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The Jury Deliberates

by Edgar Lee Masters

The jurymen are seated here and there

In Merival's great library. They smoke,

And drink a little beer or Scotch. Arise

At times to read the evidence taken down,

And typed for reference. Before them lie

Elenor Murray's letters, all the letters

Written to Merival - there's Alma Bell's,

And Miriam Fay's, letters anonymous.

The article of Roberts in the Dawn,

That one of Demos, Hogos; a daily file

Of Lowell's Times - Lowell has festered now

Some weeks, a felon-finger in a stall.

And where is Barrett Bays? In Kankakee

Where Elenor Murray's ancestor was kept.

The strain and shame had broken him; a fear

Fell on him of a consequence when the coroner

Still kept him with a deputy. He grew wild,

Attacked the deputy, began to wander

And show some several selves. A multiple

Spirit of devils had him. Dr. Burke

Went over him and found him mad.

And now

The jury meet amid a rapid shift

Of changes, mist and cloud. The man is sick

Who administers the country. Has come back

To laud the pact of peace; his auditors

Turn silently away, whole states assemble

To hear and turn away, sometimes to heckle.

And if a mattoid emperor caused the war,

And Elenor Murrays put the emperor down,

The emperor, could he laugh at all, can laugh

To see a country, bent to spend its last

Dollar, its blood to the last drop, having spent

Enough of these, go mad as Barrett Bays.

And like a headless man, seen in a dream,

Go capering in an ecstasy of doubt,

Regret and disillusion. He can laugh

To see the pact, which took the great estate,

Once his and God's, and wrapt it as with snakes

That stung and sucked, rejected in the land

That sent these Elenor Murrays to make free

The world from despotism. See that very land

Crop despotisms - so the jury sees

Convened to end the case of Elenor Murray....

And Rev. Maiworm, juryman, gives his thought

To conquest of the world for Christ, and says

The churches must unite to free the world

From war and sin. Result? Why less and less

Homes like the Murray home, where husband, wife,

Live in dissension. More and more of schools

For Elenor Murrays. Happy marriages

Will be the rule, our Elenors will find

Good husbands, quiet hearths, a competence.

And Isaac Newfeldt said: "You talk pish-posh.

You go about at snipping withered leaves,

And picking blasted petals - take the root,

Get at the soil - you cannot end these wars

Until you solve the feeding problem. Quit

Relying on your magic to make bread

With five loaves broken, raise a bigger crop

Of wheat, and get it to the mouths of men.

And as for sin - what is it? - All of sin

Lies in the customs, comes from how you view

The bread and butter matter; all your gods

And sons of God are guardians of the status

Of business and of money; sin a thing

Which contradicts, or threatens banks and wharves.

And as for that your churches now control

As much as human nature can digest

A dominance like that. And what's the state

Of things in Christendom? Why, wars, and want

And many Elenor Murrays. Tyrannies

Are like as pea and pea; you shall not drink,

Or read, or talk, or trade, are from one pod.

What would I do? Why, socialize the world,

Then leave men free to live or die, let nature

Go decimating as she will, and weed

The worthless with disease or alcohol -

You won't see much of that, however, if

You socialize the world."

And David Barrow

Spoke up and said: "No ism is enough.

The question is, Is life worth living, good

Or bad? If bad, I think that Elenor Murray had

As good a life as any. Here we've sat

These weeks and heard these stories - nothing new;

And as to waste, our time is wasted here,

If there were better things to do; and yet

Perhaps there is no better. I've enjoyed

This work, association. Well, you're told

To judge not, and that means to judge not man;

You are not told to judge not God. And so

I judge Him. And again your Elenor Murrays,

Your human being cannot will his way,

But God's omnipotent, and where He fails

He should be censured. Why does He allow

A world like this, and suffer earthquakes, storms,

The sinking of Titanics, cancers? Why

Suffer these wars, this war? - Talk of the riffles

That flowed from Elenor Murray - here's a wave

Of tidal power, stirred by a greedy coot

Who called himself an emperor! And look

Our land, America, is ruined, slopped

For good, or for our lives with filth and stench;

So that to live here takes what strength you have,

None left for living, as a man should live.

