diff options
Diffstat (limited to '8295-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 8295-0.txt | 6893 |
1 files changed, 6893 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/8295-0.txt b/8295-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2990b0f --- /dev/null +++ b/8295-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6893 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Through the Eye of the Needle, by William Dean Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Through the Eye of the Needle + A Romance + +Author: William Dean Howells + + +Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8295] +This file was first posted on July 26, 2003 +Last Updated: February 25, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Musser, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE + +A Romance + +With An Introduction + + +By William Dean Howells + + +1907 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Aristides Homos, an Emissary of the Altrurian Commonwealth, visited the +United States during the summer of 1893 and the fall and winter +following. For some weeks or months he was the guest of a well-known +man of letters at a hotel in one of our mountain resorts; in the early +autumn he spent several days at the great Columbian Exhibition in +Chicago; and later he came to New York, where he remained until he +sailed, rather suddenly, for Altruria, taking the circuitous route by +which he came. He seems to have written pretty constantly throughout his +sojourn with us to an intimate friend in his own country, giving freely +his impressions of our civilization. His letters from New York appear to +have been especially full, and, in offering the present synopsis of these +to the American reader, it will not be impertinent to note certain +peculiarities of the Altrurian attitude which the temperament of the +writer has somewhat modified. He is entangled in his social sophistries +regarding all the competitive civilizations; he cannot apparently do full +justice to the superior heroism of charity and self-sacrifice as +practised in countries where people live _upon_ each other as the +Americans do, instead of _for_ each other as the Altrurians do; but +he has some glimmerings of the beauty of our living, and he has +undoubtedly the wish to be fair to our ideals. He is unable to value our +devotion to the spirit of Christianity amid the practices which seem to +deny it; but he evidently wishes to recognize the possibility of such a +thing. He at least accords us the virtues of our defects, and, among +the many visitors who have censured us, he has not seen us with his +censures prepared to fit the instances; in fact, the very reverse has +been his method. + +Many of the instances which he fits with his censures are such as he +could no longer note, if he came among us again. That habit of +celebrating the munificence of the charitable rich, on which he spends +his sarcasm, has fallen from us through the mere superabundance of +occasion. Our rich people give so continuously for all manner of good +objects that it would be impossible for our press, however vigilant, to +note the successive benefactions, and millions are now daily bestowed +upon needy educational institutions, of which no mention whatever is made +in the newspapers. If a millionaire is now and then surprised in a good +action by a reporter of uncommon diligence, he is able by an appeal to +their common humanity to prevail with the witness to spare him the +revolting publicity which it must be confessed would once have followed +his discovery; the right hand which is full to overflowing is now as +skilled as the empty right hand in keeping the left hand ignorant of its +doings. This has happened through the general decay of snobbishness among +us, perhaps. It is certain that there is no longer the passion for a +knowledge of the rich, and the smart, which made us ridiculous to Mr. +Homos. Ten or twelve years ago, our newspapers abounded in intelligence +of the coming and going of social leaders, of their dinners and lunches +and teas, of their receptions and balls, and the guests who were bidden +to them. But this sort of unwholesome and exciting gossip, which was +formerly devoured by their readers with inappeasable voracity, is no +longer supplied, simply because the taste for it has wholly passed away. + +Much the same might be said of the social hospitalities which raised our +visitor's surprise. For example, many people are now asked to dinner who +really need a dinner, and not merely those who revolt from the notion of +dinner with loathing, and go to it with abhorrence. At the tables of our +highest social leaders one now meets on a perfect equality persons of +interesting minds and uncommon gifts who would once have been excluded +because they were hungry, or were not in the hostess's set, or had not a +new gown or a dress-suit. This contributes greatly to the pleasure of the +time, and promotes the increasing kindliness between the rich and poor +for which our status is above all things notable. + +The accusation which our critic brings that the American spirit has been +almost Europeanized away, in its social forms, would be less grounded in +the observance of a later visitor. The customs of good society must be +the same everywhere in some measure, but the student of the competitive +world would now find European hospitality Americanized, rather than +American hospitality Europeanized. The careful research which has been +made into our social origins has resulted in bringing back many of the +aboriginal usages; and, with the return of the old American spirit of +fraternity, many of the earlier dishes as well as amenities have been +restored. A Thanksgiving dinner in the year 1906 would have been found +more like a Thanksgiving dinner in 1806 than the dinner to which Mr. +Homos was asked in 1893, and which he has studied so interestingly, +though not quite without some faults of taste and discretion. The +prodigious change for the better in some material aspects of our status +which has taken place in the last twelve years could nowhere be so well +noted as in the picture he gives us of the housing of our people in 1893. +His study of the evolution of the apartment-house from the old +flat-house, and the still older single dwelling, is very curious, and, +upon the whole, not incorrect. But neither of these last differed so +much from the first as the apartment-house now differs from the +apartment-house of his day. There are now no dark rooms opening on +airless pits for the family, or black closets and dismal basements for +the servants. Every room has abundant light and perfect ventilation, and +as nearly a southern exposure as possible. The appointments of the houses +are no longer in the spirit of profuse and vulgar luxury which it must be +allowed once characterized them. They are simply but tastefully finished, +they are absolutely fireproof, and, with their less expensive decoration, +the rents have been so far lowered that in any good position a quarter of +nine or ten rooms, with as many baths, can be had for from three thousand +to fifteen thousand dollars. This fact alone must attract to our +metropolis the best of our population, the bone and sinew which have no +longer any use for themselves where they have been expended in rearing +colossal fortunes, and now demand a metropolitan repose. + +The apartments are much better fitted for a family of generous size than +those which Mr. Homos observed. Children, who were once almost unheard +of, and quite unheard, in apartment-houses, increasingly abound under +favor of the gospel of race preservation. The elevators are full of them, +and in the grassy courts round which the houses are built, the little +ones play all day long, or paddle in the fountains, warmed with +steam-pipes in the winter, and cooled to an agreeable temperature in a +summer which has almost lost its terrors for the stay-at-home New-Yorker. +Each child has his or her little plot of ground in the roof-garden, where +they are taught the once wellnigh forgotten art of agriculture. + +The improvement of the tenement-house has gone hand in hand with that of +the apartment-house. As nearly as the rate of interest on the landlord's +investment will allow, the housing of the poor approaches in comfort that +of the rich. Their children are still more numerous, and the playgrounds +supplied them in every open space and on every pier are visited +constantly by the better-to-do children, who exchange with them lessons +of form and fashion for the scarcely less valuable instruction in +practical life which the poorer little ones are able to give. The rents +in the tenement houses are reduced even more notably than those in the +apartment-houses, so that now, with the constant increase in wages, the +tenants are able to pay their rents promptly. The evictions once so +common are very rare; it is doubtful whether a nightly or daily walk in +the poorer quarters of the town would develop, in the coldest weather, +half a dozen cases of families set out on the sidewalk with their +household goods about them. + +The Altrurian Emissary visited this country when it was on the verge of +the period of great economic depression extending from 1894 to 1898, but, +after the Spanish War, Providence marked the divine approval of our +victory in that contest by renewing in unexampled measure the prosperity +of the Republic. With the downfall of the trusts, and the release of our +industrial and commercial forces to unrestricted activity, the condition +of every form of labor has been immeasurably improved, and it is now +united with capital in bonds of the closest affection. But in no phase +has its fate been so brightened as in that of domestic service. This has +occurred not merely through the rise of wages, but through a greater +knowledge between the employing and employed. When, a few years since, it +became practically impossible for mothers of families to get help from +the intelligence-offices, and ladies were obliged through lack of cooks +and chambermaids to do the work of the kitchen and the chamber and +parlor, they learned to realize what such work was, how poorly paid, how +badly lodged, how meanly fed. From this practical knowledge it was +impossible for them to retreat to their old supremacy and indifference as +mistresses. The servant problem was solved, once for all, by humanity, +and it is doubtful whether, if Mr. Homos returned to us now, he would +give offence by preaching the example of the Altrurian ladies, or would +be shocked by the contempt and ignorance of American women where other +women who did their household drudgery were concerned. + +As women from having no help have learned how to use their helpers, +certain other hardships have been the means of good. The flattened wheel +of the trolley, banging the track day and night, and tormenting the +waking and sleeping ear, was, oddly enough, the inspiration of reforms +which have made our city the quietest in the world. The trolleys now pass +unheard; the elevated train glides by overhead with only a modulated +murmur; the subway is a retreat fit for meditation and prayer, where the +passenger can possess his soul in a peace to be found nowhere else; the +automobile, which was unknown in the day of the Altrurian Emissary, whirs +softly through the most crowded thoroughfare, far below the speed limit, +with a sigh of gentle satisfaction in its own harmlessness, and, “like +the sweet South, taking and giving odor.” The streets that he saw so +filthy and unkempt in 1893 are now at least as clean as they are quiet. +Asphalt has universally replaced the cobble-stones and Belgian blocks of +his day, and, though it is everywhere full of holes, it is still asphalt, +and may some time be put in repair. + +There is a note of exaggeration in his characterization of our men which +the reader must regret. They are not now the intellectual inferior of our +women, or at least not so much the inferiors. Since his day they have +made a vast advance in the knowledge and love of literature. With the +multitude of our periodicals, and the swarm of our fictions selling from +a hundred thousand to half a million each, even our business-men cannot +wholly escape culture, and they have become more and more cultured, so +that now you frequently hear them asking what this or that book is all +about. With the mention of them, the reader will naturally recur to the +work of their useful and devoted lives--the accumulation of money. It is +this accumulation, this heaping-up of riches, which the Altrurian +Emissary accuses in the love-story closing his study of our conditions, +but which he might not now so totally condemn. + +As we have intimated, he has more than once guarded against a rash +conclusion, to which the logical habit of the Altrurian mind might have +betrayed him. If he could revisit us we are sure that he would have still +greater reason to congratulate himself on his forbearance, and would +doubtless profit by the lesson which events must teach all but the most +hopeless doctrinaires. The evil of even a small war (and soldiers +themselves do not deny that wars, large or small, are evil) has, as we +have noted, been overruled for good in the sort of Golden Age, or Age on +a Gold Basis, which we have long been enjoying. If our good-fortune +should be continued to us in reward of our public and private virtue, +the fact would suggest to so candid an observer that in economics, as in +other things, the rule proves the exception, and that as good times have +hitherto always been succeeded by bad times, it stands to reason that +our present period of prosperity will never be followed by a period of +adversity. + +It would seem from the story continued by another hand in the second part +of this work, that Altruria itself is not absolutely logical in its +events, which are subject to some of the anomalies governing in our own +affairs. A people living in conditions which some of our dreamers would +consider ideal, are forced to discourage foreign emigration, against +their rule of universal hospitality, and in at least one notable instance +are obliged to protect themselves against what they believe an evil +example by using compulsion with the wrongdoers, though the theory of +their life is entirely opposed to anything of the kind. Perhaps, however, +we are not to trust to this other hand at all times, since it is a +woman's hand, and is not to be credited with the firm and unerring touch +of a man's. The story, as she completes it, is the story of the +Altrurian's love for an American woman, and will be primarily interesting +for that reason. Like the Altrurian's narrative, it is here compiled from +a succession of letters, which in her case were written to a friend in +America, as his were written to a friend in Altruria. But it can by no +means have the sociological value which the record of his observations +among ourselves will have for the thoughtful reader. It is at best the +record of desultory and imperfect glimpses of a civilization +fundamentally alien to her own, such as would attract an enthusiastic +nature, but would leave it finally in a sort of misgiving as to the +reality of the things seen and heard. Some such misgiving attended the +inquiries of those who met the Altrurian during his sojourn with us, but +it is a pity that a more absolute conclusion should not have been the +effect of this lively lady's knowledge of the ideal country of her +adoption. It is, however, an interesting psychological result, and it +continues the tradition of all the observers of ideal conditions from Sir +Thomas More down to William Morris. Either we have no terms for +conditions so unlike our own that they cannot be reported to us with +absolute intelligence, or else there is in every experience of them an +essential vagueness and uncertainty. + + + + +PART FIRST + + + +THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE + + + + +I + + +If I spoke with Altrurian breadth of the way New-Yorkers live, my dear +Cyril, I should begin by saying that the New-Yorkers did not live at all. +But outside of our happy country one learns to distinguish, and to allow +that there are several degrees of living, all indeed hateful to us, if we +knew them, and yet none without some saving grace in it. You would say +that in conditions where men were embattled against one another by the +greed and the envy and the ambition which these conditions perpetually +appeal to here, there could be no grace in life; but we must remember +that men have always been better than their conditions, and that +otherwise they would have remained savages without the instinct or the +wish to advance. Indeed, our own state is testimony of a potential +civility in all states, which we must keep in mind when we judge the +peoples of the plutocratic world, and especially the American people, who +are above all others the devotees and exemplars of the plutocratic ideal, +without limitation by any aristocracy, theocracy, or monarchy. They are +purely commercial, and the thing that cannot be bought and sold has +logically no place in their life. But life is not logical outside of +Altruria; we are the only people in the world, my dear Cyril, who are +privileged to live reasonably; and again I say we must put by our own +criterions if we wish to understand the Americans, or to recognize that +measure of loveliness which their warped and stunted and perverted lives +certainly show, in spite of theory and in spite of conscience, even. I +can make this clear to you, I think, by a single instance, say that of +the American who sees a case of distress, and longs to relieve it. If he +is rich, he can give relief with a good conscience, except for the harm +that may come to his beneficiary from being helped; but if he is not +rich, or not finally rich, and especially if he has a family dependent +upon him, he cannot give in anything like the measure Christ bade us give +without wronging those dear to him, immediately or remotely. That is to +say, in conditions which oblige every man to look out for himself, a man +cannot be a Christian without remorse; he cannot do a generous action +without self-reproach; he cannot be nobly unselfish without the fear of +being a fool. You would think that this predicament must deprave, and so +without doubt it does; and yet it is not wholly depraving. It often has +its effect in character of a rare and pathetic sublimity; and many +Americans take all the cruel risks of doing good, reckless of the evil +that may befall them, and defiant of the upbraidings of their own hearts. +This is something that we Altrurians can scarcely understand: it is like +the munificence of a savage who has killed a deer and shares it with his +starving tribesmen, forgetful of the hungering little ones who wait his +return from the chase with food; for life in plutocratic countries is +still a chase, and the game is wary and sparse, as the terrible average +of failures witnesses. + +Of course, I do not mean that Americans may not give at all without +sensible risk, or that giving among them is always followed by a logical +regret; but, as I said, life with them is in no wise logical. They even +applaud one another for their charities, which they measure by the amount +given, rather than by the love that goes with the giving. The widow's +mite has little credit with them, but the rich man's million has an +acclaim that reverberates through their newspapers long after his gift is +made. It is only the poor in America who do charity as we do, by giving +help where it is needed; the Americans are mostly too busy, if they are +at all prosperous, to give anything but money; and the more money they +give, the more charitable they esteem themselves. From time to time some +man with twenty or thirty millions gives one of them away, usually to a +public institution of some sort, where it will have no effect with the +people who are underpaid for their work or cannot get work; and then his +deed is famed throughout the continent as a thing really beyond praise. +Yet any one who thinks about it must know that he never earned the +millions he kept, or the millions he gave, but somehow made them from the +labor of others; that, with all the wealth left him, he cannot miss the +fortune he lavishes, any more than if the check which conveyed it were a +withered leaf, and not in any wise so much as an ordinary working-man +might feel the bestowal of a postage-stamp. + +But in this study of the plutocratic mind, always so fascinating to me, I +am getting altogether away from what I meant to tell you. I meant to tell +you not how Americans live in the spirit, illogically, blindly, and +blunderingly, but how they live in the body, and more especially how they +house themselves in this city of New York. A great many of them do not +house themselves at all, but that is a class which we cannot now +consider, and I will speak only of those who have some sort of a roof +over their heads. + + + + +II + + +Formerly the New-Yorker lived in one of three different ways: in private +houses, or boarding-houses, or hotels; there were few restaurants or +public tables outside of the hotels, and those who had lodgings and took +their meals at eating-houses were but a small proportion of the whole +number. The old classification still holds in a measure, but within the +last thirty years, or ever since the Civil War, when the enormous +commercial expansion of the country began, several different ways of +living have been opened. The first and most noticeable of these is +housekeeping in flats, or apartments of three or four rooms or more, on +the same floor, as in all the countries of Europe except England; though +the flat is now making itself known in London, too. Before the war, the +New-Yorker who kept house did so in a separate house, three or four +stories in height, with a street door of its own. Its pattern within was +fixed by long usage, and seldom varied; without, it was of brown-stone +before, and brick behind, with an open space there for drying clothes, +which was sometimes gardened or planted with trees and vines. The rear of +the city blocks which these houses formed was more attractive than the +front, as you may still see in the vast succession of monotonous +cross-streets not yet invaded by poverty or business; and often the +perspective of these rears is picturesque and pleasing. But with the +sudden growth of the population when peace came, and through the +acquaintance the hordes of American tourists had made with European +fashions of living, it became easy, or at least simple, to divide the +floors of many of these private dwellings into apartments, each with its +own kitchen and all the apparatus of housekeeping. The apartments then +had the street entrance and the stairways in common, and they had in +common the cellar and the furnace for heating; they had in common the +disadvantage of being badly aired and badly lighted. They were dark, +cramped, and uncomfortable, but they were cheaper than separate houses, +and they were more homelike than boarding-houses or hotels. Large numbers +of them still remain in use, and when people began to live in flats, in +conformity with the law of evolution, many buildings were put up and +subdivided into apartments in imitation of the old dwellings which had +been changed. + +But the apartment as the New-Yorkers now mostly have it, was at the same +time evolving from another direction. The poorer class of New York +work-people had for a long period before the war lived, as they still +live, in vast edifices, once thought prodigiously tall, which were called +tenement-houses. In these a family of five or ten persons is commonly +packed in two or three rooms, and even in one room, where they eat and +sleep, without the amenities and often without the decencies of life, and +of course without light and air. The buildings in case of fire are +death-traps; but the law obliges the owners to provide some apparent +means of escape, which they do in the form of iron balconies and ladders, +giving that festive air to their façades which I have already noted. The +bare and dirty entries and staircases are really ramifications of the +filthy streets without, and each tenement opens upon a landing as if it +opened upon a public thoroughfare. The rents extorted from the inmates is +sometimes a hundred per cent., and is nearly always cruelly out of +proportion to the value of the houses, not to speak of the wretched +shelter afforded; and when the rent is not paid the family in arrears is +set with all its poor household gear upon the sidewalk, in a pitiless +indifference to the season and the weather, which you could not realize +without seeing it, and which is incredible even of plutocratic nature. Of +course, landlordism, which you have read so much of, is at its worst +in the case of the tenement-houses. But you must understand that +comparatively few people in New York own the roofs that shelter them. By +far the greater number live, however they live, in houses owned by +others, by a class who prosper and grow rich, or richer, simply by owning +the roofs over other men's heads. The landlords have, of course, no human +relation with their tenants, and really no business relations, for all +the affairs between them are transacted by agents. Some have the +reputation of being better than others; but they all live, or expect to +live, without work, on their rents. They are very much respected for it; +the rents are considered a just return from the money invested. You must +try to conceive of this as an actual fact, and not merely as a +statistical statement. I know it will not be easy for you; it is not easy +for me, though I have it constantly before my face. + + + + +III + + +The tenement-house, such as it is, is the original of the +apartment-house, which perpetuates some of its most characteristic +features on a scale and in material undreamed of in the simple philosophy +of the inventor of the tenement-house. The worst of these features is +the want of light and air, but as much more space and as many more rooms +are conceded as the tenant will pay for. The apartment-house, however, +soars to heights that the tenement-house never half reached, and is +sometimes ten stories high. It is built fireproof, very often, and is +generally equipped with an elevator, which runs night and day, and makes +one level of all the floors. The cheaper sort, or those which have +departed less from the tenement-house original, have no elevators, but +the street door in all is kept shut and locked, and is opened only by the +tenant's latch-key or by the janitor having charge of the whole building. +In the finer houses there is a page whose sole duty it is to open and +shut this door, and who is usually brass-buttoned to one blinding effect +of livery with the elevator-boy. Where this page or hall-boy is found, +the elevator carries you to the door of any apartment you seek; where he +is not found, there is a bell and a speaking-tube in the lower entry, for +each apartment, and you ring up the occupant and talk to him as many +stories off as he happens to be. But people who can afford to indulge +their pride will not live in this sort of apartment-house, and the +rents in them are much lower than in the finer sort. The finer sort are +vulgarly fine for the most part, with a gaudy splendor of mosaic +pavement, marble stairs, frescoed ceilings, painted walls, and cabinet +wood-work. But there are many that are fine in a good taste, in the +things that are common to the inmates. Their fittings for housekeeping +are of all degrees of perfection, and, except for the want of light and +air, life in them has a high degree of gross luxury. They are heated +throughout with pipes of steam or hot water, and they are sometimes +lighted with both gas and electricity, which the inmate uses at will, +though of course at his own cost. Outside, they are the despair of +architecture, for no style has yet been invented which enables the artist +to characterize them with beauty, and wherever they lift their vast bulks +they deform the whole neighborhood, throwing the other buildings out of +scale, and making it impossible for future edifices to assimilate +themselves to the intruder. + +There is no end to the apartment-houses for multitude, and there is no +street or avenue free from them. Of course, the better sort are to be +found on the fashionable avenues and the finer cross-streets, but others +follow the course of the horse-car lines on the eastern and western +avenues, and the elevated roads on the avenues which these have invaded. +In such places they are shops below and apartments above, and I cannot +see that the inmates seem at all sensible that they are unfitly housed in +them. People are born and married, and live and die in the midst of an +uproar so frantic that you would think they would go mad of it; and I +believe the physicians really attribute something of the growing +prevalence of neurotic disorders to the wear and tear of the nerves from +the rush of the trains passing almost momently, and the perpetual jarring +of the earth and air from their swift transit. I once spent an evening in +one of these apartments, which a friend had taken for a few weeks last +spring (you can get them out of season for any length of time), and as +the weather had begun to be warm, we had the windows open, and so we had +the full effect of the railroad operated under them. My friend had become +accustomed to it, but for me it was an affliction which I cannot give you +any notion of. The trains seemed to be in the room with us, and I sat as +if I had a locomotive in my lap. Their shrieks and groans burst every +sentence I began, and if I had not been master of that visible speech +which we use so much at home I never should have known what my friend was +saying. I cannot tell you how this brutal clamor insulted me, and made +the mere exchange of thought a part of the squalid struggle which is the +plutocratic conception of life; I came away after a few hours of it, +bewildered and bruised, as if I had been beaten upon with hammers. + +Some of the apartments on the elevated lines are very good, as such +things go; they are certainly costly enough to be good; and they are +inhabited by people who can afford to leave them during the hot season +when the noise is at its worst; but most of them belong to people who +must dwell in them summer and winter, for want of money and leisure to +get out of them, and who must suffer incessantly from the noise I could +not endure for a few hours. In health it is bad enough, but in sickness +it must be horrible beyond all parallel. Imagine a mother with a dying +child in such a place; or a wife bending over the pillow of her husband +to catch the last faint whisper of farewell, as a train of five or six +cars goes roaring by the open window! What horror! What profanation! + + + + +IV + + +The noise is bad everywhere in New York, but in some of the finer +apartment-houses on the better streets you are as well out of it as you +can be anywhere in the city. I have been a guest in these at different +times, and in one of them I am such a frequent guest that I may be said +to know its life intimately. In fact, my hostess (women transact society +so exclusively in America that you seldom think of your host) in the +apartment I mean to speak of, invited me to explore it one night when I +dined with her, so that I might, as she said, tell my friends when I got +back to Altruria how people lived in America; and I cannot feel that I +am violating her hospitality in telling you now. She is that Mrs. Makely +whom I met last summer in the mountains, and whom you thought so strange +a type from the account of her I gave you, but who is not altogether +uncommon here. I confess that, with all her faults, I like her, and I +like to go to her house. She is, in fact, a very good woman, perfectly +selfish by tradition, as the American women must be, and wildly generous +by nature, as they nearly always are; and infinitely superior to her +husband in cultivation, as is commonly the case with them. As he knows +nothing but business, he thinks it is the only thing worth knowing, and +he looks down on the tastes and interests of her more intellectual life +with amiable contempt, as something almost comic. She respects business, +too, and so she does not despise his ignorance as you would suppose; it +is at least the ignorance of a business-man, who must have something in +him beyond her ken, or else he would not be able to make money as he +does. + +With your greater sense of humor, I think you would be amused if you +could see his smile of placid self-satisfaction as he listens to our +discussion of questions and problems which no more enter his daily life +than they enter the daily life of an Eskimo; but I do not find it +altogether amusing myself, and I could not well forgive it, if I did not +know that he was at heart so simple and good, in spite of his +commerciality. But he is sweet and kind, as the American men so often +are, and he thinks his wife is the delightfulest creature in the world, +as the American husband nearly always does. They have several times asked +me to dine with them _en famille;_ and, as a matter of form, he +keeps me a little while with him after dinner, when she has left the +table, and smokes his cigar, after wondering why we do not smoke in +Altruria; but I can see that he is impatient to get to her in their +drawing-room, where we find her reading a book in the crimson light of +the canopied lamp, and where he presently falls silent, perfectly happy +to be near her. The drawing-room is of a good size itself, and it has a +room opening out of it called the library, with a case of books in it, +and Mrs. Makely's piano-forte. The place is rather too richly and densely +rugged, and there is rather more curtaining and shading of the windows +than we should like; but Mrs. Makely is too well up-to-date, as she would +say, to have much of the bric-à-brac about which she tells me used to +clutter people's houses here. There are some pretty good pictures on the +walls, and a few vases and bronzes, and she says she has produced a +greater effect of space by quelling the furniture--she means, having few +pieces and having them as small as possible. There is a little stand with +her afternoon tea-set in one corner, and there is a pretty writing-desk +in the library; I remember a sofa and some easy-chairs, but not too +many of them. She has a table near one of the windows, with books and +papers on it. She tells me that she sees herself that the place is kept +just as she wishes it, for she has rather a passion for neatness, +and you never can trust servants not to stand the books on their heads or +study a vulgar symmetry in the arrangements. She never allows them in +there, she says, except when they are at work under her eye; and she +never allows anybody there except her guests, and her husband after he +has smoked. Of course, her dog must be there; and one evening after her +husband fell asleep in the arm-chair near her, the dog fell asleep on +the fleece at her feet, and we heard them softly breathing in unison. +She made a pretty little mocking mouth when the sound first became +audible, and said that she ought really to have sent Mr. Makely out with +the dog, for the dog ought to have the air every day, and she had +been kept indoors; but sometimes Mr. Makely came home from business so +tired that she hated to send him out, even for the dog's sake, though he +was so apt to become dyspeptic. “They won't let you have dogs in some of +the apartment-houses, but I tore up the first lease that had that clause +in it, and I told Mr. Makely that I would rather live in a house all my +days than any flat where my dog wasn't as welcome as I was. Of course, +they're rather troublesome.” + +The Makelys had no children, but it is seldom that the occupants of +apartment-houses of a good class have children, though there is no clause +in the lease against them. I verified this fact from Mrs. Makely herself, +by actual inquiry, for in all the times that I had gone up and down in +the elevator to her apartment I had never seen any children. She seemed +at first to think I was joking, and not to like it, but when she found +that I was in earnest she said that she did not suppose all the families +living under that roof had more than four or five children among them. +She said that it would be inconvenient; and I could not allege the +tenement-houses in the poor quarters of the city, where children seemed +to swarm, for it is but too probable that they do not regard convenience +in such places, and that neither parents nor children are more +comfortable for their presence. + + + + +V + + +Comfort is the American ideal, in a certain way, and comfort is certainly +what is studied in such an apartment as the Makelys inhabit. We got to +talking about it, and the ease of life in such conditions, and it was +then she made me that offer to show me her flat, and let me report to the +Altrurians concerning it. She is all impulse, and she asked, How would I +like to see it _now?_ and when I said I should be delighted, she +spoke to her husband, and told him that she was going to show me through +the flat. He roused himself promptly, and went before us, at her bidding, +to turn up the electrics in the passages and rooms, and then she led the +way out through the dining-room. + +“This and the parlors count three, and the kitchen here is the fourth +room of the eight,” she said, and as she spoke she pushed open the door +of a small room, blazing with light and dense with the fumes of the +dinner and the dish-washing which was now going on in a closet opening +out of the kitchen. + +She showed me the set range, at one side, and the refrigerator in an +alcove, which she said went with the flat, and, “Lena,” she said to the +cook, “this is the Altrurian gentleman I was telling you about, and I +want him to see your kitchen. Can I take him into your room?” + +The cook said, “Oh yes, ma'am,” and she gave me a good stare, while Mrs. +Makely went to the kitchen window and made me observe that it let in the +outside air, though the court that it opened into was so dark that one +had to keep the electrics going in the kitchen night and day. “Of course, +it's an expense,” she said, as she closed the kitchen door after us. She +added, in a low, rapid tone, “You must excuse my introducing the cook. +She has read all about you in the papers--you didn't know, I suppose, +that there were reporters that day of your delightful talk in the +mountains, but I had them--and she was wild, when she heard you were +coming, and made me promise to let her have a sight of you somehow. She +says she wants to go and live in Altruria, and if you would like to take +home a cook, or a servant of any kind, you wouldn't have much trouble. +Now here,” she ran on, without a moment's pause, while she flung open +another door, “is what you won't find in every apartment-house, even very +good ones, and that's a back elevator. Sometimes there are only stairs, +and they make the poor things climb the whole way up from the basement, +when they come in, and all your marketing has to be brought up that way, +too; sometimes they send it up on a kind of dumb-waiter, in the cheap +places, and you give your orders to the market-men down below through a +speaking-tube. But here we have none of that bother, and this elevator is +for the kitchen and housekeeping part of the flat. The grocer's and the +butcher's man, and anybody who has packages for you, or trunks, or that +sort of thing, use it, and, of course, it's for the servants, and they +appreciate not having to walk up as much as anybody.” + +“Oh yes,” I said, and she shut the elevator door and opened another a +little beyond it. + +“This is our guest chamber,” she continued, as she ushered me into a very +pretty room, charmingly furnished. “It isn't very light by day, for it +opens on a court, like the kitchen and the servants' room here,” and with +that she whipped out of the guest chamber and into another doorway across +the corridor. This room was very much narrower, but there were two small +beds in it, very neat and clean, with some furnishings that were in +keeping, and a good carpet under foot. Mrs. Makely was clearly proud of +it, and expected me to applaud it; but I waited for her to speak, which +upon the whole she probably liked as well. + +“I only keep two servants, because in a flat there isn't really room for +more, and I put out the wash and get in cleaning-women when it's needed. +I like to use my servants well, because it pays, and I hate to see +anybody imposed upon. Some people put in a double-decker, as they call +it--a bedstead with two tiers, like the berths on a ship; but I think +that's a shame, and I give them two regular beds, even if it does crowd +them a little more and the beds have to be rather narrow. This room has +outside air, from the court, and, though it's always dark, it's very +pleasant, as you see.” I did not say that I did not see, and this +sufficed Mrs. Makely. + +“Now,” she said, “I'll show you _our_ rooms,” and she flew down the +corridor towards two doors that stood open side by side and flashed into +them before me. Her husband was already in the first she entered, smiling +in supreme content with his wife, his belongings, and himself. + +“This is a southern exposure, and it has a perfect gush of sun from +morning till night. Some of the flats have the kitchen at the end, and +that's stupid; you can have a kitchen in any sort of hole, for you can +keep on the electrics, and with them the air is perfectly good. As soon +as I saw these chambers, and found out that they would let you keep a +dog, I told Mr. Makely to sign the lease instantly, and I would see to +the rest.” + +She looked at me, and I praised the room and its dainty tastefulness to +her heart's content, so that she said: “Well, it's some satisfaction to +show you anything, Mr. Homos, you are so appreciative. I'm sure you'll +give a good account of us to the Altrurians. Well, now we'll go back to +the pa--drawing-room. This is the end of the story.” + +“Well,” said her husband, with a wink at me, “I thought it was to be +continued in our next,” and he nodded towards the door that opened from +his wife's bower into the room adjoining. + +“Why, you poor old fellow!” she shouted. “I forgot all about _your_ +room,” and she dashed into it before us and began to show it off. It was +equipped with every bachelor luxury, and with every appliance for health +and comfort. “And here,” she said, “he can smoke, or anything, as long as +he keeps the door shut. Oh, good gracious! I forgot the bath-room,” and +they both united in showing me this, with its tiled floor and walls and +its porcelain tub; and then Mrs. Makely flew up the corridor before us. +“Put out the electrics, Dick!” she called back over her shoulder. + + + + +VI + + +When we were again seated in the drawing-room, which she had been so near +calling a parlor, she continued to bubble over with delight in herself +and her apartment. “Now, isn't it about perfect?” she urged, and I had to +own that it was indeed very convenient and very charming; and in the +rapture of the moment she invited me to criticise it. + +“I see very little to criticise,” I said, “from your point of view; but I +hope you won't think it indiscreet if I ask a few questions?” + +She laughed. “Ask anything, Mr. Homos! I hope I got hardened to your +questions in the mountains.” + +“She said you used to get off some pretty tough ones,” said her husband, +helpless to take his eyes from her, although he spoke to me. + +“It is about your servants,” I began. + +“Oh, of course! Perfectly characteristic! Go on.” + +“You told me that they had no natural light either in the kitchen or +their bedroom. Do they never see the light of day?” + +The lady laughed heartily. “The waitress is in the front of the house +several hours every morning at her work, and they both have an afternoon +off once a week. Some people only let them go once a fortnight; but I +think they are human beings as well as we are, and I let them go every +week.” + +“But, except for that afternoon once a week, your cook lives in +electric-light perpetually?” + +“Electric-light is very healthy, and it doesn't heat the air!” the lady +triumphed, “I can assure you that she thinks she's very well off; and so +she is.” I felt a little temper in her voice, and I was silent, until she +asked me, rather stiffly, “Is there any _other_ inquiry you would +like to make?” + +“Yes,” I said, “but I do not think you would like it.” + +“Now, I assure you, Mr. Homos, you were never more mistaken in your life. +I perfectly delight in your naïveté. I know that the Altrurians don't +think as we do about some things, and I don't expect it. What is it you +would like to ask?” + +“Well, why should you require your servants to go down on a different +elevator from yourselves?” + +“Why, good gracious!” cried the lady.--“aren't they different from us in +_every_ way? To be sure, they dress up in their ridiculous best when +they go out, but you couldn't expect us to let them use the _front_ +elevator? I don't want to go up and down with my own cook, and I +certainly don't with my neighbor's cook!” + +“Yes, I suppose you would feel that an infringement of your social +dignity. But if you found yourself beside a cook in a horse-car or other +public conveyance, you would not feel personally affronted?” + +“No, that is a very different thing. That is something we cannot control. +But, thank goodness, we can control our elevator, and if I were in a +house where I had to ride up and down with the servants I would no +more stay in it than I would in one where I couldn't keep a dog. I should +consider it a perfect outrage. I cannot understand you, Mr. Homos! You +are a gentleman, and you must have the traditions of a gentleman, +and yet you ask me such a thing as that!” + +I saw a cast in her husband's eye which I took for a hint not to press +the matter, and so I thought I had better say, “It is only that in +Altruria we hold serving in peculiar honor.” + +“Well,” said the lady, scornfully, “if you went and got your servants +from an intelligence-office, and had to look up their references, you +wouldn't hold them in very much honor. I tell you they look out for their +interests as sharply as we do for ours, and it's nothing between us but a +question of--” + +“Business,” suggested her husband. + +“Yes,” she assented, as if this clinched the matter. + +“That's what I'm always telling you, Dolly, and yet you _will_ try +to make them your friends, as soon as you get them into your house. You +want them to love you, and you know that sentiment hasn't got anything +to do with it.” + +“Well, I can't help it, Dick. I can't live with a person without trying +to like them and wanting them to like me. And then, when the ungrateful +things are saucy, or leave me in the lurch as they do half the time, it +almost breaks my heart. But I'm thankful to say that in these hard times +they won't be apt to leave a good place without a good reason.” + +“Are there many seeking employment?” I asked this because I thought it +was safe ground. + +“Well, they just stand around in the office as _thick!_” said the +lady. “And the Americans are trying to get places as well as the +foreigners. But I won't have Americans. They are too uppish, and they are +never half so well trained as the Swedes or the Irish. They still expect +to be treated as one of the family. I suppose,” she continued, with a +lingering ire in her voice, “that in Altruria you do treat them as one of +the family?” + +“We have no servants, in the American sense,” I answered, as +inoffensively as I could. + +Mrs. Makely irrelevantly returned to the question that had first provoked +her indignation. “And I should like to know how much worse it is to have +a back elevator for the servants than it is to have the basement door for +the servants, as you always do when you live in a separate house?” + +“I should think it was no worse,” I admitted, and I thought this a good +chance to turn the talk from the dangerous channel it had taken. “I wish, +Mrs. Makely, you would tell me something about the way people live in +separate houses in New York.” + +She was instantly pacified. “Why, I should be delighted. I only wish my +friend Mrs. Bellington Strange was back from Europe; then I could show +you a model house. I mean to take you there, as soon as she gets home. +She's a kind of Altrurian herself, you know. She was my dearest friend at +school, and it almost broke my heart when she married Mr. Strange, so +much older, and her inferior in every way. But she's got his money now, +and oh, the good she does do with it! I know you'll like each other, Mr. +Homos. I do wish Eva was at home!” + +I said that I should be very glad to meet an American Altrurian, but that +now I wished she would tell me about the normal New York house, and what +was its animating principle, beginning with the basement door. + +She laughed and said, “Why, it's just like any other house!” + + + + +VII + + +I can never insist enough, my dear Cyril, upon the illogicality of +American life. You know what the plutocratic principle is, and what the +plutocratic civilization should logically be. But the plutocratic +civilization is much better than it should logically be, bad as it is; +for the personal equation constantly modifies it, and renders it far less +dreadful than you would reasonably expect. That is, the potentialities of +goodness implanted in the human heart by the Creator forbid the +plutocratic man to be what the plutocratic scheme of life implies. He is +often merciful, kindly, and generous, as I have told you already, in +spite of conditions absolutely egotistical. You would think that the +Americans would be abashed in view of the fact that their morality is +often in contravention of their economic principles, but apparently they +are not so, and I believe that for the most part they are not aware of +the fact. Nevertheless, the fact is there, and you must keep it in mind, +if you would conceive of them rightly. You can in no other way account +for the contradictions which you will find in my experiences among them; +and these are often so bewildering that I have to take myself in hand, +from time to time, and ask myself what mad world I have fallen into, and +whether, after all, it is not a ridiculous nightmare. I am not sure that, +when I return and we talk these things over together, I shall be able to +overcome your doubts of my honesty, and I think that when I no longer +have them before my eyes I shall begin to doubt my own memory. But for +the present I can only set down what I at least seem to see, and trust +you to accept it, if you cannot understand it. + +Perhaps I can aid you by suggesting that, logically, the Americans should +be what the Altrurians are, since their polity embodies our belief that +all men are born equal, with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit +of happiness; but that illogically they are what the Europeans are, since +they still cling to the economical ideals of Europe, and hold that men +are born socially unequal, and deny them the liberty and happiness which +can come from equality alone. It is in their public life and civic life +that Altruria prevails; it is in their social and domestic life that +Europe prevails; and here, I think, is the severest penalty they must pay +for excluding women from political affairs; for women are at once the +best and the worst Americans: the best because their hearts are the +purest, the worst because their heads are the idlest. “Another +contradiction!” you will say, and I cannot deny it; for, with all their +cultivation, the American women have no real intellectual interests, but +only intellectual fads; and while they certainly think a great deal, they +reflect little, or not at all. The inventions and improvements which +have made their household work easy, the wealth that has released them in +such vast numbers from work altogether, has not enlarged them to the +sphere of duties which our Altrurian women share with us, but has left +them, with their quickened intelligences, the prey of the trivialities +which engross the European women, and which have formed the life of the +sex hitherto in every country where women have an economical and social +freedom without the political freedom that can alone give it dignity and +import. They have a great deal of beauty, and they are inconsequently +charming; I need not tell you that they are romantic and heroic, or that +they would go to the stake for a principle, if they could find one, as +willingly as any martyr of the past; but they have not much more +perspective than children, and their reading and their talk about reading +seem not to have broadened their mental horizons beyond the old sunrise +and the old sunset of the kitchen and the parlor. + +In fine, the American house as it is, the American household, is what the +American woman makes it and wills it to be, whether she wishes it to be +so or not; for I often find that the American woman wills things that she +in no wise wishes. What the normal New York house is, however, I had +great difficulty in getting Mrs. Makely to tell me, for, as she said +quite frankly, she could not imagine my not knowing. She asked me if I +really wanted her to begin at the beginning, and, when I said that I did, +she took a little more time to laugh at the idea, and then she said, “I +suppose you mean a brown-stone, four-story house in the middle of a +block?” + +“Yes, I think that is what I mean,” I said. + +“Well,” she began, “those high steps that they all have, unless they're +English-basement houses, really give them another story, for people used +to dine in the front room of their basements. You've noticed the little +front yard, about as big as a handkerchief, generally, and the steps +leading down to the iron gate, which is kept locked, and the basement +door inside the gate? Well, that's what you might call the back elevator +of a house, for it serves the same purpose: the supplies are brought in +there, and market-men go in and out, and the ashes, and the swill, and +the servants--that you object to so much. We have no alleys in New York, +the blocks are so narrow, north and south; and, of course, we have no +back doors; so we have to put the garbage out on the sidewalk--and it's +nasty enough, goodness knows. Underneath the sidewalk there are bins +where people keep their coal and kindling. You've noticed the gratings in +the pavements?” + +I said yes, and I was ashamed to own that at first I had thought them +some sort of registers for tempering the cold in winter; this would have +appeared ridiculous in the last degree to my hostess, for the Americans +have as yet no conception of publicly modifying the climate, as we do. + +“Back of what used to be the dining-room, and what is now used for a +laundry, generally, is the kitchen, with closets between, of course, and +then the back yard, which some people make very pleasant with shrubs and +vines; the kitchen is usually dark and close, and the girls can only get +a breath of fresh air in the yard; I like to see them; but generally it's +taken up with clothes-lines, for people in houses nearly all have their +washing done at home. Over the kitchen is the dining-room, which takes up +the whole of the first floor, with the pantry, and it almost always has a +bay-window out of it; of course, that overhangs the kitchen, and darkens +it a little more, but it makes the dining-room so pleasant. I tell my +husband that I should be almost willing to live in a house again, just on +account of the dining-room bay-window. I had it full of flowers in pots, +for the southern sun came in; and then the yard was so nice for the dog; +you didn't have to take him out for exercise, yourself; he chased the +cats there and got plenty of it. I must say that the cats on the back +fences were a drawback at night; to be sure, we have them here, too; it's +seven stories down, but you do hear them, along in the spring. The +parlor, or drawing-room, is usually rather long, and runs from the +dining-room to the front of the house, though where the house is very +deep they have a sort of middle room, or back parlor. Dick, get some +paper and draw it. Wouldn't you like to see a plan of the floor?” + +I said that I should, and she bade her husband make it like their old +house in West Thirty-third Street. We all looked at it together. + +“This is the front door,” Mrs. Makely explained, “where people come in, +and then begins the misery of a house--stairs! They mostly go up +straight, but sometimes they have them curve a little, and in the new +houses the architects have all sorts of little dodges for squaring them +and putting landings. Then, on the second floor--draw it, Dick--you have +two nice, large chambers, with plenty of light and air, before and +behind. I do miss the light and air in a flat, there's no denying it.” + +“You'll go back to a house yet, Dolly,” said her husband. + +“Never!” she almost shrieked, and he winked at me, as if it were the best +joke in the world. “Never, as long as houses have stairs!” + +“Put in an elevator,” he suggested. + +“Well, that is what Eveleth Strange has, and she lets the servants use +it, too,” and Mrs. Makely said, with a look at me: “I suppose that would +please you, Mr. Homos. Well, there's a nice side-room over the front door +here, and a bath-room at the rear. Then you have more stairs, and large +chambers, and two side-rooms. That makes plenty of chambers for a small +family. I used to give two of the third-story rooms to my two girls. I +ought really to have made them sleep in one; it seemed such a shame to +let the cook have a whole large room to herself; but I had nothing else +to do with it, and she did take such comfort in it, poor old thing! You +see, the rooms came wrong in our house, for it fronted north, and I had +to give the girls sunny rooms or else give them front rooms, so that it +was as broad as it was long. I declare, I was perplexed about it the +whole time we lived there, it seemed so perfectly anomalous.” + +“And what is an English-basement house like?” I ventured to ask, in +interruption of the retrospective melancholy she had fallen into. + +“Oh, _never_ live in an English-basement house, if you value your +spine!” cried the lady. “An English-basement house is nothing _but_ +stairs. In the first place, it's only one room wide, and it's a story +higher than the high-stoop house. It's one room forward and one back, the +whole way up; and in an English-basement it's always _up_, and +_never_ down. If I had my way, there wouldn't one stone be left upon +another in the English-basements in New York.” + +I have suffered Mrs. Makely to be nearly as explicit to you as she was to +me; for the kind of house she described is of the form ordinarily +prevailing in all American cities, and you can form some idea from it how +city people live here. I ought perhaps to tell you that such a house is +fitted with every housekeeping convenience, and that there is hot and +cold water throughout, and gas everywhere. It has fireplaces in all the +rooms, where fires are often kept burning for pleasure; but it is really +heated from a furnace in the basement, through large pipes carried to the +different stories, and opening into them by some such registers as we +use. The separate houses sometimes have steam-heating, but not often. +They each have their drainage into the sewer of the street, and this is +trapped and trapped again, as in the houses of our old plutocratic +cities, to keep the poison of the sewer from getting into the houses. + + + + +VIII + + +You will be curious to know something concerning the cost of living in +such a house, and you may be sure that I did not fail to question Mrs. +Makely on this point. She was at once very volubly communicative; she +told me all she knew, and, as her husband said, a great deal more. + +“Why, of course,” she began, “you can spend all you have in New York, if +you like, and people do spend fortunes every year. But I suppose you mean +the average cost of living in a brown-stone house, in a good block, that +rents for $1800 or $2000 a year, with a family of three or four children, +and two servants. Well, what should you say, Dick?” + +“Ten or twelve thousand a year--fifteen,” answered her husband. + +“Yes, fully that,” she answered, with an effect of disappointment in his +figures. “We had just ourselves, and we never spent less than seven, and +we didn't dress, and we didn't entertain, either, to speak of. But you +have to live on a certain scale, and generally you live up to your +income.” + +“Quite,” said Mr. Makely. + +“I don't know what makes it cost so. Provisions are cheap enough, and +they say people live in as good style for a third less in London. There +used to be a superstition that you could live for less in a flat, and +they always talk to you about the cost of a furnace, and a man to tend it +and keep the snow shovelled off your sidewalk, but that is all stuff. +Five hundred dollars will make up the whole difference, and more. You pay +quite as much rent for a decent flat, and then you don't get half the +room. No, if it wasn't for the stairs, I wouldn't live in a flat for an +instant. But that makes all the difference.” + +“And the young people,” I urged--“those who are just starting in +life--how do they manage? Say when the husband has $1500 or $2000 a +year?” + +“Poor things!” she returned. “I don't know how they manage. They board +till they go distracted, or they dry up and blow away; or else the wife +has a little money, too, and they take a small flat and ruin themselves. +Of course, they want to live nicely and like other people.” + +“But if they didn't?” + +“Why, then they could live delightfully. My husband says he often wishes +he was a master-mechanic in New York, with a thousand a year, and a flat +for twelve dollars a month; he would have the best time in the world.” + +Her husband nodded his acquiescence. “Fighting-cock wouldn't be in it,” + he said. “Trouble is, we all want to do the swell thing.” + +“But you can't all do it,” I ventured, “and, from what I see of the +simple, out-of-the-way neighborhoods in my walks, you don't all try.” + +“Why, no,” he said. “Some of us were talking about that the other night +at the club, and one of the fellows was saying that he believed there was +as much old-fashioned, quiet, almost countrified life in New York, among +the great mass of the people, as you'd find in any city in the world. +Said you met old codgers that took care of their own furnaces, just as +you would in a town of five thousand inhabitants.” + +“Yes, that's all very well,” said his wife; “but they wouldn't be nice +people. Nice people want to live nicely. And so they live beyond their +means or else they scrimp and suffer. I don't know which is worst.” + +“But there is no obligation to do either?” I asked. + +“Oh yes, there is,” she returned. “If you've been born in a certain way, +and brought up in a certain way, you can't get out of it. You simply +can't. You have got to keep in it till you drop. Or a woman has.” + +“That means the woman's husband, too,” said Mr. Makely, with his wink for +me. “Always die together.” + +In fact, there is the same competition in the social world as in the +business world; and it is the ambition of every American to live in some +such house as the New York house; and as soon as a village begins to +grow into a town, such houses are built. Still, the immensely greater +number of the Americans necessarily live so simply and cheaply that such +a house would be almost as strange to them as to an Altrurian. But while +we should regard its furnishings as vulgar and unwholesome, most +Americans would admire and covet its rich rugs or carpets, its papered +walls, and thickly curtained windows, and all its foolish ornamentation, +and most American women would long to have a house like the ordinary +high-stoop New York house, that they might break their backs over its +stairs, and become invalids, and have servants about them to harass them +and hate them. + +Of course, I put it too strongly, for there is often, illogically, a +great deal of love between the American women and their domestics, though +why there should be any at all I cannot explain, except by reference to +that mysterious personal equation which modifies all conditions here. You +will have made your reflection that the servants, as they are cruelly +called (I have heard them called so in their hearing, and wondered they +did not fly tooth and nail at the throat that uttered the insult), form +really no part of the house, but are aliens in the household and the +family life. In spite of this fact, much kindness grows up between them +and the family, and they do not always slight the work that I cannot +understand their ever having any heart in. Often they do slight it, and +they insist unsparingly upon the scanty privileges which their mistresses +seem to think a monstrous invasion of their own rights. The habit of +oppression grows upon the oppressor, and you would find tender-hearted +women here, gentle friends, devoted wives, loving mothers, who would be +willing that their domestics should remain indoors, week in and week out, +and, where they are confined in the ridiculous American flat, never see +the light of day. In fact, though the Americans do not know it, and would +be shocked to be told it, their servants are really slaves, who are none +the less slaves because they cannot be beaten, or bought and sold except +by the week or month, and for the price which they fix themselves, and +themselves receive in the form of wages. They are social outlaws, so far +as the society of the family they serve is concerned, and they are +restricted in the visits they receive and pay among themselves. They are +given the worst rooms in the house, and they are fed with the food that +they have prepared, only when it comes cold from the family table; in the +wealthier houses, where many of them are kept, they are supplied with a +coarser and cheaper victual bought and cooked for them apart from that +provided for the family. They are subject, at all hours, to the pleasure +or caprice of the master or mistress. Every circumstance of their life is +an affront to that just self-respect which even Americans allow is the +right of every human being. With the rich, they are said to be sometimes +indolent, dishonest, mendacious, and all that Plato long ago explained +that slaves must be; but in the middle-class families they are mostly +faithful, diligent, and reliable in a degree that would put to shame most +men who hold positions of trust, and would leave many ladies whom they +relieve of work without ground for comparison. + + + + +IX + + +After Mrs. Makely had told me about the New York house, we began to talk +of the domestic service, and I ventured to hint some of the things that I +have so plainly said to you. She frankly consented to my whole view of +the matter, for if she wishes to make an effect or gain a point she has a +magnanimity that stops at nothing short of self-devotion. “I know it,” + she said. “You are perfectly right; but here we are, and what are we to +do? What do you do in Altruria, I should like to know?” + +I said that in Altruria we all worked, and that personal service was +honored among us like medical attendance in America; I did not know what +other comparison to make; but I said that any one in health would think +it as unwholesome and as immoral to let another serve him as to let a +doctor physic him. At this Mrs. Makely and her husband laughed so that I +found myself unable to go on for some moments, till Mrs. Makely, with a +final shriek, shouted to him: “Dick, do stop, or I shall die! Excuse me, +Mr. Homos, but you are so deliciously funny, and I know you're just +joking. You _won't_ mind my laughing? Do go on.” + +I tried to give her some notion as to how we manage, in our common life, +which we have simplified so much beyond anything that this barbarous +people dream of; and she grew a little soberer as I went on, and seemed +at least to believe that I was not, as her husband said, stuffing them; +but she ended, as they always do here, by saying that it might be all +very well in Altruria, but it would never do in America, and that it was +contrary to human nature to have so many things done in common. “Now, +I'll tell you,” she said. “After we broke up housekeeping in Thirty-third +Street, we stored our furniture--” + +“Excuse me,” I said. “How--stored?” + +“Oh, I dare say you never store your furniture in Altruria. But here we +have hundreds of storage warehouses of all sorts and sizes, packed with +furniture that people put into them when they go to Europe, or get sick +to death of servants and the whole bother of house-keeping; and that's +what we did; and then, as my husband says, we browsed about for a year +or two. First, we tried hotelling it, and we took a hotel apartment +furnished, and dined at the hotel table, until I certainly thought I +should go off, I got so tired of it. Then we hired a suite in one of the +family hotels that there are so many of, and got out enough of our +things to furnish it, and had our meals in our rooms; they let you do +that for the same price, often they are _glad_ to have you, for the +dining-room is so packed. But everything got to tasting just the same as +everything else, and my husband had the dyspepsia so bad he couldn't half +attend to business, and I suffered from indigestion myself, cooped up in +a few small rooms, that way; and the dog almost died; and finally we gave +that up, and took an apartment, and got out our things--the storage cost +as much as the rent of a small house--and put them into it, and had a +caterer send in the meals as they do in Europe. But it isn't the same +here as it is in Europe, and we got so sick of it in a month that I +thought I should scream when I saw the same old dishes coming on the +table, day after day. We had to keep one servant--excuse me, Mr. Homos: +_domestic_--anyway, to look after the table and the parlor and +chamber work, and my husband said we might as well be hung for a sheep as +a lamb, and so we got in a cook; and, bad as it is, it's twenty million +times better than anything else you can do. Servants are a plague, but +you have got to have them, and so I have resigned myself to the will of +Providence. If they don't like it, neither do I, and so I fancy it's +about as broad as it's long.” I have found this is a favorite phrase of +Mrs. Makely's, and that it seems to give her a great deal of comfort. + +“And you don't feel that there's any harm in it?” I ventured to ask. + +“Harm in it?” she repeated. “Why, aren't the poor things glad to get the +work? What would they do without it?” + +“From what I see of your conditions I should be afraid that they would +starve,” I said. + +“Yes, they can't all get places in shops or restaurants, and they have to +do something, or starve, as you say,” she said; and she seemed to think +what I had said was a concession to her position. + +“But if it were your own case?” I suggested. “If you had no alternatives +but starvation and domestic service, you would think there was harm in +it, even although you were glad to take a servant's place?” + +I saw her flush, and she answered, haughtily, “You must excuse me if I +refuse to imagine myself taking a servant's place, even for the sake of +argument.” + +“And you are quite right,” I said. “Your American instinct is too strong +to brook even in imagination the indignities which seem daily, hourly, +and momently inflicted upon servants in your system.” + +To my great astonishment she seemed delighted by this conclusion. “Yes,” + she said, and she smiled radiantly, “and now you understand how it is +that American girls won't go out to service, though the pay is so much +better and they are so much better housed and fed--and everything. +Besides,” she added, with an irrelevance which always amuses her husband, +though I should be alarmed by it for her sanity if I did not find it so +characteristic of women here, who seem to be mentally characterized by +the illogicality of the civilization, “they're not half so good as the +foreign servants. They've been brought up in homes of their own, and +they're uppish, and they have no idea of anything but third-rate +boarding-house cooking, and they're always hoping to get married, so +that, really, you have no peace of your life with them.” + +“And it never seems to you that the whole relation is wrong?” I asked. + +“What relation?” + +“That between maid and mistress, the hirer and the hireling.” + +“Why, good gracious!” she burst out. “Didn't Christ himself say that the +laborer was worthy of his hire? And how would you get your work done, if +you didn't pay for it?” + +“It might be done for you, when you could not do it yourself, from +affection.” + +“From affection!” she returned, with the deepest derision. “Well, I +rather think I _shall_ have to do it myself if I want it done +from affection! But I suppose you think I _ought_ to do it +myself, as the Altrurian ladies do! I can tell you that in America it +would be impossible for a lady to do her own work, and there are no +intelligence-offices where you can find girls that want to work for love. +It's as broad as it's long.” + +“It's simply business,” her husband said. + +They were right, my dear friend, and I was wrong, strange as it must +appear to you. The tie of service, which we think as sacred as the tie of +blood, can be here only a business relation, and in these conditions +service must forever be grudgingly given and grudgingly paid. There is +something in it, I do not quite know what, for I can never place myself +precisely in an American's place, that degrades the poor creatures who +serve, so that they must not only be social outcasts, but must leave such +a taint of dishonor on their work that one cannot even do it for one's +self without a sense of outraged dignity. You might account for this in +Europe, where ages of prescriptive wrong have distorted the relation out +of all human wholesomeness and Christian loveliness; but in America, +where many, and perhaps most, of those who keep servants and call them so +are but a single generation from fathers who earned their bread by the +sweat of their brows, and from mothers who nobly served in all household +offices, it is in the last degree bewildering. I can only account for it +by that bedevilment of the entire American ideal through the retention of +the English economy when the English polity was rejected. But at the +heart of America there is this ridiculous contradiction, and it must +remain there until the whole country is Altrurianized. There is no other +hope; but I did not now urge this point, and we turned to talk of other +things, related to the matters we had been discussing. + +“The men,” said Mrs. Makely, “get out of the whole bother very nicely, as +long as they are single, and even when they're married they are apt to +run off to the club when there's a prolonged upheaval in the kitchen.” + +“_I_ don't, Dolly,” suggested her husband. + +“No, _you_ don't, Dick,” she returned, fondly. “But there are not +many like you.” + +He went on, with a wink at me, “I never live at the club, except in +summer, when you go away to the mountains.” + +“Well, you know I can't very well take you with me,” she said. + +“Oh, I couldn't leave my business, anyway,” he said, and he laughed. + + + + +X + + +I had noticed the vast and splendid club-houses in the best places in the +city, and I had often wondered about their life, which seemed to me a +blind groping towards our own, though only upon terms that forbade it to +those who most needed it. The clubs here are not like our groups, the +free association of sympathetic people, though one is a little more +literary, or commercial, or scientific, or political than another; but +the entrance to each is more or less jealously guarded; there is an +initiation-fee, and there are annual dues, which are usually heavy enough +to exclude all but the professional and business classes, though there +are, of course, successful artists and authors in them. During the past +winter I visited some of the most characteristic, where I dined and +supped with the members, or came alone when one of these put me down, for +a fortnight or a month. + +They are equipped with kitchens and cellars, and their wines and dishes +are of the best. Each is, in fact, like a luxurious private house on a +large scale; outwardly they are palaces, and inwardly they have every +feature and function of a princely residence complete, even to a certain +number of guest-chambers, where members may pass the night, or stay +indefinitely in some cases, and actually live at the club. The club, +however, is known only to the cities and larger towns, in this highly +developed form; to the ordinary, simple American of the country, or of +the country town of five or ten thousand people, a New York club would be +as strange as it would be to any Altrurian. + +“Do many of the husbands left behind in the summer live at the club?” I +asked. + +“All that _have_ a club do,” he said. “Often there's a very good +table d'hôte dinner that you couldn't begin to get for the same price +anywhere else; and there are a lot of good fellows there, and you can +come pretty near forgetting that you're homeless, or even that you're +married.” + +He laughed, and his wife said: “You ought to be ashamed, Dick; and me +worrying about you all the time I'm away, and wondering what the cook +gives you here. Yes,” she continued, addressing me, “that's the worst +thing about the clubs. They make the men so comfortable that they say +it's one of the principal obstacles to early marriages. The young men try +to get lodgings near them, so that they can take their meals there, and +they know they get much better things to eat than they could have in a +house of their own at a great deal more expense, and so they simply don't +think of getting married. Of course,” she said, with that wonderful, +unintentional, or at least unconscious, frankness of hers, “I don't blame +the clubs altogether. There's no use denying that girls are expensively +brought up, and that a young man has to think twice before taking one of +them out of the kind of home she's used to and putting her into the kind +of home he can give her. If the clubs have killed early marriages, +the women have created the clubs.” + +“Do women go much to them?” I asked, choosing this question as a safe +one. + +“_Much_!” she screamed. “They don't go at all! They _can't_! +They won't _let_ us! To be sure, there are some that have rooms +where ladies can go with their friends who are members, and have lunch or +dinner; but as for seeing the inside of the club-house proper, where +these great creatures”--she indicated her husband--“are sitting up, +smoking and telling stories, it isn't to be dreamed of.” + +Her husband laughed. “You wouldn't like the smoking, Dolly.” + +“Nor the stories, some of them,” she retorted. + +“Oh, the stories are always first-rate,” he said, and he laughed more +than before. + +“And they never gossip at the clubs, Mr. Homos--never!” she added. + +“Well, hardly ever,” said her husband, with an intonation that I did not +understand. It seemed to be some sort of catch-phrase. + +“All I know,” said Mrs. Makely, “is that I like to have my husband belong +to his club. It's a nice place for him in summer; and very often in +winter, when I'm dull, or going out somewhere that he hates, he can go +down to his club and smoke a cigar, and come home just about the time I +get in, and it's much better than worrying through the evening with a +book. He hates books, poor Dick!” She looked fondly at him, as if this +were one of the greatest merits in the world. “But I confess I shouldn't +like him to be a mere club man, like some of them.” + +“But how?” I asked. + +“Why, belonging to five or six, or more, even; and spending their whole +time at them, when they're not at business.” + +There was a pause, and Mr. Makely put on an air of modest worth, which he +carried off with his usual wink towards me. I said, finally, “And if the +ladies are not admitted to the men's clubs, why don't they have clubs of +their own?” + +“Oh, they have--several, I believe. But who wants to go and meet a lot of +women? You meet enough of them in society, goodness knows. You hardly +meet any one else, especially at afternoon teas. They bore you to death.” + +Mrs. Makely's nerves seemed to lie in the direction of a prolongation of +this subject, and I asked my next question a little away from it. “I wish +you would tell me, Mrs. Makely, something about your way of provisioning +your household. You said that the grocer's and butcher's man came up to +the kitchen with your supplies--” + +“Yes, and the milkman and the iceman; the iceman always puts the ice into +the refrigerator; it's very convenient, and quite like your own house.” + +“But you go out and select the things yourself the day before, or in the +morning?” + +“Oh, not at all! The men come and the cook gives the order; she knows +pretty well what we want on the different days, and I never meddle with +it from one week's end to the other, unless we have friends. The +tradespeople send in their bills at the end of the month, and that's all +there is of it.” Her husband gave me one of his queer looks, and she went +on: “When we were younger, and just beginning housekeeping, I used to go +out and order the things myself; I used even to go to the big markets, +and half kill myself trying to get things a little cheaper at one place +and another, and waste more car-fare and lay up more doctor's bills than +it would all come to, ten times over. I used to fret my life out, +remembering the prices; but now, thank goodness, that's all over. I don't +know any more what beef is a pound than my husband does; if a thing isn't +good, I send it straight back, and that puts them on their honor, you +know, and they have to give me the best of everything. The bills average +about the same, from month to month; a little more if we have company +but if they're too outrageous, I make a fuss with the cook, and she +scolds the men, and then it goes better for a while. Still, it's a great +bother.” + +I confess that I did not see what the bother was, but I had not the +courage to ask, for I had already conceived a wholesome dread of the +mystery of an American lady's nerves. So I merely suggested, “And that is +the way that people usually manage?” + +“Why,” she said, “I suppose that some old-fashioned people still do their +marketing, and people that have to look to their outgoes, and know what +every mouthful costs them. But their lives are not worth having. Eveleth +Strange does it--or she did do it when she was in the country; I dare say +she won't when she gets back--just from a sense of duty, and because she +says that a housekeeper ought to know about her expenses. But I ask her +who will care whether she knows or not; and as for giving the money to +the poor that she saves by spending economically, I tell her that the +butchers and the grocers have to live, too, as well as the poor, and so +it's as broad as it's long.” + + + + +XI + + +I could not make out whether Mr. Makely approved of his wife's philosophy +or not; I do not believe he thought much about it. The money probably +came easily with him, and he let it go easily, as an American likes to +do. There is nothing penurious or sordid about this curious people, so +fierce in the pursuit of riches. When these are once gained, they seem to +have no value to the man who has won them, and he has generally no object +in life but to see his womankind spend them. + +This is the season of the famous Thanksgiving, which has now become the +national holiday, but has no longer any savor in it of the grim +Puritanism it sprang from. It is now appointed by the president and the +governors of the several states, in proclamations enjoining a pious +gratitude upon the people for their continued prosperity as a nation, and +a public acknowledgment of the divine blessings. The blessings are +supposed to be of the material sort, grouped in the popular imagination +as good times, and it is hard to see what they are when hordes of men and +women of every occupation are feeling the pinch of poverty in their +different degrees. It is not merely those who have always the wolf at +their doors who are now suffering, but those whom the wolf never +threatened before; those who amuse as well as those who serve the rich +are alike anxious and fearful, where they are not already in actual want; +thousands of poor players, as well as hundreds of thousands of poor +laborers, are out of employment, and the winter threatens to be one of +dire misery. Yet you would not imagine from the smiling face of things, +as you would see it in the better parts of this great city, that there +was a heavy heart or an empty stomach anywhere below it. In fact, people +here are so used to seeing other people in want that it no longer affects +them as reality; it is merely dramatic, or hardly so lifelike as that--it +is merely histrionic. It is rendered still more spectacular to the +imaginations of the fortunate by the melodrama of charity they are +invited to take part in by endless appeals, and their fancy is flattered +by the notion that they are curing the distress they are only slightly +relieving by a gift from their superfluity. The charity, of course, is +better than nothing, but it is a fleeting mockery of the trouble, at the +best. If it were proposed that the city should subsidize a theatre a +which the idle players could get employment in producing good plays at a +moderate cost to the people, the notion would not be considered more +ridiculous than that of founding municipal works for the different sorts +of idle workers; and it would not be thought half so nefarious, for the +proposition to give work by the collectivity is supposed to be in +contravention of the sacred principle of monopolistic competition so +dear to the American economist, and it would be denounced as an +approximation to the surrender of the city to anarchism and destruction +by dynamite. + +But as I have so often said, the American life is in no wise logical, and +you will not be surprised, though you may be shocked or amused, to learn +that the festival of Thanksgiving is now so generally devoted to +witnessing a game of football between the elevens of two great +universities that the services at the churches are very scantily +attended. The Americans are practical, if they are not logical, and this +preference of football to prayer and praise on Thanksgiving-day has gone +so far that now a principal church in the city holds its services on +Thanksgiving-eve, so that the worshippers may not be tempted to keep away +from their favorite game. + +There is always a heavy dinner at home after the game, to console the +friends of those who have lost and to heighten the joy of the winning +side, among the comfortable people. The poor recognize the day largely +as a sort of carnival. They go about in masquerade on the eastern +avenues, and the children of the foreign races who populate that quarter +penetrate the better streets, blowing horns and begging of the passers. +They have probably no more sense of its difference from the old carnival +of Catholic Europe than from the still older Saturnalia of pagan times. +Perhaps you will say that a masquerade is no more pagan than a football +game; and I confess that I have a pleasure in that innocent +misapprehension of the holiday on the East Side. I am not more censorious +of it than I am of the displays of festival cheer at the provision-stores +or green-groceries throughout the city at this time. They are almost as +numerous on the avenues as the drinking-saloons, and, thanks to them, the +tasteful housekeeping is at least convenient in a high degree. The waste +is inevitable with the system of separate kitchens, and it is not in +provisions alone, but in labor and in time, a hundred cooks doing the +work of one; but the Americans have no conception of our co-operative +housekeeping, and so the folly goes on. + +Meantime the provision-stores add much to their effect of crazy gayety on +the avenues. The variety and harmony of colors is very great, and this +morning I stood so long admiring the arrangement in one of them that I am +afraid I rendered myself a little suspicious to the policeman guarding +the liquor-store on the nearest corner; there seems always to be a +policeman assigned to this duty. The display was on either side of the +provisioner's door, and began, on one hand, with a basal line of pumpkins +well out on the sidewalk. Then it was built up with the soft white and +cool green of cauliflowers and open boxes of red and white grapes, to the +window that flourished in banks of celery and rosy apples. On the other +side, gray-green squashes formed the foundation, and the wall was sloped +upward with the delicious salads you can find here, the dark red of +beets, the yellow of carrots, and the blue of cabbages. The association +of colors was very artistic, and even the line of mutton carcasses +overhead, with each a brace of grouse or half a dozen quail in its +embrace, and flanked with long sides of beef at the four ends of the +line, was picturesque, though the sight of the carnage at the +provision-stores here would always be dreadful to an Altrurian; in the +great markets it is intolerable. This sort of business is mostly in the +hands of the Germans, who have a good eye for such effects as may be +studied in it; but the fruiterers are nearly all Italians, and their +stalls are charming. I always like, too, the cheeriness of the chestnut +and peanut ovens of the Italians; the pleasant smell and friendly smoke +that rise from them suggest a simple and homelike life which there are so +any things in this great, weary, heedless city to make one forget. + + + + +XII + + +But I am allowing myself to wander too far from Mrs. Makely and her +letter, which reached me only two days before Thanksgiving. + + +“MY DEAR MR. HOMOS,--Will you give me the pleasure of your company at +dinner, on Thanksgiving-day, at eight o'clock, very informally. My +friend, Mrs. Bellington Strange, has unexpectedly returned from Europe +within the week, and I am asking a few friends, whom I can trust to +excuse this very short notice, to meet her. + +“With Mr. Makely's best regards, + +“Yours cordially, + +“DOROTHEA MAKELY. + +“The Sphinx, + +“November the twenty sixth, + +“Eighteen hundred and Ninety-three.” + + +I must tell you that it has been a fad with the ladies here to spell out +their dates, and, though the fashion is waning, Mrs. Makely is a woman +who would remain in such an absurdity among the very last. I will let you +make your own conclusions concerning this, for though, as an Altrurian, I +cannot respect her, I like her so much, and have so often enjoyed her +generous hospitality, that I cannot bring myself to criticise her except +by the implication of the facts. She is anomalous, but, to our way of +thinking, all the Americans I have met are anomalous, and she has the +merits that you would not logically attribute to her character. Of +course, I cannot feel that her evident regard for me is the least of +these, though I like to think that it is founded on more reason than the +rest. + +I have by this time become far too well versed in the polite +insincerities of the plutocratic world to imagine that, because she asked +me to come to her dinner very informally, I was not to come in all the +state I could put into my dress. You know what the evening dress of men +is here, from the costumes in our museum, and you can well believe that I +never put on those ridiculous black trousers without a sense of their +grotesqueness--that scrap of waistcoat reduced to a mere rim, so as to +show the whole white breadth of the starched shirt-bosom, and that coat +chopped away till it seems nothing but tails and lapels. It is true that +I might go out to dinner in our national costume; in fact, Mrs. Makely +has often begged me to wear it, for she says the Chinese wear theirs; but +I have not cared to make the sensation which I must if I wore it; my +outlandish views of life and my frank study of their customs signalize me +quite sufficiently among the Americans. + +At the hour named I appeared in Mrs. Makely's drawing-room in all the +formality that I knew her invitation, to come very informally, really +meant. I found myself the first, as I nearly always do, but I had only +time for a word or two with my hostess before the others began to come. +She hastily explained that as soon as she knew Mrs. Strange was in New +York she had despatched a note telling her that I was still here; and +that as she could not get settled in time to dine at home, she must come +and take Thanksgiving dinner with her. “She will have to go out with Mr. +Makely; but I am going to put you next to her at table, for I want you +both to have a good time. But don't you forget that you are going to take +_me_ out.” + +I said that I should certainly not forget it, and I showed her the +envelope with my name on the outside, and hers on a card inside, which +the serving-man at