diff options
Diffstat (limited to '41490-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 41490-0.txt | 1168 |
1 files changed, 1168 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/41490-0.txt b/41490-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..06f8bc2 --- /dev/null +++ b/41490-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1168 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41490 *** + +[Illustration] + + + + + THE DECADENT: BEING THE GOSPEL + OF INACTION: WHEREIN ARE + SET FORTH IN ROMANCE FORM + CERTAIN REFLECTIONS TOUCHING + THE CURIOUS CHARACTERISTICS + OF THESE ULTIMATE YEARS, AND + THE DIVERS CAUSES THEREOF. + +[Illustration] + + PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR + THE AUTHOR MDCCCXCIII + + + + + TIBI · MEO · CARO · B · G · G · + CVIVS · LABORIBVS · PRETIVM · NON · PROPRIVM · EI · FIEBAT· + OPERA · TVA · EXARCHO · FRATRIBVSQVE · + EIVS · ORDINIS · QVAE · SVMNIA · SIBI · FINGIT · + DENIQVE · OMNIBVS · DELECTIS · PER · ORBEM · TERRARVM · + HVNC · LIBRVM · GRATE · DICO · + + + + +THE DECADENT. + + + + +I. + + +The 3.20 train from Boston slowed up as it drew into a way station, and +Malcolm McCann, grim and sullen from his weary ride in the dirt and +cinders, the coal-smoke and the foetid air, the fretting babies and hot, +worrying men, that characterise a railway journey in August, hurried out +with a grunt of relief. + +It was not a pretty station where he found himself, and he glared +ill-naturedly around with restless, aggressive eyes. The brick walls, +the cheaply grained doors bearing their tarnished legends, "Gents," +"Ladies," "Refreshment Saloon," the rough raftered roof over the +tracks,--everything was black and grimy with years of smoke, belching +even now from the big locomotive, and gathering like an ill-conditioned +thunder-cloud over the mob of scurrying, pushing men and women, a mob +that swelled and scattered constantly in fretful confusion. A hustling +business-man with a fat, pink face and long sandy whiskers, his silk hat +cocked on one side in grotesque assumption of jauntiness, tripped over +the clay-covered pick of a surly labourer, red of face and sweaty, blue +of overalls and mud-coloured of shirt, and as he stumbled over the +annoying implement scowled coarsely, and swore, with his cigar between +his teeth. + +Ragged and grimy children, hardly old enough to walk, sprawled and +scrambled on the dirty platform, and as McCann hurried by, a five-year +old cursed shrilly a still more youthful little tough, who answered in +kind. Vulgar theatre-bills in rank reds and yellows flaunted on the +cindery walls; discarded newspapers, banana-skins, cigar-butts, and +saliva were ground together vilely under foot by the scuffling mob. +Dirt, meanness, ugliness everywhere,--in the unhappy people no less than +in their surroundings. + +McCann strode scornfully to the rear of the station and looked vaguely +around to see if Aurelian had sent any kind of a conveyance to take him +to his home,--of the location of which, save that it was to be reached +from this particular station, McCann knew nothing. The prospect was not +much better outside than in. The air was thick with fine white dust, and +dazzling with fierce sunlight. On one side was a wall of brick +tenements, with liquor saloons, cheap groceries, and a fish-market +below, all adding their mite to the virulence of the dead, stifling air. +Above, men in dirty shirt-sleeves lolled out of the grimy windows, where +long festoons of half-washed clothes drooped sordidly. On the other +side, gangs of workmen were hurriedly repairing the ravages of a fire +that evidently had swept clear a large space in its well-meant but +ineffectual attempts at purgation. Gaunt black chimneys wound with +writhing gas-pipes, tottering fragments of wall blistered white on one +side, piles of crumbling bricks where men worked sullenly loading blue +carts, mingled with new work, where the walls, girdled with yellow +scaffolding, were rising higher, uglier, than before; the plain factory +walls with their rows of square windows less hideous by far than those +buildings where some ignorant contractor was trying by the aid of +galvanised iron to produce an effect of tawdry, lying magnificence. +Dump-carts, market-waggons, shabby hacks, crawled or scurried along in +the hot dust. A huge dray loaded with iron bars jolted over the granite +pavement with a clanging, clattering din that was maddening. In fact, +none of the adjuncts of a thriving, progressive town were absent, so far +as one could see. + +McCann turned away from this spectacle of humiliating prosperity, and +ran his eyes over the vehicles about the station, searching for some +indication of his friend. He had thought that perhaps Aurelian might +come himself; but he saw no sign of a familiar figure, no indication +even of any conveyance that might belong to Aurelian Blake. The greater +part of the carriages had gone, and now only remained an express-waggon +or two, a decrepit old hack, an old-fashioned chaise, one or two +nondescript country conveyances, and a particularly gorgeous victoria, +drawn by a pair of splendid grey horses, a liveried driver sitting on +the box in Ethiopian state. None of these vehicles could possibly belong +to the fastidious but democratic Aurelian, and McCann almost thought +his telegram must have miscarried. + +A black footman in fawn-coloured livery, wearing a small cockade of +scarlet and silver, touched his hat to the sulky traveller. + +"Beg yo pahdon, suh, but ah yo Mistuh McCann, Mistuh Malcolm McCann, of +Boston, suh?" + +"That is my name," said McCann, shortly. + +"I have the honnoh to be Mistuh Blake's footman, suh," and he touched +the cockade in his hat again. "Will yo have the kindness to follow me, +suh?" + +There was a touch of servile imperiousness in the voice, and McCann +followed in bewildered surprise. "Aurelian Blake's footman"--that did +not sound well. Could his pupil have become a backslider in the last two +years? "Aurelian Blake's footman"--the idea was surprising in itself; +but the fact of the big victoria with its luxurious trappings where he +soon found himself being whirled swiftly on through the screaming, +clattering city was more surprising still, and not a little disquieting. + +The carriage threaded its way through the roaring crowd of vehicles, +passing the business part of the city, and entering a tract given over +to factories, hideous blocks of barren brick and shabby clapboards, +through the open windows of which came the brain-killing whir of heavy +machinery, and hot puffs of oily air. Here and there would be small +areas between the buildings where foul streams of waste from some +factory of cheap calico would mingle dirtily with pools of green, +stagnant water, the edges barred with stripes of horrible pinks and +purples where the water had dried under the fierce sun. All around lay +piles of refuse,--iron hoops, broken bottles, barrels, cans, old leather +stewing and fuming in the dead heat, and everywhere escape-pipes +vomiting steam in spurts. Over it all was the roar of industrial +civilisation. McCann cast a pitying look at the pale, dispirited figures +passing languidly to and fro in the midst of the din and the foul air, +and set his teeth closely. + +Presently they entered that part of the city where live the poor, they +who work in the mills, when they are