And this America once free and fair

Is now the hatefulest, commonest group of men,

Women and children in the Occident.

What's life here now? Why, boredom, nothing else....

Why pity Elenor Murray? Gottlieb Gerald

Told of her home life; it was good enough,

Average American, or better. Schools

She had in plenty, what would she have done

With courses to the end in music, art?

She was not happy. Elenor had a brain,

And brains and happiness are at enmity.

And if the world goes on some thousand years,

The race as much advanced beyond us now

In feeling, thought, as we are now beyond

Pinthecanthropus, say, why, all will see

What I see now; - 'twere better if the race

Had never risen. All analogies

Of nature show that death of man is death.

He plants his seed and dies, the resurrection

Is not the man, but is the child that grows

From sperm he sows. The grain of wheat that sprouts

Is not the stalk that bore it. Now suppose

We get the secret in a thousand years,

Can prove that death's the end, analogies

Put by with amber, frogs' legs - tell me then

What opiate will still the shrieks of men?

But some of us know now, and I am one.

There is no heaven for me; and as for those

Who make a heaven to get out of this -

You gentlemen who call life good, the world

The work of God's perfection; yet invent

A heaven to rest in from this world of woe -

You do not wish to go there; and resort

To cures and Christian Science to stay here!

Which shows you are not sure. And thus we have

Your Christian saying at heart that life is bad,

And heaven is good, but not so good and sure

That you will hurry to it. Why, I'll prove

The Christian pessimist, as well as I.

He says life is so bad it has no meaning,

Unless there be a future; and I say

Life's bad, and if no future, then is worse.

And as it has no future, is a hell.

This girl was soaked in opiates to the last.

Religion, love for Barrett Bays, believed

That God is love. Love is a word to me

That has no meaning but in terms of man.

And if a man cause war, or suffer war,

When he could stop it, do we say he loves?

Why call God love who can prevent a war?

To chasten us, to better, purge our sins?

Well, if it be then we are bettered, purged

When William Hohenzollern goes to war

And makes the whole world crazy."

"Understand

I do not mock, I pity man and life.

No man has sat here who has suffered more,

Seeing the life of Elenor Murray, through

Her life beholding life, our country's life.

I pity man and life. I curse the scheme

Which wakes the senseless clay to lips that bleed,

And eyes that weep, and hearts that agonize,

Then in an instant make them clay again!

And for it all no reason, that the reason

Can bring to light to stand the light."

"And yet

I'd make life better, food and shelter better

And wider happiness, and fuller love.

We're travelers on a ship that has no bourne

But rocks, for us. On such a ship 'twere wise

To have the daily comforts, foolish course

To neither eat, nor sleep, keep warm, nor sing.

But only walk the rainy deck and wait.

The little opiates of happiness

Would make the sailing better, though we know

The trip is nowhere and the rocks will sink

The portless steamer."

"Is it portless?" asked

Llewellyn George, "you're leaping to a thought,

And overlook a world of intimations,

And hints of truth. I grant you take this race

That lives to-day, and make the world a boat

There is no port for us as human lives

In this our life. But look, you see the race

Has climbed, a mountain trail, and looks below

From certain heights to-day at man the beast.

We scan a half a million years of man

From caves to temples, gestures, beacon fires

To wireless. Call that mechanical,

And power developed over tools. But here

Is mystery beyond these. - What of powers,

Devotions, aspirations, sacred flame

Which masters nature, worships life, defies

Death to obstruct it, hungers for the right,

The truth, hates wrong, and by that passion wills

All art, all beauty, goodness, and creates

Those living waters of increasing life

By which man lives, and has to-day the means

Of fuller living. Here's a realm of richness,

Beyond and separate from material things,

Your aeroplanes or conquests. Now I put

This question to you, David Barrow, what

But God who is and has some end for life,

And gives it meaning, though we see it not -

What is it in the heart of man which lifts,

Sustains him to the truth, the harmony,

The beauty say of loyalty, or truth

Or art, or science? lighting lamps for men

To walk by, men who hate the lamps, the hand

That lights? What is this spirit, but the spirit

Of Something which moves through us, to an end,

And by its constancy in man made constant

Proclaims an end? There's Bruno, Socrates,

There's Washington who might have lost his life,

Why do these men cling to the vision, hope?

