Except the time given to the children,--there were presently three,--my
life, in all its thoughts and associations, was now politics: at
Washington, from December until Congress adjourned, chiefly national
politics, the long and elaborate arrangements preliminary to the
campaign for the conquest of the national fields; at home, chiefly state
politics,--strengthening my hold upon the combine, strengthening my hold
upon the two political machines. As the days and the weeks, the months
and the years, rushed by, as the interval between breakfast and bedtime,
between Sunday and Sunday, between election day and election day again,
grew shorter and shorter, I played the game more and more furiously.
What I won, once it was mine, seemed worthless in itself, and worth
while only if I could gain the next point; and, when that was gained,
the same story was repeated. Whenever I paused to reflect, it was to
throttle reflection half-born, and hasten on again.
"A silly business, this living, isn't it?" said Woodruff to me.
"Yes,--but--" replied I. "You remember the hare and the hatter in _Alice
in Wonderland_. 'Why?' said the hare. 'Why not?' said the hatter. A
sensible man does not interrogate life; he lives it."
"H'm," retorted Woodruff.
And we went on with the game,--shuffling, dealing, staking. But more and
more frequently there came hours, when, against my will, I would pause,
drop my cards, watch the others; and I would wonder at them, and at
myself, the maddest of these madmen,--and the saddest, because I had
moments in which I was conscious of my own derangement.
I have often thought on the cause of this dissatisfaction which has
never ceased to gird me, and which I have learned girds all men of
intelligence who lead an active life. I think it is that such men are
like a civilized man who has to live among a savage tribe. To keep
alive, to have influence, he must pretend to accept the savage point of
view, must pretend to disregard his own knowledge and intelligent
methods, must play the game of life with the crude, clumsy counters of
caste and custom and creed and thought which the savages regard as fit
and proper. Intelligent men of action do see as clearly as the
philosophers; but they have to pretend to adapt their mental vision to
that of the mass of their fellow men or, like the philosophers, they
would lead lives of profitless inaction, enunciating truths which are of
no value to mankind until it rediscovers them for itself. No man of
trained reasoning power could fail to see that the Golden Rule is not a
piece of visionary altruism, but a sound principle of practical
self-interest. Or, could anything be clearer, to one who takes the
trouble really to think about it, than that he who advances himself at
the expense of his fellow men does not advance, but sinks down into the
class of murderers for gain, thieves, and all those who seek to advance
themselves by injustice? Yet, so feeble is man's reason, so near to the
brute is he, so under the rule of brute appetites, that he can not
think beyond the immediate apparent good, beyond to-day's meal.
I once said to Scarborough: "Politics is the science and art of fooling
the people."
"That is true, as far as it goes," he said. "If that were all, justice,
which is only another name for common sense, would soon be established.
But, unfortunately, politics is the art of playing upon cupidity, the
art of fooling the people into thinking they are helping to despoil the
other fellow and will get a share of the swag."
And he was right. It is by subtle appeal to the secret and shamefaced,
but controlling, appetites of men that the clever manipulate them. To
get a man to vote for the right you must show him that he is voting for
the personally profitable. And very slow he is to believe that what is
right can be practically profitable. Have not the preachers been
preaching the reverse all these years; have they not been insisting that
to do right means treasure in Heaven only?
* * * * *
It was in my second term as Senator, toward the middle of it. I was
speaking, one afternoon, in defense of a measure for the big
contributors, which the party was forcing through the Senate in face of
fire from the whole country. Personally, I did not approve the measure.
It was a frontal attack upon public opinion, and frontal attacks are as
unwise and as unnecessary in politics as in war. But the party leaders
in the nation insisted, and, as the move would weaken their hold upon
the party and so improve my own chances, I was not deeply aggrieved that
my advice had been rejected. Toward the end of my speech, aroused by
applause from the visitors' gallery, I forgot myself and began to look
up there as I talked, instead of addressing myself to my fellow
Senators. The eyes of a speaker always wander over his audience in
search of eyes that respond. My glance wandered, unconsciously, until it
found an answering glance that fixed it.
This answering glance was not responsive, nor even approving. It was the
reverse,--and, in spite of me, it held me. At first it was just a pair
of eyes, in the shadow of the brim of a woman's hat, the rest of the
face, the rest of the woman, hid by those in front and on either side.
There was a movement among them, and the whole face appeared,--and I
stopped short in my speech. I saw only the face, really only the mouth
and the eyes,--the lips and the eyes of Elizabeth Crosby,--an expression
of pain, and of pity.
[Illustration: I SAW ONLY THE LIPS AND EYES OF ELIZABETH CROSBY p. 141]
I drank from the glass of water on my desk, and went on. When I ventured
to look up there again, the face was gone. Had I seen or imagined? Was
it she or was it only memory suddenly awakening and silhouetting her
upon that background of massed humanity? I tried to convince myself that
I had only imagined, but I knew that I had seen.
Within me--and, I suppose, within every one else--there is a dual
personality: not a good and a bad, as is so often shallowly said; but
one that does, and another that watches. The doer seems to me to be
myself; the watcher, he who stands, like an idler at the rail of a
bridge, carelessly, even indifferently, observing the tide of my thought
and action that flows beneath,--who is he? I do not know. But I do know
that I have no control over him,--over his cynical smile, or his lip
curling in good-natured contempt of me, or his shrug at self-excuse, or
his moods when he stares down at the fretting stream with a look of
weariness so profound that it is tragic. It was he who was more
interested in the thoughts,--the passion, the protest, the defiance, and
the dread,--which the sight of that face set to boiling within me.
Sometimes he smiled cynically at the turmoil, and at other times he
watched it with what seemed to me bitter disgust and disappointment and
regret.
While this tempest was struggling to boil over into action, Carlotta
appeared. She had never stayed long at Washington after the first
winter; she preferred, for the children and perhaps for herself, the
quiet and the greater simplicity of Fredonia. But--"I got to thinking
about it," said she, "and it seemed to me a bad idea for a man to be
separated so long from his wife and children--and home influences."
That last phrase was accompanied by one of her queer shrewd looks.
"Your idea is not without merit," replied I judicially.
"What are you smiling at?" she demanded sharply.
"If it was a smile," said I, "it was at myself."
"No, you were laughing at me. You think I am jealous."
"Of what? Of whom?"
She looked fixedly at me and finally said: "I want to tell you two
things about myself and you. The first is that I am afraid of you."
"Why?" said I.
"I don't know," she answered.
"And the second confession?"
"That I never trust you."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Yet you are always telling me I am cold."
She laughed shortly. "So is a stick of dynamite," said she.
She stayed on at Washington.