Dorcas Gustine: Great Character, Stupid Name

This is from Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology. It’s a great book that you probably pretended to read in high school. Every poem is a first-person epitaph, and, between the lines and in the gaps between the poems’ points of view, it subtly illustrates all the spiderwebbing scandals and fears of a small town. I’ve loved it since I first picked it up in Robby Davis’s beginning acting class in high school.

For one assignment, we had to pick an epitaph, create the character, then perform the poem. I forgot which one I did in high school (and when I had to do it in undergrad, and then again in grad school), but there are a few that I’ve always loved. My favorite, though, is this one:

Dorcas Gustine

I WAS NOT beloved of the villagers,
But all because I spoke my mind,
And met those who transgressed against me
With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing
Nor secret griefs nor grudges.
That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised,
Who hid the wolf under his cloak,
Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly.
It is braver, I think, to snatch the wolf forth
And fight him openly, even in the street,
Amid dust and howls of pain.
The tongue may be an unruly member—
But silence poisons the soul.
Berate me who will—I am content.

It doesn’t need much explanation. Dorcas is a tough old broad, and the straightest of shooters. There’s an amazing, rugged dignity in her ruthless honesty. The greatest thing about her is that she is, to borrow from Raymond Chandler, neither tarnished nor afraid.

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to be Dorcas Gustine when I grow up (except I want to still be a dude). My favorite people are those who are not afraid to fling their uncomfortable truths into the daylight, and address them thusly. Too many of us skirt around the things that we really know, slowly poisoning ourselves and the people around us.

I like to think that anyone who has a place in my life is worthy of the truth, and is made of stern enough stuff to handle it. It’s a tough ditch to dig, but I’ve never told someone the truth and felt worse about myself afterward. Does it make for some uncomfortable moments? Absolutely. But I’ll take an awkward, unpopular truth over a warm, fuzzy lie every time.