“She doesn’t care about facts at all, Corydon. And notice this

also--she doesn’t care about succeeding. That’s the thing you must get

straight--her religion is a religion of failure! It comes back to that

criticism of Nietzsche’s--it’s a slave-morality. The world belongs to

the devil; and the idea of taking it away from the devil seems to

be presumptuous. Even if it could be done, the attempt would be

‘unspiritual’; for the ‘world’ is something corrupt--something that

ought not to be saved. So you see, she’s perfectly willing for the

Belgians to have the rubber.”

“‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’!” quoted Corydon.

“Yes, and let Caesar spend them on Cleo de Merode. What she wants is

to save the _souls_ of her savages--to baptize them, and to perish

gloriously at the work, and then be transported to some future life

that is worth while. So you see what the immortality-mongers do with our

morality!”

“Ah!” cried Corydon, swiftly. “But that need not be so!”

“But it _is_ so!” he answered.

“No, no!” she protested. “You must not say that! That is giving up--and

I felt such a different mood in you to-night! I wanted to tell you--we

must do something about it, Thyrsis! It made me ashamed of my own life.

Here I am, failing miserably--and all that work crying out to be done! I

don’t think I ever had such a sense of your power before--the things

you might do, if only you could get free, if only I didn’t stand in your

way! Oh, can’t we cast the old mistakes behind us, and go out into the

world and preach that message?”

“But, my dear,” said Thyrsis, “that wouldn’t appeal to you always. Your

temperament--”

“Never mind my temperament!” she cried. “I am sick of it, ashamed of it;

I want the world to hear that trumpet-call! I want you to break your

way into the churches--to make them listen to you, and realize their

blasphemy of life!”

She caught hold of him and clung to him; he could feel, like an electric

shock, the thrill of her excitement. He marvelled at the effect his

words had produced upon her--realizing all the more keenly, in contrast

with Delia, what a power of _mind_ he had here to deal with. “Dearest,”

he said, “I must put these things into my books. You must stand by me

and help me to put them into my books!”

Section 6. Delia Gordon went away to take up her work in the city; but

for many months thereafter that missionary impulse stayed with them.

They would find themselves seized with the longing to throw aside

everything else, and to go out and preach Socialism with the living

voice. They were still immersed in its literature; they read Bellamy’s

“Looking Backward”, and Blatchford’s “Merrie England”, and Kropotkin’s

“Appeal to the Young”. They read another book about England that moved

them even more--a volume of sketches called “The People of the Abyss”,

by a young writer who was then just forging to the front--Jack London.

He was the most vital among the younger writers of the time, and Thyrsis

watched his career with eager interest. There was also not a little of

wistful hunger in his attitude--he had visions of being the next to be

caught up and transported to those far-off heights of popularity and

power.

Also, they were kept in a state of excitement by the Socialist papers

and magazines that came to them. There was a great strike that summer,

and they followed the progress of it, reading accounts of the distress

of the people. Every now and then the pain of these things would prove

more than Thyrsis could bear, and he would blaze out in some fiery

protest, which, of course, the Socialist papers published gladly. So

little by little Thyrsis was coming to be known in “the movement”. Some

of his friends among the editors and publishers made strenuous protests

against this course, but little dreaming how deeply the new faith had

impressed him.

In truth it was all that Thyrsis could do to hold himself in; it seemed

to him that he no longer cared about anything save this fight of the

working-class for justice. He was frightened by the prospect, when

he stopped to realize it; for he could not write anything but what he

believed, and one could not live by writing about Socialism. He thought

of his war-book, for instance. It was but two or three months since he

had finished it, and it was his one hope for success and freedom; and

yet already he had outgrown it utterly. He realized that if he had had

to go back and do it over, he could not; he could never believe in any

war again, never be interested in any war again. Wars were struggles

among ruling-classes, and whoever won them, the people always lost.

Thyrsis was now girding up his loins for a war upon war.

So there were times when it seemed that a literary career would no

longer be possible to him; that he would have to cast his lot altogether

with the people, and find his work as an agitator of the Revolution. One

day a marvellous plan flashed over him, and he came to Corydon with it,

and for nearly a week they threshed it over, tingling with excitement.

They would sell their home, and raise what money they could, and get

themselves a travelling van and a team of horses and go out upon the

road on a Socialist campaign!

It was a perfectly feasible thing, Thyrsis declared: they would carry a

supply of literature, and would get a commission upon subscriptions to

Socialist papers. He pictured them drawing up on the main street of

some country town, and ringing a dinner-bell to gather the people, and

beginning a Socialist meeting. He would make a speech, and Corydon would

sell pamphlets and books; they had animated discussions as to whether

she might not learn to make a speech also. At least, he argued, she

might sing Socialist songs!

Thyrsis was forever evolving plans of this sort; plans for doing

something concrete, for coming into contact with the world of every

day. The pursuit of literature was something so cold and aloof, so

comfortable and conventional; one never pressed the hand of a person in

distress, one never saw the light of hope and inspiration kindling in

another’s eyes. So he would dream of running a publishing-house or a

magazine, of founding a library or staging a play, of starting a colony

or a new religion. And then, after he had made himself drunk upon the

imagining, he would take himself back to his real job. For that summer

his only indiscretions were to buy several thousand copies of the

“Appeal to Reason”, and hire the old horse and buggy, and distribute

them over some thirty square miles of country; also to help to organize

a club for the study of Socialism at the university; and finally,

when he was in the city, to make a fiery speech at a meeting of some

“Christian Socialists.” Because of this the newspaper reporters dug

out the accounts of his earlier adventures, and “wrote him up” with

malicious bantering. And this, alas--as the publisher pointed out--was a

poor sort of preparation for the launching of the war-novel.

Needless to add, the two did not fail to wrestle with those individuals

whom they met. Thyrsis got a collection of pamphlets, judiciously

selected, and gave them to the butcher and the grocer, the store-clerks

and the hack-drivers in the town. But a college-town was a poor place

for Socialist propaganda, as he realized with sinking heart; its

population was made up of masters and servants, and there was even

more snobbery among the servants than among the masters. The main

architectural features of the place were fraternity-houses and

“eating-clubs”, where the sons of the idle rich disported themselves;

once or twice Thyrsis passed through the town after midnight, and saw

these young fellows reeling home, singing and screaming in various

stages of intoxication. Then he would think of little children shut

up in cotton-mills and coal-mines, of women dying in pottery-works and

lead-factories; and on his way home he would compose a screed for the

“Appeal to Reason”.

Section 7. Another victim of their fervor was the Rev. Mr. Harding,

who stopped in to see them several times upon his tramps. Thyrsis

would never have dreamed of troubling Mr. Harding, but Corydon found

“something in him”, and would go at him hammer and tongs whenever he

appeared. It must have been a novel experience for the clergyman; it

seemed to fascinate him, for he came again and again, and soon quite a

friendship sprang up between the two. She would tell Thyrsis about it

at great length, and so, of course, he had to change his ideas about Mr.

Harding.

“Don’t you see how fine and sensitive he is?” she would plead.

“No doubt, my dear,” said Thyrsis. “But don’t you think he’s maybe just

a bit timid?”

“Timid,” she replied. “But then think of his training! And think what

you are!”

“Yes, I suppose I’m pretty bad,” he admitted.

This discussion took place after he and Mr. Harding had had an argument,

in which Thyrsis had remarked casually that modern civilization was

“crucifying Jesus all over again.” And when Mr. Harding asked for

enlightenment, Thyrsis answered, “My dear man, we crucify him according

to the constitution. We teach the profession of crucifying him. We

invest our capital in the business of crucifying him. We build churches

and crucify him in his own name!”

After which explosion Corydon said, “You let me attend to Mr. Harding. I

understand him, and how he feels about things.”

“All right, my dear,” assented Thyrsis. “When I see him coming, I’ll

disappear.”

But that would not do either, it appeared, for Mr. Harding was a

conventional person, and it was necessary that he should feel he was

calling on the head of the family.

“Then,” said Thyrsis, “I’m supposed to sit by and serve as a chaperon?”

“You’re to answer questions when I ask you to,” replied Corydon.

Through Mr. Harding they made other acquaintances in Bellevue. There

was a Mrs. Jennings, the wife of the young principal of the High School;

they were simple and kindly people, who became fond of Corydon, and

would beg her to visit them. The girl was craving for companionship, and

she would plead with Thyrsis to accompany her, and subject himself

to the agonies of “ping-pong” and croquet; and once or twice he

submitted--and so one might have beheld them, at a lawn-party, hotly

pressed by half a dozen disputants, in a debate concerning the nature of

American institutions, and the future of religion and the home!

Thyrsis seldom took human relationships seriously enough to get

excited in such arguments; but Corydon, with her intense and personal

temperament, made an eager and uncomfortable propagandist. How could

anyone fail to see what was so plain to her? And so she would bring

books and pamphlets, and lend them about. There was a young man named

Harry Stuart, a fine, handsome fellow, who taught drawing at the

High School. In him, also, Cordon discovered possibilities; and she

repudiated indignantly the idea that his soulful eyes and waving brown

hair had anything to do with it. Harry Stuart was a guileless and

enthusiastic member of the State militia; but in spite of this sinister

fact, Corydon went at him. She soon had her victim burning the midnight

oil over Kautsky and Hyndman; and behold, before the autumn had passed,

the ill-fated drawing-teacher had resigned from the State militia, and

was doing cartoons for the “Appeal to Reason”!

