The Mary MacLane Project

"Mary MacLane at Newport" (N.Y. World, August 1902, age 21)

[Availability: included in Human Days: A Mary MacLane Reader and Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Sampler.]

I am come down out of Butte-Montana into the mysterious East. I go here and there in trains in the mysterious East and gaze at things.

In very truth, the mysterious East is not so greatly different from Butte-Montana, and a person is a person, I find, east or west.

But there are differences.

For instance it's a far and exceeding confounding cry from Butte-Montana to Newport - Newport with a very large N.

Upon occasion I have read in the well-filled Bible about the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. And I have wondered what it meant - it hath indeed a glittering sound. The pomps and vanities must need be of always-vivid interest and this wicked world, as we all know, is fascinating.

And always when I have seen the phrase in the well-filled Bible I have thought within me: "Until I have really come upon the pomps and vanities of this wicked world my life is not complete." There are, to be sure, a great many things in Butte-Montana which relate quite directly to this wicked world - but not just what one might call pomps and vanities. They're a trifle too heavy for that.

In Chicago I happened upon a friendly gaiety, and some fine and good impressions that will last. In Boston, if you please, I happened upon something so still, so cold, so unrelenting - so utterly intolerant of anything that may come down out of Butte-Montana - that my thanks for the strength that must come of it died instantly upon my lips. In New York, I came upon a strenuous thing, to be sure, but mostly commercial as yet, and it glittered little. But all upon a fine bright summer morning I anchored my bark at Newport and lo - I, of Butte-Montana, straightaway walked into the midst of the pomps and vanities of this wicked world!

Only think, now. 'Tis a most grotesque conceit.

Newport is a little lovely restful town in itself. There are few things new, and the old things are earth-old. The stars and the dust and the wild weeds are there, as in the beginning. And in the gray morning a pale, pale sky hangs over wonderful wide water - a sky so pale that one half-expects a Raphael virgin's head to emerge slowly, sleepily from it. And the sea - the sea runs on always, in weariness, in joy - the gray, the blue, the gray, the blue - world with no end. Far away in Butte-Montana I had fancied the sea, and here is it. And the sea has a sister in Newport - a fascinating seductive sloe-eyed sister with soft long hair and magic finger-tips. She is the Air, and she is incomparable. After the first look into the sloe-eyes you close your own and lift your face and feel the sweep of the long soft locks of hair upon your chin and forehead. You feel the touch of those finger-tips upon your shoulder-blades, and straightaway you give your quiet heart into her hands to keep for a season.

The perfume of her long hair is of sea-weed and salt and of moss and decayed wood, and of half-sunk islands over the sea. In the plains of heaven is there any more exquisite thing? Round and about Newport there are bits of rude country that, after the shaven lawns of other parts, rest the nerves and senses. There are places where long dry yellow grass grows confusedly, and tiny rocks, and spaces between that are like the sand and barrenness of Butte-Montana, - but a long, long way apart. Here and there is a fresh-water pond and some lilies and wet, wet leaves. The wild grasses grow tall by the pond, and are also wet and very sweet. Back from the sea I looked long at a prospect that was fair and exceeding good. It was of smiling farms and rolling country and dark-colored trees and fields of corn. And all was green, green, green. It is gray in Butte-Montana, and my mind then opened and took in a new color. And all was green. The flowers bloomed in plenty, and the farms - and Jersey cows fed from the land. To my mind there came a bit of very old poetry from that same well-filled Bible, which seemed to tell it all in a serene voice saying: "My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill." All this is the background. In the foreground there are people, and there is life: in truth, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.

How glittering, to be sure, is the pageant at Newport, - how the women and men reek with The Money, how unreal - how like phantoms do they seem to one who has thus far been wont to take a few things seriously and has lived a small, narrow life in Butte-Montana. I gazed at this glittering pageant until my senses were strained and a faint sickening influence came to them. As I looked there came a feeling of deadly weariness and sickness of heart. For through this false brilliant procession, the infinite - life itself - shows in poignant bitter intensity. There is a thing in the life of the women and men that one can not grasp. The stars and the dust and the wild weeds give at once of their deepest and the pain that they send is soft. The vision of the pageant at Newport tells of something so false, so distorted, so sharply cruel, that all of life - all of the past and all of the present - becomes useless. The Universe shrinks into a damnable little thing, and the souls - there are no souls.

