free-verse285 lines

George Joslin On La Menken

by Edgar Lee Masters

Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture!

Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline,

A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck,

Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles

And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know

It looks like Elenor Murray.

Well, you see

I read each day about the inquest - good!

Dig out the truth, begin a system here

Of making family records, let us see

If we can do for people when we know

How best to do it, what is done for stock.

So build up Illinois, the nation too.

I read about you daily. And last night

When Elenor Murray's picture in the Times

Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord,

Where have I seen that face before? I thought

Through more than fifty years departed, sent

My mind through Europe and America

In all my travels, meetings, episodes.

I could not think. At last I opened up

A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos,

Picked up since 1860, and behold

I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken.

Here is your Elenor Murray born again,

As here might be your blackbird of this year

With spots of red upon his wings, the same

As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing

Out of the April of this year, repeating

The color, form of one you saw last year.

Repeating and the same, but not the same;

No two alike, you know. I'll come to that.

Well, then, La Menken - as a boy in Paris

I saw La Menken, I'll return to this.

But just as Elenor Murray has her life

Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock -

And everyone has something in his life

Which takes him, makes him, is the image too

Of fate prefigured - La Menken has Mazeppa,

Her notable first part as actress, emblem

Of spirit, character, and of omen too

Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end.

Who is La Menken? Symbol of America,

One phase of spirit! She was venturesome,

Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident,

And as she wrote of self, a vagabond,

A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame

Aspiring but disreputable, coming up

With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed,

But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued

In time of blossom. There are souls, you know,

Who have shed shapeless immaturities,

Betrayals of the seed before the blossom

Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection;

Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves

Were hidden in the grass or soil - not she,

Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her.

But being America and American,

Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves

With prodigal recklessness, in vital health

And unselective taste and vision mixed

Of beauty and of truth.

Who was La Menken?

She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five,

Left fatherless at seven - mother takes her

And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans.

She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba;

Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy,

And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age

Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him;

Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist.

They quarrel and separate - it's in this pamphlet

Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner.

Now something happens, nothing in her birth

Or place of birth to prophesy her life

Like Starved Rock to this Elenor - being grown,

A hand instead is darted from the curtain

That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks

A symbol on her heart and whispers to her:

You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this:

She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off,

And lash me to the horse. They were afraid,

But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night,

And after that succeeded, was the rage

And for her years remaining found herself

Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will,

Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself

With stronger will than vision, passion stronger

Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world,

Love, beauty, living, greater than her power.

And all the time she had the appetite

To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last,

She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend:

The soul and body do not fit each other -

A human spirit in a horse's flesh.

This is your Elenor Murray, in a way.

But to return to pansies, run your hand

Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy

With petals stunted, here's another one

All perfect but one petal, here's another

Too streaked or mottled - all are pansies though.

And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye

With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray

Has something of the color and the form

Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy,

And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers

La Menken strove to be, and could not be,

Ended with being only of their kind.

And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray,

And people wept when poor La Menken died.

Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity,

It makes you overlook there are two hours:

The hour of joy, the hour of finding out

Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain.

We who inspect these lives behold the pain,

And see the error, do not keep in mind

The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed

With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens

Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn

For any other way - "this is the life"

I hear them say.

Well, now I go along.

La Menken fills her purse with gold - she sends

Her pugilist away, tries once again

And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr -

And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco,

And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles.

She goes to Europe then - with husband? No!

James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage.

She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite

In London's grandest hostlery, entertains

Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read,

The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand

And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman;

And for a crest a horse's head surmounting

Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa,

And piles the money up.

Then next is Paris.

And there I saw her, 1866,

When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece,

The Prince Imperial were in a box.

She wandered to Vienna, there was ill,

Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave

In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards

Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got

A little stone with these words carved upon it:

"Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself

Knew nothing of herself.

But when in Paris

They sold her picture taken with her arms

Around Dumas, and photographs made up

Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well,

Of her and great Dumas, I have them home.

Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas,

Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens,

By his permission, mark you - don't you see

Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray

A miniature imperfect of La Menken?

She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her;

A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh;

A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive,

Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical,

Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy,

Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said

She had a nature spiritual, religious

Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle;

Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church,

And did not keep the faith, if truth be told.

Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet

La Menken writes a poet - for she hunts

For seers and for poets, lofty souls.

And who does that? A woman wholly bad?

Why no, a woman to be given life

Fit for her spirit in another realm

By God who will take notice, I believe.

Now listen if you will! "I know your soul.

It has met mine somewhere in starry space.

And you must often meet me, vagabond

Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents

Disreputable before the just. Just think

I am a linguist, write some poems too,

Can paint a little, model clay as well.

And yet for all these gropings of my soul

I am a vagabond, of little use.

My body and my soul are in a scramble

And do not fit each other - let them carve

Those words upon my stone, but also these

Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love

Whatever is good and beautiful in life;

And that my soul has sought them without rest.

Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you,

Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris

Then die content."

Now, Coroner Merival,

You're not the only man who wants to see,

Will work to make America a republic

Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success.

Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much,

Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth

Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived.

I care not how you view the lives of people,

As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith

So high above the pansy bed it sees

The streaked and stunted pansies filling in

The pattern that the perfect pansies outline,

Therefore are smiling, even indifferent

To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last

Because it could not be the flower it wished.

My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken

Goes out in sorrow, even while I know

They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled,

And either did not know, or did not care

The growing time was precious, and if wasted

Could never be regained. Look at La Menken

At seven years put in the ballet corps;

And look at Elenor Murray getting smut

Out of experience that made her wise.

What shall we do about it? - let it go?

And say there is no help, or say a republic,

Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm

Of rulership as president a list

Of men more able than the emperors,

Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too

The equal of the greatest, money makers,

And domineers of finance and economies

Phenomenal in time - say, I repeat

A country like this one must let its children

Waste as they wasted in the darker years

Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds

Who see salvation, progress in restraint,

Pre-empt the field of moulding human life?

Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds

Upon the task, as recently we built

An army for the war, equipped and fed it,

An army better than all other armies,

More powerful, more apt of hand and brain,

Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said

Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse

I'll do it if I die - so giving to peace

The skill and genius which we use in war,

Though it cost twenty billion, and why not?

Why every dollar, every drop of blood

For war like this to guard democracy,

And not so much or more to build the land,

Improve our blood, make individual

America and her race? And first to rout

Poverty and disease, give youth its chance,

And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys

Have huts for recreation, clergymen,

And is it more, less worth to furnish hands

Intimate, hearts intimate for the use

Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths

Who feel such vigor in their restless wings

They tumble out of crowded nests and fly

To fall in thickets, dash themselves against

Walls, trees?

I have a vision, Coroner,

Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun,

A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours

Made over as to people, boys and girls,

Conserved like forests, water power or mines;

Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies

Practiced in spirits, waste of human life,

Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers,

Avoided by a science, science of life,

Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war,

And billions for the flag - all well enough!

Some billions now to make democracy

Democracy in truth with us, and life

Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may,

And missing much, as this La Menken did.

I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies,

That have no use but just to piece the pattern.

Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then

Our human duty ends, the God in us

Will have it just this way, no other way.

And then we may accept so poor a world,

A republic so unfinished.

* * * * *

Will Paget is another writer of letters

To Coroner Merival. The coroner

Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file

Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy

Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening

And reads this letter to the jurymen: