hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without a
tear or a quiver or a pause, and I am crying like a baby.
Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots
of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know
I would if I were free, only I don't want to be free My dear, this
quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at
once, after telling you of it, and I don't wish to tell of the
number Three until it can be all happy. Ever your loving …
Lucy
P. S.—Oh, about number Three, I needn't tell you of number
Three, need I? Besides, it was all so confused. It seemed only a
moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round
me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don't know
what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the future to
show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in
sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend.
Goodbye.
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY (Kept in phonograph)
25 May.—Ebb tide in appetite today. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so
diary instead. since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty
feeling. Nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be
worth the doing. As I knew that the only cure for this sort of
thing was work, I went amongst the patients. I picked out one who
has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am
determined to understand him as well as I can. Today I seemed to
get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery.
I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to
making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my
manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I
seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness, a thing
which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell.
(Mem., Under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of
hell?) Omnia Romae venalia sunt. Hell has its price! If there be
anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace itanything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it
afterwards accurately, so I had better commence to do so,
therefore …
R. M, Renfield, age 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical
strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some
fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine
temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a
mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably
dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as secure an
armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this
point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is
balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the
fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident of a
series of accidents can balance it.
LETTER, QUINCEY P. MORRIS TO HON. ARTHUR HOLMWOOD
25 May.
My dear Art,
We've told yarns by the campfire in the prairies, and dressed
one another's wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas, and
drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be
told, and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be
drunk. Won't you let this be at my campfire tomorrow night? I have
no hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to
a certain dinner party, and that you are free. There will only be
one other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack Seward. He's coming, too,
and we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine cup, and to
drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the
wide world, who has won the noblest heart that God has made and
best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving
greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall
both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain
pair of eyes. Come!
Yours, as ever and always,
Quincey P. Morris
TELEGRAM FROM ARTHUR HOLMWOOD TO QUINCEY P. MORRIS
26 May
Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both
your ears tingle.
Art24 July. Whitby.—Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and
lovlier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in
which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river,
the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes
near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers,
through which the view seems somehow further away than it really
is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when
you are on the high land on either side you look right across it,
unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old
town—the side away from us, are all red-roofed, and seem piled up
one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg.
Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked
by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of "Marmion," where
the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of
immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits. There is a
legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it
and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which
is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the
nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a
full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland
called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so
steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and
some of the graves have been destroyed.
In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out
over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats
beside them, through the churchyard, and people go and sit there
all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the
breeze.
I shall come and sit here often myself and work. Indeed, I am
writing now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of
three old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing
all day but sit here and talk.
The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long