Section 8. Corydon’s excitement over these questions was all the greater

because she was just then making the discovery of the relationship of

Socialism to the problems of her own sex. Some one sent her a copy of

Charlotte Gilman’s “Women and Economics”; she read it at a sitting, and

brought it to Thyrsis, who thus came to understand the scientific basis

of yet another article of his faith. He went on to other books--to

Lester Ward’s “Sociology”, and to Bebel’s “Woman”, and to the works of

Havelock Ellis. So he realized that women had not always been clinging

vines and frail flowers and other uncomfortable things; and the hope

that they might some day be interested in other matters than fashion

and sentiment and the pursuit of the male, was not a vain fantasy and a

Utopian dream, but was rooted in the vital facts of life.

Throughout nature, it appeared, the female was often the equal of the

male; and even in human history there had been periods when woman had

held her own with man--when the bearing of children had not been a cause

of degradation. Such had been the case with our racial ancestors, the

Germans; as one found them in Tacitus, their women were strong and free,

speaking with the men in the council-halls, and even going into battle

if the need was great. It was only when they came under the Roman

influence, and met slavery and its consequent luxury, that the Teutonic

woman had started upon the downward path. Christianity also had had a

great deal to do with it; or rather the dogmas which a Roman fanatic had

imposed upon the message of Jesus.

It was interesting to note how one might trace the enslavement of woman,

step by step with the enslavement of labor; the two things went hand in

hand, and stood or fell together. So long as life was primitive, woman

filled an economic function, and held her own with her mate. But with

slavery and exploitation, the heaping up of wealth and the advent of

the leisure-class _régime_, one saw the woman becoming definitely the

appendage of the man, a household ornament and a piece of property;

securing her survival, not by useful labor, but by sexual charm, and

so becoming specialized as a sex-creature. For generations and ages

the male had selected and bred in her those qualities which were most

stimulating to his own desires, which increased in him the sense of his

own dominance; and for generations and ages he taught the doctrine that

the proper sphere of woman was the home. If he happened to be a German

emperor, he summed it up in the sneer of “Kuche, Kinder, Kirche”. So the

woman became frail and impotent physically, and won her success by the

only method that was open to her--by finding some male whom she could

ensnare.

Such had been the conditions. But now, in the present century, had

come machinery, and the development of woman’s labor; and also had come

intelligence, and woman’s discovery of her chains. So there was the

suffrage movement and the Socialist movement. After the overthrow of the

competitive wage-system and of the leisure-class tradition, woman would

no longer sell her sex-functions, whether in marriage or prostitution;

and so the sex might cease to survive by its vices, and to infect the

whole race with its intellectual and moral impotence. So would be set

free the enormous force that was locked up in the soul of woman; and

human life would be transformed by the impulse of emotions that were

fundamental and primal. So Thyrsis perceived the two great causes in

which the progress of humanity was bound up--the emancipation of labor

and the emancipation of woman; to educate and agitate and organize for

which became the one service that was worth while in life.

Section 9. The nights were beginning to grow chilly, and they realized

that autumn was at hand, and faced the prospect of another winter in

that lonely cabin. Paret, who had come down to visit them, had given it

a name--“the soap-box in a marsh.” Thyrsis saw clearly that he could

not settle down to hard work while they were shut up there. Corydon’s

headaches and prostrations seemed to be growing worse, and she could

simply not get through the winter without some help. As the book was

ready, they had some money in prospect, and their idea was that they

would buy a farm with a good house. So they might keep a horse and a cow

and some chickens; and there might be some outdoor work for Thyrsis to

do, instead of trudging aimlessly over the country.

They utilized their spare time by getting the old horse and buggy, and

inspecting and discussing all the farms within five miles of them; an

occupation which put a great strain upon their diverse temperaments.

Thyrsis would be thinking of such matters as roads and fruit-trees

and barns--and above all of prices; while Corydon would be concerned

with--alas, Corydon never dared to formulate her vision, even to

herself. She had vague memories of dilettante country-places with great

open fire-places, and exposed beams, and a broad staircase, and a deep

piazza, and above all, a view of the sunset. Whenever she came upon any

vague suggestion of these luxuries, her heart would leap up--and would

then be crushed by some reference to ten or fifteen thousand dollars.

Corydon was a poor sort of person to take an inspection-trip. She would

gaze about and say, “There might be a piazza here”; and then she would

look across the fields and add, “There’d be a good view if it weren’t

for those woods”--and wave the woods away with the gesture of a duchess.

So, of course, the observant farmer would add a thousand dollars to the

asking-price of his property.

On the other hand, when Thyrsis with his remorseless thoroughness

would insist on getting out and inspecting some dilapidated and

forlorn-looking place--then what agonies would come! Corydon would

pass through the rooms, suffering all the horrors which she might have

suffered in years of occupancy of them. And there was no use pleading

with her to be reserved in her attitude--she took houses in the same

way that she took people, either loving them or hating them. So, from an

afternoon’s driving-trip, she would come home in a state of exhaustion

and despair; and Thyrsis would have to pledge himself upon oath not to

think of this or that horrible place for a single instant again.

There were times when Thyrsis, too, in spite of his lack of intuition,

felt the atmosphere of evil which hung about some of these old farms.

Having lived for a year and a half in the neighborhood, and been favored

with the gossip of the washerwoman, and of the farmer’s wife, and of

the girl who came to clean house now and then, they had come to know the

affairs of their neighbors--they had got a cross-section of an American

small-farming community. It was in amusing accord with Thyrsis’ social

theories that the only two decent families in the neighborhood inhabited

farms of over a hundred acres. There were several farms of fifty or

sixty acres occupied by tenants, who were engaged, in plundering them

as fast as they could; and then a host of little places, of from one to

twenty acres, on which families were struggling pitifully to keep alive.

And with scarcely a single exception, these homes of poverty were also

homes of degradation. Across the way from Thyrsis was an idiot man; upon

the next place lived an old man who was a hopeless drunkard, and had one

son insane, and another tubercular; and then down in the meadows below

the woods lived the Hodges--a name of direful portent. The father would

work as a laborer in town for a day or two, and buy vinegar and make

himself half insane, and then come home and beat his wife and children.

There were eleven of these latter, and a new one came each year; the

eldest were thieves, and the youngest might be seen in midwinter,

playing half-naked before the house. The Hodges were known to all the

neighbors for miles about, and the amount of energy which each farmer

expended in fighting them would have maintained the whole family in

comfort for their lives.

Thyrsis had travelled enough about the New England and Middle Atlantic

states to know that these conditions were typical of the small-farming

industry in all the remoter parts. The people with enterprise had moved

West, and those who stayed behind divided and mortgaged their farms,

and sunk lower and lower into misery and degradation. This was one more

aspect of that noble system of _laissez faire_; this was the independent

small-farmer, whose happiness was the theme of all orthodox economists!

He was, according to the newspaper editorials, the backbone of American

civilization; and once every two years, in November, he might be counted

upon to hitch up his buggy and drive to town, and pocket his two-dollar

bill, and roll up a glorious majority for the Grand Old Party of

Protection and Prosperity.

Section 10. The date of publication of the book had come at last. It was

being generously advertised, under the imprint of a leading house; and

Thyrsis’ heart warmed to see the advertisements. This at last, he felt,

was success; and then the reviews began to come in, and his heart warmed

still more. Here was a new note in current fiction, said the critics;

here were power and passion, a broad sweep and a genuine poetic impulse.

American history had never been treated like this before, American

ideals had never been voiced like this before. And these, Thyrsis noted,

were the opinions of the representative reviews--not those of obscure

provincial newspapers. Victory, it seemed, had come to him at last!

He came up to the metropolis on the strength of these triumphs; for

he had observed that when one had a new book coming out was the

psychological moment to attack the magazine-editors. One was a

personality then, and could command attention. It was the height of

a presidential campaign, and the Socialists were making an impression

which was astonishing every one. The idea had occurred to Thyrsis that

some magazine might judge it worth while to tell its readers about this

new and picturesque movement.

To his great delight the editor of “Macintyre’s Monthly” looked with

favor upon the suggestion, and asked to see an article at once. So

Thyrsis shut himself up in a hotel-room and wrote it over night. It

proved to be so full of “ginger” that the editorial staff of Macintyre’s

was delighted, and made suggestions as to another article; at which

point Thyrsis made a desperate effort and summoned up his courage, and

insinuated politely that his stuff was worth five cents a word. The

editor-in-chief replied promptly that that seemed to him proper.

Two hundred dollars for an article! Here indeed was fame! The author

went home, and thought out another one, and after a week came up to the

city with it.

In this new article Thyrsis cited a presidential candidate before the

bar of public opinion, and propounded troublesome questions to him. Here

was the capital of the country, heaping itself up at compound interest,

and demanding dividends; here were the people, scraping and struggling

to furnish the necessary profits. Would they always be able to furnish

enough; and what would happen when they could no longer furnish them?

Here were franchises obtained by bribery, and capitalized for hundreds

of millions of dollars; and these millions, too, were heaping up

automatically. Were they to draw their interest and dividends forever?

