MRS. W. K. GHFFQRD THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of Julius Doerner, Chicago Purchased, 1918, 825 C6/4( C OT>t Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library Love Letters Of a Worldly Woman BY Mrs. W. K. CLIFFORD, AUTHOR OF “ MRS. KEITH’S CRIME,’’ ETC. 44 Wherefore? Heaven's gif t takes earth's abatement?'* NEW YORK: OPTIMUS PRINTING COMPANY, 45, 4 7, 49 and 51 Rose Street. CONTENTS. A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE - LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN ON THE WANE PREFACE. These be three women who loved the world: not meaning (at least two of them) the pomps and vanities, but the round world itself and the people who belong to it. All had the bandage lifted from their eyes, and as they became wise proved how sad a thing is wisdom. The first tried to comfort herseff with dreams, and waits, hoping that they will find their way into the waking hours. The second played an eager, restless game, staking all her happiness on it, and perhaps gained most when she had lost it. The third looked up at sorrow, and, seeing a little way beyond, set out on a journey ; but she does not know yet where it will end. And the moral is — but morals are depressing even if they are edifying : let us leave them to the Preacher. L. C. Love Letters of a Worldly Woman. FAGE 3 - 32 - 160 Miscxy Li) i -JL A MODERN CORRESPONDENCE. I. SHE. — ON THE DULLNESS OF GOODNESS. It is a long time since we met — long, that is, as we have been in the habit of measuring time lately — nearly a month. Two months and meeting every day, often twice a day, but never missing once ; then a little pause, a flagging, a going- to- town, and two days apart — days that were hard to bear for both of us ; then a week, now a fortnight. At first your letters compensated me ; now they do not. Are they colder ? I do not know. Not in words, perhaps, but they do not send a rush of joy through me as they did a little while since. They seem to come from your intellect, your good-nature, that would not like me to feel neglected, your affectionate disposition, not from your heart. Are you beginning to turn restive, to think things over, to wonder how it was we found the past so sweet that we were content to spend whole days by the riverside, talking the driftless dreamy talk of happiness, or silently watching the river as it went on, seeking, perhaps, the place which a little later our feet would know — but not together. I remember your telling me once — was it with dim foreboding of a future that now, perhaps, draws near? ( 3 ) 4 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. — that women took things more seriously than men. They are the foolish women. I am going to be wise— to remember as long as you remember, and forget as soon. I think I am doing so already — if you are. Why should man, who is strong, always get the best of it, and be forgiven so much ; and woman, who is weak, get the worst and be forgiven so little? Why should you go and laugh and be merry, and I stay waiting and listening ? But this shall not be, for I am not the woman to sit and weep while the world is wide and the days are long, and there are many to — to love me ? I do not know ; to come and make a sweet pretence of love ; and who shall say how much or how little heart will be in it ? It is delightful to be a woman — yes, even in spite of all things; but to be a weak woman, and good with the goodness invented for her by men who will have none of it themselves ; no, thank you. It is a sad mistake to take things seriously, especially for women (which sounds like a quotation from Byron, and is almost), but it is a mistake that shall not be mine. Let us keep to the sur- face of all things, to the to-day in which we live, for- getting the yesterdays, not dreaming of to-morrows. The froth of the waves, the green meadows and the happy folk walking across them laughing ; the whole world as it faces the sky: beneath are only the deep waters, the black earth, the people sorrowing in their houses, the dead sleeping in their graves. What have we who would laugh in common with these ? Nothing. Dear, your letters have grown too critical, too intel- lectually admiring. You said in one of them last week that you reverenced me for my goodness. I do not want LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN . 5 reverence ; it goes to passion’s funeral. And I do not want to be good either, for that means a person knowing all her own possibilities and limits. It is only of the base and mean things that one should know one’s self utterly incapable ; for the rest it is better to give one!s nature its fling, and let it make a walk for itself, good or bad, as its strength grows. Good ! Oh, but I am glad to be far from that goal. No woman who is absolutely and entirely good, in the ordinary sense of the word, gets a man’s most fervent, passionate love, the love beside which all other feelings pale. A wear-and-tear affection, perhaps, tideless and dull, may be her portion, but it is not for good women that men have fought battles, given their lives, and staked their souls. To be good, to know beforehand that, under any given circumstances, one would do the right thing, would stalk along the higher path of moral rectitude, forever remembering and caring above all things, for one’s own superiority, while the rest of the world might suffer what it would ; it appalls me to think of it. Be- sides, how deadly dull to herself must the good woman be, how limited her imagination, how sober her horizon ; she knows her own future so well there is little wonder she grows dowdy living it. To feel that there is no un- expectedness in her nature, nothing over which to hold a rein, to know that no moment can come when, forget- ting all else, she will give herself up to the whirlwind that may overtake her in a dozen forms, and then, if need be, pay the price without flinching and without tears. For tears and repentance and reformations are all the accompaniments of goodness that once in its weak- 6 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. ness is overcome. How I loathe them and the expiation with which some women would bleach their souls. Did you ever stop to think what expiation means ? Probably some monkish-minded ancestor who was addicted to scourging