A CULTIVATOR OF THISTLES.
Spring had come. Theatres were fuller, the opera not so full; dancing
parties were less frequent, and there began to be talk of races and of
country parties; it was no longer a rule without exception that the men
wore dress suits who were dining at Delmonico’s. Besides this, there
were also the green buds, and the crocuses, and the twitter of the
birds in Central Park.
Arthur Holyoke looked like the spring, as he sauntered down the steps
of his lodgings with a light stick and betook himself, swinging it, to
that temple of a modern Janus, the railway station. Ah, you may talk
to me of rialtos and bridges of sighs, of moonlit pavilions and of
temples, court-rooms, and shrines; but the great stage of humanity,
of catastrophes, partings, and dénouements--is it not now the railway
station? Here the jaded head of a family, tired of struggling, beheads
himself by abandoning his middle-aged wife and her six children; here
Jack, fresh from college, goes down to that country party where he
shall meet Jill, and proposes to her, the very next night but one, on
the piazza above the tennis-ground. Here mamma comes home, or papa goes
away; or we leave for India, or Grinnell Land, or school. This is the
portal to pleasant long vacations, and to dreary working days; here
Edwin and Angelina begin their new life, and murderers escape; and old
men come home.
Arthur had gained decision, alertness in his manner; he wore a spring
suit of a most beautiful delicate color; if he had luggage, it was
all disposed of, and he looked like a poet hovering above earthly
cares. In the one hand he held an _Evening Post_, in the other a
cigarette; and as he took his seat in the parlor-car he opened the
one and threw away the other in a manner that betokened his content
with himself, and, consequently, with the world. For he was going on a
week’s visit to La Lisière, the country-seat of the Levison-Gowers, at
Catfish-on-the-Hudson.
Arthur looked about to see if any of his fellow-guests were on the
train; but there was no one who looked like a likely member of so
select a party as all of Mrs. Levison Gower’s were known to be. There
was a maiden with a gold ornament at her neck, and a pot-hatted and
paunchy personage with a black coat and tie--both quite impossible.
Arthur gave them up and buried himself in his newspaper.
At Catfish he alighted, and standing with his luggage, on the outer
platform, looked about him inquiringly. A groom, who was standing by a
pretty little dog-cart with a nervous horse, touched his hat. Arthur
walked up to him. “Can you tell me how to get to Mrs. Levison Gower’s?”
“Mr. Holyoke?” said the groom, touching his hat again. “This is to be
your horse, sir,” and placing the reins in Arthur’s hands, he lifted
the leather trunk and overcoats in behind. Arthur got in front and the
horse started at a jump, the groom catching on as they turned. “Beg
pardon, sir,--first turn to the left, sir,” said he, as Arthur held
in the horse and hesitated at the first dividing place of roads. Thus
directed, they soon came to a high stone gate, clad with ivy, each post
surmounted by a stone griffin which Arthur recognized as belonging to
the Leveson-Gower arms. (The American family, said Mrs. Gower, spelt it
with an i.) Through this they passed and by a lodge with a couple of
children at the door, who courtesied as he drove by; and then through
quite a winding mile of well-kept park and green coppiced valley.
At last they reached the house; in front of it was a level lawn and
terrace bounded by a stone balustrade, and beneath this lay the blue
Hudson and the shimmering mountains beyond.
Arthur was given a small room, in the third story; but it had a view
of the river and a comfortable dressing-room; from the window of which
he caught a view of a most glorious sky as the sun went down behind
the purple mountains. This passed the time very pleasantly; for it
took him only a few minutes to dress, and he had a certain delicacy
about appearing below, while it was yet sunlight, in his dress suit.
The scene even suggested a short poem to him, the gradual fading of
one mountain-crest after another as the sun left them all in turn;
something about the sun of love illuminating and then leaving sombre
the successive ages of man. But the clangor of a gong interrupted his
first stanza; and he went down-stairs.
Here, too, they were admiring the beauties of nature. Several of
the guests were assembled on the lawn-terrace before mentioned, and
talking in subdued tones about the scenery; among them two or three
lovely women, flaunting their fair heads in evening dress and laces.
Arthur recognized Miss Farnum, and Mrs. Malgam, and who was that lovely
creature in the corner with Charlie Townley? A most radiant and perfect
blonde, whose yellow hair was luminous in the twilight. He would ask
his hostess. She was standing in the corner of the terrace, leaning
over the stone balustrade and looking into the still depths of the
forest beneath; a man was beside her. She turned as Arthur approached,
and held out her hand frankly to him.
“So glad to see you, Mr. Holyoke,” said she. “Mr. Wemyss I think you
know.”
Arthur did know Mr. Wemyss; and admitted as much to that indifferent
gentleman. “A beautiful place you have here, Mrs. Gower,” was all he
could think to say.
“Perfect,” added Wemyss. “Look at that mountain--not the first one, but
the second, half lost in the gloom, beyond the bay of bright water--I
have rarely seen a mountain placed with more exquisite taste.”
“You are very kind,” replied Mrs. Gower with a slight smile. “I think
I may say, with Porthos, that my mountains are very fine--‘mon air est
très-beau,’ you know.”
“Tell me, Mrs. Gower,” said Arthur, “who is the lady talking with the
man I do not know; the dark man, with broad shoulders?”
“Don’t you know him? That is Lionel Derwent, the great English
traveller--writer--soldier--socialist--what shall I say? And she is
Mrs. Wilton Hay. You must indeed know her, for you are to take her in
to dinner. Shall I introduce you?”
Mrs. Hay was one of those apparent and obvious beauties of whom all
young men are rather afraid. How could his poor attentions content so
experienced a shrine? Still, it was in a state of rather pleasurable
panic that he went up to her, was presented, and made his due
obeisance. Mrs. Hay did not snub him; her mission was to fascinate;
and from this and other points about her, Arthur divined that she was
English. English beauties are less coy than ours, and more eager to
please: all professional manners must be equable. And even Mrs. Flossie
Gower’s photographs were not sold on Broadway; though perhaps she
sighed for that distinction.
“I am told I am to have the pleasure of taking you in to dinner,”
said Arthur. Mrs. Hay had dazzled him a little, and he could think of
nothing better to say.
“What a pity you had to be told!” laughed she. “It would be so much
nicer if one could choose partners, you know. It’s almost as bad
as marriage, isn’t it? All the spontaneity of the companionship is
destroyed; and you haven’t any escape--at least, until after dinner.”
Now, this was a clever device of the siren by which she bound Arthur
to her band of adorers for the whole evening. He was nothing loath.
“Marriage!” he answered vaguely. He started to tell her she would rob
the grave of its terrors, let alone matrimony; but it seemed rather
sudden. So he laughed; and swore to himself as he felt that he had
laughed sillily. Was he such a country-boy as to be afraid of this
woman because she was handsome and he saw it?
Dinner was announced; so he offered her his arm and said nothing until
they were seated. Then they both looked around; and it was the occasion
for those whispered confidences about the general _coup d’œil_ and the
appearance of their fellow-creatures which form so quickly the little
bonds of mutual likes and dislikes.
And, truly, it is a fine and a suggestive sight--a dinner-party--custom
cannot stale, to the thoughtful guest, its infinite variety; however
age may wither it. For are not here collected, in one carefully
arranged bouquet, the single flowers of our vast society? The newest
varieties, the brightest tints and rarest hybrids. Here are twelve
of the few who have wealth to bloom and give fragrance, leisure to
cultivate, develop, and adorn; they are fretted with no cares until
the morrow; their duty but pleasure, to be happy their one endeavor,
to please and to be pleased. I am afraid to say how many folk have
labored that this hour should be a pleasant one to these; shall we
say, a thousand? The table is snowy and sparkling; about it sit these
six men, whose chief virtue seems conformity, those six women, whose
merit seems display. They do not eat, they dine; a daily sacrament of
taste and studied human life. So, far above the cares of earth, feast
leisurely the careless gods--do they not?
Who are our gods and goddesses? Well, first, there is Mrs. Levison
Gower; she is in gray silk and silver, _pétillante_ with _esprit_
(how does it happen that she always makes one go to the French for
epithets?). On the right, Lord Birmingham, who looks bored; next him
(to Arthur’s slight surprise) is Kitty Farnum. Then John Haviland;
then Mrs. Malgam; then Caryl Wemyss at the end, looking irritable.
