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Love's Pilgrimage, A Novel, a novel by Upton Sinclair |
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Part 2. Love's Captivity - Book 14. The Price Of Ransom |
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_ PART II. LOVE'S CAPTIVITY BOOK XIV. THE PRICE OF RANSOM _The faint grey of dawn was stealing across the lake; and still the spell was upon them.
Section 1. In the course of that summer there befell Corydon an adventure; Thyrsis had gone off one day for a walk, and when he came back she told him about it--how a young lady had stopped at the house to ask for a drink of water, and had sat upon the piazza to rest, and had talked with her. Now Corydon was in a state of excitement over a discovery. Whenever Thyrsis met a stranger, it was necessary for him to go through elaborate intellectual processes, to find the person out by an exchange of ideas. And if by any chance the person was insincere, and used ideas as a blind and a cover, then Thyrsis might never find him out at all. In other words, he took people at the face-value of their cultural equipment; and only after long and tragic blunderings could he by any chance get deeper. But with his wife it happened quite otherwise; this case was the first which he witnessed, but the same thing happened many times afterwards. With her there would be a strange flash of recognition; it was a sort of intuition, perhaps a psychic thing--who could tell? By some unknown process in soul-chemistry, she would divine things about a person that he might have been a life-time in finding out. It might be a burst of passionate interest, or on the other hand, of repugnance and fear. And long years of practice taught Thyrsis that this instinct of hers was never to be disregarded. Not once in all her life did he know her to give her affection to a base person; and if ever he disregarded her antipathies, he did it to his cost. Once they were sitting in a restaurant, and a man was brought up to be introduced by a friend; he was a person of not unpleasant aspect, courteous and apparently a gentleman, and yet Corydon flushed, and could scarcely keep her seat at the table, and would not give the man her hand. Years after Thyrsis came upon the discovery about this man, that he made a practice of unnatural vices. He came home now to find Corydon flushed with excitement. "She has such a beautiful soul!" she exclaimed. "I never met anyone like her. And we just took to each other; she told me all about herself, and we are going to be friends." "Who is she?" asked Thyrsis. "She's visiting Mr. Harding, the clergyman at Bellevue," was the answer. Bellevue was a town in the valley, on the other side from the university; it had a Presbyterian church, whose young pastor Thyrsis had met once or twice in his tramps about the country. This Miss Gordon, it seemed, was the niece of an elderly relative, his housekeeper; she was studying trained nursing, and afterwards intended to go out as a missionary to Africa. "She's so anxious to meet you," Corydon went on. "She's coming up to see me to-morrow, and she's going to bring Mr. Harding. You won't mind, will you, Thyrsis?" "I guess I can stand it if he can," said Thyrsis, grimly. "You mustn't say anything to hurt their feelings," said Corydon, quickly. "She's terribly orthodox, you know; and she takes it so seriously. I was surprised--I had never thought that I could stand anybody like that." Thyrsis merely grunted. "I guess ideas don't matter so much after all," said Corydon. "It's a deep nature that I care about. But just fancy--she was pained because the baby hadn't been baptized!" "You ought to have hid the dreadful truth," said he. "I couldn't hide things from her," laughed Corydon, "But she says I can make a Socialist out of her, and she'll make a Christian out of me!" His reply was, "Wait until she discovers the sensuous temperament!" But Corydon answered that Delia Gordon had a sensuous temperament also. "She seemed to me like a Joan of Arc. Just think of her going away from all her family, to a station on the Congo River! She told me all about it--how wretched the people are, and what the women suffer. She woke up in the middle of the night, and a voice told her to go--told her the name of the place. And she'd never heard it before, and hadn't had the least idea of going away!" Thyrsis was unmoved by this miracle. "I suppose," he said, "you'll be hearing voices yourself, and going with her. Tell me, is she pretty?" "You wouldn't call her pretty," said Corydon, after a little thought. "She's just--just dear. Oh, Thyrsis, I simply fell in love with her!" "You certainly chose an odd kind of an affinity," he said. "A Presbyterian missionary!" "It's worse than that," confessed Corydon. "She's a Seventh-day Adventist." "Good God! And what may that be?" "Why, she keeps Saturday instead of Sunday. She calls it the Sabbath. And she thinks that 'evolution' is wicked, and she believes in some kind of a hell! She's not just sure what kind, apparently." "You watch out," said he, "or the first thing you know she'll be baptizing the baby behind your back." "Would that do any good?" asked Corydon, guilelessly. He laughed as he answered, "It would, from her point of view." To which she replied, "Well, if we didn't know it and the baby didn't, I guess it wouldn't do any harm." "And it might save him from some kind of a hell!" added Thyrsis. Section 2. Miss Gordon came the next morning, Mr. Harding with her; and the four sat out under the trees and talked. She was a girl some three years older than Corydon, but much more mature; she was short, but athletic in build, and with a bright personality. Thyrsis could see at once those fine qualities of idealism and fervor which had attracted Corydon; and to his surprise he found that, in addition to her religious virtues, the Lord had generously added a sense of humor. So Delia Gordon was really a person with whom one could have a good time. The Lord had not been quite so generous with the Rev. Mr. Harding, apparently. Mr. Harding was about thirty years of age, tall and finely-built, with a slight, fair moustache, and a rather girlish complexion. He was evidently of a sentimental inclination, very sensitive, and a lovable person; but the sense of humor Thyrsis judged was underdeveloped. He was inclined towards social-reform, and had a club for working-boys in his town, of which he was very proud; he asked Thyrsis to come and give a literary talk to these boys, and Thyrsis replied that his views of things were hardly orthodox. When the clergyman asked for elucidation, Thyrsis added, with a smile, "I don't believe that Jonah ever swallowed the whale". Whereupon Mr. Harding proceeded with all gravity to correct his misapprehension of this legend. The fires of friendship, thus suddenly lighted between the two girls, continued to burn. Delia Gordon came nearly every day to see Corydon, and once or twice Corydon went down to the town and had lunch with her. They told each other all the innermost secrets of their hearts, and in the evening Corydon would retail these to Thyrsis, who was thus put in the way to acquire that knowledge of human nature so essential to a novelist. Delia had never been in love, it seemed--her only passion was for savage tribes along the Congo; but Mr. Harding had been involved in a heart-tragedy some time ago, and was supposed to be still inconsolable. Incredible as it might seem, he was apparently not in love with Delia. Also, needless to say, the pair did not fail to thresh out problems of theology. Delia made in due course the dreadful discovery of the sensuous temperament; and also she probed to the depths the frightful ocean of unorthodoxy that was hid beneath the placid surface of Corydon. But strange to say, this did not repel her, nor make any difference in their friendship. Thyrsis took that for the sign of a liberal attitude, but Corydon corrected him with a shrewd observation--"She's so sure of her own truth she can't believe in the reality of any other. She _knows_ I'll come to Jesus with her some day!" It was a wonderful thing to Thyrsis to see his wife's happiness just then; she was like a flower which has been wilting, and suddenly receives a generous shower of rain. It was just what he had prayed for; having seen all along that her wretchedness was owing to her being shut up alone with him. So now he did his best to repress his own opinions, and to let the two friends work out their problem undisturbed. "Oh, Thyrsis," Corydon exclaimed to him, one night, "if I could only have her with me, I'd be happy always!" "Then why don't you get her to stay with you?" asked Thyrsis, quickly. "Ah, but she wouldn't think of it," said Corydon. "She doesn't really care about anything in the world but her Congo savages!" "We might try," said he. "When does she complete her course?" "Not until the end of the year." "Well, we can do a lot of arguing in that time. And when the book is out, we'll have money enough, so that we can offer to pay her. She might become a sort of 'mother's helper.'" Section 3. So Thyrsis began a struggle with Jesus and the Congo savages, for the possession of Delia's soul. He set to work to interest her in his work; he gave her his first novel, which contained no theology at all; and also "The Hearer of Truth"--the social radicalism of which he was pleased to see did not alarm her. And then he gave her the war-novel, and saw with joy how she was thrilled over that. He laid himself out to make his purpose and his vision clear to her; and then, one afternoon, when Corydon had a headache and was taking a nap, he led her off to a quiet place in the woods, and set before her all the bitter tragedy of their lives. He pictured the work he had to do, and the loneliness to which this consigned Corydon; he told her of the horrors they had so far endured, and what effect these had had upon his wife. He showed her what her power was--how she could make life possible for both of them. For she had that magic key which Thyrsis himself did not possess, she could unlock the treasure-chambers of Corydon's soul. But alas, Thyrsis soon perceived that his efforts had been in vain. Delia was stirred by his eloquence, but the only effect was to move her to an equally eloquent account of the sufferings of the natives of the Congo basin. It was important that he should get his books written; but how much more important it was that some help should be carried to these unhappy wretches! They never saw any books, they were altogether beyond his reach; and who was to take the light to them? She told him harrowing tales of sick women, beaten and tortured and burned with fire to drive the devils out of them. Thyrsis met this by attempting to broaden the girl's social consciousness. He showed her how the waves of intelligence, beginning at the top, spread to the lowest strata of society--changing the character of all human activities, and affecting the humblest life. He showed her the capitalist system, and explained how it worked; how it reached to the savage in the remotest corner of the earth, and seized him and made him over according to its will. It was true, for instance--and not in any poetic sense, but literally and demonstrably true--that the fate of the Congo native was determined in Wall Street, and in the financial centres of London and Paris and Brussels and Berlin. The essential thing about the natives was that they represented rubber and ivory. And Delia might go there, and try to teach them and help them, but she would find that there were forces engaged in beating them down and destroying them--forces in comparison with which she was as helpless as a child. It was true of the Congo blacks, as it was true of the people of the slums, of the proletariat of the whole earth, that there was no way to help them save to overthrow the system which made of them, not human beings, but commodities, to be purchased and passed through the profit-mill, and then flung into the scrap-heap. But Thyrsis found to his pain that it was impossible to make these considerations of any real import to Delia. She understood them, she assented to them; but that did not make them count. Her impulses came from another part of her being. Her savages were naked and hungry and ignorant and miserable; and they needed to be fed and clothed, and more important yet, to be baptized and saved. She was all the more impelled to her task by the fact that all the forces of civilization were arrayed against her. The fires of martyrdom were blazing in her soul. She meant to throw herself over a precipice--and the higher the precipice, and the more jagged the rocks beneath, the greater was the thrill which the prospect brought her. Section 4. They went back to the house; as Delia had arranged to spend the night with them, and as Corydon's headache was better, the controversy was continued far into the evening. Thyrsis took no part in it, he listened while Corydon pleaded for herself, and pictured her loneliness and despair. Delia put her arms about her. "Don't you see, dear," she argued--"all that is because you are without a faith! You cast out Jesus, and deny him; and so how can _I_ help you? If you believed what I do, you would not be lonely, even if you were in the heart of Africa." "But how can I believe what isn't _true?_" cried Corydon; and so the skeletons of theology came forth and rattled their bones once more. A couple of hours must have passed, while Thyrsis said nothing, but listened to Delia and watched her, probing deeply into the agonies and futilities of life. He had given up all hope of persuading her to stay with them; he thought only of the tragedy, that this noble spirit should be tangled up and blundering about in the mazes of a grotesque dogma. And the time came when he could endure it no more; something rose up within him, something tremendous and terrible, and he laid hold of Delia Gordon's soul to wrestle with it, as never before had he wrestled with any human soul except Corydon's. The truth of the matter was that Thyrsis loved the religious people; it was among them that he had been brought up, and their ways were his ways. This was a fact that came to him rarely now, for he was hard-driven and bitter; but it was true that when he sneered at the church and taunted it, he was like a parent who whips a child he loves. Perhaps Paret had spoken truly in one of his cruel jests--that when a man has been brought up religious, he can never really get over it, he can never really be free. So now Thyrsis spoke to Delia as one who was himself of the faith of Jesus; he cried out to her that what she wanted was what he wanted, that all her attitudes and ways of working were his. And here were monstrous evils alive upon the earth--here were all the forces of hell unleashed, and ranging like savage beasts destroying the lives of men and women! And those who truly cared, those who had the conscience and the faith of the world in their keeping--they were wasting their time in disputations about barren formulas, questions which had no relationship to human life! Questions of the meaning of old Hebrew texts that had often no meaning at all, and of folk-tales and fairy-stories out of the nursery of the race--the problem of whether Jonah had swallowed the whale, or the whale had swallowed Jonah--the problem of whether it was on Friday or Saturday that the Lord had finished the earth. Because of such things as this, they drove all thinking men from their ranks, they degraded and made ridiculous the very name of faith! As he went on, the agony of this swept over Thyrsis--until it seemed to him as if he had the whole Christian Church before him, and was pleading with it in the voice of Jesus. Here was a new crucifixion--a crucifixion of civilization! Thyrsis cried out in the words, "Oh ye of little faith!" Truly, was it not the supreme act of infidelity, to make the spirit of religion, which was one with the impulse of all life--the force that made the flower bloom and oak-tree tower and the infant cry for its food--to make it dependent upon Hebrew texts and Assyrian folk-tales! Delia preached to him about "faith"; but what was her faith in comparison with his, which was a faith in all life--which trusted the soul of man, and reason as part of the soul of man, a thing which God had put in man to be used, and not to be feared and outraged. Then came Delia. She would not admit that her faith depended upon texts and legends; it was a faith in the living God. She was not afraid of reason--she did not outrage it-- "But you do, you do!" cried Thyrsis. "Your whole attitude is an outrage to it! You never speak of 'science' except as an evil thing. You told Corydon that 'evolution' was wicked!" "I don't see how evolution can help my faith"--began the other. "That's just it!" cried Thyrsis again. "That is exactly what I mean! You do not pay homage to truth, you do not seek it for its own sake! You require that it should fit into certain formulas that you have set up--in other words that it should not interfere with your texts and your legends! And what is the result of that--you have paralyzed all your activities, you have condemned your intellectual life to sterility! For we live in an age of science, we cannot solve our problems except by means of it; the forces of evil are using it, and you are not using it, and so you are like a child in their hands! Not one of the social wrongs but could be put an end to--child-labor, poverty and disease, prostitution and drunkenness, crime and war! But you don't know how, and you can't find out how--simply because you have thrown away the sharp tools of the intellect, and filled your mind with formulas that mean nothing! How can you understand modern problems, when you know nothing about economics? You have rejected 'evolution'--so how can you comprehend the evolution of society? How can you know that civilization at this hour is going down into the abyss--dragging you and your churches and your Congo savages with it? I who do understand these things--I have to go out and fight alone, while you are shut up in your churches, mumbling your spells and incantations, and poring over your Hebrew texts! And think of what I must suffer, knowing as I do that the spirit that animates you--the fervor and devotion, the 'hunger and thirst after righteousness'--would banish horror from the earth forever, if only it could be guided by intelligence!" Section 5. All this, of course, was effort utterly wasted. Thyrsis poured out his pleadings and exhortations, his longing and his pain; and when he had finished, the girl was exactly where she had been before--just as distrustful of "science", and just as blindly bent upon getting away to her savages and binding up their wounds and baptizing them. And so at last he gave up in despair, and left Delia to go to bed, and went out and sat alone in the moonlight. Afterwards, though it was long after midnight, Corydon came out and joined him. He saw that she was flushed and trembling with excitement. "Thyrsis!" she whispered. "That was a marvellous thing!" He pressed her hand. "And all thrown away!" she cried. "You realized that, did you?" he asked. "I realized many things. Why you set so much store by ideas, for instance! I see that you are right--one has to think straight!" "It's like a steam-engine," said Thyrsis. "It doesn't matter how much power you get up, or how fast you make the wheels go--unless the switches are set right, you don't reach your destination." "You only land in the ditch!" added Corydon. "And that's just the way I felt to-night--she'd take your argument every time, and dump it into a ditch. And she'd see it there, and not care." "She doesn't care about facts at all, Corydon. And notice this also--she doesn't care about succeeding. That's the thing you must get straight--her religion is a religion of failure! It comes back to that criticism of Nietzsche's--it's a slave-morality. The world belongs to the devil; and the idea of taking it away from the devil seems to be presumptuous. Even if it could be done, the attempt would be "unspiritual'; for the 'world' is something corrupt--something that ought not to be saved. So you see, she's perfectly willing for the Belgians to have the rubber." "'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's'!" quoted Corydon. "Yes, and let Caesar spend them on Cleo de Merode. What she wants is to save the _souls_ of her savages--to baptize them, and to perish gloriously at the work, and then be transported to some future life that is worth while. So you see what the immortality-mongers do with our morality!" "Ah!" cried Corydon, swiftly. "But that need not be so!" "But it _is_ so!" he answered. "No, no!" she protested. "You must not say that! That is giving up--and I felt such a different mood in you to-night! I wanted to tell you--we must do something about it, Thyrsis! It made me ashamed of my own life. Here I am, failing miserably--and all that work crying out to be done! I don't think I ever had such a sense of your power before--the things you might do, if only you could get free, if only I didn't stand in your way! Oh, can't we cast the old mistakes behind us, and go out into the world and preach that message?" "But, my dear," said Thyrsis, "that wouldn't appeal to you always. Your temperament--" "Never mind my temperament!" she cried. "I am sick of it, ashamed of it; I want the world to hear that trumpet-call! I want you to break your way into the churches--to make them listen to you, and realize their blasphemy of life!" She caught hold of him and clung to him; he could feel, like an electric shock, the thrill of her excitement. He marvelled at the effect his words had produced upon her--realizing all the more keenly, in contrast with Delia, what a power of _mind_ he had here to deal with. "Dearest," he said, "I must put these things into my books. You must stand by me and help me to put them into my books!" Section 6. Delia Gordon went away to take up her work in the city; but for many months thereafter that missionary impulse stayed with them. They would find themselves seized with the longing to throw aside everything else, and to go out and preach Socialism with the living voice. They were still immersed in its literature; they read Bellamy's "Looking Backward", and Blatchford's "Merrie England", and Kropotkin's "Appeal to the Young". They read another book about England that moved them even more--a volume of sketches called "The People of the Abyss", by a young writer who was then just forging to the front--Jack London. He was the most vital among the younger writers of the time, and Thyrsis watched his career with eager interest. There was also not a little of wistful hunger in his attitude--he had visions of being the next to be caught up and transported to those far-off heights of popularity and power. Also, they were kept in a state of excitement by the Socialist papers and magazines that came to them. There was a great strike that summer, and they followed the progress of it, reading accounts of the distress of the people. Every now and then the pain of these things would prove more than Thyrsis could bear, and he would blaze out in some fiery protest, which, of course, the Socialist papers published gladly. So little by little Thyrsis was coming to be known in "the movement". Some of his friends among the editors and publishers made strenuous protests against this course, but little dreaming how deeply the new faith had impressed him. In truth it was all that Thyrsis could do to hold himself in; it seemed to him that he no longer cared about anything save this fight of the working-class for justice. He was frightened by the prospect, when he stopped to realize it; for he could not write anything but what he believed, and one could not live by writing about Socialism. He thought of his war-book, for instance. It was but two or three months since he had finished it, and it was his one hope for success and freedom; and yet already he had outgrown it utterly. He realized that if he had had to go back and do it over, he could not; he could never believe in any war again, never be interested in any war again. Wars were struggles among ruling-classes, and whoever won them, the people always lost. Thyrsis was now girding up his loins for a war upon war. So there were times when it seemed that a literary career would