himself putting his ghostly finger across one’s brain, and so waving his torturing lash down through the ages. Give me, then, the strength to raise my head and say, “ Yes, it was I, and I will pay the price cheerfully, for the joy of remembering will sustain me to the end, and repentance I have none.” I wonder if husbands are so often unfaithful because their wives are good ? I think so. They cannot stand the dreary monotonies and certainties. They give them affection and reverence — and go to the women who are less good, and love them. I wonder if the wholly good men, are the best loved? Not they. They, too, like the good woman, are treated to the even way of dull affection. The bravest men, the strongest, the most capable to do great deeds when the chance comes, and of waiting for the chances as best they can : they are the best loved. It is, in fact, the mystery that lies in people as in fate that is the fascination — the wondering, the toss-up whether it will be good or bad to us or to others. For this makes life keen living and love a desperate joy. It is so with the whole of humanity. Say what we will for goodness — and in the abstract it is the soul’s desire of most of us — the world would be a dull place to live in if all the wickedness were stamped out ; too dull to satisfy mortal men and women. We may owe our solid happiness to the good, but we owe life’s color and variety and excitement to the wicked : LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 7 never let us underrate them. Are you shocked, cher ami ? But in these latter days we have taken to writ- ting sermons to each other. Mine, at least, has the ad- vantage of being genuine. If it does not please you I cannot help it. I would not have you even always pleased, for it would bore me sadly. You asked me once (do you remember the long grass was dipping in the river, and I watched it while you spoke), “ if I would always be the same?” I answered, Yes — un- truthfully enough, but I could not help it. Would I have you always the same ? I ask myself, as I sit here ; and the answer comes to my lips quickly, Not I. Hot and cold, a stir to one’s pulse, a chill to one’s heart, a formal word that makes one’s lips close as though ice had frozen them, a whisper that sets one’s blood tingling with sudden joy. All this is life and love, not vegetation and affection. Don’t think I do not long after good things. Oh, my dear, do we not all long after them, and so sanctify our souls that are not able to do more. It is so easy to sit at the base of a tower and wish we stood on the top ; it is another thing to climb it little step by little step. If one could be hauled up in some strange dangerous fash- ion it would be worth doing, though one risked one’s neck by the way. So if by a few great deeds one could reach the heights, who that has any fire in his soul would not do them, though they crushed the life out of him for a time — nay, though he died by the way ? But the unvarying goodness of daily life, one day as like an- other as one step is like another ; and the getting to the top of one’s moral plateau at last — for what ? For some 8 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. abstract praise, some measured admiration, while those one loved best felt most one’s far-offness from themselves. It would be like the chilly tower-top, standing there alone, the wind sweeping past, the world below going merrily by, unheeding. Is it worth it ? No. Preach no more of goodness to me ; and as for reverence, keep it for the saints. You have provoked all this from me with your dreary, unsatisfying letter, and your half-finished sentence, “■And in the future” — Why did you stop? Did you fear to go on ? Well, and in the future ? Do you think any woman will love you as I have loved you ; will forget you as completely as I will forget if I choose; will scorn you as well if it comes to it ; will be as con- stant or as fickle, as passionate or as cold ? It may be, but I think not, for my strange heart is given to the Fates to wring with what agony they will, or to fill to the brim with joy, and out of either I can give lavishly. Do you understand me ? I doubt it. I stand here by the gate of many things, wondering if the latch shall be left up — or down forever. For when the summer-day is done the twilight comes, sweet enough for the dawdlers who would sit and dream alone, but not for me with the wild blood dancing through my veins. Draw down the blinds, say I, and bring the flaring lights ; the guests of the day may go, but the guests of the night will come — ready to begin what perhaps you are ready to end. In the beginning are life and promise and love; but in the end? In the end one lies down to die — and forget. Good-bye. LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 9 II. HE. — AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE. My Dearest Girl, — You know I never comprehend your letters ; but perhaps that is one reason why I like them. I never altogether comprehend you, which is also perhaps the reason why I love you, for I do upon my soul I do, in spite of the nonsense you talk about af- fection and vegetation and wickedness, and the rest of it. I sometimes feel as if you had taken me for some one else when I read your letters — some one you had set up and thought to be me. It’s odd, but I used to have the same sort of feeling in the summer, when you seemed to see from one direction and I from another. I don’t want you to make that kind of mistake, dearest ; it would be a bad lookout for me if you did. Now, let us speak plainly, have things out, and be done with it; then it will be plain sailing, and we shall both be better for it — better, anyhow, than if we went on with fine words and vague phrases for a twelvemonth. If my letters have been cold lately, or seemed so, it has not been that I have not cared for you,, or don’t, as much as during all those jolly days by the river, when we were too lazy to talk even about ourselves. But you know one can’t be always at high pressure ; besides, I am getting on, and though one may still be able to talk nonsense occasionally, and in the country, yet after the turn of five-and-thirty a man isn’t so ready to go on with it when he is once more back in town, among peo- ple, and planning his life, as I am. This doesn’t make me less sincere, mind ; I like you better than any one 10 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN, else, I expect, but I am a good deal taken up with other matters. I am anxious about Carpeth. K is certain that I have a good chance of getting in, and I seriously contemplate standing. Of course, as you already know, I don’t care a straw about politics, and should never at- tempt to talk ; still, getting into Parliament is a respect- able sort of thing to try for — unless you are a Radical ; gives you influence in the country, and so on. Then I am bothered about those beggars and their farms. I re- member telling you that they wanted their rents lowered, rather unfairly, I think. Then my mother is always at me to settle down — before she dies, she says, having a fancy that that won’t be long, though I hope with all my heart it will ; and she wants me to marry my cousin Nell. I like Nell well enough, and no doubt we should jog along comfortably together, but I am much fonder of you, though if you throw me over I dare say I shall try my chance with Nell. So you see there’s been some ex- cuse for pre-occupation in my letters. In spite of what you say I do reverence for you for your goodness. Look what a brick you were to your brother and his wife last year, and I know if you marry me that you will make me, as you would any man you loved, a good and true wife. Be the sensible girl I have always thought you, and write and say it is all right, and I will tell the mater at once, and let us get married as soon as Carpeth is settled. Don’t think I have ceased to care for you because I don’t write you sentimental let- ters, or see you twice a day, as I did at Wargrave, where there was nothing to do but to loaf round and hang about the river till dinner time. LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 11 While I think of it, what I meant by “and in the future," was just in effect what I have said here, only somehow I could not get it to the tip of my pen then as I do now. Of course we went on at a rapid rate this summer, but you see we were thrown a good deal on each other, and there’s always something enticing in the river, and the willow-weed, and the towing-path, and all the rest of it. I am really awfully fond of you, too, and when a man is alone with a woman he likes, and noth- ing particular besides on his mind, he would be a duffer if he didn’t run on a bit. Still, I am not a very ro- mantic sort ; when I was two-and-twenty I had rather a quencher with that girl I told you of once; she cut up rough after playing the fool with me to the top of my bent, and that has done its work. Besides, talk as you will about affection, it’s the best thing to get married on ; blazing passion fizzles out pretty soon and leaves precious little behind. It says a good deal for the strength and genuineness of my feeling for you that, af- ter the speed of last summer, I can still in the cool of the autumn declare, as I do, that I am sincerely fond of you. Of course I know that if I am matter-of-fact you are the reverse, but if you won’t be angry at my saying so, I think that comes of the life you lead. Living with a brother and sister-in-law, and no settled place in the house or home of your own, shutting yourself up with books, or stealing off to some quiet spot to read them, and going out all night when you are in town and being told, no matter where you are, by half a dozen fellows that they are in love with you ; that can’t be a healthy 12 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. sort of life for any woman. You will lead a far better and more natural one if you settle down with me as I hope you will. Now, write me a long letter and tell me all that is in your heart and mind about this. Let me know just what you think, for I could never for the life of me quite make out what you were driving at when we were together. But, above all, tell me that you love me, as you did in the summer when you put your head down on my arm and yet would never say the plain, honest “Yes” I tried to extract from you. Then I will somehow make time to run down on Saturday and stay till Monday, as I long to do. Good-night, my dear one. — Ever yours. P. S. — Let me hear by return if you can, for I have a good deal of anxiety one way and another, and shall be glad to get this off my mind. III. SHE. — SOME VIEWS ON MARRIAGE. Get it off your mind by all means. I would not marry you for the world. Marry your cousin Nell, with whom you will jog along well enough ; go in for Car- peth ; raise or lower your tenant's rent, and settle down to your uneventful life without me. It would drive me mad. There is enough of nothing in your heart or soul to satisfy me. I like you ; I have loved you — perhaps I do still ; but marry you — no ; for I should surely run away, and before a year was over, if it were only to hide in a dim corner with amused eyes to watch your per- plexity. I see how good you are, manly and straight- forward — all that and more ; but to settle down with you LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 13 — to know the end of my days almost as well as the be- ginning ; to live through the long, dull, respectable years with you — no, thank you. You must marry your cousin Nell ; and I, if I marry at all, will marry a man whose future is not unrolled, like yours, before my eyes — some one who has it in him to leave the world richer than he found it, who will teach it, or beautify it, or make it ,in some way better because he has been. For men who do this are the masters of the world, and men like you, rich or fairly rich, good, plodding, and pains- taking, are their servants. They enjoy your acres, which you keep trim for them ; your houses, the doors of which open wide to receive them ; and they pay you wages in she shape of benefits you get from their genius. Yes, you will marry your cousin Nell, go into Parlia- ment, helping your country with vote or presence — for that is how, as you indicate, your political capacity will be bounded ; you will enjoy your easy-going life, and die when your turn comes. You will do no work that others could not do equally well, and never fret or fire your soul with more than a little anxiety, a little fatigue or vexation ; and even these will calm down or be for- gotten with