THE ARRAIGNMENT OF JEALOUSY

§ 1

I sit here in this graciously proportioned little room which I shall leave for ever next week, for already your mother begins to pack for England again. I look out upon the neat French garden that I have watched the summer round, and before me is the pile of manuscript that has grown here, the story of my friendship and love for Mary and of its tragic end, and of all the changes of my beliefs and purposes that have arisen out of that. I had meant it to be the story of my life, but how little of my life is in it! It gives, at most, certain acute points, certain salient aspects. I begin to realize for the first time how thin and suggestive and sketchy a thing any novel or biography must be. How we must simplify! How little can we convey the fullness of life, the glittering interests, the interweaving secondary aspects, the dawns and dreams and double refractions of experience! Even Mary, of whom I have labored to tell you, seems not so much expressed as hidden beneath these corrected sheets. She who was so abundantly living, who could love like a burst of sunshine and give herself as God gives the world, is she here at all in this pile of industrious inexpert writing?

Life is so much fuller than any book can be. All this story can be read, I suppose, in a couple of hours or so, but I have been living and reflecting upon and reconsidering the substance of it for over forty years. I do not see how this book can give you any impression but that of a career all strained upon the frame of one tragic relationship, yet no life unless it is a very short young life can have that simplicity. Of all the many things I have found beautiful and wonderful, Mary was the most wonderful to me, she is in my existence like a sunlit lake seen among mountains, of all the edges by which life has wrought me she was the keenest. Nevertheless she was not all my life, nor the form of all my life. For a time after her death I could endure nothing of my home, I could not bear the presence of your mother or you, I hated the possibility of consolation, I went away into Italy, and it was only by an enormous effort that I could resume my interest in that scheme of work to which my life is given. But it is manifest I still live, I live and work and feel and share beauty....

It seems to me more and more as I live longer, that most poetry and most literature and particularly the literature of the past is discordant with the vastness and variety, the reserves and resources and recuperations of life as we live it to-day. It is the expression of life under cruder and more rigid conditions than ours, lived by people who loved and hated more naïvely, aged sooner and died younger than we do. Solitary persons and single events dominated them as they do not dominate us. We range wider, last longer, and escape more and more from intensity towards understanding. And already this astounding blow begins to take its place among other events, as a thing strange and terrible indeed, but related to all the strangeness and mystery of life, part of the universal mysteries of despair and futility and death that have troubled my consciousness since childhood. For a time the death of Mary obscured her life for me, but now her living presence is more in my mind again. I begin to see that it is the reality of her existence and not the accidents of her end that matter most. It signifies less that she should have flung out of life when it seemed that her living could only have meant disaster to herself and to all she loved, than that all her life should have been hampered and restricted. Through all her life this brave and fine and beautiful being was for the most part of her possibilities, wasted in a splendid setting, magnificently wasted if you will, but wasted.

§ 2

It was that idea of waste that dominated my mind in a strange interview I had with Justin. For it became necessary for me to see Justin in order that we should stamp out the whispers against her that followed her death. He had made it seem an accidental death due to an overdose of the narcotic she employed, but he had not been able to obliterate altogether the beginnings of his divorce proceedings. There had been talk on the part of clerks and possible witnesses. But of all that I need not tell you here; what matters is that Justin and I could meet without hatred or violence. I met a Justin grey-haired and it seemed to me physically shrunken, more than ever slow-speaking, with his habit of attentive silences more marked and that dark scar spread beyond his brows.

We had come to our parting, we had done our business with an affectation of emotional aloofness, and then suddenly he gripped me by the arm. "Stratton," he said, "we two---- We killed her. We tore her to pieces between us...."

I made no answer to this outbreak.

"We tore her to pieces," he repeated. "It's so damned silly. One gets angry--like an animal."

I became grotesquely anxious to assure him that, indeed, she and I had been, as they say, innocent throughout our last day together. "You were wrong in all that," I said. "She kept her faith with you. We never planned to meet and when we met----. If we had been brother and sister----. Indeed there was nothing."