the door had given me in the hall, as the first token +that the dinner was to be unceremonious. + +She laughed, and said: “I've had the luck to pick up two or three other +agreeable people that I know will be glad to meet you. Usually it's such +a scratch lot at Thanksgiving, for everybody dines at home that can, and +you have to trust to the highways and the byways for your guests, if you +give a dinner. But I did want to bring Mrs. Strange and you together, and +so I chanced it. Of course, it's a sent-in dinner, as you must have +inferred from the man at the door; I've given my servants a holiday, and +had Claret's people do the whole thing. It's as broad as it's long, and, +as my husband says, you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb; and +it saves bother. Everybody will know it's sent in, so that nobody will be +deceived. There'll be a turkey in it somewhere, and cranberry sauce; I've +insisted on that; but it won't be a regular American Thanksgiving dinner, +and I'm rather sorry, on your account, for I wanted you to see one, and I +meant to have had you here, just with ourselves; but Eveleth Strange's +coming back put a new face on things, and so I've gone in for this +affair, which isn't at all what you would like. That's the reason I tell +you at once it's sent in.” + + + + +XIII + + +I am so often at a loss for the connection in Mrs. Makely's ideas that I +am more patient with her incoherent jargon than you will be, I am afraid. +It went on to much the effect that I have tried to report until the +moment she took the hand of the guest who came next. They arrived, until +there were eight of us in all, Mrs. Strange coming last, with excuses for +being late. I had somehow figured her as a person rather mystical and +recluse in appearance, perhaps on account of her name, and I had imagined +her tall and superb. But she was, really, rather small, though not below +the woman's average, and she had a face more round than otherwise, with a +sort of business-like earnestness, but a very charming smile, and +presently, as I saw, an American sense of humor. She had brown hair and +gray eyes, and teeth not too regular to be monotonous; her mouth was very +sweet, whether she laughed or sat gravely silent. She at once affected me +like a person who had been sobered beyond her nature by responsibilities, +and had steadily strengthened under the experiences of life. She was +dressed with a sort of personal taste, in a rich gown of black lace, +which came up to her throat; and she did not subject me to that +embarrassment I always feel in the presence of a lady who is much +décolletée, when I sit next her or face to face with her: I cannot always +look at her without a sense of taking an immodest advantage. Sometimes I +find a kind of pathos in this sacrifice of fashion, which affects me as +if the poor lady were wearing that sort of gown because she thought she +really ought, and then I keep my eyes firmly on hers, or avert them +altogether; but there are other cases which have not this appealing +quality. Yet in the very worst of the cases it would be a mistake to +suppose that there was a display personally meant of the display +personally made. Even then it would be found that the gown was worn so +because the dressmaker had made it so, and, whether she had made it +in this country or in Europe, that she had made it in compliance with a +European custom. In fact, all the society customs of the Americans follow +some European original, and usually some English original; and it is only +fair to say that in this particular custom they do not go to the English +extreme. + +We did not go out to dinner at Mrs. Makely's by the rules of English +precedence, because there are nominally no ranks here, and we could not; +but I am sure it will not be long before the Americans will begin playing +at precedence just as they now play at the other forms of aristocratic +society. For the present, however, there was nothing for us to do but to +proceed, when dinner was served, in such order as offered itself, after +Mr. Makely gave his arm to Mrs. Strange; though, of course, the white +shoulders of the other ladies went gleaming out before the white +shoulders of Mrs. Makely shone beside my black ones. I have now become so +used to these observances that they no longer affect me as they once did, +and as I suppose my account of them must affect you, painfully, +comically. But I have always the sense of having a part in amateur +theatricals, and I do not see how the Americans can fail to have the same +sense, for there is nothing spontaneous in them, and nothing that has +grown even dramatically out of their own life. + +Often when I admire the perfection of the stage-setting, it is with a +vague feeling that I am derelict in not offering it an explicit applause. +In fact, this is permitted in some sort and measure, as now when we sat +down at Mrs. Makely's exquisite table, and the ladies frankly recognized +her touch in it. One of them found a phrase for it at once, and +pronounced it a symphony in chrysanthemums; for the color and the +character of these flowers played through all the appointments of the +table, and rose to a magnificent finale in the vast group in the middle +of the board, infinite in their caprices of tint and design. Another lady +said that it was a dream, and then Mrs. Makely said, “No, a memory,” and +confessed that she had studied the effect from her recollection of some +tables at a chrysanthemum show held here year before last, which seemed +failures because they were so simply and crudely adapted in the china and +napery to merely one kind and color of the flower. + +“Then,” she added, “I wanted to do something very chrysanthemummy, +because it seems to me the Thanksgiving flower, and belongs to +Thanksgiving quite as much as holly belongs to Christmas.” + +Everybody applauded her intention, and they hungrily fell to upon the +excellent oysters, with her warning that we had better make the most of +everything in its turn, for she had conformed her dinner to the brevity +of the notice she had given her guests. + + + + +XIV + + +Just what the dinner was I will try to tell you, for I think that it will +interest you to know what people here think a very simple dinner. That +is, people of any degree of fashion; for the unfashionable Americans, who +are innumerably in the majority, have, no more than the Altrurians, seen +such a dinner as Mrs. Makely's. This sort generally sit down to a single +dish of meat, with two or three vegetables, and they drink tea or coffee, +or water only, with their dinner. Even when they have company, as they +say, the things are all put on the table at once; and the average of +Americans who have seen a dinner served in courses, after the Russian +manner, invariable in the fine world here, is not greater than those who +have seen a serving-man in livery. Among these the host piles up his +guest's plate with meat and vegetables, and it is passed from hand to +hand till it reaches him; his drink arrives from the hostess by the same +means. One maid serves the table in a better class, and two maids in a +class still better; it is only when you reach people of very decided form +that you find a man in a black coat behind your chair; Mrs. Makely, +mindful of the informality of her dinner in everything, had two men. + +I should say the difference between the Altrurians and the unfashionable +Americans, in view of such a dinner as she gave us, would be that, while +it would seem to us abominable for its extravagance, and revolting in its +appeals to appetite, it would seem to most of such Americans altogether +admirable and enviable, and would appeal to their ambition to give such a +dinner themselves as soon as ever they could. + +Well, with our oysters we had a delicate French wine, though I am told +that formerly Spanish wines were served. A delicious soup followed the +oysters, and then we had fish with sliced cucumbers dressed with oil and +vinegar, like a salad; and I suppose you will ask what we could possibly +have eaten more. But this was only the beginning, and next there came a +course of sweetbreads with green peas. With this the champagne began at +once to flow, for Mrs. Makely was nothing if not original, and she had +champagne very promptly. One of the gentlemen praised her for it, and +said you could not have it too soon, and he had secretly hoped it would +have begun with the oysters. Next, we had a remove--a tenderloin of beef, +with mushrooms, fresh, and not of the canned sort which it is usually +accompanied with. This fact won our hostess more compliments from the +gentlemen, which could not have gratified her more if she had dressed and +cooked the dish herself. She insisted upon our trying the stewed +terrapin, for, if it did come in a little by the neck and shoulders, it +was still in place at a Thanksgiving dinner, because it was so American; +and the stuffed peppers, which, if they were not American, were at least +Mexican, and originated in the kitchen of a sister republic. There were +one or two other side-dishes, and, with all, the burgundy began to be +poured out. + +Mr. Makely said that claret all came now from California, no matter what +French château they named it after, but burgundy you could not err in. +His guests were now drinking the different wines, and to much the same +effect, I should think, as if they had mixed them all in one cup; though +I ought to say that several of the ladies took no wine, and kept me in +countenance after the first taste I was obliged to take of each, in order +to pacify my host. + +You must know that all the time there were plates of radishes, olives, +celery, and roasted almonds set about that every one ate of without much +reference to the courses. The talking and the feasting were at their +height, but there was a little flagging of the appetite, perhaps, when it +received the stimulus of a water-ice flavored with rum. After eating it I +immediately experienced an extraordinary revival of my hunger (I am +ashamed to confess that I was gorging myself like the rest), but I +quailed inwardly when one of the men-servants set down before Mr. Makely +a roast turkey that looked as large as an ostrich. It was received with +cries of joy, and one of the gentlemen said, “Ah, Mrs. Makely, I was +waiting to see how you would interpolate the turkey, but you never fail. +I knew you would get it in somewhere. But where,” he added, in a +burlesque whisper, behind his hand, “are the--” + +“Canvasback duck?” she asked, and at that moment the servant set before +the anxious inquirer a platter of these renowned birds, which you know +something of already from the report our emissaries have given of their +cult among the Americans. + +Every one laughed, and after the gentleman had made a despairing flourish +over them with a carving-knife in emulation of Mr. Makely's emblematic +attempt upon the turkey, both were taken away and carved at a sideboard. +They were then served in slices, the turkey with cranberry sauce, and the +ducks with currant jelly; and I noticed that no one took so much of the +turkey that he could not suffer himself to be helped also to the duck. I +must tell you that there a salad with the duck, and after that there was +an ice-cream, with fruit and all manner of candied fruits, and candies, +different kinds of cheese, coffee, and liqueurs to drink after the +coffee. + +“Well, now,” Mrs. Makely proclaimed, in high delight with her triumph, “I +must let you imagine the pumpkin-pie. I meant to have it, because it +isn't really Thanksgiving without it. But I couldn't, for the life of me, +see where it would come in.” + + + + +XV + + +The sally of the hostess made them all laugh, and they began to talk +about the genuine American character of the holiday, and what a fine +thing it was to have something truly national. They praised Mrs. Makely +for thinking of so many American dishes, and the facetious gentleman said +that she rendered no greater tribute than was due to the overruling +Providence which had so abundantly bestowed them upon the Americans as a +people. “You must have been glad, Mrs. Strange,” he said to the lady at +my side, “to get back to our American oysters. There seems nothing else +so potent to bring us home from Europe.” + +“I'm afraid,” she answered, “that I don't care so much for the American +oyster as I should. But I am certainly glad to get back.” + +“In time for the turkey, perhaps?” + +“No, I care no more for the turkey than for the oyster of my native +land,” said the lady. + +“Ah, well, say the canvasback duck, then? The canvasback duck is no +alien. He is as thoroughly American as the turkey, or as any of us.” + +“No, I should not have missed him, either,” persisted the lady. + +“What could one have missed,” the gentleman said, with a bow to the +hostess, “in the dinner Mrs. Makely has given us? If there had been +nothing, I should not have missed it,” and when the laugh at his drolling +had subsided he asked Mrs. Strange: “Then, if it is not too indiscreet, +might I inquire what in the world has lured you again to our shores, if +it was not the oyster, nor the turkey, nor yet the canvasback?” + +“The American dinner-party,” said the lady, with the same burlesque. + +“Well,” he consented, “I think I understand you. It is different from the +English dinner-party in being a festivity rather than a solemnity; +though, after all, the American dinner is only a condition of the English +dinner. Do you find us much changed, Mrs. Strange?” + +“I think we are every year a little more European,” said the lady. “One +notices it on getting home.” + +“I supposed we were so European already,” returned the gentleman, “that +a European landing among us would think he had got back to his +starting-point in a sort of vicious circle. I am myself so thoroughly +Europeanized in all my feelings and instincts that, do you know, Mrs. +Makely, if I may confess it without offence--” + +“Oh, by all means!” cried the hostess. + +“When that vast bird which we have been praising, that colossal roast +turkey, appeared, I felt a shudder go through my delicate substance, such +as a refined Englishman might have experienced at the sight, and I said +to myself, quite as if I were not one of you, 'Good Heavens! now they +will begin talking through their noses and eating with their knives.' +It's what I might have expected!” + +It was impossible not to feel that this gentleman was talking at me; if +the Americans have a foreign guest, they always talk at him more or less; +and I was not surprised when he said, “I think our friend, Mr. Homos, +will conceive my fine revolt from the crude period of our existence which +the roast turkey marks as distinctly as the graffiti of the cave-dweller +proclaim his epoch.” + +“No,” I protested, “I am afraid that I have not the documents for the +interpretation of your emotion. I hope you will take pity on my ignorance +and tell me just what you mean.” + +The others said they none of them knew, either, and would like to know, +and the gentleman began by saying that he had been going over the matter +in his mind on his way to dinner, and he had really been trying to lead +up to it ever since we sat down. “I've been struck, first of all, by the +fact, in our evolution, that we haven't socially evolved from ourselves; +we've evolved from the Europeans, from the English. I don't think you'll +find a single society rite with us now that had its origin in our +peculiar national life, if we have a peculiar national life; I doubt it, +sometimes. If you begin with the earliest thing in the day, if you begin +with breakfast, as society gives breakfasts, you have an English +breakfast, though American people and provisions.” + +“I must say, I think they're both much nicer,” said Mrs. Makely. + +“Ah, there I am with you! We borrow the form, but we infuse the spirit. I +am talking about the form, though. Then, if you come to the society +lunch, which is almost indistinguishable from the society breakfast, you +have the English lunch, which is really an undersized English dinner. +The afternoon tea is English again, with its troops of eager females and +stray, reluctant males; though I believe there are rather more men at the +English teas, owing to the larger leisure class in England. The afternoon +tea and the 'at home' are as nearly alike as the breakfast and the lunch. +Then, in the course of time, we arrive at the great society function, +the dinner; and what is the dinner with us but the dinner of our +mother-country?” + +“It is livelier,” suggested Mrs. Makely, again. + +“Livelier, I grant you, but I am still speaking of the form, and not of +the spirit. The evening reception, which is gradually fading away, as a +separate rite, with its supper and its dance, we now have as the English +have it, for the people who have not been asked to dinner. The ball, +which brings us round to breakfast again, is again the ball of our +Anglo-Saxon kin beyond the seas. In short, from the society point of view +we are in everything their mere rinsings.” + +“Nothing of the kind!” cried Mrs. Makely. “I won't let you say such a +thing! On Thanksgiving-day, too! Why, there is the Thanksgiving dinner +itself! If that isn't purely American, I should like to know what is.” + +“It is purely American, but it is strictly domestic; it is not society. +Nobody but some great soul like you, Mrs. Makely, would have the courage +to ask anybody to a Thanksgiving dinner, and even you ask only such +easy-going house-friends as we are proud to be. You wouldn't think of +giving a dinner-party on Thanksgiving?” + +“No, I certainly shouldn't. I should think it was very presuming; and you +are all as nice as you can be to have come to-day; I am not the only +great soul at the table. But that is neither here nor there. Thanksgiving +is a purely American thing, and it's more popular than ever. A few years +ago you never heard of it outside of New England.” + +The gentleman laughed. “You are perfectly right, Mrs. Makely, as you +always are. Thanksgiving is purely American. So is the corn-husking, so +is the apple-bee, so is the sugar-party, so is the spelling-match, so is +the church-sociable; but none of these have had their evolution in our +society entertainments. The New Year's call was also purely American, but +that is now as extinct as the dodo, though I believe the other American +festivities are still known in the rural districts.” + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Makely, “and I think it's a great shame that we can't +have some of them in a refined form in society. I once went to a +sugar-party up in New Hampshire when I was a girl, and I never enjoyed +myself so much in my life. I should like to make up a party to go to one +somewhere in the Catskills in March. Will you all go? It would be +something to show Mr. Homos. I should like to show him something really +American before he goes home. There's nothing American left in society!” + +“You forget the American woman,” suggested the gentleman. “She is always +American, and she is always in society.” + +“Yes,” returned our hostess, with a thoughtful air, “you're quite right +in that. One always meets more women than men in society. But it's +because the men are so lazy, and so comfortable at their clubs, they +won't go. They enjoy themselves well enough in society after they get +there, as I tell my husband when he grumbles over having to dress.” + +“Well,” said the gentleman, “a great many things, the day-time things, we +really can't come to, because we don't belong to the aristocratic class, +as you ladies do, and we are busy down-town. But I don't think we are +reluctant about dinner; and the young fellows are nearly always willing +to go to a ball, if the supper's good and it's a house where they don't +feel obliged to dance. But what do _you_ think, Mr. Homos?” he +asked. “How does your observation coincide with my experience?” + +I answered that I hardly felt myself qualified to speak, for though I had +assisted at the different kinds of society rites he had mentioned, thanks +to the hospitality of my friends in New York, I knew the English +functions only from a very brief stay in England on my way here, and from +what I had read of them in English fiction and in the relations of our +emissaries. He inquired into our emissary system, and the company +appeared greatly interested in such account of it as I could briefly +give. + +“Well,” he said, “that would do while you kept it to yourselves; but now +that your country is known to the plutocratic world, your public +documents will be apt to come back to the countries your emissaries have +visited, and make trouble. The first thing you know some of our bright +reporters will get on to one of your emissaries, and interview him, and +then we shall get what you think of us at first hands. By-the-by, have +you seen any of those primitive social delights which Mrs. Makely regrets +so much?” + +“I!” our hostess protested. But then she perceived that he was joking, +and she let me answer. + +I said that I had seen them nearly all, during the past year, in New +England and in the West, but they appeared to me inalienable of the +simpler life of the country, and that I was not surprised they should not +have found an evolution in the more artificial society of the cities. + +“I see,” he returned, “that you reserve your _opinion_ of our more +artificial society; but you may be sure that our reporters will get it +out of you yet before you leave us.” + +“Those horrid reporters!” one of the ladies irrelevantly sighed. + +The gentleman resumed: “In the mean time, I don't mind saying how it +strikes me. I think you are quite right about the indigenous American +things being adapted only to the simpler life of the country and the +smaller towns. It is so everywhere. As soon as people become at all +refined they look down upon what is their own as something vulgar. But it +is peculiarly so with us. We have nothing national that is not connected +with the life of work, and when we begin to live the life of pleasure we +must borrow from the people abroad, who have always lived the life of +pleasure.” + +“Mr. Homos, you know,” Mrs. Makely explained for me, as if this were the +aptest moment, “thinks we all ought to work. He thinks we oughtn't to +have any servants.” + +“Oh no, my dear lady,” I put in. “I don't think that of you as you +_are_. None of you could see more plainly than I do that in your +conditions you _must_ have servants, and that you cannot possibly +work unless poverty obliges you.” + +The other ladies had turned upon me with surprise and horror at Mrs. +Makely's words, but they now apparently relented, as if I had fully +redeemed myself from the charge made against me. Mrs. Strange alone +seemed to have found nothing monstrous in my supposed position. +“Sometimes,” she said, “I wish we had to work, all of us, and that we +could be freed from our servile bondage to servants.” + +Several of the ladies admitted that it was the greatest slavery in the +world, and that it would be comparative luxury to do one's own work. But +they all asked, in one form or another, what were they to do, and Mrs. +Strange owned that she did not know. The facetious gentleman asked me how +the ladies did in Altruria, and when I told them, as well as I could, +they were, of course, very civil about it, but I could see that they all +thought it impossible, or, if not impossible, then ridiculous. I did not +feel bound to defend our customs, and I knew very well that each woman +there was imagining herself in our conditions with the curse of her +plutocratic tradition still upon her. They could not do otherwise, any of +them, and they seemed to get tired of such effort as they did make. + +Mrs. Makely rose, and the other ladies rose with her, for the Americans +follow the English custom in letting the men remain at table after the +women have left. But on this occasion I found it varied by a pretty touch +from the French custom, and the men, instead of merely standing up while +the women filed out, gave each his arm, as far as the drawing-room, to +the lady he had brought in to dinner. Then we went back, and what is the +pleasantest part of the dinner to most men began for us. + + + + +XVI + + +I must say, to the credit of the Americans, that although the eating and +drinking among them appear gross enough to an Altrurian, you are not +revolted by the coarse stories which the English sometimes tell as soon +as the ladies have left them. If it is a men's dinner, or more especially +a men's supper, these stories are pretty sure to follow the coffee; but +when there have been women at the board, some sense of their presence +seems to linger in the more delicate American nerves, and the indulgence +is limited to two or three things off color, as the phrase is here, told +with anxious glances at the drawing-room doors, to see if they are fast +shut. + +I do not remember just what brought the talk back from these primrose +paths to that question of American society forms, but presently some one +said he believed the church-sociable was the thing in most towns beyond +the apple-bee and sugar-party stage, and this opened the inquiry as to +how far the church still formed the social life of the people in cities. +Some one suggested that in Brooklyn it formed it altogether, and then +they laughed, for Brooklyn is always a joke with the New-Yorkers; I do +not know exactly why, except that this vast city is so largely a suburb, +and that it has a great number of churches and is comparatively cheap. +Then another told of a lady who had come to New York (he admitted, twenty +years ago), and was very lonely, as she had no letters until she joined a +church. This at once brought her a general acquaintance, and she began to +find herself in society; but as soon as she did so she joined a more +exclusive church, where they took no notice of strangers. They all +laughed at that bit of human nature, as they called it, and they +philosophized the relation of women to society as a purely business +relation. The talk ranged to the mutable character of society, and how +people got into it, or were of it, and how it was very different from +what it once was, except that with women it was always business. They +spoke of certain new rich people with affected contempt; but I could see +that they were each proud of knowing such millionaires as they could +claim for acquaintance, though they pretended to make fun of the number +of men-servants you had to run the gantlet of in their houses before you +could get to your hostess. + +One of my commensals said he had noticed that I took little or no wine, +and, when I said that we seldom drank it in Altruria, he answered that he +did not think I could make that go in America, if I meant to dine much. +“Dining, you know, means overeating,” he explained, “and if you wish to +overeat you must overdrink. I venture to say that you will pass a worse +night than any of us, Mr. Homos, and that you will be sorrier to-morrow +than I shall.” They were all smoking, and I confess that their tobacco +was secretly such an affliction to me that I was at one moment in doubt +whether I should take a cigar myself or ask leave to join the ladies. + +The gentleman who had talked so much already said: “Well, I don't mind +dining, a great deal, especially with Makely, here, but I do object to +supping, as I have to do now and then, in the way of pleasure. Last +Saturday night I sat down at eleven o'clock to blue-point oysters, +consommé, stewed terrapin--yours was very good, Makely; I wish I had +taken more of it--lamb chops with peas, redhead duck with celery +mayonnaise, Nesselrode pudding, fruit, cheese, and coffee, with sausages, +caviare, radishes, celery, and olives interspersed wildly, and drinkables +and smokables _ad libitum_; and I can assure you that I felt very +devout when I woke up after church-time in the morning. It is this +turning night into day that is killing us. We men, who have to go to +business the next morning, ought to strike, and say that we won't go +to anything later than eight-o'clock dinner.” + +“Ah, then the women would insist upon our making it four-o'clock tea,” + said another. + +Our host seemed to be reminded of something by the mention of the women, +and he said, after a glance at the state of the cigars, “Shall we join +the ladies?” + +One of the men-servants had evidently been waiting for this question. He +held the door open, and we all filed into the drawing-room. + +Mrs. Makely hailed me with, “Ah, Mr. Homos, I'm so glad you've come! We +poor women have been having a most dismal time!” + +“Honestly,” asked the funny gentleman, “don't you always, without us?” + “Yes, but this has been worse than usual. Mrs. Strange has been asking us +how many people we supposed there were in this city, within five minutes' +walk of us, who had no dinner to-day. Do you call that kind?” + +“A little more than kin and less than kind, perhaps,” the gentleman +suggested. “But what does she propose to do about it?” + +He turned towards Mrs. Strange, who answered, “Nothing. What does any one +propose to do about it?” + +“Then, why do you think about it?” + +“I don't. It thinks about itself. Do you know that poem of Longfellow's, +'The Challenge'?” + +“No, I never heard of it.” + +“Well, it begins in his sweet old way, about some Spanish king who was +killed before a city he was besieging, and one of his knights sallies out +of the camp and challenges the people of the city, the living and the +dead, as traitors. Then the poet breaks off, _apropos de rien:_ + + 'There is a greater army + That besets us round with strife, + A numberless, starving army, + At all the gates of life. + The poverty-stricken millions + Who challenge our wine and bread + And impeach us all for traitors, + Both the living and the dead. + And whenever I sit at the banquet, + Where the feast and song are high, + Amid the mirth and the music + I can hear that fearful cry. + + And hollow and haggard faces + Look into the lighted hall, + And wasted hands are extended + To catch the crumbs that fall. + For within there is light and plenty, + And odors fill the air; + But without there is cold and darkness, + And hunger and despair. + And there, in the camp of famine, + In wind and cold and rain, + Christ, the great Lord of the Army, + Lies dead upon the plain.'” + + +“Ah,” said the facetious gentleman, “that is fine! We really forget how +fine Longfellow was. It is so pleasant to hear you quoting poetry, Mrs. +Strange! That sort of thing has almost gone out; and it's a pity.” + + + + +XVII + + +Our fashion of offering hospitality on the impulse would be as strange +here as offering it without some special inducement for its acceptance. +The inducement is, as often as can be, a celebrity or eccentricity of +some sort, or some visiting foreigner; and I suppose that I have been a +good deal used myself in one quality or the other. But when the thing has +been done, fully and guardedly at all points, it does not seem to have +been done for pleasure, either by the host or the guest. The dinner is +given in payment of another dinner; or out of ambition by people who are +striving to get forward in society; or by great social figures who give +regularly a certain number of dinners every season. In either case it is +eaten from motives at once impersonal and selfish. I do not mean to say +that I have not been at many dinners where I felt nothing perfunctory +either in host or guest, and where as sweet and gay a spirit ruled as at +any of our own simple feasts. Still, I think our main impression of +American hospitality would be that it was thoroughly infused with the +plutocratic principle, and that it meant business. + +I am speaking now of the hospitality of society people, who number, after +all, but a few thousands out of the many millions of American people. +These millions are so far from being in society, even when they are very +comfortable, and on the way to great prosperity, if they are not already +greatly prosperous, that if they were suddenly confronted with the best +society of the great Eastern cities they would find it almost as strange +as so many Altrurians. A great part of them have no conception of +entertaining except upon an Altrurian scale of simplicity, and they know +nothing and care less for the forms that society people value themselves +upon. When they begin, in the ascent of the social scale, to adopt forms, +it is still to wear them lightly and with an individual freedom and +indifference; it is long before anxiety concerning the social law renders +them vulgar. + +Yet from highest to lowest, from first to last, one invariable fact +characterizes them all, and it may be laid down as an axiom that in a +plutocracy the man who needs a dinner is the man who is never asked to +dine. I do not say that he is not given a dinner. He is very often given +a dinner, and for the most part he is kept from starving to death; but he +is not suffered to sit at meat with his host, if the person who gives him +a meal can be called his host. His need of the meal stamps him with a +hopeless inferiority, and relegates him morally to the company of the +swine at their husks, and of Lazarus, whose sores the dogs licked. +Usually, of course, he is not physically of such a presence as to fit him +for any place in good society short of Abraham's bosom; but even if he +were entirely decent, or of an inoffensive shabbiness, it would not be +possible for his benefactors, in any grade of society, to ask him to +their tables. He is sometimes fed in the kitchen; where the people of the +house feed in the kitchen themselves, he is fed at the back door. + +We were talking of this the other night at the house of that lady whom +Mrs. Makely invited me specially to meet on Thanksgiving-day. It happened +then, as it often happens here, that although I was asked to meet her, I +saw very little of her. It was not so bad as it sometimes is, for I have +been asked to meet people, very informally, and passed the whole evening +with them, and yet not exchanged a word with them. Mrs. Makely really +gave me a seat next Mrs. Strange at table, and we had some unimportant +conversation; but there was a lively little creature vis-à-vis of me, who +had a fancy of addressing me so much of her talk that my acquaintance +with. Mrs. Strange rather languished through the dinner, and she went +away so soon after the men rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room that I +did not speak to her there. I was rather surprised, then, to receive a +note from her a few days later, asking me to dinner; and I finally went, +I am ashamed to own, more from curiosity than from any other motive. I +had been, in the mean time, thoroughly coached concerning her by Mrs. +Makely, whom I told of my invitation, and who said, quite frankly, that +she wished Mrs. Strange had asked her, too. “But Eveleth Strange wouldn't +do that,” she explained, “because it would have the effect of paying me +back. I'm so glad, on your account, that you're going, for I do want you +to know at least one American woman that you can unreservedly approve of; +I know you don't _begin_ to approve of _me;_ and I was so vexed +that you really had no chance to talk with her that night you met her +here; it seemed to me as if she ran away early just to provoke me; and, +to tell you the truth, I thought she had taken a dislike to you. I wish I +could tell you just what sort of a person she is, but it would be +perfectly hopeless, for you haven't got the documents, and you never +could get them. I used to be at school with her, and even then she wasn't +like any of the other girls. She was always so original, and did things +from such a high motive, that afterwards, when we were all settled, I +was perfectly thunderstruck at her marrying old Bellington Strange, who +was twice her age and had nothing but his money; he was not related to +the New York Bellingtons at all, and nobody knows how he got the name; +nobody ever heard of the Stranges. In fact, people say that he used to be +plain Peter B. Strange till he married Eveleth, and she made him drop the +Peter and blossom out in the Bellington, so that he could seem to have a +social as well as a financial history. People who dislike her insisted +that they were not in the least surprised at her marrying him; that the +high-motive business was just her pose; and that she had jumped at the +chance of getting him. But I always stuck up for her--and I know that she +did it for the sake of her family, who were all as poor as poor, and were +dependent on her after her father went to smash in his business. She was +always as high-strung and romantic as she could be, but I don't believe +that even then she would have taken Mr. Strange if there had been anybody +else. I don't suppose any one else ever looked at her, for the young men +are pretty sharp nowadays, and are not going to marry girls without a +cent, when there are so many rich girls, just as charming every way; you +can't expect them to. At any rate, whatever her motive was, she had her +reward, for Mr. Strange died within a year of their marriage, and she got +all his money. There was no attempt to break the will, for Mr. Strange +seemed to be literally of no family; and she's lived quietly on in the +house he bought her ever since, except when she's in Europe, and that's +about two-thirds of the time. She has her mother with her, and I suppose +that her sisters and her cousins and her aunts come in for outdoor aid. +She's always helping somebody. They say that's her pose, now; but, if it +is, I don't think it's a bad one; and certainly, if she wanted to get +married again, there would be no trouble, with her three millions. I +advise you to go to her dinner, by all means, Mr. Homos. It will be +something worth while, in every way, and perhaps you'll convert her to +Altrurianism; she's as hopeful a subject as _I_ know.” + + + + +XVIII + + +I was one of the earliest of the guests, for I cannot yet believe that +people do not want me to come exactly when they say they do. I perceived, +however, that one other gentleman had come before me, and I was both +surprised and delighted to find that this was my acquaintance Mr. +Bullion, the Boston banker. He professed as much pleasure at our meeting +as I certainly felt; but after a few words he went on talking with Mrs. +Strange, while I was left to her mother, an elderly woman of quiet and +even timid bearing, who affected me at once as born and bred in a wholly +different environment. In fact, every American of the former generation +is almost as strange to it in tradition, though not in principle, as I +am; and I found myself singularly at home with this sweet lady, who +seemed glad of my interest in her. I was taken from her side to be +introduced to a lady, on the opposite side of the room, who said she had +been promised my acquaintance by a friend of hers, whom I had met in the +mountains--Mr. Twelvemough; did I remember him? She gave a little +cry while still speaking, and dramatically stretched her hand towards a +gentleman who entered at the moment, and whom I saw to be no other than +Mr. Twelvemough himself. As soon as he had greeted our hostess he +hastened up to us, and, barely giving himself time to press the still +outstretched hand of my companion, shook mine warmly, and expressed the +greatest joy at seeing me. He said that he had just got back to town, in +a manner, and had not known I was here, till Mrs. Strange had asked him +to meet me. There were not a great many other guests, when they all +arrived, and we sat down, a party not much larger than at Mrs. Makely's. + +I found that I was again to take out my hostess, but I was put next the +lady with whom I had been talking; she had come without her husband, who +was, apparently, of a different social taste from herself, and had an +engagement of his own; there was an artist and his wife, whose looks I +liked; some others whom I need not specify were there, I fancied, because +they had heard of Altruria and were curious to see me. As Mr. Twelvemough +sat quite at the other end of the table, the lady on my right could +easily ask me whether I liked his books. She said, tentatively, people +liked them because they felt sure when they took up one of his novels +they had not got hold of a tract on political economy in disguise. + +It was this complimentary close of a remark, which scarcely began with +praise, that made itself heard across the table, and was echoed with a +heartfelt sigh from the lips of another lady. + +“Yes,” she said, “that is what I find such a comfort in Mr. Twelvemough's +books.” + +“We were speaking of Mr. Twelvemough's books,” the first lady triumphed, +and several began to extol them for being fiction pure and simple, and +not dealing with anything but loves of young people. + +Mr. Twelvemough sat looking as modest as he could under the praise, and +one of the ladies said that in a novel she had lately read there was a +description of a surgical operation that made her feel as if she had +been present at a clinic. Then the author said that he had read that +passage, too, and found it extremely well done. It was fascinating, but +it was not art. + +The painter asked, Why was it not art? + +The author answered, Well, if such a thing as that was art, then anything +that a man chose to do in a work of imagination was art. + +“Precisely,” said the painter--“art _is_ choice.” + +“On that ground,” the banker interposed, “you could say that political +economy was a fit subject for art, if an artist chose to treat it.” + +“It would have its difficulties,” the painter admitted, “but there +are certain phases of political economy, dramatic moments, human +moments, which might be very fitly treated in art. For instance, who +would object to Mr. Twelvemough's describing an eviction from an East +Side tenement-house on a cold winter night, with the mother and her +children huddled about the fire the father had kindled with pieces of the +household furniture?” + +“_I_ should object very much, for one,” said the lady who had +objected to the account of the surgical operation. “It would be too +creepy. Art should give pleasure.” + +“Then you think a tragedy is not art?” asked the painter. + +“I think that these harrowing subjects are brought in altogether too +much,” said the lady. “There are enough of them in real life, without +filling all the novels with them. It's terrible the number of beggars +you meet on the street, this winter. Do you want to meet them in Mr. +Twelvemough's novels, too?” + +“Well, it wouldn't cost me any money there. I shouldn't have to give.” + +“You oughtn't to give money in real life,” said the lady. “You ought to +give charity tickets. If the beggars refuse them, it shows they are +impostors.” + +“It's some comfort to know that the charities are so active,” said the +elderly young lady, “even if half the letters one gets _do_ turn out +to be appeals from them.” + +“It's very disappointing to have them do it, though,” said the artist, +lightly. “I thought there was a society to abolish poverty. That doesn't +seem to be so active as the charities this winter. Is it possible they've +found it a failure?” + +“Well,” said Mr. Bullion, “perhaps they have suspended during the hard +times.” + +They tossed the ball back and forth with a lightness the Americans have, +and I could not have believed, if I had not known how hardened people +become to such things here, that they were almost in the actual presence +of hunger and cold. It was within five minutes' walk of their warmth and +surfeit; and if they had lifted the window and called, “Who goes there?” + the houselessness that prowls the night could have answered them from the +street below, “Despair!” + +“I had an amusing experience,” Mr. Twelvemough began, “when I was doing a +little visiting for the charities in our ward, the other winter.” + +“For the sake of the literary material?” the artist suggested. + +“Partly for the sake of the literary material; you know we have to look +for our own everywhere. But we had a case of an old actor's son, who had +got out of all the places he had filled, on account of rheumatism, and +could not go to sea, or drive a truck, or even wrap gas-fixtures in paper +any more.” + +“A checkered employ,” the banker mused aloud. + +“It was not of a simultaneous nature,” the novelist explained. “So he +came on the charities, and, as I knew the theatrical profession a little, +and how generous it was with all related to it, I said that I would +undertake to look after his case. You know the theory is that we get work +for our patients, or clients, or whatever they are, and I went to a +manager whom I knew to be a good fellow, and I asked him for some sort of +work. He said, Yes, send the man round, and he would give him a job +copying parts for a new play he had written.” + +The novelist paused, and nobody laughed. + +“It seems to me that your experience is instructive, rather than +amusing,” said the banker. “It shows that something can be done, if you +try.” + +“Well,” said Mr. Twelvemough, “I thought that was the moral, myself, till +the fellow came afterwards to thank me. He said that he considered +himself very lucky, for the manager had told him that there were six +other men had wanted that job.” + +Everybody laughed now, and I looked at my hostess in a little +bewilderment. She murmured, “I suppose the joke is that he had befriended +one man at the expense of six others.” + +“Oh,” I returned, “is that a joke?” + +No one answered, but the lady at my right asked, “How do you manage with +poverty in Altruria?” + +I saw the banker fix a laughing eye on me, but I answered, “In Altruria +we have no poverty.” + +“Ah, I knew you would say that!” he cried out. “That's what he always +does,” he explained to the lady. “Bring up any one of our little +difficulties, and ask how they get over it in Altruria, and he says they +have nothing like it. It's very simple.” + +They all began to ask me questions, but with a courteous incredulity +which I could feel well enough, and some of my answers made them laugh, +all but my hostess, who received them with a gravity that finally +prevailed. But I was not disposed to go on talking of Altruria then, +though they all protested a real interest, and murmured against the +hardship of being cut off with so brief an account of our country as I +had given them. + +“Well,” said the banker at last, “if there is no cure for our poverty, we +might as well go on and enjoy ourselves.” + +“Yes,” said our hostess, with a sad little smile, “we might as well enjoy +ourselves.” + + + + +XIX + + +The talk at Mrs. Strange's table took a far wider range than my meagre +notes would intimate, and we sat