your first teaspoonful of soup at dinner — your dull, well-mannered dinner of five courses with the salad and the savory left out. Oh, my dear, whom I loved through all the long, still days of this past sum- mer, what a revelation your letters have been to me. I should go mad if I married you. No ; if I marry at all, it must be to some one who works — works truly, not for himself and for his own position or respectability’s sake, but for the work’s sake and the world’s sake ; a man 14 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. who is a part of the great machinery that models the future ages; not a mere idler by its wheels hanging about, amusing himself for his day, dying when his turn comes, and leaving no trace behind. There are crowds of these, well enough in their way, with their cheery voices and pleasant faces ; let the other women marry them. The world would be a terrible place if it were made up entirely of the minority towards which my soul leans. There would be all to work, but none to work for; all to give, and none to receive. Yes, the world is well for the like of you, for the majority that takes life easily, battling a little for itself and its own, leaving the workers to build up the world ; but it is to these last that my heart goes out. A soldier who has fought for his own land, and so helped its people ; a thinker who, un- seen himself, has swayed vast numbers ; a law-giver who has devised the codes by which coming races may guide themselves ; a traveler who makes the first lonely track into the unknown land, and then comes back to direct the road-makers how to work on towards the great city that, but for him, would have been unsuspected — any one of these holds in his hand the seed of immortality. But it is not only the leaders who have it. The poet who writes, and the singer who sings, the words the sol- diers hear as they march by ; the beggar who sits starv- ing in his garret, all the while creating that for which the whole world will rejoice, though he dies or goes into the crowd not knowing, letting others get the reward of his work ; the martyr who keeps his lips shut and will not cry out lest others should lose heart ; all these, too — these are the masters who prove that greatness is a thing LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 15 that must be put outside one's self to live. With one of these there would be life with its promises and possibili- ties, a chance to help, though it were only by serving the worker as his servant. Bitter grief, keen disappoint- ment, throbbing pain might come ; what then ? It is for their alternatives one makes, and what chance of them would there be along your monotonous way ? And with all rfiy longings and ambitions, and all that they would mean, would the present friendships that some men give their wives, that you in fact offer me, suffice? And the realities of your life, would they satisfy me? Not quite. I should go away. I remember being told of a woman who said she would rather have the one true passionate devotion of the worst man that ever lived than all the affection and respect and regard — but these only — that the best could give. I did not understand her then. I do now. For the first has in him the fire that may any day leap upward ; but the other has only an even light by which one would see to everlastingly measure and excuse him. Beside the first one might walk through hell unheeding its flames ; beside the last heaven itself would be monotonous. This is what I meant in scoffing at goodness ; what I mean now in turning* almost with a shudder, from the idea of being your wife, even though I still have some lingering love for you. The boundaries of goodness are known well enough, but in the bare possibilities of their being broken down there is a strange uncertain vista that fascinates me. It is the unknown quantities, the mysteries, that set one thinking and make one eager. Is not the world itself round, so that we see but a little way ahead ? How, 16 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. then, can you expect me to accept my portion of it so flattened and laid out before me that I can almost see the whiteness of my own tombstone at the other end ? No, let us end it all. Go to your life ; leave me to mine. Marriage between us is not possible. A service might be read over us, one roof might cover us, one name identify us; but this would not be marriage — only a binding together by a ceremony made for those not strong enough to stand by each other without it, which in the eyes of the outer world, would make us man and wife, yet in our own hearts leave us miles apart. The most dreamy of relationships might be marriage rather than this ; nay, I can imagine it existing between two people who meet but half a dozen times in their lives, who never touch hands, who but dimly remember each other’s faces, and yet whose hearts and souls steal out in the silence towards each other and meet in some strange fashion not known to ordinary men and women — an aching, almost passionate love, that has nothing physical in it, and that seeks no human symbol for expression save that which puts itself forth in their work. Even this would satisfy me better than what you offer me, in which there would be the ever longing for more than you could even comprehend. And yet it would not satisfy me. I am not Idealist enough, nor poet neither. I am a woman, and alive to my finger ends ; and, if I am loved at all, would be loved wholly and altogether, as a man who is alive, too, and part of the living world, knows how to love. I want a face that satisfies me to look at, a voice to hear, a hand to grip, a firm and even footstep to listen to unconsciously as an accompaniment; LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. Tt to our talk while we go through the streets together. I can not help caring for these things, for I am human, and have the longings of human womanhood. But there are other longings, too — longings that lift the human ones up, and give them the idealism that is neces- sary to one’s soul’s salvation ; and these last hang on the first : they are all inseparable. I have written on, never once considering how it may hurt you. It is better, perhaps, if I do hurt you, for some wounds must be seared in order that they may be