Ruth's Letter to Maurice, Six Months Later.
The springtime is here in our old home again,Which again you have left. Oh, most worthy of men,Why grieve for unworthiness? Why waste your lifeFor a woman who never was meant for a wife?Mabel Lee has no love in her nature. Your heartWould have starved in her keeping. She plays her new part,As the faithful, forgiving, sweet spouse, with content.I think she is secretly glad Roger wentAstray for a season. She stands up still higherOn her pedestal, now, for Bay Bend to admire.She is pleased with herself. As for Roger, he trotsLike a lamb in her wake, with the blemishing spotsOf his sins washed away by the Church. Oh I seemTo myself, in these days, like one waked from a dreamTo blessed reality. Off in the BayI saw a fair snowy sailed ship yesterday.The masts shone like gold, and the furrowed waves laughed,To be beat into foam by the beautiful craft.But close in the harbor I saw the ship lying;What seemed like the wings of a sea gull when flying,Were weather stained sheets; there were no masts of gold,And the craft was uncleanly, unseaworthy, old.Well, the man whom I loved, and loved vainly, and whomI fancied had shadowed my whole life with gloom,Has been shown to my sight like that ship in the Bay,And all my illusions have vanished away.The man is by nature weak, selfish, unstable.I think if some woman more loving than Mabel,More tender, more tactful, less painfully good,Had directed his home-life, perchance Roger wouldHave evolved his best self, that pure atom of God,Which lies deep in each heart like a seed in the sod.'Tis the world's over-virtuous women, ofttimes,Who drive men of weak will into sexual crimes.I pity him. (God knows I pity, each, allOf the poor striving souls who grope blindly and fallBy the wayside of life.) But the love which unbiddenCrept into my heart, and was guarded and hiddenFor years, that has vanished. It passed like a breath,In the gray Autumn morning when Roger faced death,As he thought, and uncovered his heart to my sight.Like a corpse, resurrected and brought to the light,Which crumbles to ashes, the love of my youthCrumbled off into nothingness. Ah, it is truth;Love can die! You may hold it is not the true thing,Not the genuine passion, which dies or takes wing;But the soil of the heart, like the soil of the earth,May, at varying times of the seasons, give birthTo bluebells, and roses, and bright goldenrod.Each one is a gift from the garden of God,Though it dies when its season is over. Why clingTo the withered dead stalk of the blossoms of springThrough a lifetime, Maurice? It is stubbornness only,Not constancy, which makes full many lives lonely.They want their own way, and, like cross children, flingBack the gifts which, in place of the lost flowers of spring,Fate offers them. Life holds in store for you yetBetter things, dear Maurice, than a dead violet,As it holds better things than dead daisies for me.To Roger Montrose, let us leave Mabel Lee,With our blessing. They seem to be happy; or sheSeems content with herself and her province; while heHas the look of one who, overfed with emotion,Tries a diet of spiritual health-food, devotion.He is broken in strength, and his face has the hueOf a man to whom passion has bidden adieu.He has time now to worship his God and his wife.She seems better pleased with the dregs of his lifeThan she was with the bead of it.
Well, let them makeWhat they will of their future. Maurice, for my sakeAnd your own, put them out of your thoughts. All too briefAnd too broad is this life to be ruined by griefOver one human atom. Like mellowing rain,Which enriches the soil of the soul and the brain,Should the sorrow of youth be; and not like the breathOf the cyclone, which carries destruction and death.Come, Maurice, let philosophy lift you aboveThe gloom and despair of unfortunate love.Sometimes, if we look a woe straight in the face,It loses its terrors and seems commonplace;While sorrow will follow and find if we roam.Come, help me to turn the old house into home.We have youth, health, and competence. Why should we goOut into God's world with long faces of woe?Let our pleasures have speech, let our sorrows be dumb,Let us laugh at despair and contentment will come.Let us teach earth's repiners to look through glad eyes,For the world needs the happy far more than the wise.I am one of the women whose talent and tasteLie in home-making. All else I do seems mere wasteOf time and intention; but no woman canMake a house seem a home without aid of a man.He is sinew and bone, she is spirit and life.Until the veiled future shall bring you a wife,Me a mate (and both wait for us somewhere, dear brother),Let us bury old corpses and live for each other.You will write, and your great heart athrob through your penShall strengthen earth's weak ones with courage again.Where your epigrams fail, I will offer a pill,And doctor their bodies with "new woman" skill.(Once a wife, I will drop from my name the M. D.I hold it the truth that no woman can beAn excellent wife and an excellent mother,And leave enough purpose and time for anotherProfession outside. And our sex was not madeTo jostle with men in the great marts of trade.The wage-earning women, who talk of their sphere,Have thrown the domestic machine out of gear.They point to their fast swelling ranks overjoyed;Forgetting the army of men unemployed.
The banner of Feminine "Rights," when unfurled,Means a flag of distress to the rest of the world.And poor Cupid, depressed by such follies and crimes,Sits weeping, alone, in the Land of Hard Times.The world needs wise mothers, the world needs good wives,The world needs good homes, and yet woman strivesTo be everything else but domestic. God's planWas for woman to rule the whole world,through a man.There is nothing a woman of sweetness and tactCan not do without personal effort or act.She needs but infuse lover, husband or sonWith her own subtle spirit, and lo! it is done.Though the man is unconscious, full oft, of the cause,And fancies himself the sole maker of laws.Well, let him. The cannon, no doubt, is the prouderFor not knowing its noise is produced by the powder.Yet this is the law:Who can love, can command.)But I wander too far from the subject in hand,Which is, your home coming. Make haste, dear; I findMore need every day of your counseling mind.I work well in harness, but poorly alone.Until that bright day when Fate brings us our own,Let us labor together. I see many ways,Many tasks, for the use of our talents and days.Your wisdom shall better the workingmen's lives,While I will look after their daughters and wives,And teach them to cook without waste; for, indeed,It is knowledge like this which the poor people need,Not the stuff taught in schools. You shall help them to think,While I show them what they can eat and can drinkWith least cost, and most pleasure and benefit. PleaseWrite me and say you will come, dear Maurice.Home, sister, and duty are all waiting here;Who keeps close to duty finds pleasure dwells near.
