Elenor Murray

“ Helped on its way by flesh, discard the flesh:—
As cured men leave their crutches—and go on
Loving with spirits. For it seems to me
I must find Elenor Murray as a spirit,
Myself a spirit, love her as I loved her
These years on earth, but with a clearer fire,
Flame that is separate from fuel, burning
Eternal through itself.
And here a word:
My love for Elenor Murray never had
Other expression than the look of eyes,
The spiritual thrill of listening to her voice,
A hand clasp, kiss upon the lips at best,
Better to find her soul, as Plato says. ”

“ More than the poor, position more than service,
Office and honor over love of men;
Lived thus when all my strength belonged to thought,
To work for schools, the sick, the poor, the friendless,
To boys and girls with hungry minds. My friends,
Here I abase my soul before God’s throne,
And ask forgiveness for the pious zeal
With which I smote the soul of Alma Bell,
And smudged the robe of Elenor Murray. God,
Thou, who has taken Elenor Murray home,
After great service in the war, O grant
Thy servant yet to kneel before the soul
Of Elenor Murray. For who am I to judge? ”

“ This much of Elenor Murray’s music life.
But on a day a party talk at tea,
Of Elenor Murray and her singing voice
And how she tried to train it—just a riffle
Which passed unknown of Merival. For you know
Your name may come up in a thousand places
At earth’s ends, though you live, and do not die
And make a great sensation for a day. ”

“ The girl is Elenor Murray, who has grown
[Pg 62] To twenty-years, who looks that seventeen
When first he saw her. He remembers her,
And speaks of Alma Bell, that Alma Bell
Is kindred to him. Where is Alma Bell,
He has not heard about her in these years?
And Elenor Murray colors, and says: “Look,
There is a white cloud on the mountain top.”
And thus the talk commences.
Elenor Murray
Shows forth the vital spirit that is hers.
She dances on her toes and crows in wonder,
Flings up her arms in rapture. What a world
Of beauty and of hope! ”

“ 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
[Pg 390] To shame and laughter. ”

“ So I prayed:
[Pg 57] “Come to me flame of spirit, fire of worship,
Bright fire of song; if I but be myself,
Work through my fate, you shall be mine at last.”...
Then was it that I heard from Elenor Murray—
Such letters, such outpourings of herself!
Poor woman leaving love that could not be
More than it was; how wise she was to fly,
And use that love for service, as she did;
Extract its purest essence for the war,
And ease death with it, merging love and death
Into that mystic union, seen at last
By Elenor Murray. ”

“ This Elenor Murray over, get the thought
[Pg 279] That somehow Margery Camp has taken Elenor
In her control for something, has begun
To use her, manage her, is coiling her
With dominant will or cunning. Then I look,
See Margery Camp observing Elenor Murray,
Who drinks the absinthe, and in Margery’s eyes
I see these parallelograms of light
Just like a vase of crockery, there she stands,
Her face like ivory, and laughs and shows
Her marvelous teeth, smooths with her shapely hands
The skirt upon her hips. Somehow I feel
She is a soul who watches passion work. ”

“ Only the blind have failed to see how truly
This Elenor Murray worked her Karma out.
And how she put forth strength to cure her weakness,
And went her vital way, and toiled and died.
Peace to all worlds, and peace to Elenor Murray.
————
The coroner had heard that Elenor Murray
Once crossed the Arctic Circle. What of that?
She traveled, it was proved. What happened there?
What hunter after secrets could find out?
But on a day the name of Elenor Murray
Is handled by two men who sit and talk
In Fairbanks, and the talk is in these words:
AT FAIRBANKS Bill, look here! ”

“ To ferret out this matter of Elenor Murray,
Perhaps this way, or somewhere on the way,
Find news of my Leone; what life she lives,
And where she is. I’m curious still, you see.”
Then Coroner Merival, who had not heard
Of Elenor Murray’s letters in New York
Before this talk of Loveridge Chase, who heard
This story and analysis of Leone
Mixed in with other talk, and got a light
On Elenor Murray, said: “I know your work,
Know you as well, have confidence in you,
Make ready to go, and bring the letters back.” ”

