free-verse598 lines

Elenor Murray

by Edgar Lee Masters

Coroner Merival took the hundred letters

Which Elenor Murray wrote to Barrett Bays,

Found some of them unopened, as he said,

And read them to the jury. Day by day

She made a record of her life, and wrote

Her life out hour by hour, that he might know.

The hundredth letter was the last she wrote.

And this the Coroner found unopened, cut

The envelope and read it in these words:

"You see I am at Nice. If you have read

The other letters that I wrote you since

Our parting there in Paris, you will know

About my illness; but I write you now

Some other details."

"I went back to work

So troubled and depressed about you, dear,

About myself as well. I thought of you,

Your suffering and doubt, perhaps your hate.

And since you do not write me, not a line

Have written since we parted, it may be

Hatred has entered you to make distrust

Less hard to bear. But in no waking hour,

And in no hour of sleep when I have dreamed,

Have you been from my mind. I love you, dear,

Shall always love you, all eternity

Cannot exhaust my love, no change shall come

To change my love. And yet to love you so,

And have no recompense but silence, thoughts

Of your contempt for me, make exquisite

The suffering of my spirit. Could I sing

My sorrow would enchant the world, or write,

I might regain your love with beauty born

Out of this agony."

"When I returned

I had three typhoid cases given me.

And with that passion which you see in me

I gave myself to save them, took this love

Which fills my heart for you and nursed them with it;

Said to myself to keep me on my feet

When I was staggering from fatigue, 'Give now

Out of this love, it may be God's own gift

With which you may restore these boys to health.

What matter if he love you not.' And so

For twelve hours day by day I waged with death

A slowly winning battle."

"As they rallied,

But when my strength was almost spent - what comes?

This Miriam Fay writes odiously to me.

She has heard something of our love, or sensed

Some dereliction, since she learned that I

Had not been to confessional. Anyway

She writes me, writes our head-nurse. All at once

A cloud of vile suspicion, like a dust

Blown from an alley takes my breath away,

And blinds my eyes. With all these things piled up,

My labors and my sorrow, your neglect,

My fears of a dishonorable discharge

From service, which I love, I faint, collapse,

Have streptococcus of the throat, and lie

Two weeks in fever, sleepless, and with thoughts

Of you, and what may happen, my disgrace.

But suffering brought me friends, the officers

Perhaps had heard the scandal, but they knew

My heart was in the work. The major who

Was the attending doctor of these boys

I broke myself with nursing, cared for me,

And cheered me with his praise. And so it was

Your little soldier, still I call myself,

Your little soldier, though you own me not,

Turned failure into victory, won by pain

Befriending hands. The major kept me here

And intercepted my discharge, procured

My furlough here in Nice."

"I rose from bed,

Went back to work, in nine days failed again,

This time with influenza; for three weeks

Was ill enough to die, for all the while

My fever raged, my heart was hurting too,

Because of you. When I got up again

I looked a ghost, was weaker than a child,

At last came here to Nice."

"This is the hundredth

Letter that I've written since we parted.

My heart is tired, dear, I shall write no more.

You shall have silence for your silence, yet

When I am silent, trust me none the less,

Believe I love you. If you say that I

Have hidden secrets, have not told you all,

The diary flung away to keep my life

Beyond your eye's inspection, still I say

Where is your right to know what lips I've kissed,

What hopes or dreams I cherished in the past

Before I knew you. If you still accuse

My spirit of deceit, hypocrisy

In lifting up my flower of love to you

Fresh, as it seemed, with morning dew, not tears,

I have my own defense for that, you'll see.

Or lastly, if your love is turned to gall

Because, as you discovered, body of love

Was given to Gregory Wenner, after you

Had come to me in love and chosen me

As servant of you in the war, I write

To clear myself to you respecting that,

And re-insist 'twas body of love alone,

Not love I gave, and what I gave was given

Because you won me, left me, did not claim

As wholly yours what you had won. But now,

As I have hope of life beyond the grave,

As I love God, though serving Him but ill,

I say to you, I have been wholly yours

In spirit and in body since the day

I gave to you the locket, sat with you

And heard the waltz of Chopin, six days after

I went with Gregory Wenner. I explain

Why I did this, shall mention it no more;

You must be satisfied or go your way

In bitterness and hatred."

"But first, my love,

As spirits equal and with equal rights,

Or privilege of equal wrongs, have I

Demanded former purity of you?