Here were the machines of production, increasing by leaps and bounds,

and the product increasing still faster, and all counting upon foreign

markets. What would happen when Japan had its own machines, and India

had its own machines, and China had its own machines? Again, the

processes of production were being perfected, and displacing men; here

were panics and crises, displacing--yet more men. Already, in England,

a good fourth of the population had been displaced; and what were these

displaced populations to do? They had finished making over the earth for

the capitalists; and now that the work was done, there seemed to be no

longer any place on the earth for them!

Such were the problems of our time, according to Thyrsis; and why did

the statesmen of the time have nothing to say about them? When this

article had been read and discussed, young “Billy” Macintyre himself

sent for Thyrsis. This was the “real thing”, said he, with his genial

_bonhomie_; the five hundred thousand subscribers of Macintyre’s

must surely have these mirth-provoking meditations. Also, the editors

themselves needed badly to be stirred up by such live ideas; therefore

would Thyrsis come to dinner next Friday evening, and, as “Billy”

phrased it, “throw a little Socialism at them”?

Section 11. So Thyrsis moved one step higher yet up the ladder of

success. The younger Macintyre occupied half a block of mansion up on

Riverside Drive--just across the street from the town-house of Barry

Creston’s father. Thyrsis found himself in an entrance-hall where

wonderful pictures loomed vaguely in a dim, religious light; and

a silent footman took his cap, and then escorted him by a soft,

plush-covered stairway to the apartments of “Billy”, who was being

helped into a dress-suit by his valet. Thyrsis, alas, had no dress-suit,

and no valet to help him into it, but he sat on the edge of a big

leather chair and proceeded to “throw a little Socialism” at his host.

Then they went down stairs, and there were Morris and Hemingway, of the

editorial staff, and “Buddie” Comings, most popular of novelists, and

“Bob” Desmond, most famous of illustrators. And a little later on came

Macintyre the elder, who had also been judged to stand in need of some

Socialism.

Macintyre the elder was white-haired and rosy-cheeked. He had begun life

as an emigrant-boy, running errands for a book-shop. In course of time

he had become a partner, and then had started a cheap magazine for the

printing of advertisements. From this had come the reprinting of cheap

books for premiums; until now, after forty years, Macintyre’s was one of

the leading publishing-concerns of the country. Recently the important

discovery had been made that the printing of half-inch advertisements

headed “FITS” and “OBESITY” prevented the securing of full-page

advertisements about automobiles. The former kind was therefore being

diverted to the religious papers of the country, whose subscribers were

now getting the “blood of the lamb” diluted with twenty-five per cent.

alcohol and one and three-fourths per cent. opium. But such facts were

not allowed to interfere with the optimistic philosophy of “Macintyre’s

Monthly”.

The elder Macintyre seemed to Thyrsis the most naïve and lovable old

soul he had encountered in many a year. When he espied Thyrsis, he

waited for no preliminaries, but went up to him as he stood by the

fire-place, and put an arm about him, and led him off to a seat by the

window. “I want to talk to you,” said he.

“My boy,” he went on, “I read that article of yours.”

“Which one?” asked Thyrsis.

“The last one. And you know, Billy’s got to stop putting things like

that in the magazine!”

“What!” cried Thyrsis, alarmed.

“I won’t have it! He must not print that article!”

“But he’s accepted it!”

“I know. But he should have consulted me.”

“But--but I wrote it at his order. And he promised to pay me--”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said the old gentleman, with a genial smile.

“We’ll pay for it, of course.”

There was a moment’s pause, while Thyrsis caught his breath.

“My boy,” continued the other, “that’s a terrible article!”

“Um,” said the author--“possibly.”

“Why do you write such things?”

“But isn’t it true, sir?”

Mr. Macintyre pondered. “You know,” he said, “I think you are a very

clever fellow, and you know a lot; much more than I do, I’ve no doubt.

But what I don’t understand is, why don’t you put it into a book?”

“Into a book?” echoed Thyrsis, perplexed.

“Yes,” explained the other--“then it won’t hurt anybody but yourself.

Why should you try to get it into my magazine, and scare away my

half-million subscribers?”

Section 12. They went in to dinner, which was served upon silver-plate,

by the light of softly-shaded candles; and while the velvet-footed

waiters caused their food to appear and disappear by magic, Thyrsis

fulfilled his mission and “threw Socialism” at the company.

The company had its guns loaded, and they went at it hot and heavy.

The editors wanted to know about “the home” under Socialism; to which

Thyrsis made retort by picturing “the home” under capitalism. They

wanted to know about liberty and individuality under Socialism; and so

Thyrsis discussed the liberty and individuality of the hundred thousand

wage-slaves of the Steel Trust. They sought to tangle him in discussions

as to the desirability of competition, and the impossibility of escaping

it; but Thyrsis would bring them back again and again to the central

fact of exploitation, which was the one fact that counted. They insisted

upon knowing how this, that, and the other thing would be done in the

Cooperative Commonwealth; to which Thyrsis answered, “Do you ask for a

map of heaven before you join the Church?”

It was “Billy” Macintyre who brought up a somewhat delicate question;

how would such an institution as “Macintyre’s Monthly” be run under

Socialism? Thyrsis replied by quoting Kautsky’s formula: “Communism in

material production, Anarchism in intellectual”. He showed how the state

might print and bind and distribute, while men in “free associations”

might edit and publish. But one could not get very far in this

exposition, because of the excitement of the elder Macintyre. For the

old gentleman was like a small boy who is being robbed of his marbles;

if there had been a mob outside his publishing-house, he could not

have been more agitated. He took occasion to state, with the utmost

solemnity, that he disapproved of such discussions; and “Billy”, who sat

between him and Thyrsis, had to interfere now and then and soothe the

“pater” down.

Mr. Macintyre’s views on the subject of capitalism were simple and easy

to understand. There could be nothing really wrong with a system which

had brought so many great and good men into control of the country’s

affairs. Mr. Macintyre knew this, because he had played golf with them

all and gone yachting with them all. And this was a perfectly genuine

conviction; if there had been the slightest touch of sham in it, the

old gentleman would have been more cautious in the examples he chose.

He would name man after man who was among the most notorious of the

country’s “malefactors of great wealth”--men whose financial crimes had

been proven beyond any possibility of doubting. He would name them in

a voice overflowing with affection and admiration, as benefactors of

humanity upon a cosmic scale; and of course that would end the argument

in a gale of laughter. When the elder Macintyre entered the discussion,

all the rest of the company moved forthwith to Thyrsis’ side, and there

were six Socialists confronting one business-man. And this was a very

puzzling and alarming thing to the old gentleman--his son and his

magazine were getting away from him, and he did not know what to make of

the phenomenon!

Section 13. Thyrsis judged that the tidings must have got about that

there was a new “lion” in town; for a couple of days after this he was

called up by Comings, most popular of novelists, who asked him to have

luncheon at the “Thistle” club. And when Thyrsis went, Comings explained

that Mrs. Parmley Fatten had read his book, and was anxious to meet him,

and requested that he be brought round to tea. The other was tactless

enough to let it transpire that he knew nothing about Mrs. Patton; but

Comings was too tactful to show his surprise. Mrs. Patton, he explained,

was socially prominent--was looked upon as the leader of a set that

went in for intellectual things. She was interested in social reform and

woman’s suffrage, and was worth helping along; and besides that, she was

a charming woman--Thyrsis would surely find the adventure worth while.

Then suddenly, while he was listening, it flashed over Thyrsis that

he _had_ heard of Mrs. Patton before; the lady was in mourning for her

brother, and Corydon had recently handed him a “society” item, which

told of some unique and striking “mourning-hosiery” which she was

introducing from Paris.

Thyrsis in former days might have been shy of this phenomenon; but at

present he was a collecting economist on the look-out for specimens, and

so he said he would go. He met Comings again at five o’clock, and they

strolled out Fifth Avenue together to Mrs. Patton’s brown-stone palace.

Thyrsis observed that his friend had been considerate enough to omit his

afternoon change of costume, and for this he was grateful.

Mrs. Patton was still in mourning, a filmy and diaphanous kind of

mourning, beautiful enough to placate the angel Azrael himself. A filmy

and diaphanous creature was Mrs. Patton also--one could never have

dreamed of so exquisite a black butterfly. She was very sweet and

sympathetic, and told Thyrsis how much she had liked his book--so that

Thyrsis concluded she was not half so bad as he had expected. After all,

she might not have been to blame for the hosiery story--it might even

have been a lie. He reflected that the yellow journals no doubt lied as

freely about young leaders of intellectual sets in “society” as they did

about starving authors.

Mrs. Patton wanted to know about Socialism, and sighed because it seemed

so far away. She made several remarks that showed real intelligence--and

this was startling to Thyrsis, who would as soon have expected

intelligence from a real butterfly. He got a strange impression of a

personality struggling to get into contact with life from behind a wall

some ten million dollars high. Mrs. Patton had three young children,

and her husband was one of the “Standard Oil crowd”; she complained to

Thyrsis that “Parmy”--so she referred to the gentleman--was always in

terror over her vagaries.

It was a new discovery to the author that the very rich might live under

the shadow of fear, quite as much as the very poor. Their wealth made

them a target for newspaper satire, so that they dared not depart from

convention in the slightest detail. Mrs. Patton told how once she had

ventured to romp for a few minutes with some children on the grounds

of the “Casino”, and the next day all the world had read that she was

introducing “tag” as a diversion for the Newport colony.

