one of the
small band of American writers
who dares at all times to tell the truth
whose patriotism is genuine and useful
and who has revealed to us so
much of modern Europe
May it not be that in every family there are unborn children--souls
that have come too late perhaps to find a medium, yet, in consequence
of their hereditary particles, unable to seek it elsewhere? We know not
what mysterious dissolutions and recombinations of spirit take place
in the realm where the released forces go, with what deliberation the
essences of families are remixed; oftenest, no doubt, with commonplace
results; sometimes with intent to bring humiliation and disaster upon
a house which has transgressed too many laws; yet again, combining
the great characteristics of mind and soul and temperament of those
who have distinguished themselves in history, with such weaknesses as
must inevitably destroy all three--as in the notable instance of the
last Rudolf von Hapsburg. Again, the best may have been remixed with
only enough of human weakness and passion that love may be inspired
instead of awe, that happiness without disaster may be possible. And
yet the most fortunate of these fusions may be finished too late for
its generation, and be forced to bide its time invisible; or perhaps,
by some spiritual statute of limitations, is deprived of its earthly
rights forever. Nevertheless, it may linger in spirit where it should
walk in its servant of flesh, and unknown, unsuspected, take its part
in the daily life of its kin, having its own influence perhaps on
their destinies and on history. And the romanticist, so much of whose
time is spent in the unreal world, may fancy, once in a way, that one
of these belated souls has swum into his ken, and that his privilege
is to rescue it, to fit it to the part for which Nature so tirelessly
equipped it.
NOTE.--The dinner described in Chapter IV., Part II. occurred in
1897, but it being necessary that the action of the story should take
place several years later, I have brought it forward. This of course
could not have been done had certain circumstances arisen which might
have given immediate historic results to the speech of the Emperor
of Germany. Those circumstances not having arisen, it makes little
difference whether the speech was delivered yesterday or six years
ago. Otherwise, the dinner, the speech, its effect upon the Hungarian
magnates present, its reception next day by the Hungarian press and
people, were as described.