the: CHILDREN 
 OF^LIGHT 
 
 FLORENCE : CONVERSE 
 
BCRKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OP 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
THE 
 
 CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORENCE CONVERSE 
 
 For the children of this world 
 are in their generation wiser 
 than the children of light." 
 
 St. Luke xvi. 8. 
 
 BOSTON: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 1912 
 
All rights reserved 
 
chl 
 
 To VIDA D. SCUDDER 
 
 WHO GAVE ME HER BOOK, 
 
 "SOCIALISM AND SACRIFICE, 
 
 THIS 
 
 FOR A THANK-OFFERING. 
 
 Tu m'hai di servo tratto a libertate 
 per tutte quelle vie, per tutti i modi, 
 che di ci6 fare avei la potestate." 
 
 Dante, // Paradiso, xxxi. 
 
 128 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/childrenoflightOOconvrich 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 CELESTIAL LIGHT 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. The Co-operative Child . 
 II. A Franciscan Revival . 
 
 III. Concerning Utopias 
 
 IV. Epistolary and Poetical 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 32 
 
 74 
 97 
 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 
 
 common day 
 
 
 I. 
 
 Lighting the Torch 
 
 . 149 
 
 II. 
 
 The Smoking Fuse . 
 
 . 172 
 
 III. 
 
 Ttjumination .... 
 
 .201 
 
 IV. 
 
 Explosion .... 
 
 . 232 
 
 V. 
 
 Conflagration 
 
 . 266 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Gleam .... 
 
 . . 285 
 
 Vll 
 
BOOK I 
 CELESTIAL LIGHT 
 
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
 The earth and every common sight, 
 To me did seem 
 Apparelled in celestial light, 
 The glory and the freshness of a dream." 
 
 Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality^ 
 
THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 
 I 
 
 Out of doors a sharp thunder-shower was stripping 
 the blossoms off the young peach trees — their first 
 blossoms, poor little things! — and in the room that 
 used to be the dining-room of the old plantation 
 house, where I sat absorbed in the Autobiography 
 of Robert Owen, Uncle Llewellyn was kicking the 
 printing press. Not maliciously; more in sorrow 
 than in anger; a kick co-operative, attuned to the 
 rest of our life at New Hope. And yet, as 1 look 
 back upon that undoubtedly noisy hour, I hear again 
 only the ecstatic silence of my own thoughts, my 
 soaring, eleven-year-old, little girl thoughts, touched 
 to fire by the pedagogic and commercial achievements 
 of a remarkable little Welsh boy. It was not until 
 I had got up and crossed the room, and Uncle 
 Llewellyn had apparently, though quite inaudibly, 
 said, " What? " that the noise came racketing about 
 my ears and I found myself shouting — louder than 
 the thunder, louder than the sweeping rain, louder 
 even than the quarrelsome rasp and rattle and bang 
 of the unwilling press: — 
 
 3 
 
4 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " Uncle Lew, when I and the colony axe a little 
 older how would you like to have me write our 
 autobiography? " 
 
 It was horrible to hear my modest, tentative pro- 
 position go bawUng and reverberating around the 
 long low room. Uncle Lew, who was more than 
 ordinarily observant, must have noticed how shocked 
 and scarlet I was, for he stopped kicking long enough 
 to say with his widest, most sympathetic smile: — 
 
 "I think it's a great idea, Clara; a great idea! 
 Just the sort of idea I should expect to come out 
 of that bright Httle red head of yours. — There, she's 
 stuck again. Third time in forty minutes." 
 
 And I had to get him the oil-can and several tools. 
 
 " A great idea," he said over and over again at 
 intervals as he screwed and tinkered at the now 
 silent and rigid press. " A great idea." 
 
 " Of course, it couldn't be — it couldn't — for 
 quite a while yet," I ventured presently, when the 
 rain, too, had hushed and I could speak in my 
 ordinary voice. " Quite a long, long time. Because 
 the colony is still so — so — young." 
 
 " Yes," Uncle Llewellyn agreed. "I'd wait till 
 it's cut its two-year-old teeth. The second summer 
 is always a critical time for babies. But" — he 
 paused to squint into the machinery, and when he 
 spoke again the whimsical note had dropped out of 
 his voice — " please God we'll bring this one safe 
 through." 
 
 I wondered if he would like me to say Amen, but 
 before I could make up my mind he had taken up 
 his kindly refrain — " A great idea — a great idea 
 for a Httle girl." 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 5 
 
 " And by that time I shall be able to set it up 
 myself, every word, italics and punctuation and 
 everything, perhaps. And you can print it, Uncle 
 Lew." 
 
 " Not on this press," said he with decision, and 
 he gave the thing an experimental kick. It slapped 
 together unexpectedly, whereupon I returned dis- 
 creetly to the adventures of Robert Owen. The 
 May number of The Message of New Hope was 
 already overdue ten days, and what Uncle Llewellyn 
 was pleased to call my fanatical imagination, 
 pictured our two hundred and three Northern sub- 
 scribers as clamouring hungrily for the spiritual 
 modicum of locusts and wild honey we of the 
 wilderness had agreed to supply monthly, at the 
 subscription rate of fifty cents for the year. 
 
 These two hundred and three Northern sub- 
 scribers were much in my thoughts. I could say 
 their names and addresses off by heart in alpha- 
 betical order, as glibly as I could say the list of pre- 
 positions or the English chronological tables; for 
 I was the Subscription Department of The Message 
 of New Hope, I addressed all the wrappers, and all 
 the appeals, and stamped all the receipts with the 
 rubber stamp. There were two kinds of subscribers, 
 and my heart beat pitifully and anxiously for both. 
 There were the ones who wrote Uncle Lew that 
 going out of the world was not the way to convert 
 the world, and no co-operative colony had ever justi- 
 fied itself, but they liked our spirit and they hked 
 
 our paper, and they enclosed a cheque for etc. 
 
 These were usually college professors and settlement 
 workers. And there were the others who said that 
 
6 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 although they didn't know whether we were going 
 at it the right way or not, they only wished they 
 could take the risk and come and join us, but family 
 claims, or health, etc. The majority of these were 
 maiden ladies. Occasionally, subscribers who had 
 come to one or another of the Southern health 
 resorts to escape the Northern winter, would visit 
 the colony for a day; but I found myself vaguely 
 disappointed when I saw them face to face. They 
 used a great many laudatory and discriminating 
 adjectives about the colony, but they were in- 
 variably uneasy lest the train might not stop for 
 them when we flagged it. And yet, I used to 
 reproach myself; for the one who fidgeted most 
 sent back a hot - water bottle and a grey blanket 
 wrapper from the city for father, when father was 
 dying. And another sent a barrel of books for the 
 library; old books and theological. And all the 
 subscribers had responded cheerily, even gallantly, 
 to the appeals — for the steam wood-saw, and the 
 shingle machine, and the cane-mill; and now they 
 were trying to send us money enough to buy a new 
 press, or at least a press new enough not to have to 
 be kicked three thousand two hundred and sixty- 
 seven times whenever we printed an edition of The 
 Message of New Hope. 
 
 Would the subscribers buy my autobiography? 
 I mused, leaning my chin on the upper edge of 
 volume one of the Life of Robert Owen and gazing out 
 of the window, across the wide gallery, to the dripping 
 and ravaged peach trees. Perhaps by that time 
 there would be more than two hundred and three 
 subscribers. Perhaps by that time — oh, stupendous 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 7 
 
 thought! — the colony would no longer be an experi- 
 ment. Perhaps the whole world would be the colony. 
 And no one would be working for wages any more. 
 And competition would be abolished. 
 
 I became aware that the edge of the book was 
 hurting my chin. — Yes; they would like, then, to 
 know about the early days. And I would begin by 
 saying that I was the child of co-operative parents. 
 That would win the public at the start. Uncle 
 Llewellyn considered the public very important, I 
 knew. And I would tell how my father always 
 laughed tenderly and said that my mother was even 
 more of a crank than he was. But, of course, people 
 would understand that neither my father nor my 
 mother was really a crank. And I would tell, — 
 no; not about the time before mother died, when I 
 was Httle, and the capitalist press wouldn't print 
 father's brilliant satires on Society, and mother had 
 to work for wages. Some things were nobody's 
 business, father used to say. And it was nobody's 
 business about my ancestors, that they were com- 
 petitive; everybody's ancestors were competitive, 
 more or less; and if mine were rather more than 
 less — still, it was not my fault. 
 
 No; I would begin with the day we came to New 
 Hope; and how the big plantation house and its 
 offices, and Mr. Baldwin's three-room house, and a 
 two-room shack, were all the colony; but there 
 were forty people in the population, most of them 
 sleeping in tents. And how no one knew anything 
 about father and me except that father said he was 
 a Socialist and I was a Christian and he thought we 
 could team it as Christian-Socialist with the rest 
 
8 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 of them if they were willing. And how Uncle 
 LleweUyn — who wasn't Uncle Llewellyn then, but 
 Brother Evans — clapped his hand on father's 
 shoulder and said — " You've come to the right 
 place for that cough, brother." And Aunt Camilla, 
 who was Sister Evans, said — " Everybody in the 
 colony has a little boy or girl in her house except 
 me, and I've been jealous, but now I'm going to 
 have a little girl," and she kissed me. And how 
 it was father who suggested The Message of 
 New Hope, and was the first editor with Uncle 
 LleweUyn to co-operate with him. And how three 
 of father's brilliant satires on Society were published 
 in the Message, but after that we had to stop them 
 because some of the other brothers in the colony 
 were very evangelical, and some of the Northern 
 subscribers were unmarried ladies; and Uncle 
 Llewellyn said we would have to educate our public 
 first. But father died before the public was educated. 
 
 My throat contracted suddenly and I shoved back 
 my chair and went to stand by the window with my 
 hands clasped tight together. Anyway, I did not 
 have to write about it now. 
 
 Several colonists were coming through the wet 
 orchard to the plantation house. I heard Aunt 
 Camilla unhitching the horse. She dropped the 
 harness in a puddle and squealed. After a few 
 minutes she came along the gallery with the mail- 
 bag and stopped at the window to hand me the 
 newspapers. 
 
 " Three days* mail on accoimt of the wash-outs," 
 she said, and hurried on around the gallery to the 
 front room that used to be the old plantation-house 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 9 
 
 parlour and was now the post office, and the polls, 
 and the auditorium, and, on rainy nights when 
 they couldn't have their cots on the gallery, the 
 bachelors' hotel. 
 
 " Any news? " asked Uncle Lew. 
 
 I glanced at the headlines of the uppermost 
 newspaper and my eye was caught and held by a 
 familiar name. I hesitated a moment before I 
 answered, not very loud : — 
 
 " There's a millionaire dead." 
 
 "What? — Never mind, I can't hear. I'll be 
 through this job in ten minutes now, if she holds 
 out, and then if you're a real good httle girl, Clara, 
 you may distribute the type." He smiled quizzi- 
 cally at me and I smiled back over the top of the 
 newspaper and hoped he could not see how red my 
 face was. 
 
 I carried the papers to the table and shuffled them 
 over. The death of the milHonaire filled the front 
 page of every one. 
 
 " Jesse Emery Dead at New York Residence 
 after Illness of Ten Days." 
 
 '' Multi-millionaire meets his End like a Man. 
 Grieving Grandsons summoned from Sunny Italy 
 arrive on Time." And there was a picture of the 
 grandsons. 
 
 " Wall Street Mourns Death of Noted Financier. 
 Funeral at Old Trinity. Eminent Bankers and 
 Railroad Magnates are Pall-bearers." 
 
 *' Old Copper King succumbs to Common Lot. 
 Pnemnonia claims One of America's Grand Old 
 Men." 
 
 I had turned back to the picture of the grieving 
 
lo THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 grandsons — two very cheerful - looking little boys 
 in white sailor-suits — whose names, it seemed, were 
 Lucian and Cyrus, and was reading how they and 
 their widowed mother — n6e Pauline Goddard, and 
 only daughter of the late George Goddard, the 
 eminent corporation lawyer — lived in a villa in the 
 land of the olive and the vine, which, by putting 
 two and two together, I concluded must be Sunny 
 Italy — when Helen Baldwin spoke to me through 
 the window. 
 
 I jumped and Helen laughed, and while she was 
 laughing I did what was, for me, a very queer thing : 
 I faced round and hoisted myself up on the table 
 with a sudden spring so that I sat on the pile of 
 newspapers. And I was not a Uttle girl who 
 ordinarily sat on tables. Even as I did it I wondered 
 if Helen would notice; but although Helen was two 
 years older than I and, every one said, a very clever 
 little girl, some subtleties escaped her, though not 
 many. 
 
 " How far have you got? " repeated Helen, still 
 doubled over the window-sill with laughter. 
 
 "Got?" said I. 
 
 " Yes; in Robert. You know, it's my turn 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Helen and I were reading Robert Owen turn and turn 
 about, a day at a time; but this was my first day. 
 
 " Not very far," I answered, relieved. 
 
 ''Talk about conceit! " said Helen. 
 
 " Oh, do you think so? " I asked anxiously. 
 
 ''Think!)" 
 
 " But he doesn't brag at all," I ventured. " You 
 have to tell the truth in an autobiography; and if 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD ii 
 
 he did teach school when he was nine years old, of 
 course he had to put it in/* 
 
 " Well, I don't believe he was so particularly 
 truthful " — this with a cynical air. 
 
 "Oh, Helen!" 
 
 " There were the apple dumplings." 
 
 " I haven't come to them." 
 
 " Well, you've come to the fiummerie? " 
 
 " Wasn't it dreadful? I could feel it scalding him 
 all the way down, when I was reading." 
 
 " Nasty stuff! " said Helen. 
 
 " I know, you hate any kind of mush," I agreed 
 sympathetically, "but he seemed to like it; and 
 boiled flour may be nicer than com meal." 
 
 "Pap!" said Helen, making an awful face. 
 "Ogh! I'm glad it burnt him. And then he said 
 it made him have to be careful all the rest of his life 
 about what he ate. And then when he was a grown-up 
 young man and his housekeeper would come in to ask 
 him what he would have for dinner, he would say 
 an apple dumpling, and anything else she pleased. 
 Every single day an apple dumpling. I don't call 
 that a weak stomach." 
 
 " But perhaps they're easy to digest," I suggested 
 meekly. 
 
 " Dumplings! " shrieked Helen. 
 
 But I, too, was getting excited. " You shall not 
 make him out so bad," I cried. " You are only 
 doing it to argue, anyway; you know you are. And 
 if he had been reaUy untruthful he wouldn't have 
 said anything about the apple dumplings at all. 
 He didn't have to. It was his own autobio- 
 graphy." 
 
12 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " Then you think he wasn't a story-teller, he was 
 just a fool? " Helen asked sweetly. 
 
 "You know he wasn't, Helen Baldwin; and 
 besides, I never say that word about any one." 
 Tears of rage sprang to my eyes. 
 
 " Now who's the prig? " laughed Helen. 
 
 " You only like to talk so as to get the better of 
 people," I murmured. '' You don't care about 
 anything really at all." 
 
 She grinned teazingly at me through the window 
 and then, on a sudden, her face clouded. It was a 
 broad, rather chubby face, with a forehead wide but 
 low, and an impudent, uptilting nose. The mouth 
 was large, clean-lipped, and very red, a mocking 
 mouth, and almost always merry. But for the eyes 
 the face might have been shallow, even hard; they 
 were a clear brown, those eyes, alert without being 
 sharp ; not eyes that flashed. It was Helen's mouth 
 that flashed; the eyes were steady. Only two or 
 three times in our life has the Helen of the eyes 
 spoken out to me, but even when we were little girls 
 and the every-day Helen had tormented me almost 
 beyond endurance, I knew — as surely as I knew that 
 Robert Owen was truthful — that the other Helen was 
 there, as much in earnest about life as I was, and 
 much more unselfish and helpful with her elders. I 
 think she knew I knew it, and it exasperated her. 
 
 One thing I never did know, and that was how 
 she would teaze me next. Now, when the smile 
 faded from the impish mouth, leaving it only scornful 
 and aggressive, and sullen eyehds hid the eyes, I 
 waited, braced for conflict. 
 
 " Well, there is one thing I don't care for," she 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 13 
 
 said with sulky deliberation, " and that's this 
 colony." 
 
 The enormity of this statement was such that I 
 had nothing to say. 
 
 *' Mother says I may go up North and live with 
 sister if I want to," she continued, when the silence 
 had ceased to be impressive. " I could go to a 
 high school for nothing, and begin to get ready to 
 earn my own living. And maybe I'll go to college. 
 Sister has written, and she has a splendid place on 
 a newspaper now, and I wouldn't cost much, and 
 we'd have a little fiat " 
 
 ''Helen, Helen, you wouldn't do it!" I cried. 
 " Just because we don't have anything but mush 
 and cow-peas! " 
 
 " Mother says I may if I want to," she reiterated, 
 tracing patterns on the window-sill. 
 
 " Well, your father won't," I retorted. 
 
 " Father believes like Tolstoy does, you know. 
 He's a non-resistant. He can't say anything." 
 
 *' He said a lot when Mr. Hobart 'most had the 
 colony sold up for debt. It was your father that 
 wanted to tar and feather him, and if it hadn't been 
 for Uncle Lew " 
 
 ** That was because he was mad," said Helen; 
 " and everybody was mad, and they had a right to 
 be. That Mr. Hobart was nothing but a tramp 
 when he came here, and he didn't do a Hck of work 
 all the three months he stayed. And then to try to 
 sell us up so he could come in for an equal share of 
 what was left — and it never was any of it his in the 
 first place! He was a regular Judas. — But," she 
 added calmly, " father won't resist mother." 
 
14 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " And you'll be a Judas, too, Helen Baldwin,'* I 
 shouted, " a mean, selfish Judas " 
 
 "Hoo, hoo, hoo!" called Uncle lAeweUyn. "Is 
 that the voice of wrath I hear? " He had just 
 stopped the press. 
 
 The voice of wrath was abruptly hushed. I 
 glared at Helen and Helen wrinkled her nose at me. 
 Aunt Camilla came into the room with letters in her 
 hands. 
 
 " Haven't you gone home yet with that mail, 
 Helen? " she remarked. 
 
 And Helen said — " No'm," and went. 
 
 I slid off the table and was turning again to the 
 grieving grandsons when I saw Aunt Camilla silently 
 lay three letters on the press before Uncle Llewellyn. 
 His eyes went from one to another of the letters and 
 then sought the eyes of Aunt Camilla. His eye- 
 brows went up the least bit, interrogatively; her 
 face remained impassive, non-committal. Evidently 
 I was not needed at this crisis. I picked up the top 
 newspaper and went, as unostentatiously as I could, 
 across the room to the gallery door; but as I turned 
 the knob Uncle Llewellyn said : — 
 
 '* You needn't run away, Clara. There's a letter 
 for you here." 
 
 II 
 
 As I came back. Uncle Llewellyn sht one of the 
 letters and began to read it, and he had scarcely 
 begun when his eyes and his mouth opened quite 
 wide simultaneously. 
 
 "Emery!" he ejaculated. "Why, of course!" 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 15 
 
 And then — *' Why, Clara! *' and he stared at me, his 
 face one round O of amazement. And I stood 
 shrinking before him, the unhappy red creeping up 
 over neck and cheek and forehead. It had not 
 occurred to me that the letters could be about — that. 
 
 He put out his hand and drew me to him, and I 
 could feel that he was trying to keep the excitement 
 out of his kind voice: — 
 
 ** Didn't you say something about a dead million- 
 aire a while back, Clara? " 
 
 I nodded miserably. 
 
 " Well, do you know who he was? *' 
 
 Uncle Lew's question was purely rhetorical, but 1 
 was too mortified to appreciate the fine distinctions 
 of language. 
 
 " Yes," I said, very low; and Aunt Camilla bent 
 down to hear. " Yes; he was my great-uncle." 
 
 '* You knew!" — Uncle Llewellyn held me away 
 from him and gaped at me. " You knew! " — This 
 seemed to amaze him even more than the letter. 
 
 Aunt Camilla had snatched that up and was read- 
 ing it breathlessly. *' Old Jesse Emery! " she cried. 
 "That man! — Why, Clara! Why have you never 
 told us? " 
 
 I hung my head. I hid my face in my two hands. 
 Uncle Lew patted me gently. 
 
 " I was so ashamed of him," I whispered. 
 
 Aunt Camilla was excitable and not very strong; 
 she gave a queer sort of explosive screech and began 
 to cry and laugh, both together, violently. Uncle Lew 
 shook her and remonstrated with her, and said : — 
 
 " Camilla, Camilla, you mustn't ! Brace up ! — 
 You're making her cry! — Camilla! " 
 
i6 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 And after I had brought her a glass of water salted 
 with my tears she quieted down, except for an occa- 
 sional hiccough, and made me sit in her lap and 
 be loved and comforted while Uncle Llewellyn read 
 one of the other letters through slowly, murmuring, 
 " My, my, my! " under his breath as he read. When 
 he had finished he took up the third letter and put 
 it into my hands. 
 
 *' This is to you," he said. It was edged with 
 black. 
 