no longer be possible to him; that he would have to cast his lot altogether with the people, and find his work as an agitator of the Revolution. One day a marvellous plan flashed over him, and he came to Corydon with it, and for nearly a week they threshed it over, tingling with excitement. They would sell their home, and raise what money they could, and get themselves a travelling van and a team of horses and go out upon the road on a Socialist campaign! It was a perfectly feasible thing, Thyrsis declared: they would carry a supply of literature, and would get a commission upon subscriptions to Socialist papers. He pictured them drawing up on the main street of some country town, and ringing a dinner-bell to gather the people, and beginning a Socialist meeting. He would make a speech, and Corydon would sell pamphlets and books; they had animated discussions as to whether she might not learn to make a speech also. At least, he argued, she might sing Socialist songs! Thyrsis was forever evolving plans of this sort; plans for doing something concrete, for coming into contact with the world of every day. The pursuit of literature was something so cold and aloof, so comfortable and conventional; one never pressed the hand of a person in distress, one never saw the light of hope and inspiration kindling in another's eyes. So he would dream of running a publishing-house or a magazine, of founding a library or staging a play, of starting a colony or a new religion. And then, after he had made himself drunk upon the imagining, he would take himself back to his real job. For that summer his only indiscretions were to buy several thousand copies of the "Appeal to Reason", and hire the old horse and buggy, and distribute them over some thirty square miles of country; also to help to organize a club for the study of Socialism at the university; and finally, when he was in the city, to make a fiery speech at a meeting of some "Christian Socialists." Because of this the newspaper reporters dug out the accounts of his earlier adventures, and "wrote him up" with malicious bantering. And this, alas--as the publisher pointed out--was a poor sort of preparation for the launching of the war-novel. Needless to add, the two did not fail to wrestle with those individuals whom they met. Thyrsis got a collection of pamphlets, judiciously selected, and gave them to the butcher and the grocer, the store-clerks and the hack-drivers in the town. But a college-town was a poor place for Socialist propaganda, as he realized with sinking heart; its population was made up of masters and servants, and there was even more snobbery among the servants than among the masters. The main architectural features of the place were fraternity-houses and "eating-clubs", where the sons of the idle rich disported themselves; once or twice Thyrsis passed through the town after midnight, and saw these young fellows reeling home, singing and screaming in various stages of intoxication. Then he would think of little children shut up in cotton-mills and coal-mines, of women dying in pottery-works and lead-factories; and on his way home he would compose a screed for the "Appeal to Reason". Section 7. Another victim of their fervor was the Rev. Mr. Harding, who stopped in to see them several times upon his tramps. Thyrsis would never have dreamed of troubling Mr. Harding, but Corydon found "something in him", and would go at him hammer and tongs whenever he appeared. It must have been a novel experience for the clergyman; it seemed to fascinate him, for he came again and again, and soon quite a friendship sprang up between the two. She would tell Thyrsis about it at great length, and so, of course, he had to change his ideas about Mr. Harding. "Don't you see how fine and sensitive he is?" she would plead. "No doubt, my dear," said Thyrsis. "But don't you think he's maybe just a bit timid?" "Timid," she replied. "But then think of his training! And think what you are!" "Yes, I suppose I'm pretty bad," he admitted. This discussion took place after he and Mr. Harding had had an argument, in which Thyrsis had remarked casually that modern civilization was "crucifying Jesus all over again." And when Mr. Harding asked for enlightenment, Thyrsis answered, "My dear man, we crucify him according to the constitution. We teach the profession of crucifying him. We invest our capital in the business of crucifying him. We build churches and crucify him in his own name!" After which explosion Corydon said, "You let me attend to Mr. Harding. I understand him, and how he feels about things." "All right, my dear," assented Thyrsis. "When I see him coming, I'll disappear." But that would not do either, it appeared, for Mr. Harding was a conventional person, and it was necessary that he should feel he was calling on the head of the family. "Then," said Thyrsis, "I'm supposed to sit by and serve as a chaperon?" "You're to answer questions when I ask you to," replied Corydon. Through Mr. Harding they made other acquaintances in Bellevue. There was a Mrs. Jennings, the wife of the young principal of the High School; they were simple and kindly people, who became fond of Corydon, and would beg her to visit them. The girl was craving for companionship, and she would plead with Thyrsis to accompany her, and subject himself to the agonies of "ping-pong" and croquet; and once or twice he submitted--and so one might have beheld them, at a lawn-party, hotly pressed by half a dozen disputants, in a debate concerning the nature of American institutions, and the future of religion and the home! Thyrsis seldom took human relationships seriously enough to get excited in such arguments; but Corydon, with her intense and personal temperament, made an eager and uncomfortable propagandist. How could anyone fail to see what was so plain to her? And so she would bring books and pamphlets, and lend them about. There was a young man named Harry Stuart, a fine, handsome fellow, who taught drawing at the High School. In him, also, Cordon discovered possibilities; and she repudiated indignantly the idea that his soulful eyes and waving brown hair had anything to do with it. Harry Stuart was a guileless and enthusiastic member of the State militia; but in spite of this sinister fact, Corydon went at him. She soon had her victim burning the midnight oil over Kautsky and Hyndman; and behold, before the autumn had passed, the ill-fated drawing-teacher had resigned from the State militia, and was doing cartoons for the "Appeal to Reason"! Section 8. Corydon's excitement over these questions was all the greater because she was just then making the discovery of the relationship of Socialism to the problems of her own sex. Some one sent her a copy of Charlotte Gilman's "Women and Economics"; she read it at a sitting, and brought it to Thyrsis, who thus came to understand the scientific basis of yet another article of his faith. He went on to other books--to Lester Ward's "Sociology", and to Bebel's "Woman", and to the works of Havelock Ellis. So he realized that women had not always been clinging vines and frail flowers and other uncomfortable things; and the hope that they might some day be interested in other matters than fashion and sentiment and the pursuit of the male, was not a vain fantasy and a Utopian dream, but was rooted in the vital facts of life. Throughout nature, it appeared, the female was often the equal of the male; and even in human history there had been periods when woman had held her own with man--when the bearing of children had not been a cause of degradation. Such had been the case with our racial ancestors, the Germans; as one found them in Tacitus, their women were strong and free, speaking with the men in the council-halls, and even going into battle if the need was great. It was only when they came under the Roman influence, and met slavery and its consequent luxury, that the Teutonic woman had started upon the downward path. Christianity also had had a great deal to do with it; or rather the dogmas which a Roman fanatic had imposed upon the message of Jesus. It was interesting to note how one might trace