Hermia

“ It is not to be supposed that Hermia’s imagination was faithful to the Orient. Her nature had great sensuous breadth and wells of passion which penetrated far down into the deep, hard substratum of New England rock; but her dreams were apt to be inspired by what she had read last. She loved the barbarous, sensuous, Oriental past, but she equally loved the lore which told of the rugged strength and brutal sincerity of mediæval days, when man turned his thoughts to love and war and naught besides ”

“ Injurious Hermia, most ungrateful maid!
Have you conspir’d, have you with these contriv’d,
To bait me with this foul derision?
Is all the counsel that we two have shar’d,
The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us—O, is all forgot?
All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. ”

“ The blood mounted to the roots of Hermia’s hair, and her eyes looked as fierce as if she were one of Quintard’s barbarians. She felt more anger than she cared to betray. No other man living would have dared make such a speech to her. Cryder would have humored her, and she had expected Quintard to be suitably impressed. ”

“ Hermia leaned back against a pile of cushions, and, clasping her hands behind her head, gazed about her with half-closed eyes. There was a sense of familiarity about it all that cast a shadow over her content. It was a remarkably close reproduction of an ideal, considering that the ideal had been filtered through the practical brain of a nineteenth century decorator—but therein lay the sting. She had dreamed of this room, lived in it; it was as familiar as Bessie’s parlor in Brooklyn, with its tidies and what-nots; it wanted the charm of novelty. ”

“ The ladies, who before had always been the dearest of friends, now fell to high words together.
"Unkind Hermia," said Helena, "it is you have set Lysander on to vex me with mock praises; and your other lover Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me Goddess, Nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me, whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make a jest of me. Unkind Hermia, to join with men in scorning your poor friend. Have you forgot our school-day friendship? ”

“ Hermia.
Lysander riddles very prettily:
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
Lie further off; in human modesty,
Such separation as may well be said
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:
Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!
Lysander.
Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;
And then end life when I end loyalty!
Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!
Hermia.
With half that wish the wisher’s eyes be press’d! ”

“ She wasn't quite certain about Hermia. It was never wise to be certain about any girl—especially if that girl was seven years younger than you were and quite as pretty. And what on earth did Hermia mean by scrubbing John Markham's floor? In her present mood it seemed a symbol—was it prophetic? Markham was candid in his likes and dislikes and he made no bones now of the pleasure in Hermia's society. Hermia was a surprising person. Her love of mischief was increasing with her years, her capacity for making it only limited by the end of opportunity. ”

“ As she came down the broad staircase, in a gown that made her look as if she had stepped from some old French canvas, Cryder stood gazing at her for a moment, then without a word sat down before the organ and began to play. The organ needs only a skillful hand; its own rich, sonorous tones pour soul through cold, calm fingers. Cryder played Tristan’s Death Song, and Hermia sank into a chair and felt that naught existed but glory of color and surge of sound. ”

“ Suppose you try something else and be more careful with your vocabulary. I trust you catch my idea, because I am really quite interested in your work. It is like the fresh breeze of spring when it is not”—here he laughed—“the torrid breath of the simoon. I have read some of your other verse, you see.”
“I think I understand you,” said Hermia, leaning forward and gazing reflectively at him. “Manner is everything. Matter is a creature whose limbs may be of wood, whose joints may be sapless; so long as he is covered by a first-class tailor he is a being to strut proudly down to posterity. ”

“ Hermia interrupted him harshly: “There is no marriage or giving in marriage in my kingdom. I hate the word! Are you very much shocked?”
Cryder smiled. “No,” he said, “one is surprised sometimes to hear one’s own dearest theories in the mouth of another, but not shocked. It only needed that to make you the one woman I have wanted to know. You have that rarest gift among women—a catholic mind. And it does not spring from immorality or vulgar love of excitement—you are simply brave and original.” ”

“ They passed under a lamp at the moment, and a ray of light fell on Quintard’s face, to which Hermia had lifted her eyes. The color sprang to it, and his eyes flashed. He bent his head until she shrank under the strong, angry magnetism of his gaze. “It is time you opened your eyes,” he said harshly, “and learned to know one man from another. And it is time you began to realize what you have to expect.” ”

“ They were different when I was young.”
“Oh, no; that is not the average man,” said Hermia; “that is only the average society man. They are two distinct species, I assure you.”
“Well, at all events, I prefer him to that dreadful Mr. Quintard. I hope he will not come to this house, Hermia.”
“Oh, I have invited him,” said Hermia, indifferently. “He shines beside some who come here, if you did but know it.”
“Then I am thankful I do not know it,” exclaimed Miss Starbruck. “I think I will go up-stairs and talk to Miss Newton.”
“No,” said Hermia, “stay and talk to me. I am bored! I hate to be alone! ”

“ I promise that at the end of that time you will marry Quintard.”
“Well,” said Hermia, listlessly, “I will think of it.” She was beginning to wish her aunt would go. She had made her more disgusted with life than ever.
Mrs. Dykman divined that it was time to leave the girl alone, and rose. She hesitated a moment and then placed her hand on Hermia’s shoulder. “I have had every experience that life offers to women,” she said—and for the first time in Hermia’s knowledge of her those even tones deepened—“every tragedy, every comedy, every bitterness, every joy—everything. ”