healed. Insulting, heartless, cruel, some dolts who saw this letter might call me ; but I am none of these. I have spoken out fearlessly all that was in my heart and mind, as you wished me to do. I might have been more gentle, have used words less plain, and so nourished my own vanity on your regrets at losing me. And heart- less? no. If I were, I should be content to take ease and comfort and the world’s goods, all of which you would give me for my portion, and concern myself about little else ; should be content with the simple affection you offer me instead of pushing it away, because my hungry heart needs more. We had our summer day, dear, and it was good to live through ; but now, go to your cousin Nell, contest Carpeth; see to your tenants, and good-bye. Yes, good-bye, dear Englishman ; only our own land could have produced you; and in a measure I am proud of you, as I am of all its other goodly products. But for warmth and sunshine one goes to other lands than ours ; for love and happiness I, least, must go to other heart than yours. Better for ^ou that it is so, for I should have tried you sorely. 2 18 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. IV. HE. EXPOSTULATING. I really don’t know how to answer your letter, for of course I am going to answer it ; it’s odder than ever, more than ever like you, my darling. You are not very polite, are you ? But perhaps I am not either, for the matter of that. For the life of me I can’t understand you, can’t make out what you are driving at, and I am not sure that you know yourself. You say that you love me , then why on earth can’t you be content to marry me? I love you, I am very fond of you, though I won’t pre- tend that I can go at the rate you seem to desire ; but, as I said in my last letter, passion soon fizzles out. Ro- mance is all very well when you are young, but middle- age is a time that most of us come to, and then what’s to become of it ? As for life with me being so dull, we can’t be always going in for excitement; but you would get enough of it, I expect, and you could make yourself prominent in lots of ways if you wished to do so. I would do anything in reason to make you happy, or to please you as far as I could. If you want change and movement and new experiences, we might go about a good bit. I remember your saying in the summer-time that you would like to travel. We might go and look up some scenery in Italy or Switzerland, or if you wanted anything more extensive take a run over to America, though I dop’t expect you would find that very exhilar- ating, and I never cared for republics myself. Even Paris is spoilt by going in for democracy and that sort of thing, LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN . 19 I think you are vexed with me because I told you frankly that if you would not have me I should try my luck with Nell. But you can’t expect me to keep single because you don’t think me lively enough to marry your- self. I am getting on, thirty-six next January, quite time that I settled down I feel that I ought to do so; be- sides, if I wait too long no one will have me. Of course it is easy enough to talk as you do, but take my word for it, your feelings are not what is wanted for daily life. They are all very well in the books you have got yourself into the habit of reading, but they won’t work outside the covers in which you find them. I don’t believe in Darwin, as you know — not that I ever read much of him, I confess, but I made out what he was up to pretty well — and I never read but one of Zola’s novels ; and as that was a translation, I take it for granted the color was good deal toned down, but it was quite sufficient to con- vince me that women did well not to read him at all. I say this because bits in your letter sound like the talk one hears among the prigs whom it is the correct thing to meet at some houses nowadays, or the articles one sees in the heavy reviews. Not that I ever talk much to the first or read the last — know better than that, my dar- ling. I prefer being on the river with you. But one can’t help knowing what’s in the air, and it all somehow harks back to Darwin and Zola, two schools, or whatever you call them, that seem to be running neck and neck just now among the people who go in for thinking. But they come to no good, dearest ; they have only made you want some artificial kind of career. Now it’s my opin- ion that a woman ought to find the life ofi her home and 20 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. the companionship of her husband, and later on of her children, sufficient, and that’s what most sensible men think, too. Content yourself with them, my dear one, and give yourself to me with a light heart. You shall indulge in as many fancies as you please, and have as much amusement as I can reasonably give you, and we will do a whole lot of going about from first to last if you like. Of course I have got some acres and must look after them, if it is only to keep them trim, as you say, for the beggars you call my masters ; and as for fighting, or in- venting things, or writing books, none of these is in my line, and I am glad of it. A nice comfortable life, enough money, and a good digestion have fallen to my share, and I am quite content with it ; if you fall to my share too I shall have nothing else to wish for, after I have secured Carpeth. I cannot think what has changed you all of a sudden, for we got on so well in the summer, and we managed to get Awfully fond of each other, or I did of you, and you at any rate were happy enough with me. Be happy again, my darling ; as I said in my last letter I say again in this : I love you better than any one else, though I own I shall try and win Nell if you throw me over. But don’t, I implore you, just for the sake of all that you have lately taken to dream about, give away realities* Life isn’t a thing that comes to us more than once — in this world, anyhow — or that lasts too long, and it’s a pity not to make the best of it ; I don’t think that you would make the worst of it by giving yourself to me. Now write another one of your queer letters if you like. LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 21 and say not only that you love me, but that you’ll marry me. You can’t think how happy you would make me, and I won’t