THE WEDDING OF THE ANNUNCIATION
At the end of a year from the death of Gordon's father the divorce
was granted, and Ruth elected to retain her married name.
The Temple of Man was rapidly rising. The building fronted three
hundred feet on each cross street. Its great steel-ribbed dome,
modeled on the capitol at Washington, was slowly climbing into the
sky from the centre to dominate the architecture of the Metropolitan
district.
The success of Gordon's meetings in the old Grand Opera House had
been enormous. Its four thousand seats were filled and every inch
of standing-room the police would allow. The religious element
in Socialism had found in him its high priest. His eloquence, his
magnetism, his daring, his aggressive and radical instinct for
leadership made him at once their idol.
The prestige given him by the rapid building of his magnificent
Temple in the heart of the wealth and splendour of the Metropolis,
and the crush for admission by strangers who had read of him and
his work, were adding daily to his power.
His bold avowal of love for Kate Ransom, and his determination to
win and marry her by a new ceremony of "announcement," which should
challenge the forms of civilisation, had stilled the tongue of
gossip and made him the hero of the sentimental.
At the same time it had made him the object of bitter attack by the
conservative forces of society, and the violence of these attacks
daily added importance to his every act.
His triumphant appeal to the masses against the classes was making
him a master spirit of the modern mob that has humbled king,
emperor and pope, at whose breath statesmen tremble, and at whose
feet coward and sycophant of every cult cringe and fawn.
With fierce enthusiasm he proclaimed, "Now is Eternity. To reach
Heaven we must build a new earth, and lo! we are in Heaven."
The response from sullen working-men who had hitherto held aloof
from Socialism and its leaders was remarkable. With the fiery zeal
of the pioneer of a religious movement he preached in season and
out of season his new faith, and proselyted with success even among
those who scoffed.
He gave a new emphasis to the dogma of the Immanence of God, the
charming Pantheism of which appealed to the childlike minds of the
people. With mystic fervour he proclaimed the unity of life, and in
all and over all and working through all--God! In bud and flower,
in sun and storm, in dewdrop and star, in man and beast, in soul
and body, the divine everywhere. As never before he glorified the
body and its beauty as the incarnation of God, His veritable image.
The advent of every child he hailed as great a miracle as the birth
of the Babe of Bethlehem.
Life itself became an ever-growing wonder, and existence an infinite
joy. Gradually he began to ridicule the theology of "Sin." "Sin" he
declared a figment of the human mind. The sin which is the wilful
and persistent violation of known law he ignored.
He proclaimed the advent of the Kingdom of Love universal, all
embracing, all conquering.
His marriage to Kate Ransom by the new ceremony he had devised
commanded the attention of the world. Its romance, and the tragedy
of a broken heart behind it, at once interested the average mind;
and its social and religious challenge appealed to the thoughtful.
It was announced to be a marriage without form or ceremony. It
was celebrated on a Saturday evening, that his friends among the
working-men might attend.
It was early in May. The grass was green behind the high iron bars
of Gramercy Park, and the trees were putting on their new satin
robes. The air was warm with the sensuous languor of spring. The
rain poured in torrents, but the Ransom mansion was a blaze of light,
and a canopy with rubber roof stretched down the high brownstone
steps across the sidewalk to the curbing.
It was past the appointed time, the last carriage had long since
snapped its silver lock beside the awning, and still the bride and
groom tarried. The guests were assembled in the great parlours,
and a band in the conservatory, from which floated the perfume of
flowers in full bloom, was softly playing primitive love melodies,
simple, tender and full of. mysterious beauty.
Besides the personal friends of the bride, the. guests assembled
were a remarkable group.
A churchless clergyman who had become a Socialist, and whose church
building was for sale, was on hand to make the "Announcement." A
handsome poet, a disciple of William Morris and a man of international
fame, was there. Socialists, Anarchists, Theosophists, Spiritualists,
Buddhists, Communists, Single-Taxers, Walking Delegates, Presidents
of Labour-Unions, editors of Radical papers, Ethical gymnasts, and
lecturers mingled in the throng.
Kate refused to allow Gordon to see or speak to her before her
entrance. They had agreed to make no elaborate preparations. She
was to prepare no traditional wedding trousseau. They were simply
to stand by each other's side before their friends, greet them
with the announcement of their love and unity of life, and receive
their congratulations.
