The Story of Mary MacLane by Mary MacLane (free reads txt) 📖

a clear, sparkling spring will flow over it—through the dreary, sandy stretches of my bitterness, among the false stony roadways of my pain and hatred. And a great rushing, flashing cataract of melting love will flow over my weariness and unrest and wash it away forever. My soul will be fully awakened and there will be a million little sweet new souls in the green growing things. And they will fill my life with everything that is beautiful—tenderness, and divineness, and compassion, and exaltation, and uplifting grace, and light, and rest, and gentleness, and triumph, and truth, and peace. My life will be borne far out of self, and self will sink quietly out of sight—and I shall see it farther and farther away, until it disappears.

“It is the last—the last—of that Mary MacLane,” I will say, and I will feel a long, sighing, quivering farewell.

A thousand years of misery—and now a million years of Happiness.

When the sun is setting in the valley and the crests of those heaven-kissing hills are painted violet and purple, and the valley itself is reeking and swimming in yellow-gold light, the man-Devil—whom I love more than all—and I will go out into it.

We will be saturated in the yellow light of the sun and the gold light of Love.

The man-Devil will say to me: “Look, you little creature, at this beautiful picture of Joy and Happiness. It is the picture of your life as it will be while I stay with you—and I will stay with you for days.”

Ah, yes, I will take a last long farewell of this Mary MacLane. Not one faint shadow of her weary wretched Nothingness will remain.

There will be instead a brilliant, buoyant, joyous creature—transformed, adorned, garlanded by the love of the Devil.

My mind will be a treasure-house of Art, swept and garnished and strong and at its best.

My barren hungry heart will come at last to its own. The red flames of the man-Devil’s love will burn out forever its pitiable distorted wooden quality, and he will take it and cherish it—and give me his.

My young woman’s-body likewise will be metamorphosed, and I shall feel it developing and filled with myriads of little contentments and pleasures. Always my young woman’s-body is a great and important part of me, and when I am married to the Devil its finely-organized nerve-power and intricate sensibility will be culminated to marvelous completeness.

My soul—upon my soul will descend consciously the light that never was on land or sea.

This will be for days—for days.

No matter what came before, I will say; no matter what comes afterward. Just now it is the man-Devil, my best-beloved, and I, living in the yellow light.

Think of living with the Devil in a bare little house, in the midst of green wetness and sweetness and yellow light—for days!

In the gray dawn it will be ineffably sweet and beautiful, with shining leaves and the gray unfathomable air, and the wet grass, and all.

“Be happy now, my weary little wife,” the Devil will say.

And the long, long yellow-gold day will be filled with the music of Real Life.

My grandest possibility will be realized. The world contains a great many things—and this, my grandest possibility, realized!

And in the soft black night I will lie by the side of the man-Devil—and my head will rest in the hollow of his shoulder, and my hand will be clasped in his hand.

I will weep rapturous tears. -

When I think of all this and write it there is in me a feeling that is more than pain.

Perhaps the very sweetest, the tenderest, the most pitiful and benign human voice in the world could sing these things and this feeling set to their own wondrous music,—and it would echo far—far,—and you would understand.

*

February 19

- Am I not intolerably conceited? -

*

February 20

At times when I walk among the natural things—the barren natural things—I know that I believe in Something. Why can I not call it God and pray to it?

There is Something—I do not know it intellectually, but I feel it—I feel it—with my soul. It does not seem to reach down to me. It does not pity me. It does not look at me tenderly in my unhappiness.

My soul feels only that it is there.

No. It is not all-loving, all-gracious, all-pitying. It hurts me—it hurts me always as I walk over the sand. But even while it hurts me it seems to promise—ah, those beautiful things that it promises me!

And then the hurting is anguish—for I know that the promises will never be fulfilled.

There is within me a thing that is aching, aching, aching always as the days pass.

It is not my pain of wanting, nor my pain of unrest, nor my pain of bitterness, nor of hatred. I know those in all their own anguish.

This aching is another pain. It is a pain that I do not know—that I feel ignorantly but sharply, and oh, it is torture, torture!

My soul is worn and weary with pain. There is no compassion—no mercy upon me. There is no one to help me bear it. It is just I alone out on the sand and barrenness. It is cruel anguish to be always alone—and so long—oh, so long!

Nineteen years are as ages to you when you are nineteen.

When you are nineteen there is no experience to tell you that all things have an end.

This aching pain has no end.