believe you were playing fast and loose with me all the summer ; if you were not, why it’s all right, and let us get married soon. We would move about as much as you pleased till I was obliged to be back in England again ; and I feel sure that that is what you want to ease off some of your excitement and restless- ness, and make you content with ordinary life again. Good night, dearest ; write at once and let me know pre- cisely what your views are now. — Affectionately yours. V. SHE. — EXPLAINING FURTHER, AND CONCERNING PASSION. No, I cannot write as you desire. We are so utterly different. A month ago I did not see it ; now I do, for your letters have made all things clear. By the river we felt the same breeze, the same sunshine ; we thought they had the same effect upon us, that in all things we felt alike. The days we spent together were drowsy summer ones, and you were a dream to me ; perhaps I was one to you. We did not talk much, not enough to finjd each other out, and it is to that we owe our mem- ories. I am glad to have mine ; I was so happy and I loved you, remember, which sanctifies them, so that I am not ashamed because of the long hours in which I was wholly content. But life is not spent by the river-side, or in a dream. The summer is over, we are awake, and our story is finished. To attempt to live our lives together would be madness. You must marry your cousin Nell. She will 22 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. be a better wife to you than I could be at my best. She probably belongs to the type you like, and that the ma- jority of men like, when they want to marry and settle down — the wife and home and motherhood type that nine- teen centuries of Christianity have taught us, and rightly, to admire. But I do not belong to it, and cannot. I could hardly bear to read your offers of travel. It was as though you were trying to bribe me with them, knowing that of love there was not enough. How dreary those journeys would be ! Worse even than the long evenings when we looked at each other across the din- ner-table, and then from either side the fireplace, glancing now and again at the clock, thinking how slowly it went towards the point at which we might rise, and with dull satisfaction feel that the day was over. I can imagine our setting out ; I can see us on our way, you with your time-table and guide-book, your Gladstone bag and portmanteaus, easy-going and good-tempered, anxious about your food and deliberating as to the hotels, always spending your money with an easy hand, yet seeing that proper attention was paid you. I can almost hear what you say as I walk beside you, my Englishman in tweeds, along the railway platforms ; and I can see myself, too, a little tired, and disagreeably inclined towards other people, snapping at my maid for being forgetful, yet meekly listening to your instructions. How we should drag through the cities, looking at pictures and pretend- ing that we cared about them, or yawn at table (Thotes , or go off to see bits of scenery because other .people went, but secretly feeling bored by them as by most things ; I getting more and more tired, and you reflect- LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 23 in g that after all there was no place like one’s own home. I could not endure it. Yet I could tramp gaily in tat- ters across great plains, or over the mountain-tops with a beggar who was a poet, a mechanic who was a genius, a dreamer who talked of a waking time to come. I could go merrily enough through the cities, though we had never a coin between us to pay for a sheltering roof. We would rest beyond the gates, crouching under a hedge to sleep, and sitting by a lonely way-side, cook our scanty food with the help of the little tin canteen we carried with us. I should think of the time when the city we had left would ring with my hero’s name, of how he would lead his soldiers through it, or teach those who wanted to learn, or help those who suffered now and must wait till he was ready. “ They do not know his name yet,” I should say to myself ; “they did not even look up at his face as we passed by, but they will, they shall, for some day the whole wide world will be but the setting for his work.” All non- sense and exaggeration, you will say. Yes, dear; it is, and I know it. But over a bridge built of dreams and exaggerations, Love often goes blindfolded towards the realities it may never reach itself, leaving a track that the stronger may follow, and would not have thought out for themselves. To the lovers and the dreamers and en- thusiasts it is sometimes given to move the world with their shoulders ; the plodders do it stone by stone while the ages admire their patience. The last are like school- boys learning, but to the first the heavens and hells have whispered. Passion soon fizzles out, you say, and you think only 24 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. of the passion of a wicked French novel. There is another type of man, unlike enough to your healthy, manly self, who does this — the man who is above all things intellectual, who has much book-knowledge, and has read and remembered and stored his mind with the work of other men, so that his talk and writings are full of literary allusion. Through his mind there filters con- stantly a stream of other men’s thoughts ; if that gave out his mind would be empty, for he creates nothing. His mission he takes to be to tinker at other men’s work and appraise it, and he does, seeing it usually by a bor- rowed light. Learned and luke-warm, cold and cynical towards most things that have not been dust these hun- dred years, he has no more passion in him than he has genius. An odd, incomplete creature, a modern refine- ment — for he would often be a little fashionable in these latter days, and is to be met with at dinner-tables and country houses, and traced in our literary journals — I sometimes wonder where the good of him comes in, for he gives the world nothing that is his own, and that which he finds ready to hand is no better for his com- menting and garnishing, but rather the reverse. It is him I think, on whom your mind is running when you talk of Zola and Darwin, but he has nothing in common with either ; and you and he have nothing in common — which is all to the good of you — except that both of you think that passion is usually dashed with wicked- ness, and has but one meaning attached to it. The very word you consider an undesirable one to use, espec- ially before woman or in polite society. You are not quite sure that it is proper. LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WO 31 AN. 25 But the passion I mean, and would have in my lover’s heart, was in Joan’s when she rode into Rheims to crown her king. If it had lasted a little longer it would have deadened the outward flames at her burning, and her shrieks would not have echoed in our ears through all the centuries. It was in Napoleon’s heart when he strode on before his army and thought the whole world would be his. It was in Samuel Plimsoll’s heart when he stepped forth and by a passionate moment won his cause. A score of men along the benches might have lulled each other with their dull platitudes for a score of years without doing what that one moment’s fire did. It is in the novice’s heart when she hears the great gate clang behind her, and, raising her clasped hands, thinks that she will surely one day scale the heights of heaven and see her Saviour’s face. Read “ St. Agnes’ Eve ” — Tennyson’s, not Keat’s I mean — and you will under- stand. My heart has stirred to it till I could have thrown the book aside, and walking through the frosty snow to the convent, have besought them to let me in for one moment to stand beside the white- veiled figure, and see the light as it never is seen by the sayers of prayers and singers of hymns in the stifling churches of the world. But this was only a passing feeling, a power of the poet’s, that proves him and not one’s self. And it is not the whole of what I mean, for I want all that is in the novice’s heart, but more added on. I do not want your reverence, I told you, and that is true, and I do not want to be good, absolutely good, for that means being bound by finite possibilities, and it is the infinite in all things, good and evil, that has the eternal power. 26 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. And I would like all feelings in nay lover's heart to have their fling, while we, whom the issue most concerned, breathlessly awaited the result, leaning to this side.or that according to our strength, or that which was brought to bear on it. For men and women are not meant to kill their strongest feelings and impulses, but only to understand them, to know when to govern or to let themselves be governed. To this last knowledge the world owes the greatest deeds that men have done. In passion there is fire, and does not fire purify as well as burn ? The prairie planes sweep all growths before them as they make unflinchingly towards their goal, and the goal of passionate love at its highest is achievement that, but for its sake, would never have been gained. It is the achievement I long for, not for myself, but for my best-loved ; I would go away if he willed it, when he needed me no more, and be remembered nowhere save in his heart. I should know the fire there. Did not Prometheus filch it from heaven? Perhaps it would mount higher and higher on good work done till it touched the heavens again. But all this you think mere craving for excitement, a lack of repose, an aching to be prominent. It is none of these. Still, in my heart there is nevertheless a lean- ing forward towards the future — not my own future, bur. the whole world’s. Nonsense, you will say; what have I to do with that ? We have all to do with it ; we can- not separate ourselves off from it, for this present self- consciousness that we call life is not the whole of us un- less we choose. There is one thing ours from the time we enter the world, if we did but know it — it is part of LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 2? life’s mystery that we should so seldom know it— the power to fashion our own immortality, not in our own bodies, but in the things we do. A sort of choice or chance — which is it ? — seems to be ours, to seek the stars or tread the depths. Have we not come out of the past leaving strange histories we cannot even remember behind us ? Here in our present day we choose, so it is given to me to feel, whether we will let the potentialities stamp us out, or whether, having in some shape paid the world for its light and shelter, its love and joy, though its alternatives were pain and woe, we go on into the future ages stronger for that with which we have nour- ished our souls. Oh, my dear, it is not excitement that I want. I believe I could wait long years to meet a single day, and having known it live long years again remembering, though never a ripple stirred Time’s sur- face before or after. But I could not be content with your life a.nd its lack of possibilities. You would not ask me to go to you hungry if you had no food, shiver- ing if you had no shelter. Yet this would be little be- side the starvation you offer me. Why should I give up to you all my chances, all my ambitions, my hopes and longings, the wild love and satisfying life that may be mine — nay, my pain and bitter woe, for I would miss none — and the work that will surely some time come to my eager hands and heart, for what ? To please you now for just a little space, till you awoke to realize that life together was not what you had imagined it would be, that something was wrong, was missing, you could not tell what ; while I, who had never slept, would under- stand well enough all the time, and some day, feeling 28 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. the twitch of the demon’s finger on my arm and his whisper in my ear, I should vanish, how or where I should hardly know. For the marriage vow between us would not be one that bound my soul, and my feet would be swift to follow that whither it went. To hold fast by one’s soul as long as may be is the wisdom of the gods. It is no use saying more. Perhaps you are right in thinking that I don’t know what I am driving at. Do any of us know whither we are going ? But that does not prevent us from feeling driven ; and this I know, that the Fates are driving me with a strong hand away from you. We shall never get nearer to each other, though I write on and you read on forever. Be content with the past. I have loved you. I do. But not with the love that would