The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1917-05-06
Mary MacL ane Again Gives
Glimpse Into Her Own Life

1 am pima anu ignorant tOOul
You may know q time that shall De
more fitting. q time when my still
mood and two dresses are long gone
and my life Is made Of fluff and light |
less so your sign will crash into 1t like |
a black two-tone meteor. l only tell
YOU how it seems. II you should come
now and speak to me should feel sud-
denly glad Today feels such day |
| of-God. The Sky is all wet silver and |
the air Il thin. cloud of gold. ! sit l
writing you by my window. often
looking out with my forehead resting |
against the cool pane. There is an
ache in my forehead. in my nsteps, |
1 in my backbone and in my spirit BY |
stopping IN here a moment you would |
gladden. me. II you could give me, !
or show me-where 1t perhaps had
always b,en--onc true thing To have |
| always in my lite | should cling to II |
and ask nothing of it but that it re- !
main true If you'd make me one
far off promise Of a dawn to come |
after TINS tired darkness | would take |
your word for it and would walk to- |
ward your dawn in n straight road |
from which | should not ever turn
aside. In me IS a small torch glowing |
though set in chaos. BY it's light |
should keep in the road leading to your
dawn. | should keep in it at any sac |
rifcc to my merely human self: any
sacrifice believe me |
1t isn't a bargain | would make with !
you. don't like the thought of a bar
gain with you. | would rather take |
the chance and lose honestly; not in
. everything, but in this matter with
you. You show me the road and |
take it for the sole reason that it's a
true one. | should expect myself to
: pay the tolls-heavy ones since I'm in
nately u liar, u somcWay bad lot. |
] know. the same as | know one and
one make two. that I've only to be
: square in the human business of liv
ing to get back a square deal, though
, III get badly battered, with it. But
: it isn't what | mean. Something in
: sid" Of me hungers for answeringness
$ "A Glcam-to make me know the
worldly squnreness and the battering
are worth while beyond themselves;
I hlt n detail in the game.
< You mightn't guess it, but I'm diff
!, den, about broachinE this much that
3 | more of it.
y Thankful for Worlds Beauties.
But before | close this letter want
v to tell you that I'm not wanting in
gratitude for the terrible beauty OF this
world. | feel with ecstasy the burning
= loneliness of the life you gave the hu-
il man race.
y want to tell you, thank you for
:, some things in it. But all that they
mean | cannot tell in words.
II only yesterday light at shutdown
fingered on the hill tops and on the
=, desert back Of the school OF mines In
=, 1lnts olive and copper and ochre and
:, rose 50 delicate, SO radiant, SO dumbly
a. forlorn that | closed my eyes against
IT all as | walked along the sand; its
~ aliV"n"ss, its rcalness, its flawless
- golden dreadful peace tortured and
twisted and too kecnly interpretated
me.
:, And one summer day in Central Park
-, in New York | saw a little Yellow Vel
= low Butterfly iluttering above small
40 plot of brilliant Green Green Grass in
~ he afternoon sunshine. TO you. iod.
, used To tn" purplng spfendor Of untold
- worlds that miShtnt seem noteworthy.
tiUt To me-beCauS. am half sister to
, so many trivialites the Yellow yellow
-, Of thos" little wings and the sweet
y, bright Green of tn" clipped velvet
w N;rass beneath the sun suddenly fiercely
:, uttered in and beat beat hard on my
., Imagination. Oh the glare and the flare
OF that fairy prettiness! | shall never
forget that picture though ! should
=, ON" day So" those worlds. 1t made me
~ think wildly Of you. God. at the time
:" and ever since. 1t is there yet in Cen
w. tial park. that particular plot of Grass.
~ and ii not that Yellow yellow Butter
~ tly-happily, happily yellow it was
, then another,
at And today ana often other days
no read this
It "lloard melodies are sweet but those
unheard are Sweeter'-
i magic words: potent hushed viva I'd
IN fy of beauty 1t opens the doors OF all
ly IN" Inner Rooms and more bleSt, more
at precious, OF the celestial brain of him
ed who wrote it. In making the gim-
n in"rinE Purple of all your worlds. God,
E You nave not surpassed the thing you
made in the regal wistful glory of
n John Keats
49, And, blest Inconsistency of women.
mr. Mary Maclane once told an interviewer
cs sh" never read Keats.
rs There is more of the letter, and she
,,t signs it, "lours very sincerely, Mary
t. MacLanc."
an Critics and such who have not the
no courage to say just what they mean
m find ready refuge~in the handy word
IT. trotr, There are crotiC passages in
- H. Mary MuCLane," but why dwell on
v them? II you are that kind you'll find
AT them anyway. AS has been said, Mary
to NaclAno writes of herself only, or OF
,v III" world only as it touches herself
Tx. + ranNn'sS Is her stock in trade. AS was
SAID Of Il famous revolutionary orato,
~ sh" dHrrs to say what others scarce
en- dare to think. Some will say it is a
ly pose, play for ScnSationaliSm for the
~ SAX" of money. They are as much en-
tn TITLED to that viewpoint as those other.
ITS Who b"licv" that Mary MacLanc is 9
nt genius. as she herself so freely admits
,'n That sh" is u lonely woman, morbid unt