 I was feeling happier with Aunt Camilla's arm 
 around me ; and besides, although I was eleven years 
 old, this was the first letter I had ever received. It 
 was fat, and the handwriting was a woman's. On 
 the back there was a blob of black seaUng-wax sealed 
 with a monogram. Uncle Llewelljm handed me his 
 penknife to sHt the envelope. I took it with a rising 
 sense of importance. After all, perhaps a great- 
 uncle need not be considered such a very near 
 relation. 
 
 *' I suppose they are inviting me to the funeral," 
 I remarked. " It is very poHte of them, but I don't 
 beheve they really expect me to come; and I can't, 
 anyway, because I haven't enough money for the 
 raUroad fare." 
 
 The queerest look passed over Uncle Llewellyn's 
 face. " The fimeral is over by now," he said. 
 " The papers are late on account of the wash-outs, 
 you know, and these two letters are later because 
 they were first sent to Judge Acton over in Mobile. 
 He expected to come himself, but he's laid up. This 
 is what he says — I think I might as well read the 
 letter," he looked a question at Aunt Camilla — 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 17 
 
 " This is what he says — you'll have to keep these 
 letters carefully, Clara, — he says: — 
 
 " * Dear Evans, — You New Hopers do keep me 
 jumping, I must say. My latest information con- 
 cerning your colony comes to me from my old friend 
 Daniel Packard, senior member of the law firm of 
 Packard and Estabrook, New York. It seems that 
 the pretty little red-headed girl I took such a shine 
 to the last time I came out to see you about that 
 scamp Hobart, is some punkins. I remember you 
 talked to me about her future with a good deal of 
 anxiety when we were facing the imminent possi- 
 bility of the colony's going bust. But there's no 
 need to lie awake nights over her; she is the grand- 
 niece of the multi-millionaire, Jesse Emery. The 
 old gentleman only found out her whereabouts a 
 few days before he died. She is Cyrus Emery's 
 grand - daughter. Cyrus died in the civil war. 
 Strict legal etiquette would demand that I bring you 
 the news in person, but I broke my leg last Saturday 
 off in the swamp, shooting ducks, and as I feel fairly 
 certain that you won't kidnap the young lady before 
 I can get round on crutches to make my formal call, 
 I am forwarding a couple of letters that ought not 
 to be delayed. 
 
 ** * As for the affair of the receivership — I have your 
 good letter of the 30th, but you didn't need to 
 thank me, it was a perfectly plain case. Hobart 
 hadn't a leg to stand on. I only wish I could feel 
 I had done something more than merely postpone 
 the evil day, for you all certainly are the most en- 
 dearing set of cranks that ever invented a Utopia. 
 
i8 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 But I'm afraid it's got to come, unless you can get 
 somebody to back you up and lift that mortgage. 
 However, this is ex officio — you know your own 
 business best. — Faithfully yours, 
 
 'Edward Carter Acton. 
 
 " ' P.S. — Of course, you understand that if anything 
 did happen to that child they could make it mighty 
 hot for you and me.* '* 
 
 ** Happen to me? " said I, but Aunt Camilla inter- 
 rupted to ask if I had ever seen my great-uncle. 
 
 No. But there were pictures of him in every 
 paper, and of the two little boys, his grandsons, and 
 their mother. I handed over the paper. 
 
 ** She was actually reading all about it without 
 saying a word," said Aunt Camilla. " Why, Clara! 
 Didn't you mean to tell us anything? " 
 
 "No," said I, wretched but firm. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if her letter were from some 
 of them," suggested Uncle Lew. " This other, to 
 me, is from the lawyers, a business letter, important, 
 but I shall have to explain it to you, Clara; — better 
 read what your family have to say first." 
 
 Family! — I looked at him. 
 
 "Slip the blade under, this way — so. No; you 
 must do it; I can't open your letter." 
 
 The fat, black-edged envelope contained several 
 letters, and Uncle Lew picked out the one written 
 by the hand that had addressed the envelope. I 
 had a good deal of trouble reading the gigantic, 
 see-saw writing, but I discovered that it was written 
 by a grown person who signed herself my Cousin 
 Pauline, and who was a good deal perturbed by the 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 19 
 
 fact that I had been living alone among strangers 
 for six months. 
 
 '* Strangers! '* said I, clutching Aunt Camilla. 
 
 " But now," said the letter, " you must come at 
 once. If there is no one to bring you we will send 
 for you.'* 
 
 I looked at Uncle Llewellyn uneasily. " How shall 
 we explain that I can't come? " I asked. 
 
 " She sounds like a really sweet woman," said 
 Aunt Camilla in a tone of relief. 
 
 " Yes," agreed Uncle Llewellyn, " and considering 
 that they are her sons, she might — you know " 
 
 Aunt Camilla seemed to understand. 
 
 *' How shall we explain — " I began again. 
 
 " Ho, ho! look at this! " Uncle Lew interrupted. 
 The second letter had a Kate Greenaway boy and girl 
 in blue and green skipping across the top of the page. 
 The handwriting was conscientious but wobbly. 
 
 " My dear cousine," it began, " Mother says you 
 are our cousine and you are going to live with us" 
 now." 
 
 "No! " said I, and the little letter shook in my 
 hands. 
 
 " We are going," prompted Uncle Llewellyn. 
 
 ** We are going," I continued, " up to the 
 montagnes. Grandfather said we have lived long 
 enough in Europe. Mother says you and I must 
 like each other because I am named Cyrus for your 
 grandfather. It is an old family name. It is also 
 the name of a great king, but he was a heathen. 
 It is not as bad as to be named Nebbuchuddnezzzar. 
 Lucian has the intention to be creamated, but I 
 have not. I do not wish to ressemble to grand- 
 
20 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 father in that way. — Je te souhaite le bonheur, my 
 cousine. Toujours a toi, Cyrus Emery." 
 
 " All of a sudden it doesn't mean anything," said I. 
 
 Uncle Llewellyn laughed, and explained that it 
 was French. He and Aunt Camilla together trans- 
 lated it, rather lamely, and before they had finished 
 the big plantation bell rang for supper, and we read 
 the third letter in a hurry. It left us gasping. 
 
 " To Clara our beloved cousin at New Hope, 
 greeting," it began. 
 
 *' Dearest sister in Christ Jesus, I am so glad your 
 name is Clara because it fits in exactly with the new 
 play Cyrus and I are playing since seven months. 
 It is a play, but also it is a realism, for we shall 
 become it when we are grown up. I am longing to 
 explain it to you now, but I will keep it till you come. 
 Her name was Clara; i fioretti ; now can you guess? 
 I am sure yes. The difficulty is to find lepers. 
 Mother says there are no wolves in the mountains, 
 but grandfather told me there are sometimes bears, 
 and those perhaps we can make our little brothers. 
 We shall have a beautiful summer. 
 
 ** I, Brother Lucian, with the will to kiss your feet, 
 do beseech you come quickly. 
 
 " P.S. — I did not make up the beginning and end. 
 They used to write that way in those days, you 
 know." 
 
 Never had I heard Uncle Llewellyn laugh so loud 
 and so long. 
 
 "What under the canopy!" exclaimed Aunt 
 Camilla. " His mother never read it, that's certain." 
 
 " It sounds like an acrostic," said I. 
 
 ^j& 
 
 %: 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 21 
 
 Uncle Lew bent back my head and looked into 
 my face quizzically. " They're cousins of yours, aU 
 right, Clara," he said. *' I can detect a strong family 
 likeness." 
 
 Ill 
 
 The light was dim and hazy in our new co-opera- 
 tive dining-room. The six bracket-lamps made their 
 appeal primarily to the sense of smell. Moreover, 
 the kitchen chimney had been built by Brother 
 Barton, who earned his living, when he worked for 
 wages, by regulating the pitch of organ pipes; and 
 it would seem that the draught in an organ pipe and 
 the draught in a chimney are not governed by the 
 same law of physics, for Brother Barton's sensitive 
 ear had not enabled him to make our kitchen chimney 
 draw. He, however, had a strong feeling that the 
 fault lay in the swing-door between the kitchen and 
 the dining-room. Helen's father, who had occupied 
 the chair of homiletics in a western theological 
 seminary before he became a non-resistant, had 
 adjusted this door to swing; and it swung, when 
 once set going, as faithfully as the pendulum of an 
 eight-day clock. At first, some of us thought that 
 Helen's father had stumbled upon the secret of 
 perpetual motion. But he hadn't, quite. 
 
 The door was swinging now, as Uncle Llewellyn 
 and Aunt Camilla and I came into the dining-room. 
 And Sister Hetty Pugh was frying com meal batter- 
 cakes in the kitchen. And our three co-operative 
 invalids and Grandfather Pugh, who was eighty- 
 seven, were coughing. And all the other members 
 
22 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 of the colony, of whom there were at that time fifty- 
 two, including fourteen children, were wiping their 
 eyes or drinking water. Helen, armed with the 
 water pitcher, was refilling tumblers. As I look 
 back, Helen is always doing some commonplace, 
 helpful thing, in those days — as now — and scorning 
 herself for doing it. 
 
 ** This is the third time I've filled them," she 
 grumbled. " Ask Uncle Lew to ask mother if I can 
 come over after supper and help wrap the Message. 
 Something exciting! — I am — you know what! — A 
 letter from sister." 
 
 I nodded soberly, and Uncle Lew, who had 
 heard, gave me a curious look, as if he found me 
 interesting. 
 
 "What is it?" I asked him, slipping into my 
 chair. 
 
 He pushed me up to the table and sat down beside 
 me. " I was wondering how much of your news we 
 should have known if your family had not written," 
 he said, smiling, and watching me. 
 
 I met his eyes helplessly but said nothing. What 
 was there to say? And just then Sister Pugh 
 created a diversion by bursting through the smoke 
 with a platter of fresh cakes. 
 
 " These are the last," she proclaimed. 
 
 " Kingdom come! " thundered Grandfather Pugh. 
 " Were you making that infernal smoke? If I had 
 known " — he choked, gasped. His daughter set 
 down the platter hastily, and led him coughing and 
 gesticulating from the dining-room. 
 
 " And they're made without either sour milk or 
 eggs," she called back in a tone of triumph. 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 23 
 
 " No need to tell us that/' murmured Brother 
 Nicholas Richards, who sat at my left hand. 
 
 Brother Richards was one of our young bachelors; 
 so young, indeed, that Helen, whose bump of venera- 
 tion was small, always spoke of him to me as 
 Nicholas. He had studied architecture in Paris, 
 and when he joined the colony he felt that New 
 Hope was his architectural opportunity. He had 
 visions of a city which should set the standard for 
 municipal architecture for all time. When he talked 
 about it I used to be reminded of the city in the 
 Apocalypse, except that his specifications and 
 measurements were less definite than those of St. 
 John. But although he had been with us since 
 October, and this was almost June, the city was not 
 built. And now he was going away. He said the 
 new co-operative dining-room was more than he could 
 bear — architecturally. I was sorry to have him go. 
 It seemed as if he ought to wait at least a year. 
 
 The really heart-breaking thing about life at New 
 Hope, to me at the age of eleven, was not that we 
 often did not have enough to eat, not that we were 
 short of blankets — always I have been callous in 
 regard to people who did not have food or clothes; 
 it is one of my limitations, I know — but that any 
 one should come to us enthusiastic and expectant, 
 and go away in dejection or contempt. And this 
 so often happened. Could there be anything wrong 
 with co-operation ? I used to wonder, fearfully. But 
 Uncle Lew was very consoling on this point : he said 
 the trouble was with human nature — his human 
 nature and Mr. Hobart's and everybody's. It always 
 seemed to me very noble of Uncle Lew to put his 
 
24 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 human nature in the same class with Mr. Hobart's; 
 and it seems so still. Concerning the defection of 
 Brother Richards, Uncle Lew was also consoling. 
 He said it was just as well. He said that Brother 
 Richards would have to build a few Biltmores, and 
 marble sky-scrapers, and trust companies, in order 
 to be able to appreciate the possibilities of a plain 
 pine board and glorify the outlines of a packing-box. 
 It was Brother Richards himself who called our new 
 co-operative dining-room a packing-box. 
 
 He helped me to the last two cakes on the plotter. 
 
 *' One, please," said I politely. 
 
 " It's all right," he reassured me. " The rest of us 
 had gorged ourselves before you came in. We had 
 as many as three apiece." 
 
 Uncle Llewellyn had had none. I looked up at 
 him and lifted a cake tentatively, but he said — 
 "Don't you dare! " 
 
 He was eating combread without butter, and 
 dried peaches. As soon as we could pay the lawyer 
 for defending us against Mr. Hobart we were going 
 to have meat again, occasionally, and butter, some- 
 times. Eleven people had gone away from the 
 colony since Mr. Hobart tried to betray us. Still, 
 it was not all his fault. The climate was pleasanter 
 in winter than in summer. 
 
 Grandfather Pugh came back to his seat, glared at 
 the empty platter and attacked his dried peaches 
 resentfully with a three-pronged fork. The old 
 gentleman was a member of three peace societies, 
 one of them international, but his attitude toward 
 the minor exigencies of life was distinctly miUtant. 
 It was he who suggested to Helen's father that Mr, 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 25 
 
 Hobart be tarred and feathered. He was the only 
 member of the colony who ever said damn; I mean, 
 of course, in my hearing. 
 
 Warned by the lull that inevitably preceded the 
 pushing back of chairs, I was hastily spooning up 
 my last mouthful of peaches, when Helen's father 
 arrested our attention by knocking on his table. 
 Helen's father always read the notices to the colony. 
 He was a little man, mild-eyed, be-spectacled, 
 meagre, but his voice — he was wont to refer to it as 
 his organ, as if he were unicellular — would have filled 
 St. Peter's easily. At least, so Brother Richards said, 
 who had been there. Brother Richards and Helen's 
 father did not get on very well together. Brother 
 Richards always spoke of him as the organic hole. 
 But Helen's father was very much in earnest about 
 the colony. 
 
 " My first notice," he trumpeted now, through the 
 odorous haze, ** will give us all encouragement. I 
 have a letter from some one in Maine, who signs 
 herself ' A Friend ' — I say ' herself * advisedly — 
 and sends us two dollars towards the interest on our 
 mortgage." 
 
 Aunt Camilla drank water hastily, and choked. 
 
 " Our next news is not so happy." Helen's father 
 paused. 
 
 Uncle Lew looked up at him quickly; looked 
 interrogatively across me at Brother Richards, who 
 lifted his eyebrows and shook his head in token of 
 ignorance. 
 
 " Not so happy. But we must remember in 
 whose hands we are. Our dear Brother Ashley, 
 whose merry face we have missed at table these two 
 
26 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 days past, is very ill with a fever. We don't know 
 what fever; we hope not typhoid " 
 
 ** Glory, what an idiot!" muttered Brother 
 Richards. 
 
 Uncle Lew — one hand grasping the table, his 
 chair hanging backward on its hind legs — was trying 
 to reach Helen's father with a suppressive eye. But 
 Helen's father was near-sighted ; he went on booming 
 through the sickish silence that had fallen upon the 
 dining-room. 
 
 " We hope not, but until we know, we think it 
 best that no one should drink water that has not 
 been boiled. I do not need to ask those who believe 
 in prayer to pray for our dear brother. And now, 
 shall we follow our usual custom and speed the 
 parting guest? Brother Richards, whose bUthe 
 spirit " 
 
 "Forgive me, Shelley!" whispered Brother 
 Richards. 
 
 " Has done so much to cheer our winter, is to 
 leave us to-morrow to carry the leaven of co-opera- 
 tion into the great world of competition " 
 
 "Nixie; competition for ever!" said Brother 
 Richards imder his breath. 
 
 " Shall we drink our usual toast " 
 
 "Hold on, Dr. Baldwin! " Brother Richards had 
 sprung to his feet. " Has this water been boiled ? " — 
 Tumblers were hastily set down. " And besides, 
 I'm sorry, but I can't leave you to-morrow; the 
 cheque I expected to-night didn't come." 
 
 Everybody laughed, but in a shaky sort of way, 
 quickly smothered in the raucous scrape of chairs. 
 
 Outside the door there was not the usual linger- 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 27 
 
 ing and chatter. Here and there irresolute people 
 stood about, as if they wanted to say something but 
 were not sure it would be wise. One or two made 
 a motion to detain Uncle Lew, but he went straight 
 away, through the dusky orchard, with Aunt 
 Camilla at his elbow and me at his heels. 
 
 "Did you know about this, Lew? '* asked Aunt 
 Camilla. 
 
 " Do you think he would have given that notice 
 if I had?" 
 
 " Great thing, initiative," Brother Richards 
 observed. He had caught up with us, and Helen 
 came panting behind him. 
 
 " I can stay till eight," she volunteered. *' Why 
 didn't you wait for me? " 
 
 "Oh, Nick, is that you?" said Uncle Lew. 
 " You're the one I want to see. Do you go to 
 Boston, or only to New York? Would you be 
 willing to go a bit farther — say New Hampshire — 
 if I could make it worth your while? Perhaps New 
 York will do. It depends. I may need some one 
 to take — Children, you can run ahead and light 
 the big lamp if you'll be very careful. Helen do 
 the lighting while Clara holds the chimney." 
 
 " I am going! " whispered Helen excitedly, as we 
 began to run. " Especially now there's typhoid 
 fever." 
 
 We ran on silently, stumbling sometimes in the 
 rough orchard grass. — Typhoid! — Perhaps now that 
 I had cousins Uncle Lew would find a way to send 
 me to them for fear of the fever. Behind us Brother 
 Richards shouted suddenly — "Not those Emerys? 
 —Why, I met—" and then his voice fell.— But there 
 
28 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 was no money, fortunately. — Unless — the words of 
 Judge Acton's letter seemed to rush into my heart — 
 " There's no need to lie awake nights over her; she 
 is the grand-niece of the multi-millionaire, Jesse 
 Emery." The whole situation was suddenly 
 illumined by a frightful light. — But I would not go. 
 
 And now another astonishing thing happened, 
 Helen flung her arm around my neck and kissed me. 
 It was an inopportune moment for affection; we 
 were going up the gallery steps, and we lost our 
 balance and fell up them and over each other and 
 bumped our knees. 
 
 " I will make a list of the things I do, so you can 
 do them. Somebody must. Grandfather Pugh has 
 to have a cup of hot milk and water every day at 
 eleven — don't forget; — mostly water unless the cows 
 give more. And I wash Mrs. Hardy's dishes for her 
 every morning — and — I'll write them down. Oh, 
 I am going! '* she cried in an angry, defiant voice. 
 ''Where are the matches? Where is the lamp? — 
 Clara, you must never forget about drinking the 
 boiled water." 
 
 IV 
 
 Whenever I hear frogs croaking at night my throat 
 closes and I know again the anguish of driven help- 
 lessness that tortured me in that soft southern 
 evening as I sat close beside Uncle Lew on the 
 plantation-house steps. I feel again the jasmine- 
 scented darkness and Uncle Lew's arm around me 
 pressing me against his side. I hear the hum of 
 a foraging mosquito and the loud, cracked chorus 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 29 
 
 of wakeful frogs; not literary hylas rhythmically 
 poetising in the trees, but frogs, the practical citizens 
 of the swamp in noisy caucus, choosing Patrick, 
 Patrick, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick, by direct primary, 
 for some municipal office, with an occasional boom- 
 ing note for Paul. In the goldfish pond of our villa 
 in Umbria the frogs are osculatory. They make 
 long, kissing sounds, like the drawing of a cow's heel 
 out of the mud, such as one would expect from senti- 
 mental Italian batrachians; but in America, in the 
 South, on summer nights, they say Patrick, Patrick, 
 Patrick, patiently, incessantly, without excitement, 
 in a persistent monotone. 
 
 Helen had run home across the orchard, and Aunt 
 Camilla had gone with Nicholas to see the sick man. 
 The Messages were in the mail-bag ready for the 
 morning train. 
 
 " Uncle Lew," said I, presently, " what did Judge 
 Acton mean when he said you needn't lie awake 
 nights over me? " 
 
 Uncle Lew grunted, and it was then that he put 
 his arm around me. '* Trust you for coming straight 
 to the point," he said. 
 
 I waited. 
 
 ** WeU, you see, Clara," he began at last, " it's 
 this way : your great-uncle was a very rich man, and 
 he's left you some of his money." 
 
 '* Enough to lift the mortgage? " I asked. 
 
 " Bless her heart! " said he gently, with his little 
 amused chuckle. " Yes; and something over." 
 
 *' Then we can use the rest for the printing press." 
 
 " My child," said Uncle Lew, "it is evident that 
 what you need is complete change of scene." 
 
30 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 *' I will drink boiled water, Uncle Lew/* 
 
 He gave a little groan, such a sad sound. " I 
 was not thinking of your stomach just then, Clara, 
 I was thinking of your dear little soul." 
 
 " But my soul can't take typhoid fever." 
 
 " There are other germs." 
 
 We sat a few minutes in silence. I was trying to 
 find a polite method of asserting my independence. 
 When I did speak I trembled in a way that was very 
 unpleasant to me: — 
 
 '* If it is my money, I can spend it as I please, 
 and I do not want to use it for a long journey. I 
 am going to lift the mortgage and buy the printing 
 press." 
 
 " The peculiar thing about it is that although it 
 is your money, my dear, you cannot spend it as you 
 choose," remarked Uncle Lew. 
 
