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