Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873

"But why," said I, "did you turn with me? There would have been the moment for your will to act."

"You think so? That is hardly fair, Miss Linton. Does one brand a soldier as a coward and a laggard who has fought and won a battle, and has sunk exhausted upon his arms to sleep, if he is discomfited and dismayed when, just as slumber has him in its arms, a fresh foe sets upon him? No, I could not turn back."

His eyes were bent on me again, and something in them stirred my soul to its depths. Such a delicious feeling seemed stealing over me—a feeling of mixed power and weakness. I felt my color rise, but I looked ahead over the snowfields and said, "I don't see why you should have turned back. Why should you want to be with me and not be with me? I wanted to see you too."

I started as he spoke again, for his voice and manner were both changed—all the quiver and intensity gone out of them. "The 'reason why' of a mood is hard to find sometimes, and when found one has a conviction that no one but one's self would see its reasonableness," he said with a laugh cold and musical. "Let us talk of something we can both be sure to understand."

He seemed far away again. For a moment he had seemed so near—nearer, I think, than I ever remember to have felt a man to be. Then he talked, and talked very well, and made me talk, though it was not as easy as it usually is to me, and though we spoke of things that are generally to me like the sound of a trumpet to the war-horse. My spirit did not rise: the words would hardly come. I wanted to be alone and think it over—think over his words, his manner, his voice, the look in his eyes, and see what they meant, and, if I could, why he had changed so suddenly to me.

When we had walked some distance farther he himself proposed turning back, and took me home. As we neared the hotel I could not resist asking him why he had not come home with me that night in the carriage instead of walking, or running rather, beside it.

Such a strange look came over his face as I asked him, and his lips set with a stern expression as he said stiffly, icily, "I had realized, Miss Linton, how utterly different our ways of looking at life must be; or else perhaps it is that you do not hold me to be enough of a knight to consider a woman's position before my own comfort and pleasure."

"I don't understand you," said I, bewildered. "I asked you to get into the carriage."

"I know it," he replied; "but in such matters no gentleman can allow a woman's kindly impulse of courtesy to compromise her in any way: he must think first of her, and all the more because she has thought of him."

"What do you mean by compromise?" I exclaimed. "I am quite independent enough of public opinion to be a free agent in such matters: you must not forget that I am a very different woman from a society belle."

"Quite true," he answered, stung by my tone, "but I do not claim to be unsexed because—because—" He stammered.

"Because I am? You are very right to live according to your lights, Mr. Lawrence, but I must decline to see life by them. Good-night!" His tone was more than I could bear, and I turned abruptly from him: we had reached the hotel, and without a word more I ran up stairs to my parlor. The door was ajar: I entered hastily and pushed it to, but he had followed me on the instant, and now stood with it in his hand.

"I cannot let you send me away without saying one word," he said. "I never meant to say that you were unsexed. I beg you will forgive me if I offended you. I had no right in the world to judge for you. It was a presumptuous impulse to protect, to guard you that prompted my action the other night—my words just now. Forgive me. As for my prejudices, they shall not displease you again: only remember as my excuse that a man of my class has but one way of looking at a woman whom—he—" He drew a long breath, hesitated, and then said with an effort—"admires."

The word was cold and formal, but his voice and manner were warm and earnest. His mood seemed changed: he seemed again near me, and an irresistible attraction toward him possessed me, body and soul. There was something in his very attitude, as he stood by the door with his head bent down, that seemed to win me. What was it that came over me? What subtle power is it by which one nature draws another without any apparent or audible summons? I do not know; but this I know, that as he said the words I have just written down a floodgate within me seemed raised, and with a mighty rush my spirit bounded toward him. And yet I did not move.

"Forgive you?" I said. "Yes, a thousand times!"

He looked up, said, "Thank you!" very softly, and turned to the door. When he reached it he stopped, turned again, and came up to me. "Will you give me your hand in token of forgiveness and friendship?" he said.

