Lethe

“ A red plush couch behind the door was neatly laid with ironed clothing.
“Lethe sang it along with me last night,” Americy said. “It goes a sight better if two sing. Lethe can sing a right smart better’n I can nohow. Lethe can sing.”
[136]
“Come on, Lethe, and sing,” Theodosia said. “Americy says you can sing. Come on.”
“I can’t no such thing,” Lethe said, but her manner was more warm. She moved away toward the small fireplace, her hands now folded under her bosom, her mind set upon some pleasant inner sense of herself, her steps slow and aimless. “I can’t sing so fine as Americy makes out.” ”

“ Nothing can be more beautiful or original than the use which he has made of the River of Lethe. He has never assigned to his mythological characters any functions inconsistent with the creed of the Catholic Church. ”

“ No wild beast, nor cattle, nor branch moved with the wind, nor sound of human conversation, breaks the stillness. Silence reigns there; and from the bottom of the rock the River Lethe flows, and by its murmur invites to sleep. Poppies grow abundantly before the door of the cave, and other herbs, from whose juices Night collects slumbers, which she scatters over the darkened earth. There is no gate to the mansion, to creak on its hinges, nor any watchman; but in the midst, a couch of black ebony, adorned with black plumes and black curtains. There the god reclines, his limbs relaxed with sleep. ”

“ NOTES.
"This poem," says Leigh Hunt, "was written in a house at the foot of Highgate Hill, on the border of the fields looking towards Hampstead. The poet had then his mortal illness upon him, and knew it; never was the voice of death sweeter."
1. Lethe-wards. That is, towards Lethe. Lethe was one of the rivers of Hell. Its name means "forgetfulness." Milton describes it thus ”

“ Beata began to cry as I handed her over to Miss Leslie, who looked daggers at me, and I am quite sure called me, in her own mind, "A horrid old thing!"
Father Letheby, after his unusually heavy confessional, was jubilant. Nothing exhilarates him like work. ”

“ Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death. ”

“ In a few weeks Letty was about again. A pale, thin, serious, but energetic-looking woman. Could that be the once laughing, [Pg 246] blithe, singing Letty? It was the same bright, pure spirit, saddened but ennobled by the ordeal of trial and distress, and by a life’s aim the noblest and most sacred that ever lifted a womanly soul into the regions of a wisdom beyond her years. She soon returned her attention to business. Closely veiled, she walked silently through the quietest streets from her house to the warehouse ”

“ That night, at the ringing of the factory bell, Letty sorted her loom as she was wont, in her orderly fashion, and went out slowly and singly, lingering behind the riotous troops of her companions, in order to be joined by George Ashe. There he was, by her side, a slight lad, more youthful-looking than Letty, though he was her senior, with that ineffable air of refinement which some people confusedly call a genteel address, and with one of those bright and spiritual faces, set in soft, dark, curly hair, which we are driven to look on in a man with dim doubts and forebodings. ”

“ It took all the influence of Letty’s controlling power to restrain him. She was not without fear at his fever, though it was not in her nature to show her fear. She was a woman who could be modestly silent alike in trepidation and mortification, in pain of body and anguish of mind.
“If I were you, George, I would go to the factory as usual,” proposed Letty, earnestly. “People will not believe at first in our fortune; I can scarcely believe in it myself. There may be some obstacle yet of which we are not aware, though the lawyer speaks fair. ”

“ Inch by inch it moved, until first of all Letty saw a few wisps of dark hair, then a few more, then a thick cluster; then something white and shining—a protruding forehead; then dark, very dark brows; then two eyelids, yellow, swollen, and fortunately tightly closed; then—a purple conglomeration of Letty knew not what—of anything but what was [36] human. The sight was so monstrous it appalled her; and she was overcome with a species of awe and repulsion, for which the language of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression. ”