- I feel no tears now, but I feel heavy sobs that shake my life to its center. -

My soul is wandering in a wilderness.

There is a great Light sometimes that draws my soul toward it. When my soul turns toward it, it shines out brilliant and dazzling and awful—and the worn sensitive thing shrinks away, and shivers, and is faint.

Shall my soul have to know this Light, inevitably? Must it, some day, plunge into this?

Oh, it may be—it may be. But I know that I shall die with the pain.

There are times when the great Light is dim and beautiful as the star-light—the utter agony of it—the cruel ineffable loveliness!

- Do you understand this? That I am telling you my young passionate life-agony? Do you listen to it indifferently? Has it no meaning for any one? For me it means everything. For me it makes life old long weariness.

It may be that you know. And perhaps you would even weep a little with me if you had time. -

It is as if this Light were the light of the Christian religion—and the Christian religion is full of hatred. It says, Come unto me—you that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. But when you would go, when you reach up with your weary hands, it sends you a too-brilliant Light—it makes you fair, wondrous promises—it puts you off. You beseech it in your suffering -

While the waters near me roll,

While the tempest still is high—but it does not listen—it does not care. Worship me, worship me, it says, but after that let me alone. There is a bookful of promises. Take it and thank me and worship me.

It does not care.

If I obey it, it looks on indifferently. If I disobey it, it looks on indifferently. If I am in woe, it looks on indifferently. If I am in a brief joy, it looks on indifferently.

I am left all alone—all alone.

The Light is shown me and I reach after it, but it is placed high out of my reach.

I see the promises in the Light. Oh, why—_why_ does it promise these things! Is not the burden of life already greater than I can bear? And there is the story of the Christ. It is beautiful. It is damningly beautiful. It draws the tears of pain and soft anguish from me at the sense of beauty. And when every nerve in me is melted and overflowing, then suddenly I am conscious that it is a lie—a lie.

Everywhere I turn there is Nothing—Nothing.

My soul wails out its grief in loneliness.

My soul wanders hither and thither in the dark wilderness and asks, asks always in blind, dull agony: How long?—how long?

*

February 22

Life is a pitiable thing.

*

February 23

I stand in the midst of my sand and barrenness and gaze hard at everything that is within my range of vision—and ruin my eyes trying to see into the darkness beyond.

And nearly always I feel a vague contempt for you, fine brave world,—for you and all the things that I see from my barrenness. But, I promise you, if some one comes from among you over the sunset hill one day with love for me, I will fall at your feet.

I am a selfish, conceited, impudent little animal it is true, but, after all, I am only one grand conglomeration of Wanting—and when some one comes over the barren hill to satisfy the Wanting, I will be humble, humble in my triumph.

It is a difficult thing—a most difficult thing—to live on as one year follows another, from childhood slowly to womanhood, without one single sharer of your life—to be alone, always alone, when your one friend is gone. Oh, yes, it is hard! Particularly when one is not high-minded and spiritual, when one’s near longing is not a God and a religion, when one wants above all things the love of a human being—when one is a woman, young and all alone. Doubtless you know this. After all, fine brave world, there are some things that you know very well. Whether or not you care is a quite different matter.

You have the power to take this wooden heart in a tight, suffocating grasp. You have the power to do this with pain for me, and you have the power to do it with ravishing gentleness. But whether or not you will is another matter.

You may think evil of me before you have finished reading this. You will be very right to think so—according to your standards. But sometimes you see evil where there is no evil, and think evil when the only evil is in your own brains.

My life is a dry and barren life. You can change it.

*

_Oh, the little more, and how much it is!

And the little less, and what worlds away._

Yes, you can change it. Stranger things have happened. Again, whether you will—that is a quite different thing.

No doubt you are the people and wisdom will die with you. I do not question that. I will admit and believe anything you may assert about yourselves. I do not want your wisdom, your judgment. I want some one to come up over the barren sunset hill. My thoughts are the thoughts of youth, which are said to be long, long thoughts.

Your life is multi-colored and filled with people. My life is the gray of sand and barrenness, and consists of Mary MacLane, the longing for Happiness, and the memory of the anemone lady.

This Portrayal is my deepest sincerity, my tears, my drops of red blood. Some of it is wrung from me—wrung by my ambition to tell everything. It is not altogether good that I should give you all this, since I do not give it for love of you. I am giving it in exchange for a few gaily-colored things. I want you to know all these passions and emotions. I give them with the utmost freedom. I shall be furious indeed if you do not take them. At the same