The material for "Historia Amoris" having been put into shape for use, Mr. Saltus began to study along a new line. Puzzled and confused as to what he really believed, he agreed to study the sacred books of the East. None were omitted,—the Zend-Avesta, the Upanishads, the Vedas, the Mahabharata—with its jewel the Bhagavad-Gitâ,—the Egyptian Book of the Dead,—the Talmud and the Koran.
Between their leaves he found a new world. Thereafter he was forever digging for jewels,—which when found dazzled him with their beauty. With the enthusiasm Balboa may have felt at discovering an unknown ocean, Mr. Saltus went up the heights to the Garden of God, steeping himself in the perfume of occult and esoteric lore. Subconsciously, he had found food for his soul.
Rushing uptown to my home he would explain as soon as admitted:
"I have unearthed a gem. Listen."
Then the ideas and ideals of beauty I had so often put before him were handed back to me. Seeing them in print had made them real and impersonal. The Gitâ, which hitherto he had but dimly and imperfectly understood, after that epitomized the double-distilled wisdom of the world to him.
One phrase from the Egyptian Book of the Dead moved him profoundly and made him think along a new line. It referred to the soul in the Court of Amenti, pleading for admission to the heaven world. "I have not talked abundantly. I have not been anxious. I have harmed no heart. No one have I made weep." The last phrase cut.
"Pre-suppose," he would say, "that your dream of reincarnation is true. My God! What a debt would confront me next life! I hope it is all a myth."
It was at this time that the effects of his careless letters to the English girl came home with a shock. Rushing up to my house one evening,white and shaken with emotion, he said that a young man had called to see him at the Manhattan Club, just as he was finishing dinner. After introducing himself as a brother of Dorothy S——, he told Mr. Saltus that the girl had, after his last letter, gone into a decline and died. He himself was not only ill, but in want, with a wife to take care of. After exhausting every effort to get employment in the States, he had reluctantly turned to the man he considered an enemy with a debt to pay.
Mr. Saltus was horrified. Put on the rack by me in no uncertain fashion,—realizing at last that what had been play to him had been a tragedy to another, he found that phrase from the Book of the Dead repeating itself. Like an embodied thing it walked by his side during the day and sat on his pillow at night, whispering in his ear during the hours of darkness, "Behold me! I am your work."
Needless to say that the brother and wife were looked after not alone by him, but by my family as well. Scourged by the episodeMr. Saltus suffered keenly. I suggested to him after a time, more or less with a view to lift his mind from depression, that I would assist him in selecting and condensing notes on the vital points of the sacred books of the East. Mr. Saltus decided that he could compress them into a single volume. "The Lords of the Ghostland" was created in the world of thought. The actual writing of it took a comparatively short time. The preparation and condensing of the material spread over years.
Among Mr. Saltus' peculiarities was an almost prenatal fear of dogs. His mother had been terrified at them, and his childhood had been spent not only without pets of any kind, but filled with fear of them. As he grew older he became rather fond of cats, but the dog complex remained. Cats could be patted, petted and put down. Dogs on the contrary growled, and had been known to bite,—it being somewhat uncertain whether they would do one or the other—or both.
When taking his walks Mr. Saltus would goto the extreme edge of the sidewalk to avoid a dog, if happening to be alone he had no one to interpose between him and it. Argument on the subject was useless. There was but one way of reaching him effectively. This was to ignore his fears and act as though they did not exist.
Our house was never without pets, nor were they confined to any particular spot. Drawing-room chairs were theirs or not as they fancied, and wagging tails greeted the incoming guests. No exception was made of Mr. Saltus, and no pet put aside to make place for a pampered human. When he came, he had to take things as he found them, pets included.
When I was taking a dip into Eliphas Levi, the phrase "Libertines love cats" jumped from the page. The ammunition was too good to be lost. Every time his fear of dogs cropped out, this quotation was hurled at him like a bomb. It did its work most effectively. Timidly and reluctantly at first, Mr. Saltus began to make overtures. The dogs, with unerring instinct scenting his concealed antagonism, refused tobe friends. That hurt more than a little, but it helped. The substratum of his early training began to crumble as his interest in animals and occultism increased.
Taking a phrase from the Book of the Dead, Mr. Saltus decided on the euphonious title "Lords of the Ghostland." The writing of that volume marked his transition from materialism to the realization that there were higher realms of thought as yet unexplored by him. The new book was building up on the ruins.
At the time he began writing the book I went abroad.
Believing that upon his taking the initiative and seeking a divorce, Mrs. Saltus would strike back and secure it herself, Mr. Saltus brought a suit against her, asking at the same time for the custody of his little daughter. This act being looked upon with disapproval by my family, and his friendship as more dangerous than dynamite, the ocean was hailed as a splendid moat between a skilled sheik and a young girl. It meant another summer abroad for me.
Mr. Saltus was in a state of collapse and despair. He could neither work nor sit still.
"The anchor of my life is being torn up," he exclaimed. "I cannot go on and live."
During the time which had elapsed since the summer in Narragansett Pier he had drifted away a great deal from his old friends. Barring Miss G——, with whom he dined every Sunday and saw frequently, Bob Davis, who was too busy to give him much time, and James Huneker were his only friends. The influence of Miss G—— had done much to make Mr. Saltus' viewpoint on life happier. She enjoyed the stimulus of his mind, and with unselfish kindness she introduced him to those who could further his interests and made her home a place where he could bring his mending and his difficulties. Her atmosphere was one of peace, and he sorely needed it.
That atmosphere was lacking in my home. Tolerated only because he was regarded as less dangerous within than without, he was offered neither meals nor mending. From me hereceived not peace but the sword, and that sharpened and thrust into vulnerable places. His copy was criticised, his viewpoint scorned, and his personality put under a searchlight that left him seared and shaken.
In spite of all this the diet must have been full of vitamines, for he was loth to relinquish it. As he himself used to put it, "Many of the prisoners released from the Bastile returned there of their own free will, so wretched were they in a world to which they had become unaccustomed."
The fact that I was really going abroad staggered him. Imitating a cat I had at the time, he walked about the drawing-room exclaiming, "Miaw! Wow! Wow! Poor Snippsy goes crazy. Oh Wowsy wee! Wowsy wee!" To be wowsy was the last word of sadness in the vernacular of cats.
His suit for divorce failed. Mrs. Saltus, obviously aware of his motives, saw no reason to fall in with them, and the attempt was not calculated to reflect credit on himself. The newspaperswere none too kind. Any man who tries to divorce his wife is unpopular. Neither fish nor fowl, married nor free, his position was an ambiguous one, calculated to involve others in possible complications. Friends were not backward in throwing the worst light and the blackest possibilities upon the screen.
This was in 1903. In those old days children did not bring up their parents in the way they do now,—taking the center of the floor and holding forth on their right to go to the devil in the way which pleases them best. Young girls were supposed to skim lightly over the friendship of quasi-married men. Extraordinary as it may seem in these days, it was not considered proper at all. That prejudice was shared by my family.
Coming to the house the evening before I sailed, so unnerved that he could not speak for tears, Mr. Saltus put a sheet of paper in my hands. So unusual was it that the original is reproduced on the next page. It read:—
25 Madison Avenue.In the event of my death I direct that Marie F. Giles shall have full possession in, and power over, my remains. I further direct that said remains be cremated, and the ashes given to the said Marie F. Giles.(Signed) EDGAR SALTUS.
25 Madison Avenue.
In the event of my death I direct that Marie F. Giles shall have full possession in, and power over, my remains. I further direct that said remains be cremated, and the ashes given to the said Marie F. Giles.
(Signed) EDGAR SALTUS.
"There," he said, "I have written this in triplicate. One copy is in the Trust Company, and one in the hands of my attorney. It is like death—like dying rather, to have you where I cannot hear your voice. If I survive, it will be because I am convinced that nothing but death can separate us. If I die—swear that you will keep my ashes and have them buried with yours. Husbands may come and go—but I am an eternal part of you."
Fac-simile of Document given to Marie SaltusFac-simile of Document given to Marie Saltus
The paper, combined with what he said, touched me profoundly. It seemed such a hopeless muddle. Only the belief that sorrow and adversity are the soil in which the soul grows, offered consolation, and at the time even that seemed meager. No one reaches the Land of Promise save on feet weary and blistered by scorching sand—for always it is surrounded by desert. In that emptiness and silence the ego finds the strength, poise and power to endure. We are all taken into the desert at one time or another. That alone which matters is what we bring back.
The following day Mr. Saltus was among those who saw me off. That leave-taking brought him to a realization of the verities and the non-essentials, as nothing else could have done. Letters followed like sea-gulls. They punctuated the days and haunted the nights.
My darling child:—(Mr. Saltus wrote)It was so dear of you to have left for me a letter. To have left two. I could have kissed the postman. You are the sweetest child in the world. That is it, you see. You have made me love you so that I am helpless and hopeless without you. I am trying to be brave and work, but no Puff-tat and all work is like death.... I do so hope that you are happy though missing your Snipps a little. You won'tforget me—Mowgy? It would do for me if you should. There have been days without number—nights without end—when I would give everything the world can offer for a touch of your blessed hand in mine and for the sound of your angel voice, my darling.God bless and keep you, little girl. Always I am waiting and working for you. It must not be in vain.All my love always. YourEDGAR.
My darling child:—(Mr. Saltus wrote)
It was so dear of you to have left for me a letter. To have left two. I could have kissed the postman. You are the sweetest child in the world. That is it, you see. You have made me love you so that I am helpless and hopeless without you. I am trying to be brave and work, but no Puff-tat and all work is like death.... I do so hope that you are happy though missing your Snipps a little. You won'tforget me—Mowgy? It would do for me if you should. There have been days without number—nights without end—when I would give everything the world can offer for a touch of your blessed hand in mine and for the sound of your angel voice, my darling.
God bless and keep you, little girl. Always I am waiting and working for you. It must not be in vain.
All my love always. Your
EDGAR.
"Lords of the Ghostland" took on shape very slowly. Mr. Saltus seemed unable to focus his mind on anything. Well he knew that the relatives with whom I was stopping abroad had lined up a lot of eligibles,—many of whom I already knew. They ranged from an Italian Prince, with a time-worn title and a moth-eaten tumble-down palace, to an English millionaire of recent vintage. They were a job lot, accumulated to offset and counteract his influence. Anchored and handicapped by a wife and childand a reputation none too immaculate, he saw his position with clarity, and he wrote:—
My own darling:—There is no little Mowgy any more. No little Puff-tat to miaw and to say 'Quicksy' when you wanted anything. I say it now. For God's sake return quicksy or poor Snipps goes under. I do so hope you are happy, but don't drink champagne or dine alone with men. Remember that you are only a child,—my child, and should anything separate us it would be as if a bullet had been put through my head. Should anything happen to me you need blame yourself only for having made me love you so absolutely. Hell has no more horrors than those in which I am groping now. If I can only get the syndicate running properly and the divorce. I have said I will yield everything but alimony.Then, dearest, we can go to London and take the little house in Brook Street you told me of. I am ill,—too ill to work any more. Don't let anything or anybody come between us unlessyou want my death. Others can give you everything—everything but understanding. Trust the man to whom you are the center of the universe.Eternamente,EDGAR.