“ It was two o’clock in the morning before Lettie, with Stella and her brother, reached the house, a wretched, draggled-looking, and very cross party, all without hats,—for these had been lost in the river,—and Lettie, her fine silk dress a ruin, her delicate shoes a shapeless mass from which the water squirted as she walked.
By breakfast time Lettie, who was a delicate girl, was in a high fever, and the doctor, who was hastily called in, decided that she was threatened with pneumonia. ”

“ Mr. Widden could have supplied her with many reasons, but he refrained, and sat in sulky silence while Mr. Letts got ready. From his point of view the experiment was by no means a success, his efforts to be natural being met with amazed glances from Mr. Letts and disdainful requests from Miss Foster to go home if he couldn't behave himself. When he relapsed into moody silence Mr. Letts cleared his throat and spoke.
"There's no need to be like a monkey-on-a-stick, and at the same time there's no need to be sulky," he pointed out; "there's a happy medium." ”

“ Lethbridge, I know him and his ways. He is wonderfully sensitive and nervous, and he had taken it into his head that upon the success of A Heart of Gold his whole career depended. He had staked all his hopes upon it. Success meant life, fortune, fame, happiness: failure meant death, ruin, despair. It is the misfortune of these highly sensitive natures; they suffer the tortures of the damned! How did you come here?"
"In a cab," said Uncle Leth.
"I followed Linton on foot, and must have been pretty smart, because I got here before you arrived. ”

“ What to begin with could be more flattering either to heart or vanity than the persistence with which one of the most famous women of her time—watched, praised, copied, attacked, surrounded, as Letty knew her to be, from morning till night—had devoted herself first to the understanding, then to the capturing, of the smaller, narrower life. ”

“ Let the future take care of itself. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ you know. You have seen evil enough, poor Letty. Good night and sweet dreams;” and she left Lettice to think over all this new situation.
Volunteers were tramping into the city; preparations were going forward for a brave defence, and when Lettice laid her head upon her pillow, it was to dream of future alarms and start up more than once with a little cry. Once Betty heard her and came in to bend gently over her. ”

“ Something had befallen her this very morning which had caused her to blush, and it was the first time in all her life that Lettice's cheek had grown red for anything she had done, or thought, or said, or listened to, in respect of any man whatever. Putting her father and brother on one side, no man had had the power, for very few had had the opportunity, to quicken the pulses in her veins as they were quickened now. ”

“ Yes!” and Miss Letty smiled—“I shall find him again,—I shall find the little fair soul of the child that used to call me ‘Kiss Letty’—the soul that is no longer here,—but—there!{246}”
She raised her soft blue eyes, radiant with love and trust; and Violet looked at her with the worship of a devotee for a shrined saint. Miss Letty, presently meeting this upturned adoring gaze, bent down and kissed her very tenderly.
“And so, dear girl,” she continued, “we will say no more of Boy just now. Boy is put away among an old woman’s sentimental memories. ”

“ Never mind, Letty never looked handsomer or happier than when she arranged the scanty furniture, and made the markets in the circumscribed flat in the ugly, crowded manufacturing town. Letty was such a young wife, so stately, and so sweet, so civil to her neighbours, so genuinely frank and kind to old friends, and above all, such a companion, friend, mistress, lady to George Ashe, though she had worked as a factory girl once, and he was never likely to be more than a poor clerk to the end of the chapter, that it was good to see her. ”

“ The true art lies in knowing just how long to keep silent, and just the right time to speak. In the first act of Letty, Sir Arthur Pinero gains a memorable effect by keeping a secret, not very long, indeed, but long enough and carefully enough to show that he knew very clearly what he was doing. We are introduced to Nevill Letchmere's bachelor apartments. Animated scenes occur between Letchmere and his brother-in-law, Letchmere and his sister, Letchmere and Letty, Marion and Hilda Gunning. ”

