As Bertha left the room Daniel entered it. Then, as do saints on the
other shore when dealing with those who have come up out of great
tribulations, so these two looked each into the eyes of the other, and
met there, love-full-of-wisdom.
In the silence they stood for a moment, thinking of the “foundation
stone” on which the “builders build,”—a foundation stone which supports
that gate of opulence which is coeval and consonant with the temple of
life. A foundation stone, diamond-like in its adamantine strength, and a
radiator of shafts of that light which has lighted every man who has
come into the world. Rays of which, mingling with rays are emitted now
everywhere, till the dispelling of all darkness is at hand.
“I have heard from the Landseers,” said Daniel. Then, as if that
statement were but in continuance of the thoughts which had swiftly
glanced from mind to mind, he added: “The work of individual spiritual
construction moves on so fast in the world today, that soon no man will
question his neighbor, ‘Know ye the Lord?’ for all shall know that all
others, too, do know him; and shall know _who_ he is; for they shall see
him as he is, and know that he is He-vaw. It is becoming well understood
that the pure in heart see He-vaw, and seeing He-vaw as he is, become
like He-vaw. But we need for _use_, institutions for training our young
men in this art of life.”
Words were few and powerful in which Daniel and daughter treated the
mysteries at stake in the swift transactions taking place under their
roof, and under the broad dome of the blue above.
As has been said, the Dakshas were what today’s people commonly
recognize as “old, old souls.” So though by many this will be
unbelievable, their opulent minds kept always in circulation the
_thoughts to be uttered_. And their eyes and ears conveyed and received
suggestions, information and impressions as swiftly as the electric
current receives and carries messages. For “the wheels” which some joker
declared were in the Daksha-brain, were there, and what is more, “the
spirit of creative life was in the wheels.” But if (as it was said
jocularly) there was a buzzing in their bonnets, the bees that buzzed
there were all honey-makers for humanity.
But Judge Elkhorn not only lacked all such activity of brain-substance,
but was an inherent pauper concerning this order of social opulence.
Moreover, he did not believe any one could have what he did not. So the
wit about the wheels in the heads of the Daksha family and the buzzing
of the bees in their bonnets was the judge’s own. Meanwhile he wished
for their power. For he was a man as painfully curious to know
everybody’s past, and the whys and wherefores of all that they did, as
he was anxious to reservedly shield his own past, present and future
plans from inspection.
So, as Mrs. Mancredo did not explain to him her affairs, he only knew of
them what had been reported at the hotel; namely, that she was an
adopted sister of Reginald Grove. He knew that one of the women under
the roof claimed to dislike Grove as a disagreeable sick man, and
another had declared that she hated him as a furious fool. But as to
Miss Daksha’s sentiment toward the man whom she was said to be saving,
he could discover nothing. And therefore that matter uncomfortably
occupied his mind. For, in his conjectures concerning Ethelbert, he had
nothing to go upon but a more or less murky form of concluding that the
acts of _all_ women were based upon some emotional, self-seeking
foundation.
He was not to say “a nice man,” this Judge Elkhorn. But of curiosity,
persistence and “prod,” he had no lack. He had some things in stocks,
some things in banks, and some things in mortgages on farms out West;
but his poverty was extreme and corrosive. One form of it that was
eating his vitals this day, made him peer sharply through his glasses
and thrust his head forward in a way which caused his Adam’s apple to
choke up against his collar; and that resulted in making him pitch his
very hoarse voice up very high in the effort to get it, if possible, a
bit higher than that collar, and so on a level with his greatly
heightened curiosity.
For this curiosity took form in the desire to know what conditions could
have existed which made both Mrs. Mancredo and Bertha Gemacht look at
Reginald as they had looked at him in the judge’s presence. For in the
look of both was repulsion, dread, and distinctly a look of enslavement
to him, to which was added a portrayed sense of angry restiveness under
that enslavement. What is more, he had twice noticed how invariably they
turned away from the sick man, and gazed appealingly (it could be called
nothing else) into the eyes of Ethel. And he had seen that her
superordinary manner steadied them, and correlated them with strength.
For strengthened they were, as all are strengthened who are released
from fear, and allied to that power which comes as direct from
All-that-is as water comes into a basin from a reservoir to which its
conductors are attached.
Judge Elkhorn knew, too, that Mrs. Mancredo, her carriage and coachman,
John Sullivan, and a North American “Indian-rubber,” as she called him,
were all long since settled in the Daksha family. And he knew that the
man Fleetwood liked himself very much; and often said: “We are the
ancient people, and we know the laws of the spirit of peace and purity,
and our medicine men deal with medicine of a secret sort, for those who
can take it in faith.” Elkhorn also knew that there had come into the
family a Madame Roland, a _religieuse_ in heart, and a companion of the
toilet to Mrs. Mancredo in practice. He knew, too, that Robert one day
had imported into the family a Japanese gardener and a Chinese
laundryman. At last in answer to Elkhorn’s urgencies, Daniel Daksha
provisionally admitted him to the family, under the promise to withdraw
within two weeks unless he was asked to extend his stay. He was an
expansive liberal-leagued man; but he did not like servants to forget
their places, as he had told Robert. Then Robert had explained that, as
their household was based on the principle that “a true aristocrat was
one who best served the greatest number and asked least for self in
return,” Ethel, Daniel and Althea were preëminently the servants of the
family. But as for himself, Robert said, he did not pretend to live up
to that ideal as yet.