the enslavement of woman, step by step with the enslavement of labor; the two things went hand in hand, and stood or fell together. So long as life was primitive, woman filled an economic function, and held her own with her mate. But with slavery and exploitation, the heaping up of wealth and the advent of the leisure-class _regime_, one saw the woman becoming definitely the appendage of the man, a household ornament and a piece of property; securing her survival, not by useful labor, but by sexual charm, and so becoming specialized as a sex-creature. For generations and ages the male had selected and bred in her those qualities which were most stimulating to his own desires, which increased in him the sense of his own dominance; and for generations and ages he taught the doctrine that the proper sphere of woman was the home. If he happened to be a German emperor, he summed it up in the sneer of "Kuche, Kinder, Kirche". So the woman became frail and impotent physically, and won her success by the only method that was open to her--by finding some male whom she could ensnare. Such had been the conditions. But now, in the present century, had come machinery, and the development of woman's labor; and also had come intelligence, and woman's discovery of her chains. So there was the suffrage movement and the Socialist movement. After the overthrow of the competitive wage-system and of the leisure-class tradition, woman would no longer sell her sex-functions, whether in marriage or prostitution; and so the sex might cease to survive by its vices, and to infect the whole race with its intellectual and moral impotence. So would be set free the enormous force that was locked up in the soul of woman; and human life would be transformed by the impulse of emotions that were fundamental and primal. So Thyrsis perceived the two great causes in which the progress of humanity was bound up--the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of woman; to educate and agitate and organize for which became the one service that was worth while in life. Section 9. The nights were beginning to grow chilly, and they realized that autumn was at hand, and faced the prospect of another winter in that lonely cabin. Paret, who had come down to visit them, had given it a name--"the soap-box in a marsh." Thyrsis saw clearly that he could not settle down to hard work while they were shut up there. Corydon's headaches and prostrations seemed to be growing worse, and she could simply not get through the winter without some help. As the book was ready, they had some money in prospect, and their idea was that they would buy a farm with a good house. So they might keep a horse and a cow and some chickens; and there might be some outdoor work for Thyrsis to do, instead of trudging aimlessly over the country. They utilized their spare time by getting the old horse and buggy, and inspecting and discussing all the farms within five miles of them; an occupation which put a great strain upon their diverse temperaments. Thyrsis would be thinking of such matters as roads and fruit-trees and barns--and above all of prices; while Corydon would be concerned with--alas, Corydon never dared to formulate her vision, even to herself. She had vague memories of dilettante country-places with great open fire-places, and exposed beams, and a broad staircase, and a deep piazza, and above all, a view of the sunset. Whenever she came upon any vague suggestion of these luxuries, her heart would leap up--and would then be crushed by some reference to ten or fifteen thousand dollars. Corydon was a poor sort of person to take an inspection-trip. She would gaze about and say, "There might be a piazza here"; and then she would look across the fields and add, "There'd be a good view if it weren't for those woods"--and wave the woods away with the gesture of a duchess. So, of course, the observant farmer would add a thousand dollars to the asking-price of his property. On the other hand, when Thyrsis with his remorseless thoroughness would insist on getting out and inspecting some dilapidated and forlorn-looking place--then what agonies would come! Corydon would pass through the rooms, suffering all the horrors which she might have suffered in years of occupancy of them. And there was no use pleading with her to be reserved in her attitude--she took houses in the same way that she took people, either loving them or hating them. So, from an afternoon's driving-trip, she would come home in a state of exhaustion and despair; and Thyrsis would have to pledge himself upon oath not to think of this or that horrible place for a single instant again. There were times when Thyrsis, too, in spite of his lack of intuition, felt the atmosphere of evil which hung about some of these old farms. Having lived for a year and a half in the neighborhood, and been favored with the gossip of the washerwoman, and of the farmer's wife, and of the girl who came to clean house now and then, they had come to know the affairs of their neighbors--they had got a cross-section of an American small-farming community. It was in amusing accord with Thyrsis' social theories that the only two decent families in the neighborhood inhabited farms of over a hundred acres. There were several farms of fifty or sixty acres occupied by tenants, who were engaged, in plundering them as fast as they could; and then a host of little places, of from one to twenty acres, on which families were struggling pitifully to keep alive. And with scarcely a single exception, these homes of poverty were also homes of degradation. Across the way from Thyrsis was an idiot man; upon the next place lived an old man who was a hopeless drunkard, and had one son insane, and another tubercular; and then down in the meadows below the woods lived the Hodges--a name of direful portent. The father would work as a laborer in town for a day or two, and buy vinegar and make himself half insane, and then come home and beat his wife and children. There were eleven of these latter, and a new one came each year; the eldest were thieves, and the youngest might be seen in midwinter, playing half-naked before the house. The Hodges were known to all the neighbors for miles about, and the amount of energy which each farmer expended in fighting them would have maintained the whole family in comfort for their lives. Thyrsis had travelled enough about the New England and Middle Atlantic states to know that these conditions were typical of the small-farming industry in all the remoter parts. The people with enterprise had moved West, and those who stayed behind divided and mortgaged their farms, and sunk lower and lower into misery and degradation. This was one more aspect of that noble system of _laissez faire_; this was the independent small-farmer, whose happiness was the theme of all orthodox economists! He was, according to the newspaper editorials, the backbone of American civilization; and once every two years, in November, he might be counted upon to hitch up his buggy and drive to town, and pocket his two-dollar bill, and roll up a glorious majority for the Grand Old Party of Protection and Prosperity. Section 10. The date of publication of the book had come at last. It was being generously advertised, under the imprint of a leading house; and Thyrsis' heart warmed to see the advertisements. This at last, he felt, was success; and then the reviews began to come in, and his heart warmed still more. Here was a new note in current fiction, said the critics; here were power and passion, a broad sweep and a genuine poetic impulse. American history had never been treated like this before, American ideals had never been voiced like this before. And these, Thyrsis noted, were the opinions of the representative reviews--not those of obscure provincial newspapers. Victory, it seemed, had come to him at last! He came up to the metropolis on the strength of these triumphs; for he had observed that when one had a new book coming out was the psychological moment to attack the magazine-editors. One was a personality then, and could command attention. It was the height of a presidential