not on strike, or the mills are not +shut down,--as barren of trees or grass as the centre of the city, the +baked grey earth trodden hard between the crowded tenements painted +lifeless greys, as dead in colour as the clay about them. Children and +goats crawled starvedly around or huddled in the hot shadow of the sides +of the houses. This passed, and then came the circle of "suburban +residences," as crowded almost as the tottering tenements, but with +green grass around them. Frightful spectacles these,--"Queen Anne" and +colonial vagaries painted lurid colours, and frantic in their cheap +elaboration. Between two affected little cottages painted orange and +green and with round towers on their corners, stood a new six-story +apartment-house with vulgar front of brown stone, "Romanesque" in style, +but with long flat sides of cheap brick. McCann caught the name on the +big white board that announced "Suites to let," "Hotel Plantagenet," and +grinned savagely. + +Then, at last, even this region of speculative horrors came to an end, +giving place to a wide country road that grew more and more beautiful as +they left the town far behind. McCann's eyebrows were knotted in a +scowl. The ghastly nonsense, like a horrible practical joke, that the +city had been to him, excited, as it always did, all the antagonism +within his rebellious nature. Slowly and grimly he said to himself, yet +half aloud, in a tone of deliberation, as though he were cursing +solemnly the town he had left: "I hope from my soul that I may live to +see the day when that damned city will be a desolate wilderness; when +those chimneys shall rise smokeless; when those streets shall be stony +valleys between grisly ridges of fallen brick; when Nature itself shall +shrink from repairing the evil that man has wrought; when the wild birds +shall sweep widely around that desolation that they may not pass above; +when only rats and small snakes shall crawl through the ruin of that +'thriving commercial and manufacturing metropolis;' when the very name +it bore in the days of its dirty glory shall have become a synonym for +horror and despair!" Having thus relieved himself he laughed softly, and +felt better. + +Presently a flash of recollection passed over his face, and he eagerly +dropped his hand into a side pocket, pulling therefrom a brierwood pipe, +discovered with a sigh of satisfaction that a sweet heel of "Dills +Best" still lurked in the bottom of the bowl, and, regardless of the +amazement of the immaculate footman, lighted it, and sank back in the +cushions, well content. As he smoked, his thoughts went back to Aurelian +with some uneasiness. "I am afraid he is a backslider," he mused +seriously. "Now, when I went over to England a couple of years ago, he +was a good socialist, the best pupil I ever had. He would rail at the +world in good set terms, better than I myself. And now he runs a trap +like this, with a coon slave for a driver and a footman beside him. Now, +I _can't_ lose a man like that; he was a born leader of men, when +leaders are what we lack. Besides, he had a lot of money, and we need +money as badly as we need leaders. I must get him back some way, if gone +he is; and I very much expect bad news from the boy when I get to--Now, +what did he call his place?" he pulled a letter from his pocket, shaking +tobacco ashes out of its folds. "Oh, yes, 'Vita Nuova.' Now, why the +devil did he name his place that?" + +The stubby pipe sucked and sputtered, and McCann knocked the ashes into +the road. They had driven already nearly an hour, and he was growing +impatient; "how much farther had they to go?" He asked the coachman, who +only replied, "Just a fractional bit further, suh," which was +indefinite. They left the highway and struck into a hilly road where the +hedgerows grew thick on either side, with rough pastures beyond, on the +one hand, and on the other thick and ancient pine forests, where the +low sunlight struck under the sighing branches and rested on mossy +boulders and level patches of golden ferns. Now and then a grey +farmhouse appeared in its orchard, and once they passed a dingy white +meeting-house, with pointed wooden spikes on the four corners of its +belfry, its green blinds faded a sickly yellow. Just beyond they met the +country milk-team with its cantering horses and clattering cans, the +driver nodding on his seat, with a watchful collie beside him. Then the +pastures on the right ended, and they plunged into deep forests, black, +almost lightless, where the road wound like the bed of a dry torrent in +a vast green cañon. The carriage climbed steeply up the rocky road, with +no sound around but the rattle of pebbles under the feet of the horses, +and the melancholy calling of the wood thrushes. On the crown of the +hill heavy wrought-iron gates closed their passage, gates that swung +back slowly as the footman whistled twice. They passed through, turned +sharply to the left, and in a flash were out of the forest. + +Malcolm McCann had not a very keen sense of beauty, but even to him the +vision that lay before him startled him into sudden enthusiasm. They +were riding along the comb of a ridge of high hills thick with ink-black +pine forests to the left, while to the right they swept down in gracious +undulations into a basin-shaped valley, the level floor of which was, it +may be, something over a thousand acres in extent, shaped like an +elongated ellipse, with lofty hills rising on all sides. + +The sun dropped down and lay on the edge of the world; from the farther +side of the valley it poured a suave, golden glory of molten light down +over the purple, serrated hills, that lay in the valley like amber wine. +Smooth fields of ripening grain and velvet meadow-land chequered the +valley irregularly, slim elms and dark, heavy oaks rising among them. In +the midst, curling like level smoke, wound a narrow river with black +poplars and golden chestnut-trees leaning above. In all the valley was +no sign of a dwelling save far away at the distant end, where from the +midst of thick foliage rose dark roofs and towers and chimneys, as of +some château on the Loire. + +McCann caught his breath. "Is that the place?" he said quickly. + +"Suh, that is Vita Nuova," answered the footman. + + + + +II. + + +"This," said Eveleth, languidly, turning his head in the valley of +silken pillows until he could see the long figure of Aurelian drooping +in the Mexican hammock across the big room through the dim strata of +blue smoke that, in the silence, lay almost motionless, swirled now and +then into subtle curlings and windings as some drowsy smoker breathed +more white vapour into the slowly moving and rising tide,--"This is the +peace of the land of Proserpina, the faultless content of perfect +possession. Philistinism is not without honour, for behold! it has +conceived and brought forth--the Decadence." + + "_Non sentir m'e gran ventura + Porò non mi distar: deh! parla basso!