In this way Elkhorn learned that this conglomerate household was
distinctly trying to practicalize the royal law of liberty; and that
under that law, one person would no more force chains on any other than
he would consent to wear chains himself. This sounded well to Elkhorn,
until Robert, who did not stay his tongue, added:
“It takes the age-long development that comes to the true old aristocrat
(like Aristarchus) to carry out this ideal in a really royal way,
because ordinary selfishness and self-conceit are unequal to the task.”
Elkhorn did not like that. But then Robert didn’t wish him to like it,
as he objected to having Judge Elkhorn come into the family at all.
For he considered that Elkhorn had roots of character which rendered
liberty for him, an unattainable glory. Because his progenitors had
been through so much fighting and persecuting in trying to obtain
liberty for their _own_ consciences and for Calvinism, that, though
the tendency to persecute and fight remained with Elkhorn, liberty was
neither yet obtained by him for himself, nor was it by him permitted
to others. But this was exactly what Judge Elkhorn did not realize
about himself. He figured as a liberty league man; but of late was
beginning to realize it is a mighty acquisition to really be in league
with liberty.... Meanwhile, Daniel liked Judge Elkhorn for many
reasons. For though Judge Elkhorn got as excited over his negations as
his progenitors had gotten over their affirmations of immortality, and
though he became irascible at the suggestion that there was a realm of
life beyond the ken of those senses called common; and though he got
very angry with people who insisted on a knowledge of “the unseen
world,” “invisible powers,” and the theory of a moral accountability
beyond the grave, yet Daniel liked him, as a make-weight against the
top-lofty theories of people who lived more in the unseen world than
in the seen. And Daniel knew himself to be one of these last-mentioned
people. And, too, Daniel knew the peculiar fact about Robert was, he
at this time knew a terrifying amount about the unseen world, and was
receiving as much from the psychical realm as he could support without
becoming a maniac. And Daniel knew Robert did not relish having
Elkhorn come into the family; for Elkhorn’s prowess consisted in
trying to annihilate the popular and private reverence which the
people of this nation have for their several partial-statements of
religious truth. Meanwhile Robert knew it had never been Daniel’s way
to say, “We—‘us and you’—will chum together against the rest of the
world. We have uttered the last word.” But Robert also knew that the
fact that Elkhorn was on the warpath against almost everything, had
but caused Daniel to think his presence in the family might act as an
antidote against any tendency to any form of unity which, when based
on indolent, ignorant acquiescence, results in not unity, but
_nullity_.
Daniel comprehended the crisis which Robert was facing. Poor Robert, who
had been singled out from the Daksha family by the not flattering title,
“Robert le Diable.” Not that he was so really wicked, but because the
singular goodness of his style of wickedness made the excessive
wickedness of some good people’s goodness look very wicked, indeed.
To this nearly overwhelming rush of contending forces, Robert at times
submitted quite unresentingly. He knew appearances were certainly
against him. He also knew that there was never a crisis at which liberty
of individual action was to be more demanded by men and women than at
this crisis at the end of the nineteenth century. Only those can
understand Robert’s troubles who are touched with a feeling of that
infirmity under which a brain staggers when the inflow of psychical life
is to the full, as much as even the rapidly expanding braincell can
carry. For he was still trying to keep his place in the outer world,
while passing through such stress of mental weather as is better borne
in seclusion, if such seclusion can anywhere be found in these too
public times. For only those can carry this inflow of mental afflatus
who have been taught to know that this pressure on the brain-cells will
but happily result in an increase of the brain’s capacity to
commodiously entertain the life that comes into these cells, if but this
inflow of mental afflatus can be met with heroic faith and fortitude,
_well instructed_.
Daniel was his helper, and had told him that persons who were rightly
taught these scientifically-religious facts do not fear, but on the
reverse, _exult_ in this brain-cracking-pressure; being upheld by their
faith that the pressure, endured as a good soldier of the cross should
endure it, will but result in the upbuilding of more brain-cells, which
will then serve gloriously as enlarged receptacles for the incoming of
more brain substance; with the further result that as this development
goes forward these good workers will construct a brain-building fitted
to carry on an order of cerebration, finer and inconceivably swifter and
more reliable than that which is now dreamed of by man as possible.
