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diff --git a/old/lkbak10.txt b/old/lkbak10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b14fc89 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lkbak10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8698 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext of Looking Backward From 2000 to 1887 +by Edward Bellamy + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Benedictine University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with +OmniPage Professional OCR software +donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. +Contact Mike Lough <Mikel@caere.com> + + + + + +LOOKING BACKWARD +From 2000 to 1887 + +by Edward Bellamy + + + + + + +AUTHOR'S PREFACE + +Historical Section Shawmut College, Boston, +December 26, 2000 + + +Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century, +enjoying the blessings of a social order at once so simple and +logical that it seems but the triumph of common sense, it is no +doubt difficult for those whose studies have not been largely +historical to realize that the present organization of society is, in +its completeness, less than a century old. No historical fact is, +however, better established than that till nearly the end of the +nineteenth century it was the general belief that the ancient +industrial system, with all its shocking social consequences, was +destined to last, with possibly a little patching, to the end of +time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does it seem that so +prodigious a moral and material transformation as has taken +place since then could have been accomplished in so brief an +interval! The readiness with which men accustom themselves, as +matters of course, to improvements in their condition, which, +when anticipated, seemed to leave nothing more to be desired, +could not be more strikingly illustrated. What reflection could +be better calculated to moderate the enthusiasm of reformers +who count for their reward on the lively gratitude of future ages! + +The object of this volume is to assist persons who, while +desiring to gain a more definite idea of the social contrasts +between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are daunted by +the formal aspect of the histories which treat the subject. +Warned by a teacher's experience that learning is accounted a +weariness to the flesh, the author has sought to alleviate the +instructive quality of the book by casting it in the form of a +romantic narrative, which he would be glad to fancy not wholly +devoid of interest on its own account. + +The reader, to whom modern social institutions and their +underlying principles are matters of course, may at times find +Dr. Leete's explanations of them rather trite--but it must be +remembered that to Dr. Leete's guest they were not matters of +course, and that this book is written for the express purpose of +inducing the reader to forget for the nonce that they are so to +him. One word more. The almost universal theme of the writers +and orators who have celebrated this bimillennial epoch has +been the future rather than the past, not the advance that has +been made, but the progress that shall be made, ever onward and +upward, till the race shall achieve its ineffable destiny. This is +well, wholly well, but it seems to me that nowhere can we find +more solid ground for daring anticipations of human development +during the next one thousand years, than by "Looking +Backward" upon the progress of the last one hundred. + +That this volume may be so fortunate as to find readers whose +interest in the subject shall incline them to overlook the +deficiencies of the treatment is the hope in which the author +steps aside and leaves Mr. Julian West to speak for himself. + + + +Chapter 1 + + +I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857. +"What!" you say, "eighteen fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He +means nineteen fifty-seven, of course." I beg pardon, but there is +no mistake. It was about four in the afternoon of December the +26th, one day after Christmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I +first breathed the east wind of Boston, which, I assure the reader, +was at that remote period marked by the same penetrating +quality characterizing it in the present year of grace, 2000. + +These statements seem so absurd on their face, especially +when I add that I am a young man apparently of about thirty +years of age, that no person can be blamed for refusing to read +another word of what promises to be a mere imposition upon his +credulity. Nevertheless I earnestly assure the reader that no +imposition is intended, and will undertake, if he shall follow me +a few pages, to entirely convince him of this. If I may, then, +provisionally assume, with the pledge of justifying the assumption, +that I know better than the reader when I was born, I will +go on with my narrative. As every schoolboy knows, in the latter +part of the nineteenth century the civilization of to-day, or +anything like it, did not exist, although the elements which were +to develop it were already in ferment. Nothing had, however, +occurred to modify the immemorial division of society into the +four classes, or nations, as they may be more fitly called, since +the differences between them were far greater than those +between any nations nowadays, of the rich and the poor, the +educated and the ignorant. I myself was rich and also educated, +and possessed, therefore, all the elements of happiness enjoyed +by the most fortunate in that age. Living in luxury, and occupied +only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements of life, I +derived the means of my support from the labor of others, +rendering no sort of service in return. My parents and grand- +parents had lived in the same way, and I expected that my +descendants, if I had any, would enjoy a like easy existence. + +But how could I live without service to the world? you ask. +Why should the world have supported in utter idleness one who +was able to render service? The answer is that my great-grandfather +had accumulated a sum of money on which his descendants +had ever since lived. The sum, you will naturally infer, must +have been very large not to have been exhausted in supporting +three generations in idleness. This, however, was not the fact. +The sum had been originally by no means large. It was, in fact, +much larger now that three generations had been supported +upon it in idleness, than it was at first. This mystery of use +without consumption, of warmth without combustion, seems like +magic, but was merely an ingenious application of the art now +happily lost but carried to great perfection by your ancestors, of +shifting the burden of one's support on the shoulders of others. +The man who had accomplished this, and it was the end all +sought, was said to live on the income of his investments. To +explain at this point how the ancient methods of industry made +this possible would delay us too much. I shall only stop now to +say that interest on investments was a species of tax in perpetuity +upon the product of those engaged in industry which a person +possessing or inheriting money was able to levy. It must not be +supposed that an arrangement which seems so unnatural and +preposterous according to modern notions was never criticized by +your ancestors. It had been the effort of lawgivers and prophets +from the earliest ages to abolish interest, or at least to limit it to +the smallest possible rate. All these efforts had, however, failed, +as they necessarily must so long as the ancient social organizations +prevailed. At the time of which I write, the latter part of +the nineteenth century, governments had generally given up +trying to regulate the subject at all. + +By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression +of the way people lived together in those days, and +especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, +perhaps I cannot do better than to compare society as it then +was to a prodigious coach which the masses of humanity were +harnessed to and dragged toilsomely along a very hilly and sandy +road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no lagging, though +the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of +drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was +covered with passengers who never got down, even at the +steepest ascents. These seats on top were very breezy and +comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their occupants could +enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits +of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great +demand and the competition for them was keen, every one +seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for +himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the +coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, but on the +other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any +time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were +very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were +slipping out of them and falling to the ground, where they were +instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag +the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It +was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's seat, +and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their +friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who +rode. + +But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their +very luxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the +lot of their brothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge +that their own weight added to their toil? Had they no +compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished +them? Oh, yes; commiseration was frequently expressed +by those who rode for those who had to pull the coach, +especially when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, as it +was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep hill. At such +times, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized leaping +and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the many who +fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very +distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable +displays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the +passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the +rope, exhorting them to patience, and holding out hopes of +possible compensation in another world for the hardness of their +lot, while others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the +crippled and injured. It was agreed that it was a great pity that +the coach should be so hard to pull, and there was a sense of +general relief when the specially bad piece of road was gotten +over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team, +for there was always some danger at these bad places of a general +overturn in which all would lose their seats. + +It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the +spectacle of the misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance +the passengers' sense of the value of their seats upon the coach, +and to cause them to hold on to them more desperately than +before. If the passengers could only have felt assured that neither +they nor their friends would ever fall from the top, it is probable +that, beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and bandages, +they would have troubled themselves extremely little about +those who dragged the coach. + +I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women +of the twentieth century an incredible inhumanity, but there are +two facts, both very curious, which partly explain it. In the first +place, it was firmly and sincerely believed that there was no other +way in which Society could get along, except the many pulled at +the rope and the few rode, and not only this, but that no very +radical improvement even was possible, either in the harness, the +coach, the roadway, or the distribution of the toil. It had always +been as it was, and it always would be so. It was a pity, but it +could not be helped, and philosophy forbade wasting compassion +on what was beyond remedy. + +The other fact is yet more curious, consisting in a singular +hallucination which those on the top of the coach generally +shared, that they were not exactly like their brothers and sisters +who pulled at the rope, but of finer clay, in some way belonging +to a higher order of beings who might justly expect to be drawn. +This seems unaccountable, but, as I once rode on this very coach +and shared that very hallucination, I ought to be believed. The +strangest thing about the hallucination was that those who had +but just climbed up from the ground, before they had outgrown +the marks of the rope upon their hands, began to fall under its +influence. As for those whose parents and grand-parents before +them had been so fortunate as to keep their seats on the top, the +conviction they cherished of the essential difference between +their sort of humanity and the common article was absolute. +The effect of such a delusion in moderating fellow feeling for +the sufferings of the mass of men into a distant and philosophical +compassion is obvious. To it I refer as the only extenuation I +can offer for the indifference which, at the period I write of, +marked my own attitude toward the misery of my brothers. + +In 1887 I came to my thirtieth year. Although still unmarried, +I was engaged to wed Edith Bartlett. She, like myself, rode on +the top of the coach. That is to say, not to encumber ourselves +further with an illustration which has, I hope, served its purpose +of giving the reader some general impression of how we lived +then, her family was wealthy. In that age, when money alone +commanded all that was agreeable and refined in life, it was +enough for a woman to be rich to have suitors; but Edith +Bartlett was beautiful and graceful also. + +My lady readers, I am aware, will protest at this. "Handsome +she might have been," I hear them saying, "but graceful never, +in the costumes which were the fashion at that period, when the +head covering was a dizzy structure a foot tall, and the almost +incredible extension of the skirt behind by means of artificial +contrivances more thoroughly dehumanized the form than any +former device of dressmakers. Fancy any one graceful in such a +costume!" The point is certainly well taken, and I can only reply +that while the ladies of the twentieth century are lovely demonstrations +of the effect of appropriate drapery in accenting feminine +graces, my recollection of their great-grandmothers enables +me to maintain that no deformity of costume can wholly +disguise them. + +Our marriage only waited on the completion of the house +which I was building for our occupancy in one of the most +desirable parts of the city, that is to say, a part chiefly inhabited +by the rich. For it must be understood that the comparative +desirability of different parts of Boston for residence depended +then, not on natural features, but on the character of the +neighboring population. Each class or nation lived by itself, in +quarters of its own. A rich man living among the poor, an +educated man among the uneducated, was like one living in +isolation among a jealous and alien race. When the house had +been begun, its completion by the winter of 1886 had been +expected. The spring of the following year found it, however, yet +incomplete, and my marriage still a thing of the future. The +cause of a delay calculated to be particularly exasperating to an +ardent lover was a series of strikes, that is to say, concerted +refusals to work on the part of the brick-layers, masons, carpenters, +painters, plumbers, and other trades concerned in house +building. What the specific causes of these strikes were I do not +remember. Strikes had become so common at that period that +people had ceased to inquire into their particular grounds. In +one department of industry or another, they had been nearly +incessant ever since the great business crisis of 1873. In fact it +had come to be the exceptional thing to see any class of laborers +pursue their avocation steadily for more than a few months at a +time. + +The reader who observes the dates alluded to will of course +recognize in these disturbances of industry the first and incoherent +phase of the great movement which ended in the establishment +of the modern industrial system with all its social consequences. +This is all so plain in the retrospect that a child can +understand it, but not being prophets, we of that day had no +clear idea what was happening to us. What we did see was that +industrially the country was in a very queer way. The relation +between the workingman and the employer, between labor and +capital, appeared in some unaccountable manner to have become +dislocated. The working classes had quite suddenly and very +generally become infected with a profound discontent with their +condition, and an idea that it could be greatly bettered if they +only knew how to go about it. On every side, with one accord, +they preferred demands for higher pay, shorter hours, better +dwellings, better educational advantages, and a share in the +refinements and luxuries of life, demands which it was impossible +to see the way to granting unless the world were to become a +great deal richer than it then was. Though they knew something +of what they wanted, they knew nothing of how to accomplish +it, and the eager enthusiasm with which they thronged about +any one who seemed likely to give them any light on the subject +lent sudden reputation to many would-be leaders, some of whom +had little enough light to give. However chimerical the aspirations +of the laboring classes might be deemed, the devotion with +which they supported one another in the strikes, which were +their chief weapon, and the sacrifices which they underwent to +carry them out left no doubt of their dead earnestness. + +As to the final outcome of the labor troubles, which was the +phrase by which the movement I have described was most +commonly referred to, the opinions of the people of my class +differed according to individual temperament. The sanguine +argued very forcibly that it was in the very nature of things +impossible that the new hopes of the workingmen could be +satisfied, simply because the world had not the wherewithal to +satisfy them. It was only because the masses worked very hard +and lived on short commons that the race did not starve +outright, and no considerable improvement in their condition +was possible while the world, as a whole, remained so poor. It +was not the capitalists whom the laboring men were contending +with, these maintained, but the iron-bound environment of +humanity, and it was merely a question of the thickness of their +skulls when they would discover the fact and make up their +minds to endure what they could not cure. + +The less sanguine admitted all this. Of course the workingmen's +aspirations were impossible of fulfillment for natural +reasons, but there were grounds to fear that they would not +discover this fact until they had made a sad mess of society. +They had the votes and the power to do so if they pleased, and +their leaders meant they should. Some of these desponding +observers went so far as to predict an impending social cataclysm. +Humanity, they argued, having climbed to the top round +of the ladder of civilization, was about to take a header into +chaos, after which it would doubtless pick itself up, turn round, +and begin to climb again. Repeated experiences of this sort in +historic and prehistoric times possibly accounted for the +puzzling bumps on the human cranium. Human history, like all +great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of +beginning. The idea of indefinite progress in a right line was a +chimera of the imagination, with no analogue in nature. The +parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet better illustration of the +career of humanity. Tending upward and sunward from the +aphelion of barbarism, the race attained the perihelion of civilization +only to plunge downward once more to its nether goal in +the regions of chaos. + +This, of course, was an extreme opinion, but I remember +serious men among my acquaintances who, in discussing the +signs of the times, adopted a very similar tone. It was no doubt +the common opinion of thoughtful men that society was +approaching a critical period which might result in great +changes. The labor troubles, their causes, course, and cure, took +lead of all other topics in the public prints, and in serious +conversation. + +The nervous tension of the public mind could not have been +more strikingly illustrated than it was by the alarm resulting +from the talk of a small band of men who called themselves +anarchists, and proposed to terrify the American people into +adopting their ideas by threats of violence, as if a mighty nation +which had but just put down a rebellion of half its own +numbers, in order to maintain its political system, were likely to +adopt a new social system out of fear. + +As one of the wealthy, with a large stake in the existing order +of things, I naturally shared the apprehensions of my class. The +particular grievance I had against the working classes at the time +of which I write, on account of the effect of their strikes in +postponing my wedded bliss, no doubt lent a special animosity +to my feeling toward them. + + + +Chapter 2 + + +The thirtieth day of May, 1887, fell on a Monday. It was one +of the annual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the +nineteenth century, being set apart under the name of Decoration +Day, for doing honor to the memory of the soldiers of the +North who took part in the war for the preservation of the union +of the States. The survivors of the war, escorted by military and +civic processions and bands of music, were wont on this occasion +to visit the cemeteries and lay wreaths of flowers upon the graves +of their dead comrades, the ceremony being a very solemn and +touching one. The eldest brother of Edith Bartlett had fallen in +the war, and on Decoration Day the family was in the habit of +making a visit to Mount Auburn, where he lay. + +I had asked permission to make one of the party, and, on our +return to the city at nightfall, remained to dine with the family +of my betrothed. In the drawing-room, after dinner, I picked up +an evening paper and read of a fresh strike in the building trades, +which would probably still further delay the completion of my +unlucky house. I remember distinctly how exasperated I was at +this, and the objurgations, as forcible as the presence of the +ladies permitted, which I lavished upon workmen in general, and +these strikers in particular. I had abundant sympathy from those +about me, and the remarks made in the desultory conversation +which followed, upon the unprincipled conduct of the labor +agitators, were calculated to make those gentlemen's ears tingle. +It was agreed that affairs were going from bad to worse very fast, +and that there was no telling what we should come to soon. +"The worst of it," I remember Mrs. Bartlett's saying, "is that the +working classes all over the world seem to be going crazy at once. +In Europe it is far worse even than here. I'm sure I should not +dare to live there at all. I asked Mr. Bartlett the other day where +we should emigrate to if all the terrible things took place which +those socialists threaten. He said he did not know any place now +where society could be called stable except Greenland, Patago- +nia, and the Chinese Empire." "Those Chinamen knew what +they were about," somebody added, "when they refused to let in +our western civilization. They knew what it would lead to better +than we did. They saw it was nothing but dynamite in disguise." + +After this, I remember drawing Edith apart and trying to +persuade her that it would be better to be married at once +without waiting for the completion of the house, spending the +time in travel till our home was ready for us. She was remarkably +handsome that evening, the mourning costume that she wore in +recognition of the day setting off to great advantage the purity of +her complexion. I can see her even now with my mind's eye just +as she looked that night. When I took my leave she followed me +into the hall and I kissed her good-by as usual. There was no +circumstance out of the common to distinguish this parting +from previous occasions when we had bade each other good-by +for a night or a day. There was absolutely no premonition in my +mind, or I am sure in hers, that this was more than an ordinary +separation. + +Ah, well! + +The hour at which I had left my betrothed was a rather early +one for a lover, but the fact was no reflection on my devotion. I +was a confirmed sufferer from insomnia, and although otherwise +perfectly well had been completely fagged out that day, from +having slept scarcely at all the two previous nights. Edith knew +this and had insisted on sending me home by nine o'clock, with +strict orders to go to bed at once. + +The house in which I lived had been occupied by three +generations of the family of which I was the only living +representative in the direct line. It was a large, ancient wooden +mansion, very elegant in an old-fashioned way within, but +situated in a quarter that had long since become undesirable for +residence, from its invasion by tenement houses and manufactories. +It was not a house to which I could think of bringing a +bride, much less so dainty a one as Edith Bartlett. I had +advertised it for sale, and meanwhile merely used it for sleeping +purposes, dining at my club. One servant, a faithful colored man +by the name of Sawyer, lived with me and attended to my few +wants. One feature of the house I expected to miss greatly when +I should leave it, and this was the sleeping chamber which I had +built under the foundations. I could not have slept in the city at +all, with its never ceasing nightly noises, if I had been obliged to +use an upstairs chamber. But to this subterranean room no +murmur from the upper world ever penetrated. When I had entered +it and closed the door, I was surrounded by the silence of +the tomb. In order to prevent the dampness of the subsoil from +penetrating the chamber, the walls had been laid in hydraulic +cement and were very thick, and the floor was likewise protected. +In order that the room might serve also as a vault equally proof +against violence and flames, for the storage of valuables, I had +roofed it with stone slabs hermetically sealed, and the outer door +was of iron with a thick coating of asbestos. A small pipe, +communicating with a wind-mill on the top of the house, +insured the renewal of air. + +It might seem that the tenant of such a chamber ought to be +able to command slumber, but it was rare that I slept well, even +there, two nights in succession. So accustomed was I to wakefulness +that I minded little the loss of one night's rest. A second +night, however, spent in my reading chair instead of my bed, +tired me out, and I never allowed myself to go longer than that +without slumber, from fear of nervous disorder. From this +statement it will be inferred that I had at my command some +artificial means for inducing sleep in the last resort, and so in +fact I had. If after two sleepless nights I found myself on the +approach of the third without sensations of drowsiness, I called +in Dr. Pillsbury. + +He was a doctor by courtesy only, what was called in those +days an "irregular" or "quack" doctor. He called himself a +"Professor of Animal Magnetism." I had come across him in the +course of some amateur investigations into the phenomena of +animal magnetism. I don't think he knew anything about +medicine, but he was certainly a remarkable mesmerist. It was +for the purpose of being put to sleep by his manipulations that I +used to send for him when I found a third night of sleeplessness +impending. Let my nervous excitement or mental preoccupation +be however great, Dr. Pillsbury never failed, after a short time, to +leave me in a deep slumber, which continued till I was aroused +by a reversal of the mesmerizing process. The process for +awaking the sleeper was much simpler than that for putting him +to sleep, and for convenience I had made Dr Pillsbury teach +Sawyer how to do it. + +My faithful servant alone knew for what purpose Dr. Pillsbury +visited me, or that he did so at all. Of course, when Edith +became my wife I should have to tell her my secrets. I had not +hitherto told her this, because there was unquestionably a slight +risk in the mesmeric sleep, and I knew she would set her face +against my practice. The risk, of course, was that it might +become too profound and pass into a trance beyond the mesmerizer's +power to break, ending in death. Repeated experiments +had fully convinced me that the risk was next to nothing if +reasonable precautions were exercised, and of this I hoped, +though doubtingly, to convince Edith. I went directly home +after leaving her, and at once sent Sawyer to fetch Dr. Pillsbury. +Meanwhile I sought my subterranean sleeping chamber, and +exchanging my costume for a comfortable dressing-gown, sat +down to read the letters by the evening mail which Sawyer had +laid on my reading table. + +One of them was from the builder of my new house, and +confirmed what I had inferred from the newspaper item. The +new strikes, he said, had postponed indefinitely the completion +of the contract, as neither masters nor workmen would concede +the point at issue without a long struggle. Caligula wished that +the Roman people had but one neck that he might cut it off, +and as I read this letter I am afraid that for a moment I was +capable of wishing the same thing concerning the laboring +classes of America. The return of Sawyer with the doctor +interrupted my gloomy meditations. + +It appeared that he had with difficulty been able to secure his +services, as he was preparing to leave the city that very night. +The doctor explained that since he had seen me last he had +learned of a fine professional opening in a distant city, and +decided to take prompt advantage of it. On my asking, in some +panic, what I was to do for some one to put me to sleep, he gave +me the names of several mesmerizers in Boston who, he averred, +had quite as great powers as he. + +Somewhat relieved on this point, I instructed Sawyer to rouse +me at nine o'clock next morning, and, lying down on the bed in +my dressing-gown, assumed a comfortable attitude, and surrendered +myself to the manipulations of the mesmerizer. Owing, +perhaps, to my unusually nervous state, I was slower than +common in losing consciousness, but at length a delicious +drowsiness stole over me. + + + +Chapter 3 + + +"He is going to open his eyes. He had better see but one of +us at first." + +"Promise me, then, that you will not tell him." + +The first voice was a man's, the second a woman's, and both +spoke in whispers. + +"I will see how he seems," replied the man. + +"No, no, promise me," persisted the other. + +"Let her have her way," whispered a third voice, also a +woman. + +"Well, well, I promise, then," answered the man. "Quick, go! +He is coming out of it." + +There was a rustle of garments and I opened my eyes. A fine +looking man of perhaps sixty was bending over me, an expression +of much benevolence mingled with great curiosity upon his +features. He was an utter stranger. I raised myself on an elbow +and looked around. The room was empty. I certainly had never +been in it before, or one furnished like it. I looked back at my +companion. He smiled. + +"How do you feel?" he inquired. + +"Where am I?" I demanded. + +"You are in my house," was the reply. + +"How came I here?" + +"We will talk about that when you are stronger. Meanwhile, I +beg you will feel no anxiety. You are among friends and in good +hands. How do you feel?" + +"A bit queerly," I replied, "but I am well, I suppose. Will you +tell me how I came to be indebted to your hospitality? What has +happened to me? How came I here? It was in my own house +that I went to sleep." + +"There will be time enough for explanations later," my +unknown host replied, with a reassuring smile. "It will be better +to avoid agitating talk until you are a little more yourself. Will +you oblige me by taking a couple of swallows of this mixture? It +will do you good. I am a physician." + +I repelled the glass with my hand and sat up on the couch, +although with an effort, for my head was strangely light. + +"I insist upon knowing at once where I am and what you have +been doing with me," I said. + +"My dear sir," responded my companion, "let me beg that you +will not agitate yourself. I would rather you did not insist upon +explanations so soon, but if you do, I will try to satisfy you, +provided you will first take this draught, which will strengthen +you somewhat." + +I thereupon drank what he offered me. Then he said, "It is +not so simple a matter as you evidently suppose to tell you how +you came here. You can tell me quite as much on that point as I +can tell you. You have just been roused from a deep sleep, or, +more properly, trance. So much I can tell you. You say you were +in your own house when you fell into that sleep. May I ask you +when that was?" + +"When?" I replied, "when? Why, last evening, of course, at +about ten o'clock. I left my man Sawyer orders to call me at nine +o'clock. What has become of Sawyer?" + +"I can't precisely tell you that," replied my companion, +regarding me with a curious expression, "but I am sure that he is +excusable for not being here. And now can you tell me a little +more explicitly when it was that you fell into that sleep, the +date, I mean?" + +"Why, last night, of course; I said so, didn't I? that is, unless I +have overslept an entire day. Great heavens! that cannot be +possible; and yet I have an odd sensation of having slept a long +time. It was Decoration Day that I went to sleep." + +"Decoration Day?" + +"Yes, Monday, the 30th." + +"Pardon me, the 30th of what?" + +"Why, of this month, of course, unless I have slept into June, +but that can't be." + +"This month is September." + +"September! You don't mean that I've slept since May! God +in heaven! Why, it is incredible." + +"We shall see," replied my companion; "you say that it was +May 30th when you went to sleep?" + +"Yes." + +"May I ask of what year?" + +I stared blankly at him, incapable of speech, for some +moments. + +"Of what year?" I feebly echoed at last. + +"Yes, of what year, if you please? After you have told me that +I shall be able to tell you how long you have slept." + +"It was the year 1887," I said. + +My companion insisted that I should take another draught +from the glass, and felt my pulse. + +"My dear sir," he said, "your manner indicates that you are a +man of culture, which I am aware was by no means the matter +of course in your day it now is. No doubt, then, you have +yourself made the observation that nothing in this world can be +truly said to be more wonderful than anything else. The causes +of all phenomena are equally adequate, and the results equally +matters of course. That you should be startled by what I shall +tell you is to be expected; but I am confident that you will not +permit it to affect your equanimity unduly. Your appearance is +that of a young man of barely thirty, and your bodily condition +seems not greatly different from that of one just roused from a +somewhat too long and profound sleep, and yet this is the tenth +day of September in the year 2000, and you have slept exactly +one hundred and thirteen years, three months, and eleven days." + +Feeling partially dazed, I drank a cup of some sort of broth at +my companion's suggestion, and, immediately afterward becoming +very drowsy, went off into a deep sleep. + +When I awoke it was broad daylight in the room, which had +been lighted artificially when I was awake before. My mysterious +host was sitting near. He was not looking at me when I opened +my eyes, and I had a good opportunity to study him and +meditate upon my extraordinary situation, before he observed +that I was awake. My giddiness was all gone, and my mind +perfectly clear. The story that I had been asleep one hundred +and thirteen years, which, in my former weak and bewildered +condition, I had accepted without question, recurred to me now +only to be rejected as a preposterous attempt at an imposture, +the motive of which it was impossible remotely to surmise. + +Something extraordinary had certainly happened to account +for my waking up in this strange house with this unknown +companion, but my fancy was utterly impotent to suggest more +than the wildest guess as to what that something might have +been. Could it be that I was the victim of some sort of +conspiracy? It looked so, certainly; and yet, if human lineaments +ever gave true evidence, it was certain that this man by my side, +with a face so refined and ingenuous, was no party to any scheme +of crime or outrage. Then it occurred to me to question if I +might not be the butt of some elaborate practical joke on the +part of friends who had somehow learned the secret of my +underground chamber and taken this means of impressing me +with the peril of mesmeric experiments. There were great +difficulties in the way of this theory; Sawyer would never have +betrayed me, nor had I any friends at all likely to undertake such +an enterprise; nevertheless the supposition that I was the victim +of a practical joke seemed on the whole the only one tenable. +Half expecting to catch a glimpse of some familiar face grinning +from behind a chair or curtain, I looked carefully about the +room. When my eyes next rested on my companion, he was +looking at me. + +"You have had a fine nap of twelve hours," he said briskly, +"and I can see that it has done you good. You look much better. +Your color is good and your eyes are bright. How do you feel?" + +"I never felt better," I said, sitting up. + +"You remember your first waking, no doubt," he pursued, +"and your surprise when I told you how long you had been +asleep?" + +"You said, I believe, that I had slept one hundred and thirteen +years." + +"Exactly." + +"You will admit," I said, with an ironical smile, "that the +story was rather an improbable one." + +"Extraordinary, I admit," he responded, "but given the proper +conditions, not improbable nor inconsistent with what we know +of the trance state. When complete, as in your case, the vital +functions are absolutely suspended, and there is no waste of the +tissues. No limit can be set to the possible duration of a trance +when the external conditions protect the body from physical +injury. This trance of yours is indeed the longest of which there +is any positive record, but there is no known reason wherefore, +had you not been discovered and had the chamber in which we +found you continued intact, you might not have remained in a +state of suspended animation till, at the end of indefinite ages, +the gradual refrigeration of the earth had destroyed the bodily +tissues and set the spirit free." + +I had to admit that, if I were indeed the victim of a practical +joke, its authors had chosen an admirable agent for carrying out +their imposition. The impressive and even eloquent manner of +this man would have lent dignity to an argument that the moon +was made of cheese. The smile with which I had regarded him as +he advanced his trance hypothesis did not appear to confuse him +in the slightest degree. + +"Perhaps," I said, "you will go on and favor me with some +particulars as to the circumstances under which you discovered +this chamber of which you speak, and its contents. I enjoy good +fiction." + +"In this case," was the grave reply, "no fiction could be so +strange as the truth. You must know that these many years I +have been cherishing the idea of building a laboratory in the +large garden beside this house, for the purpose of chemical +experiments for which I have a taste. Last Thursday the excava- +tion for the cellar was at last begun. It was completed by that +night, and Friday the masons were to have come. Thursday +night we had a tremendous deluge of rain, and Friday morning I +found my cellar a frog-pond and the walls quite washed down. +My daughter, who had come out to view the disaster with me, +called my attention to a corner of masonry laid bare by the +crumbling away of one of the walls. I cleared a little earth from +it, and, finding that it seemed part of a large mass, determined to +investigate it. The workmen I sent for unearthed an oblong vault +some eight feet below the surface, and set in the corner of what +had evidently been the foundation walls of an ancient house. A +layer of ashes and charcoal on the top of the vault showed that +the house above had perished by fire. The vault itself was +perfectly intact, the cement being as good as when first applied. +It had a door, but this we could not force, and found entrance +by removing one of the flagstones which formed the roof. The +air which came up was stagnant but pure, dry and not cold. +Descending with a lantern, I found myself in an apartment +fitted up as a bedroom in the style of the nineteenth century. On +the bed lay a young man. That he was dead and must have been +dead a century was of course to be taken for granted; but the +extraordinary state of preservation of the body struck me and the +medical colleagues whom I had summoned with amazement. +That the art of such embalming as this had ever been known we +should not have believed, yet here seemed conclusive testimony +that our immediate ancestors had possessed it. My medical +colleagues, whose curiosity was highly excited, were at once for +undertaking experiments to test the nature of the process +employed, but I withheld them. My motive in so doing, at least +the only motive I now need speak of, was the recollection of +something I once had read about the extent to which your +contemporaries had cultivated the subject of animal magnetism. +It had occurred to me as just conceivable that you might be in a +trance, and that the secret of your bodily integrity after so long a +time was not the craft of an embalmer, but life. So extremely +fanciful did this idea seem, even to me, that I did not risk the +ridicule of my fellow physicians by mentioning it, but gave some +other reason for postponing their experiments. No sooner, however, +had they left me, than I set on foot a systematic attempt at +resuscitation, of which you know the result." + +Had its theme been yet more incredible, the circumstantiality +of this narrative, as well as the impressive manner and personality +of the narrator, might have staggered a listener, and I had +begun to feel very strangely, when, as he closed, I chanced to +catch a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall +of the room. I rose and went up to it. The face I saw was the +face to a hair and a line and not a day older than the one I had +looked at as I tied my cravat before going to Edith that +Decoration Day, which, as this man would have me believe, was +celebrated one hundred and thirteen years before. At this, the +colossal character of the fraud which was being attempted on +me, came over me afresh. Indignation mastered my mind as I +realized the outrageous liberty that had been taken. + +"You are probably surprised," said my companion, "to see +that, although you are a century older than when you lay down +to sleep in that underground chamber, your appearance is +unchanged. That should not amaze you. It is by virtue of the +total arrest of the vital functions that you have survived this +great period of time. If your body could have undergone any +change during your trance, it would long ago have suffered +dissolution." + +"Sir," I replied, turning to him, "what your motive can be in +reciting to me with a serious face this remarkable farrago, I am +utterly unable to guess; but you are surely yourself too intelligent +to suppose that anybody but an imbecile could be deceived by it. +Spare me any more of this elaborate nonsense and once for all +tell me whether you refuse to give me an intelligible account of +where I am and how I came here. If so, I shall proceed to +ascertain my whereabouts for myself, whoever may hinder." + +"You do not, then, believe that this is the year 2000?" + +"Do you really think it necessary to ask me that?" I returned. + +"Very well," replied my extraordinary host. "Since I cannot +convince you, you shall convince yourself. Are you strong +enough to follow me upstairs?" + +"I am as strong as I ever was," I replied angrily, "as I may have +to prove if this jest is carried much farther." + +"I beg, sir," was my companion's response, "that you will not +allow yourself to be too fully persuaded that you are the victim +of a trick, lest the reaction, when you are convinced of the truth +of my statements, should be too great." + +The tone of concern, mingled with commiseration, with +which he said this, and the entire absence of any sign of +resentment at my hot words, strangely daunted me, and I +followed him from the room with an extraordinary mixture of +emotions. He led the way up two flights of stairs and then up a +shorter one, which landed us upon a belvedere on the house-top. +"Be pleased to look around you," he said, as we reached the +platform, "and tell me if this is the Boston of the nineteenth +century." + +At my feet lay a great city. Miles of broad streets, shaded by +trees and lined with fine buildings, for the most part not in +continuous blocks but set in larger or smaller inclosures, +stretched in every direction. Every quarter contained large open +squares filled with trees, among which statues glistened and +fountains flashed in the late afternoon sun. Public buildings of a +colossal size and an architectural grandeur unparalleled in my +day raised their stately piles on every side. Surely I had never +seen this city nor one comparable to it before. Raising my eyes at +last towards the horizon, I looked westward. That blue ribbon +winding away to the sunset, was it not the sinuous Charles? I +looked east; Boston harbor stretched before me within its +headlands, not one of its green islets missing. + +I knew then that I had been told the truth concerning the +prodigious thing which had befallen me. + + + +Chapter 4 + + +I did not faint, but the effort to realize my position made me +very giddy, and I remember that my companion had to give me +a strong arm as he conducted me from the roof to a roomy +apartment on the upper floor of the house, where he insisted on +my drinking a glass or two of good wine and partaking of a light +repast. + +"I think you are going to be all right now," he said cheerily. "I +should not have taken so abrupt a means to convince you of your +position if your course, while perfectly excusable under the +circumstances, had not rather obliged me to do so. I confess," he +added laughing, "I was a little apprehensive at one time that I +should undergo what I believe you used to call a knockdown in +the nineteenth century, if I did not act rather promptly. I +remembered that the Bostonians of your day were famous +pugilists, and thought best to lose no time. I take it you are now +ready to acquit me of the charge of hoaxing you." + +"If you had told me," I replied, profoundly awed, "that a +thousand years instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last +looked on this city, I should now believe you." + +"Only a century has passed," he answered, "but many a +millennium in the world's history has seen changes less extraordinary." + +"And now," he added, extending his hand with an air of +irresistible cordiality, "let me give you a hearty welcome to the +Boston of the twentieth century and to this house. My name is +Leete, Dr. Leete they call me." + +"My name," I said as I shook his hand, "is Julian West." + +"I am most happy in making your acquaintance, Mr. West," +he responded. "Seeing that this house is built on the site of +your own, I hope you will find it easy to make yourself at +home in it." + +After my refreshment Dr. Leete offered me a bath and a +change of clothing, of which I gladly availed myself. + +It did not appear that any very startling revolution in men's +attire had been among the great changes my host had spoken of, +for, barring a few details, my new habiliments did not puzzle me +at all. + +Physically, I was now myself again. But mentally, how was it +with me, the reader will doubtless wonder. What were my +intellectual sensations, he may wish to know, on finding myself +so suddenly dropped as it were into a new world. In reply let me +ask him to suppose himself suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, +transported from earth, say, to Paradise or Hades. What does +he fancy would be his own experience? Would his thoughts +return at once to the earth he had just left, or would he, after +the first shock, wellnigh forget his former life for a while, albeit +to be remembered later, in the interest excited by his new +surroundings? All I can say is, that if his experience were at all +like mine in the transition I am describing, the latter hypothesis +would prove the correct one. The impressions of amazement and +curiosity which my new surroundings produced occupied my +mind, after the first shock, to the exclusion of all other thoughts. +For the time the memory of my former life was, as it were, in +abeyance. + +No sooner did I find myself physically rehabilitated through +the kind offices of my host, than I became eager to return to the +house-top; and presently we were comfortably established there +in easy-chairs, with the city beneath and around us. After Dr. +Leete had responded to numerous questions on my part, as to +the ancient landmarks I missed and the new ones which had +replaced them, he asked me what point of the contrast between +the new and the old city struck me most forcibly. + +"To speak of small things before great," I responded, "I really +think that the complete absence of chimneys and their smoke is +the detail that first impressed me." + +"Ah!" ejaculated my companion with an air of much interest, +"I had forgotten the chimneys, it is so long since they went out +of use. It is nearly a century since the crude method of +combustion on which you depended for heat became obsolete." + +"In general," I said, "what impresses me most about the city is +the material prosperity on the part of the people which its +magnificence implies." + +"I would give a great deal for just one glimpse of the Boston +of your day," replied Dr. Leete. "No doubt, as you imply, the +cities of that period were rather shabby affairs. If you had the +taste to make them splendid, which I would not be so rude as to +question, the general poverty resulting from your extraordinary +industrial system would not have given you the means. +Moreover, the excessive individualism which then prevailed was +inconsistent with much public spirit. What little wealth you had +seems almost wholly to have been lavished in private luxury. +Nowadays, on the contrary, there is no destination of the surplus +wealth so popular as the adornment of the city, which all enjoy +in equal degree." + +The sun had been setting as we returned to the house-top, and +as we talked night descended upon the city. + +"It is growing dark," said Dr. Leete. "Let us descend into the +house; I want to introduce my wife and daughter to you." + +His words recalled to me the feminine voices which I had +heard whispering about me as I was coming back to conscious +life; and, most curious to learn what the ladies of the year 2000 +were like, I assented with alacrity to the proposition. The +apartment in which we found the wife and daughter of my host, +as well as the entire interior of the house, was filled with a +mellow light, which I knew must be artificial, although I could +not discover the source from which it was diffused. Mrs. Leete +was an exceptionally fine looking and well preserved woman of +about her husband's age, while the daughter, who was in the first +blush of womanhood, was the most beautiful girl I had ever +seen. Her face was as bewitching as deep blue eyes, delicately +tinted complexion, and perfect features could make it, but even +had her countenance lacked special charms, the faultless luxuriance +of her figure would have given her place as a beauty among +the women of the nineteenth century. Feminine softness and +delicacy were in this lovely creature deliciously combined with +an appearance of health and abounding physical vitality too +often lacking in the maidens with whom alone I could compare +her. It was a coincidence trifling in comparison with the general +strangeness of the situation, but still striking, that her name +should be Edith. + +The evening that followed was certainly unique in the history +of social intercourse, but to suppose that our conversation was +peculiarly strained or difficult would be a great mistake. I believe +indeed that it is under what may be called unnatural, in the +sense of extraordinary, circumstances that people behave most +naturally, for the reason, no doubt, that such circumstances +banish artificiality. I know at any rate that my intercourse that +evening with these representatives of another age and world was +marked by an ingenuous sincerity and frankness such as but +rarely crown long acquaintance. No doubt the exquisite tact of +my entertainers had much to do with this. Of course there was +nothing we could talk of but the strange experience by virtue of +which I was there, but they talked of it with an interest so naive +and direct in its expression as to relieve the subject to a great +degree of the element of the weird and the uncanny which +might so easily have been overpowering. One would have supposed +that they were quite in the habit of entertaining waifs +from another century, so perfect was their tact. + +For my own part, never do I remember the operations of my +mind to have been more alert and acute than that evening, or +my intellectual sensibilities more keen. Of course I do not mean +that the consciousness of my amazing situation was for a +moment out of mind, but its chief effect thus far was to produce +a feverish elation, a sort of mental intoxication.