“ Letty was taken notice of by no less a person than a clever, managing housekeeper in the family of a wealthy cotton lord; nay, Letty was engaged in marriage to a young man with education enough to be a clerk in the factory where she worked, and not only with such chance advantages in book-keeping, but with that intense love of the beautiful in all its shapes which belongs to some of the tenderest and most dependent of our race. Yet Letty was only the orphan daughter of a mechanic, who had been rather remarkable for his incapacity than for anything else. ”

“ In effect, this was but short, for she passed from it to another, at the age of thirty-eight years, with equal rejoicings of the angels, and lamentations of mankind, leaving many works, which are sufficient to eternize her fame. A number of authors were the panegyrists of this extraordinary woman, among whom, was Gregory Leti, who, in his select extracts from history, gives her the epithets of the heroine of letters, and a monster of science; calling her at the same time, an angel of beauty and candour. ”

“ When Letty, therefore, came bounding into the old minister's study, he glanced up from his manuscript, and, as his eye fell upon her, it flashed across him that there was nothing so very monstrous and unnatural about the specimen of congenital perversion he was looking at, with his features opening into their pleasantest sunshine. Technically, according to the fifth proposition of the sermon on Human Nature, very bad, no doubt. Practically, according to the fact before him, a very pretty piece of the Creator's handiwork, body and soul. ”

“ Letitia's slate-pencil coffee was ambrosia for the gods, sweetest nectar, by the side of the dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily.
"I've discovered one thing," said Letitia on the evening of the third day. "The girl is just a peasant, probably a worker in the fields. That is why she is so ignorant." ”

“ Mist rose, and wreathed round Nethermere, like ghosts meeting and embracing sadly. I thought of the time when my friend should not follow the harrow on our own snug valley side, and when Lettie’s room next mine should be closed to hide its emptiness, not its joy. My heart clung passionately to the hollow which held us all; how could I bear that it should be desolate! I wondered what Lettie would do.
In the morning I was up early, when daybreak came with a shiver through the woods. I went out, while the moon still shone sickly in the west. The world shrank from the morning. ”

“ Death was better than disgrace—and yet—Miss Letty was so good a woman{308}—she had loved him so much—she would be sure to forgive him—if——!
With the daylight he rose and sat at his writing-table, vaguely turning over bits of paper and scribbling figures on them without any apparent intention,—then after a hurried breakfast he went out. At about half-past ten he made his way to Miss Letty’s bank and drawing her cheque out of his pocket, passed it across the counter. The cashier glanced at it with a little uplifting of his eyebrows. ”

“ And in after-days, when his wish was fulfilled, and he had replaced his uncle at the head of his firm, he would sometimes recall with a smile the days when he had measured grey flannel and wrapped up parcels of tapes and ribbons for the dames of Greenwell.
There are many ways in which life’s lessons are taught. Some have to go through hard and sorrowful experiences—harder, it often seems, than they merit; others, like Lettice, learn true humility and sacrifice of self-will by gentler discipline. ”

“ Even people whose lives have been made various by learning, sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible, nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas—where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life has other forms than those on which their souls have been nourished. Minds that have been unhinged from their old faith and love, have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of exile, in which the past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories. ”

“ Letitia did not, indeed, worry. She enjoyed herself and was radiant. Every day was so full of delight and pleasure that it seemed rank ingratitude to think of the morrow except under the same aspect. Life clung to her as pliantly and adorningly as a charming frock. Since her inner life was unshadowed and all men smiled upon her, she believed the world at large to be in a lasting condition of content. Rumours of pain and misfortune, she thought, must somewhere have their ground in reality. ”

“ There is always too much to say or too little. One's thoughts never fit the rhomboid apportioned by Mr. Letts for their accommodation. Great men who have thoughts when the diary is handy do not, of course, patronise Letts, because he could not be expected to know when there would be a sunset likely to stir up poetic reflections, or a moonrise comparable with the cold light cast by some unsympathetic young woman's eyes upon the poet's life.
For such men, however, as Agar, Mr. Letts is a guardian angel. The space is there, and facts must be forthcoming to fill it. ”