(Mr. Gower was away.) On his right, Mrs. Wilton Hay (black velvet is
her dress, without lace or collar, from which her blond neck bursts,
like a hot-house bud)--then Arthur; next him, little Pussie Duval
and a stranger; beyond him, Miss Marion Lenoir, a dinner beauty, and
Lionel Derwent, on his hostess’s left, and scowling at Lord Birmingham.
Five--yes, six beautiful women; half a dozen picked men. A veritable
round table, with women’s rights, in this castle by the storied river,
“Tell me, who is that next you--a fine-looking man?” said Mrs. Hay.
“I believe his name is Van Kull,” said Arthur, indifferently.
“Oh, indeed?” said she, with interest; and honored our old acquaintance
with her eye-glass. “I heard he was such a favorite with the Prince.”
And as we have not seen Kill Van Kull for some years, a hint as to
his past would not be amiss. Only, you mustn’t refer to his recent
past, beyond the last two months. The fact is, Van Kull had a way
of disappearing, under complicated circumstances; but as he always
returned alone, after a few months, society pardoned it. Particularly
when he came back with a man, a lord, or fresh from a visit at
Sandringham--New York tries hard to be virtuous; but what can it do
when an offence is condoned by London?
“I tell you, you should read your Bibles,” broke in a voice, like a
heavy bell. The sentiment seemed _mal à propos_; but the voice was
Lionel Derwent’s, and it continued speaking without the slightest
tremor of consciousness that it was producing a sensation. “You are
none of you Christians--not one.” Derwent was addressing Mrs. Gower;
but, in the sudden silence, his remark seemed addressed to the entire
company. The remark did not seem to offend anybody, coming from so
handsome a man with so sweet a voice; but there was quite a little
chorus of shocked dissent.
“Do you suppose,” said Derwent, gravely, “that the Christian church,
when it reorganized society, meant--this sort of thing?” And with a
sweeping glance, that was as definite as a wave of the hand, but not so
discourteous, Derwent indicated the table and its brilliant occupants.
No one seemed quite ready to defend herself, as there manifested; as
for the men, they sat all withdrawn from the fray, with the feeling
that, as they made no religious pretences, it did not concern them.
Perhaps Miss Lenoir’s reply served the purpose as well as any other.
“But surely, Mr. Derwent, we are all church members,” said she, simply.
“The church itself is not Christian,” said he, as simply. “I doubt if
it ever has been, since it got established in Rome, it or its Eastern
and Western successors. The fact is, the only two high religions of
the world have both rested on the abnegation of self: the Buddhist,
by quietism and annihilation; the Christian, by action and sacrifice.
But the Jews and Mahometans founded their ethics upon the development
of self, upon visible rewards, slaves and flocks and herds, personal
aggrandizement; and these things they obtained by wars of conquest, by
the church militant, as rewards of the holy zeal that made converts
by physical victory. Then Christ came; and it was his only work to
remove this idea, to change this life, not as a king of a victorious
people, but as a vessel of divine spirit. But this one work and faith
of Christ, this only thing that made his teachings new, regenerative
of the world, is just alone what all our churches, Protestant and
Catholic, unite in evading, in dodging, in interpreting away. The one
thing they will not follow Christ in is his unselfishness.”
“But we cannot all be saints and martyrs,” said Mrs. Gower.
“If we were all Christians, there would be no martyrs,” said Derwent.
“I think,” said Wemyss, softly, as if he were studying the painting
of a fan, “I think that Mr. Derwent is historically right. Such was
undoubtedly the pure doctrine, the face of the pale Christ as it first
appeared, palsying the hand of art and civilization, unnerving the arm
of war, bleaching life of all color and flower, whelming the sunlight
of Greece in the pale artificial cloister, quenching the light of the
world in an unsane, self-wrought asceticism.
‘When for chant of Greeks the wail of Galileans
Made one whole world moan with hymns of wrath and wrong.’
We may know the gods are but a beautiful fancy; but it would almost
prove a devil’s existence, that humanity had hardly found itself at
peace with itself in a fair and fertile earth, fanned by sea-winds and
warmed by summer suns, when some devil’s instinct made it fashion for
itself a cruel fetich, oppress its brief mortal hours with nightmares
of immortal torture, curse itself with grotesque dreams of Calvaries
and hells.” And Mr. Wemyss snuffed at the rosebud in his hand, as a
Catholic might sprinkle holy-water.