campaign, and the Socialists were making an impression which was astonishing every one. The idea had occurred to Thyrsis that some magazine might judge it worth while to tell its readers about this new and picturesque movement. To his great delight the editor of "Macintyre's Monthly" looked with favor upon the suggestion, and asked to see an article at once. So Thyrsis shut himself up in a hotel-room and wrote it over night. It proved to be so full of "ginger" that the editorial staff of Macintyre's was delighted, and made suggestions as to another article; at which point Thyrsis made a desperate effort and summoned up his courage, and insinuated politely that his stuff was worth five cents a word. The editor-in-chief replied promptly that that seemed to him proper. Two hundred dollars for an article! Here indeed was fame! The author went home, and thought out another one, and after a week came up to the city with it. In this new article Thyrsis cited a presidential candidate before the bar of public opinion, and propounded troublesome questions to him. Here was the capital of the country, heaping itself up at compound interest, and demanding dividends; here were the people, scraping and struggling to furnish the necessary profits. Would they always be able to furnish enough; and what would happen when they could no longer furnish them? Here were franchises obtained by bribery, and capitalized for hundreds of millions of dollars; and these millions, too, were heaping up automatically. Were they to draw their interest and dividends forever? Here were the machines of production, increasing by leaps and bounds, and the product increasing still faster, and all counting upon foreign markets. What would happen when Japan had its own machines, and India had its own machines, and China had its own machines? Again, the processes of production were being perfected, and displacing men; here were panics and crises, displacing--yet more men. Already, in England, a good fourth of the population had been displaced; and what were these displaced populations to do? They had finished making over the earth for the capitalists; and now that the work was done, there seemed to be no longer any place on the earth for them! Such were the problems of our time, according to Thyrsis; and why did the statesmen of the time have nothing to say about them? When this article had been read and discussed, young "Billy" Macintyre himself sent for Thyrsis. This was the "real thing", said he, with his genial _bonhomie_; the five hundred thousand subscribers of Macintyre's must surely have these mirth-provoking meditations. Also, the editors themselves needed badly to be stirred up by such live ideas; therefore would Thyrsis come to dinner next Friday evening, and, as "Billy" phrased it, "throw a little Socialism at them"? Section 11. So Thyrsis moved one step higher yet up the ladder of success. The younger Macintyre occupied half a block of mansion up on Riverside Drive--just across the street from the town-house of Barry Creston's father. Thyrsis found himself in an entrance-hall where wonderful pictures loomed vaguely in a dim, religious light; and a silent footman took his cap, and then escorted him by a soft, plush-covered stairway to the apartments of "Billy", who was being helped into a dress-suit by his valet. Thyrsis, alas, had no dress-suit, and no valet to help him into it, but he sat on the edge of a big leather chair and proceeded to "throw a little Socialism" at his host. Then they went down stairs, and there were Morris and Hemingway, of the editorial staff, and "Buddie" Comings, most popular of novelists, and "Bob" Desmond, most famous of illustrators. And a little later on came Macintyre the elder, who had also been judged to stand in need of some Socialism. Macintyre the elder was white-haired and rosy-cheeked. He had begun life as an emigrant-boy, running errands for a book-shop. In course of time he had become a partner, and then had started a cheap magazine for the printing of advertisements. From this had come the reprinting of cheap books for premiums; until now, after forty years, Macintyre's was one of the leading publishing-concerns of the country. Recently the important discovery had been made that the printing of half-inch advertisements headed "FITS" and "OBESITY" prevented the securing of full-page advertisements about automobiles. The former kind was therefore being diverted to the religious papers of the country, whose subscribers were now getting the "blood of the lamb" diluted with twenty-five per cent. alcohol and one and three-fourths per cent. opium. But such facts were not allowed to interfere with the optimistic philosophy of "Macintyre's Monthly". The elder Macintyre seemed to Thyrsis the most naive and lovable old soul he had encountered in many a year. When he espied Thyrsis, he waited for no preliminaries, but went up to him as he stood by the fire-place, and put an arm about him, and led him off to a seat by the window. "I want to talk to you," said he. "My boy," he went on, "I read that article of yours." "Which one?" asked Thyrsis. "The last one. And you know, Billy's got to stop putting things like that in the magazine!" "What!" cried Thyrsis, alarmed. "I won't have it! He must not print that article!" "But he's accepted it!" "I know. But he should have consulted me." "But--but I wrote it at his order. And he promised to pay me--" "Oh, that's all right," said the old gentleman, with a genial smile. "We'll pay for it, of course." There was a moment's pause, while Thyrsis caught his breath. "My boy," continued the other, "that's a terrible article!" "Um," said the author--"possibly." "Why do you write such things?" "But isn't it true, sir?" Mr. Macintyre pondered. "You know," he said, "I think you are a very clever fellow, and you know a lot; much more than I do, I've no doubt. But what I don't understand is, why don't you put it into a book?" "Into a book?" echoed Thyrsis, perplexed. "Yes," explained the other--"then it won't hurt anybody but yourself. Why should you try to get it into my magazine, and scare away my half-million subscribers?" Section 12. They went in to dinner, which was served upon silver-plate, by the light of softly-shaded candles; and while the velvet-footed waiters caused their food to appear and disappear by magic, Thyrsis fulfilled his mission and "threw Socialism" at the company. The company had its guns loaded, and they went at it hot and heavy. The editors wanted to know about "the home" under Socialism; to which Thyrsis made retort by picturing "the home" under capitalism. They wanted to know about liberty and individuality under Socialism; and so Thyrsis discussed the liberty and individuality of the hundred thousand wage-slaves of the Steel Trust. They sought to tangle him in discussions as to the desirability of competition, and the impossibility of escaping it; but Thyrsis would bring them back again and again to the central fact of exploitation, which was the one fact that counted. They insisted upon knowing how this, that, and the other thing would be done in the Cooperative Commonwealth; to which Thyrsis answered, "Do you ask for a map of heaven before you join the Church?" It was "Billy" Macintyre who brought up a somewhat delicate question; how would such an institution as "Macintyre's Monthly" be run under Socialism? Thyrsis replied by quoting Kautsky's formula: "Communism in material production, Anarchism in intellectual". He showed how the state might print and bind and distribute, while men in "free associations" might edit and publish. But one could not get very far in this exposition, because of the excitement of the elder Macintyre. For the old gentleman was like a small boy who is being robbed of his marbles; if there had been a mob outside his publishing-house, he could not have been more agitated. He took occasion to state, with the utmost solemnity, that he disapproved of such discussions; and "Billy", who sat between him and Thyrsis, had to interfere now and then and soothe the "pater" down. Mr. Macintyre's views on the subject of capitalism were simple and easy to understand. There could be nothing really wrong with a system which had brought so many great and good men into control of the country's affairs. Mr. Macintyre knew this, because he had played golf with them all and gone yachting with them all. And this was a perfectly genuine conviction; if there had been the slightest touch of sham in it, the old gentleman would have been more cautious in the examples he chose. He would name man after man who was among the most notorious of the country's "malefactors of great wealth"--men whose financial crimes had been proven beyond any possibility of doubting. He would name them in a voice overflowing with affection and admiration, as benefactors of humanity upon a cosmic scale; and of course that would end the argument in a gale of laughter. When the elder Macintyre entered the discussion, all the rest of the company moved forthwith to Thyrsis' side, and there were six Socialists confronting one business-man. And this was a very puzzling and alarming thing to the old gentleman--his son and his magazine were getting away from him, and he did not know what to make of the phenomenon! Section 13. Thyrsis judged that the tidings must have got about that there was a new "lion" in town; for a couple of days after this he was called up by Comings, most popular of novelists, who asked him to have luncheon at the "Thistle" club. And when Thyrsis went, Comings explained that Mrs. Parmley Fatten had read his book, and was anxious to meet him, and requested that he be brought round to tea. The other was tactless enough to let it transpire that he knew nothing about Mrs. Patton; but Comings was too tactful to show his surprise. Mrs. Patton, he explained, was socially prominent--was looked upon as the leader of a set that went in for intellectual things. She was interested in social reform and woman's suffrage, and was worth helping along; and besides that, she was a charming woman--Thyrsis would surely find the adventure worth while. Then suddenly, while he was listening, it flashed over Thyrsis that he _had_ heard of Mrs. Patton before; the lady was in mourning for her brother, and Corydon had recently handed him a "society" item, which told of some unique and striking "mourning-hosiery" which she was introducing from Paris. Thyrsis in former days might have been shy of this phenomenon; but at present he was a collecting economist on the look-out for specimens, and so he said he would go. He met Comings again at five o'clock, and they strolled out Fifth Avenue together to Mrs. Patton's brown-stone palace. Thyrsis observed that his friend had been considerate enough to omit his afternoon change of costume, and for this he was grateful. Mrs. Patton was still in mourning, a filmy and diaphanous kind of mourning, beautiful enough to placate the angel Azrael himself. A filmy and diaphanous creature was Mrs. Patton also--one could never have dreamed of so exquisite a black butterfly. She was very sweet and sympathetic, and told Thyrsis how much she had liked his book--so that Thyrsis concluded she was not half so bad as he had expected. After all, she might not have been to blame for the hosiery story--it might even have been a lie. He reflected that the yellow journals no doubt lied as freely about young leaders of intellectual sets in "society" as they did about starving authors. Mrs. Patton wanted to know about Socialism, and sighed because it seemed so far away. She made several remarks that showed real intelligence--and this was startling to Thyrsis, who would as soon have expected intelligence from a real butterfly. He got a strange impression of a personality struggling to get into contact with life from behind a wall some ten million dollars high. Mrs. Patton had three young children, and her husband was one of the "Standard Oil crowd"; she complained to Thyrsis that "Parmy"--so she referred to the gentleman--was always in terror over her vagaries. It was a new discovery to the author that the very rich might live under the shadow of fear, quite as much as the very poor. Their wealth made them a target for newspaper satire, so that they dared not depart from convention in the slightest detail. Mrs. Patton told how once she had ventured to romp for a few minutes with some children on the grounds of the "Casino", and the next day all the world had read that she was introducing "tag" as a diversion for the Newport colony. There came other callers, both women and men; Percy Ambler, man of fashion and dilettante poet; and with him little Murray Symington, who wrote the literary chat for "Knickerbocker's Weekly", and was therefore a power to be propitiated. There came Blanchard, the young and progressive publisher of the "Beau Monde", a weekly whose circulation rivalled that of "Macintyre's". There came also young Macklin, Mrs. Patton's nephew, with his monocle and his killing drawl. Macklin came by these honestly, having been brought up in England; but Thyrsis did not know that--he only heard the young gentleman's passing reference to his yacht, and to his passion for the poetry of Stephane Mallarme; and so he had it in for Macklin. Thyrsis had got involved in a serious discussion with Mrs. Patton and Symington, and was in the act of saying that the social problem could not be much longer left unsolved; and then he chanced to turn, and discovered young Macklin, surveying him with elaborate superciliousness, and asking with his British drawl, "Aw--I beg pawdon--but what do you mean by the social problem?" And Thyrsis, with a quick glance at him, answered, "I mean you." So Macklin subsided; and Thyrsis learned afterwards that his remark was going the rounds, being considered to be a _mot_. It appeared the next week in the columns of a paper devoted to "society" gossip; and many a literary reputation had been made by a lesser triumph than that. Thyrsis got new light upon the making of reputations, when he looked into the next issue of "Knickerbocker's Weekly". There he found that Murray Symington had devoted no less than three paragraphs to his personality and his book. It was all "sprightly"--that was Murray's tone--but also it was cordial; and it referred to Thyrsis' earlier novel, "The Hearer of Truth", as "that brilliant piece of work". Thyrsis read this with consternation--recalling that when the book had come out, not two years ago, "Knickerbocker's Weekly" had referred to it as a "preposterous concoction". Could it be true that an author's work was "preposterous" while he was starving in a garret, and became "brilliant" when he was found in the drawing- room of Mrs. "Parmy" Patton? Section 14. Thyrsis went on to penetrate yet deeper into these mysteries; there came a call from Murray Symington, to say that Mrs. Jesse Dyckman wanted him to dinner. Jesse Dyckman he recognized as the name of one of the most popular contributors to the magazines --his short stories of Fifth Avenue life were the delight of the readers of the "Beau Monde". "But I can't go to dinner-parties with women!" protested Thyrsis. "I don't dress!" Murray took that message; but in a few minutes he called up again. "She says she doesn't care whether you dress or not." "But then, I don't _eat!_" protested Thyrsis, who had recently discovered Horace Fletcher. "I know _that_ won't count," said the other, laughing. "She doesn't want you to eat--she wants you to talk." Mrs. Jesse Dyckman inhabited an apartment in a "studio-building" not far from Central Park; and here was more luxury and charm--a dining-room done in dark red, with furniture of some black wood, and candles and silver and cut glass, quite after the fashion of the Macintyres. Thyrsis was admitted by a French maid-servant; and there was Mrs. Dyckman, resplendent in white shoulders and a necklace of pearls; and there was Dyckman himself, even more prosperous and contented-looking than his pictures, and even more brilliant and cynical than his tales. Also there was his sister, Mrs. Partridge, the writer of musical comedies; and a Miss Taylor, who filled the odd corners of the magazines with verses, which Corydon had once described as "cheap cheer-up stuff". So here was the cream of the "literary world"; and Thyrsis, as he watched and listened to it, was working out the formula of magazine success. Mrs. Dyckman sat next to him, displaying her shoulders and her culture; it seemed to him that she must have spent all her spare time picking up phrases about the books and pictures and plays and music of the hour, so as to be ready for possible mention of them at her dinner-parties. She had opinions on tap about everything; opinions just enough "advanced" to be striking and original, and yet not too far "advanced" for good form. Jesse Dyckman's short stories were the sort in which you read how the hero handled his cigarette, and were told that the heroine was clad in "dimity _en princesse"_. You learned the names of the latest fashionable drinks, and the technicalities of automobiles, and met with references to far-off and intricate standards of social excellence. To Thyrsis it appeared that he could see before him the whole career of such a man. He had trained himself by years of apprenticeship in snobbery; he had studied the fashions not only in costume and manners, but also in books and opinions. He had been educated in a "fraternity", and had chosen a wife who had been educated in a "sorority"; they had set up in this apartment, with silver service and three French servants, and proceeded to give dinners, and cultivate people who "counted." And so had come the pleasant berth with the "Beau Monde"; one or two stories every month, and one thousand dollars for each story--as one might read in all newspaper accounts of the "earnings of authors". The "Beau Monde" might have been described as a magazine for the standardizing of the newly-rich. A group of these existed in every town in the country, and had their "society" in every little city. They would come to New York and put up at expensive hotels, and get their education in theatres and opera-houses and "lobster-palaces"; in addition they had this weekly messenger of good form. In its advertising-columns one read of the latest things in cigarettes and highballs and haberdashery and candies and autos; and in its reading-matter one found the leisure-class world, and the leisure-class idea of all other worlds. Young Blanchard himself was in the most "exclusive" society; and if one stayed close to him, one might worm his way past the warders. Among the regular contributors to the "Beau Monde" and to "Macintyre's", there were a dozen men who had risen by this method; and some of them had been real writers at the outset--had started with a fund of vigor, at least. But now they spent their evenings at dinner-parties, and their days lounging about in two or three expensive cafes, reading the afternoon papers, exchanging gossip, and acquiring the necessary stock of cynicism for their next picture of leisure-class life. It was what might have been described as the "court method" of literary achievement. The centre of it was the young prince who held the purse-strings; and the court was a coterie of bookish men of fashion and rich women whose husbands were occupied in the stock-market. They set the tone and dispensed the favors; one who stood in their good graces would be practically immune to criticism, no matter how seedy his work might come to be. Nobody liked to "roast" a man with whom he had played golf at a week-end party; and who could be so impolite as to slight the work of a lady-poetess whom he had taken in to dinner? Section 15. Thyrsis studied these people, and measured himself against them. He was not blinded by any vanity; he knew that it would not have taken him a week to turn out a short story which would have had the requisite qualities for Macintyre's--which would have been clever and entertaining, would have had genuine sentiment, and as large a proportion of sincerity as the magazine admitted. He could have suggested that he thought it was worth five hundred dollars, and "Billy" Macintyre would have nodded and sent him a check. And then he could have moved up to town, and got a frock-coat, and paid another call upon Mrs. "Parmy" Patton. Then his friend Comings would have put him up for the "Thistle", he would have got to know the men who made literary opinion, and so his career would have been secure. Nor need he have made any apparent break with his convictions. In "society" one met all sorts of eccentrics--"babus" and "yogis", Christian Scientists, spiritualists and theosophists, Fletcherites, vegetarians and "raw-fooders". And there would be ample room for his fad--it was quite "English" to be touched with Socialism. All that one had to do was to be entertaining in one's presentation of it, and to confine one's self to its literary aspects--not setting forth plans for the expropriation of the house of Macintyre! Thyrsis had one grievous handicap, of course. He would have had to keep his wife and child in the background; for Corydon, alas, would not have scored as a giver of dinner-parties. From a woman like Mrs. Jesse Dyckman, skilled in intellectual fence, and merciless to her inferiors, Corydon would have turned tail and fled. Thyrsis was able to sit by and let Mrs. Dyckman wave the plumes of her wit and spread the tail-feathers of her culture before his astonished eyes, and at the same time occupy his mind with studying her, and working out her "economic interpretation". But Corydon took life too intensely, and people too personally for that. But she would have let him go, if he had told her that it was best. So why should he not do it--why should he turn his back upon this opportunity, and return to the "soap-box in a marsh" to wrestle with loneliness and want? The fact of the matter was that the thing which seemed so easy to his intellect, was impossible to his character. Thyrsis could not have anything to do with these people without hypocrisy; merely to sit and talk pleasantly with them was to lie. They were to him the enemy, the thing he was in life to fight. And he hated all that they stood for in the world--he hated their ideas and their institutions, their virtues as well as their vices. He had been down into the bottom-most pit of hell, and the sights that he had seen there had withered him up. How could he derive enjoyment from silks and jewels, from rich foods and fine wines, when he heard in his ears the cries of agony of the millions he had left behind him in that seething abyss? And should he trample upon their faces, as so many others had trampled? Should he make a ladder of their murdered hopes, to climb out to fame and fortune? Not he! It seemed to him sometimes, as he thought about it, that he alone, of all men living, had power to voice the despair of these tortured souls. Others had been down into that pit, and had come out alive; but who was there among them that was an _artist;_ that could forge his hatred into a weapon, sharp enough and stout enough to be driven through the tough hide of the world of culture? To be an artist meant to have spent years and decades in toil and study, in disciplining and drilling one's powers; and who was there that had descended into the social inferno, and had come back with strength enough to accomplish that labor? So it seemed to him that he was the bearer of a gospel, that he had to teach the world something it could otherwise not know. He had tried out upon his own person, and upon the persons of his loved ones, the effects of poverty and destitution, of cold and hunger, of solitude and sickness and despair. And so he knew, of his own knowledge, the meaning of the degradation that he saw in modern society--of suicide and insanity, of drunkenness and vice and crime, of physical and mental and moral decay. He knew, and none could dispute him! Therefore he must nerve himself for the struggle; he must deliver that message, and pound home that truth. He must keep on and on--in defiance of authority, in the face of all the obloquy and ridicule that the prostitute powers of civilization could heap upon him. He must live for that work, and die for it--to make real to the thinking world the infamies and the horrors of the capitalist _regime_. _ |
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