 " Then I won't take it." I felt distinct relief. 
 
 '* And another peculiar thing about it is that you 
 can't refuse it. You are what is called in law a 
 minor — that is, you are not twenty-one years old — 
 and you must do what your family think is best for 
 you." 
 
 '* Father was my family, and he is dead, and I 
 have adopted you and Aunt Camilla," I cried. 
 
 To this he made no reply; and the frogs said — 
 " Patrick, Patrick." 
 
 It is impossible to put into words a child's 
 desperate first consciousness of impotence. All 
 those frantic emotions that betrayal, desertion, 
 fetters, generate, vapoured dumb and nameless in 
 my sick and terrified little soul. 
 
 " Patrick, Patrick, Patrick," chanted the frogs. 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILD 31 
 
 I did not move head, nor hand, nor foot. 
 
 '* Poor young one!" said Uncle Lew at last. 
 " Poor young one! " 
 
 *' 1 must stay!" I whispered to him then. I 
 could not speak out loud ; something was smothering 
 me. " I must stay, to write the autobiography of 
 the colony." 
 
 " I will send you the Message, dearie; you shall 
 know what we are doing." 
 
 " But you expurgate the Message.'* 
 
 He sighed. 
 
 " I must stay." 
 
 Uncle Lew had a happy thought — *' You shall 
 come back some day — if — if we are here." 
 
 I began to cry then. *' I shall be so old," I 
 sobbed, with my head on my knees. *' I shall be 
 twice as old as I am now." 
 
 ** I was older than that before I got my chance to 
 live my dream," said Uncle Lew. 
 
 I lifted my head. " Is the colony your dream, 
 Uncle Lew? " 
 
 He looked out into the darkness, musingly. " I 
 do not know," he said. 
 
 Suddenly I clinched my little helpless hands and 
 flung them, rigid, above my head. " I will not 
 compete!" I cried. "It is wicked to compete. 
 Father said so. You say so. So does Robert Owen. 
 I will not! I will not! I will not! — no one shall 
 make me. Even if everybody else does, I never 
 will. I will co-operate by myself for ever and ever." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 
 I 
 
 It was Lucian who welcomed me to the farm. He 
 said something ecstatic in a strange tongue, and 
 leaning toward me in a tiptoe sort of way he kissed 
 me daintily on each cheek. If he had kissed my feet, 
 as his letter declared he " had the will " to do, I 
 could not have been more astonished. Then, still 
 bubbUng unintelHgible words, he took my hand in 
 one of his and with the other touched my hair. 
 
 " English, Lucian,'* said my Cousin Pauline. 
 ** You know grandfather wished it." 
 
 " Before he died, yes," the boy answered swiftly, 
 '* but do you not think he is by this time more 
 cosmopolite ? I must greet her in the French that 
 San Francesco loved." 
 
 " She does not understand French," said a shy, 
 dry, meditative Httle voice, and I saw Cyrus, a 
 spindly, pale child with freckles on his nose and 
 wisps of sandy hair that strayed untidily down his 
 forehead. He was staring at me fixedly, out of a 
 pair of round, milky blue eyes. 
 
 ''No?" said Lucian. He spoke to me, but I 
 could only make a little negative motion of the head 
 and turn a more embarrassed crimson. 
 
 "Nor Italian?" 
 
 32 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 33 
 
 My Cousin Pauline had drawn me to her and was 
 kissing me, also on each cheek, and saying some- 
 thing in English, I do not know what. Lucian still 
 held my hand, and as his mother kissed me he said : — 
 
 " If you were quite dumb you would still look 
 like the Pintorricchio madonna at Spello — those pale 
 slim features; the one who says, 'My son, where- 
 fore? ' to Gesulino when she loses him in the temple. 
 But your hair is brighter." Again he put out his 
 hand and touched it. 
 
 " San Francesco cut off her hair," observed Cyrus. 
 
 My Cousin Pauline gave a queer Uttle cry that I 
 afterwards learned to recognise as " Dio mio! " 
 
 " My little darhngs," she added, drawing us all 
 three into her arms, " you must learn what I am 
 always telling you, that to-day we live the life of 
 San Francesco, but in our spirits. We do not wear 
 a hair shirt and beg at a church door, those things 
 are past, for us. But in our spirits we follow San 
 Francesco. Lucian understands." 
 
 Lucian was regarding his mother thoughtfully. 
 He made no reply. 
 
 " But I do not," said Cyrus. His tone was calm. 
 
 A little frown wrinkled his mother's forehead, 
 " You understand that you are not to cut Clara's 
 hair," she exclaimed impatiently. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Cyrus, drawing away from her. 
 
 I stood looking from one to another, as bewildered 
 by their English as I had been by their French and 
 Italian. What were they talking about? Who 
 was San Francesco? Why did he cut her hair? 
 Whose hair? And what was a Pintorricchio 
 madonna? I, who had lived always among social 
 
 c 
 
34 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 radicals and Methodist communists, had never heard 
 the word madonna. 
 
 Still with her arm around me, the children's mother 
 spoke over my shoulder to the kind young woman 
 who had met me in New York and taken me away 
 from Nicholas and Helen. Her tone startled me; 
 it was a tone apart. What was the matter with it? 
 Was it unkind? — No; the young woman, whose 
 name was Antoinette, beamed gratefully. In the 
 colony there were no servants, and when my mother 
 was aUve she was my father's servant and mine. I 
 had never heard a lady speak to her maid. 
 
 " We play they are the Apennines, Cyrus and I," 
 Lucian was saying, " we play the high one is Monte 
 Nerone. I will show you. Come!'* He was 
 pulling me by the hand, but I remained transfixed, 
 gazing at my Cousin Pauline, Ustening to that alien, 
 unexplainable tone in her voice. 
 
 *' Why are you frightened? " asked Cyrus. 
 
 "Come!" said Lucian, "while the sky is rosy. 
 Come! " and he drew me around a corner of the 
 broad piazza. 
 
 The low ridge on which the house was built dipped 
 steeply westward, a bubble of green lawn, into a 
 girdle of tree-tops; and below these lay the bright 
 level meadows of the intervale, stretching out to the 
 foot-hills of the mountains that watched over our 
 valley. 
 
 " Do you see it between the trees? " Lucian was 
 saying. " We play it is our Tiber, but it is bigger 
 than the Tiber in Umbria; as big as it is at Rome. 
 And in Umbria the trees on its banks are poplar 
 trees, tall and quivery." 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 35 
 
 " But its real name is the Andrew Scoggin/' added 
 Cyrus. 
 
 Always, when I am away from our New Hampshire 
 valley, I see it as it was on that first unforgettable 
 evening, with the purple bloom of the sunset on its 
 mountain tops, the pulsing flush of the sunset in its 
 wide sky, in the elusive gleam of its river. And 
 always my Cousin Lucian is in the picture, slender, 
 bright-haired, with those long eyes like his mother's, 
 only bluer, that firm chin running straight to the 
 clean - cut masculine angle of his jaw, and the 
 beautiful boy's mouth, smiling. 
 
 "It is not really like our villa,** he said softly. 
 " There are no vineyards, and a great many more 
 woods. This is why San Francesco would love it — 
 for the woods and the wild places in the rocks. But 
 he would like to have Perugia over there, on that 
 hill. — I would like to have Perugia over there.'* 
 
 He dropped my hand and walked away from me 
 to the end of the piazza and stood there with his 
 back to me. 
 
 " At night, when it is dark, and the fireflies dance, 
 it is easier to pretend," said Cyrus. "I do not 
 pretend very well." 
 
 II 
 
 It was the next morning, in a climbing beech 
 wood, that Lucian told me the story of St. Francis 
 and we found our common language. 
 
 We sat in a little huddle, knees under chin, at the 
 bottom of a crack in a great cleft boulder. Poly- 
 pody ferns tapestried the sides of our little cell, and 
 
36 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 overhead there was a translucent pattern of beech 
 leaves against a blue sky. Lucian wore my old grey 
 blanket wrapper, that used to be father's. He had 
 pounced upon it when I was endeavouring to co- 
 operate with Antoinette in my unpacking. 
 
 " A cassock! A cassock! " he cried, slipping into 
 it and pulling the hood over his head. " And here's 
 a dam, and here's a patch. It's perfect! " 
 
 But at this point Antoinette became voluble and 
 we were aU three turned out of the room, though not 
 without protest and somewhat undignified resistance 
 from me. 
 
 ''I must help her. They are my clothes. I 
 always help," I explained, ratthng the door-knob. 
 
 " But why? It's what she's for. What would 
 she do if she didn't attend to our clothes? " asked 
 Lucian. 
 
 " She's paid to. She's a servant," said Cyrus. 
 
 " I will never let anybody work for me for wages/* 
 I declared. ** I will co-operate." 
 
 " Co-operate! " said Cyrus; " what a funny word!" 
 
 "It is no funnier than Pintorricchio," said I. 
 
 " It means to work with other people," remarked 
 Lucian. "It is in an English book of mamma's 
 that she did not finish. I began it because it had a 
 pretty name — Fabian; but I had to look up too 
 many words. You might as well stop turning the 
 knob, Clara; Antoinette has locked the door." 
 
 So I let them take me up into the beech wood, and 
 when we found the cleft boulder it was I who hung 
 by my hands over the edge and showed them how 
 to drop in. 
 
 " This is the independence of being in America> 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 37 
 
 that we go out by ourselves and Candeloro does not 
 follow. And we leave the path," said Lucian. He 
 was tying knots in the cord of my blanket wrapper. 
 " Cyrus, do you remember when we made the 
 pilgrimage to La Vema, there were rocks like this? " 
 
 Cyrus nodded. 
 
 " I feel exactly like San Francesco in this cassock. 
 One, two, three — poverty, chastity, obedience." 
 He counted the knots. 
 
 It was then that I asked who San Francesco was. 
 
 A queer, polyglot little version of the story did 
 Lucian pour out to me. He began in rapid Italian, 
 then pulled himself up and stared perplexedly. 
 
 " Some thoughts think themselves in English, 
 others in French, others in Italian," he said. " How 
 to speak my always Italian thoughts of San Fran- 
 cesco in English words? There is a very nice man 
 at Assisi who is writing the life in French, mamma 
 has met him; but it is not finished yet. Wait! — I 
 will transform my thinking. I will tell you." 
 
 A merchant's son, this San Francesco, I gathered. 
 " Rich, gay, a poet — like me," said Lucian. A 
 soldier also. Cyrus and I hearkened to a description 
 of the battle of Perugia which I have since sought in 
 vain in the historic accounts of that event. — But 
 a man of tenderness, simpatico, molto I Also of a 
 somewhat feeble constitution, like Cyrus, for he had 
 an illness. And when he was getting well he became 
 serio, molto serio. 
 
 "It is like that," explained Cyrus. " One has 
 i pensieri sollenni, I mean the solemn thoughts." 
 
 And it seemed that always, even when he was 
 careless, San Francesco had an interest in beggars. 
 
38 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 He wished to know how it felt to be a beggar. He 
 begged one whole day on the steps of San Pietro a 
 Roma to know how. 
 
 *' Ah, you begin to hke him! You listen! '* cried 
 Lucian, and he hurried on to the story of la messa 
 and Vevangelo, my mind leaping now with his, 
 stumbUng over the strange names but reaching the 
 heart of the story in the famihar words — " Take 
 neither staff nor scrip, neither two coats, neither 
 shoes, nor yet staves." 
 
 And then that cruel father! Lucian arose in the 
 green cleft and tore oif the cassock and cast it from 
 him. ''Henceforth, God is my father!" he cried. 
 " Now, Cyrus, you are the bishop." 
 
 And Cyrus, picking up the cassock, wrapped it 
 around his brother's shoulders and signed him with 
 the cross. This was the first time I had ever seen 
 any one make that sign. I did not know what 
 Cyrus was doing. 
 
 And Brother Francesco built churches with his own 
 hands. — I thought of the co-operative architecture 
 at New Hope. — And he made a httle feast for those 
 wicked robbers. — Uncle Lew's treatment of Brother 
 Hobart seemed to me a worthy parallel. 
 
 " And when we are big we also are coming to him 
 hke that excellent Fra Bernardo of Quintavalle, and 
 we shall give to the poor — everything! " 
 
 " Mamma does not," said Cyrus. 
 
 *' It is our money; she told me that," explained 
 his brother. 
 
 " She lives poor in her spirit. She understands 
 how she does it," Cyrus remarked, somewhat doubt- 
 fully. 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 39 
 
 " Mamma is very mystique," said Lucian. " San 
 Francesco also is mystique, but he is pratique as well. 
 I am like that/' 
 
 " And there is always the difference that mamma 
 is a woman/* Cyrus acquiesced. " Some things the 
 woman must have — Hke tea at five o'clock. She 
 cannot be hungry hke a man." 
 
 " Yes, she can! " I cried. " I have been co-opera- 
 tively hungry, often. In New Hope the women are 
 equal with the men. We have nothing for ourselves, 
 but everything for each other, hke your San Fran- 
 cesco. And we say brother and sister. And we beg. 
 We don't like to, but we have to. And people send 
 us old clothes, and money for the printing press. 
 And Judge Acton sent us a ton of coal once from a 
 mine of his in Birmingham. And we distribute to 
 each according to his need. We live exactly like 
 Jesus Christ and His disciples." 
 
 "Do you mean grown-up men and women?" 
 exclaimed Lucian. "Not just children playing? " 
 
 Both boys were staring at me with amazed eyes 
 over their doubled-up knees. We sat, of necessity, 
 very close together. 
 
 " Wasn't father grown up? " I demanded. " And 
 he hadn't a red cent. He told me so. But it didn't 
 make any difference in the colony. And Uncle Lew 
 put in all his money — a thousand dollars; but father 
 and even tramps that stayed a week or two, had 
 just as much to eat or to wear as Uncle Lew." 
 
 " Then it is real! " said Lucian. " Real! " 
 
 "Wasn't San Francesco real?" I asked, with 
 sudden suspicion. "Is it only a story? " 
 
 "Oh, yes!" Lucian reassured me. "But then 
 
40 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 some things are real, like the angels singing Gloria 
 in Excelsis at Natale, and the Judgment Day with 
 everybody climbing out of his tomb in the Campo 
 Santo at Pisa, and demons leading you by the ear. 
 And other things are real, like — ebbene — Uke our 
 going to bed at eight — it does happen, don't you see? 
 In one way everything is real if you are mystique," 
 
 I wanted to ask the meaning of this word, but 
 Cyrus intervened with — *' Tell us more! " And they 
 both hitched an inch closer to me and waited, intent. 
 
 " It was Uncle Llewellyn who started it," I 
 began. " He had a store, and he was trying to make 
 an honest living; but he got soured on competition." 
 
 My cousins wrinkled their foreheads. 
 
 *' All sociahsts are soured on competition," I 
 explained. " If you compete it is a fight to see who 
 gets the most. You buy as cheap as you can, and 
 then you sell as dear as you can. You do, or you 
 are done, Uncle Lew says." 
 
 " Dio mio! " sighed Lucian. "Is it English? " 
 
 I considered. An illustration used effectively by 
 Helen's father in our co-operative Sunday School 
 occurred to me. 
 
 " In the Bible it says if a man wants your coat, 
 give it to him, doesn't it? " 
 
 " Also your cloak," added Cyrus. ** I have learned 
 that verse once." 
 
 *' But in business if a man wants your coat you 
 sell it to him for three times what you paid for it, 
 and you don't tell him it is last year's style." 
 
 " I see! " shouted Lucian. " And San Francesco 
 also made his father angry because he gave away 
 the rich cloths that were to sell, I see! " 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 41 
 
 " And Uncle Llewellyn decided to try if the Bible 
 would really work. And some other men and women 
 wanted to try too. — Helen's father — she is my great 
 friend; and Grandfather Pugh because war is 
 wicked; and a great many different kinds of people 
 who were not Christian at all, some of them, but 
 they were tired of competiting. Brother Barton 
 was a communist; he thought we ought to have 
 everything in common, even our clothes when they 
 came from the wash. But Brother Nash thought 
 only the land — and Brother Peterson the land with 
 the houses on it. And Nicholas had learned to be 
 an architect in Paris and he had a French way of 
 looking at it, and he had a red cap and a red neck- 
 tie; and he sang the Marseillaise when he was 
 planing boards. And Helen's father followed 
 Tolstoy." 
 
 *' Ah, Tolstoy ! " said Lucian. " I read some of him, 
 but mamma did not approve, although she is a 
 disciple. And he also is like San Francesco, work- 
 ing with peasants. Yes, yes! " 
 
 " And the only thing they had to do, to belong 
 to the colony, was to co-operate. Anybody could 
 belong. Nicholas said it was a premium for dead 
 beats, but he is not really a Christian; and the dead 
 beats always went away after a while because they 
 had to work. Perhaps you will see Nicholas, he said 
 he had met your mother in Paris, and he knows a 
 teacher who hves here in these mountains." 
 
 "Dead beats? " mused Cyrus. 
 
 "Never mind," his brother said; "we do not 
 need to know every word, if we have the ensemble." 
 
 " And they put together what they had, and bought 
 
42 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 some land with an old tumble-down plantation house 
 on it. But they had to have a mortgage on it too." 
 
 " I think I must be told what is a mortgage," 
 pleaded Cyrus. 
 
 I pondered. What was a mortgage? 
 
 " You don't see it. It is invisible. But it makes 
 you pay money every few months or else you can't 
 have the land any more." 
 
 " A demon? " Cyrus suggested. 
 
 "No; something to do with business. You lift 
 it, somehow, by paying. When I am twenty-one I 
 am going back to the colony, and I am going to hft 
 the mortgage, and buy a new printing press and live 
 there. And if I have any money left over I will use 
 it for drainage." 
 
 " I thought you were going to live with us," said 
 Cyrus. 
 
 " No! " I backed away from them defiantly. 
 
 ** We will live there, also! " said Lucian excitedly. 
 " We will give away all our goods to feed the poor, 
 and we will wear three cassocks and sandals and 
 we will walk there all the way; and it will be the 
 vintage time, and we wiU help to gather the grapes, 
 and they will give us bread to eat, and we wiU sleep 
 out of doors until we arrive at the New Hope. And 
 your Uncle Lew will come out to meet us like San 
 Domenico who greets San Francesco in the piazza 
 of Santa Maria NoveUa in Florence." 
 
 "And mamma? " Cyrus suggested. 
 
 " Mamma will be interested in something else." 
 
 But I remembered all the people who had gone 
 away from New Hope. 
 
 " You might not like it," I warned. " Helen 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 43 
 
 doesn't. We eat the same thing almost every day. 
 Some people think we ought not to allow dancing; 
 and some people don't like having a sermon and 
 prayers on Sunday. And there was one man who 
 wanted to have even husbands and wives in common. 
 He and father were the two only real socialists in the 
 colony, and he tried to say father must believe the 
 way he did about husbands and wives. And father 
 kicked him off the piazza. And the next day we 
 found that he and Brother Barton's wife had gone 
 away together on the midnight train. And his own 
 wife, only she wasn't really his wife — nobody was 
 his wife — was left behind with us. And some people 
 left after that because they thought she wasn't 
 respectable." 
 
 " The easiest way is not to marry at all, like San 
 Francesco," said Lucian. *' Then you do not grieve 
 any one." 
 
 ** San Francesco married Madonna Poverta," 
 Cyrus corrected. 
 
 ** But she was not real." 
 
 " And then you say everything is real." Cyrus's 
 tone was patient. 
 
 " I said if you are mystique. But you are not 
 mystique. To San Francesco she was real, and to 
 me. She is my bride also." 
 
 I was about to make a remark about respecta- 
 bility, but I remembered that San Francesco was 
 dead, and one could marry widows. Then Cyrus 
 said : — 
 
 "I am glad ; because that leaves Clara for 
 me." 
 
 There was a startled flash in Lucian's blue eyes; 
 
44 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 he opened his hps to speak, but shut them again as 
 quickly. The two brothers looked at each other, 
 saying nothing; the little brother with his sandy, 
 straggling hair, and pale, intent eyes; the elder 
 with his seraph's face and yellow, tousled halo. 
 '* I am not going to marry any one," said I hastily. 
 
 Ill 
 
 No one has occupied more of the surface of my 
 life than my Cousin Pauline, but it was a long time 
 before she found her way within. There were com- 
 punctious years when I left the door on the latch, 
 even set it wide, with silent caution; but when she 
 came by she closed it against herself and locked 
 it, and sat and wept exasperatingly long on the 
 threshold. And I shall always be afraid that I ought 
 to have opened it earlier; that it was my fault. 
 Why I did not, I cannot even now quite understand. 
 To be made the confidante of a high-minded, undis- 
 ciplined, self-absorbed, and incidentally beautiful 
 woman should have awakened the emotions of a 
 romantic Uttle girl of eleven; but although there is 
 no doubt that I listened greedily and even lay awake 
 nights endeavouring to find a way to reconcile the 
 passionately aspiring soul of my cousin with the 
 intricate conventionalities of her environment, my 
 interest was ungratefully impersonal, I had always 
 a sense of the impropriety of the situation. At New 
 Hope grown people and children alike had their 
 reserves. My Cousin PauUne had no reserves, with 
 young or old; and instinctively, unconsciously, I 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 45 
 
 criticised and distrusted her. Her boys did also, 
 but with a frankness of speech more naive than my 
 pohte silences. 
 