so long that it was almost eleven +before the men joined the ladies in the drawing-room. You will hardly +conceive of remaining two, three, or four hours at dinner, as one often +does here, in society; out of society the meals are despatched with a +rapidity unknown to the Altrurians. Our habit of listening to lectors, +especially at the evening repast, and then of reasoning upon what we +have heard, prolongs our stay at the board; but the fondest listener, +the greatest talker among us, would be impatient of the delay eked out +here by the great number and the slow procession of the courses served. +Yet the poorest American would find his ideal realized rather in the +long-drawn-out gluttony of the society dinner here than in our temperate +simplicity. + +At such a dinner it is very hard to avoid a surfeit, and I have to guard +myself very carefully, lest, in the excitement of the talk, I gorge +myself with everything, in its turn. Even at the best, my overloaded +stomach often joins with my conscience in reproaching me for what you +would think a shameful excess at table. Yet, wicked as my riot is, my +waste is worse, and I have to think, with contrition, not only of what I +have eaten, but of what I have left uneaten, in a city where so many +wake and sleep in hunger. + +The ladies made a show of lingering after we joined them in the +drawing-room; but there were furtive glances at the clock, and presently +her guests began to bid Mrs. Strange good-night. When I came up and +offered her my hand, she would not take it, but murmured, with a kind of +passion: “Don't go! I mean it! Stay, and tell us about Altruria--my +mother and me!” + +I was by no means loath, for I must confess that all I had seen and heard +of this lady interested me in her more and more. I felt at home with her, +too, as with no other society woman I have met; she seemed to me not only +good, but very sincere, and very good-hearted, in spite of the world she +lived in. Yet I have met so many disappointments here, of the kind that +our civilization wholly fails to prepare us for, that I should not have +been surprised to find that Mrs. Strange had wished me to stay, not that +she might hear me talk about Altruria, but that I might hear her talk +about herself. You must understand that the essential vice of a system +which concentres a human being's thoughts upon his own interests, from +the first moment of responsibility, colors and qualifies every motive +with egotism. All egotists are unconscious, for otherwise they would be +intolerable to themselves; but some are subtler than others; and as most +women have finer natures than most men everywhere, and in America most +women have finer minds than most men, their egotism usually takes the +form of pose. This is usually obvious, but in some cases it is so +delicately managed that you do not suspect it, unless some other woman +gives you a hint of it, and even then you cannot be sure of it, seeing +the self-sacrifice, almost to martyrdom, which the _poseuse_ makes +for it. If Mrs. Makely had not suggested that some people attributed +a pose to Mrs. Strange, I should certainly never have dreamed of looking +for it, and I should have been only intensely interested, when she began, +as soon as I was left alone with her and her mother: + +“You may not know how unusual I am in asking this favor of you, Mr. +Homos; but you might as well learn from me as from others that I am +rather unusual in everything. In fact, you can report in Altruria, when +you get home, that you found at least one woman in America whom fortune +had smiled upon in every way, and who hated her smiling fortune almost +as much as she hated herself. I'm quite satisfied,” she went on, with a +sad mockery, “that fortune is a man, and an American; when he has given +you all the materials for having a good time, he believes that you must +be happy, because there is nothing to hinder. It isn't that I want to be +happy in the greedy way that men think we do, for then I could easily be +happy. If you have a soul which is not above buttons, buttons are enough. +But if you expect to be of real use, to help on, and to help out, you +will be disappointed. I have not the faith that they say upholds you +Altrurians in trying to help out, if I don't see my way out. It seems to +me that my reason has some right to satisfaction, and that, if I am a +woman grown, I can't be satisfied with the assurances they would give +to little girls--that everything is going on well. Any one can see that +things are not going on well. There is more and more wretchedness of +every kind, not hunger of body alone, but hunger of soul. If you escape +one, you suffer the other, because, if you _have_ a soul, you must +long to help, not for a time, but for all time. I suppose,” she asked, +abruptly, “that Mrs. Makely has told you something about me?” + +“Something,” I admitted. + +“I ask,” she went on, “because I don't want to bore you with a statement +of my case, if you know it already. Ever since I heard you were in New +York I have wished to see you, and to talk with you about Altruria; I did +not suppose that there would be any chance at Mrs. Makely's, and there +wasn't; and I did not suppose there would be any chance here, unless I +could take courage to do what I have done now. You must excuse it, if it +seems as extraordinary a proceeding to you as it really is; I wouldn't at +all have you think it is usual for a lady to ask one of her guests to +stay after the rest, in order, if you please, to confess herself to him. +It's a crime without a name.” + +She laughed, not gayly, but humorously, and then went on, speaking always +with a feverish eagerness which I find it hard to give you a sense of, +for the women here have an intensity quite beyond our experience of the +sex at home. + +“But you are a foreigner, and you come from an order of things so utterly +unlike ours that perhaps you will be able to condone my offence. At any +rate, I have risked it.” She laughed again, more gayly, and recovered +herself in a cheerfuller and easier mood. “Well, the long and the short +of it is that I have come to the end of my tether. I have tried, as truly +as I believe any woman ever did, to do my share, with money and with +work, to help make life better for those whose life is bad; and though +one mustn't boast of good works, I may say that I have been pretty +thorough, and, if I've given up, it's because I see, in our state of +things, _no_ hope of curing the evil. It's like trying to soak up +the drops of a rainstorm. You do dry up a drop here and there; but the +clouds are full of them, and, the first thing you know, you stand, with +your blotting-paper in your hand, in a puddle over your shoe-tops. There +is nothing but charity, and charity is a failure, except for the moment. +If you think of the misery around you, that must remain around you for +ever and ever, as long as you live, you have your choice--to go mad and +be put into an asylum, or go mad and devote yourself to society.” + + + + +XX + +While Mrs. Strange talked on, her mother listened quietly, with a dim, +submissive smile and her hands placidly crossed in her lap. She now said: +“It seems to be very different now from what it was in my time. There are +certainly a great many beggars, and we used never to have one. Children +grew up, and people lived and died, in large towns, without ever seeing +one. I remember, when my husband first took me abroad, how astonished we +were at the beggars. Now I meet as many in New York as I met in London or +in Rome. But if you don't do charity, what can you do? Christ enjoined +it, and Paul says--” + +“Oh, people _never_ do the charity that Christ meant,” said Mrs. +Strange; “and, as things are now, how _could_ they? Who would dream +of dividing half her frocks and wraps with poor women, or selling +_all_ and giving to the poor? That is what makes it so hopeless. We +_know_ that Christ was perfectly right, and that He was perfectly +sincere in what He said to the good young millionaire; but we all go away +exceeding sorrowful, just as the good young millionaire did. We have to, +if we don't want to come on charity ourselves. How do _you_ manage +about that?” she asked me; and then she added, “But, of course, I forgot +that you have no need of charity.” + +“Oh yes, we have,” I returned; and I tried, once more, as I have tried so +often with Americans, to explain how the heavenly need of giving the self +continues with us, but on terms that do not harrow the conscience of the +giver, as self-sacrifice always must here, at its purest and noblest. I +sought to make her conceive of our nation as a family, where every one +was secured against want by the common provision, and against the +degrading and depraving inequality which comes from want. The “dead-level +of equality” is what the Americans call the condition in which all would +be as the angels of God, and they blasphemously deny that He ever meant +His creatures to be alike happy, because some, through a long succession +of unfair advantages, have inherited more brain or brawn or beauty than +others. I found that this gross and impious notion of God darkened even +the clear intelligence of a woman like Mrs. Strange; and, indeed, it +prevails here so commonly that it is one of the first things advanced as +an argument against the Altrurianization of America. + +I believe I did, at last, succeed in showing her how charity still +continues among us, but in forms that bring neither a sense of +inferiority to him who takes nor anxiety to him who gives. I said that +benevolence here often seemed to involve, essentially, some such risk as +a man should run if he parted with a portion of the vital air which +belonged to himself and his family, in succoring a fellow-being from +suffocation; but that with us, where it was no more possible for one to +deprive himself of his share of the common food, shelter, and clothing, +than of the air he breathed, one could devote one's self utterly to +others without that foul alloy of fear which I thought must basely +qualify every good deed in plutocratic conditions. + +She said that she knew what I meant, and that I was quite right in my +conjecture, as regarded men, at least; a man who did not stop to think +what the effect, upon himself and his own, his giving must have, would be +a fool or a madman; but women could often give as recklessly as they +spent, without any thought of consequences, for they did not know how +money came. + +“Women,” I said, “are exterior to your conditions, and they can sacrifice +themselves without wronging any one.” + +“Or, rather,” she continued, “without the sense of wronging any one. Our +men like to keep us in that innocence or ignorance; they think it is +pretty, or they think it is funny; and as long as a girl is in her +father's house, or a wife is in her husband's, she knows no more of +money-earning or money-making than a child. Most grown women among us, +if they had a sum of money in the bank, would not know how to get it +out. They would not know how to indorse a check, much less draw one. But +there are plenty of women who are inside the conditions, as much as men +are--poor women who have to earn their bread, and rich-women who have to +manage their property. I can't speak for the poor women; but I can speak +for the rich, and I can confess for them that what you imagine is true. +The taint of unfaith and distrust is on every dollar that you dole out, +so that, as far as the charity of the rich is concerned, I would read +Shakespeare: + +'It curseth him that gives, and him that takes.'” + +“Perhaps that is why the rich give comparatively so little. The poor can +never understand how much the rich value their money, how much the owner +of a great fortune dreads to see it less. If it were not so, they would +surely give more than they do; for a man who has ten millions could give +eight of them without feeling the loss; the man with a hundred could give +ninety and be no nearer want. Ah, it's a strange mystery! My poor husband +and I used to talk of it a great deal, in the long year that he lay +dying; and I think I hate my superfluity the more because I know he hated +it so much.” + +A little trouble had stolen into her impassioned tones, and there was a +gleam, as of tears, in the eyes she dropped for a moment. They were +shining still when she lifted them again to mine. + +“I suppose,” she said, “that Mrs. Makely told you something of my +marriage?” + +“Eveleth!” her mother protested, with a gentle murmur. + +“Oh, I think I can be frank with Mr. Homos. He is not an American, and he +will understand, or, at least, he will not misunderstand. Besides, I dare +say I shall not say anything worse than Mrs. Makely has said already. My +husband was much older than I, and I ought not to have married him; a +young girl ought never to marry an old man, or even a man who is only +a good many years her senior. But we both faithfully tried to make the +best of our mistake, not the worst, and I think this effort helped us to +respect each other, when there couldn't be any question of more. He was +a rich man, and he had made his money out of nothing, or, at least, from +a beginning of utter poverty. But in his last years he came to a sense of +its worthlessness, such as few men who have made their money ever have. +He was a common man, in a great many ways; he was imperfectly educated, +and he was ungrammatical, and he never was at home in society; but he had +a tender heart and an honest nature, and I revere his memory, as no one +would believe I could without knowing him as I did. His money became a +burden and a terror to him; he did not know what to do with it, and he +was always morbidly afraid of doing harm with it; he got to thinking that +money was an evil in itself.” + +“That is what we think,” I ventured. + +“Yes, I know. But he had thought this out for himself, and yet he had +times when his thinking about it seemed to him a kind of craze, and, at +any rate, he distrusted himself so much that he died leaving it all +to me. I suppose he thought that perhaps I could learn how to give it +without hurting; and then he knew that, in our state of things, I must +have some money to keep the wolf from the door. And I am afraid to part +with it, too. I have given and given; but there seems some evil spell on +the principal that guards it from encroachment, so that it remains the +same, and, if I do not watch, the interest grows in the bank, with that +frightful life dead money seems endowed with, as the hair of dead, people +grows in the grave.” + +“Eveleth!” her mother murmured again. + +“Oh yes,” she answered, “I dare say my words are wild. I dare say they +only mean that I loathe my luxury from the bottom of my soul, and long to +be rid of it, if I only could, without harm to others and with safety to +myself.” + + + + +XXI + + +It seemed to me that I became suddenly sensible of this luxury for the +first time. I had certainly been aware that I was in a large and stately +house, and that I had been served and banqueted with a princely pride and +profusion. But there had, somehow, been through all a sort of simplicity, +a sort of quiet, so that I had not thought of the establishment and its +operation, even so much as I had thought of Mrs. Makely's far inferior +scale of living; or else, what with my going about so much in society, I +was ceasing to be so keenly observant of the material facts as I had been +at first. But I was better qualified to judge of what I saw, and I had +now a vivid sense of the costliness of Mrs. Strange's environment. There +were thousands of dollars in the carpets underfoot; there were tens of +thousands in the pictures on the walls. In a bronze group that withdrew +itself into a certain niche, with a faint reluctance, there was the value +of a skilled artisan's wage for five years of hard work; in the bindings +of the books that showed from the library shelves there was almost as +much money as most of the authors had got for writing them. Every +fixture, every movable, was an artistic masterpiece; a fortune, as +fortunes used to be counted even in this land of affluence, had been +lavished in the mere furnishing of a house which the palaces of nobles +and princes of other times had contributed to embellish. + +“My husband,” Mrs. Strange went on, “bought this house for me, and let me +furnish it after my own fancy. After it was all done we neither of us +liked it, and when he died I felt as if he had left me in a tomb here.” + +“Eveleth,” said her mother, “you ought not to speak so before Mr. Homos. +He will not know what to think of you, and he will go back to Altruria +with a very wrong idea of American women.” + +At this protest, Mrs. Strange seemed to recover herself a little. “Yes,” + she said, “you must excuse me. I have no right to speak so. But one is +often much franker with foreigners than with one's own kind, and, +besides, there is something--I don't know what--that will not let me keep +the truth from you.” + +She gazed at me entreatingly, and then, as if some strong emotion swept +her from her own hold, she broke out: + +“He thought he would make some sort of atonement to me, as if I owed none +to him! His money was all he had to do it with, and he spent that upon me +in every way he could think of, though he knew that money could not buy +anything that was really good, and that, if it bought anything beautiful, +it uglified it with the sense of cost to every one who could value it in +dollars and cents. He was a good man, far better than people ever +imagined, and very simple-hearted and honest, like a child, in his +contrition for his wealth, which he did not dare to get rid of; and +though I know that, if he were to come back, it would be just as it was, +his memory is as dear to me as if--” + +She stopped, and pressed in her lip with her teeth, to stay its tremor. +I was painfully affected. I knew that she had never meant to be so open +with me, and was shocked and frightened at herself. I was sorry for her, +and yet I was glad, for it seemed to me that she had given me a glimpse, +not only of the truth in her own heart, but of the truth in the hearts of +a whole order of prosperous people in these lamentable conditions, whom I +shall hereafter be able to judge more leniently, more justly. + +I began to speak of Altruria, as if that were what our talk had been +leading up to, and she showed herself more intelligently interested +concerning us than any one I have yet seen in this country. We appeared, +I found, neither incredible nor preposterous to her; our life, in her +eyes, had that beauty of right living which the Americans so feebly +imagine or imagine not at all. She asked what route I had come by to +America, and she seemed disappointed and aggrieved that we placed the +restrictions we have felt necessary upon visitors from the plutocratic +world. Were we afraid, she asked, that they would corrupt our citizens or +mar our content with our institutions? She seemed scarcely satisfied when +I explained, as I have explained so often here, that the measures we had +taken were rather in the interest of the plutocratic world than of the +Altrurians; and alleged the fact that no visitor from the outside had +ever been willing to go home again, as sufficient proof that we had +nothing to fear from the spread of plutocratic ideals among us. I assured +her, and this she easily imagined, that, the better known these became, +the worse they appeared to us; and that the only concern our priors felt, +in regard to them, was that our youth could not conceive of them in their +enormity, but, in seeing how estimable plutocratic people often were, +they would attribute to their conditions the inherent good of human +nature. I said our own life was so directly reasoned from its economic +premises that they could hardly believe the plutocratic life was often an +absolute non sequitur of the plutocratic premises. I confessed that this +error was at the bottom of my own wish to visit America and study those +premises. + +“And what has your conclusion been?” she said, leaning eagerly towards +me, across the table between us, laden with the maps and charts we had +been examining for the verification of the position of Altruria, and my +own course here, by way of England. + +A slight sigh escaped Mrs. Gray, which I interpreted as an expression of +fatigue; it was already past twelve o'clock, and I made it the pretext +for escape. + +“You have seen the meaning and purport of Altruria so clearly,” I said, +“that I think I can safely leave you to guess the answer to that +question.” + +She laughed, and did not try to detain me now when I offered my hand for +good-night. I fancied her mother took leave of me coldly, and with a +certain effect of inculpation. + + + + +XXII + + +It is long since I wrote you, and you have had reason enough to be +impatient of my silence. I submit to the reproaches of your letter, with +a due sense of my blame; whether I am altogether to blame, you shall say +after you have read this. + +I cannot yet decide whether I have lost a great happiness, the greatest +that could come to any man, or escaped the worst misfortune that could +befall me. But, such as it is, I will try to set the fact honestly down. + +I do not know whether you had any conjecture, from my repeated mention of +a lady whose character greatly interested me, that I was in the way of +feeling any other interest in her than my letters expressed. I am no +longer young, though at thirty-five an Altrurian is by no means so old as +an American at the same age. The romantic ideals of the American women +which I had formed from the American novels had been dissipated; if I had +any sentiment towards them, as a type, it was one of distrust, which my +very sense of the charm in their inconsequence, their beauty, their +brilliancy, served rather to intensify. I thought myself doubly defended +by that difference between their civilization and ours which forbade +reasonable hope of happiness in any sentiment for them tenderer than +that of the student of strange effects in human nature. But we have not +yet, my dear Cyril, reasoned the passions, even in Altruria. + +After I last wrote you, a series of accidents, or what appeared so, threw +me more and more constantly into the society of Mrs. Strange. We began to +laugh at the fatality with which we met everywhere--at teas, at lunches, +at dinners, at evening receptions, and even at balls, where I have been a +great deal, because, with all my thirty-five years, I have not yet +outlived that fondness for dancing which has so often amused you in me. +Wherever my acquaintance widened among cultivated people, they had no +inspiration but to ask us to meet each other, as if there were really no +other woman in New York who could be expected to understand me. “You must +come to lunch (or tea, or dinner, whichever it might be), and we will +have her. She will be so much interested to meet you.” + +But perhaps we should have needed none of these accidents to bring us +together. I, at least, can look back and see that, when none of them +happened, I sought occasions for seeing her, and made excuses of our +common interest in this matter and in that to go to her. As for her, I +can only say that I seldom failed to find her at home, whether I called +upon her nominal day or not, and more than once the man who let me in +said he had been charged by Mrs. Strange to say that, if I called, she +was to be back very soon; or else he made free to suggest that, though +Mrs. Strange was not at home, Mrs. Gray was; and then I found it easy +to stay until Mrs. Strange returned. The good old lady had an insatiable +curiosity about Altruria, and, though I do not think she ever quite +believed in our reality, she at least always treated me kindly, as if I +were the victim of an illusion that was thoroughly benign. + +I think she had some notion that your letters, which I used often to take +with me and read to Mrs. Strange and herself, were inventions of mine; +and the fact that they bore only an English postmark confirmed her in +this notion, though I explained that in our present passive attitude +towards the world outside we had as yet no postal relations with other +countries, and, as all our communication at home was by electricity, that +we had no letter-post of our own. The very fact that she belonged to a +purer and better age in America disqualified her to conceive of Altruria; +her daughter, who had lived into a full recognition of the terrible +anarchy in which the conditions have ultimated here, could far more +vitally imagine us, and to her, I believe, we were at once a living +reality. Her perception, her sympathy, her intelligence, became more and +more to me, and I escaped to them oftener and oftener, from a world where +an Altrurian must be so painfully at odds. In all companies here I am +aware that I have been regarded either as a good joke or a bad joke, +according to the humor of the listener, and it was grateful to be taken +seriously. + +From the first I was sensible of a charm in her, different from that I +felt in other American women, and impossible in our Altrurian women. She +had a deep and almost tragical seriousness, masked with a most winning +gayety, a light irony, a fine scorn that was rather for herself than for +others. She had thought herself out of all sympathy with her environment; +she knew its falsehood, its vacuity, its hopelessness; but she +necessarily remained in it and of it. She was as much at odds in it as I +was, without my poor privilege of criticism and protest, for, as she +said, she could not set herself up as a censor of things that she must +keep on doing as other people did. She could have renounced the world, as +there are ways and means of doing here; but she had no vocation to the +religious life, and she could not feign it without a sense of sacrilege. +In fact, this generous and magnanimous and gifted woman was without that +faith, that trust in God which comes to us from living His law, and +which I wonder any American can keep. She denied nothing; but she had +lost the strength to affirm anything. She no longer tried to do good from +her heart, though she kept on doing charity in what she said was a mere +mechanical impulse from the belief of other days, but always with the +ironical doubt that she was doing harm. Women are nothing by halves, as +men can be, and she was in a despair which no man can realize, for we +have always some if or and which a woman of the like mood casts from her +in wild rejection. Where she could not clearly see her way to a true +life, it was the same to her as an impenetrable darkness. + +You will have inferred something of all this from what I have written of +her before, and from words of hers that I have reported to you. Do you +think it so wonderful, then, that in the joy I felt at the hope, the +solace, which my story of our life seemed to give her, she should become +more and more precious to me? It was not wonderful, either, I think, that +she should identify me with that hope, that solace, and should suffer +herself to lean upon me, in a reliance infinitely sweet and endearing. +But what a fantastic dream it now appears! + + + + +XXIII + + +I can hardly tell you just how we came to own our love to each other; but +one day I found myself alone with her mother, with the sense that +Eveleth had suddenly withdrawn from the room at the knowledge of my +approach. Mrs. Gray was strongly moved by something; but she governed +herself, and, after giving me a tremulous hand, bade me sit. + +“Will you excuse me, Mr. Homos,” she began, “if I ask you whether you +intend to make America your home after this?” + +“Oh no!” I answered, and I tried to keep out of my voice the despair with +which the notion filled me. I have sometimes had nightmares here, in +which I thought that I was an American by choice, and I can give you no +conception of the rapture of awakening to the fact that I could still go +back to Altruria, that I had not cast my lot with this wretched people. +“How could I do that?” I faltered; and I was glad to perceive that I had +imparted to her no hint of the misery which I had felt at such a notion. +“I mean, by getting naturalized, and becoming a citizen, and taking up +your residence among us.” + +“No,” I answered, as quietly as I could, “I had not thought of that.” + +“And you still intend to go back to Altruria?” + +“I hope so; I ought to have gone back long ago, and if I had not met the +friends I have in this house--” I stopped, for I did not know how I +should end what I had begun to say. + +“I am glad you think we are your friends,” said the lady, “for we have +tried to show ourselves your friends. I feel as if this had given me the +right to say something to you that you may think very odd.” + +“Say anything to me, my dear lady,” I returned. “I shall not think it +unkind, no matter how odd it is.” + +“Oh, it's nothing. It's merely that--that when you are not here with us I +lose my grasp on Altruria, and--and I begin to doubt--” + +I smiled. “I know! People here have often hinted something of that kind +to me. Tell me, Mrs. Gray, do Americans generally take me for an +impostor?” + +“Oh no!” she answered, fervently. “Everybody that I have heard speak of +you has the highest regard for you, and believes you perfectly sincere. +But--” + +“But what?” I entreated. + +“They think you may be mistaken.” + +“Then they think I am out of my wits--that I am in an hallucination!” + +“No, not that,” she returned. “But it is so very difficult for us to +conceive of a whole nation living, as you say you do, on the same terms +as one family, and no one trying to get ahead of another, or richer, and +having neither inferiors nor superiors, but just one dead level of +equality, where there is no distinction except by natural gifts and good +deeds or beautiful works. It seems impossible--it seems ridiculous.” + +“Yes,” I confessed, “I know that it seems so to the Americans.” + +“And I must tell you something else, Mr. Homos, and I hope you won't take +it amiss. The first night when you talked about Altruria here, and showed +us how you had come, by way of England, and the place where Altruria +ought to be on our maps, I looked them over, after you were gone, and I +could make nothing of it. I have often looked at the map since, but I +could never find Altruria; it was no use.” + +“Why,” I said, “if you will let me have your atlas--” + +She shook her head. “It would be the same again as soon as you went +away.” I could not conceal my distress, and she went on: “Now, you +mustn't mind what I say. I'm nothing but a silly old woman, and +Eveleth would never forgive me if she could know what I've been saying.” + +“Then Mrs. Strange isn't troubled, as you are, concerning me?” I asked, +and I confess my anxiety attenuated my voice almost to a whisper. + +“She won't admit that she is. It might be better for her if she would. +But Eveleth is very true to her friends, and that--that makes me all the +more anxious that she should not deceive herself.” + +“Oh, Mrs. Gray!” I could not keep a certain tone of reproach out of my +words. + +She began to weep. “There! I knew I should hurt your feelings. But you +mustn't mind what I say. I beg your pardon! I take it all back--” + +“Ah, I don't want you to take it back! But what proof shall I give you +that there is such a land as Altruria? If the darkness implies the day, +America must imply Altruria. In what way do I seem false, or mad, except +that I claim to be the citizen of a country where people love one another +as the first Christians did?” + +“That is just it,” she returned. “Nobody can imagine the first +Christians, and do you think we can imagine anything like them in our own +day?” + +“But Mrs. Strange--she imagines us, you say?” + +“She thinks she does; but I am afraid she only thinks so, and I know her +better than you do, Mr. Homos. I know how enthusiastic she always was, +and how unhappy she has been since she has lost her hold on faith, and +how eagerly she has caught at the hope you have given her of a higher +life on earth than we live here. If she should ever find out that she was +wrong, I don't know what would become of her. You mustn't mind me; you +mustn't let me wound you by what I say.” + +“You don't wound me, and I only thank you for what you say; but I entreat +you to believe in me. Mrs. Strange has not deceived herself, and I have +not deceived her. Shall I protest to you, by all I hold sacred, that I am +really what I told you I was; that I am not less, and that Altruria is +infinitely more, happier, better, gladder, than any words of mine can +say? Shall I not have the happiness to see your daughter to-day? I had +something to say to her--and now I have so much more! If she is in the +house, won't you send to her? I can make her understand--” + +I stopped at a certain expression which I fancied I saw in Mrs. Gray's +face. + +“Mr. Homos,” she began, so very seriously that my heart trembled with a +vague misgiving, “sometimes I think you had better not see my daughter +any more.” + +“Not see her any more?” I gasped. + +“Yes; I don't see what good can come of it, and it's all very strange and +uncanny. I don't know how to explain it; but, indeed, it isn't anything +personal. It's because you are of a state of things so utterly opposed to +human nature that I don't see how--I am afraid that--” + +“But I am not uncanny to _her!_” I entreated. “I am not unnatural, +not incredible--” + +“Oh no; that is the worst of it. But I have said too much; I have said a +great deal more than I ought. But you must excuse it: I am an old woman. +I am not very well, and I suppose it's that that makes me talk so much.” + +She rose from her chair, and I, perforce, rose from mine and made a +movement towards her. + +“No, no,” she said, “I don't need any help. You must come again soon and +see us, and show that you've forgotten what I've said.” She gave me her +hand, and I could not help bending over it and kissing it. She gave a +little, pathetic whimper. “Oh, I _know_ I've said the most dreadful +things to you.” + +“You haven't said anything that takes your friendship from me, Mrs. Gray, +and that is what I care for.” My own eyes filled with tears--I do not +know why--and I groped my way from the room. Without seeing any one in +the obscurity of the hallway, where I found myself, I was aware of some +one there, by that sort of fine perception which makes us know the +presence of a spirit. + +“You are going?” a whisper said. “Why are you going?” And Eveleth had me +by the hand and was drawing me gently into the dim drawing-room that +opened from the place. “I don't know all my mother has been saying to +you. I had to let her say something; she thought she ought. I knew you +would know how to excuse it.” + +“Oh, my dearest!” I said, and why I said this I do not know, or how we +found ourselves in each other's arms. + +“What are we doing?” she murmured. + +“You don't believe I am an impostor, an illusion, a visionary?” I +besought her, straining her closer to my heart. + +“I believe in you, with all my soul!” she answered. + +We sat down, side by side, and talked long. I did not go away the whole +day. With a high disdain of convention, she made me stay. Her mother sent +word that she would not be able to come to dinner, and we were alone +together at table, in an image of what our united lives might be. We +spent the evening in that happy interchange of trivial confidences that +lovers use in symbol of the unutterable raptures that fill them. We were +there in what seemed an infinite present, without a past, without a +future. + + + + +XXIV + + +Society had to be taken into our confidence, and Mrs. Makely saw to it +that there were no reserves with society. Our engagement was not quite +like that of two young persons, but people found in our character and +circumstance an interest far transcending that felt in the engagement of +the most romantic lovers. Some note of the fact came to us by accident, +as one evening when we stood near a couple and heard them talking. “It +must be very weird,” the man said; “something like being engaged to a +materialization.” “Yes,” said the girl, “quite the Demon Lover business, +I should think.” She glanced round, as people do, in talking, and, at +sight of us, she involuntarily put her hand over her mouth. I looked at +Eveleth; there was nothing expressed in her face but a generous anxiety +for me. But so far as the open attitude of society towards us was +concerned, nothing could have been more flattering. We could hardly have +been more asked to meet each other than before; but now there were +entertainments in special recognition of our betrothal, which Eveleth +said could not be altogether refused, though she found the ordeal as +irksome as I did. In America, however, you get used to many things. I +do not know why it should have been done, but in the society columns of +several of the great newspapers our likenesses were printed, from +photographs procured I cannot guess how, with descriptions of our persons +as to those points of coloring and carriage and stature which the +pictures could not give, and with biographies such as could be +ascertained in her case and imagined in mine. In some of the society +papers, paragraphs of a surprising scurrility appeared, attacking me as +an impostor, and aspersing the motives of Eveleth in her former marriage, +and treating her as a foolish crank or an audacious flirt. The goodness +of her life, her self-sacrifice and works of benevolence, counted for no +more against these wanton attacks than the absolute inoffensiveness of my +own; the writers knew no harm of her, and they knew nothing at all of me; +but they devoted us to the execration of their readers simply because we +formed apt and ready themes for paragraphs. You may judge of how wild +they were in their aim when some of them denounced me as an Altrurian +plutocrat! + +We could not escape this storm of notoriety; we had simply to let it +spend its fury. When it began, several reporters of both sexes came to +interview me, and questioned me, not only as to all the facts of my past +life, and all my purposes in the future, but as to my opinion of +hypnotism, eternal punishment, the Ibsen drama, and the tariff reform. I +did my best to answer them seriously, and certainly I answered them +civilly; but it seemed from what they printed that the answers I gave did +not concern them, for they gave others for me. They appeared to me for +the most part kindly and well-meaning young people, though vastly +ignorant of vital things. They had apparently visited me with minds made +up, or else their reports were revised by some controlling hand, and a +quality injected more in the taste of the special journals they +represented than in keeping with the facts. When I realized this, I +refused to see any more reporters, or to answer them, and then they +printed the questions they had prepared to ask me, in such form that my +silence was made of the same damaging effect as a full confession of +guilt upon the charges. + +The experience was so strange and new to me that it affected me in a +degree I was unwilling to let Eveleth imagine. But she divined my +distress, and, when she divined that it was chiefly for her, she set +herself to console and reassure me. She told me that this was something +every one here expected, in coming willingly or unwillingly before the +public; and that I must not think of it at all, for certainly no one else +would think twice of it. This, I found, was really so, for when I +ventured to refer tentatively to some of these publications, I found that +people, if they had read them, had altogether forgotten them; and that +they were, with all the glare of print, of far less effect with our +acquaintance than something said under the breath in a corner. I found +that some of our friends had not known the effigies for ours which they +had seen in the papers; others made a joke of the whole affair, as the +Americans do with so many affairs, and said that they supposed the +pictures were those of people who had been cured by some patent medicine, +they looked so strong and handsome. This, I think, was a piece of Mr. +Makely's humor in the beginning; but it had a general vogue long after +the interviews and the illustrations were forgotten. + + + + +XXV + + +I linger a little upon these trivial matters because I shrink from what +must follow. They were scarcely blots upon our happiness; rather they +were motes in the sunshine which had no other cloud. It is true that I +was always somewhat puzzled by a certain manner in Mrs. Gray, which +certainly was from no unfriendliness for me; she could not have been more +affectionate to me, after our engagement, if I had been really her own +son; and it was not until after our common kindness had confirmed itself +upon the new footing that I felt this perplexing qualification on it. I +felt it first one day when I found her alone, and I talked long and +freely to her of Eveleth, and opened to her my whole heart of joy in our +love. At one point she casually asked me how soon we should expect to +return from Altruria after our visit; and at first I did not understand. + +“Of course,” she explained, “you will want to see all your old friends, +and so will Eveleth, for they will be her friends, too; but if you want +me to go with you, as you say, you must let me know when I shall see New +York again.” + +“Why,” I said, “you will always be with us.” + +“Well, then,” she pursued, with a smile, “when shall _you_ come +back?” + +“Oh, never!” I answered. “No one ever leaves Altruria, if he can help it, +unless he is sent on a mission.” + +She looked a little mystified, and I went on: “Of course, I was not +officially authorized to visit the world outside, but I was permitted to +do so, to satisfy a curiosity the priors thought useful; but I have now +had quite enough of it, and I shall never leave home again.” + +“You won't come to live in America?” + +“God forbid!” said I, and I am afraid I could not hide the horror that +ran through me at the thought. “And when you once see our happy country, +you could no more be persuaded to return to America than a disembodied +spirit could be persuaded to return to the earth.” + +She was silent, and I asked: “But, surely, you understood this, Mrs. +Gray?” + +“No,” she said, reluctantly. “Does Eveleth?” + +“Why, certainly,” I said. “We have talked it over a hundred times. Hasn't +she--” + +“I don't know,” she returned, with a vague trouble in her voice and eyes. +“Perhaps I haven't understood her exactly. Perhaps--but I shall be ready +to do whatever you and she think best. I am an old woman, you know; and, +you know, I was born here, and I should feel the change.” + +Her words conveyed to me a delicate reproach; I felt for the first time +that, in my love of my own country, I had not considered her love of +hers. It is said that the Icelanders are homesick when they leave their +world of lava and snow; and I ought to have remembered that an American +might have some such tenderness for his atrocious conditions, if he were +exiled from them forever. I suppose it was the large and wide mind of +Eveleth, with its openness to a knowledge and appreciation of better +things, that had suffered me to forget this. She seemed always so eager +to see Altruria, she imagined it so fully, so lovingly, that I had ceased +to think of her as an alien; she seemed one of us, by birth as well as by +affinity. + +Yet now the words of her mother, and the light they threw upon the +situation, gave me pause. I began to ask myself questions I was impatient +to ask Eveleth, so that there should be no longer any shadow of misgiving +in my breast; and yet I found myself dreading to ask them, lest by some +perverse juggle I had mistaken our perfect sympathy for a perfect +understanding. + + + + +XXVI + + +Like all cowards who wait a happy moment for the duty that should not be +suffered to wait at all, I was destined to have the affair challenge me, +instead of seizing the advantage of it that instant frankness would have +given me. Shall I confess that I let several days go by, and still had +not spoken to Eveleth, when, at the end of a long evening--the last long +evening we passed together--she said: + +“What would you like to have me do with this house while we are gone?” + +“Do with this house?” I echoed; and I felt as if I were standing on the +edge of an abyss. + +“Yes; shall we let it, or sell it--or what? Or give it away?” I drew a +little breath at this; perhaps we had not misunderstood each other, after +all. She went on: “Of course, I have a peculiar feeling about it, so that +I wouldn't like to get it ready and let it furnished, in the ordinary +way. I would rather lend it to some one, if I could be sure of any one +who would appreciate it; but I can't. Not one. And it's very much the +same when one comes to think about selling it. Yes, I should like to give +it away for some good purpose, if there is any in this wretched state of +things. What do you say, Aristide?” + +She always used the French form of my name, because she said it sounded +ridiculous in English, for a white man, though I told her that the +English was nearer the Greek in sound. + +“By all means, give it away,” I said. “Give it for some public purpose. +That will at least be better than any private purpose, and put it somehow +in the control of the State, beyond the reach of individuals or +corporations. Why not make it the foundation of a free school for the +study of the Altrurian polity?” + +She laughed at this, as if she thought I must be joking. “It would be +droll, wouldn't it, to have Tammany appointees teaching Altrurianism?” + Then she said, after a moment of reflection: “Why not? It needn't be in +the hands of Tammany. It could be in the hands of the United States; I +will ask my lawyer if it couldn't; and I will endow it with money enough +to support the school handsomely. Aristide, you have hit it!” + +I began: “You can give _all_ your money to it, my dear--” But I +stopped at the bewildered look she turned on me. + +“All?” she repeated. “But what should we have to live on, then?” + +“We shall need no money to live on in Altruria,” I answered. + +“Oh, in Altruria! But when we come back to New York?” + +It was an agonizing moment, and I felt that shutting of the heart which +blinds the eyes and makes the brain reel. “Eveleth,” I gasped, “did you +expect to return to New York?” + +“Why, certainly!” she cried. “Not at once, of course. But after you had +seen your friends, and made a good, long visit--Why, surely, Aristide, +you don't understand that I--You didn't mean to _live_ in Altruria?” + +“Ah!” I answered. “Where else could I live? Did