_" + +said Aurelian, softly. "It is only a dream after all, even a dream of +the land of endless afternoon. There is lotos mingled with the tobacco, +but we wake easily." + +A deeper voice came from a motionless figure prone on a tiger skin +before the crumbling fire. "Opium and Burgundy are not faultless +substitutes for the true lotos after all, but--they do very well--for +the time." + +Murmurs of inarticulate assent rose and faded in the opium-heavy air, +and then the smoke grew still again. Now and then a bit of wood fell in +the fireplace. Aurelian's narghileh gurgled and sighed in slow cadence. +These things were only a modulation of the silence. + +The room was vast and dim, seemingly without bounds, save on that side +where the violet flames of a drift-wood fire flickered quiveringly, +making a centre, a concentration of dull light; for the rest, a +mysterious wilderness of rugs and divans, Indian chairs and hammocks, +where silent figures lay darkly, each a primal cause of one of the many +thin streams of smoke that curled heavily upward;--smoke from strange +and curious pipes from Lahore and Gualior; small sensitive pipes from +Japan; here and there the short thick stems of opium-pipes, and by the +motionless Mexican hammock a splendid and wonderful hookah with writhing +stem. As the thin flames of the dying fire flashed into some sudden +brightness, they revealed details unseen in the general gloom,--a vast +and precious missal gorgeous with scarlet and gold and purple +illumination, open, on a carved oak lectern, spoil of some Spanish +monastery; the golden gloom of a Giovanni Bellini reft from its home in +Venice, and as yet unransomed; the glint of twisted and gilded glass in +an ebony cabinet; great folios and quartos in ancient bindings of vellum +and ivory and old calf-skin, heavily tooled with gold, and with silver +and jewelled medallions and clasps, stacked in heaps in careless +indifference; the flash and sparkle of a cabinet of gems, the red +splendour of old lacquer; the green mystery of wrought jade. And +everywhere a heavy atmosphere that lay on the chest like a strange yet +desirable dream; the warm, sick odour of tobacco and opium, striving +with the perfume of sandal-wood, and of roses that drooped and fluttered +in pieces in the hot air. + +Around a brazier of green bronze, on the floor, before the fire, lay the +three men who were gently breathing in the bland opium, their dark +figures radiating from the queer brazier wrought of two ugly dragons +chasing each other around a great globe of Japanese chrystal, the +firelight gleaming on the tall glasses of champagne where the little +column of gold bubbles rose steadily. The fire fell together, and a +leaping flame cast a fitful light on heavy tapestry curtains wrought +with the story of the loves of Cupid and Psyche. Its two halves parted +slowly, and a flush of red light fell through as, in the midst, appeared +a dark figure with closed eyes, swaying softly as it leaned forward, +and, while the curtains closed, fell with a long sweep gently toward the +brazier,--not as men fall, but as a snake with its head lifted high +might advance slidingly, and as it came, droop lower and lower until it +rested prone on the uncrushed flowers. So Enderby, heavy with the suave +sleep of haschish, came among the smokers and dropped motionless in the +midst of the cushions. The movement set a tall glass quivering until it +fell to one side, and the yellow wine sank slowly into the silky fur of +a leopard skin. + +Aurelian lifted his hand to a gold cord that hung over the hammock. +Presently a slim girl with flesh like firelight on ivory, clad in +translucent silk of a dusky purple that made no sound as she came, +appeared in the darkness of the farther doorway. She came to the hammock +where Aurelian was lying. + +"Will the honourable master be served with the august saké?" she asked +with a voice that was like the fluttering of cherry blossoms in +Yoshiwara. + +"No, O Shiratsuyu," said Aurelian, drawing the slim figure toward him, +kissing the scarlet mouth that drooped above as he lay full length, +looking sleepily upward. "No, O Shiratsuyu, but fill the glasses of the +honourable guests with the wine, there on the table." + +The girl glided among the drowsy figures, filling the glasses. As she +knelt by the brazier to lift the overturned glass, her slim fingers +lingered; a head turned sleepily, and, as the lips fell on the little +hand, kissed it softly. + +At a movement of Aurelian's eyes the girl vanished. + +Eveleth half rose to look after her with delight. "Where did you find +that bauble, Aurelian?" he said. + +Aurelian neither moved nor opened his eyes as he replied, "In Kioto." + +"She is more precious than your Delhi topaz." + +"She cost me more." + +"What is she called?" + +"The Honourable White Dew." + +"I have never seen her before." + +"Nor any other than myself." + +"I think she is a dream." + +"No, only part of a dream." + +"How long will the dream last?" + +"Until dawn." + +"What is the dawn?" + +"Death." + +The word roused ungracious thoughts in Eveleth, and he turned his face +to the wall, falling into a half dream. When next he looked toward his +host it was at the instigation of low voices. A servant was standing by +the hammock,--not the mysterious Japanese girl, but a black boy in a red +fez. Aurelian looked toward Eveleth sleepily. + +"One is without and craves entrance," said he. "What shall I say to him? +He has come as my guest; shall I receive him here?" + +"Is he an 'Elect'?" + +"No, he is not an 'Elect.'" + +"A Philistine then." + +"Neither a Philistine, wholly." + +"What then?" + +"A product of Philistinism, an Agitator." + +Eveleth looked vaguely around over the silent room,--at Wentworth, +throned in a stately chair of mahogany and brass that had belonged to +the great Napoleon, still crowned with the garland of gold bay leaves he +had placed on his head after dinner, half in defiance, half in jest, now +sleeping, his chibouk lying between his knees; at the abandoned figures +motionless about the bronze brazier; at Aurelian, clothed gloriously in +a sleeveless gaberdine of blood-red silk over a white crêpe kimono heavy +with embroidery; at his own figure half wrapped in a big mantle of +rose-coloured damask. And everywhere the stillness of Oriental sleep. As +he looked he said dubiously, "An agitator? Do you think an agitator +would do--here? Isn't there rather too much to agitate?" + +"Yes, and for that reason I will let him come; as it is, this is almost +stagnation. He will amuse me, I feel,--I feel, that in a little while, +I--might be bored." + +Eveleth sank back resignedly and not without curiosity. Aurelian nodded, +and the servant glided away. + + * * * * * + +"Hello, Aurelian!" + +The words were like a stone dashed in the midst of a pool of brown +water, still, under willows. Wentworth, looking like a Napoleonic +_revenant_, shivered into wakefulness; Eveleth sat bolt upright with a +start; even the opium-smokers, all but Enderby, turned their heavy +heads, wakened from mysterious dreams. + +The new-comer stopped in the door and stared,--stared mightily. He +coughed and blinked in the smoky air. It was the clash of East and West, +of a fictitious, exotic East, of a commonplace, hard-headed, practical +West. + +"Where are you?" McCann cried loudly, making his way through the +twilight toward the sound of Aurelian's voice. + +"I'm glad to see you at last," he said doubtfully, "but I'm not quite +used to this sort of thing, you know; I feel as though I had drank too +much." His eyes fell on the confused heap of drowsy humanity around the +brazier. "Aurelian," he said sternly, "is this a 'joint' I have happened +on?" + +"It is my house," said Aurelian, in his gentle voice, "wherein I have +the honour to count you for the moment a guest." + +"I beg pardon," grimly; "but as I said, you must remember I am not +familiar with this sort of thing. I think I had better wait until you +are less busily engaged." + +"My dear fellow, I am never busily engaged, and I am never more idle +than now. You will stay, of course. Will you smoke?