I suppose most old-fashioned, orthodox people would think it awful to
break up a marriage on such innocent grounds. It seemed so to me at
first; but as she went on piling up detail on detail each trivial in
itself, but making a mountainous total, I agreed with Helen that it was
awful to keep it going. It wasn't really a marriage; it was a mistake.
So one morning at breakfast, when the subject of what they should do for
the summer came up, she said quite casually that she thought she would
go West and get a residence in some State where you could get a divorce
for a respectable cause; and for the first time in months he agreed with
her.
You can imagine the outraged feelings of her Victorian family. In all
the seven generations of their sojourn in America they have never had
anything like this to record in the family Bible. It all comes from
sending her to college and letting her read such dreadful modern people
as Ellen Key and Bernard Shaw.
"If he had only got drunk and dragged me about by the hair," Helen
wailed, "it would have been legitimate; but because we didn't actually
throw things at each other, no one could see any reason for a divorce."
The pathetic part of the whole business is that both she and Henry were
admirably fitted to make some one else happy. They just simply didn't
match each other; and when two people don't match, all the ceremonies in
the world can't marry them.
Saturday morning.
I meant to get this letter off two days ago; and here I am with volumes
written, but nothing mailed.
We've just had one of those miserable deceiving nights--cold and frosty
when you go to bed, and warm and lifeless when you wake in the dark,
smothered under a mountain of blankets. By the time I had removed my own
extra covers and plumped up my pillow and settled comfortably, I thought
of those fourteen bundled-up babies in the fresh-air nursery. Their
so-called night nurse sleeps like a top the whole night through. (Her
name is next on the list to be expunged.) So I roused myself again, and
made a little blanket removing tour, and by the time I had finished I
was forever awake. It is not often that I pass a NUIT BLANCHE; but when
I do, I settle world problems. Isn't it funny how much keener your mind
is when you are lying awake in the dark?
I began thinking about Helen Brooks, and I planned her whole life over
again. I don't know why her miserable story has taken such a hold over
me. It's a disheartening subject for an engaged girl to contemplate.
I keep saying to myself, what if Gordon and I, when we really get
acquainted, should change our minds about liking each other? The fear
grips my heart and wrings it dry. But I am marrying him for no reason in
the world except affection. I'm not particularly ambitious. Neither his
position nor his money ever tempted me in the least. And certainly I am
not doing it to find my life work, for in order to marry I am having
to give up the work that I love. I really do love this work. I go about
planning and planning their baby futures, feeling that I'm constructing
the nation. Whatever becomes of me in after life, I am sure I'll be
the more capable for having had this tremendous experience. And it IS a
tremendous experience, the nearness to humanity that an asylum brings.
I am learning so many new things every day that when each Saturday night
comes I look back on the Sallie of last Saturday night, amazed at her
ignorance.