[1] + + +[1] In accounting for this state of mind it must be remembered +that, except for the topic of our conversations, there was in my +surroundings next to nothing to suggest what had befallen me. +Within a block of my home in the old Boston I could have found +social circles vastly more foreign to me. The speech of the Bostonians +of the twentieth century differs even less from that of their +cultured ancestors of the nineteenth than did that of the latter +from the language of Washington and Franklin, while the differences +between the style of dress and furniture of the two epochs +are not more marked than I have known fashion to make in the +time of one generation. + + +Edith Leete took little part in the conversation, but when +several times the magnetism of her beauty drew my glance to her +face, I found her eyes fixed on me with an absorbed intensity, +almost like fascination. It was evident that I had excited her +interest to an extraordinary degree, as was not astonishing, +supposing her to be a girl of imagination. Though I supposed +curiosity was the chief motive of her interest, it could but affect +me as it would not have done had she been less beautiful. + +Dr. Leete, as well as the ladies, seemed greatly interested in +my account of the circumstances under which I had gone to +sleep in the underground chamber. All had suggestions to offer +to account for my having been forgotten there, and the theory +which we finally agreed on offers at least a plausible explanation, +although whether it be in its details the true one, nobody, of +course, will ever know. The layer of ashes found above the +chamber indicated that the house had been burned down. Let it +be supposed that the conflagration had taken place the night I +fell asleep. It only remains to assume that Sawyer lost his life in +the fire or by some accident connected with it, and the rest +follows naturally enough. No one but he and Dr. Pillsbury either +knew of the existence of the chamber or that I was in it, and Dr. +Pillsbury, who had gone that night to New Orleans, had +probably never heard of the fire at all. The conclusion of my +friends, and of the public, must have been that I had perished in +the flames. An excavation of the ruins, unless thorough, would +not have disclosed the recess in the foundation walls connecting +with my chamber. To be sure, if the site had been again built +upon, at least immediately, such an excavation would have been +necessary, but the troublous times and the undesirable character +of the locality might well have prevented rebuilding. The size of +the trees in the garden now occupying the site indicated, Dr. +Leete said, that for more than half a century at least it had been +open ground. + + + +Chapter 5 + + +When, in the course of the evening the ladies retired, leaving +Dr. Leete and myself alone, he sounded me as to my disposition +for sleep, saying that if I felt like it my bed was ready for me; but +if I was inclined to wakefulness nothing would please him better +than to bear me company. "I am a late bird, myself," he said, +"and, without suspicion of flattery, I may say that a companion +more interesting than yourself could scarcely be imagined. It is +decidedly not often that one has a chance to converse with a +man of the nineteenth century." + +Now I had been looking forward all the evening with some +dread to the time when I should be alone, on retiring for the +night. Surrounded by these most friendly strangers, stimulated +and supported by their sympathetic interest, I had been able to +keep my mental balance. Even then, however, in pauses of the +conversation I had had glimpses, vivid as lightning flashes, of the +horror of strangeness that was waiting to be faced when I could +no longer command diversion. I knew I could not sleep that +night, and as for lying awake and thinking, it argues no cowardice, +I am sure, to confess that I was afraid of it. When, in reply +to my host's question, I frankly told him this, he replied that it +would be strange if I did not feel just so, but that I need have no +anxiety about sleeping; whenever I wanted to go to bed, he +would give me a dose which would insure me a sound night's +sleep without fail. Next morning, no doubt, I would awake with +the feeling of an old citizen. + +"Before I acquired that," I replied, "I must know a little more +about the sort of Boston I have come back to. You told me +when we were upon the house-top that though a century only +had elapsed since I fell asleep, it had been marked by greater +changes in the conditions of humanity than many a previous +millennium. With the city before me I could well believe that, +but I am very curious to know what some of the changes have +been. To make a beginning somewhere, for the subject is +doubtless a large one, what solution, if any, have you found for +the labor question? It was the Sphinx's riddle of the nineteenth +century, and when I dropped out the Sphinx was threatening to +devour society, because the answer was not forthcoming. It is +well worth sleeping a hundred years to learn what the right +answer was, if, indeed, you have found it yet." + +"As no such thing as the labor question is known nowadays," +replied Dr. Leete, "and there is no way in which it could arise, I +suppose we may claim to have solved it. Society would indeed +have fully deserved being devoured if it had failed to answer a +riddle so entirely simple. In fact, to speak by the book, it was not +necessary for society to solve the riddle at all. It may be said to +have solved itself. The solution came as the result of a process of +industrial evolution which could not have terminated otherwise. +All that society had to do was to recognize and cooperate with +that evolution, when its tendency had become unmistakable." + +"I can only say," I answered, "that at the time I fell asleep no +such evolution had been recognized." + +"It was in 1887 that you fell into this sleep, I think you said." + +"Yes, May 30th, 1887." + +My companion regarded me musingly for some moments. +Then he observed, "And you tell me that even then there was no +general recognition of the nature of the crisis which society was +nearing? Of course, I fully credit your statement. The singular +blindness of your contemporaries to the signs of the times is a +phenomenon commented on by many of our historians, but few +facts of history are more difficult for us to realize, so obvious and +unmistakable as we look back seem the indications, which must +also have come under your eyes, of the transformation about to +come to pass. I should be interested, Mr. West, if you would +give me a little more definite idea of the view which you and +men of your grade of intellect took of the state and prospects of +society in 1887. You must, at least, have realized that the +widespread industrial and social troubles, and the underlying +dissatisfaction of all classes with the inequalities of society, and +the general misery of mankind, were portents of great changes of +some sort." + +"We did, indeed, fully realize that," I replied. "We felt that +society was dragging anchor and in danger of going adrift. +Whither it would drift nobody could say, but all feared the +rocks." + +"Nevertheless," said Dr. Leete, "the set of the current was +perfectly perceptible if you had but taken pains to observe it, +and it was not toward the rocks, but toward a deeper channel." + +"We had a popular proverb," I replied, "that `hindsight is +better than foresight,' the force of which I shall now, no doubt, +appreciate more fully than ever. All I can say is, that the +prospect was such when I went into that long sleep that I should +not have been surprised had I looked down from your house-top +to-day on a heap of charred and moss-grown ruins instead of this +glorious city." + +Dr. Leete had listened to me with close attention and nodded +thoughtfully as I finished speaking. "What you have said," he +observed, "will be regarded as a most valuable vindication of +Storiot, whose account of your era has been generally thought +exaggerated in its picture of the gloom and confusion of men's +minds. That a period of transition like that should be full of +excitement and agitation was indeed to be looked for; but seeing +how plain was the tendency of the forces in operation, it was +natural to believe that hope rather than fear would have been +the prevailing temper of the popular mind." + +"You have not yet told me what was the answer to the riddle +which you found," I said. "I am impatient to know by what +contradiction of natural sequence the peace and prosperity +which you now seem to enjoy could have been the outcome of +an era like my own." + +"Excuse me," replied my host, "but do you smoke?" It was +not till our cigars were lighted and drawing well that he +resumed. "Since you are in the humor to talk rather than to +sleep, as I certainly am, perhaps I cannot do better than to try +to give you enough idea of our modern industrial system to +dissipate at least the impression that there is any mystery about +the process of its evolution. The Bostonians of your day had the +reputation of being great askers of questions, and I am going to +show my descent by asking you one to begin with. What should +you name as the most prominent feature of the labor troubles of +your day?" + +"Why, the strikes, of course," I replied. + +"Exactly; but what made the strikes so formidable?" + +"The great labor organizations." + +"And what was the motive of these great organizations?" + +"The workmen claimed they had to organize to get their +rights from the big corporations," I replied. + +"That is just it," said Dr. Leete; "the organization of labor and +the strikes were an effect, merely, of the concentration of capital +in greater masses than had ever been known before. Before this +concentration began, while as yet commerce and industry were +conducted by innumerable petty concerns with small capital, +instead of a small number of great concerns with vast capital, the +individual workman was relatively important and independent in +his relations to the employer. Moreover, when a little capital or a +new idea was enough to start a man in business for himself, +workingmen were constantly becoming employers and there was +no hard and fast line between the two classes. Labor unions were +needless then, and general strikes out of the question. But when +the era of small concerns with small capital was succeeded by +that of the great aggregations of capital, all this was changed. +The individual laborer, who had been relatively important to the +small employer, was reduced to insignificance and powerlessness +over against the great corporation, while at the same time the +way upward to the grade of employer was closed to him. +Self-defense drove him to union with his fellows. + +"The records of the period show that the outcry against the +concentration of capital was furious. Men believed that it +threatened society with a form of tyranny more abhorrent than +it had ever endured. They believed that the great corporations +were preparing for them the yoke of a baser servitude than had +ever been imposed on the race, servitude not to men but to +soulless machines incapable of any motive but insatiable greed. +Looking back, we cannot wonder at their desperation, for +certainly humanity was never confronted with a fate more sordid +and hideous than would have been the era of corporate tyranny +which they anticipated. + +"Meanwhile, without being in the smallest degree checked by +the clamor against it, the absorption of business by ever larger +monopolies continued. In the United States there was not, after +the beginning of the last quarter of the century, any opportunity +whatever for individual enterprise in any important field of +industry, unless backed by a great capital. During the last decade +of the century, such small businesses as still remained were +fast-failing survivals of a past epoch, or mere parasites on the +great corporations, or else existed in fields too small to attract +the great capitalists. Small businesses, as far as they still +remained, were reduced to the condition of rats and mice, living +in holes and corners, and counting on evading notice for the +enjoyment of existence. The railroads had gone on combining +till a few great syndicates controlled every rail in the land. In +manufactories, every important staple was controlled by a syndicate. +These syndicates, pools, trusts, or whatever their name, +fixed prices and crushed all competition except when combinations +as vast as themselves arose. Then a struggle, resulting in a +still greater consolidation, ensued. The great city bazar crushed +it country rivals with branch stores, and in the city itself +absorbed its smaller rivals till the business of a whole quarter was +concentrated under one roof, with a hundred former proprietors +of shops serving as clerks. Having no business of his own to put +his money in, the small capitalist, at the same time that he took +service under the corporation, found no other investment for his +money but its stocks and bonds, thus becoming doubly dependent +upon it. + +"The fact that the desperate popular opposition to the consolidation +of business in a few powerful hands had no effect to +check it proves that there must have been a strong economical +reason for it. The small capitalists, with their innumerable petty +concerns, had in fact yielded the field to the great aggregations +of capital, because they belonged to a day of small things and +were totally incompetent to the demands of an age of steam and +telegraphs and the gigantic scale of its enterprises. To restore the +former order of things, even if possible, would have involved +returning to the day of stagecoaches. Oppressive and intolerable +as was the regime of the great consolidations of capital, even its +victims, while they cursed it, were forced to admit the prodigious +increase of efficiency which had been imparted to the national +industries, the vast economies effected by concentration of +management and unity of organization, and to confess that since +the new system had taken the place of the old the wealth of the +world had increased at a rate before undreamed of. To be sure +this vast increase had gone chiefly to make the rich richer, +increasing the gap between them and the poor; but the fact +remained that, as a means merely of producing wealth, capital +had been proved efficient in proportion to its consolidation. The +restoration of the old system with the subdivision of capital, if it +were possible, might indeed bring back a greater equality of +conditions, with more individual dignity and freedom, but it +would be at the price of general poverty and the arrest of +material progress. + +"Was there, then, no way of commanding the services of the +mighty wealth-producing principle of consolidated capital without +bowing down to a plutocracy like that of Carthage? As soon +as men began to ask themselves these questions, they found the +answer ready for them. The movement toward the conduct of +business by larger and larger aggregations of capital, the +tendency toward monopolies, which had been so desperately and +vainly resisted, was recognized at last, in its true significance, as a +process which only needed to complete its logical evolution to +open a golden future to humanity. + +"Early in the last century the evolution was completed by the +final consolidation of the entire capital of the nation. The +industry and commerce of the country, ceasing to be conducted +by a set of irresponsible corporations and syndicates of private +persons at their caprice and for their profit, were intrusted to a +single syndicate representing the people, to be conducted in the +common interest for the common profit. The nation, that is to +say, organized as the one great business corporation in which all +other corporations were absorbed; it became the one capitalist in +the place of all other capitalists, the sole employer, the final +monopoly in which all previous and lesser monopolies were +swallowed up, a monopoly in the profits and economies of which +all citizens shared. The epoch of trusts had ended in The Great +Trust. In a word, the people of the United States concluded to +assume the conduct of their own business, just as one hundred +odd years before they had assumed the conduct of their own +government, organizing now for industrial purposes on precisely +the same grounds that they had then organized for political +purposes. At last, strangely late in the world's history, the obvious +fact was perceived that no business is so essentially the +public business as the industry and commerce on which the +people's livelihood depends, and that to entrust it to private +persons to be managed for private profit is a folly similar in kind, +though vastly greater in magnitude, to that of surrendering the +functions of political government to kings and nobles to be +conducted for their personal glorification." + +"Such a stupendous change as you describe," said I, "did not, +of course, take place without great bloodshed and terrible +convulsions." + +"On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there was absolutely no +violence. The change had been long foreseen. Public opinion +had become fully ripe for it, and the whole mass of the people +was behind it. There was no more possibility of opposing it by +force than by argument. On the other hand the popular sentiment +toward the great corporations and those identified with +them had ceased to be one of bitterness, as they came to realize +their necessity as a link, a transition phase, in the evolution of +the true industrial system. The most violent foes of the great +private monopolies were now forced to recognize how invaluable +and indispensable had been their office in educating the people +up to the point of assuming control of their own business. Fifty +years before, the consolidation of the industries of the country +under national control would have seemed a very daring experiment +to the most sanguine. But by a series of object lessons, seen +and studied by all men, the great corporations had taught the +people an entirely new set of ideas on this subject. They had +seen for many years syndicates handling revenues greater than +those of states, and directing the labors of hundreds of thousands +of men with an efficiency and economy unattainable in smaller +operations. It had come to be recognized as an axiom that the +larger the business the simpler the principles that can be applied +to it; that, as the machine is truer than the hand, so the system, +which in a great concern does the work of the master's eye in a +small business, turns out more accurate results. Thus it came +about that, thanks to the corporations themselves, when it was +proposed that the nation should assume their functions, the +suggestion implied nothing which seemed impracticable even to +the timid. To be sure it was a step beyond any yet taken, a +broader generalization, but the very fact that the nation would +be the sole corporation in the field would, it was seen, relieve the +undertaking of many difficulties with which the partial monopolies +had contended." + + + +Chapter 6 + + +Dr. Leete ceased speaking, and I remained silent, endeavoring +to form some general conception of the changes in the arrangements +of society implied in the tremendous revolution which he +had described. + +Finally I said, "The idea of such an extension of the functions +of government is, to say the least, rather overwhelming." + +"Extension!" he repeated, "where is the extension?" + +"In my day," I replied, "it was considered that the proper +functions of government, strictly speaking, were limited to +keeping the peace and defending the people against the public +enemy, that is, to the military and police powers." + +"And, in heaven's name, who are the public enemies?" +exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Are they France, England, Germany, or +hunger, cold, and nakedness? In your day governments were +accustomed, on the slightest international misunderstanding, to +seize upon the bodies of citizens and deliver them over by +hundreds of thousands to death and mutilation, wasting their +treasures the while like water; and all this oftenest for no +imaginable profit to the victims. We have no wars now, and our +governments no war powers, but in order to protect every citizen +against hunger, cold, and nakedness, and provide for all his +physical and mental needs, the function is assumed of directing +his industry for a term of years. No, Mr. West, I am sure on +reflection you will perceive that it was in your age, not in ours, +that the extension of the functions of governments was extraordinary. +Not even for the best ends would men now allow their +governments such powers as were then used for the most +maleficent." + +"Leaving comparisons aside," I said, "the demagoguery and +corruption of our public men would have been considered, in my +day, insuperable objections to any assumption by government of +the charge of the national industries. We should have thought +that no arrangement could be worse than to entrust the politicians +with control of the wealth-producing machinery of the +country. Its material interests were quite too much the football +of parties as it was." + +"No doubt you were right," rejoined Dr. Leete, "but all that is +changed now. We have no parties or politicians, and as for +demagoguery and corruption, they are words having only an +historical significance." + +"Human nature itself must have changed very much," I said. + +"Not at all," was Dr. Leete's reply, "but the conditions of +human life have changed, and with them the motives of human +action. The organization of society with you was such that officials +were under a constant temptation to misuse their power +for the private profit of themselves or others. Under such +circumstances it seems almost strange that you dared entrust +them with any of your affairs. Nowadays, on the contrary, society +is so constituted that there is absolutely no way in which an +official, however ill-disposed, could possibly make any profit for +himself or any one else by a misuse of his power. Let him be as +bad an official as you please, he cannot be a corrupt one. There is +no motive to be. The social system no longer offers a premium +on dishonesty. But these are matters which you can only +understand as you come, with time, to know us better." + +"But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labor +problem. It is the problem of capital which we have been +discussing," I said. "After the nation had assumed conduct of +the mills, machinery, railroads, farms, mines, and capital in +general of the country, the labor question still remained. In +assuming the responsibilities of capital the nation had assumed +the difficulties of the capitalist's position." + +"The moment the nation assumed the responsibilities of +capital those difficulties vanished," replied Dr. Leete. "The +national organization of labor under one direction was the +complete solution of what was, in your day and under your +system, justly regarded as the insoluble labor problem. When +the nation became the sole employer, all the citizens, by virtue +of their citizenship, became employees, to be distributed according +to the needs of industry." + +"That is," I suggested, "you have simply applied the principle +of universal military service, as it was understood in our day, to +the labor question." + +"Yes," said Dr. Leete, "that was something which followed as +a matter of course as soon as the nation had become the sole +capitalist. The people were already accustomed to the idea that +the obligation of every citizen, not physically disabled, to contribute +his military services to the defense of the nation was +equal and absolute. That it was equally the duty of every citizen +to contribute his quota of industrial or intellectual services to +the maintenance of the nation was equally evident, though it +was not until the nation became the employer of labor that +citizens were able to render this sort of service with any pretense +either of universality or equity. No organization of labor was +possible when the employing power was divided among hundreds +or thousands of individuals and corporations, between +which concert of any kind was neither desired, nor indeed +feasible. It constantly happened then that vast numbers who +desired to labor could find no opportunity, and on the other +hand, those who desired to evade a part or all of their debt could +easily do so." + +"Service, now, I suppose, is compulsory upon all," I suggested. + +"It is rather a matter of course than of compulsion," replied +Dr. Leete. "It is regarded as so absolutely natural and reasonable +that the idea of its being compulsory has ceased to be thought +of. He would be thought to be an incredibly contemptible +person who should need compulsion in such a case. Nevertheless, +to speak of service being compulsory would be a weak way +to state its absolute inevitableness. Our entire social order is so +wholly based upon and deduced from it that if it were conceivable +that a man could escape it, he would be left with no +possible way to provide for his existence. He would have +excluded himself from the world, cut himself off from his kind, +in a word, committed suicide." + +"Is the term of service in this industrial army for life?" + +"Oh, no; it both begins later and ends earlier than the average +working period in your day. Your workshops were filled with +children and old men, but we hold the period of youth sacred to +education, and the period of maturity, when the physical forces +begin to flag, equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation. The +period of industrial service is twenty-four years, beginning at the +close of the course of education at twenty-one and terminating +at forty-five. After forty-five, while discharged from labor, the +citizen still remains liable to special calls, in case of emergencies +causing a sudden great increase in the demand for labor, till he +reaches the age of fifty-five, but such calls are rarely, in fact +almost never, made. The fifteenth day of October of every year is +what we call Muster Day, because those who have reached the +age of twenty-one are then mustered into the industrial service, +and at the same time those who, after twenty-four years' service, +have reached the age of forty-five, are honorably mustered out. It +is the great day of the year with us, whence we reckon all other +events, our Olympiad, save that it is annual." + + + +Chapter 7 + + +"It is after you have mustered your industrial army into +service," I said, "that I should expect the chief difficulty to arise, +for there its analogy with a military army must cease. Soldiers +have all the same thing, and a very simple thing, to do, namely, +to practice the manual of arms, to march and stand guard. But +the industrial army must learn and follow two or three hundred +diverse trades and avocations. What administrative talent can be +equal to determining wisely what trade or business every individual +in a great nation shall pursue?" + +"The administration has nothing to do with determining that +point." + +"Who does determine it, then?" I asked. + +"Every man for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude, +the utmost pains being taken to enable him to find out +what his natural aptitude really is. The principle on which our +industrial army is organized is that a man's natural endowments, +mental and physical, determine what he can work at most +profitably to the nation and most satisfactorily to himself. While +the obligation of service in some form is not to be evaded, +voluntary election, subject only to necessary regulation, is +depended on to determine the particular sort of service every +man is to render. As an individual's satisfaction during his term +of service depends on his having an occupation to his taste, +parents and teachers watch from early years for indications of +special aptitudes in children. A thorough study of the National +industrial system, with the history and rudiments of all the great +trades, is an essential part of our educational system. While +manual training is not allowed to encroach on the general +intellectual culture to which our schools are devoted, it is carried +far enough to give our youth, in addition to their theoretical +knowledge of the national industries, mechanical and agricultural, +a certain familiarity with their tools and methods. Our +schools are constantly visiting our workshops, and often are +taken on long excursions to inspect particular industrial enterprises. +In your day a man was not ashamed to be grossly ignorant +of all trades except his own, but such ignorance would not be +consistent with our idea of placing every one in a position to +select intelligently the occupation for which he has most taste. +Usually long before he is mustered into service a young man has +found out the pursuit he wants to follow, has acquired a great +deal of knowledge about it, and is waiting impatiently the time +when he can enlist in its ranks." + +"Surely," I said, "it can hardly be that the number of +volunteers for any trade is exactly the number needed in that +trade. It must be generally either under or over the demand." + +"The supply of volunteers is always expected to fully equal the +demand," replied Dr. Leete. "It is the business of the administration +to see that this is the case. The rate of volunteering for +each trade is closely watched. If there be a noticeably greater +excess of volunteers over men needed in any trade, it is inferred +that the trade offers greater attractions than others. On the other +hand, if the number of volunteers for a trade tends to drop +below the demand, it is inferred that it is thought more arduous. +It is the business of the administration to seek constantly to +equalize the attractions of the trades, so far as the conditions of +labor in them are concerned, so that all trades shall be equally +attractive to persons having natural tastes for them. This is done +by making the hours of labor in different trades to differ +according to their arduousness. The lighter trades, prosecuted +under the most agreeable circumstances, have in this way the +longest hours, while an arduous trade, such as mining, has very +short hours. There is no theory, no a priori rule, by which the +respective attractiveness of industries is determined. The +administration, in taking burdens off one class of workers and adding +them to other classes, simply follows the fluctuations of opinion +among the workers themselves as indicated by the rate of +volunteering. The principle is that no man's work ought to be, +on the whole, harder for him than any other man's for him, the +workers themselves to be the judges. There are no limits to the +application of this rule. If any particular occupation is in itself so +arduous or so oppressive that, in order to induce volunteers, the +day's work in it had to be reduced to ten minutes, it would be +done. If, even then, no man was willing to do it, it would remain +undone. But of course, in point of fact, a moderate reduction in +the hours of labor, or addition of other privileges, suffices to +secure all needed volunteers for any occupation necessary to +men. If, indeed, the unavoidable difficulties and dangers of such +a necessary pursuit were so great that no inducement of compensating +advantages would overcome men's repugnance to it, the +administration would only need to take it out of the common +order of occupations by declaring it `extra hazardous,' and those +who pursued it especially worthy of the national gratitude, to be +overrun with volunteers. Our young men are very greedy of +honor, and do not let slip such opportunities. Of course you will +see that dependence on the purely voluntary choice of avocations +involves the abolition in all of anything like unhygienic conditions +or special peril to life and limb. Health and safety are +conditions common to all industries. The nation does not maim +and slaughter its workmen by thousands, as did the private +capitalists and corporations of your day." + +"When there are more who want to enter a particular trade +than there is room for, how do you decide between the applicants?" +I inquired. + +"Preference is given to those who have acquired the most +knowledge of the trade they wish to follow. No man, however, +who through successive years remains persistent in his desire to +show what he can do at any particular trade, is in the end denied +an opportunity. Meanwhile, if a man cannot at first win entrance +into the business he prefers, he has usually one or more alternative +preferences, pursuits for which he has some degree of +aptitude, although not the highest. Every one, indeed, is +expected to study his aptitudes so as to have not only a first +choice as to occupation, but a second or third, so that if, either +at the outset of his career or subsequently, owing to the progress +of invention or changes in demand, he is unable to follow his +first vocation, he can still find reasonably congenial employment. +This principle of secondary choices as to occupation is quite +important in our system. I should add, in reference to the +counter-possibility of some sudden failure of volunteers in a +particular trade, or some sudden necessity of an increased force, +that the administration, while depending on the voluntary +system for filling up the trades as a rule, holds always in reserve +the power to call for special volunteers, or draft any force needed +from any quarter. Generally, however, all needs of this sort can +be met by details from the class of unskilled or common +laborers." + +"How is this class of common laborers recruited?" I asked. +"Surely nobody voluntarily enters that." + +"It is the grade to which all new recruits belong for the first +three years of their service. It is not till after this period, during +which he is assignable to any work at the discretion of his +superiors, that the young man is allowed to elect a special +avocation. These three years of stringent discipline none are +exempt from, and very glad our young men are to pass from this +severe school into the comparative liberty of the trades. If a man +were so stupid as to have no choice as to occupation, he would +simply remain a common laborer; but such cases, as you may +suppose, are not common." + +"Having once elected and entered on a trade or occupation," I +remarked, "I suppose he has to stick to it the rest of his life." + +"Not necessarily," replied Dr. Leete; "while frequent and +merely capricious changes of occupation are not encouraged or +even permitted, every worker is allowed, of course, under certain +regulations and in accordance with the exigencies of the service, +to volunteer for another industry which he thinks would suit +him better than his first choice. In this case his application is +received just as if he were volunteering for the first time, and on +the same terms. Not only this, but a worker may likewise, under +suitable regulations and not too frequently, obtain a transfer to +an establishment of the same industry in another part of the +country which for any reason he may prefer. Under your system +a discontented man could indeed leave his work at will, but he +left his means of support at the same time, and took his chances +as to future livelihood. We find that the number of men who +wish to abandon an accustomed occupation for a new one, and +old friends and associations for strange ones, is small. It is only +the poorer sort of workmen who desire to change even as +frequently as our regulations permit. Of course transfers or +discharges, when health demands them, are always given." + +"As an industrial system, I should think this might be +extremely efficient," I said, "but I don't see that it makes any +provision for the professional classes, the men who serve the +nation with brains instead of hands. Of course you can't get +along without the brain-workers. How, then, are they selected +from those who are to serve as farmers and mechanics? That +must require a very delicate sort of sifting process, I should say." + +"So it does," replied Dr. Leete; "the most delicate possible +test is needed here, and so we leave the question whether a man +shall be a brain or hand worker entirely to him to settle. At the +end of the term of three years as a common laborer, which every +man must serve, it is for him to choose, in accordance to his +natural tastes, whether he will fit himself for an art or profession, +or be a farmer or mechanic. If he feels that he can do better +work with his brains than his muscles, he finds every facility +provided for testing the reality of his supposed bent, of cultivating +it, and if fit of pursuing it as his avocation. The schools of +technology, of medicine, of art, of music, of histrionics, and of +higher liberal learning are always open to aspirants without +condition." + +"Are not the schools flooded with young men whose only +motive is to avoid work?" + +Dr. Leete smiled a little grimly. + +"No one is at all likely to enter the professional schools for the +purpose of avoiding work, I assure you," he said. "They are +intended for those with special aptitude for the branches they +teach, and any one without it would find it easier to do double +hours at his trade than try to keep up with the classes. Of course +many honestly mistake their vocation, and, finding themselves +unequal to the requirements of the schools, drop out and return +to the industrial service; no discredit attaches to such persons, +for the public policy is to encourage all to develop suspected +talents which only actual tests can prove the reality of. The +professional and scientific schools of your day depended on the +patronage of their pupils for support, and the practice appears to +have been common of giving diplomas to unfit persons, who +afterwards found their way into the professions. Our schools are +national institutions, and to have passed their tests is a proof of +special abilities not to be questioned. + +"This opportunity for a professional training," the doctor +continued, "remains open to every man till the age of thirty is +reached, after which students are not received, as there would +remain too brief a period before the age of discharge in which to +serve the nation in their professions. In your day young men had +to choose their professions very young, and therefore, in a large +proportion of instances, wholly mistook their vocations. It is +recognized nowadays that the natural aptitudes of some are later +than those of others in developing, and therefore, while the +choice of profession may be made as early as twenty-four, it +remains open for six years longer." + +A question which had a dozen times before been on my lips +now found utterance, a question which touched upon what, in +my time, had been regarded the most vital difficulty in the way +of any final settlement of the industrial problem. "It is an +extraordinary thing," I said, "that you should not yet have said a +word about the method of adjusting wages. Since the nation is +the sole employer, the government must fix the rate of wages +and determine just how much everybody shall earn, from the +doctors to the diggers. All I can say is, that this plan would never +have worked with us, and I don't see how it can now unless +human nature has changed. In my day, nobody was satisfied with +his wages or salary. Even if he felt he received enough, he was +sure his neighbor had too much, which was as bad. If the +universal discontent on this subject, instead of being dissipated +in curses and strikes directed against innumerable employers, +could have been concentrated upon one, and that the government, +the strongest ever devised would not have seen two pay +days." + +Dr. Leete laughed heartily. + +"Very true, very true," he said, "a general strike would most +probably have followed the first pay day, and a strike directed +against a government is a revolution." + +"How, then, do you avoid a revolution every pay day?" if +demanded. "Has some prodigious philosopher devised a new +system of calculus satisfactory to all for determining the exact +and comparative value of all sorts of service, whether by brawn +or brain, by hand or voice, by ear or eye? Or has human nature +itself changed, so that no man looks upon his own things but +`every man on the things of his neighbor'? One or the other of +these events must be the explanation." + +"Neither one nor the other, however, is," was my host's +laughing response. "And now, Mr. West," he continued, "you +must remember that you are my patient as well as my guest, and +permit me to prescribe sleep for you before we have any more +conversation. It is after three o'clock." + +"The prescription is, no doubt, a wise one," I said; "I only +hope it can be filled." + +"I will see to that," the doctor replied, and he did, for he gave +me a wineglass of something or other which sent me to sleep as +soon as my head touched the pillow. + + + +Chapter 8 + + +When I awoke I felt greatly refreshed, and lay a considerable +time in a dozing state, enjoying the sensation of bodily comfort. +The experiences of the day previous, my waking to find myself in +the year 2000, the sight of the new Boston, my host and his +family, and the wonderful things I had heard, were a blank in +my memory. I thought I was in my bed-chamber at home, and +the half-dreaming, half-waking fancies which passed before my +mind related to the incidents and experiences of my former life. +Dreamily I reviewed the incidents of Decoration Day, my trip in +company with Edith and her parents to Mount Auburn, and my +dining with them on our return to the city. I recalled how +extremely well Edith had looked, and from that fell to thinking +of our marriage; but scarcely had my imagination begun to +develop this delightful theme than my waking dream was cut +short by the recollection of the letter I had received the night +before from the builder announcing that the new strikes might +postpone indefinitely the completion of the new house. The +chagrin which this recollection brought with it effectually roused +me. I remembered that I had an appointment with the builder +at eleven o'clock, to discuss the strike, and opening my eyes, +looked up at the clock at the foot of my bed to see what time it +was. But no clock met my glance, and what was more, I instantly +perceived that I was not in my room. Starting up on my couch, I +stared wildly round the strange apartment. + +I think it must have been many seconds that I sat up thus in +bed staring about, without being able to regain the clew to my +personal identity. I was no more able to distinguish myself from +pure being during those moments than we may suppose a soul in +the rough to be before it has received the ear-marks, the +individualizing touches which make it a person. Strange that the +sense of this inability should be such anguish! but so we are +constituted. There are no words for the mental torture I endured +during this helpless, eyeless groping for myself in a boundless +void. No other experience of the mind gives probably anything +like the sense of absolute intellectual arrest from the loss of a +mental fulcrum, a starting point of thought, which comes during +such a momentary obscuration of the sense of one's identity. I +trust I may never know what it is again. + +I do not know how long this condition had lasted--it seemed +an interminable time--when, like a flash, the recollection of +everything came back to me. I remembered who and where I +was, and how I had come here, and that these scenes as of the +life of yesterday which had been passing before my mind +concerned a generation long, long ago mouldered to dust. +Leaping from bed, I stood in the middle of the room clasping +my temples with all my might between my hands to keep them +from bursting. Then I fell prone on the couch, and, burying my +face in the pillow, lay without motion. The reaction which was +inevitable, from the mental elation, the fever of the intellect +that had been the first effect of my tremendous experience, had +arrived. The emotional crisis which had awaited the full realization +of my actual position, and all that it implied, was upon me, +and with set teeth and laboring chest, gripping the bedstead +with frenzied strength, I lay there and fought for my sanity. In +my mind, all had broken loose, habits of feeling, associations of +thought, ideas of persons and things, all had dissolved and lost +coherence and were seething together in apparently irretrievable +chaos. There were no rallying points, nothing was left stable. +There only remained the will, and was any human will strong +enough to say to such a weltering sea, "Peace, be still"? I dared +not think. Every effort to reason upon what had befallen me, +and realize what it implied, set up an intolerable swimming of +the brain. The idea that I was two persons, that my identity was +double, began to fascinate me with its simple solution of my +experience. + +I knew that I was on the verge of losing my mental balance. If +I lay there thinking, I was doomed. Diversion of some sort I +must have, at least the diversion of physical exertion. I sprang +up, and, hastily dressing, opened the door of my room and went +down-stairs. The hour was very early, it being not yet fairly light, +and I found no one in the lower part of the house. There was a +hat in the hall, and, opening the front door, which was fastened +with a slightness indicating that burglary was not among the +perils of the modern Boston, I found myself on the street. For +two hours I walked or ran through the streets of the city, visiting +most quarters of the peninsular part of the town. None but an +antiquarian who knows something of the contrast which the +Boston of today offers to the Boston of the nineteenth century +can begin to appreciate what a series of bewildering surprises I +underwent during that time. Viewed from the house-top the day +before, the city had indeed appeared strange to me, but that was +only in its general aspect. How complete the change had been I +first realized now that I walked the streets. The few old +landmarks which still remained only intensified this effect, for +without them I might have imagined myself in a foreign town. +A man may leave his native city in childhood, and return fifty +years later, perhaps, to find it transformed in many features. He +is astonished, but he is not bewildered. He is aware of a great +lapse of time, and of changes likewise occurring in himself +meanwhile. He but dimly recalls the city as he knew it when a +child. But remember that there was no sense of any lapse of time +with me. So far as my consciousness was concerned, it was but +yesterday, but a few hours, since I had walked these streets in +which scarcely a feature had escaped a complete metamorphosis. +The mental image of the old city was so fresh and strong that it +did not yield to the impression of the actual city, but contended +with it, so that it was first one and then the other which seemed +the more unreal. There was nothing I saw which was not blurred +in this way, like the faces of a composite photograph. + +Finally, I stood again at the door of the house from which I +had come out. My feet must have instinctively brought me back +to the site of my old home, for I had no clear idea of returning +thither. It was no more homelike to me than any other spot in +this city of a strange generation, nor were its inmates less utterly +and necessarily strangers than all the other men and women now +on the earth. Had the door of the house been locked, I should +have been reminded by its resistance that I had no object in +entering, and turned away, but it yielded to my hand, and +advancing with uncertain steps through the hall, I entered one +of the apartments opening from it. Throwing myself into a +chair, I covered my burning eyeballs with my hands to shut out +the horror of strangeness. My mental confusion was so intense as +to produce actual nausea. The anguish of those moments, during +which my brain seemed melting, or the abjectness of my sense of +helplessness, how can I describe? In my despair I groaned aloud. +I began to feel that unless some help should come I was about to +lose my mind. And just then it did come. I heard the rustle of +drapery, and looked up. Edith Leete was standing before me. +Her beautiful face was full of the most poignant sympathy. + +"Oh, what is the matter, Mr. West?" she said. "I was here +when you came in. I saw how dreadfully distressed you looked, +and when I heard you groan, I could not keep silent. What has +happened to you? Where have you been? Can't I do something +for you?" + +Perhaps she involuntarily held out her hands in a gesture of +compassion as she spoke. At any rate I had caught them in my +own and was clinging to them with an impulse as instinctive as +that which prompts the drowning man to seize upon and cling +to the rope which is thrown him as he sinks for the last time. As +I looked up into her compassionate face and her eyes moist with +pity, my brain ceased to whirl. The tender human sympathy +which thrilled in the soft pressure of her fingers had brought me +the support I needed. Its effect to calm and soothe was like that +of some wonder-working elixir. + +"God bless you," I said, after a few moments. "He must have +sent you to me just now. I think I was in danger of going crazy +if you had not come." At this the tears came into her eyes. + +"Oh, Mr. West!" she cried. "How heartless you must have +thought us! How could we leave you to yourself so long! But it is +over now, is it not? You are better, surely." + +"Yes," I said, "thanks to you. If you will not go away quite +yet, I shall be myself soon." + +"Indeed I will not go away," she said, with a little quiver of +her face, more expressive of her sympathy than a volume of +words. "You must not think us so heartless as we seemed in +leaving you so by yourself. I scarcely slept last night, for thinking +how strange your waking would be this morning; but father said +you would sleep till late. He said that it would be better not to +show too much sympathy with you at first, but to try to divert +your thoughts and make you feel that you were among friends." + +"You have indeed made me feel that," I answered. "But you +see it is a good deal of a jolt to drop a hundred years, and +although I did not seem to feel it so much last night, I have had +very odd sensations this morning." While I held her hands and +kept my eyes on her face, I could already even jest a little at my +plight. + +"No one thought of such a thing as your going out in the city +alone so early in the morning," she went on. "Oh, Mr. West, +where have you been?" + +Then I told her of my morning's experience, from my first +waking till the moment I had looked up to see her before me, +just as I have told it here. She was overcome by distressful pity +during the recital, and, though I had released one of her hands, +did not try to take from me the other, seeing, no doubt, how +much good it did me to hold it. "I can think a little what this +feeling must have been like," she said. "It must have been +terrible. And to think you were left alone to struggle with it! +Can you ever forgive us?" + +"But it is gone now. You have driven it quite away for the +present," I said. + +"You will not let it return again," she queried anxiously. + +"I can't quite say that," I replied. "It might be too early to say +that, considering how strange everything will still be to me." + +"But you will not try to contend with it alone again, at least," +she persisted. "Promise that you will come to us, and let us +sympathize with you, and try to help you. Perhaps we can't do +much, but it will surely be better than to try to bear such +feelings alone." + +"I will come to you if you will let me," I said. + +"Oh yes, yes, I beg you will," she said eagerly. "I would do +anything to help you that I could." + +"All you need do is to be sorry for me, as you seem to be +now," I replied. + +"It is understood, then," she said, smiling with wet eyes, "that +you are to come and tell me next time, and not run all over +Boston among strangers." + +This assumption that we were not strangers seemed scarcely +strange, so near within these few minutes had my trouble and +her sympathetic tears brought us. + +"I will promise, when you come to me," she added, with an +expression of charming archness, passing, as she continued, into +one of enthusiasm, "to seem as sorry for you as you wish, but you +must not for a moment suppose that I am really sorry for you at +all, or that I think you will long be sorry for yourself. I know, as +well as I know that the world now is heaven compared with +what it was in your day, that the only feeling you will have after +a little while will be one of thankfulness to God that your life in +that age was so strangely cut off, to be returned to you in this." + + + +Chapter 9 + + +Dr. and Mrs. Leete were evidently not a little startled to learn, +when they presently appeared, that I had been all over the city +alone that morning, and it was apparent that they were agreeably +surprised to see that I seemed so little agitated after the +experience. + +"Your stroll could scarcely have failed to be a very interesting +one," said Mrs. Leete, as we sat down to table soon after. "You +must have seen a good many new things." + +"I saw very little that was not new," I replied. "But I think +what surprised me as much as anything was not to find any +stores on Washington Street, or any banks on State. What have +you done with the merchants and bankers? Hung them all, +perhaps, as the anarchists wanted to do in my day?" + +"Not so bad as that," replied Dr. Leete. "We have simply +dispensed with them. Their functions are obsolete in the +modern world." + +"Who sells you things when you want to buy them?" I +inquired. + +"There is neither selling nor buying nowadays; the distribution +of goods is effected in another way. As to the bankers, +having no money we have no use for those gentry." + +"Miss Leete," said I, turning to Edith, "I am afraid that your +father is making sport of me. I don't blame him, for the +temptation my innocence offers must be extraordinary. But, +really, there are limits to my credulity as to possible alterations +in the social system." + +"Father has no idea of jesting, I am sure," she replied, with a +reassuring smile. + +The conversation took another turn then, the point of ladies' +fashions in the nineteenth century being raised, if I remember +rightly, by Mrs. Leete, and it was not till after breakfast, when +the doctor had invited me up to the house-top, which appeared +to be a favorite resort of his, that he recurred to the subject. + +"You were surprised," he said, "at my saying that we got along +without money or trade, but a moment's reflection will show +that trade existed and money was needed in your day simply +because the business of production was left in private hands, and +that, consequently, they are superfluous now." + +"I do not at once see how that follows," I replied. + +"It is very simple," said Dr. Leete. "When innumerable +different and independent persons produced the various things +needful to life and comfort, endless exchanges between individuals +were requisite in order that they might supply themselves +with what they desired. These exchanges constituted trade, and +money was essential as their medium. But as soon as the nation +became the sole producer of all sorts of commodities, there was +no need of exchanges between individuals that they might get +what they required. Everything was procurable from one source, +and nothing could be procured anywhere else. A system of direct +distribution from the national storehouses took the place of +trade, and for this money was unnecessary." + +"How is this distribution managed?" I asked. + +"On the simplest possible plan," replied Dr. Leete. "A credit +corresponding to his share of the annual product of the nation is +given to every citizen on the public books at the beginning of +each year, and a credit card issued him with which he procures at +the public storehouses, found in every community, whatever he +desires whenever he desires it. This arrangement, you will see, +totally obviates the necessity for business transactions of any sort +between individuals and consumers. Perhaps you would like to +see what our credit cards are like. + +"You observe," he pursued as I was curiously examining the +piece of pasteboard he gave me, "that this card is issued for a +certain number of dollars. We have kept the old word, but not +the substance. The term, as we use it, answers to no real thing, +but merely serves as an algebraical