Edgar Saltus: The Man. Marie Saltus
he looked upon sports of all kinds as outlets for primitive egos, amusements also, unless draped with interesting psychological problems, and gatherings of humans as an abomination and a stench to his nostrils, most women, in spite of the charm of his manner and the brilliance of his mind, would find little in common with him.
A boy at heart, adoring tricks, games and fairy stories, he did not want to be recalled to the things of earth. Impractical as he was, he could not endure practical people, accepting the blunders and forgetfulness of one even less so than himself with patience and grace. If five minutes before the dinner hour I would rush home and say:
"Too sorry dear, but I forgot to order anything for dinner. There is nothing in the house" (it happened more than once, but his reply was always the same)—
"Never mind, little puss. Thank God your mind is in the clouds—not in the kitchen. Let's go around the corner."
"Around the corner" meant to a tiny place called the Cozy frequented by Columbia students. Fortunately it was only a few yards from our home.
What he could not forgive was stupidity, and the desire to please Mrs. Smith and Mr. Jones and wonder what the neighbors would or would not think about things. This, however, he was never called upon to endure.
Only a person fundamentally the same and sharing his peculiar dislikes could have had a chance of success. A woman less temperamental and high-strung than himself would yield anything for peace. Yielding to Mr. Saltus was fatal. A mental ascendency on his part, no matter what the circumstances, and the beginning of the end was in sight.
There is a rather pathetic side to his biography. During the writing of it, Mr. Saltus seems to have been at my elbow all the time, a highly amused and almost disinterested critic. The writing of a biography had been a joke between us.
Asked by him once if I felt I had been in any way the gainer for my experiences of life with him, and what I would do in the future to keep my mind occupied if he passed on, I answered:
"Enormously the gainer. I could start a home."
"Would you make it into a training house for husbands—or turn it into a zoo?" he inquired.
"Neither. 'The Saltus Shelter for Scoundrels' would be the result. A sign in the window would inform the world that the superintendent, Marie Saltus, was a post-graduate on scoundrels." (It was a sobriquet Mr. Saltus was fond of applying to himself.) "It will be a wonderful home. Here is the first rule. 'Do all the things you ought not to do. Leave undone all the things you should do. All the comforts of home assured.'"
Mr. Saltus laughed, and added:
"Never pick up anything. Drop cigars and cigarettes on the floor. It will improve the carpets. Find fault with everything. Swear and make a row whenever you can."
To that I added that the waiting-list would be so long that the old scoundrels would be fighting among themselves to get in. The idea amused Mr. Saltus very much. Every day or two he would come up with a new suggestion.
"See here, Mowgy, I have another rule for the old scoundrels. Having served such an apprenticeship with me," he said, "you will have the home overflowing in a week. Draw the line. Take no one under seventy-five and have tea with them only on Sundays in August."
The Saltus Shelter for Scoundrels became a pet theme. A diet was drawn up for the inmates by Mr. Saltus, and a course of reading outlined. The by-laws grew and were embellished.
This was during the last winter of his life, when failing health kept him indoors much of the time. To take him out of himself, it became necessary to supply food for the imagination.
"Suppose you became ill and you had to leave the old scoundrels to their fate? What then?" he inquired one day.
"That is provided for. If the Saltus Shelter is shattered, I will sit down and write your biography."
"That will fall flatter. No one will read it," he said.
"Yes, they will. I will call it. 'The Annals of Ananias.' It will be your punishment for having written 'Madame Sapphira,' and people will fall over themselves to read it, for I will tell the worst."
He took notice of that.
"Wow! Wow! Will you tell about the time I got a piece of chocolate when I thought I was securing an opera glass, and how I threw it away, hitting a bald man on the head?"
"Of course. Didn't I say the worst?"
"Surely you won't mention the time I kicked the dog and smashed up the cut-glass?"
"Yes, I will, and how you played the hose on poor Jean, and all the other demoniacal things you have done."
At that he would say, "Wow—Wow," again, but the idea amused him, and scarcely a day passed without inquiries about the biography.
"You won't tell the worst really, will you, Mowgy? You will not mention the time I got squiffy, or the time I pretended I was a crazy man and miawed in the trolley car?"
"When I say everything, I mean everything."
"Then you must tell about the time in Paris when you tried to murder me, and when, mistaking a strange man for me, you wrote him such a villainous letter."
"Concerning these you are safe. There is too much about myself in those incidents to interest people. Like Cæsar, the good will be interred with your bones."
"No one will believe there could have been such a demon. They will say the remarkable thing about it is that you have survived."
We joked about it a great deal during the winter, Mr. Saltus suggesting incidents to be included or omitted.
When after his death one publisher after another urged me to give them a biography, I did not know whether to laugh or to weep.
Could I? The words we had said repeated themselves. His wistful spirit seemed to stand at my side—laughing. He could take a joke on himself so well.
During the writing of it he has seemed to be beside me—amused, but caring less, if anything, what any one might say or think about it. It was all trivial.
When engaged in writing a book it was Mr. Saltus' custom to sharpen dozens of pencils and have them at hand. Writing rapidly, he would discard one after another as they became dull, till the last was reached. These he sharpened again, and started in to repeat the process. After his death I collected a box full and kept them. It is with the same pencils that these words are being written. They have come straight from his hand to mine. His emanations seem to have permeated them.
It has not been an easy task, but it is truthful. The worst, as well as the best, has been given. His friends will find that the eager and aspiring spirit they admired was even bigger than they knew.
To the verdict of any human he was—and still must be—indifferent. It did not touch him in the flesh. It cannot reach him in the spirit. To him at the last one thing alone mattered, through the sum total of his life's experiences—the ability to know himself, and knowing that self to co-operate with his evolution. To turn from the illusory to the illimitable, seeking only the way; that was what mattered.
Realizing at the last that all the wisdom of the world could be epitomized in a single sentence, he found strength in that. "He attaineth peace into whom all desires flow as rivers into an ocean, which, being full, remaineth unaffected by any."
EDGAR SALTUS, THE MAN
CHAPTER I
From the very beginning Edgar Saltus was none of the things that he appeared to be and a hundred that no one ever suspected. Having