--I mean tobacco. I +think you smoke narghilehs; shall Murad come and light you one?" + +"Thanks, by your leave I will smoke my own," and McCann pulled out his +brier bull-dog, filled it from his own pouch, and sat down +constrainedly, his eyes fixed on the four men in their motley costumes, +strewn on the floor. + +At once Aurelian began to talk to him frankly and freely, as though +nothing had changed since last master and pupil had spoken together, +questioning him of his adventures in England and Germany while on his +mission among the socialist leaders. McCann noted with surprise and with +a feeling almost of reassurance that no detail of recent sociological +events had escaped Aurelian; that he listened with equal interest to all +that he told him; that he showed keen satisfaction at the outcome of two +or three recent strikes in which the strikers had been victorious. But +all the time the agitator's eyes were wandering over the dimly visible +details of the strange treasure-house where he found himself. He looked +on it all with growing resentment; it was hardly to be called +socialistic, and there seemed to be a lack of harmony between these +luxurious surroundings and the words that Aurelian was saying. There was +something awfully wrong; but he shrunk from knowing what he feared to be +the worst. + +After the first convulsion which his entrance had caused, the different +men had all fallen back languidly in their places; but now Wentworth +lifted himself lazily and came down toward Aurelian and the agitator. +"Well, _citoyen_," he said, nothing abashed by his fantastic garb, which +was far enough from being the same in which he generally met McCann, +"Well, _citoyen_, you come as a visitant from another world, like the +black steamers that crawl into the balmy vision known to the children of +men as Venice,--in it, not of it. Can you bring a tale of the things +without? Is there anything worthy of note in Philistia? How fare our +friends the republics of the world, there in the outer darkness?" + +"Oh," said McCann, with indifference, "there is another revolution on +down in Guatemala, and one expected daily in Brazil, and one in the +French Republic--" + +"And the smoke not yet cleared away from the last revolution in Brazil, +nor yet from the last in Chile, nor yet from the last in Honduras; wars +in half the republics in South and Central America, rumours of wars in +Mexico and all the rest; the French Republic counting the days that +already are numbered by its dupes at length undeceived,--I know the +whole grotesque story, and yet people talk about popular sovereignty and +republics. And you yourselves, McCann, _bon citoyen_, you agitators and +socialists, hug to yourselves the vain phantom of popular government. +You ought to know better, for you know something of sociology if you +_are_ sweetly ignorant on politics. What was that Balzac said, Aurelian? +Tell me." + +"About popular government, you mean?" + +"Yes." + +"Why, he called it the only government that is irresponsible and whose +tyranny will be unchecked because exercised under the name of law." + +"Ah, this is it! Isn't that exact? '_A bas la République_,' the King +shall come to his own again!" and he sung the words gaily to a fragment +of an old Jacobite air. "Don't interrupt me, Aurelian, the spirit is on +me and I must confound this blind leader." His tone changed and he put +his hand on McCann's shoulder. "Malcolm, you know as we all know here +that the present condition of this happy world is very like the Puritan +idea of hell. You know, also, that the preserving factor, if not the +original cause of this pleasant state of affairs, is the modern theory +of economics and its resulting industrial and commercial systems. Now, +what do you propose to substitute in place of this gigantic abortion, +this debauching incubus?" + +"State Socialism." + +"Exactly! Out of your own mouth have you condemned yourself. Man, man! +what would your State Socialism be in the hands of such a State as we +have now? In Chile? In Mexico? In any ring-ruled mob-ruled State in this +unhealthy republic? Why, simply the biggest and most wholesale 'job,' +the most arrant corruption, the most awful and omnipotent succubus that +ever waxed fat on the blood of a dying nation. Malcolm, you and your ilk +have made a dreary mistake; you think only of industrial reforms, while +to make these of effect you must first have a political reform which +will be in itself a revolution. Destroy the present system, build up an +honourable State, and then it will be time to talk of State Socialism." + +McCann had chafed furiously under this tirade, and as Wentworth threw +himself down in a low chair, lighting his Dimitrino cigarette at the +flames of the brazier, he burst out violently: "You are all wrong, you +don't know what you are talking about when you say we don't want a +political reform! We do, a radical reform." + +Wentworth's eyes gleamed amusedly through the rings of white smoke as he +said quietly, "How?" + +"I would destroy the whole system of party and ring rule." + +Wentworth smiled disdainfully. "My dear Malcolm," he said, blowing an +ash from his cigarette, "I spare you the humiliation of trying to tell +me how. Do you not realise that party and ring rule are the necessary +results of three of your dearest idols?--idols that you would defend, I +believe, with your life. They are these: Manhood suffrage, rotation in +office, and representative government. Until you are content to destroy +these in your political revolution your attempts to abolish ring and +partisan rule will fail." + +"They will not fail, for we shall abolish those abuses through making +the control of the people over their representatives more absolute and +direct." + +"The exact contrary of the result you hope for would follow from the +course you suggest. I can't convince you of that now; grant the truth of +your position for a moment, what would follow? You would simply +substitute for the repulsive rule of the 'bosses' a dreary and fleeting +government of emancipated slaves. We have seen the result of that in the +South, where we made fatal error in giving the black slaves a measure of +political power. You would do the same by giving the white slaves _all_ +political power. I say, emancipate them,--and govern them." + +"By whom?" + +"Their King and their peers." + +"Where will you find them in this country?" + +"Choose them." + +"By whom?" + +"The people." + +"Aha! Then you lose your point." + +"By no means, for the franchise should be a privilege, not a right, and +while the people should choose, only their leaders should govern." + +"You are a monarchist!" + +"Yes." + +"Then you are a reactionist, an aristocrat; no socialist!" + +"I am a monarchist and a vehement socialist." + +"That is a paradox." + +"So are most final truths, since a paradox is only a concise statement +of the colour on each side of the shield; you remember the fable?" + +"Then you mean to say that socialism and monarchism do not negative each +other?" + +"No more than the silver of one