I have repelled revealments of your past;

Have never questioned of your marriage, asked,

Which might be juster, rights withdrawn from her;

May rightly think, since you and she have life

In one abode together, that you live

As marriage warrants. And above it all

Have I not written you to go your way,

Find pleasures where you could, have only begged

That you keep out of love, continue to give

Your love to me? And why? Be cynical,

And think I gave you freedom as a gallant

That I might with a quiet conscience take

Such freedom for myself. It is not true:

I've learned the human body, know the male,

And know his life is motile, does not rest,

And wait, as woman's does, cannot do so.

So understanding have put down distaste,

That you should fare in freedom, in my heart

Have wished that love or ideals might sustain

Your spirit; but if not, my heart is filled

With happiness, if you love me. Take these thoughts

And with them solve your sorrow for my past,

Your loathing of it, if you feel that way

However bad it be, whatever sins

Imagination in you stirred depicts

As being in my past."

"Men have been known

Whom women made fifth husbands, more than that.

Not my case, I'll say that, and if you face

Reality, and put all passion love

Where nature puts it by the side of love

Which custom favors, you have only left

The matter of the truth to grasp, believe,

See clearly and accept: Do I swear true

I love you, and since loving you am faithful,

Cannot be otherwise, nor wish to be?"

"Dear, listen and be fair. You did not love me

When first I came to you. You did not ask,

Because of love, a faithfulness; in truth

You did not ask a faithfulness at all.

But then and theretofore you treated me

As woman to be won, a happiness

To be achieved and put aside. Be fair,

This was your mood. But if you loved me then,

Or soon thereafter loved me, as I know,

What should I do? I loved you, am a woman.

At last behold your love, am lifted, thrilled.

See what I thought was love before was nothing;

Know I was never loved before you loved me;

And know as well I never loved before;

Know all the former raptures of my heart

As buds in March closed hard and scentless, never

The June before for my heart! O, my love,

What should I do when this most priceless gift

Was held up like a crown within your hands

To place upon my brows - what should I do?

Take you aside and say, here is the truth,

Here's Gregory Wenner - what's the good of that?

How had it benefited you or me,

Increased your love, or founded it upon

A surer rock than beauty? Hideous truth!

Useless too often, childish in such case.

You would have suffered, turned from me, and lost

The rapture which I gave you, and if rapture

Be not a prize, where in this world so much

Of ugliness and agony prevails,

I do not know our life."

"But just suppose

I gave you rapture, beauty - you concede

I gave you these, that's why you suffer so:

You choose to think them spurious since you found

I knew this Gregory Wenner, are they so?

They are as real in spite of Gregory Wenner

As if my lips had been a cradled child's.

But just suppose, as I began to say,

You never had discovered Gregory Wenner,

And had the rapture, beauty which you had,

How stands the case? Was I not justified

In hiding Gregory Wenner to preserve

The beauty and the rapture which you craved?

Dear, it was love of beauty which impelled

What you have called deceit, it was my woman's

Passionate hope to give the man she loved

The beauty which he saw in her that inspired

My acting, as you phrase it, an elaborate

Hypocrisy, an ugly word from you!...

But listen, dear, how spirit works in love:

When you beheld me pure, I would be pure;

As virginal, I would be virginal;

As innocent, I would be innocent;

As truthful, constant, so I would be these

Though to be truthful, constant when I loved you

Came to me like my breath, as natural.

So I would be all things to you for love,

Fill full your dreams, your vision of my soul

For now and future days, but make myself

In days before I knew you what you thought,

Believed and cherished. Hence if you combine

The thought that what I was did not concern you,

With fear that if you knew, your heart would change;

And with these join that passionate zeal of love

To be your lover, wholly beautiful,

You have the exposition of my soul

In its elaborate deceit, - your words."

"Some fifty years ago a man and woman

Are talking in a room, say certain things,

We were not there! We two are with each other

Somewhere, and fifty years from now, we two

Will look to after souls who were not there

Like figures in a crystal globe; I mean

To lift to light the wounds of brooding love,

And show you that the world contains events

Of which we live in ignorance, if we know

They hurt us with their mystery, coming near

In our soul's cycle, somehow. But the dead,

And what they lived, what are they? - what the things

Of our dead selves to selves who are alive,

And live the hour that's given us?"

"What's your past

To me, beloved, if your soul and body

Are mine to-day, not only mine, but made

By living more my own, more rich for me,

More truly harmonized with me? Believe me

You are my highest hope made real at last,

The climax of my love life, I accept

Whatever passed in rooms in years gone by;

Whatever contacts, raptures, pains or hopes

As schooling of your soul to make it precious,

And for my worship, my advancement, kneel

And thank the God of mysteries and wisdom

Who made you for me, let me find you, love you!"

"Now of myself a word. In years to come

These words I write will seem all truth to you,

Their prism colors, violet and red,

Will fade away and leave them in the light

Arranged and reasonable and wholly true.

Then you will read the words: I found you, dear,

After a life of pain; and you will see

My spirit like a blossom that you watch

From budding to unfolding, knowing thus

How it matured from day to day. I say

My life has been all pain, I see at first

A father and a mother linked in strife.

Am thrown upon my girlhood's strength to teach,

Earn money for my schooling, would know French;

I studied Greek a little, gave it up,

Distractions, duties, came too fast for me.

I longed to sing, took lessons, lack of money

Ended the lessons. But above it all

My heart was like an altar lit with flame,

Aspired to heaven, asked for sacrifice,

For incense to be bright, more beautiful

For beauty's sake. And in my soul's despair,

And just to use this vital flame, I turned

To God, the church. You must be stone to hear

Such words as these and not relent, an image

Of basalt which I pray to not to see

And not to hear! But listen! look at me,

Did I become a drifter, wholly fail?

Did I become a common woman, turn

To common life and ways? Can you dispute

My eyes were fixed upon a lovelier life,

Have never gaze withdrawn from loveliness?

Did I give up, or break, turn to the flesh,

Pleasures, the solace of the senses - No!

Where some take drink to ease their hurts and dull

Their disappointments, I renewed my will

To sacrifice and service, work, who saw

These things in essence may be drink as well,

And bring the end, oblivion while you live,

But bring supremacy instead of failure,

Collapse, disgust and fears. Think what you will

Of me for Gregory Wenner, and imagine

The worst you may, I stand here as I am,

With my life proven! And to end the pain

I went to nurse the soldiers in the war

With thoughts that if I died in service, good!

Not that I gladly give up life, I love it.

But life must be surrendered; let it be

In service, as some end it up in drink,

Or opium or lust. Beloved heart,

I know my will is stronger than my vision,

That passion masters judgment; that my love

For love and life and beauty are too much

For gifts like mine; I know that I am dumb,

Songless, without articulate words - but still

My very dumbness is a kind of speech

Which some day will flood down your deafened rocks,

And sweep my meaning over you."

"Well, now

Why did I turn to Gregory from you?

I did not love you or I had not done it.

You did not love me or I had not done it.

I loved him once, he had been good to me.

He was an old familiar friend and touch....

Farewell, if it must be, but save me grief,

The greatest agony: Be brave and strong,

Be all that God requires your soul to be,

O, give me not this cup of poison - this:

That I have been your cause of bitterness;

Have stopped your growth and introverted you,

Given you eyes that see but lies and lust

In human nature, evil in the world -

Eyes that God meant to see the good and strive

For goodness. If I drove you from the war,

Made you distrust its purpose and its faith,

Triumphant over selfishness and wrong,

Oh, leave me with the hope that peace will come,

And vision once again to bless your life.

Behold me as America, taught but half,

Wayward and thoughtless, fighting for a chance;

Denied its ordered youth, thrown into life

But half prepared, so seeking to emerge

Out of a tangled blood, and out of the earth

A creature of the earth that strives to win

A soul, a voice. Behold me thus - forgive!

Take from my life the beauty that you found,

Nothing can kill that beauty if you press

Its blossom to your heart, and with it rise

To nobleness, to duty, give your life

To our America."

"The Lord bless you,

And make his face to shine upon you, and

Be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance

Upon you, give you peace, both now and ever

More. Amen!"

* * * * *

So Elenor's letters ended

The evidence. The afternoon was spent.

The inquest was adjourned till ten o'clock

Next morning. They arose and left the room....

And Merival half-ill went home. Next day

He lounged with books and had the doctor in,

And read his mail, more letters, articles

About the inquest, Elenor. And from France

A little package came. And here at last

Is Elenor Murray's diary! Merival turns

And finds the entries true to Barrett Bays;

Some word, a letter too from France which says:

The sender learned the name by tracing out

A number in the diary, heard the news

Of Elenor Murray from the paper at home

In Illinois. And of the diary this:

He got it from a poilu who was struck

By this same diary on the cheek. A slap

That stung him, since the diary had been thrown

By Elenor Murray from the second story.

This poilu, being tipsy, raved and thought

Some challenger had struck him. Roaring so

He's taken in. Some weeks elapse, he meets

Our soldiers from the States, and shows the diary,

And tells the story, has the diary read

By this American, gives up the diary

For certain drinks. And this American

Has sent it to the coroner.

A letter

To Merival from an old maiden aunt,

Who's given her life to teaching, pensioned now

And visiting at Madison, Wisconsin.

Aunt Cynthia writes to Merival and says:

"I know you are fatigued, a little tired

With troubles of the lower plane of life.

Quit thinking of the war and Elenor Murray.

Each soul should use its own divinity

By mastering nature outward and within.

Do this by work or worship, Soul's control,

Philosophy, by one or more or all.

Above them all be free. This is religion,

And all of it. Books, temples, dogmas, rituals

Or forms are details only. By these means

Find God within you, prove that you and God

Are one, not several, justify the ways

Of God to man, to speak the western way.

I wish you could be here while I am here

With Arielle, she is a soul, a woman.

You need a woman in your life, my dear -

I met her in Calcutta five years since,

She and her husband toured the world - and now

She is a widow these two years. I started

Arielle in the wisdom of the East.

That avid mind of hers devours all things.

She is an adept, but she thinks her sense

Of fun and human nature as the source

Of laughter and of tears keep her from being

A mystic, though she uses Hindu thought

And practice for her soul."

"I'd like to send

Some pictures of her, if she'd let me do it:

Arielle with her dogs upon the lawn,

Her arms about their necks. Or Arielle

About her flowers. I've another one,

Arielle on her favorite horse: another,

Arielle by her window, hand extended,

The very soul of rhythm; and another,

Arielle laughing like a rising sun,

No one can laugh as she does. For you see

Her outward soul is love, her inward soul

Is wisdom and that makes her what she is:

A Robin Goodfellow, a Puck, a girl,

A prankish wit, a spirit of bright tears,

A queenly woman, clothed in majesty,

A rapture and a solace, comrade, friend,

A lover of old women such as I;

A mother to young children, for she keeps

A brood of orphans in her little town.

She is a will as disciplined as steel,

Has suffered and grown wise. Her tenderness

Is hidden under words so brief and pure

You cannot sense the tenderness in all

Until you read them over many times.

She is a lady bountiful, who gives

As prodigally as nature, and she asks

No gifts from you, but gets them anyway,

Because all spirits pour themselves to her.

If I were taking for America

A symbol, it would be my Arielle

And not your Elenor Murray."

"Here's her life!

Her father died when she was just a child,

Leaving a modest fortune to a widow,

Arielle's mother, also other children.

After a time the mother went to England

And settled down in Sussex. There the mother

Was married to a scoundrel, mad-man, genius,

Who tyrannized the household, whipped the children.

So Arielle at fourteen ran away.

She pined for her Wisconsin and America.

She went to Madison, or near the place,

And taught school in the country, much the same

As Elenor Murray did.

"Now here is something:

Behold our world, humanity, the groups

Of people into states, communities,

Full up of powers and virtues, aid and light -

Friends, helpers, understanders of the soul.

It may be just the status of enlightment,

But I think there are brothers of the light,

And powers around us; for if Elenor Murray

Half-fails, is broken, here is Arielle

Who with the surer instinct finds the springs

Of health and life. And so, I say, if I

Had daughters, and were dying, leaving them,

I should not fear; for I should know the world

Would care for them and give them everything

They had the strength to take."

"Here's Arielle.

She teaches school and studies - O that wag -

She posts herself in Shakespeare, forms a class

Of women thrice her age and teaches them,

Adds that way to her earnings. Just in time -

Such things are always opportune, a man

Comes by and sees her spirit, says to her

You may read Plato, and she reads and passes

To Kant and Schopenhauer. So it goes

Until by twenty all her brain is seething

With knowledge and with dreams. She is beloved

By all the people of the country-side,

Besought and honored - yet she keeps to self,

Has hardly means enough, since now she sends

Some help to mother who has been despoiled,

Abandoned by the mad-man."

"Then one spring

A paper in Milwaukee gives a prize,

A trip to Europe, to the one who gets

The most subscriptions in a given time -

And Arielle who has so many friends -

Achievement brings achievement, friends bring friends -

Finds rallying support and wins the prize.

Is off to Europe where she meets the man

She married when returned."

"He is a youth

Of beauty and of promise, yet a soul

Who riots in the sunlight, honey of life.

And gets his wings gummed in the poisonous sweet.

And Arielle one morning wakes to find

A horror on her hands: her husband's found

Dead in a house of ill-fame. She is calm

Out of that rhythm, sense of beauty which

Makes her a power, all her deeds a song.

She lays the body under the dancing muses

There in the wondrous library and flings

A purple robe across it, kneels and lays

Her sunny head against it, says a prayer.

She had been constant, loyal even to dreams,

To this wild youth, whose errant ways she knew.

Now don't you see the contrast? I refrain

From judging Elenor Murray, but I say

One thing is beautiful and one is not.

And Arielle is beautiful as a spirit,

And Elenor is somewhat beautiful,

But streaked and mottled, too. Say what you will

Of freedom, nature, body's rights, no less

Honor and constancy are beautiful,

And truth most beautiful. And Arielle

Could kneel beside the body of her dead,

Who had neglected her so constantly,

And say a prayer of thankfulness that she

Had honored him throughout those seven years

Of married life - she prayed so - why, she says

That prayer was worth a thousand stolen raptures

Offered her in the years of life between."

"Now here she was at thirty

Left to a mansion there in Madison.

Her husband lived there; it was life, you know,

For her to meet one of her neighborhood

In Europe, though a stranger until then.

And here is Arielle in her mansion, priestess

Amid her treasures, beauties, for this man

Has left her many thousands, and she lives

Among her books and flowers, rides and walks,

And frolics with her dogs, and entertains."...

And as the Coroner folded the letter out

A letter from this Arielle fell, which read:

"We have an aunt in common, Cynthia.

I know her better than you do, I think,

And love her better too. You men go off

With wandering and business, leave these aunts,

And precious kindred to be found by souls

Who are more kindred, maybe. I have heard

Most everything about you, of your youth

Your schooling, shall I say your sorrow too?

Admire your life, have studied Elenor,

As I have had the chance or got the word.

And what your aunt writes in advice I like,

Approve of and commend to you. You see

I leap right over social rules to write,

And speak my mind. So many friends I've made

By searching out and asking. Why delay?

Time slips away like moving clouds, but Life

Says to the wise make haste. Is there a soul

You'd like to know? Then signal it. I light

From every peak a beacon fire, my peaks

Are new found heights of vision, reaching them

I either see a beacon light, or flash

A beacon light. And thus it was I found

Your Cynthia and mine, and now I write.

I have a book to send you, show that way

How much I value your good citizenship,

Your work as coroner. I had the thought

Of coroners as something like horse doctors -

Your aunt says you're as polished as a surgeon.

When I was ripe for Shakespeare some one brought

His books to me; when I was ripe for Kant,

I found him through a friend. I know about you,

I sense you too, and I believe you need

The spiritual uplifting of the Gita.

You haven't read it, have you? No! you haven't.

I wish that Elenor Murray might have read it.

I grieve about that girl, you can't imagine

How much I grieve. Nov write me, coroner,

What is your final judgment of the girl."

"I have so many friends who love me, always

New friends come by to give me wisdom - you

Can teach me, I believe, a man like you

So versed in life. You must have learned new things

Exploring in the life of Elenor Murray.

I was about to write you several times.

I loved that girl from all I heard of her.

She must have had some faculty or fault

That thwarted her, and left her, so to speak,

Just looking into promised lands, but never

Possessing or enjoying them - poor girl!

And here she flung her spirit in the war

And wrecked herself - it makes me sorrowful.

I went to Europe through a prize I won,

And saw the notable places - but this girl

Who hungered just as much as I, saw nothing

Or little, gave her time to labor, nursing -

It is most pitiful, if you'll believe me

I've wept about your Eleanor. Write me now

What is your final judgment of the girl?"...

So Merival read these letters, fell asleep.

Next day was weaker, had a fever too,

And took to bed at last. He had to fight

Six weeks or more for life. When he was up

And strong enough he called the jury in

And at his house they talked the case and supped.