symbol for comparing the +values of products with one another. For this purpose they are +all priced in dollars and cents, just as in your day. The value of +what I procure on this card is checked off by the clerk, who +pricks out of these tiers of squares the price of what I order." + +"If you wanted to buy something of your neighbor, could you +transfer part of your credit to him as consideration?" I inquired. + +"In the first place," replied Dr. Leete, "our neighbors have +nothing to sell us, but in any event our credit would not be +transferable, being strictly personal. Before the nation could +even think of honoring any such transfer as you speak of, it +would be bound to inquire into all the circumstances of the +transaction, so as to be able to guarantee its absolute equity. It +would have been reason enough, had there been no other, for +abolishing money, that its possession was no indication of +rightful title to it. In the hands of the man who had stolen it or +murdered for it, it was as good as in those which had earned it +by industry. People nowadays interchange gifts and favors out of +friendship, but buying and selling is considered absolutely inconsistent +with the mutual benevolence and disinterestedness which +should prevail between citizens and the sense of community of +interest which supports our social system. According to our +ideas, buying and selling is essentially anti-social in all its +tendencies. It is an education in self-seeking at the expense of +others, and no society whose citizens are trained in such a school +can possibly rise above a very low grade of civilization." + +"What if you have to spend more than your card in any one +year?" I asked. + +"The provision is so ample that we are more likely not to +spend it all," replied Dr. Leete. "But if extraordinary expenses +should exhaust it, we can obtain a limited advance on the next +year's credit, though this practice is not encouraged, and a heavy +discount is charged to check it. Of course if a man showed +himself a reckless spendthrift he would receive his allowance +monthly or weekly instead of yearly, or if necessary not be +permitted to handle it all." + +"If you don't spend your allowance, I suppose it accumulates?" + +"That is also permitted to a certain extent when a special +outlay is anticipated. But unless notice to the contrary is given, it +is presumed that the citizen who does not fully expend his credit +did not have occasion to do so, and the balance is turned into +the general surplus." + +"Such a system does not encourage saving habits on the part +of citizens," I said. + +"It is not intended to," was the reply. "The nation is rich, and +does not wish the people to deprive themselves of any good +thing. In your day, men were bound to lay up goods and money +against coming failure of the means of support and for their +children. This necessity made parsimony a virtue. But now it +would have no such laudable object, and, having lost its utility, it +has ceased to be regarded as a virtue. No man any more has any +care for the morrow, either for himself or his children, for the +nation guarantees the nurture, education, and comfortable +maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave." + +"That is a sweeping guarantee!" I said. "What certainty can +there be that the value of a man's labor will recompense the +nation for its outlay on him? On the whole, society may be able +to support all its members, but some must earn less than enough +for their support, and others more; and that brings us back once +more to the wages question, on which you have hitherto said +nothing. It was at just this point, if you remember, that our talk +ended last evening; and I say again, as I did then, that here I +should suppose a national industrial system like yours would find +its main difficulty. How, I ask once more, can you adjust +satisfactorily the comparative wages or remuneration of the +multitude of avocations, so unlike and so incommensurable, which +are necessary for the service of society? In our day the market +rate determined the price of labor of all sorts, as well as of +goods. The employer paid as little as he could, and the worker +got as much. It was not a pretty system ethically, I admit; but it +did, at least, furnish us a rough and ready formula for settling a +question which must be settled ten thousand times a day if the +world was ever going to get forward. There seemed to us no +other practicable way of doing it." + +"Yes," replied Dr. Leete, "it was the only practicable way +under a system which made the interests of every individual +antagonistic to those of every other; but it would have been a +pity if humanity could never have devised a better plan, for +yours was simply the application to the mutual relations of men +of the devil's maxim, `Your necessity is my opportunity.' The +reward of any service depended not upon its difficulty, danger, or +hardship, for throughout the world it seems that the most +perilous, severe, and repulsive labor was done by the worst paid +classes; but solely upon the strait of those who needed the +service." + +"All that is conceded," I said. "But, with all its defects, the +plan of settling prices by the market rate was a practical plan; +and I cannot conceive what satisfactory substitute you can +have devised for it. The government being the only possible +employer, there is of course no labor market or market rate. +Wages of all sorts must be arbitrarily fixed by the government. I +cannot imagine a more complex and delicate function than that +must be, or one, however performed, more certain to breed +universal dissatisfaction." + +"I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but I think you +exaggerate the difficulty. Suppose a board of fairly sensible men +were charged with settling the wages for all sorts of trades under +a system which, like ours, guaranteed employment to all, while +permitting the choice of avocations. Don't you see that, however +unsatisfactory the first adjustment might be, the mistakes would +soon correct themselves? The favored trades would have too +many volunteers, and those discriminated against would lack +them till the errors were set right. But this is aside from the +purpose, for, though this plan would, I fancy, be practicable +enough, it is no part of our system." + +"How, then, do you regulate wages?" I once more asked. + +Dr. Leete did not reply till after several moments of meditative +silence. "I know, of course," he finally said, "enough of the +old order of things to understand just what you mean by that +question; and yet the present order is so utterly different at this +point that I am a little at loss how to answer you best. You ask +me how we regulate wages; I can only reply that there is no idea +in the modern social economy which at all corresponds with +what was meant by wages in your day." + +"I suppose you mean that you have no money to pay wages +in," said I. "But the credit given the worker at the government +storehouse answers to his wages with us. How is the amount of +the credit given respectively to the workers in different lines +determined? By what title does the individual claim his particular +share? What is the basis of allotment?" + +"His title," replied Dr. Leete, "is his humanity. The basis of +his claim is the fact that he is a man." + +"The fact that he is a man!" I repeated, incredulously. "Do +you possibly mean that all have the same share?" + +"Most assuredly." + +The readers of this book never having practically known any +other arrangement, or perhaps very carefully considered the +historical accounts of former epochs in which a very different +system prevailed, cannot be expected to appreciate the stupor of +amazement into which Dr. Leete's simple statement plunged +me. + +"You see," he said, smiling, "that it is not merely that we have +no money to pay wages in, but, as I said, we have nothing at all +answering to your idea of wages." + +By this time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice +some of the criticisms which, man of the nineteenth century as I +was, came uppermost in my mind, upon this to me astounding +arrangement. "Some men do twice the work of others!" I exclaimed. +"Are the clever workmen content with a plan that +ranks them with the indifferent?" + +"We leave no possible ground for any complaint of injustice," +replied Dr. Leete, "by requiring precisely the same measure of +service from all." + +"How can you do that, I should like to know, when no two +men's powers are the same?" + +"Nothing could be simpler," was Dr. Leete's reply. "We +require of each that he shall make the same effort; that is, we +demand of him the best service it is in his power to give." + +"And supposing all do the best they can," I answered, "the +amount of the product resulting is twice greater from one man +than from another." + +"Very true," replied Dr. Leete; "but the amount of the +resulting product has nothing whatever to do with the question, +which is one of desert. Desert is a moral question, and the +amount of the product a material quantity. It would be an +extraordinary sort of logic which should try to determine a moral +question by a material standard. The amount of the effort alone +is pertinent to the question of desert. All men who do their best, +do the same. A man's endowments, however godlike, merely fix +the measure of his duty. The man of great endowments who +does not do all he might, though he may do more than a man of +small endowments who does his best, is deemed a less deserving +worker than the latter, and dies a debtor to his fellows. The +Creator sets men's tasks for them by the faculties he gives them; +we simply exact their fulfillment." + +"No doubt that is very fine philosophy," I said; "nevertheless +it seems hard that the man who produces twice as much as +another, even if both do their best, should have only the same +share." + +"Does it, indeed, seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete. +"Now, do you know, that seems very curious to me? The way it +strikes people nowadays is, that a man who can produce twice as +much as another with the same effort, instead of being rewarded +for doing so, ought to be punished if he does not do so. In the +nineteenth century, when a horse pulled a heavier load than +a goat, I suppose you rewarded him. Now, we should have +whipped him soundly if he had not, on the ground that, being +much stronger, he ought to. It is singular how ethical standards +change." The doctor said this with such a twinkle in his eye that +I was obliged to laugh. + +"I suppose," I said, "that the real reason that we rewarded +men for their endowments, while we considered those of horses +and goats merely as fixing the service to be severally required of +them, was that the animals, not being reasoning beings, naturally +did the best they could, whereas men could only be induced to +do so by rewarding them according to the amount of their +product. That brings me to ask why, unless human nature has +mightily changed in a hundred years, you are not under the same +necessity." + +"We are," replied Dr. Leete. "I don't think there has been any +change in human nature in that respect since your day. It is still +so constituted that special incentives in the form of prizes, and +advantages to be gained, are requisite to call out the best +endeavors of the average man in any direction." + +"But what inducement," I asked, "can a man have to put +forth his best endeavors when, however much or little he +accomplishes, his income remains the same? High characters +may be moved by devotion to the common welfare under such a +system, but does not the average man tend to rest back on his +oar, reasoning that it is of no use to make a special effort, since +the effort will not increase his income, nor its withholding +diminish it?" + +"Does it then really seem to you," answered my companion, +"that human nature is insensible to any motives save fear of +want and love of luxury, that you should expect security and +equality of livelihood to leave them without possible incentives +to effort? Your contemporaries did not really think so, though +they might fancy they did. When it was a question of the +grandest class of efforts, the most absolute self-devotion, they +depended on quite other incentives. Not higher wages, but +honor and the hope of men's gratitude, patriotism and the +inspiration of duty, were the motives which they set before their +soldiers when it was a question of dying for the nation, and +never was there an age of the world when those motives did not +call out what is best and noblest in men. And not only this, but +when you come to analyze the love of money which was the +general impulse to effort in your day, you find that the dread of +want and desire of luxury was but one of several motives which +the pursuit of money represented; the others, and with many the +more influential, being desire of power, of social position, and +reputation for ability and success. So you see that though we +have abolished poverty and the fear of it, and inordinate luxury +with the hope of it, we have not touched the greater part of the +motives which underlay the love of money in former times, or +any of those which prompted the supremer sorts of effort. The +coarser motives, which no longer move us, have been replaced by +higher motives wholly unknown to the mere wage earners of +your age. Now that industry of whatever sort is no longer +self-service, but service of the nation, patriotism, passion for +humanity, impel the worker as in your day they did the soldier. +The army of industry is an army, not alone by virtue of its +perfect organization, but by reason also of the ardor of self- +devotion which animates its members. + +"But as you used to supplement the motives of patriotism +with the love of glory, in order to stimulate the valor of your +soldiers, so do we. Based as our industrial system is on the +principle of requiring the same unit of effort from every man, +that is, the best he can do, you will see that the means by which +we spur the workers to do their best must be a very essential part +of our scheme. With us, diligence in the national service is the +sole and certain way to public repute, social distinction, and +official power. The value of a man's services to society fixes his +rank in it. Compared with the effect of our social arrangements +in impelling men to be zealous in business, we deem the +object-lessons of biting poverty and wanton luxury on which you +depended a device as weak and uncertain as it was barbaric. The +lust of honor even in your sordid day notoriously impelled men +to more desperate effort than the love of money could." + +"I should be extremely interested," I said, "to learn something +of what these social arrangements are." + +"The scheme in its details," replied the doctor, "is of course +very elaborate, for it underlies the entire organization of our +industrial army; but a few words will give you a general idea of +it." + +At this moment our talk was charmingly interrupted by the +emergence upon the aerial platform where we sat of Edith Leete. +She was dressed for the street, and had come to speak to her +father about some commission she was to do for him. + +"By the way, Edith," he exclaimed, as she was about to leave +us to ourselves, "I wonder if Mr. West would not be interested +in visiting the store with you? I have been telling him something +about our system of distribution, and perhaps he might like to +see it in practical operation." + +"My daughter," he added, turning to me, "is an indefatigable +shopper, and can tell you more about the stores than I can." + +The proposition was naturally very agreeable to me, and Edith +being good enough to say that she should be glad to have my +company, we left the house together. + + + +Chapter 10 + + +"If I am going to explain our way of shopping to you," said +my companion, as we walked along the street, "you must explain +your way to me. I have never been able to understand it from all +I have read on the subject. For example, when you had such a +vast number of shops, each with its different assortment, how +could a lady ever settle upon any purchase till she had visited all +the shops? for, until she had, she could not know what there was +to choose from." + +"It was as you suppose; that was the only way she could +know," I replied. + +"Father calls me an indefatigable shopper, but I should soon +be a very fatigued one if I had to do as they did," was Edith's +laughing comment. + +"The loss of time in going from shop to shop was indeed a +waste which the busy bitterly complained of," I said; "but as for +the ladies of the idle class, though they complained also, I think +the system was really a godsend by furnishing a device to kill +time." + +"But say there were a thousand shops in a city, hundreds, +perhaps, of the same sort, how could even the idlest find time to +make their rounds?" + +"They really could not visit all, of course," I replied. "Those +who did a great deal of buying, learned in time where they might +expect to find what they wanted. This class had made a science +of the specialties of the shops, and bought at advantage, always +getting the most and best for the least money. It required, +however, long experience to acquire this knowledge. Those who +were too busy, or bought too little to gain it, took their chances +and were generally unfortunate, getting the least and worst for +the most money. It was the merest chance if persons not +experienced in shopping received the value of their money." + +"But why did you put up with such a shockingly inconvenient +arrangement when you saw its faults so plainly?" Edith asked +me. + +"It was like all our social arrangements," I replied. "You can +see their faults scarcely more plainly than we did, but we saw no +remedy for them." + +"Here we are at the store of our ward," said Edith, as we +turned in at the great portal of one of the magnificent public +buildings I had observed in my morning walk. There was +nothing in the exterior aspect of the edifice to suggest a store to +a representative of the nineteenth century. There was no display +of goods in the great windows, or any device to advertise wares, +or attract custom. Nor was there any sort of sign or legend on +the front of the building to indicate the character of the business +carried on there; but instead, above the portal, standing out +from the front of the building, a majestic life-size group of +statuary, the central figure of which was a female ideal of Plenty, +with her cornucopia. Judging from the composition of the +throng passing in and out, about the same proportion of the +sexes among shoppers obtained as in the nineteenth century. As +we entered, Edith said that there was one of these great +distributing establishments in each ward of the city, so that no +residence was more than five or ten minutes' walk from one of +them. It was the first interior of a twentieth-century public +building that I had ever beheld, and the spectacle naturally +impressed me deeply. I was in a vast hall full of light, received +not alone from the windows on all sides, but from the dome, +the point of which was a hundred feet above. Beneath it, in the +centre of the hall, a magnificent fountain played, cooling the +atmosphere to a delicious freshness with its spray. The walls and +ceiling were frescoed in mellow tints, calculated to soften +without absorbing the light which flooded the interior. Around +the fountain was a space occupied with chairs and sofas, on +which many persons were seated conversing. Legends on the +walls all about the hall indicated to what classes of commodities +the counters below were devoted. Edith directed her steps +towards one of these, where samples of muslin of a bewildering +variety were displayed, and proceeded to inspect them. + +"Where is the clerk?" I asked, for there was no one behind the +counter, and no one seemed coming to attend to the customer. + +"I have no need of the clerk yet," said Edith; "I have not +made my selection." + +"It was the principal business of clerks to help people to make +their selections in my day," I replied. + +"What! To tell people what they wanted?" + +"Yes; and oftener to induce them to buy what they didn't +want." + +"But did not ladies find that very impertinent?" Edith asked, +wonderingly. "What concern could it possibly be to the clerks +whether people bought or not?" + +"It was their sole concern," I answered. "They were hired for +the purpose of getting rid of the goods, and were expected to do +their utmost, short of the use of force, to compass that end." + +"Ah, yes! How stupid I am to forget!" said Edith. "The +storekeeper and his clerks depended for their livelihood on +selling the goods in your day. Of course that is all different now. +The goods are the nation's. They are here for those who want +them, and it is the business of the clerks to wait on people and +take their orders; but it is not the interest of the clerk or the +nation to dispose of a yard or a pound of anything to anybody +who does not want it." She smiled as she added, "How exceedingly +odd it must have seemed to have clerks trying to induce +one to take what one did not want, or was doubtful about!" + +"But even a twentieth century clerk might make himself +useful in giving you information about the goods, though he did +not tease you to buy them," I suggested. + +"No," said Edith, "that is not the business of the clerk. These +printed cards, for which the government authorities are responsible, +give us all the information we can possibly need." + +I saw then that there was fastened to each sample a card +containing in succinct form a complete statement of the make +and materials of the goods and all its qualities, as well as price, +leaving absolutely no point to hang a question on. + +"The clerk has, then, nothing to say about the goods he sells?" +I said. + +"Nothing at all. It is not necessary that he should know or +profess to know anything about them. Courtesy and accuracy in +taking orders are all that are required of him." + +"What a prodigious amount of lying that simple arrangement +saves!" I ejaculated. + +"Do you mean that all the clerks misrepresented their goods +in your day?" Edith asked. + +"God forbid that I should say so!" I replied, "for there were +many who did not, and they were entitled to especial credit, for +when one's livelihood and that of his wife and babies depended +on the amount of goods he could dispose of, the temptation to +deceive the customer--or let him deceive himself--was wellnigh +overwhelming. But, Miss Leete, I am distracting you from your +task with my talk." + +"Not at all. I have made my selections." With that she +touched a button, and in a moment a clerk appeared. He took +down her order on a tablet with a pencil which made two copies, +of which he gave one to her, and enclosing the counterpart in a +small receptacle, dropped it into a transmitting tube. + +"The duplicate of the order," said Edith as she turned away +from the counter, after the clerk had punched the value of her +purchase out of the credit card she gave him, "is given to the +purchaser, so that any mistakes in filling it can be easily traced +and rectified." + +"You were very quick about your selections," I said. "May I +ask how you knew that you might not have found something to +suit you better in some of the other stores? But probably you are +required to buy in your own district." + +"Oh, no," she replied. "We buy where we please, though +naturally most often near home. But I should have gained +nothing by visiting other stores. The assortment in all is exactly +the same, representing as it does in each case samples of all the +varieties produced or imported by the United States. That is +why one can decide quickly, and never need visit two stores." + +"And is this merely a sample store? I see no clerks cutting off +goods or marking bundles." + +"All our stores are sample stores, except as to a few classes of +articles. The goods, with these exceptions, are all at the great +central warehouse of the city, to which they are shipped directly +from the producers. We order from the sample and the printed +statement of texture, make, and qualities. The orders are sent to +the warehouse, and the goods distributed from there." + +"That must be a tremendous saving of handling," I said. "By +our system, the manufacturer sold to the wholesaler, the wholesaler +to the retailer, and the retailer to the consumer, and the +goods had to be handled each time. You avoid one handling of +the goods, and eliminate the retailer altogether, with his big +profit and the army of clerks it goes to support. Why, Miss +Leete, this store is merely the order department of a wholesale +house, with no more than a wholesaler's complement of clerks. +Under our system of handling the goods, persuading the customer +to buy them, cutting them off, and packing them, ten +clerks would not do what one does here. The saving must be +enormous." + +"I suppose so," said Edith, "but of course we have never +known any other way. But, Mr. West, you must not fail to ask +father to take you to the central warehouse some day, where they +receive the orders from the different sample houses all over the +city and parcel out and send the goods to their destinations. He +took me there not long ago, and it was a wonderful sight. The +system is certainly perfect; for example, over yonder in that sort +of cage is the dispatching clerk. The orders, as they are taken by +the different departments in the store, are sent by transmitters to +him. His assistants sort them and enclose each class in a +carrier-box by itself. The dispatching clerk has a dozen pneumatic +transmitters before him answering to the general classes of +goods, each communicating with the corresponding department +at the warehouse. He drops the box of orders into the tube it +calls for, and in a few moments later it drops on the proper desk +in the warehouse, together with all the orders of the same sort +from the other sample stores. The orders are read off, recorded, +and sent to be filled, like lightning. The filling I thought the +most interesting part. Bales of cloth are placed on spindles and +turned by machinery, and the cutter, who also has a machine, +works right through one bale after another till exhausted, when +another man takes his place; and it is the same with those who +fill the orders in any other staple. The packages are then +delivered by larger tubes to the city districts, and thence distributed +to the houses. You may understand how quickly it is all +done when I tell you that my order will probably be at home +sooner than I could have carried it from here." + +"How do you manage in the thinly settled rural districts?" I +asked. + +"The system is the same," Edith explained; "the village +sample shops are connected by transmitters with the central +county warehouse, which may be twenty miles away. The +transmission is so swift, though, that the time lost on the way is +trifling. But, to save expense, in many counties one set of tubes +connect several villages with the warehouse, and then there is +time lost waiting for one another. Sometimes it is two or three +hours before goods ordered are received. It was so where I was +staying last summer, and I found it quite inconvenient."[2] + + +[2] I am informed since the above is in type that this lack of perfection +in the distributing service of some of the country districts +is to be remedied, and that soon every village will have its own +set of tubes. + + +"There must be many other respects also, no doubt, in which +the country stores are inferior to the city stores," I suggested. + +"No," Edith answered, "they are otherwise precisely as good. +The sample shop of the smallest village, just like this one, gives +you your choice of all the varieties of goods the nation has, for +the county warehouse draws on the same source as the city warehouse." + +As we walked home I commented on the great variety in the +size and cost of the houses. "How is it," I asked, "that this +difference is consistent with the fact that all citizens have the +same income?" + +"Because," Edith explained, "although the income is the +same, personal taste determines how the individual shall spend +it. Some like fine horses; others, like myself, prefer pretty +clothes; and still others want an elaborate table. The rents which +the nation receives for these houses vary, according to size, +elegance, and location, so that everybody can find something to +suit. The larger houses are usually occupied by large families, in +which there are several to contribute to the rent; while small +families, like ours, find smaller houses more convenient and +economical. It is a matter of taste and convenience wholly. I +have read that in old times people often kept up establishments +and did other things which they could not afford for ostentation, +to make people think them richer than they were. Was it really +so, Mr. West?" + +"I shall have to admit that it was," I replied. + +"Well, you see, it could not be so nowadays; for everybody's +income is known, and it is known that what is spent one way +must be saved another." + + + +Chapter 11 + + +When we arrived home, Dr. Leete had not yet returned, and +Mrs. Leete was not visible. "Are you fond of music, Mr. West?" +Edith asked. + +I assured her that it was half of life, according to my notion. + +"I ought to apologize for inquiring," she said. "It is not a +question that we ask one another nowadays; but I have read that +in your day, even among the cultured class, there were some who +did not care for music." + +"You must remember, in excuse," I said, "that we had some +rather absurd kinds of music." + +"Yes," she said, "I know that; I am afraid I should not have +fancied it all myself. Would you like to hear some of ours now, +Mr. West?" + +"Nothing would delight me so much as to listen to you," I +said. + +"To me!" she exclaimed, laughing. "Did you think I was going +to play or sing to you?" + +"I hoped so, certainly," I replied. + +Seeing that I was a little abashed, she subdued her merriment +and explained. "Of course, we all sing nowadays as a matter of +course in the training of the voice, and some learn to play +instruments for their private amusement; but the professional +music is so much grander and more perfect than any performance +of ours, and so easily commanded when we wish to hear +it, that we don't think of calling our singing or playing music +at all. All the really fine singers and players are in the musical +service, and the rest of us hold our peace for the main part. +But would you really like to hear some music?" + +I assured her once more that I would. + +"Come, then, into the music room," she said, and I followed +her into an apartment finished, without hangings, in wood, with +a floor of polished wood. I was prepared for new devices in musical +instruments, but I saw nothing in the room which by any +stretch of imagination could be conceived as such. It was evident +that my puzzled appearance was affording intense amusement to +Edith. + +"Please look at to-day's music," she said, handing me a card, +"and tell me what you would prefer. It is now five o'clock, you +will remember." + +The card bore the date "September 12, 2000," and contained +the longest programme of music I had ever seen. It was as +various as it was long, including a most extraordinary range of +vocal and instrumental solos, duets, quartettes, and various +orchestral combinations. I remained bewildered by the prodigious +list until Edith's pink finger tip indicated a particular +section of it, where several selections were bracketed, with the +words "5 P.M." against them; then I observed that this prodigious +programme was an all-day one, divided into twenty-four sections +answering to the hours. There were but a few pieces of music in +the "5 P.M." section, and I indicated an organ piece as my +preference. + +"I am so glad you like the organ," said she. "I think there is +scarcely any music that suits my mood oftener." + +She made me sit down comfortably, and, crossing the room, so +far as I could see, merely touched one or two screws, and at once +the room was filled with the music of a grand organ anthem; +filled, not flooded, for, by some means, the volume of melody +had been perfectly graduated to the size of the apartment. I +listened, scarcely breathing, to the close. Such music, so perfectly +rendered, I had never expected to hear. + +"Grand!" I cried, as the last great wave of sound broke and +ebbed away into silence. "Bach must be at the keys of that +organ; but where is the organ?" + +"Wait a moment, please," said Edith; "I want to have you +listen to this waltz before you ask any questions. I think it is +perfectly charming"; and as she spoke the sound of violins filled +the room with the witchery of a summer night. When this had +also ceased, she said: "There is nothing in the least mysterious +about the music, as you seem to imagine. It is not made by +fairies or genii, but by good, honest, and exceedingly clever +human hands. We have simply carried the idea of labor saving +by cooperation into our musical service as into everything else. +There are a number of music rooms in the city, perfectly +adapted acoustically to the different sorts of music. These halls +are connected by telephone with all the houses of the city whose +people care to pay the small fee, and there are none, you may be +sure, who do not. The corps of musicians attached to each hall is +so large that, although no individual performer, or group of +performers, has more than a brief part, each day's programme +lasts through the twenty-four hours. There are on that card for +to-day, as you will see if you observe closely, distinct programmes +of four of these concerts, each of a different order of music from +the others, being now simultaneously performed, and any one of +the four pieces now going on that you prefer, you can hear by +merely pressing the button which will connect your house-wire +with the hall where it is being rendered. The programmes are so +coordinated that the pieces at any one time simultaneously +proceeding in the different halls usually offer a choice, not only +between instrumental and vocal, and between different sorts of +instruments; but also between different motives from grave to +gay, so that all tastes and moods can be suited." + +"It appears to me, Miss Leete," I said, "that if we could have +devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in +their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to +every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have +considered the limit of human felicity already attained, and +ceased to strive for further improvements." + +"I am sure I never could imagine how those among you who +depended at all on music managed to endure the old-fashioned +system for providing it," replied Edith. "Music really worth +hearing must have been, I suppose, wholly out of the reach of +the masses, and attainable by the most favored only occasionally, +at great trouble, prodigious expense, and then for brief periods, +arbitrarily fixed by somebody else, and in connection with all +sorts of undesirable circumstances. Your concerts, for instance, +and operas! How perfectly exasperating it must have been, for +the sake of a piece or two of music that suited you, to have to sit +for hours listening to what you did not care for! Now, at a +dinner one can skip the courses one does not care for. Who +would ever dine, however hungry, if required to eat everything +brought on the table? and I am sure one's hearing is quite as +sensitive as one's taste. I suppose it was these difficulties in the +way of commanding really good music which made you endure +so much playing and singing in your homes by people who had +only the rudiments of the art." + +"Yes," I replied, "it was that sort of music or none for most of +us. + +"Ah, well," Edith sighed, "when one really considers, it is not +so strange that people in those days so often did not care for +music. I dare say I should have detested it, too." + +"Did I understand you rightly," I inquired, "that this musical +programme covers the entire twenty-four hours? It seems to on +this card, certainly; but who is there to listen to music between +say midnight and morning?" + +"Oh, many," Edith replied. "Our people keep all hours; but if +the music were provided from midnight to morning for no +others, it still would be for the sleepless, the sick, and the dying. +All our bedchambers have a telephone attachment at the head of +the bed by which any person who may be sleepless can command +music at pleasure, of the sort suited to the mood." + +"Is there such an arrangement in the room assigned to me?" + +"Why, certainly; and how stupid, how very stupid, of me not +to think to tell you of that last night! Father will show you +about the adjustment before you go to bed to-night, however; +and with the receiver at your ear, I am quite sure you will be able +to snap your fingers at all sorts of uncanny feelings if they +trouble you again." + +That evening Dr. Leete asked us about our visit to the store, +and in the course of the desultory comparison of the ways of the +nineteenth century and the twentieth, which followed, something +raised the question of inheritance. "I suppose," I said, "the +inheritance of property is not now allowed." + +"On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there is no interference +with it. In fact, you will find, Mr. West, as you come to +know us, that there is far less interference of any sort with +personal liberty nowadays than you were accustomed to. We +require, indeed, by law that every man shall serve the nation for +a fixed period, instead of leaving him his choice, as you did, +between working, stealing, or starving. With the exception of +this fundamental law, which is, indeed, merely a codification of +the law of nature--the edict of Eden--by which it is made +equal in its pressure on men, our system depends in no particular +upon legislation, but is entirely voluntary, the logical outcome of +the operation of human nature under rational conditions. This +question of inheritance illustrates just that point. The fact that +the nation is the sole capitalist and land-owner of course restricts +the individual's possessions to his annual credit, and what +personal and household belongings he may have procured with +it. His credit, like an annuity in your day, ceases on his death, +with the allowance of a fixed sum for funeral expenses. His other +possessions he leaves as he pleases." + +"What is to prevent, in course of time, such accumulations of +valuable goods and chattels in the hands of individuals as might +seriously interfere with equality in the circumstances of citizens?" +I asked. + +"That matter arranges itself very simply," was the reply. +"Under the present organization of society, accumulations of +personal property are merely burdensome the moment they +exceed what adds to the real comfort. In your day, if a man had +a house crammed full with gold and silver plate, rare china, +expensive furniture, and such things, he was considered rich, for +these things represented money, and could at any time be turned +into it. Nowadays a man whom the legacies of a hundred +relatives, simultaneously dying, should place in a similar position, +would be considered very unlucky. The articles, not being +salable, would be of no value to him except for their actual use +or the enjoyment of their beauty. On the other hand, his income +remaining the same, he would have to deplete his credit to hire +houses to store the goods in, and still further to pay for the +service of those who took care of them. You may be very sure +that such a man would lose no time in scattering among his +friends possessions which only made him the poorer, and that +none of those friends would accept more of them than they +could easily spare room for and time to attend to. You see, then, +that to prohibit the inheritance of personal property with a view +to prevent great accumulations would be a superfluous precaution +for the nation. The individual citizen can be trusted to see +that he is not overburdened. So careful is he in this respect, that +the relatives usually waive claim to most of the effects of +deceased friends, reserving only particular objects. The nation +takes charge of the resigned chattels, and turns such as are of +value into the common stock once more." + +"You spoke of paying for service to take care of your houses," +said I; "that suggests a question I have several times been on the +point of asking. How have you disposed of the problem of +domestic service? Who are willing to be domestic servants in a +community where all are social equals? Our ladies found it hard +enough to find such even when there was little pretense of social +equality." + +"It is precisely because we are all social equals whose equality +nothing can compromise, and because service is honorable, in a +society whose fundamental principle is that all in turn shall serve +the rest, that we could easily provide a corps of domestic servants +such as you never dreamed of, if we needed them," replied Dr. +Leete. "But we do not need them." + +"Who does your house-work, then?" I asked. + +"There is none to do," said Mrs. Leete, to whom I had +addressed this question. "Our washing is all done at public +laundries at excessively cheap rates, and our cooking at public +kitchens. The making and repairing of all we wear are done +outside in public shops. Electricity, of course, takes the place of +all fires and lighting. We choose houses no larger than we need, +and furnish them so as to involve the minimum of trouble to +keep them in order. We have no use for domestic servants." + +"The fact," said Dr. Leete, "that you had in the poorer classes +a boundless supply of serfs on whom you could impose all sorts +of painful and disagreeable tasks, made you indifferent to devices +to avoid the necessity for them. But now that we all have to do +in turn whatever work is done for society, every individual in the +nation has the same interest, and a personal one, in devices for +lightening the burden. This fact has given a prodigious impulse +to labor-saving inventions in all sorts of industry, of which the +combination of the maximum of comfort and minimum of +trouble in household arrangements was one of the earliest +results. + +"In case of special emergencies in the household," pursued Dr. +Leete, "such as extensive cleaning or renovation, or sickness in +the family, we can always secure assistance from the industrial +force." + +"But how do you recompense these assistants, since you have +no money?" + +"We do not pay them, of course, but the nation for them. +Their services can be obtained by application at the proper +bureau, and their value is pricked off the credit card of the +applicant." + +"What a paradise for womankind the world must be now!" I +exclaimed. "In my day, even wealth and unlimited servants did +not enfranchise their possessors from household cares, while the +women of the merely well-to-do and poorer classes lived and died +martyrs to them." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Leete, "I have read something of that; +enough to convince me that, badly off as the men, too, were in +your day, they were more fortunate than their mothers and +wives." + +"The broad shoulders of the nation," said Dr. Leete, "bear +now like a feather the burden that broke the backs of the women +of your day. Their misery came, with all your other miseries, +from that incapacity for cooperation which followed from the +individualism on which your social system was founded, from +your inability to perceive that you could make ten times more +profit out of your fellow men by uniting with them than by +contending with them. The wonder is, not that you did not live +more comfortably, but that you were able to live together at all, +who were all confessedly bent on making one another your +servants, and securing possession of one another's goods. + +"There, there, father, if you are so vehement, Mr. West will +think you are scolding him," laughingly interposed Edith. + +"When you want a doctor," I asked, "do you simply apply to +the proper bureau and take any one that may be sent?" + +"That rule would not work well in the case of physicians," +replied Dr. Leete. "The good a physician can do a patient +depends largely on his acquaintance with his constitutional +tendencies and condition. The patient must be able, therefore, +to call in a particular doctor, and he does so just as patients did +in your day. The only difference is that, instead of collecting his +fee for himself, the doctor collects it for the nation by pricking +off the amount, according to a regular scale for medical attendance, +from the patient's credit card." + +"I can imagine," I said, "that if the fee is always the same, and +a doctor may not turn away patients, as I suppose he may not, +the good doctors are called constantly and the poor doctors left +in idleness." + +"In the first place, if you will overlook the apparent conceit of +the remark from a retired physician," replied Dr. Leete, with a +smile, "we have no poor doctors. Anybody who pleases to get a +little smattering of medical terms is not now at liberty to +practice on the bodies of citizens, as in your day. None but +students who have passed the severe tests of the schools, and +clearly proved their vocation, are permitted to practice. Then, +too, you will observe that there is nowadays no attempt of +doctors to build up their practice at the expense of other doctors. +There would be no motive for that. For the rest, the doctor has +to render regular reports of his work to the medical bureau, and +if he is not reasonably well employed, work is found for him." + + + +Chapter 12 + + +The questions which I needed to ask before I could acquire +even an outline acquaintance with the institutions of the twentieth +century being endless, and Dr. Leete's good-nature appearing +equally so, we sat up talking for several hours after the ladies +left us. Reminding my host of the point at which our talk had +broken off that morning, I expressed my curiosity to learn how +the organization of the industrial army was made to afford a +sufficient stimulus to diligence in the lack of any anxiety on the +worker's part as to his livelihood. + +"You must understand in the first place," replied the doctor, +"that the supply of incentives to effort is but one of the objects +sought in the organization we have adopted for the army. The +other, and equally important, is to secure for the file-leaders and +captains of the force, and the great officers of the nation, men of +proven abilities, who are pledged by their own careers to hold +their followers up to their highest standard of performance and +permit no lagging. With a view to these two ends the industrial +army is organized. First comes the unclassified grade of common +laborers, men of all work, to which all recruits during their first +three years belong. This grade is a sort of school, and a very strict +one, in which the young men are taught habits of obedience, +subordination, and devotion to duty. While the miscellaneous +nature of the work done by this force prevents the systematic +grading of the workers which is afterwards possible, yet individual +records are kept, and excellence receives distinction corresponding +with the penalties that negligence incurs. It is not, +however, policy with us to permit youthful recklessness or +indiscretion, when not deeply culpable, to handicap the future +careers of young men, and all who have passed through the +unclassified grade without serious disgrace have an equal opportunity +to choose the life employment they have most liking for. +Having selected this, they enter upon it as apprentices. The +length of the apprenticeship naturally differs in different occupations. +At the end of it the apprentice becomes a full workman, +and a member of his trade or guild. Now not only are the +individual records of the apprentices for ability and industry +strictly kept, and excellence distinguished by suitable distinctions, +but upon the average of his record during apprenticeship +the standing given the apprentice among the full workmen +depends. + +"While the internal organizations of different industries, +mechanical and agricultural, differ according to their peculiar +conditions, they agree in a general division of their workers into +first, second, and third grades, according to ability, and these +grades are in many cases subdivided into first and second classes. +According to his standing as an apprentice a young man is +assigned his place as a first, second, or third grade worker. Of +course only men of unusual ability pass directly from apprenticeship +into the first grade of the workers. The most fall into the +lower grades, working up as they grow more experienced, at the +--periodical regradings. These regradings take place in each industry +at intervals corresponding with the length of the apprenticeship +to that industry, so that merit never need wait long to rise, +nor can any rest on past achievements unless they would drop +into a lower rank. One of the notable advantages of a high +grading is the privilege it gives the worker in electing which of +the various branches or processes of his industry he will follow as +his specialty. Of course it is not intended that any of these +processes shall be disproportionately arduous, but there is often +much difference between them, and the privilege of election is +accordingly highly prized. So far as possible, indeed, the preferences +even of the poorest workmen are considered in assigning +them their line of work, because not only their happiness but +their usefulness is thus enhanced. While, however, the wish of +the lower grade man is consulted so far as the exigencies of the +service permit, he is considered only after the upper grade men +have been provided for, and often he has to put up with second +or third choice, or even with an arbitrary assignment when help +is needed. This privilege of election attends every regrading, and +when a man loses his grade he also risks having to exchange the +sort of work he likes for some other less to his taste. The results +of each regrading, giving the standing of every man in his +industry, are gazetted in the public prints, and those who have +won promotion since the last regrading receive the nation's +thanks and are publicly invested with the badge of their new +rank." + +"What may this badge be?" I asked. + +"Every industry has its emblematic device," replied Dr. Leete, +"and this, in the shape of a metallic badge so small that you +might not see it unless you knew where to look, is all the insignia +which the men of the army wear, except where public convenience +demands a distinctive uniform. This badge is the same in +form for all grades of industry, but while the badge of the third +grade is iron, that of the second grade is silver, and that of +the first is gilt. + +"Apart from the grand incentive to endeavor afforded by the +fact that the high places in the nation are open only to the +highest class men, and that rank in the army constitutes the only +mode of social distinction for the vast majority who are not +aspirants in art, literature, and the professions, various incitements +of a minor, but perhaps equally effective, sort are provided +in the form of special privileges and immunities in the way of +discipline, which the superior class men enjoy. These, while +intended to be as little as possible invidious to the less successful, +have the effect of keeping constantly before every man's +mind the great desirability of attaining the grade next above his +own. + +"It is obviously important that not only the good but also the +indifferent and poor workmen should be able to cherish the +ambition of rising. Indeed, the number of the latter being so +much greater, it is even more essential that the ranking system +should not operate to discourage them than that it should +stimulate the others. It is to this end that the grades are divided +into classes. The grades as well as the classes being made +numerically equal at each regrading, there is not at any time, +counting out the officers and the unclassified and apprentice +grades, over one-ninth of the industrial army in the lowest class, +and most of this number are recent apprentices, all of whom +expect to rise. Those who remain during the entire term of +service in the lowest class are but a trifling fraction of the +industrial army, and likely to be as deficient in sensibility to their +position as in ability to better it. + +"It is not even necessary that a worker should win promotion +to a higher grade to have at least a taste of glory. While +promotion requires a general excellence of record as a worker, +honorable mention and various sorts of prizes are awarded for +excellence less than sufficient for promotion, and also for special +feats and single performances in the various industries. There are +many minor distinctions of standing, not only within the grades +but within the classes, each of which acts as a spur to the efforts +of a group. It is intended that no form of merit shall wholly fail +of recognition. + +"As for actual neglect of work positively bad work, or other +overt remissness on the part of men incapable of generous +motives, the discipline of the industrial army is far too strict to +allow anything whatever of the sort. A man able to do duty, and +persistently refusing, is sentenced to solitary imprisonment on +bread and water till he consents. + +"The lowest grade of the officers of the industrial army, that +of assistant foremen or lieutenants, is appointed out of men who +have held their place for two years in the first class of the first +grade. Where this leaves too large a range of choice, only the +first group of this class are eligible. No one thus comes to the +point of commanding men until he is about thirty years old. +After a man becomes an officer, his rating of course no longer +depends on the efficiency of his own work, but on that of his +men. The foremen are appointed from among the assistant +foremen, by the same exercise of discretion limited to a small +eligible class. In the appointments to the still higher grades +another principle is introduced, which it would take too much +time to explain now. + +"Of course such a system of grading as I have described would +have been impracticable applied to the small industrial concerns +of your day, in some of which there were hardly enough +employees to have left one apiece for the classes. You must +remember that, under the national organization of labor, all +industries are carried on by great bodies of men, many of your +farms or shops being combined as one. It is also owing solely to +the vast scale on which each industry is organized, with co-ordinate +establishments in every part of the country, that we are able +by exchanges and transfers to fit every man so nearly with the +sort of work he can do best. + +"And now, Mr. West, I will leave it to you, on the bare +outline of its features which I have given, if those who need +special incentives to do their best are likely to lack them under +our system. Does it not seem to you that men who found +themselves obliged, whether they wished or not, to work, would +under such a system be strongly impelled to do their best?" + +I replied that it seemed to me the incentives offered were, if +any objection were to be