THE BIRTH OF THE HEIR.
After the count’s speech, there was a quartette performed by pupils of
the school, and a solo by Leila, Linnie playing the accompaniment. Her
cold, correct soprano voice was heard very distinctly throughout the
great auditorium. She pretended to be very indifferent to the applause
that followed, but secretly was much flattered. Mr. Stevens followed
with a very neat practical speech on the subject of what he called
penny-wise and pound-foolish investments of capital, and several times
“brought down the house” by his quaint way of turning sentences. The
audience were in a joyous humor when he ended, and called loudly for
their great pet at public meetings, Dr. Forest. He said:
“My friends, I thank you for calling me, though I was intending to come
without any invitation [laughter], for I have two announcements to make
to you. During the latter part of the eloquent address of my
son-in-law—That is pure vanity on my part. If he were not so
distinguished a man, I should probably say, During the latter part of
the address of Mr. Frauenstein.—[Great laughter and applause, during
which the doctor tried to continue.] I was going to say, and would say,
if you would only stop your noise and listen [more uproarious laughter],
that three rich and honorable gentlemen in the audience sent me a note
for the Count Frauenstein, asking for an appointment to-morrow morning.
It is a profound secret, and so I will make no scruple in telling you
that they propose a joint-stock company for the building of another
Social Palace, in a neighboring town. [Applause.] I tell of this to
please you, and then to make them feel somewhat committed to the
enterprise, so that they can’t back out so easily. [Laughter.] That, you
see, is killing two birds with one stone, as the physician said who had
two patients in the same street. [Laughter and applause.]
“Now, some of you being strangers may not understand, seeing the
familiarity with which my fellow-citizens treat me, that I am a very
grave and dignified person——”
The roars of laughter that greeted this quite prevented the doctor from
continuing, and Mr. Kendrick, liking well to see the audience amused,
rose and begged permission to corroborate the doctor’s statement by an
anecdote. “Some years ago,” he said, “being seized by a sudden and
severe illness, I sent for my friend Dr. Forest. He came, examined my
pulse and my tongue, asked the ordinary impertinent questions, and
seemed to study the case very seriously. Then he said, ‘Kendrick, I
don’t see what the devil is the matter with you, _but I’ll give you an
emetic on a venture_.’”
As soon as the noise subsided a little, the doctor adjusted his
spectacles and said:
“Allow me to say, my friends, in defence of my professional skill, that
I was not wholly without a certain spiritual insight into my friend’s
case at that time. Knowing that his phrenological bump of Alimentiveness
was seven plus, and considering that lobsters had just appeared——”
The doctor could not go on for the uproarious merriment, which was
increased by the fact that Kendrick was a thin little man, with no
appetite to speak of, and so the sentence was never finished. When he
resumed his address, he went on in a far more serious strain:
“I have been asked many times to-day, if we do not suffer here from want
of privacy. One lady told me she would like to live here but for the
terrible ‘mixing up.’ Now that lady lives in one of the most crowded
streets of one of our great cities. She cannot step into the street
without entering a promiscuous throng. Here, she would meet only honest
people, and her purse would be quite safe. The truth is, there is here
the utmost enjoyment of privacy. There is but one law, and that is
liberty. All the cooking, washing, and ironing, may be done in
individual homes or in the cuisine and laundry, just as the people
prefer. There is, however, a remarkable unanimity in preferring the
latter. The world has generally believed that women are by nature
devoted to the cooking-stove, the wash-tub, and the cradle. We have
found out positively that this is a mistake. [Applause.] It may be
different in a state of nature—among the Otaheitans, for example—but
certainly I never found a civilized woman who did not wish to get away,
even from the cradle, a few hours during the day. Why, one civilized
baby is capable of turning an isolated household into a pandemonium
[laughter]; and how many of the very tenderest mothers are worn out with
the care of a single infant. The child, however small, pines for the
society of other children, and this is really the secret of many a
‘cross baby.’ The baby, by crying, is only expressing the fact that its
wants are not supplied. Explain it as you can: cross babies cease to
bear that reputation when they are accustomed to our nursery; and when
brought home, if kept after a certain time, they fret and worry until
carried back among their baby companions. Now, if the children did not
prefer the nursery, but cried to go home, we should not decide that they
were naturally depraved, but that there was a screw loose in the
organization of the nursery. We do not accept the doctrine of total
depravity. We know that if we give an acorn its proper conditions, it
will become a beautiful tree. If we wish a chicken to grow into a strong
and perfect fowl, we study what its wants are, and then supply them; and
but for the interference of theology, I think mankind would have
discovered, a little before this time, that human nature is no more
naturally bad than an acorn or a chicken. We are depraved only through
the want of conditions for the normal and harmonious growth of all our
parts. But theology itself is finding out that it cannot preserve its
rigidity in the face of the progress of the age. I find there are many
priests who are very excellent men [laughter and applause]; but then,
these have rotated out of theology into common sense. You will find some
to-day who would rather see a Social Palace founded than a mill for
grinding out parsons, or, to speak more respectfully, a theological
seminary. A clergyman told me to-day that he was greatly pleased with
our Social Palace, but he regretted to see that we had provided a
theatre. You can judge what a labor I had with that individual.
