I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly think
I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress to
be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore. That is
slang again, but never mind; Arthur says that every day. There,
it is all out. Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since
we were children; we have slept together and eaten together, and
laughed and cried together; and now, though I have spoken, I
would like to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn’t you guess? I love
him. I am blushing as I write, for although I think he loves me,
he has not told me so in words. But oh, Mina, I love him; I love
him; I love him! There, that does me good. I wish I were with
you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we used to sit; and I
would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how I am writing
Letters, Etc. 53
this even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I should tear up the let-
ter, and I don’t want to stop, for I do so want to tell you all. Let
me hear from you at once, and tell me all that you think about it.
Mina, I must stop. Good-night. Bless me in your prayers; and,
Mina, pray for my happiness.
«LUCY.
«P.S. I need not tell you this is a secret. Good-night again.
JL.
Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.
«24 May.
«My dearest Mina,
«Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter.
It was so nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy.
«My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old prov-
erbs are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet
I never had a proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day
I have had three. Just fancy! THREE proposals in one day!
Isn’t it awful! I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the
poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don’t know what
to do with myself. And three proposals! But, for goodness’ sake,
don’t tell any of the girls, or they would be getting all sorts of
extravagant ideas and imagining themselves injured and slighted
if in their very first day at home they did not get six at least.
Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged
and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married wo-
men, can despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three,
but you must keep it a secret, dear, from every one, except, of
course, Jonathan. You will tell him, because I would, if I were
in your place, certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her
husband everything don’t you think so, dear? and I must be
fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair
as they are; and women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair
as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just before
lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum
man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very
cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently
been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and re-
membered them; but he almost managed to sit down on his silk
hat, which men don’t generally do when they are cool, and then
when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet
in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me,, Mina,
54 Dracula
very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him,
though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with
me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy
he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry
he said that he was a brute and would not add to my present
trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could. love him in time;
and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with
some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else.
He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my
confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman’s
heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt
a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told
him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong
and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped
I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count
him one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can’t help crying: and you
must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is
all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn’t at all a happy
thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know
loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken-hearted,
and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment,
you are passing quite out of his life. My dear, I must stop here
aL present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy.
11 Evening.
«Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when
I left off, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear,
number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an Ameri-
can from Texas, and he looks so youug and so fresh that it seems
almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has
had such adventures. I sympathise with poor Desdemona when
she had such a dangerous stream poured in her ear, even by a
black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that we
think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know
now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl
love me. No, I don’t, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his
stories, and Arthur never told any, and yet My dear, I am
somewhat previous. Mr. Quincey P. Morris found me alone.
It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn’t,
for Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him all I
could; I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you before-
hand that Mr. Morris doesn’t always speak slang that is to
say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really
Letters, Etc. 55
well educated and has exquisite manners but he f ouna out that
it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I
was present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such
funny things. I air afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for
it fits exactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way
slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang; I do
not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any
as yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as
happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he
was very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so
sweetly:
«' Miss Lucy, I know I ain’t good enough to regulate the fixin’s
of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that
is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when
you quit. Won’t you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go
down the long road together, driving in double harness?»
«Well, he did look so good-humoured and so jolly that it
didn’t seem half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward;
so I said, as lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of
hitching, and that I wasn’t broken to harness at all yet. Then
he said that he had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that
if he had made a mistake in doing so on so grave, so momentous, 1
an occasion for him, I would forgive him. He really did look
serious when he was saying it, and I couldn’t help feeling a bit
serious too I know, Mina, you will think me a horrid flirt
though I couldn’t help feeling a sort of exultation that he was
number two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say
a word he began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making,
laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest
over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful
always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times. I sup-
pose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he
suddenly stopped, and said with a sort of manly fervour that I
could have loved him for if I had been free:
««Lucy, you are an honest-hearted girl, I know. I should not
be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean
grit, right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like
one good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care
for? And if there is I’ll never trouble you a hair’s breadth again,
but will be, if you will let me,» a very faithful friend.»
«M} dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are
so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this
great- aearted, true gentleman. 1 burst into tears I am afraid.
56 Dracula
my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways
than one and I really felt very badly. Why can’t they let a girl
marry three men, or as many. as want her, and save all t\iis
trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it. I am glad to
say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Mor-
ris’s brave eyes, and I told him out straight:
««Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet
that he even loves me. ' I was right to speak to him so frankly,
for quite a light came into his face, and he put out both his hands
and took mine I think I put them into his and said in a hearty
way:
«« That’s my brave girl. It’s better worth being late for a
chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in
the world. Don’t cry, my dear. If it’s for me, I’m a hard nut to
crack; and I take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn’t
know his happiness, well, he’d better look for it soon, or he’ll
have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have
made me a friend, and that’s rarer than a lover; it’s more un-
selfish anyhow. My dear, I’m going to have a pretty lonely
walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won’t you give me one
kiss? It’ll be something to keep off the darkness now and then.
You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellow he
must be a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could
not love him hasn’t spoken yet. 7 That quite won me, Mina,
for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble, too, to a rival
wasn’t it? and he so sad; so I leant over and kissed him.
He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down
into my face I am afraid I was blushing very much he
said:
««Little girl, I hold your hand, and you’ve kissed me, and if
these things don’t make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you
for your sweet honesty to me, and good-bye. ' He wrung my hand,
and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room without
looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause; and JL*am
cryiifg like a baby. Oh, why must a man like that be made un-
happy 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 crji be all
happy.
«Ever your loving
«I. UCY.
Letters, Etc. 57
«P.S. Oh, about number Three I needn’t tell you of num-
ber 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 good*
ness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and
such a friend.
«Good-bye.»
Dr. Seward’s Diary.
(Kept in phonograph)
25 M ay. Ebb tide in appetite to-day. 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 impor-
tance to be worth the doing. … As I knew that the only cure
for this sort of thing was work, I went down amongst the pa-
tients. 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. To-day 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 Ronuz venalia sunt. Hell has its price! verb. sap.
If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to
trace it afterwards accurately, so I had better commence to do
so, therefore
R. M. Renfield, aetat 59. Sanguine temperament; R 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, f
58 Dracula
is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only acci*
dent or a series of accidents can balance it.
Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Hon. Arthur Holmwood.
11 25 May.
f>: My dear Art,
«We’ve told yarns by the camp-fire 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 camp-fire to-
morrow night? I have no hesitation hi 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 dr-ink 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 the best worth whining.
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.
u Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make
both your ears tingle.
CHAPTER VI
MINA MURRAY’S JOURNAL
24 July. Whitby. Lucy met me at the station, jookingsweeter
and loj/elie^thaiLe^er, and we drove up to the houseTftnTCres-
cen t irTwhlcf 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