you think for an instant +that I could live in such a land as this?” I saw that she was hurt, and I +hastened to say: “I know that it is the best part of the world outside of +Altruria, but, oh, my dear, you cannot imagine how horrible the notion of +living here seems to me. Forgive me. I am going from bad to worse. I +don't mean to wound you. After all, it is your country, and you must love +it. But, indeed, I could not think of living here. I could not take the +burden of its wilful misery on my soul. I must live in Altruria, and you, +when you have once seen my country, _our_ country, will never +consent to live in any other.” + +“Yes,” she said, “I know it must be very beautiful; but I hadn't +supposed--and yet I ought--” + +“No, dearest, no! It was I who was to blame, for not being clearer from +the first. But that is the way with us. We can't imagine any people +willing to live anywhere else when once they have seen Altruria; and I +have told you so much of it, and we have talked of it together so often, +that I must have forgotten you had not actually known it. But listen, +Eveleth. We will agree to this: After we have been a year in Altruria, +if you wish to return to America I will come back and live with you +here.” + +“No, indeed!” she answered, generously. “If you are to be my husband,” + and here she began with the solemn words of the Bible, so beautiful in +their quaint English, “'whither thou goest, I will go, and I will not +return from following after thee. Thy country shall be my country, and +thy God my God.” + +I caught her to my heart, in a rapture of tenderness, and the evening +that had begun for us so forbiddingly ended in a happiness such as not +even our love had known before. I insisted upon the conditions I had +made, as to our future home, and she agreed to them gayly at last, as a +sort of reparation which I might make my conscience, if I liked, for +tearing her from a country which she had willingly lived out of for the +far greater part of the last five years. + +But when we met again I could see that she had been thinking seriously. + +“I won't give the house absolutely away,” she said. “I will keep the deed +of it myself, but I will establish that sort of school of Altrurian +doctrine in it, and I will endow it, and when we come back here, for our +experimental sojourn, after we've been in Altruria a year, we'll take up +our quarters in it--I won't give the whole house to the school--and we +will lecture on the later phases of Altrurian life to the pupils. How +will that do?” + +She put her arms around my neck, and I said that it would do admirably; +but I had a certain sinking of the heart, for I saw how hard it was even +for Eveleth to part with her property. + +“I'll endow it,” she went on, “and I'll leave the rest of my money at +interest here; unless you think that some Altrurian securities--” + +“No; there are no such things!” I cried. + +“That was what I thought,” she returned; “and as it will cost us nothing +while we are in Altruria, the interest will be something very handsome by +the time we get back, even in United States bonds.” + +“Something handsome!” I cried. “But, Eveleth, haven't I heard you say +yourself that the growth of interest from dead money was like--” + +“Oh yes; that!” she returned. “But you know you have to take it. You +can't let the money lie idle: that would be ridiculous; and then, with +the good purpose we have in view, it is our _duty_ to take the +interest. How should we keep up the school, and pay the teachers, and +everything?” + +I saw that she had forgotten the great sum of the principal, or that, +through lifelong training and association, it was so sacred to her that +she did not even dream of touching it. I was silent, and she thought that +I was persuaded. + +“You are perfectly right in theory, dear, and I feel just as you do about +such things; I'm sure I've suffered enough from them; but if we didn't +take interest for your money, what should we have to live on?” + +“Not _my_ money, Eveleth!” I entreated. “Don't say _my_ money!” + +“But whatever is mine is yours,” she returned, with a wounded air. + +“Not your money; but I hope you will soon have none. We should need no +money to live on in Altruria. Our share of the daily work of all will +amply suffice for our daily bread and shelter.” + +“In Altruria, yes. But how about America? And you have promised to come +back here in a year, you know. Ladies and gentlemen can't share in the +daily toil here, even if they could get the toil, and, where there are so +many out of work, it isn't probable they could.” + +She dropped upon my knee as she spoke, laughing, and put her hand under +my chin, to lift my fallen face. + +“Now you mustn't be a goose, Aristide, even if you _are_ an angel! +Now listen. You _know_, don't you, that I hate money just as badly +as you?” + +“You have made me think so, Eveleth,” I answered. + +“I hate it and loathe it. I think it's the source of all the sin and +misery in the world; but you can't get rid of it at a blow. For if you +gave it away you might do more harm than good with it.” + +“You could destroy it,” I said. + +“Not unless you were a crank,” she returned. “And that brings me just to +the point. I know that I'm doing a very queer thing to get married, when +we know so little, really, about you,” and she accented this confession +with a laugh that was also a kiss. “But I want to show people that we are +just as practical as anybody; and if they can know that I have left my +money in United States bonds, they'll respect us, no matter what I do +with the interest. Don't you see? We can come back, and preach and teach +Altrurianism, and as long as we pay our way nobody will have a right +to say a word. Why, Tolstoy himself doesn't destroy his money, though he +wants other people to do it. His wife keeps it, and supports the family. +You _have_ to do it.” + +“He doesn't do it willingly.” + +“No. And _we_ won't. And after a while--after we've got back, and +compared Altruria and America from practical experience, if we decide to +go and live there altogether, I will let you do what you please with +the hateful money. I suppose we couldn't take it there with us?” + +“No more than you could take it to heaven with you,” I answered, +solemnly; but she would not let me be altogether serious about it. + +“Well, in either case we could get on without it, though we certainly +could not get on without it here. Why, Aristide, it is essential to the +influence we shall try to exert for Altrurianism; for if we came back +here and preached the true life without any money to back us, no one +would pay any attention to us. But if we have a good house waiting for +us, and are able to entertain nicely, we can attract the best people, +and--and--really do some good.” + + + + +XXVII + + +I rose in a distress which I could not hide. “Oh, Eveleth, Eveleth!” I +cried. “You are like all the rest, poor child! You are the creature of +your environment, as we all are. You cannot escape what you have been. +It may be that I was wrong to wish or expect you to cast your lot with me +in Altruria, at once and forever. It may be that it is my duty to return +here with you after a time, not only to let you see that Altruria is +best, but to end my days in this unhappy land, preaching and teaching +Altrurianism; but we must not come as prophets to the comfortable people, +and entertain nicely. If we are to renew the evangel, it must be in the +life and the spirit of the First Altrurian: we must come poor to the +poor; we must not try to win any one, save through his heart and +conscience; we must be as simple and humble as the least of those that +Christ bade follow Him. Eveleth, perhaps you have made a mistake. I love +you too much to wish you to suffer even for your good. Yes, I am so weak +as that. I did not think that this would be the sacrifice for you that it +seems, and I will not ask it of you. I am sorry that we have not +understood each other, as I supposed we had. I could never become an +American; perhaps you could never become an Altrurian. Think of it, +dearest. Think well of it, before you take the step which you cannot +recede from. I hold you to no promise; I love you so dearly that I cannot +let you hold yourself. But you must choose between me and your money--no, +not me--but between love and your money. You cannot keep both.” + +She had stood listening to me; now she cast herself on my heart and +stopped my words with an impassioned kiss. “Then there is no choice for +me. My choice is made, once for all.” She set her hands against my breast +and pushed me from her. “Go now; but come again to-morrow. I want to +think it all over again. Not that I have any doubt, but because you wish +it--you wish it, don't you?--and because I will not let you ever think I +acted upon an impulse, and that I regretted it.” + +“That is right, Eveleth. That is like _you_” I said, and I took her +into my arms for good-night. + +The next day I came for her decision, or rather for her confirmation of +it. The man who opened the door to me met me with a look of concern and +embarrassment. He said Mrs. Strange was not at all well, and had told him +he was to give me the letter he handed me. I asked, in taking it, if I +could see Mrs. Gray, and he answered that Mrs. Gray had not been down +yet, but he would go and see. I was impatient to read my letter, and I +made I know not what vague reply, and I found myself, I know not how, on +the pavement, with the letter open in my hand. It began abruptly without +date or address: + +_“You will believe that I have not slept, when you read this. + +“I have thought it all over again, as you wished, and it is all over +between us. + +“I am what you said, the creature of my environment. I cannot detach +myself from it; I cannot escape from what I have been. + +“I am writing this with a strange coldness, like the chill of death, in +my very soul. I do not ask you to forgive me; I have your forgiveness +already. Do not forget me; that is what I ask. Remember me as the +unhappy woman who was not equal to her chance when heaven was opened to +her, who could not choose the best when the best came to her. + +“There is no use writing; if I kept on forever, it would always be the +same cry of shame, of love. + +“Eveleth Strange.”_ + +I reeled as I read the lines. The street seemed to weave itself into a +circle around me. But I knew that I was not dreaming, that this was no +delirium of my sleep. + +It was three days ago, and I have not tried to see her again. I have +written her a line, to say that I shall not forget her, and to take the +blame upon myself. I expected the impossible of her. + +I have yet two days before me until the steamer sails; we were to have +sailed together, and now I shall sail alone. + +I will try to leave it all behind me forever; but while I linger out +these last long hours here I must think and I must doubt. + +Was she, then, the _poseuse_ that they said? Had she really no hear +in our love? Was it only a pretty drama she was playing, and were those +generous motives, those lofty principles which seemed to actuate her, the +poetical qualities of the play, the graces of her pose? I cannot believe +it. I believe that she was truly what she seemed, for she had been that +even before she met me. I believe that she was pure and lofty in soul as +she appeared; but that her life was warped to such a form by the false +conditions of this sad world that, when she came to look at herself +again, after she had been confronted with the sacrifice before her, she +feared that she could not make it without in a manner ceasing to be. + +She-- + +But I shall soon see you again; and, until then, farewell. + +END OF PART I + + + + +PART SECOND + + + + +I + + +I could hardly have believed, my dear Dorothea, that I should be so late +in writing to you from Altruria, but you can easily believe that I am +thoroughly ashamed of myself for my neglect. It is not for want of +thinking of you, or talking of you, that I have seemed so much more +ungrateful than I am. My husband and I seldom have any serious talk which +doesn't somehow come round to you. He admires you and likes you as much +as I do, and he does his best, poor man, to understand you; but his not +understanding you is only a part of his general failure to understand how +any American can be kind and good in conditions which he considers so +abominable as those of the capitalistic world. He is not nearly so severe +on us as he used to be at times when he was among us. When the other +Altrurians are discussing us he often puts in a reason for us against +their logic; and I think he has really forgotten, a good deal, how bad +things are with us, or else finds his own memory of them incredible. But +his experience of the world outside his own country has taught him how to +temper the passion of the Altrurians for justice with a tolerance of the +unjust; and when they bring him to book on his own report of us he tries +to explain us away, and show how we are not so bad as we ought to be. + +For weeks after we came to Altruria I was so unhistorically blest that if +I had been disposed to give you a full account of myself I should have +had no events to hang the narrative on. Life here is so subjective (if +you don't know what that is, you poor dear, you must get Mr. Twelvemough +to explain) that there is usually nothing like news in it, and I always +feel that the difference between Altruria and America is so immense that +it is altogether beyond me to describe it. But now we have had some +occurrences recently, quite in the American sense, and these have +furnished me with an incentive as well as opportunity to send you a +letter. Do you remember how, one evening after dinner, in New York, you +and I besieged my husband and tried to make him tell us why Altruria was +so isolated from the rest of the world, and why such a great and +enlightened continent should keep itself apart? I see still his look of +horror when Mr. Makely suggested that the United States should send an +expedition and “open” Altruria, as Commodore Perry “opened” Japan in +1850, and try to enter into commercial relations with it. The best he +could do was to say what always seemed so incredible, and keep on +assuring us that Altruria wished for no sort of public relations with +Europe or America, but was very willing to depend for an indefinite time +for its communication with those regions on vessels putting into its +ports from stress of one kind or other, or castaway on its coasts. They +are mostly trading-ships or whalers, and they come a great deal oftener +than you suppose; you do not hear of them afterwards, because their crews +are poor, ignorant people, whose stories of their adventures are always +distrusted, and who know they would be laughed at if they told the +stories they could of a country like Altruria. My husband himself took +one of their vessels on her home voyage when he came to us, catching the +Australasian steamer at New Zealand; and now I am writing you by the same +sort of opportunity. I shall have time enough to write you a longer +letter than you will care to read; the ship does not sail for a week yet, +because it is so hard to get her crew together. + +Now that I have actually made a beginning, my mind goes back so strongly +to that terrible night when I came to you after Aristides (I always use +the English form of his name now) left New York that I seem to be living +the tragedy over again, and this happiness of mine here is like a dream +which I cannot trust. It was not all tragedy, though, and I remember how +funny Mr. Makely was, trying to keep his face straight when the whole +truth had to come out, and I confessed that I had expected, without +really knowing it myself, that Aristides would disregard that wicked note +I had written him and come and make me marry him, not against my will, +but against my word. Of course I didn't put it in just that way, but in a +way to let you both guess it. The first glimmering of hope that I had was +when Mr. Makely said, “Then, when a woman tells a man that all is over +between them forever, she means that she would like to discuss the +business with him?” I was old enough to be ashamed, but it seemed to me +that you and I had gone back in that awful moment and were two girls +together, just as we used to be at school. I was proud of the way you +stood up for me, because I thought that if you could tolerate me after +what I had confessed I could not be quite a fool. I knew that I deserved +at least some pity, and though I laughed with Mr. Makely, I was glad of +your indignation with him, and of your faith in Aristides. When it came +to the question of what I should do, I don't know which of you I owed the +most to. It was a kind of comfort to have Mr. Makely acknowledge that +though he regarded Aristides as a myth, still he believed that he was a +thoroughly _good_ myth, and couldn't tell a lie if he wanted to; and I +loved you, and shall love you more than any one else but him, for saying +that Aristides was the most real man you had ever met, and that if +everything he said was untrue you would trust him to the end of the +world. + +But, Dolly, it wasn't all comedy, any more than it was all tragedy, and +when you and I had laughed and cried ourselves to the point where there +was nothing for me to do but to take the next boat for Liverpool, and Mr. +Makely had agreed to look after the tickets and cable Aristides that I +was coming, there was still my poor, dear mother to deal with. There is +no use trying to conceal from you that she was always opposed to my +husband. She thought there was something uncanny about him, though she +felt as we did that there was nothing uncanny _in_ him; but a man +who pretended to come from a country where there was no riches and no +poverty could not be trusted with any woman's happiness; and though she +could not help loving him, she thought I ought to tear him out of my +heart, and if I could not do that I ought to have myself shut up in an +asylum. We had a dreadful time when I told her what I had decided to do, +and I was almost frantic. At last, when she saw that I was determined to +follow him, she yielded, not because she was convinced, but because she +could not give me up; I wouldn't have let her if she could. I believe +that the only thing which reconciled her was that you and Mr. Makely +believed in him, and thought I had better do what I wanted to, if nothing +could keep me from it. I shall never, never forget Mr. Makely's goodness +in coming to talk with her, and how skillfully he managed, without +committing himself to Altruria, to declare his faith in my Altrurian. +Even then she was troubled about what she thought the indelicacy of my +behavior in following him across the sea, and she had all sorts of doubts +as to how he would receive me when we met in Liverpool. It wasn't very +reasonable of me to say that if he cast me off I should still love him +more than any other human being, and his censure would be more precious +to me than the praise of the rest of the world. + +I suppose I hardly knew what I was saying, but when once I had yielded to +my love for him there was nothing else in life. I could not have left my +mother behind, but in her opposition to me she seemed like an enemy, and +I should somehow have _forced_ her to go if she had not yielded. When she +did yield, she yielded with her whole heart and soul, and so far from +hindering me in my preparations for the voyage, I do not believe I could +have got off without her. She thought about everything, and it was her +idea to leave my business affairs entirely in Mr. Makely's hands, and +to trust the future for the final disposition of my property. I did not +care for it myself; I hated it, because it was that which had stood +between me and Aristides; but she foresaw that if by any wild +impossibility he should reject me when we met, I should need it for the +life I must go back to in New York. She behaved like a martyr as well as +a heroine, for till we reached Altruria she was a continual sacrifice to +me. She stubbornly doubted the whole affair, but now I must do her the +justice to say that she has been convinced by the fact. The best she can +say of it is that it is like the world of her girlhood; and she has gone +back to the simple life here from the artificial life in New York, with +the joy of a child. She works the whole day, and she would play if she +had ever learned how. She is a better Altrurian than I am; if there could +be a bigoted Altrurian my mother would be one. + + + + +II + + +I sent you a short letter from Liverpool, saying that by the +unprecedented delays of the _Urania_, which I had taken because it was +the swiftest boat of the Neptune line, we had failed to pass the old, +ten-day, single-screw Galaxy liner which Aristides had sailed in. I had +only time for a word to you; but a million words could not have told the +agonies I suffered, and when I overtook him on board the Orient Pacific +steamer at Plymouth, where she touched, I could just scribble off the +cable sent Mr. Makely before our steamer put off again. I am afraid you +did not find my cable very expressive, but I was glad that I did not try +to say more, for if I had tried I should simply have gibbered, at a +shilling a gibber. I expected to make amends by a whole volume of +letters, and I did post a dozen under one cover from Colombo. If they +never reached you I am very sorry, for now it is impossible to take up +the threads of that time and weave them into any sort of connected +pattern. You will have to let me off with saying that Aristides was +everything that I believed he would be and was never really afraid he +might not be. From the moment we caught sight of each other at Plymouth, +he at the rail of the steamer and I on the deck of the tender, we were as +completely one as we are now. I never could tell how I got aboard to him; +whether he came down and brought me, or whether I was simply rapt through +the air to his side. It would have been embarrassing if we had not +treated the situation frankly; but such odd things happen among the +English going out to their different colonies that our marriage, by a +missionary returning to his station, was not even a nine days' wonder +with our fellow-passengers. + +We were a good deal more than nine days on the steamer before we could +get a vessel that would take us on to Altruria; but we overhauled a ship +going there for provisions at last, and we were all put off on her, bag +and baggage, with three cheers from the friends we were leaving; I think +they thought we were going to some of the British islands that the +Pacific is full of. I had been thankful from the first that I had not +brought a maid, knowing the Altrurian prejudice against hireling service, +but I never was so glad as I was when we got aboard that vessel, for when +the captain's wife, who was with him, found that I had no one to look +after me, she looked after me herself, just for the fun of it, she +said; but _I_ knew it was the love of it. It was a sort of general +trading-ship, stopping at the different islands in the South Seas, and +had been a year out from home, where the kind woman had left her little +ones; she cried over their photographs to me. Her husband had been in +Altruria before, and he and Aristides were old acquaintances and met like +brothers; some of the crew knew him, too, and the captain relaxed +discipline so far as to let us shake hands with the second-mate as the +men's representative. + +I needn't dwell on the incidents of our home-coming--for that was what it +seemed for my mother and me as well as for my husband--but I must give +you one detail of our reception, for I still think it almost the +prettiest thing that has happened to us among the millions of pretty +things. Aristides had written home of our engagement, and he was expected +with his American wife; and before we came to anchor the captain ran up +the Emissary's signal, which my husband gave him, and then three boats +left the shore and pulled rapidly out to us. As they came nearer I saw +the first Altrurian costumes in the lovely colors that the people wear +here, and that make a group of them look like a flower-bed; and then I +saw that the boats were banked with flowers along the gunwales from stem +to stern, and that they were each not _manned,_ but _girled_ by six +rowers, who pulled as true a stroke as I ever saw in our boat-races. When +they caught sight of us, leaning over the side, and Aristides lifted his +hat and waved it to them, they all stood their oars upright, and burst +into a kind of welcome song: I had been dreading one of those stupid, +banging salutes of ten or twenty guns, and you can imagine what a relief +it was. They were great, splendid creatures, as tall as our millionaires' +tallest daughters, and as strong-looking as any of our college-girl +athletes; and when we got down over the ship's side, and Aristides said a +few words of introduction for my mother and me, as we stepped into the +largest of the boats, I thought they would crush me, catching me in their +strong, brown arms, and kissing me on each cheek; they never kiss on the +mouth in Altruria. The girls in the other boats kissed their hands to +mother and me, and shouted to Aristides, and then, when our boat set out +for the shore, they got on each side of us and sang song after song as +they pulled even stroke with our crew. Half-way, we met three other +boats, really _manned,_ these ones, and going out to get our baggage, and +then you ought to have heard the shouting and laughing, that ended in +more singing, when the young fellows' voices mixed with the girls, till +they were lost in the welcome that came off to us from the crowded quay, +where I should have thought half Altruria had gathered to receive us. + +I was afraid it was going to be too much for my mother, but she stood it +bravely; and almost at a glance people began to take her into +consideration, and she was delivered over to two young married ladies, +who saw that she was made comfortable, the first of any, in the pretty +Regionic guest-house where they put us. + +I wish I could give you a notion of that guest-house, with its cool, +quiet rooms, and its lawned and gardened enclosure, and a little fountain +purring away among the flowers! But what astonished me was that there +were no sort of carriages, or wheeled conveyances, which, after our +escort from the ship, I thought might very well have met the returning +Emissary and his wife. They made my mother get into a litter, with soft +cushions and with lilac curtains blowing round it, and six girls carried +her up to the house; but they seemed not to imagine my not walking, and, +in fact, I could hardly have imagined it myself, after the first moment +of queerness. That walk was full of such rich experience for every one of +the senses that I would not have missed a step of it; but as soon as I +could get Aristides alone I asked him about horses, and he said that +though horses were still used in farm work, not a horse was allowed in +any city or village of Altruria, because of their filthiness. As for +public vehicles, they used to have electric trolleys; in the year that he +had been absent they had substituted electric motors; but these were not +running, because it was a holiday on which we had happened to arrive. + +There was another incident of my first day which I think will amuse you, +knowing how I have always shrunk from any sort of public appearances. +When Aristides went to make his report to the people assembled in a sort +of convention, I had to go too, and take part in the proceedings; for +women are on an entire equality with the men here, and people would be +shocked if husband and wife were separated in their public life. They did +not spare me a single thing. Where Aristides was not very clear, or +rather not full enough, in describing America, I was called on to +supplement, and I had to make several speeches. Of course, as I spoke in +English, he had to put it into Altrurian for me, and it made the greatest +excitement. The Altrurians are very lively people, and as full of the +desire to hear some new things as Paul said the men of Athens were. At +times they were in a perfect gale of laughter at what we told them about +America. Afterwards some of the women confessed to me that they liked to +hear us speaking English together; it sounded like the whistling of birds +or the shrilling of locusts. But they were perfectly kind, and though +they laughed it was clear that they laughed at what we were saying, and +never at us, or at least never at _me_. + +Of course there was the greatest curiosity to know what Aristides' +wife looked like, as well as sounded like; he had written out about +our engagement before I broke it; and my clothes were of as much +interest As myself, or more. You know how I had purposely left my latest +Paris things behind, so as to come as simply as possible to the simple +life of Altruria, but still with my big leg-of-mutton sleeves, and my +picture-hat, and my pinched waist, I felt perfectly grotesque, and I have +no doubt I looked it. They had never seen a lady from the capitalistic +world before, but only now and then a whaling-captain's wife who had come +ashore; and I knew they were burning to examine my smart clothes down to +the last button and bit of braid. I had on the short skirts of last year, +and I could feel ten thousand eyes fastened on my high-heeled boots, +which you know _I_ never went to extremes in. I confess my face burned +a little, to realize what a scarecrow I must look, when I glanced round +at those Altrurian women, whose pretty, classic fashions made the whole +place like a field of lilacs and irises, and knew that they were as +comfortable as they were beautiful. Do you remember some of the +descriptions of the undergraduate maidens in the “Princess”--I know you +had it at school--where they are sitting in the palace halls together? +The effect was something like that. + +You may be sure that I got out of my things as soon as I could borrow an +Altrurian costume, and now my Paris confections are already hung up for +monuments, as Richard III. says, in the Capitalistic Museum, where people +from the outlying Regions may come and study them as object-lessons in +what not to wear. (You remember what you said Aristides told you, when he +spoke that day at the mountains, about the Regions that Altruria is +divided into? This is the Maritime Region, and the city where we are +living for the present is the capital.) You may think this was rather +hard on me, and at first it did seem pretty intimate, having my things in +a long glass case, and it gave me a shock to see them, as if it had been +my ghost, whenever I passed them. But the fact is I was more ashamed than +hurt--they were so ugly and stupid and useless. I could have borne my +Paris dress and my picture-hat if it had not been for those ridiculous +high-heeled, pointed-toe shoes, which the Curatress had stood at the +bottom of the skirts. They looked the most frantic things you can +imagine, and the mere sight of them made my poor feet _ache_ in the +beautiful sandals I am wearing now; when once you have put on sandals you +say good-bye and good-riddance to shoes. In a single month my feet have +grown almost a tenth as large again as they were, and my friends here +encourage me to believe that they will yet measure nearly the classic +size, though, as you know, I am not in my first youth and can't expect +them to do miracles. + + * * * * * + +I had to leave off abruptly at the last page because Aristides had come +in with a piece of news that took my mind off everything else. I am +afraid you are not going to get this letter even at the late date I had +set for its reaching you, my dear. It seems that there has been a sort of +mutiny among the crew of our trader, which was to sail next week, and now +there is no telling when she will sail. Ever since she came the men have +been allowed their liberty, as they call it, by watches, but the last +watch came ashore this week before another watch had returned to the +ship, and now not one of the sailors will go back. They had been +exploring the country by turns, at their leisure, it seems, and their +excuse is that they like Altruria better than America, which they say +they wish never to see again. + +You know (though I didn't, till Aristides explained to me) that in any +European country the captain in such a case would go to his consul, and +the consul would go to the police, and the police would run the men down +and send them back to the ship in irons as deserters, or put them in jail +till the captain was ready to sail, and then deliver them up to him. But +it seems that there is no law in Altruria to do anything of the kind; the +only law here that would touch the case is one which obliges any citizen +to appear and answer the complaint of any other citizen before the +Justiciary Assembly. A citizen cannot be imprisoned for anything but the +rarest offence, like killing a person in a fit of passion; and as to +seizing upon men who are guilty of nothing worse than wanting to be left +to the pursuit of happiness, as all the Altrurians are, there is no +statute and no usage for it. Aristides says that the only thing which can +be done is to ask the captain and the men to come to the Assembly and +each state his case. The Altrurians are not anxious to have the men stay, +not merely because they are coarse, rude, or vicious, but because they +think they ought to go home and tell the Americans what they have seen +and heard here, and try and get them to found an Altrurian Commonwealth +of their own. Still they will not compel them to go, and the magistrates +do not wish to rouse any sort of sentiment against them. They feel that +the men are standing on their natural rights, which they could not +abdicate if they would. I know this will appear perfectly ridiculous +to Mr. Makely, and I confess myself that there seems something binding in +a contract which ought to act on the men's consciences, at least. + + + + +III + + +Well, my dear Dorothea, the hearing before the Assembly is over, and it +has left us just where it found us, as far as the departure of our trader +is concerned. + +How I wish you could have been there! The hearing lasted three days, and +I would not have missed a minute of it. As it was, I did not miss a +syllable, and it was so deeply printed on my mind that I believe I +could repeat it word for word if I had to. But, in the first place, I +must try and realize the scene to you. I was once summoned as a witness +in one of our courts, you remember, and I have never forgotten the horror +of it: the hot, dirty room, with its foul air, the brutal spectators, the +policemen stationed among them to keep them in order, the lawyers with +the plaintiff and defendant seated all at one table, the uncouth +abruptness of the clerks and janitors, or whatever, the undignified +magistrate, who looked as if his lunch had made him drowsy, and who +seemed half asleep, as he slouched in his arm-chair behind his desk. +Instead of such a setting as this, you must imagine a vast marble +amphitheatre, larger than the Metropolitan Opera, by three or four times, +all the gradines overflowing (that is the word for the “liquefaction of +the clothes” which poured over them), and looking like those Bermudan +waters where the colors of the rainbow seem dropped around the coast. On +the platform, or stage, sat the Presidents of the Assembly, and on a tier +of seats behind and above them, the national Magistrates, who, as this is +the capital of the republic for the time being, had decided to be present +at the hearing, because they thought the case so very important. In the +hollow space, just below (like that where you remember the Chorus stood +in that Greek play which we saw at Harvard ages ago), were the captain +and the first-mate on one hand, and the seamen on the other; the +second-mate, our particular friend, was not there because he never goes +ashore anywhere, and had chosen to remain with the black cook in charge +of the ship. The captain's wife would rather have stayed with them, but I +persuaded her to come to us for the days of the hearing, because the +captain had somehow thought we were opposed to him, and because I thought +she ought to be there to encourage him by her presence. She sat next to +me, in a hat which I wish you could have seen, Dolly, and a dress which +would have set your teeth on edge; but inside of them I knew she was one +of the best souls in the world, and I loved her the more for being the +sight she was among those wonderful Altrurian women. + +The weather was perfect, as it nearly always is at this time of +year--warm, yet fresh, with a sky of that “bleu impossible” of the +Riviera on the clearest day. Some people had parasols, but they put them +down as soon as the hearing began, and everybody could see perfectly. You +would have thought they could not hear so well, but a sort of immense +sounding-plane was curved behind the stage, so that not a word of the +testimony on either side was lost to me in English. The Altrurian +translation was given the second day of the hearing through a megaphone, +as different in tone from the thing that the man in the Grand Central +Station bellows the trains through as the _vox-humana_ stop of an organ +is different from the fog-horn of a light-house. The captain's wife was +bashful, in her odd American dress, but we had got seats near the +tribune, rather out of sight, and there was nothing to hinder our +hearing, like the _frou-frou_ of stiff silks or starched skirts (which +I am afraid we poor things in America like to make when we move) from the +soft, filmy tissues that the Altrurian women wear; but I must confess +that there was a good deal of whispering while the captain and the men +were telling their stories. But, no one except the interpreters, who were +taking their testimony down in short-hand, to be translated into +Altrurian and read at the subsequent hearing, could understand what they +were saying, and so nobody was disturbed by the murmurs. The whispering +was mostly near me, where I sat with the captain's wife, for everybody I +knew got as close as they could and studied my face when they thought +anything important or significant had been said. They are very quick at +reading faces here; in fact, a great deal of the conversation is carried +on in that way, or with the visible speech; and my Altrurian friends knew +almost as well as I did when the speakers came to an interesting point. +It was rather embarrassing for me, though, with the poor captain's wife +at my side, to tell them, in my broken Altrurian, what the men were +accusing the captain of. + +I talk of the men, but it was really only one of them who at first, by +their common consent, spoke for the rest. He was a middle-aged Yankee, +and almost the only born American among them, for you know that our +sailors, nowadays, are of every nationality under the sun--Portuguese, +Norwegians, Greeks, Italians, Kanucks, and Kanakas, and even Cape Cod +Indians. He said he guessed his story was the story of most sailors, and +he had followed the sea his whole life. His story was dreadful, and I +tried to persuade the captain's wife not to come to the hearing the next +day, when it was to be read in Altrurian; but she would come. I was +afraid she would be overwhelmed by the public compassion, and would not +know what to do; for when something awful that the sailor had said +against the captain was translated the women, all about us cooed their +sympathy with her, and pressed her hand if they could, or patted her on +the shoulder, to show how much they pitied her. In Altruria they pity the +friends of those who have done wrong, and sometimes even the wrong-doers +themselves; and it is quite a luxury, for there is so little wrong-doing +here: I tell them that in America they would have as much pitying to do +as they could possibly ask. After the hearing that day my friends, who +were of a good many different Refectories, as we call them here, wanted +her to go and lunch with them; but I got her quietly home with me, and +after she had had something to eat I made her lie down awhile. + +You won't care to have me go fully into the affair. The sailors' +spokesman told how he had been born on a farm, where he had shared the +family drudgery and poverty till he grew old enough to run away. He +meant to go to sea, but he went first to a factory town and worked three +or four years in the mills. He never went back to the farm, but he sent a +little money now and then to his mother; and he stayed on till he got +into trouble. He did not say just what kind of trouble, but I fancied it +was some sort of love-trouble; he blamed himself for it; and when he left +that town to get away from the thought of it, as much as anything, and +went to work in another town, he took to drink; then, once, in a drunken +spree, he found himself in New York without knowing how. But it was in +what he called a sailors' boarding-house, and one morning, after he had +been drinking overnight “with a very pleasant gentleman,” he found +himself in the forecastle of a ship bound for Holland, and when the mate +came and cursed him up and cursed him out he found himself in the +foretop. I give it partly in his own language, because I cannot help it; +and I only wish I could give it wholly in his language; it was so graphic +and so full of queer Yankee humor. From that time on, he said, he had +followed the sea; and at sea he was always a good temperance man, but +Altruria was the only place he had ever kept sober ashore. He guessed +that was partly because there was nothing to drink but unfermented +grape-juice, and partly because there was nobody to drink with; anyhow, +he had not had a drop here. Everywhere else, as soon as he left his ship, +he made for a sailors' boarding-house, and then he did not know much till +he found himself aboard ship and bound for somewhere that he did not know +of. He was always, he said, a stolen man, as much as a negro captured on +the west coast of Africa and sold to a slaver; and, he said, it was a +slave's life he led between drinks, whether it was a long time or short. +He said he would ask his mates if it was very different with them, and +when he turned to them they all shouted back, in their various kinds of +foreign accents, No, it was just the same with them, every one. Then he +said that was how he came to ship on our captain's vessel, and though +they could not all say the same, they nodded confirmation as far as he +was concerned. + +The captain looked sheepish enough at this, but he looked sorrowful, too, +as if he could have wished it had been different, and he asked the man if +he had been abused since he came on board. Well, the man said, not unless +you called tainted salt-horse and weevilly biscuit abuse; and then the +captain sat down again, and I could feel his poor wife shrinking beside +me. The man said that he was comparatively well off on the captain's +ship, and the life was not half such a dog's life as he had led on other +vessels; but it was such that when he got ashore here in Altruria, and +saw how _white_ people lived, people that _used_ each other white, he +made up his mind that he would never go hack to any ship alive. He hated +a ship so much that if he could go home to America as a first-class +passenger on a Cunard liner, John D. Rockefeller would not have money +enough to hire him to do it. He was going to stay in Altruria till he +died, if they would let him, and he guessed they would, if what he had +heard about them was true. He just wanted, he said, while we were about +it, to have a few of his mates tell their experience, not so much on +board the _Little Sally_, but on shore, and since they could remember; +and one after another did get up and tell their miserable stories. They +were like the stories you sometimes read in your paper over your coffee, +or that you can hear any time you go into the congested districts in New +York; but I assure you, my dear, they seemed to me perfectly incredible +here, though I had known hundreds of such stories at home. As I realized +their facts I forgot where I was; I felt that I was back again in that +horror, where it sometimes seemed to me I had no right to be fed or +clothed or warm or clean in the midst of the hunger and cold and +nakedness and dirt, and where I could only reconcile myself to my comfort +because I knew my discomfort would not help others' misery. + +I can hardly tell how, but even the first day a sense of something +terrible spread through that multitude of people, to whom the words +themselves were mere empty sounds. The captain sat through it, with his +head drooping, till his face was out of sight, and the tears ran silently +down his wife's cheeks; and the women round me were somehow awed into +silence. When the men ended, and there seemed to be no one else to say +anything on that side, the captain jumped to his feet, with a sort of +ferocious energy, and shouted out, “Are you all through, men?” and their +spokesman answered, “Ay, ay, sir!” and then the captain flung back his +grizzled hair and shook his fist towards the sailors. “And do you think I +_wanted_ to do it? Do you think I _liked_ to do it? Do you think that if +I hadn't been _afraid_ my whole life long I would have had the _heart_ to +lead you the dog's life I know I've led you? I've been as poor as the +poorest of you, and as low down as the lowest; I was born in the town +poor-house, and I've been so afraid of the poor-house all my days that I +hain't had, as you may say, a minute's peace. Ask my wife, there, what +sort of a man I _am_, and whether I'm the man, _really_ the man that's +been hard and mean to you the way I know I been. It was because I was +_afraid_, and because a coward is always hard and mean. I been afraid, +ever since I could remember anything, of coming to want, and I was +willing to see other men suffer so I could make sure that me and mine +shouldn't suffer. That's the way we do at home, ain't it? That's in the +day's work, ain't it? That's playing the game, ain't it, for everybody? +You can't say it ain't.” He stopped, and the men's spokesman called back, +“Ay, ay, sir,” as he had done before, and as I had often heard the men do +when given an order on the ship. + +The captain gave a kind of sobbing laugh, and went on in a lower tone. +“Well, I know you ain't going back. I guess I didn't expect it much from +the start, and I guess I'm not surprised.” Then he lifted his head and +shouted, “And do you suppose _I_ want to go back? Don't you suppose _I_ +would like to spend the rest of my days, too, among _white_ people, +people that _use_ each other white, as you say, and where there ain't +any want or, what's worse, _fear_ of want? Men! There ain't a day, or an +hour, or a minute, when I don't think how awful it is over there, where I +got to be either some man's slave or some man's master, as much so as if +it was down in the ship's articles. My wife ain't so, because she ain't +been ashore here. I wouldn't let her; I was afraid to let her see what a +white man's country really was, because I felt so weak about it myself, +and I didn't want to put the trial on her, too. And do you know _why_ +we're going back, or want to go? I guess some of you know, but I want to +tell these folks here so they'll understand, and I want you, Mr. Homos,” + he called to my husband, “to get it down straight. It's because we've got +two little children over there, that we left with their grandmother when +my wife come with me this voyage because she had lung difficulty and +wanted to see whether she could get her health back. Nothing else on +God's green earth could take me back to America, and I guess it couldn't +my wife if she knew what Altruria was as well as I do. But when I went +around here and saw how everything was, and remembered how it was at +home, I just said, 'She'll stay on the ship.' Now, that's all I got to +say, though I thought I had a lot more. I guess it'll be enough for these +folks, and they can judge between us.” Then the captain sat down, and to +make a long story short, the facts of the hearing were repeated in +Altrurian the next day by megaphone, and when the translation was +finished there was a general rush for the captain. He plainly expected to +be lynched, and his wife screamed out, “Oh, don't hurt him! He isn't a +bad man!” But it was only the Altrurian way with a guilty person: they +wanted to let him know how sorry they were for him, and since his sin had +found him out how hopeful they were for his redemption. I had to explain +it to the sailors as well as to the captain and his wife, but I don't +believe any of them quite accepted the fact. + +The third day of the hearing was for the rendering of the decision, first +in Altrurian, and then in English. The verdict of the magistrates had to +be confirmed by a standing vote of the people, and of course the women +voted as well as the men. The decision was that the sailors should be +absolutely free to go or stay, but they took into account the fact that +it would be cruel to keep the captain and his wife away from their little +ones, and the sailors might wish to consider this. If they still remained +true to their love of Altruria they could find some means of returning. + +When the translator came to this point their spokesman jumped to his feet +and called out to the captain, “Will you _do_ it?” “Do what?” he asked, +getting slowly to his own feet. “Come back with us after you have seen +the kids?” The captain shook his fist at the sailors; it seemed to be the +only gesture he had with them. “Give me the _chance!