When neither poverty, nor jeers, nor flames,

Nor cups of poison stay? Who say thereby

That death is nothing, but this life of ours,

Which can be shaped to truth and harmony,

And rising flame of spirit, giving light,

Is everything worth while, must be lived so

And if not lived so, then there's death indeed,

By turning from the voice that says that man

Must still aspire. And why aspire if death

Ends us, the scheme? And all this realm of spirit,

Of love for truth and beauty, is the play

Of shadows on the tomb?"

"Now take this girl:

She knew before she sailed to France, this man,

This Barrett Bays was mad about her - knew

She could stay here and have him, live with him,

And thus achieve a happiness. And she knew

To leave him was to make a chance to lose him.

But then you say she knew he'd tire of her,

And left for France. And still that happiness

Before he tired would be hers. You see

This spirit I'd delineate working here:

To sacrifice and by the sacrifice

Rise to a bigger spirit, make it truer;

Then bring that truer spirit to her love

For Barrett Bays, and not just loll and slop

In love to-day. Why does she wish to give

A finer spirit to this Barrett Bays?

And to that end take life in hand? It's this:

My Something, God at work. You say it's woman

In sublimate of passion - call it that.

Why sublimate a passion? All her life

This girl aspires - you think to win a man?

But win a man with what? With finest self

Make this her contribution to these riches,

Which Bruno and the others filled so full.

You see this Something going on, but races

Come up, express themselves and pass away;

But yet this Something manifests itself

Through souls like Elenor Murray's - fills her life

With fuller meanings, maybe at the last

This Something will reveal itself so clear

That men like David Barrow can perceive.

And Love, this spirit, twin of Death, you see

Love slays this girl, but Love remains to slay,

Lift up, drive on and slay. I call Death twin

Of Love, and why? Because two things alone

Make what we are and live, first Love the flame,

And Death the cap that snuffs it. Is it bread

That keeps us dancing, skating like these bugs

That play criss-cross on evening waters? - no!

It's bread to get more life to give more love,

Bring to some heart a fuller life, receive

A fuller life for having given life.

This force of love may look demonical.

It tears, destroys, and crushes, chokes and kills,

Is always stretching hands to Death its twin.

And yet it is creation and creates,

Feeds roses, jonquils, columbines, gardenias,

As well as thistles, cockle burrs and thorns.

This is the force to which the girl's alert,

And sensitive, is shaken by its power,

Driven, uplifted, purified; a doll

Of paper dancing on magnetic plates;

And by that passion lusts for Death himself,

For union with another, sacrifice,

Beauty, and she aspires and toils, and turns

To God, the symptom always of this nature.

My fellow-jurymen, you'll never see,

Or learn so well about another soul

That had this Love force deeper in her flesh,

Her spirit, suffered more. Why do we suffer?

What is this love force? 'Tis the child of blood

Of madness, as this Elenor is the seed

Of that old grandma, who was mad, and cousin

Of Taylor who did murder. What is this

But human spirit flamed and subtleized

Until it is a poison and a food;

A madness but a clearest sanity;

A vision and a blindness, all as if

When nature goes so far, refines so much

Her balance has been broken, if the Something

Makes not a genius or a giant soul.

And so we suffer. But why do we suffer?

Well, not as Barrow said, that life is bad;

A failure and a fraud. Not suffering

That points to dust, defeat, is painfulest;

But suffering that points to skies and realms

Above us, whence we came, or where we go,

That suffering is most poignant, as it is

Significant as well, and rapturous too.

The pain that thrills us for the singing Flame

Of Love, the force creative, that's the pain!