[Laughter.] I would rather build stone-wall all day, than have another
two hours’ struggle with that man’s powerful but theological intellect.
[Great laughter.] Of course I had to go back for my premises among the
monsters of antediluvian times, where theologians and scientists differ
radically as to the conditions of our ancestors. [Laughter.] You see
that is such uncertain ground, that one can bully just as much as the
other. In short, I attempted to show that theological mind, that human
nature was decent enough to prefer beauty to ugliness, virtue to vice,
and that what he called depravity, was only false development, through
the want of the right conditions for true and healthful development.
“Do you suppose we are willing, or that we can afford, to have our
children pining in the Social Palace for amusement, and being driven to
seek it in the questionable resorts of the city? It is to avoid this,
that we have billiards and other games, and musical and dramatic
societies. It is to avoid this, that we have a library and reading-room.
Our theatre is a special pride. You all know how irresistibly the young
are attracted to dramatic performances; and out of our respect to human
attractions, we have built the theatre, and furnished it with an
extensive wardrobe of historical costumes and all stage appointments.
Those pupils take the first rank for polite address and grace of
bearing, are rewarded by becoming members of the dramatic company; and
there is no honor more coveted and ardently sought for, than this. Many
strangers in these grounds to-day have remarked the polite and easy
address of some of the boys and girls, who have sacrificed voluntarily
their play to answer the questions of visitors, to bring them delicacies
from the restaurant, or to show them over the grounds. [Applause and
cries of ‘That is true!’] It gives me pleasure to hear you acknowledge
this so readily. These boys and girls are competitors for dramatic
distinction, and if any of them manifest very marked and promising
histrionic talent, they will be furnished with the means to continue
their studies here and abroad. To-morrow, at the one o’clock matinée,
and at the evening performances, you will have an opportunity to judge,
from what the dramatic company has accomplished in six months, whether
or not it promises well for the future.
“The theatre and the opera are two of the greatest moral educators of
the world, and they should in every community be under the control of
the highest and most cultivated of the citizens. When controlled by the
impulse of avarice alone, they are sure to become degraded and fail in
their high mission, which is to stimulate the imagination to a love of
heroism and virtue, and to cultivate and develop artistic taste. Mark
well that the drama and the opera are democratic in their principle;
rank is gained by study and high merit, and woman is recognized as man’s
equal, and receives equal or even higher compensation for her labor.
Equality, you know, is one of our watchwords; and our institution is not
a sham, but a real republic, where the voices of all citizens over
sixteen years of age are heard in the making of our laws and
regulations. This, in the opinion of some people, is too early an age
for the exercise of the ballot; but it must be remembered, that long
before that age, the children are thoroughly acquainted with its use,
and with the general principles of democratic government. Woman’s
political duties are not onerous, and so far as I know, though every
woman votes, not one has yet ‘unsexed’ herself. [Great laughter and
applause.] You know certain weak, unscientific men, are dreadfully
afraid of that calamity. [Laughter.] One reason may be that our voting
is not conducted in dirty halls nor rum-shops.
“The education of the children from infancy up, is all free, and
supported by our shops and industries. Every orphan will be adopted,
educated, and tenderly cared for, as will the sick, the aged, and the
infirm; not as a charity, mark well, but as a natural right. We have
educational classes for adults, and they are well attended, while the
education of the children embraces a wide range of scientific and
industrial training. You have seen to-day in the lowest class of the
school proper, nearly a hundred children engaged in what are called the
Froëbel exercises—seated at their long tables constructing houses,
fences, furniture—innumerable tiny objects, with their blocks, and
sticks, and plastic clay. Some of them already show great skill.