_ All I want is to +see the children and bring them out with me to Altruria, and the old +folks with them.” “Will you _swear_ it? Will you say, 'I hope I may find +the kids dead and buried when I get home if I don't do it'?” “I'll take +that oath, or any oath you want me to.” “Shake hands on it, then.” + +The two men met in front of the tribunal and clasped hands there, and +their reconciliation did not need translation. Such a roar of cheers went +up! And then the whole assembly burst out in the national Altrurian +anthem, “Brothers All.” I wish you could have heard it! But when the +terms of the agreement were explained, the cheering that had gone before +was a mere whisper to what followed. One orator after another rose and +praised the self-sacrifice of the sailors. I was the proudest when the +last of them referred to Aristides and the reports which he had sent home +from America, and said that without some such study as he had made of +the American character they never could have understood such an act as +they were now witnessing. Illogical and insensate as their system was, +their character sometimes had a beauty, a sublimity which was not +possible to Altrurians even, for it was performed in the face of risks +and chances which their happy conditions relieved them from. At the same +time, the orator wished his hearers to consider the essential immorality +of the act. He said that civilized men had no right to take these risks +and chances. The sailors were perhaps justified, in so far as they were +homeless, wifeless, and childless men; but it must not be forgotten that +their heroism was like the reckless generosity of savages. + +The men have gone back to the ship, and she sails this afternoon. I have +persuaded the captain to let his wife stay to lunch with me at our +Refectory, where the ladies wish to bid her good-bye, and I am hurrying +forward this letter so that she can take it on board with her this +afternoon. She has promised to post it on the first Pacific steamer they +meet, or if they do not meet any to send it forward to you with a +special-delivery stamp as soon as they reach Boston. She will also +forward by express an Altrurian costume, such as I am now wearing, +sandals and all! Do put it on, Dolly, dear, for my sake, and realize what +it is for once in your life to be a _free_ woman. + +Heaven knows when I shall have another chance of getting letters to you. +But I shall live in hopes, and I shall set down my experiences here for +your benefit, not perhaps as I meet them, but as I think of them, and +you must not mind having a rather cluttered narrative. To-morrow we are +setting off on our round of the capitals, where Aristides is to make a +sort of public report to the people of the different Regions on the +working of the capitalistic conditions as he observed them among us. But +I don't expect to send you a continuous narrative of our adventures. +Good-bye, dearest, with my mother's love, and my husband's as well as my +own, to both of you; think of me as needing nothing but a glimpse of you +to complete my happiness. How I should like to tell you fully about it! +You _must_ come to Altruria! + +I came near letting this go without telling you of one curious incident +of the affair between the captain and his men. Before the men returned to +the ship they came with their spokesman to say good-bye to Aristides and +me, and he remarked casually that it was just as well, maybe, to be going +back, because, for one thing, they would know then whether it was real or +not. I asked him what he meant, and he said, “Well, you know, some of the +mates think it's a dream here, or it's too good to be true. As far forth +as I go, I'd be willing to have it a dream that I didn't ever have to +wake up from. It ain't any too good to be true for me. Anyway, I'm going +to get back somehow, and give it another chance to be a fact.” Wasn't +that charming? It had a real touch of poetry in it, but it was prose that +followed. I couldn't help asking him whether there had been nothing to +mar the pleasure of their stay in Altruria, and he answered: “Well, I +don't know as you could rightly say _mar;_ it hadn't ought to have. You +see, it was like this. You see, some of the mates wanted to lay off and +have a regular bange, but that don't seem to be the idea here. After we +had been ashore a day or two they set us to work at different jobs, or +wanted to. The mates didn't take hold very lively, and some of 'em didn't +take hold a bit. But after that went on a couple of days, there wa'n't +any breakfast one morning, and come noontime there wa'n't any dinner, and +as far forth as they could make out they had to go to bed without supper. +Then they called a halt, and tackled one of your head men here that could +speak some English. He didn't answer them right off the reel, but he +got out his English Testament and he read 'em a verse that said, 'For +even when we were with you this we commanded you, that if any one would +not work neither should he eat.' That kind of fetched 'em, and after +that there wa'n't any sojerin', well not to speak of. They saw he meant +business. I guess it did more than any one thing to make 'em think they +wa'n't dreamin'.” + + + + +IV + + +You must not think, Dolly, from anything I have been telling you that the +Altrurians are ever harsh. Sometimes they cannot realize how things +really are with us, and how what seems grotesque and hideous to them +seems charming and beautiful, or at least _chic_, to us. But they are +wonderfully quick to see when they have hurt you the least, and in the +little sacrifices I have made of my wardrobe to the cause of general +knowledge there has not been the least urgence from them. When I now look +at the things I used to wear, where they have been finally placed in the +ethnological department of the Museum, along with the Esquiman kyaks +and the Thlinkeet totems, they seem like things I wore in some +prehistoric age-- + +“When wild in woods the noble savage ran.” + +Now, am I being unkind? Well, you mustn't mind me, Dolly. You must just +say, “She _has_ got it bad,” and go on and learn as much about Altruria +as you can from me. Some of the things were hard to get used to, and at +first seemed quite impossible. For one thing, there was the matter of +service, which is dishonorable with us, and honorable with the +Altrurians: I was a long time getting to understand that, though I knew +it perfectly well from hearing my husband talk about it in New York. I +believe he once came pretty near offending you by asking why you did not +do your own work, or something like that; he has confessed as much, and I +could not wonder at you in your conditions. Why, when we first went to +the guest-house, and the pretty young girls who brought in lunch sat down +at table to eat it with us, I felt the indignation making me hot all +over. You know how democratic I am, and I did not mind those great, +splendid boat-girls hugging and kissing me, but I instinctively drew the +line at cooks and waitresses. In New York, you know, I always tried to be +kind to my servants, but as for letting one of them sit down in my +presence, much less sit down at table with me, I never dreamed of such a +thing in my most democratic moments. Luckily I drew the line subjectively +here, and later I found that these young ladies were daughters of some of +the most distinguished men and women on the continent, though you must +not understand distinction as giving any sort of social primacy; that +sort of thing is not allowed in Altruria. They had drawn lots with the +girls in the Regionic school here, and were proud of having won the honor +of waiting on us. Of course, I needn't say they were what we would have +felt to be ladies anywhere, and their manners were exquisite, even to +leaving us alone together as soon as we had finished luncheon. The meal +itself was something I shall always remember for its delicious cooking of +the different kinds of mushrooms which took the place of meat, and the +wonderful salads, and the temperate and tropical fruits which we had for +dessert. + +They had to talk mostly with my husband, of course, and when they did +talk to me it was through him. They were very intelligent about our +world, much more than we are about Altruria, though, of course, it was by +deduction from premises rather than specific information, and they wanted +to ask a thousand questions; but they saw the joke of it, and laughed +with us when Aristides put them off with a promise that if they would +have a public meeting appointed we would appear and answer all the +questions anybody could think of; we were not going to waste our answers +on them the first day. He wanted them to let us go out and help wash the +dishes, but they would not hear of it. I confess I was rather glad of +that, for it seemed a lower depth to which I could not descend, even +after eating with them. But they invited us out to look at the kitchen, +after they had got it in order a little, and when we joined them there, +whom should I see but my own dear old mother, with an apron up to her +chin, wiping the glass and watching carefully through her dear old +spectacles that she got everything bright! You know she was of a simpler +day than ours, and when she was young she used to do her own work, and +she and my father always washed the dishes together after they had +company. I merely said, “_Well_, mother!” and she laughed and colored, +and said she guessed she should like it in Altruria, for it took her back +to the America she used to know. + +I must mention things as they come into my head, and not in any +regular order; there are too many of them. One thing is that I did +not notice till afterwards that we had had no meat that first day at +luncheon--the mushrooms were so delicious, and you know I never was much +of a meat-eater. It was not till we began to make our present tour of the +Regionic capitals, where Aristides has had to repeat his account of +American civilization until I am sick as well as ashamed of America, that +I first felt a kind of famine which I kept myself from recognizing as +long as I could. Then I had to own to myself, long before I owned it to +him, that I was hungry for _meat_--for roast, for broiled, for fried, for +hashed. I did not actually tell him, but he found it out, and I could not +deny it, though I felt such an ogre in it. He was terribly grieved, and +blamed himself for not having thought of it, and wished he had got some +canned meats from the trader before she left the port. He was really in +despair, for nobody since the old capitalistic times had thought of +killing sheep or cattle for food; they have them for wool and milk and +butter; and of course when I looked at them in the fields it did seem +rather formidable. You are so used to seeing them in the butchers' shops, +ready for the range, that you never think of what they have to _go +through_ before that. But at last I managed to gasp out, one day, “If I +could only have a chicken!” and he seemed to think that it could be +managed. I don't know how he made interest with the authorities, or how +the authorities prevailed on a farmer to part with one of his precious +pullets; but the thing was done somehow, and two of the farmer's children +brought it to us at one of the guest-houses where we were staying, and +then fled howling. That was bad enough, but what followed was worse. I +went another day on mushrooms before I had the heart to say chicken again +and suggest that Aristides should get it killed and dressed. The poor +fellow did try, I believe, but we had to fall back upon ourselves for the +murderous deed, and--Did you ever see a chicken have its head cut off, +and how hideously it behaves? It made us both wish we were dead; and the +sacrifice of that one pullet was quite enough for me. We buried the poor +thing under the flowers of the guest-house garden, and I went back to +my mushrooms after a visit of contrition to the farmer and many attempts +to bring his children to forgiveness. After all, the Altrurian mushrooms +are wonderfully nourishing, and they are in such variety that, what with +other succulent vegetables and the endless range of fruits and nuts, one +does not wish for meat--meat that one has killed one's self! + + + + +V + + +I wish you could be making tour of the Regionic capitals with us, Dolly! +There are swift little one-rail electric expresses running daily from one +capital to another, but these are used only when speed is required, and +we are confessedly in no hurry: Aristides wanted me to see as much of the +country as possible, and I am as eager as he. The old steam-roads of the +capitalistic epoch have been disused for generations, and their beds are +now the country roads, which are everywhere kept in beautiful repair. +There are no horse vehicles (the electric motors are employed in the +towns), though some people travel on horseback, but the favorite means of +conveyance is by electric van, which any citizen may have on proof of his +need of it; and it is comfortable beyond compare--mounted on easy +springs, and curtained and cushioned like those gypsy vans we see in the +country at home. Aristides drives himself, and sometimes we both get out +and walk, for there is plenty of time. + +I don't know whether I can make you understand how everything has tended +to simplification here. They have disused the complicated facilities and +conveniences of the capitalistic epoch, which we are so proud of, and +have got back as close as possible to nature. People stay at home a great +deal more than with us, though if any one likes to make a journey or to +visit the capitals he is quite free to do it, and those who have some +useful or beautiful object in view make the sacrifice, as they feel it, +to leave their villages every day and go to the nearest capital to carry +on their studies or experiments. What we consider modern conveniences +they would consider a superfluity of naughtiness for the most part. As +_work_ is the ideal, they do not believe in what we call labor-saving +devices. + +When we approach a village on our journey, one of the villagers, +sometimes a young man, and sometimes a girl, comes out to meet us, and +when we pass through they send some one with us on the way a little. The +people have a perfect inspiration for hospitality: they not only know +when to do and how much to do, but how little and when not at all. I +can't remember that we have ever once been bored by those nice young +things that welcomed us or speeded us on our way, and when we have +stopped in a village they have shown a genius for leaving us alone, after +the first welcome, that is beautiful. They are so regardful of our +privacy, in fact, that if it had not been for Aristides, who explained +their ideal to me, I should have felt neglected sometimes, and should +have been shy of letting them know that we would like their company. But +he understood it, and I must say that I have never enjoyed people and +their ways so much. Their hospitality is a sort of compromise between +that of the English houses where you are left free at certain houses to +follow your own devices absolutely, and that Spanish splendor which +assures you that the host's house is yours without meaning it. In fact, +the guest-house, wherever we go, _is_ ours, for it belongs to the +community, and it is absolutely a home to us for the time being. It is +usually the best house in the village, the prettiest and cosiest, where +all the houses are so pretty and cosey. There is always another building +for public meetings, called the temple, which is the principal edifice, +marble and classic and tasteful, which we see almost as much of as the +guest-house, for the news of the Emissary's return has preceded him, and +everybody is alive with curiosity, and he has to stand and deliver in the +village temples everywhere. Of course I am the great attraction, and +after being scared by it at first I have rather got to like it; the +people are so kind, and unaffected, and really delicate. + +You mustn't get the notion that the Altrurians are a solemn people at +all; they are rather gay, and they like other people's jokes as well as +their own; I am sure Mr. Makely, with his sense of humor, would be at +home with them at once. The one thing that more than any other has helped +them to conceive of the American situation is its being the gigantic joke +which we often feel it to be; I don't know but it appears to them more +grotesque than it does to us even. At first, when Aristides would explain +some peculiarity of ours, they would receive him with a gale of laughing, +but this might change into cries of horror and pity later. One of the +things that amused and then revolted them most was our patriotism. They +thought it the drollest thing in the world that men should be willing to +give their own lives and take the lives of other men for the sake of a +country which assured them no safety from want, and did not even assure +them work, and in which they had no more logical interest than the +country they were going to fight. They could understand how a rich man +might volunteer for one of our wars, but when they were told that most of +our volunteers were poor men, who left their mothers and sisters, or +their wives and children, without any means of support, except their +meagre pay, they were quite bewildered and stopped laughing, as if the +thing had passed a joke. They asked, “How if one of these citizen +soldiers was killed?” and they seemed to suppose that in this case the +country would provide for his family and give them work, or if the +children were too young would support them at the public expense. It +made me creep a little when my husband answered that the family of a +crippled or invalided soldier would have a pension of eight or ten or +fifteen dollars a month; and when they came back with the question why +the citizens of such a country should love it enough to die for it, I +could not have said why for the life of me. But Aristides, who is so +magnificently generous, tried to give them a notion of the sublimity +which is at the bottom of our illogicality and which adjusts so many +apparently hopeless points of our anomaly. They asked how this sublimity +differed from that of the savage who brings in his game and makes a feast +for the whole tribe, and leaves his wife and children without provision +against future want; but Aristides told them that there were essential +differences between the Americans and savages, which arose from the fact +that the savage condition was permanent and the American conditions were +unconsciously provisional. + +They are quite well informed about our life in some respects, but they +wished to hear at first hand whether certain things were really so or +not. For instance, they wanted to know whether people were allowed to +marry and bring children into the world if they had no hopes of +supporting them or educating them, or whether diseased people were +allowed to become parents. In Altruria, you know, the families are +generally small, only two or three children at the most, so that the +parents can devote themselves to them the more fully; and as there is no +fear of want here, the state interferes only when the parents are +manifestly unfit to bring the little ones up. They imagined that there +was something of that kind with us, but when they heard that the state +interfered in the family only when the children were unruly, and then it +punished the children by sending them to a reform school and disgracing +them for life, instead of holding the parents accountable, they seemed +to think that it was one of the most anomalous features of our great +anomaly. Here, when the father and mother are always quarrelling, the +children are taken from them, and the pair are separated, at first for a +time, but after several chances for reform they are parted permanently. + +But I must not give you the notion that all our conferences are so +serious. Many have merely the character of social entertainments, which +are not made here for invited guests, but for any who choose to come; +all are welcome. At these there are often plays given by amateurs, and +improvised from plots which supply the outline, while the performers +supply the dialogue and action, as in the old Italian comedies. The +Altrurians are so quick and fine, in fact, that they often remind me of +the Italians more than any other people. One night there was for my +benefit an American play, as the Altrurians imagined it from what they +had read about us, and they had costumed it from the pictures of us they +had seen in the newspapers Aristides had sent home while he was with us. +The effect was a good deal like that American play which the Japanese +company of Sada Yacco gave while it was in New York. It was all about a +millionaire's daughter, who was loved by a poor young man and escaped +with him to Altruria in an open boat from New York. The millionaire could +be distinctly recognized by the dollar-marks which covered him all over, +as they do in the caricatures of rich men in our yellow journals. It was +funny to the last degree. In the last act he was seen giving his millions +away to poor people, whose multitude was represented by the continually +coming and going of four or five performers in and out of the door, in +outrageously ragged clothes. The Altrurians have not yet imagined the +nice degrees of poverty which we have achieved, and they could not have +understood that a man with a hundred thousand dollars would have seemed +poor to that multi-millionaire. In fact, they do not grasp the idea of +money at all. I heard afterwards that in the usual version the +millionaire commits suicide in despair, but the piece had been given a +happy ending out of kindness to me. I must say that in spite of the +monstrous misconception the acting was extremely good, especially that of +some comic characters. + +But dancing is the great national amusement in Altruria, where it has not +altogether lost its religious nature. A sort of march in the temples is +as much a part of the worship as singing, and so dancing has been +preserved from the disgrace which it used to be in with serious people +among us. In the lovely afternoons you see young people dancing in the +meadows, and hear them shouting in time to the music, while the older men +and women watch them from their seats in the shade. Every sort of +pleasure here is improvised, and as you pass through a village the first +thing you know the young girls and young men start up in a sort of +_girandole_, and linking hands in an endless chain stretch the figure +along through the street and out over the highway to the next village, +and the next and the next. The work has all been done in the forenoon, +and every one who chooses is at liberty to join in the fun. + +The villages are a good deal alike to a stranger, and we knew what to +expect there after a while, but the country is perpetually varied, and +the unexpected is always happening in it. The old railroad-beds, on +which we travelled, are planted with fruit and nut trees and flowering +shrubs, and our progress is through a fragrant bower that is practically +endless, except where it takes the shape of a colonnade near the entrance +of a village, with vines trained about white pillars, and clusters of +grapes (which are ripening just now) hanging down. The change in the +climate created by cutting off the southeastern peninsula and letting in +the equatorial current, which was begun under the first Altrurian +president, with an unexpended war-appropriation, and finished for what +one of the old capitalistic wars used to cost, is something perfectly +astonishing. Aristides says he told you something about it in his speech +at the White Mountains, but you would never believe it without the +evidence of your senses. Whole regions to the southward, which were +nearest the pole and were sheeted with ice and snow, with the temperature +and vegetation of Labrador, now have the climate of Italy; and the +mountains, which used to bear nothing but glaciers, are covered with +olive orchards and plantations of the delicious coffee which they drink +here. Aristides says you could have the same results at home--no! _in the +United States_--by cutting off the western shore of Alaska and letting in +the Japanese current; and it could be done at the cost of any average +war. + + + + +VI + + +But I must not get away from my personal experiences in these +international statistics. Sometimes, when night overtakes us, we stop +and camp beside the road, and set about getting our supper of eggs and +bread and butter and cheese, or the fruits that are ripening all round +us. Since my experience with that pullet I go meekly mushrooming in +the fields and pastures; and when I have set the mushrooms stewing over +an open fire, Aristides makes the coffee, and in a little while we +have a banquet fit for kings--or for the poor things in every grade below +them that serve kings, political or financial or industrial. There is +always water, for it is brought down from the snow-fields of the +mountains--there is not much rainfall--and carried in little concrete +channels along the road--side from village to village, something like +those conduits the Italian peasants use to bring down the water from the +Maritime Alps to their fields and orchards; and you hear the soft gurgle +of it the whole night long, and day long, too, whenever you stop. After +supper we can read awhile by our electric lamp (we tap the current in the +telephone wires anywhere), or Aristides sacrifices himself to me in a +lesson of Altrurian grammar. Then we creep back into our van and fall +asleep with the Southern Cross glittering over our heads. It is perfectly +safe, though it was a long time before I could imagine the perfect safety +of it. In a country where there are no thieves, because a thief here +would not know what to do with his booty, we are secure from human +molestation, and the land has long been cleared of all sorts of wild +beasts, without being unpleasantly tamed. It is like England in that, and +yet it has a touch of the sylvan, which you feel nowhere as you do in our +dear New England hill country. There was one night, however, when we were +lured on and on, and did not stop to camp till fairly in the dusk. Then +we went to sleep without supper, for we had had rather a late lunch and +were not hungry, and about one o'clock in the morning I was awakened by +voices speaking Altrurian together. I recognized my husband's voice, +which is always so kind, but which seemed to have a peculiarly tender and +compassionate note in it now. The other was lower and of a sadness which +wrung my heart, though I did not know in the least what the person was +saying. The talk went on a long time, at first about some matter of +immediate interest, as I fancied, and then apparently it branched off +on some topic which seemed to concern the stranger, whoever he was. Then +it seemed to get more indistinct, as if the stranger were leaving us and +Aristides were going a little way with him. Presently I heard him coming +back, and he put his head in at the van curtains, as if to see whether I +was asleep. + +“Well?” I said, and he said how sorry he was for having waked me. “Oh, I +don't mind,” I said. “Whom were you talking with? He had the saddest +voice I ever heard. What did he want?” + +“Oh, it seems that we are not far from the ruins of one of the old +capitalistic cities, which have been left for a sort of warning against +the former conditions, and he wished to caution us against the malarial +influences from it. I think perhaps we had better push on a little way, +if you don't mind.” + +The moon was shining clearly, and of course I did not mind, and Aristides +got his hand on the lever, and we were soon getting out of the dangerous +zone. “I think,” he said, “they ought to abolish that pest-hole. I doubt +if it serves any good purpose, now, though it has been useful in times +past as an object-lesson.” + +“But who was your unknown friend?” I asked, a great deal more curious +about him than about the capitalistic ruin. + +“Oh, just a poor murderer,” he answered easily, and I shuddered back: +“A murderer!” + +“Yes. He killed his friend some fifteen years ago in a jealous rage, and +he is pursued by remorse that gives him no peace.” + +“And is the remorse his only punishment?” I asked, rather indignantly. + +“Isn't that enough? God seemed to think it was, in the case of the first +murderer, who killed his brother. All that he did to Cain was to set a +mark on him. But we have not felt sure that we have the right to do this. +We let God mark him, and He has done it with this man in the sorrow of +his face. I was rather glad you, couldn't see him, my dear. It is an +awful face.” + +I confess that this sounded like mere sentimentalism to me, and I said, +“Really, Aristides, I can't follow you. How are innocent people to be +protected against this wretch, if he wanders about among them at will?” + +“They are as safe from him as from any other man in Altruria. His case +was carefully looked into by the medical authorities, and it was decided +that he was perfectly sane, so that he could be safely left at large, to +expiate his misdeed in the only possible way that such a misdeed can be +expiated--by doing good to others. What would you have had us do with +him?” + +The question rather staggered me, but I said, “He ought to have been +imprisoned at least a year for manslaughter.” + +“Cain was not imprisoned an hour.” + +“That was a very different thing. But suppose you let a man go at large +who has killed his friend in a jealous rage, what do you do with other +murderers?” + +“In Altruria there can be no other murderers. People cannot kill here for +money, which prompts every other kind of murder in capitalistic +countries, as well as every other kind of crime. I know, my dear, that +this seems very strange to you, but you will accustom yourself to the +idea, and then you will see the reasonableness of the Altrurian plan. On +the whole, I am sorry you could not have seen that hapless man, and +heard him. He had a face like death--” + +“And a voice like death, too!” I put in. + +“You noticed that? He wanted to talk about his crime with me. He wants to +talk about it with any one who will listen to him. He is consumed with an +undying pity for the man he slew. That is the first thing, the only +thing, in his mind. If he could, I believe he would give his life for the +life he took at any moment. But you cannot recreate one life by +destroying another. There is no human means of ascertaining justice, but +we can always do mercy with divine omniscience.” As he spoke the sun +pierced the edge of the eastern horizon, and lit up the marble walls and +roofs of the Regionic capital which we were approaching. + +At the meeting we had there in the afternoon, Aristides reported our +having been warned against our danger in the night by that murderer, and +public record of the fact was made. The Altrurians consider any sort of +punishment which is not expiation a far greater sin than the wrong it +visits, and altogether barren and useless. After the record in this case +had been made, the conference naturally turned upon what Aristides had +seen of the treatment of criminals in America, and when, he told of our +prisons, where people merely arrested and not yet openly accused are +kept, I did not know which way to look, for you know I am still an +American at heart, Dolly. Did you ever see the inside of one of our +police-stations at night? Or smell it? I did, once, when I went to give +bail for a wretched girl who had been my servant, and had gone wrong, but +had been arrested for theft, and I assure you that the sight and the +smell woke me in the night for a month afterwards, and I have never quite +ceased to dream about it. + +The Altrurians listened in silence, and I hoped they could not realize +the facts, though the story was every word true; but what seemed to make +them the most indignant was the treatment of the families of the +prisoners in what we call our penitentiaries and reformatories. At first +they did not conceive of it, apparently, because it was so stupidly +barbarous; they have no patience with stupidity; and when Aristides had +carefully explained, it seemed as if they could not believe it. They +thought it right that the convicts should be made to work, but they could +not understand that the state really took away their wages, and left +their families to suffer for want of the support which it had deprived +them of. They said this was punishing the mothers and sisters, the wives +and children of the prisoners, and was like putting out the eyes of an +offender's innocent relatives as they had read was done in Oriental +countries. They asked if there was never any sort of protest against such +an atrocious perversion of justice, and when the question was put to me +I was obliged to own that I had never heard the system even criticised. +Perhaps it has been, but I spoke only from my own knowledge. + + + + +VII + + +Well, to get away from these dismal experiences, and come back to our +travels, with their perpetual novelty, and the constantly varying beauty +of the country! + +The human interest of the landscape, that is always the great interest of +it, and I wish I could make you feel it as I have felt it in this +wonderful journey of ours. It is like the New England landscape at times, +in its kind of gentle wildness, but where it has been taken back into the +hand of man, how different the human interest is! Instead of a rheumatic +old farmer, in his clumsy clothes, with some of his gaunt girls to help +him, or perhaps his ageing wife, getting in the hay of one of those sweet +meadows, and looking like so many animated scarecrows at their work; or +instead of some young farmer, on the seat of his clattering mower, or +mounted high over his tedder, but as much alone as if there were no one +else in the neighborhood, silent and dull, or fierce or sullen, as the +case might be, the work is always going on with companies of mowers or +reapers, or planters, that chatter like birds or sing like them. + +It is no use my explaining again and again that in a country like this, +where everybody works, nobody over works, and that when the few hours of +obligatory labor are passed in the mornings, people need not do anything +unless they choose. Their working-dresses are very simple, but in all +sorts of gay colors, like those you saw in the Greek play at Harvard, +with straw hats for the men, and fillets of ribbon for the girls, and +sandals for both. I speak of girls, for most of the married women are at +home gardening, or about the household work, but men of every age work in +the fields. The earth is dear to them because they get their life from it +by labor that is not slavery; they come to love it every acre, every +foot, because they have known it from childhood; and I have seen old men, +very old, pottering about the orchards and meadows during the hours of +voluntary work, and trimming them up here and there, simply because they +could not keep away from the place, or keep their hands off the trees and +bushes. Sometimes in the long, tender afternoons, we see far up on some +pasture slope, groups of girls scattered about on the grass, with their +sewing, or listening to some one reading. Other times they are giving a +little play, usually a comedy, for life is so happy here that tragedy +would not be true to it, with the characters coming and going in a grove +of small pines, for the _coulisses_, and using a level of grass for the +stage. If we stop, one of the audience comes down to us and invites us to +come up and see the play, which keeps on in spite of the sensation that I +can feel I make among them. + +Everywhere the news of us has gone before us, and there is a universal +curiosity to get a look at Aristides' capitalistic wife, as they call me. +I made him translate it, and he explained that the word was merely +descriptive and not characteristic; some people distinguished and called +me American. There was one place where they were having a picnic in the +woods up a hillside, and they asked us to join them, so we turned our +van into the roadside and followed the procession. It was headed by two +old men playing on pipes, and after these came children singing, and then +all sorts of people, young and old. When we got to an open place in the +woods, where there was a spring, and smooth grass, they built fires, and +began to get ready for the feast, while some of them did things to amuse +the rest. Every one could do something; if you can imagine a party of +artists, it was something like that. I should say the Altrurians had +artists' manners, free, friendly, and easy, with a dash of humor in +everything, and a wonderful willingness to laugh and make laugh. +Aristides is always explaining that the artist is their ideal type; that +is, some one who works gladly, and plays as gladly as he works; no one +here is asked to do work that he hates, unless he seems to hate every +kind of work. When this happens, the authorities find out something for +him that he had _better_ like, by letting him starve till he works. That +picnic lasted the whole afternoon and well into the night, and then the +picnickers went home through the starlight, leading the little ones, or +carrying them when they were too little or too tired. But first they came +down to our van with us, and sang us a serenade after we had disappeared +into it, and then left us, and sent their voices back to us out of the +dark. + +One morning at dawn, as we came into a village, we saw nearly the whole +population mounting the marble steps of the temple, all the holiday dress +of the Voluntaries, which they put on here every afternoon when the work +is done. Last of the throng came a procession of children, looking +something like a May-Day party, and midway of their line were a young man +and a young girl, hand in hand, who parted at the door of the temple, and +entered separately. Aristides called out, “Oh, it is a wedding! You are +in luck, Eveleth,” and then and there I saw my first Altrurian wedding. + +Within, the pillars and the altar and the seats of the elders were +garlanded with flowers, so fresh and fragrant that they seemed to have +blossomed from the marble overnight, and there was a soft murmur of +Altrurian voices that might very well have seemed the hum of bees among +the blossoms. This subsided, as the young couple, who had paused just +inside the temple door, came up the middle side by side, and again +separated and took their places, the youth on the extreme right of the +elder, and the maiden on the extreme left of the eldresses, and stood +facing the congregation, which was also on foot, and joined in the hymn +which everybody sang. Then one of the eldresses rose and began a sort of +statement which Aristides translated to me afterwards. She said that the +young couple whom we saw there had for the third time asked to become man +and wife, after having believed for a year that they loved each other, +and having statedly come before the marriage authorities and been +questioned as to the continuance of their affection. She said that +probably every one present knew that they had been friends from +childhood, and none would be surprised that they now wished to be united +for life. They had been carefully instructed as to the serious nature of +the marriage bond, and admonished as to the duties they were entering +into, not only to each other, but to the community. At each successive +visit to the authorities they had been warned, separately and together, +against the danger of trusting to anything like a romantic impulse, and +they had faithfully endeavored to act upon this advice, as they +testified. In order to prove the reality of their affection, they had +been parted every third month, and had lived during that time in +different Regions where it was meant they should meet many other young +people, so that if they felt any swerving of the heart they might not +persist in an intention which could only bring them final unhappiness. It +seems this is the rule in the case of young lovers, and people usually +marry very young here, but if they wish to marry later in life the rule +is not enforced so stringently, or not at all. The bride and groom we saw +had both stood these trials, and at each return they had been more and +more sure that they loved each other, and loved no one else. Now they +were here to unite their hands, and to declare the union of their hearts +before the people. + +Then the eldress sat down and an elder arose, who bade the young people +come forward to the centre of the line, where the elders and eldresses +were sitting. He took his place behind them, and once more and for the +last time he conjured them not to persist if they felt any doubt of +themselves. He warned them that if they entered into the married state, +and afterwards repented to the point of seeking divorce, the divorce +would indeed be granted them, but on terms, as they must realize, of +lasting grief to themselves through the offence they would commit against +the commonwealth. They answered that they were sure of themselves, and +ready to exchange their troth for life and death. Then they joined hands, +and declared that they took each other for husband and wife. The +congregation broke into another hymn and slowly dispersed, leaving the +bride and groom with their families, who came up to them and embraced +them, pressing their cheeks against the cheeks of the young pair. + +This ended the solemnity, and then the festivity began, as it ended, with +a wedding feast, where people sang and danced and made speeches and drank +toasts, and the fun was kept up till the hours of the Obligatories +approached; and then, what do you think? The married pair put off their +wedding garments with the rest and went to work in the fields! Later, +I understood, if they wished to take a wedding journey they could freely +do so; but the first thing in their married life they must honor the +Altrurian ideal of work, by which every one must live in order that +every other may live without overwork. I believe that the marriage +ceremonial is something like that of the Quakers, but I never saw a +Quaker wedding, and I could only compare this with the crazy romps with +which our house-weddings often end, with throwing of rice and old shoes, +and tying ribbons to the bridal carriage and baggage, and following the +pair to the train with outbreaks of tiresome hilarity, which make them +conspicuous before their fellow-travellers; or with some of our ghastly +church weddings, in which the religious ceremonial is lost in the social +effect, and ends with that everlasting thumping march from “Lohengrin,” + and the outsiders storming about the bridal pair and the guests with the +rude curiosity that the fattest policemen at the canopied and carpeted +entrance cannot check. + + + + +VIII + + +We have since been at other weddings and at christenings and at funerals. +The ceremonies are always held in the temples, and are always in the same +serious spirit. As the Altrurians are steadfast believers in immortality, +there is a kind of solemn elevation in the funeral ceremonies which I +cannot give you a real notion of. It is helped, I think, by the custom of +not performing the ceremony over the dead; a brief rite is reserved for +the cemetery, where it is wished that the kindred shall not be present, +lest they think always of the material body and not of the spiritual body +which shall be raised in incorruption. Religious service is held in the +temples every day at the end of