“ She would have regarded an emotional tumult in her own being as a bore, but for Hermia she thought it quite the most appropriate and advisable thing. Once in a while, in a half-blind way, she came into momentary contact with the supreme loneliness and craving of Hermia’s nature, and she invariably responded with a sympathetic throb and a wish that the coming man would not tarry so long.
She was so glad she had thought of Cryder. She honestly believed him to be the one man of all men who could make the happiness of her friend ”

“ When Hermia awoke from her deep slumber, and missed Lysander, she was seized with the greatest affright. Starting up, she ran wildly through the forest, till she encountered Demetrius, and accused him of slaying her lost lover, that he might have no rival to her love. When Demetrius denied this, she ran on, calling, in agonizing tones, upon her lost Lysander. Oberon saw their meeting, heard his tender words to Hermia, and remembering how Demetrius had scorned sweet Helena, he saw that Puck had not yet anointed his eyes with the flower. ”

“ More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching. O were favour so,
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go.
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I’d give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart!
HERMIA.
I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA.
O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
HERMIA.
I give him curses, yet he gives me love. ”

“ That a woman should marry from any other motive seems to me scandalous and criminal.”
“What do truth and duty mean?” demanded Hermia scornfully. “Monotony and an ennui worse than death. You are happy that you live your married life in imagination, and that your lover died before even courtship had begun to pall. Still”—she shrugged her shoulders as she thought of Bessie—“perhaps you wouldn’t have minded it; some people don’t.” ”

“ The morning after the little arithmetical problem, Hermia arose early and sat down at her desk. She drew out a package of MS. and read it over twice, then determined to have a flirtation with the magazines. These verses were more skillful from a literary point of view than any of her previous work, because, for the sake of variety, she had plagiarized some good work of an English poet. ”

“ She is not drawn to God in the least. She is drawn to the idealized abstraction of her lover, who, in the mists of her white-heated imagination, assumes the lineaments of the being most exalted by tradition. If there were a being more exalted still than God, her lover’s phantom would be re-christened with his name instead. It is to her lover that she prays—the intermediate being is a pretty fiction—and she revels in prayer, because it gives her a dreamy and sensuous nearness to her lover.”
Hermia sprang to her feet and paced the narrow platform with rapid steps. ”

“ She would not grow old. Age was a disease which could be prevented by the use of proper precautions. She must stop playing cards so late, get up earlier, take long walks in the air, play tennis as Hermia did—
She put the mirror down and lay back in her chair, her gaze fixed upon the wall beside her which bore a photograph of her young hostess astride her favorite hunter. Hermia's youth and her own knowledge of the world—what would she not give for that indomitable combination! She was glad in a way that Markham had decided to postpone the painting of Hermia's portrait. ”

“ A few weeks later Frank made an announcement which gave Hermia a genuine thrill of delight. A fellow bank-clerk was obliged to spend some months in California, and had offered Mordaunt his house in Jersey for the summer. Hermia would not consent to go with them, in spite of their entreaties. As far back as she could remember, way down through the long perspective of her childhood, she had never been quite alone except at night, nor could she remember the time when she had not longed for solitude. And now! To be alone for four months! ”

“ She looked about her with a smile which had little fear in it.
“These stern gray walls and that vaulted ceiling carry you out of Second Avenue, I admit; and those stained-glass windows and all that tapestry and antique furniture waft me back to the days of my struggles with somebody or other’s history of England. But, Hermia mia, I think it would be good for you to have a modern drawing-room in your house, and to sit in it occasionally. It is this semblance of past romance which makes you discontented with the world as you find it.” ”

“ Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield
Thy crazèd title to my certain right.
LYSANDER.
You have her father’s love, Demetrius.
Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him. ”

“ This was the first man who had shown the faintest insight into her contradictory personality and complicated nature. For the moment she forgot where she was, and she gave a little sigh which brought the blood to her face. To love would not be so difficult as she had imagined.
“What is it?” asked Cryder, gently. He had been watching her covertly. “I want to amend something I said a moment ago. You have not lived in fact but you have in imagination, and the men your fancy has created have made those of actual, prosaic life appear tame and colorless.”
Hermia’s heart gave a bound. ”

“ But I have some private reasons for going a step beyond agnosticism, and believing in the persistence of personality. Do you want to hear them?”
“Yes,” said Hermia, “but it all comes down to the same proposition. Religion has its stronghold in Ego the Great. La vie, c’est moi! I am, therefore must ever be! Now and forever! World without end!”
“I refuse to be snubbed beforehand. Why are children so frequently the ancestors of their family’s talent? When heredity cannot account for genius, what better explanation than that of the re-embodiment of an unquenchable individuality? ”

“ Then Hermia began to be piqued and a little mortified. For several hours she thought less about dismissing him. The next day the whole thing seemed like a dream; she caught herself wondering if it had really happened. At this point she received a note from Cryder.
“It is a year since I have seen you, but I have a book due at the publisher’s on Thursday, and I have been working night and day. After the weary grind is over you will see too much of me. In the mean time I am with you always. ”

“ Hermia has nothing in common with the class of young women to whom you refer. That her affections are very deeply involved I am as certain as that I am now talking to you, nor have I any hesitation in saying that were she compelled to break off her engagement with Clement Hazeldine it would go far towards wrecking her happiness, if not for life, in any case for a long time to come. ”