September 30, 19—.
It is because you know not what you do that I cannot forgive you. Could you know that your letter with its catalogue of advantages and arrangements must offend me as much as it belies1 (let us hope) you and the woman of your love, I would pardon the affront2 of it upon us all, and ascribe the unseemly want of warmth to reserve or to the sadness which grips the heart when joy is too palpitant. But something warns me that you are unaware3 of the chill your words breathe, and that is a lapse4 which it is impossible to meet with indulgence.
"He does not love her," was Barbara's quick decision, and she laid the open letter down with a definiteness which said that you, too, are laid out and laid low. Your sister's very wrists can be articulate. However, I laughed at her and she soon joined me. We do not mean to be extravagant5 with our fears. Who shall prescribe the letters of lovers to their sisters and foster-fathers? Yet there are some things their letters should be incapable6 of saying, and amongst them that love is not a crisis and a rebirth, but that it is common as the commonplace, a hit or miss affair which "shuffling7" could not affect.
Barbara showed me your note to her. "Had I written like this of myself and Earl—"
"You could not," I objected.
"Then Herbert should have been as little able to do it," she deduced with emphasis. Here I might have told her that men and women are races apart, but no one talks cant8 to Barbara. So I did not console her, and it stands against you in our minds that on this critical occasion you have baffled us with coldness.
An absence of six years, broken into twice by a brief few months, must work changes. When Barbara called your letter unnatural9, she forgot how little she knows what is natural to you. She and I have been wont10 to predetermine you, your character, foothold, and outlook, by—say by the fact that you knew your Wordsworth and that you knew him without being able to take for yourself his austere11 peace. Youth which lives by hope is riven by unrest.
Bond unknown to me was given
That I should be, else sinning gently,
That pale sunrise seen from Mt. Tamalpais and your voice vibrant14 to fierceness on the "else sinning gently"—to me the splendour of rose on piled-up ridges15 of mist spoke16 all for you, so dear have you always been. It rested on the possible wonder of your life. It threw you into the scintillant17 Dawn with an abandon meet to a son of Waring.
Tell me, do you still read your Wordsworth on your knees? I am bent18 with regret for the time when your mind had no surprises for me, when the days were flushed halcyon19 with my hope in you. I resent your development if it is because of it that you speak prosaically21 of a prosaic20 marriage and of a honeymoon22 simultaneous with the Degree. I think you are too well pleased with the simultaneousness.
Yet the fact of the letter is fair. It cannot be that the soul of it is not. Hester Stebbins is a poet. I lean forward and think it out as I did some days ago when the news came. I conjure23 up the look of love. If the woman is content (how much more than content the feeling she bounds with in knowing you hers as she is yours), what better test that all is well? I conjure up the look of love. It is thus at meeting and thus at parting. Even here, to-night, when all is chill and hard to understand, I catch the flash and the warmth, and what I see restores you to me, but how deep the plummet24 of my mind needed to sound before it reached you. It is because you permitted yourself to speak when silence had expressed you better.
Show me the ideally real Hester Stebbins, the spark of fire which is she. The storms have not broken over her head. She will laugh and make poetry of her laughter. If before she met you she wept, that, too, will help the smiling. There is laughter which is the echo of a Miserere sobbed25 by the ages. Men chuckle26 in the irony27 of pain, and they smile cold, lessoned smiles in resignation; they laugh in forgetfulness and they laugh lest they die of sadness. A shrug28 of the shoulders, a widening of the lips, a heaving forth29 of sound, and the life is saved. The remedy is as drastic as are the drugs used for epilepsy, which in quelling30 the spasm31 bring idiocy32 to the patient. If we are made idiots by our laughter, we are paying dearly for the privilege of continuing in life.
Hester shall laugh because she is glad and must tell her joy, and she will not lose it in the telling. Greet her for me and hasten to prove yourself, for
"The Poet, gentle creature that he is,
Hath like the Lover, his unruly times;
His fits when he is neither sick nor well,
Unmanageable thoughts."
You will judge by this letter that I am neither sick nor well, and that I reach for a distress which is not near. If I were Merchant rather than Poet, it would be otherwise with me.
Dane.
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1
belies
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| v.掩饰( belie的第三人称单数 )；证明（或显示）…为虚假；辜负；就…扯谎 | |
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2
affront
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| n./v.侮辱，触怒 | |
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3
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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4
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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5
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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6
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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7
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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8
cant
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| n.斜穿，黑话，猛扔 | |
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9
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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10
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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11
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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12
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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13
dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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14
vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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15
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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16
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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17
scintillant
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| adj.产生火花的，闪烁（耀）的 | |
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18
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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19
halcyon
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| n.平静的，愉快的 | |
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20
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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21
prosaically
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| adv.无聊地；乏味地；散文式地；平凡地 | |
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22
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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23
conjure
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| v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法 | |
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24
plummet
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| vi.(价格、水平等)骤然下跌；n.铅坠；重压物 | |
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25
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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26
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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27
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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28
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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29
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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30
quelling
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| v.（用武力）制止，结束，镇压( quell的现在分词 ) | |
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31
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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32
idiocy
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| n.愚蠢 | |
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33
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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