made, too strong; that the pace set for +the young men was too hot; and such, indeed, I would add with +deference, still remains my opinion, now that by longer residence +among you I become better acquainted with the whole +subject. + +Dr. Leete, however, desired me to reflect, and I am ready to +say that it is perhaps a sufficient reply to my objection, that the +worker's livelihood is in no way dependent on his ranking, and +anxiety for that never embitters his disappointments; that the +working hours are short, the vacations regular, and that all +emulation ceases at forty-five, with the attainment of middle +life. + +"There are two or three other points I ought to refer to," he +added, "to prevent your getting mistaken impressions. In the +first place, you must understand that this system of preferment +given the more efficient workers over the less so, in no way +contravenes the fundamental idea of our social system, that all +who do their best are equally deserving, whether that best be +great or small. I have shown that the system is arranged to +encourage the weaker as well as the stronger with the hope of +rising, while the fact that the stronger are selected for the leaders +is in no way a reflection upon the weaker, but in the interest of +the common weal. + +"Do not imagine, either, because emulation is given free play +as an incentive under our system, that we deem it a motive likely +to appeal to the nobler sort of men, or worthy of them. Such as +these find their motives within, not without, and measure their +duty by their own endowments, not by those of others. So long +as their achievement is proportioned to their powers, they would +consider it preposterous to expect praise or blame because it +chanced to be great or small. To such natures emulation appears +philosophically absurd, and despicable in a moral aspect by its +substitution of envy for admiration, and exultation for regret, in +one's attitude toward the successes and the failures of others. + +"But all men, even in the last year of the twentieth century, +are not of this high order, and the incentives to endeavor +requisite for those who are not must be of a sort adapted to their +inferior natures. For these, then, emulation of the keenest edge +is provided as a constant spur. Those who need this motive will +feel it. Those who are above its influence do not need it. + +"I should not fail to mention," resumed the doctor, "that for +those too deficient in mental or bodily strength to be fairly +graded with the main body of workers, we have a separate grade, +unconnected with the others,--a sort of invalid corps, the +members of which are provided with a light class of tasks fitted +to their strength. All our sick in mind and body, all our deaf and +dumb, and lame and blind and crippled, and even our insane, +belong to this invalid corps, and bear its insignia. The strongest +often do nearly a man's work, the feeblest, of course, nothing; +but none who can do anything are willing quite to give up. In +their lucid intervals, even our insane are eager to do what they +can." + +"That is a pretty idea of the invalid corps," I said. "Even a +barbarian from the nineteenth century can appreciate that. It is +a very graceful way of disguising charity, and must be grateful to +the feelings of its recipients." + +"Charity!" repeated Dr. Leete. "Did you suppose that we +consider the incapable class we are talking of objects of charity?" + +"Why, naturally," I said, "inasmuch as they are incapable of +self-support." + +But here the doctor took me up quickly. + +"Who is capable of self-support?" he demanded. "There is no +such thing in a civilized society as self-support. In a state of +society so barbarous as not even to know family cooperation, +each individual may possibly support himself, though even then +for a part of his life only; but from the moment that men begin +to live together, and constitute even the rudest sort of society, +self-support becomes impossible. As men grow more civilized, +and the subdivision of occupations and services is carried out, a +complex mutual dependence becomes the universal rule. Every +man, however solitary may seem his occupation, is a member of +a vast industrial partnership, as large as the nation, as large as +humanity. The necessity of mutual dependence should imply +the duty and guarantee of mutual support; and that it did not in +your day constituted the essential cruelty and unreason of your +system." + +"That may all be so," I replied, "but it does not touch the case +of those who are unable to contribute anything to the product +of industry." + +"Surely I told you this morning, at least I thought I did," +replied Dr. Leete, "that the right of a man to maintenance at +the nation's table depends on the fact that he is a man, and not +on the amount of health and strength he may have, so long as he +does his best." + +"You said so," I answered, "but I supposed the rule applied +only to the workers of different ability. Does it also hold of those +who can do nothing at all?" + +"Are they not also men?" + +"I am to understand, then, that the lame, the blind, the sick, +and the impotent, are as well off as the most efficient and have +the same income?" + +"Certainly," was the reply. + +"The idea of charity on such a scale," I answered, "would have +made our most enthusiastic philanthropists gasp." + +"If you had a sick brother at home," replied Dr. Leete, +"unable to work, would you feed him on less dainty food, and +lodge and clothe him more poorly, than yourself? More likely +far, you would give him the preference; nor would you think of +calling it charity. Would not the word, in that connection, fill +you with indignation?" + +"Of course," I replied; "but the cases are not parallel. There is +a sense, no doubt, in which all men are brothers; but this general +sort of brotherhood is not to be compared, except for rhetorical +purposes, to the brotherhood of blood, either as to its sentiment +or its obligations." + +"There speaks the nineteenth century!" exclaimed Dr. Leete. +"Ah, Mr. West, there is no doubt as to the length of time that +you slept. If I were to give you, in one sentence, a key to what +may seem the mysteries of our civilization as compared with that +of your age, I should say that it is the fact that the solidarity of +the race and the brotherhood of man, which to you were but fine +phrases, are, to our thinking and feeling, ties as real and as vital +as physical fraternity. + +"But even setting that consideration aside, I do not see why it +so surprises you that those who cannot work are conceded the +full right to live on the produce of those who can. Even in your +day, the duty of military service for the protection of the nation, +to which our industrial service corresponds, while obligatory on +those able to discharge it, did not operate to deprive of the +privileges of citizenship those who were unable. They stayed at +home, and were protected by those who fought, and nobody +questioned their right to be, or thought less of them. So, now, +the requirement of industrial service from those able to render +it does not operate to deprive of the privileges of citizenship, +which now implies the citizen's maintenance, him who cannot +work. The worker is not a citizen because he works, but works +because he is a citizen. As you recognize the duty of the strong +to fight for the weak, we, now that fighting is gone by, recognize +his duty to work for him. + +"A solution which leaves an unaccounted-for residuum is no +solution at all; and our solution of the problem of human society +would have been none at all had it left the lame, the sick, and +the blind outside with the beasts, to fare as they might. Better +far have left the strong and well unprovided for than these +burdened ones, toward whom every heart must yearn, and for +whom ease of mind and body should be provided, if for no +others. Therefore it is, as I told you this morning, that the title +of every man, woman, and child to the means of existence rests +on no basis less plain, broad, and simple than the fact that they +are fellows of one race-members of one human family. The +only coin current is the image of God, and that is good for all +we have. + +"I think there is no feature of the civilization of your epoch so +repugnant to modern ideas as the neglect with which you treated +your dependent classes. Even if you had no pity, no feeling of +brotherhood, how was it that you did not see that you were +robbing the incapable class of their plain right in leaving them +unprovided for?" + +"I don't quite follow you there," I said. "I admit the claim of +this class to our pity, but how could they who produced nothing +claim a share of the product as a right?" + +"How happened it," was Dr. Leete's reply, "that your workers +were able to produce more than so many savages would have +done? Was it not wholly on account of the heritage of the past +knowledge and achievements of the race, the machinery of +society, thousands of years in contriving, found by you ready- +made to your hand? How did you come to be possessors of this +knowledge and this machinery, which represent nine parts to +one contributed by yourself in the value of your product? You +inherited it, did you not? And were not these others, these +unfortunate and crippled brothers whom you cast out, joint +inheritors, co-heirs with you? What did you do with their share? +Did you not rob them when you put them off with crusts, who +were entitled to sit with the heirs, and did you not add insult to +robbery when you called the crusts charity? + +"Ah, Mr. West," Dr. Leete continued, as I did not respond, +"what I do not understand is, setting aside all considerations +either of justice or brotherly feeling toward the crippled and +defective, how the workers of your day could have had any heart +for their work, knowing that their children, or grand-children, if +unfortunate, would be deprived of the comforts and even +necessities of life. It is a mystery how men with children could +favor a system under which they were rewarded beyond those +less endowed with bodily strength or mental power. For, by the +same discrimination by which the father profited, the son, for +whom he would give his life, being perchance weaker than +others, might be reduced to crusts and beggary. How men dared +leave children behind them, I have never been able to understand." + +Note.--Although in his talk on the previous evening Dr. Leete +had emphasized the pains taken to enable every man to ascertain +and follow his natural bent in choosing an occupation, it was not +till I learned that the worker's income is the same in all occupations +that I realized how absolutely he may be counted on to do so, and +thus, by selecting the harness which sets most lightly on himself, +find that in which he can pull best. The failure of my age in any +systematic or effective way to develop and utilize the natural +aptitudes of men for the industries and intellectual avocations was +one of the great wastes, as well as one of the most common causes +of unhappiness in that time. The vast majority of my contemporaries, +though nominally free to do so, never really chose their +occupations at all, but were forced by circumstances into work for +which they were relatively inefficient, because not naturally fitted +for it. The rich, in this respect, had little advantage over the poor. +The latter, indeed, being generally deprived of education, had no +opportunity even to ascertain the natural aptitudes they might +have, and on account of their poverty were unable to develop them +by cultivation even when ascertained. The liberal and technical +professions, except by favorable accident, were shut to them, to +their own great loss and that of the nation. On the other hand, the +well-to-do, although they could command education and opportunity, +were scarcely less hampered by social prejudice, which forbade +them to pursue manual avocations, even when adapted to +them, and destined them, whether fit or unfit, to the professions, +thus wasting many an excellent handicraftsman. Mercenary +considerations, tempting men to pursue money-making occupations +for which they were unfit, instead of less remunerative employments +for which they were fit, were responsible for another vast +perversion of talent. All these things now are changed. Equal +education and opportunity must needs bring to light whatever +aptitudes a man has, and neither social prejudices nor mercenary +considerations hamper him in the choice of his life work. + + + +Chapter 13 + + +As Edith had promised he should do, Dr. Leete accompanied +me to my bedroom when I retired, to instruct me as to the +adjustment of the musical telephone. He showed how, by turning +a screw, the volume of the music could be made to fill the +room, or die away to an echo so faint and far that one could +scarcely be sure whether he heard or imagined it. If, of two +persons side by side, one desired to listen to music and the other +to sleep, it could be made audible to one and inaudible to +another. + +"I should strongly advise you to sleep if you can to-night, Mr. +West, in preference to listening to the finest tunes in the +world," the doctor said, after explaining these points. "In the +trying experience you are just now passing through, sleep is a +nerve tonic for which there is no substitute." + +Mindful of what had happened to me that very morning, I +promised to heed his counsel. + +"Very well," he said, "then I will set the telephone at eight +o'clock." + +"What do you mean?" I asked. + +He explained that, by a clock-work combination, a person +could arrange to be awakened at any hour by the music. + +It began to appear, as has since fully proved to be the case, +that I had left my tendency to insomnia behind me with the +other discomforts of existence in the nineteenth century; for +though I took no sleeping draught this time, yet, as the night +before, I had no sooner touched the pillow than I was asleep. + +I dreamed that I sat on the throne of the Abencerrages in the +banqueting hall of the Alhambra, feasting my lords and generals, +who next day were to follow the crescent against the Christian +dogs of Spain. The air, cooled by the spray of fountains, was +heavy with the scent of flowers. A band of Nautch girls, +round-limbed and luscious-lipped, danced with voluptuous grace +to the music of brazen and stringed instruments. Looking up to +the latticed galleries, one caught a gleam now and then from the +eye of some beauty of the royal harem, looking down upon the +assembled flower of Moorish chivalry. Louder and louder clashed +the cymbals, wilder and wilder grew the strain, till the blood of +the desert race could no longer resist the martial delirium, and +the swart nobles leaped to their feet; a thousand scimetars were +bared, and the cry, "Allah il Allah!" shook the hall and awoke +me, to find it broad daylight, and the room tingling with the +electric music of the "Turkish Reveille." + +At the breakfast-table, when I told my host of my morning's +experience, I learned that it was not a mere chance that the +piece of music which awakened me was a reveille. The airs +played at one of the halls during the waking hours of the +morning were always of an inspiring type. + +"By the way," I said, "I have not thought to ask you anything +about the state of Europe. Have the societies of the Old World +also been remodeled?" + +"Yes," replied Dr. Leete, "the great nations of Europe as +well as Australia, Mexico, and parts of South America, are now +organized industrially like the United States, which was the +pioneer of the evolution. The peaceful relations of these nations +are assured by a loose form of federal union of world-wide +extent. An international council regulates the mutual intercourse +and commerce of the members of the union and their joint +policy toward the more backward races, which are gradually +being educated up to civilized institutions. Complete autonomy +within its own limits is enjoyed by every nation." + +"How do you carry on commerce without money?" I said. "In +trading with other nations, you must use some sort of money, +although you dispense with it in the internal affairs of the +nation." + +"Oh, no; money is as superfluous in our foreign as in our +internal relations. When foreign commerce was conducted by +private enterprise, money was necessary to adjust it on account +of the multifarious complexity of the transactions; but nowadays +it is a function of the nations as units. There are thus only a +dozen or so merchants in the world, and their business being +supervised by the international council, a simple system of book +accounts serves perfectly to regulate their dealings. Customs +duties of every sort are of course superfluous. A nation simply +does not import what its government does not think requisite for +the general interest. Each nation has a bureau of foreign +exchange, which manages its trading. For example, the American +bureau, estimating such and such quantities of French goods +necessary to America for a given year, sends the order to the +French bureau, which in turn sends its order to our bureau. The +same is done mutually by all the nations." + +"But how are the prices of foreign goods settled, since there is +no competition?" + +"The price at which one nation supplies another with goods," +replied Dr. Leete, "must be that at which it supplies its own +citizens. So you see there is no danger of misunderstanding. Of +course no nation is theoretically bound to supply another with +the product of its own labor, but it is for the interest of all to +exchange some commodities. If a nation is regularly supplying +another with certain goods, notice is required from either side of +any important change in the relation." + +"But what if a nation, having a monopoly of some natural +product, should refuse to supply it to the others, or to one of +them?" + +"Such a case has never occurred, and could not without doing +the refusing party vastly more harm than the others," replied Dr. +Leete. "In the fist place, no favoritism could be legally shown. +The law requires that each nation shall deal with the others, in +all respects, on exactly the same footing. Such a course as you +suggest would cut off the nation adopting it from the remainder +of the earth for all purposes whatever. The contingency is one +that need not give us much anxiety." + +"But," said I, "supposing a nation, having a natural monopoly +in some product of which it exports more than it consumes, +should put the price away up, and thus, without cutting off the +supply, make a profit out of its neighbors' necessities? Its own +citizens would of course have to pay the higher price on that +commodity, but as a body would make more out of foreigners +than they would be out of pocket themselves." + +"When you come to know how prices of all commodities are +determined nowadays, you will perceive how impossible it is that +they could be altered, except with reference to the amount or +arduousness of the work required respectively to produce them," +was Dr. Leete's reply. "This principle is an international as well +as a national guarantee; but even without it the sense of +community of interest, international as well as national, and the +conviction of the folly of selfishness, are too deep nowadays to +render possible such a piece of sharp practice as you apprehend. +You must understand that we all look forward to an eventual +unification of the world as one nation. That, no doubt, will be +the ultimate form of society, and will realize certain economic +advantages over the present federal system of autonomous +nations. Meanwhile, however, the present system works so nearly +perfectly that we are quite content to leave to posterity the +completion of the scheme. There are, indeed, some who hold +that it never will be completed, on the ground that the federal +plan is not merely a provisional solution of the problem of +human society, but the best ultimate solution." + +"How do you manage," I asked, "when the books of any two +nations do not balance? Supposing we import more from France +than we export to her." + +"At the end of each year," replied the doctor, "the books of +every nation are examined. If France is found in our debt, +probably we are in the debt of some nation which owes France, +and so on with all the nations. The balances that remain after +the accounts have been cleared by the international council +should not be large under our system. Whatever they may be, +the council requires them to be settled every few years, and may +require their settlement at any time if they are getting too large; +for it is not intended that any nation shall run largely in debt to +another, lest feelings unfavorable to amity should be engendered. +To guard further against this, the international council inspects +the commodities interchanged by the nations, to see that they +are of perfect quality." + +"But what are the balances finally settled with, seeing that you +have no money?" + +"In national staples; a basis of agreement as to what staples +shall be accepted, and in what proportions, for settlement of +accounts, being a preliminary to trade relations." + +"Emigration is another point I want to ask you about," said I. +"With every nation organized as a close industrial partnership, +monopolizing all means of production in the country, the +emigrant, even if he were permitted to land, would starve. I +suppose there is no emigration nowadays." + +"On the contrary, there is constant emigration, by which I +suppose you mean removal to foreign countries for permanent +residence," replied Dr. Leete. "It is arranged on a simple +international arrangement of indemnities. For example, if a man +at twenty-one emigrates from England to America, England +loses all the expense of his maintenance and education, and +America gets a workman for nothing. America accordingly makes +England an allowance. The same principle, varied to suit the +case, applies generally. If the man is near the term of his labor +when he emigrates, the country receiving him has the allowance. +As to imbecile persons, it is deemed best that each nation should +be responsible for its own, and the emigration of such must be +under full guarantees of support by his own nation. Subject to +these regulations, the right of any man to emigrate at any time is +unrestricted." + +"But how about mere pleasure trips; tours of observation? +How can a stranger travel in a country whose people do not +receive money, and are themselves supplied with the means of +life on a basis not extended to him? His own credit card cannot, +of course, be good in other lands. How does he pay his way?" + +"An American credit card," replied Dr. Leete, "is just as good +in Europe as American gold used to be, and on precisely the +same condition, namely, that it be exchanged into the currency +of the country you are traveling in. An American in Berlin takes +his credit card to the local office of the international council, and +receives in exchange for the whole or part of it a German credit +card, the amount being charged against the United States in +favor of Germany on the international account." + + +"Perhaps Mr. West would like to dine at the Elephant +to-day," said Edith, as we left the table. + +"That is the name we give to the general dining-house in our +ward," explained her father. "Not only is our cooking done at +the public kitchens, as I told you last night, but the service and +quality of the meals are much more satisfactory if taken at the +dining-house. The two minor meals of the day are usually taken +at home, as not worth the trouble of going out; but it is general +to go out to dine. We have not done so since you have been +with us, from a notion that it would be better to wait till you +had become a little more familiar with our ways. What do you +think? Shall we take dinner at the dining-house to-day?" + +I said that I should be very much pleased to do so. + +Not long after, Edith came to me, smiling, and said: + +"Last night, as I was thinking what I could do to make you +feel at home until you came to be a little more used to us and +our ways, an idea occurred to me. What would you say if I were +to introduce you to some very nice people of your own times, +whom I am sure you used to be well acquainted with?" + +I replied, rather vaguely, that it would certainly be very +agreeable, but I did not see how she was going to manage it. + +"Come with me," was her smiling reply, "and see if I am not +as good as my word." + +My susceptibility to surprise had been pretty well exhausted +by the numerous shocks it had received, but it was with some +wonderment that I followed her into a room which I had not +before entered. It was a small, cosy apartment, walled with cases +filled with books. + +"Here are your friends," said Edith, indicating one of the +cases, and as my eye glanced over the names on the backs of the +volumes, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, +Defoe, Dickens, Thackeray, Hugo, Hawthorne, Irving, and a +score of other great writers of my time and all time, I understood +her meaning. She had indeed made good her promise in a sense +compared with which its literal fulfillment would have been a +disappointment. She had introduced me to a circle of friends +whom the century that had elapsed since last I communed with +them had aged as little as it had myself. Their spirit was as high, +their wit as keen, their laughter and their tears as contagious, as +when their speech had whiled away the hours of a former +century. Lonely I was not and could not be more, with this +goodly companionship, however wide the gulf of years that +gaped between me and my old life. + +"You are glad I brought you here," exclaimed Edith, radiant, +as she read in my face the success of her experiment. "It was a +good idea, was it not, Mr. West? How stupid in me not to think +of it before! I will leave you now with your old friends, for I +know there will be no company for you like them just now; but +remember you must not let old friends make you quite forget +new ones!" and with that smiling caution she left me. + +Attracted by the most familiar of the names before me, I laid +my hand on a volume of Dickens, and sat down to read. He had +been my prime favorite among the bookwriters of the century,--I +mean the nineteenth century,--and a week had rarely +passed in my old life during which I had not taken up some +volume of his works to while away an idle hour. Any volume +with which I had been familiar would have produced an extraordinary +impression, read under my present circumstances, but my +exceptional familiarity with Dickens, and his consequent power +to call up the associations of my former life, gave to his writings +an effect no others could have had, to intensify, by force of +contrast, my appreciation of the strangeness of my present +environment. However new and astonishing one's surroundings, +the tendency is to become a part of them so soon that almost +from the first the power to see them objectively and fully +measure their strangeness, is lost. That power, already dulled in +my case, the pages of Dickens restored by carrying me back +through their associations to the standpoint of my former life. + +With a clearness which I had not been able before to attain, I +saw now the past and present, like contrasting pictures, side by +side. + +The genius of the great novelist of the nineteenth century, +like that of Homer, might indeed defy time; but the setting of +his pathetic tales, the misery of the poor, the wrongs of power, +the pitiless cruelty of the system of society, had passed away as +utterly as Circe and the sirens, Charybdis and Cyclops. + +During the hour or two that I sat there with Dickens open +before me, I did not actually read more than a couple of pages. +Every paragraph, every phrase, brought up some new aspect of +the world-transformation which had taken place, and led my +thoughts on long and widely ramifying excursions. As meditating +thus in Dr. Leete's library I gradually attained a more clear and +coherent idea of the prodigious spectacle which I had been so +strangely enabled to view, I was filled with a deepening wonder +at the seeming capriciousness of the fate that had given to one +who so little deserved it, or seemed in any way set apart for it, +the power alone among his contemporaries to stand upon the +earth in this latter day. I had neither foreseen the new world nor +toiled for it, as many about me had done regardless of the scorn +of fools or the misconstruction of the good. Surely it would have +been more in accordance with the fitness of things had one of +those prophetic and strenuous souls been enabled to see the +travail of his soul and be satisfied; he, for example, a thousand +times rather than I, who, having beheld in a vision the world I +looked on, sang of it in words that again and again, during these +last wondrous days, had rung in my mind: + + For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, + Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be + Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were + furled. + In the Parliament of man, the federation of the world. + + Then the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, + And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. + + For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, + And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. + + +What though, in his old age, he momentarily lost faith in his +own prediction, as prophets in their hours of depression and +doubt generally do; the words had remained eternal testimony to +the seership of a poet's heart, the insight that is given to faith. + +I was still in the library when some hours later Dr. Leete +sought me there. "Edith told me of her idea," he said, "and I +thought it an excellent one. I had a little curiosity what writer +you would first turn to. Ah, Dickens! You admired him, then! +That is where we moderns agree with you. Judged by our +standards, he overtops all the writers of his age, not because his +literary genius was highest, but because his great heart beat for +the poor, because he made the cause of the victims of society his +own, and devoted his pen to exposing its cruelties and shams. +No man of his time did so much as he to turn men's minds to +the wrong and wretchedness of the old order of things, and open +their eyes to the necessity of the great change that was coming, +although he himself did not clearly foresee it." + + + +Chapter 14 + + +A heavy rainstorm came up during the day, and I had +concluded that the condition of the streets would be such that +my hosts would have to give up the idea of going out to dinner, +although the dining-hall I had understood to be quite near. I was +much surprised when at the dinner hour the ladies appeared +prepared to go out, but without either rubbers or umbrellas. + +The mystery was explained when we found ourselves on the +street, for a continuous waterproof covering had been let down +so as to inclose the sidewalk and turn it into a well lighted and +perfectly dry corridor, which was filled with a stream of ladies +and gentlemen dressed for dinner. At the comers the entire open +space was similarly roofed in. Edith Leete, with whom I walked, +seemed much interested in learning what appeared to be entirely +new to her, that in the stormy weather the streets of the Boston +of my day had been impassable, except to persons protected by +umbrellas, boots, and heavy clothing. "Were sidewalk coverings +not used at all?" she asked. They were used, I explained, but in a +scattered and utterly unsystematic way, being private enterprises. +She said to me that at the present time all the streets were +provided against inclement weather in the manner I saw, the +apparatus being rolled out of the way when it was unnecessary. +She intimated that it would be considered an extraordinary +imbecility to permit the weather to have any effect on the social +movements of the people. + +Dr. Leete, who was walking ahead, overhearing something of +our talk, turned to say that the difference between the age of +individualism and that of concert was well characterized by the +fact that, in the nineteenth century, when it rained, the people +of Boston put up three hundred thousand umbrellas over as +many heads, and in the twentieth century they put up one +umbrella over all the heads. + +As we walked on, Edith said, "The private umbrella is father's +favorite figure to illustrate the old way when everybody lived for +himself and his family. There is a nineteenth century painting at +the Art Gallery representing a crowd of people in the rain, each +one holding his umbrella over himself and his wife, and giving +his neighbors the drippings, which he claims must have been +meant by the artist as a satire on his times." + +We now entered a large building into which a stream of +people was pouring. I could not see the front, owing to the +awning, but, if in correspondence with the interior, which was +even finer than the store I visited the day before, it would have +been magnificent. My companion said that the sculptured group +over the entrance was especially admired. Going up a grand +staircase we walked some distance along a broad corridor with +many doors opening upon it. At one of these, which bore my +host's name, we turned in, and I found myself in an elegant +dining-room containing a table for four. Windows opened on a +courtyard where a fountain played to a great height and music +made the air electric. + +"You seem at home here," I said, as we seated ourselves at +table, and Dr. Leete touched an annunciator. + +"This is, in fact, a part of our house, slightly detached from +the rest," he replied. "Every family in the ward has a room set +apart in this great building for its permanent and exclusive use +for a small annual rental. For transient guests and individuals +there is accommodation on another floor. If we expect to dine +here, we put in our orders the night before, selecting anything in +market, according to the daily reports in the papers. The meal is +as expensive or as simple as we please, though of course everything +is vastly cheaper as well as better than it would be prepared +at home. There is actually nothing which our people take +more interest in than the perfection of the catering and cooking +done for them, and I admit that we are a little vain of the success +that has been attained by this branch of the service. Ah, my +dear Mr. West, though other aspects of your civilization were +more tragical, I can imagine that none could have been more +depressing than the poor dinners you had to eat, that is, all of +you who had not great wealth." + +"You would have found none of us disposed to disagree with +you on that point," I said. + +The waiter, a fine-looking young fellow, wearing a slightly +distinctive uniform, now made his appearance. I observed him +closely, as it was the first time I had been able to study +particularly the bearing of one of the enlisted members of the +industrial army. This young man, I knew from what I had been +told, must be highly educated, and the equal, socially and in all +respects, of those he served. But it was perfectly evident that to +neither side was the situation in the slightest degree embarrassing. +Dr. Leete addressed the young man in a tone devoid, of +course, as any gentleman's would be, of superciliousness, but at +the same time not in any way deprecatory, while the manner of +the young man was simply that of a person intent on discharging +correctly the task he was engaged in, equally without familiarity +or obsequiousness. It was, in fact, the manner of a soldier on +duty, but without the military stiffness. As the youth left the +room, I said, "I cannot get over my wonder at seeing a young +man like that serving so contentedly in a menial position." + +"What is that word `menial'? I never heard it," said Edith. + +"It is obsolete now," remarked her father. "If I understand it +rightly, it applied to persons who performed particularly disagreeable +and unpleasant tasks for others, and carried with it an +implication of contempt. Was it not so, Mr. West?" + +"That is about it," I said. "Personal service, such as waiting on +tables, was considered menial, and held in such contempt, in my +day, that persons of culture and refinement would suffer hardship +before condescending to it." + +"What a strangely artificial idea," exclaimed Mrs. Leete +wonderingly. + +"And yet these services had to be rendered," said Edith. + +"Of course," I replied. "But we imposed them on the poor, +and those who had no alternative but starvation." + +"And increased the burden you imposed on them by adding +your contempt," remarked Dr. Leete. + +"I don't think I clearly understand," said Edith. "Do you +mean that you permitted people to do things for you which you +despised them for doing, or that you accepted services from +them which you would have been unwilling to render them? +You can't surely mean that, Mr. West?" + +I was obliged to tell her that the fact was just as she had +stated. Dr. Leete, however, came to my relief. + +"To understand why Edith is surprised," he said, "you must +know that nowadays it is an axiom of ethics that to accept a +service from another which we would be unwilling to return in +kind, if need were, is like borrowing with the intention of not +repaying, while to enforce such a service by taking advantage of +the poverty or necessity of a person would be an outrage like +forcible robbery. It is the worst thing about any system which +divides men, or allows them to be divided, into classes and +castes, that it weakens the sense of a common humanity. +Unequal distribution of wealth, and, still more effectually, +unequal opportunities of education and culture, divided society +in your day into classes which in many respects regarded each +other as distinct races. There is not, after all, such a difference as +might appear between our ways of looking at this question of +service. Ladies and gentlemen of the cultured class in your day +would no more have permitted persons of their own class to +render them services they would scorn to return than we would +permit anybody to do so. The poor and the uncultured, however, +they looked upon as of another kind from themselves. The equal +wealth and equal opportunities of culture which all persons now +enjoy have simply made us all members of one class, which +corresponds to the most fortunate class with you. Until this +equality of condition had come to pass, the idea of the solidarity +of humanity, the brotherhood of all men, could never have +become the real conviction and practical principle of action it is +nowadays. In your day the same phrases were indeed used, but +they were phrases merely." + +"Do the waiters, also, volunteer?" + +"No," replied Dr. Leete. "The waiters are young men in the +unclassified grade of the industrial army who are assignable to all +sorts of miscellaneous occupations not requiring special skill. +Waiting on table is one of these, and every young recruit is given +a taste of it. I myself served as a waiter for several months in this +very dining-house some forty years ago. Once more you must +remember that there is recognized no sort of difference between +the dignity of the different sorts of work required by the nation. +The individual is never regarded, nor regards himself, as +the servant of those he serves, nor is he in any way dependent +upon them. It is always the nation which he is serving. No +difference is recognized between a waiter's functions and those +of any other worker. The fact that his is a personal service is +indifferent from our point of view. So is a doctor's. I should as +soon expect our waiter today to look down on me because I +served him as a doctor, as think of looking down on him because +he serves me as a waiter." + +After dinner my entertainers conducted me about the building, +of which the extent, the magnificent architecture and +richness of embellishment, astonished me. It seemed that it was +not merely a dining-hall, but likewise a great pleasure-house and +social rendezvous of the quarter, and no appliance of entertainment +or recreation seemed lacking. + +"You find illustrated here," said Dr. Leete, when I had +expressed my admiration, "what I said to you in our first +conversation, when you were looking out over the city, as to the +splendor of our public and common life as compared with the +simplicity of our private and home life, and the contrast which, +in this respect, the twentieth bears to the nineteenth century. To +save ourselves useless burdens, we have as little gear about us at +home as is consistent with comfort, but the social side of our life +is ornate and luxurious beyond anything the world ever knew +before. All the industrial and professional guilds have clubhouses +as extensive as this, as well as country, mountain, and seaside +houses for sport and rest in vacations." + + +NOTE. In the latter part of the nineteenth century it became a +practice of needy young men at some of the colleges of the country +to earn a little money for their term bills by serving as waiters on +tables at hotels during the long summer vacation. It was claimed, +in reply to critics who expressed the prejudices of the time in +asserting that persons voluntarily following such an occupation could +not be gentlemen, that they were entitled to praise for vindicating, +by their example, the dignity of all honest and necessary labor. +The use of this argument illustrates a common confusion in thought +on the part of my former contemporaries. The business of waiting +on tables was in no more need of defense than most of the other +ways of getting a living in that day, but to talk of dignity attaching +to labor of any sort under the system then prevailing was absurd. +There is no way in which selling labor for the highest price +it will fetch is more dignified than selling goods for what can be got. +Both were commercial transactions to be judged by the commercial +standard. By setting a price in money on his service, the worker +accepted the money measure for it, and renounced all clear claim +to be judged by any other. The sordid taint which this necessity +imparted to the noblest and the highest sorts of service was +bitterly resented by generous souls, but there was no evading it. +There was no exemption, however transcendent the quality of +one's service, from the necessity of haggling for its price in the +market-place. The physician must sell his healing and the apostle +his preaching like the rest. The prophet, who had guessed the +meaning of God, must dicker for the price of the revelation, and the +poet hawk his visions in printers' row. If I were asked to name the +most distinguishing felicity of this age, as compared to that in which +I first saw the light, I should say that to me it seems to consist in +the dignity you have given to labor by refusing to set a price upon +it and abolishing the market-place forever. By requiring of every +man his best you have made God his task-master, and by making +honor the sole reward of achievement you have imparted to all +service the distinction peculiar in my day to the soldier's. + + + +Chapter 15 + + +When, in the course of our tour of inspection, we came to the +library, we succumbed to the temptation of the luxurious leather +chairs with which it was furnished, and sat down in one of the +book-lined alcoves to rest and chat awhile.[3] + + +[3] I cannot sufficiently celebrate the glorious liberty that reigns +in the public libraries of the twentieth century as compared with +the intolerable management of those of the nineteenth century, +in which the books were jealously railed away from the people, and +obtainable only at an expenditure of time and red tape calculated +to discourage any ordinary taste for literature. + + + +"Edith tells me that you have been in the library all the +morning," said Mrs. Leete. "Do you know, it seems to me, Mr. +West, that you are the most enviable of mortals." + +"I should like to know just why," I replied. + +"Because the books of the last hundred years will be new to +you," she answered. "You will have so much of the most +absorbing literature to read as to leave you scarcely time for +meals these five years to come. Ah, what would I give if I had +not already read Berrian's novels." + +"Or Nesmyth's, mamma," added Edith. + +"Yes, or Oates' poems, or `Past and Present,' or, `In the +Beginning,' or--oh, I could name a dozen books, each worth a +year of one's life," declared Mrs. Leete, enthusiastically. + +"I judge, then, that there has been some notable literature +produced in this century." + +"Yes," said Dr. Leete. "It has been an era of unexampled +intellectual splendor. Probably humanity never before passed +through a moral and material evolution, at once so vast in its +scope and brief in its time of accomplishment, as that from the +old order to the new in the early part of this century. When men +came to realize the greatness of the felicity which had befallen +them, and that the change through which they had passed was +not merely an improvement in details of their condition, but the +rise of the race to a new plane of existence with an illimitable +vista of progress, their minds were affected in all their faculties +with a stimulus, of which the outburst of the mediaeval renaissance +offers a suggestion but faint indeed. There ensued an era of +mechanical invention, scientific discovery, art, musical and literary +productiveness to which no previous age of the world offers +anything comparable." + +"By the way," said I, "talking of literature, how are books +published now? Is that also done by the nation?" + +"Certainly." + +"But how do you manage it? Does the government publish +everything that is brought it as a matter of course, at the public +expense, or does it exercise a censorship and print only what it +approves?" + +"Neither way. The printing department has no censorial +powers. It is bound to print all that is offered it, but prints it +only on condition that the author defray the first cost out of his +credit. He must pay for the privilege of the public ear, and if he +has any message worth hearing we consider that he will be glad +to do it. Of course, if incomes were unequal, as in the old times, +this rule would enable only the rich to be authors, but the +resources of citizens being equal, it merely measures the strength +of the author's motive. The cost of an edition of an average book +can be saved out of a year's credit by the practice of economy +and some sacrifices. The book, on being published, is placed on +sale by the nation." + +"The author receiving a royalty on the sales as with us, I +suppose," I suggested. + +"Not as with you, certainly," replied Dr. Leete, "but nevertheless +in one way. The price of every book is made up of the cost +of its publication with a royalty for the author. The author fixes +this royalty at any figure he pleases. Of course if he puts it +unreasonably high it is his own loss, for the book will not sell. +The amount of this royalty is set to his credit and he is +discharged from other service to the nation for so long a period +as this credit at the rate of allowance for the support of citizens +shall suffice to support him. If his book be moderately successful, +he has thus a furlough for several months, a year, two or three +years, and if he in the mean time produces other successful work, +the remission of service is extended so far as the sale of that may +justify. An author of much acceptance succeeds in supporting +himself by his pen during the entire period of service, and the +degree of any writer's literary ability, as determined by the +popular voice, is thus the measure of the opportunity given him +to devote his time to literature. In this respect the outcome of +our system is not very dissimilar to that of yours, but there are +two notable differences. In the first place, the universally high +level of education nowadays gives the popular verdict a conclusiveness +on the real merit of literary work which in your day it +was as far as possible from having. In the second place, there is +no such thing now as favoritism of any sort to interfere with the +recognition of true merit. Every author has precisely the same +facilities for bringing his work before the popular tribunal. To +judge from the complaints of the writers of your day, this absolute +equality of opportunity would have been greatly prized." + +"In the recognition of merit in other fields of original genius, +such as music, art, invention, design," I said, "I suppose you +follow a similar principle." + +"Yes," he replied, "although the details differ. In art, for +example, as in literature, the people are the sole judges. They +vote upon the acceptance of statues and paintings for the public +buildings, and their favorable verdict carries with it the artist's +remission from other tasks to devote himself to his vocation. On +copies of his work disposed of, he also derives the same advantage +as the author on sales of his books. In all these lines of +original genius the plan pursued is the same to offer a free field +to aspirants, and as soon as exceptional talent is recognized to +release it from all trammels and let it have free course. The +remission of other service in these cases is not intended as a gift +or reward, but as the means of obtaining more and higher +service. Of course there are various literary, art, and scientific +institutes to which membership comes to the famous and is +greatly prized. The highest of all honors in the nation, higher +than the presidency, which calls merely for good sense and +devotion to duty, is the red ribbon awarded by the vote of the +people to the great authors, artists, engineers, physicians, and +inventors of the generation. Not over a certain number wear it at +any one time, though every bright young fellow in the country +loses innumerable nights' sleep dreaming of it. I even did +myself." + +"Just as if mamma and I would have thought any more of you +with it," exclaimed Edith; "not that it isn't, of course, a very +fine thing to have." + +"You had no choice, my dear, but to take your father as you +found him and make the best of him," Dr. Leete replied; "but as +for your mother, there, she would never have had me if l had +not assured her that I was bound to get the red ribbon or at least +the blue." + +On this extravagance Mrs. Leete's only comment was a smile. + +"How about periodicals and newspapers?" I said. "I won't +deny that your book publishing system is a considerable +improvement on ours, both as to its tendency to encourage a real +literary vocation, and, quite as important, to discourage mere +scribblers; but I don't see how it can be made to apply to +magazines and newspapers. It is very well to make a man pay for +publishing a book, because the expense will be only occasional; +but no man could afford the expense of publishing a newspaper +every day in the year. It took the deep pockets of our private +capitalists to do that, and often exhausted even them before the +returns came in. If you have newspapers at all, they must, I +fancy, be published by the government at the public expense, +with government editors, reflecting government opinions. Now, +if your system is so perfect that there is never anything to +criticize in the conduct of affairs, this arrangement may answer. +Otherwise I should think the lack of an independent unofficial +medium for the expression of public opinion would have most +unfortunate results. Confess, Dr. Leete, that a free newspaper +press, with all that it implies, was a redeeming incident of the +old system when capital was in private hands, and that you have +to set off the loss of that against your gains in other respects." + +"I am afraid I can't give you even that consolation," replied +Dr. Leete, laughing. "In the first place, Mr. West, the newspaper +press is by no means the only or, as we look at it, the best +vehicle for serious criticism of public affairs. To us, the +judgments of your newspapers on such themes seem generally to +have been crude and flippant, as well as deeply tinctured with +prejudice and bitterness. In so far as they may be taken as +expressing public opinion, they give an unfavorable impression +of the popular intelligence, while so far as they may have +formed public opinion, the nation was not to be felicitated. +Nowadays, when a citizen desires to make a serious impression +upon the public mind as to any aspect of public affairs, he comes +out with a book or pamphlet, published as other books are. But +this is not because we lack newspapers and magazines, or that +they lack the most absolute freedom. The newspaper press is +organized so as to be a more perfect expression of public opinion +than it possibly could be in your day, when private capital +controlled and managed it primarily as a money-making business, +and secondarily only as a mouthpiece for the people." + +"But," said I, "if the government prints the papers at the +public expense, how can it fail to control their policy? Who +appoints the editors, if not the government?" + +"The government does not pay the expense of the papers, nor +appoint their editors, nor in any way exert the slightest influence +on their policy," replied Dr. Leete. "The people who take the +paper pay the expense of its publication, choose its editor, and +remove him when unsatisfactory. You will scarcely say, I think, +that such a newspaper press is not a free organ of popular +opinion." + +"Decidedly I shall not," I replied, "but how is it practicable?" + +"Nothing could be simpler. Supposing some of my neighbors +or myself think we ought to have a newspaper reflecting our +opinions, and devoted especially to our locality, trade, or profession. +We go about among the people till we get the names of +such a number that their annual subscriptions will meet the cost +of the paper, which is little or big according to the largeness of +its constituency. The amount of the subscriptions marked off the +credits of the citizens guarantees the nation against loss in +publishing the paper, its business, you understand, being that of +a publisher purely, with no option to refuse the duty required. +The subscribers to the paper now elect somebody as editor, who, +if he accepts the office, is discharged from other service during +his incumbency. Instead of paying a salary to him, as in your +day, the subscribers pay the nation an indemnity equal to the +cost of his support for taking him away from the general service. +He manages the paper just as one of your editors did, except that +he has no counting-room to obey, or interests of private capital +as against the public good to defend. At the end of the first year, +the subscribers for the next either re-elect the former editor or +choose any one else to his place. An able editor, of course, keeps +his place indefinitely. As the subscription list enlarges, the funds +of the paper increase, and it is improved by the securing of more +and better contributors, just as your papers were." + +"How is the staff of contributors recompensed, since they +cannot be paid in money?" + +"The editor settles with them the price of their wares. The +amount is transferred to their individual credit from the guarantee +credit of the paper, and a remission of service is granted the +contributor for a length of time corresponding to the amount +credited him, just as to other authors. As to magazines, the +system is the same. Those interested in the prospectus of a new +periodical pledge enough subscriptions to run it for a year; select +their editor, who recompenses his contributors just as in the +other case, the printing bureau furnishing the necessary force +and material for publication, as a matter of course. When an +editor's services are no longer desired, if he cannot earn the right +to his time by other literary work, he simply resumes his place in +the industrial army. I should add that, though ordinarily the +editor is elected only at the end of the year, and as a rule is +continued in office for a term of years, in case of any sudden +change he should give to the tone of the paper, provision is +made for taking the sense of the subscribers as to his removal at +any time." + +"However earnestly a man may long for leisure for purposes of +study or meditation," I remarked, "he cannot get out of the +harness, if I understand you rightly, except in these two ways you +have mentioned. He must either by literary, artistic, or inventive +productiveness indemnify the nation for the loss of his services, +or must get a sufficient number of other people to contribute to +such an indemnity." + +"It is most certain," replied Dr. Leete, "that no able-bodied +man nowadays can evade his share of work and live on the toil of +others, whether he calls himself by the fine name of student or +confesses to being simply lazy. At the same time our system is +elastic enough to give free play to every instinct of human nature +which does not aim at dominating others or living on the fruit of +others' labor. There is not only the remission by indemnification +but the remission by abnegation. Any man in his thirty-third +year, his term of service being then half done, can obtain an +honorable discharge from the army, provided he accepts for the +rest of his life one half the rate of maintenance other citizens +receive. It is quite possible to live on this amount, though one +must forego the luxuries and elegancies of life, with some, +perhaps, of its comforts." + +When the ladies retired that evening, Edith brought me a +book and said: + +"If you should be wakeful to-night, Mr. West, you might be +interested in looking over this story by Berrian. It is considered +his masterpiece, and will at least give you an idea what the +stories nowadays are like." + +I sat up in my room that night reading "Penthesilia" till it +grew gray in the east, and did not lay it down till I had finished +it. And yet let no admirer of the great romancer of the twentieth +century resent my saying that at the first reading what most +impressed me was not so much what was in the book as what +was left out of it. The story-writers of my day would have +deemed the making of bricks without straw a light task compared +with the construction of a romance from which should be +excluded all effects drawn from the contrasts of wealth and +poverty, education and ignorance, coarseness and refinement, +high and low, all motives drawn from social pride and ambition, +the desire of being richer or the fear of being poorer, together +with sordid anxieties of any sort for one's self or others; a +romance in which there should, indeed, be love galore, but love +unfretted by artificial barriers created by differences of station or +possessions, owning no other law but that of the heart. The +reading of "Penthesilia" was of more value than almost any +amount of explanation would have been in giving me something +like a general impression of the social aspect of the twentieth +century. The information Dr. Leete had imparted was indeed +extensive as to facts, but they had affected my mind as so many +separate impressions, which I had as yet succeeded but imperfectly +in making cohere. Berrian put them together for me in a +picture. + + + +Chapter 16 + + +Next morning I rose somewhat before the breakfast hour. As I +descended the stairs, Edith stepped into the hall from the room +which had been the scene of the morning interview between us +described some chapters back. + +"Ah!" she exclaimed, with a charmingly arch expression, "you +thought to slip out unbeknown for another of those solitary +morning rambles which have such nice effects on you. But you +see I am up too early for you this time. You are fairly caught." + +"You discredit the efficacy of your own cure," I said, "by +supposing that such a ramble would now be attended with bad +consequences." + +"I am very glad to hear that," she said. "I was in here +arranging some flowers for the breakfast table when I heard you +come down, and fancied I detected something surreptitious in +your step on the stairs." + +"You did me injustice," I replied. "I had no idea of going out +at all." + +Despite her effort to convey an impression that my interception +was purely accidental, I had at the time a dim suspicion of +what I afterwards learned to be the fact, namely, that this sweet +creature, in pursuance of her self-assumed guardianship over me, +had risen for the last two or three mornings at an unheard-of +hour, to insure against the possibility of my wandering off alone +in case I should be affected as on the former occasion. Receiving +permission to assist her in making up the breakfast bouquet, I +followed her into the room from which she had emerged. + +"Are you sure," she asked, "that you are quite done with those +terrible sensations you had that morning?" + +"I can't say that I do not have times of feeling decidedly +queer," I replied, "moments when my personal identity seems an +open question. It would be too much to expect after my +experience that I should not have such sensations occasionally, +but as for being carried entirely off my feet, as I was on the point +of being that morning, I think the danger is past." + +"I shall never forget how you looked that morning," she said. + +"If you had merely saved my life," I continued, "I might, +perhaps, find words to express my gratitude, but it was my reason +you saved, and there are no words that would not belittle my +debt to you." I spoke with emotion, and her eyes grew suddenly +moist. + +"It is too much to believe all this," she said, "but it is very +delightful to hear you say it. What I did was very little. I was +very much distressed for you, I know. Father never thinks +anything ought to astonish us when it can be explained scientifically, +as I suppose this long sleep of yours can be, but even to +fancy myself in your place makes my head swim. I know that I +could not have borne it at all." + +"That would depend," I replied, "on whether an angel came +to support you with her sympathy in the crisis of your condition, +as one came to me." If my face at all expressed the feelings I had +a right to have toward this sweet and lovely young girl, who had +played so angelic a role toward me, its expression must have been +very worshipful just then. The expression or the words, or both +together, caused her now to drop her eyes with a charming +blush. + +"For the matter of that," I said, "if your experience has not +been as startling as mine, it must have been rather overwhelming +to see a man belonging to a strange century, and apparently a +hundred years dead, raised to life." + +"It seemed indeed strange beyond any describing at first," she +said, "but when we began to put ourselves in your place, and +realize how much stranger it must seem to you, I fancy we forgot +our own feelings a good deal, at least I know I did. It seemed +then not so much astounding as interesting and touching beyond +anything ever heard of before." + +"But does it not come over you as astounding to sit at table +with me, seeing who I am?" + +"You must remember that you do not seem so strange to us as +we must to you," she answered. "We belong to a future of which +you could not form an idea, a generation of which you knew +nothing until you saw us. But you belong to a generation of +which our forefathers were a part. We know all about it; the +names of many of its members are household words with us. We +have made a study of your ways of living and thinking; nothing +you say or do surprises us, while we say and do nothing which +does not seem strange to you. So you see, Mr. West, that if you +feel that you can, in time, get accustomed to us, you must not be +surprised that from the first we have scarcely found you strange +at all." + +"I had not thought of it in that way," I replied. "There is +indeed much in what you say. One can look back a thousand +years easier than forward fifty. A century is not so very long a +retrospect. I might have known your great-grand-parents. Possibly +I did. Did they live in Boston?" + +"I believe so." + +"You are not sure, then?" + +"Yes," she replied. "Now I think, they did." + +"I had a very large circle of acquaintances in the city," I said. +"It is not unlikely that I knew or knew of some of them. Perhaps +I may have known them well. Wouldn't it be interesting if I +should chance to be able to tell you all about your great-grandfather, +for instance?" + +"Very interesting." + +"Do you know your genealogy well enough to tell me who +your forbears were in the Boston of my day?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Perhaps, then, you will some time tell me what some of their +names were." + +She was engrossed in arranging a troublesome spray of green, +and did not reply at once. Steps upon the stairway indicated that +the other members of the family were descending. + +"Perhaps, some time," she said. + +After breakfast, Dr. Leete suggested taking me to inspect the +central warehouse and observe actually in operation the machinery +of distribution, which Edith had described to me. As we +walked away from the house I said, "It is now several days that I +have been living in your household on a most extraordinary +footing, or rather on none at all. I have not spoken of this aspect +of my position before because there were so many other aspects +yet more extraordinary. But now that I am beginning a little to +feel my feet under me, and to realize that, however I came here, +I am here, and must make the best of it, I must speak to you on +this point." + +"As for your being a guest in my house," replied Dr. Leete, "I +pray you not to begin to be uneasy on that point, for I mean to +keep you a long time yet. With all your modesty, you can but +realize that such a guest as yourself is an acquisition not willingly +to be parted with." + +"Thanks, doctor," I said. "It would be absurd, certainly, for +me to affect any oversensitiveness about accepting the temporary +hospitality of one to whom I owe it that I am not still awaiting +the end of the world in a living tomb. But if I am to be a +permanent citizen of this century I must have some standing in +it. Now, in my time a person more or less entering the world, +however he got in, would not be noticed in the unorganized +throng of men, and might make a place for himself anywhere +he chose if he were strong enough. But nowadays everybody is a +part of a system with a distinct place and function. I am outside +the system, and don't see how I can get in; there seems no way +to get in, except to be born in or to come in as an emigrant +from some other system." + +Dr. Leete laughed heartily. + +"I admit," he said, "that our system is defective in lacking +provision for cases like yours, but you see nobody anticipated +additions to the world except by the usual process. You need, +however, have no fear that we shall be unable to provide both a +place and occupation for you in due time. You have as yet been +brought in contact only with the members of my family, but you +must not suppose that I have kept your secret. On the contrary, +your case, even before your resuscitation, and vastly more since +has excited the profoundest interest in the nation. In view of +your precarious nervous condition, it was thought best that I +should take exclusive charge of you at first, and that you should, +through me and my family, receive some general idea of the sort +of world you had come back to before you began to make the +acquaintance generally of its inhabitants. As to finding a function +for you in society, there was no hesitation as to what that +would be. Few of us have it in our power to confer so great a +service on the nation as you will be able to when you leave my +roof, which, however, you must not think of doing for a good +time yet." + +"What can I possibly do?" I asked. "Perhaps you imagine I +have some trade, or art, or special skill. I assure you I have none +whatever. I never earned a dollar in my life, or did an hour's +work. I am strong, and might be a common laborer, but nothing +more." + +"If that were the most efficient service you were able to render +the nation, you would find that avocation considered quite as +respectable as any other," replied Dr. Leete; "but you can do +something else better. You are easily the master of all our +historians on questions relating to the social condition of the +latter part of the nineteenth century, to us one of the most +absorbingly interesting periods of history: and whenever in due +time you have sufficiently familiarized yourself with our institutions, +and are willing to teach us something concerning those of +your day, you will find an historical lectureship in one of our +colleges awaiting you." + +"Very good! very good indeed," I said, much relieved by so +practical a suggestion on a point which had begun to trouble me. +"If your people are really so much interested in the nineteenth +century, there will indeed be an occupation ready-made for me. I +don't think there is anything else that I could possibly earn my +salt at, but I certainly may claim without conceit to have some +special qualifications for such a post as you describe." + + + +Chapter 17 + + +I found the processes at the warehouse quite as interesting as +Edith had described them, and became even enthusiastic over +the truly remarkable illustration which is seen there of the +prodigiously multiplied efficiency which perfect organization can +give to labor. It is like a gigantic mill, into the hopper of which +goods are being constantly poured by the train-load and shipload, +to issue at the other end in packages of pounds and ounces, +yards and inches, pints and gallons, corresponding to the +infinitely complex personal needs of half a million people. Dr. +Leete, with the assistance of data furnished by me as to the way +goods were sold in my day, figured out some astounding results +in the way of the economies effected by the modern system. + +As we set out homeward, I said: "After what I have seen +to-day, together with what you have told me, and what I learned +under Miss Leete's tutelage at the sample store, I have a +tolerably clear idea of your system of distribution, and how it +enables you to dispense with a circulating medium. But I should +like very much to know something more about your system of +production. You have told me in general how your industrial +army is levied and organized, but who directs its efforts? What +supreme authority determines what shall be done in every +department, so that enough of everything is produced and yet no +labor wasted? It seems to me that this must be a wonderfully +complex and difficult function, requiring very unusual endowments." + +"Does it indeed seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete. "I +assure you that it is nothing of the kind, but on the other hand +so simple, and depending on principles so obvious and easily +applied, that the functionaries at Washington to whom it is +trusted require to be nothing more than men of fair abilities to +discharge it to the entire satisfaction of the nation. The machine +which they direct is indeed a vast one, but so logical in its +principles and direct and simple in its workings, that it all but +runs itself; and nobody but a fool could derange it, as I think you +will agree after a few words of explanation. Since you already +have a pretty good idea of the working of the distributive system, +let us begin at that end. Even in your day statisticians were able +to tell you the number of yards of cotton, velvet, woolen, the +number of barrels of flour, potatoes, butter, number of pairs +of shoes, hats, and umbrellas annually consumed by the nation. +Owing to the fact that production was in private hands, and +that there was no way of getting statistics of actual distribution, +these figures were not exact, but they were nearly so. +Now that every pin which is given out from a national warehouse +is recorded, of course the figures of consumption for any +week, month, or year, in the possession of the department of +distribution at the end of that period, are precise. On these +figures, allowing for tendencies to increase or decrease and for +any special causes likely to affect demand, the estimates, say for a +year ahead, are based. These estimates, with a proper margin for +security, having been accepted by the general administration, the +responsibility of the distributive department ceases until the +goods are delivered to it. I speak of the estimates being furnished +for an entire year ahead, but in reality they cover that much time +only in case of the great staples for which the demand can be +calculated on as steady. In the great majority of smaller +industries for the product of which popular taste fluctuates, and +novelty is frequently required, production is kept barely ahead of +consumption, the distributive department furnishing frequent +estimates based on the weekly state of demand. + +"Now the entire field of productive and constructive industry +is divided into ten great departments, each representing a group +of allied industries, each particular industry being in turn +represented by a subordinate bureau, which has a complete record of +the plant and force under its control, of the present product, and +means of increasing it. The estimates of the distributive department, +after adoption by the administration, are sent as mandates +to the ten great departments, which allot them to the subordinate +bureaus representing the particular industries, and these set +the men at work. Each bureau is responsible for the task given it, +and this responsibility is enforced by departmental oversight and +that of the administration; nor does the distributive department +accept the product without its own inspection; while even if in +the hands of the consumer an article turns out unfit, the system +enables the fault to be traced back to the original workman. The +production of the commodities for actual public consumption +does not, of course, require by any means all the national force +of workers. After the necessary contingents have been detailed +for the various industries, the amount of labor left for other +employment is expended in creating fixed capital, such as +buildings, machinery, engineering works, and so forth." + +"One point occurs to me," I said, "on which I should think +there might be dissatisfaction. Where there is no opportunity for +private enterprise, how is there any assurance that the claims of +small minorities of the people to have articles produced, for +which there is no wide demand, will be respected? An official +decree at any moment may deprive them of the means of +gratifying some special taste, merely because the majority does +not share it." + +"That would be tyranny indeed," replied Dr. Leete, "and you +may be very sure that it does not happen with us, to whom +liberty is as dear as equality or fraternity. As you come to know +our system better, you will see that our officials are in fact, and +not merely in name, the agents and servants of the people. The +administration has no power to stop the production of any +commodity for which there continues to be a demand. Suppose +the demand for any article declines to such a point that its +production becomes very costly. The price has to be raised in +proportion, of course, but as long as the consumer cares to pay it, +the production goes on. Again, suppose an article not before +produced is demanded. If the administration doubts the reality +of the demand, a popular petition guaranteeing a certain basis +of consumption compels it to produce the desired article. A government, +or a majority, which should undertake to tell the people, +or a minority, what they were to eat, drink, or wear, as I +believe governments in America did in your day, would be regarded +as a curious anachronism indeed. Possibly you had reasons +for tolerating these infringements of personal independence, +but we should not think them endurable. I am glad you +raised this point, for it has given me a chance to show you how +much more direct and efficient is the control over production +exercised by the individual citizen now than it was in your day, +when what you called private initiative prevailed, though it +should have been called capitalist initiative, for the average +private citizen had little enough share in it." + +"You speak of raising the price of costly articles," I said. "How +can prices be regulated in a country where there is no competition +between buyers or sellers?" + +"Just as they were with you," replied Dr. Leete. "You think +that needs explaining," he added, as I looked incredulous, "but +the explanation need not be long; the cost of the labor which +produced it was recognized as the legitimate basis of the price of +an article in your day, and so it is in ours. In your day, it was the +difference in wages that made the difference in the cost of labor; +now it is the relative number of hours constituting a day's work +in different trades, the maintenance of the worker being equal in +all cases. The cost of a man's work in a trade so difficult that in +order to attract volunteers the hours have to be fixed at four a +day is twice as great as that in a trade where the men work eight +hours. The result as to the cost of labor, you see, is just the same +as if the man working four hours were paid, under your system, +twice the wages the others get. This calculation applied to the +labor employed in the various processes of a manufactured article +gives its price relatively to other articles. Besides the cost of +production and transportation, the factor of scarcity affects the +prices of some commodities. As regards the great staples of life, +of which an abundance can always be secured, scarcity is +eliminated as a factor. There is always a large surplus kept on +hand from which any fluctuations of demand or supply can be +corrected, even in most cases of bad crops. The prices of the +staples grow less year by year, but rarely, if ever, rise. There are, +however, certain classes of articles permanently, and others +temporarily, unequal to the demand, as, for example, fresh fish +or dairy products in the latter category, and the products of high +skill and rare materials in the other. All that can be done here is +to equalize the inconvenience of the scarcity. This is done by +temporarily raising the price if the scarcity be temporary, or +fixing it high if it be permanent. High prices in your day meant +restriction of the articles affected to the rich, but nowadays, +when the means of all are the same, the effect is only that those +to whom the articles seem most desirable are the ones who +purchase them. Of course the nation, as any other caterer for the +public needs must be, is frequently left with small lots of goods +on its hands by changes in taste, unseasonable weather and +various other causes. These it has to dispose of at a sacrifice just +as merchants often did in your day, charging up the loss to the +expenses of the business. Owing, however, to the vast body of +consumers to which such lots can be simultaneously offered, +there is rarely any difficulty in getting rid of them at trifling loss. +I have given you now some general notion of our system of +production; as well as distribution. Do you find it as complex as +you expected?" + +I admitted that nothing could be much simpler. + +"I am sure," said Dr. Leete, "that it is within the truth to say +that the head of one of the myriad private businesses of your +day, who had to maintain sleepless vigilance against the fluctuations +of the market, the machinations of his rivals, and the +failure of his debtors, had a far more trying task than the group +of men at Washington who nowadays direct the industries of +the entire nation. All this merely shows, my dear fellow, how +much easier it is to do things the right way than the wrong. It is +easier for a general up in a balloon, with perfect survey of the +field, to manoeuvre a million men to victory than for a sergeant +to manage a platoon in a thicket." + +"The general of this army, including the flower of the manhood +of the nation, must be the foremost man in the country, +really greater even than the President of the United States," I +said. + +"He is the President of the United States," replied Dr. Leete, +"or rather the most important function of the presidency is the +headship of the industrial army." + +"How is he chosen?" I asked. + +"I explained to you before," replied Dr. Leete, "when I was +describing the force of the motive of emulation among all grades +of the industrial army, that the line of promotion for the +meritorious lies through three grades to the officer's grade, and +thence up through the lieutenancies to the captaincy or foremanship, +and superintendency or colonel's rank. Next, with an intervening +grade in some of the larger trades, comes the general +of the guild, under whose immediate control all the operations +of the trade are conducted. This officer is at the head of the +national bureau representing his trade, and is responsible for its +work to the administration. The general of his guild holds a +splendid position, and one which amply satisfies the ambition of +most men, but above his rank, which may be compared--to +follow the military analogies familiar to you--to that of a +general of division or major-general, is that of the chiefs of the +ten great departments, or groups of allied trades. The chiefs of +these ten grand divisions of the industrial army may be compared +to your commanders of army corps, or lieutenant-generals, +each having from a dozen to a score of generals of separate guilds +reporting to him. Above these ten great officers, who form his +council, is the general-in-chief, who is the President of the +United States. + +"The general-in-chief of the industrial army must have passed +through all the grades below him, from the common laborers up. +Let us see how he rises. As I have told you, it is simply by the +excellence of his record as a worker that one rises through the +grades of the privates and becomes a candidate for a lieutenancy. +Through the lieutenancies he rises to the colonelcy, or superintendent's +position, by appointment from above, strictly limited +to the candidates of the best records. The general of the guild +appoints to the ranks under him, but he himself is not +appointed, but chosen by suffrage." + +"By suffrage!" I exclaimed. "Is not that ruinous to the +discipline of the guild, by tempting the candidates to intrigue for +the support of the workers under them?" + +"So it would be, no doubt," replied Dr. Leete, "if the workers +had any suffrage to exercise, or anything to say about the choice. +But they have nothing. Just here comes in a peculiarity of our +system. The general of the guild is chosen from among the +superintendents by vote of the honorary members of the guild, +that is, of those who have served their time in the guild and +received their discharge. As you know, at the age of forty-five we +are mustered out of the army of industry, and have the residue +of life for the pursuit of our own improvement or recreation. Of +course, however, the associations of our active lifetime retain a +powerful hold on us. The companionships we formed then +remain our companionships till the end of life. We always +continue honorary members of our former guilds, and retain the +keenest and most jealous interest in their welfare and repute in +the hands of the following generation. In the clubs maintained +by the honorary members of the several guilds, in which we +meet socially, there are no topics of conversation so common as +those which relate to these matters, and the young aspirants for +guild leadership who can pass the criticism of us old fellows are +likely to be pretty well equipped. Recognizing this fact, the +nation entrusts to the honorary members of each guild the +election of its general, and I venture to claim that no previous +form of society could have developed a body of electors so +ideally adapted to their office, as regards absolute impartiality, +knowledge of the special qualifications and record of candidates, +solicitude for the best result, and complete absence of self- +interest. + +"Each of the ten lieutenant-generals or heads of departments +is himself elected from among the generals of the guilds grouped +as a department, by vote of the honorary members of the guilds +thus grouped. Of course there is a tendency on the part of each +guild to vote for its own general, but no guild of any group has +nearly enough votes to elect a man not supported by most of the +others. I assure you that these elections are exceedingly lively." + +"The President, I suppose, is selected from among the ten +heads of the great departments," I suggested. + +"Precisely, but the heads of departments are not eligible to the +presidency till they have been a certain number of years out of +office. It is rarely that a man passes through all the grades to the +headship of a department much before he is forty, and at the +end of a five years' term he is usually forty-five. If more, he still +serves through his term, and if less, he is nevertheless discharged +from the industrial army at its termination. It would not do for +him to return to the ranks. The interval before he is a candidate +for the presidency is intended to give time for him to recognize +fully that he has returned into the general mass of the nation, +and is identified with it rather than with the industrial army. +Moreover, it is expected that he will employ this period in +studying the general condition of the army, instead of that of the +special group of guilds of which he was the head. From among +the former heads of departments who may be eligible at the +time, the President is elected by vote of all the men of the +nation who are not connected with the industrial army." + +"The army is not allowed to vote for President?" + +"Certainly not. That would be perilous to its discipline, which +it is the business of the President to maintain as the representative +of the nation at large. His right hand for this purpose is the +inspectorate, a highly important department of our system; to +the inspectorate come all complaints or information as to defects +in goods, insolence or inefficiency of officials, or dereliction of +any sort in the public service. The inspectorate, however, does +not wait for complaints. Not only is it on the alert to catch and +sift every rumor of a fault in the service, but it is its business, by +systematic and constant oversight and inspection of every branch +of the army, to find out what is going wrong before anybody else +does. The President is usually not far from fifty when elected, +and serves five years, forming an honorable exception to the rule +of retirement at forty-five. At the end of his term of office, a +national Congress is called to receive his report and approve or +condemn it. If it is approved, Congress usually elects him to +represent the nation for five years more in the international +council. Congress, I should also say, passes on the reports of the +outgoing heads of departments, and a disapproval renders any +one of them ineligible for President. But it is rare, indeed, that +the nation has occasion for other sentiments than those of +gratitude toward its high officers. As to their ability, to have risen +from the ranks, by tests so various and severe, to their positions, +is proof in itself of extraordinary qualities, while as to faithfulness, +our social system leaves them absolutely without any other +motive than that of winning the esteem of their fellow citizens. +Corruption is impossible in a society where there is neither pov- +erty to be bribed nor wealth to bribe, while as to demagoguery +or intrigue for office, the conditions of promotion render +them out of the question." + +"One point I do not quite understand," I said. "Are the +members of the liberal professions eligible to the presidency? +and if so, how are they ranked with those who pursue the +industries proper?" + +"They have no ranking with them," replied Dr. Leete. "The +members of the technical professions, such as engineers and +architects, have a ranking with the constructive guilds; but the +members of the liberal professions, the doctors and teachers, as +well as the artists and men of letters who obtain remissions of +industrial service, do not belong to the industrial army. On this +ground they vote for the President, but are not eligible to his +office. One of its main duties being the control and discipline of +the industrial army, it is essential that the President should have +passed through all its grades to understand his business." + +"That is reasonable," I said; "but if the doctors and teachers +do not know enough of industry to be President, neither, I +should think, can the President know enough of medicine and +education to control those departments." + +"No more does he," was the reply. "Except in the general way +that he is responsible for the enforcement of the laws as to all +classes, the President has nothing to do with the faculties of +medicine and education, which are controlled by boards of +regents of their own, in which the President is ex-officio chairman, +and has the casting vote. These regents, who, of course, are +responsible to Congress, are chosen by the honorary members of +the guilds of education and medicine, the retired teachers and +doctors of the country." + +"Do you know," I said, "the method of electing officials by +votes of the retired members of the guilds is nothing more than +the application on a national scale of the plan of government by +alumni, which we used to a slight extent occasionally in the +management of our higher educational institutions." + +"Did you, indeed?" exclaimed Dr. Leete, with animation. +"That is quite new to me, and I fancy will be to most of us, and +of much interest as well. There has been great discussion as to +the germ of the idea, and we fancied that there was for once +something new under the sun. Well! well! In your higher +educational institutions! that is interesting indeed. You must tell +me more of that." + +"Truly, there is very little more to tell than I have told +already," I replied. "If we had the germ of your idea, it was but +as a germ." + + + +Chapter 18 + + +That evening I sat up for some time after the ladies had +retired, talking with Dr. Leete about the effect of the plan of +exempting men from further service to the nation after the age +of forty-five, a point brought up by his account of the part taken +by the retired citizens in the government. + +"At forty-five," said I, "a man still has ten years of good +manual labor in him, and twice ten years of good intellectual +service. To be superannuated at that age and laid on the shelf +must be regarded rather as a hardship than a favor by men of +energetic dispositions." + +"My dear Mr. West," exclaimed Dr. Leete, beaming upon me, +"you cannot have any idea of the piquancy your nineteenth +century ideas have for us of this day, the rare quaintness of their +effect. Know, O child of another race and yet the same, that the +labor we have to render as our part in securing for the nation the +means of a comfortable physical existence is by no means +regarded as the most important, the most interesting, or the +most dignified employment of our powers. We look upon it as a +necessary duty to be discharged before we can fully devote +ourselves to the higher exercise of our faculties, the intellectual +and spiritual enjoyments and pursuits which alone mean life. +Everything possible is indeed done by the just distribution of +burdens, and by all manner of special attractions and incentives +to relieve our labor of irksomeness, and, except in a comparative +sense, it is not usually irksome, and is often inspiring. But it is +not our labor, but the higher and larger activities which the +performance of our task will leave us free to enter upon, that are +considered the main business of existence. + +"Of course not all, nor the majority, have those scientific, +artistic, literary, or scholarly interests which make leisure the one +thing valuable to their possessors. Many look upon the last half +of life chiefly as a period for enjoyment of other sorts; for travel, +for social relaxation in the company of their life-time friends; a +time for the cultivation of all manner of personal idiosyncrasies +and special tastes, and the pursuit of every imaginable form of +recreation; in a word, a time for the leisurely and unperturbed +appreciation of the good things of the world which they have +helped to create. But, whatever the differences between our +individual tastes as to the use we shall put our leisure to, we all +agree in looking forward to the date of our discharge as the time +when we shall first enter upon the full enjoyment of our +birthright, the period when we shall first really attain our +majority and become enfranchised from discipline and control, +with the fee of our lives vested in ourselves. As eager boys in +your day anticipated twenty-one, so men nowadays look forward +to forty-five. At twenty-one we become men, but at forty-five we +renew youth. Middle age and what you would have called old +age are considered, rather than youth, the enviable time of life. +Thanks to the better conditions of existence nowadays, and +above all the freedom of every one from care, old age approaches +many years later and has an aspect far more benign than in past +times. Persons of average constitution usually live to eighty-five +or ninety, and at forty-five we are physically and mentally +younger, I fancy, than you were at thirty-five. It is a strange +reflection that at forty-five, when we are just entering upon the +most enjoyable period of life, you already began to think of +growing old and to look backward. With you it was the +forenoon, with us it is the afternoon, which is the brighter half +of life." + +After this I remember that our talk branched into the subject +of popular sports and recreations at the present time as com- +pared with those of the nineteenth century. + +"In one respect," said Dr. Leete, "there is a marked difference. +The professional sportsmen, which were such a curious feature +of your day, we have nothing answering to, nor are the prizes for +which our athletes contend money prizes, as with you. Our +contests are always for glory only. The generous rivalry existing +between the various guilds, and the loyalty of each worker to his +own, afford a constant stimulation to all sorts of games and +matches by sea and land, in which the young men take scarcely +more interest than the honorary guildsmen who have served +their time. The guild yacht races off Marblehead take place +next week, and you will be able to judge for yourself of the +popular enthusiasm which such events nowadays call out as +compared with your day. The demand for `panem ef circenses' +preferred by the Roman populace is recognized nowadays as a +wholly reasonable one. If bread is the first necessity of life, +recreation is a close second, and the nation caters for both. +Americans of the nineteenth century were as unfortunate in +lacking an adequate provision for the one sort of need as for the +other. Even if the people of that period had enjoyed larger +leisure, they would, I fancy, have often been at a loss how to pass +it agreeably. We are never in that predicament." + + + +Chapter 19 + + +In the course of an early morning constitutional I visited +Charlestown. Among the changes, too numerous to attempt to +indicate, which mark the lapse of a century in that quarter, I +particularly noted the total disappearance of the old state prison. + +"That went before my day, but I remember hearing about it," +said Dr. Leete, when I alluded to the fact at the breakfast table. +"We have no jails nowadays. All cases of atavism are treated in +the hospitals." + +"Of atavism!" I exclaimed, staring. + +"Why, yes," replied Dr. Leete. "The idea of dealing punitively +with those unfortunates was given up at least fifty years ago, and +I think more." + +"I don't quite understand you," I said. "Atavism in my day +was a word applied to the cases of persons in whom some trait of +a remote ancestor recurred in a noticeable manner. Am I to +understand that crime is nowadays looked upon as the recurrence +of an ancestral trait?" + +"I beg your pardon," said Dr. Leete with a smile half +humorous, half deprecating, "but since you have so explicitly +asked the question, I am forced to say that the fact is precisely +that." + +After what I had already learned of the moral contrasts +between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, it was +doubtless absurd in me to begin to develop sensitiveness on the +subject, and probably if Dr. Leete had not spoken with that +apologetic air and Mrs. Leete and Edith shown a corresponding +embarrassment, I should not have flushed, as I was conscious I +did. + +"I was not in much danger of being vain of my generation +before," I said; "but, really--" + +"This is your generation, Mr. West," interposed Edith. "It is +the one in which you are living, you know, and it is only because +we are alive now that we call it ours." + +"Thank you. I will try to think of it so," I said, and as my eyes +met hers their expression quite cured my senseless sensitiveness. +"After all," I said, with a laugh, "I was brought up a Calvinist, +and ought not to be startled to hear crime spoken of as an +ancestral trait." + +"In point of fact," said Dr. Leete, "our use of the word is no +reflection at all on your generation, if, begging Edith's pardon, +we may call it yours, so far as seeming to imply that we think +ourselves, apart from our circumstances, better than you were. In +your day fully nineteen twentieths of the crime, using the word +broadly to include all sorts of misdemeanors, resulted from the +inequality in the possessions of individuals; want tempted the +poor, lust of greater gains, or the desire to preserve former gains, +tempted the well-to-do. Directly or indirectly, the desire for +money, which then meant every good thing, was the motive of +all this crime, the taproot of a vast poison growth, which the +machinery of law, courts, and police could barely prevent from +choking your civilization outright. When we made the nation +the sole trustee of the wealth of the people, and guaranteed to +all abundant maintenance, on the one hand abolishing want, +and on the other checking the accumulation of riches, we cut +this root, and the poison tree that overshadowed your society +withered, like Jonah's gourd, in a day. As for the comparatively +small class of violent crimes against persons, unconnected with +any idea of gain, they were almost wholly confined, even in your +day, to the ignorant and bestial; and in these days, when +education and good manners are not the monopoly of a few, but +universal, such atrocities are scarcely ever heard of. You now see +why the word `atavism' is used for crime. It is because nearly all +forms of crime known to you are motiveless now, and when they +appear can only be explained as the outcropping of ancestral +traits. You used to call persons who stole, evidently without any +rational motive, kleptomaniacs, and when the case was clear +deemed it absurd to punish them as thieves. Your attitude +toward the genuine kleptomaniac is precisely ours toward the +victim of atavism, an attitude of compassion and firm but gentle +restraint." + +"Your courts must have an easy time of it," I observed. "With +no private property to speak of, no disputes between citizens +over business relations, no real estate to divide or debts to +collect, there must be absolutely no civil business at all for them; +and with no offenses against property, and mighty few of any +sort to provide criminal cases, I should think you might almost +do without judges and lawyers altogether." + +"We do without the lawyers, certainly," was Dr. Leete's reply. +"It would not seem reasonable to us, in a case where the only +interest of the nation is to find out the truth, that persons +should take part in the proceedings who had an acknowledged +motive to color it." + +"But who defends the accused?" + +"If he is a criminal he needs no defense, for he pleads guilty in +most instances," replied Dr. Leete. "The plea of the accused is +not a mere formality with us, as with you. It is usually the end of +the case." + +"You don't mean that the man who pleads not guilty is +thereupon discharged?" + +"No, I do not mean that. He is not accused on light grounds, +and if he denies his guilt, must still be tried. But trials are few, +for in most cases the guilty man pleads guilty. When he makes a +false plea and is clearly proved guilty, his penalty is doubled. +Falsehood is, however, so despised among us that few offenders +would lie to save themselves." + +"That is the most astounding thing you have yet told me," I +exclaimed. "If lying has gone out of fashion, this is indeed the +`new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,' +which the prophet foretold." + +"Such is, in fact, the belief of some persons nowadays," was +the doctor's answer. "They hold that we have entered upon the +millennium, and the theory from their point of view does not +lack plausibility. But as to your astonishment at finding that the +world has outgrown lying, there is really no ground for it. +Falsehood, even in your day, was not common between gentlemen +and ladies, social equals. The lie of fear was the refuge of +cowardice, and the lie of fraud the device of the cheat. The +inequalities of men and the lust of acquisition offered a constant +premium on lying at that time. Yet even then, the man who +neither feared another nor desired to defraud him scorned +falsehood. Because we are now all social equals, and no man +either has anything to fear from another or can gain anything by +deceiving him, the contempt of falsehood is so universal that it +is rarely, as I told you, that even a criminal in other respects will +be found willing to lie. When, however, a plea of not guilty is +returned, the judge appoints two colleagues to state the opposite +sides of the case. How far these men are from being like your +hired advocates and prosecutors, determined to acquit or convict, +may appear from the fact that unless both agree that the +verdict found is just, the case is tried over, while anything like +bias in the tone of either of the judges stating the case would be +a shocking scandal." + +"Do I understand," I said, "that it is a judge who states each +side of the case as well as a judge who hears it?" + +"Certainly. The judges take turns in serving on the bench and +at the bar, and are expected to maintain the judicial temper +equally whether in stating or deciding a case. The system is +indeed in effect that of trial by three judges occupying different +points of view as to the case. When they agree upon a verdict, +we believe it to be as near to absolute truth as men well can +come." + +"You have given up the jury system, then?" + +"It was well enough as a corrective in the days of hired +advocates, and a bench sometimes venal, and often with a tenure +that made it dependent, but is needless now. No conceivable +motive but justice could actuate our judges." + +"How are these magistrates selected?" + +"They are an honorable exception to the rule which discharges +all men from service at the age of forty-five. The President of the +nation appoints the necessary judges year by year from the class +reaching that age. The number appointed is, of course, exceedingly +few, and the honor so high that it is held an offset to the +additional term of service which follows, and though a judge's +appointment may be declined, it rarely is. The term is five years, +without eligibility to reappointment. The members of the +Supreme Court, which is the guardian of the constitution, are +selected from among the lower judges. When a vacancy in that +court occurs, those of the lower judges, whose terms expire that +year, select, as their last official act, the one of their colleagues +left on the bench whom they deem fittest to fill it." + +"There being no legal profession to serve as a school for +judges," I said, "they must, of course, come directly from the law +school to the bench." + +"We have no such things as law schools," replied the doctor +smiling. "The law as a special science is obsolete. It was a system +of casuistry which the elaborate artificiality of the old order of +society absolutely required to interpret it, but only a few of the +plainest and simplest legal maxims have any application to +the existing state of the world. Everything touching the relations +of men to one another is now simpler, beyond any comparison, +than in your day. We should have no sort of use for the +hair-splitting experts who presided and argued in your courts. +You must not imagine, however, that we have any disrespect +for those ancient worthies because we have no use for them. +On the contrary, we entertain an unfeigned respect, amounting +almost to awe, for the men who alone understood +and were able to expound the interminable complexity of the +rights of property, and the relations of commercial and personal +dependence involved in your system. What, indeed, could possibly +give a more powerful impression of the intricacy and +artificiality of that system than the fact that it was necessary to +set apart from other pursuits the cream of the intellect of every +generation, in order to provide a body of pundits able to make it +even vaguely intelligible to those whose fates it determined. The +treatises of your great lawyers, the works of Blackstone and +Chitty, of Story and Parsons, stand in our museums, side by side +with the tomes of Duns Scotus and his fellow scholastics, as +curious monuments of intellectual subtlety devoted to subjects +equally remote from the interests of modern men. Our judges are +simply widely informed, judicious, and discreet men of ripe years. + +"I should not fail to speak of one important function of the +minor judges," added Dr. Leete. "This is to adjudicate all cases +where a private of the industrial army makes a complaint of +unfairness against an officer. All such questions are heard and +settled without appeal by a single judge, three judges being +required only in graver cases. The efficiency of industry requires +the strictest discipline in the army of labor, but the claim of +the workman to just and considerate treatment is backed by +the whole power of the nation. The officer commands and the +private obeys, but no officer is so high that he would dare display +an overbearing manner toward a workman of the lowest class. As +for churlishness or rudeness by an official of any sort, in his +relations to the public, not one among minor offenses is more +sure of a prompt penalty than this. Not only justice but civility +is enforced by our judges in all sorts of intercourse. No value of +service is accepted as a set-off to boorish or offensive manners." + +It occurred to me, as Dr. Leete was speaking, that in all his +talk I had heard much of the nation and nothing of the state +governments. Had the organization of the nation as an industrial +unit done away with the states? I asked. + +"Necessarily," he replied. "The state governments would have +interfered with the control and discipline of the industrial army, +which, of course, required to be central and uniform. Even if the +state governments had not become inconvenient for other reasons, +they were rendered superfluous by the prodigious simplification +in the task of government since your day. Almost the sole +function of the administration now is that of directing the +industries of the country. Most of the purposes for which +governments formerly existed no longer remain to be subserved. +We have no army or navy, and no military organization. We +have no departments of state or treasury, no excise or revenue +services, no taxes or tax collectors. The only function proper of +government, as known to you, which still remains, is the +judiciary and police system. I have already explained to you how +simple is our judicial system as compared with your huge and +complex machine. Of course the same absence of crime and +temptation to it, which make the duties of judges so light, +reduces the number and duties of the police to a minimum." + +"But with no state legislatures, and Congress meeting only +once in five years, how do you get your legislation done?" + +"We have no legislation," replied Dr. Leete, "that is, next to +none. It is rarely that Congress, even when it meets, considers +any new laws of consequence, and then it only has power to +commend them to the following Congress, lest anything be +done hastily. If you will consider a moment, Mr. West, you will +see that we have nothing to make laws about. The fundamental +principles on which our society is founded settle for all time the +strifes and misunderstandings which in your day called for +legislation. + +"Fully ninety-nine hundredths of the laws of that time concerned +the definition and protection of private property and the +relations of buyers and sellers. There is neither private property, +beyond personal belongings, now, nor buying and selling, and +therefore the occasion of nearly all the legislation formerly +necessary has passed away. Formerly, society was a pyramid +poised on its apex. All the gravitations of human nature were +constantly tending to topple it over, and it could be maintained +upright, or rather upwrong (if you will pardon the feeble +witticism), by an elaborate system of constantly renewed props +and buttresses and guy-ropes in the form of laws. A central +Congress and forty state legislatures, turning out some twenty +thousand laws a year, could not make new props fast enough to +take the place of those which were constantly breaking down or +becoming ineffectual through some shifting of the strain. Now +society rests on its base, and is in as little need of artificial +supports as the everlasting hills." + +"But you have at least municipal governments besides the one +central authority?" + +"Certainly, and they have important and extensive functions +in looking out for the public comfort and recreation, and the +improvement and embellishment of the villages and cities." + +"But having no control over the labor of their people, or +means of hiring it, how can they do anything?" + +"Every town or city is conceded the right to retain, for its own +public works, a certain proportion of the quota of labor its +citizens contribute to the nation. This proportion, being assigned +it as so much credit, can be applied in any way desired." + + + +Chapter 20 + + +That afternoon Edith casually inquired if I had yet revisited +the underground chamber in the garden in which I had been +found. + +"Not yet," I replied. "To be frank, I have shrunk thus far +from doing so, lest the visit might revive old associations rather +too strongly for my mental equilibrium." + +"Ah, yes!" she said, "I can imagine that you have done well to +stay away. I ought to have thought of that." + +"No," I