I said nothing, but held out my hand. He took it in both of his, and then in a moment more my arms were about his neck, and our lips had met. He kissed me again and again, held me very close for an instant, and then, untwining my arms from their hold, he abruptly left the room. That was three hours ago, and I have sat here thinking, thinking, ever since. What does it all mean? Writing it out has helped me, as I thought it would. Two things have become clear to me: I am quite conscious that I have sought Mr. Lawrence at least as much as he has me. I have always believed it to be as natural for a woman who was once freed from the foolish prejudices of education and tradition to hold out her hand to any one who attracted her as for a man to seek a woman. Now I have proved it to be true. He does attract me. Why deny it, either to myself or him? I do not, I will not. This I see and know to be true. The other thing which seems clear to me is, that he is only drawn by one side of his nature—that he does not want to love me, perhaps can only half love me. Then, if that be so, I have done wrong to show him my feelings. With his ideas about women, he would feel it to be almost unmanly to fold his arms on his breast if a woman put hers about his neck, as I did; and I fear I forced my love upon him. I feel as I should think a man feels who has taken an unfair advantage of a woman's fancy for him, and got from her graces and favors to which her whole heart does not assent. I am not ashamed of loving him: bear me witness, little book, I am not ashamed of loving him, nor indeed of telling him so; only I would not "betray his will," as he said this afternoon. No, no: if he comes to me, it must be with a whole and willing heart. Now that's resolved, what next? Write to him of course, and tell him I am sorry to have led him into this position, and say, "I won't do so again." Did a woman ever write to a man before and beg his pardon for letting him kiss her? for throwing her arms about his neck? I doubt it, but what does that matter? I belong to the new era, and I will be the "Coming Woman." I laugh, but I feel, after all, more like crying. Good-night, little book. I will write to Mr. Lawrence in the morning. Now for bed.

Dec. 4. I wrote to him this morning, and sent my note by a messenger. I could not work, I could neither think nor write, till his answer came. He had made the bearer of my note wait, and wrote me just a few words to ask if he might not see me to-night. I wrote back "Yes," and now it is only four o'clock: he will not come till eight. It seems an impossible time to wait, and I must not waste the afternoon as I did the morning. Let me see: shall I finish that article on English love-poetry, past and present, in which I mean to show how the germ of degradation and decay always existed, even in the chivalric idea of woman's nature and sphere, and how it has gone on developing itself in the poetry which is its truest expression, till we have got its different stages from the ideal of the school which really had a gloss of elevation and fine sentiment about it—the woman of Herrick and Ben Jonson, and later on of Lovelace and Montrose, to the woman of Owen Meredith and Swinburne, who, instead of inspiring men to die for her honor, makes them rather wish her to live to be the instrument of their pleasure? It was not a bad idea, and I think I could have traced the gradations very well. But I cannot write, I cannot think. Let me recall my letter to him. Ah, here is one of the dozen copies I made before I could make it what I wanted:

"MY DEAR MR. LAWRENCE: I must ask you to forgive me, for I am conscious of having been thoughtless and selfish. I yielded to an impulse yesterday, and I put you in an unfair position. I never meant to do it, and I will never do it again. I trust we may be friends, and I am

"Yours truly,"MARGARET LINTON."

That was all I said: I wish now I had said more. Ah me! will evening never come?

Before I go to bed I must write a word or two. Ah, how much happier I am than I was last night! He came at eight punctually. I trembled all over when I shook hands with him: I think he must have seen it, but he said nothing. What a wonderful thing this thing they call high breeding is! One feels it in a moment, and yet it seems intangible, indescribable. He has it, I should think, in perfection, and he is the only person I have ever known who possessed it, except, perhaps that young girl, his cousin, whom he presented to me at the party. For a while we talked—at least he did—easily and pleasantly, and then suddenly he said, smiling at me, "Do you know, I think you are a very generous woman?"

"Do you? Why?" said I.

"Because you are willing to shoulder other people's peccadilloes. Don't you know a woman should never do that, especially for a man, who is naturally selfish and can always take care of himself?"

I did not like the word peccadilloes, but I only said, "So can a woman take care of herself."

"Do you really believe that?" he said with a gleam in his blue eyes.

"Really, I do. I am sure, at least, that I can take care of myself."

"Are you?" said he. We were sitting beside each other on the sofa, and in another moment he had put his arm about me and drawn me to him. I could not resist him—his voice, his eyes, his sweet words. I loved him and was happy. It was a heaven of delight to be so near him; and how natural it seemed! He said little, nor did I speak many words: he held me in his arms, kissed me many times on my hands, cheeks and lips; and then suddenly, almost abruptly, he left me, pleading an engagement. But my happiness did not go with him. I am happy in the conviction that he loves me, and I feel strong to make him all my own. He will come again to-morrow. He did not say so: no need to say so—he will surely come. He is poor, I know. What of that? I earn a good income, and together we can defy the world. I shall be able to convert him from his prejudices and narrow notions, now that he loves me. What an acquisition to our cause! He loves me as I am. I have yielded nothing, I have sacrificed nothing—not one iota of principle, not an inch of ground. He has come to me because he loves me. I can influence him to think as I do of woman's nature and sphere. My single life will convince him of the justice of my ideas, and having known me, he can never "decline on a lower range of feelings and a narrower sphere than mine."

I am triumphant, I am successful: I could sing a song of rejoicing. Have I not always felt sure that a woman's true attraction does not depend on the false attitude in which she is placed by men? This man has seen me as I am, and I have drawn him to me.

Dec. 11. It seems scarcely possible that it is but one week since I wrote those words above, yet the date stares me in the face, and tells me that but seven days and seven nights have passed since then. It seems to me as if all my past life held less of emotion, of sensation, less of living, than this one week; and what absolute, uncompromising pain it has all been! It seems to me as if I had been through every stage of suffering in succession; yet to what does it all amount? what has caused it all? what has racked me with all these various gradations of torture? Just this: since that night, that triumphant, happy night, I have neither heard from nor seen Mr. Lawrence. Silence, unbroken silence, has been between us. I have borne it, but oh how badly!—not calmly or with quiet self-control and strength; but I have borne it with passionate out-cry and restless struggles. I have sobbed myself to sleep at night: I have roamed aimlessly about during the day, or lain on a lounge, book in hand, pretending to read, but in reality listening, waiting, longing to hear his step, his knock, to have some message, some sign, come to me from him. Then it has seemed to me as if there was but one other human creature in the world, and that was he—as if all the manifold needs and wants, losses and gains, of humanity had no longer the slightest meaning for me. I have no sense of any ambition, any aim, any obligation pressing upon me. I find nothing within myself to feed upon but a few pale memories of him, and my whole future seems concentred in his existence. I do not think I can bear to live as I am now. It is all profoundly dark to me. Why does he not come? I can think of no possible explanation—none. I am resolved to think it out to an end, and then act: it is this passiveness which is killing me.

I am resolved: I will write, and will ask him to come to me, and when he comes I will say what I feel. Some mistaken hesitation is keeping him away. I will say, "We love one another: let us unite our lives and live them together, yoked in all exercise of noble end."

Letter from Henry Lawrence to George Manning

DECEMBER 11.

DEAR GEORGE: I will begin by telling the truth, and here it is: I am in a scrape. I know you won't think much of the simple fact, but the scrape is very different from any of my former ones, and I don't see how I can get out of it honorably. I can see you raise your eyebrows, and hear you say with an incredulous smile, "Why, Harry, I have heard you ridicule honor a thousand times where women are concerned, and of course this scrape involves a woman." You are right there—it does; or rather a woman has involved me, and there lies the scrape. As for honor, I laugh at most of the things I believe in, just because it's the fashion of the day—and I belong to the day I live in—not to wear one's heart on one's sleeve. Then, too, sometimes one finds that logically one thinks a thing, an idea, a feeling absurd, and yet when one's life comes into collision with it, somehow up springs something within you which I suppose might be called an instinct, and forces you to respect and cherish and uphold the very feeling or idea which you have always ridiculed.

