings; she had the pretty American face, and the freshness of morning was in it. Poor Hermia, who obediently trotted behind, passed unnoticed. Nature, who had endowed the rest of her family so kindly—her father and mother had been two of the old dame’s proudest works—had passed her by in a fit of abstraction. Under her high, melancholy forehead and black, heavy brows, stared solemnly a pair of unmistakably green eyes—even that hypocrite Politeness would never name them gray. Her dull, uninteresting hair was brushed severely back and braided in a tight pig-tail; and her sallow cheeks were in painful contrast to the pink and white of her sister’s delicate skin. Her eyelashes were thick and black, and she had the small, admirably shaped hands and feet of the Suydams, but the general effect was unattractive. She was a cold, reserved child, and few people liked her. The professor took the girls to the theater one night, and it was a memorable night in their lives. Each was in a fever of excitement, and each manifested it characteristically. Bessie’s cheeks were flushed to her eyelashes, and she jerked the buttons off both gloves. Her gray eyes shone and her pink lips were parted. People stared at her as she passed and wondered who she was. But for once in her life she was blind to admiration; she was going to see a play! Hermia was paler than ever and almost rigid. Her lips were firmly compressed, but her hands, in her little woolen gloves, were burning, and her eyes shone like a cat’s in the dark. They sat in the gallery, but they were in the front row, and as content as any jeweled dame in box or parquette. The play was Monte Cristo, and what more was needed to perfect the delight of two girls confronted with stage illusion for the first time? Bessie laughed and wept, and rent her gloves to shreds with the vehemence of her applause. Hermia sat on the extreme edge of the seat, and neither laughed, wept, nor applauded. Her eyes, which never left the stage, grew bigger and bigger, her face paler, and her nostrils more tense. After the play was over she did not utter a word until she got home; but the moment she reached the bedroom which the sisters shared in common she flung herself on the floor and shrieked for an hour. Bessie, who was much alarmed, dashed water over her, shook her, and finally picked her up and rocked her to sleep. The next morning Hermia was as calm as usual, but she developed, soon after, a habit of dreaming over her books which much perplexed her sister. Bessie dreamed a little too, but she always heard when she was spoken to, and Hermia did not. One night, about three months after the visit to the theater, the girls were in their room preparing for bed. Hermia was sitting on the hearth-rug taking off her shoes, and Bessie was brushing her long hair before the glass and admiring the reflection of her pretty face. “Bessie,” said Hermia, leaning back and clasping her hands about her knee, “what is your ambition in life?” Bessie turned and stared down at the child, then blushed rosily. “I should like to have a nice, handsome husband and five beautiful children, all dressed in white with blue sashes. And I should like to have a pretty house on Fifth Avenue, and a carriage, and lots of novels. And I should like to go to Europe and see all the picture-galleries and churches.” She had been addressing herself in the glass, but she suddenly turned and looked down at Hermia. “What is your ambition?” she asked. “To be the most beautiful woman in the world!” exclaimed the child passionately. Bessie sat down on a hassock. She felt but did not comprehend that agonized longing for the gift which nature had denied, and which woman holds most dear. She had always been pretty and was somewhat vain, but she had known little of the power of beauty, and power and uncomeliness alone teach a woman beauty’s value. But she was sympathetic, and she felt a vague pity for her sister. She thought it better, however, to improve the occasion. “Beauty is nothing in itself,” she said, gently; “you must be good and clever, and then people will think——” “Bessie,” interrupted Hermia, as if she had not heard, “do you think I will ever be pretty?” Bessie hesitated. She was very conscientious, but she was also very tender-hearted. For a moment there was a private battle, then conscience triumphed. “No,” she said, regretfully, “I am afraid you never will be, dear.” She was looking unusually lovely herself as she spoke. Her shoulders were bare and her chemise had dropped low on her white bosom. Her eyes looked black in the lamp’s narrow light, and her soft, heavy hair tumbled about her flushed face and slender, shapely figure. Hermia gazed at her for a moment, and then with a suppressed cry sprang forward and tore her sharp nails across her sister’s cheek. Bessie gave a shriek of pain and anger, and, catching the