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VI

PRISCILLA

Thus for a while he stood, and mused by the shore

of the ocean,

Thinking of many things, and most of all of Pris

cilla;

And as if thought had the power to draw to itself, like the loadstone,

Whatsoever it touches, by subtile laws of its na

ture,

630

Lo as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing beside him.

"Are you so much offended, you will not speak to me?" said she.

"Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you were pleading

629 Loadstone: sometimes spelled lodestone, and also called a magnet. It is a piece of iron ore which is capable of attracting other pieces of iron. It was put to its most famous use after it was learned that a needle made of it and suspended so that it could move freely, pointed steadily to the north. From this was constructed the mariner's compass, by the use of which sailors may direct the course of their ship out of sight of land. Thus the mod. ern art of navigation was made possible.

Warmly the cause of another, my heart, impulsive and wayward,

Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps of

decorum?

635

Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly,

for saying

What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never unsay it;

For there are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion,

That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like

a pebble

Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its se

cret,

640

Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered

together.

Yesterday I was shocked, when I heard you speak of Miles Standish,

Praising his virtues, transforming his very defects into virtues,

Praising his courage and strength, and even his fighting in Flanders,

As if by fighting alone you could win the heart of a

woman,

641 Spilt on the ground like water: look up II Samuel xiv. 14.

645

Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in exalting your hero.

Therefore I spake as I did, by an irresistible im pulse.

You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the friendship between us,

Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily broken!"

Thereupon answered John Alden, the scholar, the friend of Miles Standish:

650

"I was not angry with you, with myself alone I was

angry,

Seeing how badly I managed the matter I had in

keeping."

my

"No!" interrupted the maiden, with answer prompt and decisive;

"No; you were angry with me, for speaking so frankly and freely.

It was wrong, I acknowledge; for it is the fate of a

woman

655

Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that

is speechless,

Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.

656-657 The tradition is that a ghost cannot address any one until it is spoken to.

Hence is the inner life of so many suffering

women

Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers Running through caverns of darkness, unheard, unseen, and unfruitful,

660

Chafing their channels of stone, with endless and profitless murmurs."

Thereupon answered John Alden, the young man, the lover of women:

"Heaven forbid it, Priscilla; and truly they seem to me always

More like the beautiful rivers that watered the garden of Eden,

More like the river Euphrates, through deserts of Havilah flowing,

665

Filling the land with delight, and memories sweet of

the garden!"

"Ah, by these words, I can see," again interrupted the maiden,

664 Rivers of Eden: look up Genesis ii. 10-14. From these rivers, where is the Garden of Eden supposed to have been located?

665 Havilah: names are often duplicated in Bible history. For instance, there are two Ethiopias, one lying about the southern portion of the Caspian Sea and one in Africa. So, too, there was one Havilah directly east of Egypt on the coast of the Mediterranean, and another, as the text shows, along the course of the Euphrates River.

"How very little you prize me, or care for what I am saying.

When from the depths of my heart, in pain and with secret misgiving,

Frankly I speak to you, asking for sympathy only and

670

kindness, Straightway you take up my words, that are plain and direct and in earnest,

Turn them away from their meaning, and answer with flattering phrases.

This is not right, is not just, is not true to the best that is in you;

For I know and esteem you, and feel that your nature

is noble,

Lifting mine up to a higher, a more

level.

ethereal 675

Therefore I value your friendship, and feel it perhaps

the more keenly

If you say aught that implies I am only as one among

many,

If you make use of those common and complimentary phrases

Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking with

women,

But which women reject as insipid, if not as insult

ing."

680

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