 It was one of her griefs that they did not love her 
 as ideal sons ought to love their mother. I wished 
 that she would not tell me so, but she did, very 
 often, especially that first summer when she was 
 deciding to marry the marchese. Lucian and Cyrus, 
 on their part, for all their outspokenness, never com- 
 plained of any lack of love on her part. 
 
 When I was eleven years old I thought my Cousin 
 Pauline must be the most beautiful woman in the 
 world; and to-day I still feel the spell of her long 
 grey eyes, the eyes of Guenevere, as grey as glass; 
 the spell of the long curves of her mouth; of the 
 delicate dark fluff of her parted hair — " her filmy, 
 flying, twilight hair," Lucian called it in a poem he 
 wrote at fifteen under the influence of Wordsworth. 
 Lucian was always writing poems to his mother 
 when he was a little boy, and she kept them in a 
 Florentine box of gilded vellum and read them aloud 
 to me and other people. One of the things for which 
 I reproach myself is that I have never read her the 
 poems he has written to me. 
 
 Lucian would not mind, I know. He has always 
 been unembarrassed about his verses. And, of course, 
 a good many are included in his Httle published 
 volume. In her copy, which he had bound in her 
 favourite vellum, she has underUned the ones she 
 thinks he wrote for her. Yet the book is one of her 
 minor griefs; she had expected him to dedicate it 
 to her. But she was in Italy that year, and he 
 and Cyrus and I were quarrelling with our trustees 
 
46 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 because they would not let us endow a social settle- 
 ment we were fond of; and he dedicated the book 
 to his Lady Poverty. 
 
 I am glad, now, that the trustees were firm, for I 
 have come to think endowed settlements, under 
 present conditions, more or less of a snare, but I was 
 younger then, and Lucian had not met Lazarus 
 Samson. If the trustees had known what we should 
 do with the money when we got our hands on it, they 
 would have allowed us, preferably, to endow any 
 number of settlements, I am sure. However, I do 
 not complain of the trustees. They really made for 
 peace in the family; so long as we could all agree 
 in execrating them we did not drift too far apart. 
 Sometimes they were the only bond of union between 
 my Cousin Pauline and me; for she gives them more 
 trouble than we did: partly because her income, 
 which is perpetual — she has no capital — is smaller 
 than ours, while her capacity for giving it away is 
 greater, and partly because the marriage with the 
 marchese has made compHcations. 
 
 Until I was quite far along in my teens I used to 
 fear that I was responsible for that marriage with 
 the marchese. No one was ever keener to serve 
 humanity than my Cousin Pauline, and her descrip- 
 tion of the opportunities for service on those great 
 Italian estates added fuel to my own co-operative 
 ardours. And the boys would not miss her; they 
 never missed her as sons should miss their mother. 
 I used to try to protest at this point, but unfor- 
 tunately I knew it was true. — They must be away at 
 school in any event; she must play an increasingly 
 smaller role in their life. And in America one could 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 47 
 
 not practise a Franciscan life; but in Italy, in the 
 country of St. Francis! 
 
 "We are led, my dear little Clara Co-operativa. 
 Always, all my life I have been led. Again and again 
 I have been at the edge of despair and the way 
 opens. At the darkest moment of my life, when to 
 live in the same house with the children's father 
 seemed more than I — but never mind. No ; I 
 cannot speak of that now; — sometime'* — she 
 hesitated — " when you are a little older? " 
 
 " Yes," said I, fascinated, yet edging away in 
 embarrassment. 
 
 " And this time it is this dear little cousin who 
 opens the way for me; this dear little Pintorricchio — 
 but there is already in your face, sweetheart, a 
 solemnity, a severity even, that his women do not 
 have. Yes; not really a Pintorricchio. And we 
 will have on our estates another co-operative colony 
 like your New Hope. Shall we? — Perhaps I shall 
 cook the macaroni! — Do you know what I have 
 arranged to-day, carina ? I meant it for a surprise. 
 I have sent three subscriptions to that wonderful 
 Uttle Message — one for Lucian, one for Cyrus, one 
 for me. And I have written your Welsh saint that 
 he is to kick the old printing press one last time and 
 accept a new one from me. Yes; is it not worth 
 while to have come to us for this — to be a little 
 missionary to your poor Cousin Pauline and all those 
 heavenly peasants with their calm faces of the 
 Perugineschi ? " 
 
 And I thought it could be done. I had never 
 seen an Italian peasant. I had never seen the 
 marchese. 
 
48 THE CHILDREN. OF LIGHT 
 
 Uncle Lew wrote us a beautiful letter about the 
 new printing press. It had come at a time when he 
 needed cheering, for there were more cases of fever 
 at the colony. It is when I look at my Cousin 
 Pauline through Uncle Lew's eyes that I find her 
 most lovable. Indeed, all the world becomes more 
 lovable when I look at it through Uncle Lew's eyes. 
 And yet, he had no illusions in regard to the world. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was quite true that to be Franciscan in America, 
 as my Cousin Pauline had said, was next to im- 
 possible. We had but one cassock among us and 
 we were not allowed to appear in that after four in 
 the afternoon. We might not sit by the roadside 
 and beg. We might not sleep out at night in the 
 holes in the rocks. We dramatised the events of 
 the Fioretti — the conversion of Brother Wolf, of the 
 three robbers, the pranks of Brother Juniper; I 
 defended my convent vahantly against the Saracens; 
 Lucian added a new laud almost every day to the 
 Canticle of the Sun or to Fra Jacopone's song in 
 praise of poverty; Cyrus preached a whole series of 
 sermons to the birds, each one from a different text. 
 He used to look his text up before he went to bed, 
 and plan his sermon when he woke in the middle of 
 the night ; he was never a good sleeper. And he had 
 his own ideas about a suitable delivery, had Cyrus. 
 
 " You don't go about a gran voce predicando to 
 birds," he used to say. " And you don't wave your 
 arms at them. You stand still as the terra-cotta 
 San Francesco in Santa Maria degli Angeli." 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 
 
 49 
 
 And so he would stand, speaking in that dry, 
 gentle voice of his, at first slowly, but as he became 
 absorbed in his theme a little faster, and a little 
 faster, until Lucian and I were leaning forward 
 breathless, racing to catch the level, running words. 
 And always it was a sermon adapted to his audience; 
 he never forgot that he was preaching to birds; all 
 his figures of speech were winged and feathery, all 
 his allusions were ornithological ; so pratique, as 
 Lucian would say. I remember there was one 
 sermon about Noah and the dove, and another 
 about the swallow and her young, and another about 
 the sparrow that fell to the ground, and another 
 about Elijah's ravens. But the one that moved us 
 most was concerned with the snare of the fowler. I 
 can shut my eyes to-day and see again the dreadful 
 Italian bird-trap — the captive decoy singing above 
 the treacherous thicket, and all the little pierced, 
 dead birds within — that Cyrus knew so well. I can 
 hear again the horrid simplicity of his language, the 
 suppressed shiver in his voice as he described the 
 fluttering, dying lark, or the six small spitted birds 
 roasting ^ la broche. 
 
 But even the sermons were only play. The one 
 bird who ever listened was the Geneva nightingale 
 in the music-box. What was the use of being minors 
 if we couldn't act like minors? No one had as yet 
 enlightened us as to the difference between the legal 
 and the religious aspects of the word, and Lucian's 
 mysticism gave us no satisfactory answer to our 
 question; for Lucian, according to his own explana- 
 tion of himself, was mystique symboliste, and demanded 
 a certain amount of objectivity from existence. 
 
 D 
 
50 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 There was one day, however, when we did almost 
 achieve reality. My Cousin Pauline went to New 
 York on the morning train, with many mysterious 
 assurances that she should bring me a surprise when 
 she came back; and we, when we had seen her off, 
 were to be allowed to climb a favourite little moun- 
 tain and spend our day at the top, feasting our Lady 
 Poverty on blue berries and dry bread, with water 
 borne aloft from the brook in a bottle. This out- 
 of-door freedom, so long as our whereabouts were 
 known, was a part of the process of Americanisation 
 deemed necessary for my cousins, but we had never 
 before been allowed to take our lunch and be gone 
 all day. Cousin Pauline*s vanishing face at the 
 train window no doubt increased the recklessness of 
 our imaginations. 
 
 " I have a plan,'* said Lucian. We were at the 
 cross-roads, where we turn to go up the valley. 
 " We'll get out here, Spellman, and walk," he added. 
 And the unsuspecting coachman drew up and let us out. 
 
 Cyrus came last, dragging the cassock after him. 
 The cassock had not been prominent in our Francis- 
 canism for a week past, owing to the weather; and 
 this was a particularly hot day. 
 
 " You haven't brought that! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " Well, of course, he can wear it if he likes," said 
 Lucian. 
 
 But Cyrus explained that it was not his turn. We 
 stared discomfited at the woolly thing lying in the 
 dust at our feet. 
 
 '* You know," I said at last, "he is right. If we 
 are going to wear a cassock we ought to wear it. 
 But I can't remember whose turn it is." 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 
 
 51 
 
 "It is not the outside of things that counts," 
 mused Lucian. " I do not think it was mine.'* 
 
 '' Then you might as well say it makes nothing if 
 we wear no clothes at all," pursued Cyrus. " And 
 you know that is not so." 
 
 " How do I know? " his brother asked, and not 
 waiting for a reply, began to chant the quatrain he 
 had composed for these emergencies: — 
 
 ** Bro ther Fran cis, who shall wear 
 The cas sock grey of Sis ter Clare ? 
 He shall wear the cas sock grey, 
 On whose head my hands I lay.'' 
 
 The laying on of hands ended upon his own head, 
 as I, who had a turn for mathematics, had known it 
 would when he began by counting himself first. I 
 suspected him of doing penance. 
 
 " I would really hke to wear it," I pleaded. 
 
 '* What a fib! " said Lucian, putting it on. " Now 
 listen, frati miet," and he unfolded his plan. It was 
 worthy of a brother minor. 
 
 We were to separate, scattering our bread to our 
 sisters and brothers the birds as we went. 
 
 " She doesn't know what dry bread means, that 
 cook! " Cyrus exclaimed, opening his package. 
 " Here are cookies and an egg." 
 
 " Niente, niente ; scatter them! " said his brother. 
 
 And we were to eat only such food as we could 
 honestly earn by the sweat of our brows. 
 
 " Do you mean go into a house and ask them to let 
 us work for our dinner? " I inquired. 
 
 " Yes. What is that word ?— Chores ! " 
 
 "People we don't know? " faltered Cyrus. 
 
52 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 ** Would people we do know let us work for them? 
 Do they, ever? " Lucian demanded. 
 
 Cyrus and I eyed each other gloomily. StiU, if 
 the occasion called for martyrs we could always 
 screw up courage enough to march conscientiously 
 to the stake. It has never been a question of 
 courage with Lucian; he goes singing and dancing. 
 
 " And if no one gives us work? " Cyrus suggested. 
 
 " Then remain himgry." 
 
 ** I would rather." 
 
 " You cannot rather. You wiU have to ask. 
 Cyrus, you are under a vow; obedience; remember! " 
 Lucian's voice was firm. 
 
 And now, who would be Brother Masseo, and 
 spin? Cyrus did not offer. He evidently felt that 
 the day's work was sufficiently heavy — and spinning 
 made him sea-sick. It was not fair to expect Lucian 
 to spin in the hot cassock. 
 
 " I will be Brother Masseo," said I. 
 
 And even as Brother Masseo spun round and 
 round, six hundred years ago on the Umbrian high- 
 way, at the merry bidding of Brother Francis, to 
 decide in which direction they two should go on their 
 missionary journey — to Florence ? — to Arezzo ? — 
 to Siena? — so did I twirl on the highway in New 
 Hampshire, until the trees swam and the hills heaved. 
 
 " Head for Cyrus, feet for me, right hand for 
 Lucian," I gasped, and fell sprawling, my head 
 toward Portland, my feet toward home, my right 
 hand pointing to the woods. 
 
 By the time I had spat the dust out of my mouth, 
 Lucian was over the fence, capering towards the 
 trees. 
 
 4^Js:w 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 53 
 
 " I need not ask at every house; I can choose, you 
 think? " Cyrus hazarded. 
 
 " Once will be enough," I assured him. " I only 
 mean to ask once." 
 
 " I shall ask three times," he said, in a depressed 
 voice, and started down the road, scattering cookie 
 crumbs. 
 
 But Lucian was calling from the field. 
 
 " Listen! " he shouted, " I have made a new laud. 
 — Blessed be our Lord God for our Sister Cassock, 
 for she clothes the naked, and very modest is she, 
 and woolly and warm both winter and summer; and 
 she is a discipline to the proud." 
 
 Chanting at the top of his voice, he turned and 
 galloped up the field. 
 
 A curve of the road hid Cyrus. I got up from the 
 dust, shook my skirts, and set forth without enthu- 
 siasm upon my own quest. 
 
 There were many lions in my path, but the first 
 was one day to be a real Hon, if I had but known it. 
 He was, that summer, a blue-eyed, thin-faced young 
 man named Tristram Lawrence, who lived in a little 
 white house by the roadside and came to tea some- 
 times and asked me questions about Nicholas, who 
 was a class-mate of his, and about the colony; 
 superciliously amused questions they were, as if 
 neither Nicholas nor the colony was to be taken 
 seriously. My Cousin Pauline was interested in him 
 because he thought Buddha more admirable than 
 
54 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 Jesus Christ. To Lucian he was attractive because 
 he was named for the lover of Iseult the fair — who- 
 ever she might be, or Buddha, either, for that 
 matter — and because the Httle white house was 
 crammed with books in strange tongues which even 
 Lucian could not read. 
 
 As I passed along the road, that adventurous day, 
 the young man sat by a window with his lean, grey- 
 hound face dipped down into a book; and to my 
 relief he did not look up. But his fox terrier 
 capered at my heels up the sandy stretch of hill and 
 obligingly ate my cookies. 
 
 Farther on our view shone out: the bare ledge of 
 precipice across the river, and the far, serene summits 
 of the Presidents. I could see the red roof of our 
 house above the birch trees that climbed our ridge. 
 What should I do if any of the small army of 
 servants who ministered to my Cousin Pauline's 
 simple life — the term had not been copyrighted in 
 those days — were anywhere within eyeshot? Here 
 was no lion; a dragon, rather, many-eyed. 
 
 Our farmer's wife, however, was not at her dairy 
 window. I slunk along close to the fence. Our 
 farmer was not at the lower gateway, nor at the 
 upper. Beyond the upper gateway I began to run, 
 quite unreasonably, and I ran myself out of breath 
 and had to sit down and rest in front of a shabby 
 farmhouse with a splendid view of the high moun- 
 tains. 
 
 But my eyes were blind to the view. Should I 
 ask for work at the farmhouse? No; — they would 
 recognise me; I was too near home. I got up and 
 went on. Would not all these people know me 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 55 
 
 along this road ? I was aware that my cousins and 
 I were objects of interest to the countryside. 
 
 I passed a little box of a house where a man made 
 fox-skin rugs with pinked flannel around their edges. 
 I might offer to pink the flannel. But I did not 
 offer. 
 
 Presently the road divided, and I took the narrower 
 branch because there were ribbons of grass between 
 the wheel-ruts. I followed it a long way, meeting 
 no one. I wondered how many miles I had walked. 
 I thought of Cyrus, walking, walking, walking in the 
 opposite direction. How tired he must be ! Suppose 
 some one should kidnap Cyrus ! — I thought of Lucian, 
 singing and dancing through the woods. I thought 
 of bears. 
 
 The road stopped at an unpainted house nestling 
 under a rugged, craggy little mountain. All around 
 the base of the crag green meadows smiled and 
 smiled to the river-edge. About the rotting door- 
 step little skinny, tow-headed children tumbled and 
 squabbled; but each stood on its own spindle-legs 
 and stared, voiceless, when I appeared. A boy older 
 than the others, Lucian's age perhaps, sat in the 
 doorway hammering two sticks together with a tack- 
 hammer. When the silence fell he looked up. 
 
 Never was there such an alert boy. He had bright 
 brown eyes that saw the whole of me at once. He 
 had a voice as hard and bright as his eyes. 
 
 ** How do you do? " he said politely. 
 
 " How do you do? *' said I. 
 
 " Have you come to go up the mountain? " he 
 asked, laying hammer and sticks inside the door. 
 
 " Will you please ask your mother if she wants 
 
56 THE CHILDREN' OF LIGHT 
 
 any help," said I, plunging. " I will work aU day, 
 tiU five o'clock, for my dinner." 
 
 ** How? " said he in the vernacular, meaning 
 "what." 
 
 " I can mind a baby, and sweep and dust, and 
 dam stockings, and peel potatoes. I can do a great 
 many other things." 
 
 "Have you run away from your folks?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 Had I ? I evaded the question and repUed that I 
 was an orphan. 
 
 He regarded me curiously. Did he know who I was ? 
 
 ** Go and ask your mother! " I repeated. 
 
 '' She don't have no help. She does it all, what 
 I don't do." The answer was final. 
 
 " How far is it to the next house? " I asked, back- 
 ing away. 
 
 '* There ain't any. We're the end of the road." 
 
 ** Good-bye," I said. I had asked for work and 
 been refused; now I could go hungry with a clear 
 conscience. But the boy ran after me and walked 
 at my side. 
 
 "Say!" he said, in a business-Hke tone; "you 
 may not be this way again soon; you better let me 
 show you up the mountain. It's a regular mountain 
 day." 
 
 I did not want to go home so early without Lucian 
 and Cyrus. 
 
 '* Next week we'll be hayin' and I couldn't take 
 you," said the boy. 
 
 I looked up at the mountain. It was very small. 
 
 " I can find my way, I guess." 
 
 " Well, you guess again. Last week there was 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 57 
 
 two of them old maids from down the valley, summer 
 folks, and they thought they was so smart, they 
 didn't want me taggin* on. And they kep' agoin' 
 round and around, halfway up, and never come out 
 on top at all." 
 
 So I resigned myself into the hands of this 
 capable boy, and presently we were scrambling up 
 a blazed trail. We said little; we needed our breath 
 for the climb; but at the top, when he had named 
 all the mountains for me and pointed out the Glen, 
 and we were sitting at the edge of the precipice, 
 looking down on the river and the railroad, and the 
 jumble of houses that he called " the town," he 
 became confidential. I know, now, that it was all a 
 part of his role as mountain guide to summer ladies. 
 
 " If ever I'm governor of this state," he remarked 
 casually, *' I'm goin* to run a trolley line from the 
 railroad station clean up through Carter Notch. 
 There's money in railroads. — I bet you I'll be the 
 richest man in New Hampshire, some day. What'U 
 you bet I won't? " 
 
 I said he would have to be an engineer if he 
 wanted to make a trolley line, and wasn't he a 
 farmer ? 
 
 " Oh, no, I don't," he corrected me. ** Jay Gould 
 didn't have to be an engineer." He paused, re- 
 garding me fixedly. " And neither did Jesse 
 Emery." — I made no sign.—'* What '11 you bet I'm 
 as rich as Jesse Emery some day? His father 
 wasn't no better than my father, my father says. 
 And he wasn't ever a coal miner, but he owned more 
 coal mines than you can shake a stick at — didn't he? " 
 
 I looked at him in defiant silence. 
 
58 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " If he could, why can't I? '* 
 
 " It is wicked to own things like coal mines and 
 railroads, that ought to belong to everybody," I 
 explained. 
 
 " I wouldn't say that if I was you. It isn't pretty, 
 and you're just tryin' to be smart." 
 
 " I wiU say it if I Uke." 
 
 He evidently restrained himself with difficulty. 
 He withdrew his eyes from mine and gazed down the 
 valley. " Everything belongs to the one that can 
 buy it," he said. 
 
 " That isn't true." 
 
 He turned upon me with incisive speech — " I 
 didn't call you a Har when you said your father and 
 mother was dead. Now don't you call me a liar. 
 If it was one of your brothers I'd lick him." 
 
 " I haven't any brothers. And my father and 
 mother are dead. And it isn't true." 
 
 We glared at each other. "I'm goin' to be the 
 richest man in the whole world when I grow up," he 
 said at last. " And I'm goin' to buy all the rail- 
 roads and coal mines I can lay my hands on. And 
 they'll be mine." 
 
 " You're not either! " I retorted. " By the time 
 you grow up everybody will be as rich as everybody 
 else." 
 
 *' Say! — I never heard of such a thing," he shouted. 
 " You're crazy." 
 
 " You wait and see! " 
 
 "You wait and see yourself! I bet you I'm as 
 rich as — as rich as Jesse Emery." Again he gave 
 me a queer look. " I bet you I'm as rich as you are." 
 
 "I'm poor," I replied. 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 59 
 
 " I wouldn't try to beat that, if I was you," he 
 jeered. " It makes three and it's a whopper." 
 
 I chose to preserve a haughty silence, and he 
 flipped stones over the precipice. When he found 
 that I would not renew the conversation he began 
 again : — 
 
 ** Say; I know who you are." 
 
 I waited. 
 
 " You're Jesse Emery's grand-daughter." 
 
