2025-09-27 - The Story of Mary MacLane ====================================== Mary MacLane photo I learned of this book from a Project Gutenberg post. Reading the book has been a pleasant surprise. The writing felt nourishing because it gave me "food for thought" to ruminate on. MacLane compares herself to Marie Bashkirtseff. Oddly enough, she brought Opal Whiteley to my mind. Marie Bashkirtseff The Story of Opal Whiteley Mary MacLane and Opal Whiteley both grew up in remote locations. They both felt lonely and misunderstood. They were both literate and highly intelligent. They were both truly original. Mary's self portrayal reminds me of the goth subculture, and she could be taken as a shadow side from the same material that Opal was cut from. Where Opal Whiteley grew up in beauty, Mary MacLane was a teenager in a barren mining town where sulfur gasses killed all plants and the flow of water was highly artificial and polluted. Where Opal wrote about heaven, Mary wrote about the devil. The author makes many literary references, and writes about eating well. I get the feeling that though she grew up feeling alienated and lonely, her basic needs were met, she had a good education and a comparatively privileged existence. Mary's wooden heart, strong young woman's-body, and starved soul were on fire. The fire of her genius gave her uncommon knowledge, but it did not give her happiness. What Mary needed more than anything else was human tenderness and love. She did not need harsh treatment nor to be mocked. To spoof her book would be to miss its point. > I wonder as I write this Portrayal if there will be one person to > read it and see a thing that is mingled with every word. It is > something that you must feel, that must fascinate you, the like of > which you have never before met with. > > It is the unparalleled individuality of me. What follows are quotes, with my comments in square brackets. * * * Butte and its immediate vicinity present as ugly an outlook as one could wish to see. It is so ugly indeed that it is near the perfection of ugliness. And anything perfect, or nearly so, is not to be despised. The little wild creature wanted to be loved; she wanted something to put in her hungry little heart. But no one had anything to put into a hungry little heart. When my Happiness is given me, the Unrest will still be with me, I doubt not, but the Happiness will change the tenor of it, will make it an instrument of joy, will clasp hands with it and mingle itself with it,--the while I, with my wooden heart, my woman's-body, my mind, my soul, shall be in transports. I shall be filled with pleasure so deep and pain so intense that my being's minutest nerve will reel and stagger in intoxication, will go drunk with the fullness of Life. The art of Good Eating has two essential points: one must eat only when one is hungry, and one must take small bites. [The author describes eating a single olive deliberately and sensually. It reminds me of another story i read about tantrics savoring one single raisin.] Once more is my tongue electrified. And the third stage in my temporary transformation takes place. I am now a gross but supremely contented sensualist. An exquisite symphony of sensualism and pleasure seems to play somewhere within me. My heart purrs. My brain folds its arms and lounges. I put my feet up on the seat of another chair. The entire world is now surely one delicious green olive. My mind is capable of conceiving but one idea--that of a green olive. Therefore the green olive is a perfect thing--absolutely a perfect thing. I have acquired it by means of self-examination, analyzing... I have lived my nineteen years buried in an environment at utter variance with my natural instincts, where my inner life is never touched, and my sympathies very rarely, if ever, appealed to. I never disclose my real desires or the texture of my soul. ... When one has played a part--a false part--all one's life, for I was a sly, artful little liar even in the days of five and six; then one is marked. One may never rid oneself of the mantle of falseness... In Dublin Gulch, which is a rough quarter of Butte inhabited by poor Irish people, there lives an old world-soured, wrinkled-faced woman. She lives alone in a small, untidy house. She swears frightfully like a parrot, and her reputation is bad--so bad, indeed, that even the old woman's compatriots in Dublin Gulch do not visit her lest they damage their own. It is true that the profane old woman's morals are not good--have never been good--judged by the world's standards. She bears various marks of cold, rough handling on her mind and body. Her life has all but run its course. She is worn out. Once in a while I go to visit this old woman--my reputation must be sadly damaged by now. I sit with her for an hour or two and listen to her. She is extremely glad to have me there. Except me she has no one to talk to but the milkman, the groceryman, and the butcher. So always she is glad to see me. There is a certain bond of sympathy between her and me. We are fond of each other. When she sees me picking my way towards her house, her hard, sour face softens wonderfully and a light of distinct friendliness comes into her green eyes. Don't you know, there are few people enough in the world whose hard, sour faces will soften at sight of you and a distinctly friendly light come into their green eyes. For myself, I find such people few indeed. So the profane old woman and I are fond of each other. No question of morals, or of immorals, comes between us. We are equals. I talk to her a little--but mostly she talks. She tells me of the time when she lived in County Galway, when she was young--and of her several husbands, and of some who were not husbands, and of her children scattered over the earth. And she shows me old tin-types of these people. She has told me the varied tale of her life a great many times. I like to hear her tell it. It is like nothing else I have heard. The story in its unblushing simplicity, the sour-faced old woman sitting telling it, and the tin-types,--contain a thing that is absurdly, grotesquely, tearlessly sad. You may think evil of me before you have finished reading this. You will be very right to think so--according to your standards. But sometimes you see evil where there is no evil, and think evil when the only evil is in your own brains. [Projection.] I feel in the anemone lady a strange attraction of sex. There is in me a masculine element that, when I am thinking of her, arises and overshadows all the others. ... Do you think a man is the only creature with whom one may fall in love? It is admirable and beautiful beyond expression to sacrifice and give up and wait for love of that good that gives in itself a just reward. And only next to this is the throwing to the winds of all restraint when the good holds itself aloof and gives nothing. ... Why do we not take what we want of the various temptations? It is not that we are virtuous. It is that we are cowards. There is nothing in the world without its element of Badness. It is in literature; it is in every art--in pictures, sculpture, even in music. There are certain fine, deep, minute passages in Beethoven and in Chopin that tell of things wonderfully, sublimely bad. I long to cultivate my element of Badness. Badness compared to Nothingness is beautiful. Oh, for a human being, my soul wails--a human being to love me! Oh, to know--just once--what it is to be loved! Long and often as I've sat in intense silent passion and gazed at the red, red sunset sky, I have never then felt this sense of the divine. It comes only through humor. It comes only with things like an Italian peddler-woman in a black satine wrapper and an ancient cape. I am merely and above all a creature of intense passionate /feeling/. I feel--everything. It is my genius. author: MacLane, Mary, 1881-1929 detail: LOC: PZ3.M222 S4 PS3525.A2655 source: tags: biography,ebook,non-fiction title: The Story of Mary MacLane Tags ==== biography ebook non-fiction