the Obligatories, and whenever we are +near a village or in any of the capitals we always go. It is very simple. +After a hymn, to which the people sometimes march round the interior of +the temple, each lays on the altar an offering from the fields or woods +where they have been working, if it is nothing but a head of grain or a +wild flower or a leaf. Then any one is at liberty to speak, but any one +else may go out without offence. There is no ritual; sometimes they read +a chapter from the New Testament, preferably a part of the story of +Christ or a passage from His discourses. The idea of coming to the temple +at the end of the day's labor is to consecrate that day's work, and they +do not call anything work that is not work with the hands. When I +explained, or tried to explain, that among us a great many people worked +with their brains, to amuse others or to get handwork out of them, they +were unable to follow me. I asked if they did not consider composing +music or poetry or plays, or painting pictures work, and they said, No, +that was pleasure, and must be indulged only during the Voluntaries; it +was never to be honored like work with the hands, for it would not +equalize the burden of that, but might put an undue share of it on +others. They said that lives devoted to such pursuits must be very +unwholesome, and they brought me to book about the lives of most artists, +literary men, and financiers in the capitalistic world to prove what they +said. They held that people must work with their hands willingly, in the +artistic spirit, but they could only do that when they knew that others +differently gifted were working in like manner with their hands. + +I couldn't begin to tell you all our queer experiences. As I have kept +saying, I am a great curiosity everywhere, and I could flatter myself +that people were more eager to see me than to hear Aristides. Sometimes I +couldn't help thinking that they expected to find me an awful warning, a +dreadful example of whatever a woman ought not to be, and a woman from +capitalistic conditions must be logically. But sometimes they were very +intelligent, even the simplest villagers, as we should call them, though +there is such an equality of education and opportunity here that no +simplicity of life has the effect of dulling people as it has with us. +One thing was quite American: they always wanted to know how I liked +Altruria, and when I told them, as I sincerely could, that I adored it, +they were quite affecting in their pleasure. They generally asked if I +would like to go back to America, and when I said No, they were delighted +beyond anything. They said I must become a citizen and vote and take part +in the government, for that was every woman's duty as well as right; it +was wrong to leave the whole responsibility to the men. They asked if +American women took no interest in the government, and when I told them +there was a very small number who wished to influence politics socially, +as the Englishwomen did, but without voting or taking any responsibility, +they were shocked. In one of the Regionic capitals they wanted me to +speak after Aristides, but I had nothing prepared; at the next I did get +off a little speech in English, which he translated after me. Later he +put it into Altrurian, and I memorized it, and made myself immensely +popular by parroting it. + +The pronunciation of Altrurian is not difficult, for it is spelled +phonetically, and the sounds are very simple. Where they were once +difficult they have been simplified, for here the simplification of life +extends to everything; and the grammar has been reduced in its structure +till it is as elemental as English grammar or Norwegian. The language is +Greek in origin, but the intricate inflections and the declensions have +been thrown away, and it has kept only the simplest forms. You must get +Mr. Twelvemough to explain this to you, Dolly, for it would take me too +long, and I have so much else to tell you. A good many of the women have +taken up English, but they learn it as a dead language, and they give it +a comical effect by trying to pronounce it as it is spelled. + +I suppose you are anxious, if these letters which are piling up and +piling up should ever reach you, or even start to do so, to know +something about the Altrurian cities, and what they are like. Well, in +the first place, you must cast all images of American cities out of your +mind, or any European cities, except, perhaps, the prettiest and +stateliest parts of Paris, where there is a regular sky-line, and the +public buildings and monuments are approached through shaded avenues. +There are no private houses here, in our sense--that is, houses which +people have built with their own money on their own land, and made as +ugly outside and as molestive to their neighbors and the passers-by as +they chose. As the buildings belong to the whole people, the first +requirement is that they shall be beautiful inside and out. There are a +few grand edifices looking like Greek temples, which are used for the +government offices, and these are, of course, the most dignified, but the +dwellings are quite as attractive and comfortable. They are built round +courts, with gardens and flowers in the courts, and wide grassy spaces +round them. They are rather tall, but never so tall as our great hotels +or apartment-houses, and the floors are brought to one level by +elevators, which are used only in the capitals; and, generally speaking, +I should say the villages were pleasanter than the cities. In fact, the +village is the Altrurian ideal, and there is an effort everywhere to +reduce the size of the towns and increase the number of the villages. +The outlying farms have been gathered into these, and now there is not +one of those lonely places in the country, like those where our farmers +toil alone outdoors and their wives alone indoors, and both go mad +so often in the solitude. The villages are almost in sight of each other, +and the people go to their fields in company, while the women carry on +their house-keeping co-operatively, with a large kitchen which they +use in common; they have their meals apart or together, as they like. If +any one is sick or disabled the neighbors come in and help do her work, +as they used with us in the early times, and as they still do in country +places. Village life here is preferred, just as country life is in +England, and one thing that will amuse you, with your American ideas, and +your pride in the overgrowth of our cities: the Altrurian papers solemnly +announce from time to time that the population of such or such a capital +has been reduced so many hundreds or thousands since the last census. +That means that the villages in the neighborhood have been increased in +number and population. + +Meanwhile, I must say the capitals are delightful: clean, airy, quiet, +with the most beautiful architecture, mostly classic and mostly marble, +with rivers running through them and round them, and every real +convenience, but not a clutter of artificial conveniences, as with us. In +the streets there are noiseless trolleys (where they have not been +replaced by public automobiles) which the long distances of the ample +ground-plan make rather necessary, and the rivers are shot over with +swift motor-boats; for the short distances you always expect to walk, or +if you don't expect it, you walk anyway. The car-lines and boat-lines are +public, and they are free, for the Altrurians think that the community +owes transportation to every one who lives beyond easy reach of the +points which their work calls them to. + +Of course the great government stores are in the capitals, and +practically there are no stores in the villages, except for what you +might call emergency supplies. But you must not imagine, Dolly, that +shopping, here, is like shopping at home--or in America, as I am learning +to say, for Altruria is home now. That is, you don't fill your purse with +bank-notes, or have things charged. You get everything you want, within +reason, and certainly everything you need, for nothing. You have only to +provide yourself with a card, something like that you have to show at the +Army and Navy Stores in London, when you first go to buy there, which +certifies that you belong to this or that working-phalanx, and that you +have not failed in the Obligatories for such and such a length of time. +If you are not entitled to this card, you had better not go shopping, for +there is no possible equivalent for it which will enable you to carry +anything away or have it sent to your house. At first I could not help +feeling rather indignant when I was asked to show my work-card in the +stores; I had usually forgotten to bring it, or sometimes I had brought +my husband's card, which would not do at all, unless I could say that I +had been ill or disabled, for a woman is expected to work quite the same +as a man. Of course her housework counts, and as we are on a sort of +public mission, they count our hours of travel as working-hours, +especially as Aristides has made it a point of good citizenship for us to +stop every now and then and join in the Obligatories when the villagers +were getting in the farm crops or quarrying stone or putting up a house. +I am never much use in quarrying or building, but I come in strong in the +hay-fields or the apple orchards or the orange groves. + +The shopping here is not so enslaving as it is with us--I mean, with +you--because the fashions do not change, and you get things only when you +need them, not when you want them, or when other people think you do. The +costume was fixed long ago, when the Altrurian era began, by a commission +of artists, and it would be considered very bad form as well as bad +morals to try changing it in the least. People are allowed to choose +their own colors, but if one goes very wrong, or so far wrong as to +offend the public taste, she is gently admonished by the local art +commission. If she insists, they let her have her own way, but she seldom +wants it when she knows that people think her a fright. Of course the +costume is modified somewhat for the age and shape of the wearer, but +this is not so often as you might think. There are no very lean or very +stout people, though there are old and young, just as there are with us. +But the Altrurians keep young very much longer than capitalistic peoples +do, and the life of work keeps down their weight. You know I used to +incline a little to over-plumpness, I really believe because I overate at +times simply to keep from thinking of the poor who had to undereat, but +that is quite past now; I have lost at least twenty-five pounds from +working out-doors and travelling so much and living very, very simply. + + + + +IX + + +I have to jot things down as they come into my mind, and I am afraid I +forget some of the most important. Everybody is so novel on this famous +tour of ours that I am continually interested, but one has one's +preferences even in Altruria, and I believe I like best the wives of the +artists and literary men whom one finds working in the galleries and +libraries of the capitals everywhere. They are not more intelligent than +other women, perhaps, but they are more sympathetic; and one sees so +little of those people in New York, for all they abound there. + +The galleries are not only for the exhibition of pictures, but each has +numbers of ateliers, where the artists work and teach. The libraries are +the most wonderfully imagined things. You do not have to come and study +in them, but if you are working up any particular subject, the books +relating to it are sent to your dwelling every morning and brought away +every noon, so that during the obligatory hours you have them completely +at your disposition, and during the Voluntaries you can consult them with +the rest of the public in the library; it is not thought best that study +should be carried on throughout the day, and the results seem to justify +this theory. If you want to read a book merely for pleasure, you are +allowed to take it out and live with it as long as you like; the copy you +have is immediately replaced with another, so that you do not feel +hurried and are not obliged to ramp through it in a week or a fortnight. + +The Altrurian books are still rather sealed books to me, but they are +delightful to the eye, all in large print on wide margins, with flexible +bindings, and such light paper that you can hold them in one hand +indefinitely without tiring. I must send you some with this, if I ever +get my bundle of letters off to you. You will see by the dates that I am +writing you one every day; I had thought of keeping a journal for you, +but then I should have had left out a good many things that happened +during our first days, when the impressions were so vivid, and I should +have got to addressing my records to myself, and I think I had better +keep to the form of letters. If they reach you, and you read them at +random, why that is very much the way I write them. + +I despair of giving you any real notion of the capitals, but if you +remember the White City at the Columbian Fair at Chicago in 1893, you can +have some idea of the general effect of one; only there is nothing +heterogeneous in their beauty. There is one classic rule in the +architecture, but each of the different architects may characterize an +edifice from himself, just as different authors writing the same language +characterize it by the diction natural to him. There are suggestions of +the capitals in some of our cities, and if you remember Commonwealth +Avenue in Boston, you can imagine something like the union of street and +garden which every street of them is. The trolleys run under the +overarching trees between the lawns, flanked by gravelled footpaths +between flower-beds, and you take the cars or not as you like. As there +is no hurry, they go about as fast as English trams, and the clanger from +them is practically reduced to nothing by the crossings dipping under +them at the street corners. The centre of the capital is approached by +colonnades, which at night bear groups of great bulbous lamps, and by day +flutter with the Altrurian and Regionic flags. Around this centre are the +stores and restaurants and theatres, and galleries and libraries, with +arcades over the sidewalks, like those in Bologna; sometimes the arcades +are in two stories, as they are in Chester. People are constantly coming +and going in an easy way during the afternoon, though in the morning the +streets are rather deserted. + +But what is the use? I could go on describing and describing, and never +get in half the differences from American cities, with their hideous +uproar, and their mud in the wet, and their clouds of swirling dust in +the wind. But there is one feature which I must mention, because you can +fancy it from the fond dream of a great national highway which some of +our architects projected while they were still in the fervor of +excitement from the beauty of the Peristyle, and other features of the +White City. They really have such a highway here, crossing the whole +Altrurian continent, and uniting the circle of the Regionic capitals. As +we travelled for a long time by the country roads on the beds of the old +railways, I had no idea of this magnificent avenue, till one day my +husband suddenly ran our van into the one leading up to the first capital +we were to visit. Then I found myself between miles and miles of stately +white pillars, rising and sinking as the road found its natural levels, +and growing in the perspective before us and dwindling behind us. I could +not keep out of my mind a colonnade of palm-trees, only the fronds were +lacking, and there were never palms so beautiful. Each pillar was +inscribed with the name of some Altrurian who had done something for his +country, written some beautiful poem or story, or history, made some +scientific discovery, composed an opera, invented a universal +convenience, performed a wonderful cure, or been a delightful singer, or +orator, or gardener, or farmer. Not one soldier, general or admiral, +among them! That seemed very strange to me, and I asked Aristides how +it was. Like everything else in Altruria, it was very simple; there had +been no war for so long that there were no famous soldiers to +commemorate. But he stopped our van when he came to the first of the many +arches which spanned the highway, and read out to me in English the +Altrurian record that it was erected in honor of the first President of +the Altrurian Commonwealth, who managed the negotiations when the +capitalistic oligarchies to the north and south were peacefully annexed, +and the descendants of the three nations joined in the commemoration of +an event that abolished war forever on the Altrurian continent. + +Here I can imagine Mr. Makely asking who footed the bills for this beauty +and magnificence, and whether these works were constructed at the cost of +the nation, or the different Regions, or the abuttors on the different +highways. But the fact is, you poor, capitalistic dears, they cost nobody +a dollar, for there is not a dollar in Altruria. You must worry into the +idea somehow that in Altruria you cannot buy anything except by working, +and that work is the current coin of the republic: you pay for everything +by drops of sweat, and off your own brow, not somebody else's brow. The +people built these monuments and colonnades, and aqueducts and highways +and byways, and sweet villages and palatial cities with their own hands, +after the designs of artists, who also took part in the labor. But it was +a labor that they delighted in so much that they chose to perform it +during the Voluntaries, when they might have been resting, and not during +the Obligatories, when they were required to work. So it was all joy and +all glory. They say there never was such happiness in any country since +the world began. While the work went on it was like a perpetual Fourth of +July or an everlasting picnic. + +But I know you hate this sort of economical stuff, Dolly, and I will make +haste to get down to business, as Mr. Makely would say, for I am really +coming to something that you will think worth while. One morning, when we +had made half the circle of the capitals, and were on the homestretch to +the one where we had left our dear mother--for Aristides claims her, +too--and I was letting that dull nether anxiety for her come to the top, +though we had had the fullest telephonic talks with her every day, and +knew she was well and happy, we came round the shoulder of a wooded cliff +and found ourselves on an open stretch of the northern coast. At first I +could only exclaim at the beauty of the sea, lying blue and still beyond +a long beach closed by another headland, and I did not realize that a +large yacht which I saw close to land had gone ashore. The beach was +crowded with Altrurians, who seemed to have come to the rescue, for they +were putting off to the yacht in boats and returning with passengers, and +jumping out, and pulling their boats with them up on to the sand. + +I was quite bewildered, and I don't know what to say I was the next +thing, when I saw that the stranded yacht was flying the American flag +from her peak. I supposed she must be one of our cruisers, she was so +large, and the first thing that flashed into my mind was a kind of amused +wonder what those poor Altrurians would do with a ship-of-war and her +marines and crew. I couldn't ask any coherent questions, and luckily +Aristides was answering my incoherent ones in the best possible way by +wheeling our van down on the beach and making for the point nearest the +yacht. He had time to say he did not believe she was a government vessel, +and, in fact, I remembered that once I had seen a boat in the North River +getting up steam to go to Europe which was much larger, and had her decks +covered with sailors that I took for bluejackets; but she was only the +private yacht of some people I knew. These stupid things kept going and +coming in my mind while my husband was talking with some of the +Altrurian girls who were there helping with the men. They said that the +yacht had gone ashore the night before last in one of the sudden fogs +that come up on that coast, and that some people whom the sailors seemed +to obey were camping on the edge of the upland above the beach, under a +large tent they had brought from the yacht. They had refused to go to the +guest-house in the nearest village, and as nearly as the girls could make +out they expected the yacht to get afloat from tide to tide, and then +intended to re-embark on her. In the mean time they had provisioned +themselves from the ship, and were living in a strange way of their own. +Some of them seemed to serve the others, but these appeared to be used +with a very ungrateful indifference, as if they were of a different race. +There was one who wore a white apron and white cap who directed the +cooking for the rest, and had several assistants; and from time to time +very disagreeable odors came from the camp, like burning flesh. The +Altrurians had carried them fruits and vegetables, but the men-assistants +had refused them contemptuously and seemed suspicious of the variety of +mushrooms they offered them. They called out, “To-stoo!” and I understood +that the strangers were afraid they were bringing toad-stools. One of the +Altrurian girls had been studying English in the nearest capital, and she +had tried to talk with these people, pronouncing it in the Altrurian way, +but they could make nothing of one another; then she wrote down what she +wanted to say, but as she spelled it phonetically they were not able to +read her English. She asked us if I was the American Altrurian she had +heard of, and when I said yes she lost no time in showing us to the camp +of the castaways. + +As soon as we saw their tents we went forward till we were met at +the largest by a sort of marine footman, who bowed slightly and said +to me, “What name shall I say, ma'am?” and I answered distinctly, so +that he might get the name right, “Mr. and Mrs. Homos.” Then he held +back the flap of the marquee, which seemed to serve these people as a +drawing-room, and called out, standing very rigidly upright, to let us +pass, in the way that I remembered so well, “Mr. And Mrs. 'Omos!” and a +severe-looking, rather elderly lady rose to meet us with an air that was +both anxious and forbidding, and before she said anything else she burst +out, “You don't mean to say you speak English?” + +I said that I spoke English, and had not spoken anything else but rather +poor French until six months before, and then she demanded, “Have you +been cast away on this outlandish place, too?” + +I laughed and said I lived here, and I introduced my husband as well as I +could without knowing her name. He explained with his pretty Altrurian +accent, which you used to like so much, that we had ventured to come in +the hope of being of use to them, and added some regrets for their +misfortune so sweetly that I wondered she could help responding in kind. +But she merely said, “Oh!” and then she seemed to recollect herself, and +frowning to a very gentle-looking old man to come forward, she ignored my +husband in presenting me. “Mr. Thrall, Mrs. ----” + +She hesitated for my name, and I supplied it, “Homos,” and as the old man +had put out his hand in a kindly way I took it. + +“And this is my husband, Aristides Homos, an Altrurian,” I said, and +then, as the lady had not asked us to sit down, or shown the least sign +of liking our being there, the natural woman flamed up in me as she +hadn't in all the time I have been away from New York. “I am glad you are +so comfortable here, Mr. Thrall. You won't need us, I see. The people +about will do anything in their power for you. Come, my dear,” and I was +sweeping out of that tent in a manner calculated to give the eminent +millionaire's wife a notion of Altrurian hauteur which I must own would +have been altogether mistaken. + +I knew who they were perfectly. Even if I had not once met them I should +have known that they were the ultra-rich Thralls, from the multitudinous +pictures of them that I had seen in the papers at home, not long after +they came on to New York. + +He was beginning, “Oh no, oh no,” but I cut in. “My husband and I are on +our way to the next Regionic capital, and we are somewhat hurried. You +will be quite well looked after by the neighbors here, and I see that we +are rather in your housekeeper's way.” + +It _was_ nasty, Dolly, and I won't deny it; it was _vulgar_. But what +would _you_ have done? I could feel Aristides' mild eye sadly on me, and +I was sorry for him, but I assure him I was not sorry for them, till that +old man spoke again, so timidly: “It isn't my--it's my wife, Mrs. Homos. +Let me introduce her. But haven't we met before?” + +“Perhaps during my first husband's lifetime. I was Mrs. Bellington +Strange.” + +“Mrs. P. Bellington Strange? Your husband was a dear friend of mine when +we were both young--a good man, if ever there was one; the best in the +world! I am so glad to see you again. Ah--my dear, you remember my +speaking of Mrs. Strange?” + +He took my hand again and held it in his soft old hands, as if hesitating +whether to transfer it to her, and my heart melted towards him. You may +think it very odd, Dolly, but it was what he said of my dear, dead +husband that softened me. It made him seem very fatherly, and I felt the +affection for him that I felt for my husband, when he seemed more like a +father. Aristides and I often talk of it, and he has no wish that I +should forget him. + +Mrs. Thrall made no motion to take my hand from him, but she said, “I +think I have met Mr. Strange,” and now I saw in the background, sitting +on a camp-stool near a long, lank young man stretched in a hammock, a +very handsome girl, who hastily ran through a book, and then dropped it +at the third mention of my name. I suspected that the book was the Social +Register, and that the girl's search for me had been satisfactory, for +she rose and came vaguely towards us, while the young man unfolded +himself from the hammock, and stood hesitating, but looking as if he +rather liked what had happened. + +Mr. Thrall bustled about for camp-stools, and said, “Do stop and have +some breakfast with us, it's just coming in. May I introduce my daughter, +Lady Moors and--and Lord Moors?” The girl took my hand, and the young man +bowed from his place; but if that poor old man had known, peace was not +to be made so easily between two such bad-tempered women as Mrs. Thrall +and myself. We expressed some very stiff sentiments in regard to the +weather, and the prospect of the yacht getting off with the next tide, +and my husband joined in with that manly gentleness of his, but we did +not sit down, much less offer to stay to breakfast. We had got to the +door of the tent, the family following us, even to the noble son-in-law, +and as she now realized that we are actually going, Mrs. Thrall gasped +out, “But you are not _leaving_ us? What shall we _do_ with all these +natives?” + +This was again too much, and I flamed out at her. “_Natives_! They are +cultivated and refined people, for they are Altrurians, and I assure you +you will be in much better hands than mine with them, for I am only +Altrurian by marriage!” + +She was one of those leathery egotists that nothing will make a dint in, +and she came back with, “But we don't speak the language, and they don't +speak English, and how are we to manage if the yacht doesn't get afloat?” + +“Oh, no doubt you will be looked after from the capital we have just +left. But I will venture to make a little suggestion with regard to the +natives in the mean time. They are not proud, but they are very +sensitive, and if you fail in any point of consideration, they will +understand that you do not want their hospitality.” + +“I imagine our own people will be able to look after us,” she answered +quite as nastily. “We do not propose to be dependent on them. We can pay +our way here as we do elsewhere.” + +“The experiment will be worth trying,” I said. “Come, Aristides!” and I +took the poor fellow away with me to our van. Mr. Thrall made some +hopeless little movements towards us, but I would not stop or even look +back. When we got into the van, I made Aristides put on the full power, +and fell back into my seat and cried a while, and then I scolded him +because he would not scold me, and went on in a really scandalous way. It +must have been a revelation to him, but he only smoothed me on the +shoulder and said, “Poor Eveleth, poor Eveleth,” till I thought I should +scream; but it ended in my falling on his neck, and saying I knew I was +horrid, and what did he want me to do? + +After I calmed down into something like rationality, he said he thought +we had perhaps done the best thing we could for those people in leaving +them to themselves, for they could come to no possible harm among the +neighbors. He did not believe from what he had seen of the yacht from the +shore, and from what the Altrurians had told him, that there was one +chance in a thousand of her ever getting afloat. But those people would +have to convince themselves of the fact, and of several other facts in +their situation. I asked him what he meant, and he said he could tell me, +but that as yet it was a public affair, and he would rather not +anticipate the private interest I would feel in it. I did not insist; in +fact, I wanted to get that odious woman out of my mind as soon as I +could, for the thought of her threatened to poison the pleasure of the +rest of our tour. + +I believe my husband hurried it a little, though he did not shorten it, +and we got back to the Maritime Region almost a week sooner than we had +first intended. I found my dear mother well, and still serenely happy in +her Altrurian surroundings. She had begun to learn the language, and she +had a larger acquaintance in the capital, I believe, than any other one +person. She said everybody had called on her, and they were the kindest +people she had ever dreamed of. She had exchanged cooking-lessons with +one lady who, they told her, was a distinguished scientist, and she had +taught another, who was a great painter, a peculiar embroidery stitch +which she had learned from my grandmother, and which everybody admired. +These two ladies had given her most of her grammatical instruction in +Altrurian, but there was a bright little girl who had enlarged her +vocabulary more than either, in helping her about her housework, the +mother having lent her for the purpose. My mother said she was not +ashamed to make blunders before a child, and the little witch had taken +the greatest delight in telling her the names of things in the house and +the streets and the fields outside the town, where they went long walks +together. + + + + +X + + +Well, my dear Dorothea, I had been hoping to go more into detail about my +mother and about our life in the Maritime Capital, which is to be our +home for a year, but I had hardly got down the last words when Aristides +came in with a despatch from the Seventh Regionic, summoning us there on +important public business: I haven't got over the feeling yet of being +especially distinguished and flattered at sharing in public business; but +the Altrurian women are so used to it that they do not think anything of +it. The despatch was signed by an old friend of my husband's, Cyril +Chrysostom, who had once been Emissary in England, and to whom my husband +wrote his letters when he was in America. I hated to leave my mother so +soon, but it could not be helped, and we took the first electric express +for the Seventh Regionic, where we arrived in about an hour and forty +minutes, making the three hundred miles in that time easily. I couldn't +help regretting our comfortable van, but there was evidently haste in the +summons, and I confess that I was curious to know what the matter was, +though I had made a shrewd guess the first instant, and it turned out +that I was not mistaken. + +The long and the short of it was that there was trouble with the people +who had come ashore in that yacht, and were destined never to go to sea +in her. She was hopelessly bedded in the sand, and the waves that were +breaking over her were burying her deeper and deeper. The owners were +living in their tent as we had left them, and her crew were camped in +smaller tents and any shelter they could get, along the beach. They had +brought her stores away, but many of the provisions had been damaged, and +it had become a pressing question what should be done about the people. +We had been asked to consult with Cyril and his wife, and the other +Regionic chiefs and their wives, and we threshed the question out nearly +the whole night. + +I am afraid it will appear rather comical in some aspects to you and Mr. +Makely, but I can assure you that it was a very serious matter with the +Altrurian authorities. If there had been any hope of a vessel from the +capitalistic world touching at Altruria within a definite time, they +could have managed, for they would have gladly kept the yacht's people +and owners till they could embark them for Australia or New Zealand, and +would have made as little of the trouble they were giving as they could. +But until the trader that brought us should return with the crew, as the +captain had promised, there was no ship expected, and any other wreck in +the mean time would only add to their difficulty. You may be surprised, +though I was not, that the difficulty was mostly with the yacht-owners, +and above all with Mrs. Thrall, who had baffled every effort of the +authorities to reduce what they considered the disorder of their life. + +With the crew it was a different matter. As soon as they had got drunk on +the wines and spirits they had brought from the wreck, and then had got +sober because they had drunk all the liquors up, they began to be more +manageable; when their provisions ran short, and they were made to +understand that they would not be allowed to plunder the fields and +woods, or loot the villages for something to eat, they became almost +exemplarily docile. At first they were disposed to show fight, and +the principles of the Altrurians did not allow them to use violence in +bringing them to subjection; but the men had counted without their hosts +in supposing that they could therefore do as they pleased, unless they +pleased to do right. After they had made their first foray they were +warned by Cyril, who came from the capital to speak English with them, +that another raid would not be suffered. They therefore attempted it +by night, but the Altrurians were prepared for them with the flexible +steel nets which are their only means of defence, and half a dozen +sailors were taken in one. When they attempted to break out, and their +shipmates attempted to break in to free them, a light current of +electricity was sent through the wires and the thing was done. Those +who were rescued--the Altrurians will not say captured--had hoes put into +their hands the next morning, and were led into the fields and set to +work, after a generous breakfast of coffee, bread, and mushrooms. The +chickens they had killed in their midnight expedition were buried, and +those which they had not killed lost no time in beginning to lay eggs for +the sustenance of the reformed castaways. As an extra precaution with the +“rescued,” when they were put to work, each of them with a kind of shirt +of mail, worn over his coat, which could easily be electrized by a +metallic filament connecting with the communal dynamo, and under these +conditions they each did a full day's work during the Obligatories. + +As the short commons grew shorter and shorter, both meat and drink, at +Camp Famine, and the campers found it was useless to attempt thieving +from the Altrurians, they had tried begging from the owners in their +large tent, but they were told that the provisions were giving out there, +too, and there was nothing for them. When they insisted the servants of +the owners had threatened them with revolvers, and the sailors, who had +nothing but their knives, preferred to attempt living on the country. +Within a week the whole crew had been put to work in the woods and fields +and quarries, or wherever they could make themselves useful. They were, +on the whole, so well fed and sheltered that they were perfectly +satisfied, and went down with the Altrurians on the beach during the +Voluntaries and helped secure the yacht's boats and pieces of wreckage +that came ashore. Until they became accustomed or resigned to the +Altrurian diet, they were allowed to catch shell-fish and the crabs that +swarmed along the sand and cook them, but on condition that they built +their fires on the beach, and cooked only during an offshore wind, so +that the fumes of the roasting should not offend the villagers. + +Cyril acknowledged, therefore, that the question of the crew was for the +present practically settled, but Mr. and Mrs. Thrall, and their daughter +and son-in-law, with their servants, still presented a formidable +problem. As yet, their provisions had not run out, and they were living +in their marquee as we had seen them three weeks earlier, just after +their yacht went ashore. It could not be said that they were molestive in +the same sense as the sailors, but they were even more demoralizing in +the spectacle they offered the neighborhood of people dependent on hired +service, and in their endeavors to supply themselves in perishable +provisions, like milk and eggs, by means of money. Cyril had held several +interviews with them, in which he had at first delicately intimated, and +then explicitly declared, that the situation could not be prolonged. +The two men had been able to get the Altrurian point of view in some +measure, and so had Lady Moors, but Mrs. Thrall had remained stiffly +obtuse and obstinate, and it was in despair of bringing her to terms +without resorting to rescue that he had summoned us to help him. + +It was not a pleasant job, but of course we could not refuse, and we +agreed that as soon as we had caught a nap, and had a bite of breakfast +we would go over to their camp with Cyril and his wife, and see what we +could do with the obnoxious woman. I confess that I had some little +consolation in the hope that I should see her properly humbled. + + + + +XI + + +Mr. Thrall and Lord Moors must have seen us coming, for they met us at +the door of the tent without the intervention of the footman, and gave us +quite as much welcome as we could expect in our mission, so disagreeable +all round. Mr. Thrall was as fatherly with me as before, and Lord Moors +was as polite to Cyril and Mrs. Chrysostom as could have been wished. In +fact he and Cyril were a sort of acquaintances from the time of Cyril's +visit to England where he met the late Earl Moors, the father of the +present peer, in some of his visits to Toynbee Hall, and the Whitechapel +Settlements. The earl was very much interested in the slums, perhaps +because he was rather poor himself, if not quite slummy. The son was then +at the university, and when he came out and into his title he so far +shared his father's tastes that he came to America; it was not slumming, +exactly, but a nobleman no doubt feels it to be something like it. After +a little while in New York he went out to Colorado, where so many needy +noblemen bring up, and there he met the Thralls, and fell in love with +the girl. Cyril had understood--or rather Mrs. Cyril,--that it was a +love-match on both sides, but on Mrs. Thrall's side it was business. He +did not even speak of settlements--the English are so romantic when they +_are_ romantic!--but Mr. Thrall saw to all that, and the young people +were married after a very short courtship. They spent their honeymoon +partly in Colorado Springs and partly in San Francisco, where the +Thralls' yacht was lying, and then they set out on a voyage round the +world, making stops at the interesting places, and bringing up on the +beach of the Seventh Region of Altruria, on route for the eastern coast +of South America. From that time on, Cyril said, we knew their history. + +After Mr. Thrall had shaken hands tenderly with me, and cordially with +Aristides, he said, “Won't you all come inside and have breakfast with +us? My wife and daughter”-- + +“Thank you, Mr. Thrall,” Cyril answered for us, “we will sit down here, +if you please; and as your ladies are not used to business, we will not +ask you to disturb them.” + +“I'm sure Lady Moors,” the young nobleman began, but Cyril waved him +silent. + +“We shall be glad later, but not now! Gentlemen, I have asked my friends +Aristides Homos and Eveleth Homos to accompany my wife and me this +morning because Eveleth is an American, and will understand your +position, and he has lately been in America and will be able to clarify +the situation from both sides. We wish you to believe that we are +approaching you in the friendliest spirit, and that nothing could be more +painful to us than to seem inhospitable.” + +“Then why,” the old man asked, with business-like promptness, “do you +object to our presence here? I don't believe I get your idea.” + +“Because the spectacle which your life offers is contrary to good morals, +and as faithful citizens we cannot countenance it.” + +“But in what way is our life immoral? I have always thought that I was a +good citizen at home; at least I can't remember having been arrested for +disorderly conduct.” + +He smiled at me, as if I should appreciate the joke, and it hurt me to +keep grave, but suspecting what a bad time he was going to have, I +thought I had better not join him in any levity. + +“I quite conceive you,” Cyril replied. “But you present to our people, +who are offended by it, the spectacle of dependence upon hireling service +for your daily comfort and convenience.” + +“But, my dear sir,” Mr. Thrall returned, “don't we _pay_ for it? Do our +servants object to rendering us this service?” + +“That has nothing to do with the case; or, rather, it makes it worse. The +fact that your servants do not object shows how completely they are +depraved by usage. We should not object if they served you from +affection, and if you repaid them in kindness; but the fact that you +think you have made them a due return by giving them money shows how far +from the right ideal in such a matter the whole capitalistic world is.” + +Here, to my great delight, Aristides spoke up: + +“If the American practice were half as depraving as it ought logically to +be in their conditions, their social system would drop to pieces. It was +always astonishing to me that a people with their facilities for evil, +their difficulties for good, should remain so kind and just and pure.” + +“That is what I understood from your letters to me, my dear Aristides. I +am willing to leave the general argument for the present. But I should +like to ask Mr. Thrall a question, and I hope it won't be offensive.” + +Mr. Thrall smiled. “At any rate I promise not to be offended.” + +“You are a very rich man?” + +“Much richer than I would like to be.” + +“How rich?” + +“Seventy millions; eighty; a hundred; three hundred; I don't just know.” + +“I don't suppose you've always felt your great wealth a great blessing?” + +“A blessing? There have been times when I felt it a millstone hanged +about my neck, and could have wished nothing so much as that I were +thrown into the sea. Man, you don't _know_ what a curse I have felt my +money to be at such times. When I have given it away, as I have by +millions at a time, I have never been sure that I was not doing more harm +than good with it. I have hired men to seek out good objects for me, and +I have tried my best to find for myself causes and institutions and +persons who might be helped without hindering others as worthy, but +sometimes it seems as if every dollar of my money carried a blight with +it, and infected whoever touched it with a moral pestilence. It has +reached a sum where the wildest profligate couldn't spend it, and it +grows and grows. It's as if it were a rising flood that had touched my +lips, and would go over my head before I could reach the shore. I believe +I got it honestly, and I have tried to share it with those whose labor +earned it for me. I have founded schools and hospitals and homes for +old men and old women, and asylums for children, and the blind, and deaf, +and dumb, and halt, and mad. Wherever I have found one of my old workmen +in need, and I have looked personally into the matter, I have provided +for him fully, short of pauperization. Where I have heard of some gifted +youth, I have had him educated in the line of his gift. I have collected +a gallery of works of art, and opened it on Sundays as well as week-days +to the public free. If there is a story of famine, far or near, I send +food by the shipload. If there is any great public calamity, my agents +have instructions to come to the rescue without referring the case to me. +But it is all useless! The money grows and grows, and I begin to feel +that my efforts to employ it wisely and wholesomely are making me a +public laughing-stock as well as an easy mark for every swindler with a +job or a scheme.” He turned abruptly to me. “But you must often have +heard the same from my old friend Strange. We used to talk these things +over together, when our money was not the heap that mine is now; and it +seems to me I can hear his voice saying the very words I have been +using.” + +I, too, seemed to hear his voice in the words, and it was as if speaking +from his grave. + +I looked at Aristides, and read compassion in his dear face; but the face +of Cyril remained severe and judicial. He said: “Then, if what you say is +true, you cannot think it a hardship if we remove your burden for the +time you remain with us. I have consulted with the National and Regional +as well as the Communal authorities, and we cannot let you continue to +live in the manner you are living here. You must pay your way.” + +“I shall be only too glad to do that,” Mr. Thrall returned, more +cheerfully. “We have not a great deal of cash in hand, but I can give you +my check on London or Paris or New York.” + +“In Altruria,” Cyril returned, “we have no use for money. You must _pay_ +your way as soon as your present provision from your yacht is exhausted.” + +Mr. Thrall turned a dazed look on the young lord, who suggested: “I don't +think we follow you. How can Mr. Thrall pay his way except with money?” + +“He must pay with _work_. As soon as you come upon the neighbors here for +the necessities of life you must all work. To-morrow or the next day or +next week at the furthest you must go to work, or you must starve.” + +Then he came out with that text of Scripture which had been so efficient +with the crew of the _Little Sally_: “For even when we were with you this +we commanded you, that if any would not work neither should he eat.” + +Lord Moors seemed very interested, and not so much surprised as I had +expected. “Yes, I have often thought of that passage and of its +susceptibility to a simpler interpretation than we usually give it. +But--” + +“There is but one interpretation of which it is susceptible,” Cyril +interrupted. “The apostle gives that interpretation when he prefaces the +text with the words, 'For yourselves know how you ought to follow us; for +we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you. Neither did we eat any +man's bread for nought; but _wrought with travail_ night and day, that we +might not be chargeable to any of you: not because we have not power, but +to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us.' The whole economy +of Altruria is founded on these passages.” + +“Literally?” + +“Literally.” + +“But, my dear sir,” the young lord reasoned, “you surely do not wrench +the text from some such meaning as that if a man has money, he may pay +his way without working?” + +“No, certainly not. But here you have no money, and as we cannot suffer +any to 'walk among us disorderly, working not at all,' we must not exempt +you from our rule.” + + + + +XII + + +At this point there came a sound from within the marquee as of skirts +sweeping forward sharply, imperiously, followed by a softer _frou-frou_, +and Mrs. Thrall put aside the curtain of the tent with one hand, and +stood challenging our little Altrurian group, while Lady Moors peered +timidly at us from over her mother's shoulder. I felt a lust of battle +rising in me at sight of that woman, and it was as much as I could do to +control myself; but in view of the bad time I knew she was going to have, +I managed to hold in, though I joined very scantly in the polite +greetings of the Chrysostoms and Aristides, which she ignored as if they +had been the salutations of savages. She glared at her husband for +explanation, and he said, gently, “This is a delegation from the +Altrurian capital, my dear, and we have been talking over the situation +together.” + +“But what is this,” she demanded, “that I have heard about our not +paying? Do they accuse us of not paying? You could buy and sell the whole +country.” + +I never imagined so much mildness could be put into such offensive words +as Cyril managed to get into his answer. “We accuse you of not paying, +and we do not mean that you shall become chargeable to us. The men and +women who served you on shipboard have been put to work, and you must go +to work, too.” + +“Mr. Thrall--Lord Moors--have you allowed these people to treat you as if +you were part of the ship's crew? Why don't you give them what they want +and let them go? Of course it's some sort of blackmailing scheme. But you +ought to get rid of them at any cost. Then you can appeal to the +authorities, and tell them that you will bring the matter to the notice +of the government at Washington. They must be taught that they cannot +insult American citizens with impunity.” No one spoke, and she added, +“What do they really want?” + +“Well, my dear,” her husband hesitated, “I hardly know how to explain. +But it seems that they think our living here in the way we do is +orderly, and--and they want us to go to work, in short.” + +“To _work!