Visitors called their occupation play. So it is, but a most important
play; so organized that skill and artistic taste are gradually
developed, through friendly emulation and the natural love of beautiful
forms.
“The right education of children is the most sacred duty of the world.
Remember, you who have these dear little ones under your care to-day,
how you fill their tender, impressible minds with effete creeds and
unverifiable hypotheses. You may think you are doing them good,
forgetting that we have seen the dawn of the scientific method of
investigation, and that hereafter these children will rise up and
reproach you for wasting their precious time. Teach them to see God, not
as a greater man, subject to anger, repentance, and the various passions
of men, but as the invisible, and to us, incomprehensible, power behind
what we call phenomena. The religious aspiration is the aspiration
toward universal harmony, and is literally, as well as in principle, the
highest part of man. It is most normally excited by the study of
nature—the mysterious laws that we see governing the springing grass,
the unfolding flower, the growth and development of the child, and the
great kosmic forces that control the movements of the planets, and suns,
and systems of the universe.
“We are standing on the threshold of a brighter era for mankind, as I
believe I can see, and I am not alone in this faith. Since the great
success of the labors of M. Godin in France, we may confidently assert
that the laws of social harmony have been put into practice; but it is
to the coming generation that we must look for more significant results,
for higher harmonies than we can effect—cramped and robbed of our
birthright, as we have been, by false and imperfect conditions for the
free development of our physical and mental powers. We look to the
educational system of the Social Palace for the working out of the grand
problem that we have stated; and hence the advent of every child here
will be a signal for rejoicing, for he is born into conditions that
should make him
‘Grow in beauty like the rose,’
and become a blessing to the world.
“And now, my friends, thanking you for your courteous attention to what
I have said to you, and out of respect to the thousand youthful feet
that are impatient to open the ball, I will end my remarks by the
announcement of a joyful event. The birth of the first child in the
Social Palace, occurred this morning at sunrise: a happy omen for our
inaugural festival.”
At this announcement the air was filled with long-continued shouts of
applause and cries of “Whose baby is it?” “Tell us whose child it is,”
“Is it a boy or girl?” “Of course it is a girl,” said a man in the
audience. “No boy would dare to take precedence here.”
Ella looked at Dr. Delano, and whispered, “I’ll bet anything it is the
count’s!”
“Nonsense! There hasn’t been time enough.”
“Yes, there has,” said his wife, with the confidence of those most
interested in being certain concerning such matters.
The people would not be satisfied. They called loudly for the doctor,
who at last came forward and said:
“It is _our_ baby. It is the child of the Social Palace. Every man is
its father, every woman its mother, and every child its brother and
sister. I will add that it is a strong, beautiful child, perfect in all
its parts; but as you will not be satisfied with this, I will say
further that it is the son of my dearly-beloved daughter and the Count
von Frauenstein.”
“There, I told you so!” said Ella. Dr. Delano sat like a stone, and paid
not the slightest heed to his wife; not even when she added maliciously,
“You see some people are not so wise as they think they are!”
The demonstrations of delight at the announcement of the birth, were
nothing to those that followed the knowledge that the idolized
Frauenstein was the happy father. The immense audience rose to their
feet—even strangers, who neither knew nor cared anything about it,
caught the infection—and waved handkerchiefs, and the shouts, “God bless
the child!” “Long live Frauenstein!” “Long live the heir!” rolled
through the corridors of the immense building, even to the ears of
Clara, who lay in her luxuriant curtained bed holding her precious
treasure in her arms, listening to words from Paul that were but the
voice of her own heart.
Min sat in an arm-chair nodding, worn out with the excitements of the
day, among which had been two rehearsals at the theatre, for she was to
play a little part at the coming matinée, and this baby, over which her
delight knew no bounds. She was fast asleep when Susie entered with the
doctor.
“Clara,” she said, bending over her friend, “he was there on the
platform! He heard it all! and I know perfectly well, by the way his
wife spoke to him, that she said, ‘I told you so.’”
Clara’s sweet face lighted up with a momentary triumph, and then she
said softly, “I am very sorry for him.”
“You wish everybody in this world had a baby, don’t you, Clara?” said
the doctor. “You see you bear ‘anger as the flint doth fire,’ as Brutus
says.”
“Well,” answered Clara, taking the doctor’s hand, and looking up into
his face tenderly:
“_Am I not Papa’s Own Girl?_”
FINIS.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.