And those must suffer most to whom the sounds

Of music or of words, or scents, or scenes

Recall lost realms. No soul can understand

Music or words in whom there is not stirred

A recollection - that is genius too:

A memory, and reliving hours we lived

Before we looked upon this world of man."...

Then Winthrop Marion said: "I like your talk,

Llewellyn George, but still what killed the girl?

What was the cause of death of Elenor Murray?

She died from syncope, that's clear enough.

The doctors tell us that in syncope

The victim should be laid down, not held up.

And Barrett Bays, the bungler, held her up

When she was stricken - like the man, I think!

Well, Coroner, suppose we make a verdict,

And say we find that had this Barrett Bays

Sustained this Elenor Murray in the war,

And in her life, with friendship, and with faith

She had not died. Suppose we further find

That when he took her, held her in his arms

When she had syncope, he was dull or crazed,

And missed a chance to save her. We could find

That had he laid her down when she was stricken

She might have lived - I knew that much myself.

And we could find that had he never driven

This woman from his arms, but kept her there,

Before said day of August 7th, no doubt

She had not died on August 7th. In short,

He held her up, and should have laid her down,

And drove her from him when she needed arms

To hold her up. And so we find her death

Was due to Barrett Bays - we censure him,

Would hold him to the courts - that cannot be -

And so we hold him up for memory

Contemptuous, and say his bitter words

Brought on the syncope, so long prepared

By what he did. We write his course unfeeling,

Weak, selfish, petty, flowing from the craze

Of sexual jealousy, made worse by war,

And universal madness, erethism

Of hellish war. And, gentlemen, one thing:

Paul Robert's article in the Dawn suggests

Some things I credit, knowing them. We get

Our notions of uncleanness from the Jews,

The Pentateuch. There are no women here,

And I can talk; - you know the ancient Jews

Deemed sex unclean, and only to be touched

At sufferance of Jehovah; birth unclean,

A mother needing purification after

Her hour of giving birth. You know their laws

Concerning adultery. Well, they've tainted us

In spite of Greece. Now look at Elenor Murray:

What if she went with Gregory Wenner. Hell!

Did that contaminate her, change her flesh,

Or change her spirit? All this evidence

Shows that it did not. But it changed this man,

Because his mind was slime where snakes could breed.

But now what do we see? That woman is

Essential genius, man just mechanism

Of conscious thought and strength. This Elenor

Is wiser, being nature, than this man,

And lives a life that puts this Barrett Bays

To shame and laughter. Look at her: She's brave,

Devoted, loyal, true and dutiful,

She's will to life, and through it senses God,

And seeks to serve the cosmic soul. I think

This jury should start now to raise a fund

To erect a statue of her in the park

To keep her name and labors fresh in mind

To those who shall come after."

"And I'll sign

A verdict in these words, but understand

Such things are Coram non judice; still

We can chip in our money, start the fund

To build this monument."

Ritter interrupted.

The banker said: "I'll start it with a hundred,"

And so the fund was started.

Marion

Resumed to speak of riffles: "In Chicago

There's less than half the people speaking English,

The rest is Babel: Germans, Russians, Poles

And all the tongues, much rippling going on,

And if we couldn't trace the riffles out

From Elenor Murray, We must give this up.

One thing is sure: Look out for England, if

America shall grow a separate soul.

You may have congresses, and presidents,

These states, but if America is a realm.

Of tribute as to thought, America

Is just a province. And it's past the time

When we should be ourselves, we've wasted time,

And grafted alien things upon our bole.

A Domesday of the minds that think and know

In our America would give us hope,

We have them in abundance. What I hate

Is that crude Demos which shouts down the minds,

Outvotes them, takes these silly lies that move

The populace and makes them into laws,

And makes a village of a great republic."

And Merival listened as the jurymen

Philosophied the case of Elenor Murray,

And life at large. And having listened spoke:

"I like the words Llewellyn George has said.

Love is a sea which wrecks and sinks our craft,

But re-creates the hands that build again;

And like a tidal wave which sponges out

An island or a city, lifts and leaves

Fresh seeds and forms of beauty on the peaks.