There came other callers, both women and men; Percy Ambler, man of

fashion and dilettante poet; and with him little Murray Symington, who

wrote the literary chat for “Knickerbocker’s Weekly”, and was therefore

a power to be propitiated. There came Blanchard, the young and

progressive publisher of the “Beau Monde”, a weekly whose circulation

rivalled that of “Macintyre’s”. There came also young Macklin, Mrs.

Patton’s nephew, with his monocle and his killing drawl. Macklin came by

these honestly, having been brought up in England; but Thyrsis did not

know that--he only heard the young gentleman’s passing reference to his

yacht, and to his passion for the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé; and so he

had it in for Macklin. Thyrsis had got involved in a serious discussion

with Mrs. Patton and Symington, and was in the act of saying that the

social problem could not be much longer left unsolved; and then he

chanced to turn, and discovered young Macklin, surveying him with

elaborate superciliousness, and asking with his British drawl, “Aw--I

beg pawdon--but what do you mean by the social problem?” And Thyrsis,

with a quick glance at him, answered, “I mean you.” So Macklin subsided;

and Thyrsis learned afterwards that his remark was going the rounds,

being considered to be a _mot_. It appeared the next week in the columns

of a paper devoted to “society” gossip; and many a literary reputation

had been made by a lesser triumph than that.

Thyrsis got new light upon the making of reputations, when he looked

into the next issue of “Knickerbocker’s Weekly”. There he found that

Murray Symington had devoted no less than three paragraphs to his

personality and his book. It was all “sprightly”--that was Murray’s

tone--but also it was cordial; and it referred to Thyrsis’ earlier

novel, “The Hearer of Truth”, as “that brilliant piece of work”. Thyrsis

read this with consternation--recalling that when the book had come

out, not two years ago, “Knickerbocker’s Weekly” had referred to it as

a “preposterous concoction”. Could it be true that an author’s work was

“preposterous” while he was starving in a garret, and became “brilliant”

when he was found in the drawing-room of Mrs. “Parmy” Patton?

Section 14. Thyrsis went on to penetrate yet deeper into these

mysteries; there came a call from Murray Symington, to say that Mrs.

Jesse Dyckman wanted him to dinner. Jesse Dyckman he recognized as the

name of one of the most popular contributors to the magazines--his short

stories of Fifth Avenue life were the delight of the readers of the

“Beau Monde”.

“But I can’t go to dinner-parties with women!” protested Thyrsis. “I

don’t dress!”

Murray took that message; but in a few minutes he called up again. “She

says she doesn’t care whether you dress or not.”

“But then, I don’t _eat!_” protested Thyrsis, who had recently

discovered Horace Fletcher.

“I know _that_ won’t count,” said the other, laughing. “She doesn’t want

you to eat--she wants you to talk.”

Mrs. Jesse Dyckman inhabited an apartment in a “studio-building” not

far from Central Park; and here was more luxury and charm--a dining-room

done in dark red, with furniture of some black wood, and candles and

silver and cut glass, quite after the fashion of the Macintyres. Thyrsis

was admitted by a French maid-servant; and there was Mrs. Dyckman,

resplendent in white shoulders and a necklace of pearls; and there was

Dyckman himself, even more prosperous and contented-looking than his

pictures, and even more brilliant and cynical than his tales. Also there

was his sister, Mrs. Partridge, the writer of musical comedies; and a

Miss Taylor, who filled the odd corners of the magazines with verses,

which Corydon had once described as “cheap cheer-up stuff”.

So here was the cream of the “literary world”; and Thyrsis, as he

watched and listened to it, was working out the formula of magazine

success. Mrs. Dyckman sat next to him, displaying her shoulders and her

culture; it seemed to him that she must have spent all her spare time

picking up phrases about the books and pictures and plays and music

of the hour, so as to be ready for possible mention of them at her

dinner-parties. She had opinions on tap about everything; opinions

just enough “advanced” to be striking and original, and yet not too far

“advanced” for good form. Jesse Dyckman’s short stories were the sort

in which you read how the hero handled his cigarette, and were told that

the heroine was clad in “dimity _en princesse”_. You learned the names

of the latest fashionable drinks, and the technicalities of automobiles,

and met with references to far-off and intricate standards of social

excellence.

To Thyrsis it appeared that he could see before him the whole career

of such a man. He had trained himself by years of apprenticeship in

snobbery; he had studied the fashions not only in costume and manners,

but also in books and opinions. He had been educated in a “fraternity”,

and had chosen a wife who had been educated in a “sorority”; they had

set up in this apartment, with silver service and three French servants,

and proceeded to give dinners, and cultivate people who “counted.” And

so had come the pleasant berth with the “Beau Monde”; one or two stories

every month, and one thousand dollars for each story--as one might read

in all newspaper accounts of the “earnings of authors”.

The “Beau Monde” might have been described as a magazine for the

standardizing of the newly-rich. A group of these existed in every town

in the country, and had their “society” in every little city. They would

come to New York and put up at expensive hotels, and get their education

in theatres and opera-houses and “lobster-palaces”; in addition they had

this weekly messenger of good form. In its advertising-columns one read

of the latest things in cigarettes and highballs and haberdashery and

candies and autos; and in its reading-matter one found the leisure-class

world, and the leisure-class idea of all other worlds. Young Blanchard

himself was in the most “exclusive” society; and if one stayed close

to him, one might worm his way past the warders. Among the regular

contributors to the “Beau Monde” and to “Macintyre’s”, there were a

dozen men who had risen by this method; and some of them had been real

writers at the outset--had started with a fund of vigor, at least. But

now they spent their evenings at dinner-parties, and their days lounging

about in two or three expensive cafés, reading the afternoon papers,

exchanging gossip, and acquiring the necessary stock of cynicism for

their next picture of leisure-class life.

It was what might have been described as the “court method” of literary

achievement. The centre of it was the young prince who held the

purse-strings; and the court was a coterie of bookish men of fashion and

rich women whose husbands were occupied in the stock-market. They set

the tone and dispensed the favors; one who stood in their good graces

would be practically immune to criticism, no matter how seedy his work

might come to be. Nobody liked to “roast” a man with whom he had played

golf at a week-end party; and who could be so impolite as to slight the

work of a lady-poetess whom he had taken in to dinner?

Section 15. Thyrsis studied these people, and measured himself against

them. He was not blinded by any vanity; he knew that it would not have

taken him a week to turn out a short story which would have had the

requisite qualities for Macintyre’s--which would have been clever

and entertaining, would have had genuine sentiment, and as large

a proportion of sincerity as the magazine admitted. He could have

suggested that he thought it was worth five hundred dollars, and “Billy”

Macintyre would have nodded and sent him a check. And then he could have

moved up to town, and got a frock-coat, and paid another call upon Mrs.

“Parmy” Patton. Then his friend Comings would have put him up for the

“Thistle”, he would have got to know the men who made literary opinion,

and so his career would have been secure.

Nor need he have made any apparent break with his convictions. In

“society” one met all sorts of eccentrics--“babus” and “yogis”,

Christian Scientists, spiritualists and theosophists, Fletcherites,

vegetarians and “raw-fooders”. And there would be ample room for his

fad--it was quite “English” to be touched with Socialism. All that one

had to do was to be entertaining in one’s presentation of it, and to

confine one’s self to its literary aspects--not setting forth plans for

the expropriation of the house of Macintyre!

Thyrsis had one grievous handicap, of course. He would have had to keep

his wife and child in the background; for Corydon, alas, would not

have scored as a giver of dinner-parties. From a woman like Mrs. Jesse

Dyckman, skilled in intellectual fence, and merciless to her inferiors,

Corydon would have turned tail and fled. Thyrsis was able to sit by and

let Mrs. Dyckman wave the plumes of her wit and spread the tail-feathers

of her culture before his astonished eyes, and at the same time

occupy his mind with studying her, and working out her “economic

interpretation”. But Corydon took life too intensely, and people too

personally for that.

But she would have let him go, if he had told her that it was best.

So why should he not do it--why should he turn his back upon this

opportunity, and return to the “soap-box in a marsh” to wrestle with

loneliness and want? The fact of the matter was that the thing which

seemed so easy to his intellect, was impossible to his character.

Thyrsis could not have anything to do with these people without

hypocrisy; merely to sit and talk pleasantly with them was to lie. They

were to him the enemy, the thing he was in life to fight. And he hated

all that they stood for in the world--he hated their ideas and their

institutions, their virtues as well as their vices.

He had been down into the bottom-most pit of hell, and the sights that

he had seen there had withered him up. How could he derive enjoyment

from silks and jewels, from rich foods and fine wines, when he heard in

his ears the cries of agony of the millions he had left behind him in

that seething abyss? And should he trample upon their faces, as so many

others had trampled? Should he make a ladder of their murdered hopes, to

climb out to fame and fortune? Not he!

It seemed to him sometimes, as he thought about it, that he alone, of

all men living, had power to voice the despair of these tortured souls.

Others had been down into that pit, and had come out alive; but who was

there among them that was an _artist;_ that could forge his hatred into

a weapon, sharp enough and stout enough to be driven through the tough

hide of the world of culture? To be an artist meant to have spent

years and decades in toil and study, in disciplining and drilling one’s

powers; and who was there that had descended into the social inferno,

and had come back with strength enough to accomplish that labor?