When she at length summoned Gordon, he was amazed to see her arrayed
in the most magnificent conventional bridal dress he had ever seen.
A frown clouded his brow for an instant, and then melted into a
smile as his eyes feasted on the barbaric splendour of her beauty.
She stood silent and thoughtful, with her arms folded in front
across the lines of her voluptuous form, her head poised high,
erect as an arrow. Her mass of dark red hair rolled upward in a
great curling wave from her face. From its crest a bunch of orange
blossoms gleamed, clasping the filmy veil which fell, a white
cascade, over the wilderness of delicate lace forming her train.
She had turned half around, and this great train of shimmering
stuff enveloped her feet and swept out in graceful curve into the
room. The collar, which completely covered her rounded neck, was
made of rows of linked opals, and a necklace of pearls rested on
her beautiful breast, spreading out in heart shape, with a single
strand encircling the neck.
Her face was tragic in its seriousness. A new and charming melancholy
shadowed her violet eyes, causing the heavy lashes to droop till
their shadows showed on the creamy velvet of her cheek. Her mouth,
with scarlet lips drawn close, was earnest and solemn as he had
never seen it.
With the regal bearing of a queen she looked at him thoughtfully
without a word. She was giving him his first lesson in perfect
freedom and perfect equality of will. She had changed her mind at
the last moment and determined to be the bride her girlhood dreams
had pictured.
But the man saw only the ripened, luscious woman in the hour of
supreme surrender, and gazed in rapture. So superb was her health,
so rich and vital the splendid figure, no conventional art of bridal
costumer could confine or conceal the glory of its beauty.
"You see, my beloved," she said. "I am not going to promise to
obey, so I have chosen with this old conceit to disobey your first
expressed wish. Do you like me thus?"
"You are glorious!" he answered, smiling.
"And my father will give me away, and you will place a ring on my
hand when you make your little speech, before I respond."
He bowed gracefully. "As you will, my dear."
He would have promised anything.
As they entered the hall leading to the crowded parlours, the organ
in the music-room suddenly burst into the strains of the Wedding
March, and again she looked seriously into his face, and he laughed.
"My beautiful rebel, I'll tame you in due time, never fear!"
"And you're not angry?"
"Angry? I am more madly in love than ever."
And she flushed in triumph.
When they had entered the room, the invalid father rose, pale and
trembling, and, in accordance with Kate's wishes, declared:
"My friends, I announce to you that I have given my daughter to be
married unto this man."
Gordon took her hot hand in his massive grasp and said:
"We believe, friends, in fellowship. We have asked you to-night
to share with us the sacrament of the unity of our lives which we
thus announce. For years this unity has made us one. We thus make
it manifest unto the world. In the woman I have chosen as my comrade,
behold the living soul of serene-browed Grecian goddess and German
seeress of old, whose untamed eyes of primeval womanhood, the
equal and the mate of man, proclaim the end of slave-marriage and
the dawn of perfect love."
He placed the ring on her hand, and Kate responded:
"This is the day and the hour that we have chosen to announce to
you our union."
The Socialist preacher said:
"We are here to-day, called by a sacrament, not in the conventional
sense, but in the elemental meaning of the word which reflects the
mind and the being of the Eternal. Human life incarnates God. We
are not met here to inaugurate a marriage. Words can add nothing
to the sublime fact of the union of two souls. This is the supreme
sacrament of human experience. It proclaims its inherent divinity.
This oneness no more begins to-day than God does. Time loses its
meaning, but there is no yesterday or to-morrow in the harmony and
rhythm of two such souls. Love holds all the years that have been
and are to be.
"This is a day of joy--overflowing, unsullied, serene, a day of
hope, a day of faith. It is a day of courage and of cheer, and to
the world it speaks a gospel of freedom and fellowship. It proclaims
the dawn of a higher life for all, the sanctity and omnipotence
of love. It asserts the elemental rights of man. These friends of
ours announce to-day their marriage.
"Inasmuch as Frank Gordon and Kate Ransom are thus united in love,
I announce that they are husband and wife by every law of right
and truth, and pray for them the abiding gladness that dwells in
the heart of God forever."
Kate's mother kissed her and cried in the old-fashioned way, and
they sailed next day for a bridal tour abroad.