let me be your wife, content to spend my days by your side, trying to make your days happy; perhaps it is some of your own good-for-wear- and-tear affection that I give you back. I do not know. There are many men like you, thank God — many good women to mate with them, crowds of you both, happy enough to walk along the beaten track with your fel- lows, doing as they do, being as they are, a rest and comfort for the like of me to take shelter with some- times, but not to abide with always. For your place is in your home, and your duties are to fulfill the easy obligations that keep it going ; but mine, in some strange fashion, seems to be along the world’s highway, staying now and again in its workshops, though it be but to watch my masters, or to be cuffed and made to stand aside till my own turn comes. Perhaps I should be happier if I were like your cousin Nell, and could be LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 29 satisfied — but I cannot. Home and its influences; a husband who would love me and to love back and help in an easy routine like yours; children with their games and laughter, growing up to be the world’s good citizens — sometimes it comes into my heart to long for these, to ache for the rest they would mean, the simple life and further reaching power than those who live within its fences think, the safe and even way that most women yearn to walk, looking neither up at the heights nor down at the depths, but only at the road before them, content enough to tread it. But no. It is so strange, this in- ner life, with the outer one that hides it — the brother and his delicate wife, the visitors coming and going, the dogs and the horses, the long rides and walks, the pulls on the river or the dreaming beside it, the going to town or to country houses and the hurry of life there, the men, “ the half a dozen fellows, ” as you call them, who talk of love, not knowing how much or how little they mean. It all seems a little way off from me, and yet I am here in the midst. You ! Oh, but it has been all a sad mis- take ! I loved you, and thought you understood. That you love me, or have loved me, I know well enough ; but there is a great space between us, a desert in which we should have to walk if we tried to be together. No, again and forever, no. Your life stands out clear before you, but something tells me that mine has other chapters than this. There are some words that went to my heart long ago. Oh, my dear Englishman, perhaps you will say that they were written by an improper poet. Zola and Swinburne ! Marry your cousin Nell by all means, I do but watch and wait like those — 30 LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. “ . . . who rest not ; who think long Till they discern as from a hill At the sun’s hour of morning song, Known of souls only, and those souls free, The sacred spaces of the sea. Some day, perhaps, I shall see and know more, but then I shall not be here. Good-bye, once again. VI. HIS MOST INTIMATE FRIEND. — CONSOLING. Dear E , I don’t think you an awful cad for sending on her letters, and I don’t wonder at your being puzzled by them. Of course I will keep their contents hidden in the innermost recesses of my soul. They are not like ordinary love-letters — thank Heaven. For a nice little note, with a monogram in the corner, a word or two doubtfully spelled, and crammed full of dears and darlings, is worth a stack of these, which might have been written to her great-grandmother. I take her in pretty well. She isn’t altogether a fool, you know ; but she is one of the large-minded, great- souled people, longing to suffer and distinguish them- selves in the cause of humanity and for the good of the world, who are such a nuisance nowadays. She means well, but she would be death to marry ; there’s no know- ing what she would be up to by the time she was thirty. The amazing thing about it is that, if I remember rightly, she is that pretty woman who came over with the Fenwicks to my aunt’s place last Easter. She was about six or seven and twenty, played lawn tennis better LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. 31 than any one else, flirted all round ; and finally drove herself away on a high dog-cart with a learned, half- starved looking cuss, from whom she was probably im- bibing some of these notions. Nature made a mistake in sorting out her physique ; she ought to have been tall and lank, with long arms, high cheek-bones, and a washed out complexion. All the same, in spite of her good looks, I shudder to think of her as mistress of Bingwell. The only good bit in the whole of her letters is the polite allusion to the savory and the salad. That looks as if she could order a dinner ; but she would probably forget to do so half her time, and I suppose she would scorn to eat it — though the material side of her doesn’t seem to be undeveloped. Before she had been installed a month you can bet she would have shocked the neighbors and fought with the parson. And what a woman she would be to stay with ! She would have an open contempt for her visitors all round, and lead them a nice life, except the unwashed few she calls the mas- ters of the world. It is really a fine name, if you come to think of it ; somehow it reminds me of Spain, where every beggar in tatters asking for cuartos is a gentleman. No, old man, marry your cousin Nell (in spite of her fancy for life’s alternatives, she doesn’t seem to like that one of yours), or any other sensible girl who doesn’t think she has a destiny or a mission, and thank your stars that this magnificent person would not have you. — Ever yours. LOVE LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. i. MRS. ROBERT WILLIAMS TO MRS. POWER. Daffodil, Brecon, S. Wales, January 26 , 1884. My Dear Mary, — I am not surprised at your having met Madge Brooke at the C ’s, for she manages to go everywhere now. This, of course, is entirely owing to her brother’s position, and to the fact that, instead of making her an allowance and telling her to live alone, as most brothers would, he lets her live with him. The generosity shown by men to their relations is often sin- gularly irritating to lookers-on, and John Brooke fur- nishes an instance of this in his conduct towards his sis- ter. Some day, however, her reign will end, for he is sure