So it seemed to him that he was the bearer of a gospel, that he had to

teach the world something it could otherwise not know. He had tried out

upon his own person, and upon the persons of his loved ones, the effects

of poverty and destitution, of cold and hunger, of solitude and sickness

and despair. And so he knew, of his own knowledge, the meaning of the

degradation that he saw in modern society--of suicide and insanity, of

drunkenness and vice and crime, of physical and mental and moral decay.

He knew, and none could dispute him! Therefore he must nerve himself for

the struggle; he must deliver that message, and pound home that truth.

He must keep on and on--in defiance of authority, in the face of all the

obloquy and ridicule that the prostitute powers of civilization could

heap upon him. He must live for that work, and die for it--to make real

to the thinking world the infamies and the horrors of the capitalist

_régime_.

BOOK XV

THE CAPTIVE FAINTS

_“Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go?

Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on.”

“Do you remember how you used to tell me that?” she whispered.

“Hoping--always hoping!”

“And always young!” he added.

“How did I keep so?” she said, with wonder in her voice; and he read--

“Thou nearest the immortal chants--of old!--

Putting his sickle to the perilous grain

In the hot corn-field of the Phrygian king,

For thee the Lityerses-song again

Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing!”

Then a smile of mischief crossed her face, and she asked, “Which

Daphnis?”_

Section 1. Thyrsis came back to his home in the country, divided

between satisfaction over the four hundred dollars worth of booty he had

captured, and a great uneasiness concerning his novel. It had had with

the critics all the success that he could have asked, but unfortunately

it did not seem to be selling. Already it had been out three weeks,

and the sales had been only a thousand copies. The publisher confessed

himself disappointed, but said that it was too early to be certain; they

must allow time for the book to make its way, for the opinions of the

reviews to take effect.

And so, for week after week, Thyrsis watched and hoped against hope--the

old, heart-sickening experience. In the end he came to realize that

he had achieved that most cruel of all literary ironies, the _succés_

_d’estime_. The critics agreed that he had written a most unusual book;

but then, the critics did not really count--they had no way of making

their verdict effective. What determined success or failure was the

department-store public. It would take a whim for a certain novel; and

when a novel had once begun to sell, it would be advertised and pushed

to the front, and everything else would give way before it, quite

regardless of what the critic’s had said. A book-review appeared only

once, but an advertisement might appear a score of times, and be

read all over the country. So the public would have pounded into its

consciousness the statement that “Hearts Aflame”, by Dorothy Dimple, was

a masterpiece of character-drawing, full of thrilling incident and

alive with pulsing passion. The department-store public, which was

not intelligent enough to distinguish between a criticism and an

advertisement, would accept all these opinions at their face-value. And

that was success; even the critics bowed to it in the end--as you might

note by the change in their tone when they came to review the next work

by this “popular” novelist.

So Thyrsis faced the ghastly truth that another year and a half of

toiling and waiting had gone for nothing--the heights of opportunity

were almost as far away as ever. He had to summon up his courage and

nerve himself for yet another climb; and Corydon would have to face the

prospect of another winter in the “soap-box in a marsh”.

It was now November, and Thyrsis had written nothing but Socialist

manifestoes for six months. He was restless and chafing again; but

living in distress as they were, he could not get his thoughts together

at all. He must have been a trying person to live in the house with at

such a time. “You ask me to take love for granted,” said Corydon to him

once; “but how can I, when your every expression is contradictory to

love?”

How could he explain to her his trouble? Here again was the pressure of

that dreadful “economic screw”, that was crushing their love, and all

beauty and joy and hope in their hearts. They might fight against it

with all the power of their beings; they might fall down upon their

knees together, and pledge themselves with anguish in their voices and

tears in their eyes; but still the remorseless pressure would go on, day

and night, week after week, without a moment’s respite.

There was this little house, for instance. It was all that Thyrsis

wanted, and all that he would ever have wanted; and yet he could not be

happy in it, because Corydon was not happy in it. He must be plotting

and planning and worrying, straining every nerve to get to another

house; he might not even think of any other possibility--that would be

treason to her. So always it seemed--he had to turn his face a way that

he did not wish to travel, he had to go on against every instinct of

his own nature. His love for Corydon was such that he would be ashamed

whenever his own instincts showed themselves. But then he would go

alone, and try to do his work, and then discover the havoc this had

wrought in his own being.

Just now the tension had reached the breaking point; the craving for

solitude and peace was eating him up.

“What is it that you want?” asked Corydon, one day.

“I want to be where I don’t have to see anybody,” he cried. “I want to

rough it in a tent, as I did once before.”

“But it’s too late to go to the Adirondacks, Thyrsis!”

“I know that,” he said. “But there are other places.”

He had heard of one in Virginia--in that very Wilderness of which he

had written so eloquently, but had never seen. “Isn’t there some one who

could come and stay with you?” he pleaded.

“I don’t know,” replied Corydon. But the next day, as fate would have

it, there came a letter from Delia Gordon, saying that she had finished

a certain stage of her study-course, and was tired out and in fear of

break-down. So an invitation was sent and accepted, and Thyrsis secured

the respite which he craved.

And so behold him as a hermit once more, settled in a deserted cabin not

far from the battle-field of Spotsylvania. He had got rid of the vermin

in the cabin by burning sulphur, and had stocked his establishment with

a canvas-cot and a camp-stool and a lamp and an oil-can, and the usual

supply of beans and bacon and rice and corn-meal and prunes. Also he had

built himself a rustic table, and unpacked a trunkful of blankets and

dishes and writing-pads and books. So once more his life was his own,

and a thing of delight to him.

He had promised himself to live off the country, as he had before; but

the principal game here was the wild turkey, and the wild turkey proved

itself a shy and elusive bird. It was not occupied with meditations

concerning literary masterpieces; and so it had a great advantage over

Thyrsis, who would forget that he had a gun with him after the first

half-hour of a “hunt”.

Section 2. It had now become clear to Thyrsis that he had nothing more

to expect from his novel; it had sold less than two thousand copies,

which meant that it had not earned the money which had already been

advanced to him. But all that was now ancient history--the entrenchments

and graveyards of the Wilderness battlefield were not more forgotten and

overgrown with new life than was the war-book in Thyrsis’ mind. He had

had enough of being a national chronicler which the nation did not want;

he had come down to the realities of the hour, to the blazing protest of

the new Revolution.

For ten years now Thyrsis had been playing at the game of professional

authorship; he had studied the literary world both high and low, and had

seen enough to convince him that it was an impossible thing to produce

art in such a society. The modern world did not know what art was, it

was incapable of forming such a concept. That which it called “art” was

fraud and parasitism--its very heart was diseased.

For the essence of art was unselfishness; it was an emotion which

overflowed, and which sought to communicate itself to others from an

impulse of pure joy. It was of necessity a social thing; the supreme

art-products of the race had been, like the Greek tragedy and the Gothic

cathedral, a result of the labor of a whole community. And what could

the modern man, a solitary and predatory wolf in the wilderness of

_laissez_ _faire_--what could he conceive of such a state of soul? What

would happen to a man who gave himself up to such a state of soul, in a

community where the wolf-law and the wolf-customs prevailed?

A grim purpose had been forming itself in Thyrsis’ mind. He would

suppress the artist in himself for the present--he would do it, cost

whatever agony it might. He would turn propagandist for a while; instead

of scattering his precious seed in barren soil, he would set to work

to make the soil ready. There was seething in his mind a work of

revolutionary criticism, which would sweep into the rubbish-heap the

idols of the leisure-class world.

It was his idea to go back to first principles; to study the bases of

modern society, and show how its customs and institutions came to be,

and interpret its art as a product of these. He would show what the

modern artist was, and how he got his living, and how this moulded his

work. He would take the previous art-periods of history and study

them, showing by what stages the artist had evolved, and so gaining

a stand-point from which to prophesy what he would come to be in the

future. Only once had an attempt ever been made to apply to questions

of art the methods of science--in Nordau’s “Degeneration”. But then

Nordau’s had been pseudo-science--three-quarters impertinence and

conceit. The world still waited to understand its art-products in the

light of scientific Socialism.

Such was the task which Thyrsis was planning. It would mean years of

study, and how he was to get the means to do it, he could not guess.

But he had his mind made up to do it, though it might be the last of his

labors, though everything else in his life might end in shipwreck. He

went about all day, possessed with the idea; it would be a colossal

work, an epoch-making work--it would be the culmination of his efforts

and the vindication of his claims. It would save the men who came after

him; and to save the men who came after him had now become the formula

of his life.

Section 3. Thyrsis would come back from a sojourn such as this with all

his impulses of affection and sympathy renewed; he would have had time

to miss Corydon, and to realize how closely he was bound to her. He

would be eager to tell her all his adventures, and the wonderful plans

which he had formed.

But this time it was Corydon who had adventures to narrate. He realized

as soon as he saw her that she had something upon her mind; and at the

first occasion she led him off to his own study, and shut the door. He

got a fire going, and she sat opposite him and gazed at him.

“Thyrsis,” she said, “I hardly know how to begin.”

It was all very formal and mysterious. “What is it, dear?” he asked.