Maurice's Letter to Ruth:
No, no. I have gambled with destiny twice,And have staked my whole hopes on a home; but the diceThrown by Fate made me loser. Henceforward, I knowMy lot must be homeless. The gods will it so.
I fought, I rebelled; I was bitter. I stroveTo outwit the great Cosmic Forces, above,Or beyond, or about us, who guide and controlThe course of all things from the moat to the soul.
The river may envy the peace of the pond,But law drives it out to the ocean beyond.If it roars down abysses, or laughs through the land,It follows the way which the Forces have planned.
So man is directed. His only the choiceTo help or to hinder—to weep or rejoice.But vain is refusal—and vain discontent,For at last he must walk in the way that was meant.
My way leads through shadow, alone to the endI must work out my karma, and follow its trend.I must fulfill the purpose, whatever it be,And look not for peace till I merge in God's sea.
Though bankrupt in joy, still my life has its gain;I have climbed the last round in the ladder of pain.There is nothing to dread. I have drained sorrow's cupAnd can laugh as I fling it at Fate bottom up.
I have missed what I sought; yet I missed not the whole.The best part of love is in loving. My soulIs enriched by its prodigal gifts. Still, to giveAnd to ask no return, is my lot while I live.
Such love may be blindness, but where are love's eyes?Such love may be folly, love seldom is wise.Such love may be madness, was love ever sane?Such love must be sorrow, for all love is pain.
Love goes where it must go, and in its own season.Love cannot be banished by will or by reason.Love gave back your freedom, it keeps me its slave.I shall walk in its fetters, unloved, to my grave.
So be it. What right has the ant, in the dust,To cry that the world is all wrong, and unjust,Because the swift foot of a messenger trodDown the home, and the hopes, that were built in the sod?
What is man but an ant, in this universe scheme?Though dear his ambition, and precious his dream,God's messengers speed all unseen on their way,And the plans of a lifetime go down in a day.
No matter. The aim of the Infinite mind,Which lies back of it all, must be great, must be kind.Can the ant or the man, though ingenious and wise,Swing the tides of the sea—set a star in the skies?
Can man fling a million of worlds into space,To whirl on their orbits with system and grace?Can he color a sunset, or create a seed,Or fashion one leaf of the commonest weed?
Can man summon daylight, or bid the night fall?Then how dare he question the Force which does all?Where so much is flawless, where so much is grand,All, all must be right, could our souls understand.
Ah, man, the poor egotist! Think with what prideHe boasts his small knowledge of star and of tide.But when fortune fails him, or when a hope dies,The Maker of stars and of seas he denies!
I questioned, I doubted. But that is all past;I have learned the true secret of living at last.It is, to accept what Fate sends, and to knowThat the one thing God wishes of man—is to grow.
Growth, growth out of self, back to him—the First Cause:Therein lies the purpose, the law of all laws.Tears, grief, disappointment, well, what are all theseTo the Builder of stars and the Maker of seas?
Does the star long to shine, when He tells it to set,As the heart would remember when told to forget?Does the sea moan for flood tide, when bid to be low,As a soul cries for pleasure when given life's woe?
In the Antarctic regions a volcano glows,While low at its base lie the up-reaching snows.With patient persistence they steadily climb,And the flame will be quenched in the passage of time.
My heart is the crater, my will is the snow,Which yet may extinguish its volcanic glow.When self is once conquered, the end comes to pain,And that is the goal which I seek to attain.
I seek it in work, heaven planned, heaven sent;In the kingdom of toil waits the crown of content.Work, work! ah, how high and divine was its birth,When God, the first laborer, fashioned the earth.
The world cries for workers; not toilers for pelf,But souls who have sought to eliminate self.Can the lame lead the race? Can the blind guide the blind?We must better ourselves ere we better our kind.
There are wrongs to be righted; and first of them all,Is to lift up the leaners from Charity's thrall.Sweet, wisdomless Charity, sowing the seedWhich it seeks to uproot, of dependence and need.
For vain is the effort to give man contentBy clothing his body, by paying his rent.The garment re-tatters, the rent day recurs;Who seeks to serve God by such charity errs.
Give light to the spirit, give strength to the mind,And the body soon cares for itself, you will find.First, faith in God's wisdom, then purpose and will,And, like mist before sunlight, shall vanish each ill.
To the far realm of Wisdom there lies a short way.To find it we need but the password—Obey.Obey like the acorn that falls to the sod,To rise, through the heart of the oak tree, to God.
Though slow be the rising, and distant the goal,Serenity waits at the end for each soul.I seek it. Not backward, but onward I go,And since sorrow means growth, I will welcome my woe.
In the ladder of lives we are given to climb,Each life counts for only a second of time.The one thing to do in the brief little space,Is to make the world glad that we ran in the race.
No soul should be sad whom the Maker deemed worthThe great gift of song as its dower at birth.While I pass on my way, an invisible throngBreathes low in my ear the new note of a song.
So I am not alone; for by night and by dayThese mystical messengers people my way.They bid me to hearken, they bid me be dumbAnd to wait for the true inspiration to come.
THE END.