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diff --git a/old/67432-0.txt b/old/67432-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5f25b56..0000000 --- a/old/67432-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4733 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Experiment in Altruism, by -Elizabeth Hastings - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: An Experiment in Altruism - -Author: Elizabeth Hastings - -Release Date: February 18, 2022 [eBook #67432] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EXPERIMENT IN -ALTRUISM *** - - - - - - AN EXPERIMENT IN ALTRUISM - - -[Illustration] - - - - - AN EXPERIMENT IN ALTRUISM - - - BY - - ELIZABETH HASTINGS - - “The world, which took but six days to make, is like to take six - thousand to make out.”—SIR THOMAS BROWNE. - - - New York - MACMILLAN AND CO. - AND LONDON - 1895 - - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1895, - BY MACMILLAN AND CO. - - - Norwood Press: - J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith. - Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - I. The Doctor, Janet, and I converse 1 - II. I explain why I am here 6 - III. I visit the Altruist 9 - IV. I meet the Man of the World 17 - V. I set forth the general situation 21 - VI. I become acquainted with the Lad 24 - VII. Janet and I converse about life and philanthropy 27 - VIII. The Lad meets Baby Jean 33 - IX. I visit Barnet House 37 - X. I visit the Woman’s Settlement 46 - XI. I describe the Butterfly Hunter 51 - XII. The Lad and I discuss religious matters 55 - XIII. The Doctor describes a case 62 - XIV. We act as committee 68 - XV. I rouse the sympathy of the Man of the World 74 - XVI. Janet and the Lad sit by the window 78 - XVII. I hear the Altruist lecture on Job 82 - XVIII. Another baby enters the world 88 - XIX. I describe our conferences and board-meetings 93 - XX. Janet and the Lad become better acquainted 103 - XXI. I almost decide to stop thinking 108 - XXII. The Young Reformer calls 111 - XXIII. I meet the People 117 - XXIV. I find everybody unhappy 126 - XXV. I introduce the Tailoress 131 - XXVI. I describe our afternoon teas 138 - XXVII. Baby Jean philosophizes 144 - XXVIII. We again act as committee 147 - XXIX. The Tailoress and I visit the Anarchist 153 - XXX. The Lad loses a lectureship 160 - XXXI. The Tailoress leads a strike 164 - XXXII. The Doctor sets forth her views 171 - XXXIII. Janet expounds her new philosophy 177 - XXXIV. I hear Polly’s story 183 - XXXV. I search for Polly 188 - XXXVI. The crisis comes 192 - XXXVII. I again explain the general situation 196 - XXXVIII. I say good-bye to the Lad 199 - XXXIX. Baby Jean plays with the telegram 202 - XL. I rebel against God and the Altruist 204 - XLI. I converse with the Doctor 208 - XLII. I find that Janet has no philosophy 211 - XLIII. I dry my pen, and again take up my Cause 214 - - - - - AN EXPERIMENT IN ALTRUISM - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -“When Tantalus,” said Janet, “was standing in the water that he could -not reach, and was dying of thirst, a Philosopher came by. ‘Don’t you -understand,’ said the Philosopher, ‘that what you want is _water_?’” - -“What do you mean by that?” I asked, turning to look at the girl’s face. -Her colour was shifting quickly in the cool October air. - -“I mean,” she answered, with her lips curling into her wickedest smile, -“that I have been talking with my cousin Paul. He explained, with an air -of giving information, that what I need is faith.” - -“Your cousin Paul,” growled the Doctor, “has a most remarkable way of -discovering what the rest of us have always known.” - -“Did you always know that?” asked the girl. “I had an idea that you -thought I needed a tonic.” - -“There’s the ‘brotherhood of man,’” the Doctor went on. “Your cousin -Paul thinks that he has discovered or invented the ‘brotherhood of -man.’” - -“Don’t you mean,” I suggested, “that he discovers and acts upon what the -rest of us have always known without letting it make any particular -difference?” - -“I cannot see that he is trying any harder than the rest of us to find -out how to treat his neighbour,” said the Doctor. “Living in the slums -is as comfortable nowadays as living anywhere else. At least, it is at -Barnet House. That has as good appointments as any house in the city.” - -“Good plumbing isn’t quite everything,” I ventured to say. - -“Those university men who go to live with the poor are too -supercilious,” said the Doctor. “They patronize humanity. And the -‘cousin Paul’ doesn’t stop there. He patronizes the Creator, too. He is -constantly reminding the Creator that He is being recognized by one of -the first families.” - -Janet laughed. “You are clever,” she said, “but you aren’t polite. Paul -does bend over a little in his efforts to help. But his mother’s son -could hardly avoid that. Think of the family!” - -“The whole thing is artificial,” continued the Doctor. “Your cousin goes -to live in a tenement, tries to become intimate with its inhabitants, -and carries up his own coal. He could never realize that it would be -just as lofty a course of action to carry coal in his own house in -Endicott Square, and to become intimate with his barber!” - -“That would not be picturesque,” said Janet. - -There was a pause. - -“You say he patronizes the Creator,” mused Janet. “Wouldn’t it be better -to say that he interprets God and patronizes man? I think that I dislike -the former more than the latter. He is so sure of his beliefs. And he is -so puzzled to know how any one can doubt what he believes.” - -The Doctor changed the subject with, “What you want is some work to do.” - -The girl’s smile vanished, and her face grew bitter. - -“What’s the use of working,” she demanded, “when it doesn’t mean -anything? You can never do the thing you want to do. You can only do -what somebody else wants to do. I am tired of succeeding in other -people’s ambitions.” - -“You haven’t had a great deal of experience of that kind, have you?” -asked the Doctor. - -She did not listen. “The world is buttoned up wrong,” she said, “just -one hole wrong. I get what you want, and somebody else wants what you -get. I believe that hopes were given to us simply in order to hurt. The -gods must enjoy dangling before our eyes, just out of reach, the things -we pray for. Probably they like to see us clutching the air.” - -“Do you know how to ride a horse?” asked the Doctor. - -“Yes.” - -“Then you had better do it, and let the gods alone. There is one good -thing about being on horseback: you can’t despair. If you do, you fall -off.” - -Here we reached my door, and I went in. I paused for a minute, to watch -the two women going down the street,—the Doctor, with her free, even -step; the girl with quick, irregular movements. - -It seemed to me that Janet was the most inexplicable of all the -inexplicable people I had met since my arrival, six weeks ago. Something -must have hurt her cruelly. She saw all life in the light of her own -pain, and she rebelled against the suffering whose ultimate meaning she -could not understand. - -Yet now, with the sunlight in her warm brown hair, she looked, in her -radiant colouring, like a symbol of all the joy and gladness in the -world. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -I had come to a strange city, to do a peculiar work. At last—and I was -thirty-nine years old—I was free to render humanity the service I had -always wanted to give. - -So I took up my Cause. What special cause it was there is no need to -say. It was one of those that are never won while the world sins on, and -yet are never lost. - -The city was new to me. Its streets, its spires, and its sky were all -strange. - -But not so strange as its ideas. I found that I had come to a centre of -new notions, and that my scheme was only one of many for the salvation -of mankind. All that was most advanced was represented here: new faiths, -new co-operative experiments in trade, new revelations of the occult. - -The men and women that I met filled me with astonishment. They were all -self-conscious and introspective. Most of them were brooding over -wrongs,—the concrete wrongs of others, or their own abstract injuries, -in a world that hid from them the great secret of existence. And they -were all devising ways and means to correct the misdeeds of man and of -God. - -Perhaps it was the many theories that lent a kind of unreality to the -life in the streets. I used almost to wonder if it were a pantomime, -arranged to illustrate our ideas. Something certainly made the -thoroughfares and the houses in the city look like scenery in a play, -and I was always half-expecting them to fold up and move off the stage. - -The street on which I lived was especially theatrical. Opposite was a -house consisting of one Gothic tower; the stucco houses next, with their -low windows and gabled roofs, suggested Nürenburg. Near by was a studio -building, guarded by two carven lions; and round the corner stood a huge -armoury, with a machicolated roof. It all looked like a mediæval -background, prepared for the tumult of a play. - -But the tumult never came. Nothing ever disturbed us there except great -thoughts. - -If it had not been for the Cause, I should have been lonely. Not that it -was especially companionable, but that it made me acquainted with the -Doctor and the Altruist, and, in fact, with all the other people, except -the Lad, and the Man of the World, and the Butterfly Hunter. They were -at my boarding-place. - -The Altruist was Janet’s cousin Paul. It was he who introduced me to -Janet, and to her namesake, little Jean. They lived opposite in one of -the gray stucco houses. Jean was a year-old baby, and her godmother a -young woman of twenty-four. - -I used often to see them together upstairs, Jean’s yellow head shining -against her aunt’s brown hair. I liked to think of them as I went -wandering with my ideas about abstract humanity through this visionary -town. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -The Altruist was terribly in earnest. He considered our social system -all wrong, and he wrote and lectured and preached about it constantly. - -He lived in one of the city slums. - -The morning after my arrival I went down to the East End to ask him -about his work. I had heard much about him. He had left a home of great -beauty to go to that sin-stricken corner of the city, and the fame of -his sacrifice had spread abroad. - -I found him nailing a board to the steps of the tenement-house where he -lived. He greeted me cordially, holding out a small, shapely right hand -in welcome. - -The house stood in a row of tall tenements, near the terminus of an -elevated road. All round it the streets were swarming with children, -Russian and Jewish children, dirty, ragged, and forlorn. Some of them -were kicking dirt toward the Altruist’s clean steps; others were eyeing -him with respectful curiosity. - -“What do you do down here? How can you help?” I asked when the Altruist -had seated me in his study. It was in the rear of the building, on the -ground floor, and it looked out into a densely populated court. - -“Do? Oh, very little actual work. I just live, for the most part,” he -answered, smiling. - -He still held in his hand the hammer with which he had been working. I -watched him closely, as he sat in the rough wooden chair in the bare, -uncarpeted room. - -He was a small man, with vivid blue eyes and dark hair. There was a -touch of excitement in his manner, and I thought I detected in his face -a certain dramatic interest in the situation. - -“I live quietly in my rooms here,” he continued. It was hard to hear his -voice above the noise of the court and the roar of the elevated trains. -“There is no organized work that I am attempting. I have even given up -my church, in order that no machinery may interfere with my purely human -relation to my neighbours. I am trying simply to lead a normal life -among my brethren. I study; I make calls and receive them. There is -nothing extraordinary in the situation. I merely choose my friends, and -choose them here, instead of up-town.” - -I glanced at the hammer that the Altruist’s hands were clasping -nervously. A look of exultation crept into his eyes. - -“Yes, I repair the doorstep,” he said. “That I do not do up-town. But -somebody has to do it here. I am willing to do anything that will -convince my friends here of my desire for good-fellowship.” - -The pathos of this unasked service touched me. It was full of the -everlasting irony of zeal; the queer achievement mocked the great -design. - -“But do you not feel a little at a loss,” I asked, “as to what to do -next?” - -“Does one feel at a loss in De Ruyter or in Endicott Square?” demanded -the Altruist, defiantly. - -“I have come down here because I have seen great misery,—misery of -poverty, misery of sin. I have cast in my lot with the victims of our -civilization. The awful condition of these people is the result not only -of their transgression of the laws of God, but also of our transgression -of the law of Christ. Our whole social and industrial systems are built -up on the law of competition, the law of beasts, by which the greedier -and stronger snatch the portion of the weak.” - -The Altruist had clasped his hands over the end of the upright hammer, -and was leaning his chin against them. His voice had taken a high key, -and it sounded as if it came from a long way off. - -“These people are weak, and are trodden under foot. They are trodden -under our feet, and their blood is on our garments.” - -He spoke solemnly, and his eyes gleamed with the look of inspiration -that the world’s fanatics share with the world’s saints. - -“But,” I stammered, with a half-guilty feeling, “your being here does -not bring these people bread.” - -“It does not,” said the Altruist, “but it brings a little beauty into -their lives. I share the work of the residents at Barnet House. We have -clubs of all kinds. We have musicales and art exhibitions. There is much -that is definite in our effort.” - -Looking up, I caught sight of some Burne-Jones pictures on the -roughly-plastered walls of the study. - -“Isn’t it like trying to feed a hungry lion with rose-leaves?” I asked. - -The Altruist’s face lighted up. - -“It is not what we do that is important,” he said. “We stand for an -eternal truth. Barnet House and my study here are only symbols of our -faith. They have inestimable value, not in our petty achievement, but as -a declaration of the right of our fellow-man to our sympathy and love.” - -I listened with interest as my host proceeded to set forth his criticism -of society and to unfold his plans for its reform. He talked -brilliantly. - -The race fell short of its grandest possibilities, he said, in losing -its hold on abstract truths. Devotion to an ideal was forgotten in the -adjustment of human lives to one another, rather than to something above -and beyond them. In attempting to solve minor concrete problems, society -had dissipated all energy for lofty thought. - -In confiding to me his ideas for reconstruction the Altruist talked of -human life as if it were something in which he did not share; as if he -stood apart from its real issues, apart, and higher than his fellows, to -whom he reached down a helping hand. - -His conversation enabled me to understand his face. It was full of a -fierce enthusiasm, which life had not yet tamed. - -I found myself saying: “But your life is ascetic. In your devotion to an -idea you sacrifice too much; you are like monks.” - -“Not at all,” he maintained. “We take no vow. Our life is wonderfully -broad and free. Instead of being bound by mere individual experience we -share the lives of all.” - -I wondered that I had not thought of this before. - -“The usual existence of married people,” he said deliberately, “with its -narrow, selfish interests, seems to me, especially in the case of women, -largely animal. They cannot know the higher joys of service to one’s -kind.” - -It was strange to hear these opinions coming from the rounded, childlike -lips. - -“There is no reason,” he went on, “why families should not come down -here to share their lives with the poor. That would be in some ways a -better solution of the problem than Barnet House, or my solitary effort. -Surely it is the duty of the cultured, to whom much has been given, to -share of their abundance with those who starve.” - -“But the children,—” I suggested. “It would not be possible to bring up -children in such associations.” - -“I sometimes think,” said the Altruist, “that a further sacrifice is -necessary in order to wipe out the sins of our forefathers. Perhaps, in -order to be free for this great work, it is the duty of the race to -abstain for a generation from bringing children into the world,—for a -generation or two,” he added dreamily. - -“That,” I assented mentally, as I rose to go, “would certainly be -effectual.” - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -The Man of the World (I shall introduce my friends in the order in which -I met them; it is not artistic, but neither is life)—the Man of the -World was fourteen years old. - -I made his acquaintance in this wise. - -One night I went down early to dinner. As I waited in the parlour for -the bell to ring, a portière was drawn, and there entered what I -supposed to be a little boy. He was so short, chubby, and round-faced -that at first sight he looked younger than he was. I bent over, saying -graciously as I held out my hand,— - -“I wonder if you will tell me your name?” - -When he looked up I realized what I had done. Evidently a mistaken world -was in the habit of confusing smallness of stature with lack of -experience. - -“I beg your pardon?” was all he said, but the touch of dignity in the -childish petulance of his tone rebuked me. That was the last time I ever -patronized Morey Steiner. - -The chill in the atmosphere was not dispelled even when he was formally -presented to me by our hostess. - -At dinner the Man of the World and I sat side by side. It was not until -I asked him if he cared for Jefferson’s Rip Van Winkle that my disgrace -was retrieved. Dramatic criticism was the child’s strong point,—one of -his strong points. - -He told me that he thought Rip Van Winkle rather amusing. Then he asked -me if I did not consider the knife-whetting business in Irving’s Shylock -rather stagey. The part that he cared for most of all was Mr. -Mansfield’s Beau Brummell. - -Yes, he went to the theatre a great deal, sometimes with his father or -his sisters, sometimes alone. That was his father, those were his -sisters. His mother was dead. The family had just come to the city, and -they were going to stay at this place until they found a house to live -in. - -I saw that his father represented money, and, looking down at the -worldly-wise scrap of a lad at my side, I realized what wealth and -American civilization can do for the very young. - -“Did I play cards?” he asked suddenly. “No? Perhaps his brother would -teach me when he came. His brother played well.” - -The end of the dinner interrupted our discussion of horses. It also -interrupted the Man of the World in the act of storing away nuts and -candies in his pocket. He was glad I liked riding. - -“Perhaps,” he said, drawing my chair back for me (the Man of the World -was a perfect gentleman—at times) “we can have a ride in the park -together some day.” - -Presently I found myself watching him as he conversed with my hostess’ -daughter in the parlour. The round face was heavy when he was silent. -When he talked, it lit up with precocious intelligence. He had a _blasé_ -air, as of one who is permanently weary of many things, and in his blue -eyes I saw gleams of the knowledge of good and evil. The child was -old,—as old as the serpent in the garden. - -He was destined to much mortification that night. My mistake was -repeated with emphasis by another boarder, an elderly gentleman in -black. - -He chucked the Man of the World under the chin when the latter rose -politely to say, “Won’t you take my chair, sir?” - -“Thank you, thank you, little boy,” said the old gentleman, “and who -might you be?” - -We all suffered for a moment. Then the child said,— - -“I _might_ be the Prince of Wales, but I am Morey Steiner.” - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -Something at last became real to me: that was the misery of the poor. It -seemed sadder than anything else in the world, except the misery of -their benefactors. I could hardly tell whether, in this great tragedy of -poverty, it was actor or spectator who suffered most. - -I saw on the one side hunger, sin, ignorance, and they weighed down upon -me like a nightmare. I became familiar with the crowded quarters of the -city, where the population was nine hundred to the acre. I knew the -inside of great shops, where women worked and starved on two dollars a -week. - -On the other side I saw brave attempts to help, that were yet half -futile. There were charities, religious and secular; relief-giving -societies, working into the hands of general organizations; there were -settlements among the poor. But they all fought against frightful odds. -The lot of many who were trying to help was to look and suffer, -impotently. - -A kind of morbid fascination drew me continually to the foreign -quarters. I liked the picturesqueness of the crowded streets, where -women in gay head-dresses chattered, holding their babies in their arms. -I liked the alley-ways lined with old-clothes shops, and the corners -where Russians, Italians, Germans, Jews congregated, talking, laughing, -quarrelling. The quaint children in old-world garments interested me; -and the aged, wrinkled faces of men and women roused often a feeling of -remembrance, as if I had known them somewhere, in book or picture. - -The most crowded district was near the sea. A broad thoroughfare called -Traffic Street skirted the city at the water edge. On the outer side -were enormous warehouses and dock-yards; on the inner, tall tenements. - -Looking between the great buildings, I caught sudden glimpses of blue -water, with my old friends, the white sea-gulls, floating overhead. And -often, in coming down rickety tenement-house steps, from scenes that -left me sick and faint, the sight of tall masts of ships thrilled me -with their inevitable suggestion of freedom and escape. - -I had begun to feel that the misery of it was greater than I could bear. -Then suddenly the Lad appeared. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - -The Lad was a great comfort to me. - -I had for several days been conscious of the presence of a new-comer in -the house. He was a young Southerner, with fine dark eyes, and -extraordinary alertness of body. - -There was something in the stranger’s face that pleased me. Perhaps it -was his resolute mouth and a certain air of high-mindedness. Perhaps it -was only the boyish way in which his soft hair waved back from his -forehead. - -I called him “the Lad,” because he looked so young by the side of the -Man of the World. - -One day as I was talking with my friend, the Butterfly Hunter, I was -startled by being told that the Lad had done some brilliant scientific -work, and had already made for himself a reputation. - -“He is only a boy!” I exclaimed. - -“He is a man of twenty-seven,” said the Lad, who had come in unnoticed. - -After that we became acquainted rapidly. - -I had never seen anybody so keenly alive. He was eager, restless, -quivering with vitality. There was a kind of ferocity in his way of -working; he was busy finishing a book, with a name occupying two lines. -I do not yet know what it means. And he walked every day for miles, -coming home hungry and tired. - -I found myself trying to classify him. I had fallen into the habit of -classifying everybody. Was he more interested in his own soul, I -wondered, or in the oppression of the working-man? - -My astonishment was very great to discover that he rarely thought about -his soul, and that he was not trying to reform anything. - -This was partly because he was so busy. His whole effort was centred in -his work, and everything else was crowded out. - -“I feel the strength of my youth upon me,” he said one day, “but I have -done so little, and the days are so short.” - -Before I knew it I was taking long walks with the Lad, by the bridges -over the tidal river north of the city, or eastward by the shipping and -the sea. We watched the sailing of out-bound vessels, and the landing of -emigrants from returning ships. - -He told me about his father and his sister. He talked, too, a great deal -about his work, insisted on talking about it, although he knew that I -could not understand him. - -I presently came to be a kind of maiden aunt to him. I gave him advice -on various matters. I introduced him to Janet and the Doctor and the -Altruist, who all regarded him as a new and interesting specimen. - -The longer I knew him, the more he cheered me. There was something in -his very presence that was like the coming of the young west wind. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - “Her device, within a ring of clouds, a heart with shine about - it.”—BEN JONSON. - - -“But what do you do it for? You can’t help. You only harrow up your own -feelings.” It was Janet who spoke, perverse, unhappy, winsome Janet, -sitting in a tall, old-fashioned chair at the side of her little -tea-table. - -“I suppose that it is better,” I answered slowly, “to have one’s -feelings harrowed up over other people than over one’s self.” - -“That’s a very neat thrust,” said the girl. “Thank you. Do you know what -the Doctor says about all this reform-scheming and theorizing?” - -“No.” - -“That it is all ‘shoveling-fog.’ That is a ’longshore expression. Don’t -you like it?” - -“Very much,” I said. “But doesn’t it suit as well any kind of talking, -even the discussion of the ‘Is-life-worth-living’ question?” - -“You must have been doing some especially good deed,” said Janet, -leaning her pretty head against the back of her chair and looking at me -through half-shut eyes. “You are so disagreeable. There isn’t any soil -that philanthropy thrives in so well as in the ruins of the social and -domestic virtues.” - -“Child,” I said, “I did not mean to be personal. Why don’t you stop -thinking, and try to find shoes and stockings for some of my poor -people?” - -Quick tears sprang into her shining eyes. - - “‘I sometimes think it were best just to let the Lord alone; - I am sure some people forget he was there before they came,’” - -she quoted. “I do not know what the poor have done that I should descend -upon them as a last affliction. First, dirt; then a financial crisis and -no work; then hunger and cold; and then I. It is like the plagues in -Egypt.” - -I leaned back in my chair, powerless. It was becoming evident to me that -no one could solve Janet’s problems for her. - -“It would be cowardly,” she said. “Because I am unhappy, should I try to -work off my ill-humour upon the poor?” - -“They might like to look at you,” I suggested. - -She was making tea, and she stopped, holding a dainty cup in her right -hand, to look up at me. That face, whose expression changed so often, -baffled and fascinated me. The mouth curved often into cynical smiles, -but the eyes were the eyes of a dreamer. At times Janet seemed to me a -child. At times she bore the weary expression of one who has fought many -battles and has won but few. - -“No,” she said. “I am one of the people whose agnosticism absolves them -from all action. You know the type. We find it difficult to get up in -the morning or to button our boots because we cannot comprehend the -infinite. Really, agnosticism makes a very soft down cushion on which to -recline at one’s ease.” - -“Don’t you sometimes get tired of thrusting arrows into yourself?” I -asked. “It must be hard to be a St. Sebastian where you have to be -persecutor and martyr too.” - -“Please don’t make epigrams,” said the girl. “It is a sign of -degeneracy. I am sorry to see you beginning to show traces of it.” - -“I thought perhaps you would not understand me if I did not try to speak -in epigrams,” I answered meekly. - -Janet rose from her chair and came over to stand at my side, brushing -back, with kindly fingers, a lock of hair that had escaped from under my -bonnet. - -“But to go back to the question of good works,” she said. “It seems to -me that it is useless to try anything. Listen. When I was twelve years -old I wanted to do some work for the city charity organization. - -“They sent me to take two aprons to a woman on Harrow Street. ‘It was -quite safe,’ they said. So I went down through the dirty street into an -inner court, and began to climb the stairs. It was perfectly dark; it -was unutterably filthy. - -“The woman, I found, lived in the garret, and, after the last flight of -stairs, I had to climb a ladder to reach her. In the loft at the top of -the ladder I saw,—I shall never forget it!—a woman diseased, shrunken, -helpless. Half her face was withered and gone; she was cold, hungry, -dirty. Two miserable little girls were crawling around her, crying. - -“And I stood there stupefied, unable to speak, unable to grasp all the -horror before me. I could do nothing for them. I only stared, -helplessly, and petted the little girls. Then I gave that bed-ridden -woman the two gingham aprons and came away. - -“That scene made an impression upon me that I shall never lose. Since -then, all the charity work I have heard of has seemed as ironic as that. -Such misery is hopeless. Something deeper than human misdeeds must be -the cause. I cannot help it; I cannot help believing that we are the -sport of the gods, who sit behind the curtain and laugh at our hurt.” - -In the pause that followed, Janet went to the window, forgetting to put -down the empty cup that she had taken from me. - -Suddenly she turned to me, with her chin raised in defiance. - -“Moreover,” she said slowly, “I don’t want to forget my own life -entirely in the lives of other people. I want it all, the pleasure and -the pain of it, the whole cup down to the dregs.” - -There was nothing for me to say; I rose to go. - -“What do you think of the Lad?” I asked. - -The girl’s face brightened. “He is interesting,” she said. “He is so -different. It seems to me that he is the only one of us who is really -living. The rest of us are merely talking about it.” - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - -Whether she went driving in royal state under her white carriage robes, -or watched from the nursery window the people passing below, or stood in -her little night-dress on her brass bed before being tucked in, Jean was -always adorable. - -One day I took the Lad to see her. - -He had already called at the house a number of times, but Jean had never -been brought down to the parlour. - -Perhaps he had never before been acquainted with a little child. I saw -him watch every motion of her yellow head as she sat on the floor, -looking solemnly at the people about her. Jean was a grave baby. - -Presently she lifted her hand and very earnestly pointed one tiny finger -at the Lad. - -I had seen her do this many times. It was her usual way of expressing -approval of a new acquaintance. But the Lad had never seen it, and to -him it meant, “Thou art the man.” - -He begged to be allowed to take her up. As he lifted her, his face -flushed. - -I did not tell him that she clung to him so closely, and refused so -peremptorily to go to any one else, partly because his arms were so -strong. Jean liked the grasp of firm muscles. To the Lad it seemed that -her obstinacy was only love for him. - -He would not go home. Sitting before the open fire, he gazed at the -child on his knee, and ignored all my glances. - -Jean looked at him steadily for a long time, her hazel eyes meeting his -of darker brown. Then she played with his watch-chain. Presently she was -induced to display all her accomplishments. She pointed to her feet when -they were named, to her eyes, her hair, and even, ‘by request,’ to her -tongue. - -Sitting there and watching them in the shadows of the firelight, I could -not help thinking how much alike they were. - -Jean played until she was sleepy; then she yawned, and the Lad laughed -to see the tears come into her eyes. - -By and by her head nodded; she was almost asleep. Not content with her -position, she crawled up, as she did with her father, and put her head -down in the Lad’s neck, then went to sleep with one helpless hand -hanging over his shoulder, the other softly patting him. - -The Lad started when she put down her head; then he held her close. - -It was partly the way in which his arm curled round her, and partly the -light from her fuzzy hair that made them look like the Murillo picture -of Saint Anthony and the Christ-child. - -When I went over to take Jean away, the Lad looked up, and I saw that -his eyes were moist with tears. - -They were faithful lovers after that. Jean used to watch for him from -the windows upstairs, and sometimes when she saw him coming she would -smile. - -He called often, always asking for her. (This was partly because he did -not dare ask each time for Janet.) And the child was carried downstairs -with her arms stretched out impatiently to meet him. - -One night he arrived when she was asleep, but her mother sent for her. -The nurse came in softly, cradling the child in her arms. Her yellow -hair was wet and curly about her face; below her white night-dress hung -one baby foot. - -The Lad bent down and kissed it. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - -My fellow-philanthropists talked much of the “Settlement Idea.” Its -adherents maintained that the world had not yet seen any self-sacrifice -so beautiful as this attempt to share the lives of the poor by living -among them. On the other hand, members of old, thoroughly organized, -comfortable societies for doing good pronounced the new methods -extremely vague. - -I wished to see for myself. - -Before I had visited Barnet House, the settlement of university men in -Brand Street, a similar house was opened by young college women in the -West End. - -The Altruist went with me to Barnet House on Wednesday afternoon, when -the residents always had a musicale or a reading for their friends in -the neighbourhood. As we drew near the house and saw the white curtains -and green plants in the window, shining out from among the dirt-begrimed -tenements, I said to myself (my mood being severe) that it looked -pretty, but sentimental. I tried to remember who had called this kind of -effort to elevate the slums “a philanthropic picnic in a wilderness of -sin.” - -We were ushered by a tall young man into a great sunshiny room that was -full of easy chairs and books and pictures. - -This was one of the residents, the Altruist said in introducing him. He -would doubtless be kind enough to tell me what I wished to know. - -“The Settlement Idea is very simple,” said the Resident, in answer to my -questions. He spoke with an air of dignity that seemed too old for him. -“A number of people who wish to help the poor find a house, put it into -good sanitary condition, and go to live there together, doing some -independent work, and some work in common.” - -“But what kind of work?” I asked. “Pardon me,—I can understand why you -come, but not what you do when you get here.” - -The Resident apparently did not notice the touch of discourtesy in my -remark. - -“The Settlement,” he said, looking hesitatingly toward the Altruist, -“serves two purposes. It is a station for philanthropic work, and also a -centre for social investigation.” - -“What is social investigation?” I asked bluntly. - -To my delight the young man laughed. “That is a quotation from an -article I am writing. It sounds rather bookish, doesn’t it?” - -“It is a very good sentence,—for an article,” I admitted. - -“Why, you see,” said the Resident, his eyes twinkling, “social -investigation means drains and foods and that kind of thing.” - -“Yes?” I said inquiringly. - -“And immorality and crime and amusements. Also wages and causes of -popular discontent. In fact, it embraces almost everything.” - -The mingled audacity and shyness of the boy’s manner were very winning. -I was becoming interested, but the Altruist looked deeply pained by this -lightness of tone. - -“How is this work carried on?” I asked. - -“By visits,” said the Resident briefly, “and statistics.” - -“You go out from here to make the visits upon the poor—” - -“And then we make the statistics,” he interrupted, “and publish them.” - -Suddenly he became grave, and in doing so made himself seem ten years -older. - -“You look sceptical,” he said. “I am myself, sometimes. But, seriously, -I think that this thing is worth doing. We come because we are really -interested in these people. We are interested in all kinds of ways. One -man here is doing regular missionary work. Another is writing a book -about the reasons for unsanitary living in the slums, and is -investigating the condition of every tenement in the East End. There’s a -literary man here, looking for material. He goes around getting local -colour, but he helps, too, and isn’t so useless as he might seem to be.” - -“Helps in what?” I asked. - -“In the collective work done by the House,” said the Resident. “We have -all kinds of clubs,—literary, political, and scientific. You see, though -each man is doing his own private work, we have organized effort. It -isn’t all exploration. However, I believe I made our twofold object -clear in that opening sentence. - -“Then there are art exhibitions and lectures. We invite our neighbours -to come to hear music, and to come to take baths. We charge five cents -for the baths. The music is free. We have dinner parties too, and -receptions. You ought to see the costumes that the East End can turn -out. A Brand Street swell in his evening dress is a sight for gods and -men.” - -“I don’t see what you talk about,” I said. “Your guests must be hard to -entertain.” - -“Oh, we talk about dime museums and Tammany and the things that happen -in the streets. That’s when we are adapting ourselves to our guests. -Then we show them pictures, and talk about high art and literature. -That’s when we are adapting our guests to us. It’s immensely elevating -for them, immensely, just to talk with us.” - -I found that my objections to the Settlement Idea were vanishing rapidly -before this young man’s sense of humour. - -“It really doesn’t do the people down here a great deal of harm,” he was -saying, “and it does us a great deal of good.” - -“Is your interest in the practical or in the theoretical side of the -work?” I asked. - -“In the latter. I am a student of economics, and have just taken my -Ph.D. degree. Lately,” he added, flushing, “I have become a Socialist.” - -The Altruist looked pleased. - -“The state of things down here has convinced me that an entire -reconstruction of our whole industrial system is the only thing that can -help the poor.” - -I asked him if the misery of the poor had not been much exaggerated in -the sensational reform journals. - -“It could not be exaggerated,” he said vehemently. “No, the half has not -been told.” - -As he recounted tale after tale of the sin and suffering caused by -unrighteous laws of trade, I sat numb with that sense of personal hurt -that one feels on first knowing that these things are true. - -But the Resident stopped, for the bell rang, and a “neighbour” entered. - -The other residents came in; several more guests arrived, and the -Altruist, who had been unusually silent for the last fifteen minutes, -became the centre of a group of listeners. - -One of the callers was a Salvation Army captain, whose regiment was -passing through the city. One was a street-car driver. He had half an -hour off, and had come to ask the time of a lecture to be given that -night. Mrs. Milligan, the washerwoman who lived next door, ran in with -her youngest boy. Then came a lady from Endicott Square, in a superb -Parisian gown. - -We conversed most amicably in the intervals of the music. When this was -over, a domestic appeared with a tray, and the literary man made tea. - -Before I left I had a few more words with the young Socialist. - -“There’s no use talking,” he said earnestly. “However little direct -practical good we do, there is no doubt that our opportunity is great -for investigating. It is obviously better to study the working of -economic laws in society itself than in books. I am trying to get -acquainted with the working-people, and look at their grievances from -their point of view. Socialism has been treated entirely too much from -the standpoint of the scholar and the fanatic. I want to work in a more -practical way, getting at the new political economy in the making.” - -I came away quite willing to allow any number of young men with Ph.D. -degrees, and honest enthusiasm, and a saving sense of fun, to live in -the slums. - -But I did not admit this to the Altruist. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - -After a first visit to the settlement of young women in the West End I -found myself going there very often. The gracious friendliness with -which I was met attracted me strongly, and I became more and more -interested in the social experiment. - -This new house was not in the slums. It stood in one of the old city -squares, whose aristocratic inhabitants had long ago drifted away, -leaving empty rooms for the families of mechanics and poorly paid -clerks. - -Life here was gray and monotonous. Into it my young girl friends had -rushed, with little knowledge of its actual conditions, but with a firm -determination to change them for the better. This kind of poverty did -not mean starvation, they said, but something worse: dearth of culture, -of beauty, of ideas. - -They were all political economists of the school of Ruskin. - -The residents numbered ten. Some of them were girls fresh from college; -others were women who bore marks of years of brain-work. At their head -was a slender, dignified lady, who, after ten years of academic life, -had resigned a college professorship in the classics for the sake of -closer contact with humanity. - -All phases of the activity in the house soon became familiar to me. - -Sometimes I found the doors stormed by crowds of eager children, waiting -the moment when the ladies should permit them to enter, that they might -deposit pennies in the bank, or take books from the library. - -Once I watched a Mothers’ Meeting conducted by a fair-haired girl of -twenty-two. - -I visited the boys’ clubs, and realized that the rough lads were -learning courtesy, and much besides. - -Certain evenings were purely social. Then we conversed, or listened to -music, or read stories aloud. On these occasions I learned many useful -things from the “neighbours,” about house-keeping, and the bringing up -of children, and even about politics. - -One shabby little woman, whose husband had marched away with an -industrial delegation to present a petition to Congress, told me that a -terrible revolution was coming in which the working-man would at last -gain his rights by means of powder and shot. - -It would be hard to tell all the ways in which these young collegians -“drew nearer the People”: through medicines given out by the resident -physician in the dispensary downstairs; through presentations of Mrs. -Jarley’s wax-works, and of scenes from eighteenth century comedy; -through the lending of cook-books and of treatises on philosophy. - -Once I even saw a resident taking care of a neighbour’s baby while the -mother went shopping. The young philanthropist told me, however, the -next time I saw her, that she had resolved not to dissipate her energy -in that way. - -But nothing else edified me so much as the evening discussions on -problems of the day. The young women were even more eager than the men -at Barnet House to walk in step with great popular movements. Some of -them were fairly well equipped for practical economic study. Others were -collecting statistics with the most engaging ignorance. - -Every week, a club devoted to the study of social science, the “William -Morris League,” met at the Settlement. On these evenings the head of the -House sat, Lady Abbess fashion, with nun and novice at her side. - -And men and women from various trades-unions, cigar-makers, street-car -drivers, cotton-spinners, garment-workers, a motley group, listened to a -paper on (perhaps): “How to form Protective Unions among Under-Paid -Women.” - -For the deliverance of the working-woman was the hope that lay nearest -the Settlement’s heart. - -I always went away from these discussions with feelings of mingled pride -and amusement. These were strong and earnest young women, inspired by no -wish for notoriety, but eager to help and to understand. - -Yet it was a queer world, where the maidens formed trades-unions, and -young men were making tea! - -It was very good tea. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - -The only serene face among us was that of the Butterfly Hunter. The eyes -of the Altruist were clouded by the wrath of denunciation; the Lad’s -were full of unfulfilled desire; and my own, I knew, were troubled: they -had been for so long a time a mirror for pictures of sorrow. Into -Janet’s face crept more and more often the puzzled expression of those -who mistake their own bad moods for philosophic thought. - -But the Hunter of Butterflies wore a look of peace. - -I mistook this at first for the peace of attainment. It was not that: he -was still pursuing—pursuing his butterfly. - -He was, they told me, a noted entomologist. Many years ago he had -discovered a very rare butterfly, the _Erebia winifredæ_. He had -classified and named it, but had never been able to follow its entire -history. With the scientist’s fine sense of the importance of the least -details he was still studying it. - -This winter he had come to the city in order to work with a member of -the faculty in the university. They were attempting to raise the insect -under artificial conditions, and were carefully watching its growth. - -The difficulty of observing it in its home is very great, for it can be -found only during certain portions of the year, and at great altitudes. -It lives in the Himalaya Mountains, and in the Caucasus, just below the -snow-line, in the bleak regions of rock and sedge. - -I heard the story of its discovery. Years ago, when the scientist was -young, he had gone with an exploring party through India to the southern -side of the Himalayas. On one long walk he lost his way, and found -himself at the bottom of a deep gully, whose walls were apparently too -steep to climb. He was alone. - -There was nothing to do except to scale the cliff. It was a perilous -journey. After hours of painful struggle the young man reached the top, -in a state of utter exhaustion. By a last effort he drew himself up over -the edge of the precipice, and lay fainting for a time, prostrate on the -rock. - -When he woke, he found under his outstretched hand a little dark -butterfly, with gold dust on its wings. It was his butterfly, and it -made his name famous. - -Every summer since that time he had climbed to the limit of vegetation, -and had camped there on desolate mountain sides for weeks, watching the -butterfly’s growth. He knew where and how it laid its eggs. He knew on -what it fed. He had watched it change from grub to winged creature, and -yet it baffled him. - -He could not find out the length of its life. The seasons of warmth at -the altitude of its home were short, and a part of its existence was -passed in seasons when he could not study it. - -He had brought home a collection of specimens with which to experiment. -A room upstairs was devoted to them. Several times I was invited to -enter. - -I liked to watch the Butterfly Hunter as he bent his gray head over the -cocoons. He was a tall man, and slender and lithe as a boy, from much -walking. - -That kindly, weather-beaten face puzzled me. I could not tell whether or -no traces of passionate human experience lay hidden under the look of -absorbing interest in the specimens he held in his hand. - -He would bend over the little gray winding-sheets, touch one with his -finger, reverently, then look on in silence. - -_His_ butterfly! - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - -The Lad did not tell me how deeply he was interested in Janet. He simply -talked about her a large part of the time when he was with me. At first -it had been the book that filled his thought; now it was Janet and the -book. - -Perhaps he did not know how far he was taking me into his confidence. -Perhaps he did not care. - -Janet puzzled him. “I don’t understand,” he said one day when we were -taking one of our long walks. “She seems to be an absolute pessimist, -and yet she takes a strong interest in some things.” - -“For instance?” - -“Well, in gowns.” He spoke unwillingly. - -“She would not have any right to be a pessimist about her gowns,” I -said. “They are too pretty.” - -Here the Lad shot past me with his long stride. He had a way of -forgetting me for a minute, and of walking swiftly ahead. He always -turned and came back to apologize, and yet I objected decidedly to this -phase of his absent-mindedness. It was hardly deferential, I thought, to -a person of my years. - -“You walk,” I said, when he paused to beg my pardon, “as if you had air -in your bones. You must be related to the birds.” - -“I was thinking,” he said, “and I forgot. I was thinking how strange it -is to find women facing the newer criticism and making up their minds on -religious matters. In the South they do not do it. They are all -orthodox. It goes with being a woman.” - -“I wonder why?” - -“Partly because it is expected of them. Most of the men I know want -their wives to take the beaten paths, no matter how far they themselves -have strayed from them. Marriage of that kind doesn’t seem marriage to -me. I want my wife—if I ever have one—to share all of my life, the -intellectual part of it as well as the rest. - -“That’s one thing I like about your friend,” he continued, apparently -unconscious of the connection of ideas. There was a great deal of the -scholar’s _naïveté_ about the Lad. “She is so broad-minded. She looks at -things as fairly and impersonally as a man does.” - -I changed the subject abruptly, for I perceived that the Lad was going -to say more than he meant to about Janet. - -“How did you reach your present position?” I asked, for lack of -something better. “You are an agnostic, I suppose?” - -“In religious matters, yes,” he answered. “And the reason is, that after -I had been trained in methods of scientific thought, dogmatic thought -became impossible. All the theology I know anything about is founded on -arbitrary dogma.” - -“To an outsider,” I said slowly, “science seems at times dogmatic. Are -not its sceptical conclusions out of proportion to its actual -achievement? You scientists deny beyond your power to prove. Kingsley -convicted you once for all in the argument about the water-babies, and -he did it by your own methods. You have ‘no right to say that God does -not exist until you have seen him not-existing.’” - -But the Lad thought I was trifling. - -“You are mistaken,” he maintained. “Genuine science neither asserts nor -denies where it cannot prove. It is silent about the ideas of God and of -immortality, because it cannot find any basis for scientific reasoning. -It is magnificent,—that reverence that keeps it from making great -unprovable statements about things in general. Oh, think of the patience -with which scientists study the least things, and the self-control that -keeps them from drawing conclusions before they have reached them, and -the splendid faith with which they go on working!” - -The Lad’s eyes glowed with enthusiasm. - -“Of course, my present position is not final,” he added. “I expect to go -on. I have tremendous faith in doubt.” - -“You are creative even in your doubting,” I reflected. - -“Of course,” said the Lad. “Otherwise there would not be the least use -in doubting.” - -I told him that I had never known disbelief so eager and enthusiastic. -Agnosticism, as I had watched it, had weakened the whole moral fibre. -With Janet, for instance, loss of faith in God had meant loss of faith -in herself and in everything else. - -“I can’t understand that,” said the Lad. “The feeling that the old -ground is slipping from under me makes me want to gird up my loins and -start to find new. - -“But there is a terrible amount of suffering in the mental growth of the -race,” he continued, after a pause. “I can stand the loss of the hope -and comfort in the old ideas, but I can’t stand the pain that my changed -belief gives my poor old father. I could have kept still, but that -seemed hardly honest. So I tried to make him understand, and he was very -badly cut up.” - -“And your mother?” I asked. - -He had never talked about his mother. He was silent for a minute. We -were on one of the great bridges over the river, and we stopped to watch -the spires, the gray roofs, and the one gilded dome of the city across -the shining water. - -“My mother,” he said at last, taking off his hat and standing -bare-headed in the cold November air, “my mother is where she -understands. She died when I was a little fellow.” - -Where she understands! I smiled, but the smile brought tears to my eyes. -They all went back, these wise young people who had outgrown the faith -of their fathers and mothers,—they all went back to it in moments of -supreme emotion, and rested in it, like little children. - -Naturally, I did not point out to the Lad his lack of logic. I knew that -he was going to speak again of Janet, and I waited. Presently the remark -came. - -“Such splendid power, and all wasted! That girl could do anything that -she wished to do. There is a kind of impotent idealism in her that keeps -her from acting. She refuses to see the difference between the absolute -and the relative. She can not, or she will not, see that if she is to -have the ideal in this world she must work it out in the actual.” - -“Wait,” I said. “She is young. Now she is only a question mark. But this -uncertainty is a phase of her development. Something positive will grow -out of the mood of denial.” - -“If something could only rouse her,” said the Lad; he had forgotten that -I was there,—“could sting her into life. If something could only make -her _care_!” - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - -“If they only had a little common sense,” the Doctor grumbled, “there -wouldn’t be any dilemma.” - -“Which?” I asked. “Your poor family or the charities?” - -“Both,” was the answer. “If the Ebsteins had any common sense, they -would not be in this plight; and if the charities had any, the family -would have been helped long ago. The rarest thing in the world is common -sense.” - -“How did you find them?” I asked; I always liked to ask this. The Doctor -was continually taking care of people in trouble, and as continually -trying to conceal the fact. “It is simply for practice,” she always -said. “My visits among the poor are only a kind of clinic. If it weren’t -for the interests of science, I’d never set foot in the slums again.” - -“Did you ever find among them any of the valuable abnormal cases you are -looking for?” I asked once. - -“No,” she answered, “but I might. I am always expecting to.” - -“How did you discover the Ebsteins?” I asked. It was a new charity -“case,” and I took a professional interest in it. - -“I had a patient in Snow Street, in a basement,—an old woman with -rheumatism.” - -“What interesting scientific discoveries you must be making there,” I -murmured. “Chronic rheumatism is no doubt very instructive.” - -The Doctor looked severe. - -“A woman came down from the second floor, and said that there were some -people on the fifth that needed help. She asked me if I came from the -Charity Building,” said the Doctor, in disgust. “I can stand a great -deal, but I cannot stand being mistaken for a philanthropist.” - -“You ought to be more on your guard,” I suggested. “You really put -yourself into positions where it is difficult to discriminate.” - -“I climbed the stairs to the very top of the house, and knocked at the -only door I saw. ‘Herein!’ called somebody. Then I found myself in a -room full of children. No, they are not Mrs. Ebstein’s. She rents a -little hole in the wall from the woman, a German, who lives in this -room. The only passage to the inner apartment is through the outer one. - -“They opened Mrs. Ebstein’s door, and there sat two children—” - -“How old,” I asked. - -“About twenty. Oh, they are grown up and married. They looked like Babes -in the Wood, but they are man and wife. The woman is a little thing with -her hair in two braids down her back. The man was sitting with his arms -on the table. He had been resting his head on his hands; he looked up -when I entered, and was dazed at first, then embarrassed. He is a nice, -honest German boy who ought to be at home in the _Vaterland_ with his -grandmother.” - -“What did they come here for?” I interrupted. - -“To starve,” said the Doctor. “America is like a great almshouse with no -endowment. She opens her arms to the poor of all nations, and says: -‘Come here and die.’ Luckily we have room enough to bury them all in.” - -“How did you begin to talk with them?” I asked. “What is the best way of -beginning? Do you suppose these people resent being intruded upon as we -should?” - -“I simply held out my hand,” answered the Doctor, and said: ‘Is this -Mrs. Ebstein?’ I spoke in German. The little woman burst out crying. She -had been crying before. Then I said: ‘Somebody told me that you are in -trouble. What can I do for you?’ She only pulled her husband’s sleeve -and said: ‘Heinrich, Heinrich! Komm mal, sprich!’ - -“I found out that they are German Jews, ‘aus Berlin.’ They came here -more than a year ago, just after their marriage. The man is a -brass-finisher. He had a job when he first came, and worked for six -months, I believe. Then the work shut down. Since then they have lived -on little or nothing. - -“They have really almost starved. I glanced at a roll lying on the -table, and one of them told me that for weeks they have lived on bread. -Their landlady is too poor to help them. They have both tried to get -work of any kind, and have failed. - -“‘They said we could make gran’ fortune in America,’ said Mrs. Ebstein. -‘Look! this is my fortune!’ and she took two pennies out of her -apron-pocket and shook them. ‘We eat these! After that we starve!’ - -“She is a vivacious little thing. When she talked she was inimitable. -Her eyes—she has bright brown eyes—twinkled, and she forgot that she was -hungry. She was telling me about her experiences in trying to get work.” - -“Give me their address,” I said, “and I will report them to the Good -Samaritans.” - -“No,” said the Doctor, quietly, “I want to take care of them myself. -Will you help?” - -“Certainly,” I answered. “They are very interesting. Only you should -have found them in a garret. Something is lacking in your background. It -isn’t artistic.” - -“There was altogether too much background,” said the Doctor. “Nearly all -the inhabitants of the tenement-house swarmed up while I was there, and -all of the landlady’s children came as far into that tiny room as was -possible. No, the lonely garret exists only in story-books. Its -seclusion is too good to be true. The worst feature in the lives of the -poor is that they have to be born and to die in public. - -“Now that I think of it,” added the Doctor, rising and looking at her -list of calls, “do you think that you could get a baby’s wardrobe -together for Mrs. Ebstein?” - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - “Into our hands hath it been given to settle the course of the - world.”—_Shah Nameh_, FIRDAUSI. - - -We were a committee—the Doctor, Janet, the Altruist, and I—to consider -what could be done for the women and girls in Brand Street. The Altruist -wished us to undertake some work in connection with Barnet House. - -We sat round the table in the parlour of my boarding-house. The cloth -had been removed. A block of paper and a pencil lay in front of each of -us, ready for taking notes. - -“I like the way we have,” said Janet, who looked the incarnation of the -spirit of mischief, “of trying to teach other people how to live because -we do not know how ourselves.” - -“You and I have not erred very deeply in that way, Janet,” said the -Doctor, drily. “You must not accuse yourself where you do not deserve -it.” - -The Altruist looked impatient. “We want to consider,” he said, “how we -can help our friends in Brand Street. We must begin at once. I have an -appointment at four.” - -“Another lecture?” asked Janet. - -“Yes,” answered the Altruist, wearily. “I get invitations almost every -day to lecture on life in the slums.” - -“Paul,” said Janet, solemnly, though her eyes were dancing, “you will be -talking in the park next on Sunday afternoons, and we will all come and -stand with the crowd to listen to you.” - -“Perhaps I shall,” said the Altruist. “If it is necessary to convince -the working-man of my sympathy, I shall be glad to do it. I should like -to see my up-town friends standing side by side with my neighbours from -the slums. Only,” he added thoughtfully, “I doubt if my voice could -carry. I have said definitely that I will not speak to more than three -thousand people. And in the open air—” - -Then we opened the discussion. Janet suggested that we begin with -private theatricals for the poor. - -“They need to have their minds taken off their troubles,” she said. “We -cannot really better their condition. Perhaps we can divert their -attention.” - -The Altruist withheld his opinion of this idea. He did not wish to -discourage Janet. It was partly in order to give her a practical -interest that he had started the work. But an expression came into his -face that made Janet whisper,— - -“It really is not polite, Paul, to look bored when other people are -talking.” - -“We want to accomplish something that will be of permanent service,” he -began. “Mere temporary distraction will not do. I thought that you three -women would know how to bring them something of the graciousness and -sweetness of your own lives.” - -“How can we effect anything whatever,” asked the Doctor, “while those -women live under the conditions in which they must live? They cannot -even keep clean. It is absolutely impossible. Cleanliness is the most -expensive luxury in the world. What beauty and graciousness can be -brought into their lives so long as they cannot take baths?” - -“We cannot correct at once,” the Altruist answered, “all the evil -consequences of our present system. But we can bring these people into -touch with higher spiritual ideals—” - -“We can form clubs,” I hastened to say, wishing to appease the Doctor by -means of a practical suggestion. “We can teach the women to sew, or we -can have a literary club and teach them how to read.” - -The Altruist’s face brightened. - -“Yes,” he said, “these cruder methods open the way. When our neighbours -understand that we want to meet them on the common ground of human -brotherhood, that we ignore all class distinctions—” - -“Don’t you think,” asked the Doctor, eyeing the Altruist sharply, “that -you create class distinctions in order to wipe them out? I thought that -the idea of any class distinction ran counter to the principles of -American democracy.” - -“It is impossible to ignore the fact that the distinctions do exist,” -answered the Altruist. “The lines of caste are just as exclusive here as -in Europe.” - -“And are you willing to forget them, and to tell those people that you -meet them on terms of absolute equality? I think that you will do it,” -smiled the Doctor, “just as long as you are not taken at your word.” - -There was something about the Altruist that made him superior to petty -annoyance of this kind. He was not angry. - -“We can convince them of our sympathy, we can share with them our faith -and our aspiration,” he said gently. - -“My faith and aspiration would be a great support to them,” murmured -Janet, her lip curling in self-scorn. “No, cousin Paul, just at present -the relations between Providence and me are a little strained, and the -greatest service I can do the world is to hold my peace. There is no -command to go into all the world and preach the interrogation point.” - -After beating the air for this length of time we began to work, and in -ten minutes had formed a plan for a woman’s club. It was to meet every -week at Barnet House. It was to be a literary club, carried on by -reading and by lectures. Once a week there was to be a social evening. - -“We must have a party at least as often as that,” pleaded the Altruist. -“Our parties are a great success. The neighbours do so delight in -lemonade.” - -“In short,” said Janet, “we will elevate the masses by Swinburne and -_frappee_!” - -We reproved her for her flippancy, and proceeded to work out the details -of our plan. - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - -I told the Man of the World the story of a business failure in the East -End. The sufferers were two very tiny Italian boys, joint proprietors of -a fruit-stand. An unexpected season of warm weather had proved bad for -bananas, and the firm was insolvent. - -I was right in thinking that the Man of the World would be interested in -hearing of this, and I described the situation to him in much detail. - -The Man of the World and I had become great friends, and he had taken me -into his confidence. I knew all about the money that he made at cards. A -set of his brother’s friends had taught him to play poker, and were in -the habit of amusing themselves by letting him win. I knew too about the -horse that he had bought without his father’s knowledge. He kept it in a -stable near the park, and rode it every afternoon. - -“I have to work a bluff game to get there,” he said one day, “but I get -there just the same.” - -He told me about his young lady acquaintances. Evidently he had several -who admired him much. Two embroidered pillows and an elaborate -photograph case were proudly displayed by him as trophies of conquest. -One day, however, he had a bitter quarrel with his prettiest girl -friend. It was, I believe, about a bag of popcorn. After that he was -very satirical in regard to the entire sex, and had no communications -with any member of it except myself. “There are no women in it for me -any longer,” he said darkly. - -When I asked him if he would like to hear the story of my latest “case,” -he responded that it would give him great pleasure. - -Then he regarded me for a minute with a judicial air. - -“What is it you do with people, anyway?” he asked. “I don’t understand.” - -“Oh, a great many things—” I began. - -“I wonder if you’re like my Sunday-school teacher. She’s awful good, she -is really. She goes down to the Traffic Street wharves and picks up -drunken men and converts ’em. Do you do that?” - -“No,” I answered. - -“Well, could you?” - -“No,” I admitted, “I do not think that I could.” - -But in spite of the confession of inferiority on my part, he paid close -attention to my tale. - -“How old did you say those kids are?” he asked when I had finished. - -“Seven and nine,” I replied. - -“They’re game ones, aren’t they?” commented the Man of the World. - -He went over to the window and stood there, thinking, for a few minutes. - -“If they had any money, do you think they could start up the business -again?” he asked. - -“Probably.” - -The Man of the World thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a roll -of bills, which he offered me, sheepishly. - -“We had a game of poker last night,” he said, “and I scooped in—I mean, -I won. Take it, will you, for the little beggars? I don’t need it. I’m -flush, and can ante just as well as not.