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“A MODERN HERCULES,”
THE TALE OF A SCULPTRESS,
BY
MELVIN G. WINSTOCK,
OF THE
LEADVILLE BAR.
AUTHOR OF
“A Western Politician,” “The Fatal Horoscope,” “A Virginian Romance,”
Etc.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1899, by Melvin G.
Winstock, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D.
C.
Herald Democrat Print. Leadville, Colo.
1899.
PREFACE.
HOTEL VENDOME, }
LEADVILLE, COLO., OCTOBER 31, 1899.}
TO THE PUBLIC:
This City, surrounded by snow-clad peaks pointing to and almost losing
themselves in the bosom of the Supreme Intelligence, has inspired
my effort. The volume is dedicated to “Ouida,” radiant also with
inspiration. She lives. The novel is written from my play of the same
title.
The clergy at first may condemn the _morale_ of my story, but upon
reflection I think they will realize the injustice of such a course.
There is no religion that does not preach that though men sin, true
redemption may be accomplished by honest repentance and noble effort.
My hero and heroine go through the valley of the Shadow of Death to
cleanse themselves of impurity, and the story of their lives is a
living, breathing sermon in itself.
I have published my story here for the reason that the generosity of
Leadville citizens has made it possible for me to place my work before
the public. I trust it will meet with such success as it merits and no
more.
MELVIN G. WINSTOCK.
“A MODERN HERCULES.”
CHAPTER I.
“THE NUDE IN ART.”
Two things caused the great heart of New York society to throb with
unusual excitement. One was a marvelous work of sculptural art, where
boldness in design and utter fearlessness in execution had almost
affronted, and yet had won the plaudits of the cultivated of the
Metropolis. Ouida Angelo, a woman in “A Grecian Temptress,” had dared
to wring from men an absolute tribute to and acknowledgement of her
genius and power. The second event was the announcement that Horatio
Nugent, the great pulpit orator, would preach a sermon on “The Nude in
Art.”
The wealth and fashion of the city sat spell-bound beneath the
eloquent tongue of the great divine. The sad face of the Madonna, in
the painted window of Geneva, grew sadder still as she looked down
upon the favored multitude. There were present there, men who headed
every published list of charity, who paid thousands for pew rental,
in this great official residence of God, yet who had no compunction
about wrecking a railroad and thereby indirectly spreading ruin among
hundreds. In the front row sat a bank president, who knew that on
the morrow his financial institution would be in irretrievable ruin,
yet who for months had been a pillar of the church and had some of
the congregational funds in his rapacious clutch. A poor wash woman
or window cleaner, probably attracted by the magnetic tones of the
stupendous organ, had dared to wander in. In simple ignorance she
had probably imagined that Christ’s boasted friendship for the poor
meant something to modern dogmatists, and had taken a seat high up
among these mighty lordlings of this majestic world. The congregation
held its breath in amazement, and could not have been more shocked if
the yellow fever in disguise had paid its fatal visit. This magnetic
indignation communicated itself to an usher in full dress. He came
forward and whispered something to the woman. She slowly rose and went
up into the gallery. _God had sold out all the down-stair seats to
the rich!_ The Madonna sighed in pity and was angry. The congregation
breathed a sigh of relief. The church itself cost half a million. It
had no reading room, free bath, employment bureau or lunch counter
attached to it. It was open for about nine months each year on Sundays,
and when a millionaire wanted to get married, or his heirs wanted to
bury him, so they could get up a sensational will contest and make
newspapers sell. Not far away from the church was a series of alleys,
where poverty held supreme sway, and where the grim specter of want,
filth and misery, stalked, dealing death, crime and agony, winning each
moment recruits for the devil’s army in hell.
I’ll not allow that rich woman over there to plead not guilty, upon
the ground of ignorance of these conditions. She knows all about it,
and yet to get those latest diamonds that sparkle on her breast, she
made her husband sell the farm, whereon his honest old rustic parents
were buried. Over there sits a woman, who is unfaithful in heart to her
marriage vows, and who yet lacks the courage to follow the bent of her
intense longing, for fear of what her small world would say. In all of
this artificial brilliance, there are masks and faces as false as many
of the hearts which rich attire conceals.
Notwithstanding all this, there was every inducement for real
inspiration. The architectural beauty of the interior of the church was
artistic to the nature, and soft and alluring to the eye. The place
was decorated with beautiful pots, plants and flowers. Through the
stained windows a mellow light gilded rich carpets and soft cushions.
The trained choir sang divinely while the organist thundered forth not
only the wrath of the Deity, but promised mercy, like the whisper of an
angel, through the organ’s pipes. As the notes of the grand instrument
died away in the distance, softly, like a summer sigh, a man of noble
face and figure stood in the pulpit.
It was the preacher!
He was young. His eyes were boldly black and brilliant. They sparkled
like pure diamonds with feeling, comprehension and intelligence. His
head had the shape of a Roman God. His shoulders were square. He looked
the very physical and intellectual giant that he was. His voice was
flavored with magnetism that always distinguishes the eloquent orator
from the mere word absorber. He ran his long, shapely fingers through
his dark hair, shook his head like a lion, and plunged like a blooded
courser into the very meat and marrow of his subject.
“Christ was insulted on Sunday last. This church was empty at service
time, and all had forsaken Him to pay tribute to a woman’s vindictively
immoral work. You who have built this religious palace to the glory of
a mighty and eternal God, betrayed Him for the devil. For hark me,
I tell you, that he who so prostitutes true art, be it man or woman,
pandering to the depraved tastes of modern society, is but an agent of
the King of Hell!
“‘A Grecian Temptress’ was, or is, its theme. A woman of form almost
divine, enticing a youth of purity to voluptuous sin, while in the
veiled background stands a Satan, holding sway over the temptress,
while she is but serving her Master in alluring souls to the regions of
perpetual darkness.
“All true art leads to God. The tree, the earth, the sparrow, the
eagle, the wheat, the stars, the beasts, man, are parts of a great and
mighty network of machinery. All false art leads to God’s enemy, and
sin, selfishness, voluptuousness, temptation and passion, carry with
them and in them the seed of their own punishment. How dare these bold
and brazen creatures, under the name of art, lay before the multitude
chapters from their own devilish and inconsistent lives? _Yet the sin
is not theirs alone._ You who hear me are equally guilty, because you
encourage them by your countenance and patronage to continue in their
base course of debauching the public taste. We seek in vain for purity
and find it swiftly fleeing, while in its place there is rising up a
craving for sensationalism which is even reaching the pulpit itself!
“Why should we follow ancient Greece? As long as the Athenian was
stalwart, patriotic, full of rugged simplicity, the influence of Greece
was all powerful in shaping the thought of the world and in moulding
its history. But when its brave warriors, orators and poets sank
into luxurious excesses, succumbing to vice, vying with each other
in the mere promotion of enjoyment, its influence waned, its people
degenerated, until today it is a memory only serving to teach the
world, that its people as a nation were unfit to survive. And when
Grecian methods permeated Rome and Judea, these nations, too, became
practically blotted out. Shall we permit American valor, patriotism
and healthful vigor to have engrafted upon it these ideas so fatal to
Greece, Rome and Judea? Shall we permit, by such an education of public
morals, a gradual loss of respect of all those pure ideals taught by
Him, who preached the sermon on the mount?” He paused here, but no one
stirred.
“But this is not all. These Bohemian rebels, who create and produce and
publish these things do worse than this. They make their own universe,
enact their own laws, defy mankind, and yet society grovels at their
feet and elevates all such so-called gifted creatures to a pedestal
high above the church itself! They are worshiped, and Christ, who made
for man the most agonizingly sublime sacrifice of which the mind can
conceive, is insulted, neglected and made a common mockery!
“This woman Ouida Angelo, who gave to the world ‘A Grecian Temptress,’
who is she? A luring siren whose devotion to all that is voluptuous and
sensual, reveals in her work only that which characterizes her ignoble
life. She should be driven forth from achievements, that alike disgrace
herself, art and humanity. Instead of worshiping her with idolatrous
affection, we should freeze her with a monstrous condemnation.”
Again he ceased and staggered almost out of the pulpit as though filled
to the quick with some strange emotion.
A rustling gown with a queenly woman under it arose from a cushioned
pew and majestically stepped down the aisle to the door.
She was Ouida Angelo, the sculptress!
Just then a startling crash was heard, and the pane of glass, upon
which had been exquisitely done the face of the Madonna, fell and broke
into countless pieces.
The sermon on “The Nude in Art” had done its work, and Monday’s papers
were full of it.