The whinchat in the mud upon its claws,

Storm driven from its course to sea, brings life

Of animal and plant to virgin shores,

And islands strange and new. These happenings

Of Elenor Murray carry beauty forth,

Unhurt amid the storm-cloud, darkness, fire,

To lives and eras. And our country too,

So ruined and so weltering, like a ball

Of mud made in a missile by a god

May bear, no less, a pearl at core, a truth,

A liberty, a genius, beauty, - thrown

In mischief by the god, and staining walls

Of this our temple; in a day to be

Dried up, cracks open, and the pearl appears

To be set in a precious time beyond

Our time and vision. This is what I mean:

Call Elenor egoist, and make her work,

And life the means of rich return to her

In exaltation, pride; - a missile of mud,

It carries still the pearl of her, the seed

Of finer spirits. We must open eyes

To see inside the mud-ball. If it be

We conquered slavery of the negro through,

Because of economic forces, yet

We conquered it. Trade, cotton, were the mud

Upon the whinchat's claws containing seeds

Of liberties to be, and carried forth

In mid seas of the future to sunny isles,

More blest than ours. And as for this, you know

The English blotted slavery from their books

And left their books unbalanced in point of cash,

But balanced richly in a manhood gain.

I warn you, David Barrow, pessimist,

Against a general slur on life and man.

Deride the Christian ethic, if you choose,

You must retain its word of benevolence;

Or better, you must honor man, whose heart

Leaps up to its benevolence, from whose heart

The Christian doctrine of benevolence

Did issue to this world. If Christian doctrine

Be man-made, not a miracle, as it is

All man-made, still it's out of generous fire

Of human spirit; that's the thing divine....

Now how is Elenor Murray wonderful

To me viewed through this mass of evidence?

Why, as the soul maternal, out of which

All goodness, beauty, and benevolence,

All aspiration, sacrifice, all death

For truth and liberty blesses life of us.

This soul maternal, passion to create

New life and guide it into happiness,

Is Mother Mary of all tenderness,

All charity, all vision, rises up

From its obscurity and primal force

Of romance, passion and the child, to realms,

Democracies, republics; never flags

To make them brighter, freer, so to spread

Its ecstasy to all, and take in turn

Redoubled ecstasy! The tragedy

Is that this Elenor for her mother gift

Is cursed and tortured, sent a wanderer;

And in her death must find much clinging mud

Around the pearl of her. If that be mud,

Which we have heard, around her, is it mud

That weights the soul of America, the pure

Dream of our founders? Larger Athens, where

All things should be heard gladly and considered,

And men should grow, be forced to grow, because

Not driven or restrained by usages,

Or laws of mad majorities, but left

At their own peril to work out their lives....

Well, gentlemen, I'll tell you what I've learned.

What is a man or woman but a sperm

Accreted into largeness? Still a sperm

In likeness, being brain and spinal cord,

Fed by the glands, the thyroid and the rest,

Whose secrets we are ignorant of. We know

That when they fail our minds fail. But the glands

Are visible and clear: but in us whirl

Emotions; fear, disgust, murder or wrath,

Traced back to animals as moods of flight

Repulsion, curiosity, all the rest.

Now what are these but levers of our machine?

Elenor Murray teaches this to me:

Build up a science of these levers, learn

To handle fear, disgust, anger, wonder.

They teach us physiology; who teaches

The use of instincts and emotions, powers?

All learning may be that, but what is that?

Why just a spread of food, where after nibbling

You learn what you can eat, and what is good

For you to eat. You'll see a different world

When this philosophy of levers rules."...

Then Merival tacked round and said: "I'll show

The riffles in my life from Elenor Murray:

The politicians give me notice now

I cannot be the coroner again.

I didn't want to be, but I had planned

To go to Congress, and they say to that

We do not want you. So my circle turns,

And riffles back to breeding better hogs,

And finer cattle. Here's the verdict, sign

Your names, and I'll return it to the clerk.