My own darling:—
There is no little Mowgy any more. No little Puff-tat to miaw and to say 'Quicksy' when you wanted anything. I say it now. For God's sake return quicksy or poor Snipps goes under. I do so hope you are happy, but don't drink champagne or dine alone with men. Remember that you are only a child,—my child, and should anything separate us it would be as if a bullet had been put through my head. Should anything happen to me you need blame yourself only for having made me love you so absolutely. Hell has no more horrors than those in which I am groping now. If I can only get the syndicate running properly and the divorce. I have said I will yield everything but alimony.
Then, dearest, we can go to London and take the little house in Brook Street you told me of. I am ill,—too ill to work any more. Don't let anything or anybody come between us unlessyou want my death. Others can give you everything—everything but understanding. Trust the man to whom you are the center of the universe.
Eternamente,EDGAR.
Careful and painstaking in the writing of letters to editors and friends, Mr. Saltus invariably wrote to me on a yellow copy pad and in pencil. In twenty years the writing against the tinted background has become indistinct, but, poor as it is, a fac-simile of one of his letters will be given. The sheets on these pads were large, and as a rule his letters covered ten or twelve of them. For the sake of brevity only the shortest are quoted, and these not in full.
These letters which poured in several at a time on every steamer, rose as a smoke between the eligibles and himself, as he expected them to do. He seemed to need me so badly. Above and beyond every other sentiment he inspired was the desire not only to protect him from the outside world—that was simple—but to protecthim against the greater danger: himself and his weaknesses.
Disregarding the wishes and plans of those with whom I was stopping, November saw me on the Celtic en route for New York.
The following spring found things in statu quo. "Lords of the Ghostland" was no nearer completion and Mr. Saltus as far from free as before. Another European trip was arranged for me. I was to sail on the Celtic early in May. Once again Mr. Saltus was disconsolate, and as before the "wows" and lamentations began. Toward the last however he appeared to accept it with a great deal of philosophy. Among the crowd of "well wishers" at the boat with arms full of fruit, flowers, pillows and sweets, was Mr. Saltus. He had said good-bye the night before with surprising calmness. The lessons of the Gitâ seemed to have been absorbed at last.
Before any of the others left the boat, he got up, made a gracious and formal farewell and went away. That was as it should be. Family and friends were delighted to see him go.
Half an hour later, as the boat was making its way down the bay, from somewhere behind my deck-chair a faint but unmistakable 'miaw' pierced the vibration of the propeller. I turned. Cap in one hand and steamer rug in the other, there stood Mr. Saltus, smiling at my bewilderment.
"I am the cat who came back," he said laughing, "and I am going to sit at your side and purr for a whole blissful week, and the future can take care of itself."
Though it carried conflict and confusion into the party with me, one cannot be ejected from a ship for effrontery. The weather was perfect, the water like glass, and the sunshine uninterrupted. Mr. Saltus was so carefree and happy that he romped and played like a child. He would attempt to hide and then jump out from an unexpected place. He pretended to lose my books and find them in queer corners. He played hide-and-seek and would run up the companion-way like a boy, saying he was going to catch me by the ankles.
Upon reaching London however he found himself de trop again. From the home of Lady C——, where I was stopping, to his hotel in Victoria Street one could walk without fatigue. A taxi could make it in five minutes. With the exception however of a few formal dinners Mr. Saltus was not urged to consider himself at home there. On the contrary, he was given to understand that his presence was a decided embarrassment and that free from his influence I would probably annex one of the eligibles, who, outclassing him, he was told, in name, money and position, were always pushed to the fore.
All this he knew, but what was more important, he knew me, and the others did not. Hunting up his old rooms in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, he re-engaged the suite he had occupied years before while writing "Mary Magdalen." Announcing that he expected to remain all summer, he put in his mornings at the British Museum studying cuneiform.
What Mr. Saltus did with his mornings didnot concern Lady C—— in the least. She was determined however that the balance of his time should be as harmless. Months before we had planned to spend our summer in Germany that year. In order that he should not conflict with these arrangements, a fortnight later saw us all in Homburg. For reasons of finance Mr. Saltus was unable to follow. He could write however, and he could send wires, and he did both rather continuously. After one of the eligibles joined our party he frequently wrote twice a day.
It was in Paris during the end of August, that he crossed our orbit again. We were stopping at the Elysée Palace Hotel, and he at the St. James and Albany. I had advised him of our plans in time.
However unwelcome he had been before, it was hospitality compared to the hostility he encountered then, when members of the Diplomatic Corps, King's Messengers and the younger sons of the nobility were welcomed. The absence of money and the existence of awife combined to put him in the category of undesirable things. It was an unpleasant situation all around.
To thrash it out every day was too much of a fag. It was easier to say nothing and do as one pleased, and Paris is wonderfully adapted to teas and tête-à-'têtes.
The autumn found me in London with Lady C—— again, and Mr. Saltus in his old rooms in Margaret Street once more. Sitting at the table where he had written "Mary Magdalen" he tried to work as before, but the Muse had fled.
It was during this time that he first met Mr. G. F. Monkshood, who, under the name of Hatchard, embellished Piccadilly with a fascinating and unique bookshop. Monkshood it was who had brought out a small volume called "Wit and Wisdom of Edgar Saltus." In it were compiled epigrams, phrases and quotations from all of his earlier books. The subtle compliment pleased Mr. Saltus very much. He had encountered so little appreciation. Mr. Monkshood and himself were congenialsouls. In the funereal shelter of the Blenheim Club they drank and dined and devoured one another. Added to his other accomplishments, Mr. Monkshood was a poet. Verses written to "The Lady of the Opals" and signed by himself have smiled for years from a scrap-book of mine.
The knowledge that he must return almost immediately to the States stupefied Mr. Saltus. He was like a man who had been sand-bagged. He could not speak of it without breaking down, and yet he had not the means to live there in idleness. He used to refer to this time as his crucifixion. We have to suffer terribly before we can learn how not to suffer at all. That lesson from the Gitâ we could see the beauty of and the necessity for, but we had not acquired it then. On the fly-leaf of "The Light of Asia" Mr. Saltus had written, however, "The swiftest beast to bear you to perfection is suffering."