"I suppose," he said, "I ought to be glad of that. But now it doesn't seem to matter very much. We killed her.... What does that matter to me now?"

§ 3

And it is upon this effect of sweet and beautiful possibilities, caught in the net of animal jealousies and thoughtless motives and ancient rigid institutions, that I would end this writing. In Mary, it seems to me, I found both womanhood and fellowship, I found what many have dreamt of, love and friendship freely given, and I could do nothing but clutch at her to make her my possession. I would not permit her to live except as a part of my life. I see her now and understand her better than when she was alive, I recall things that she said and wrote and it is clear to me, clearer perhaps than it ever was to her, that she, with her resentment at being in any sense property, her self-reliant thought, her independence of standard, was the very prototype of that sister-lover who must replace the seductive and abject womanhood, owned, mastered and deceiving, who waste the world to-day. And she was owned, she was mastered, she was forced into concealment. What alternative was there for her? What alternative is there for any woman? She might perhaps have kept her freedom by some ill-paid work and at the price of every other impulse in her swift and eager nature. She might have become one of those poor neuters, an independent woman.... Life was made impossible for her and she was forced to die, according to the fate of all untimely things. She was destroyed, not merely by the unconsidered, undisciplined passions of her husband and her lover, but by the vast tradition that sustains and enforces the subjugation of her sex. What I had from her, and what she was, is but a mere intimation of all that she and I might have made of each other and the world.

And perhaps in this story I have said enough for you to understand why Mary has identified herself with something world-wide, has added to herself a symbolical value, and why it is I find in the whole crowded spectacle of mankind, a quality that is also hers, a sense of fine things entangled and stifled and unable to free themselves from the ancient limiting jealousies which law and custom embody. For I know that a growing multitude of men and women outwear the ancient ways. The blood-stained organized jealousies of religious intolerance, the delusions of nationality and cult and race, that black hatred which simple people and young people and common people cherish against all that is not in the likeness of themselves, cease to be the undisputed ruling forces of our collective life. We want to emancipate our lives from this slavery and these stupidities, from dull hatreds and suspicion. The ripening mind of our race tires of these boorish and brutish and childish things. A spirit that is like hers, arises and increases in human affairs, a spirit that demands freedom and gracious living as our inheritance too long deferred, and I who loved her so blindly and narrowly now love her spirit with a dawning understanding.

I will not be content with that compromise of jealousies which is the established life of humanity to-day. I give myself, and if I can I will give you, to the destruction of jealousy and of the forms and shelters and instruments of jealousy, both in my own self and in the thought and laws and usage of the world.

THE END

* * * * *

Popular Copyright Novels

AT MODERATE PRICES

Ask your dealer for a complete list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction

Abner Daniel _Will N. Harben_ Adventures of a Modest Man _Robert W. Chambers_ Adventures of Sherlock Holmes _A. Conan Doyle_ After House, The _Mary Roberts Rinehart_ Ailsa Paige _Robert W. Chambers_ Air Pilot, The _Randall Parrish_ Alton of Somasco _Harold Bindloss_ Andrew The Glad _Maria Thompson Daviess_ Ann Boyd _Will N. Harben_ Anna the Adventuress _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Armchair at the Inn, The _F. Hopkinson Smith_ As the Sparks Fly Upward _Cyrus Townsend Brady_ At the Mercy of Tiberius _Augusta Evans Wilson_ At the Moorings _Rosa N. Carey_ Aunt Jane of Kentucky _Eliza Calvert Hall_ Awakening of Helena Richie _Margaret Deland_ Bandbox, The _Louis Joseph Vance_ Bar 20 _Clarence E. Mulford_ Bar 20 Days _Clarence E. Mulford_ Barrier, The _Rex Beach_ Battle Ground, The _Ellen Glasgow_ Bella Donna _Robert Hichens_ Beloved Vagabond, The _William J. Locke_ Ben Blair _Will Lillibridge_ Beth Norvell _Randall Parrish_ Betrayal, The _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Beulah (Illustrated Edition) _Augusta J. Evans_ Bob Hampton of Placer _Randall Parrish_ Bob, Son of Battle _Alfred Ollivant_ Brass Bowl, The _Louis Joseph Vance_ Broad Highway, The _Jeffery Farnol_ Bronze Bell, The _Louis Joseph Vance_ Buck Peters, Ranchman _Clarence E. Mulford_ Butterfly Man, The _George Barr McCutcheon_ By Right of Purchase _Harold Bindloss_ Cabbages and Kings _O. Henry_ Calling of Dan Matthews, The _Harold Bell Wright_ Call of the Blood, The _Robert Hichens_ Cape Cod Stories _Joseph C. Lincoln_ Cap'n Eri _Joseph C. Lincoln_ Cap'n Warren's Wards _Joseph C. Lincoln_

* * * * *

Popular Copyright Novels

AT MODERATE PRICES

Ask your dealer for a complete list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction

Cardigan _Robert W. Chambers_ Car of Destiny, The _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Carpet From Bagdad, The _Harold MacGrath_ Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine _F. R. Stockton_ Chaperon, The _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Circle, The _Katherine Cecil Thurston_ Claw, The _Cynthia Stockley_ Colonial Free Lance, A _Chauncey C. Hotchkiss_ Coming of the Law, The _Charles Alden Seltzer_ Conquest of Canaan, The _Booth Tarkington_ Conspirators, The _Robert W. Chambers_ Cordelia Blossom _George Randolph Chester_ Counsel for the Defense _Leroy Scott_ Cry in the Wilderness, A _Mary E. Waller_ Dark Hollow, The _Anna Katharine Green_ Day of Days, The _Louis Joseph Vance_ Depot Master, The _Joseph C. Lincoln_ Derelicts _William J. Locke_ Desired Woman, The _Will N. Harben_ Destroying Angel, The _Louis Joseph Vance_ Divine Fire, The _May Sinclair_ Dixie Hart _Will N. Harben_ Dominant Dollar, The _Will Lillibridge_ Dr. David _Marjorie Benton Cooke_ Enchanted Hat, The _Harold MacGrath_ Excuse Me _Rupert Hughes_ 54-40 or Fight _Emerson Hough_ Fighting Chance, The _Robert W. Chambers_ Financier, The _Theodore Dreiser_ Flamsted Quarries _Mary E. Waller_ For a Maiden Brave _Chauncey C. Hotchkiss_ Four Million, The _O. Henry_ From the Car Behind _Eleanor M. Ingraham_ Fruitful Vine, The _Robert Hichens_ Gentleman of France, A _Stanley Weyman_ Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingford _George Randolph Chester_ Gilbert Neal _Will N. Harben_ Girl From His Town, The _Marie Van Vorst_ Glory of Clementina, The _William J. Locke_ Glory of the Conquered, The _Susan Glaspell_

* * * * *

Popular Copyright Novels

AT MODERATE PRICES

Ask your dealer for a complete list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction

God's Good Man _Marie Corelli_ Going Some _Rex Beach_ Gordon Craig _Randall Parrish_ Greyfriars Bobby _Eleanor Atkinson_ Guests of Hercules, The _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Halcyone _Elinor Glyn_ Happy Island (Sequel to Uncle William) _Jennette Lee_ Havoc _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Heart of the Hills, The _John Fox, Jr._ Heart of the Desert, The _Honore Willsie_ Heather-Moon, The _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Her Weight in Gold _George Barr McCutcheon_ Herb of Grace _Rosa N. Carey_ Highway of Fate, The _Rosa N. Carey_ Homesteaders, The _Kate and Virgil D. Boyles_ Hopalong Cassidy _Clarence E. Mulford_ Honor of the Big Snows, The _James Oliver Curwood_ House of Happiness, The _Kate Langley Bosher_ House of the Lost Court, The _C. N. Williamson_ House of the Whispering Pines, The _Anna K. Green_ Household of Peter, The _Rosa N. Carey_ Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker _S. Weir Mitchell, M.D._ Husbands of Edith, The _George Barr McCutcheon_ Idols _William J. Locke_ Illustrious Prince, The _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Imposter, The _John Reed Scott_ In Defiance of the King _Chauncey C. Hotchkiss_ Indifference of Juliet, The _Grace S. Richmond_ Inez (Illustrated Edition) _Augusta J. Evans_ Infelice _Augusta Evans Wilson_ Initials Only _Anna Katharine Green_ Iron Trail, The _Rex Beach_ Iron Woman, The _Margaret Deland_ Ishmael (Illustrated) _Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth_ Island of Regeneration, The _Cyrus Townsend Brady_ Japonette _Robert W. Chambers_ Jane Cable _George Barr McCutcheon_ Jeanne of the Marshes _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Jennie Gerhardt _Theodore Dreiser_ Joyful Heatherby _Payne Erskine_ Judgment House, The _Sir Gilbert Parker_

* * * * *

Popular Copyright Novels

AT MODERATE PRICES

Ask your dealer for a complete list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction

Keith of the Border _Randall Parrish_ Key to the Unknown, The _Rosa N. Carey_ King Spruce _Holman Day_ Knave of Diamonds, The _Ethel M. Dell_ Lady and the Pirate, The _Emerson Hough_ Lady Betty Across the Water _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Land of Long Ago, The _Eliza Calvert Hall_ Langford of the Three Bars _Kate and Virgil D. Boyles_ Last Trail, The _Zane Grey_ Last Voyage of the Donna Isabel, The _Randall Parrish_ Leavenworth Case, The _Anna Katherine Green_ Life Mask, The _Author of "To M. L. G."_ Lighted Way, The _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Lin McLean _Owen Wister_ Little Brown Jug at Kildare, The _Meredith Nicholson_ Lonesome Land _B. M. Bower_ Lord Loveland Discovers America _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Lorimer of the Northwest _Harold Bindloss_ Lorraine _Robert W. Chambers_ Lost Ambassador, The _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Love Under Fire _Randall Parrish_ Macaria (Illustrated Edition) _Augusta J. Evans_ Maid at Arms, The _Robert W. Chambers_ Maid of Old New York, A _Amelia E. Barr_ Maids of Paradise, The _Robert W. Chambers_ Maid of the Whispering Hills, The _Vingie E. Roe_ Maid of the Forest, The _Randall Parrish_ Making of Bobby Burnit, The _Geo. Randolph Chester_ Mam' Linda _Will N. Harben_ Marriage _H. G. Wells_ Marriage a la Mode _Mrs. Humphrey Ward_ Master Mummer, The _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Masters of the Wheatlands _Harold Bindloss_ Max _Katherine Cecil Thurston_ Mediator, The _Roy Norton_ Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes _A. Conan Doyle_ Missioner, The _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Miss Gibbie Gault _Kale Langley Bosher_

* * * * *

Popular Copyright Novels

AT MODERATE PRICES

Ask your dealer for a complete list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction

Miss Philura's Wedding Gown _Florence Morse Kingsley_ Miss Selina Lue _Maria Thompson Daviess_ Mollie's Prince _Rosa N. Carey_ Molly McDonald _Randall Parrish_ Money Moon, The _Jeffery Farnol_ Motor Maid, The _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Moth, The _William Dana Orcutt_ Mountain Girl, The _Payne Erskine_ Mr. Pratt _Joseph C. Lincoln_ Mr. Pratt's Patients _Joseph C. Lincoln_ Mrs. Red Pepper _Grace S. Richmond_ My Friend the Chauffeur _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ My Lady Caprice _Jeffery Farnol_ My Lady of Doubt _Randall Parrish_ My Lady of the North _Randall Parrish_ My Lady of the South _Randall Parrish_ Mystery Tales _Edgar Allen Poe_ Mystery of the Boule Cabinet, The _Burton E. Stevenson_ Nancy Stair _Elinor Macartney Lane_ Ne'er-Do-Well, The _Rex Beach_ Net, The _Rex Beach_ Night Riders, The _Ridgwell Cullum_ No Friend Like a Sister _Rosa N. Carey_ Officer 666 _Barton W. Currie and Augustin McHugh_ Once Upon a Time _Richard Harding Davis_ One Braver Thing _Richard Dehan_ One Way Trail, The _Ridgwell Cullum_ Orphan, The _Clarence E. Mulford_ Out of the Primitive _Robert Ames Bennet_ Pam _Bettina Von Hutten_ Pam Decides _Bettina Von Hutten_ Pardners _Rex Beach_ Parrot & Co _Harold McGrath_ Partners of the Tide _Joseph C. Lincoln_ Passage Perilous, The _Rosa N. Carey_ Passionate Friends, The _H. G. Wells_ Paul Anthony, Christian _Hiram W. Hays_ Peter Ruff _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Phillip Steele _James Oliver Curwood_

* * * * *

Popular Copyright Novels

AT MODERATE PRICES

Ask your dealer for a complete list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction

Phra the Phoenician _Edwin Lester Arnold_ Pidgin Island _Harold MacGrath_ Place of Honeymoons, The _Harold MacGrath_ Pleasures and Palaces _Juliet Wilbor Tompkins_ Plunderer, The _Roy Norton_ Pole Baker _Will N. Harben_ Pool of Flame, The _Louis Joseph Vance_ Polly of the Circus _Margaret Mayo_ Poppy _Cynthia Stockley_ Port of Adventure, The _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Postmaster, The _Joseph C. Lincoln_ Power and the Glory, The _Grace McGowan Cooke_ Price of the Prairie, The _Margaret Hill McCarter_ Prince of Sinners, A _E. Phillips Oppenheim_ Prince or Chauffeur _Lawrence Perry_ Princess Passes, The _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Princess Virginia, The _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Prisoners of Chance _Randall Parrish_ Prodigal Son, The _Hall Caine_ Purple Parasol, The _George Barr McCutcheon_ R. J.'s Mother _Margaret Deland_ Ranching for Sylvia _Harold Bindloss_ Reason Why, The _Elinor Glyn_ Redemption of Kenneth Galt, The _Will N. Harben_ Red Cross Girl, The _Richard Harding Davis_ Red Lane, The _Holman Day_ Red Pepper Burns _Grace S. Richmond_ Red Republic, The _Robert W. Chambers_ Refugees, The _A. Conan Doyle_ Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, The _Anne Warner_ Rise of Roscoe Paine, The _Joseph C. Lincoln_ Road to Providence, The _Maria Thompson Daviess_ Robinetta _Kate Douglas Wiggin_ Rose in the Ring, The _George Barr McCutcheon_ Rose of the World _Agnes and Egerton Castle_ Rose of Old Harpeth, The _Maria Thompson Daviess_ Round the Corner in Gay Street _Grace S. Richmond_ Routledge Rides Alone _Will Levington Comfort_ Rue: With a Difference _Rosa N. Carey_ St. Elmo (Illustrated Edition) _Augusta J. Evans_ Seats of the Mighty, The _Gilbert Parker_

* * * * *

Popular Copyright Novels

AT MODERATE PRICES

Ask your dealer for a complete list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction

Second Violin, The _Grace S. Richmond_ Self-Raised (Illustrated) _Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth_ Septimus _William J. Locke_ Set in Silver _C. N. and A. M. Williamson_ Sharrow _Bettina Von Hutten_ Shepherd of the Hills, The _Harold Bell Wright_ Sheriff of Dyke Hole, The _Ridgwell Cullum_ Ship's Company _W. W. Jacobs_ Sidney Carteret, Rancher _Harold Bindloss_ Sign at Six, The _Stewart Edward White_ Silver Horde, The _Rex Beach_ Simon the Jester _William J. Locke_ Sir Nigel _A. Conan Doyle_ Sir Richard Calmady _Lucas Malet_ Sixty-First Second, The _Owen Johnson_ Slim Princess, The _George Ade_ Speckled Bird, A _Augusta Evans Wilson_ Spirit in Prison, A _Robert Hichens_ Spirit of the Border, The _Zane Grey_ Spoilers, The _Rex Beach_ Strawberry Acres _Grace S. Richmond_ Strawberry Handkerchief, The _Amelia E. Barr_ Streets of Ascalon, The _Robert W. Chambers_ Sunnyside of the Hill, The _Rosa N. Carey_ Sunset Trail, The _Alfred Henry Lewis_ Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop _Anne Warner_ Sword of the Old Frontier, A _Randall Parrish_ Tales of Sherlock Holmes _A. Conan Doyle_ Tarzan of the Apes _Edgar Rice Burroughs_ Taste of Apples, The _Jennette Lee_ Tennessee Shad, The _Owen Johnson_ Tess of the D'Urbervilles _Thomas Hardy_ Texican, The _Dane Coolidge_ That Affair Next Door _Anna Katharine Green_ That Printer of Udell's _Harold Bell Wright_ Their Yesterdays _Harold Bell Wright_ Throwback, The _Alfred Henry Lewis_ Thurston of Orchard Valley _Harold Blindloss_ To M. L. G.; Or, He Who Passed _Anonymous_ To Him That Hath _Leroy Scott_

* * * * *

Popular Copyright Novels

AT MODERATE PRICES

Ask your dealer for a complete list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction

Torn Sails _Allen Raine_ Trail of the Axe, The _Ridgwell Cullum_ Trail to Yesterday, The _Charles Alden Seltzer_ Treasure of Heaven, The _Marie Corelli_ Truth Dexter _Sidney McCall_ T. Tembarom _Frances Hodgson Burnett_ Turnstile, The _A. E. W. Mason_ Two-Gun Man, The _Charles Alden Seltzer_ Uncle William _Jeanette Lee_ Under the Red Robe _Stanley J. Weyman_ Up From Slavery _Booker T. Washington_ Valiants of Virginia, The _Hallie Erminie Rives_ Vanity Box, The _C. N. Williamson_ Vane of the Timberlands _Harold Blindloss_ Varmint, The _Owen Johnson_ Vashti _Augusta Evans Wilson_ Wall of Men, A _Margaret Hill McCarter_ Watchers of the Plains, The _Ridgwell Cullum_ Way Home, The _Basil King_ Way of An Eagle, The _E. M. Dell_ Weavers, The _Gilbert Parker_ West Wind, The _Cyrus Townsend Brady_ Wheel of Life, The _Ellen Glasgow_ When Wilderness Was King _Randall Parrish_ Where the Trail Divides _Will Lillibridge_ Where There's A Will _Mary Roberts Rinehart_ White Sister, The _Marion Crawford_ Wind Before the Dawn, The _Dell H. Munger_ Window at the White Cat, The _Mary Roberts Rinehart_ Winning of Barbara Worth, The _Harold Bell Wright_ With Juliet in England _Grace S. Richmond_ With the Best Intentions _Bruno Lessing_ Woman in the Alcove, The _Anna Katharine Green_ Woman Haters, The _Joseph C. Lincoln_ Woodcarver of 'Lympus, The _Mary E. Waller_ Woodfire in No. 3, The _F. Hopkinson Smith_ Wrecker, The _Robert Louis Stevenson_ Younger Set, The _Robert W. Chambers_ You Never Know Your Luck _Gilbert Parker_

End of Project Gutenberg's The Passionate Friends, by Herbert George Wells