24 May
My dearest Mina,
Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter.
It was so nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy.
My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are.
Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had
a proposal till today, not a real proposal, and today I had three.
Just fancy! Three proposals in one day! Isn't it awful!
I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows.
Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don't know what to do with myself.
And three proposals! But, for goodness' sake, don't tell any of
the girls, or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas,
and imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first
day at home they did not get six at least. Some girls are so vain!
You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle
down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity.
Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep it
a secret, dear, from every one except, of course, Jonathan.
You will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place,
certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything.
Don't you think so, dear? And I must be fair. Men like women,
certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are. And women,
I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be.
Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch.
I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic
asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead.
He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same.
He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of
little things, and remembered them, but he almost managed to sit
down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do when they
are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept
playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream.
He spoke to me, Mina, very straightfordwardly. He told me
how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little,
and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him.
He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I
did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said
he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble.
Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time,
and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some
hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else.
He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring
my confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman's
heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt
a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one.
I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked
very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his
and said he hoped I would be happy, and that If I ever wanted
a friend I must count him one of my best.
Oh, Mina dear, I can't help crying, and you must excuse this letter being
all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing,
but it isn't at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow,
whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken hearted,
and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing
out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable,
though I am so happy.
Evening.
Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left off,
so I can go on telling you about the day.
Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow,and
American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost
impossible that he has been to so many places and has such adventures.
I sympathize with poor Desdemona when she had such a stream poured
in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such
cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him.
I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl
love me. No, I don't, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories,
and Arthur never told any, and yet...
My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincy P. Morris found
me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone.
No, he doesn't, for Arthur tried twice to make a chance,
and I helping him all I could, I am not ashamed to say it now.
I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always
speak slang, that is to say, he never does so to strangers
or before them, for he is really well educated and has
exquisite manners, but he found out that it amused me
to hear him talk American slang,and whenever I was present,
and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things.
I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly
into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has.
I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang.
I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him
use any as yet.
Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly
as he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous.
He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly...
"Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of your
little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you
will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit.
Won't you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long
road together, driving in double harness?"
Well, he did look so hood humoured and so jolly that it didn't
seem half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward.
So I said, as lightly as I could, that I did not know anything
of hitching, and that I wasn't broken to harness at all yet.
Then he said that he had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped
that if he had made a mistake in doing so on so grave,
so momentous, and occasion for him, I would forgive him.
He really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn't help
feeling a sort of exultation that he was number Two in one day.
And then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring
out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very heart
and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I
shall never again think that a man must be playful always,
and never earnest, because he is merry at times.
I suppose he saw something in my face which checked him,
for he suddenly stopped,and said with a sort of manly fervour
that I could have loved him for if I had been free...
"Lucy, you are an honest hearted girl, I know. I should not be here
speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit,
right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one
good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for?
And if there is I'll never trouble you a hair's breadth again,
but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend."
My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy
of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great hearted, true gentleman.
I burst into tears, I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy
letter in more ways than one, and I really felt very badly.
Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her,
and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it.
I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into
Mr. Morris' brave eyes, and I told him out straight...
"Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me
yet that he even loves me." I was right to speak to him
so frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put
out both his hands and took mine, I think I put them into his,
and said in a hearty way...
"That's my brave girl. It's better worth being late for
a chance of winning you than being in time for any other
girl in the world. Don't cry, my dear. If it's for me,
I'm a hard nut to crack, and I take it standing up.
If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well,
he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me.
Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend,
and that's rarer than a lover, it's more selfish anyhow.
My dear, I'm going to have a pretty lonely walk between
this and Kingdom Come. Won't you give me one kiss?
It'll be something to keep off the darkness now and then.
You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellow,
or you could not love him, hasn't spoken yet."
That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble too,
to a rival, wasn't it? And he so sad, so I leant over and kissed him.
He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked
down into my face, I am afraid I was blushing very much,
he said, "Little girl, I hold your hand, and you've kissed me,
and if these things don't make us friends nothing ever will.
Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and goodbye."
He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room
without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause, and I am
crying like a baby.
Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots
of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on?
I know I would if I were free, only I don't want to be free
My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write
of happiness just at once, after telling you of it,and I don't
wish to tell of the number Three until it can be all happy.
Ever your loving...
Lucy
P.S.--Oh, about number Three, I needn't tell you of number Three, need I?
Besides, it was all so confused. It seemed only a moment from his coming
into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me.
I am very, very happy, and I don't know what I have done to deserve it.
I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God
for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband,
and such a friend.
Goodbye.
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY (Kept in phonograph)
25 May.--Ebb tide in appetite today. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so
diary instead. since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling.
Nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing.
As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went amongst
the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest.
He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can.
Today I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery.
I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view
to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination.
In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty.
I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness, a thing
which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell.
(Mem., Under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit
of hell?) Omnia Romae venalia sunt. Hell has its price!
If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable
to trace it afterwards accurately, so I had better commence
to do so, therefore...
R. M, Renfield, age 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength,
morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I
cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself
and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish,
a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish
men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves.
What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point
the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal. When duty,
a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount,
and only accident of a series of accidents can balance it.