Well, then.

At Newport I looked at a wedding. I looked very hard at that wedding. I had been told that I must, and so I did. It seemed excessively like every other little extravaganza in B-flat that I have seen, but it did have a few distinctive points. All the women and men were thoroughly sated, thoroughly steeped. Their bodies were the much-indulged, much-groomed kind - some of The Money certainly buys them the flesh-pots. And a few of the feminine bodies were truly exquisite - the few that were not overdone. The heads and hands had been worked at minutely with little ivory implements until Nature was obliterated and art - albeit with a painfully small "a" - reigned supreme. There were hands of alabaster - a very old simile but still good - with nails delicately wrought as miniature paintings. Each nail meant hours of work and more of The Money. The frocks that adorned these persons were equally exquisite - they represented labor and capital. Physically the women were pieces of fine workmanship - excellent products of skill. Except those that were overdone. They were sadly grotesque indeed.

Some of the bodies that were driven to the wedding were groomed to the nearly annihilation point - just a little more, one thought involuntarily, and they were surely mummified. Certainly no more skilful work could ever have been put on the body of a long-since Egyptian king than that on those nervous American persons. And Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. A single bright stone on one of those patrician fingers would have purchased sea air for a very great number of the little bare-footed New York populace - which, however, is entirely without the question and an entirely impertinent idea. These are the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. Let them go down as such.

- When one sees a face - even a wrought Newport summer face at a wedding - one looks at once for the soul - well, no, not the soul. Impossible! But the mind. And one finds - what does one find?

One finds a once beautiful and vital thing dead or dying in the faces of women and men. One finds something subtly imbecile - a strange, weird, and tragic thing. There is surely nothing like unto this in Butte-Montana. It has come from generations of indulgence at the flesh-pots, and years of disuse and reckless wasting of nerves; and too much perfume, and too much music, and too much food. And it has come from the mad straining after pleasure, the devising of ways to spend The Money, the petty rivaling of one another, the utter futility. -

And so it was a very pretty wedding indeed. There was something quite distracting in the way those equipages pulled up at the church, and in the way the high-heeled occupants tottered up the walk to the door. And there was something more distracting still in the way the populace - for Newport boasts a very well-assorted populace likewise - lined up on the opposite street and gazed almost as hard as if they had every one of them just come down out of Butte-Montana to contemplate the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. And the most distracting thing of all, I assure you, was when a goodly carriageful of bridesmaids and things rolled neatly down upon a fat little dog in the street and rolled him over and over and over - a bunch of ruined and feebly-yelping hair. Oh, it was very distracting - hard on the dog, doubtless, but the lace on the gowns of those bridesmaids was worth many thousands of good American dollars with Liberty-heads on one side and eagles on the other.

And when every one had finally arrived the bride tottered up to the altar on the arm of somebody and her own high white heels, and met the groom and they were married and lived happily ever after.

A very charming wedding, to be sure.

And another time I went to see the powers at play - the people of The Money soaking their persons in salt water at Bailey's Beach. 'Twas very interesting and these people ran about and disported themselves and skipped like young lambs just exactly as if they hadn't a cent of money in the world.

Only it was here that I had explained to me the names and the Cottages and the numbers of millions and the Divorces - particularly the Divorces.

I beheld a striped lady with quite the best shoulders I have ever seen emerge from a bunch of waves - she had a figure and a laugh and several high spirits of her own. "That, surely, now, is real," I observed. "That?" responded my guide with elevated brows. "That? Only last year her conduct was scandalous, and her husband - that man in the blue pajamas - obtained a Divorce. She lives in the swell little place I pointed out to you, and her Money is - ." I find that I've forgotten the large number. They have larger ones in Butte-Montana.

