All He Ever Wanted(78)

Very respectfully yours,

Phillip Asher

14 Gill Street

January 6, 1915

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

I write to tell you that I have shifted residences from the Hotel Thrupp to 14 Gill Street, and should you wish to answer this or any of my previous letters, you may do so there. I am renting a small house in anticipation of beginning my new job at Thrupp.

I hope you and your children were able to pass a happy Christmas with your sister and her family.

Yours,

Phillip Asher

Exeter

January 15, 1915

Dear Mr. Asher,

Forgive my silence.

Etna Van Tassel

14 Gill Street

January 18, 1915

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

You do not need my forgiveness for your silence. It is perfectly understandable. I wish you a swift and happy conclusion to your difficult circumstances.

Phillip Asher

Exeter

January 22, 1915

Dear Mr. Asher,

I put these questions to you as an ethicist. Is a woman, married and with children, entitled to reserve a portion of her life for her own and exclusive use? May such a woman, if she decides that by doing so, no harm will come to either her children or her husband, be permitted to retire to an inviolable place, a place to which only she has access, in which only she resides, for the benign and innocent purposes of gentle education and recreation, which might encompass activities such as reading and sewing and possibly the writing of letters or of poetry? Is not a man, of a certain education, accorded, without difficulty from any party, an inviolable retreat of his own, one in which neither wife nor child is welcome, one in which he may read or smoke or write or engage in contemplation, or even entertain certain friends and colleagues, a room that is commonly called a study or an office or a library? And if so, why then is a woman — married and with children — not entitled to a similar retreat? And if this woman should discover that no retreat may be had within her own home, owing to the traffic of children and servants and even her own husband, who sees no violation in entering such a retreat, and because of the lack of respect for such a place of solitude, is she not then allowed to seek retreat elsewhere, such as at a resident hotel or boarding house or at a cottage in a rural area, outside of town, some miles away from the family abode, the whereabouts of which is unknown to any family relative?

I await your reply to these questions, as they are ones I am struggling with moment to moment and which are at the very heart of what you have accurately heard is considerable marital discord.

With respect for your judgment,

Etna Bliss Van Tassel

14 Gill Street

January 27, 1915

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

You do me a great honor by confiding in me the details of your marital discord and by assuming that I might be able to help you answer these difficult questions. But I must tell you that I am an academic only and not a superior judge of either human or marital behavior. I am not married, nor have I ever been. Marriage is a special province, the residents of which have access to a knowledge and a language all their own, one that cannot be had by any other means than to be married. (It is for this reason that I have always thought unmarried clergy and magistrates particularly poor counselors for those who seek redress for marital grievances.) But as I am a scholar, I will, if you will permit me, put to you questions that in answering may give you increased insight into your own difficulties.

Is not the personal retreat of this putative husband you speak of — the inviolable retreat within the house that we commonly call the study or the library — agreed upon, in essence, by both parties of a marriage when they take up residence at that specific abode and a room is so designated for that purpose? Or, put another way, can a retreat not agreed upon by both parties of a marriage, or not even known about by one party of a marriage, be accorded the same respect? Might not a wife have reason to distrust a husband were she to discover that he had rented a room in secret, even if the husband planned only to read and write and think in such a place? Might not the discovery of such a room put too great a burden on the fragile thread of marital trust between a man and his wife?

Mrs. Van Tassel, I can only guess at your circumstances, having no knowledge of them. More important, I have no knowledge of your health or well-being. These are serious questions that you ask me, disturbing in their nature, more disturbing since I am in a position to see your husband daily; and I must tell you, as a reporter only, that he is hardly in a fit state to teach a class of young men. I have given him leave so that he may travel back and forth to Exeter, and have suggested a sabbatical, as he is certainly deserving of it. Your husband would seem to be a proud man, however, as he has refused this offer. By all accounts, he is in a seriously overstressed state, one that concerns many of his colleagues and friends.