“But, my good sir,” answered Derwent, and his voice rang with the
disdain of the athlete for the æsthete, “Christ has not taken from you
the flowers of the field nor the breezes of the sea, although his curse
be on your factories and mints, your poison-stills and money-mills,
your halls and courts and prisons. He has given you the soul of a man
for the life of a dog. Any pig may possess, an ape can dress itself in
trinkets; but only souls can dream, think, do, be free. Assert your
souls in freedom, not weight them down with things. Think you that
beauty, glory, love, and light come from possessing tangible objects?”
Caryl Wemyss made no reply; but raised a glass of Yquem to his lips
and sipped it slowly. The rest were not in it at all, as Van Kull
good-naturedly whispered to Pussie Duval. In his simple way, Kill Van
Kull suspected that he would some day be damned; but he took it in
good part. John Haviland made answer. “You, too, think Christianity is
communism?” said he.
“Not necessarily that,” said Lionel Derwent; “and much more than
that. The New Testament makes no direct attack on property but as the
root of other evils. Property would be harmless, if it did not foster
the self-idolatry; this is the true curse. Even that poor cynic, La
Rochefoucauld, saw that _amour-propre_ was the principle on which our
social fabric rests. The truth is, that the moment you have counters,
everybody makes getting counters all the game. Now, the true game is
emulation of the soul, or, even, of the body; of the real self, not
the factitious one. Let us have healthy bodies, brave men, heroes, and
poets; beautiful women, kind hearts, noble souls; not dukedoms and
visiting-lists, landed-estates and money-appraisals. If diamonds are
intrinsically beautiful, wear them, paste or real; but do not wear them
because they are things difficult for the country curates’ daughters
to get. But flowers are prettier, after all. And even then, it is the
beauty, not the trinket, we are right to seek. God made a woman’s neck;
the devil made the diamonds upon it.”
“It is a far cry from the New Testament to woman’s fashions,” said Mrs.
Wilton Hay, maliciously. Mrs. Hay was a hunting woman and followed
the hounds; and her neck had frequently been praised in the society
newspapers. But Derwent took it innocently.
“True,” said he, simply; “and I say our churches do not dare to preach
the words of Christ, but awkwardly fashion them into parables and
symbolisms; in effect, they say, ‘Christ said it, but did not mean it.’
The Roman church, too, enriches itself; but this is nearer Christ, for
she gives a part away. But our dissenting churches encourage their
director-deacons and produce-exchange elders in taking what they can
unto themselves, and even whitewash their methods for ever so slight
a share of the plunder. But when Christ made that remark about a rich
man, a camel, and the eye of a needle, he meant a needle’s eye, and
not a paddock-gate. And when he said, ‘Sell that thou hast, and give
to the poor,’ he meant now and here, not in some future state of
civilization, nor yet by charitable devise. And when he said, ‘take no
thought for the morrow--for where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also--and your father knoweth you have need of these things,’
he had in mind both the future course of stocks and the necessity of
brown-stone fronts and widows’ life-assurance. But our churches imply
to us, ‘Christ was a good man; but he was no political economist. He
did not foresee these things. Life has grown a more complex art than he
could comprehend.’”
Mrs. Gower had shown signs of rapidly increasing distress throughout
this harangue; and now she gave the signal for the women to depart.
“It is so interesting!” whispered Mrs. Malgam, as she swept in front of
Derwent. “Do tell me more about it after dinner.” Derwent bowed; and
the six men resumed their seats; Van Kull and Birmingham talking horse;
Arthur and Wemyss near Haviland and Derwent.
“I do not object to your conclusions, Mr. Derwent,” began Wemyss,
languidly, “but to your remedy. Christianity is so far from being this,
that it is the cause of that decadence we both see. And what more
natural than that Christianity, having destroyed civilization, should
perish, like another Rienzi, in the conflagration itself has kindled?”
“And I,” said Haviland, impatiently, “object not to the remedy, but to
your conclusion. That, I take it, is communism. Now, communism is no
part of Christianity.”