And I saw a bright red lady with a pair of eyes - a very good looker, she was. She knew things, moreover. "What is that?" I inquired of the guide. "That," the guide replied, "has the prettiest Cottage in Newport. She has no Divorce as yet, but is getting one as fast as ever she can. Her husband - the man with the green tennis-shoes - went somewhere with that heavy purple lady, and so it is all off." "And what will the red lady do after she has procured her Divorce?" I asked. "She will marry that pretty little thing with the freshness of youth still upon him," answered my guide with remarkable promptness and accuracy. "Her Money is estimated at - ." I find that I've forgotten the large number. They have larger ones in Butte-Montana.

And I saw a brilliant small pink lady leap joyously into the wild waves. She was not much of anything to look at, but she had a way with her. "Whom is that divorced from?" I said. "Oh, that," said the guide. "She is not married. Her mother is working to obtain that simple figure in black. He has good horses, and his Money is - ." I find that I've forgotten the large number. They have larger ones in Butte-Montana.

And I saw a tall man in a fine plain bathing-suit walking by the sad sea waves, with melancholia on his forehead and a tennis-racquet in his hands. "Wherefore?" said I to my guide. "Oh, that is an old, old story," she murmured. "He married somebody, and no one ever speaks to them. They have that big pile on the hill. They are left alone. There's a Scandal with it." "What's a Scandal?" I asked eagerly. "A Scandal's a reason and a back-thought," said the guide, and went on. "His yacht is immense and his Money is - ." I find that I've forgotten the large number. They have larger ones in Butte-Montana.

And I saw two young creatures - a pale-blue-and-white lady and a reddish-grayish man. The pale-blue-and-white lady was attending the reddish-grayish man with the utmost solicitude. "What of them?" I inquired - (I was there to inquire, don't you know). "They are engaged," answered the my guide. "And are they quite happy?" I asked, in the innocence of my heart.

"Well, she ought to be," said the guide, cold-bloodedly. "She has worked hard for two years to get it. And now she works harder to keep it. And certainly she's done well for herself. None but the brave deserve the fair. His house is the one with all the gables and his Money is - ." I find that I've forgotten the large number. They have larger ones in Butte-Montana.

So then these, too, are the pomps and vanities - bathing-dresses, salt water, Divorces, and all.

'Tis most awfully interesting.

And another day I looked at a polo game. I have seen polo several times - polo is much the same everywhere. But there were some fine contrasts about the setting of this game. The horses were good to look at - and some of the women who looked at them wore blue or white or black shoes with very red heels! Those red heels taken with polo made a delicate little incongruity that is quite rare and appeals directly to the artistic sense. The horses were so very good, do you see, and the heels were so very red.

Newport teems, bristles, with just such delicate little incongruities. Set down among small quaint ramshackle houses and new staring red brick buildings, and surrounded farther away by the Cottages - some of which resemble one's idea of a Venetian palace more than anything else - is a church which is a really fine thing. It is small and old - it is of the days of the Revolution, and the air in it is true. The architecture is the simplest and plainest, and inside the wood-work and upholstering are plain and poor to ugliness. George Washington sat in this place on Sundays, when time was. And - it rings utterly true. And now, likewise on Sundays, the sated Newport pageant assembles in it - the dear knows what for - to pray, it may be: a delicate little incongruity.

There is one thing in Newport that is absolutely and quite its own, which suits every element and everything there, and fits in as it surely could not elsewhere. This is the hydrangea bloom - a grafted and artificially colored shrub. The tints of the large round flower bunches are indescribably delicate and lovely, and they grow in the utmost lavishness. The color comes from the application of salt water to the roots and is a blending of the pale sea and the paler sky with a brief vivid gleam of sun.

Also the sea's sloe-eyed sister gives of herself to this flower and rests her magic finger-tips on the stems. Straightaway they bloom delicately, gracefully, immensely, with astonishing and delicious recklessness.

They are fascinating and false - like many, many other things in Newport-by-the-sea.

There is here indeed the little rift that sometime, somehow, inevitably must widen, and - as always - ever widening, slowly silence all.

And thus it is that one receives an Impression, having come down out of Butte-Montana in the days of her youth, and having lo! - walked into the midst of the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.