panting, struggling child, slapped her until her arm ached. “There!” she exclaimed, finally, shaking her sister until the child’s teeth clacked together, “you little tiger cat! You sha’n’t have any supper for a week.” Then she dropped Hermia suddenly and burst into tears. “Oh, it is dreadfully wicked to lose one’s temper like that; but my poor face!” She rubbed the tears from her eyes and, standing up, carefully examined her wounds in the glass. She heaved a sigh of relief; they were not very deep. She went to the washstand and bathed her face, then returned to her sister. Hermia stood on the hearth-rug. She had not moved since Bessie dropped her hands from her shoulders. Bessie folded her arms magisterially and looked down upon the culprit, her delicate brows drawn together, her eyes as severe as those of an angel whose train has been stepped on. “Are you not sorry?” she demanded sternly. Hermia gazed at her steadily for a moment. “Yes,” she said, finally, “I am sorry, and I’ll never get outside-mad again as long as I live. I’ve made a fool of myself.” Then she marched to the other side of the room and went to bed. JOHN SUYDAM GIVES HIS BLESSING. One day a bank clerk came up to the quiet house with a message to John Suydam. As he was leaving he met Bessie in the hall. Each did what wiser heads had done before—they fell wildly and uncompromisingly in love at first sight. How Frank Mordaunt managed to find an excuse for speaking to her he never remembered, nor how he had been transported from the hall into the dingy old drawing-room. At the end of an hour he was still there, seated on a sofa of faded brocade, and looking into the softest eyes in the world. After that he came every evening. John Suydam knew nothing of it. Bessie, from the parlor window, watched Mordaunt come down the street and opened the front door herself; the old man, crouching over his library fire, heard not an echo of the whispers on the other side of the wall. Poor Bessie! Frank Mordaunt was the first young man with whom she had ever exchanged a half-dozen consecutive sentences. No wonder her heart beat responsively to the first love and the first spoken admiration. Mordaunt, as it chanced, was not a villain, and the rÔle of victim was not offered to Bessie. She was used to economy, he had a fair salary, and they decided to be married at once. When they had agreed upon the date, Bessie summoned up her courage and informed her uncle of her plans. He made no objection; he was probably delighted to get rid of her; and as a wedding-gift he presented her with—Hermia. “I like her better than I do you,” he said, “for she has more brains in her little finger than you have in your whole head; and she will never be contented with a bank clerk. But I cannot be bothered with children. I will pay you thirty dollars a quarter for her board, and William Crosby can continue to teach her. I hope you will be happy, Elizabeth; but marriage is always a failure. You can send Hermia to me every Christmas morning, and I will give her twenty-five dollars with which to clothe herself during the year. I shall not go to the wedding. I dislike weddings and funerals. There should be no periods in life, only commas. When a man dies he doesn’t mind the period; he can’t see it. But he need not remind himself of it. You can go.” Bessie was married in a pretty white gown, made from an old one of her mother’s, and St. Mark’s had never held a daintier bride. No one was present but Mordaunt’s parents, the professor, who was radiant, and Hermia, who was the only bridesmaid. But it was a fair spring morning, the birds were singing in an eager choir, and the altar had been decorated with a few greens and flowers by the professor and Hermia. At the conclusion of the service the clergyman patted Bessie on the head and told her he was sure she would be happy, and the girl forgot her uncle’s benediction. “Bessie,” said Hermia an hour later, as they were walking toward their new home, “I will never be married until I can have a dress covered with stars like those Hans Andersen’s princesses carried about in a nutshell when they were disguised as beggar-maids, and until I can be married in a grand cathedral and have a great organ just pealing about me, and a white-robed choir singing like seraphs, and roses to walk on——” “Hermia,” said Bessie dreamily, “I wish you would not talk so much, and you shouldn’t wish for things you can never have.” “I will have them,” exclaimed the child under her breath. “I will! I will!” BROOKLYN AND BABYLON. Thirteen years passed. Bessie had three of her desired children and a nice little flat in Brooklyn. Reverses and trials had come, but on the whole Mordaunt was fairly prosperous, and they were happy. The children did not wear white dresses and blue sashes; they were generally to be seen in stout ginghams and woolen plaids, but they