side of the shield negatives the gold of +the other." + +"You are a vain theorist!" + +"It is you who are a vain theorist; my position is based on history. I +know the record of the attempts to put the visionary theory of popular +government into practice." + +"We have never had a true popular government yet." + +"I agree with you; but we have had true princes." + +"Where?" + +For answer Wentworth turned his head a little and raised his eyes toward +a great picture hanging in the shadow. McCann followed his glance, and +found himself looking at the sad face with the mournful eyes of +Vandyke's portrait of King Charles I. of England. Curtains of old +purple velvet wrought with Bourbon lilies of tarnished gold hung on +either side, and from their midst the King seemed looking on them as in +a vision. The picture annoyed McCann; it was the presentment of a King, +a tyrant; he scowled at it ill-naturedly. + +"You keep that there because it is a good picture, I suppose," he said, +turning to Aurelian, who had been listening silently. + +"Because it is a copy of a good picture of a glorious King," replied +Aurelian. + +"A good _King_!" + +"A glorious King and most noble man." + +"You talk like a Jacobite." + +"I _am_ a Jacobite." + +McCann took his pipe out of his mouth. "What do you talk like that for? +You used to be a socialist." + +"I am still a socialist." + +"Are you bedevilled with Wentworth's theory that a man can be both a +socialist and a royalist?" + +"Certainly." + +"How do you justify such nonsense?" + +"By regarding both sides of the shield." + +"I deny that socialism is one side of a shield, the other side of which +is monarchism." + +"Then you should study history more carefully," interrupted Wentworth. + +"Will history prove to me that monarchism is not and has not been from +the first the bitter enemy of the people?" cried the agitator, +derisively, flashing his eyes savagely on the languid Wentworth. + +"That is exactly what it will prove," returned his tormentor, sweetly. + +"Well, I have studied history for twenty years, and it has taught me +exactly the reverse." + +"_Histories_, you mean; but you must remember that there is very little +history in histories." + +McCann gasped in impotent rage, but Aurelian interposed with his low +voice. "You will reach nothing by such argument, my children. You are +both visionaries,--you, Malcolm, who dream of ideal, impossible +republics surrounded by the tottering ruins of your fantastic fabrics, +builded on the shifting sand of popular fancies; you, Strafford +Wentworth, dear dupe of futile hopes, vainly watching for the King to +come to his own again. Dreamers both of you! I alone am the practical +man; I wait for that which the gods may give. In the mean time I stand +with the 'divine Plato,' aside, under the wall, while the storm of dust +goes by. Forsake your forlorn hope, Malcolm; stand to one side with me, +and wait. And in the mean time"--he lifted a strange Japanese viol--"in +the mean time, sing, and forget the imminent night. Malcolm, there is +beauty still left, and a little art; it will last us through the +twilight." + +"Art will not quiet my conscience, nor blind my eyes to the sight of +rotting slaves and foul fat drivers." + +"You take things too seriously!" cried Wentworth, biting the heavy +leaves one by one from a drooping rose. "It is like putting new wine +into old bottles to try to pour seriousness into this decrepit and +degenerate age." + +McCann laughed aloud. "I accept the omen; for the bottles, if I remember +aright, were burst!" + +"And you will spill your wine." + +"The type of blood; and the blood of martyrs is the seed of the new +Commonwealth!" + +"But why not take new bottles and save your precious wine?" + +"We have none, and the old are at hand." + +"They are rotting fast." + +"The world cannot wait,--mothers and children starve every day." + +"If you die for them it is only a life for a life, and the guilty +thrive." + +"Some will go down with us to hades!" + +Aurelian laughed softly, and rambled vaguely on over the strings of his +samosen, making strange music. "Now we will quarrel no more, for we are +where we began. Malcolm, if you must go to your death, _Vale_, I will +offer a kid and honey on the altar of Mnemosyne. Go your ways, and leave +me to mine; I am aweary of this servile and perishing world, rheumy and +gibbering. Here I have my books of the Elect, my fading pictures, my +treasures of dead civilisation. This is my monastery, like those of the +old Faith that, during the night that came down on the world after the +ruin of Rome, treasured as in an ark the seeds of the new life. Here I +can gather my Children of Light and bar my doors against the Philistines +without, among whom, dear Malcolm, force me not yet to number you. Be +lenient with me, accept my hospitality; it will strengthen you for your +fight with the windmill that forces the wind of God to grind men and +women like grain. In the mean time, it is still the youth of the night, +so I will give you more wine--or your favourite beer if you like; I have +some good Bavarian. Those four decadents and the poor agnostic there on +the floor are happy. I never take the black smoke myself, nor any of +you: wise, all of you, but God forbid that I should refuse any guest of +mine aught! They, sleeping in opium-dreams, have chosen their way. We +will choose another for ourselves." + + + + +III. + + +The night had grown old unnoticed, and now in the first dim twilight of +coming dawn Aurelian and McCann were sitting on the wide terrace that +stretched along the south side of the great house, smoking lazily and +drinking the fine rare wines that Aurelian treasured as he treasured his +precious books. Not far away the nightingales were singing in the thick +wood; other sound there was none save the sweet rustle and stir of the +awakening trees under the first thin wind of morning. + +At first McCann had raged inwardly at everything,--at the crowded +treasures of art that filled the castle-like house, at the dominant +luxury, at the opium, the wine, at all the unfamiliar splendour that +surrounded Aurelian. He sat now listening unappreciatively to Aurelian's +quiet voice discoursing lovingly of the Romanée Conti, which he himself +could not have told from Mâcon. "There are not two dozen of this vintage +in America outside of my own cellars," Aurelian had said, and the poor +agitator heard him miserably. He did remember, indeed, when a slim glass +of amber Madeira was placed on the Indian table by his side and its name +given him, that some one had once told him that Constitution Madeira was +last quoted in New York at seventy dollars a bottle, and so he drank his +glass with a kind of distant wonder, but without pleasure; he thought it +musty, he would have chosen Bass. Yet, even as he lay in the long Indian +chair, the subtle influence of Aurelian's Lattakhia and of his ancient +wine worked slowly in his system, and already he began to think with +something approaching tolerance of his pupil's apostasy. He lay full +length looking out over the carved balustrade through the silvery +jasmine flowers amid their black leaves, to where the sky of blazing +stars, already paling before the advancing day, ceased at the edge of +the dark hills; and as he lay thus dreamily, he even wondered if he had +realised all that there was in life, in his career of