Well, I'll tell you my story, and then perhaps you'll tell me what to do. About—let me see—a month ago I went with some men one evening, out of pure idleness, to a public meeting. The men who spoke were all stupid, and roared and mouthed stuff "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," and I was thinking how I could get away and have a game of cards at the club, when suddenly a voice like music smote upon my astonished ears. I looked up, and there on the platform stood a woman, speaking, by Jove! and doing it well, too. I listened and looked, and should have enjoyed it if it had not disgusted me so in theory. I must confess, barring the fact of her being there, there was nothing objectionable about her. She was handsome, and had a magnificent voice: she talked a hundred per cent, better than the men who preceded her; and it was well for the meeting that it was over when she stopped: any other speaker would have made a terrible anti-climax. The two fellows with me proposed our being introduced to her, and half from curiosity, half—I swore to speak the truth—half, George, from attraction (hear me out, old fellow: she was feminine-looking and very handsome)—I went forward and was presented. She interested and attracted me, the more so perhaps that from the moment our eyes met I was conscious that there existed between us a strong natural affinity, latent, but capable of being developed. I called on her the next day, and made my cousin Clara invite her to a party. Clara, who is thoroughly unconventional, and would do anything to please me, did so without a second thought. But imagine my distress when, as I entered the drawing-room a little late, I saw my fair Amazon standing in a doorway, not only alone, but alone in the midst of curious and scornful glances. My courtesy was at stake, my chivalry was roused, and she looked very handsome and very like any other woman brought to bay. She had the most charming expression, compounded of bewilderment and defiance, on her face when my eyes fell on her, and it changed to one that pleased me still better (which I won't describe) when our eyes met. You, you unbelieving dog, think that because she is "strong-minded" she must be repulsive and immodest. But there is a charming inconsistency about female human nature.

But to go on with my story. I felt quite like a champion, I assure you, for, after all, it was shabby of the women to give her the cold shoulder, and cowardly of the men to stand aloof; so I devoted myself to her, and asked Alice Wilton to be presented to her. Miss Linton has not a particle of usage du monde, nor is she what would be called high-bred; but she is self-possessed and gentle in her manner, and makes a good enough figure in the company of ladies and gentlemen. Here I confess my weakness. I did think her very attractive, and I was conscious that I had a power over her which I did not forbear to exercise. The result of this was that when we parted she had every reason to expect to see me very soon again, and I had inwardly resolved never to see her again if I could help it. I did keep away, and then luck would have it that I met her taking a walk one snowy afternoon. I suspected she had come out to get away from the remembrance of me, as I had to get away from the desire to see her; and she was so moved by seeing me that I could not help showing her that I cared for her, and perhaps seemed to care more than I did. It was a sore temptation, and I yielded to it. Wrong? Do you think I don't know that it was wrong? But the worst is to come. I walked back with her, and an accident led to our having one of those conversations that people have when they are under the influence of emotion and cannot give it vent in its natural way, but must do something or talk. If I could have put my arms about her and kissed her, we could have got on without words: as it was, I said I hardly know what, and she, being very much in earnest and very unsophisticated, showed me how much she cared for me. I vow, George, if I had had a moment to think, to gather my self-control—But I had not, and so we ended by my finding her arms round my neck, after all. I rushed away with hardly a word, and walked and walked, and thought and thought. The next day comes a note from her—what one would call a manly, straightforward acknowledgment that she had led me into a position that was an unfair one, and that she regretted it. Nothing franker or more generous could have been conceived, but somehow it roused within me the impulse to make her conscious of the weakness of her sex. My masculine conceit rose and demanded an opportunity of self-assertion. I went to her, and she seemed more attractive than ever. Her independence and self-reliance nettled me, and I was mean enough to yield to the desire to see if she could resist me. But I was richly punished, for the knowledge rolled over me like a wave that she loved me, and I left her, stung by the consciousness of having taken an unworthy advantage of a simple and trustful nature. I know that this is high tragedy, and will meet with your displeasure. I can hear you say, "Confound you, Harry! why don't you marry her?"

Very easy to say; but look at the situation, which is not so simple as you probably think. Of course any girl of my own class would never build an edifice of eternal and sacred happiness on such a foundation as a few warm looks and eloquent words, or even a caress, might furnish. In plain words, neither she nor I would think marriage a necessary or even likely sequence to such a preamble. But it is different with Miss Linton. I am sure, I am confident—laugh if you like—that she has never given any man what she has given me, either in degree or kind. Her eccentric notions about women's nature and position would protect her from tampering with her own feelings or those of another; and then, too, there has been so much hard reality, so much serious business, in her life that the sweet follies of girlhood have not been hers. Shall I say that I cannot help feeling her innocence and inexperience make her more attractive? I am not sure, even, that they do not balance her self-reliance and independence, which certainly repel me. All this I did not dream of at first. I am not a scoundrel or a coxcomb. It came to me the other afternoon all at once, when she threw her arms about my neck. I have been selfish, and perhaps stupid. "Why not marry her?" you say. I have asked myself that question, and this is my answer: No passion in the world could make me insensible to the humiliation of her career, and I should be obliged not only to accept it in the past, but to recognize it in the future. My wife must be my social equal and the natural associate of high-bred women. I must be able to take any man by the throat who looks at or speaks of her as does not please me. This woman's character, intellect, manners and appearance are public property for all purposes of criticism and comment. She is unsexed. My wife must be dependent on me, clinging to me. This woman has always stood, and will always stand alone; and yet I have thought that she was capable of such deep, strong, concentrated feeling that the man who owned her heart might do with her as he liked. This, I admit, has tempted me to think of marriage, for, after all, George, it would be a luxury to be very much loved. This woman would love a man in another fashion from that which prevails in society.