The week before leaving was the hardest for him. He did not want to talk. He could not,in fact. Riding on the tops of 'busses to the extreme limits of London in all directions was his only diversion. Time and again we spent a whole afternoon on one in silence.
In the middle of September Mr. Saltus left for the States. When he finally got on the boat train for Southampton he was like a man starting for Siberia for life. One thing alone comforted him. I agreed to leave Lady C—— in a few weeks and take over his old rooms in Margaret Street. It seemed to him that some emanations of his personality persisted there, and he wanted to think of me in his old haunt.
Once more letters eight and ten pages long came on each steamer, and Mr. Saltus hated to write letters. Sometimes there were cables of over a hundred words. The hopelessness of it all was acute. From every angle it was going around in circles and getting nowhere. One always returned to where one left off. Disgrace—even destruction lurking on one side: on the other, the necessity for cutting him out of my life like a cancer.
Upon his return he wrote:—
My dear darling Mowgy:It is like death,—like dying, rather, to be here without you. I said it would be like prison, but it is worse. The sky is as blue as your own dear eyes. The weather is absolutely tropical. Were you here there would be pleasure in mere existence. But you are not here, my darling, and I seem to be able to be conscious only of that,—only that my little girl is far, far away. I have heart for nothing. Yesterday I passed the Astoria, and at the knowledge that there was no chance of seeing you there, tears came to my eyes. Never can I enter the place until you return, and now when will that be? I think you would agree to come very soon if you could realize what all this means to me. From the time I kissed you last up to this moment I have done nothing but plan for your return. From that time up to now, not for an instant have you been absent from my thoughts. It is not merely that I love you, dear; I cannot live without you. Do youremember you asked me what I should do and how I should act were I to lose you? I told you I did not know. But, dear, I know now. It is not wholly for that reason that I want you back. It is first because I am so anxious and worried about you; second because I can do better for you here. Without you it will be as though I were dying by inches. But with you here I can work and I can win. I rather thought that I should have a line from your mother, but there was nothing. My father, by the way, who is here at the Murray Hill Hotel, will not outlive the winter, or it may be another month or two. Then, dear, in all the world I shall have not a relative,—not a tie. There will be only you. You alone, dear, whom I love alone in all the world. Come to me on the Oceanic,—cable me that you will and then not even death shall part us,Your EDGAR.
My dear darling Mowgy:
It is like death,—like dying, rather, to be here without you. I said it would be like prison, but it is worse. The sky is as blue as your own dear eyes. The weather is absolutely tropical. Were you here there would be pleasure in mere existence. But you are not here, my darling, and I seem to be able to be conscious only of that,—only that my little girl is far, far away. I have heart for nothing. Yesterday I passed the Astoria, and at the knowledge that there was no chance of seeing you there, tears came to my eyes. Never can I enter the place until you return, and now when will that be? I think you would agree to come very soon if you could realize what all this means to me. From the time I kissed you last up to this moment I have done nothing but plan for your return. From that time up to now, not for an instant have you been absent from my thoughts. It is not merely that I love you, dear; I cannot live without you. Do youremember you asked me what I should do and how I should act were I to lose you? I told you I did not know. But, dear, I know now. It is not wholly for that reason that I want you back. It is first because I am so anxious and worried about you; second because I can do better for you here. Without you it will be as though I were dying by inches. But with you here I can work and I can win. I rather thought that I should have a line from your mother, but there was nothing. My father, by the way, who is here at the Murray Hill Hotel, will not outlive the winter, or it may be another month or two. Then, dear, in all the world I shall have not a relative,—not a tie. There will be only you. You alone, dear, whom I love alone in all the world. Come to me on the Oceanic,—cable me that you will and then not even death shall part us,
Your EDGAR.
Fac-simile of Letter sent to Marie SaltusFac-simile of Letter sent to Marie Saltus
Letters like this poured in by every steamer. One did not know what to do or how to act. His pathetic words swam before my eyes andinterposed between myself and the eligibles. In January Mr. Saltus fell ill—or said he was ill. His letters and cables became incoherent. Then they ceased. A note came to me from the physician who was attending him. In it he asked if I could tell him if Mr. Saltus had any relatives or friends who could be called upon. He painted a pathetic case. From his letter the delirium tremens looked up and leered.
The letter had its effect. Mr. Saltus followed it up with a cable saying that he expected to die. That was too much. Advising my family from Liverpool of my intentions, and cabling him at the same time, I sailed.
Mr. Saltus met me at the pier. He was looking pale and thin, but in no dying condition. It was the old story over again. There was no unpacking of trunks for me however. I was off again to Mexico City in a few weeks and he was alone as before, to continue going around in circles which ended where they began.
There is nothing more delightful than travel, but roaming the world like a Peer Gynt is not the same thing. Amusing at first, it finally gets on the nerves,—and living in trunks for years is highly disorganizing. The letters which followed me to Mexico City from Mr. Saltus said that his father was going downhill rapidly.
Never close to his younger son in any sense, during his last days, however, Francis Saltus turned to him more and more, relied on him and was comforted by his presence. While Mr. Saltus' letters threw out hints of coming to Mexico, where he hoped the New York Journal would find some work for him to do,—his father's unwillingness to have such a distance between them, and the real necessity for his presence within telephone distance, put an end to that. Letters of introduction were sent by him, however, to his old friend Eli Goddard,who was then living in Cordova, and to his brother-in-law, Prince Poniatowski. Their visits to the home of my cousins were duly recorded and sent to him, but they failed to keep him in a cheerful mood.
However, the home,—the understanding, and the unselfish interest of Miss G—— did much to keep him from moods and melancholy. No woman Mr. Saltus knew up to that time was a more uplifting influence than she. Calm, dependable, her feet well on the earth, her emanations were sweet and soothing. The occasions on which Mr. Saltus saw his young daughter were holidays to him. To take her to the Plaza Hotel for tea and a chat was enough to brighten an entire week for him.
Of Bob Davis, Mr. Saltus saw quite a bit during this time. He is one of the few men whom Mr. Saltus really loved.
"Bob," he used to say, "is unique. There is no one like him. He stimulates me like champagne."
Many were the lunches and dinners they hadtogether. Mr. Davis was particularly fond of apple pancakes. Whenever he came to the Manhattan Club they were ordered for his especial benefit, and Mr. Saltus used to address him when writing to him as "Your Highness, The Duke of Apple-Pancake." He was lunching with Bob Davis when one of his peculiarities crept out. A number of letters and telegrams were brought to him. Never by any chance did Mr. Saltus open letters unless from the postmark or the handwriting he could be sure from whom they had been sent. That was not all,—he had to be equally convinced that they contained no unpleasant news. Letters in unknown handwriting were consigned unopened to the trash basket. If he happened to be in his rooms when sorting them, and one or more were in the doubtful class, they were tossed into a bureau drawer to be considered later. In this way he lost not only cheques but many interesting communications. People who wrote to him must have gone on wonderingwhy no reply was ever forthcoming. They will know now.
Letters from editors were unmistakable. They could be identified from their envelopes. My writing, and that of his closest friends, he could take in at a glance. Why take chances on the rest? What he did not know could not worry him. There was serenity in an unopened letter. Any unpleasantness in a note, however slight it might be, upset him to such an extent that he could not concentrate his mind or write a line of copy that day.
On the occasion of this luncheon with Bob Davis, Mr. Saltus took in his letters at a glance,—decided that there was nothing he cared to take a chance on, and picking them up unopened he tore the lot into fragments. In telling of it he said:—
"Bob always thought I was a bit queer. Now he must be certain that I am quite mad."
This habit, instead of decreasing, grew with the years. He had a horror of opening letters of any kind for some time before he died,—thecourage of youth having left him. After his death, his daughter and I spent two afternoons going through one of his old trunks and some bureau drawers. Hundreds of unopened letters, many with special delivery stamps on them, were opened, read and destroyed by us. Several of them contained cheques years old. It was incredible to his daughter that any one could have kept them unopened during so many years. It was a fancy to which I had become accustomed. He had not kept them because he was interested in them. He had been too much occupied and too indifferent to destroy them.
Spring came, and the summer followed. Quoting from a letter of his, Mr. Saltus wrote:
"There is green on the trees and the joy of springtime, but there is nothing in my heart but despair. When is this nightmare to end? When you were in Margaret Street I could picture you. I was a part of it all. Now it is chaos. Letters from Mexico City, from Orizaba and Cuernavaca, and the devil knowswhere, tell me that you are surrounded by beauty,—the beauty of living things. Colour you say is the consciousness of nature. Only the consciousness of desolation and despair is mine."The rainy season is the time to leave Mexico. Joining a party, among whom was a friend of Eli Goddard's, a very charming Spaniard, and still moving on like the Wandering Jew, I went north through Los Angeles and Santa Barbara to San Francisco. Spaniards are very gallant. In writing of this one I perhaps emphasized him overmuch. Telegrams of worry and warning followed. A fortnight after I reached the St. Francis Hotel a wire from Mr. Saltus read:—"My father died yesterday. Leaving for San Francisco next week. Eternamente.SNIPPSY."
"There is green on the trees and the joy of springtime, but there is nothing in my heart but despair. When is this nightmare to end? When you were in Margaret Street I could picture you. I was a part of it all. Now it is chaos. Letters from Mexico City, from Orizaba and Cuernavaca, and the devil knowswhere, tell me that you are surrounded by beauty,—the beauty of living things. Colour you say is the consciousness of nature. Only the consciousness of desolation and despair is mine."
The rainy season is the time to leave Mexico. Joining a party, among whom was a friend of Eli Goddard's, a very charming Spaniard, and still moving on like the Wandering Jew, I went north through Los Angeles and Santa Barbara to San Francisco. Spaniards are very gallant. In writing of this one I perhaps emphasized him overmuch. Telegrams of worry and warning followed. A fortnight after I reached the St. Francis Hotel a wire from Mr. Saltus read:—"My father died yesterday. Leaving for San Francisco next week. Eternamente.
SNIPPSY."
A small inheritance from his father making finances less of a pre-occupation, Mr. Saltus was free to go and come as he pleased. It was in June when he appeared at the St. Francis Hotel. Even there the shadow followed. Hewas not welcomed by our little party. With an indifference and high-handedness almost amusing, Mr. Saltus turned not only the tables but the chairs upon them. He treated them like dirt, refusing to dine and finally even to speak to them. Between the lot I was like the Biblical baby with two mothers, minus a Solomon in the background.
An amusing and characteristic episode happened when he had been there but a short time. There was—and I believe is—a funny little restaurant in San Francisco called Coppa's. It looked like a spoonful of old England dropped there by mistake. Quaint mottoes, sketches and epigrams—the souvenirs of artistic and satisfied souls—decorated the walls. The Cheshire Cheese is something of a first cousin by comparison. Here, Jack London, Anna Strunsky, now Mrs. William English Walling, and other celebrities used to dine and linger. In that city of bohemian cafés this little place stood alone.
Mr. Saltus hated restaurants. For somereason, the nearness of so many people perhaps, they got on his nerves. In any event, restaurants put him on edge to such an extent that he invariably quarrelled not only with the waiters, but with those who were with him, if they objected to his manner of carrying on. For this reason, it was something of a penance to go into a restaurant with him. To include him in a party going to Coppa's, one had first to proceed as follows:—
"If you go, will you be a good Snipps and not fight with the waiters?"