 " I am not." 
 
 " And you've got two brothers and a mother." 
 
 " I have not." 
 
 He was annoyed. " Say; you don't know when 
 to stop, do you? " 
 
 " I am not his grand-daughter." 
 
 ** Well, your name's Emery." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What Emery? " 
 
 ** He was my great-uncle." 
 
 "Your great-uncle?" He considered this. — 
 " And them boys? " 
 
 " They are my second cousins." 
 
 " Oh! " He had evidently decided to accept my 
 word. — " And didn't he leave you nothin' ? " 
 
 " Yes; but I can't help it if he did; and when I 
 grow up I'm going to give it all away. So I'm not 
 rich. I'm poor." 
 
 " Hoh! " he sniffed. " I bet you don't." 
 
 " I bet I do." 
 
 " You'll have more sense when you grow up." 
 
 " No, I shan't." 
 
 " Haw — haw ! — No, you shan't ! — Caught you 
 that time. You don't know what you'll do." 
 
6o THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " Neither do you know what you'll do/* 
 
 " I do, too. I'll look out for number one; my 
 father says I will. I ain't a fool." 
 
 Again conversation languished, but the boy was 
 not fond of silence. " He was here last summer," 
 he remarked after a minute or two. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Your great-uncle. We always just call him 
 Jesse Emery round here. He was down to this end 
 of town tryin' to buy this farm, but the man we 
 work it for wouldn't sell. He thought he could 
 make old Jesse pay through the nose; but that was 
 where he was too smart, because now old Jesse's 
 dead the trustees ain't buyin' farms. And I took 
 him up this mountain. It was a pull, but he done 
 it. And he set over there on that boulder and wiped 
 the sweat off his face, and he said, ' It's a great 
 country.' And he said he wished his two Uttle 
 grandsons was as up and comin' American boys as 
 me. And he asked me what I was goin' to be. And 
 he laughed. And he said, ' I'll bet on you, 
 Cuthbert.' That's my name — Cuthbert Sylvester 
 — ^he remembered it from the time he come before. 
 And when he got into the buggy he said, ' Don't 
 you forget I've got my eye on you, Cuthbert.' And 
 he give me a five-dollar bill for showin' him up this 
 mountain. The most anybody else ever paid me 
 was a quarter." 
 
 I could feel myself growing scarlet. This boy who 
 looked out for number one expected me to pay him 
 for bringing me up the mountain. 
 
 *' All what I earn I put in a box," he continued. 
 " Some day I'm goin' to the Academy and to Harvard 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 6l 
 
 College; and I thought if old Jesse kept on seein* 
 me summers he might give me a start in business. 
 I tell you what, I'm sorry he died." 
 
 " I think I ought to go now," said I hurriedly. 
 What could I give him instead of money? All the 
 way down the mountain I revolved this mortifying 
 problem. Once he broke in upon my perplexities 
 by exclaiming: — 
 
 " I bet you I've got just as good a right to be rich 
 as he had." 
 
 " That's what I keep telling you," I replied im- 
 patiently. " Everybody ought to be as rich as 
 everybody else." 
 
 He brooded over this as we slid and tripped over 
 the rough trail. 
 
 At the house he bade me wait, and he ran in and 
 brought out a would-be-rustic picture frame made of 
 varnished twigs. 
 
 *' Would you like it? " he asked. *' I make them 
 to sell." 
 
 " I have no money," I faltered. 
 
 " rU come down to your place for it. Fve been 
 huntin' a reason to come." He tried to press the 
 frame into my hands. 
 
 " No, no; please! " 
 
 "Don't you Uke it? " 
 
 " It's very pretty." 
 
 "Then here! — Or, well — I tell you what: — I'll 
 bring it. I'll come and see you and them boys." 
 
 I welcomed the respite. But I still owed him for 
 taking me up the mountain. I felt in my pocket. 
 There was the hard-boiled egg. 
 
 *' Take this! " I gasped, thrusting it at him. 
 
62 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " Why? '* He looked surprised. 
 
 ** Because I want you to. Because I can't take 
 it home." I turned and ran away from him down 
 the narrow road, but his voice pursued me: — 
 
 " Is it a bad one? — Say; I can't come till after 
 hayin', but I'll come. Say; you never told me why 
 you wanted to work for your dinner. Oh, say! — I 
 bet I know." 
 
 VI 
 
 Late that afternoon I turned in at our gateway, 
 a very dusty, weary, hungry minorite. It was all 
 very well not to beUeve in money, but what were 
 you going to do if other people did believe in it, and 
 would do things for you, and expected to be paid 
 for them ? It was aU very well to co-operate, but 
 suppose there were only two people in the world 
 and one wanted to co-operate and the other wanted 
 to compete ? What were you going to do about it ? 
 
 My gloomy reverie was interrupted by a soft chirrup. 
 Lucian had come home before me. On the lawn, 
 near the turn of the road, there was a great clump 
 of cinnamon roses, all pink and prickles. The 
 chirrup came again. I made a dash for the clump, 
 but Lucian's voice stayed me: — 
 
 "No, no! Stop where you are! Turn round and 
 shut your eyes! " 
 
 *'Why?" 
 
 " Because I haven't a stitch on." 
 
 I abruptly did as I was bid. " Hurry up and put 
 them on! " I commanded. 
 
 '* I can't. I've lost them." 
 
 aiffi^ 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 63 
 
 " Lucian! — All your clothes? " 
 
 " Except my sandals. I've been dodging round 
 this rose bush for an hour, waiting for you and 
 trying not to be seen. I was afraid to run across 
 the lawn. One is so — so visible, without clothes. — 
 Clara, if you would go to my room and get me a 
 pair of corduroys and a sweater? Never mind the 
 underneath." 
 
 I started at once. 
 
 "And, Clara!— a belt!— Do not forget a belt I— 
 There is a leather one somewhere." 
 
 Five minutes later he was clothed and ready to 
 tell me his adventures. 
 
 " Now I know how it feels to be both naked and 
 hungry," he began ecstatically, rocking back and 
 forth on his heels. " You don't need to press your 
 fingers in your eyes, Clara, I am tout comme il faut." 
 
 "It is just that my head snaps a little from 
 running." 
 
 " Snaps from running? " 
 
 " You see — I haven't had anything to eat either." 
 
 "Clara! You also have had adventures? Is it 
 not glorious? " He cast himself upon his empty 
 stomach and waved his heels in the air. " Tell me 
 of yours! " 
 
 "No; you first." 
 
 " Ebbene ! — I am something like St. Paul. I have 
 been hungry. — I am. I have been naked. I have 
 been beaten with rods " 
 
 "Oh, Lucian!— No!" 
 
 " I have been beaten with rods; yes. I have 
 been persecuted for righteousness' sake. Perhaps 
 I have been robbed; chi lo sa ? At any rate I could 
 
64 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 not find them where I left them. But I will begin. 
 — You know how I went up that field? *' 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " And when I came into the woods it was so 
 soHtary. Who would have thought that any one 
 inhabited those woods! — I said, this wiU be a day 
 to practise contemplation, hke Brother Giles. You 
 remember, Clara, how he would become lost in the 
 heavenly vision, and deaf and bUnd to this earth, and 
 stand in a dream ? And if the little boys in the street 
 would cry, ' Paradiso, Frate Egidio, Paradiso I ' it 
 was enough to make him fall into that holy trance? 
 But to contemplate is not so easy; and at first I 
 thought it was because there were no Httle boys to 
 cry, ' Paradiso ! * and then I thought it was because 
 of all those clothes. Contemplatives do not wear 
 so many. And it was hot ! — You cannot imagine ! " 
 
 " Yes, I can." 
 
 '' And I took off everything except only the 
 cassock, for that I was sworn to wear. And I hid 
 them in a tight bundle — oh, but carefully! — among 
 trees and rocks by the side of a brook that foamed 
 and laughed. And I went up and up along a little 
 sentiero — path? — that became after a while a road; 
 but rough ! And while I waited for the vision of the 
 heavenly Jerusalem I sang all my lauds, and the 
 Canticle of the Sun, and Fra Jacopone's Povertade ; 
 and I made a new laud, to the trees. Listen! — 
 
 " Blessed be our Lord God for our brothers and 
 sisters the trees, their leaves and their roots and 
 their benevolent shadows; for the trees that dance 
 and the trees that sing, and especially for the beeches 
 of La Vema, because they sing ' Alleluia ! ' 
 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 65 
 
 " Some day you will hear them at La Vema, 
 Clara mia, in the wood above the chapel of the 
 Stigmata." 
 
 A reminiscent look gathered in his eyes. He 
 rocked back and forth, humming his laud. 
 
 " And then? " said I. 
 
 "Oh, yes! — and then, when I did not expect it, 
 there were two or three queer Uttle houses of logs, 
 with black paper nailed on the roofs, and the thinnest, 
 sickest little girl in a hammock under the trees, and 
 two women in one of the houses where there was a 
 stove. They were French, from Canada. I talked 
 to them. And I performed a work of mercy. I 
 sang to the Uttle girl — not lauds, but, Tiens, p'tit Jean, 
 voila ta soupe! and Malbrouck and Le Sieur de 
 Framboisie. And when I asked for work they sent 
 me up in the woods where their men were chopping 
 wood. And one of the women kissed me and said 
 she would put another onion in the soup. And I 
 felt pleased with myself. You can imagine! But 
 with the men it was different. There were three of 
 them and they had made such a mess. That is not 
 the way they cut trees in the school of forestry at 
 VaUombrosa. A great bare place with stumps of 
 the very largest trees. It seemed as if they bled of 
 syrup, and everywhere were branches and chips. 
 And the sun came down dry and hot. It was like a 
 hell. I did not wish to do that kind of work. And 
 I asked them, ' Why do you cut down these beautiful 
 trees ? ' And one said, * For the paper company,' and 
 one said, * For pulp,' and the third said, * What is 
 that to you ? * And I said, ' You make a mistake. 
 You have cut enough. It dries up the brooks to cut 
 
 E 
 
66 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 the trees. In Umbria, in Italy, there are not enough 
 trees, and the earth is dry and yellow. Stop! ' I 
 said. And they laughed and told me, ' They are not 
 your trees.' And I was becoming angry, and I said, 
 
 * The trees and the forests are not mine, neither yours. 
 They are the good God's. They are for all of us. 
 You may cut one here, one there, if it is ripe — but 
 not this way.' And they laughed louder, and they 
 said to me, ' What will you do about it — you ? ' — 
 And I was in a holy rage by that time. You have 
 never seen me that way, Clara; I am out of myself 
 quite as much as if I were a contemplative, but in 
 another manner. And I said, * See what I will do ! ' 
 And I sang my new laud of the trees before the 
 largest tree, and I said, ' Nomine Patris, Filii, 
 Spiritus,' and made the sign of the cross upon the 
 tree, and upon the one next to it, always saying, 
 
 * Nomine Patris ' — and upon the one next to that. 
 But then the biggest man caught me and swore long 
 French swearings, and they were all a-swear and 
 a-shout, and he jerked my cassock over my head; 
 and I could not see; and he beat me mth a stick." 
 
 " Lucian, Lucian, he hurt you! " I cried. 
 
 My cousin rubbed a suggestive portion of his 
 anatomy reflectively. " Why, yes; I beheve so. 
 But when one is in a holy rage one feels only on 
 the inside." 
 
 " I hope you kicked him! I hope you bit him! 
 Oh, oh, it is too dreadful! " 
 
 " Yes; is it not? " said Lucian. " I would have 
 blessed some more when he let me go, but they drove 
 me away; and there were three of them, growTi men. 
 But the ones I blessed they wiU not touch, I know. 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 67 
 
 If you could have seen their faces when I made the 
 holy sign! " 
 
 " You must use Pond's extract." 
 
 " How many do you think they have cut down 
 since I came away? " He got up and walked around 
 me restlessly. " Not very many, for they would 
 eat their dinner. And they are slow, those men; 
 peasants. How many? — Clara, I shall make the 
 trustees buy them. I shall write a letter to-night." 
 
 *' San Francesco did not buy things," said I. 
 
 There was a queer trapped look in his eyes. I 
 have seen it there many times since. He stared at 
 me, then threw out his hands helplessly, and began 
 again to walk. 
 
 " But it must be that something can be done! " 
 he said. 
 
 I had nothing to suggest. 
 
 *' Ebbene — to finish! I did not see the women 
 when I came to the camp; and the little sick girl 
 was asleep. And suddenly I thought how it would 
 be Franciscan to give her my warm cassock because 
 her father had beaten me. And I laid it over her 
 softly. And the lunch was in the pocket. — Clara, 
 I shall write a letter to tell the trustees; I do not 
 think it is true what that man said. — And then I was 
 naked and I ran through the woods like our Father 
 Adam. And do you know — I could not find those 
 clothes! — Every rock, how it is like another rock, 
 in the woods. And if it was a birch tree or a pine 
 tree where I hid them, I could not remember. I 
 hunted every centimetre." 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 ** Yes; it is funny. And you should have seen 
 
68 THE CHILDREN. OF LIGHT 
 
 me skipping behind the trees all the way home. And 
 there were so many wagons on this road where 
 nothing passes — it would astonish you! One with 
 eleven women in it, and seven of them with pinces- 
 nez, and two of them with opera glasses. I lay down 
 fiat behind a Uttle ridge where bushes grew, and 
 peeped at them. — Oh, my brothers and sisters the 
 trees, you have been kind to me to-day. How shall 
 I be kind to you? How shall I? Clara, say some- 
 thing! " 
 
 VII 
 
 It was almost six o'clock before Cyrus came. 
 Lucian and I were beginning to think we should have 
 to tell Candeloro and the farmer's wife what we had 
 been doing. 
 
 " It will be very disagreeable," said Lucian. 
 
 I peeped around the rose thicket at the farmhouse, 
 tiptoed cautiously to the fence and hung over the 
 top rail. A little figure was coming up the road. 
 I waved to it and went back to Lucian. 
 
 " He is very tired," I said, " he stumbles at every 
 step." 
 
 Lucian looked imhappy. 
 
 When we heard the dragging footsteps we chir- 
 ruped, and the httle boy came slowly around the 
 great bush and stood before us, mute. Involun- 
 tarily we hitched away from him. 
 
 " Per carita ! " exclaimed Lucian. " How un- 
 bearably you smell! And you look like Fra 
 Jacopone da Todi when he smeared feathers over 
 him and went to the wedding." 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 69 
 
 Cyrus surveyed himself indifferently. Curly 
 chicken feathers clung to his corduroys; there were 
 feathers and bits of hay in his hair; his shirt was 
 blood-stained, and one knee was caked with mud 
 and something else sticky and yellow that had run 
 down his leg. 
 
 " If I were a leper/' he said drearily, " I could not 
 blame San Francesco for not wanting to kiss me." 
 He held his hands away from him, the dirty little 
 fingers spread wide. 
 
 "Cyrus, have you been stabbed? " I questioned 
 fearfully. 
 
 ''No; it is the blood of chickens," he replied in 
 that tired, monotonous voice. He let himself down 
 to the ground stiffly, and sat cross-legged. 
 
 " He is never exalte after an adventure," said 
 Lucian. " But do not be too slow, fratellino mio, 
 you must wash off that smell before supper." 
 
 " It wiU tell quickly," said Cyrus. " There was a 
 man came behind me in a wagon. At least, I made 
 the mistake to think it was a man, but it was a devil 
 who concealed his tail in his trousers and his horns 
 beneath his hat." 
 
 Lucian and I exchanged glances of tolerant amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 " If San Francesco could be tempted by a devil, 
 why not I? " asked Cyrus, fixing his pale eyes upon 
 us gravely. " And I was Uke Brother Rufino who 
 saw the vision of the Crucified and thought he must 
 obey it, and he did not know it was a devil. Neither 
 I. And I saw a vision of a freckled farmer who 
 called me ' Sonny; ' and I thought I must obey him. 
 And there was no dear San Francesco to wipe off 
 
70 THE CHILDREN, OF LIGHT 
 
 those freckles and say to me, ' Flee, Fratellino 
 Cjmis; you must not obey this man.' And when 
 the man stopped and said, ' Want a ride, sonny ? ' 
 I did not flee. I got up on the seat. And I was 
 very poUte. I said, ' Monsieur, if you have work 
 for a boy, Httle, like me, I wiU do it very willingly 
 for my dinner.' And he said, 'Canuck, are you? 
 You don't look it.' And I did not know what that 
 was — Canuck; but I think now it was a word of 
 magic — a spelUng word. So he said, ' Wal, sonny, if 
 you want to work you've struck my busy day. I got 
 a rush order for broilers for the " Mount Madison," 
 due at the "five o'clock," and four dozen eggs.' " 
 
 " You do take him off well," said I. " It is exactly 
 as if we heard him." But Cyrus was unmoved by 
 my praise. 
 
 " I thought if boilers were things you boiled 
 things in, broilers were things you broiled things in," 
 he continued. '' But they are not. They are 
 chickens. Not grown-up chickens, and not fuzzy 
 baby ones, but in the middle, halfway." 
 
 " Adolescent," suggested Lucian. He was always 
 supplying us mth strange new words. 
 
 " But first he showed me to hunt eggs, in a barn 
 that is not hke ours, but full of dung. And before 
 dinner I found three dozen; but I knelt on one. 
 This knee." 
 
 Cyrus looked down at the injured member list- 
 lessly. 
 
 " He was cross after that. He said I was slow. — 
 I was. — I am. — He was a truthful devil. It was 
 not until after the dinner that he became truly 
 fiendish. He took a chicken in each hand, by their 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 71 
 
 necks — so ; and he wringed them round and round — 
 so '' 
 
 "Don't— don't!" I cried. 
 
 '* With a kind of flipping jerk he did it. And then 
 he took two more. — And then he took two more " 
 
 " Cyrus, don't! " I shrieked. 
 
 " And so on. — And when they were dead — I hope 
 they were dead — he showed me to souse them in 
 boiling water — so; and to pluck their feathers out 
 —so " 
 
 " Cyrus Emery — you never did that wicked 
 thing! " said Lucian. 
 
 " I had said I would work for him. I thought I 
 must obey him. I thought it was my vow of obedi- 
 ence that I must. That is where I am Uke Brother 
 Rufino in the Fioretti ; I cannot tell a devil from a 
 man. But I plucked them very badly because I 
 could not help shutting my eyes when I did it. And 
 when the devil saw my face he laughed. And he 
 took a little chicken that was alive, and he put it in 
 my hand and said, ' Wring it ! * And I prayed in my 
 heart, * O God — O San Francesco — do not let me kill 
 my brother the chicken.' And I did not kill it. 
 But I wish I had, for I did not wring it enough — and 
 it suffered. And the man laughed. And by his 
 dreadful laugh I knew at last who he was. I 
 screamed,' ' Demonio, io ti sfido I ' And the egg 
 basket was there, and I hit him with two of his eggs, 
 on his mouth and in his eyes. You say I cannot hit 
 anything, but you should have seen! — And I ran, 
 and ran, and ran." 
 
 He paused, examining his fingers, which during 
 the latter part of his tale he had held upright and 
 
72 THE CHILDREN, OF LIGHT 
 
 distended before him, his elbows resting on his 
 knees. 
 
 " Well, anyway," said I with an assumption of 
 cheerfulness, " you had dinner; and that's more 
 than Lucian and I did." 
 
 " Yes, I had it," he agreed, letting his fingers 
 droop dejectedly, " but I am not nourri. After I 
 had run and run and run, I had a mal de mer. — 
 Everything." 
 
 He did not move after this; he simply sat there 
 cross-legged on the ground, his elbows on his knees, 
 his fingers drooping from his wrists, his face ex- 
 pressionless. If he had been a Uttle cleaner I could 
 have put my arms around him and kissed him. I 
 wish I had, anyhow. But I didn't. 
 
 " Poverino I " murmured Lucian. '' Poverino ! " 
 
 And Candeloro, the boys' valet, coming round the 
 rose bush discovered us. 
 
 " Cosa hanno fatto al bimbo ? " he demanded, 
 and without waiting for our reply, picked up the 
 unresisting Cyinis and bore him away. 
 
 Lucian and I sat a while longer, plucking at blades 
 of grass and avoiding each other's eyes. The level 
 rays of the sun dusted the hills across the river with 
 a purple bloom. A vireo rippled. 
 
 " If you don't want to do it any more, we can 
 stop," said Lucian. 
 
 " Do what? " but I knew. 
 
 " Play brothers minor." 
 
 " I am not playing." 
 
 Lucian did not contradict this statement, he 
 merely paused. 
 
 The vireo rippled. 
 
A FRANCISCAN REVIVAL 73 
 
 " What do you suppose San Francesco would have 
 done about those trees? " Lucian asked presently. 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " If only some one would give me those trees — 
 the way Ser Orlando gave the woods at La Vema to 
 San Francesco, to be a holy place for ever." 
 
 " Do you think I like owing that boy money? " I 
 flashed. " If he were a rich boy like you, it wouldn't 
 have mattered." 
 
 " You might just as well say like us," said Lucian. 
 
 '' I am not rich." 
 
 There was another pause. Then he turned to me 
 with perplexed, knitted brows. 
 