_” she shouted. + +“Yes, all of us. That is, so I understand.” + +“What nonsense!” + +She looked at us one after another, and when her eye rested on me, I +began to suspect that insolent as she was she was even duller; in fact, +that she was so sodden in her conceit of wealth that she was plain +stupid. So when she said to me, “You are an American by birth, I believe. +Can you tell me the meaning of this?” I answered: + +“Cyril Chrysostom represents the authorities. If _he_ asks me to speak, I +will speak.” Cyril nodded at me with a smile, and I went on. “It is a +very simple matter. In Altruria everybody works with his hands three +hours a day. After that he works or not, as he likes.” + +“What have we to do with that?” she asked. + +“The rule has no exceptions.” + +“But we are not Altrurians; we are Americans.” + +“I am an American, too, and I work three hours every day, unless I am +passing from one point to another on public business with my husband. +Even then we prefer to stop during the work-hours, and help in the +fields, or in the shops, or wherever we are needed. I left my own mother +at home doing her kitchen work yesterday afternoon, though it was out of +hours, and she need not have worked.” + +“Very well, then, we will do nothing of the kind, neither I, nor my +daughter, nor my husband. He has worked hard all his life, and he has +come away for a much-needed rest. I am not going to have him breaking +himself down.” + +I could not help suggesting, “I suppose the men at work in his mines, and +mills, and on his railroads and steamship lines are taking a much-needed +rest, too. I hope you are not going to let them break themselves down, +either.” + +Aristides gave me a pained glance, and Cyril and his wife looked grave, +but she not quite so grave as he. Lord Moors said, “We don't seem to be +getting on. What Mrs. Thrall fails to see, and I confess I don't quite +see it myself, is that if we are not here _in forma pauperis_--” + +“But you _are_ here _in forma pauperis_,” Cyril interposed, smilingly. + +“How is that? If we are willing to pay--if Mr. Thrall's credit is +undeniably good--” + +“Mr. Thrall's credit is not good in Altruria; you can pay here only in +one currency, in the sweat of your faces.” + +“You want us to be Tolstoys, I suppose,” Mrs. Thrall said, +contemptuously. + +Cyril replied, gently, “The endeavor of Tolstoy, in capitalistic +conditions, is necessarily dramatic. Your labor here will be for your +daily bread, and it will be real.” The inner dullness of the woman came +into her eyes again, and he addressed himself to Lord Moors in +continuing: “If a company of indigent people were cast away on an English +coast, after you had rendered them the first aid, what should you do?” + +The young man reflected. “I suppose we should put them in the way of +earning a living until some ship arrived to take them home.” + +“That is merely what we propose to do in your case here,” Cyril said. + +“But we are not indigent--” + +“Yes, you are absolutely destitute. You have money and credit, but +neither has any value in Altruria. Nothing but work or love has any value +in Altruria. You cannot realize too clearly that you stand before us _in +forma pauperis_. But we require of you nothing that we do not require of +ourselves. In Altruria every one is poor till he pays with work; then, +for that time, he is rich; and he cannot otherwise lift himself above +charity, which, except in the case of the helpless, we consider immoral. +Your life here offers a very corrupting spectacle. You are manifestly +living without work, and you are served by people whose hire you are not +able to pay.” + +“My dear sir,” Mr. Thrall said at this point, with a gentle smile, “I +think they are willing to take the chances of being paid.” + +“We cannot suffer them to do so. At present we know of no means of your +getting away from Altruria. We have disused our custom of annually +connecting with the Australasian steamers, and it may be years before a +vessel touches on our coast. A ship sailed for Boston some months ago, +with the promise of returning in order that the crew may cast in their +lot with us permanently. We do not confide in that promise, and you must +therefore conform to our rule of life. Understand clearly that the +willingness of your servants to serve you has nothing to do with the +matter. That is part of the falsity in which the whole capitalistic world +lives. As the matter stands with you, here, there is as much reason why +you should serve them as they should serve you. If on their side they +should elect to serve you from love, they will be allowed to do so. +Otherwise, you and they must go to work with the neighbors at the tasks +they will assign you.” + +“Do you mean at once?” Lord Moors asked. + +“The hours of the obligatory labors are nearly past for the day. But if +you are interested in learning what you will be set to doing to-morrow, +the Communal authorities will be pleased to instruct you during the +Voluntaries this afternoon. You may be sure that in no case will your +weakness or inexperience be overtasked. Your histories will be studied, +and appropriate work will be assigned to each of you.” + +Mrs. Thrall burst out, “If you think I am going into my kitchen--” + +Then I burst in, “I left my mother in _her_ kitchen!” + +“And a very fit place for her, I dare say,” she retorted, but Lady Moors +caught her mother's arm and murmured, in much the same distress as showed +in my husband's mild eyes, “Mother! Mother!” and drew her within. + + + + +XIII + + +Well, Dolly, I suppose you will think it was pretty hard for those +people, and when I got over my temper I confess that I felt sorry for the +two men, and for the young girl whom the Altrurians would not call Lady +Moors, but addressed by her Christian name, as they did each of the +American party in his or her turn; even Mrs. Thrall had to answer to +Rebecca. They were all rather bewildered, and so were the butler and +the footmen, and the _chef_ and his helpers, and the ladies' maids. +These were even more shocked than those they considered their betters, +and I quite took to my affections Lord Moors' man Robert, who was in an +awe-stricken way trying to get some light from me on the situation. He +contributed as much as any one to bring about a peaceful submission to +the inevitable, for he had been a near witness of what had happened to +the crew when they attempted their rebellion to the authorities; but he +did not profess to understand the matter, and from time to time he seemed +to question the reality of it. + +The two masters, as you would call Mr. Thrall and Lord Moors, both took +an attitude of amiable curiosity towards their fate, and accepted it with +interest when they had partly chosen and partly been chosen by it. Mr. +Thrall had been brought up on a farm till his ambition carried him into +the world; and he found the light gardening assigned him for his first +task by no means a hardship. He was rather critical of the Altrurian +style of hoe at first, but after he got the hang of it, as he said, he +liked it better, and during the three hours of the first morning's +Obligatoires, his ardor to cut all the weeds out at once had to be +restrained rather than prompted. He could not be persuaded to take five +minutes for rest out of every twenty, and he could not get over his +life-long habit of working against time. The Altrurians tried to make +him understand that here people must not work _against_ time, but must +always work _with_ it, so as to have enough work to do each day; +otherwise they must remain idle during the Obligatoires and tend to +demoralize the workers. It seemed that Lady Moors had a passion for +gardening, and she was set to work with her father on the border of +flowers surrounding the vegetable patch he was hoeing. She knew about +flowers, and from her childhood had amused herself by growing them, and +so far from thinking it a hardship or disgrace to dig, she was delighted +to get at them. It was easy to see that she and her father were cronies, +and when I went round in the morning with Aristides to ask if we could do +anything for them, we heard them laughing and talking gayly together +before we reached them. They said they had looked their job (as Mr. +Thrall called it) over the afternoon before during the Voluntaries, and +had decided how they would manage, and they had set to work that morning +as soon as they had breakfast. Lady Moors had helped her mother get the +breakfast, and she seemed to regard the whole affair as a picnic, though +from the look of Mrs. Thrall's back, as she turned it on me, when I saw +her coming to the door of the marquee with a coffee-pot in her hand, I +decided that she was not yet resigned to her new lot in life. + +Lord Moors was nowhere to be seen, and I felt some little curiosity about +him which was not quite anxiety. Later, as we were going back to our +quarters in the village, we saw him working on the road with a party +of Altrurians who were repairing a washout from an overnight rain. They +were having all kinds of a time, except a bad time, trying to understand +each other in their want of a common language. It appeared that the +Altrurians were impressed with his knowledge of road-making, and were +doing something which he had indicated to them by signs. We offered +our services as interpreters, and then he modestly owned in defence of +his suggestions that when he was at Oxford he had been one of the band of +enthusiastic undergraduates who had built a piece of highway under Mr. +Ruskin's direction. The Altrurians regarded his suggestions as rather +amateurish, but they were glad to act upon them, when they could, out of +pure good feeling and liking for him; and from time to time they rushed +upon him and shook hands with him; their affection did not go further, +and he was able to stand the handshaking, though he told us he hoped they +would not feel it necessary to keep it up, for it was really only a very +simple matter like putting a culvert in place of a sluice which they had +been using to carry the water off. They understood what he was saying, +from his gestures, and they crowded round us to ask whether he would like +to join them during the Voluntaries that afternoon, in getting the stone +out of a neighboring quarry, and putting in the culvert at once. We +explained to him, and he said he should be very happy. All the time he +was looking at them admirably, and he said, “It's really very good,” and +we understood that he meant their classic working-dress, and when he +added, “I should really fancy trying it myself one day,” and we told them +they wanted to go and bring him an Altrurian costume at once. But we +persuaded them not to urge him, and in fact he looked very fit for his +work in his yachting flannels. + +I talked him over a long time with Aristides, and tried to get his point +of view. I decided finally that an Englishman of his ancient lineage and +high breeding, having voluntarily come down to the level of an American +millionaire by marriage, could not feel that he was lowering himself any +further by working with his hands. In fact, he probably felt that his +merely undertaking a thing dignified the thing; but of course this was +only speculation on my part, and he may have been resigned to working for +a living because like poor people elsewhere he was obliged to do it. +Aristides thought there was a good deal in that idea, but it is hard for +an Altrurian to conceive of being ashamed of work, for they regard +idleness as pauperism, and they would look upon our leisure classes, so +far as we have them, very much as we look upon tramps, only they would +make the excuse for our tramps that they often cannot get work. + +We had far more trouble with the servants than we had with the masters in +making them understand that they were to go to work in the fields and +shops, quite as the crew of the yacht had done. Some of them refused +outright, and stuck to their refusal until the village electrician +rescued them with the sort of net and electric filament which had been +employed with the recalcitrant sailors; others were brought to a better +mind by withholding food from them till they were willing to pay for it +by working. You will be sorry to learn, Dolly, that the worst of the +rebels were the ladies' maids, who, for the honor of our sex, ought not +to have required the application of the net and filament; but they had +not such appetites as the men-servants, and did not mind starving so +much. However, in a very short time they were at work, too, and more or +less resigned, though they did not profess to understand it. + +You will think me rather fickle, I am afraid, but after I made the +personal acquaintance of Mr. Thrall's _chef,_ Anatole, I found my +affections dividing themselves between him and his lordship's man Robert, +my first love. But Anatole was magnificent, a gaunt, little, aquiline +man, with a branching mustache and gallant goatee, and having held an +exalted position at a salary of ten thousand a year from Mr. Thrall, he +could easily stoop from it, while poor Robert was tormented with +misgivings, not for himself, but for Lord and Lady Moors and Mr. Thrall. +It became my pleasing office to explain the situation to Monsieur +Anatole, who, when he imagined it, gave a cry of joy, and confessed, what +he had never liked to tell Mr. Thrall, knowing the misconceptions of +Americans on the subject, that he had belonged in France to a party of +which the political and social ideal was almost identical with that +of the Altrurians. He asked for an early opportunity of addressing the +village Assembly and explaining this delightful circumstance in public, +and he profited by the occasion to embrace the first Altrurian we met and +kiss him on both cheeks. + +His victim was a messenger from the Commune, who had been sent to inquire +whether Anatole had a preference as to the employment which should be +assigned to him, and I had to reply for him that he was a man of science; +that he would be happy to serve the republic in whatever capacity his +concitizens chose, but that he thought he could be most useful in +studying the comestible vegetation of the neighborhood, and the +substitution of the more succulent herbs for the flesh-meats to the use +of which, he understood from me, the Altrurians were opposed. In the +course of his preparation for the rôle of _chef_, which he had played +both in France and America, he had made a specialty of edible fungi; +and the result was that Anatole was set to mushrooming, and up to this +moment he has discovered no less than six species hitherto unknown to the +Altrurian table. This has added to their dietary in several important +particulars, the fungi he has discovered being among those highly +decorative and extremely poisonous-looking sorts which flourish in the +deep woods and offer themselves almost inexhaustibly in places near the +ruins of the old capitalistic cities, where hardly any other foods will +grow. Anatole is very proud of his success, and at more than one Communal +Assembly has lectured upon his discoveries and treated of their +preparation for the table, with sketches of them as he found them +growing, colored after nature by his own hand. He has himself become a +fanatical vegetarian, having, he confesses, always had a secret loathing +for the meats he stooped to direct the cooking of among the French and +American bourgeoisie in the days which he already looks back upon as +among the most benighted of his history. + + + + +XIV + + +The scene has changed again, Dolly, and six months have elapsed without +your knowing it. Aristides and I long ago completed the tour of the +capitals which the Thrall incident interrupted, and we have been settled +for many months in the Maritime Capital, where it has been decided we had +better fill out the first two years of my husband's repatriation. I have +become more and more thoroughly naturalized, and if I am not yet a +perfect Altrurian, it is not for not loving better and better the best +Altrurian of them all, and not for not admiring and revering this +wonderful civilization. + +During the Obligatories of the forenoons I do my housework with my own +hands, and as my mother lives with us we have long talks together, and +try to make each other believe that the American conditions were a sort +of nightmare from which we have happily awakened. You see how terribly +frank I am, my dear, but if I were not, I could not make you understand +how I feel. My heart aches for you, there, and the more because I know +that you do not want to live differently, that you are proud of your +economic and social illogicality, and that you think America is the best +country under the sun! I can never persuade you, but if you could only +come here, once, and see for yourselves! Seeing would be believing, and +believing would be the wish never to go away, but to be at home here +always. + +I can imagine your laughing at me and asking Mr. Makely whether the +_Little Sally_ has ever returned to Altruria, and how I can account for +the captain's failure to keep his word. I confess that is a sore point +with me. It is now more than a year since she sailed, and, of course, we +have not had a sign or whisper from her. I could almost wish that the +crew were willing to stay away, but I am afraid it is the captain who is +keeping them. It has become almost a mania with me, and every morning, +the first thing when I wake, I go for my before-breakfast walk along the +marble terrace that overlooks the sea, and scan the empty rounding for +the recreant ship. I do not want to think so badly of human nature, as I +must if the _Little Sally_ never comes back, and I am sure you will not +blame me if I should like her to bring me some word from you. I know that +if she ever reached Boston you got my letters and presents, and that you +have been writing me as faithfully as I have been writing you, and what a +sheaf of letters from you there will be if her masts ever pierce +the horizon! To tell the truth, I do long for a little American news! Do +you still keep on murdering and divorcing, and drowning, and burning, and +mommicking, and maiming people by sea and land? Has there been any war +since I left? Is the financial panic as great as ever, and is there as +much hunger and cold? I know that whatever your crimes and calamities +are, your heroism and martyrdom, your wild generosity and self-devotion, +are equal to them. + +It is no use to pretend that in little over a year I can have become +accustomed to the eventlessness of life in Altruria. I go on for a good +many days together and do not miss the exciting incidents you have in +America, and then suddenly I am wolfishly hungry for the old sensations, +just as now and then I _want meat_, though I know I should loathe the +sight and smell of it if I came within reach of it. You would laugh, I +dare say, at the Altrurian papers, and what they print for news. Most of +the space is taken up with poetry, and character study in the form of +fiction, and scientific inquiry of every kind. But now and then there is +a report of the production of a new play in one of the capitals; or an +account of an open-air pastoral in one of the communes; or the progress +of some public work, like the extension of the National Colonnade; or the +wonderful liberation of some section from malaria; or the story of some +good man or woman's life, ended at the patriarchal age they reach here. +They also print selected passages of capitalistic history, from the +earliest to the latest times, showing how in war and pestilence and +needless disaster the world outside Altruria remains essentially the same +that it was at the beginning of civilization, with some slight changes +through the changes of human nature for the better in its slow approaches +to the Altrurian ideal. In noting these changes the writers get some sad +amusement out of the fact that the capitalistic world believes human +nature cannot be changed, though cannibalism and slavery and polygamy +have all been extirpated in the so-called Christian countries, and these +things were once human nature, which is always changing, while brute +nature remains the same. Now and then they touch very guardedly on that +slavery, worse than war, worse than any sin or shame conceivable to the +Altrurians, in which uncounted myriads of women are held and bought and +sold, and they have to note that in this the capitalistic world is +without the hope of better things. You know what I mean, Dolly; every +good woman knows the little she cannot help knowing; but if you had ever +inquired into that horror, as I once felt obliged to do, you would think +it the blackest horror of the state of things where it must always exist +as long as there are riches and poverty. Now, when so many things in +America seem bad dreams, I cannot take refuge in thinking that a bad +dream; the reality was so deeply burnt into my brain by the words of +some of the slaves; and when I think of it I want to grovel on the ground +with my mouth in the dust. But I know this can only distress you, for you +cannot get away from the fact as I have got away from it; that there it +is in the next street, perhaps in the next house, and that any night when +you leave your home with your husband, you may meet it at the first step +from your door. + +You can very well imagine what a godsend the reports of Aristides and the +discussions of them have been to our papers. They were always taken down +stenographically, and they were printed like dialogue, so that at a +little distance you would take them at first for murder trials or divorce +cases, but when you look closer, you find them questions and answers +about the state of things in America. There are often humorous passages, +for the Altrurians are inextinguishably amused by our illogicality, and +what they call the perpetual _non sequiturs_ of our lives and laws. In +the discussions they frequently burlesque these, but as they present them +they seem really beyond the wildest burlesque. Perhaps you will be +surprised to know that a nation of working-people like these feel more +compassion than admiration for our working-people. They pity them, but +they blame them more than they blame the idle rich for the existing +condition of things in America. They ask why, if the American workmen +are in the immense majority, they do not vote a true and just state, and +why they go on striking and starving their families instead; they cannot +distinguish in principle between the confederations of labor and the +combinations of capital, between the trusts and the trades-unions, and +they condemn even more severely the oppressions and abuses of the unions. +My husband tries to explain that the unions are merely provisional, and +are a temporary means of enabling the employees to stand up against the +tyranny of the employers, but they always come back and ask him if the +workmen have not most of the votes, and if they have, why they do not +protect themselves peacefully instead of organizing themselves in +fighting shape, and making a warfare of industry. + +There is not often anything so much like news in the Altrurian papers as +the grounding of the Thrall yacht on the coast of the Seventh Region, and +the incident has been treated and discussed in every possible phase by +the editors and their correspondents. They have been very frank about it, +as they are about everything in Altruria, and they have not concealed +their anxieties about their unwelcome guests. They got on without much +trouble in the case of the few sailors of the _Little Sally_, but the +crew of the _Saraband_ is so large that it is a different matter. In the +first place, they do not like the application of force, even in the mild +electrical form in which they employ it, and they fear that the effect +with themselves will be bad, however good it is for their guests. +Besides, they dread the influence which a number of people, invested with +the charm of strangeness, may have with the young men and especially the +young girls of the neighborhood. The hardest thing the Altrurians have to +grapple with is feminine curiosity, and the play of this about the +strangers is what they seek the most anxiously to control. Of course, you +will think it funny, and I must say that it seemed so to me at first, but +I have come to think it is serious. The Altrurian girls are cultivated +and refined, but as they have worked all their lives with their hands +they cannot imagine the difference that work makes in Americans; that it +coarsens and classes them, especially if they have been in immediate +contact with rich people, and been degraded or brutalized by the +knowledge of the contempt in which labor is held among us by those who +are not compelled to it. Some of my Altrurian friends have talked it over +with me, and I could take their point of view, though secretly I could +not keep my poor American feelings from being hurt when they said that to +have a large number of people from the capitalistic world thrown upon +their hands was very much as it would be with us if we had the same +number of Indians, with all their tribal customs and ideals, thrown upon +our hands. They say they will not shirk their duty in the matter, and +will study it carefully; but all the same, they wish the incident had not +happened. + + + +XV + + +I am glad that I was called away from the disagreeable point I left in my +last, and that I have got back temporarily to the scene of the +Altrurianization of Mr. Thrall and his family. So far as it has gone it +is perfect, if I may speak from the witness of happiness in those +concerned, except perhaps Mrs. Thrall; she is as yet only partially +reconstructed, but even she has moments of forgetting her lost grandeur +and of really enjoying herself in her work. She is an excellent +housekeeper, and she has become so much interested in making the marquee +a simple home for her family that she is rather proud of showing it off +as the effect of her unaided efforts. She was allowed to cater to them +from the canned meats brought ashore from the yacht as long as they would +stand it, but the wholesome open-air conditions have worked a wonderful +change in them, and neither Mr. Thrall nor Lord and Lady Moors now have +any taste for such dishes. Here Mrs. Thrall's old-time skill as an +excellent vegetable cook, when she was the wife of a young mechanic, has +come into play, and she believes that she sets the best table in the +whole neighborhood, with fruits and many sorts of succulents and the +everlasting and ever-pervading mushrooms. + +As the Altrurians do not wish to annoy their involuntary guests, or to +interfere with their way of life where they do not consider it immoral, +their control has ended with setting them to work for a living. They +have not asked them to the communal refectory, but, as long as they have +been content to serve each other, have allowed them their private table. +Of course, their adaptation to their new way of life has proceeded more +slowly than it otherwise would, but with the exception of Mrs. Thrall +they are very intelligent people, and I have been charmed in talking the +situation over with them. The trouble has not been so great with the +ship's people, as was feared. Such of these as have imagined their stay +here permanent, or wished it to be so, have been received into the +neighboring communes, and have taken the first steps towards +naturalization; those who look forward to getting away some time, or +express the wish for it, are allowed to live in a community of their own, +where they are not molested as long as they work in the three hours of +the Obligatoires. Naturally, they are kept out of mischief, but after +their first instruction in the ideas of public property and the +impossibility of enriching themselves at the expense of any one else, +they have behaved very well. The greatest trouble they ever gave was in +trapping and killing the wild things for food; but when they were told +that this must not be done, and taught to recognize the vast range of +edible fungi, they took not unwillingly to mushrooms and the ranker +tubers and roots, from which, with unlimited eggs, cheese, milk, and +shell-fish, they have constructed a diet of which they do not complain. + +This brings me rather tangentially to Monsieur Anatole, who has become a +fanatical Altrurian, and has even had to be restrained in some of his +enthusiastic plans for the compulsory naturalization of his fellow +castaways. His value as a scientist has been cordially recognized, and +his gifts as an artist in the exquisite water-color studies of edible +fungi has won his notice in the capital of the Seventh Regional where +they have been shown at the spring water-color exhibition. He has printed +several poems in the _Regional Gazette_, villanelles, rondeaux, and +triolets, with accompanying versions of the French, into Altrurian by one +of the first Altrurian poets. This is a widow of about Monsieur Anatole's +own age; and the literary friendship between them has ripened into +something much more serious. In fact they are engaged to be married. I +suppose you will laugh at this, Dolly, and at first I confess that there +was enough of the old American in me to be shocked at the idea of a +French _chef_ marrying an Altrurian lady who could trace her descent to +the first Altrurian president of the Commonwealth, and who is universally +loved and honored. I could not help letting something of the kind escape +me by accident, to a friend, and presently Mrs. Chrysostom was sent to +interview me on the subject, and to learn just how the case appeared to +me. This put me on my honor, and I was obliged to say how it would appear +in America, though every moment I grew more and more ashamed of myself +and my native country, where we pretend that labor is honorable, and are +always heaping dishonor on it. I told how certain of our girls and +matrons had married their coachmen and riding-masters and put themselves +at odds with society, and I confessed that marrying a cook would be +regarded as worse, if possible. + +Mrs. Chrysostom was accompanied by a lady in her second youth, very +graceful, very charmingly dressed, and with an expression of winning +intelligence, whom she named to me simply as Cecilia, in the Altrurian +fashion. She apparently knew no English, and at first Mrs. Chrysostom +translated each of her questions and my answers. When I had got through, +this lady began to question me herself in Altrurian, which I owned to +understanding a little. She said: + +“You know Anatole?” + +“Yes, certainly, and I like him, as I think every one must who knows +him.” + +“He is a skillful _chef_?” + +“Mr. Thrall would not have paid him ten thousand dollars a year if he had +not been.” + +“You have seen some of his water-colors?” + +“Yes. They are exquisite. He is unquestionably an artist of rare talent.” + +“And it is known to you that he is a man of scientific attainments?” + +“That is something I cannot judge of so well as Aristides; but _he_ says +M. Anatole is learned beyond any man he knows in edible fungi.” + +“As an adoptive Altrurian, and knowing the American ideas from our point +of view, should you respect their ideas of social inequality?” + +“Not the least in the world. I understand as well as you do that their +ideas must prevail wherever one works for a living and another does not. +hose ideas are practically as much accepted in America as they are in +Europe, but I have fully renounced them.” + +You see, Dolly, how far I have gone! + +The unknown, who could be pretty easily imagined, rose up and gave me her +hand. “If you are in the Region on the third of May you must come to our +wedding.” + +The same afternoon I had a long talk with Mr. Thrall, whom I found at +work replanting a strawberry-patch during the Voluntaries. He rose up at +the sound of my voice, and after an old man's dim moment for getting me +mentally in focus, he brightened into a genial smile, and said, “Oh, Mrs. +Homos! I am glad to see you.” + +I told him to go on with his planting, and I offered to get down on my +knees beside him and help, but he gallantly handed me to a seat in the +shade beside his daughter's flower-bed, and it was there that we had a +long talk about conditions in America and Altruria, and how he felt about +the great change in his life. + +“Well, I can truly say,” he answered much more at length than I shall +report, “that I have never been so happy since the first days of my +boyhood. All care has dropped from me; I don't feel myself rich, and I +don't feel myself poor in this perfect safety from want. The only thing +that gives me any regret is that my present state has not been the effect +of my own will and deed. If I am now following the greatest and truest of +all counsels it has not been because I have sold all and given to the +poor, but because my money has been mercifully taken from me, and I have +been released from its responsibilities in a state of things where there +is no money.” + +“But, Mr. Thrall,” I said, “don't you ever feel that you have a duty to +the immense fortune which you have left in America, and which must be +disposed of somehow when people are satisfied that you are not going to +return and dispose of it yourself?” + +“No, none. I was long ago satisfied that I could really do no good with +it. Perhaps if I had had more faith in it I might have done some good +with it, but I believe that I never did anything but harm, even when I +seemed to be helping the most, for I was aiding in the perpetuation of a +state of things essentially wrong. Now, if I never go back--and I never +wish to go back--let the law dispose of it as seems best to the +authorities. I have no kith or kin, and my wife has none, so there is no +one to feel aggrieved by its application to public objects.” + +“And how do you imagine it will be disposed of?” + +“Oh, I suppose for charitable and educational purposes. Of course a good +deal of it will go in graft; but that cannot be helped.” + +“But if you could now dispose of it according to your clearest ideas of +justice, and if you were forced to make the disposition yourself, what +would you do with it?” + +“Well, that is something I have been thinking of, and as nearly as I can +make out, I ought to go into the records of my prosperity and ascertain +just how and when I made my money. Then I ought to seek out as fully as +possible the workmen who helped me make it by their labor. Their wages, +which, were always the highest, were never a fair share, though I forced +myself to think differently, and it should be my duty to inquire for them +and pay them each a fair share, or, if they are dead, then their children +or their next of kin. But even when I had done this I should not be sure +that I had not done them more harm than good.” + +How often I had heard poor Mr. Strange say things like this, and heard +of other rich men saying them, after lives of what is called beneficence! +Mr. Thrall drew a deep sigh, and cast a longing look at his +strawberry-bed. I laughed, and said, “You are anxious to get back to your +plants, and I won't keep you. I wonder if Mrs. Thrall could see me if I +called; or Lady Moors?” + +He said he was sure they would, and I took my way over to the marquee. I +was a little surprised to be met at the door by Lord Moors' man Robert. +He told me he was very sorry, but her ladyship was helping his lordship +at a little job on the roads, which they were doing quite in the +Voluntaries, with the hope of having the National Colonnade extended to a +given point; the ladies were helping the gentlemen get the place in +shape. He was still sorrier, but I not so much, that Mrs. Thrall was +lying down and would like to be excused; she was rather tired from +putting away the luncheon things. + +He asked me if I would not sit down, and he offered me one of the +camp-stools at the door of the marquee, and I did sit down for a moment, +while he flitted about the interior doing various little things. At last +I said, “How is this, Robert? I thought you had been assigned to a place +in the communal refectory. You're not here on the old terms?” + +He came out and stood respectfully holding a dusting-cloth in his hand. +“Thank you, not exactly, ma'am. But the fact is, ma'am, that the communal +monitors have allowed me to come back here a few hours in the afternoon, +on what I may call terms of my own.” + +“I don't understand. But won't you sit down, Robert?” + +“Thank you, if it is the same to you, ma'am, I would rather stand while +I'm here. In the refectory, of course, it's different.” + +“But about your own terms?” + +“Thanks. You see, ma'am, I've thought all along it was a bit awkward for +them here, they not being so much used to looking after things, and I +asked leave to come and help now and then. Of course, they said that +I could not be allowed to serve for hire in Altruria; and one thing led +to another, and I said it would really be a favor to me, and I didn't +expect money for my work, for I did not suppose I should ever be where I +could use it again, but if they would let me come here and do it for--” + +Robert stopped and blushed and looked down, and I took the word, “For +love?” + +“Well, ma'am, that's what they called it.” + +Dolly, it made the tears come into my eyes, and I said very solemnly, +“Robert, do you know, I believe you are the sweetest soul even in this +and flowing with milk and honey?” + +“Oh, you mustn't say that, ma'am. There's Mr. Thrall and his lordship and +her ladyship. I'm sure they would do the like for me if I needed their +help. And there are the Altrurians, you know.” + +“But they are used to it, Robert, and--Robert! Be frank with me! What do +you think of Altruria?” + +“Quite frank, ma'am, as if you were not connected with it, as you are?” + +“Quite frank.” + +“Well, ma'am, if you are sure you wouldn't mind it, or consider it out of +the way for me, I should say it was--rum.” + +“_Rum_? Don't you think it is beautiful here, to see people living for +each other instead of living _on_ each other, and the whole nation like +one family, and the country a paradise?” + +“Well, that's just it, ma'am, if you won't mind my saying so. That's what +I mean by rum.” + +“Won't you explain?” + +“It doesn't seem _real_. Every night when I go to sleep, and think that +there isn't a thief or a policeman on the whole continent, and only a few +harmless homicides, as you call them, that wouldn't hurt a fly, and not a +person hungry or cold, and no poor and no rich, and no servants and no +masters, and no soldiers, and no--disreputable characters, it seems as if +I was going to wake up in the morning and find myself on the _Saraband_ +and it all a dream here.” + +“Yes, Robert,” I had to own, “that was the way with me, too, for a long +while. And even now I have dreams about America and the way matters are +there, and I wake myself weeping for fear Altruria _isn't_ true. Robert! +You must be honest with me! When you are awake, and it's broad day, and +you see how happy every one is here, either working or playing, and the +whole land without an ugly place in it, and the lovely villages and the +magnificent towns, and everything, does it still seem--rum?” + +“It's like that, ma'am, at times. I don't say at all times.” + +“And you don't believe that the rest of the world--England and +America--will ever be rum, too?” + +“I don't see how they can. You see the poor are against it as well as the +rich. Everybody wants to have something of his own, and the trouble seems +to come from that. I don't suppose it was brought about in a day, +Altruria wasn't, ma'am?” + +“No, it was whole centuries coming.” + +“That was what I understood from that Mr. Chrysostom--Cyril, he wants me +to call him, but I can't quite make up my mouth to it--who speaks +English, and says he has been in England. He was telling me about it, one +day when we were drying the dishes at the refectory together. He says +they used to have wars and trusts and trades-unions here in the old days, +just as we do now in civilized countries.” + +“And you don't consider Altruria civilized?” + +“Well, not in just that sense of the word, ma'am. You wouldn't call +heaven civilized?” + +“Well, not in just that sense of the word. Robert.” + +“You see, it's rum here, because, though everything seems to go so right, +it's against human nature.” + +“The Altrurians say it isn't.” + +“I hope I don't differ from you, ma'am, but what would people--the best +people--at home say? They would say it wasn't reasonable; they would say +it wasn't even possible. That's what makes me think it's a dream--that +it's rum. Begging your pardon, ma'am.” + +“Oh, I quite understand, Robert. Then you don't believe a camel can ever +go through the eye of a needle?” + +“I don't quite see how, ma'am.” + +“But you are proof of as great a miracle, Robert.” + +“Beg your pardon, ma'am?” + +“Some day I will explain. But is there nothing that can make you believe +Altruria is true here, and that it can be true anywhere?” + +“I have been thinking a good deal about that, ma'am. One doesn't quite +like to go about in a dream, or think one is dreaming, and I have got to +saying to myself that if some ship was to come here from England or +America, or even from Germany, and we could compare our feelings with the +feelings of people who were fresh to it, we might somehow get to believe +that it was real.” + +“Yes,” I had to own. “We need fresh proofs from time to time. There was a +ship that sailed from here something over a year ago, and the captain +promised his crew to let them bring her back, but at times I am afraid +that was part of the dream, too, and that we're all something I am +dreaming about.” + +“Just so, ma'am,” Robert said, and I came away downhearted enough, though +he called after me, “Mrs. Thrall will be very sorry, ma'am.” + +Back in the Maritime Capital, and oh, Dolly, Dolly, Dolly! They have +sighted the _Little Sally_ from the terrace! How happy I am! There will +be letters from you, and I shall hear all that has happened in America, +and I shall never again doubt that Altruria is real! I don't know how I +shall get these letters of mine back to you, but somehow it can be +managed. Perhaps the _Saraband's_ crew will like to take the _Little +Sally_ home again; perhaps when Mr. Thrall knows the ship is here he will +want to buy it and go back to his money in America and the misery of it! +Do you believe he will? Should I like to remind my husband of his promise +to take me home on a visit? Oh, my heart misgives me! I wonder if the +captain of the _Little Sally_ has brought his wife and children with him, +and is going to settle among us, or whether he has just let his men have +the vessel, and they have come to Altruria without him? I dare not ask +anything, I dare not think anything! + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Through the Eye of the Needle, by +William Dean Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE *** + +***** This file should be named 8295-0.txt or 8295-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/2/9/8295/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Musser, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + |