Emily Climbs (26 page)

“I was down seeing Mr. Carpenter this evening. He has been laid up with rheumatism and one can see he is getting old. He was very cranky with the scholars last year and there was some protest against keeping him on, but it was done. Most of the Blair Water people have sense enough to realise that with all his crankiness Mr. Carpenter is a teacher in a thousand.

“‘One can’t teach fools amiably’ he growled, when the trustees told him there were complaints about his harshness.

“Perhaps it was his rheumatism that made Mr. Carpenter rather crusty over the poems I took to him for criticism. When
he read the one I had composed that April night on a hill-top he tossed it back to me – ‘a pretty little gossamer thing,’ he said.

“And I had really thought the poem expressed in some measure the enchantment of that evening. How I must have failed!

“Then I gave him the poem I had written after I had come in that night. He read it over twice, then deliberately tore it into strips.

“‘Now –
why?
I said, rather annoyed. ‘There was nothing wrong about that poem, Mr. Carpenter.’

“‘Not about its body’ he said. ‘Every line of it, taken by itself, might be read in Sunday School. But its
soul
– what mood were you in when you wrote that, in heaven’s name?’

“‘The mood of the Golden Age,’ I said.

“No – of an age far before that. That poem was sheer Paganism, girl, though I don’t think you realise it. To be sure, from the point of view of literature it’s worth a thousand of your pretty songs. All the same, that way danger lies. Better stick to your own age. You’re part of it and can possess it without its possessing you. Emily, there was a streak of diabolism in that poem. It’s enough to make me believe that poets
are
inspired – by some spirits outside themselves. Didn’t you feel
possessed
when you wrote it?’

“‘Yes,’ I said, remembering. I felt rather glad Mr. Carpenter had torn the poem up. I could never have done it myself. I have destroyed a great many of my poems that seemed trash on successive readings, but this one never seemed so and it always brought back the strange charm and terror of that walk. But Mr. Carpenter was right – I feel it.

“He also berated me because I happened to mention I had been reading Mrs. Hemans’ poems. Aunt Laura has a cherished volume, bound in faded blue and gold, with an
inscription from an admirer. In Aunt Laura’s youth it was the thing to give your adored a volume of poetry on her birthday. The things Mr. Carpenter said about Mrs. Hemans were not fit to write in a young lady’s diary. I suppose he is right in the main – yet I
do
like some of her poems. Just here and there comes a line or verse that haunts me for days, delightfully.

is one – though I can’t give any
reason
for my liking it – one never
can
give reasons for enchantment – and another is,

“That isn’t great poetry – but there’s a bit of magic in it for all that – concentrated in the last line, I think. I never read it without feeling that
I
am Clotilde, kneeling there – ‘on the old Provençal shore’ – with the banners of forgotten wars waving over me.

“Mr. Carpenter sneered at my ‘liking for slops’ and told me to go and read the Elsie books! But when I was coming away he paid me the first personal compliment I ever had from him.

“‘I like that blue dress you’ve got on. And you know how to wear it. That’s good. I can’t bear to see a woman badly dressed. It hurts me – and it must hurt God Almighty. I’ve no use for dowds and I’m sure He hasn’t. After all, if you know how to dress yourself it won’t matter if you do like Mrs. Hemans.’

“I met Old Kelly on the way home and he stopped and gave me a bag of candy and sent his ‘rispicts to
him.’

“August 15, 19–

“This is a wonderful year for columbines. The old orchard is full of them – all in lovely white and purple and fairy blue and dreamy pink colour. They are half wild and so have a charm no real tamed garden flower ever has. And what a name –
columbine
is poetry itself. How much lovelier the common names of flowers are than the horrid Latiny names the florists stick in their catalogues. Hearts-ease and Bride’s Bouquet, Prince’s Feather, Snap-dragon, Flora’s Paint Brush, Dusty Millers, Bachelor’s Buttons, Baby’s Breath, Love-in-a-mist – oh, I love them all.

“September 1, 19–

“Two things happened today. One was a letter from Great-aunt Nancy to Aunt Elizabeth. Aunt Nancy has never taken any notice of my existence since my visit to Priest Pond four years ago. But she is still alive, ninety-four years old, and from all accounts quite likely yet. She wrote some sarcastic things in her letter, about both me and Aunt Elizabeth; but she wound up by offering to pay all my expenses in Shrewsbury next year, including my board to Aunt Ruth.

“I am very glad. In spite of Aunt Nancy’s sarcasm I don’t mind feeling indebted to her.
She
has never nagged or patronised me – or did anything for me because she felt it her ‘duty’ Hang duty,’ she said in her letter. ‘I’m doing this because it will vex some of the Priests, and because Wallace is putting on too many airs about “helping to educate Emily.” I dare say you feel yourself that you’ve done virtuously. Tell Emily to go back to Shrewsbury and learn all she can – but to hide it and show her ankles.’ Aunt Elizabeth was horrified at this and wouldn’t show me the letter. But Cousin Jimmy told me what was in it.

“The second thing was that Aunt Elizabeth informed me that, since Aunt Nancy was paying my expenses, she, Aunt Elizabeth, felt that she ought not to hold me any longer to my promise about writing fiction. I was, she told me, free to do as I chose about that matter.

“‘Though I shall never approve of your writing fiction,’ she said, gravely. At least I hope you will not neglect your studies.’

“Oh, no, dear Aunt Elizabeth, I won’t neglect them. But I feel like a released prisoner. My fingers tingle to grasp a pen – my brain teems with plots. I’ve a score of fascinating dream characters I want to write about. Oh, if there only were not such a chasm between
seeing
a thing and getting it down on paper!

“‘Ever since you got that cheque for a story last winter Elizabeth’s been wondering if she oughtn’t to let you write,’ Cousin Jimmy told me. ‘But she couldn’t bring herself to back down till Aunt Nancy’s letter gave her the excuse. Money makes the Murray mare go, Emily. Want some more Yankee stamps?’

“Mrs. Kent has told Teddy he can go for another year. After that he doesn’t know what will happen. So we are all going back and I am so happy that I want to write it in Italics.

“September 10, 19–

“I have been elected president of the Senior class for this year.
And
the
Skulls and Owls
sent me a notice that I had been elected a member of their august fraternity without the formality of an application.

“Evelyn Blake, by the way, is at present laid up with tonsillitis!

“I accepted the presidency – but I wrote a note to the
Skull and Owl
declining membership with awful politeness.

“After black-beaning me last year, indeed!

“October 7, 19–

“There was great excitement today in class when Dr. Hardy made a certain announcement. Kathleen Darcy’s uncle, who is a Professor of McGill, is visiting here, and he has taken it into his head to offer a prize for the best poem, written by a pupil of Shrewsbury High School – said prize being a complete set of Parkman. The poems must be handed in by the first of November, and are to be ‘not less than twenty lines, and no more than sixty’ Sounds as if a tape measure was the first requisite. I have been wildly hunting through my Jimmy-books tonight and have decided to send in
Wild Grapes
. It is my second best poem.
A Song of Sixpence
is my best, but it has only fifteen lines and to add any more would spoil it. I think I can improve
Wild Grapes
a bit. There are two or three words in it I’ve always been dubious about. They don’t exactly express fully what I want to say, but I can’t find any others that do, either. I wish one could coin words, as I used to do long ago when I wrote letters to Father and just invented a word whenever I wanted one. But then, Father would have understood the words if he had ever seen the letters – while I am afraid the judges in the contest wouldn’t.

“
Wild Grapes
should certainly win the prize. This isn’t conceit or vanity or presumption. It’s just
knowing
. If the price were for mathematics Kath Darcy should win it. If it were for beauty Hazel Ellis would win it. If it were for all round proficiency; Perry Miller – for elocution, Ilse – for drawing, Teddy. But since it is for poetry, E. B. Starr is the one!

“We are studying Tennyson and Keats in Senior Literature this year. I like Tennyson but sometimes he enrages me. He is beautiful – not
too
beautiful, as Keats is – the Perfect Artist. But he never let us forget the artist – we are always
conscious of it – he is never swept away by some splendid mountain torrent of feeling. Not he – he slows on serenely between well-ordered banks and carefully laid-out gardens. And no matter how much one loves a garden one doesn’t want to be cooped up in it
all
the time – one likes an excursion now and then into the wilderness. At least Emily Byrd Starr does – to the sorrow of her relations.

“Keats
is
too full of beauty. When I read his poetry I feel stifled in roses and long for a breath of frosty air or the austerity of a chill mountain peak. But, oh, he has
some
lines –

“When I read them I always feel a sort of despair!
What
is the Ilse of trying to do what
has
been done, once and for all?

“But I found some other lines that inspire me – I have written them on the index-page of my new Jimmy-book.

“Oh, it’s true. We must follow our ‘airy voices,’ follow them through every discouragement and doubt and disbelief till they lead us to our City of Fulfilment, wherever it may be.

“I had four rejections in the mail today, raucously shrieking failure at me. Airy Voices grow faint in such a clamour: But I’ll hear them again. And I
will
follow – I will not be discouraged. Years ago I wrote a ‘vow’ – I found it the other day
in an old packet in my cupboard – that I would ‘climb the Alpine Path and write my name on the scroll of fame.’

“I’ll keep on climbing!

“October 20, 19–

“I read my
Chronicles of an Old Garden
over the other night. I think I can improve it considerably, now that Aunt Elizabeth has lifted the ban. I wanted Mr. Carpenter to read it, but he said,

“‘Lord, girl, I can’t wade through all that stuff. My eyes are bad. What is it – a book? Jade, it will be time ten years from now for you to be writing books.’

“‘I’ve got to practice,’ I said indignantly.

“‘Oh, practice – practice – but don’t try out the results on me. I’m too old – I really am, Jade. I don’t mind a short – a very short story – now and then – but let a poor old devil off the books.’

“I might ask Dean what he thinks of it. But Dean
does
laugh now at my ambitions – very cautiously and kindly – but he
does
laugh. And Teddy thinks everything I write perfect, so he’s no Ilse as a critic. I wonder – I wonder if any publisher would accept
The Chronicles?
I’m sure I’ve seen books of the kind that weren’t
much
better.

“November 11, 19–

“This evening I spent ‘expurgating’ a novel for Mr. Towers’ Ilse and behoof. When Mr. Towers was away in August on his vacation the sub-editor, Mr. Grady, began to run a serial in the
Times
called
A Bleeding Heart
. Instead of getting A.P.A. stuff, as Mr. Towers always does, Mr. Grady simply bought the reprint of a sensational and sentimental English novel at the Shoppe and began publishing it. It was
very long and only about half of it has appeared. Mr. Towers saw that it would run all winter in its present form. So he bade me take it and cut out ‘all unnecessary stuff I have followed instructions mercilessly– ‘cutting out’ most of the kisses and embraces, two-thirds of the love making and all the descriptions, with the happy result that I have reduced it to about a quarter of its normal length; and all I can say is may heaven have mercy on the soul of the compositor who has to set it in its present mutilated condition.

“Summer and autumn have gone. It seems to me they go more quickly than they used to. The goldenrod has turned white in the corners of the Land of Uprightness and the frost lies like a silver scarf on the ground o’ mornings. The evening winds that go ‘piping down the valleys wild’ are heart-broken searchers, seeking for things loved and lost, calling in vain on elf and fay. For the fairy folk, if they be not all fled afar to the southlands, must be curled up asleep in the hearts of the firs or among the roots of the ferns.

“And every night we have murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson across the harbour, with a star above them like a saved soul gazing with compassionate eyes into pits of torment where sinful spirits are being purged from the stains of earthly pilgrimage.

“Would I dare to show the above sentence to Mr. Carpenter? I would
not
. Therefore there is something fearfully wrong with it.

“I know what’s wrong with it, now that I’ve written it in cold blood. It’s ‘fine writing.’ And yet it’s just what I felt when I stood on the hill beyond the Land of Uprightness tonight and looked across the harbour. And who cares what this old journal thinks?

“December 2, 19–

The results of the prize poem competition were announced today. Evelyn Blake is the winner with a poem entitled
A Legend of Abegweit
.