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - -Our second committee-meeting left us spent and weary. In making our -programme we began to question the wisdom of presenting to working-women -the scepticism and doubt and denial of modern English literature. We -wandered off into a wilderness of abstract questions, and, as usual, -lost our way. - -Suddenly the door opened, and the Lad strode in. - -“I beg your pardon,” he said, retreating. - -We urged him to enter, saying that our work was done. - -He brought with him the freshness of the open air. A wave of -cheerfulness swept over us, and we remembered that the sun was shining -out of doors. - -“It is a glorious day,” observed the Lad. “I have just come in.” - -“I must go out for a walk,” said the Doctor, rising. - -The Altruist followed, and Janet would have gone, but the Lad looked at -her entreatingly. - -“Oh, don’t go!” he begged, with no perception of the fact that his -remark was embarrassing. “I have so many things to say to you.” - -To my great surprise the girl smiled and lingered. When Janet chose to -be gracious, she was very gracious indeed. - -I kindly took up my notes to make out the minutes of the meeting, and my -young friends seated themselves by the window. - -“You all looked rather blue when I came in,” remarked the Lad. - -“We were,” said Janet. “We had been talking of the future of the human -soul as argued by Tennyson, and assumed by Browning, and ignored by -Swinburne. You see, we can’t decide whether to teach the lower classes -doubt or conviction.” - -The Lad was too much in earnest to notice the irony. - -“I don’t see why you are all so troubled about a life beyond this,” he -said. “Immortality isn’t the question, is it, while we have this world -on our hands?” - -“It is at least very human,” the girl answered, “as we cannot conduct -this life properly, to ask for another and a larger one to spoil.” - -“But this one is so satisfactory!” cried the Lad. “The mere delight in -breathing is enough, if we cannot have anything else. I don’t feel the -need of metaphysical certainties so long as I can feel the pulses beat, -as they do beat in my wrists.” - -“What if your physical joy in living should change into physical pain?” -asked Janet, gravely. - -“Suppose we talk of something else,” suggested the Lad. “We never get -anywhere in discussing questions like this.” - -“Except into corners in the argument,” retorted Janet, smiling -maliciously. “You are in one now.” - -“Well, I’m very happy there,” laughed the Lad. - -That was only too evident. - -They stayed, talking eagerly of Heaven knows what, until the sun went -down. It made a golden background for the profiles outlined against the -window-pane. Stray locks of Janet’s hair were touched into sombre -brightness, and the colour in her cheeks grew warm and red. - -The Lad was gazing at her with softly shining eyes. - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - -One Sunday afternoon I went to hear the Altruist lecture on the book of -Job. - -He had converted a Brand Street dance-hall into an auditorium, and the -popular lectures he gave there drew many followers to his feet. He spoke -with equal power on social, on religious, and on literary themes. Young -working-men flocked round him to hear him set forth the wrongs of our -present system of government, and the better things to be. Night after -night the hall was crowded by men and women of all ranks and all -occupations, who watched with untiring interest his treatment of -positivism, agnosticism, atheism, Schopenhauerism, and his triumphant -exposition of a belief that they are all recognized and transcended in -the creed of the Anglican church. - -I can see him now, if I shut my eyes,—a nervous little figure behind the -low desk. There was a curious glint in his eyes, which were always -looking over and beyond the heads of his audience. I can see, too, the -eager, stricken faces of his hearers. They drank in his teachings with -consuming thirst. - -I have heard him speak many times, but I have rarely seen the eyes of -one of his listeners removed an instant from his face. A kind of -mesmeric power held them. There were questionings and rebellious -objections before his arrival, or after his departure, but never in his -presence. - -I remember the comments made by two young granite-cutters one night -before his lecture, Lecture X., in the “Exposition of Contemporary -Thought.” - -“I can’t for the life of me see,” said one of them, “how he can believe -all this ’ere science and evolution and believe in Genesis too. ’Spose -he’ll answer if I ask him?” - -“Try,” said the other. “If he can’t answer your question, he’ll turn it -into something he can answer. He’ll talk, anyway. And I’ll bet a dollar -you won’t know but what he’s talking about the thing you asked him.” - -But that very night the two young sceptics were smitten down. The -Altruist pronounced their questions ignorant and crude, and explained -the apparent contradiction in his beliefs as a part of the eternal -paradox at the heart of all things. - -I invited Janet to go with me on this particular Sunday, but she -refused. - -“I think that I would rather not hear Paul expound Job,” she said. - -“He will do it brilliantly,” I suggested. - -“Too brilliantly,” she laughed. “He talks so wisely of all human -experience that you suspect him of never having had any of his own. He -stands condemned by the amount of wisdom that he can utter concerning -life which he has not shared. You feel that it all came from books.” - -“But perhaps he will not deal with Job’s emotional experiences. The -lecture may be purely abstract. Don’t you like to hear your cousin -philosophize?” - -“No,” said the girl, “I don’t. Paul finds the universe easy to explain, -but I mistrust his logic. To quote, I have forgotten whom: ‘Corner him -in an argument, and he escapes out of the window into the Infinite.’” - -So I went alone. Before the Altruist had been speaking five minutes I -regretted that Janet had not come. He was alluding to other great rebels -of literature,—Dante, Prometheus, and our own Carlyle,—souls stung by -hurt into war with God, and afterward fighting their way through to a -bitter peace. - -There was a hush. Then we heard Job talking with God. His upbraiding of -the Creator thundered through the room. - -The impression given cannot be translated into words. The audience was -swayed by the Altruist as grass is swayed by the wind. - -Who had not known moments like that, when one arraigned God for hiding -his meanings from the eyes of men? That time of negation was necessary, -leading, as it must, to affirmation. It was only a season of darkness, -breaking into clearest light. Soon insight followed blindness; -conviction followed doubt. Uncertainty could be only temporary with -noble souls. For them the fog cleared, and a universe of order rose from -chaos. They would suffer no longer the clouding of the intellect, or -know the rebellion of the heart. Their cry was answered, and reason -grasped the scheme of things. - -Of this sure knowledge, universal expression had been given in the -formulas of Anglican belief. - -As the Altruist expounded the final relations of Job to the Creator, and -explained God’s thought for man, the sudden illumination was blinding. -For a moment the ultimate meaning of life and of death seemed ours. - -The audience crowded round the Altruist to utter words of gratitude. One -or two women wiped their eyes, and working-men of known sceptical -tendencies came forward, with a certain shame-facedness, to grasp the -Altruist’s hand. - -I walked home alone in the early winter twilight. - -There was no one in the parlour except the Butterfly Hunter, who was -sitting by a western window, with a sheet of sketches from his specimens -lying on his knee. - -It was too dark to see clearly any longer. The old scientist had -forgotten his drawings, and was watching one great star in an orange -patch of sky between two dark lines of cloud. - -“It is strange,” he said, half to himself, half to me, as I seated -myself in an easy chair, “that truth, the least truth, is so hard to -find. We buy it dearly, and with long effort, and then we do not -understand the whole of it.” - -He rose and brought his pictures to me. - -“I have been studying that little creature,” he said, “for forty years, -and yet I know nothing of the beginning or of the end of its life. It -begins in mystery; it ends in mystery.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - -I collected for Mrs. Ebstein a wardrobe of tiny garments. Some of them -were Jean’s outgrown clothing. Some of them I made myself, sitting alone -in my study in the early winter evenings. - -It was almost Christmas time when I took them down to Snow Street. I too -climbed the long flights of stairs, and passed through the noisy room -where the seven children lived. - -I found Mrs. Ebstein in her room alone. When I opened my bag and gave -her its contents, her face shone. She grasped both my hands and gave me -a great kiss. - -“You are so good toward me!” she said in broken English. “You make so -much trouble for me!” - -Then she stroked the little socks. “Wie niedlich! Wie reizend!” - -We talked for some time in bad English and worse German. When at last I -rose to go, Mrs. Ebstein took both my hands again. - -“I did not know,” she said, “but you are so good,—and I am ganz allein! -No sister, keine Mutter. Will you come mit the doctor-lady when she -comes?” - -And smiling to see into what strange paths my endeavour to serve -humanity was leading me, I promised. She was so young; she was so far -away from home. - -Her child was born on the night of the twenty-sixth of December. I went -down in the afternoon with the Doctor; and all night long I waited and -watched, in the outer room, from which the seven children had been -banished. - -The Doctor and the district nurse cared for the patient. - -Sitting out by the fire, I hung the little flannel robes again and again -in the warmest place, saying over and over the lines of the folk-song:— - - “Mine ear is full of the murmur of rocking cradles. - ‘For a single cradle,’ saith Nature, ‘I would give every one of my - graves.’” - -All night long I was hushed into awe by the coming of new life, and hurt -by a pain that the presence of death does not give. - -When it was almost morning, I heard a cry, and the words of the -folk-song changed into the words of the Bible: “And so she brought forth -her first-born child.” - -We were high over the city. It was just before dawn. In the east I -caught the first hint of the morning light, and down below me I saw the -roofs of the city dimly outlined in the fading darkness. - -As I watched, the Doctor came out and joined me, weary, but with a look -upon her face that I had never seen before. - -“I never perform this service,” she said slowly, “without feeling that I -have been doing a sacrificial act.” - -I did not speak. - -“No wonder,” said the Doctor, “that the symbol of the world’s salvation -has been so long a mother with her baby in her arms. It pictures the -greatest glory of all our human life.” - -The light grew stronger in the east. The Doctor’s eyes were strained -toward it, and her face was very beautiful. - -“I suppose it is because it is so near Christmas time that I think of -this,” she continued. “I wonder why we have always tried to read a -supernatural meaning into the story of the Christ-child. ‘The Holy Ghost -shall come upon thee,—the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; -therefore the holy thing that shall be born of thee’—I tell you,” said -the Doctor, interrupting herself energetically, “that means only that -the birth of human life is always sacred. We might well say at every -birth: ‘Go and search—for the young child—and bring me word—that I may -come and worship him.’” - -We watched the light grow strong and clear over the quiet city. The -grimy tenement houses and the polluted streets became more and more -distinct. Then the noise of rattling wheels and of hurrying feet came -faintly to our ears. The toil of another day had begun. - -After a time the nurse came out of the inner room, holding in her arms -the newborn child. It was wriggling in the garments in which it had been -wrapped. The Doctor looked down at the little purple face and screwed-up -nose, and her expression changed to one of professional disgust. - -“I haven’t a doubt,” she muttered, “that it is a poor, miserable, -rickety little vagabond. Why must there be this terrible increase of -population among paupers?” - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - -My colleagues did not share my discouragement in regard to the East End. -There was much to hope for, they maintained, from the spread of -information concerning it, from the awakening interest of the upper -classes in its condition, and from all our new and intelligent methods -of doing good. - -This was true. Each board-meeting, conference, committee-meeting to -which I went as guest or member, gave me fresh proof of the growth of -knowledge about the destitute, while the practical activity of -individuals and of societies seemed full of promise for the poor. - -There was one great Bureau of Inquiry which existed solely for the -purpose of investigating new “cases.” Its agents, visiting the needy, -gleaned innumerable facts that were entered in the books under heads -like these: “Work, How Many? Bad Habits, What? Ill? Rent? Pay? Can Read? -Can Write?” - -This vast body was constantly torn in twain between a desire to find out -genuine suffering, and a fear of being deceived. - -Closely connected with this Bureau was the Society of Good Samaritans, -who represented, not only the new knowledge concerning the poor, but -also improved methods of relief. The Samaritans always sat in lengthy -conference on Friday night, discussing in friendly fashion (not without -gossip) the domestic affairs of the family in hand, and voting: “No -Aid”; or, “Aid, $2.00 in groceries, visitor please follow up”; or, “Give -Citizen’s Emergency Ticket for snow-shovelling”; and again, “No Aid.” - -Another relief-giving society, the Almoners, differed from the Good -Samaritans only in the greater carefulness of its proceedings. All its -action was well considered and most deliberate. Its committee-meetings -were full of anxious discussion of the question, “What do we do with -such cases in District A?” and its most innocent reports were headed -“Confidential!” - -For instance: - - -“The Almoners request that the facts given below be used, especially if -unfavourable, with great care. - - In the case of - Abruzzi, Federigo, - No. 10 Mulberry Street. - -“Barber. Six children. No work. Gave shoes and stockings.” - - -These organizations were alike in the business-like quality of their -work, in the wary kindliness with which they treated the poor, and in -their thirst for accurate information. It occasionally happened that -representatives of all three societies met by chance in the one room of -a new “case,” and gravely carried on their investigations together. - -Perhaps some of the questions that these agents of organized -philanthropy were authorized to ask passed the line where friendly -interest becomes impertinence. However, they but voiced the popular -opinion, that “people of that sort” do not mind intrusion. Of many this -was doubtless true, and a great corporation can hardly be expected to -engage in character-study. - -The intellectual curiosity evinced by these bodies in matters of -practical detail was visible also in their theories of work. New charity -methods, English, German, and Australian, were carefully discussed. On -our boards were men who were familiar with all known schemes of in-door -and outdoor relief, and women who were masters of statistics. We knew -not only the best ways of carrying on investigation, but also the best -ways of co-operating with the Church, with the State, and with one -another. - -But here theorizing stopped. These students of social disease did not -seem to doubt the essential soundness of the social constitution. -Criticism of the present industrial system and of the relation between -classes did not, apparently, occur to them. The Altruist’s economic -ideas would have filled them with surprise. - -My misgivings concerning all this work did not come from the usual -objections to it, that the proceedings of huge bodies are often too slow -to be of use, because of the time wasted in adjusting formalities, and -that the energy meant for action is dissipated in argument. I was -impressed only by the hopelessness of finding out what to do. After -patient inquiry the gulf between misery and the wish to help was nearly -as wide as before. Facts may be facts without telling the truth, and -with all our knowledge we did not understand. - -This was not true of every member of the associations. There were -certain women who possessed a gift of practical kindness, and were -philanthropists by divine right. And surely the effectiveness of an -organized body means the effectiveness of the individuals composing it. - -But different attitudes were represented. Side by side with these women -who were quick to help and slow to condemn, were others who allowed -their respect for the ten commandments of the Old Testament to keep them -from obeying the one command of the New. They pronounced judgment on the -unfortunate with the most impressive finality, as if wrong-doing were -doubly wrong in the East End. As I listened to them I sometimes thought -that the ethical standard which the rich try to preserve for the poor is -very high. - -I liked to watch these charitable women, and to wonder why they were -doing this work. Some, whose faces had been made sweet by sorrow, were -striving only to find expression for sympathy with human pain. Some, who -looked eager, restless, dissatisfied, were trying, I thought, to find in -the lives of others the absorbing interest they had missed in their own. -A few, I feared, had espoused the cause of the needy for the sake of -social distinction. An interest in the poor was one of the really -important things, like the cut of one’s sleeves, or one’s knowledge of -Buddha. - -I discovered a new species of benevolent woman, unlike the old-fashioned -Saint Elizabeth who encouraged pauperism by indiscriminate distribution -of loaves. A call that I made on a fellow-Almoner (for in an interval -when my Cause did not keep me busy I had rashly joined this body) made -me hope that the old Lady Bountiful armed with pity will never quite -give place to this new Lady Bountiful armed with views. - -I had given my friend this name because she looked so sympathetic. She -was a blithe little woman, very wealthy and very charitable. On this -occasion I found her just going out. As she came smiling to meet me, in -her light cloth gown with gloves and gaiters of the exact shade, I -thought how charming she was. - -My Lady Bountiful had principles. She always performed her full social -duty, and she told me, before I introduced the subject I had come to -discuss, how tired she was. Dinners and receptions and the theatre had -tired her out. Yet she had given up none of her charity work. Her maid -did all the necessary visiting for her. - -When I set forth the object of my visit she looked disapproving. I -wanted to change the policy of our Board, of which she was a director, -to meet the distress caused by a sudden financial crisis. But My Lady -interrupted my description of the misery of the unemployed in the East -End. - -“I do not believe in voting special relief for these people,” she said. -“Their suffering will be a lesson to them. When they have work they are -improvident; when it stops they starve. They must learn thrift and -economy, even if it has to be taught them in this severe way.” - -It was a strange situation,—Dives in his purple and Lazarus in his rags -again. But Dives played a new rôle, no longer standing aloof, but coming -near enough the gate to study Lazarus, and then intimating that his -character was not all it should be. - -My Lady went on to speak of work, of how noble it is, and how little -common people appreciate its sacredness. I watched with a certain -feeling of curiosity the dainty figure against the rich background of -the beautiful house. The fingers that were emphasizing the panegyric of -work had never been guilty of a half-hour’s honest toil. - -“No,” said my hostess, when I rose to go, “this crisis means discipline -for the poor, and we must not interfere. I think as you investigate -further you will find that poverty is always the result of idleness, -intemperance, or crime.” - -“Then this distress is retributive?” I murmured. “It testifies to the -negligence of the poor, and indirectly to our own industry, temperance, -virtue?” - -“Yes,” said My Lady, firmly. She was always firm. “Don’t look so -unhappy,” she added, as she took my hand at parting. “It isn’t such a -bad world, after all. I never can see why people insist on crying out -all sorts of unpleasant things about it. I am a thorough optimist, you -see.” - -I reflected, after the cool air of the street had soothed my irritation, -that we were all like that. Each one of us had pronounced opinions, -right or wrong. I wondered if it would not be better for the poor if we -knew less about them and cared more. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - -Through all my study of human misery, the thought of my little romance -flashed like swift sunshine. Some of the sadness faded out of Janet’s -face, and every day, I thought, the Lad’s lips were more firmly set in -his effort to win. I wondered what the outcome would be. If his chin had -not been so square and so determined, I should have doubted his victory. - -Janet joined us in our expeditions. Then, as the weeks went on, the two -young Bohemians took long walks by themselves, while I stayed at home or -in my office,—for my Cause had a downtown office,—following them only -with my blessing. - -I had grown very fond of both. It was well for them to be together. -Janet was waking up, as in a keen electric shock, under the influence of -the Lad’s resistless energy. “There is something contagious in his -vitality,” she said one day. “When you are with him, you feel that you -are face to face with immortal youth, and can never grow old.” - -In their long conversations they passed, as was natural, from the -abstract to the personal. It was amusing to hear their encounters of -words. Every bitter remark that the girl made was met and worsted by the -strong logic and the strong hopefulness of her opponent. - -She heard from him the history of his book. It was controversial. He was -waging a scientific battle with his dearest friend, the author of an -article that the Lad said was “all off.” It had served as the flinging -of a gauntlet, and the Lad had picked it up. The book was to be, he -said, not only a criticism of Rainforth, but the first setting forth of -his own theory, and the Lad felt that his future welfare depended on his -triumph. - -“Not that I can come anywhere near Rainforth generally,” he said. “He’s -a genius. Yes, he’s the only genius I have ever known. I am simply a -pigmy by the side of him. But just here I know he is wrong, and I intend -to prove it. If I succeed, nobody will congratulate me so heartily as -he.” - -As to me, he had talked of Janet and the book, to her he talked of the -book and Rainforth. They had been like David and Jonathan in college and -ever since. In argument they had fought many a glorious field. Now -Rainforth was winning honour in the West, and the Lad was watching every -step of his career with intense pride. - -“You ought to see him,” cried the Lad. “He fairly towers above all the -people near him.” - -There was a touch of novelty in the situation. That a hero-worshipper -should invite his hero to step down from the pedestal and do battle with -him seemed a dangerous proceeding. Yet I knew that if the hero came out -second-best, the worship would be no whit abated. - -I fancied that Janet grew weary of hearing so much of Rainforth, but I -was not sure. She spoke less and less often of the Lad. In place of the -specific frankness with which he talked of her, she generalized; and -because her “humorous melancholy” was so little appreciated by him, she -spent it all on me. - -She was talking one day of the elusiveness of life. We were always -seeming to catch a meaning in it, she said, first in one place, then in -another. In will-o’-the-wisp fashion it danced through religion, through -philosophy, through aspiration of every kind. We went from illusion to -illusion, from dream to dream. The gods (thus Janet named the hostile -powers whom she sometimes imagined behind the scenes), in order to amuse -themselves, had made this world as a great playground, where their -creatures, cobweb-blinded, played an endless game of blindman’s buff. -The last and most cruel illusion of all was love. - -It was then that I knew that she had begun to care for the Lad. - -In the early winter my work developed so as to demand all my time. In -consequence of the business depression, the suffering in the city had -increased tenfold. My experiences of the daytime haunted me at night. In -my dreams I climbed the dark stairways of the poor, and door after door -opened in my sleep upon scenes of misery that I could not help. - -I had no time now to talk with my young friends, but the sight of them -comforted me. I found myself looking at Janet with the Lad’s eyes. I, -too, in watching her face, saw “a glory upon it, as upon the face of one -who feels a light round his hair.