said, "I am glad you spoke of it. The danger, if there +was any, existed only during the first day or two. Thanks to you, +chiefly and always, I feel my footing now so firm in this new +world, that if you will go with me to keep the ghosts off, I +should really like to visit the place this afternoon." + +Edith demurred at first, but, finding that I was in earnest, +consented to accompany me. The rampart of earth thrown up +from the excavation was visible among the trees from the house, +and a few steps brought us to the spot. All remained as it was at +the point when work was interrupted by the discovery of the +tenant of the chamber, save that the door had been opened and +the slab from the roof replaced. Descending the sloping sides of +the excavation, we went in at the door and stood within the +dimly lighted room. + +Everything was just as I had beheld it last on that evening one +hundred and thirteen years previous, just before closing my eyes +for that long sleep. I stood for some time silently looking about +me. I saw that my companion was furtively regarding me with an +expression of awed and sympathetic curiosity. I put out my hand +to her and she placed hers in it, the soft fingers responding with +a reassuring pressure to my clasp. Finally she whispered, "Had +we not better go out now? You must not try yourself too far. Oh, +how strange it must be to you!" + +"On the contrary," I replied, "it does not seem strange; that is +the strangest part of it." + +"Not strange?" she echoed. + +"Even so," I replied. "The emotions with which you evidently +credit me, and which I anticipated would attend this visit, I +simply do not feel. I realize all that these surroundings suggest, +but without the agitation I expected. You can't be nearly as +much surprised at this as I am myself. Ever since that terrible +morning when you came to my help, I have tried to avoid +thinking of my former life, just as I have avoided coming here, +for fear of the agitating effects. I am for all the world like a man +who has permitted an injured limb to lie motionless under the +impression that it is exquisitely sensitive, and on trying to move +it finds that it is paralyzed." + +"Do you mean your memory is gone?" + +"Not at all. I remember everything connected with my former +life, but with a total lack of keen sensation. I remember it for +clearness as if it had been but a day since then, but my feelings +about what I remember are as faint as if to my consciousness, as +well as in fact, a hundred years had intervened. Perhaps it is +possible to explain this, too. The effect of change in surroundings +is like that of lapse of time in making the past seem remote. +When I first woke from that trance, my former life appeared as +yesterday, but now, since I have learned to know my new +surroundings, and to realize the prodigious changes that have +transformed the world, I no longer find it hard, but very easy, to +realize that I have slept a century. Can you conceive of such a +thing as living a hundred years in four days? It really seems to +me that I have done just that, and that it is this experience +which has given so remote and unreal an appearance to my +former life. Can you see how such a thing might be?" + +"I can conceive it," replied Edith, meditatively, "and I think +we ought all to be thankful that it is so, for it will save you much +suffering, I am sure." + +"Imagine," I said, in an effort to explain, as much to myself as +to her, the strangeness of my mental condition, "that a man first +heard of a bereavement many, many years, half a lifetime +perhaps, after the event occurred. I fancy his feeling would be +perhaps something as mine is. When I think of my friends in +the world of that former day, and the sorrow they must have felt +for me, it is with a pensive pity, rather than keen anguish, as of a +sorrow long, long ago ended." + +"You have told us nothing yet of your friends," said Edith. +"Had you many to mourn you?" + +"Thank God, I had very few relatives, none nearer than +cousins," I replied. "But there was one, not a relative, but dearer +to me than any kin of blood. She had your name. She was to +have been my wife soon. Ah me!" + +"Ah me!" sighed the Edith by my side. "Think of the +heartache she must have had." + +Something in the deep feeling of this gentle girl touched a +chord in my benumbed heart. My eyes, before so dry, were +flooded with the tears that had till now refused to come. When +I had regained my composure, I saw that she too had been +weeping freely. + +"God bless your tender heart," I said. "Would you like to see +her picture?" + +A small locket with Edith Bartlett's picture, secured about my +neck with a gold chain, had lain upon my breast all through that +long sleep, and removing this I opened and gave it to my +companion. She took it with eagerness, and after poring long +over the sweet face, touched the picture with her lips. + +"I know that she was good and lovely enough to well deserve +your tears," she said; "but remember her heartache was over long +ago, and she has been in heaven for nearly a century." + +It was indeed so. Whatever her sorrow had once been, for +nearly a century she had ceased to weep, and, my sudden passion +spent, my own tears dried away. I had loved her very dearly in +my other life, but it was a hundred years ago! I do not know but +some may find in this confession evidence of lack of feeling, but +I think, perhaps, that none can have had an experience +sufficiently like mine to enable them to judge me. As we were +about to leave the chamber, my eye rested upon the great iron +safe which stood in one corner. Calling my companion's attention +to it, I said: + +"This was my strong room as well as my sleeping room. In the +safe yonder are several thousand dollars in gold, and any amount +of securities. If I had known when I went to sleep that night just +how long my nap would be, I should still have thought that the +gold was a safe provision for my needs in any country or any +century, however distant. That a time would ever come when it +would lose its purchasing power, I should have considered the +wildest of fancies. Nevertheless, here I wake up to find myself +among a people of whom a cartload of gold will not procure a +loaf of bread." + +As might be expected, I did not succeed in impressing Edith +that there was anything remarkable in this fact. "Why in the +world should it?" she merely asked. + + + +Chapter 21 + + +It had been suggested by Dr. Leete that we should devote the +next morning to an inspection of the schools and colleges of the +city, with some attempt on his own part at an explanation of +the educational system of the twentieth century. + +"You will see," said he, as we set out after breakfast, "many +very important differences between our methods of education +and yours, but the main difference is that nowadays all persons +equally have those opportunities of higher education which in +your day only an infinitesimal portion of the population enjoyed. +We should think we had gained nothing worth speaking of, in +equalizing the physical comfort of men, without this educational +equality." + +"The cost must be very great," I said. + +"If it took half the revenue of the nation, nobody would +grudge it," replied Dr. Leete, "nor even if it took it all save a +bare pittance. But in truth the expense of educating ten thousand +youth is not ten nor five times that of educating one +thousand. The principle which makes all operations on a large +scale proportionally cheaper than on a small scale holds as to +education also." + +"College education was terribly expensive in my day," said I. + +"If I have not been misinformed by our historians," Dr. Leete +answered, "it was not college education but college dissipation +and extravagance which cost so highly. The actual expense of +your colleges appears to have been very low, and would have +been far lower if their patronage had been greater. The higher +education nowadays is as cheap as the lower, as all grades of +teachers, like all other workers, receive the same support. We +have simply added to the common school system of compulsory +education, in vogue in Massachusetts a hundred years ago, a half +dozen higher grades, carrying the youth to the age of twenty-one +and giving him what you used to call the education of a +gentleman, instead of turning him loose at fourteen or fifteen +with no mental equipment beyond reading, writing, and the +multiplication table." + +"Setting aside the actual cost of these additional years of +education," I replied, "we should not have thought we could +afford the loss of time from industrial pursuits. Boys of the +poorer classes usually went to work at sixteen or younger, and +knew their trade at twenty." + +"We should not concede you any gain even in material +product by that plan," Dr. Leete replied. "The greater efficiency +which education gives to all sorts of labor, except the rudest, +makes up in a short period for the time lost in acquiring it." + +"We should also have been afraid," said I, "that a high +education, while it adapted men to the professions, would set +them against manual labor of all sorts." + +"That was the effect of high education in your day, I have +read," replied the doctor; "and it was no wonder, for manual +labor meant association with a rude, coarse, and ignorant class of +people. There is no such class now. It was inevitable that such a +feeling should exist then, for the further reason that all men +receiving a high education were understood to be destined for +the professions or for wealthy leisure, and such an education in +one neither rich nor professional was a proof of disappointed +aspirations, an evidence of failure, a badge of inferiority rather +than superiority. Nowadays, of course, when the highest education +is deemed necessary to fit a man merely to live, without any +reference to the sort of work he may do, its possession conveys +no such implication." + +"After all," I remarked, "no amount of education can cure +natural dullness or make up for original mental deficiencies. +Unless the average natural mental capacity of men is much +above its level in my day, a high education must be pretty nearly +thrown away on a large element of the population. We used to +hold that a certain amount of susceptibility to educational +influences is required to make a mind worth cultivating, just as a +certain natural fertility in soil is required if it is to repay tilling." + +"Ah," said Dr. Leete, "I am glad you used that illustration, for +it is just the one I would have chosen to set forth the modern +view of education. You say that land so poor that the product +will not repay the labor of tilling is not cultivated. Nevertheless, +much land that does not begin to repay tilling by its product was +cultivated in your day and is in ours. I refer to gardens, parks, +lawns, and, in general, to pieces of land so situated that, were +they left to grow up to weeds and briers, they would be eyesores +and inconveniencies to all about. They are therefore tilled, and +though their product is little, there is yet no land that, in a wider +sense, better repays cultivation. So it is with the men and +women with whom we mingle in the relations of society, whose +voices are always in our ears, whose behavior in innumerable +ways affects our enjoyment--who are, in fact, as much conditions +of our lives as the air we breathe, or any of the physical +elements on which we depend. If, indeed, we could not afford to +educate everybody, we should choose the coarsest and dullest by +nature, rather than the brightest, to receive what education we +could give. The naturally refined and intellectual can better +dispense with aids to culture than those less fortunate in natural +endowments. + +"To borrow a phrase which was often used in your day, we +should not consider life worth living if we had to be surrounded +by a population of ignorant, boorish, coarse, wholly uncultivated +men and women, as was the plight of the few educated in your +day. Is a man satisfied, merely because he is perfumed himself, to +mingle with a malodorous crowd? Could he take more than a +very limited satisfaction, even in a palatial apartment, if the +windows on all four sides opened into stable yards? And yet just +that was the situation of those considered most fortunate as to +culture and refinement in your day. I know that the poor and +ignorant envied the rich and cultured then; but to us the latter, +living as they did, surrounded by squalor and brutishness, seem +little better off than the former. The cultured man in your age +was like one up to the neck in a nauseous bog solacing himself +with a smelling bottle. You see, perhaps, now, how we look at +this question of universal high education. No single thing is so +important to every man as to have for neighbors intelligent, +companionable persons. There is nothing, therefore, which the +nation can do for him that will enhance so much his own +happiness as to educate his neighbors. When it fails to do so, the +value of his own education to him is reduced by half, and many +of the tastes he has cultivated are made positive sources of pain. + +"To educate some to the highest degree, and leave the mass +wholly uncultivated, as you did, made the gap between them +almost like that between different natural species, which have no +means of communication. What could be more inhuman than +this consequence of a partial enjoyment of education! Its universal +and equal enjoyment leaves, indeed, the differences between +men as to natural endowments as marked as in a state of nature, +but the level of the lowest is vastly raised. Brutishness is +eliminated. All have some inkling of the humanities, some +appreciation of the things of the mind, and an admiration for +the still higher culture they have fallen short of. They have +become capable of receiving and imparting, in various degrees, +but all in some measure, the pleasures and inspirations of a refined +social life. The cultured society of the nineteenth century +--what did it consist of but here and there a few microscopic +oases in a vast, unbroken wilderness? The proportion of individuals +capable of intellectual sympathies or refined intercourse, to +the mass of their contemporaries, used to be so infinitesimal as +to be in any broad view of humanity scarcely worth mentioning. +One generation of the world to-day represents a greater volume +of intellectual life than any five centuries ever did before. + +"There is still another point I should mention in stating the +grounds on which nothing less than the universality of the best +education could now be tolerated," continued Dr. Leete, "and +that is, the interest of the coming generation in having educated +parents. To put the matter in a nutshell, there are three main +grounds on which our educational system rests: first, the right of +every man to the completest education the nation can give him +on his own account, as necessary to his enjoyment of himself; +second, the right of his fellow-citizens to have him educated, as +necessary to their enjoyment of his society; third, the right of the +unborn to be guaranteed an intelligent and refined parentage." + +I shall not describe in detail what I saw in the schools that +day. Having taken but slight interest in educational matters in +my former life, I could offer few comparisons of interest. Next to +the fact of the universality of the higher as well as the lower +education, I was most struck with the prominence given to +physical culture, and the fact that proficiency in athletic feats +and games as well as in scholarship had a place in the rating of +the youth. + +"The faculty of education," Dr. Leete explained, "is held to +the same responsibility for the bodies as for the minds of its +charges. The highest possible physical, as well as mental, development +of every one is the double object of a curriculum which +lasts from the age of six to that of twenty-one." + +The magnificent health of the young people in the schools +impressed me strongly. My previous observations, not only of +the notable personal endowments of the family of my host, but +of the people I had seen in my walks abroad, had already +suggested the idea that there must have been something like a +general improvement in the physical standard of the race since +my day, and now, as I compared these stalwart young men and +fresh, vigorous maidens with the young people I had seen in the +schools of the nineteenth century, I was moved to impart my +thought to Dr. Leete. He listened with great interest to what I +said. + +"Your testimony on this point," he declared, "is invaluable. +We believe that there has been such an improvement as you +speak of, but of course it could only be a matter of theory with +us. It is an incident of your unique position that you alone in the +world of to-day can speak with authority on this point. Your +opinion, when you state it publicly, will, I assure you, make a +profound sensation. For the rest it would be strange, certainly, if +the race did not show an improvement. In your day, riches +debauched one class with idleness of mind and body, while +poverty sapped the vitality of the masses by overwork, bad food, +and pestilent homes. The labor required of children, and the +burdens laid on women, enfeebled the very springs of life. +Instead of these maleficent circumstances, all now enjoy the +most favorable conditions of physical life; the young are carefully +nurtured and studiously cared for; the labor which is required of +all is limited to the period of greatest bodily vigor, and is never +excessive; care for one's self and one's family, anxiety as to +livelihood, the strain of a ceaseless battle for life--all these +influences, which once did so much to wreck the minds and +bodies of men and women, are known no more. Certainly, an +improvement of the species ought to follow such a change. In +certain specific respects we know, indeed, that the improvement +has taken place. Insanity, for instance, which in the nineteenth +century was so terribly common a product of your insane mode +of life, has almost disappeared, with its alternative, suicide." + + + +Chapter 22 + + +We had made an appointment to meet the ladies at the +dining-hall for dinner, after which, having some engagement, +they left us sitting at table there, discussing our wine and cigars +with a multitude of other matters. + +"Doctor," said I, in the course of our talk, "morally speaking, +your social system is one which I should be insensate not to +admire in comparison with any previously in vogue in the world, +and especially with that of my own most unhappy century. If I +were to fall into a mesmeric sleep tonight as lasting as that other +and meanwhile the course of time were to take a turn backward +instead of forward, and I were to wake up again in the nineteenth +century, when I had told my friends what I had seen, +they would every one admit that your world was a paradise of +order, equity, and felicity. But they were a very practical people, +my contemporaries, and after expressing their admiration for the +moral beauty and material splendor of the system, they would +presently begin to cipher and ask how you got the money to +make everybody so happy; for certainly, to support the whole +nation at a rate of comfort, and even luxury, such as I see around +me, must involve vastly greater wealth than the nation produced +in my day. Now, while I could explain to them pretty nearly +everything else of the main features of your system, I should +quite fail to answer this question, and failing there, they would +tell me, for they were very close cipherers, that I had been +dreaming; nor would they ever believe anything else. In my day, +I know that the total annual product of the nation, although it +might have been divided with absolute equality, would not have +come to more than three or four hundred dollars per head, not +very much more than enough to supply the necessities of life +with few or any of its comforts. How is it that you have so much +more?" + +"That is a very pertinent question, Mr. West," replied Dr. +Leete, "and I should not blame your friends, in the case you +supposed, if they declared your story all moonshine, failing a +satisfactory reply to it. It is a question which I cannot answer +exhaustively at any one sitting, and as for the exact statistics to +bear out my general statements, I shall have to refer you for them +to books in my library, but it would certainly be a pity to leave +you to be put to confusion by your old acquaintances, in case of +the contingency you speak of, for lack of a few suggestions. + +"Let us begin with a number of small items wherein we +economize wealth as compared with you. We have no national, +state, county, or municipal debts, or payments on their account. +We have no sort of military or naval expenditures for men or +materials, no army, navy, or militia. We have no revenue service, +no swarm of tax assessors and collectors. As regards our judiciary, +police, sheriffs, and jailers, the force which Massachusetts alone +kept on foot in your day far more than suffices for the nation +now. We have no criminal class preying upon the wealth of +society as you had. The number of persons, more or less +absolutely lost to the working force through physical disability, +of the lame, sick, and debilitated, which constituted such a +burden on the able-bodied in your day, now that all live under +conditions of health and comfort, has shrunk to scarcely perceptible +proportions, and with every generation is becoming more +completely eliminated. + +"Another item wherein we save is the disuse of money and the +thousand occupations connected with financial operations of all +sorts, whereby an army of men was formerly taken away from +useful employments. Also consider that the waste of the very +rich in your day on inordinate personal luxury has ceased, +though, indeed, this item might easily be over-estimated. Again, +consider that there are no idlers now, rich or poor--no drones. + +"A very important cause of former poverty was the vast waste +of labor and materials which resulted from domestic washing +and cooking, and the performing separately of innumerable +other tasks to which we apply the cooperative plan. + +"A larger economy than any of these--yes, of all together--is +effected by the organization of our distributing system, by which +the work done once by the merchants, traders, storekeepers, with +their various grades of jobbers, wholesalers, retailers, agents, +commercial travelers, and middlemen of all sorts, with an +excessive waste of energy in needless transportation and +interminable handlings, is performed by one tenth the number of +hands and an unnecessary turn of not one wheel. Something of +what our distributing system is like you know. Our statisticians +calculate that one eightieth part of our workers suffices for all +the processes of distribution which in your day required one +eighth of the population, so much being withdrawn from the +force engaged in productive labor." + +"I begin to see," I said, "where you get your greater wealth." + +"I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but you scarcely do as +yet. The economies I have mentioned thus far, in the aggregate, +considering the labor they would save directly and indirectly +through saving of material, might possibly be equivalent to the +addition to your annual production of wealth of one half its +former total. These items are, however, scarcely worth mentioning +in comparison with other prodigious wastes, now saved, +which resulted inevitably from leaving the industries of the +nation to private enterprise. However great the economies your +contemporaries might have devised in the consumption of +products, and however marvelous the progress of mechanical +invention, they could never have raised themselves out of the +slough of poverty so long as they held to that system. + +"No mode more wasteful for utilizing human energy could be +devised, and for the credit of the human intellect it should be +remembered that the system never was devised, but was merely a +survival from the rude ages when the lack of social organization +made any sort of cooperation impossible." + +"I will readily admit," I said, "that our industrial system was +ethically very bad, but as a mere wealth-making machine, apart +from moral aspects, it seemed to us admirable." + +"As I said," responded the doctor, "the subject is too large to +discuss at length now, but if you are really interested to know +the main criticisms which we moderns make on your industrial +system as compared with our own, I can touch briefly on some of +them. + +"The wastes which resulted from leaving the conduct of +industry to irresponsible individuals, wholly without mutual +understanding or concert, were mainly four: first, the waste by +mistaken undertakings; second, the waste from the competition +and mutual hostility of those engaged in industry; third, the +waste by periodical gluts and crises, with the consequent +interruptions of industry; fourth, the waste from idle capital and +labor, at all times. Any one of these four great leaks, were all the +others stopped, would suffice to make the difference between +wealth and poverty on the part of a nation. + +"Take the waste by mistaken undertakings, to begin with. In +your day the production and distribution of commodities being +without concert or organization, there was no means of knowing +just what demand there was for any class of products, or what +was the rate of supply. Therefore, any enterprise by a private +capitalist was always a doubtful experiment. The projector +having no general view of the field of industry and consumption, +such as our government has, could never be sure either what the +people wanted, or what arrangements other capitalists were +making to supply them. In view of this, we are not surprised to +learn that the chances were considered several to one in favor of +the failure of any given business enterprise, and that it was +common for persons who at last succeeded in making a hit to +have failed repeatedly. If a shoemaker, for every pair of shoes he +succeeded in completing, spoiled the leather of four or five pair, +besides losing the time spent on them, he would stand about the +same chance of getting rich as your contemporaries did with +their system of private enterprise, and its average of four or five +failures to one success. + +"The next of the great wastes was that from competition. The +field of industry was a battlefield as wide as the world, in which +the workers wasted, in assailing one another, energies which, if +expended in concerted effort, as to-day, would have enriched all. +As for mercy or quarter in this warfare, there was absolutely no +suggestion of it. To deliberately enter a field of business and +destroy the enterprises of those who had occupied it previously, +in order to plant one's own enterprise on their ruins, was an +achievement which never failed to command popular admiration. +Nor is there any stretch of fancy in comparing this sort of +struggle with actual warfare, so far as concerns the mental agony +and physical suffering which attended the struggle, and the +misery which overwhelmed the defeated and those dependent on +them. Now nothing about your age is, at first sight, more +astounding to a man of modern times than the fact that men +engaged in the same industry, instead of fraternizing as comrades +and co-laborers to a common end, should have regarded each +other as rivals and enemies to be throttled and overthrown. This +certainly seems like sheer madness, a scene from bedlam. But +more closely regarded, it is seen to be no such thing. Your +contemporaries, with their mutual throat-cutting, knew very well +what they were at. The producers of the nineteenth century were +not, like ours, working together for the maintenance of the +community, but each solely for his own maintenance at the expense +of the community. If, in working to this end, he at the +same time increased the aggregate wealth, that was merely +incidental. It was just as feasible and as common to increase +one's private hoard by practices injurious to the general welfare. +One's worst enemies were necessarily those of his own trade, for, +under your plan of making private profit the motive of production, +a scarcity of the article he produced was what each +particular producer desired. It was for his interest that no more +of it should be produced than he himself could produce. To +secure this consummation as far as circumstances permitted, by +killing off and discouraging those engaged in his line of industry, +was his constant effort. When he had killed off all he could, his +policy was to combine with those he could not kill, and convert +their mutual warfare into a warfare upon the public at large by +cornering the market, as I believe you used to call it, and putting +up prices to the highest point people would stand before going +without the goods. The day dream of the nineteenth century +producer was to gain absolute control of the supply of some +necessity of life, so that he might keep the public at the verge of +starvation, and always command famine prices for what he +supplied. This, Mr. West, is what was called in the nineteenth +century a system of production. I will leave it to you if it does +not seem, in some of its aspects, a great deal more like a system +for preventing production. Some time when we have plenty of +leisure I am going to ask you to sit down with me and try to +make me comprehend, as I never yet could, though I have +studied the matter a great deal how such shrewd fellows as your +contemporaries appear to have been in many respects ever came +to entrust the business of providing for the community to a class +whose interest it was to starve it. I assure you that the wonder +with us is, not that the world did not get rich under such a +system, but that it did not perish outright from want. This +wonder increases as we go on to consider some of the other +prodigious wastes that characterized it. + +"Apart from the waste of labor and capital by misdirected +industry, and that from the constant bloodletting of your +industrial warfare, your system was liable to periodical convulsions, +overwhelming alike the wise and unwise, the successful +cut-throat as well as his victim. I refer to the business crises at +intervals of five to ten years, which wrecked the industries of the +nation, prostrating all weak enterprises and crippling the strongest, +and were followed by long periods, often of many years, of +so-called dull times, during which the capitalists slowly regathered +their dissipated strength while the laboring classes starved +and rioted. Then would ensue another brief season of prosperity, +followed in turn by another crisis and the ensuing years of +exhaustion. As commerce developed, making the nations mutually +dependent, these crises became world-wide, while the +obstinacy of the ensuing state of collapse increased with the area +affected by the convulsions, and the consequent lack of rallying +centres. In proportion as the industries of the world multiplied +and became complex, and the volume of capital involved was +increased, these business cataclysms became more frequent, till, +in the latter part of the nineteenth century, there were two years +of bad times to one of good, and the system of industry, never +before so extended or so imposing, seemed in danger of collapsing +by its own weight. After endless discussions, your economists +appear by that time to have settled down to the despairing +conclusion that there was no more possibility of preventing or +controlling these crises than if they had been drouths or hurricanes. +It only remained to endure them as necessary evils, and +when they had passed over to build up again the shattered +structure of industry, as dwellers in an earthquake country keep +on rebuilding their cities on the same site. + +"So far as considering the causes of the trouble inherent in +their industrial system, your contemporaries were certainly correct. +They were in its very basis, and must needs become more +and more maleficent as the business fabric grew in size and +complexity. One of these causes was the lack of any common +control of the different industries, and the consequent impossibility +of their orderly and coordinate development. It inevitably +resulted from this lack that they were continually getting out of +step with one another and out of relation with the demand. + +"Of the latter there was no criterion such as organized +distribution gives us, and the first notice that it had been +exceeded in any group of industries was a crash of prices, +bankruptcy of producers, stoppage of production, reduction of +wages, or discharge of workmen. This process was constantly +going on in many industries, even in what were called good +times, but a crisis took place only when the industries affected +were extensive. The markets then were glutted with goods, of +which nobody wanted beyond a sufficiency at any price. The +wages and profits of those making the glutted classes of goods +being reduced or wholly stopped, their purchasing power as +consumers of other classes of goods, of which there were no +natural glut, was taken away, and, as a consequence, goods of +which there was no natural glut became artificially glutted, till +their prices also were broken down, and their makers thrown out +of work and deprived of income. The crisis was by this time +fairly under way, and nothing could check it till a nation's +ransom had been wasted. + +"A cause, also inherent in your system, which often produced +and always terribly aggravated crises, was the machinery of +money and credit. Money was essential when production was in +many private hands, and buying and selling was necessary to +secure what one wanted. It was, however, open to the obvious +objection of substituting for food, clothing, and other things a +merely conventional representative of them. The confusion of +mind which this favored, between goods and their representative, +led the way to the credit system and its prodigious illusions. +Already accustomed to accept money for commodities, the +people next accepted promises for money, and ceased to look at +all behind the representative for the thing represented. Money +was a sign of real commodities, but credit was but the sign of a +sign. There was a natural limit to gold and silver, that is, money +proper, but none to credit, and the result was that the volume of +credit, that is, the promises of money, ceased to bear any +ascertainable proportion to the money, still less to the commodities, +actually in existence. Under such a system, frequent and +periodical crises were necessitated by a law as absolute as that +which brings to the ground a structure overhanging its centre of +gravity. It was one of your fictions that the government and the +banks authorized by it alone issued money; but everybody who +gave a dollar's credit issued money to that extent, which was as +good as any to swell the circulation till the next crises. The great +extension of the credit system was a characteristic of the latter +part of the nineteenth century, and accounts largely for the +almost incessant business crises which marked that period. +Perilous as credit was, you could not dispense with its use, for, +lacking any national or other public organization of the capital +of the country, it was the only means you had for concentrating +and directing it upon industrial enterprises. It was in this way a +most potent means for exaggerating the chief peril of the private +enterprise system of industry by enabling particular industries to +absorb disproportionate amounts of the disposable capital of the +country, and thus prepare disaster. Business enterprises were +always vastly in debt for advances of credit, both to one another +and to the banks and capitalists, and the prompt withdrawal of +this credit at the first sign of a crisis was generally the precipitating +cause of it. + +"It was the misfortune of your contemporaries that they had +to cement their business fabric with a material which an +accident might at any moment turn into an explosive. They were +in the plight of a man building a house with dynamite for +mortar, for credit can be compared with nothing else. + +"If you would see how needless were these convulsions of +business which I have been speaking of, and how entirely they +resulted from leaving industry to private and unorganized management, +just consider the working of our system. Overproduction +in special lines, which was the great hobgoblin of your day, +is impossible now, for by the connection between distribution +and production supply is geared to demand like an engine to the +governor which regulates its speed. Even suppose by an error of +judgment an excessive production of some commodity. The +consequent slackening or cessation of production in that line +throws nobody out of employment. The suspended workers are +at once found occupation in some other department of the vast +workshop and lose only the time spent in changing, while, as for +the glut, the business of the nation is large enough to carry any +amount of product manufactured in excess of demand till the +latter overtakes it. In such a case of over-production, as I have +supposed, there is not with us, as with you, any complex +machinery to get out of order and magnify a thousand times the +original mistake. Of course, having not even money, we still less +have credit. All estimates deal directly with the real things, the +flour, iron, wood, wool, and labor, of which money and credit +were for you the very misleading representatives. In our calcula- +tion of cost there can be no mistakes. Out of the annual +product the amount necessary for the support of the people is +taken, and the requisite labor to produce the next year's +consumption provided for. The residue of the material and labor +represents what can be safely expended in improvements. If the +crops are bad, the surplus for that year is less than usual, that is +all. Except for slight occasional effects of such natural causes, +there are no fluctuations of business; the material prosperity of +the nation flows on uninterruptedly from generation to generation, +like an ever broadening and deepening river. + +"Your business crises, Mr. West," continued the doctor, "like +either of the great wastes I mentioned before, were enough, +alone, to have kept your noses to the grindstone forever; but I +have still to speak of one other great cause of your poverty, and +that was the idleness of a great part of your capital and labor. +With us it is the business of the administration to keep in +constant employment every ounce of available capital and labor +in the country. In your day there was no general control of either +capital or labor, and a large part of both failed to find employment. +`Capital,' you used to say, `is naturally timid,' and it would +certainly have been reckless if it had not been timid in an epoch +when there was a large preponderance of probability that any +particular business venture would end in failure. There was no +time when, if security could have been guaranteed it, the +amount of capital devoted to productive industry could not have +been greatly increased. The proportion of it so employed +underwent constant extraordinary fluctuations, according to the +greater or less feeling of uncertainty as to the stability of the +industrial situation, so that the output of the national industries +greatly varied in different years. But for the same reason that the +amount of capital employed at times of special insecurity was far +less than at times of somewhat greater security, a very large +proportion was never employed at all, because the hazard of +business was always very great in the best of times. + +"It should be also noted that the great amount of capital +always seeking employment where tolerable safety could be +insured terribly embittered the competition between capitalists +when a promising opening presented itself. The idleness of +capital, the result of its timidity, of course meant the idleness of +labor in corresponding degree. Moreover, every change in the +adjustments of business, every slightest alteration in the +condition of commerce or manufactures, not to speak of the +innumerable business failures that took place yearly, even in the +best of times, were constantly throwing a multitude of men out +of employment for periods of weeks or months, or even years. A +great number of these seekers after employment were constantly +traversing the country, becoming in time professional vagabonds, +then criminals. `Give us work!' was the cry of an army of the +unemployed at nearly all seasons, and in seasons of dullness in +business this army swelled to a host so vast and desperate as to +threaten the stability of the government. Could there conceivably +be a more conclusive demonstration of the imbecility of the +system of private enterprise as a method for enriching a nation +than the fact that, in an age of such general poverty and want of +everything, capitalists had to throttle one another to find a safe +chance to invest their capital and workmen rioted and burned +because they could find no work to do? + +"Now, Mr. West," continued Dr. Leete, "I want you to bear in +mind that these points of which I have been speaking indicate +only negatively the advantages of the national organization of +industry by showing certain fatal defects and prodigious imbecilities +of the systems of private enterprise which are not found in +it. These alone, you must admit, would pretty well explain why +the nation is so much richer than in your day. But the larger half +of our advantage over you, the positive side of it, I have yet +barely spoken of. Supposing the system of private enterprise in +industry were without any of the great leaks I have mentioned; +that there were no waste on account of misdirected effort +growing out of mistakes as to the demand, and inability to +command a general view of the industrial field. Suppose, also, +there were no neutralizing and duplicating of effort from competition. +Suppose, also, there were no waste from business panics +and crises through bankruptcy and long interruptions of industry, +and also none from the idleness of capital and labor. +Supposing these evils, which are essential to the conduct of +industry by capital in private hands, could all be miraculously +prevented, and the system yet retained; even then the superiority +of the results attained by the modern industrial system of +national control would remain overwhelming. + +"You used to have some pretty large textile manufacturing +establishments, even in your day, although not comparable with +ours. No doubt you have visited these great mills in your time, +covering acres of ground, employing thousands of hands, and +combining under one roof, under one control, the hundred +distinct processes between, say, the cotton bale and the bale of +glossy calicoes. You have admired the vast economy of labor as +of mechanical force resulting from the perfect interworking with +the rest of every wheel and every hand. No doubt you have +reflected how much less the same force of workers employed in +that factory would accomplish if they were scattered, each man +working independently. Would you think it an exaggeration to +say that the utmost product of those workers, working thus +apart, however amicable their relations might be, was increased +not merely by a percentage, but many fold, when their efforts +were organized under one control? Well now, Mr. West, the +organization of the industry of the nation under a single control, +so that all its processes interlock, has multiplied the total +product over the utmost that could be done under the former +system, even leaving out of account the four great wastes +mentioned, in the same proportion that the product of those +millworkers was increased by cooperation. The effectiveness of +the working force of a nation, under the myriad-headed leadership +of private capital, even if the leaders were not mutual +enemies, as compared with that which it attains under a single +head, may be likened to the military efficiency of a mob, or a +horde of barbarians with a thousand petty chiefs, as compared +with that of a disciplined army under one general--such a +fighting machine, for example, as the German army in the time +of Von Moltke." + +"After what you have told me," I said, "I do not so much +wonder that the nation is richer now than then, but that you are +not all Croesuses." + +"Well," replied Dr. Leete, "we are pretty well off. The rate at +which we live is as luxurious as we could wish. The rivalry of +ostentation, which in your day led to extravagance in no way +conducive to comfort, finds no place, of course, in a society of +people absolutely equal in resources, and our ambition stops at +the surroundings which minister to the enjoyment of life. We +might, indeed, have much larger incomes, individually, if we +chose so to use the surplus of our product, but we prefer to +expend it upon public works and pleasures in which all share, +upon public halls and buildings, art galleries, bridges, statuary, +means of transit, and the conveniences of our cities, great +musical and theatrical exhibitions, and in providing on a vast +scale for the recreations of the people. You have not begun to +see how we live yet, Mr. West. At home we have comfort, but +the splendor of our life is, on its social side, that which we share +with our fellows. When you know more of it you will see where +the money goes, as you used to say, and I think you will agree +that we do well so to expend it." + +"I suppose," observed Dr. Leete, as we strolled homeward +from the dining hall, "that no reflection would have cut the men +of your wealth-worshiping century more keenly than the suggestion +that they did not know how to make money. Nevertheless +that is just the verdict history has passed on them. Their system +of unorganized and antagonistic industries was as absurd +economically as it was morally abominable. Selfishness was their +only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. +Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word +for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of +efficient production; and not till the idea of increasing the +individual hoard gives place to the idea of increasing the common +stock can industrial combination be realized, and the +acquisition of wealth really begin. Even if the principle of share +and share alike for all men were not the only humane and +rational basis for a society, we should still enforce it as economically +expedient, seeing that until the disintegrating influence of +self-seeking is suppressed no true concert of industry is possible." + + + +Chapter 23 + + +That evening, as I sat with Edith in the music room, listening +to some pieces in the programme of that day which had +attracted my notice, I took advantage of an interval in the music +to say, "I have a question to ask you which I fear is rather +indiscreet." + +"I am quite sure it is not that," she replied, encouragingly. + +"I am in the position of an eavesdropper," I continued, "who, +having overheard a little of a matter not intended for him, +though seeming to concern him, has the impudence to come to +the speaker for the rest." + +"An eavesdropper!" she repeated, looking puzzled. + +"Yes," I said, "but an excusable one, as I think you will +admit." + +"This is very mysterious," she replied. + +"Yes," said I, "so mysterious that often I have doubted +whether I really overheard at all what I am going to ask you +about, or only dreamed it. I want you to tell me. The matter is +this: When I was coming out of that sleep of a century, the first +impression of which I was conscious was of voices talking around +me, voices that afterwards I recognized as your father's, your +mother's, and your own. First, I remember your father's voice +saying, "He is going to open his eyes. He had better see but one +person at first." Then you said, if I did not dream it all, +"Promise me, then, that you will not tell him." Your father +seemed to hesitate about promising, but you insisted, and your +mother interposing, he finally promised, and when I opened my +eyes I saw only him." + +I had been quite serious when I said that I was not sure that I +had not dreamed the conversation I fancied I had overheard, so +incomprehensible was it that these people should know anything +of me, a contemporary of their great-grandparents, which I did +not know myself. But when I saw the effect of my words upon +Edith, I knew that it was no dream, but another mystery, and a +more puzzling one than any I had before encountered. For from +the moment that the drift of my question became apparent, she +showed indications of the most acute embarrassment. Her eyes, +always so frank and direct in expression, had dropped in a panic +before mine, while her face crimsoned from neck to forehead. + +"Pardon me," I said, as soon as I had recovered from bewilderment +at the extraordinary effect of my words. "It seems, then, +that I was not dreaming. There is some secret, something about +me, which you are withholding from me. Really, doesn't it seem +a little hard that a person in my position should not be given all +the information possible concerning himself?" + +"It does not concern you--that is, not directly. It is not about +you exactly," she replied, scarcely audibly. + +"But it concerns me in some way," I persisted. "It must be +something that would interest me." + +"I don't know even that," she replied, venturing a momentary +glance at my face, furiously blushing, and yet with a quaint smile +flickering about her lips which betrayed a certain perception of +humor in the situation despite its embarrassment,--"I am not +sure that it would even interest you." + +"Your father would have told me," I insisted, with an accent +of reproach. "It was you who forbade him. He thought I ought +to know." + +She did not reply. She was so entirely charming in her +confusion that I was now prompted, as much by the desire to +prolong the situation as by my original curiosity, to importune +her further. + +"Am I never to know? Will you never tell me?" I said. + +"It depends," she answered, after a long pause. + +"On what?" I persisted. + +"Ah, you ask too much," she replied. Then, raising to mine a +face which inscrutable eyes, flushed cheeks, and smiling lips +combined to render perfectly bewitching, she added, "What +should you think if I said that it depended on--yourself?" + +"On myself?" I echoed. "How can that possibly be?" + +"Mr. West, we are losing some charming music," was her only +reply to this, and turning to the telephone, at a touch of her +finger she set the air to swaying to the rhythm of an adagio. +After that she took good care that the music should leave no +opportunity for conversation. She kept her face averted from me, +and pretended to be absorbed in the airs, but that it was a mere +pretense the crimson tide standing at flood in her cheeks +sufficiently betrayed. + +When at length she suggested that I might have heard all I +cared to, for that time, and we rose to leave the room, she came +straight up to me and said, without raising her eyes, "Mr. West, +you say I have been good to you. I have not been particularly so, +but if you think I have, I want you to promise me that you will +not try again to make me tell you this thing you have asked +to-night, and that you will not try to find it out from any one +else,--my father or mother, for instance." + +To such an appeal there was but one reply possible. "Forgive +me for distressing you. Of course I will promise," I said. "I +would never have asked you if I had fancied it could distress you. +But do you blame me for being curious?" + +"I do not blame you at all." + +"And some time," I added, "if I do not tease you, you may tell +me of your own accord. May I not hope so?" + +"Perhaps," she murmured. + +"Only perhaps?" + +Looking up, she read my face with a quick, deep glance. +"Yes," she said, "I think I may tell you--some time": and so our +conversation ended, for she gave me no chance to say anything +more. + +That night I don't think even Dr. Pillsbury could have put me +to sleep, till toward morning at least. Mysteries had been my +accustomed food for days now, but none had before confronted +me at once so mysterious and so fascinating as this, the solution +of which Edith Leete had forbidden me even to seek. It was a +double mystery. How, in the first place, was it conceivable that +she should know any secret about me, a stranger from a strange +age? In the second place, even if she should know such a secret, +how account for the agitating effect which the knowledge of it +seemed to have upon her? There are puzzles so difficult that one +cannot even get so far as a conjecture as to the solution, and this +seemed one of them. I am usually of too practical a turn to waste +time on such conundrums; but the difficulty of a riddle embodied +in a beautiful young girl does not detract from its fascination. +In general, no doubt, maidens' blushes may be safely assumed to +tell the same tale to young men in all ages and races, but to give +that interpretation to Edith's crimson cheeks would, considering +my position and the length of time I had known her, and still +more the fact that this mystery dated from before I had known +her at all, be a piece of utter fatuity. And yet she was an angel, +and I should not have been a young man if reason and common +sense had been able quite to banish a roseate tinge from my +dreams that night. + + + +Chapter 24 + + +In the morning I went down stairs early in the hope of seeing +Edith alone. In this, however, I was disappointed. Not finding +her in the house, I sought her in the garden, but she was not +there. In the course of my wanderings I visited the underground +chamber, and sat down there to rest. Upon the reading table in +the chamber several periodicals and newspapers lay, and thinking +that Dr. Leete might be interested in glancing over a Boston +daily of 1887, I brought one of the papers with me into the +house when I came. + +At breakfast I met Edith. She blushed as she greeted me, but +was perfectly self-possessed. As we sat at table, Dr. Leete amused +himself with looking over the paper I had brought in. There was +in it, as in all the newspapers of that date, a great deal about the +labor troubles, strikes, lockouts, boycotts, the programmes of +labor parties, and the wild threats of the anarchists. + +"By the way," said I, as the doctor read aloud to us some of +these items, "what part did the followers of the red flag take in +the establishment of the new order of things? They were making +considerable noise the last thing that I knew." + +"They had nothing to do with it except to hinder it, of +course," replied Dr. Leete. "They did that very effectually while +they lasted, for their talk so disgusted people as to deprive the +best considered projects for social reform of a hearing. The +subsidizing of those fellows was one of the shrewdest moves of +the opponents of reform." + +"Subsidizing them!" I exclaimed in astonishment. + +"Certainly," replied Dr. Leete. "No historical authority nowadays +doubts that they were paid by the great monopolies to wave +the red flag and talk about burning, sacking, and blowing people +up, in order, by alarming the timid, to head off any real reforms. +What astonishes me most is that you should have fallen into the +trap so unsuspectingly." + +"What are your grounds for believing that the red flag party +was subsidized?" I inquired. + +"Why simply because they must have seen that their course +made a thousand enemies of their professed cause to one friend. +Not to suppose that they were hired for the work is to credit +them with an inconceivable folly.