“ And then he set about to crush the girl
Out of his life.
For Gregory Wenner saw
Between this passion and his failing thought,
And gray hairs coming, fortune slip like sand.
[Pg 67] And saw his mind diffuse itself in worries,
In longing for her: found himself at times
Too much in need of drink, and shrank to see
What wishes rose that death might take his wife,
And let him marry Elenor Murray, cure
His life with having her beside him, dreaming
That somehow Elenor Murray could restore
His will and vision, by her passion’s touch,
And mother instinct make him whole again. ”

“ In this our larger world; a light to shine,
And lure amid the tangled woodland ways
Of this our life; a firefly beating wings
Here, there amid the thickets of hard days.
And to go out at last, as all lights do,
And leave a memory, perhaps, but leave
No meaning to be known of any man....
So Elenor Murray is conceived and born.
————
But now this Elenor Murray being born,
We start not with her life, but with her death,
The finding of her body by the river.
And then as Coroner Merival takes proof
Her life comes forth, until the Coroner
Traces it to the moment of her death. ”

“ Of Alma Bell and Elenor Murray crept
Like poisonous mist, scarce seen, around LeRoy.
It had been so always. And all these years
No one would touch or talk in open words
The loathsome matter, since girls grown to women,
And married in the town might have their names
Relinked to Alma Bell’s. And was it true
That Elenor Murray strayed as a young girl
In those far days of strolls and buggy rides? ”

“ He knew this Elenor Murray from a child,
And knew her rearing, schooling, knew the air
She breathed in at LeRoy. And in The Dawn
[Pg 200] Printed this essay:—
“We have seen,” he writes,
“Astonishing revealments, inventories
Taken of souls, all coming from the death
Of Elenor Murray, and the inquest held
To ascertain her death. Perhaps fantastic
This thing may be, but scarcely more fantastic
Than rubbing amber, watching frogs’ legs twitch,
From which the light of cities came, the power
That hauls the coaches over mountain tops. ”

“ And now there’s pity for this Elenor Murray,
And people wept when poor La Menken died.
Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity,
It makes you overlook there are two hours:
[Pg 241] The hour of joy, the hour of finding out
Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain.
We who inspect these lives behold the pain,
And see the error, do not keep in mind
The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed
With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens
Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn
For any other way—“this is the life”
I hear them say. ”

“ His strength and hope not what they were before.
His wife is living on, no whit restored.
And Gregory Wenner thinks, would they not say
I killed myself because I lost my building,
If I should kill myself, and leave a note
That business worries drove me to the deed,
My building this day taken, a receiver
In charge of what I builded out of my dream.
And yet he said to self, that would be false:
It’s Elenor Murray’s death that makes this life
So hard to bear, and thoughts of Elenor Murray
Make life a torture. ”

“ In Elenor Murray’s mother states of soul,
And states of nerves, passed on to Elenor Murray
Directly by her mother.
But you say,
Since many say so, here’s a woman’s soul
Most beautiful and serviceable in the world
And she confutes you, in your logic chopping,
Materialistic program, who would give
The marriage counter power to pick the corn seed
For future planting:
No, I say to this. ”

“ I wish that Elenor Murray might have read it.
I grieve about that girl, you can’t imagine
How much I grieve. Nov write me, coroner,
What is your final judgment of the girl.”
[Pg 376]
“I have so many friends who love me, always
New friends come by to give me wisdom—you
Can teach me, I believe, a man like you
So versed in life. You must have learned new things
Exploring in the life of Elenor Murray.
I was about to write you several times.
I loved that girl from all I heard of her. ”