"I'll be a good Snipps. I'll take what you tell me and be thankful."
"Will you wear your muzzle and not jerk at the lead?"
"I'm old dog Tray—ever faithful."
"Old dog traitor—ever faithless you mean. I know your tricks, but come along then."
He came. Coppa's was almost full, but by some turn of the tables we found ourselves seated in the center of the room. That was enough to start Mr. Saltus off. Restaurantswere bad enough at best, even in a secluded corner. In the middle of a room of closely packed tables—? He began as usual.
"It's far too crowded. Mr. Me doesn't want to stay. Let's leave the others and go somewhere else."
The muzzle as well as the menu was ignored and forgotten. When Mr. Saltus began to growl it was preliminary only, but I knew the signs—knew, too, what might be expected to follow.
As he ceased speaking a sudden cramp took possession of my right foot, and my exclamation of surprise distracted his attention for the moment. It was my turn to growl. A low shoe was kicked off during the growling and the meal began. All at once a sympathetic cramp in the other foot compelled his attention to be directed to me again while the remaining shoe was removed. It may be mentioned in excuse that it was the fashion to wear ridiculously high and narrow shoes at the time.
We had gone as far as the soup, which Mr.Saltus was sipping mechanically. As the meal progressed my difficulties did also. Try as I might, the offending shoes could not be forced on my feet again. Then the fun began. Distracted by it all, Mr. Saltus accepted chicken and salad unmurmuringly, in forgetfulness of his surroundings.
"You will have to sit here until every one goes or some one can fetch you a larger pair of ties." This remark was from one of our conservative friends, and it met with the approval of the others. Mr. Saltus was becoming restive again by this time.
"Not at all," I answered. "It's unfortunate to be sure, but get up and go I shall in my stocking feet. There is no law making shoes obligatory,—and besides, the people in this place are bohemians."
"All the more reason not to imitate them," was the reply.
That was enough to make the crowded little restaurant a most enchanting place to Mr. Saltus. Tables and people became non-existent tohim. I was going to defy the lot, and that delighted him to such an extent that good humour covered him like a garment. He even smiled at the waiters. Any show of independence on my part, provided it did not conflict with him, was a treat. Half rising in his seat he exclaimed:—
"Right you are, Mowgy. What the devil do you care for a pack of nincompoops?"
The anguish of the others in the party at being seen leaving a restaurant with a shoeless girl amused and delighted him. It could have been done quietly and unnoticed but for his love of a joke. Our friends were sufficiently horrified as it was, but for the dénouement they were quite unprepared. Realizing their discomfiture and revelling in it, Mr. Saltus made a dive under the table. That was not uncommon, for, knowing my habit of letting gloves, handkerchiefs and pocket-books fall from my lap unnoticed, he had trained himself to look. That was the old dog Tray, as he called himself. When he reappeared upon thisoccasion it was with the offending shoes held before him as a votive offering, and leading the procession he carried them through the restaurant into the street. Queer people with odd fancies were no novelty at Coppa's. This however was an innovation. Some one started clapping, and with one accord the roomful of people took it up. I was laughing, but our friends were scarlet with rage. We hailed a passing taxi.
"What the devil do you care what people think?" Mr. Saltus exclaimed. "Sheep and swine follow, but you cannot make either of Mowgy,—thank God."
After that pleasurable and ingratiating episode he was not tormented by invitations from my friends. It was too bad that Anna Strunsky was not in the restaurant that evening, for she would have been amused. We had the pleasure of meeting her not long after this and were enchanted with her cleverness and charm.
Mr. Saltus' interest in spiritualism had flagged. Hearing that Miller, the materializingmedium, was holding séances in San Francisco, he determined to go. This we did. Bold in a restaurant, or when he was crushed in a crowd, where a blow from him frequently prefaced a word, he was a child when encountering phenomena of this kind. Sitting silent and almost sullen in a corner, he shrank within himself,—keen to see, hear and investigate, yet frightened as a baby in the dark. Miller seemed to affect him more than others had done.
"I'm frightened," he said. "If a spook should come and ask for me,—you answer it."
With clenched and clammy hands he sat and shivered, and when a form purporting to be that of his mother appeared and gave the name of Eliza Saltus, he whispered to me:—
"Speak."
"Speak yourself," I said. "I refuse to play the part of a phonograph all the time. It is for you, not me, that the spirit is here."
The shimmering form came closer. It almost brushed Mr. Saltus' knee. He shut his eyes and reiterated imploringly:—
"Speak, Mowgy! For God's sake speak to it!"
The shadowy form had held together as long perhaps as it could. The ectoplasm may have given out or his condition of mind influenced it. In any event the form flickered. With his eyes still closed Mr. Saltus clutched me by the arm:—
"Has it gone?" he whispered.
As he spoke the form flickered again and went out. It was a long time before he wanted to go to a séance again.
During his stay in San Francisco he was guest of honour at the Bohemian Club, and he met there many interesting people. A brief visit to Carmel-by-the-Sea brought his Californian trip to a close. The State interested him. He liked the quiet,—the almost perpetual sunshine, and above all, the absence of convention and the freedom enjoyed by everyone. It was with regret that he left the sunshine and the silence to chafe under the vibrations and noise of New York.
Once again pathetic letters raced across the continent. He had no home and no anchor. Mrs. Saltus and his daughter were living permanently abroad. His hours with the latter had been his oases in a desert of loneliness. Now, barring Miss G——, Dr. Kelley and occasionally Bob Davis, he had almost no friends. Upon reaching New York he finished a series of articles on Russia, for Munsey's Magazine which later formed the basis of his "Imperial Orgy."
In the late autumn the failing health of my father recalled me to New York. Mr. Saltus was finishing the last chapter of "Lords of the Ghostland." No other book he ever wrote was strung out over so long a time, or took so many hours of research. He brought the manuscript to my home, returning the next day for the praise and patting on the back he felt that he deserved.
"What do you think of it?" he asked. The small boy always appeared at such moments.
"The King of France and twice ten thousandmen,—rode up a hill and then went down again," was the reply.
"What do you mean? Is there no climax?"
"Just that. You take the reader from protoplasm to paradise,—you lead him through labyrinths, mazes and mysteries, and leave him just where you started. If you cannot give the reader a ladder give him a straw,—but give him something."
We are all tenacious with the children of our brain, Edgar Saltus especially so, but in this instance he took the criticism willingly. That last chapter he re-wrote four times, amplifying the idea of the continuity of life and the possibility of reincarnation, which he referred to as the "supreme Alhambra of dream." What he offered then was not his belief, but a theory and a suggestion. The last chapter curiously enough was the part of the book receiving the highest praise from the critics, who with one accord said that he had struck a new and exalted note. A few years later he was wringing his hands because he could not re-write"Lords of the Ghostland" in the light of what he then knew. Over and over again he lamented this fact.
"If I had not been so pig-headed,—so dense. Having the chance to turn out a masterpiece,—a thing that would have lived,—I passed it by. I saw only in a restricted circle, when had I but looked up, a limitless horizon of wonder and wisdom stretched before me."
In the spring of 1907, the death of my father left me a nervous and physical wreck. Though never close friends, and knowing quite well of his disapproval, Mr. Saltus admired his splendid intellect and broad vision.
There are those who make tragedies out of trifles, and others to whom most events however important mean nothing at all. To the latter, when touched by an overwhelming grief, the world and everything in it become as shadows on glass.
Because of his sensitiveness and his super-susceptibility to suffering, Mr. Saltus was sympathetic to a degree. He had begun to see the beauty of service, and during that time he devoted himself to my family in every way that he knew how.
The autumn found me in California again,a nervous wreck, and so ill with acute gastritis, that death seemed but hiding around the corner. With an elderly friend of the family I always addressed as Aunt, and whose interests made it necessary for her to live in California for a time, we went from place to place, settling for the winter in a bungalow at Coronado Beach. If one must die, why not peacefully and pleasantly in the sunshine?
November brought Mr. Saltus to the Coronado Hotel. He had been mapping out a plot for "Daughters of the Rich." San Diego and Coronado enchanted him.
"Mynext novelshall open here," he exclaimed.
So it did. The opening chapter of "The Monster" introduces the reader to the Hotel del Coronado and the bay.
The bungalow occupied by us was none too large for two women and a maid. It had however a large attic room. Mr. Saltus gave it one look, and, in his own words, "miawed at the door and begged." It looked the backgroundfor a scribbler, with odd nooks and corners to hide manuscripts and curious old tables to write on. Once seen, nothing would do but he must have it. He declared that a djinn who lived there specialized in helping old scoundrels to scribble. I added that a horrible hourla lived there as well and that he made a practice of changing men into horned toads. (Horned toads are plentiful in Coronado.)
All this made him very insistent. California had always appealed to Mr. Saltus. It offered aspecial inducementthen, for under the laws of the State a divorce could be secured for abandonment. He thought that a man not worth changing for a hat was not worth keeping at all, and after a year's residence he could take the initiative in the matter,—hat or no hat. An attorney was consulted and retained. California was to be his home for a year at least.
In the circumstances Mr. Saltus was very anxious to settle down. He had wandered so much, and he was tired of it. A few trunksin an apartment hotel cannot be called a home. His popularity as a novelist had waned. Public opinion was against him, not only because of the publicity incidental to so many divorce suits, but because there had grown up and around him the belief that he was a free-thinker and lover, irritable and erratic,—a man who had few friends and a multitude of enemies.
However little he let all this affect him on the surface, Mr. Saltus was too acutely sensitive not to feel it, and it cut deep. Like a wounded animal seeking shelter, his one desire was to get as far away as he could from a world which, knowing but little of his real self, criticised and condemned him. To come in contact only with the things of nature and of beauty,—to live in the sunshine far from the haunts of men and the sordid struggle of a great city, was to him the ideal.
In view of all this, and after much cajoling on his part, and his constant reiteration that for three females,—one old, one ill and onenegligible,—a handy man about the house was a necessity, he was accepted. The prospect of Mr. Saltus being handy with anything but a pen or a knife and fork was remote. None the less, the attic shortly became his habitat, the djinn and the hourla his familiar spirits, and the plot of "The Monster" began fermenting in his mind.
It was a new world to the man accustomed for years to the limelight of publicity, and the diversions of a metropolis, to live for months on a narrow strip of sand, ministering to the wants of an elderly widow and an invalid, who at best could walk only a short three minutes to the sands at the ocean front, and spent most of her time resting in a hammock.
It must be said of him however that he came to the scratch with flying colours. Unaccustomed as he had been in his youth to look upon anything other than "Will it please me or will it not?" he began to put in practice one of life's most difficult lessons,—unselfishness. In his desire to serve another and quite unconsciousof the result, he began to build up some of the qualities in which he had been deficient so long. Having constituted himself a handy man and old dog Tray, in a place where servants are scarce as rubies, he kept burning and replenished the fire in the living-room. He also, in spite of the hours spent in using his eyes to write, would read aloud to the invalid whenever he was requested.
Strangely enough he was extremely happy in doing these things. Although the Hotel del Coronado was only a five minutes' walk from the bungalow it offered no attraction to him. Barring a daily dip in the ocean and the occasional necessity for going over to San Diego, he could not be persuaded to leave the grounds.