But well assisted though he was by the dear old Daniel (who had walked
that way before him), Robert was at a crisis when he was getting all the
inflow of spiritual afflatus that he could carry. And he decided if
Elkhorn were to be at the little evening “conversations,” dear to the
Dakshas, this judge should not be allowed to badger him into discussing
psychical matters, about which the judge was as uneasily curious as he
was unenlightenable. For Daniel knew that such “growing pains” as
afflict men whose mentalities are being adapted to the psychic burden
they have to bear, are, to men devoid of these higher inspirational
benefits, the unknown quantity in the problem of life. And he considered
these experiences used to be called “strivings after God” and
“visitations of grace” by Christians of the true spiritual type of the
older time. And he believed that in turning his back on all forms of
religion, Elkhorn had turned his face away from the very facts of
spiritual development which he was yet curious to dissect now, as a new
psychical scientific development.
But Daniel knew that was a time (as it is even now in 1898) when a
pressure was being brought to bear on the Committee of the Judiciary at
the National Capitol, by a steadily increasing number of men, who
(engaged in a religio-politico pull, year after year,) were trying to
thrust on this country a creedal-constitution, by putting in a
compulsory-religion amendment. Though the National Constitution
distinctly provides for the exercise of liberty of conscience, and for
the full right of the individual to self-government and self-expression.
He believed intelligent, alert persons all knew that the insertion of
the proposed words would not amend but would _annul_ and abrogate the
National Constitution of this American Republic; a Constitution whose
preamble states, that we hold it to be self-evident that men are born
free, and have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
and whose whole tenor is to protect the individual in freedom of thought
and self-expression, and to protect every one from being politically
discriminated against on account of religious or non-religious views.
Daniel knew that at a recent hearing at the National Capitol, the
Chairman of the Judiciary had said to the man who was editor of a paper
called the _Christian Statesman_, and the maker of the little “Christian
Manual,” in conformity with which he more or less modestly expected to
have our American constitutional-liberty annihilated: “I see you refer
to God the Father and to the Lord Jesus Christ as Ruler of the Nation?
Why not to the Holy Spirit?” And in reply to this, the _Doctor_ of
_Divinity_ had made answer: “It is not revealed to us that the _Holy
Spirit_ has relations to nations.”
So after such an answer as that, of course Daniel was sure that while
people might not blame the man who, as a subject of the British lion,
was little likely to have had it revealed to him that a HOLY _Spirit_
has relations to nations, yet that their common sense would recognize
that the ignorance which an unfortunate-national-environment had brought
upon this Doctor of Divinity did not very specially fit him to go about
trying to wipe out other people’s Constitution with his little “Manual.”
Daniel knew that lofty souls from Africa, Asia, the nations of the
Mediterranean and the islands of the sea (represented here as voting
citizens allegiant to our National Constitution) had age-long been
taught that life, _Life Itself_, is dependent on that Holy Spirit—the
feminine in Deity—which continuously broods all-that-is into order; and
he claimed no government but the one dominated by that desecrator of
womanhood, Henry Tudor, and his followers, would wish to thrust the Holy
Spirit out of “relations to nations”; and that _that_ government (?)
whose hand is against every other knows well that if it can but starve,
evict, stupefy and slay our people through annihilating their national
money, their national lands, their religious liberty and (that once
protective agency) their patriotic navy and army _made up of American
citizens_, it can then easily entrap what is left into the present
religio-politico-pull, which is bent on establishing on earth that
particular form of hell that riots wherever that plundering, preaching,
prostituting government (?) makes its lair.
It was a wild epoch. And the increasing ecclesiastic assumptions of a
new influx of salary-seeking teachers (?) was on the way to injure the
simple purity of faith with which the religiously-philosophical science
of the evolution of man had previously been bettering American society;
and some men’s hearts were failing them for fear.
But Daniel Daksha, who had been a simple-souled, devoted man from his
cradle-days upward, and who had suffered many things for the truth’s
sake, had no fear. For he was a prophet, and had known that in the last
days it would come to pass that “the mountain of the Lord’s house would
be exalted and would be established in the top of the mountains, and
that all peoples would flow up to it.” He believed this was “the Woman
Age,” and he was not among the men whose hope of existence lies in
swamping women’s power, either by its subjection to animal-abuse in the
home or in the shambles; wherein he believed the new movement was
putting woman up as a licensed article, sellable for revenue to the
would-be on-coming government of the brute, by the brute, and for the
brute,—a would-be on-coming style of government which, in its nature,
counts woman out of it, because she is human; and the brute-rule has set
itself to consume her, when having annihilated her individuality,
religiously and politically, it shall then have turned her into a
“commodity,”—a commodity to be bought and sold in marriage and out, for
the consumption of that brute-rule, to whom “it is not revealed that the
_Holy Spirit_ has relations to nations.”
In view of all these things, the Dakshas were more than content to have
at their home not whist-parties and dancing-parties, but free
discussions of these things.