feverish action. + +Aurelian tossed the glowing end of his cigarette out through the jasmine +leaves, watching it fall like a scarlet star. "Do you not see how it +is?" he said; "I know to the full the grotesque hideousness of life as +it is, and I long for revolution. But I have seen every man who is fired +with desire to bring the change yield to the baleful influence of that +which he would destroy until he has come to see no ideals save those of +materialism. His ideal of life is a socialistic ideal of a dead, gross, +physical ease and level uniformity; his ideal of government a democracy; +his ideal of industry State factories with gigantic steam-engines,--his +whole system but the present system with all its false ideals, deprived +of its individualism. I have lived beyond this, I can see the futility +of all these things. I believe only in art as the object of +production,--art which shall glorify that which we eat, that wherewith +we clothe ourselves, those things whereby we are sheltered; art which +shall be this and more,--the ultimate expression of all that is +spiritual, religious, and divine in the soul of man. I hate material +prosperity, I refuse to justify machinery, I cannot pardon public +opinion. I desire only absolute individuality and the triumph of +idealism. I detest the republic, and long for the monarchy again." + +"Aurelian," said McCann, "will you tell me straight what you mean when +you say that, yet claim to be a socialist? I asked you once before that +empty-headed Rip Van Winkle called Strafford Wentworth in the other +room, and you made an evasive answer. Now, tell me, how do you reconcile +the two?" + +"Because I believe that political socialism will destroy society and +clear the ground for a new life; because it will annihilate the +Republic, and make monarchial government possible." + +"It will destroy neither, but reform them both." + +"It cannot reform either, for the principles of each are false." + +"What do you fancy those principles to be?" + +"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." + +"Do you dare to call those principles false?" + +"Liberty and equality false, fraternity impossible so long as the first +two pretend to exist." + +McCann sat bolt upright. "Look here, Aurelian," he said seriously, "I +can't talk in this way, I am not that kind of man. What has come over +you? I left you a socialist, and I come back and find you an unreasoning +royalist, incapable of talking sense, putting your defenceless fancies +into the armour of paradox. What in the name of common-sense do you mean +by it?" + +Aurelian turned his handsome head and looked at the red-bearded +agitator. "Malcolm," he said gently, "as you would say, we had best have +it out. I have changed, but not exactly in the way you think. As I say, +I am a socialist but also a royalist, as well as many other things you +would think equally bad. I have done a good deal of reading of late, a +good deal of thinking; so I have grown,--more than you, for you have +only acted. And just that, if you don't mind my saying so, is precisely +the trouble with most socialists. Look, this is the situation,"--he sat +up with almost animation in his face. "The world is in a bad way, never +worse; you taught me that, and the more I study life the more convinced +I am of its eternal truth. Reform must come if we are to save this +decrepit world from a vain repetition of history; that of course follows +from the other assumption. Thus far we walk together; but then arises +the question of means, and here we part, for you say reform may be won +by agitation, I say man is helpless at the present juncture and can only +wait." + +"Men have not waited before; they have acted and have won." + +"Yes, for it was dawn and not the eleventh hour." + +"What do you make of the French Revolution?" + +"A reform undertaken at the eleventh hour, and therefore merging within +three years into hideous deformity,--a reform that failed." + +"You dare to say that it failed when it destroyed feudalism and the +rotten monarchial system?" + +"Yes, for in their places it made possible capitalism and the French +Republic. Should your agitation succeed it would result in the French +Revolution over again, together with all its corollaries,--anarchy, +kakistocracy, a glorious tyranny on a false foundation, kakistocracy +again, and chaos: a counter revolution, again a kakistocracy, and +finally impotence, false and evil as the destroyed feudalism." + +"You are the worst pessimist I ever saw!" + +"Of course, for I am an optimist; and one can't be an optimist touching +the future without being a pessimist touching the present." + +"But how can you be an optimist with regard to the future when you +condemn not only the present but every effort toward rebellion and +reform?" + +"Because you are trying to turn back a tide that is almost at its full. +Have patience, and the ebb will come." + +A great Persian greyhound, with white silky hair, paced solemnly down +the terrace and dropped its head on its master's knees, gazing at him +with soft eyes. Aurelian stroked its nose gently. + +"Malcolm," he said, "if you persist you will fail, either broken by the +power you attack or through creating a condition more evil, more +intolerable still. There is a depth of fall below the point the +nineteenth century has now reached, and until that destiny is +accomplished, you are helpless." + +"You break my heart, Aurelian," said McCann, sadly. "When I went away +you promised to fight with me in the battle for reform. I thought you +understood me, followed me. And now--you lapse into awful luxury and +vice,--opium and things. This is pretty bad, you force me to call you a +recreant; here on the very eve of battle you forsake the cause, you go +over to the enemy; and worse, you are a traitor, for you debauch my +men,--you have North now in there drugged with opium. Last of all, you +try to tempt me, you urge me to give up the fight; but I am not a +deserter." + +"Malcolm, dear boy, I don't deserve quite all of that," said Aurelian, +gently. "Yes, I have deserted as you say, for I see more clearly than +you; the battle is already lost even before it is fought. I thought once +when you filled me with ardour of war that we could win. I see further +now. Dear Malcolm, you are waging war against the gods; you have +mistaken the light that is on the horizon; you have waked from sleep, +but the flush of light that is in your eyes is not the dawn,--it is +sunset. You taught me that we lived in another Renaissance; I know it +now to be another decadence, inevitable, implacable." + +"You are wrong; the decadents have bedevilled you; they are but the +froth of the wave that has broken on the shore: the wave of the New Life +follows behind to sweep them into nothingness. Leave the simile: grant +for the moment that you are right: are you a coward to forsake a good +cause that may fail? Have you forgotten John Ball?" + +"No, I have not forgotten John Ball, but I am not made of the stuff of +martyrs. Malcolm, I love life and love, and the beautiful things still +saved from the wreck of worlds. You would make me--an artist--forsake +it all, and go shoulder a rifle, or carry a red flag. I have a life +given me, let me live. I am not a fighter, let me be; let me live here +in this happy oasis in the desert of men. I can't help you, I can only +lay down my life on a barricade." + +"That is brute selfishness!" + +"No, it is reason. I know myself: I am of no use to you; I thought I +might be once, and I tried. Everything sickens me,--every detail of the +life that is now, the stock exchange and newspapers, alleged art and +trade, and the whole false principle that is under it all. I can't fight +them, the contest sickens me. It is all wrong, the principle of your +reform; you are wrong yourself. I can't have hope, and if I can't have +hope I can't fight. How can I fight for a reform that, if it were +carried, would only take the power out of the hands of a sordid gang of +capitalists and throw it into the hands of a sordid gang of emancipated +slaves? Life would be as hideous under their _régime_ as now. You would +change the ownership of cities, but you would not destroy them. You +would change the control of machinery, but you would not destroy it. You +would, in a word, glorify the machine, magnify the details, ignore the +soul of it all,--and the result? Stagnation. I have read your +Utopias,--they are hopelessly Philistine; their remedies are stimulants +that leave the disease untouched. Malcolm, you will fail, for you do not +see far enough. 'Ill would change be at whiles, were it not for the +change beyond the change.' They are the words of your own prophet; you +will, if you succeed, bring in the change, and it will be ill indeed. I +wait for 'the change beyond the change.'" + +"I deny that the change that we shall bring will be ill; it will be the +next step beyond where we are now. There is no turning back: the law of +evolution drives us onward always; each new position won is nobler than +the last." + +"Ah, that 'law of evolution'--I knew you would quote it to me sooner or +later. You hug the pleasant and cheerful theory to your hearts, and +twist history to fit its fancied laws. You cannot see that the law of +evolution works by a system of waves advancing and retreating; yet as +you say the tide goes forward always. Civilisations have risen and +fallen in the past as ours has risen and is falling now. Does not +history repeat itself? Can you not see that this is one of the periods +of decadence that alternate inevitably with the periods of advance? The +tide-- + + 'W_as once too at the full, and round earth's shore_ + L_ay like the folds of a bright girdle furled;_ + B_ut now I only hear_ + I_ts melancholy, long-withdrawing roar_ + R_etreating to the breath_ + O_f the night-wind, down the vast edges drear_ + A_nd naked shingles of the world._' + +"Yes, it is the decadence, the Roman decadence over again. Were Lucian +to come among us now he would be quite at ease--no, not that, for in one +thing we are utterly changed; so sordid is our decadence, so gross, so +contemptibly material, that we are denied the consolations of art +vouchsafed to his own land. Even in the days of her death Rome could +boast the splendour of a luxuriant literature, the glory of beauty of +environment, the supremacy of an art-appreciation that blinded men's +eyes to the shadow of the end. But for us, in the meanness of our fall, +we have no rags of art wherewith to cover our nakedness. Wagner is dead, +and Turner and Rossetti; Burne-Jones and Watts will go soon, and Pater +will follow Newman and Arnold. The night is at hand." + +He lifted a small hammer and struck a velvet-voiced bell that stood on +the Arabian table of cedar inlaid with nacre and ivory. Murad came out +of the darkness, and at a gesture from Aurelian filled the great hookah +of jade and amber with the tobacco mingled with honey and opium and +cinnamon, placed a bright coal in the cup, and gave the curling stem +wound with gold thread to his master. + +Malcolm watched it all as in a midsummer dream; for once he was +succumbing to the subtle influences that were seducing his yielding +senses. He could not reply to Aurelian, he lacked now even the desire. +The slow and musical voice, so delicately cadenced, had grown infinitely +pleasing to his unfamiliar ears, strangely fascinating in its mellow +charm. Wondering, he found himself yielding to it,--at first defiantly, +then sulkily, then with careless enjoyment, forgetful of everything +save his new delight in his strange surroundings. + +The rose-water gurgled and sobbed in the jade hookah; thin lines of +odorous smoke rose sinuously to the silken awning that hung above the +terrace, dead in the hot August night. For a time neither spoke; then at +length Aurelian said, with a more sorrowful gravity than before,-- + +"Yes, the night is at hand, and the darkness at last will cover our +shame. It is better so. I thought once that through art we might work +revolution, and so win the world to clearness of sight again; that was +because I did not know the nature of art. Art is a result, not an +accident,--a result of conditions that no longer exist. We might as well +work for the restoration of chivalry, of the House of Stuart, of the +spirit of the Cinque-Cento, or any other equally desirable yet hopeless +thing. What we are, that our art is also. Every school of art, every +lecture on æsthetics, every art museum, is a waste and a vanity, their +influence is nothing. Art can never happen again; we who love it and +know it for what it is, the flowering of life, may only dream in the +past, building for ourselves a stately pleasure-house in Xanadu on the +banks of that river measureless to man that runs to a sunless sea. + +"Individualism begot materialism, and materialism begot realism; and +realism is the antithesis of art. + +"What else could have been? Art is a result,--and a cause; at once the +flower of life and the seed of the age to come. That age which through +its meanness and poverty is barren of blooms leaves no seed for its own +propagation. Good-night then to art; for the time its day is done. +Intelligence and erudition may create a creditable archæology, and a +blind generation may--nay, has--mistaken this for art. Well, its folly +is fond and pitiful. + +"Do you not see, then, how the discovery of this thing must fill me with +that despair which kills all effort? You will say, 'Rise then, gird +thyself with the sword of scorn and invective, and strike with +exaltation at the false civilisation which is the death of art and of +all that is worthy in life.' Dear boy, our fathers in their fond, +visionary idealism made for all time such warfare of no avail. By +cunning schemes and crafty mechanism they, impelled by most honourable +motives, have woven a System which is now not alone the System of these +United States but of that Europe which we have dragged to our level; a +System which is now being accepted by that pure and happy civilisation, +the last to yield to our importunity, Japan, and being accepted to its +own damnation. And that System has made impossible forever any +successful result; for so dominant is it, so subtle in its influence, so +almighty in its power, that human strength is helpless before it. +Moreover, it will, through its infinite craft, seem to yield now and +then, yet only in form; for it will so debauch the reformers that they +will think now and again their cause is won, yet will it have lost +every element of desirability. Nevertheless 'the People' will shout with +acclamation, 'Victory! glorious victory! won through the strength of our +immortal and matchless institutions.' And all the while they are +shouting for the shadow of revolution, for the dead body from which the +soul has fled. + +"'What is this System,' do you say? I will tell you; it is the system of +the nineteenth century, by which it will be known in the histories of +times to come, should time continue,--the great three-fold system of +Equality, The Freedom of the Press, and Public Opinion. You yourself do +them honour, for that you yourself have yielded to their evil influence; +until you have risen once for all superior to their plausible sophistry, +every thought you have, every act you are guilty of, will be tainted by +them and made of no avail. The whole world kneels before them now, +confessing their dominion. So long as this is so, so long will reform be +impossible. + +"Democracy, Public Opinion, Freedom of the Press,--the idolatrous +tritheism of a corrupt generation. Through the Institution of Democracy +you have bound yourself with invincible chains to a political system +which is the government of the best, by the worst, for the few,--in +other words, the suppression of the intelligent few by the mob for the +bosses. By the Institution of Public Opinion you have made Democracy +permanent, preventing forever the rule of the 'saving remnant.' You +have founded your unholy inquisition for the suppression of the martyrs +to wisdom, and by your Institution of the Freedom of the Press you have +raised a tyranny, an irresponsible hierarchy of godless demagogues, an +impeccable final authority which will suppress, as it suppresses now, +all honourable freedom of thought. You have broken and destroyed the +power of the Church, and you are proud thereof; but beware! for in its +place you have builded a Power, more widespread, more overwhelming, more +irresistible. Though you crushed Democracy and discredited Public +Opinion, yet so long as the Freedom of the Press remained in existence, +Journalism would by its bull of deposition, its anathema of +excommunication, extinguish your labour in a breath. + +"Here is your triple-headed Cerberus that bars your exit from this hades +you have made. Until he is slain you may never escape. Slain? You cannot +slay him; he is sheathed in an impenetrable hide, proof against all +assaults. Listen, only in one way may you pass by him. Wait! In a little +time his three horrid heads will growl with rising fury each to each, +over the enormous spoils of decaying life. Wait! and the growls will +grow fierce and more furious; and at last in mortal and horrible combat +the beast will strive with _itself_, spreading chaos and death around. +So will it disable itself; and when at last its triple head has +collapsed in ghastly exhaustion, then will the time have come: pile +upon it the hoary boulders of experience left by immemorial glaciers of +time; raise them into a mountain, and though, like imprisoned Titan, the +horrid beast bellows and thunders below, you may go forth fearlessly, +and on the dread ruin he has wrought build a new civilisation, a new +life." + +Aurelian's ardent eyes gazed on the man before him through the writhing +smoke in the pallid dawn; his voice was like the voice of a velvet bell. + +"Yes, it is the end of years; the era of action is over, night follows, +blotting from sight the shame of a wasted world; but through the mute, +unutterable night rises and brightens the splendour of the new day, the +new life. Action has striven and failed, and wreck and ruin are the +ending thereof; but across the desert of failure and despair bursts the +flame of the Dawn; the far-forgotten spirit of the world rises toward +dominion again,--the spirit of visions and dreams, the mighty Mother of +worlds and men, the Soul of the Eternal East." + +Aurelian had risen and stood facing McCann, his white face lighted by a +flame of sudden vigour and inspiration; but even as he finished speaking +it changed. His eyes grew soft, and he smiled gently. "Malcolm," he +said, coming to the speechless agitator, and laying an arm lightly over +his broad shoulders, "Malcolm, I shall hardly forgive you this. You have +made me almost enthusiastic again; for a moment I could have believed +once more there was virtue in action; that has passed, and I am myself +again. And now, look!" + +The sun rose, and its level river of light swept through the valley. A +mist like vaporous opals rose slowly from the winding river below them, +curling in the amber air and brushing itself in thin plumes over the +pale sky. Down from the terrace stretched the great garden, where +multitudinous lilies flashed in the first light with iridescent dew. A +splendid peacock swept flauntingly through the mazy walks and among the +white statues until it reached the central fountain, where it spread +itself in the sun. At the foot of the last terrace, where the marble +steps turned to serpentine in the still water, a small white boat with +prow of gilded fretwork lay motionless among the opening water-lilies +and the great blooms of the lotos. The breath of honeysuckle and jasmine +and day-lilies and tuberoses drifted slowly up in the first stirring +wind. The river-mist lifted, showing the golden meadows with the slim +elms here and there and the lofty hills fringed with dark forests +beyond. + +"Malcolm," said Aurelian, "beyond those fortress hills lies +the world,--the nineteenth century, seething with impotent +tumult,--festering towns of shoe factories and cotton-mills, lying +tradesmen and legalised piracy; pork-packing, stock-brokers, quarrelling +and snarling sectaries, and railroads; politicians, mammonism, realism, +and newspapers. Within my walls, which are the century-living pines, is +the world of the past and of the future, of the fifteenth century and +of the twentieth century. Here have I gathered all my treasures of art +and letters; here may those I love find rest and refreshment when worn +out with hopeless lighting. Suffer me to live here and forget, or live +in a living dream of dreamless life. Against my hilly ramparts life may +beat in vain,--it cannot enter. Here I am a King; humour my fancy, and +give over your striving to make a poet into a warrior. There is other +work before me. Even as in the monasteries of the sixth century the wise +monks treasured the priceless records of a dead life until the night had +passed and the white day of mediævalism dawned on the world, so suffer +me to dream in my cloister through evil days; for the night has come +when man may no longer work." + + * * * * * + +Here ends the Gospel of Inaction called the Decadent, which is privately +issued for the Author by Copeland and Day, of Cornhill, Boston, in an +edition limited to one hundred and ten copies on this yellow French +handmade paper, and fifteen copies on thick Lalanne paper, which have +been printed during October and November, MDCCCXCIII by John Wilson and +Son, Cambridge, at the University Press. The Frontispiece and Initial +letters are designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and cut upon wood by +John Sample, Jr. + +[Illustration] + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + +Page 1, changed "agressive" to "aggressive" and changed oe ligature to +"oe" in "foetid." (Ligature is retained in HTML edition). + +Page 17, changed "Guatamala" to "Guatemala". + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Decadent, by Ralph Adams Cram + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41490 *** |