“ I’m glad that Elenor Murray had her fling,
If that be really true. I understand
What drove her to the war. I think she knew
Too much to marry, settle down and live
Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. ”

“ No romance! Never that! Yet human love
As friend can keep for friend in this our life
I felt for Elenor Murray—and for this:
It was her will that would not take defeat,
Devotion to her work, and in my case
This depth of friendship welling in her heart
For human beings, that I shared in—there
Gave tireless healing to her nursing hands
And saved my life. And for a life a life.
This criminal will live some years, we’ll say,
Were better dead. All right. He’ll cost the state
Say twenty thousand dollars. ”

“ How age breaks down a mind and dulls a heart,
I’ll tell you what I heard:
This Elenor Murray
Was eighteen, just from High School, and one day
She came to see her grandfather and talked.
The old man always said he loved her most
Of all the grandchildren, and Mrs. Fouche
Told me a dozen times she thought as much
Of Elenor Murray as she did of any
Child of her own. Too bad they didn’t show
[Pg 161] Their love for her. ”

“ And mind to know them, live in freedom by them.
[Pg 49] Well, I would have America become
As free as any soul has ever dreamed her,
And if America does not get strength
To free herself, now that the war is over.
Then Elenor Murray’s spirit has not won
The thing she died for.
So I go my way,
Back to get supper, I who live, shall die
In America as it is—Rise up and change it
For mothers of the future Elenors.
By now the press was full of Elenor Murray.
And far and near, wherever she was known,
Had lived, or taught, or studied, tongues were loosed
In episodes or stories of the girl. ”

“ And she would gasp and tremble.”
“Then, at last
A chum I had began to laugh at me,
For, I was now in love with Elenor Murray.
Don’t let her make a fool of you, he said,
No girl who ever traveled with Roy Green
Was not what he desired her, nor, before
The kind of girl he wanted. Don’t you know
[Pg 192] Roy Green is laughing at you in his sleeve,
And boasts that Elenor Murray was all his?
You see that stung me, for I thought at twenty
Girls do not go so far, that only women
Who sell themselves do so, or now and then
A girl who is betrayed by hopes of marriage. ”

“ At times the tale means to be an allegory of America during the troubled, roiled, destroying years of the war; at times it means to be a "census spiritual" of American society. Elenor Murray, in her birth and love and sufferings and desperate end, is represented as pure nature, "essential genius," acting out its fated processes in a world of futile or corrupting inhibitions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If money must be lost, I’d rather lose it
On Elenor Murray than on cattle. In fact,
That’s where the money went, as I have said.
And Elenor Murray went away and earned
[Pg 163] Two terms at college, and this worthless son
Ate up and spent the money. All of them,
The son and Arthur Fouche and Elenor Murray
Are gone to dust, now, like the garden things
That sprout up, fall and rot.
At times it seems
All waste to me, no matter what you do
For self or others, unless you think of turnips
Which can’t be much to turnips, but are good
For us who raise them. ”

“ LOVERIDGE CHASE Here is the secret of the death of Elenor,
From what I learn of her, from what I know
In living, knowing women, I am clear
About this Elenor Murray. Give me power
To get the letters, power to give a bond
[Pg 287] To indemnify the company, for you know
Letters belong to him who writes the letters;
And if the company is given bond
It will surrender them, and then you’ll know
What man she loved, this Gregory Wenner or
Some other man, and if some other man,
Whether he caused her death. ”

“ For Elenor Murray in a mood of strength,
After her confirmation and communion,
Had said to Gregory Wenner: “Now the end
Has come to this, our love, I think it best
If she should ever learn I am the woman
Who in New York spent summer days with you,
And later in Chicago, in that summer,
She will remember what my eyes will show
When we stand face to face, and I give proof
That I am changed, repentant.”
For the wife
Had listened to a friend who came to tell
She saw this Gregory Wenner in New York
From day to day in gardens and cafes,
And by the sea romancing with a girl. ”