But I have put the idea away from me, and here I am, determined not to marry her, and yet feeling that I have unintentionally wronged her. I have not been near her these seven days. I know she expects me—she has every right to expect me—but I will not go till I have decided what to say and do. I am too weak to go otherwise. Write to me, George, and advise me; and remember that she is not like the women of whom we have both known so many. She has no more idea of flirting than had Hippolyta queen of the Amazons or Zenobia queen of Palmyra—those two strong-minded women of old days. I am joking, but I assure you I am not jolly. I am afraid, George, that she truly loves me, and, unsexed though she be, love has made a woman of her, and I fear is unmanning me.

Yours always, HENRY LAWRENCE.

P.S. I open my letter to say that it is too late for you to write when you receive this: it will be over. I have just got a note from her asking to see me. I shall speak frankly, but I feel like a hound. As ever, H.L.

Journal

Dec. 11. I am resolved to write it all down as it happened. I wrote him a note this afternoon, and this evening he came—handsome, pale and quiet. He walked up to me, took my hand in his, pressed it and let it go. He did not wait for me to speak, fortunately, for I could not have spoken: I could not have commanded my voice. He said—oh so quietly and steadily!—"I should have come to see you to-night, I think, if you had not asked me: I had so much to say."

"I thought you would never come," I answered.

He rose and walked hurriedly up and down the room, then paused in front of me and said—his words seem burned into my brain—"You are a woman who deserves frankness, and I will be utterly and absolutely frank with you. I have done very wrong in behaving as I have done. I had no right, no justification, for it, and I beg you to forgive me—humbly I beg it on my knees;" and he knelt before me.

I was bewildered and pained beyond measure. I thought I knew not what, but a tissue of wild absurdities rushed through my brain to account for his words—anything rather than think he did not love me.

"With many women this confession would be unnecessary," he went on. "You are genuine and simple, and attach a real meaning to every word and act, because you do not yourself speak or act without meaning. How can I, then, part from you without asking your forgiveness for what I have said and done?"

"Part from me!" I exclaimed, holding out my hands to him: he had risen now. "Oh, Mr. Lawrence, let us be frank with one another. There is no need to part. Do you think your poverty is any barrier between us? It is but an added bond. Can I not work too? And we will learn to think alike where we now differ. Why should we part? We love each other. Why should we not marry? What can part us but our own wills? I love you, you know it, and I think you love me; at least I am sure I could teach you to love me." He stood while I spoke, his arms hanging by his sides. What more I said I hardly know. I think—I am sure, indeed—I told him, standing there, how I loved him. I felt I must speak it once to one human being. A great foresight came to me: I seemed to see my life stretching before me, long, lonely, desolate: no other love like this could come, full well I knew that, and I could not enter on that dreary path without setting free my soul. Yes, I spoke out to him. Words of power they were—power and fire and longing. Perhaps I alone, of all women, have told a man of my love when I knew it to be hopeless. My hope had died when he first spoke. Had he loved me, he had spoken otherwise. That I was woman enough to see; but if it be unwomanly to feel in every pulse-throb the need of expression, to know that I should die of suppressed passion, tenderness, love, if I did not speak it all, did not tell him once how I loved him, how I could have lived his servant, his slave, happy and content—how his smile seemed the sun and his caresses heaven to me—how I was hungry with the hunger of my very soul to spend on him the garnered treasure of my heart,—if this be unwomanly, I was indeed unsexed. I seemed exalted out of myself, and full of power.