Miss Stephany (VERSE)
Conkling, Grace Hazard
640 THE COMMONWEAL October 23, 1929 "But you wrote me sheer poems about it," I reminded him. "Oh that," he gestured. "My letters about the housemyou mean ? Oh yes--the house and the...
...Unreality," he jerked out with some obvious effort, "Unreality is apt to jar, isn't it...
...Unreached by human word And dreaming her own weather, The next news that we heard Concerned birds of a feather...
...Must find out just why it had all bared me," he said...
...In fact his language became lame and halting in places...
...So he had--and most surprisingly--by leaving Milan in a few days and without as much as saying a brief goodby...
...She and her paradise bird Were gone together...
...I demanded a little abruptly...
...He wrote me no extravagant poems about his subsequent reception into the Church...
...And--" "Well, he talked rather a lot, not that I understood any of it...
...A quaking northern May Might meet her going forth, But she had found a way To circumvent the north...
...That unreality, seen at Carnacco, had planted another obective in his way...
...Yes, he'd be right glad to start--in a few days' time...
...Not knowing she was old, The radiance in her mind Would keep away the cold: And on a day unkind She saw the sun in gold That no one else could find...
...640 THE COMMONWEAL October 23, 1929 "But you wrote me sheer poems about it," I reminded him...
...How could I? He was my host...
...And no excuse she made Nor felt she needed one: Pattering unafraid Her little feet would run...
...But there is so much unreality, you can't see the wood for the trees...
...I left him to it...
...And not from him did I hear about it either...
...I feel all muddled about it somehow...
...The note rang with very little enthusiasm, in fact, some sentences sounded almost too dry for the writer as I knew him...
...None of them fit there, you see...
...That sense of wonder in him was allied to some innate ruthless demand for logic at all costs...
...The boy had gone wondering everywhere...
...What was meant to come did come--surprisingly and quickly...
...He listened eagerly enough and expressed his gratitude...
...And, somehow, the conversation driveled...
...Wordshy as he had been over the real outcome of his Carnacco visit, the boy shrank from writing me about the Franciscan reality he had found--and that in all fulhess--for himself in Umbria...
...The youngster flushed...
...And all those pictures l He can't share all that sort of thing, can he ? Then why should he pretend he does ? Awfully stupid of me, but it takes something away from his art, you know...
...My letters about the housemyou mean ? Oh yes--the house and the grounds are marvelous, but other thingsmthey rather made me wonder...
...I started entertaining him with the details of the trip I had planned for him...
...He made straight for it...
...But Assisi was an excellent antidote to Carnacco...
...He had obviously found plenty of poetic appeal, but it left him dissatisfied and so far as I could see, the habit and the girdle had most to do with his hurt bewilderment...
...God's grace has nothing to do with geographical boundaries, and so, in a direct way, it has no bearing on the boy's stay at Assisi...
...I guess it's foolish to think so--but--it does take away from his art...
...I had thought that all art must be genuine, mustn't it...
...iss StepAany She had an ancient shawl Embroidered with wild rice Whereon the white birds all Followed their own device: And on her parasol A bird of paradise...
...In a way I did not feel sorry for him...
...And suddenly he looked up: "I know why you wouldn't talk about it l It's all a pose, nothing but a pose ?" He was hurt to an extent I couldn't gauge and hurt by things which, in his case, anyhow, ought not to have hurt him at all...
...The kind of thing misused at Carnacco, the habit and the girdle, need they have touched an indifferent youngster like him, who soberly prided himself on having an open mind "wide enough to shelter prejudice and scepticism...
...From Assisi I heard a word...
...Big details had jarred on him at Carnacco and he could not explain just why they had so hurt him...
...I wrote him back a few congratulatory words on his choice of route and heard no more for months and months to come...
...This explained nothing...
...felt slightly disappointed...
...He wanted a spell of leisurely quiet to readjust his Carnacco impressions...
...And why a habit and a girdle and crucifixes and an oratory...
...GRACE HAZARD CONKLING...
...Must find out just why it had all baflied me...
...One or another day She counted little worth Without a promenade To give her birds the sun...
...Did you ask him about these things...
...Nothing but a pose," he repeated...
...I should have been had he sped straight on to Paris, but the Carnacco unreality had stayed his way...
...But the ultimate sequel can't easily be denied the very quintessence of poetry--not that he personally put it into any such terms...
...Well, I said he had cheated me about that trip...
...But I did tell him I wondered about it all...
...The postmark did not astonish me, though I had not marked Assisi on my itinerary for him...
Vol. 10 • October 1929 • No. 25