Winter wore away, and with the approach of spring the invalid emerged from the shadow of death; and old dog Tray remained at his post. Among Mr. Saltus' most marked characteristics were two fears,—that of losing his luggage and getting some contagious disease. In neither case could any amount of reasoningtouch him. The luggage complex put him to no end of inconvenience at times. When trunks could not be taken in a taxi, he frequently insisted upon driving with the express-man to the railway station. Then fear put out tentacles. Would the luggage be put on the train? If it was, would it be carried past its destination? Every railroad journey found him wandering like an earthbound spirit between his seat and the luggage van. It was a form of obsession. Many a time he would greet me in the morning with the announcement:—
"I had a terrible nightmare last night. What do you suppose it was?"
"That you had lost your trunks," was the first and usually the correct reply.
"Yes, I had lost them. They dematerialized and I was wandering through the train and express vans till I went mad. Then I awoke. It was awful."
Toward the end of his life, when Theosophy had done its work for him, and he realized that all possessions are anchors and encumbrances,this fear became modified,—but he never quite overcame it. It was the same with disease, or rather contagion. Having a horror of all forms of illness, he had the subconscious idea that if there was anything to be caught he would be in for it.
When in his last days he was so desperately ill with gastritis, he looked upon it as karma striking him in the face for shrinking as he had from others. Myself excepted, he rushed from people who were ill as from an earthquake.
This particular spring an epidemic of bubonic plague broke out in San Francisco. It was supposed to have been carried there by rats from China. As cats eat rats they also came under the ban of suspicion. The newspapers dripped with it. Mr. Saltus read them with horror. Ships from San Francisco might dock at San Diego. He had more nightmares. Behind him as he sought his lost luggage an army of rodents followed. There was no talking him out of it. The plague with all its attendant complications was hovering above us.
Coronado has a large winter colony as well as permanent residents,—eastern people who come in for the season and take houses. Their departure often means a number of homeless and discarded cats. Mr. Saltus was shocked by the cruelty of this. One of the vagrants with particularly long whiskers and a piteous miaw I had nicknamed "Jean Valjean." Where he slept was his own secret, but where he ate was usually out of my hand. When not referring to him by his name, Mr. Saltus called him "the table boarder," and he concerned himself not a little over Jean's well being.
Rumours of the bubonic plague changed that in an instant, and Jean became overnight the dangerous carrier of the most deadly germs, unfit for the society of humans and to be driven from the door. It was too ridiculous for argument. To have yielded an inch to Mr. Saltus in such a thing would have forfeited my mental ascendency forever, an exceedingly bad thing for him in every way. Had he been yielded to less during his formative years itwould have been a blessing both to himself and to others, and would have made possible a little yielding to him in later life. As it was, it was hazardous to give in, even if he had a certain amount of right on his side. When he had none, it was suicidal.
Laughing at his fears, ridiculing the idea of poor Jean carrying the plague, and assuring him that demons and devils were particularly immune, I refused to accept his hallucination about the cat. He was told to attend to his work and his writing, and not interfere with the running of the house.
Diplomacy was one of Mr. Saltus' strong points. He appeared to agree with me. Coming around the corner of the piazza the following afternoon however, when supposed to be on the sands, I was in time to see him with the hose in his hand, the nozzle turned so as to send a straight and powerful stream of water. This he was playing on Jean, who, terrified at such unlooked-for hostility in place of his usualplate of food, let out piteous howls and fled up a eucalyptus tree.
Hell has no fury like a woman defied. Dropping the hose when he saw me Mr. Saltus turned,—but he had no chance to escape or explain. Seizing the nozzle I let him have it full in the face, and as he ran I followed, soaking him through and through till he got out of range. It was a tense moment. Swearing and raging, he shook himself and fled to his attic room. When he emerged, an hour later, it was with suitcases in his hand.
"After treatment like this I am going to the Hotel del Coronado, and I will send for my trunks. Never in my life have I been subjected to such an indignity. Here I am,—growing grey in your service and less than a stray cat in your eyes."
"Good-bye and good luck," I answered. "If having led two unfortunate women a devil's dance hasn't taught you anything you are hopeless. Had one of them played a hose on you ages ago, I would not have been obligedto now. Don't come back for your trunks. I will send them."
That took him off his feet entirely. He had in mind a scene in which, after repentance and apologies on my part, he would graciously consent to forgive me. Incidentally it would mean the banishment of Jean. Dismissed in that way, there was nothing for him to do but go. With a suitcase in either hand he started for the hotel. Years later he told me that he had put his suitcases on the sand, and sitting down on one of them, had taken stock of himself. For the good part of two hours he sat there, till the sun dropping behind Point Loma, and the chill which followed, reminded him of the passing of time. A man can do a great deal of thinking in two hours.
Meanwhile, from the tiptop of the highest of trees poor Jean sent out frantic appeals for help and rescue. However easy it is for cats to climb trees, getting down is different. They have been known to starve to death in one. When dishes of dainties and fish failedto dislodge him more than a limb or two lower, we realized that it was impossible for him to get down, and the maid announced that the sun was setting and the rapidly vanishing twilight called for speed. The highest kind of an extension ladder was borrowed and opened to its utmost capacity. It barely reached the limb below the one to which the frightened cat clung. The slender ladder, swaying somewhat more than was comfortable as one ascended, the tall tree and the dark combined, were not tempting. Several small boys started up very bravely but came down less so. Not one of them got half-way to the top, although I kept raising the price for valour till it reached five dollars, and the terrified Jean increased his appeals for help. There seemed to be no alternative. Putting on my riding breeches I was starting up the ladder when a voice as pitiful as Jean's cracked the silence.
"My God, Mowgy, come off that ladder!"
Mr. Saltus pushed me aside and started up. He had never been on a ladder before. Withhis teeth set and three women doing their best to steady it, he finally got to the top, and by stretching his arm to the utmost caught Jean by the tail, and dropped him—not, as he intended, into my arms, but on the top of my head.
The episode was closed. The cat was saved, and by the following morning the bubonic scaretransformeditself into a comedy. Descending from the djinn and the hourla of the attic, Mr. Saltus greeted me with the following limerick:—