Edgar Saltus: The Man Part 9

CHAPTER VII

The material for "Historia Amoris" having been put into shape for use, Mr.

Saltus began to study along a new line. Puzzled and confused as to what he really believed, he agreed to study the sacred books of the East. None were omitted,--the Zend-Avesta, the Upanishads, the Vedas, the Mahabharata--with its jewel the Bhagavad-Gita,--the Egyptian Book of the Dead,--the Talmud and the Koran.

Between their leaves he found a new world. Thereafter he was forever digging for jewels,--which when found dazzled him with their beauty. With the enthusiasm Balboa may have felt at discovering an unknown ocean, Mr.

Saltus went up the heights to the Garden of G.o.d, steeping himself in the perfume of occult and esoteric lore. Subconsciously, he had found food for his soul.

Rushing uptown to my home he would explain as soon as admitted:

"I have unearthed a gem. Listen."

Then the ideas and ideals of beauty I had so often put before him were handed back to me. Seeing them in print had made them real and impersonal.

The Gita, which hitherto he had but dimly and imperfectly understood, after that epitomized the double-distilled wisdom of the world to him.

One phrase from the Egyptian Book of the Dead moved him profoundly and made him think along a new line. It referred to the soul in the Court of Amenti, pleading for admission to the heaven world. "I have not talked abundantly.

I have not been anxious. I have harmed no heart. No one have I made weep."

The last phrase cut.

"Pre-suppose," he would say, "that your dream of reincarnation is true. My G.o.d! What a debt would confront me next life! I hope it is all a myth."

It was at this time that the effects of his careless letters to the English girl came home with a shock. Rushing up to my house one evening, white and shaken with emotion, he said that a young man had called to see him at the Manhattan Club, just as he was finishing dinner. After introducing himself as a brother of Dorothy S----, he told Mr. Saltus that the girl had, after his last letter, gone into a decline and died. He himself was not only ill, but in want, with a wife to take care of. After exhausting every effort to get employment in the States, he had reluctantly turned to the man he considered an enemy with a debt to pay.

Mr. Saltus was horrified. Put on the rack by me in no uncertain fashion,--realizing at last that what had been play to him had been a tragedy to another, he found that phrase from the Book of the Dead repeating itself. Like an embodied thing it walked by his side during the day and sat on his pillow at night, whispering in his ear during the hours of darkness, "Behold me! I am your work."

Needless to say that the brother and wife were looked after not alone by him, but by my family as well. Scourged by the episode Mr. Saltus suffered keenly. I suggested to him after a time, more or less with a view to lift his mind from depression, that I would a.s.sist him in selecting and condensing notes on the vital points of the sacred books of the East. Mr.

Saltus decided that he could compress them into a single volume. "The Lords of the Ghostland" was created in the world of thought. The actual writing of it took a comparatively short time. The preparation and condensing of the material spread over years.

Among Mr. Saltus' peculiarities was an almost prenatal fear of dogs. His mother had been terrified at them, and his childhood had been spent not only without pets of any kind, but filled with fear of them. As he grew older he became rather fond of cats, but the dog complex remained. Cats could be patted, petted and put down. Dogs on the contrary growled, and had been known to bite,--it being somewhat uncertain whether they would do one or the other--or both.

When taking his walks Mr. Saltus would go to the extreme edge of the sidewalk to avoid a dog, if happening to be alone he had no one to interpose between him and it. Argument on the subject was useless. There was but one way of reaching him effectively. This was to ignore his fears and act as though they did not exist.

Our house was never without pets, nor were they confined to any particular spot. Drawing-room chairs were theirs or not as they fancied, and wagging tails greeted the incoming guests. No exception was made of Mr. Saltus, and no pet put aside to make place for a pampered human. When he came, he had to take things as he found them, pets included.

When I was taking a dip into Eliphas Levi, the phrase "Libertines love cats" jumped from the page. The ammunition was too good to be lost. Every time his fear of dogs cropped out, this quotation was hurled at him like a bomb. It did its work most effectively. Timidly and reluctantly at first, Mr. Saltus began to make overtures. The dogs, with unerring instinct scenting his concealed antagonism, refused to be friends. That hurt more than a little, but it helped. The substratum of his early training began to crumble as his interest in animals and occultism increased.

Taking a phrase from the Book of the Dead, Mr. Saltus decided on the euphonious t.i.tle "Lords of the Ghostland." The writing of that volume marked his transition from materialism to the realization that there were higher realms of thought as yet unexplored by him. The new book was building up on the ruins.

At the time he began writing the book I went abroad.

Believing that upon his taking the initiative and seeking a divorce, Mrs.

Saltus would strike back and secure it herself, Mr. Saltus brought a suit against her, asking at the same time for the custody of his little daughter. This act being looked upon with disapproval by my family, and his friendship as more dangerous than dynamite, the ocean was hailed as a splendid moat between a skilled sheik and a young girl. It meant another summer abroad for me.

Mr. Saltus was in a state of collapse and despair. He could neither work nor sit still.

"The anchor of my life is being torn up," he exclaimed. "I cannot go on and live."

During the time which had elapsed since the summer in Narragansett Pier he had drifted away a great deal from his old friends. Barring Miss G----, with whom he dined every Sunday and saw frequently, Bob Davis, who was too busy to give him much time, and James Huneker were his only friends. The influence of Miss G---- had done much to make Mr. Saltus' viewpoint on life happier. She enjoyed the stimulus of his mind, and with unselfish kindness she introduced him to those who could further his interests and made her home a place where he could bring his mending and his difficulties. Her atmosphere was one of peace, and he sorely needed it.

That atmosphere was lacking in my home. Tolerated only because he was regarded as less dangerous within than without, he was offered neither meals nor mending. From me he received not peace but the sword, and that sharpened and thrust into vulnerable places. His copy was criticised, his viewpoint scorned, and his personality put under a searchlight that left him seared and shaken.

In spite of all this the diet must have been full of vitamines, for he was loth to relinquish it. As he himself used to put it, "Many of the prisoners released from the Bastile returned there of their own free will, so wretched were they in a world to which they had become unaccustomed."

The fact that I was really going abroad staggered him. Imitating a cat I had at the time, he walked about the drawing-room exclaiming, "Miaw! Wow!

Wow! Poor Snippsy goes crazy. Oh Wowsy wee! Wowsy wee!" To be wowsy was the last word of sadness in the vernacular of cats.

His suit for divorce failed. Mrs. Saltus, obviously aware of his motives, saw no reason to fall in with them, and the attempt was not calculated to reflect credit on himself. The newspapers were none too kind. Any man who tries to divorce his wife is unpopular. Neither fish nor fowl, married nor free, his position was an ambiguous one, calculated to involve others in possible complications. Friends were not backward in throwing the worst light and the blackest possibilities upon the screen.

This was in 1903. In those old days children did not bring up their parents in the way they do now,--taking the center of the floor and holding forth on their right to go to the devil in the way which pleases them best. Young girls were supposed to skim lightly over the friendship of quasi-married men. Extraordinary as it may seem in these days, it was not considered proper at all. That prejudice was shared by my family.

Coming to the house the evening before I sailed, so unnerved that he could not speak for tears, Mr. Saltus put a sheet of paper in my hands. So unusual was it that the original is reproduced on the next page. It read:--

25 Madison Avenue.

In the event of my death I direct that Marie F. Giles shall have full possession in, and power over, my remains. I further direct that said remains be cremated, and the ashes given to the said Marie F.

Giles.

(Signed) EDGAR SALTUS.

"There," he said, "I have written this in triplicate. One copy is in the Trust Company, and one in the hands of my attorney. It is like death--like dying rather, to have you where I cannot hear your voice. If I survive, it will be because I am convinced that nothing but death can separate us. If I die--swear that you will keep my ashes and have them buried with yours.

Husbands may come and go--but I am an eternal part of you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fac-simile of Doc.u.ment given to Marie Saltus]

The paper, combined with what he said, touched me profoundly. It seemed such a hopeless muddle. Only the belief that sorrow and adversity are the soil in which the soul grows, offered consolation, and at the time even that seemed meager. No one reaches the Land of Promise save on feet weary and blistered by scorching sand--for always it is surrounded by desert. In that emptiness and silence the ego finds the strength, poise and power to endure. We are all taken into the desert at one time or another. That alone which matters is what we bring back.

The following day Mr. Saltus was among those who saw me off. That leave-taking brought him to a realization of the verities and the non-essentials, as nothing else could have done. Letters followed like sea-gulls. They punctuated the days and haunted the nights.

My darling child:--(Mr. Saltus wrote)

It was so dear of you to have left for me a letter. To have left two. I could have kissed the postman. You are the sweetest child in the world. That is it, you see.

You have made me love you so that I am helpless and hopeless without you. I am trying to be brave and work, but no Puff-tat and all work is like death.... I do so hope that you are happy though missing your Snipps a little. You won't forget me--Mowgy? It would do for me if you should. There have been days without number--nights without end--when I would give everything the world can offer for a touch of your blessed hand in mine and for the sound of your angel voice, my darling.

G.o.d bless and keep you, little girl. Always I am waiting and working for you. It must not be in vain.

All my love always. Your

EDGAR.

"Lords of the Ghostland" took on shape very slowly. Mr. Saltus seemed unable to focus his mind on anything. Well he knew that the relatives with whom I was stopping abroad had lined up a lot of eligibles,--many of whom I already knew. They ranged from an Italian Prince, with a time-worn t.i.tle and a moth-eaten tumble-down palace, to an English millionaire of recent vintage. They were a job lot, acc.u.mulated to offset and counteract his influence. Anch.o.r.ed and handicapped by a wife and child and a reputation none too immaculate, he saw his position with clarity, and he wrote:--

My own darling:--

There is no little Mowgy any more. No little Puff-tat to miaw and to say 'Quicksy' when you wanted anything. I say it now. For G.o.d's sake return quicksy or poor Snipps goes under. I do so hope you are happy, but don't drink champagne or dine alone with men. Remember that you are only a child,--my child, and should anything separate us it would be as if a bullet had been put through my head.

Should anything happen to me you need blame yourself only for having made me love you so absolutely. h.e.l.l has no more horrors than those in which I am groping now. If I can only get the syndicate running properly and the divorce. I have said I will yield everything but alimony.

Then, dearest, we can go to London and take the little house in Brook Street you told me of. I am ill,--too ill to work any more. Don't let anything or anybody come between us unless you want my death. Others can give you everything--everything but understanding. Trust the man to whom you are the center of the universe.

Eternamente, EDGAR.