Editha

Editha, by William Dean Howells, is such a sad, yet typical, story.  It's about a young woman named Editha with strong principles and ideals.  Editha has easily become engaged to a man named George Gearson.  In fact, she feels that George hasn't done anything to earn her love.  On the eve of the Spanish-American war, she is enamored with the idea of George going off to war, proving himself a hero, and returning to her, now deserving of her love.  To Editha, patriotism and love of one's country should come before anything else.

George, however, has different feelings in regards to the war.  He grew up in a home with a father that had lost his arm in the American Civil War, and though he doesn't remember much of his late father, his mother has instilled in him an abhorrence of war.  While musing over those thoughts with Editha, he sees her not so subtle hints that she expects him to go.  While George is away that evening, Editha writes him a letter telling him that she could not marry him if he didn't go to fight.

In the mean time, George has been to enlist, and is even persuaded to become Captain of his unit.  When Editha hears the news, she gives him the letter to read at a later time if he ever begins to regret his decision to enlist.  George entreats Editha to visit his mother if he doesn't come home alive, and she promises to.

Of course George ends up being one of the first killed.  Editha is in shock, not expecting that outcome at all.  Eventually she stops grieving and goes to see George's mother, as she promised.  When she arrives, his mother mocks her innocent view of war, and gives her the truth.  Mrs. Gearson is angry but exultant that her son was killed before he could kill someone else.  She is glad that he doesn't have to live with someone's blood on his hands.  Editha is seared by this, and instead of the reality of war settling into her mind, she assumes that Mrs. Gearson is not in her right mind.

The story ends with Editha posing for a sketch, and the artist reiterates how good the war has been for the country, and that war is glorious and right.  The reality of war never sinks in to Editha's thick head.  She seems to me to be petty and shallow.  There are times I wanted to smack her.  My views are aligned with Mrs. Gearson's.  This was a great story with a great point.  Sadly, I'm afraid many readers feel just as Editha did.

A White Heron

In the story A White Heron, by Sarah Orne Jewett, a young girl named Sylvia moves from the city to the country to help her grandmother on her farm.  She quickly falls in love with country life, makes friend with the cow, and comes to realize how lucky she is to live among nature.

One day she encounters a hunter on one of her excursions.  He talks of loving nature, and learning from animals, but he shoots the animals he studies.  He asks to stay with Sylvia and her grandmother, and the accept him.  He then offers them ten dollars if Sylvia can lead him to a white heron.  Though leading a peaceful, contented life, they are poor, and ten dollars could change their lives significantly.

Sylvia decides to help him find the white heron.  She know the area, and knows the animals, and is positive she can find it for him.  She goes into the woods and climbs a tall, stately tree, all the way to the top.  As she looks at the beauty around her, she finally does spot the elusive white heron.  She is in awe of the bird's grace and dignity.  As she watches it, she has an epiphany.  She realizes that this white heron is a glorious living creature, and she knows it would be a grievous thing to take its life.  As bad as her family needs the money, she understands that she cannot let this magnificent animal be killed.

There is a wonderful moral to be found in this short but sweet story.  Some things cannot be bought.  The gift God gave us when we were given nature isn't something easily discarded.  It is to be treasured, and we are to be good stewards of it.

A New England Nun

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's A New England Nun is a wonderful story about everyday people, promises and loyalty, and about being true to one's self.  It tells the story of a love affair, an engagement, between Louisa and Joe.  Joe and Louisa fall in love at a young age, become engaged, and Joe takes off to Australia to make his fortune.  Joe doesn't come back for fifteen years.  When he does return, both Joe and Louisa have become different people.

Louisa has lived alone for many years.  Her family died, and she was left with the company of a little dog named Caesar.  She has created a very structured environment for herself, a routine, that she enjoys.  She becomes a bit obsessive with the way things are arranged on a table, and perturbed if Joe tracks dirt into the house.

Though it becomes obvious very quickly that neither want to be married, both are committed to keeping their word and promise to the other.  They are both going to sacrifice their individual happiness for the other, not knowing that both feel the same.  A chance encounter caught between Joe and Lily by an unobserved Louisa reveals to her that they have fallen in love with one another.  She realizes that though he loves Lily, he still plans on marrying her out of loyalty.  When Louisa realizes that he doesn't want to marry her, she becomes encouraged to let him out of the engagement.  She is now free to continue her contented, solitary existence, like a nun.

There is an interesting scene in which she very much fears that Joe will let her little dog Caesar off his leash to roam free.  This idea terrifies Louisa, she wants him to be chained alone in his little hut.  I very much imagine that she is projecting her own fears of leaving her isolated life onto her little dog.  It would be terrifying to her, because she would be terrified of leaving her house and routine.  Many people would look at her life and think she is a prisoner but I think she has really found freedom because she is living the life she created for herself in the way she wants.  Isn't that what freedom really is?

Joe and Lily also gain freedom; freedom to love one another without guilt or fear.  Louisa set them free.  I suppose this isn't a love story after all.  It's a story of finding a life that you truly want and attaining it.

Dickinson

I've been enjoying Emily Dickinson all summer long.  Slowly and surely wading through her collected works. (By the way, you can get the free ebook at Barnes and Noble's website.)  Her word choices, the way she strings them together like jewels on a ribbon, really grab me.  I find her work full of passion and a lot of feminist insight for the time.

Dickinson wrote quite a bit about death.  She was writing during the American Civil War, the bloodiest time the country had ever seen.  People were confronted with death on a daily basis, and she was brave enough to put her thoughts about it on paper.  She understood that life was fleeting.  She seemed unafraid to meet death.  Morbid, macabre, but also realistic.

She also had some controversial opinions on religion.  She lived in a very rigid, structured religious community but she rejected much of what she saw in her fellow believers.  She found God not just in pews, but in nature, as well.

While many picture her as an old maid writer, she was no prude.  She filled her verse with passion.  Wild Nights is just one example of the abandon with which she loved.  There are many speculations about her love life - the Reverend, and even her sister-in-law - and whatever we may say or conjecture, it is obvious in her writing that she loved deeply and passionately.

Emily Dickinson stands out among all the poets of America, not simply those in the 19th century.  Her words are honest, brutal, and beautiful, and in my opinion, there is much we can learn from them.