“It’s something terrible,” she whispered. “I’m afraid you’re going to be

angry.”

“What is it?” he repeated, more anxiously.

“I was angry myself, at first,” she said; “but I’ve got over it now. And

I want you please to be reasonable.”

“Go on, dear.”

“Thyrsis,” she whispered, after a pause, “it’s Harry.”

“Harry?”

“Harry Stuart, you know.”

“Oh,” said he. He had all but forgotten the young drawing-teacher, whom

he had left doing Socialist cartoons.

“Well?” he inquired.

“You see, Thyrsis, I always liked him very much. And he’s been coming up

here--quite a good deal. I didn’t see why he shouldn’t come--Delia liked

him too, and she was with us most of the time. Was it wrong of me to let

him come?”

“I don’t know,” said he. “Tell me.”

“Perhaps it’s silly of me,” Corydon continued, hesitatingly--“but I’m

always imagining things about people. And he seemed to me to have such

possibilities. He has--how shall I say it--”

“I recall your saying he had soulful eyes,” put in Thyrsis.

“You’ll make fun of it all, of course,” said Corydon. “But it’s really

very tragic. You see, he’s never met a woman like me before.”

“I can believe that, my dear.”

“I mean--a woman that has any real ideas. He would ask me questions by

the hour; and we talked about everything. So, of course, we talked about

love; and he--he asked if I was happy.”

“I see,” said Thyrsis, grimly. “Of course you said that you were

miserable.”

“I didn’t say much. I told him that your work was hard, and that my

courage wasn’t always equal to my task. Anyone can see that I have

suffered.”

“Yes, dear,” said Thyrsis, “of course. Go on.”

“Well, one day--it was last Friday--he came up with a carriage to take

us driving. And Delia had a headache, and wanted to rest, and so Harry

and I went alone. I--I guess I shouldn’t have gone, but I didn’t realize

it. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we both had a good time--in fact,

I don’t know when I have been so contentedly happy. We stopped to gather

wild flowers, and once we sat by a little stream; and of course, we

talked and talked, and before I realized it, twilight was falling, and

we were a long way from home.”

“Go on,” said Thyrsis, as she hesitated.

“We started out. I recollected later, though I didn’t seem to notice

it at the time--that Harry’s voice seemed to grow husky, and he spoke

indistinctly. He had let the horse have the reins, and his arm was

on the back of my seat. I hadn’t noticed it; but then--then--fancy my

horror--”

“Well?”

“It happened--all of a sudden.” Corydon stammered, her cheeks turning

scarlet. “I felt his arm clasp me; and I turned and stared, and his face

was close to mine, and his eyes were fairly shining.”

There was a pause. “What did you do?” asked the other.

“I just looked at him calmly, and said, ‘Oh, how _could_ you?’ And at

that he took his arm away quickly, and sat up stiff and straight, with

a terribly hurt expression. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I was mad.’ And we

neither of us spoke a word all the way home. And when we came to the

house, I jumped out of the carriage without saying good-night.”

Corydon sat staring at her husband, with her wide-open, anxious eyes.

“And was that all?” he asked.

“To-day I had a letter from him. He said he was going away, over the

Christmas holidays. He said that he was very much ashamed of himself,

and he hoped that I would be able to forgive him. And that’s all.”

They sat for a while in silence. “You won’t be too angry?” asked

Corydon, anxiously.

“I’m not angry at all,” he said. “But naturally it’s disturbing. I don’t

like to have such things happen to you.”

“It’s strange, you know,” said Corydon, “but I haven’t seemed to stay

very indignant. He was so hurt, you know--and I can realize how unhappy

he’s been. Curiously enough, I’ve even found myself thinking that I’d

like to see him again. And that puzzled me. I felt that I ought to

be quite outraged. That he should imagine he could hug me--like any

shop-girl!”

They spent many hours discussing this adventure; in fact it was a week

or two before they had disposed of it entirely. Thyrsis was hoping

that the experience might be utilized to persuade Corydon to modify her

utopian attitude towards young men with soulful eyes and waving brown

hair. He was at some pains to set forth to her the psychology of the

male creature--insisting that he knew more about this than she did, and

that his remarks applied to drawing-teachers as well as to all other

arts and professions.

The main question, of course, was as to their attitude towards Harry

Stuart when he returned. Corydon, it became clear, had forgiven him; the

phraseology of his letter was touching, and he was now invested in the

glamor of penitence. She insisted that the episode might be overlooked,

and that their friendship could go on as before. But Thyrsis argued

vigorously that their relationship could never be the same again, and

declared that they ought not to meet.

“But then,” Corydon protested, “he’ll be at the Jennings! And I can’t

snub him!”

“What does Delia think about it?” he asked.

“Dear me!” Corydon exclaimed. “I haven’t told Delia a word of it!”

“Haven’t told her! But why not?”

“Because she’d be horrified. She’d never speak to Harry Stuart again!”

“But then you want _me_ to speak to him! And even to be cordial to him!

You want to go ahead and carry on a sentimental flirtation with him--”

“Oh, Thyrsis!” she protested.

“But that’s what it would come to. And how much peace of mind do you

suppose I’d have, while I knew that was going on?”

At which Corydon sighed pathetically. “I’m a fine sort of emancipated

woman!” she said. “Don’t you see you’re playing the role of the

conventional jealous husband?”

But as she thought over the matter in the privacy of her own mind she

was filled with perplexity, and wondered at herself. She found herself

actually longing to see Harry Stuart. She asked herself, “Can it really

be I, Corydon, who am capable of being interested in any other man

besides my husband?” She could not bring herself to face the fact that

it was true.

Section 4. Thyrsis went away, and took to wandering about the country,

wrestling with his new book. After the fashion of every work that came

to possess him, it seemed to possess him as no other work had ever done

before. His mind was in a turmoil with it, his thoughts racing from one

part to another; he would stop in the midst of pumping a bucket of water

or bringing in a supply of wood, to jot down some notes that came to

him. Each day he realized more fully the nature of the task. Seated

alone at night in his tiny cabin, his spirit would cry out in terror at

the burden that had been heaped upon it.

He had decided upon the title of the book--“Art and Money: an Essay in

the Economic Interpretation of Literature”. And then, late one night, as

he was pondering it, there had flashed over him the form into which he

should cast the work; he would make it, not only an exposition of his

philosophy, but the story of his life, the cry of his soul. There had

come to him an introductory statement; it was a smashing thing--a thing

that would arrest and stun! Disraeli had said that a critic was a man

who had failed as a creative writer; and Thyrsis would take that taunt

and make it into his battle-cry. “I who write this,” he would say--“I

am a failure; I am a murdered artist! I sit by the corpse of my dead

dreams, I dip my pen into the heart’s blood of my strangled vision!” So

he would indict the forces that had murdered him, and through the rest

of the book he would pursue them--he would track them to their lair and

corner them, and slay them with a sharp sword.

Meantime Delia Gordon had gone back to her studies, and Corydon had

settled down to her lonely task. She washed and dressed and fed the

baby, and satisfied what she could of his insatiable demands for play.

Thyrsis would come and help to get the meals and wash the dishes; but

even then he was poor company--he was either tired out, or lost in

thought, and his nerves were in such a state that he could not bear to

be criticized. It was getting to be harder for him to endure the strain

of hearing complaints; and so Corydon shrunk more and more into herself,

and took to pouring out her soul in long letters and journals.

“Is it possible,” she wrote to Delia, “that to some people life is a

continuous expiation--an expiation of submerged hereditary sins, as

well as of conscious ones? A great deal of the time life seems to me a

hopeless puzzle; I am so utterly unfitted for the roles I labor to play.

Is it that I am too low for my environment? Or can it be that I am too

high? Surely there must some day be other things that women can do in

the world besides training children. I try to love my task, but I have

no talent for it, and it is a frightful strain upon me. After one hour

of blocks and choo-choo cars, I am perfectly prostrated. I have been

cheated out of the joys of motherhood, that is the truth--the spring was

poisoned for me at the very beginning.

“You must not mind my lamentations, dear Delia,” she wrote in another

letter. “You can’t imagine how lonely my life is--no, for it is

different when you are here. Oh, I am so weary! so weary! It didn’t use

to be like this. Every moment of leisure I had I would run and try to

study; I would read something--I was always eager and hungry. But now

I am dull--I do not follow my inspirations. If only Thyrsis and I might

sometimes read together! I love to be read to, but he cannot bear it--he

reads three times as fast to himself, he says. He will do it if I am

sick; but even then it makes him nervous, and I cannot help but know

that, however he tries to hide it. It is one of our troubles, but we

know each other’s states of mind intuitively.

“Oh, Delia, was there ever a tragedy in the world like that of our love?

(Almost everything in our lives is pain, and so we are coming to stand

for pain to each other!) I ask myself sometimes if any two people who

love could stand what we have to stand. Sometimes I think they could,

if their love was different; but then that thought breaks my heart! Why

cannot our love be different, I ask!

“I had one of my frightful fits of unhappiness to-day. It was

nothing--it was my fault, I guess. I am very sensitive. But I think it

is a tendency of Thyrsis’ temperament to try instinctively to overcome

mine. Apparently the only thing that will conquer him is seeing me

suffer; then he will give way--he will promise anything I want, blame

himself for his rigidity, scourge himself for his blindness, do anything

at all I ask. So I tell myself, everything will be different now; the

last problem is solved! I see how good and kind he is, how noble his

impulses are; he has never failed me in the big things of life.

“I suppose Mr. Harding writes you about us. He was up here this

afternoon. He was very gentle and kind to me; he talked about his

religion. Did you tell him much about me? It is a singular thing, how he

seems to understand without being told. I realized to-day that whenever

we talk about my life, we take everything for granted. Also, it seems

strange that he does not blame me; generally people who are conventional

think that I am selfish, that I ought to be loving my baby, instead of

struggling with my pitiful soul.

“I wrote a little stanza the other night, dear Delia. Doesn’t it seem

strange, that when I am at the last gasp with agony, I should find

myself thinking of lines of poetry? I called it ‘Life’; you will say

that it is too sombre--

“‘A lonely journey in a night of storm, Lighted by flashes of inconstant

faith, Goaded by multitudes of vague desires, And mocked by phantoms of

remote delight!’”

Section 5. Just at this time Corydon found herself the victim of

backaches and fits of exhaustion, for which there was no cause to be

discovered. Each attack meant that Thyrsis would have to drop his work,

and come and be housekeeper and nurse; he would have to repress every

slightest sign of the impatience, which, was burning him up--knowing

that if he gave vent to it, he would drive Corydon half-wild with

suffering. After two or three such crises, he made up his mind that it

was impossible for him to go on, until there was some one to help her in

these emergencies.

As a result of their farm-hunting expeditions, they had in mind a place

which was a compromise between their different requirements. It had a

good barn and plenty of fruit, and at the same time a view, and a

house with comfortable rooms, and wall-paper that was not altogether

unendurable. It was offered for four thousand dollars, of which nearly

three-quarters might remain upon mortgage; so they had agreed that their

future happiness would depend upon the war-book’s bringing them in a

thousand dollars. Since this hope had failed, he had applied to Darrell,

and to Paret, but neither of them had the money to spare. It now fell

out, that just as he was at the point of desperation, he received a

letter from the clergyman who had married them, Dr. Hamilton. This

worthy man had been reading Thyrsis’ manuscripts and following his

career; and he now wrote to tell how greatly he had been impressed by

the new novel. Whereupon the author was seized by a sudden resolve, and

packed up a hand-satchel and set out for the city, with all the forces

of his being nerved for an assault upon this ill-fated clergyman.

Dr. Hamilton sat in his little office, looking pale and worn, his face

deeply seamed with lines of care. As the poet thought of it in later

years, he realized that this man’s function in life was to be a

clearing-house for human misery--the wrecks of the competitive system in

all classes and grades of society came to him to pour out their troubles

and beg for help. It was not so very long afterwards that he went to

pieces from overwork and nervous strain; and Thyrsis wondered with a

guilty feeling how much his own assault had contributed to this result.

Assuredly it could not happen often that a clergyman had to listen to a

more harrowing tale than this “murdered artist” had to tell.

The doctor heard it out, and then began to argue: like the

philanthropist in Boston, he was greatly troubled by the fear of

“weakening the springs of character”. Being an “advanced” clergyman, he

was familiar with the pat phrases of evolutionary science--his mind was

a queer jumble of the philosophy of Herbert Spencer and that of Thomas

à Kempis. But Thyrsis just now was in a mood which might have moved even

Spencer himself; he was almost frantic because of Corydon, whom he had

left half-ill at home. He was not pleading for himself, he said--he

could always get along; but oh, the horror of having to kill his wife

for the sake of his books! To have to sit by day by day and watch her

dying! He told about that night when Corydon had tried to kill herself;

and now another winter was upon them, and he knew that unless something

were done, the spring-time would not find her alive.

The suicide story turned the balance with the clergyman; Herbert Spencer

was put back upon the shelf, and Thomas à Kempis ruled the day. Dr.

Hamilton said that he would see one of his rich parishioners, and

persuade him to take a second mortgage on the farm. And so Thyrsis went

back, a messenger of wondrous tidings.

A few days later came the check. The deed had been got ready; and

Thyrsis drove to the farm, and carried off the farmer and his wife to

the nearest notary-public. The old man pleaded to stay in his home until

the new year, but Thyrsis was obdurate, allowing him only a week in

which to get himself and his belongings to another place. And meantime

he and Corydon were packing up. They drove to another “vandew”, and

purchased more odds and ends of household stuff; and Thyrsis had his

little study loaded upon a wagon, and taken to the new place.

A wonderful adventure was this moving! To enter a real house, with two

stories, and two pairs of stairs, and eight rooms, and a cellar, and

regular plastered walls, and no end of closets and shelves and such-like

domestic luxuries! To be able to set apart a whole room in which the

baby might spread himself with his toys and marbles and dolls and

picture-books--and without any one’s having to stumble over them, and

break their owner’s heart! To have a real parlor, with a stove to sit

by, and a table for a lamp, and shelves for books; and yet another room

to eat in, and another to cook in! To be able to have a woman come to

wash the dishes without making a bosom friend of her, and having

her hear all the conversation! To be able to walk through fields and

orchards and woodland, and know that they belonged to one’s self,

and would some day shed their coat of snow and blossom into new life!

Thyrsis wished that he could have the book out of his mind for a month,

so that he might be properly thrilled by this experience.

It was at the Christmas season, and therefore an appropriate times for

celebrating. He went down into the “wood-lot”--their own “wood-lot”--and

cut a spruce tree, and set it up in the dining-room; they hung thereon

all the contrivances which the associated grandparents had sent down to

commemorate an occasion which was not only Christmas and house-warming,

but the baby’s third birthday as well. Because of the triple

conjunction, they invested in a fat goose, to be roasted in the new

kitchen-range; and besides this there were some spare-ribs and home-made

sausages with which a neighbor had tempted them. It was a regular

storybook Christmas, with a snow-storm raging outside, and the wind

howling down the chimney, and an odor of molasses-taffy pervading the

house.

Section 6. After which festivities Thyrsis bid farewell to his family

once more, and went away to wrestle with his angel. Weeks of failure and

struggle it cost him before he could get back what he had lost--before

he could recall those phrases that had once blazed white-hot in his

brain, and could see again the whole gigantic form and figure of

his undertaking. Many an hour he spent pacing his little eight-foot

piazza--four steps and a half each way, back and forth; many a night

he would sit before his little fourteen-inch stove, so lost in his

meditations that the stove would lose its red-hot glow, and the icy

gale which raged outside and rattled the door would steal in through the

cracks and set him to shivering.

Other times he would trudge through the snow and mud to the town,

spending the day in the library, and then bringing out an armful of

books to last him through the night. Thyrsis had read pretty thoroughly

the literature of the six languages he knew; but now--this was the

appalling nature of his task--he had to go back and read it over again.

He did not realize, until he got actually at the work, what an utter

overturning there would be in all his ideas. How strange it was to

return and read the “classics” of one’s youth! What oceans of futility

one discovered, what mountains of pretense--and with what forests of

scholarship grown over them! It seemed to Thyrsis that everywhere he

turned the search-light of his new truth, the structure of his

opinions would topple like a house of cards. Truly, here was a

_“Götzendämmerung”_, an _“Umwertung aller Werthe”!_

The worst of it was that he had to read, not only literature, but also

history--often his own kind of history, that had not yet been written.

If he wished to know the Shakespearean dramas as a product of the

aristocratic and imperialist ideal in the glory and intoxication of its

youth, he had to study, not only Shakespeare’s poetry, but the cultural

and social life of the Elizabethan people. And he could not take any

man’s word for the truth; he had to know for himself. The thing that

would avail him in this battle was not eloquence and fervor, not the

flashes of his irony and the white-hot shafts of his scorn. What he must

have were facts, and more facts--and then again facts!

The facts were there, to be had for the gathering. Thyrsis again could

only compare himself to Aladdin in his palace. Could it be believed that

so many ideas had been left for one man to discover? It seemed to him,

that the kingdoms of literature lay at his mercy; he was like a magician

who has discovered a new spell, which places his rivals in his power. He

knew that this book, if he could ever finish it, would alter the aspect

of literary criticism, as a blow changes the pattern in a kaleidoscope.

Thyrsis had failed many times before, but this time he felt that success

was in his hands; he knew the bookworld now, he was master of the game.

This would set them to thinking, this would stir them up! He had got

under the armor of his enemy at last, and he could feel him wince and

writhe at each thrust that he drove home. So he wrought at his task, in

a state of tense excitement, living always in imagination in the midst

of the battle, following stroke with stroke and driving a rout before

him.--So he would be for weeks; and then would come the reaction, when

he fell back exhausted, and realized that his victory was mere phantasy,

that nothing of it really counted until he had completed his labor. And

that would take two years! Two years!

Section 7. From visions such as this Thyrsis came back to wrestle with

all the problems of a household; with pumps that froze and drains

that clogged, with stoves that went out and ashes that spilled, with

milk-boys that were late and kitchen-maids that were snow-bound. He

would leave his work at one or two o’clock in the morning, and make his

way through the snow and the storm to the house, and crawl into bed, and

then take his chances of being awakened by the baby, or by some spell of

agony with Corydon.

He might not sleep alone; that supreme symbol of domesticity Corydon

could not give up, and he soon ceased to ask for it. It seemed such a

little thing to yield; and yet it meant so much to him! The room where

he slept came to seem to him a chamber of terror, a place to which he

went “like the galley-slave at night, scourged to his dungeon”. It was

a place where a crime was enacted; where the vital forces of his being

were squandered, and the body and soul of him were wrung and squeezed

dry like a sponge. This was marriage--it was the essence of marriage; it

was the slavery into which he had delivered himself, the duty to which

he was bound. And in how many millions of homes was this same thing

going on--this licensed preying of one personality upon another? And

the nightmare thing was upheld and buttressed by all the forces of

society--priests were saying blessings over it and moralists were

singing the praises of it--“the holy bonds of matrimony”, it was called!

It was all the worse to Thyrsis because there was that in him which

welcomed this animal intimacy. So he saw that day by day their lives

were slipping to a lower plane; day by day they were discovering new

weaknesses and developing new vices in themselves. Corydon was now

a good part of the time in pain of some sort; and the doctors had

accustomed her to stave off these crises with various kinds of drugs,

so that she had a set of shelves crowded with pills and powders and

bottles. She had learned to rely upon them in emergencies, to plead for

them when she was helpless; and so Thyrsis saw her declining into an

inferno. He would argue with her and plead with her and fight with her;

he would spend days trying to open her eyes to the peril, to show her

that it was better to suffer pain than to resort to these treacherous

aids.

Section 8. They still had their hours of enthusiasm, of course, their

illuminations and their resolutions. During the summer, while browsing

among the English magazines in the library, Thyrsis had stumbled upon an

astonishing article dealing with the subject of health. He read it in a

state of great excitement, and then took it home and read it to Corydon.

It told of the achievements of a gentleman by the name of Horace

Fletcher, who had once possessed robust health, and lost it through

careless living, and had then restored it by a new system of eating. To

Thyrsis this came as one of the great discoveries of his life. For years

every instinct of his nature had been whispering to him that his ways of

eating were vicious; but he had been ignorant and helpless--and with all

the world that he knew in opposition to him. As he read the article, he

recalled a talk he had had with his “family doctor”, way back before his

marriage, when he had first begun to notice symptoms of stomach-trouble.

He had suggested timidly that there might be something wrong with his

diet, and that if the doctor would tell him exactly what he ought to

eat, and how much and how often, he would be glad to adopt the regimen.

But the doctor had only laughed and answered, “Nonsense, boy--don’t

you get to thinking about your food!” And so Thyrsis had gone away, to

follow the old plan of eating what he liked. Health, it would seem, must

be a spontaneous and accidental thing, it could not be a deliberate and

reasoned thing.

But now he and Corydon became smitten with a passion of shame for all

their stupidity and their gluttony; they invested in Fletcher’s books,

and set out upon this new adventure. They would help themselves to a

very small saucerful of food; and they would take of this a very small

spoonful--and chew--and chew--and chew. Mr. Fletcher said that half an

hour a day was enough for the eating of the food one needed; but they,

apparently, could have chewed for hours, and still been hungry.

They labored religiously to stop as soon as they could pretend to be

satisfied; the result of which was that Thyrsis lost fourteen pounds in

as many days--and it was many a long year before he got those fourteen

pounds back! He became still more “spiritual” in his aspect; until

finally he and Corydon set out for a walk one day, and coming up a hill

to their home they gave out altogether, and first Thyrsis had to crawl

up the hill and get something to eat, and then take something down to

Corydon!

However, in spite of all their blunders, this new idea was of genuine

benefit to them; at least it put them upon the right track--it taught

them the relationship between diet and disease. They saw the two as

cause and consequence--they watched the food they ate affecting their

bodies as one might watch a match affecting a thermometer. They were

no longer victims of the idea that health must be a spontaneous and

accidental thing--they were set definitely to thinking about it, as

something that could be achieved by will and intelligence.

But the right knowledge lay far in the future; and meantime they were

groping in ignorance, and disease was still a mysterious visitation that

came upon them out of the night. “Thus saith the Lord, About midnight

will I go out into the midst of Egypt; and all the firstborn in the land

of Egypt shall die. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the

land of Egypt, such as there hath been none like it, nor shall be like

it any more.”

Their own firstborn had low been on the _regime_ of the “child

specialist” for a year and a half. He was big and fat and rosy, and

according to all the standards they knew, a picture of health. He was

the pride of his parents’ hearts--the one success they had achieved,

and to which they could turn their eyes. He was a frightful burden to

them--the most noisy and irrepressible of children. But they struggled

and worried along with him, and were proud of him--and even, in a stormy

sort of way, were happy with him. But now a calamity fell upon him,

bringing them the most terrible distress they had yet had to face in

their lives.

Section 9. It was all the worse because they laid the blame upon

themselves. They were accustomed to attribute sickness to this or that

trivial cause--if Corydon caught a cold, it was because she had sat in

a draught, and if Thyrsis was laid up with tonsilitis, it was because he

had gone out for kindling-wood without his hat. It had been their wont

to bundle the child up and turn him out to play; and one very cold day

he had stood a long time under the woodshed, and had got chilled. So

that night his head was hot, and he was fretful; and in the morning he

would not eat, and apparently had a fever. They sent off in haste for

the doctor; and the doctor came and examined him, and shook his head and

looked very grave. It was pneumonia, he said, and a serious case.

So Corydon and Thyrsis had to put all things else aside, and gird

themselves for a siege. There were medicines to be administered every

hour, and minute precautions to be taken to keep the patient from

the slightest chill; he must be in a warm room, and yet with some

ventilation. All these things they attended to, and then they would sit

and gaze at the sufferer, dumb with grief and fear. Through the night

Thyrsis sat by the bedside, while Cedric babbled and raved in delirium;

and no suffering that he had ever experienced was equal to this.

How he loved this baby, how passionately, how cruelly! How he clung to

him, blindly and desperately--the thought of losing him simply tore his

heart to pieces! He would hold the hot hands, he would touch the little

body; how he loved that body, that was so beautiful and soft and white!

How many times he had bathed it and dressed it and hugged it to him! He

would sit and listen to the fevered prattle, full of childish phrases

which brought before him the childish soul--the wonderful, lovable

thing, so merry and eager, so full of mischief and curiosity; with

strange impulses of tenderness, and flashes of intelligence that

thrilled one, and opened long vistas to the imagination. He was all

they had, this baby--he was all they had saved out of the ruin of their

lives, out of the shipwreck of their love. What sacrifices they had made

for him--what agonies he represented! And now, the idea that they might

never see him, nor touch him, nor hear his voice again!

Also would come agonies of remorse. Thyrsis would face the blunder

they had made--it might have been avoided so easily, and now it was

irrevocable! His whole body would shake with silent sobbing. Ah, this

curse of their lives, this hideous shame--that they had not even been

able to take proper care of their child! This wrong, too, the world

meant to inflict upon them--this supreme vengeance, this cruel

punishment!

Section 10. The doctor came next morning, and found the patient worse.

This was the crisis, he said; if the little one lived through the

night--And there he paused, seeing the agony in the eyes of the mother

and father. They would do all they could, he said; they must hope for

the best.

So the siege went on. Thyrsis sat through the night again--and Corydon,

who could not rest either, would come into the room every little while,

and listen and watch. They would hold each other’s hand for hours, dumb

with suffering; ghostly presences seemed to haunt the sick-chamber

and set them to trembling. Thyrsis found himself thinking of that most

terrible of all ballads, “The Erl-King”. How he had shuddered once,

hearing it sung!--

“Dem Vater grauset’s, er reitet geschwind!”

All through the night he seemed to hear the hammer-strokes of the

horse’s hoofs echoing through his soul.

The child lived through the night, but the crisis was not yet over.

The fever held on; the issue of life and death seemed to hang upon the

flutter of an eyelid. There was one more night to be sat through and

Thyrsis, whose restless intellect must needs be dealing with all issues,

had by then fought his way through this terror also. They must get

control of themselves at all hazards, he said; they must face the facts.

If so the child should die--

He tried to say something of the sort to Corydon, seeking to steady her.

But Corydon became almost frantic at his words. “You must not say such a

thing, you must not think such a thing!” she cried.

Corydon had been reading about “new thought”, and she insisted that

would be “holding the idea” of death over the child. “The thing for us

to do,” she said, “is to make up our minds--he must live, we must _know_

that he will live!”--It was no time to argue about metaphysics, but

Thyrsis found this proposition a source of great perplexity. How could a

man make himself know what he did not know?

The crisis passed, and the child lived. But the illness continued for a

couple of weeks--and how pitiful it was to see their baby, that had been

so big and rosy, and was now pale and thin and weak! And when at last

he got up and went outdoors again, he caught a cold, and there was a

relapse, and another siege of the dread disease; the doctor had not

warned them sufficiently, it seemed. So there was a week or two more of

watching and worrying; and then they had to face the fact that little

Cedric would be delicate for a long while--would need to be guarded with

care all through the spring.

Thyrsis blamed himself for all that had happened; the weight of it

rested upon him forever afterwards, as if it were some crime he had

committed. Sometimes when he was overwrought and overdriven, he would

lie awake in the small hours of the morning, and this spectre would

come and sit by him. He had made a martyr of the child he loved, he had

sacrificed it to what he called his art; and how had he dared to do it?