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - “The more I muse there inne the mistier it semeth, - And the depper I devyne the derker me it thinketh.” - WILLIAM LANGLAND. - - -As I look back I am amazed at the amount of talking that we all did. The -memory of the winter is a mist of “words, words, words.” - -Long discussions of spiritual questions were new to me. I had come from -a world where one took God and one’s duty for granted, and endeavoured -to act. Here we wavered so long over uncertainties in belief that we had -little energy left for work, and we talked of conflicting causes until -the world was turned into a snarl of tangled theories. - -In my bewilderment I found myself asking if it were worth while to try -to understand. - -My pretty Janet was wasting her days in attempting to find a -satisfactory way of thinking about life; while the Altruist, who alone -among us was content with his knowledge of things seen and unseen, had -succeeded only, I sometimes thought, in thrusting between himself and -his fellow-man a theory of how to treat him, and between himself and God -the shadow of an explanation of Him. - -Could one, after all, take life as simply as the Lad took it, waiving -abstract inquiry while one attended to the matter in hand? It seemed as -if he, a denier of all knowledge of God, had come very near to Him in -that ceaseless, unquestioning activity. - -I began to doubt even the value of our ideas about the poor. - -Their deep satisfaction in existing contrasted strongly with our -restless questioning of the uses of existence. Perhaps we, who were so -filled with pity for the victims of life, had been better for a share in -its suffering; for it might be that the wisdom denied to thought lay -written only in experience. - -Thus I decided that an intellectual grasp of things in general is -impossible, then, woman-like, turned and did a little reasoning of my -own. - -Were there not enough strong young souls like the Lad’s to break through -the woven spells of theory and wake the world from sleep? - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - -“—just to stir up stagnation, you know, and rouse interest by telling -people how things really are; for it’s ignorance that’s the matter, -sheer ignorance, and I’m convinced that if the rich can be made to -understand the condition of the poor, they’ll take measures to better -it, so I’m trying to raise the standard of general intelligence and -bring the classes together—” - -The sentence went on and on. I could hardly remember when it had begun. -The Young Reformer, who was calling on me, had asked me to co-operate, -and I had innocently asked in what. - -“—public opinion is what we want,” he was saying, “and we are safe if we -can get the press on our side; for it’s the press that really rules the -country, and not the pulpit, and I say the thing is to get the great -popular organs on our side and let them work with us instead of against -us, and they will if we only use tact; for I’ve found that if you only -use tact the thing is done.” - -“What special work are you attempting?” I asked. - -“Oh, everything,” said the Young Reformer, cheerfully. “It doesn’t make -any difference. When I see an evil I begin to call attention to it. You -have got to be busy if you are going to accomplish anything.” - -“And what would you like to have me do?” I inquired, gazing at my guest -with undisguised curiosity. - -There was an indescribable air of aimless activity about him. He sat, in -a somewhat vague and tentative way, on the edge of his chair, holding on -his knee a bundle of newspapers and manuscript that he had been too busy -to put down. - -“Well, what’s your strong point?” he demanded. - -I was staggered, but it made no difference. - -“Now mine is the platform,” he continued confidentially. “Yes, I’m at my -best on the platform. It took me a long time to find it out. I tried -business and I tried the law, but I was always restless and felt that I -wasn’t in the right place. Then I got interested in social questions, -and thought I’d give myself up to public effort.” - -I wondered if this young man were one of those who, finding the duties -of citizen difficult to perform, condemn society. - -I repeated my question. - -“Oh, do anything you are interested in. Just begin where you choose, and -I’ll try to help you. It doesn’t make much difference.” - -Here he smiled encouragingly. - -“May I ask in what way you learned my name?” I inquired. - -The slight reproof for his intrusion passed unnoticed. - -“Oh, I’ve heard everywhere in the city about what you’re doing. I’m -trying to get acquainted with everybody who is working for the general -good, and I thought that if you would co-operate with me in some way it -would be better than for us to work alone.” - -I was conscious of a momentary wish to write a manual of etiquette for -reformers, but my guest looked so innocent that I forgave him. - -“My opportunities for influencing public opinion are limited,” I said. -“I doubt if I can assist you.” - -“But I am sure you can,” he answered, cordially. “I want to undertake -something new here. I try to adapt my programme to the needs of each -city. In Chicago I gave a course of lectures on ‘The Crying Evils of the -Day.’ The press co-operated, and we made an organized attack on wrong of -all kinds. I couldn’t follow it up because I had to go on to another -place. That’s the trouble. But as I said, the great thing is to rouse -interest. I know that here there’s a great deal of study of social -questions, and I want to do something to encourage that. I like to be in -the crest of each wave of progress. Just what are you doing now?” - -I described for him some of the minor workings of my Cause. The details -were dry. - -“Now that kind of practical thing doesn’t appeal to me,” he said. “I -know it’s necessary, but there isn’t any emotion in it. You can’t get -hold of the popular heart that way. There’s nothing like the platform, -not even the pulpit. Well, I’ll tell you. I’m going to begin a series of -banquets at St. Mark’s Hotel to bring the classes together. I’ll have -one next week, and I want you to come. I’ll invite some up-town people -and the leaders of various movements to meet some of the lower classes, -the real People, you know, and we’ll see what can be done. - -“There’s nothing like beginning and just letting a thing get under way, -and then when it’s started you know better what to do. Start a movement -and you can turn it into almost anything you want to. All you need is to -get your forces going.” - -I accepted, I fear from curiosity, the invitation to meet the People, -and my caller took his departure. He stood irresolute on the steps for a -moment, as if wondering in which of all possible directions he would -better go. I reflected that in the battle with human nature to which he -stepped out so airily, he would at least have the satisfaction of never -knowing his defeat. - -And I wondered who would deliver society from its deliverers. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - -“Ich selber bin Volk.”—HEINRICH HEINE. - - -The socialistic banquet was a success. Various members of the upper -classes were present, and several representatives of the People. The -Young Reformer presided with great ease. - -The repast was not formal. Neither were the speeches afterward. We -hastened over the material part of the feast, and our host dismissed the -waiters abruptly when the coffee had been served. - -As I looked around the table in the centre of the great hotel -dining-room, I realized that we were a distinctly curious collection of -human beings. Each one of us stood for a cause. Representatives of -Church and University were sitting side by side with Socialist and -Anarchist. Two residents from Barnet House and the head of the Woman’s -Settlement were there. Opposite me sat a Single Tax agitator. At my left -was a Knight of Labour. There were present also four prominent Trades -Unionists, a Temperance woman, a White Ribbon woman, and a Populist. - -Our eyes were all fixed upon the Young Reformer as he rapped upon the -table and called upon my friend, the Resident at Barnet House, to speak -in behalf of Socialism. - -The Resident spoke with dignity. - -“It is,” he said, “an economic fact that Socialism is inevitable. -Whether we will or no, it is coming as surely as the days are moving on. -It is equally true that it, as a system, offers to the individual a -justice that no other form of government can offer. Under the -centralizing system of Socialism, with land and the forces of production -in the collective ownership of the People, and monopolies done away, -will come at last that granting of equal rights to all that democracy -has failed to realize.” - -The speaker was enthusiastically applauded. - -Then the Altruist was called upon in behalf of the Brotherhood of Man. - -An abstract of his remarks can give no idea of their power. The Altruist -alluded to our new recognition in this century of the close relationship -between high and low. He described certain attempts, both secular and -religious, that have been made to recognize this relationship. Then he -set forth his hope for the future, when government shall be -spiritualized, and the principles of the Christian religion shall be -worked into our laws. - -The address was eloquent, and the audience was strongly moved. - -The Altruist ended with an appeal. The cultured must return to the -People, and the People must realize that in doing this the upper classes -have no sense of superiority, and are actuated by motives of purest -Christian love. - -Our host was leaning back in his chair, and his face wore a happy smile. - -A Trades Unionist, in responding to the two preceding orators, said that -it did him good all over to hear remarks like theirs. They expressed his -sentiments exactly. If more folks felt that way, there wouldn’t be all -this trouble between labour and capital. The working-people were going -to have their rights, and if these were not given, they would fight for -them. But the working-man was quite willing to meet the capitalist half -way and settle things peacefully if it could be done. - -The young Socialist smiled at this militant formulation of the principle -of brotherly love, but the Altruist did not hear. He rarely listened to -what other people said. - -I fell into a fit of abstraction and caught only fragments of the two -next speeches. I knew, in a dim fashion, that the Populist had the -floor, and was insisting that the one way to achieve universal good was -by adopting the platform of his political party. I knew that the -Temperance woman, who was sweet-faced and young, rose to say sternly -that we were all wrong. Only by wakening the moral forces could the race -be saved. For a world given over to passion there was no economic -salvation. - -Watching these burdened, anxious faces in the brilliant electric light, -I wondered how I could have lived nine and thirty years without knowing -that this old earth, which I loved, was so very bad. Three months ago I -had seen only here and there a thistle or a bramble bush in its fair -fields. Now it looked to me all weeds and tares, weeds and tares. - -But the Professor was responding to the toast: “The University and the -People.” - -“There is no gulf between the University and the People,” he said in a -quick, emphatic voice. He had a perplexed air, as if wondering why he -had come. - -“The University was founded by the People, for the People. Its interests -are the interests of the People. In its hands lies one of the highest -powers in a nation’s life. Economic conditions, moral forces, are naught -without the intellectual guidance that comes through the trained minds -of a country’s devoted servants, her scholars.” - -These remarks were sufficiently noncommittal, yet the Professor was -troubled, fearing that he had not said the right thing. - -The word People ran like a refrain through all these remarks, and it -puzzled me. The People, it would seem, had been injured, and their -wrongs were to be set right. But who were the People, and who had harmed -them? - -We pronounced ourselves ready to waive all differences between ourselves -and the People. Who had suggested the differences? Surely not the -People. Even now the voice of a clergyman was in my ears, adjuring us -all, indiscriminately, to get nearer the People. I, who was conscious -that I belonged to the People and had never gone away, was puzzled, -feeling a certain lack of programme in the suggestion. - -At last the Anarchist arose. I had heard of him before, but had not seen -him. His quoted opinions had made my blood run cold. Now I gazed at him -in surprise, for he did not at all resemble the picture of him that my -fancy had made. Standing with his large old hands folded, and his long -gray beard rippling over his bosom, he looked like an aged apostle who -was near the beatific vision. - -“Friends,” he said, and his voice was like the sound of a benediction, -“I’ve heerd all you’ve said about injestice and wrong. You hain’t said -half enough. Nobody could say half enough about how bad things be. But -you ain’t got the right remedy. Talkin’ won’t do it. We’ve got to act. -Friends, we’re workin’ towards peace, but we may hev to walk to it -through blood.” - -There was a look of benevolence in his large, mild eyes as he said this. - -“None of you goes down far enough,” he continued. “It’s gover’ment that -is the root of all evil, and gover’ment has got to be wiped out.” - -We sat motionless around our broad table, as if held to our chairs by a -spell, forgetting even to drink our coffee, which grew cold as we -listened. There was an awful fascination about the Anarchist as he went -on to describe the millennium of anarchy, where there should be no -government, but where each man, standing as a law to himself, should -seek his own good in the good of his neighbour. The oration was long and -full of rambling eloquence, whose mixed metaphors suggested confusion of -thought. - -But the Anarchist stopped. “I hev spoke the truth,” he said solemnly, -“but ’twont hev no effect. ’Twill be like the morning dew, in at one ear -and out at other.” - -There was a pause. Then we all drank cold water to the success of our -respective causes, and shortly after came away. - -All the way home my thoughts and my feet kept pace with those lines -concerning two reformers who strolled one day by the sea:— - - “The Walrus and the Carpenter - Were walking close at hand; - They wept like anything to see - Such quantities of sand. - ‘If this were only swept away,’ - They said, ‘it would be grand.’” - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - - -That was one of the days when everybody was unhappy, everybody except -the Altruist. But it was against the Altruist’s principles to let the -world know his changes in mood, and he may have been sad underneath his -smile. - -It began with the Man of the World. He came down to breakfast with a -dragging step, and took his seat wearily. His face looked faded, and his -eyes were dull. - -“I wish somebody would give me something to make me sleep,” he said. “I -lie awake every night until almost morning.” - -A laugh went round the table. The habits of the Man of the World were -notoriously conducive to sleeplessness. Late suppers too often robbed -him of the slumber due his years. - -The laughter offended him. He rose with dignity and went away. When I -followed him a few minutes later I found him sulking in the hall. The -look of age in his blue eyes moved me to pity, and I drew the Man of the -World toward me, as if he were a child. - -I do not know what I said to him. It was something about changing all -this, and beginning over again, without the smoking and the cards and -the horses. He did not mind. In fact, he seemed to like having me touch -him, and laid his cheek against my hand, very much as Jean liked to do. -But he straightened up again. - -“No,” he said firmly, “you are barking up the wrong tree. I mean,—I beg -your pardon,—it doesn’t do any good. I might have done it once, but I -can’t now.” And saying “Good morning” very courteously, he went up to -his room. - -I had promised the Doctor to visit with her a patient on Traffic Street, -near Edgerley Bend. For once even the Doctor had lost courage. As we -threaded our way along the crowded sidewalks of the East End she -bewailed her unfitness for her work. Evidently she was disheartened -because she could not cure the incurable. - -I walked on in silence, too miserable to speak. The air was stifling, -for there seemed to be but little space between the sky and the mud in -the street. Gazing at the faces that drifted past us, some bad, some -apathetic, some despairing, I wondered which were the more pitiful, -those that had lost hope, or those that had never known it. - -The Doctor’s mood changed when she reached her patient and found -something to do; but I, who had not that means of relief, came home as -wretched as before. - -In the afternoon I went to Janet for comfort. As I crossed the street, -the quaint stucco houses looked more than ever like the scenery of a -stage. Through the half-drawn curtains I caught a glimpse of the Lad, -and smiled. The play had really begun. - -I had come for consolation, but I was disappointed. The Lad was alone -with baby Jean. He looked up when I entered, and I saw that his eyes -were clouded. - -“Isn’t it cold?” he said, with an absentminded air. - -I asked where everybody was. Jean’s father and mother were away. Yes. -Miss Janet was at home, and had been here, but was now upstairs. He did -not know if she was coming back. - -We relapsed into silence. The Lad took Jean upon his knee. Something -made the child feel neglected; neither by holding up her new bronze -shoes nor by winking both her eyes could she win the Lad’s attention. He -had forgotten us both. Suddenly he lifted the child to his face and -kissed her passionately, murmuring, “Janet! Janet!” - -I escaped to Janet’s room. The girl was pretending to read. Her lips -were tight-set, and her eyes unnaturally bright. - -“Do you know that you have a guest downstairs?” I asked. - -“It is time that my guest went away,” was her answer. - -“You haven’t a very polite way of inducing him to do it,” I said. -“Child, what are you doing? Do you know what you are doing?” - -She came and put her arms around my neck. - -“I am finding out what happens when an insurmountable obstacle is met by -an irresistible force. I cannot consent to be the Lad’s wife. I am not -happy enough.” - -“Don’t you care for him?” I asked. - -“Perhaps I care too much to do that,” she answered slowly. - -I was silent for very pity. I knew that all the obstinacy and -incredulity of the girl’s nature had risen in battle against this new -emotion. Love had come to her, but had come like a great sorrow. - - - - - CHAPTER XXV - - -Of all our protégés among the “People,” none interested us more than the -Tailoress. The discovery of interesting characters among the poor was -one of the rewards that we hoped for from our work. - -The Tailoress was a tall, gaunt, strong-featured woman of forty, who -lived alone on the fifth floor of a Brand Street lodging-house. She -worked ten hours a day; at night she read. From the city library she had -obtained stray volumes of Browning and Ruskin and Carlyle. Her comments -on these books had marked individuality. - -The Tailoress had been an ambitious country girl, and had come to the -city to work her way through sewing into an art-education. Once she had -succeeded in taking a six-weeks course in elementary drawing. The work -had been interrupted, but the Tailoress had not yet given up her hope. -That was the reason why, although she commanded comparatively good -wages, she lived up so many flights of stairs, and fared on porridge and -tea. - -She had a peculiar face, with a long nose, and strong under-jaw. Her -skin was brown, despite her years of confinement in a shop, so brown -that her blue eyes looked paler than they really were. I liked to see -her pupils dilate when an idea came to her. They expanded, and her whole -face glowed with enthusiasm. - -For the Tailoress had the soul of a poet. Through all her starved life -she had carefully saved up every semblance of beauty that had fallen to -her lot. In her room hung a Carlo Dolce Madonna, in a narrow -black-walnut frame, and an unmounted photograph of two Corregio cherubs -was pinned to the wall-paper. She owned a few books: a volume of -Longfellow, selections from Ruskin, and an Emerson Birthday Book. The -heavy underlining in these few volumes revealed an admiration deep and -uncritical. - -“It looks,” said Janet, with mock gravity, when I told her about the -Tailoress, “as if a sphere of usefulness were going to be given me. May -I lead the Tailoress up from Carlo Dolce to a love for French -impressionism? I will take her to see the pictures of M. Puvis de -Chavannes.” - -“If you choose,” I answered, “but leave her her books.” - -“Nay,” said Janet, “I will take away her Longfellow and give her Amiel. -Shall the poor be shut off from the sources of our inspiration?” - -The Tailoress was different from the other working-people that I knew. -Most of them were weighed down by a constant sense of wrong, but the -Tailoress never rebelled against the hardships of her lot. They seemed -to have no power over her. Perhaps she forgot them in her hunger and -thirst for beauty and knowledge. - -I remember some of her remarks. Once, when some one was denouncing the -useless luxury of the lives of the rich, the Tailoress looked up -quickly. - -“I don’t feel like that,” she said, in her deep, masculine voice. “Why -should we grudge them the beauty of their lives? God knows what is best. -I am glad that there are people in the world who can have the things -they want.” - -We took her to the Art Museum, and she was as one possessed. I found her -in a room devoted to Greek sculpture, sitting alone and silent. She -rose, with the face of one greatly moved, and grasped my arm. - -“What does it matter,” she said, “all the suffering and the lack, in a -world that has in it things like this?” - -It was hard to induce her to come away. “It makes me so happy to stay -here,” she said. “It is full of beauty and of peace.” - -Doubtless it was her longing for something else that kept her from -rising in her trade. After twenty-two years of work she was still a -vest-maker, never having shown sufficient ambition to try her skill as a -maker of coats. - -Now a crisis came in her life. She went to hear the Altruist lecture, -and became his most ardent disciple. I think that he unlocked the gates -of Heaven to her. Through the glamour of his eloquence she caught sight -of the pinnacles and towers of the city of her dreams. Unconsciously she -adopted his opinions and his tastes. Cardinal Newman’s “Dream of -Gerontius” appeared among the books on her table, and the Correggio -cherubs gave way to a thin Giotto saint. - -Her devotion was so extreme that the Altruist at last learned to -distinguish her from his many other followers. He saw her strength, and -confided to me the way in which he thought it should be used. The -Tailoress had personal ambition, aspiration, he said, but it seemed to -him hardly worth while to encourage that. She was too old. In our -attempts to serve Humanity, we must utilize our forces in the most -economical way, and must work with the young. It was too late for her to -fulfil her own life; she must learn to help fulfil the lives of others. - -She needed, first of all, to be led up to a higher spiritual plane. -There was something pagan in her thirst for pure beauty. Under his -forming touch she might grow into more impersonal and holier ambition. - -And there was no nobler mission for her than the liberation of her sex. -The Tailoress was employed in an ill-paid industry, which was almost -entirely in the hands of women. Already in her own shop she was looked -upon as an oracle. Could she not learn that, in helping secure better -conditions of life for her fellow-workers, she would be doing higher -service than she could ever do in search for knowledge, or in devotion -to art? - -I, who was still at the mercy of indiscriminate enthusiasm, and had not -yet learned to let other people’s causes alone, promised to go with the -Tailoress to the Anarchist, that she might learn from him the social -wrong from which she was suffering, and the social mission to which she -was called. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI - - -Our passion for comprehending invaded even our friendships. A friend was -no longer simply a friend, but a riddle to be read, a proposition to be -understood and expounded. Everybody talked of everybody else, and we -analyzed and dissected one another with great calmness. The temperaments -of our _confrères_, their growth and change in ideas,—all these matters -we tossed back and forth over many a cup of afternoon tea. - -The Lad did not shine in this work of analysis. We all decided that he -was no judge of character: he had so little insight into people’s -faults. The opinions that he formed were most astounding. To him the Man -of the World was a promising child, and he regarded me as a person of -firmest conviction, not seeing how I was swayed this way and that by any -new idea. In those days everything that I heard impressed me greatly. - -When we were all together, we talked of our remoter acquaintances. The -Man of the World afforded us much amusement, and the Butterfly Hunter -interested us greatly. But when the little coterie was not complete, the -absent members often became the subject of conversation. - -Our best epigrams, I noticed, were made about the Altruist. It was easy -to be clever at his expense. - -“What I admire most about him,” said the Doctor, “is his brilliant lack -of logic. He is never so convincing as when he contradicts himself.” - -“Paul has that exclusive belief in his immediate notion which is so -effective in this world,” said Janet. “The difference between him and me -is this: I can never believe in anything that I am doing, and he can -never believe in anything that he is not doing.” - -I defended the Altruist. His burning zeal for good, I maintained, -consumed all minor faults. One could forgive him much for the greatness -of his endeavour. - -Yet I could not help admitting that the Altruist’s passionate devotion -to his idea kept him remote, apart from the world he was trying to -uplift. - -“He is rather an ingenious theory of living than a part of life itself,” -said Janet one day. “I sometimes think that he is like a beautiful -religion that never saved a soul.” - -“Yes,” answered the Doctor, impiously, “he ought to commit some sin that -would humble him thoroughly. Then he would understand better the common -experience of mankind.” - -“I haven’t a doubt that he would do it,” laughed Janet, “if he thought -it necessary to bring him ‘in touch with the masses.’” - -It was on this occasion that the Doctor made her famous inquiry as to -whether, in becoming too literally an Altruist, one ceased to be an -individual. - -When the Altruist was with us, we talked often of the Lad. We rarely -discussed the Doctor, because in doing so the Altruist and I quarrelled. - -“There is something lacking in the Lad,” the Altruist said. “He has the -old Greek joyousness in mere living, but one misses the touch of the -spiritual, the mystical. It is a nature that is limited to delight in -sensuous and intellectual life. It has no hold on the Infinite.” - -“That is what the Altruist says about everybody who doesn’t agree with -him,” the Doctor remarked afterward. “I wish that he did not confuse -lack of appreciation of himself with lack of appreciation of the good.” - -I feared that the Altruist might withhold his approval from the Lad. The -two men stood very far apart in aim and in ways of thinking. It was true -that the Lad did not entirely understand the Altruist and his gallant -efforts to come to the rescue of the fainting powers of Heaven; and the -Doctor’s suggestion that the Altruist regarded criticism of himself as a -mark of mental limitation in the critic, was not wholly unjust. Yet -knowing that the younger man was not numbered among his disciples, the -Altruist treated him with great cordiality. - -I did not scruple to criticise the Lad myself. It seemed to me that he -had parted too easily with his old faith, and that he was not -sufficiently interested in my Cause. - -“He stands for nothing,” I said one day to Janet and the Doctor. - -“O yes he does,” laughed Janet. “He stands for the forgotten art of -living unconsciously. He has rediscovered a lost point of view.” - -Janet usually refused to talk of the Lad, but to-day she took up the -cudgels in his defence. - -“I like that radiant scepticism. There is nothing negative about it. I -sometimes think that the Lad has more than his share of the primal -creative impulse that is at the heart of all things. His energy always -urges him forward. The rest of us are working backward, by an analysis -that is death, as if the meaning of life lay behind us and not before.” - -“Janet,” said the Doctor, “did you think of that just now, or did you -make it up before?” - -“I thought of it a long time ago,” answered Janet, raising her chin -saucily, but flushing, “and I wrote it down in my note-book.” - -Janet herself was one of our most interesting subjects at these -afternoon séances. I was constantly tempted into a bit of analysis at -her expense: she was so complex, so puzzling. - -I have regretted since our free discussions of one another. We -considered them impersonal, artistic, critical. One’s friends, I have -come to think, should serve other ends than those of amateur psychology. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII - - -While we wrestled with our problems, baby Jean wrestled with a great -many that were all her own. The difference between her and the rest of -us was that she said nothing. - -But as day after day she watched with shining eyes the life in the -street below, I fancy that the question of the Sphinx presented itself -to her in many forms. Why articles that she threw from the window -re-appeared in the nursery; why some people passed and did not come -back, while others came back so often; why the big dog ran when the -little dog chased him,—all these things were to her parts of an -encompassing mystery. - -Her vague wonder grew into childish thought. I watched—with a guilty -feeling that I was neglecting the great things I had been set to do—her -quick development. - -She found that putting her fingers in her ears kept out unpleasant -sound, and once when her mother reproved her she held them there, -triumphant and unhearing. She found that she could agitate the entire -family by hiding small possessions. And she did this often, looking -inscrutable and dignified through the search for the lost articles, then -always bringing them back when the fun was over. She never forgot. - -The ways of life were hard for her tiny feet. She was quick-tempered, -easily angered, and easily hurt. But always, after running away in wrath -and tears, she would be back again in a minute with a solemn little face -uplifted to be kissed. - -She was born in an age of denial, and her first spoken word was “no.” -With a sweet perversity she stoutly repudiated all her most ardent -wishes. Even while her arms were stretched out to reach the desire of -her heart, she always protested that she did not want it. - -I think that I remember every one of her pretty attitudes, the turn of -her head, the curves of her lithe little body. - -I remember her as she looked one morning, tiptoe in her bed. It was very -early; all the world was asleep. She had crawled up outside the curtain, -and stood against the window, with her two hands outspread upon the -pane, white as a little flower. - -I remember her as she clung one day to the Lad as he was leaving the -house. - -“You do like me a little, don’t you, Jean?” said the Lad. - -“No, no, no,” said the child, clasping her arms tightly about his neck. - -“Ah, this is the baby,” said a caller who was entering. “Isn’t she like -her aunt!” - -The Lad’s eyes twinkled, and he answered the question, which had been -addressed to me. - -“Very much indeed,” he said gravely. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVIII - - -Our literary club, whether successful or not, was interesting. It -embraced hardworking women who were comparatively well read in modern -English literature, and girls who could hardly spell their own names. -The effects of our teaching were varied, ranging all the way from keen -stimulus to mental paralysis. - -The activity of its committee-meetings never waned. Here we continued to -debate on Life and Humanity and other abstract themes. Here the Doctor -and the Altruist disputed with great plainness of speech, but with -underlying good-humour. - -I remember one meeting at which the Doctor began with knitted brows:— - -“What troubles me in all this work with the poor is, that it is -external. We turn and set them an example, and demand that they shall -conform. We impose something on them from without—” - -“But they certainly need uplifting,” said the Altruist, puzzled. - -“No,” asserted the Doctor, “they need simply a chance to live their own -lives decently and to develop themselves. Their only hope lies in their -natural human instincts. We cannot bring round the kingdom of Heaven for -them either by preaching or by making laws. If they could have plenty of -hot water and soap, and could be let alone, they would be better off -than if we try to teach them our ideas.” - -“I do not agree with you,” said the Altruist. “They will instinctively -gain more delicate shades of feeling by coming in contact with us—” - -I think that the Doctor was really angry. - -“For true delicacy of feeling,” she said, “commend me to the very poor. -We ought to go down on our knees to learn of them. The kindness, -forbearance, patience, and the quiet heroism of the poor are almost -beyond our grasp. Look at it! We haven’t their opportunity for -cultivating the virtues,—unselfishness, for instance. They have none of -the modern methods for doing their duty to their neighbours without -letting it cost anything. They know nothing about ‘organizations.’ They -actually think that the only way to help is by kindness. As for us, -humanity has been civilized out of us.” - -“The poor ought to be informed of this at once,” said Janet, “and ought -to be urged to start a society for the cultivation of humane instincts -among the well-to-do.” - -“You do find,” admitted the Altruist, “a certain primitive generosity -among the lower classes. But when you say that they do not need the -refining influences of culture, I do not understand you.” - -“I mean,” said the Doctor, “that we are absurd when we talk of teaching -the lower classes rightness of feeling, for by good rights they ought to -teach us. So far as I know, the moral forces are not the result of -culture. They work up from below. There has never been a great reform -that did not originate with the so-called ‘People.’ All that culture can -do is occasionally to supply directing power, cold brain force, to the -impulse of the masses. Something deeper than thought, in the primary -instincts of the masses, keeps the race sane, healthy, right at heart.” - -“It is strange to hear that,” mused the Altruist, “in the face of the -awful degradation and the crying sin of the slums of this city. Nothing -short of miraculous regeneration, physical, mental, and spiritual, can -save them.” - -“What is it that Whitman says?” asked Janet. Then she quoted softly: - - “‘In this broad earth of ours, - Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, - Enclosed and safe within its central heart, - Nestles the seed perfection.’” - -“That crass optimism,” said the Altruist, sternly, “is materialistic and -superficial. It simply ignores the vileness of a sin-stricken world.” - -This question, as to whether the People are more sane at heart than the -not-People we never settled, for the committee-meeting drew to its -close. - -When we separated, I went into the corridor with the Altruist for a -parting word. - -“I am very sanguine in regard to our club,” he said, stroking his -smooth-shaven chin. “Janet will do fine work if her power can be set -free. I find it hard to be patient with her unreasonable pessimism.” - -“It isn’t quite fair to call it unreasonable, is it,” I murmured, “until -one knows the reason for it? We have not yet discovered that.” - -“As for the Doctor,”—he continued, not noticing my remark, “she is a -forceful woman, but crude. I actually feel that she does not understand -me half the time when I am talking. Of course she springs too directly -from the People to be thoroughly fine. And our difference in belief -would always make full spiritual communion impossible.” - -Then he looked at me, and his eyes lighted up. - -“I have an idea that you comprehend me better than any of the others,” -he said, graciously. - -When I went back to the parlour, I found the Doctor preparing to go. - -“There is one thing that can be said about the Altruist,” she remarked, -fastening her gloves with a snap. “He may know a great deal about God, -but he knows precious little about men and women.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXIX - - -We found the Anarchist at his own fireside, playing with a kitten. Two -children stood at his knee, and he was telling them stories, while the -kitten made dashes at his long gray beard. - -He lived in one of the workmen’s houses that have lately sprung up on -the outskirts of the city. They are two-story houses, made of brick, -with narrow windows and narrow stone doorsteps. Standing, row after row -in uniform regularity, they look like blocks made for some queer game -which nobody ever plays. - -The Anarchist reached out both hands to me with a cordial smile. He was -doubly cordial when I introduced the Tailoress and told him why I had -come. - -That was right, he said, as he seated us in great wooden rocking-chairs. -We were starting a movement in the right direction. Organization alone -could protect women against atrociously low wages and against long hours -of work. They were now absolutely at the mercy of their employers. - -“There ain’t no animal,” said the Anarchist, raising his arm in a -sweeping gesture, “that gets so little wage in proportion to its work as -half the women in this city. And that’s because they don’t organize. -They ain’t got the fraternity spirit. They’re comin’ on, but in one -respect the men’s ahead. The Brotherhood of Man is fur outstrippin’ the -Sisterhood of Women! - -“But draw up by the fire and warm ye,” he added, dropping the tone of a -demagogue for a natural voice. “It’s a right cold day out-doors.” - -The Anarchist’s large, patriarchal figure looked out of place in this -tiny sitting-room. His gray age emphasized the newness of his -surroundings. He should have for a background, I thought, the great elms -and weather-beaten porches of an ancestral farmhouse, instead of the -gaudy wall-paper and cheap, stained wood-work of this roughly finished -room. - -My companion did not look at the apartment. Her gaze was fastened on the -Anarchist, and a look, now of terror, now of kindling enthusiasm, -dilated her eyes. - -The difficulty, the Anarchist repeated, was with the women themselves. -They would not band together to demand their rights, because they were -afraid. They did not want to do anything “unladylike.” It seemed to me -that under the flowery and confused style, there was much sound sense in -his remarks. - -“Now if you,” he said, rising and striding up and down the room, with -his long cretonne dressing-gown flapping about his slippered heels, “if -you could influence any shop of ill-paid girls to form a union for -mutual protection of each other, and to go out on a strike, for their -lawful rights, which are theirs, you would be opening the eyes of the -captive and letting the maimed and halt and blind go free!” - -I do not know whether the Tailoress liked the rhetoric, but the idea had -taken possession of her. Her face was illumined by a new inspiration. -She looked, with her high cheek bones and her deep-set eyes, like an -ancient Sybil about to deliver a solemn message. - -The Anarchist seated himself again in his great rocking-chair, and one -of the children—a curly-headed boy of four—crept to his knee, and -cuddled down on his shoulder. - -“More,” coaxed the boy, “more Jack and the Bean-stalk.” - -The Anarchist looked up at us with smiling pride. - -“Is this a grandchild?” I asked. - -“No, no; he belongs to one of my neighbours. The two of ’em come over to -play with me since I give up work. I had to do it. What with organizin’ -and the conferences and the committee-meetings, I couldn’t get time for -no work.” - -I did not mean to look inquiringly at my host, but perhaps I did, for he -continued:— - -“The organization helps us considerable, and my wife, she sews. We -manage to get along.” - -I fancied that the Anarchist’s wife had laid aside her sewing and was -getting supper, for she was moving up and down in the kitchen. I -wondered if she were tired. - -The Tailoress was rapt and silent, with a Jeanne D’Arc look upon her -face. She was too much absorbed to hear the friendly remarks that the -Anarchist was making. - -“I’m glad you come to me,” he said. “I’ll do all I can to help on your -enterprise. There’s nothin’ in the world I wouldn’t do for a woman.” - -To check the thoughts that the busy footsteps in the kitchen suggested, -I asked the Anarchist a question. - -“Isn’t the idea of combining for any purpose contrary to your -principles? I thought that the first article in your political creed was -that each man should stand alone.” - -“E-ventually,” answered the Anarchist, with deliberation. “That’s the -eyedeal. This is only a perliminary step. We’ve got to combine first to -break the bands of unlawful power. It’s jest the same thing I said the -other night at the banquet. I reckon I scairt ye a little then?” he -queried, with a broad smile. “I don’t know but what I ought to have said -less, and yet I don’t know as I had. Those are only my temporary -sentiments.” - -“Yes?” I said, suggestively. - -“I’m a man of peace,” said the Anarchist, slowly. “A man of peace. I -want to see the day when we all stand side by side, free and equal, and -no man the minion of any other. That’s anarchy, that is. There won’t be -no injestice then, for there won’t be no gover’ment to meddle and mess -things up. We’ll all work separate and harmonious, and every man will -know that his interests and the interests of his neighbour are -eyedentical. - -“But I tell you,” he cried, starting up suddenly, and then subsiding for -the sake of the child nestled on his arm, “we’ve got to fight to bring -about this peace! The gover’ment’s on our shoulders, and it’s got to be -got off. That’s somethin’ we can’t do without co-operation, and we’ll -hev to fight together. - -“And it’s comin’,” he added solemnly. “The crisis is comin’. It won’t be -long before the worm will turn. Soon you’ll see the poor worms of the -dust ridin’ triumphant on the whirlwinds of war!” - - - - - CHAPTER XXX - - -We had a bit of good news to discuss over our tea. - -A lectureship had been offered to the Lad by a great Canadian -university. The opportunity was unusual for a man so young, and we were -all jubilant. A very human interest in his success had survived our -exhaustive analysis of his temperament. We talked much of his future. - -A week went by. Then the Lad read me a letter that gave me bitter -disappointment. The honour was lost, and that through the Lad’s own -action. - -He had written, before accepting, that he was not an orthodox churchman. -The authorities had replied that he could not then instruct their youth. - -“That boy has a great deal more religion than he thinks he has,” the -Doctor grumbled. “I should like to know where the university will get a -stronger influence for good.” - -But the Altruist shook his head. “His character has a certain nobility,” -he said, “but he lacks the supreme touch of definite belief. The -loftiest souls are sure. But I think the university wrong in confusing -spiritual instinct with intellectual power.” - -The Altruist was curiously radical in some of his views. - -Even I gave the Lad only half-hearted approval. He had but his brains -and his forth-coming book to win his way for him, and I could not help -wondering if the confession had been necessary. - -Janet was the only one of us who thoroughly liked the action. - -“He could not have done anything else, being the man he is,” she said -proudly. “He is the most delicately honest human being I have ever -known.” - -Gradually, as we went on talking, we decided that the step was worthy of -our admiration. It was characteristic of a nature, we said, whose chief -charm was a peculiar directness, mental and moral. In this lay the Lad’s -great strength. - -The Lad lost much in this transaction, but he gained more. It was a bold -stroke in the battle of love. Janet was warm in her praise, and the -Lad’s face began to wear a half-triumphant smile, most unbecoming in one -whose hope of advancement had been lost. - -It was then that the Altruist and I broke down another wall of reserve, -and grew confidential over the unfinished love-story. The confession of -this shames me. Hitherto we had kept it sacred from discussion. I was -surprised to find that the Altruist was as eager as I for its happy -completion. In our spare moments we made many plans for “the children,” -as we called them. The Altruist and I were beginning to feel old. - -Often the Altruist, in a musing vein, interpreted to me the spiritual -significance of the simple romance. - -“It is said that we walk blindly in this world, and cannot tell what the -events of life mean. But see the way in which Janet’s nature changes -under this influence! Can we doubt that her past unhappiness was sent to -make her future happiness deeper? Ah, we do see and share the thoughts -of God!” - -I looked at the Altruist dubiously. Sometimes I thought he understood -God’s plans too well. Then I reflected, and decided that he was right. -In the shaping of Janet’s life I was confident that I too could read the -design of the Almighty. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXI - - “At parting—Andres—said to Don Quixote, ‘For the love of God, Signor - Knight-errant, if ever you meet me again, though you see me beaten to - pieces, do not come with your help, but leave me to my fate, which - cannot be so bad but that it will be made worse by your - worship.’”—CERVANTES. - - -The Tailoress learned her lesson well. She listened to the Anarchist -until she was convinced that the hard conditions of her class were due, -not as she had always thought, to the will of God, but to the -selfishness of man, and that it was her duty to lead her fellow-workers -in rebellion. - -She was shrinking, timid, sensitive, but she nerved herself to her task. - -She began by forming a union in her own shop. It spread rapidly, soon -including most of the vest-makers in the city. The few who had good -wages joined for the sake of the many who had not. - -The Tailoress did the work of organization admirably, and developed -powers of generalship of which no one had suspected her. Only a little -while after the formation of the union the time for action came. The -monetary depression, which had been causing unusual distress among the -poor, affected trade so seriously that the wages of garment-makers were -cut down everywhere throughout the city. The vest-makers suffered with -the rest. - -The Tailoress acted as spokeswoman in the committee appointed by her -union to wait on the contractors for this kind of work. To each she -stated her case of grievances admirably, but no one of them gave her -assurance of redress. - -Then she led the vest-makers triumphantly out on a strike. - -I have not the heart to give the details of the fight that followed. It -was a case where the employers won a speedy victory, because of the ease -with which this work can be secured. In a few days many of the -contractors had filled their shops with new employés, and the work was -going on as usual, while the Tailoress and her followers were adrift. -Nothing had been ripe for the revolt except the enthusiasm of the -rebels. - -I had been sorely puzzled by the problem. The cause I felt was just, but -I found it difficult to face the idea of the misery that failure would -bring. I was hardly heroic enough to agree with the Altruist and the -Anarchist that the defeated strikers would be sufficiently rewarded by -the martyr’s consolation of suffering gloriously for their faith. -Possibly this was because I was acquainted with some of them. - -The battle was lost, and the Tailoress was broken-hearted. Her Jeanne -D’Arc courage left her. In her consciousness of the wretchedness she had -caused, she forgot that her impulse had been noble. She shrank from the -prophetess into a nervous, hysterical woman. - -We tried every method of consolation. The practical came first, and we -laboured incessantly, seeking employment for the vest-makers thrown out -of work. Two shops, after slight intercession, took back their employés, -in spite of the prejudice roused by the union. Many of the women were -successful in securing new work of a lower grade. - -The Altruist, I discovered in an indirect way, sacrificed a large part -of his private income in providing for the many who could find no -employment. The excitement of the occasion afforded him a kind of -painful happiness. The war of liberation had begun. He gave a lecture in -his auditorium on “The Defeat that is Success.” - -“I am really beginning to sway these young working-men,” he confided to -me exultantly afterward. “The labour-movement will lose its chief danger -if men who occupy neutral ground between the two parties in the struggle -can act as mediators. It is full of noble impulse that often acts -irrationally, and needs judicious guidance. The labourer fails in -presenting his claims in the right way because he cannot think logically -or speak efficiently. I am coming to think that my mission is to -interpret the mind of the working-man.” - -The Doctor, though she breathed out many imprecations against the -strike, helped a score of its stranded victims. - -“Do you think that this kind of protest against injustice is always -wrong?” I asked, rather deprecatingly, one day. - -“Yes, when it is stirred up by outsiders,” she answered with emphasis. -“With the labour-movement itself, in spite of its terrible mistakes, I -feel deep sympathy. In any demand so persistent, so universal, there -must be a certain justice, a certain right.” - -But her next remarks were not so agreeable. - -“I cannot understand how employers fail to see the trend of all this -agitation, and to realize that great concessions must be made to the -working-men. The peace of the country is menaced, yet the question at -issue is left, in times of outbreak to the military, in times of quiet -to professional agitators, a class of vagrants who represent neither -labour nor capital, and understand the position of neither employer nor -employé. The burden of responsibility which the business men of the -country refuse to shoulder is taken up by men like our friends the -Anarchist and the Young Reformer. The greatest danger lies there.” - -I smiled, thinking that possibly many of the agitators were, like the -Anarchist, not so dangerous as they tried to be. - -The news of the relief for her companions in revolt affected the -Tailoress but slightly. She shut herself up in her garret room with her -remorse. We visited her, and attempted consolation, but to no effect. - -At last she softened a little. One day the Altruist came to me with a -grieved look. - -“Will you ask the Doctor to go and talk with the Tailoress?” he said -gently. “I think the Doctor might reach her as none of the rest can. I -seem to have lost all influence over her.” - -I promised to fulfil the request. - -“I do not understand,” said the Altruist wistfully, “why I cannot touch -people at times like this. Before this grief came, the Tailoress hung on -every word I said. I sometimes feel a sense of lack, as if I cannot get -near simple human moods. It is much easier for me to cope with -intellectual difficulties.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXII - - -“Our elaborate schemes for helping people are making us forget,” said -the Doctor one day, “that the one thing human beings want is human -sympathy.” - -To this I assented readily. - -“In the first place,” she continued, with a thoughtful air, “through all -this machinery of leagues and clubs and organizations we are beginning -to lose our sense of individual responsibility. As soon as we find an -act of charity that ought to be done, we start a society to do it for -us.” - -“But when,” I protested, “has a sense of individual responsibility in -regard to the poor been so strong? Social problems have never been so -closely studied as they are to-day. Look at the seriousness of our young -men and women! Think of Barnet House, and the College Settlement!” - -“Yes, think of them,” said the Doctor. “The only trouble with the -residents at Barnet House is that they have too great a sense of -responsibility about other people’s lives, and too little about their -own. Society has, I presume, as just a claim to a man’s best work as the -poor have to his interest. Those young men do not belong to society at -all, because they do not share its burdens. ‘Two men I honour, and no -third,’—the man who works with his hands, and the man who works at a -necessary profession. But the man who gives up all regular occupation -just out of sheer benevolence I do not understand. - -“And I hope,” the Doctor added grimly, “that these young socialists may -be spared to share the labour of the era they are trying to usher in. -There will be no more of the _dolce-far-niente_ of doing good then, only -pick-axes and spades all round, with maybe an hour off at noon! If -socialism means work by all for all, I fail to see why those who -advocate it should devote themselves to an existence made of a little -study, a little lecturing, and much visiting, for scientific purposes, -of popular amusements.” - -“Do you consider that just?” I demanded. “I do not know any men who work -harder than some of those residents at Barnet House. Whether their -effort is mistaken is not for us to decide.” - -“No, I was not fair,” said the Doctor, penitently, “but I have been -meditating a long time on the relation of the man with a mission to the -public at large. It seems to me that no one ought to throw the burden of -his support on benevolent societies. You can’t take doing good as a -profession: you have got to do good work. We have no right to palm off -an interest in the lives of others as a substitute for living -ourselves.” - -“You have given much criticism, and very telling criticism of our -methods of work,” I remarked in a tone that anger made only the more -polite. “Now won’t you suggest some way in which things ought to be -done?” - -“I haven’t finished my criticism yet,” said the Doctor, undaunted. “I am -finding fault with myself too. In a way we all fail, and to go back to -what I said first, it is largely because of a lack of sympathy. We -forget that this is all-important, and keep thrusting our ideals between -us and human beings. Each one of us has an abstract standard to which -mankind must conform. It is equally fatal when the idea is cleanliness -and when it is godliness. I suppose that it will take a thousand years -for us to learn that we are responsible to humanity and not to notions.” - -My silence did not indicate that I had nothing to say. - -“The trouble with the world is,” the Doctor went on, “that it has -suffered from too much lofty thought. If there had been less of that, -there might have been more lofty action, and closer sympathy between man -and man. We shouldn’t be allowed to try to impress on our fellow-beings -pure, cold abstract notions. The only legitimate way of presenting our -theories to the world is by working them out in our own lives. We -haven’t any right to ideals for other people. I am more and more -convinced that we ought to keep our thoughts to ourselves, and give the -world simply the benefit of our actions.” - -“That is the first constructive suggestion that you have given,” I -muttered. “It is good. I like it.” - -“We are making our problem too hard.” The Doctor was very much in -earnest as she said this. “It is perfectly simple, after all. We must -take care of people ourselves. No organization should be allowed to -relieve us of our share of responsibility. The distress of those who -suffer must remain with every man a standing personal problem. So long -as the poor are with us, and any one of them needs a cup of cold water, -it is for us to give it, and with our own hands.” - -“That idea is very beautiful,” I commented, with hypocritical sweetness. -“Human sympathy is the one thing we all want. If one cultivate it long -enough, it may become so far-reaching as to extend to one’s -fellow-philanthropists, and even to one’s friends!” - -This was unkind, but the Doctor deserved it. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIII - - “Hope evermore and believe, O man; for e’en as thy thought - So are the things that thou see’st; e’en as thy hope and belief.” - —ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. - - -Janet worked out a new theory of life. For a time she had ceased to form -opinions, and I had rejoiced in seeing her ideas driven like dead leaves -before the first healthy emotion of her life. Now she drew herself -together and deluded herself into the belief that she had a new -philosophy. - -“The trouble with us all is,” she remarked sententiously to me one day, -“that we are always trying to convince God of our perfect intellectual -clearness in matters religious, while all the time God, ‘if there be a -God,’ knows perfectly well that we haven’t the means of getting it. He -wants the kind of answer that we can give, not the kind that we cannot -give.” - -“And what is that?” I asked. - -“Action,” she answered, “determination toward good, even when we cannot -understand the whole scheme of things.” - -I watched the girl’s quickly changing face with much admiration and with -some amusement. Once she had mistaken her peculiar moods for speculative -thought; now she was mistaking her thought of the Lad for a system of -philosophy. She had translated her lover’s personality into ethics. - -“We keep asking questions,” she went on, “and thinking that there will -be an answer. I suppose that God wishes us to answer our own questions -in deeds and not in words.” - -I liked her new ideas because they made her happy. Intrinsically they -were better than the old ones. But I fear that I should have liked any -thought of hers that made her face look like that. There was a light in -it that I had never seen before. - -“I think,” she said, looking up at me wistfully, “that all the sickening -sense I had of defeat—defeat before the battle—was because I stood -waiting for a voice from heaven to tell me what the outcome was to be. I -forgot that the voice must speak through my own lips.” - -“Isn’t your new gospel of action very much like the Lad’s?” I -insinuated. - -“I suppose it is,” said Janet, slowly; “and yet, and yet the Lad is a -positivist. He insists that the present world is the limit of all our -knowledge, perhaps of all our action.” - -“And you do not?” - -“I don’t know,” said the girl. “I sometimes wonder if the will to be and -to be good cannot rule in another world as well as in this. Perhaps the -will needs another world to realize the hope of this.” - -“Won’t you explain?” I begged meekly. I sometimes find it difficult to -understand the wisdom of the young. - -“I mean,” she said, “that we speak of God and love and immortality, and -ask if our ideas can be true. But God and love and immortality are not -to be had for the asking. They are true in so far as we make them true.” - -“So you have solved the problem of the Sphinx?” I said. “It is a good -solution; that is, as good as any mere thought about life can be.” - -“I suppose,” continued Janet, “that we are bound to answer back in act -to every question we can ask. We must rise to the level of our loftiest -inquiry. The first suspicion we get of immortality makes us responsible -for it. Henceforth we must win it for ourselves.” - -“O Socrates!” I interrupted, “how did you learn so much in so short a -time?” - -“Don’t stop me,” laughed the girl. “You may never have another chance to -listen to words of optimism from my lips. Listen: if we can even wonder -whether love works back of all the hurt of life, aren’t we bound to act -as if it were true?” - -“You must found a school,” I said. “Let me be your first disciple.” - -“No,” said Janet. “It has all been said a great many times, but I never -understood it before. The only thing that puzzles me is the Lad.” - -“That is simply fair. You puzzle him as well,” I murmured. - -“His renouncement of belief in another world to work in makes him more -eager to do well the work of this one. His denial of a life to be gives -him an added interest in this.” - -I assented, and in doing so felt that I was making a generous admission. -I was usually impatient with the pseudo-scientific thought of my -agnostic friends. - -“But remember that positivism would have a different effect on a nature -less rare,” I added by way of caution. - -“There is something very beautiful in it, something fine and -self-controlled, yet very sad,” said Janet, with a look of tenderness -creeping into her eyes. “He so longs to find the most exquisite -adjustment of this life to its ends, to make it a perfect artistic -whole. And I cannot make him say, with my pet philosopher,” said the -girl, looking up with one of her sweet, sudden smiles, “‘God, love, and -immortality shall be, for I am!’” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIV - - -I hesitate to tell the story of Polly. She is not fit to enter the -presence of these friends of mine. Moreover, I do not know her, for I -never saw her after her disgrace. I remember her as a chubby, -curly-headed child; I remember her as a girl of twelve. - -But her fate came to me as an awful confirmation of some facts that the -Anarchist had told me about conditions of work in our large city shops. -I had refused to believe them: they were too sensational. I have learned -since that they are sensational enough to be true. - -The day before Easter I was in the office alone, examining reports. The -door opened. Looking up, I saw a feeble old man, who walked unsteadily -as he entered the room. - -“I come to see,” he said solemnly, “if you knowed anything about Polly.” - -“Polly?” I said inquiringly. Then I recognized the wrinkled face before -me, with its fringe of beard, and I stretched out my hand to my guest. -He had been my host for two summers, long ago, on his farm in Vermont. - -“Polly’s gone wrong,” said the old man. - -I saw that grief had settled in every line and wrinkle of his -weather-beaten face. - -He told me the story very simply. Polly had been restless. They had -grown poorer every year upon their rocky farm, and Polly rebelled -against her narrow life. She had come to the city to work in a shop, and -after three years had given up the struggle and had gone away with a man -who did not marry her. - -“I ain’t never been able to understand it,” said her father, looking at -me pleadingly with his pale blue eyes. “It ain’t in the family. I don’t -know how she come by it. I’ve always thought there must be something to -account for it.” - -“There are many things that might account for it,” I answered. “She may -have been deceived, or perhaps she was actually starving, and saw no -other way of escape.” - -But her father shook his head. - -“No, ’twan’t that. She had good pay, a dollar and seventy-five cents a -week at Hempin and Morton’s. She sent considerable money home.” - -I groaned. Less than two dollars a week; a dollar to pay for a room; -poverty crying out in the old home; slow starvation, and the inevitable -end. - -“She could not live on that in the city!” I cried. “She could not keep -body and soul together. Hempin and Morton’s is a great cheap, gaudy -shop. Hempin and Morton’s women clerks are kept on starvation wages, and -are told, yes, are told by members of the firm, when they rebel, that -pretty girls are not expected to live upon their pay.” - -I was quoting the Anarchist. - -“You must forgive her,” I went on. “I am sure she suffered more than we -can tell. I am sure she fought bravely before she gave up.” - -“I ain’t never blamed her much,” he whispered, his cold blue eyes -gleaming with tears. “Her mother was for lettin’ her go. But every year -since it happened I’ve come up to the city for a spell to look for her. -I heard of your place here, and su’mised you might know something about -her.” - -I took the old man to my home. He was too feeble to come with me in my -search. Then I went to the only woman in the city who could find Polly -for me. - -That was Miss Hobbs, the little missionary. She lives in a wretched -court, in the wickedest part of the city, down where the great Jewish -thoroughfare of the East End runs across the Italian and the Portuguese -quarters, on its way to Traffic Street. - -She is alone except for one girl whom she has taken from the streets. -Together they do what the city charities call ‘rescue work.’ Night after -night they search through the dives and dens and opium-joints of the -city for the women who are stranded there. For every one saved from that -life, twenty drift back to it. Yet the rescue work never stops. - -“Polly?” said Miss Hobbs, her homely face lighting up under her -Salvation Army bonnet, “Polly Nemor? That is the name of a beautiful -girl I have been hunting for for weeks. We will look for her everywhere -to-night. You must go with us, for perhaps you can induce her to come -away.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXV - - -The search for Polly was like going down through the open gates of Hell. - -Miss Hobbs left her fire burning, and her door half-opened. Then we went -out through the gloomy court into the street. - -In the gleam of flickering electric lights, my old feeling of the -unreality of all I saw came back to me. We were in a broad thoroughfare, -where night after night is played the tragedy of a great city’s sin. The -actors passed and re-passed. The scene shifted. We saw the leering faces -of men, and heard the evil laughter of women. The sights and sounds -faded, then came again, but the curtain never fell. Even closed eyelids -could not shut the horror out. - -I shrank back and would have given up the search, but the old man’s face -was always before my eyes, begging me to go on; and the woman at my side -knew no fear. She walked with charmed feet. Ruffians on the street -kicked each other out of the way to let her pass; the carousers in every -dance hall and saloon fell back that she might enter; drunken women rose -when she touched them, and followed her home to the fresh beds that she -had made ready for all who would come. - -Polly was nowhere here. She must have drifted still lower. We went from -the glaring lights down where, under the tracks of an elevated road, the -streets narrowed and darkened and closed in upon us. We were near the -wharves and the bridges. - -Here is cast up a whole city’s refuse. Tides of foul life, subsiding, -leave here on the street, or in dive and den, the sodden-faced women who -have shared the flood of passion in its fury, and must suffer its ebb. -There is nothing lower. There is nothing beyond, except the river, which -runs foul and slimy here along the dirty wharves. - -We found a girl waiting on a street corner, alone. Under the little -shawl tied over her head I saw tears on her cheeks. I held out my hand -to her, and she came with us. In one saloon a pink-eyed, foolish woman -clung to us, and followed of her own will when we came away. - -But we could not find Polly. There was no one on any street, or in any -drinking-den who looked like the woman that my old friend had called his -“little girl.” - -At last, with hope almost given up, we turned toward the Chinese -quarter. - -The odour of incense floating from joss-houses, the fumes from -opium-joints, made us faint and sick. But we went on, searching through -thin-walled, whitewashed houses, and climbing narrow ladders to rooms -that Miss Hobbs, in her work of mercy, had earned the right to enter. - -Again and again, outside closed doors, Miss Hobbs stood calling “Polly! -Polly!” No answer came. We heard the pattering feet of Chinamen, who -swarmed around us like rats; we saw their sneering faces, and heard -their chuckling laughter.... - -At last we came away, discouraged. - -Nearly all night our weary pilgrimage lasted. When, in the early -morning, my companion said that we must give up the search, we found -ourselves down close by the water. It was dark and sullen: the great -bridges overhead looked black and unholy. Even the moonlight seemed -stained with sin. I reflected with bitterness that it was Easter -Eve,—Easter Eve in a world that was only one great, hideous carousal. - -Then, glancing up, I saw the look on Miss Hobbs’s face, and my ears rang -with triumphant music:— - - “Christ ist erstanden! - Freude dem sterblichen, - Den die verderblichen - Schleichenden, erblichen - Mängel umwanden”.... - -We came home in the glimmering dawn, through a city white with Easter -lilies. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVI - - “Of Paradys ne can not I speken propurly; for I was not there.”—SIR - JOHN MAUNDEVILLE. - - -There came a day that was different from all other days. Its light, I -think, will go shining down through all the days of my life, to the very -end. - -It was early spring. We were walking, Janet and the Lad and I, along the -river, where it winds and curves among meadows, inland from the sea. The -first spring green had rippled over the country, and along the -water-ways, tiny leaves shivered on the silver beeches and the tall -young poplar trees. - -Janet chattered and laughed like a child. “Isn’t it hard to believe,” -she said, shading her radiant face with her hands, “that one can be so -much alive, and that—” - -“That what?” I questioned. - -“That the very air can be made to shine around us in this way,” she -answered softly. - -We were to walk to Sunset Hill, and to climb to its very top. But we -loitered, and the river loitered too. It ran so lazily between its banks -that we could hardly tell which way the current set. - -I do not remember that we talked much. We toiled along in the warm air, -with our wraps growing warm at every step, and we picked the violets and -the wind-flowers near our path. At the foot of the hill my courage -failed. I seated myself on a great flat rock, and announced my intention -to stay there. - -My two young friends remonstrated. They would wait until I was rested, -and would help me all the way. But I could not and would not go, for I -wished to be alone. - -So I sent them off together, up the hill. They had taken off their hats, -and were walking bare-headed. The wind was blowing the Lad’s dark hair -away from his forehead, and was fluttering in the folds of Janet’s gown. - -Looking across the rolling country I rested as I had not rested for -months. There were hints of blossom among the cool, pale greens of grass -and trees. I forgot my winter and my suffering poor, as the earth had -forgotten its past in the glory of another spring. - -All the knowledge of sin and of unholiness that the winter had brought -me was annulled by the picture before me, of Janet and the Lad climbing -bravely up the hill. How young and strong, how happy they were! What -promise and hope lay in love like that! - -For I knew, I know not how, that the crisis had come. I was sure that at -last the unsurmountable obstacle had given way. I shut my eyes to let -the wind blow on my eyelids. I was content. I wondered almost that the -lovers did not envy me, for I shared the lives of both; both sides of -the story were mine. - -Just once I opened my eyes and looked. The pilgrims were standing at the -end of the long green slope, against the pale blue sky. I saw the Lad -take both the girl’s hands in his own, and then I turned my head. I had -no right to watch them, even from outside the gates, beyond the drawn -sword. - -As I waited, I thought of the fitness of the scene. The passion and the -purity of that love were one with the encompassing life of spring. - -I was alone quite a long time, I think. The air grew cooler and more -cool. The low, sweet piping of frogs came to me from the near river and -the far-off pools. I was alone, dreaming my dreams. - -The sunshine grew fainter as the afternoon wore on. It was full of a -spring haze that was woven, half of light, and half of green, caught -from new leaves. Presently I saw that only the tops of the willows and -the young elms were in the sunlight. The day was almost done. - -When the lovers came down from the hill-top, their faces were shining. -We went home silently along the foot-path in the grass on the river -bank. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVII - - -It was almost summer. - -The sound of much talking had grown fainter in my ears. Between our long -discussions I had found time to stretch out my hands, and to help, in -definite ways, a few of my fellow-beings. The touch of need brought -strength to me, and clearer sight. - -The city no longer looked like a visionary background for a fantastic -play. Janet and the Lad and my poor people had made it real to me. It -was sacred now with human interest. - -I had learned to take refuge from abstract questions in the details of -my work. It was impossible to speculate while entering the record of one -day’s proceedings, or making memoranda for the next. - -But I shrank from the greatness of my task. Each day the cry for help -was louder; each day I knew more fully my powerlessness. Sometimes I -covered my face with my hands and prayed for any one of the old family -ties to shield me from this mass of collective misery. If I could have -again any slightest duty that was all my own! But no; I had gone out to -take care of all the world, and the way was closed behind me. - -I found that I depended more and more upon my friends, caring less, as -time went on, about our differences in opinion. As the Doctor once -remarked, we were all much better than our ideas. Even the Altruist, -though it seemed to me that his zeal expressed itself largely in -mistakes, gave me a kind of inspiration. It was better to blunder than -to do nothing at all. - -The Doctor was a constant stimulus. She walked unswervingly in the path -that she had chosen, gradually softening a little under the influence of -a physician’s life. Her reputation in surgery, I discovered, was making -her name known beyond our city. I was proud of her. - -I never knew all the kindly deeds that she did among the poor. The -record of every one of them is written in her face, behind the -professional mask that refuses to stay on. - -Yes, the Doctor’s friendship was an abiding help to me. And sometimes in -my work a single incident would make me feel that for this alone I would -willingly have spent all my effort. - -As, for instance, when Miss Hobbs appeared one day in the office, her -face red from hurrying, her eyes shining with delight. - -“I’ve got Polly,” she said. “Shall I take her to her father?” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVIII - - -The Lad’s book was out. After a season of anxious waiting we knew of its -success. The best reviews spoke highly of its creative thought, and -praised the mental keenness and the logic of its author. - -Rainforth wrote a letter warm with enthusiasm. He pronounced himself and -his arguments annihilated, and declared that nothing in his life had -given him more pleasure than the process of being ground to powder by -his friend. - -Last of all came a few lines from a famous English scientist. The Lad -read them and flushed hot with delight. - -“I declare! This makes me feel like a great man,” he said. - -Then he announced that he was going home. - -“I haven’t set eyes on my old father for over a year. And nobody in the -world will be so pleased as he to know that this thing has gone through -successfully.” - -He went away a few days later. The Butterfly Hunter waited with me in -the parlour to say good-bye to the Lad; he was making a parting call on -Janet. - -“I must be away in a few days too,” said the Butterfly Hunter. - -“Is it a new trip?” I asked. - -“Yes,” he answered cheerfully. “My last butterfly died yesterday. The -experiment was a failure. I am going to the East for a new collection.” - -Through the window I could see the Man of the World, who was standing on -the street corner, watching the passers-by. His new suit looked very -fresh. The trousers were carefully creased, and turned up twice at the -bottom. The Man of the World was probably waiting, though he would not -have admitted it, for a last word with the Lad. The air of the summer -afternoon made him more languid than ever. It was a pathetic little -figure. - -“He will never do any genuine living,” I thought, “but will always be a -spectator, bored and sad.” - -The Lad came back with his quick, running step. He was excited. The hair -above his broad, white forehead was in disorder as he said good-bye; his -eyes were radiant with pure joy. - -“I shall be here again in a week,” he said, as he grasped his bag, “and -ready for the fray once more.” - -I watched him as he went down the street. Once he looked back, lifted -his hat, then disappeared. - -The keenness of my pride in the Lad almost hurt me. If his mother could -only know him now! - -Through the growing dimness of my eyes I saw him in fancy after he was -gone. In his eager movement he resembled the figures on Greek reliefs of -youths speeding for a prize, and always after in my thought I likened -him to those immortal runners and winners of the race. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIX - - “All that was death - Grows life, grows love, - Grows love!” - - -Janet and I came in the next evening out of the warm twilight, and found -baby Jean waiting for us with her father and mother in the library. - -Janet had spoken again of the Lad’s love for her. We had been walking in -the deep green shadows of the trees in the park. - -“I cannot understand it,” she said, with a little gasp that was half a -sob. “The very air seems warm with the breath of the people who love me. -The Lad has made the whole world care. Even the beggars and the children -on the street are fond of me.” - -We sat in the library for a few minutes, talking of old things and new. -As I rose to go, a boy came to the house, bringing a telegram. It said -that the Lad had been killed in an accident. - -A silence like the hush of eternity fell upon the room. No one dared -look at Janet’s face. - -Presently Jean pattered across the room and picked up the telegram, -which had fallen from hands powerless to hold it. She looked at it -soberly for a minute. Then with a ripple of laughter she crumpled it up -in her hands. She was very fond of all things yellow. - - - - - CHAPTER XL - - -I went home, and in the quiet of my own room I said that I would not let -this thing be true. - -I, who had been walking with the Altruist on heights where the hidden -meanings of the world lay clear to view, fell into a horror of great -darkness. One utterly inexplicable event made all life incoherent. - -The Lad was dead. He had perished in an accident that was the result of -his own reckless daring. For the mere physical delight of battling with -danger he had rushed to his destruction. A life guided steadily toward -great issues had ended in a swift caprice. - -Now for the first time I knew what Janet had meant when she said that -there is no God, but only a mocking will that makes sport of our hope -and our endeavour. - -Infinite irony could find no expression more cruel, I thought, as I -walked up and down my long floor, than in making us the instruments of -our own undoing, in causing us to tear down ourselves the work of our -own hands. - -All that the Lad had thought of life was contradicted by his death. It -could be perfect in itself, he had said so often. Its completeness lay -in finished work. And now— - -I turned, sick at heart, from this place so full of tragedy and of -baffling puzzles, and resolved to go back to the lanes and garden-plots -of my native village. There in peace and loneliness I would try to -forget all that I had known here, even this little story. - -But oh, the pity of it! The Lad had walked with so firm a tread. I had -thought of him as one real, moving among the shows of things, where we -groped our way, uncertain of the path. - -All through the winter, against the dark background of my new knowledge -of evil, I had seen him, strong in body and alert in mind, with a heart -like the heart of a little child. Often, in thinking of him, I had said: -“God now and then sends a man into the world who stands as a promise to -the race.” - -I thought of Janet, and I cried out to know the meaning of the world’s -great waste of human pain. - -The Altruist explained it all to me the next day. - -He came to ask me to visit Janet. I had not dared to go. He was -surprised and grieved by my mood. - -“The meaning of this sorrow is very clear,” he said gently, with the old -ecstatic gleam in his eyes. - -“You explained everything very differently a few weeks ago,” I said -rebelliously, when he had finished. “You told me then, and I believed -you, that God was leading that girl out of her mental tangles into -simple human happiness.” - -“Did I?” said the Altruist, dreamily. “It all looks different to me -now.” - -“I can see that it does,” I retorted in anger. - -“The shock will carry Janet out of her old, cheap pessimism into -conviction and into action of some kind. She will merge her individual -experience in the general life. She will lose herself in great ideas. -Now, at the crisis of so many great questions, she will find her work. I -can see a career for her infinitely more lofty than she could have had -if this sad event had not occurred.” - -Here the Doctor entered, interrupting the words of prophecy. - - - - - CHAPTER XLI - - -I was sorry that the Doctor had arrived in time to catch the Altruist’s -last remarks. She waited until he was gone, then sank wearily into a -chair. - -“How the angels in heaven must smile at that man’s assurance,” she -exclaimed. “I wish, I wish he could tell the difference between his -voice and the voice of God!” - -I was in no mood to defend the Altruist, and so said nothing. - -“If the Altruist knows what all this trouble means, he knows a great -deal more than I do,” she went on grimly. “I cannot see, I cannot see -how the Lad could so forget all the people who cared for him.” - -The sentence ended in a half sob that almost frightened me. It had never -occurred to me that the Doctor could shed tears. - -“Have you seen Janet?” I asked, attempting to change the subject. I -succeeded only in turning the Doctor’s wrath back upon the Altruist. - -“Yes,” she said, “I have seen Janet, and I wish the Altruist were in -Timbuctoo! He has been at the house and has utterly unnerved her.” - -“How?” I asked. - -“It is hard to believe, even of the Altruist. How do you suppose he -greeted that hurt child? ‘Janet,’ he said, ‘I have always had an -intuition that you were not meant for mere happiness.’” - -I groaned. “He doesn’t mean to be cruel,” I said, “but he has not the -simple instinct—” - -“A few of the simpler human instincts are really necessary,” interrupted -the Doctor, “in any attempt to help human beings. If the Altruist had -more feeling and less transcendentalism, it would be better.” - -“It isn’t a week,” I responded, “since he had an intuition of a directly -opposite kind. And then I was trying to help him,” I confessed, for a -sudden sense of guilt overcame me as I met the Doctor’s clear eyes, “in -his attempt to explain to God what He means.” - -The fierce expression in her face was changing into a look of -tenderness. - -“Go to see the child,” she said huskily, “to-morrow, not to-day. She -will be quieter then.” - -But I waited two long days. The hours were tedious and dull and heavy, -full of cloud and rain. No birds were singing in the sunless air, and -the grass had forgotten to grow. It seemed to me that in the ending of a -life dear to me, all life had paused. - - - - - CHAPTER XLII - - “For the agony of the world’s struggle is the very life of God. Were - He mere spectator, perhaps He too would call life cruel. But in the - unity of our lives with His, our joy is His joy; our pain is His.” - - -I do not know what incoherent words I was saying. Janet stopped me. - -“No, don’t,” she said. “I do not feel like that. You need not be sorry -for me.” - -Her voice was very quiet, and her face was firm with the exalted, -unnatural self-control of extreme grief. - -“Do you know?” she said, “the sorrow almost rests me. I have had so much -of the bitter and meaningless pain. Perhaps my quarrel with life is -over.” - -“But this is so inexplicable,” I cried, taking the girl’s hands in mine -and forgetting that I was there to comfort her. - -“It doesn’t need to be explained, because it hurts, and the hurt is -life, and life is good. Oh, I tell you,” she added proudly, drawing her -hands away and going over to seat herself by the window; “it is only -when you are standing outside, looking at life, talking about it and -thinking about it, that you can say it is cruel. When you are really -living, the very hurt is glorious.” - -I sat and watched the tearless face. The girl had been carried beyond -me, out into the deeps of life where my words of help could not reach -her. - -“I have always been trying to reason out the meaning of things,” she -said, turning quickly toward me, “and nobody even told me that it is -only what cannot be said that makes life worth while.” - -“People have tried to, Janet,” I said softly, “but that is one of the -things that cannot be told.” - -“There isn’t any kind of pain,” she said slowly, “that can equal the joy -of simple human love.” - -I forgot my rebellion of the night before. I bowed my head in the -presence of this power for whose better apprehending we covet the very -agony and pain of life. We follow swiftly to let even its shadow fall -upon us, for if ‘in its face is light, in its shadow there is healing -too.’ - -The sunshine falling through the window turned Janet’s hair into a halo -of waving strands. - -“Child,” I whispered, “it is true. It is good just to live. But remember -also that the old faith may be true. God may be, and may be love.” - -“I don’t know,” said the girl, looking up. “I haven’t any opinions.” - -Then a mist came over her eyes, for even her new comfort was swept away -by the waves of her sorrow; and she bowed her head upon her hands with -the cry that has ever been the one irrefutable witness to His presence: -“O my God!” - - - - - CHAPTER XLIII - - -We are all busy still, and yet the world is not saved. - -The Anarchist is perfecting the process that shall bring his millennium -to be, and the young Socialists in Barnet House are working out the -details of their new economic order. The Altruist still translates the -infinite into finite terms; the Young Reformer is on the platform; I -toil daily in the self-same Cause, but the world is not saved. - -Many times since we closed ranks and marched onward over the Lad’s grave -I have paused, disheartened. Full assurance has not been granted me, and -it is my lot in doing battle to strike often in the dark. Yet I have -moments when I know that the strife is not in vain. In these I wonder -why we are so troubled about our duty to our fellow-man, and about our -knowledge of God. The one command in regard to our neighbour is not -obscure. And our foreboding lest our faith in God shall escape us seems -futile, inasmuch as we cannot escape from our faith. - - - THE END - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE IRIS SERIES - - OF ILLUSTRATED COPYRIGHT NOVELS. - - TRYPHENA IN LOVE. - - BY - - WALTER RAYMOND, - - AUTHOR OF “LOVE AND QUIET LIFE,” Etc. - - ILLUSTRATED BY - - J. WALTER WEST. - - 16mo. Artistic Cloth Binding. 75 cents. - - -“Fresh and quaint and wholesome as the scent of the homely -flowers.”—_London Daily News._ - -“Full of freshness and life, of vivid touches of local color and -picturesque details, while written with tenderness, sympathy, and -artistic discernment.” - -“Nothing more daintily charming in style, more tenderly pathetic in -matter, or more exquisitely balanced as a story, has come to our table -for a long time than ‘Tryphena in Love.’ It is a simple tale of humble -life in the Somerset district of England.”—_Boston Traveler._ - -“A sweet little English tale, idyllic in subject and manner. It is -simply the story of an invalid boy who lies in the old manor house, in -‘the room where the king hid,’ and lives in a world of romance, and of -the buxom little cousin who loves and serves him. The picture is -delicately painted, yet firmly and clearly, and with a poetic atmosphere -that is very charming.”—_Philadelphia Times._ - -“No gentler or sweeter tale has appeared in years than Walter Raymond’s -‘Tryphena in Love.’” - -“A delicious, dreamy love story, told for the love of telling.”—_Chicago -Times-Herald._ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - FURTHER ISSUES IN THE IRIS SERIES - - WILL BE - - - A LOST ENDEAVOUR. - - BY - - GUY BOOTHBY, - - AUTHOR OF “A BID FOR FORTUNE.” - - ILLUSTRATED BY - - STANLEY L. WOOD. - - 16mo. Linen. 75 cents. - - * * * * * - - - MAUREEN’S FAIRING. - - BY - - JANE BARLOW, - - AUTHOR OF “IRISH IDYLLS,” “THE END OF ELFINTOWN,” Etc. - - Illustrated. 16mo. Linen. 75 cents. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE WINGS OF ICARUS. - - BEING THE LIFE OF ONE EMILIA FLETCHER, AS REVEALED BY HERSELF IN - - I. Thirty-live Letters written to Constance Norris between July 16, - 188–, and March 26 of the following year. - - II. A Fragmentary Journal. - - III. A Postscript. - - BY - - LAURENCE ALMA TADEMA. - - 18mo. Buckram, gilt top. $1.25. - - -“It is a study of the inner workings of the human heart, and if the -motives of a soul were ever laid bare, it has been done in ‘The Wings of -Icarus.’... A good story, told in an intensely natural and interesting -manner.”—_Providence News._ - -“In ‘The Wings of Icarus,’ Laurence Alma Tadema has given us a book -which, for its literary excellence and for its exquisite pen coloring -and finish in every detail, is as artistic a piece of work as ever her -distinguished father has produced with his brush.”—_Boston Home -Journal._ - -“It is at once delicate and forcible, and holds in its story a depth of -passion whose expression is yet kept within the limits of a true -refinement.”—_Philadelphia Evening Bulletin._ - -“It is exquisite in style, spontaneous and well-sustained in movement.” - -“It is a story of Italian coloring delicately suggestive, artistic -rather than strong, dreamy rather than aggressive.”—_Chicago Evening -Post._ - - - UNIFORM WITH “THE WINGS OF ICARUS.” - - - MAD SIR UCHTRED OF THE HILLS. - - BY - - S. R. CROCKETT, - - AUTHOR OF “THE RAIDERS,” “THE STICKIT MINISTER,” ETC., ETC. - - 16mo. Buckram. $1.25. - -“Mr. Crockett is surely the poet-laureate of Galloway. The scene of his -latest tale (‘Mad Sir Uchtred’) is laid among the hills with which we -became familiar in ‘The Raiders.’ It is a brief tale, not a novel, and -it can be read through in an hour; indeed, if one begins it, one must -read it through, so compelling is the charm of it. The Lady of Garthland -makes a gracious and pathetic figure, and the wild and terrible Uchtred, -the wrong done him, the vengeance which he did not take,—all these -things are narrated in a style of exquisite clearness and beauty. Mr. -Crockett need not fear comparison with any of the young Scotsmen who are -giving to English literature, just now, so much that is fresh, and -wholesome, and powerful.”—_Boston Courier._ - - - THE SILVER CHRIST, - AND - A LEMON TREE. - - BY OUIDA, - - AUTHOR OF “UNDER TWO FLAGS,” “TWO LITTLE WOODEN SHOES,” ETC., ETC. - - 16mo. Buckram. $1.25. - -“Two charming stories by ‘Ouida’ are included in a dainty little volume -(‘The Silver Christ’; ‘A Lemon Tree’). Comparatively few persons—so at -least it seems to us—appreciate this writer at her true value. We have -not the highest opinion of much of her work; it is meretricious and even -vulgar. But at her best she is capable of truly exquisite writing, and -it is in shorter tales, dealing with an episode—brief studies of -character—that she is at her best.”—_Boston Courier._ - -“Is pathetic, simple, and beautifully told, and those who have classed -Ouida among the forbidden fruits of literature, should read it to -understand what an artist with the pen she is.”—_Boston Times._ - - MACMILLAN & CO., - 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in - spelling. - 2. 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