were chubby, healthy, pretty things, and their mother was as proud of them as if they had realized every detail of her youthful and ambitious dreams. Bessie’s prettiness had gone with her first baby, as American prettiness is apt to do, but the sweetness of her nature remained and shone through her calm eyes and the lines of care about her mouth. She had long since forgotten to sigh over the loss of her beauty, she had so little time; but she still remembered to give a deft coil to her hair, and her plain little gowns were never dowdy. She knew nothing about modern decorative art, and had no interest in hard-wood floors or dados; but her house was pretty and tasteful in the old-fashioned way, and in her odd moments she worked at cross-stitch. And Hermia? Poor girl! She had not found the beauty her sister had lost. Her hair was still the same muddy blonde-brown, although with a latent suggestion of color, and she still brushed it back with the severity of her childhood. Nothing, she had long since concluded, could beautify her, and she would waste no time in the attempt. She was a trifle above medium height, and her thin figure bent a little from the waist. Her skin was as sallow as of yore, and her eyes were dull. She had none of Bessie’s sweetness of expression; her cold, intellectual face just escaped being sullen. Her health was what might be expected of a girl who exercised little and preferred thought to sleep. She had kept the promise made the night she had scratched her sister’s face; during the past fifteen years no one had seen her lose her self-control for a moment. She was as cold as a polar night, and as impassive as an Anglo-American. She was very kind to her sister, and did what she could to help her. She taught the children; and, though with much private rebellion, she frequently made their clothes and did the marketing. Frank and Bessie regarded her with awe and distant admiration, but the children liked her. The professor had taught her until he could teach her no more, and then had earned his subsistence by reading aloud to John Suydam. A year or two before, he had departed for less material duties, with few regrets. But, if Hermia no longer studied, she belonged to several free libraries and read with unflagging vigor. Of late she had taken a deep interest in art, and she spent many hours in the picture galleries of New York. Moreover, she grasped any excuse which took her across the river. With all the fervor of her silent soul she loved New York and hated Brooklyn. She was sitting in the dining-room one evening, helping Lizzie, the oldest child, with her lessons. Lizzie was sleepy, and was droning through her multiplication table, when she happened to glance at her aunt. “You are not paying attention,” she exclaimed, triumphantly; “I don’t believe you’ve heard a word of that old table, and I’m not going to say it over again.” Hermia, whose eyes had been fixed vacantly on the fire, started and took the book from Lizzie’s lap. “Go to bed,” she said; “you are tired, and you know your tables very well.” Lizzie, who was guiltily conscious that she had never known her tables less well, accepted her release with alacrity, kissed her aunt good-night, and ran out of the room. Hermia went to the window and opened it. It looked upon walls and fences, but lineaments were blotted out to-night under a heavy fall of snow. Beyond the lower roofs loomed the tall walls of houses on the neighboring street, momentarily discernible through the wind-parted storm. Hermia pushed the snow from the sill, then closed the window with a sigh. The snow and the night were the two things in her life that she loved. They were projected into her little circle from the grand whole of which they were parts, and were in no way a result of her environment. She went into the sitting-room and sat down by the table. She took up a book and stared at its unturned pages for a quarter of an hour. Then she raised her eyes and looked about her. Mordaunt was sitting in an easy-chair by the fire, smoking a pipe and reading a magazine story aloud to his wife, who sat near him, sewing. Lizzie had climbed on his lap, and with her head against his shoulder was fast asleep. Hermia took up a pencil and made a calculation on the fly-leaf of her book. It did not take long, but the result was a respectable sum—4,620. Allowing for her sister’s brief illnesses and for several minor interruptions, she had looked upon that same scene, varied in trifling details, just about 4,620 times in the past thirteen years. She rose suddenly and closed her book. “Good-night,” she said, “I am tired. I am going to bed.” Mordaunt muttered “good-night” without raising his eyes; but Bessie turned her head with an anxious smile. “Good-night,” she said; “I think you need a tonic. And would you mind putting Lizzie to bed? I am so interested in this story. Frank, carry her into the nursery.” Hermia hesitated a moment, as if she were about to refuse, but she turned and followed Frank into the next room. She undressed the inert, protesting child and tucked her in bed. Then she went to her room and locked the door. She lit the gas mechanically and stood still for a moment. Then she threw herself on the bed, and flung herself wildly about. After a time she clasped her hands tightly about the top of her head and gazed fixedly at the ceiling. Her family would not have recognized her in that moment. Her disheveled hair clung about her flushed face, and through its tangle her eyes glittered like those of a snake. For a few moments her limbs were as rigid as if the life had gone out of them. Then she threw herself over on her face and burst into a wild passion of weeping. The hard, inward sobs shook her slender body as the screw shakes the steamer. “How I hate it! How I hate it! How I hate it!” she reiterated, between her paroxysms. “O God! is there nothing—nothing—nothing in life but this? Nothing but hideous monotony—and endless days—and thousands and thousands of hours that are as alike as grains of sand?” She got up suddenly and filling a basin with water thrust her head into it. The water was as cold as melting ice, and when she had dried her hair she no longer felt as if her brain were trying to force its way through the top of her skull. Hermia, like many other women, lived a double life. On the night when, under the dramatic illusion of Monte Cristo, her imagination had awakened with a shock which rent the film of childhood from her brain, she had found a dream-world of her own. The prosaic never suspected its existence; the earth’s millions who dwelt in the same world cared nothing for any kingdom in it but their own; she was sovereign of a vast domain wrapped in the twilight mystery of dreamland, but peopled with obedient subjects conceived and molded in her waking brain. She walked stoically through the monotonous round of her daily life; she took a grim and bitter pleasure in fulfilling every duty it developed, and she never neglected the higher duty she owed her intellect; but when night came, and the key was turned in her door, she sprang from the life she abhorred into the world of her delight. She would fight sleep off for hours, for sleep meant temporary death, and the morning a return to material existence. A ray of light from the street-lamp struggled through the window, and, fighting with the shadows, filled the ugly, common little room with glamour and illusion. The walls swept afar and rolled themselves into marble pillars that towered vaporously in the gloom. Beyond, rooms of state and rooms of pleasure ceaselessly multiplied. On the pictured floors lay rugs so deep that the echo of a lover’s footfall would never go out into eternity. From the enameled walls sprang a vaulted ceiling painted with forgotten art. Veils of purple stuffs, gold-wrought, jewel-fringed, so dense that the roar of a cannon could not have forced its way into the stillness of that room, masked windows and doors. From beyond those pillars, from the far perspective of those ever-doubling chambers came the plash of waters, faint and sweet as the music of the bulbul. The bed, aloft on its dais, was muffled in lace which might have fringed a mist. Hidden in the curving leaves of pale-tinted lotus flowers were tiny flames of light, and in an urn of agate burned perfumed woods. * * * For this girl within her unseductive frame had all the instincts of a beautiful woman, for the touch of whose lips men would dig the grave of their life’s ambitions. That kiss it was the passionate cry of her heart to give to lips as warm and imploring as her own. She would thrust handfuls of violets between her blankets, and imagine herself lying by the sea in a nest of fragrance. Her body longed for the softness of cambric and for silk attire; her eye for all the beauty that the hand of man had ever wrought. When wandering among those brain-born shadows of hers, she was beautiful, of course; and, equally inferable, those dreams had a hero. This lover’s personality grew with her growth and changed with every evolution of the mind that had given it birth; but, strangely enough, the lover himself had retained his proportions and lineaments from the day of his creation. Is it to be supposed that Hermia was wedded peacefully to her ideal, and that together they reigned over a vast dominion of loving and respectful subjects? Not at all. If there was one word in the civilized vocabulary that Hermia hated it was that word “marriage.” To her it was correlative with all that was commonplace; with a prosaic grind that ate and corroded away life and soul and imagination; with a dreary and infinite monotony. Bessie Mordaunt’s peaceful married life was hideous to her sister. Year after year,—neither change nor excitement, neither rapture nor anguish, nor romance nor poetry, neither ambition nor achievement, nor recognition nor power! Nothing of mystery, nothing of adventure; neither palpitation of daring nor quiver of secrecy; nothing but kisses of calm affection, babies, and tidies! 4,620 evenings of calm, domestic bliss; 4,620 days of placid, housewifely duties! To Hermia such an existence was a tragedy more appalling than relentless immortality. Bessie had her circle of friends, and in each household the tragedy was repeated; unless, mayhap, the couple were ill-mated, when the tragedy became a comedy, and a vulgar one at that. Hermia’s hatred of marriage sprang not from innate immorality, but from a strongly romantic nature stimulated to abnormal extreme by the constant, small-beer wave-beats of a humdrum, uniform, ever-persisting, abhorred environment. If no marriage-bells rang over her cliffs and waters and through her castle halls, her life was more ideally perfect than any life within her ken which drowsed beneath the canopy of law and church. Regarding the subject from the point of view to which her nature and conditions had focused her mental vision, love needed the exhilarating influence of liberty, the stimulation of danger, and the enchantment of mystery. Of men practically she knew little. There were young men in her sister’s circle, and Mordaunt occasionally brought home his fellow clerks; but Hermia had never given one of them a thought. They were limited and commonplace, and her reputation for intellectuality had the effect of making them appear at their worst upon those occasions when circumstances compelled them to talk to her. And she had not the beauty to win forgiveness for her brains. She appreciated this fact and it embittered her, little as she cared for her brother’s uninteresting friends, and sent her to the depths of her populous soul. The books she read had their influence upon that soul-population. The American novel had much the same effect upon her as the married life of her sister and her sister’s friends. She cared for but little of the literature of France, and the best of it deified love and scorned the conventions. She reveled in mediÆval and ancient history and loved the English poets, and both poets and history held aloft, on pillars of fragrant and indestructible wood, her own sad ideality. IN THE GREEN ROOM OF LITERATURE. Hermia’s imagination in its turn demanded a safety-valve; she found it necessary, occasionally, to put her dreams into substance and sequence. In other words she wrote. Not prose. She had neither the patience nor the desire. Nor did she write poetry. She believed that no woman, save perhaps time-enveloped Sappho, ever did, and she had no idea of adding her pseudonym to the list of failures. When her brain became overcharged, she dashed off verses, wildly romantic, and with a pen heated white. There was a wail and an hysterical passion in what she wrote that took the hearts of a large class of readers by storm, and her verses found prompt acceptance by the daily and weekly papers. She had as yet aspired to nothing higher. She was distinctly aware that her versification was crude and her methods faulty. To get her verses into the magazines they must be fairly correct and almost proper, and both attainments demanded an amount of labor distasteful to her impatient nature. Of late, scarcely a week had passed without the appearance of several metrical contributions over the signature “Quirus;” and the wail and the passion were growing more piercing and tumultuous. The readers were moved, interested, or amused, according to their respective natures. The morning after the little arithmetical problem, Hermia arose early and sat down at her desk. She drew out a package of MS. and read it over twice, then determined to have a flirtation with the magazines. These verses were more skillful from a literary point of view than any of her previous work, because, for the sake of variety, she had plagiarized some good work of an English poet. The story was a charming one, dramatic, somewhat fragmentary, and a trifle less caloric than her other effusions. She revised it carefully, and mailed it, later in the day, to one of the leading New York magazines. Two weeks passed and no answer came. Then, snatching at anything which offered its minimum of distraction, she determined to call on the editor. She had never presented herself to an editor before, fearing his betrayal of her identity; so well had she managed that not even Bessie knew she wrote; but she regarded the magazine editor from afar as an exalted being, and was willing to put her trust in him. She felt shy about acknowledging herself the apostle of beauty and the priestess of passion, but ennui conquered diffidence, and one morning she presented herself at the door of her editor’s den. The editor, who was glancing over proofs, raised his eyes as she entered, and did not look overjoyed to see her. Nevertheless, he politely asked her to be seated. Poor Hermia by this time was cold with fright; her knees were shaking. She was used to self-control, however, and in a moment managed to remark that she had come to inquire about the fate of her poem. The editor bowed, extracted a MS. from a pigeon-hole behind him, and handed it to her. “I cannot use it,” he said, “but I am greatly obliged to you, nevertheless. We are always grateful for contributions.” He had a pleasant way of looking upon the matter as settled, but an ounce or two of Hermia’s courage had returned, and she was determined to get something more out of the interview than a glimpse of an editor. “I am sorry,” she said, “but of course I expected it. Would you mind telling me what is the matter with it?” Editors will not take the trouble to write a criticism of a returned manuscript, but they are more willing to air their views verbally than people imagine. It gives them an opportunity to lecture and generalize, and they enjoy doing both. “Certainly not,” said the editor in question. “Your principal fault is that you are too highly emotional. Your verses would be unhealthy reading for my patrons. This is a family magazine, and has always borne the reputation of incorruptible morality. It would not do for us to print matter which a father might not wish his daughter to read. The American young girl should be the conscientious American editor’s first consideration.” This interview was among the anguished memories of Hermia’s life. After her return home she thought of so many good things she might have said. This was one which she uttered in the seclusion of her bed-chamber that evening: (“You are perfectly right,” with imperturbability. “‘Protect the American young girl lest she protect not herself’ should be the motto and the mission of the American editor!”) When she was at one with the opportunity, she asked: “And my other faults?” “Your other faults?” replied the unconscious victim of lagging wit. “There is a strain of philosophy in your mind which unfits you for magazine work. A magazine should be light and not too original. People pick it up after the work of the day; they want to be amused and entertained, they do not want to think. Anything new, anything out of the beaten track, anything which does not suggest old and familiar favorites, anything which requires a mental effort to grasp, annoys them and affects the popularity of the magazine. Of course we like originality and imagination—do not misunderstand me; what we do not want is the complex, the radically original, or the deep. We have catered to a large circle of readers for a great many years; we know exactly what they want, and they know exactly what to expect. When they see the name of a new writer in our pages they feel sure that whatever may be the freshness and breeziness of the newcomer, he (or she) will not call upon them to witness the tunneling of unhewn rock—so to speak. Do you grasp my meaning?” (Hermia at home in her bed-chamber: “I see. Your distinctions are admirable. You want originality with the sting extracted, soup instead of blood, an exquisite etching rather than the bold sweep and color of brush and oils. Your contributors must say an old thing in a new way, or a new thing in so old a way that the shock will be broken, that the reader will never know he has harbored a new-born babe. Your little lecture has been of infinite value to me. I shall ponder over it until I evolve something worthy of the wary parent and the American Young Girl.”) Hermia in the editor’s den: “Oh, yes; thank you very much. But I am afraid I shall never do anything you will care for. Good-morning.” The next day she sent the manuscript to another magazine, and, before she could reasonably expect a reply, again invaded the sanctity of editorial seclusion. The genus editor amused her; she resolved to keep her courage by the throat and study the arbiters of literary destinies. It is probable that, if her second editor had not been young and very gracious, her courage would again have flown off on deriding wings; as it was, it did not even threaten desertion. She found the editor engaged in nothing more depressing than the perusal of a letter. He smiled most promisingly when she announced herself as the mysterious “Quirus,” but folded his hands deprecatingly. “I am sorry I cannot use that poem,” he said, “but I am afraid it is impossible. It has decided merit, and, in view of the awful stuff we are obliged to publish, it would be a welcome addition to our pages. I don’t mind the strength of the poem or the plot; you have made your meaning artistically obscure. But there is one word in it which would make it too strong meat for the readers of this magazine. I refer to the word ‘naked.’ It is quite true that the adjective ‘naked’ is used in conjunction with the noun ‘skies;’ but the word itself is highly objectionable. I have been trying to find a way out of the difficulty. I substituted the word ‘nude,’ but that spoils the meter, you see. Then I sought the dictionary.” He opened a dictionary that stood on a revolving stand beside him, and read aloud: “‘Naked—uncovered; unclothed; nude; bare; open; defenseless; plain; mere.’ None of these will answer the purpose, you see. They are either too short or too long; and ‘open’ does not convey the idea. I am really afraid that nothing can be done. Suppose you try something else and be more careful with your vocabulary. I trust you catch my idea, because I am really quite interested in your work. It is like the fresh breeze of spring when it is not”—here he laughed—“the torrid breath of the simoon. I have read some of your other verse, you see.” “I think I understand you,” said Hermia, leaning forward and gazing reflectively at him. “Manner is everything. Matter is a creature whose limbs may be of wood, whose joints may be sapless; so long as he is covered by a first-class tailor he is a being to strut proudly down to posterity. Or, for the sake of variety, which has its value, the creature may change his sex and become a pink-cheeked, flax-haired, blue-eyed doll. Hang upon her garments cut by an unconventional hand, looped eccentrically and draped artistically, and the poor little doll knows not herself from her clothes. Have I gazed understandingly upon the works of the literary clock?” The editor threw back his head and laughed aloud. “You are very clever,” he exclaimed, “but I am afraid your estimate of us is as correct as it is flattering. We are a set of cowards, but we should be bankrupt if we were not.” Hermia took the manuscript he had extracted from a drawer, and rose. “At all events you were charitable to read my verses,” she said, “and more than good to attempt their re-form.” The editor stood up also. “Oh, do not mention it,” he said, “and write me something else—something equally impassioned but quite irreproachable. Aside from the defect I mentioned, there were one or two verses which I should have been obliged to omit.” Hermia shrugged her shoulders. She might repeatedly work the lovers up to the verge of disaster, then, just before the fatal moment, wrench them apart and substitute asterisks for curses. The school-girls would palpitate, the old maids thrill, the married women smile, and the men grin. No harm would be done, maidens and maids would lay it down with a long-drawn sigh—of relief?—or regret? Hermia kept these reflections to herself and departed, thinking her editor a charming man. When she reached the sidewalk she stood irresolute for a moment, then walked rapidly for many blocks. The Mecca of her pilgrimage was another publishing-house. She stepped briskly upstairs and asked for the editor with a confidence born of excitement and encouragement. After a short delay she was shown into his office, and began the attack without preliminary. “I have brought you some verses,” she said, “which have been declined by two of your esteemed contemporaries on the ground of unconventionality—of being too highly seasoned for the gentle palates to which they cater. I bring them to you because I believe you have more courage than the majority of your tribe. You wrote two books in which you broke out wildly once or twice. Now I want you to read this while I am here. It will take but a few moments.” The editor, who had a highly non-committal air, smiled slightly, and held out his hand for the verses. He read them through, then looked up. “I rather like them,” he said. “They have a certain virility, although I do not mistake the strength of passion for creative force. But they are pretty tropical, and the versification is crude. I—am afraid—they—will hardly—do.” He looked out of the window, then smiled outright. It rather pleased him to dare that before which his brethren faltered. He made a number of marks on the manuscript. “That rectifies the crudeness a little,” he said, “and the poem certainly has intellectuality and merit. You can leave it. I will let you know in a day or two. Your address is on the copy, I suppose. I think you may count upon the availability of your verses.” Hermia accepted her dismissal and went home much elated. The verses were printed in the next issue of the magazine, and there was a mild storm on the literary lake. The course of the magazine, in sending up a stream of red-hot lava in place of the usual shower-bath of lemonade and claret-cup, was severely criticised, but there were those who said that this deliberately audacious editor enjoyed the little cyclone he had provoked. This was the most exciting episode Hermia could recall since Bessie’s marriage. |
|