“Neither,” said Derwent, “is property. Christ, from his principle of
non-resistance, admitted property in others; but his own disciples
were to do without it. There have been two great religions--religions
in the true sense religion, transcendental faiths, looking from this
world to the next--and each was followed by a so-called religion which
was really not religion, but looked to this world alone. Both the two
religions aimed at the annihilation of the individual; the Buddhist
by passive abnegation, the Christian by active emulation in the doing
of good to others. The one is the negation of self; the other is its
apotheosis. Therefore, Christianity has naught to do with property,
which is the accentuation of self, by aggrandizement, by appendages.
Christ recognized persons, not personages. Christianity came with a
commercial civilization, and as an antidote to it, after the Jewish
religion, which had asserted a divine recognition of property; and
set up an earthly kingdom, that had to do with flocks and herds and
landed-estates. And after Christ Islam came, with wars and conquests.
So the Jews never recognized the Messiah; they looked not beyond into
the next world.”
“And as a compensation,” interposed Wemyss, “they seem likely to obtain
all that there is of this. But we are told that finally the Jews, too,
shall become Christians--which lends a terror even to the millennium.”
There was a general laugh; of which Derwent seemed to be unconscious.
“So the gospels,” Derwent added, “recognize no property save in the
soul. This is what we are adjured to preserve, though we lose the
whole world besides. A man’s truth and love, his sense of goodness
and beauty, his courage and his pity, are his alone. Even his body is
only his secondarily, and temporarily; his broad acres, his trees and
rivers, are no part of him at all.”
“But it remains property--even if you sell it all and give it to the
poor,” said Haviland.
“Not if they give it over again to whomsoever has immediate need,”
answered Derwent. “In this broad world there is room for all; and there
are fruits in plenty, ample food, and raiment always ready. Let each
one take what he needs, and have no fear of getting no more when these
are gone. Why, the labor of all men for some few minutes a day will
suffice to bring them all things they can need and use. Property is
unnecessary. But men are like rude children at a public feast: each one
fearing that he shall not get enough, they trample one another forward,
and the foremost few lay hands upon it all.”
“No one of us who thinks,” said Haviland, “would object to communism
if it were practicable. But I must have an overcoat, or a roof, or a
horse; is anyone coming along who prefers my coat, my roof, to his, or
to none, to take it? And, in the second place, men are not unselfish
enough to work, even those few minutes a day, that all humanity may
live.”
“They are, if they have souls,” said Derwent. “And if not, we are
beasts; and let us perish like them. And as for the first objection, it
is a trivial one, soon forgotten in practice. There will naturally grow
up an unwritten respect for one’s personal belongings; so far as it is
necessary that there should be. If a man needs a coat so much as to
filch mine, it is better he should have it. Free men will no more stoop
to take a neighbor’s coat, or roof, or hat, than a prince will steal a
pocket-handkerchief. And as to great values like statues, paintings,
libraries, they are for all the world, and not to be monopolized by a
vulgar money-maker. He truly owns a picture who enjoys it; not he who
buys it. The pleasure in these, by divine law, is not selfish, not
individual; only when a man loses himself in the contemplation of a
beautiful picture does he really enjoy it, really make it his; it is of
as little moment who has the title to the canvas and frame, as it is
who owns the wide prairies and the mountains that the poet roams over.
So there need be no vulgar property in these things; and they are all
that is worth enjoying. As to exotics, and waste land, and dozens of
houses, and yachts, and palaces, and game-preserves--these are social
crimes.”
“Exactly,” said Wemyss, with a well-bred sneer in his inflection. “You
wish, like all the rest, to abolish civilization. All communists hate
excellence; because they do not themselves excel. They say, since we
cannot all be princes, let us all be savages.”
“What they say, Mr. Wemyss,” cried Derwent, fiercely, “is this: Instead
of the vulgar democracy of crass possession, let us have the noble
aristocracy of merit, mind, and soul. Let no man excel by owning the
souls and bodies, the waking and the sleeping, the getting up and the
lying down of his fellow-men. And this whether it be done directly,
by chattel slavery, or more secretly and dangerously, by corporate
control, monopoly of land, monopoly of that fateful thing that men
call capital. Money is the devil’s counters; a treasure accursed,
thrice cursed when welded into the ring of power, like that fabled
Rhine-gold, which only he may win who for it lays aside all love, both
human and divine. Let men enjoy the light of the earth, the noble
teachings of art and letters, the health of the body and the freedom
of the soul; but these without the virus of self-appropriation. It is
this that makes barbarism; it is not civilization. Look at your Yankee
money-grubbers; they give, and greedily, ten thousand dollars for a
common painting, which they may ostentatiously make their own; they
would hesitate to give a dollar for Dante’s Divine Comedy, if he wrote
to-day, because--of course, they do not care for it--and they cannot
lock it up as theirs and bar it from their fellow-men. And even if,
as you insinuate, the future were to be what you call barbarism, the
morning chase of the free savage after the wild creature on whom he
feeds is more ennobling than the grimy greed of a stunted humanity
for these counters that are worthless in themselves. I have seen
Australia and Hawaii, and I have seen Sheffield and East London; and I
say, better a thousand-fold the heathen savagery than such Christian
civilization as are these.”
“I have hitherto failed to observe, among socialists or knights of
labor, or their wives,” said Wemyss, dryly, “any newer or other impulse
than a rising desire for these same counters that you scoff at, or the
gin and brass jewellery that they may purchase with them.”
“Ay,” cried Lionel Derwent, “you have seen little yet but a blind,
instinctive striving for the drugs and poisons you have fed them on;
for the treasure you have kept, and welded to the ring of tyranny that
held them down. So, when you lift a stone from the ground, or hurl the
roof from some long-lived-in Bastile of humanity, the sudden sunlight
streams in, and the prisoners, poor insects that they are, crushed by a
thousand years of oppression, blinded, dazzled by the light of heaven,
grope vainly and mechanically for the things of earth they have been
wonted to, and which want and custom and your own example have taught
them, too, to prize. No, they are not better than you are, yet; not
until their souls have come to life that you so long have robbed them
of. But give us light and love, and the word of Christ, and we will
see. But, as I said in the beginning, your priests have tortured even
this to suit their ends.”
“Well, Mr. Derwent, I wish you success in your mission. Civilization
has got to go, one way or another; and I don’t know that it matters
much which. I confess that your way strikes me as rather a novel one.
Most of your radical friends, however, if what you say be their true
aim, show a singular predilection for atheism, free-love, and omitting
their daily baths.” With which climax and a slight yawn, Wemyss walked
over and joined the group in the other corner.
John Haviland had for a long time been silent; but now he spoke. “I am
afraid, Mr. Derwent,” said he, “that I so far agree with Mr. Wemyss as
to feel that three essentials of civilization are so bound up together
that with leaving either one we may lose the rest--I mean, my right to
my property, my right to my wife, and my right to personal liberty. The
same radicalism which, on the one hand, sets up a tyranny of majority
government to tell me what I shall think, what I shall eat, what I
shall spend, is that which, on the other hand, tends to the age of
reason and the regulation of property out of existence, and women’s
rights to lose themselves as women, and absolute liberty of divorce.
Property and marriage and personal liberty--they go together. There
is no argument for freedom but the inner light of the mind; none for
monogamy but that it seems farther from the beasts; none for property
but that man creates it for himself. And the age of reason, which
denies a divine sanction, will yet require a divine sanction for all
that it does not destroy.”
“Man does not create the air, nor the ocean, nor the surface of the
earth,” said Derwent.
“No; and man does not hold the surface of the earth for himself, but
for all humanity. Is it not better that you should make a garden of a
hundred acres than that it should lie a common waste? You hold it, not
for yourself, but in general trust; sooner or later, if you fail to
make the land bear fruit for all of us, it will be taken from you. If
you are not a good steward for the people, you will, sooner or later,
fail. Christ said ‘Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor;’ but is
it not doing the same thing to keep what I have, and use it for the
poor?”
Derwent paused a moment; and before he could reply, Wemyss came back.
“Shall we join the ladies?” said he.
All the gentlemen got up, some hastily finishing their coffee, others
taking a last whiff of their cigars.
“He paid twenty thousand,” said Van Kull, hurriedly, to Birmingham. “He
bought him for the Duval stables.”