[4] In the United States, of all +countries, no party could intelligently expect to carry its point +without first winning over to its ideas a majority of the nation, as +the national party eventually did." + + +[4] I fully admit the difficulty of accounting for the course of the +anarchists on any other theory than that they were subsidized by +the capitalists, but at the same time, there is no doubt that the +theory is wholly erroneous. It certainly was not held at the time by +any one, though it may seem so obvious in the retrospect. + + +"The national party!" I exclaimed. "That must have arisen +after my day. I suppose it was one of the labor parties." + +"Oh no!" replied the doctor. "The labor parties, as such, never +could have accomplished anything on a large or permanent scale. +For purposes of national scope, their basis as merely class +organizations was too narrow. It was not till a rearrangement of +the industrial and social system on a higher ethical basis, and for +the more efficient production of wealth, was recognized as the +interest, not of one class, but equally of all classes, of rich and +poor, cultured and ignorant, old and young, weak and strong, +men and women, that there was any prospect that it would be +achieved. Then the national party arose to carry it out by +political methods. It probably took that name because its aim +was to nationalize the functions of production and distribution. +Indeed, it could not well have had any other name, for its +purpose was to realize the idea of the nation with a grandeur and +completeness never before conceived, not as an association of +men for certain merely political functions affecting their happiness +only remotely and superficially, but as a family, a vital +union, a common life, a mighty heaven-touching tree whose +leaves are its people, fed from its veins, and feeding it in turn. +The most patriotic of all possible parties, it sought to justify +patriotism and raise it from an instinct to a rational devotion, by +making the native land truly a father land, a father who kept the +people alive and was not merely an idol for which they were +expected to die." + + + +Chapter 25 + + +The personality of Edith Leete had naturally impressed me +strongly ever since I had come, in so strange a manner, to be an +inmate of her father's house, and it was to be expected that after +what had happened the night previous, I should be more than +ever preoccupied with thoughts of her. From the first I had been +struck with the air of serene frankness and ingenuous directness, +more like that of a noble and innocent boy than any girl I +had ever known, which characterized her. I was curious to know +how far this charming quality might be peculiar to herself, and +how far possibly a result of alterations in the social position of +women which might have taken place since my time. Finding an +opportunity that day, when alone with Dr. Leete, I turned the +conversation in that direction. + +"I suppose," I said, "that women nowadays, having been +relieved of the burden of housework, have no employment but +the cultivation of their charms and graces." + +"So far as we men are concerned," replied Dr. Leete, "we +should consider that they amply paid their way, to use one of +your forms of expression, if they confined themselves to that +occupation, but you may be very sure that they have quite too +much spirit to consent to be mere beneficiaries of society, even +as a return for ornamenting it. They did, indeed, welcome their +riddance from housework, because that was not only exceptionally +wearing in itself, but also wasteful, in the extreme, of energy, +as compared with the cooperative plan; but they accepted relief +from that sort of work only that they might contribute in other +and more effectual, as well as more agreeable, ways to the +common weal. Our women, as well as our men, are members of +the industrial army, and leave it only when maternal duties +claim them. The result is that most women, at one time or another +of their lives, serve industrially some five or ten or fifteen +years, while those who have no children fill out the full term." + +"A woman does not, then, necessarily leave the industrial +service on marriage?" I queried. + +"No more than a man," replied the doctor. "Why on earth +should she? Married women have no housekeeping responsibilities +now, you know, and a husband is not a baby that he should +be cared for." + +"It was thought one of the most grievous features of our +civilization that we required so much toil from women," I said; +"but it seems to me you get more out of them than we did." + +Dr. Leete laughed. "Indeed we do, just as we do out of our +men. Yet the women of this age are very happy, and those of the +nineteenth century, unless contemporary references greatly mislead +us, were very miserable. The reason that women nowadays +are so much more efficient colaborers with the men, and at the +same time are so happy, is that, in regard to their work as well as +men's, we follow the principle of providing every one the kind of +occupation he or she is best adapted to. Women being inferior +in strength to men, and further disqualified industrially in +special ways, the kinds of occupation reserved for them, and the +conditions under which they pursue them, have reference to +these facts. The heavier sorts of work are everywhere reserved for +men, the lighter occupations for women. Under no circumstances +is a woman permitted to follow any employment not +perfectly adapted, both as to kind and degree of labor, to her sex. +Moreover, the hours of women's work are considerably shorter +than those of men's, more frequent vacations are granted, and +the most careful provision is made for rest when needed. The +men of this day so well appreciate that they owe to the beauty +and grace of women the chief zest of their lives and their main +incentive to effort, that they permit them to work at all only +because it is fully understood that a certain regular requirement +of labor, of a sort adapted to their powers, is well for body and +mind, during the period of maximum physical vigor. We believe +that the magnificent health which distinguishes our women +from those of your day, who seem to have been so generally +sickly, is owing largely to the fact that all alike are furnished with +healthful and inspiriting occupation." + +"I understood you," I said, "that the women-workers belong +to the army of industry, but how can they be under the same +system of ranking and discipline with the men, when the +conditions of their labor are so different?" + +"They are under an entirely different discipline," replied Dr. +Leete, "and constitute rather an allied force than an integral part +of the army of the men. They have a woman general-in-chief and +are under exclusively feminine regime. This general, as also the +higher officers, is chosen by the body of women who have passed +the time of service, in correspondence with the manner in which +the chiefs of the masculine army and the President of the nation +are elected. The general of the women's army sits in the cabinet +of the President and has a veto on measures respecting women's +work, pending appeals to Congress. I should have said, in +speaking of the judiciary, that we have women on the bench, +appointed by the general of the women, as well as men. Causes +in which both parties are women are determined by women +judges, and where a man and a woman are parties to a case, a +judge of either sex must consent to the verdict." + +"Womanhood seems to be organized as a sort of imperium in +imperio in your system," I said. + +"To some extent," Dr. Leete replied; "but the inner imperium +is one from which you will admit there is not likely to be much +danger to the nation. The lack of some such recognition of the +distinct individuality of the sexes was one of the innumerable +defects of your society. The passional attraction between men +and women has too often prevented a perception of the profound +differences which make the members of each sex in many +things strange to the other, and capable of sympathy only with +their own. It is in giving full play to the differences of sex +rather than in seeking to obliterate them, as was apparently the +effort of some reformers in your day, that the enjoyment of each +by itself and the piquancy which each has for the other, are alike +enhanced. In your day there was no career for women except in +an unnatural rivalry with men. We have given them a world of +their own, with its emulations, ambitions, and careers, and I +assure you they are very happy in it. It seems to us that women +were more than any other class the victims of your civilization. +There is something which, even at this distance of time, penetrates +one with pathos in the spectacle of their ennuied, undeveloped +lives, stunted at marriage, their narrow horizon, bounded so +often, physically, by the four walls of home, and morally by a +petty circle of personal interests. I speak now, not of the poorer +classes, who were generally worked to death, but also of the +well-to-do and rich. From the great sorrows, as well as the petty +frets of life, they had no refuge in the breezy outdoor world of +human affairs, nor any interests save those of the family. Such an +existence would have softened men's brains or driven them mad. +All that is changed to-day. No woman is heard nowadays wishing +she were a man, nor parents desiring boy rather than girl +children. Our girls are as full of ambition for their careers as our +boys. Marriage, when it comes, does not mean incarceration for +them, nor does it separate them in any way from the larger +interests of society, the bustling life of the world. Only when +maternity fills a woman's mind with new interests does she +withdraw from the world for a time. Afterward, and at any +time, she may return to her place among her comrades, nor need +she ever lose touch with them. Women are a very happy race +nowadays, as compared with what they ever were before in the +world's history, and their power of giving happiness to men has +been of course increased in proportion." + +"I should imagine it possible," I said, "that the interest which +girls take in their careers as members of the industrial army and +candidates for its distinctions might have an effect to deter them +from marriage." + +Dr. Leete smiled. "Have no anxiety on that score, Mr. West," +he replied. "The Creator took very good care that whatever other +modifications the dispositions of men and women might with +time take on, their attraction for each other should remain +constant. The mere fact that in an age like yours, when the +struggle for existence must have left people little time for other +thoughts, and the future was so uncertain that to assume +parental responsibilities must have often seemed like a criminal +risk, there was even then marrying and giving in marriage, +should be conclusive on this point. As for love nowadays, one of +our authors says that the vacuum left in the minds of men and +women by the absence of care for one's livelihood has been +entirely taken up by the tender passion. That, however, I beg +you to believe, is something of an exaggestion. For the rest, so +far is marriage from being an interference with a woman's career, +that the higher positions in the feminine army of industry are +intrusted only to women who have been both wives and mothers, +as they alone fully represent their sex." + +"Are credit cards issued to the women just as to the men?" + +"Certainly." + +"The credits of the women, I suppose, are for smaller sums, +owing to the frequent suspension of their labor on account of +family responsibilities." + +"Smaller!" exclaimed Dr. Leete, "oh, no! The maintenance of +all our people is the same. There are no exceptions to that rule, +but if any difference were made on account of the interruptions +you speak of, it would be by making the woman's credit larger, +not smaller. Can you think of any service constituting a stronger +claim on the nation's gratitude than bearing and nursing the +nation's children? According to our view, none deserve so well of +the world as good parents. There is no task so unselfish, so +necessarily without return, though the heart is well rewarded, as +the nurture of the children who are to make the world for one +another when we are gone." + +"It would seem to follow, from what you have said, that wives +are in no way dependent on their husbands for maintenance." + +"Of course they are not," replied Dr. Leete, "nor children on +their parents either, that is, for means of support, though of +course they are for the offices of affection. The child's labor, +when he grows up, will go to increase the common stock, not his +parents', who will be dead, and therefore he is properly nurtured +out of the common stock. The account of every person, man, +woman, and child, you must understand, is always with the +nation directly, and never through any intermediary, except, of +course, that parents, to a certain extent, act for children as their +guardians. You see that it is by virtue of the relation of +individuals to the nation, of their membership in it, that they +are entitled to support; and this title is in no way connected with +or affected by their relations to other individuals who are fellow +members of the nation with them. That any person should be +dependent for the means of support upon another would be +shocking to the moral sense as well as indefensible on any +rational social theory. What would become of personal liberty +and dignity under such an arrangement? I am aware that you +called yourselves free in the nineteenth century. The meaning of +the word could not then, however, have been at all what it is at +present, or you certainly would not have applied it to a society of +which nearly every member was in a position of galling personal +dependence upon others as to the very means of life, the poor +upon the rich, or employed upon employer, women upon men, +children upon parents. Instead of distributing the product of the +nation directly to its members, which would seem the most +natural and obvious method, it would actually appear that you +had given your minds to devising a plan of hand to hand +distribution, involving the maximum of personal humiliation to +all classes of recipients. + +"As regards the dependence of women upon men for support, +which then was usual, of course, natural attraction in case of +marriages of love may often have made it endurable, though for +spirited women I should fancy it must always have remained +humiliating. What, then, must it have been in the innumerable +cases where women, with or without the form of marriage, had +to sell themselves to men to get their living? Even your +contemporaries, callous as they were to most of the revolting +aspects of their society, seem to have had an idea that this was +not quite as it should be; but, it was still only for pity's sake that +they deplored the lot of the women. It did not occur to them +that it was robbery as well as cruelty when men seized for +themselves the whole product of the world and left women to +beg and wheedle for their share. Why--but bless me, Mr. West, +I am really running on at a remarkable rate, just as if the +robbery, the sorrow, and the shame which those poor women +endured were not over a century since, or as if you were +responsible for what you no doubt deplored as much as I do." + +"I must bear my share of responsibility for the world as it then +was," I replied. "All I can say in extenuation is that until the +nation was ripe for the present system of organized production +and distribution, no radical improvement in the position of +woman was possible. The root of her disability, as you say, was +her personal dependence upon man for her livelihood, and I can +imagine no other mode of social organization than that you have +adopted, which would have set woman free of man at the same +time that it set men free of one another. I suppose, by the way, +that so entire a change in the position of women cannot have +taken place without affecting in marked ways the social relations +of the sexes. That will be a very interesting study for me." + +"The change you will observe," said Dr. Leete, "will chiefly +be, I think, the entire frankness and unconstraint which now +characterizes those relations, as compared with the artificiality +which seems to have marked them in your time. The sexes now +meet with the ease of perfect equals, suitors to each other for +nothing but love. In your time the fact that women were +dependent for support on men made the woman in reality the +one chiefly benefited by marriage. This fact, so far as we can +judge from contemporary records, appears to have been coarsely +enough recognized among the lower classes, while among the +more polished it was glossed over by a system of elaborate +conventionalities which aimed to carry the precisely opposite +meaning, namely, that the man was the party chiefly benefited. +To keep up this convention it was essential that he should +always seem the suitor. Nothing was therefore considered more +shocking to the proprieties than that a woman should betray a +fondness for a man before he had indicated a desire to marry her. +Why, we actually have in our libraries books, by authors of your +day, written for no other purpose than to discuss the question +whether, under any conceivable circumstances, a woman might, +without discredit to her sex, reveal an unsolicited love. All this +seems exquisitely absurd to us, and yet we know that, given your +circumstances, the problem might have a serious side. When for +a woman to proffer her love to a man was in effect to invite him +to assume the burden of her support, it is easy to see that pride +and delicacy might well have checked the promptings of the +heart. When you go out into our society, Mr. West, you must be +prepared to be often cross-questioned on this point by our young +people, who are naturally much interested in this aspect of +old-fashioned manners."[5] + + +[5] I may say that Dr. Leete's warning has been fully justified by my +experience. The amount and intensity of amusement which the +young people of this day, and the young women especially, are +able to extract from what they are pleased to call the oddities of +courtship in the nineteenth century, appear unlimited. + + +"And so the girls of the twentieth century tell their love." + +"If they choose," replied Dr. Leete. "There is no more +pretense of a concealment of feeling on their part than on the +part of their lovers. Coquetry would be as much despised in a +girl as in a man. Affected coldness, which in your day rarely +deceived a lover, would deceive him wholly now, for no one +thinks of practicing it." + +"One result which must follow from the independence of +women I can see for myself," I said. "There can be no marriages +now except those of inclination." + +"That is a matter of course," replied Dr. Leete. + +"Think of a world in which there are nothing but matches of +pure love! Ah me, Dr. Leete, how far you are from being able to +understand what an astonishing phenomenon such a world +seems to a man of the nineteenth century!" + +"I can, however, to some extent, imagine it," replied the +doctor. "But the fact you celebrate, that there are nothing but +love matches, means even more, perhaps, than you probably at +first realize. It means that for the first time in human history the +principle of sexual selection, with its tendency to preserve and +transmit the better types of the race, and let the inferior types +drop out, has unhindered operation. The necessities of poverty, +the need of having a home, no longer tempt women to accept as +the fathers of their children men whom they neither can love +nor respect. Wealth and rank no longer divert attention from +personal qualities. Gold no longer `gilds the straitened forehead +of the fool.' The gifts of person, mind, and disposition; beauty, +wit, eloquence, kindness, generosity, geniality, courage, are sure +of transmission to posterity. Every generation is sifted through a +little finer mesh than the last. The attributes that human nature +admires are preserved, those that repel it are left behind. There +are, of course, a great many women who with love must mingle +admiration, and seek to wed greatly, but these not the less obey +the same law, for to wed greatly now is not to marry men of +fortune or title, but those who have risen above their fellows by +the solidity or brilliance of their services to humanity. These +form nowadays the only aristocracy with which alliance is +distinction. + +"You were speaking, a day or two ago, of the physical +superiority of our people to your contemporaries. Perhaps more +important than any of the causes I mentioned then as tending to +race purification has been the effect of untrammeled sexual +selection upon the quality of two or three successive generations. +I believe that when you have made a fuller study of our people +you will find in them not only a physical, but a mental and +moral improvement. It would be strange if it were not so, for not +only is one of the great laws of nature now freely working out +the salvation of the race, but a profound moral sentiment has +come to its support. Individualism, which in your day was the +animating idea of society, not only was fatal to any vital +sentiment of brotherhood and common interest among living +men, but equally to any realization of the responsibility of the +living for the generation to follow. To-day this sense of responsibility, +practically unrecognized in all previous ages, has become +one of the great ethical ideas of the race, reinforcing, with an +intense conviction of duty, the natural impulse to seek in +marriage the best and noblest of the other sex. The result is, that +not all the encouragements and incentives of every sort which +we have provided to develop industry, talent, genius, excellence +of whatever kind, are comparable in their effect on our young +men with the fact that our women sit aloft as judges of the race +and reserve themselves to reward the winners. Of all the whips, +and spurs, and baits, and prizes, there is none like the thought of +the radiant faces which the laggards will find averted. + +"Celibates nowadays are almost invariably men who have +failed to acquit themselves creditably in the work of life. The +woman must be a courageous one, with a very evil sort of +courage, too, whom pity for one of these unfortunates should +lead to defy the opinion of her generation--for otherwise she is +free--so far as to accept him for a husband. I should add that, +more exacting and difficult to resist than any other element in +that opinion, she would find the sentiment of her own sex. Our +women have risen to the full height of their responsibility as the +wardens of the world to come, to whose keeping the keys of the +future are confided. Their feeling of duty in this respect amounts +to a sense of religious consecration. It is a cult in which they +educate their daughters from childhood." + +After going to my room that night, I sat up late to read a +romance of Berrian, handed me by Dr. Leete, the plot of which +turned on a situation suggested by his last words, concerning the +modern view of parental responsibility. A similar situation would +almost certainly have been treated by a nineteenth century +romancist so as to excite the morbid sympathy of the reader with +the sentimental selfishness of the lovers, and his resentment +toward the unwritten law which they outraged. I need not de- +scribe--for who has not read "Ruth Elton"?--how different is +the course which Berrian takes, and with what tremendous effect +he enforces the principle which he states: "Over the unborn our +power is that of God, and our responsibility like His toward us. +As we acquit ourselves toward them, so let Him deal with us." + + + +Chapter 26 + + +I think if a person were ever excusable for losing track of the +days of the week, the circumstances excused me. Indeed, if I had +been told that the method of reckoning time had been wholly +changed and the days were now counted in lots of five, ten, or +fifteen instead of seven, I should have been in no way surprised +after what I had already heard and seen of the twentieth century. +The first time that any inquiry as to the days of the week +occurred to me was the morning following the conversation +related in the last chapter. At the breakfast table Dr. Leete asked +me if I would care to hear a sermon. + +"Is it Sunday, then?" I exclaimed. + +"Yes," he replied. "It was on Friday, you see, when we made +the lucky discovery of the buried chamber to which we owe your +society this morning. It was on Saturday morning, soon after +midnight, that you first awoke, and Sunday afternoon when you +awoke the second time with faculties fully regained." + +"So you still have Sundays and sermons," I said. "We had +prophets who foretold that long before this time the world +would have dispensed with both. I am very curious to know how +the ecclesiastical systems fit in with the rest of your social +arrangements. I suppose you have a sort of national church with +official clergymen." + +Dr. Leete laughed, and Mrs. Leete and Edith seemed greatly +amused. + +"Why, Mr. West," Edith said, "what odd people you must +think us. You were quite done with national religious establishments +in the nineteenth century, and did you fancy we had gone +back to them?" + +"But how can voluntary churches and an unofficial clerical +profession be reconciled with national ownership of all buildings, +and the industrial service required of all men?" I answered. + +"The religious practices of the people have naturally changed +considerably in a century," replied Dr. Leete; "but supposing +them to have remained unchanged, our social system would +accommodate them perfectly. The nation supplies any person or +number of persons with buildings on guarantee of the rent, and +they remain tenants while they pay it. As for the clergymen, if a +number of persons wish the services of an individual for any +particular end of their own, apart from the general service of the +nation, they can always secure it, with that individual's own +consent, of course, just as we secure the service of our editors, by +contributing from their credit cards an indemnity to the nation +for the loss of his services in general industry. This indemnity +paid the nation for the individual answers to the salary in your +day paid to the individual himself; and the various applications +of this principle leave private initiative full play in all details to +which national control is not applicable. Now, as to hearing a +sermon to-day, if you wish to do so, you can either go to a +church to hear it or stay at home." + +"How am I to hear it if I stay at home?" + +"Simply by accompanying us to the music room at the proper +hour and selecting an easy chair. There are some who still prefer +to hear sermons in church, but most of our preaching, like our +musical performances, is not in public, but delivered in acoustically +prepared chambers, connected by wire with subscribers' +houses. If you prefer to go to a church I shall be glad to +accompany you, but I really don't believe you are likely to hear +anywhere a better discourse than you will at home. I see by the +paper that Mr. Barton is to preach this morning, and he +preaches only by telephone, and to audiences often reaching +150,000." + +"The novelty of the experience of hearing a sermon under +such circumstances would incline me to be one of Mr. Barton's +hearers, if for no other reason," I said. + +An hour or two later, as I sat reading in the library, Edith +came for me, and I followed her to the music room, where Dr. +and Mrs. Leete were waiting. We had not more than seated +ourselves comfortably when the tinkle of a bell was heard, and a +few moments after the voice of a man, at the pitch of ordinary +conversation, addressed us, with an effect of proceeding from an +invisible person in the room. This was what the voice said: + + +MR. BARTON'S SERMON + + +"We have had among us, during the past week, a critic from +the nineteenth century, a living representative of the epoch of +our great-grandparents. It would be strange if a fact so extraordinary +had not somewhat strongly affected our imaginations. +Perhaps most of us have been stimulated to some effort to +realize the society of a century ago, and figure to ourselves what +it must have been like to live then. In inviting you now to +consider certain reflections upon this subject which have +occurred to me, I presume that I shall rather follow than divert +the course of your own thoughts." + + +Edith whispered something to her father at this point, to +which he nodded assent and turned to me. + +"Mr. West," he said, "Edith suggests that you may find it +slightly embarrassing to listen to a discourse on the lines Mr. +Barton is laying down, and if so, you need not be cheated out of +a sermon. She will connect us with Mr. Sweetser's speaking +room if you say so, and I can still promise you a very good +discourse." + +"No, no," I said. "Believe me, I would much rather hear what +Mr. Barton has to say." + +"As you please," replied my host. + +When her father spoke to me Edith had touched a screw, and +the voice of Mr. Barton had ceased abruptly. Now at another +touch the room was once more filled with the earnest sympathetic +tones which had already impressed me most favorably. + +"I venture to assume that one effect has been common with +us as a result of this effort at retrospection, and that it has been +to leave us more than ever amazed at the stupendous change +which one brief century has made in the material and moral +conditions of humanity. + +"Still, as regards the contrast between the poverty of the +nation and the world in the nineteenth century and their wealth +now, it is not greater, possibly, than had been before seen in +human history, perhaps not greater, for example, than that +between the poverty of this country during the earliest colonial +period of the seventeenth century and the relatively great wealth +it had attained at the close of the nineteenth, or between the +England of William the Conqueror and that of Victoria. +Although the aggregate riches of a nation did not then, as now, +afford any accurate criterion of the masses of its people, yet +instances like these afford partial parallels for the merely material +side of the contrast between the nineteenth and the twentieth +centuries. It is when we contemplate the moral aspect of that +contrast that we find ourselves in the presence of a phenomenon +for which history offers no precedent, however far back we may +cast our eye. One might almost be excused who should exclaim, +`Here, surely, is something like a miracle!' Nevertheless, when +we give over idle wonder, and begin to examine the seeming +prodigy critically, we find it no prodigy at all, much less a +miracle. It is not necessary to suppose a moral new birth of +humanity, or a wholesale destruction of the wicked and survival +of the good, to account for the fact before us. It finds its simple +and obvious explanation in the reaction of a changed environment +upon human nature. It means merely that a form of +society which was founded on the pseudo self-interest of selfishness, +and appealed solely to the anti-social and brutal side of +human nature, has been replaced by institutions based on the +true self-interest of a rational unselfishness, and appealing to the +social and generous instincts of men. + +"My friends, if you would see men again the beasts of prey +they seemed in the nineteenth century, all you have to do is to +restore the old social and industrial system, which taught them +to view their natural prey in their fellow-men, and find their gain +in the loss of others. No doubt it seems to you that no necessity, +however dire, would have tempted you to subsist on what +superior skill or strength enabled you to wrest from others +equally needy. But suppose it were not merely your own life that +you were responsible for. I know well that there must have been +many a man among our ancestors who, if it had been merely a +question of his own life, would sooner have given it up than +nourished it by bread snatched from others. But this he was not +permitted to do. He had dear lives dependent on him. Men +loved women in those days, as now. God knows how they dared +be fathers, but they had babies as sweet, no doubt, to them as +ours to us, whom they must feed, clothe, educate. The gentlest +creatures are fierce when they have young to provide for, and in +that wolfish society the struggle for bread borrowed a peculiar +desperation from the tenderest sentiments. For the sake of those +dependent on him, a man might not choose, but must plunge +into the foul fight--cheat, overreach, supplant, defraud, buy +below worth and sell above, break down the business by which +his neighbor fed his young ones, tempt men to buy what they +ought not and to sell what they should not, grind his laborers, +sweat his debtors, cozen his creditors. Though a man sought it +carefully with tears, it was hard to find a way in which he could +earn a living and provide for his family except by pressing in +before some weaker rival and taking the food from his mouth. +Even the ministers of religion were not exempt from this cruel +necessity. While they warned their flocks against the love of +money, regard for their families compelled them to keep an +outlook for the pecuniary prizes of their calling. Poor fellows, +theirs was indeed a trying business, preaching to men a generosity +and unselfishness which they and everybody knew would, in +the existing state of the world, reduce to poverty those who +should practice them, laying down laws of conduct which the +law of self-preservation compelled men to break. Looking on the +inhuman spectacle of society, these worthy men bitterly +bemoaned the depravity of human nature; as if angelic nature +would not have been debauched in such a devil's school! Ah, my +friends, believe me, it is not now in this happy age that +humanity is proving the divinity within it. It was rather in those +evil days when not even the fight for life with one another, the +struggle for mere existence, in which mercy was folly, could +wholly banish generosity and kindness from the earth. + +"It is not hard to understand the desperation with which men +and women, who under other conditions would have been full of +gentleness and truth, fought and tore each other in the scramble +for gold, when we realize what it meant to miss it, what poverty +was in that day. For the body it was hunger and thirst, torment +by heat and frost, in sickness neglect, in health unremitting toil; +for the moral nature it meant oppression, contempt, and the +patient endurance of indignity, brutish associations from +infancy, the loss of all the innocence of childhood, the grace of +womanhood, the dignity of manhood; for the mind it meant the +death of ignorance, the torpor of all those faculties which +distinguish us from brutes, the reduction of life to a round of +bodily functions. + +"Ah, my friends, if such a fate as this were offered you and +your children as the only alternative of success in the accumulation +of wealth, how long do you fancy would you be in sinking +to the moral level of your ancestors? + +"Some two or three centuries ago an act of barbarity was +committed in India, which, though the number of lives +destroyed was but a few score, was attended by such peculiar +horrors that its memory is likely to be perpetual. A number of +English prisoners were shut up in a room containing not enough +air to supply one-tenth their number. The unfortunates were +gallant men, devoted comrades in service, but, as the agonies of +suffocation began to take hold on them, they forgot all else, and +became involved in a hideous struggle, each one for himself, and +against all others, to force a way to one of the small apertures of +the prison at which alone it was possible to get a breath of air. It +was a struggle in which men became beasts, and the recital of its +horrors by the few survivors so shocked our forefathers that for a +century later we find it a stock reference in their literature as a +typical illustration of the extreme possibilities of human misery, +as shocking in its moral as its physical aspect. They could +scarcely have anticipated that to us the Black Hole of Calcutta, +with its press of maddened men tearing and trampling one +another in the struggle to win a place at the breathing holes, +would seem a striking type of the society of their age. It lacked +something of being a complete type, however, for in the Calcutta +Black Hole there were no tender women, no little children +and old men and women, no cripples. They were at least all +men, strong to bear, who suffered. + +"When we reflect that the ancient order of which I have been +speaking was prevalent up to the end of the nineteenth century, +while to us the new order which succeeded it already seems +antique, even our parents having known no other, we cannot fail +to be astounded at the suddenness with which a transition so +profound beyond all previous experience of the race must have +been effected. Some observation of the state of men's minds +during the last quarter of the nineteenth century will, however, +in great measure, dissipate this astonishment. Though general +intelligence in the modern sense could not be said to exist in any +community at that time, yet, as compared with previous generations, +the one then on the stage was intelligent. The inevitable +consequence of even this comparative degree of intelligence had +been a perception of the evils of society, such as had never +before been general. It is quite true that these evils had been +even worse, much worse, in previous ages. It was the increased +intelligence of the masses which made the difference, as the +dawn reveals the squalor of surroundings which in the darkness +may have seemed tolerable. The key-note of the literature of the +period was one of compassion for the poor and unfortunate, and +indignant outcry against the failure of the social machinery to +ameliorate the miseries of men. It is plain from these outbursts +that the moral hideousness of the spectacle about them was, at +least by flashes, fully realized by the best of the men of that +time, and that the lives of some of the more sensitive and +generous hearted of them were rendered well nigh unendurable +by the intensity of their sympathies. + +"Although the idea of the vital unity of the family of +mankind, the reality of human brotherhood, was very far from +being apprehended by them as the moral axiom it seems to us, +yet it is a mistake to suppose that there was no feeling at all +corresponding to it. I could read you passages of great beauty +from some of their writers which show that the conception was +clearly attained by a few, and no doubt vaguely by many more. +Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the nineteenth century +was in name Christian, and the fact that the entire commercial +and industrial frame of society was the embodiment of the +anti-Christian spirit must have had some weight, though I admit +it was strangely little, with the nominal followers of Jesus Christ. + +"When we inquire why it did not have more, why, in general, +long after a vast majority of men had agreed as to the crying +abuses of the existing social arrangement, they still tolerated it, +or contented themselves with talking of petty reforms in it, we +come upon an extraordinary fact. It was the sincere belief of +even the best of men at that epoch that the only stable elements +in human nature, on which a social system could be safely +founded, were its worst propensities. They had been taught and +believed that greed and self-seeking were all that held mankind +together, and that all human associations would fall to pieces if +anything were done to blunt the edge of these motives or curb +their operation. In a word, they believed--even those who +longed to believe otherwise--the exact reverse of what seems to +us self-evident; they believed, that is, that the anti-social qualities +of men, and not their social qualities, were what furnished the +cohesive force of society. It seemed reasonable to them that men +lived together solely for the purpose of overreaching and oppressing +one another, and of being overreached and oppressed, and +that while a society that gave full scope to these propensities +could stand, there would be little chance for one based on the +idea of cooperation for the benefit of all. It seems absurd to +expect any one to believe that convictions like these were ever +seriously entertained by men; but that they were not only +entertained by our great-grandfathers, but were responsible for +the long delay in doing away with the ancient order, after a +conviction of its intolerable abuses had become general, is as well +established as any fact in history can be. Just here you will find +the explanation of the profound pessimism of the literature of +the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the note of melancholy +in its poetry, and the cynicism of its humor. + +"Feeling that the condition of the race was unendurable, they +had no clear hope of anything better. They believed that the +evolution of humanity had resulted in leading it into a cul de +sac, and that there was no way of getting forward. The frame of +men's minds at this time is strikingly illustrated by treatises +which have come down to us, and may even now be consulted in +our libraries by the curious, in which laborious arguments are +pursued to prove that despite the evil plight of men, life was +still, by some slight preponderance of considerations, probably +better worth living than leaving. Despising themselves, they +despised their Creator. There was a general decay of religious +belief. Pale and watery gleams, from skies thickly veiled by +doubt and dread, alone lighted up the chaos of earth. That men +should doubt Him whose breath is in their nostrils, or dread the +hands that moulded them, seems to us indeed a pitiable insanity; +but we must remember that children who are brave by day have +sometimes foolish fears at night. The dawn has come since then. +It is very easy to believe in the fatherhood of God in the +twentieth century. + +"Briefly, as must needs be in a discourse of this character, I +have adverted to some of the causes which had prepared men's +minds for the change from the old to the new order, as well as +some causes of the conservatism of despair which for a while +held it back after the time was ripe. To wonder at the rapidity +with which the change was completed after its possibility was +first entertained is to forget the intoxicating effect of hope upon +minds long accustomed to despair. The sunburst, after so long +and dark a night, must needs have had a dazzling effect. From +the moment men allowed themselves to believe that humanity +after all had not been meant for a dwarf, that its squat stature +was not the measure of its possible growth, but that it stood +upon the verge of an avatar of limitless development, the +reaction must needs have been overwhelming. It is evident that +nothing was able to stand against the enthusiasm which the new +faith inspired. + +"Here, at last, men must have felt, was a cause compared with +which the grandest of historic causes had been trivial. It was +doubtless because it could have commanded millions of martyrs, +that none were needed. The change of a dynasty in a petty +kingdom of the old world often cost more lives than did the +revolution which set the feet of the human race at last in the +right way. + +"Doubtless it ill beseems one to whom the boon of life in our +resplendent age has been vouchsafed to wish his destiny other, +and yet I have often thought that I would fain exchange my +share in this serene and golden day for a place in that stormy +epoch of transition, when heroes burst the barred gate of the +future and revealed to the kindling gaze of a hopeless race, in +place of the blank wall that had closed its path, a vista of +progress whose end, for very excess of light, still dazzles us. Ah, +my friends! who will say that to have lived then, when the +weakest influence was a lever to whose touch the centuries +trembled, was not worth a share even in this era of fruition? + +"You know the story of that last, greatest, and most bloodless +of revolutions. In the time of one generation men laid aside the +social traditions and practices of barbarians, and assumed a social +order worthy of rational and human beings. Ceasing to be +predatory in their habits, they became co-workers, and found in +fraternity, at once, the science of wealth and happiness. `What +shall I eat and drink, and wherewithal shall I be clothed?' stated +as a problem beginning and ending in self, had been an anxious +and an endless one. But when once it was conceived, not from +the individual, but the fraternal standpoint, `What shall we eat +and drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?'--its difficulties +vanished. + +"Poverty with servitude had been the result, for the mass of +humanity, of attempting to solve the problem of maintenance +from the individual standpoint, but no sooner had the nation +become the sole capitalist and employer than not alone did +plenty replace poverty, but the last vestige of the serfdom of +man to man disappeared from earth. Human slavery, so often +vainly scotched, at last was killed. The means of subsistence no +longer doled out by men to women, by employer to employed, +by rich to poor, was distributed from a common stock as among +children at the father's table. It was impossible for a man any +longer to use his fellow-men as tools for his own profit. His +esteem was the only sort of gain he could thenceforth make out +of him. There was no more either arrogance or servility in the +relations of human beings to one another. For the first time +since the creation every man stood up straight before God. The +fear of want and the lust of gain became extinct motives when +abundance was assured to all and immoderate possessions made +impossible of attainment. There were no more beggars nor +almoners. Equity left charity without an occupation. The ten +commandments became well nigh obsolete in a world where +there was no temptation to theft, no occasion to lie either for +fear or favor, no room for envy where all were equal, and little +provocation to violence where men were disarmed of power to +injure one another. Humanity's ancient dream of liberty, equality, +fraternity, mocked by so many ages, at last was realized. + +"As in the old society the generous, the just, the tender-hearted +had been placed at a disadvantage by the possession of those +qualities; so in the new society the cold-hearted, the greedy, and +self-seeking found themselves out of joint with the world. Now +that the conditions of life for the first time ceased to operate as a +forcing process to develop the brutal qualities of human nature, +and the premium which had heretofore encouraged selfishness +was not only removed, but placed upon unselfishness, it was for +the first time possible to see what unperverted human nature +really was like. The depraved tendencies, which had previously +overgrown and obscured the better to so large an extent, now +withered like cellar fungi in the open air, and the nobler +qualities showed a sudden luxuriance which turned cynics into +panegyrists and for the first time in human history tempted +mankind to fall in love with itself. Soon was fully revealed, what +the divines and philosophers of the old world never would have +believed, that human nature in its essential qualities is good, not +bad, that men by their natural intention and structure are +generous, not selfish, pitiful, not cruel, sympathetic, not arrogant, +godlike in aspirations, instinct with divinest impulses of tenderness +and self-sacrifice, images of God indeed, not the travesties +upon Him they had seemed. The constant pressure, through +numberless generations, of conditions of life which might have +perverted angels, had not been able to essentially alter the +natural nobility of the stock, and these conditions once removed, +like a bent tree, it had sprung back to its normal uprightness. + +"To put the whole matter in the nutshell of a parable, let me +compare humanity in the olden time to a rosebush planted in a +swamp, watered with black bog-water, breathing miasmatic fogs +by day, and chilled with poison dews at night. Innumerable +generations of gardeners had done their best to make it bloom, +but beyond an occasional half-opened bud with a worm at the +heart, their efforts had been unsuccessful. Many, indeed, claimed +that the bush was no rosebush at all, but a noxious shrub, fit +only to be uprooted and burned. The gardeners, for the most +part, however, held that the bush belonged to the rose family, +but had some ineradicable taint about it, which prevented the +buds from coming out, and accounted for its generally sickly +condition. There were a few, indeed, who maintained that the +stock was good enough, that the trouble was in the bog, and that +under more favorable conditions the plant might be expected to +do better. But these persons were not regular gardeners, and +being condemned by the latter as mere theorists and day +dreamers, were, for the most part, so regarded by the people. +Moreover, urged some eminent moral philosophers, even conceding +for the sake of the argument that the bush might possibly do +better elsewhere, it was a more valuable discipline for the buds +to try to bloom in a bog than it would be under more favorable +conditions. The buds that succeeded in opening might indeed be +very rare, and the flowers pale and scentless, but they represented +far more moral effort than if they had bloomed spontaneously in +a garden. + +"The regular gardeners and the moral philosophers had their +way. The bush remained rooted in the bog, and the old course of +treatment went on. Continually new varieties of forcing mixtures +were applied to the roots, and more recipes than could be +numbered, each declared by its advocates the best and only +suitable preparation, were used to kill the vermin and remove +the mildew. This went on a very long time. Occasionally some +one claimed to observe a slight improvement in the appearance +of the bush, but there were quite as many who declared that it +did not look so well as it used to. On the whole there could not +be said to be any marked change. Finally, during a period of +general despondency as to the prospects of the bush where it +was, the idea of transplanting it was again mooted, and this time +found favor. `Let us try it,' was the general voice. `Perhaps it +may thrive better elsewhere, and here it is certainly doubtful if it +be worth cultivating longer.' So it came about that the rosebush +of humanity was transplanted, and set in sweet, warm, dry earth, +where the sun bathed it, the stars wooed it, and the south wind +caressed it. Then it appeared that it was indeed a rosebush. The +vermin and the mildew disappeared, and the bush was covered +with most beautiful red roses, whose fragrance filled the world. + +"It is a pledge of the destiny appointed for us that the Creator +has set in our hearts an infinite standard of achievement, judged +by which our past attainments seem always insignificant, and the +goal never nearer. Had our forefathers conceived a state of +society in which men should live together like brethren dwelling +in unity, without strifes or envying, violence or overreaching, and +where, at the price of a degree of labor not greater than health +demands, in their chosen occupations, they should be wholly +freed from care for the morrow and left with no more concern +for their livelihood than trees which are watered by unfailing +streams,--had they conceived such a condition, I say, it would +have seemed to them nothing less than paradise. They would +have confounded it with their idea of heaven, nor dreamed that +there could possibly lie further beyond anything to be desired or +striven for. + +"But how is it with us who stand on this height which they +gazed up to? Already we have well nigh forgotten, except when it +is especially called to our minds by some occasion like the +present, that it was not always with men as it is now. It is a +strain on our imaginations to conceive the social arrangements of +our immediate ancestors. We find them grotesque. The solution +of the problem of physical maintenance so as to banish care and +crime, so far from seeming to us an ultimate attainment, appears +but as a preliminary to anything like real human progress. We +have but relieved ourselves of an impertinent and needless +harassment which hindered our ancestor from undertaking the +real ends of existence. We are merely stripped for the race; no +more. We are like a child which has just learned to stand +upright and to walk. It is a great event, from the child's point of +view, when he first walks. Perhaps he fancies that there can be +little beyond that achievement, but a year later he has forgotten +that he could not always walk. His horizon did but widen when +he rose, and enlarge as he moved. A great event indeed, in one +sense, was his first step, but only as a beginning, not as the end. +His true career was but then first entered on. The enfranchisement +of humanity in the last century, from mental and +physical absorption in working and scheming for the mere bodily +necessities, may be regarded as a species of second birth of +the race, without which its first birth to an existence that was +but a burden would forever have remained unjustified, but +whereby it is now abundantly vindicated. Since then, humanity +has entered on a new phase of spiritual development, an evolution +of higher faculties, the very existence of which in human +nature our ancestors scarcely suspected. In place of the dreary +hopelessness of the nineteenth century, its profound pessimism +as to the future of humanity, the animating idea of the present +age is an enthusiastic conception of the opportunities of our +earthly existence, and the unbounded possibilities of human +nature. The betterment of mankind from generation to generation, +physically, mentally, morally, is recognized as the one great +object supremely worthy of effort and of sacrifice. We believe +the race for the first time to have entered on the realization of +God's ideal of it, and each generation must now be a step +upward. + +"Do you ask what we look for when unnumbered generations +shall have passed away? I answer, the way stretches far before us, +but the end is lost in light. For twofold is the return of man to +God `who is our home,' the return of the individual by the way +of death, and the return of the race by the fulfillment of the +evolution, when the divine secret hidden in the germ shall be +perfectly unfolded. With a tear for the dark past, turn we then +to the dazzling future, and, veiling our eyes, press forward. The +long and weary winter of the race is ended. Its summer has +begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens are before +it." + + + +Chapter 27 + + +I never could tell just why, but Sunday afternoon during my +old life had been a time when I was peculiarly subject to +melancholy, when the color unaccountably faded out of all the +aspects of life, and everything appeared pathetically uninteresting. +The hours, which in general were wont to bear me easily on +their wings, lost the power of flight, and toward the close of the +day, drooping quite to earth, had fairly to be dragged along by +main strength. Perhaps it was partly owing to the established +association of ideas that, despite the utter change in my +circumstances, I fell into a state of profound depression on the +afternoon of this my first Sunday in the twentieth century. + +It was not, however, on the present occasion a depression +without specific cause, the mere vague melancholy I have spoken +of, but a sentiment suggested and certainly quite justified by my +position. The sermon of Mr. Barton, with its constant implication +of the vast moral gap between the century to which I +belonged and that in which I found myself, had had an effect +strongly to accentuate my sense of loneliness in it. Considerately +and philosophically as he had spoken, his words could scarcely +have failed to leave upon my mind a strong impression of the +mingled pity, curiosity, and aversion which I, as a representative +of an abhorred epoch, must excite in all around me. + +The extraordinary kindness with which I had been treated by +Dr. Leete and his family, and especially the goodness of Edith, +had hitherto prevented my fully realizing that their real sentiment +toward me must necessarily be that of the whole generation +to which they belonged. The recognition of this, as regarded +Dr. Leete and his amiable wife, however painful, I might have +endured, but the conviction that Edith must share their feeling +was more than I could bear. + +The crushing effect with which this belated perception of a +fact so obvious came to me opened my eyes fully to something +which perhaps the reader has already suspected,--I loved Edith. + +Was it strange that I did? The affecting occasion on which +our intimacy had begun, when her hands had drawn me out of +the whirlpool of madness; the fact that her sympathy was the +vital breath which had set me up in this new life and enabled me +to support it; my habit of looking to her as the mediator +between me and the world around in a sense that even her father +was not,--these were circumstances that had predetermined a +result which her remarkable loveliness of person and disposition +would alone have accounted for. It was quite inevitable that she +should have come to seem to me, in a sense quite different from +the usual experience of lovers, the only woman in this world. +Now that I had become suddenly sensible of the fatuity of the +hopes I had begun to cherish, I suffered not merely what another +lover might, but in addition a desolate loneliness, an utter +forlornness, such as no other lover, however unhappy, could have +felt. + +My hosts evidently saw that I was depressed in spirits, and did +their best to divert me. Edith especially, I could see, was +distressed for me, but according to the usual perversity of lovers, +having once been so mad as to dream of receiving something +more from her, there was no longer any virtue for me in a +kindness that I knew was only sympathy. + +Toward nightfall, after secluding myself in my room most of +the afternoon, I went into the garden to walk about. The day +was overcast, with an autumnal flavor in the warm, still air. +Finding myself near the excavation, I entered the subterranean +chamber and sat down there. "This," I muttered to myself, "is +the only home I have. Let me stay here, and not go forth any +more." Seeking aid from the familiar surroundings, I endeavored +to find a sad sort of consolation in reviving the past and +summoning up the forms and faces that were about me in my +former life. It was in vain. There was no longer any life in them. +For nearly one hundred years the stars had been looking down +on Edith Bartlett's grave, and the graves of all my generation. + +The past was dead, crushed beneath a century's weight, and +from the present I was shut out. There was no place for me +anywhere. I was neither dead nor properly alive. + +"Forgive me for following you." + +I looked up. Edith stood in the door of the subterranean +room, regarding me smilingly, but with eyes full of sympathetic +distress. + +"Send me away if I am intruding on you," she said; "but we +saw that you were out of spirits, and you know you promised to +let me know if that were so. You have not kept your word." + +I rose and came to the door, trying to smile, but making, I +fancy, rather sorry work of it, for the sight of her loveliness +brought home to me the more poignantly the cause of my +wretchedness. + +"I was feeling a little lonely, that is all," I said. "Has it never +occurred to you that my position is so much more utterly alone +than any human being's ever was before that a new word is really +needed to describe it?" + +"Oh, you must not talk that way--you must not let yourself +feel that way--you must not!" she exclaimed, with moistened +eyes. "Are we not your friends? It is your own fault if you will +not let us be. You need not be lonely." + +"You are good to me beyond my power of understanding," I +said, "but don't you suppose that I know it is pity merely, sweet +pity, but pity only. I should be a fool not to know that I cannot +seem to you as other men of your own generation do, but as +some strange uncanny being, a stranded creature of an unknown +sea, whose forlornness touches your compassion despite its +grotesqueness. I have been so foolish, you were so kind, as to +almost forget that this must needs be so, and to fancy I might in +time become naturalized, as we used to say, in this age, so as to +feel like one of you and to seem to you like the other men about +you. But Mr. Barton's sermon taught me how vain such a fancy +is, how great the gulf between us must seem to you." + +"Oh that miserable sermon!" she exclaimed, fairly crying now +in her sympathy, "I wanted you not to hear it. What does he +know of you? He has read in old musty books about your times, +that is all. What do you care about him, to let yourself be vexed +by anything he said? Isn't it anything to you, that we who know +you feel differently? Don't you care more about what we think of +you than what he does who never saw you? Oh, Mr. West! you +don't know, you can't think, how it makes me feel to see you so +forlorn. I can't have it so. What can I say to you? How can I +convince you how different our feeling for you is from what you +think?" + +As before, in that other crisis of my fate when she had come +to me, she extended her hands toward me in a gesture of +helpfulness, and, as then, I caught and held them in my own; +her bosom heaved with strong emotion, and little tremors in the +fingers which I clasped emphasized the depth of her feeling. In +her face, pity contended in a sort of divine spite against the +obstacles which reduced it to impotence. Womanly compassion +surely never wore a guise more lovely. + +Such beauty and such goodness quite melted me, and it +seemed that the only fitting response I could make was to tell +her just the truth. Of course I had not a spark of hope, but on +the other hand I had no fear that she would be angry. She was +too pitiful for that. So I said presently, "It is very ungrateful in +me not to be satisfied with such kindness as you have shown me, +and are showing me now. But are you so blind as not to see why +they are not enough to make me happy? Don't you see that it is +because I have been mad enough to love you?" + +At my last words she blushed deeply and her eyes fell before +mine, but she made no effort to withdraw her hands from my +clasp. For some moments she stood so, panting a little. Then +blushing deeper than ever, but with a dazzling smile, she looked +up. + +"Are you sure it is not you who are blind?" she said. + +That was all, but it was enough, for it told me that, unaccountable, +incredible as it was, this radiant daughter of a golden +age had bestowed upon me not alone her pity, but her love. Still, +I half believed I must be under some blissful hallucination even +as I clasped her in my arms. "If I am beside myself," I cried, "let +me remain so." + +"It is I whom you must think beside myself," she panted, +escaping from my arms when I had barely tasted the sweetness +of her lips. "Oh! oh! what must you think of me almost to throw +myself in the arms of one I have known but a week? I did not +mean that you should find it out so soon, but I was so sorry for +you I forgot what I was saying. No, no; you must not touch me +again till you know who I am. After that, sir, you shall apologize +to me very humbly for thinking, as I know you do, that I have +been over quick to fall in love with you. After you know who I +am, you will be bound to confess that it was nothing less than my +duty to fall in love with you at first sight, and that no girl of +proper feeling in my place could do otherwise." + +As may be supposed, I would have been quite content to +waive explanations, but Edith was resolute that there should be +no more kisses until she had been vindicated from all suspicion +of precipitancy in the bestowal of her affections, and I was fain +to follow the lovely enigma into the house. Having come where +her mother was, she blushingly whispered something in her ear +and ran away, leaving us together. + +It then appeared that, strange as my experience had been, I +was now first to know what was perhaps its strangest feature. +From Mrs. Leete I learned that Edith was the great-granddaughter +of no other than my lost love, Edith Bartlett. After mourning +me for fourteen years, she had made a marriage of esteem, and +left a son who had been Mrs. Leete's father. Mrs. Leete had +never seen her grandmother, but had heard much of her, and, +when her daughter was born, gave her the name of Edith. This +fact might have tended to increase the interest which the girl +took, as she grew up, in all that concerned her ancestress, and +especially the tragic story of the supposed death of the lover, +whose wife she expected to be, in the conflagration of his house. +It was a tale well calculated to touch the sympathy of a romantic +girl, and the fact that the blood of the unfortunate heroine was +in her own veins naturally heightened Edith's interest in it. A +portrait of Edith Bartlett and some of her papers, including a +packet of my own letters, were among the family heirlooms. The +picture represented a very beautiful young woman about whom +it was easy to imagine all manner of tender and romantic things. +My letters gave Edith some material for forming a distinct idea +of my personality, and both together sufficed to make the sad old +story very real to her. She used to tell her parents, half jestingly, +that she would never marry till she found a lover like Julian +West, and there were none such nowadays. + +Now all this, of course, was merely the daydreaming of a girl +whose mind had never been taken up by a love affair of her own, +and would have had no serious consequence but for the discovery +that morning of the buried vault in her father's garden and +the revelation of the identity of its inmate. For when the apparently +lifeless form had been borne into the house, the face in the +locket found upon the breast was instantly recognized as that of +Edith Bartlett, and by that fact, taken in connection with the +other circumstances, they knew that I was no other than Julian +West. Even had there been no thought, as at first there was not, +of my resuscitation, Mrs. Leete said she believed that this event +would have affected her daughter in a critical and life-long +manner. The presumption of some subtle ordering of destiny, +involving her fate with mine, would under all circumstances +have possessed an irresistible fascination for almost any woman. + +Whether when I came back to life a few hours afterward, and +from the first seemed to turn to her with a peculiar dependence +and to find a special solace in her company, she had been too +quick in giving her love at the first sign of mine, I could now, +her mother said, judge for myself. If I thought so, I must +remember that this, after all, was the twentieth and not the +nineteenth century, and love was, no doubt, now quicker in +growth, as well as franker in utterance than then. + +From Mrs. Leete I went to Edith. When I found her, it was +first of all to take her by both hands and stand a long time in +rapt contemplation of her face. As I gazed, the memory of that +other Edith, which had been affected as with a benumbing +shock by the tremendous experience that had parted us, revived, +and my heart was dissolved with tender and pitiful emotions, +but also very blissful ones. For she who brought to me so +poignantly the sense of my loss was to make that loss good. It +was as if from her eyes Edith Bartlett looked into mine, and +smiled consolation to me. My fate was not alone the strangest, +but the most fortunate that ever befell a man. A double miracle +had been wrought for me. I had not been stranded upon the +shore of this strange world to find myself alone and companionless. +My love, whom I had dreamed lost, had been reembodied +for my consolation. When at last, in an ecstasy of gratitude +and tenderness, I folded the lovely girl in my arms, the +two Ediths were blended in my thought, nor have they ever +since been clearly distinguished. I was not long in finding that +on Edith's part there was a corresponding confusion of identities. +Never, surely, was there between freshly united lovers a +stranger talk than ours that afternoon. She seemed more anxious +to have me speak of Edith Bartlett than of herself, of how I had +loved her than how I loved herself, rewarding my fond words +concerning another woman with tears and tender smiles and +pressures of the hand. + +"You must not love me too much for myself," she said. "I +shall be very jealous for her. I shall not let you forget her. I am +going to tell you something which you may think strange. Do +you not believe that spirits sometimes come back to the world to +fulfill some work that lay near their hearts? What if I were to +tell you that I have sometimes thought that her spirit lives in +me--that Edith Bartlett, not Edith Leete, is my real name. I +cannot know it; of course none of us can know who we really are; +but I can feel it. Can you wonder that I have such a feeling, +seeing how my life was affected by her and by you, even before +you came. So you see you need not trouble to love me at all, if +only you are true to her. I shall not be likely to be jealous." + +Dr. Leete had gone out that afternoon, and I did not have an +interview with him till later. He was not, apparently, wholly +unprepared for the intelligence I conveyed, and shook my hand +heartily. + +"Under any ordinary circumstances, Mr. West, I should say +that this step had been taken on rather short acquaintance; but +these are decidedly not ordinary circumstances. In fairness, +perhaps I ought to tell you," he added smilingly, "that while I +cheerfully consent to the proposed arrangement, you must not +feel too much indebted to me, as I judge my consent is a mere +formality. From the moment the secret of the locket was out, it +had to be, I fancy. Why, bless me, if Edith had not been there +to redeem her great-grandmother's pledge, I really apprehend +that Mrs. Leete's loyalty to me would have suffered a severe +strain." + +That evening the garden was bathed in moonlight, and till +midnight Edith and I wandered to and fro there, trying to grow +accustomed to our happiness. + +"What should I have done if you had not cared for me?" she +exclaimed. "I was afraid you were not going to. What should I +have done then, when I felt I was consecrated to you! As soon as +you came back to life, I was as sure as if she had told me that I +was to be to you what she could not be, but that could only be if +you would let me. Oh, how I wanted to tell you that morning, +when you felt so terribly strange among us, who I was, but dared +not open my lips about that, or let father or mother----" + +"That must have been what you would not let your father tell +me!" I exclaimed, referring to the conversation I had overheard +as I came out of my trance. + +"Of course it was," Edith laughed. "Did you only just guess +that? Father being only a man, thought that it would make you +feel among friends to tell you who we were. He did not think of +me at all. But mother knew what I meant, and so I had my way. +I could never have looked you in the face if you had known who +I was. It would have been forcing myself on you quite too +boldly. I am afraid you think I did that to-day, as it was. I am +sure I did not mean to, for I know girls were expected to hide +their feelings in your day, and I was dreadfully afraid of shocking +you. Ah me, how hard it must have been for them to have +always had to conceal their love like a fault. Why did they think +it such a shame to love any one till they had been given +permission? It is so odd to think of waiting for permission to fall +in love. Was it because men in those days were angry when girls +loved them? That is not the way women would feel, I am sure, +or men either, I think, now. I don't understand it at all. That +will be one of the curious things about the women of those days +that you will have to explain to me. I don't believe Edith +Bartlett was so foolish as the others." + +After sundry ineffectual attempts at parting, she finally insisted +that we must say good night. I was about to imprint upon +her lips the positively last kiss, when she said, with an indescribable +archness: + +"One thing troubles me. Are you sure that you quite forgive +Edith Bartlett for marrying any one else? The books that have +come down to us make out lovers of your time more jealous than +fond, and that is what makes me ask. It would be a great relief to +me if I could feel sure that you were not in the least jealous of +my great-grandfather for marrying your sweetheart. May I tell +my great-grandmother's picture when I go to my room that you +quite forgive her for proving false to you?" + +Will the reader believe it, this coquettish quip, whether the +speaker herself had any idea of it or not, actually touched and +with the touching cured a preposterous ache of something like +jealousy which I had been vaguely conscious of ever since Mrs. +Leete had told me of Edith Bartlett's marriage. Even while I had +been holding Edith Bartlett's great-granddaughter in my arms, I +had not, till this moment, so illogical are some of our feelings, +distinctly realized that but for that marriage I could not have +done so. The absurdity of this frame of mind could only be +equalled by the abruptness with which it dissolved as Edith's +roguish query cleared the fog from my perceptions. I laughed as +I kissed her. + +"You may assure her of my entire forgiveness," I said, +"although if it had been any man but your great-grandfather +whom she married, it would have been a very different matter." + +On reaching my chamber that night I did not open the +musical telephone that I might be lulled to sleep with soothing +tunes, as had become my habit. For once my thoughts made +better music than even twentieth century orchestras discourse, +and it held me enchanted till well toward morning, when I fell +asleep. + + + +Chapter 28 + + +It's a little after the time you told me to wake you, sir. You +did not come out of it as quick as common, sir." + +The voice was the voice of my man Sawyer. I started bolt +upright in bed and stared around. I was in my underground +chamber. The mellow light of the lamp which always burned in +the room when I occupied it illumined the familiar walls and +furnishings. By my bedside, with the glass of sherry in his hand +which Dr. Pillsbury prescribed on first rousing from a mesmeric +sleep, by way of awakening the torpid physical functions, stood +Sawyer. + +"Better take this right off, sir," he said, as I stared blankly at +him. "You look kind of flushed like, sir, and you need it." + +I tossed off the liquor and began to realize what had happened +to me. It was, of course, very plain. All that about the twentieth +century had been a dream. I had but dreamed of that +enlightened and care-free race of men and their ingeniously +simple institutions, of the glorious new Boston with its domes +and pinnacles, its gardens and fountains, and its universal reign +of comfort. The amiable family which I had learned to know so +well, my genial host and Mentor, Dr. Leete, his wife, and their +daughter, the second and more beauteous Edith, my betrothed +--these, too, had been but figments of a vision. + +For a considerable time I remained in the attitude in which +this conviction had come over me, sitting up in bed gazing at +vacancy, absorbed in recalling the scenes and incidents of my +fantastic experience. Sawyer, alarmed at my looks, was meanwhile +anxiously inquiring what was the matter with me. Roused +at length by his importunities to a recognition of my surroundings, +I pulled myself together with an effort and assured the +faithful fellow that I was all right. "I have had an extraordinary +dream, that's all, Sawyer," I said, "a most-ex-traor-dinary- +dream." + +I dressed in a mechanical way, feeling light-headed and oddly +uncertain of myself, and sat down to the coffee and rolls which +Sawyer was in the habit of providing for my refreshment before I +left the house. The morning newspaper lay by the plate. I took it +up, and my eye fell on the date, May 31, 1887. I had known, of +course, from the moment I opened my eyes that my long and +detailed experience in another century had been a dream, and +yet it was startling to have it so conclusively demonstrated that +the world was but a few hours older than when I had lain down +to sleep. + +Glancing at the table of contents at the head of the paper, +which reviewed the news of the morning, I read the following +summary: + + +FOREIGN AFFAIRS.--The impending war between France and +Germany. The French Chambers asked for new military credits +to meet Germany's increase of her army. Probability that all +Europe will be involved in case of war.--Great suffering among +the unemployed in London. They demand work. Monster demonstration +to be made. The authorities uneasy.--Great strikes in +Belgium. The government preparing to repress outbreaks. Shocking +facts in regard to the employment of girls in Belgium coal +mines.--Wholesale evictions in Ireland. + +"HOME AFFAIRS.--The epidemic of fraud unchecked. Embezzlement +of half a million in New York.--Misappropriation of a +trust fund by executors. Orphans left penniless.--Clever system +of thefts by a bank teller; $50,000 gone.--The coal barons decide +to advance the price of coal and reduce production.-- +Speculators engineering a great wheat corner at Chicago.--A +clique forcing up the price of coffee.--Enormous land-grabs of +Western syndicates.--Revelations of shocking corruption among +Chicago officials. Systematic bribery.--The trials of the Boodle +aldermen to go on at New York.--Large failures of business +houses. Fears of a business crisis.--A large grist of burglaries and +larcenies.--A woman murdered in cold blood for her money at +New Haven.--A householder shot by a burglar in this city last +night.--A man shoots himself in Worcester because he could +not get work. A large family left destitute.--An aged couple in +New Jersey commit suicide rather than go to the poor-house.-- +Pitiable destitution among the women wage-workers in the great +cities.--Startling growth of illiteracy in Massachusetts.--More +insane asylums wanted.--Decoration Day addresses. Professor +Brown's oration on the moral grandeur of nineteenth century +civilization." + +It was indeed the nineteenth century to which I had awaked; +there could be no kind of doubt about that. Its complete +microcosm this summary of the day's news had presented, even +to that last unmistakable touch of fatuous self-complacency. +Coming after such a damning indictment of the age as that one +day's chronicle of world-wide bloodshed, greed, and tyranny, was +a bit of cynicism worthy of Mephistopheles, and yet of all whose +eyes it had met this morning I was, perhaps, the only one who +perceived the cynicism, and but yesterday I should have perceived +it no more than the others. That strange dream it was +which had made all the difference. For I know not how long, I +forgot my surroundings after this, and was again in fancy moving +in that vivid dream-world, in that glorious city, with its homes of +simple comfort and its gorgeous public palaces. Around me were +again faces unmarred by arrogance or servility, by envy or greed, +by anxious care or feverish ambition, and stately forms of men +and women who had never known fear of a fellow man or +depended on his favor, but always, in the words of that sermon +which still rang in my ears, had "stood up straight before God." + +With a profound sigh and a sense of irreparable loss, not the +less poignant that it was a loss of what had never really been, I +roused at last from my reverie, and soon after left the house. + +A dozen times between my door and Washington Street I had +to stop and pull myself together, such power had been in that +vision of the Boston of the future to make the real Boston +strange. The squalor and malodorousness of the town struck me, +from the moment I stood upon the street, as facts I had never +before observed. But yesterday, moreover, it had seemed quite a +matter of course that some of my fellow-citizens should wear +silks, and others rags, that some should look well fed, and others +hungry. Now on the contrary the glaring disparities in the dress +and condition of the men and women who brushed each other +on the sidewalks shocked me at every step, and yet more the +entire indifference which the prosperous showed to the plight of +the unfortunate. Were these human beings, who could behold +the wretchedness of their fellows without so much as a change of +countenance? And yet, all the while, I knew well that it was I +who had changed, and not my contemporaries. I had dreamed of +a city whose people fared all alike as children of one family and +were one another's keepers in all things. + +Another feature of the real Boston, which assumed the +extraordinary effect of strangeness that marks familiar things +seen in a new light, was the prevalence of advertising. There had +been no personal advertising in the Boston of the twentieth +century, because there was no need of any, but here the walls of +the buildings, the windows, the broadsides of the newspapers in +every hand, the very pavements, everything in fact in sight, save +the sky, were covered with the appeals of individuals who +sought, under innumerable pretexts, to attract the contributions +of others to their support. However the wording might vary, the +tenor of all these appeals was the same: + +"Help John Jones. Never mind the rest. They are frauds. I, +John Jones, am the right one. Buy of me. Employ me. Visit me. +Hear me, John Jones. Look at me. Make no mistake, John Jones +is the man and nobody else. Let the rest starve, but for God's +sake remember John Jones!" + +Whether the pathos or the moral repulsiveness of the spectacle +most impressed me, so suddenly become a stranger in my +own city, I know not. Wretched men, I was moved to cry, who, +because they will not learn to be helpers of one another, are +doomed to be beggars of one another from the least to the +greatest! This horrible babel of shameless self-assertion and +mutual depreciation, this stunning clamor of conflicting boasts, +appeals, and adjurations, this stupendous system of brazen +beggary, what was it all but the necessity of a society in which +the opportunity to serve the world according to his gifts, instead +of being secured to every man as the first object of social +organization, had to be fought for! + +I reached Washington Street at the busiest point, and there I +stood and laughed aloud, to the scandal of the passers-by. For +my life I could not have helped it, with such a mad humor was I +moved at sight of the interminable rows of stores on either side, +up and down the street so far as I could see--scores of them, to +make the spectacle more utterly preposterous, within a stone's +throw devoted to selling the same sort of goods. Stores! stores! +stores! miles of stores! ten thousand stores to distribute the +goods needed by this one city, which in my dream had been +supplied with all things from a single warehouse, as they were +ordered through one great store in every quarter, where the +buyer, without waste of time or labor, found under one roof the +world's assortment in whatever line he desired. There the labor +of distribution had been so slight as to add but a scarcely +perceptible fraction to the cost of commodities to the user. The +cost of production was virtually all he paid. But here the mere +distribution of the goods, their handling alone, added a fourth, a +third, a half and more, to the cost. All these ten thousand plants +must be paid for, their rent, their staffs of superintendence, their +platoons of salesmen, their ten thousand sets of accountants, +jobbers, and business dependents, with all they spent in advertising +themselves and fighting one another, and the consumers +must do the paying. What a famous process for beggaring a +nation! + +Were these serious men I saw about me, or children, who did +their business on such a plan? Could they be reasoning beings, +who did not see the folly which, when the product is made and +ready for use, wastes so much of it in getting it to the user? If +people eat with a spoon that leaks half its contents between bowl +and lip, are they not likely to go hungry? + +I had passed through Washington Street thousands of times +before and viewed the ways of those who sold merchandise, but +my curiosity concerning them was as if I had never gone by their +way before. I took wondering note of the show windows of the +stores, filled with goods arranged with a wealth of pains and +artistic device to attract the eye. I saw the throngs of ladies +looking in, and the proprietors eagerly watching the effect of the +bait. I went within and noted the hawk-eyed floor-walker watching +for business, overlooking the clerks, keeping them up to their +task of inducing the customers to buy, buy, buy, for money if +they had it, for credit if they had it not, to buy what they +wanted not, more than they wanted, what they could not afford. +At times I momentarily lost the clue and was confused by the +sight. Why this effort to induce people to buy? Surely that had +nothing to do with the legitimate business of distributing +products to those who needed them. Surely it was the sheerest +waste to force upon people what they did not want, but what +might be useful to another. The nation was so much the poorer +for every such achievement. What were these clerks thinking of? +Then I would remember that they were not acting as distributors +like those in the store I had visited in the dream Boston. +They were not serving the public interest, but their immediate +personal interest, and it was nothing to them what the ultimate +effect of their course on the general prosperity might be, if but +they increased their own hoard, for these goods were their own, +and the more they sold and the more they got for them, the +greater their gain. The more wasteful the people were, the more +articles they did not want which they could be induced to buy, +the better for these sellers. To encourage prodigality was the +express aim of the ten thousand stores of Boston. + +Nor were these storekeepers and clerks a whit worse men than +any others in Boston. They must earn a living and support their +families, and how were they to find a trade to do it by which did +not necessitate placing their individual interests before those of +others and that of all? They could not be asked to starve while +they waited for an order of things such as I had seen in my +dream, in which the interest of each and that of all were +identical. But, God in heaven! what wonder, under such a +system as this about me--what wonder that the city was so +shabby, and the people so meanly dressed, and so many of them +ragged and hungry! + +Some time after this it was that I drifted over into South +Boston and found myself among the manufacturing establishments. +I had been in this quarter of the city a hundred times +before, just as I had been on Washington Street, but here, as +well as there, I now first perceived the true significance of what I +witnessed. Formerly I had taken pride in the fact that, by actual +count, Boston had some four thousand independent manufacturing +establishments; but in this very multiplicity and independence +I recognized now the secret of the insignificant total +product of their industry. + +If Washington Street had been like a lane in Bedlam, this was +a spectacle as much more melancholy as production is a more +vital function than distribution. For not only were these four +thousand establishments not working in concert, and for that +reason alone operating at prodigious disadvantage, but, as if this +did not involve a sufficiently disastrous loss of power, they were +using their utmost skill to frustrate one another's effort, praying +by night and working by day for the destruction of one another's +enterprises. + +The roar and rattle of wheels and hammers resounding from +every side was not the hum of a peaceful industry, but the +clangor of swords wielded by foemen. These mills and shops +were so many forts, each under its own flag, its guns trained on +the mills and shops about it, and its sappers busy below, +undermining them. + +Within each one of these forts the strictest organization of +industry was insisted on; the separate gangs worked under a +single central authority. No interference and no duplicating of +work were permitted. Each had his allotted task, and none were +idle. By what hiatus in the logical faculty, by what lost link of +reasoning, account, then, for the failure to recognize the necessity +of applying the same principle to the organization of the +national industries as a whole, to see that if lack of organization +could impair the efficiency of a shop, it must have effects as +much more disastrous in disabling the industries of the nation at +large as the latter are vaster in volume and more complex in the +relationship of their parts. + +People would be prompt enough to ridicule an army in which +there were neither companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, +divisions, or army corps--no unit of organization, in fact, larger +than the corporal's squad, with no officer higher than a corporal, +and all the corporals equal in authority. And yet just such an +army were the manufacturing industries of nineteenth century +Boston, an army of four thousand independent squads led by +four thousand independent corporals, each with a separate plan +of campaign. + +Knots of idle men were to be seen here and there on every +side, some idle because they could find no work at any price, +others because they could not get what they thought a fair price. +I accosted some of the latter, and they told me their grievances. +It was very little comfort I could give them. "I am sorry +for you," I said. "You get little enough, certainly, and yet the +wonder to me is, not that industries conducted as these are do +not pay you living wages, but that they are able to pay you any +wages at all." + +Making my way back again after this to the peninsular city, +toward three o'clock I stood on State Street, staring, as if I had +never seen them before, at the banks and brokers' offices, and +other financial institutions, of which there had been in the State +Street of my vision no vestige. Business men, confidential clerks, +and errand boys were thronging in and out of the banks, for it +wanted but a few minutes of the closing hour. Opposite me was +the bank where I did business, and presently I crossed the street, +and, going in with the crowd, stood in a recess of the wall +looking on at the army of clerks handling money, and the cues of +depositors at the tellers' windows. An old gentleman whom I +knew, a director of the bank, passing me and observing my +contemplative attitude, stopped a moment. + +"Interesting sight, isn't it, Mr. West," he said. "Wonderful +piece of mechanism; I find it so myself. I like sometimes to +stand and look on at it just as you are doing. It's a poem, sir, a +poem, that's what I call it. Did you ever think, Mr. West, that +the bank is the heart of the business system? From it and to it, +in endless flux and reflux, the life blood goes. It is flowing in +now. It will flow out again in the morning"; and pleased with his +little conceit, the old man passed on smiling. + +Yesterday I should have considered the simile apt enough, but +since then I had visited a world incomparably more affluent than +this, in which money was unknown and without conceivable use. +I had learned that it had a use in the world around me only +because the work of producing the nation's livelihood, instead of +being regarded as the most strictly public and common of all +concerns, and as such conducted by the nation, was abandoned +to the hap-hazard efforts of individuals. This original mistake +necessitated endless exchanges to bring about any sort of general +distribution of products. These exchanges money effected--how +equitably, might be seen in a walk from the tenement house +districts to the Back Bay--at the cost of an army of men taken +from productive labor to manage it, with constant ruinous +breakdowns of its machinery, and a generally debauching influence +on mankind which had justified its description, from +ancient time, as the "root of all evil." + +Alas for the poor old bank director with his poem! He had +mistaken the throbbing of an abscess for the beating of the +heart. What he called "a wonderful piece of mechanism" was an +imperfect device to remedy an unnecessary defect, the clumsy +crutch of a self-made cripple. + +After the banks had closed I wandered aimlessly about the +business quarter for an hour or two, and later sat a while on one +of the benches of the Common, finding an interest merely in +watching the throngs that passed, such as one has in studying +the populace of a foreign city, so strange since yesterday had my +fellow citizens and their ways become to me. For thirty years I +had lived among them, and yet I seemed to have never noted +before how drawn and anxious were their faces, of the rich as of +the poor, the refined, acute faces of the educated as well as the +dull masks of the ignorant. And well it might be so, for I saw +now, as never before I had seen so plainly, that each as he +walked constantly turned to catch the whispers of a spectre at his +ear, the spectre of Uncertainty. "Do your work never so well," +the spectre was whispering--"rise early and toil till late, rob +cunningly or serve faithfully, you shall never know security. Rich +you may be now and still come to poverty at last. Leave never so +much wealth to your children, you cannot buy the assurance that +your son may not be the servant of your servant, or that your +daughter will not have to sell herself for bread." + +A man passing by thrust an advertising card in my hand, +which set forth the merits of some new scheme of life insurance. +The incident reminded me of the only device, pathetic in its +admission of the universal need it so poorly supplied, which +offered these tired and hunted men and women even a partial +protection from uncertainty. By this means, those already +well-to-do, I remembered, might purchase a precarious confi- +dence that after their death their loved ones would not, for a +while at least, be trampled under the feet of men. But this was +all, and this was only for those who could pay well for it. What +idea was possible to these wretched dwellers in the land of +Ishmael, where every man's hand was against each and the hand +of each against every other, of true life insurance as I had seen it +among the people of that dream land, each of whom, by virtue +merely of his membership in the national family, was guaranteed +against need of any sort, by a policy underwritten by one hundred +million fellow countrymen. + +Some time after this it was that I recall a glimpse of myself +standing on the steps of a building on Tremont Street, looking +at a military parade. A regiment was passing. It was the first sight +in that dreary day which had inspired me with any other +emotions than wondering pity and amazement. Here at last were +order and reason, an exhibition of what intelligent cooperation +can accomplish. The people who stood looking on with kindling +faces,--could it be that the sight had for them no more than but +a spectacular interest? Could they fail to see that it was their +perfect concert of action, their organization under one control, +which made these men the tremendous engine they were, able to +vanquish a mob ten times as numerous? Seeing this so plainly, +could they fail to compare the scientific manner in which the +nation went to war with the unscientific manner in which it +went to work? Would they not query since what time the killing +of men had been a task so much more important than feeding +and clothing them, that a trained army should be deemed alone +adequate to the former, while the latter was left to a mob? + +It was now toward nightfall, and the streets were thronged +with the workers from the stores, the shops, and mills. Carried +along with the stronger part of the current, I found myself, as it +began to grow dark, in the midst of a scene of squalor and +human degradation such as only the South Cove tenement +district could present. I had seen the mad wasting of human +labor; here I saw in direst shape the want that waste had bred. + +From the black doorways and windows of the rookeries on +every side came gusts of fetid air. The streets and alleys reeked +with the effluvia of a slave ship's between-decks. As I passed I +had glimpses within of pale babies gasping out their lives amid +sultry stenches, of hopeless-faced women deformed by hardship, +retaining of womanhood no trait save weakness, while from the +windows leered girls with brows of brass. Like the starving bands +of mongrel curs that infest the streets of Moslem towns, swarms +of half-clad brutalized children filled the air with shrieks and +curses as they fought and tumbled among the garbage that +littered the court-yards. + +There was nothing in all this that was new to me. Often had I +passed through this part of the city and witnessed its sights with +feelings of disgust mingled with a certain philosophical wonder +at the extremities mortals will endure and still cling to life. But +not alone as regarded the economical follies of this age, but +equally as touched its moral abominations, scales had fallen from +my eyes since that vision of another century. No more did I look +upon the woful dwellers in this Inferno with a callous curiosity +as creatures scarcely human. I saw in them my brothers and +sisters, my parents, my children, flesh of my flesh, blood of my +blood. The festering mass of human wretchedness about me +offended not now my senses merely, but pierced my heart like a +knife, so that I could not repress sighs and groans. I not only saw +but felt in my body all that I saw. + +Presently, too, as I observed the wretched beings about me +more closely, I perceived that they were all quite dead. Their +bodies were so many living sepulchres. On each brutal brow was +plainly written the hic jacet of a soul dead within. + +As I looked, horror struck, from one death's head to another, I +was affected by a singular hallucination. Like a wavering translucent +spirit face superimposed upon each of these brutish masks I +saw the ideal, the possible face that would have been the actual +if mind and soul had lived. It was not till I was aware of these +ghostly faces, and of the reproach that could not be gainsaid +which was in their eyes, that the full piteousness of the ruin that +had been wrought was revealed to me. I was moved with +contrition as with a strong agony, for I had been one of those +who had endured that these things should be. I had been one of +those who, well knowing that they were, had not desired to hear +or be compelled to think much of them, but had gone on as if +they were not, seeking my own pleasure and profit. Therefore +now I found upon my garments the blood of this great multitude +of strangled souls of my brothers. The voice of their blood +cried out against me from the ground. Every stone of the reeking +pavements, every brick of the pestilential rookeries, found a +tongue and called after me as I fled: What hast thou done with +thy brother Abel? + +I have no clear recollection of anything after this till I found +myself standing on the carved stone steps of the magnificent +home of my betrothed in Commonwealth Avenue. Amid the +tumult of my thoughts that day, I had scarcely once thought of +her, but now obeying some unconscious impulse my feet had +found the familiar way to her door. I was told that the family +were at dinner, but word was sent out that I should join them at +table. Besides the family, I found several guests present, all +known to me. The table glittered with plate and costly china. +The ladies were sumptuously dressed and wore the jewels of +queens. The scene was one of costly elegance and lavish luxury. +The company was in excellent spirits, and there was plentiful +laughter and a running fire of jests. + +To me it was as if, in wandering through the place of doom, +my blood turned to tears by its sights, and my spirit attuned to +sorrow, pity, and despair, I had happened in some glade upon a +merry party of roisterers. I sat in silence until Edith began to +rally me upon my sombre looks, What ailed me? The others +presently joined in the playful assault, and I became a target for +quips and jests. Where had I been, and what had I seen to make +such a dull fellow of me? + +"I have been in Golgotha," at last I answered. "I have seen +Humanity hanging on a cross! Do none of you know what sights +the sun and stars look down on in this city, that you can think +and talk of anything else? Do you not know that close to your +doors a great multitude of men and women, flesh of your flesh, +live lives that are one agony from birth to death? Listen! their +dwellings are so near that if you hush your laughter you will hear +their grievous voices, the piteous crying of the little ones that +suckle poverty, the hoarse curses of men sodden in misery turned +half-way back to brutes, the chaffering of an army of women +selling themselves for bread. With what have you stopped your +ears that you do not hear these doleful sounds? For me, I can +hear nothing else." + +Silence followed my words. A passion of pity had shaken me +as I spoke, but when I looked around upon the company, I saw +that, far from being stirred as I was, their faces expressed a cold +and hard astonishment, mingled in Edith's with extreme mortification, +in her father's with anger. The ladies were exchanging +scandalized looks, while one of the gentlemen had put up his +eyeglass and was studying me with an air of scientific curiosity. +When I saw that things which were to me so intolerable moved +them not at all, that words that melted my heart to speak had +only offended them with the speaker, I was at first stunned and +then overcome with a desperate sickness and faintness at the +heart. What hope was there for the wretched, for the world, if +thoughtful men and tender women were not moved by things +like these! Then I bethought myself that it must be because I +had not spoken aright. No doubt I had put the case badly. They +were angry because they thought I was berating them, when +God knew I was merely thinking of the horror of the fact +without any attempt to assign the responsibility for it. + +I restrained my passion, and tried to speak calmly and logically +that I might correct this impression. I told them that I had not +meant to accuse them, as if they, or the rich in general, were +responsible for the misery of the world. True indeed it was, that +the superfluity which they wasted would, otherwise bestowed, +relieve much bitter suffering. These costly viands, these rich +wines, these gorgeous fabrics and glistening jewels represented +the ransom of many lives. They were verily not without the +guiltiness of those who waste in a land stricken with famine. +Nevertheless, all the waste of all the rich, were it saved, would go +but a little way to cure the poverty of the world. There was so +little to divide that even if the rich went share and share with +the poor, there would be but a common fare of crusts, albeit +made very sweet then by brotherly love. + +The folly of men, not their hard-heartedness, was the great +cause of the world's poverty. It was not the crime of man, nor of +any class of men, that made the race so miserable, but a hideous, +ghastly mistake, a colossal world-darkening blunder. And then I +showed them how four fifths of the labor of men was utterly +wasted by the mutual warfare, the lack of organization and +concert among the workers. Seeking to make the matter very +plain, I instanced the case of arid lands where the soil yielded +the means of life only by careful use of the watercourses for +irrigation. I showed how in such countries it was counted the +most important function of the government to see that the +water was not wasted by the selfishness or ignorance of individuals, +since otherwise there would be famine. To this end its use +was strictly regulated and systematized, and individuals of their +mere caprice were not permitted to dam it or divert it, or in any +way to tamper with it. + +The labor of men, I explained, was the fertilizing stream +which alone rendered earth habitable. It was but a scanty stream +at best, and its use required to be regulated by a system which +expended every drop to the best advantage, if the world were to +be supported in abundance. But how far from any system was +the actual practice! Every man wasted the precious fluid as he +wished, animated only by the equal motives of saving his own +crop and spoiling his neighbor's, that his might sell the better. +What with greed and what with spite some fields were flooded +while others were parched, and half the water ran wholly to +waste. In such a land, though a few by strength or cunning +might win the means of luxury, the lot of the great mass must be +poverty, and of the weak and ignorant bitter want and perennial +famine. + +Let but the famine-stricken nation assume the function it had +neglected, and regulate for the common good the course of the +life-giving stream, and the earth would bloom like one garden, +and none of its children lack any good thing. I described the +physical felicity, mental enlightenment, and moral elevation +which would then attend the lives of all men. With fervency I +spoke of that new world, blessed with plenty, purified by justice +and sweetened by brotherly kindness, the world of which I had +indeed but dreamed, but which might so easily be made real. +But when I had expected now surely the faces around me to +light up with emotions akin to mine, they grew ever more dark, +angry, and scornful. Instead of enthusiasm, the ladies showed +only aversion and dread, while the men interrupted me with +shouts of reprobation and contempt. "Madman!" "Pestilent +fellow!" "Fanatic!" "Enemy of society!" were some of their cries, +and the one who had before taken his eyeglass to me exclaimed, +"He says we are to have no more poor. Ha! ha!" + +"Put the fellow out!" exclaimed the father of my betrothed, +and at the signal the men sprang from their chairs and advanced +upon me. + +It seemed to me that my heart would burst with the anguish +of finding that what was to me so plain and so all important was +to them meaningless, and that I was powerless to make it other. +So hot had been my heart that I had thought to melt an iceberg +with its glow, only to find at last the overmastering chill seizing +my own vitals. It was not enmity that I felt toward them as they +thronged me, but pity only, for them and for the world. + +Although despairing, I could not give over. Still I strove with +them. Tears poured from my eyes. In my vehemence I became +inarticulate. I panted, I sobbed, I groaned, and immediately +afterward found myself sitting upright in bed in my room in Dr. +Leete's house, and the morning sun shining through the open +window into my eyes. I was gasping. The tears were streaming +down my face, and I quivered in every nerve. + + +As with an escaped convict who dreams that he has been +recaptured and brought back to his dark and reeking dungeon, +and opens his eyes to see the heaven's vault spread above him, so +it was with me, as I realized that my return to the nineteenth +century had been the dream, and my presence in the twentieth +was the reality. + +The cruel sights which I had witnessed in my vision, and +could so well confirm from the experience of my former life, +though they had, alas! once been, and must in the retrospect to +the end of time move the compassionate to tears, were, God be +thanked, forever gone by. Long ago oppressor and oppressed, +prophet and scorner, had been dust. For generations, rich and +poor had been forgotten words. + +But in that moment, while yet I mused with unspeakable +thankfulness upon the greatness of the world's salvation and my +privilege in beholding it, there suddenly pierced me like a knife a +pang of shame, remorse, and wondering self-reproach, that +bowed my head upon my breast and made me wish the grave +had hid me with my fellows from the sun. For I had been a man +of that former time. What had I done to help on the deliverance +whereat I now presumed to rejoice? I who had lived in those +cruel, insensate days, what had I done to bring them to an end? I +had been every whit as indifferent to the wretchedness of my +brothers, as cynically incredulous of better things, as besotted a +worshiper of Chaos and Old Night, as any of my fellows. So far +as my personal influence went, it had been exerted rather to +hinder than to help forward the enfranchisement of the race +which was even then preparing. What right had I to hail a +salvation which reproached me, to rejoice in a day whose +dawning I had mocked? + +"Better for you, better for you," a voice within me rang, "had +this evil dream been the reality, and this fair reality the dream; +better your part pleading for crucified humanity with a scoffing +generation, than here, drinking of wells you digged not, and +eating of trees whose husbandmen you stoned"; and my spirit +answered, "Better, truly." + +When at length I raised my bowed head and looked forth +from the window, Edith, fresh as the morning, had come into +the garden and was gathering flowers. I hastened to descend to +her. Kneeling before her, with my face in the dust, I confessed +with tears how little was my worth to breathe the air of this +golden century, and how infinitely less to wear upon my breast +its consummate flower. Fortunate is he who, with a case so +desperate as mine, finds a judge so merciful. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Looking Backward From 2000 to 1887 + diff --git a/old/lkbak10.zip b/old/lkbak10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..683fa46 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lkbak10.zip |