 " I do not understand why the money troubles 
 you so much, Clara," he said. " To me it is the 
 least real thing in all the world, that money. I 
 cannot seem to make it real. It is not a part of my 
 soul." 
 
 '* Then buy the trees! " I snapped viciously. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said — and I did not know why. It was 
 quite a minute before he astonished me by adding, 
 " That does make it real. It makes it a master, 
 too : as if it said, ' You cannot do without me,' 
 doesn't it? " 
 
 I was puzzled. I did not know what he was talk- 
 ing about. I had to consider before I understood. 
 
 "Is it a devil or not, that money? — I don't 
 know," he said. " I'm like Cyrus. But, you see, 
 if we have to live like other people when we grow 
 up? — if we cannot help ourselves? — if the world is 
 made so? " 
 
 " Uncle Lew doesn't live like other people," said 
 I coldly. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 CONCERNING UTOPIAS 
 
 One other day bums unforgettable through that 
 summer's golden blur. 
 
 Under the date July 29, in the little diary I kept 
 — for Uncle Lew and the autobiography — I find 
 the characters of the Greek alphabet painstakingly 
 inscribed, and — 
 
 " Tristram Lawrence taught me this if I would call 
 him Tristram. We made hay to-day, all of us. 
 Remind Lucian to ask Cousin Pauline to send for 
 an algebra for Cuthbert Sylvester. Perhaps Helen 
 will let me lend her the money to go to college." 
 Then there is a blistered space, and in a shaky hand 
 I had \vritten — " I cannot write the rest." And 
 there is an old letter pinned to this page of the diary. 
 
 It was during Helen's visit — for Helen was the 
 surprise that my Cousin Pauline brought me from 
 New York. Nicholas, too, was in the valley, visit- 
 ing his classmate Mr. Lawrence, the young teacher 
 in the white house; — and finally, there was the 
 marchese, who had stopped over in our little village 
 on his way to South America to cUmb the Andes. 
 I remember Cyrus looked up the route and said he 
 could have gone more direct. But the marchese and 
 my Cousin PauUne were, as Helen expressed it, 
 getting engaged. 
 
 74 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS 75 
 
 " Sometimes I think she likes Tristram or Nicholas 
 quite as well," I suggested. 
 
 " Perhaps she does," Helen agreed, '' but they are 
 not the kind she marries." 
 
 " You mean they are younger than she is? " 
 
 " I mean she is worldly." 
 
 "Worldly? Oh, Helen, that's because you don't 
 like her." 
 
 " I hope I don't dislike her. I'm trying very 
 hard not to; she paid my fare up here and I'm her 
 guest. I don't think I'm very nice to talk about 
 her. Let's change the subject. Clara, I feel as if I 
 should burst if I went another day without saying 
 how killing I think those boys are." 
 
 " Killing? " My tone was dignified. We were 
 sitting together in the middle of a haycock. 
 
 " The idea of their kissing their mother's hand 
 when they say good-night." 
 
 " It's Italian." 
 
 " And the way they talk! " 
 
 " They're losing that. They talked much queerer 
 when I first came. But I like it." 
 
 " And I suppose you like them kissing your hand,'* 
 taunted Helen. 
 
 " They don't kiss my hand," I protested, blushing 
 at the memory of Lucian's greeting. 
 
 " But you'd be sure to if they did. You always 
 like everything that everybody does that you like. 
 You think these boys are perfect. I don't. That 
 Lucian acts as if he knew everything. You can't 
 say a thing that he doesn't say, ' Oh, yes, I read 
 about it in this book, or that book, or the other 
 book.' " 
 
76 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 "Don't you like him, Helen?" I inquired 
 anxiously. 
 
 " I don't know. I'm pretty sure I like Cyrus best. 
 And there's one thing I do know — your Cousin 
 Pauline doesn't like me. She would like to speak 
 to me the way she does to Antoinette. — Kindly ; oh, 
 yes ! I can't see what you could have told her about 
 me, Clara; but she got her mind all fixed for another 
 kind of person, and then — the minute she saw me, 
 I saw it in her face. I suppose it is because my nose 
 is puggy." 
 
 " Oh, Helen! " I cried ruefully. 
 
 " I wish she had liked me." Helen's tone was 
 serious, ruminative. " If she had " 
 
 " If she had? " I prompted. 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 For a minute or two neither of us said .any thing ; 
 then Helen introduced a new subject. 
 
 " I am not going to coUege after all," she remarked 
 with elaborate carelessness. 
 
 " Oh, Helen! " I rose up on my elbow. 
 
 " At least, that's what sister says. I don't say 
 it, yet." 
 
 " I don't see what business it is of your sister's," 
 I cried. 
 
 " WeU, it is if she won't help me, now that father 
 has sunk aU his money in the colony." 
 
 " Oh, but by the time you're old enough it wiU be 
 aU right." 
 
 " Father's left the colony, you know." 
 
 " Left the colony! " 
 
 "Yes;— I didn't teU you. AU that typhoid and 
 everything made mother make him — quite some 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS ^y 
 
 time ago. And he got a chance to supply for a 
 minister in Memphis that was going to Europe. He 
 wrote sister the colony is on its last legs." 
 
 "It's no such thing! — Uncle Lew is there — 
 Uncle Lew " 
 
 "Don't shout so, Clara! Those boys wiU think 
 I'm murdering you." 
 
 " It's no such thing," I reiterated. 
 
 " Anyway," said Helen, returning to her own 
 grievance, "I'm supposed not to be going to 
 coUege." 
 
 " But I can go, now! " I cried. " And I've been 
 counting on your going, too. And it's what you 
 want to do more than anything." 
 
 " Yes, it is." 
 
 An illuminating thought sent me upright. I cast 
 myself upon Helen and tried to get my arm around 
 her stiff and unresponsive neck. "Helen! You 
 know I shouldn't want to go without you; but you 
 don't mind going without me " — my voice quavered 
 here; I could not help it — "And so — and so — you 
 go instead of me; will you? Say you wiU! " 
 
 " I wiU not! " said Helen, freeing herself from my 
 embrace. 
 
 " I shan't mind giving up. Truly, I shan't! " 
 
 " You giving up! " she cried, and now she rose 
 on the haycock. " You'll never have to give up 
 anything for anybody, Clara Emery! " 
 
 " Do you mean? — What do you mean? " I asked. 
 " Do you think there would be enough for both of 
 us, perhaps? '* 
 
 " No, I do not ! " she shouted. " There won't 
 ever be enough of anybody else's money for me. 
 
y8 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 I*U go to coUege on my own money, thank you; or 
 else I won't go at all." 
 
 ''Oh, Helen!" I pleaded. 
 
 " I guess I can work my way through. Other 
 girls have." 
 
 " Have they? I should like to do that! " said I. 
 " It would be co-operative." 
 
 " You! " she snorted. " You'll never have to do 
 any real work." 
 
 *' I don't see why." 
 
 " You will see why when you're as old as I am." 
 
 " You're only thirteen." 
 
 " I'll be fourteen next month; and I wear sixteen- 
 year-old misses* suits. And when you go to New 
 York to live with sister you get old, right away. I 
 know a great deal more about Hfe than you do, 
 Clara. I'm going to be allowed a year at high school 
 and then I'm going to a commercial coUege to learn 
 typewriting and stenography. That's what sister 
 says. I don't. But if I get ahead of sister I'll be 
 doing well. She did say, when your cousin came to 
 see us, to invite me here — No; I guess I won't tell 
 that." 
 
 ''Yes; do!" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " It's something I'm not going to do, anyway. 
 Sister would; but sister and I are different. She 
 beUeves in taking anything anybody wiU give you. 
 She says it's the only way to get on in this world. 
 Sister and I quarrel like fury about eveiy thing." 
 
 " Then she wouldn't mind your going to coUege 
 with me? " 
 
 i^it^ 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS 79 
 
 " It doesn't matter whether she minds or not. 
 It's none of her business." 
 
 We must have been quiet for five minutes. I 
 thought all round this problem of Helen's schooling 
 and at last I had a new idea. 
 
 " Helen," I said, " would you take enough money to 
 go to college if I just lent it to you? You could pay 
 it back afterwards." 
 
 *' I don't know," she said reluctantly. 
 
 *' That means you will! — Oh, dear Helen, please!** 
 
 ** I don't want to." But she let me hold her hand 
 a few minutes. 
 
 II 
 
 *' I can't imagine her in a cassock," Cyrus said; 
 and by tacit consent we did not obtrude our Fran- 
 ciscanism upon Helen. As our guest she took the 
 lead in our games. She would probably have taken 
 it in any case, but we had the secret satisfaction of 
 knowing that we voluntarily gave way to her. And 
 the games that Helen liked to play were none of 
 them remarkable for spiritual significance. We 
 played tag, and we climbed trees — a new experience 
 for my cousins. Lucian invariably introduced an 
 intellectual element into this exercise by proclaiming 
 himself the Ancient Mariner, or Columbus; but the 
 imaginative appeal was never too complex. Helen 
 was very good for us, I am sure. After the marchese 
 came she put us up to begging to go with him up 
 our mountains ; and in those days the marchese was 
 always ready to please us. There was an agreeable 
 simpKcity about him that was very winning. 
 
8o THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 Nicholas, however, plumbed his possibilities when he 
 said that he ought always to be cHmbing mountains; 
 that it was a pity not to leave him " on his stalk." 
 
 With Nicholas my Cousin PauHne communed 
 along architectural Hues. Under her stimulus he 
 developed a theory concerning peasant housing, 
 which he expounded diagrammatically on blue 
 print paper. I remember he had a great roll of it 
 with him that day in the hayfield, and the sheets 
 kept blowing away. It was understood that some 
 day, when the marchese came back from South 
 America, Nicholas was to rebuild the peasants' 
 houses on the marchese's estates. 
 
 While Helen and I sat on the haycock holding 
 hands, Nicholas came up to us and said in his solemn, 
 joking fashion, that he wished he were the marchese, 
 for several reasons. 
 
 "Not really!" I protested, horrified at the 
 democratic issue involved. 
 
 " Catch me hiking off to Chimborazo, if I were," 
 he added, missing my point. 
 
 And then my Cousin Pauline called, " Come, 
 children! We are aU going to help, this afternoon. 
 I want Lucian and Cyrus to know the joy of getting 
 in their own hay. Think, darlings! — ^This is what 
 St. Francis used to do " 
 
 " Only it was not his own hay," said the accurate 
 Cyrus. 
 
 " And perhaps this very afternoon, far away in 
 Russia, Count Leo Tolstoy in his homespun blouse — 
 like ours" (we were wearing hand -woven Hnens 
 that summer) — " is working in his hot fields with his 
 peasants, just as we are." 
 
 A^^ra 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS 8i 
 
 " And to complete the historic parallel you ought 
 to cite Marie Antoinette, you know," said Tristram. 
 
 "Scoffer!" laughed my Cousin Pauline. "But 
 some day he shall see that we are in earnest, shall he 
 not, Clara? " 
 
 " Oh, Miss Clara is in earnest," he admitted, his 
 eyes quizzing my Cousin Pauline. 
 
 That " Miss Clara " of Tristram's always flattered 
 me against my will. He had a way, too, of smiling 
 into my eyes as if we had a secret between us. I 
 used to blush and wriggle, and bat my eyes de- 
 fensively to evade that intimate look, but it made me 
 feel tender and delicious, and yet improper, in a quite 
 new way. 
 
 "Why, don't you know what he is doing?" 
 Helen would say scornfully. " He's flirting. I've 
 seen them flirt with sister." 
 
 " Oh, I don't think so ! " I would protest, mortified, 
 yet secretly pleased. 
 
 Tristram and Nicholas were with us almost daily 
 at this time. There was talk of sending the boys 
 to the preparatory school where Tristram taught the 
 classics, and he and my Cousin Pauline used to go 
 over the prospectuses of different schools together. 
 I remember hearing my Cousin Pauline tell him that 
 she leaned on him intellectually. I remember, too, 
 that I did not know what the " classics " were until 
 that day in the hayfield. 
 
 Tristram had tossed his coat on a haycock and 
 Lucian must have seen the book in the pocket of it, 
 for presently, as we raked, we came upon him under 
 the shady side of the haycock, on his stomach, turning 
 the pages. 
 
 F 
 
82 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 ''Hollo! where did you get that?" Tristram 
 exclaimed, and snatched it. " Yes, it's Greek." 
 He did not look altogether pleased with Lucian. 
 But Lucian, oblivious as usual to all else when there 
 was a book about, pressed an eager finger on a page, 
 and uttered his mandate: — 
 
 "Read!" 
 
 " You wouldn't understand." 
 
 " Never mind," said Lucian, casting himself down 
 on the ground again. " You know you don't want 
 to rake hay." 
 
 So Tristram laughed and sat down, drawing me 
 down beside him. 
 
 " Are we really getting in hay, or are we only 
 playing getting it in?" asked Cyrus. "Because if 
 we are only playing, I will sit down too." 
 
 His mother, with her rake over her shoulder at the 
 truly Arcadian angle, was sauntering toward the 
 river-trees with the marchese. Helen and Nicholas 
 were over by the hay-cart, throwing hay at each 
 other. 
 
 Cyrus sat down beside me. 
 
 Even as Tristram's eyes had caressed me with his 
 smile, so now they caressed his open book — as if it 
 were dear to him. But there was something more in 
 the smile than had been there when it was for me; 
 something that was never in those eyes for any 
 woman. I saw it, and felt humiUated, although I 
 did not know then that the something's name was 
 reverence. 
 
 OvKovv, -qv S' cyw, /i,€Ta^aAA.€t fiXv rpoirov tlvo. TOLovSe k^ 
 oXtyapxtttS €ts SrjfiOKpaTLav, 
 
 he read. He had a low, resonant voice, and the 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS 83 
 
 words came from his lips delicately cadenced, like 
 a strange music. We listened rapt. 
 
 81 dirXrjcTTiav rov irpoKeifievov dyadov, tov ws TrXovaKoraTov 
 Setv ytyvecrdaL'^ ttws S'q' 
 
 On and on he read, forgetting us. 
 
 "Are, of/xat, ap^ovres €V avrrj ol ap^ovres Sto, to ttoAAo, 
 KeKTrjcrdaLy ovk WeXovcrLV etpyetv vofMO) twv vewv ecroL dv 
 aKoXaa-TOL yiyvwvrai; prq t^etvat avrois avaAicr/cetv re koX 
 €i(r8av€L ^ovT€S ert ttAovctko repot re kol evrtp^orepoL yiyviDvrai. 
 IlavTos ye fjidXXov. 
 
 "Now, what does it mean?" Lucian asked. 
 
 " Well, let's see what you make of it." Tristram 
 translated slowly: — 
 
 " * Well, said I, is it not in this way that the change 
 arises from oligarchy into democracy? — they are 
 insatiable ' — greedy — ' of wealth which they propose to 
 themselves as their end : and the rulers, who know very 
 well that their own power is based on property, refuse 
 to prevent ' — curtail — ' by law the extravagance of the 
 spendthrift youth because by their ruin they ' — the rulers, 
 you know — ' will gain; they lend them money, and buy 
 their land away from them, and increase in wealth and 
 honour ? 
 
 " ' Exactly. 
 
 " * There can be no doubt that in a state you cannot 
 have in the citizens the love of wealth and the spirit of 
 moderation ; one or the other will have to be disregarded. 
 
 " * That is tolerably clear. 
 
 '' ' And in oligarchical states, from carelessness and 
 the indulgence of their extravagance, men of good family 
 have often been reduced to beggary. 
 
84 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " ' Yes, often. 
 
 " 'And nevertheless they continue to remain in the city; 
 there they are, and they have stings and arms, and some 
 owe money, and some are no longer citizens : there is 
 a third class who are in both predicaments ' — that is, 
 owing money, and also being no longer citizens, you 
 know." Lucian nodded. — " 'And these hate and 
 conspire against those who have obtained their property, 
 and hate and conspire against anybody else, and are 
 eager for revolution. 
 That is true. 
 
 " ' On the other hand, the business men, stooping as 
 they walk, and pretending not to see the people whom 
 they have already ruined, insert the sting ' — their money, 
 that is — ' into any one who is not on guard against them, 
 and get back the parent or principal sum many times 
 over multiplied into a family of children ' " 
 
 "How?" asked Cyrus, — "children? I thought 
 it was money? " 
 
 " Oh, wait till he stops," said Lucian. " Cents are 
 dollars' children, he means." 
 
 " * This is the way in which they cause the drone 
 and the pauper to abound in the state. 
 
 Yes, he said, there are plenty of them, that is 
 certain. 
 
 The evil is like a fire that is blazing up, and thai 
 they will not put out either by placing restriction on the 
 disposition of property or ' " 
 
 "It is people talking," said Lucian. 
 
 " Good for you! " said Tristram. " Yes; it is a 
 dialogue of Plato." 
 
 " Plato ! " exclaimed Lucian, bending over the book. 
 
 " Is he an immigrant? " I asked. 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS 85 
 
 " Immigrant? " said Tristram. 
 
 " Because he doesn't write in English." 
 
 " How could he write in English? " cried Lucian. 
 " English was not yet invented." 
 
 I looked from Lucian to Tristram in baffled silence. 
 
 " You thought he was alive! " exclaimed Tristram. 
 " You thought " 
 
 " But he is talking about alive things," said I. 
 " American things. He couldn't be dead very long." 
 
 " Not very," Tristram admitted. " Something 
 over two thousand years." 
 
 Lucian shouted joyously. 
 
 " Do you suppose it is that way that grandfather 
 made our money? " inquired Cyrus. "By lending 
 them money and buying out their land? " 
 
 Tristram looked embarrassed. 
 
 "It was in Greece. Do you not understand? " 
 explained Lucian. 
 
 " Oh! " said Cyrus and I. 
 
 " But it is the same as American," I insisted. 
 " Uncle Lew and father used to talk Hke that about 
 American millionaires." 
 
 "Tell about it!" Lucian clamoured. "What is 
 its name? What are they saying? How shall we 
 understand until we shall know the beginning ? Stop 
 guessing, Clara, and let him talk! " 
 
 We all three fixed^our unwinking, limpet-like 
 attention upon this wise young man ; and he, looking 
 off through the screening trees to the river, told us 
 the book's name — The Republic; told us of Socrates 
 and his queer casual way of coaxing the Athenians 
 to school; of Plato, the prize scholar, the wide- 
 browed man. 
 
86 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 Then I fell a-musing on Tristram's steep brow, on 
 his long greyhound face, on the pale brown of his 
 hair, the pale grey of his flannel shirt, the pale blue 
 of his necktie, all of which details gave me a dreamy 
 personal pleasure unlike anything I had ever felt 
 before. He had asked me to call him Tristram ! 
 
 " Like Clara's colony," Lucian was saying, 
 " except that Socrates is only talking, but at New 
 Hope they Hve it." 
 
 I picked up the threads of the discourse as best 
 I could. This republic, it seemed, was Socrates' 
 dream of an ideal commonwealth. The word was 
 familiar to me and quickened my attention. Uncle 
 Lew meant New Hope to be an ideal commonwealth. 
 But there, it was soon evident, the resemblance 
 between Uncle Lew and Socrates ended. There were 
 to be no jacks-of -all-trades in Socrates' colony. He 
 would never have allowed Brother Barton to build 
 the kitchen chinmey. And yet somebody had to 
 build the chimney. 
 
 " Slaves! " we aU three exclaimed in horror. 
 
 " Not in ours," said Cyrus. 
 
 Our good opinion of Plato was sadly modified. 
 
 '' There will always be slaves," Tristram 
 announced definitely, looking from one to another 
 of us with his amused smile. 
 
 ''You forget!" cried Cyrus. "The Civil War. 
 Clara's grandfather fought and died to free the 
 slaves. He was our great-uncle." 
 
 " Yet there are still slaves in America, Uncle Lew 
 says," said I. " All working people will be slaves 
 more and more until we get rid of competition." 
 
 " You too are a slave. Miss Clara," Tristram said. 
 
 itt^'%/ 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS Sy 
 
 smiling. " A slave to an idea. I am a slave *' — 
 he turned his head and looked toward the mountains. 
 
 " To what? " asked Lucian. 
 
 " To a mood — to a passion — to an idea — I have 
 many chains.'* 
 
 We sat and looked at him, and groped in silence 
 among these abstruse thoughts. 
 
 " Until philosophers are kings and kings are philo- 
 sophers," said he, " cities will never cease from ill. 
 As the man is, so the state must be.'* 
 
 We considered this also. 
 
 " Then if the man is a poet the state is a poem," 
 cried Lucian suddenly, and laughed with delight. 
 
 Tristram chuckled, and remarked that it was a 
 pity Lucian could not have said that to Socrates. 
 
 Socrates, it would appear, had no use for poets; 
 they and their poetry were to be banished from his 
 commonwealth. 
 
 Lucian was aghast, indignant. " No Dante! " he 
 cried. " No " 
 
 " Is yours going to be that kind — with slaves? " 
 Cyrus asked Tristram. 
 
 **Why? Won't you vote for me?" Tristram 
 laughed. 
 
 " No! " the boys shouted. 
 
 " And Miss Clara? " said Tristram. 
 
 " In that kind of government the women don't 
 have any vote, you told us," I answered. 
 
 Then we heard Helen calling — "Clara! Here's 
 somebody to see you." 
 
 And we got up and went away, followed by 
 Tristram's laughter. 
 
88 THE CHILDREN> OF LIGHT 
 
 HI 
 
 There was a boy with Helen, and my heart sank 
 when I saw him. He had a rustic picture-frame in 
 his hand. 
 
 "How do you do?" he said. "You're some 
 later'n we are gettin* in your hay." 
 
 " How do you do ? " said we three in solemn chorus. 
 
 " Here's your frame," he continued. " But 
 there's no charge. I'm goin' to give it to you." 
 
 " Oh, no! " I whispered. 
 
 " You can show it to people, you know, and get 
 them to give me orders." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " I repeated. 
 
 Cuthbert turned to Lucian. " Twenty-five cents," 
 he said. "Don't you want me to make you one to 
 put her picture in? " 
 
 " I do ! " said C5mis. " But must it be so sticky? " 
 
 " It lasts longer," explained Cuthbert. " But 
 then you could always afford a new one." 
 
 " This is that boy," I said to Lucian. 
 
 My Cousin Pauline, again with her rake over her 
 shoulder, had come to where we stood, by the hay 
 cart. 
 
 "He is a friend of grandfather's," explained 
 Lucian. " He has come to call. Clara knows him." 
 
 " And he sells these picture-frames to earn money 
 to go through college," said Cyrus. 
 
 My Cousin Pauline examined the frame and 
 handed it to Nicholas with eyebrows uplifted in mock 
 horror. Cuthbert was looking at her with intelli- 
 gent comprehension, but no sign of embarrassment. 
 
 ..M 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS 89 
 
 " I'd be glad to help you with your hay, if you're 
 short-handed/' he remarked. 
 
 And she called him a " true neighbour," patting 
 him on the shoulder. Those intent eyes of his 
 searched her face with impersonal curiosity. 
 
 " And I am sure you will know more about hay- 
 making than any of us," she added, turning from 
 him with the little movement of dismissal she in- 
 voluntarily used when annoyed. 
 
 " Well, I wouldn't wonder if I did," he acquiesced. 
 " Shall I take this fork? " And before any one could 
 reply, he had tossed half a haycock into the bottom 
 of the cart. 
 
 *' Now we are getting down to business," said 
 Nicholas, chmbing into the cart and spreading the 
 hay. " They ought to have this young man at New 
 Hope to show them how, oughtn't they, Clara? " 
 
 " He'll expect to be paid," murmured Helen in 
 my ear. 
 
 " He doesn't want to be paid for the frame." 
 
 " I hate that kind of boy." 
 
 '* Why, Helen ! " I exclaimed. " He is so practical, 
 I thought you would Uke him. He reminds me a 
 little of you." 
 
 Helen looked as if she could have murdered me. 
 Then turned her back. When I put my arm around 
 her and looked into her face I saw there were tears 
 in her eyes. 
 
 " Go away! " she said. But I clung to her. 
 1 mean 
 
 " Go away! " 
 
 And I went, sadly, around to the other side of the 
 cart, where Cyrus was insisting upon wielding a 
 
90 THE CHILDREN ^ OF LIGHT 
 
 pitchfork to the peril of any one who came within 
 a radius of five feet of him. 
 
 "Am I too Httle, Clara? — Am I?" he expostu- 
 lated, staggering toward the wagon, his fork 
 dripping hay. 
 
 " But the fork is so big, Cyrus." 
 
 "Well, I cannot help that, can I? '* 
 
 He shook the few remaining wisps into the wagon 
 and started back for another bundle. 
 
 " He only trails it aU over the place," protested 
 Lucian. 
 
 " I shall learn," Cyrus said. And he might have if 
 the afternoon had been long enough; but when our 
 farmer caUed out, " Last load to-day! — How many's 
 comin' ? You, Helen ? — Cyrus — comin' ? " Cyrus 
 was stiU in the ranks of unskilled labour. 
 
 He and Helen scrambled upon the load and went 
 off to the bam. The grown people had long since 
 retired to the shade. Lucian and I plumped into 
 the middle of twin haycocks. Cuthbert remained 
 standing, between us, chewing a wisp of hay. 
 
 " I guess I'U go home now," he suggested, " it's 
 quite a walk. You don't happen to have an old 
 algebray you'd be willin' to lend me? — I'd put a 
 cover on it to keep it clean." 
 
 We were much impressed. 
 
 " I am to have one when I go to school," said 
 Lucian, " and I'll get mamma to send for two." 
 
 "A new one ? " Cuthbert drew a long breath. No 
 word of thanks escaped him, but the satisfaction in 
 his eyes was unmistakable. 
 
 " Say," he said after a moment, " did she tell you 
 about that day on the mountain? " 
 
 .tmi 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS 91 
 
 Lucian nodded. 
 
 " And the way she tried to stuff me about every- 
 body bein' as rich as everybody else, sometime? — 
 Do you beHeve that? " 
 
 " It ought to be," said Lucian. 
 
 " It will be," said I. " My Uncle Lew, down 
 South, is making it be, as fast as he can." 
 
 " Why ought it? " asked Cuthbert, ignoring me. 
 
 '' Because — " began Lucian, pondering. " Do you 
 think anybody ought to be as poor — as you are? " 
 
 "You bet I don't!" 
 
 " Then why don't you think everybody ought to 
 be as rich as — well, as we are? " 
 
 Cuthbert was plainly disconcerted. He frowned, 
 studying us. " But she says she wants to be poor." 
 
 " But don't you see," I cried, " if everybody is the 
 same, there won't be rich and poor. That's what 
 Uncle Lew says." 
 
 The children in the rural districts of New England 
 no longer quote Scripture, else Cuthbert might have 
 retorted that we have the poor with us always. As 
 it was, he could only look at me and say — " Well, 
 your grandfather was a mighty smart man, but he 
 never talked that way. He looked out for number 
 one." Then he turned and went to the upper 
 gateway. 
 
 *' Come again! " called Lucian. 
 
 " Yes, I will. — For the algebray." 
 
 IV 
 
 " Shall we go back to the grown-ups now? " said 
 Lucian. " You see if they are not talking about 
 
92 THE CHILDREN, OF LIGHT 
 
 Tolstoy and economic soundness. I wonder why 
 grown people think it worth while to go on talking 
 round and round for hours, without saying anything ? 
 — If they are men and women, I mean. If they are 
 only men they get it said. You listen to Tristram 
 and Nicholas talking — and then you listen to them 
 talking to mother." 
 
 " Sometimes Cousin Pauline talks as if she would 
 really go to live at New Hope. — Do you think she 
 would? '* I asked. 
 
 "Why, no!" 
 
 "But then " 
 
 " She thinks she would, of course." 
 
 My Cousin Pauline and the marchese were stroll- 
 ing toward us across the meadow. She sometimes 
 walked a bit of the way to the viUage with him, when 
 he went before dark. 
 
 " Lucian dearest," she called, "come and get the 
 mail-bag. There is something in it for Clara." 
 
 He brought the bag to my haycock. " It's quite 
 heavy," he said, and dove into it, bringing out a 
 letter and a parcel. " Both for you." 
 
 The letter was from Uncle Lew, and I had not heard 
 from him for several weeks. I tore off the end of 
 the envelope in a happy flutter. 
 
 " It feels like books," Lucian said, busy with the 
 string of the parcel. " I'll open it for you." 
 
 I remember I hugged the letter to me for the 
 briefest moment ; and the rim of the sun and the rim 
 of a western hiU kissed ; and little sharp black pine 
 tree-tops began to prick up, up, into the sun. And 
 at first, when I turned to the letter, I could not read 
 because of the dazzle in my eyes. 
 
 r^^^. 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS 93 
 
 " My little Clara," — Uncle Lew began, — " This is 
 a sad letter for a little girl, and if I were coming north 
 I would wait and tell you instead of writing — but 
 when I leave here I go west. 
 
 " Your Aunt Camilla died three days ago of 
 malignant typhoid. She was only sick a week. 
 She was worn out with nursing the other people, and 
 there was no power of resistance left. I ought never 
 to have brought her here. She was too frail for this 
 hard life. But she is taken away now, out of reach 
 of my stupidity, my selfishness, and I am never to be 
 allowed to make her suffer hardship any more. Give 
 thanks for that when you say your prayers, little 
 Clara; and some day when I am used to missing her, 
 I wiU give thanks too. 
 
 " The mortgage was foreclosed the day she died. 
 I have known for a long time that it must come, and 
 when Baldwin drew out I knew it was only a question 
 of weeks. But with aU these sick folks there was 
 nothing to do but hang on and hope. There are only 
 ten of us here now — strays and homeless, mostly — 
 three of them widows, and five children, and a feeble- 
 minded boy who came here with his mother after 
 you left, and Grandpa Pugh. Poor old man! — 
 think of his weathering the epidemic! — and his 
 daughter and my wife both gone! But that's the 
 way of it. There's nothing for him but an institution, 
 that I can see; but it'll break his heart. Perhaps 
 it might as well. He's very bitter against me, but 
 then he's been almost childish since his daughter 
 died. As soon as I get them all placed, and money 
 to pay their railroad fares, I go west to work on 
 a salary in a big manufacturing plant where, as far 
 
94 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 as I understand it, I'm to be a sort of go-between, 
 adjusting things between the men and the employer. 
 Social Secretary they call it. It's a new philanthropic 
 industrial dodge to keep the men quiet, as far as I 
 can see. There is some talk of profit-sharing. Judge 
 Acton got me the job, and for his sake I mean to give 
 it a try. But I never was one for half measures. 
 
 " You mustn't take this too hard, my Uttle girl. I 
 guess we'U have to make up our minds that this sort 
 of separatist experiment can never be the way out. 
 We won't try to start another, you and I; not yet 
 awhile. But if it was to do over again — even with 
 all I know — I suppose I would. I beheve it was the 
 thing to do, when I did it; and I believe your Aunt 
 Camilla would say so too. All the time she was 
 delirious she kept saying over and over — ' Never 
 you mind, Lew; we'll stick it out. Never you mind. 
 Lew; we'll stick it out.' She was a brave woman, 
 and a saint, and a martyr. She didn't know me after 
 the first day. It was the worst case we- had. 
 
 " Some day I'm going to answer your dear httle 
 letters, but I can't now. You will write to Uncle 
 Lew, won't you, when he is way out west? You're 
 the one real bright spot in my Ufe now, little Clara, 
 and you must be a good girl and not fret over all this. 
 Every stick and stone that can be sold off the place 
 is being sold, but I came across the Life ofRoheH Owen 
 among some books this morning and I'm sending it 
 to you. I've written your name in it. 
 
 " They're going to sell the very lumber the houses 
 are made of, and cart it off to build tenements for 
 cotton operatives in the mill village south of here. 
 Even the old plantation house is to be torn down. 
 
CONCERNING UTOPIAS 95 
 
 But there will still be houses left; narrow houses. 
 I have set a wooden cross above your Aunt Camilla's 
 grave. 
 
 ** Now, dearie, I'll write you my new address when 
 I get there. And you mustn't think very much 
 about these things. If you and those two boys are 
 going to college you've got your work cut out for you 
 for a few years. And when you get your chance to 
 reform the world, you want to be good and ready for 
 it, you know. I wasn't. 
 
 *' I kissed your Aunt Camilla for you. She didn't 
 know me after the first day. If only she might 
 have. — Always your devoted Uncle Lew." 
 
 I remember a thin thread of moon that hurried 
 down the sky after the sun had gone. I remember 
 a Httle bright cloud that filmed and frayed away. I 
 remember the slow dusking of the meadow, and the 
 soft whispering of the twilight sounds. 
 
 When there was no longer Ught enough to read by, 
 Lucian sighed, and looked up from the Autobiography 
 of Robert Owen. 
 
 "What a nice book!" he said. "Let us write 
 our autobiographies when we grow up." 
 
 Something made a queer noise. I remember I 
 thought it sounded like a puppy's whine. 
 
 Lucian got to his knees and peered at me and said, 
 " Clara! " with a httle note of fright in his voice. 
 But I had sat so very still so long, that I kept on 
 sitting still. 
 
 " Are you asleep, sitting up Hke that? " he asked 
 me fearfully; and putting up his hand he touched 
 mine. 
 
96 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 I suppose it was cold, for he gave a sharp scream 
 and flung himself upon me, crying — " Clara, Clara! 
 are you dead? — No! — No! — No! — No! — " and 
 squeezing me tight, and kissing me violently. 
 
 And a voice that never was mine, a very high, 
 thin, sharp little voice, said — " Everything is dead. 
 Aunt Camilla is dead. The colony is dead. The 
 autobiography is dead — " And then terrible, 
 coughing, sobbing sounds came tearing up into my 
 throat. 
 
 " No ! — No ! — No ! — " Lucian shouted, as if he were 
 trying to drown those other sounds. 
 
 I remember how wet his cheek was against mine. 
 I remember I thought, " Lucian is crying." And 
 then I, too, was crying, the ordinary way, with 
 tears. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 
 
 I WANTED Lucian to write these memories. I wanted 
 him to make another Prelude, that should do for the 
 beginning of the twentieth century what Words- 
 worth's did for the beginning of the nineteenth — 
 reveal the spirit of the century's youth, its hope and 
 its despair, its failure, its triumph, if there be any 
 triumph. I had a dream of the immortal thing as he 
 must write it — in blank verse, nobly; not Words- 
 worth's blank verse, meditative, reflective, pro- 
 cessional, but Lucian's own: ripphng like a brook; 
 rioting Hke a torrent, booming like a thunder-clap; 
 technically nearer the verse of Elizabethan Fletcher 
 than any I know ; swift, flexible, with its lines running 
 over, its feminine endings, its syllables in a hurry — 
 yet always within bounds, always obedient to the 
 norm. 
 
 But Lucian laughs and will not. He says blank 
 verse is not the inevitable, reveaHng medium of the 
 things of the spirit. He says you may put a bird in 
 a cage, but you cannot make him sing. He asks how 
 he is to retire to Nature's bosom to be comforted when 
 the fifty feet by thirty-six of that bosom allotted to 
 him for his daily hour of exercise is armoured four 
 inches thick with patent concrete. But he does sing, 
 for now and again there comes a song across the sea 
 to me. And to listen to the songs you would think 
 
 97 G 
 
98 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 it was I that was the caged bird, not he. Never was 
 there so blithe a captive. 
 
 *' I doubt if even St. Paul could give me points on 
 rejoicing in bonds," his yesterday's letter said. " I 
 have just finished a corking article on the minimum 
 wage; and now I meditate sending it down to the 
 sea in a car load of bottles, a la Shelley. I doubt if 
 our method of dissemination is any more effective 
 than his. How do you get on with the autobio- 
 graphy? Your last sheets came yesterday — about 
 you and me in the hayfield. I'm not a good critic 
 because the whole thing is so personal to both of us, 
 but I have a suspicion it's readable. I wish you 
 weren't so set against printing. Why? — I suppose 
 it's my artistically temperamental immodesty that 
 makes me look at aU Hfe as incipient Uterature. You 
 say you can't because of the part that Tristram 
 Lawrence played. But doesn't every one know he 
 played it — every one, that is, who knows our little 
 circle? And as for the people who don't know — 
 who never heard of us, or him — keep the manuscript 
 five years and change all our names, and you'll find 
 it won't raise a ripple. Of course, I should not want 
 you to print anything that could have a succes de 
 scandcde ; but om* Uttle fracas really didn't make 
 much of a stir, except locally. I wish it had made 
 more, for the Cause's sake. — I don't want to over 
 persuade you, dear; but I hate to think of all that 
 good writing lying in a trunk. Who can count on 
 the literary acimien of grandchildren (great-grand- 
 children, I observe you say). Suppose they burned 
 it up unread ? — I should certainly turn in my cinerary 
 urn.'* 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 99 
 
 Farther on he says — '* I am interested to see how 
 you'll manage the ' fair seed time ' of our souls. I 
 wouldn't linger too long over that part, if I were you. 
 Grow us up and set us going. As I look back it 
 seems as if all of my own life that is worth anything 
 were packed into this last fiery year." 
 
 But why should not I be compiling statistics on 
 the minimum wage? Better I than Lucian — I who 
 write only prose. This is a very self-conscious, 
 unfruitful sort of thing to do — this family biography. 
 For whom? If I were seventy, and at the end of 
 things, there might be some excuse for writing 
 memoirs. But now? 
 
 I said something Uke that to Lucian the day before 
 I sailed; and — 
 
 " What Cyrus has done will hardly repeat itself 
 in our family history," he said. '* Neither you nor 
 I is likely to have his opportunity, or to meet it 
 better than he did. There is no bettering what is 
 so well done. Some things you and I would not 
 forget." 
 
 *' If I lived to be five hundred, do you think I 
 could forget them? " I asked him. 
 
 But he said — " So few of us live to be five hundred, 
 how can we tell ? And some of us do not even live to 
 be seventy. Write it now! " 
 
 Now — is June in Umbria after three months of 
 rain. Umbria verde, the peasants say, speaking in 
 proverbs, peasant fashion; and there are indeed 
 green patches among these treeless Apennines; our 
 little " hill of vines " shimmers like an emerald under 
 the Italian sun. But proverbs notwithstanding, the 
 
100 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 dominant note is amethyst. From dawn and sun- 
 rise till sunset and the afterglow I have watched its 
 purple variants play upon these transparent, visionary 
 mountains. 
 
 Now — is waiting time for me. On the threshold of 
 our youth I wait — Lucian's and Cyrus's and mine — 
 for the passing of a year and a day. After that, no 
 more looking back, unless at seventy. 
 
 II 
 
 We were a long time getting ready to Uve. Events 
 enough, of a sort, there were, in those ten years and 
 more of school and college: preliminaries, finals, 
 proms, vacations, initiations, ball games; to all of 
 which we gave a serious, undergraduate attention. 
 And there were the marchese's imexpected two years 
 of mysterious disappearance amid the mountain 
 fastnesses of South America, and the romance of his 
 unexpected return when my Cousin Pauline had 
 almost made up her mind to be consoled by Nicholas. 
 And there was the belated wedding — not with 
 Nicholas. And yet, as I read over the letters we 
 wrote in those years, I am chiefly impressed by the 
 way in which our minds were taken up with other 
 matters. 
 
 Among the letters of 1894, when we were aU three 
 at boarding school and Lucian was not yet sixteen, 
 I find these two which are sufficiently characteristic. 
 I give them in order. Cyrus's must have followed 
 Lucian's after a week or ten days. Both boys are 
 careless about dating. 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL loi 
 
 " Dear Clara, — Thanks for letting me see Uncle 
 Lew's letter about the Pullman strike. Do you 
 mind if I keep it a day or two longer? I want to 
 copy some of the things he says about the right to 
 organise, so as to have them pat when the fellows 
 jump on me. I read it the other night at a meeting 
 of our Frat. and it bowled them over completely, so 
 that they stayed bowled for as much as thirty-six 
 hours. We started a subscription that night and 
 had it all planned to send so much a week to the 
 relief fund. And then somehow dear Trissy got 
 wind of it and sent for me to his room and indulged 
 in his sarcastic pleasantries about misplaced enthu- 
 siasm. Now don't tell me he's clever, Clara. I know 
 he's clever, and I know you're fond of him. Yes, 
 you are ! But that's no reason why I should be fond 
 of him, and I'm not. Neither am I the only one 
 that's glad his superior talents are to be transferred 
 to a loftier plane of intellectual activity. I'd rather 
 he'd run a magazine than run me. He wanted me 
 to call off the subscription. Me! — And then his 
 academic conscience obliged him to go to the Head 
 and give the whole show away. And the Head sent 
 for me and explained that some of the boys' fathers 
 are railroad men, or have stock, and all that; and 
 boys can't do a thing of this kind without their fathers' 
 permission and without consulting people who under- 
 stand the situation better than we can who are not in 
 it. And he talked to the school in chapel, cooing 
 over us because we meant well. 
 
 " Of course the fellows were red hot at first for 
 being meddled with, and a good many of them wrote 
 off to their fathers. And I wish you could read the 
 
102 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 rotten stuff their fathers wrote. All about the wicked 
 ingratitude of the Pullman operatives, and the need 
 to guard the sacred right of the individual to work at 
 what wages he chooses. But it caught the fellows; 
 and besides, they couldn't give money if their fathers 
 said not. And now we do nothing but argue. 
 
 " It makes me wish more than ever that I were 
 Uncle Lew; free to tramp with Coxie's army, and to 
 picket with strikers, and to do all those exciting 
 things, and to be one of those men who are suffering 
 for a cause. For Uncle Lew does suffer, and what a 
 good time he has doing it ! 
 
 " There's a thing of Matthew Arnold's I'm learn- 
 ing, for fun, that expresses my feeling: — 
 
 " * Faster, faster, 
 
 O Circe, Goddess, 
 Let the wild thronging train, 
 The bright procession 
 Of eddying forms, 
 Sweep through my soul ! * 
 
 I've just got hold of Matthew Arnold. You must 
 read him. Trissy had a copy on his table the other 
 night. I was dipping into it, turning the pages while 
 he was rowing me about the strike. 
 
 " ' There's a warning for you,' says Trissy, really 
 solemn for once. ' There's a man who was a poet, 
 but he turned away from his high calling. He let 
 the weeds of criticism choke the fountain of his 
 inspiration.' 
 
 '"It must have been a pretty feeble trickle,' I said. 
 And he took the book and read me some things. You 
 know how well he reads, in that half -suppressed voice 
 
 M 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 103 
 
 of his. — ' The Forsaken Merman ' — ' Progress ' — 
 ' Rugby Chapel/ 
 "Listen:— 
 
 " ' And there are some, whom a thirst 
 Ardent, unquenchable, fires. 
 Not with the crowd to be spent. 
 Not without aim to go round 
 In an eddy of purposeless dust. 
 Effort unmeaning and vain. 
 Ah yes ! some of us strive 
 Not without action to die 
 Fruitless, but something to snatch 
 From dull oblivion, nor all 
 Glut the devouring grave ! ' 
 
 But it seems to me one may be spent with the crowd 
 and yet have an aim. 
 
 " Old Trissy says economics are alien to my 
 temperament. You bet they are! I picked up a 
 book by somebody named Marshall, on the Head's 
 study table the other day, and it was almost the 
 only book I ever struck that I couldn't read. But 
 then Trissy calls the Pullman strike economics. I 
 call it Life; and I told him so. Matthew Arnold 
 says: — 
 
 ** * Such a price 
 The Gods exact for song. 
 To become what we sing.' — 
 
 He paid his price. I wonder what my price will 
 be?— The song? Lights out!— Lucian." 
 
 I remember thinking that I would send this letter 
 to Uncle Lew; and then not sending it, because of 
 
104 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 that little remark about my own attitude toward 
 Tristram. 
 
 Cyrus's letter I did send him. 
 
 " Dear Clara, — I must tell you about our vaude- 
 ville show. Lucian was the best. I suppose I ought 
 not to say it because he is my brother, but he is 
 always the best. He recited a thing called * The 
 Strayed Reveller,' by Matthew Arnold. I wish you 
 had been here. He had on one of the pillow-cases 
 from the school guest chamber, you remember how 
 enormous they are, and girdled in with his bath- 
 robe tassels, and over his shoulder that little grey 
 fox-skin rug with the red flannel scallops round the 
 edges that we bought from the taxidermatologist up 
 home in our valley, and one of the pink silk union 
 suits mother bought him the last time we were in 
 Geneva and he never wears. And he had a green 
 wreath in his hair, and raspbeny shrub in a Tiffany 
 vase from the reception-room mantelpiece. The 
 fellows all yelled when they saw him, they thought he 
 was going to be funny. But he had them hypnotised 
 all right, in about two minutes. And when it 
 was over the housekeeper never said a word about 
 the pillow-case. All she said was, * Do not attempt 
 to wash the Tiffany vase, Lucian, I will do that.* 
 And the Head shook hands with him and beamed 
 Uke the sun. 
 
 " I would have liked to be in the vaudeville show, 
 but the boys are down on me just now because I 
 didn't subscribe anything to our spring games nor 
 to the set of encyclopaedias we — I mean they — are 
 giving to old Trissy because he is leaving to be an 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 105 
 
 editor. You see, I have sent all my allowance to the 
 Pullman Strikers* Relief Fund. I felt that they 
 needed it more than Trissy because he can always 
 go to a public Ubrary if he wants to consult an 
 encyclopaedia. But the boys think I am a skunk 
 because Trissy is a friend of mother's and has always 
 taken a particular interest in Lucian and me. But 
 they are madder about the athletics. I am sorry 
 they are mad; but I seemed to have to send the 
 money. I sent it anomalously, from ' A Sym- 
 pathiser,' because I was afraid if I signed my name 
 Mr. Warner and those other old gentlemen that take 
 care of grandfather's money for us might take it 
 away from the strikers because I am a minor. They 
 can't now. 
 
 " The worst of it is that Lucian has given one boy 
 a black eye about it, and the boy tells people — 
 masters, I mean, — that he ran into his brass bed- 
 post in the dark. But they might know, if they 
 stopped to think, that if he ran into the bed-post it 
 would hit him in the stomach. 
 
 " It worries me a good deal to be responsible for 
 other people's sins. Sometimes at night it seems as 
 if I could not bear it. But if I went and told, I 
 should be even more of a skunk than I am now. 
 Life is so complicated. I think a hermit's life is 
 the safest, because he lives by himself and cannot 
 tempt other people to lie and fight. 
 
 " I am glad the vacation is so near. — Your aff. 
 
 "Cyrus." 
 
io6 THE CHILDREN^ OF LIGHT 
 
 III 
 
 Helen and I saw little of each other while we were 
 preparing for college. She entered two years ahead 
 of me, from a high school; and in the summer her 
 practical sister secured some sort of paying employ- 
 ment for her, and we were always in Europe. The 
 summer before she entered college I pleaded with her 
 to come with us, but she would not. She waited on 
 table at a fashionable hotel in the White Mountains 
 instead. My Cousin Pauhne was horrified, but I 
 remember how Lucian and Cyrus and I, walking 
 with the marchese over the Col du Geant from 
 Courmayeur to Chamonix, clanked our chains and 
 railed at the cruel fate that denied us the romantic 
 excitement of Helen's life. 
 
 Helen was never a good correspondent, but during 
 the two years before I joined her at college she wrote 
 once a week, if only a Une. The frequency of these 
 letters at first dehghted, then puzzled, then dis- 
 tressed me, and at last I wrote her some sort of 
 blundering protest, which brought me by return 
 mail this reply, the nearest to a love-letter I ever had 
 from Helen: — 
 
 " How silly you are, Clara! — Duty! — What duty? 
 — Obligation to write you? — If I thought so, do you 
 think I would? There is an obUgation — to pay 
 back my college bills after I've swallowed the college 
 education; and I shall. But what has that to do 
 with my writing letters to my dearest friend? Yes; 
 my Dearest Friend. Let us write it in large capitals. 
 Why can't you beheve it? I'm not so modest as 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 107 
 
 not to know I'm not your dearest friend. (Dear me, 
 isn't there a not too many there?) And do you 
 think it is only hard Hnes for you that you are not in 
 college now ? Perhaps I am not very fond of writing 
 letters; I don't write as easily as you do. I keep 
 all your letters, Clara. There! — now do you believe 
 you are? And I only keep the letters of one other 
 person, and they are not from a girl, and I haven't 
 but four of them so far, anyway. 
 
 " Of course, if you don't want me to write you once 
 a week, I won't. — But I shall miss it. — ^With love 
 always, Helen." 
 
 The next was on a different theme and in a 
 different vein. 
 
 " Dear Clara, — How exasperating you can be ! 
 Of course I shall not let you subscribe to the College 
 Settlements Association under my name. If I can't 
 write you about associations and dues and things 
 without your always wanting to interfere, I shan't 
 tell you anything; that's all. If you want to sub- 
 scribe to it you can form a sub-chapter in your school. 
 I shall pay my own subscription, thank you, and 
 supply myself with any other luxuries I choose, by 
 putting the braid on other girls' skirts and shampooing 
 their hair. 
 
 *' If you have a chance, get them to take you in 
 to see the settlement house. I spent last Sunday 
 there. If I can save up enough I may go there for 
 the spring vacation. Now, Clara Emery, if you offer 
 to pay, or lend me, my board for the spring vacation, 
 because you would like to be at the settlement then. 
 
io8 THE CHILDREN^ OF LIGHT 
 
 and can't, I won't write you another letter this 
 semester. 
 
 " Why in the world should you suppose I am keep- 
 ing Lucian's letters? In the first place, he never 
 writes me; and in the second place, if he did I should 
 send his letters to you to keep. I do hear from Cyrus 
 once in a long while, when he wants to consult me 
 about a birthday present for you, or something of 
 that kind. I do think you might write oftener to 
 C5niis, Clara. — Yours, Helen." 
 
 IV 
 
 I have been turning over Lucian's early manu- 
 script poems this morning. The best of them are in 
 the Uttle volume that came out after he left college, 
 but some that I am fondest of he rejected for one 
 reason or another. I am not the only one in the 
 family who has literary reserves. The little lauds 
 of our Franciscan summer are here — to Sister Cassock 
 and the trees. I said them just now, on the loggia, 
 looking off to the shadowy ridge of La Vema, the 
 mountain of the Stigmata, the only tree-crowned 
 sununit in all our circle of bare, sunbright Apennines. 
 
 And among these boyish attempts at verse-making 
 I have found also a letter that I had mislaid — the 
 one he wrote me in the winter before he went to 
 college — all about his epic. It was written during the 
 mid-year examinations, although they apparently 
 were not weighing upon his mind. 
 
 " Dear Clara, — I have not written you for some 
 time because I have been busy on an epic I am 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 109 
 
 writing. It is my first really serious attempt at 
 blank verse and I am rather absorbed. What do you 
 think of this for a beginning ? 
 
 " * The century is going to its death. 
 
 The feast is over and the guests are sped, 
 Or sitting heavily about the board. 
 Dull-eyed and moody, loth to leave their cates. 
 Though appetite be sickened to a stare. 
 
 " ' To stand upon the feast-hall's threshold stone. 
 And keen with hunger, hope, and youth, and life, 
 Be bidden to a banquet that is ended, — 
 What does it mean ? ' — 
 
 Do you catch the idea ? It is to be in the nature of 
 a dirge — a reviewing of the hfe of the century that is 
 going out and a prophecy of what is to come. Of 
 course, we have several years to run yet, but by the 
 time I finish — with all the interruptions I shall have 
 from getting settled at college and used to the new 
 routine — there ought to be just about time to see it 
 through the press before we ring in 1900. And if I 
 can get it out before 1900, it will have all the more 
 time to make its way. 
 
 " I plan for about ten thousand lines. What do 
 you think of ' A Prophet in the Wilderness ' for a 
 title? Here's another bit; of course you know most 
 of this is only trial stuff, but there's a line here and 
 there that I mean to keep : — 
 
 " * O Son of Time! O prostrate century 
 So soon to die, so soon to be at rest 
 Within the dim, still crypt of Memory 
 Where, side by side, thy hoary brothers sleep ! ' 
 
 Do you prefer memory without the capital letter? 
 There is still a monotony about the way my emphasis 
 
no THE CHILDREN. OF LIGHT 
 
 falls, but I shall work out of that when I get into the 
 swing of the verse. There is to be one section about 
 the nineteenth-century poets and thinkers. Guess 
 which one this is: — 
 
 " — ' that other youth 
 Whose words were very stars he flung athwart 
 The cumulative darkness of your thought ? ' 
 
 And then there is going to be a vision of a golden 
 image — I haven't worked it out yet — and the immi- 
 grant hordes pouring up over the edge of the world, 
 and the priests of the image stripping them of all their 
 little wealth, and grinding them to labour, and hoard- 
 ing the gold for the image; and everybody being 
 dashed to foam and death, hke an angry sea about 
 the pedestal of the image. I know it's confused now, 
 but you'll see what I mean. And then after the 
 vision the prophet turns and denounces his hearers : — 
 
 " ' How cautious and how careful for God's world, 
 His world. He guard eth, are we grown of late ! 
 " Not war! " ye whimper. " War ? to lay in waste 
 Our golden wheat-fields, steep our land in blood. 
 Our peaceful land ? Bring famine on the earth ? 
 The world is grown too wise to go to war," 
 
 ** * Bring famine on the land ? — What men are these 
 That sit within our gates and beg for bread ? 
 Lay waste our golden wheat-fields ? — Aye, lay waste 
 And trample them. Of what do these avail 
 If they that sow the seed must reap to starve ? 
 
 " ' Unlock your coffers! Cast them out of doors. 
 And cease this whining, soft benevolence. 
 Spit out the yellow poison from your souls ! ' 
 
 I'm fond of that last line. If I didn't have those 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL iii 
 
 wretched finals to think of in June I could do a lot 
 this next term. And that reminds me, I suppose I 
 ought to take a whack at Math, before I go to bed; 
 aU the other fellows are cramming for to-morrow; 
 that's why I haven't been interrupted in this letter." 
 
 Some seven hundred lines of that visionary ten 
 thousand were written. " 'Prentice work," Lucian 
 said, when he came to choose the poems for his book. 
 And I acquiesced. But before I knew what he was 
 about he had torn the manuscript and thrust it on 
 the fire. 
 
 Looked at from the point of view of literature, I 
 suppose it was no great loss; but I am glad I have 
 found the letter with these fragments — now that he 
 is trying to convert the world by statistics of child 
 labour and the minimum wage. 
 
 In the spring of our freshman year, Lucian's and 
 mine, war was declared with Spain; and it was in 
 February or March — no, perhaps April — when the 
 country was in a ferment and nothing was as yet 
 officially settled, that Cyrus won the school debate. 
 I remember how Helen pulled wires to try to get 
 permission for her and me to go to it. But we should 
 have had to cut three classes and spend the night in 
 town, and there was a difficulty about a chaperone. 
 We had to content ourselves with Lucian's telegram 
 and the letter that followed in a day or two. 
 
 "Isn't it great about Cyrus?" he wrote. "I 
 never was so proud of anything in my life. It was 
 
112 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 a shame you couldn't be there. He was so dis- 
 appointed. But he made that audience sit up. They 
 never have half appreciated Cyrus at the school 
 before. And the funny part of it was the coach's 
 attitude beforehand. I ran down on the afternoon 
 train and the coach was on it, and I introduced 
 myself. I could see by the way he wriggled round 
 that he hadn't a ghost of an idea Cyrus could do 
 anything. ' You see, Mr. Emery,' he said, * he's 
 on the weak side of the argument anyway; — we are 
 going to war with Spain, and we ought to go to war 
 with Spain.' — ' I'm not so sure,' said I. — * Well, 
 you're the first college man I've met that doesn't 
 think so,' he repHed. And then he went on to say 
 a good many nice things about the way Cyrus had 
 worked up his case, but I knew I had got at the gist 
 of the matter when he said — ' If only your brother 
 might be persuaded to put a little more animation 
 into his deUvery, but he has an aversion to letting 
 out his voice. And when you're on the unpopular 
 side of a Hve issue like this, oratorical bluff is your 
 only chance. The boy that's with him appreciates 
 that, and fortunately has some dramatic ability. But 
 your brother is very obstinate.' 
 
 " Nevertheless, I wasn't wholly cast down. I 
 knew my Uttle brother. I will say, however, that I 
 didn't think he could win; for it is a live issue, and 
 almost every one is predisposed in favour of war. I 
 didn't think he'd fetch them even if he did, personally, 
 do well. But he did fetch them ! 
 
 " He was at the station to meet me, his most dry 
 and taciturn. He had the outHne of his argument in 
 his pocket and I read it as we walked up. 'Of course, 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 113 
 
 it convinces me/ I said, when I gave it back to him, 
 * but then I'm on your side/ 
 
 " ' And it's the right side, whether we lose or win — 
 that's the only thing that matters,* he answered; 
 and then, looking straight ahead, ' But I shall try to 
 make them see it the way I do/ 
 
 " There was quite a choice lot of school alumni out 
 to hear the debate. You know, we are a choice lot 
 any way. I was the baby of the bunch, but I hob- 
 nobbed with a judge of the supreme court and a 
 member of the cabinet and a bishop, all of them old 
 boys and old debating club members. Even judges 
 of the supreme court go out of the way to be nice to 
 grandfather's grandsons. 
 
 ** The affirmative opened well — ^good husky youths 
 they were on that side, with cheerful aggressive 
 voices, both of them ; and the leader was a handsome 
 fellow besides. Cyrus's partner followed the first 
 affirmative, a cocky little chap, making the most of 
 how improper, from a Christian, as well as from a 
 diplomatic point of view it would be for us to lay 
 ourselves open to the charge of revenging the destruc- 
 tion of the Maine — and not believing one word of his 
 own argument. Then more affirmative — then Cyrus. 
 I give you my word, I felt quite faint for a minute, 
 and my forehead went cold and clammy. And there 
 he stood, with his cowHck straying slantwise down 
 his forehead. You never saw anything so lean and 
 gawky and lovable in your life. He stood quite 
 still, with his chin a little dropped, and those calm, 
 attentive eyes of his going from face to face — that 
 personal, friendly, simple way he has when he 
 chooses. People settled into their chairs, and the 
 
114 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 whole place became abnormally still: it was queer 
 the way that quiet glance affected them. And then 
 — you know how he used to preach to the birds — it 
 was something like that. Of course, he wasn't talk- 
 ing in his ordinary voice, he couldn't have been, but 
 the effect was of his ordinary voice, not lifted an 
 atom. — He will send you his outline. He had the 
 economic side of it well worked out — his great tactic 
 was playing into the other side's hands — conceding 
 and conceding — painting the commercial prosperity 
 that followed a successful war (and of course this 
 would be successful), and then suddenly turning and 
 showing how it was a false prosperity. Painting the 
 humanitarian impulses of the people and commending 
 them — and then showing how the people were a set 
 of sheep and fools at the mercy of high finance and 
 politics and jingoism. I tell myself that of course it 
 was only school-boy logic and must have been feeble, 
 but somehow it didn't seem to be feeble at the time. 
 But I think he was even better when it came to the 
 rebuttal. He had sat there during those first speeches, 
 and during the rather aimless reply to his own, 
 making notes ; and without cracking a smile he pricked 
 the bombast of the other side, and the audience 
 shouted again and again. And then he straightened 
 up and held out his two hands, palm up, and began 
 to talk Peace — and Tolstoy — and the Doukhobors — 
 and aU the ladies wept. And then he sat down. 
 
 " The boys simply went wild. They yelled for 
 fifteen minutes — the school yell and then ' Emery ! ' 
 There was no question about which side had won. I 
 was sitting next the judge of the supreme court and 
 he turned to me and said, * How old is that boy ? ' 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 115 
 
 and when I told him not quite seventeen, he said, 
 ' Well, sir; it is a very remarkable performance; a 
 very remarkable performance indeed. He has a 
 future before him.' 
 
 " I couldn't get near Cyrus for another hour, the 
 Head had him in tow and was introducing him to the 
 big bugs. I slept on the sofa in his study, and after 
 we had turned the fellows out and were getting ready 
 for bed I said something about the success. He came 
 and stood close before me with his eyes fixed on mine, 
 and said, ' Do you really think I changed any of 
 their minds — or hearts? — because I don't. That 
 would be success — nothing else.' I said, ' You're 
 tired now, Cyrus — that's why.' ' Oh, no, it's not 
 why,' he answered, and began to talk of something 
 else. After the lights were out he remarked from 
 the bedroom, ' It was very pleasant when I held them 
 all in the hollow of my hand.' 
 
 *' Write him, Clara; and say all you can to cheer 
 him. LuciAN." 
 
 " P.S. — Who do you think has turned up? — 
 Cuthbert. I always feel so apologetic when I see him 
 wearing my old clothes that I never can refuse him 
 anything. Not that he asks, but his whole attitude 
 says — * Stand and deliver.' Do you let him call 
 you Clara ? Not that he means to be impudent, but 
 he irritates me." 
 
 My letter must have pleased Cyrus — although I 
 cannot now remember what I said — for he answered 
 quite exuberantly, for him. 
 
 *' Oh, Clara! did it really mean so much to you? 
 Thank you ! I like your phrase ' bearing witness/ 
 
ii6 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 I have been rather a blue pig since it was over; one 
 does so want to persuade people to do differently. 
 I suppose I am conceited and that is why it makes 
 me grouchy not to get results. I think I was more 
 disappointed than I ever have been about anything, 
 not to have you there. 
 
 " There was an English priest visiting the school 
 a couple of weeks ago, and he preached on detach- 
 ment, and now every other word with the fellows is, 
 ' Detach yourself, dear boy.' But seriously, it seems 
 to me the difficulty is to know whether you are 
 detached or just indifferent. I was feeling quite 
 spiritually proud about being detached until I found 
 you couldn't come to the debate. 
 
 " Cuthbert is around. He went to see Lucian at 
 college, and then he came here, and I got permission 
 to keep him over Sunday. He wanted to see what 
 Lucian and I thought of the chances of his working 
 his way through college. He thinks he can be ready 
 by next autumn, when I enter. He would have been 
 ready before Lucian, he says, if he hadn't missed so 
 many pieces of school terms helping on the farm. 
 But now his next brother is old enough to take his 
 place. 
 
 " I am urging him to come. He wants to so much. 
 It makes me uneasy to be going as a matter of course, 
 when nothing in Hfe is a matter of course with him — 
 except drudgery. It would be dreadful to have to 
 look at the world as if it were your enemy, to be got 
 ahead of, to be beaten, to be downed — the way he 
 does. 
 
 " Do write again soon. Now that Lucian isn't 
 here I miss your letters. Or, I tell you what — 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 117 
 
 remind him to send me your letters sometimes, and 
 then they will do for two, the way they used. I know 
 how busy you must be. — Love from Cyrus." 
 
 *' I bet you he pays that boy's way through college," 
 said Helen, when I read her this letter. 
 
 "Well, why not?" said L 
 
 Helen flushed suddenly. "Of course, why not? 
 That was a nasty speech of mine considering, wasn't 
 it?" 
 
 "Oh, Helen! "I protested. 
 
 " But then there is no more reason why Cuthbert 
 Sylvester should look on the world as an enemy, to 
 be downed, than that I should. But I don't. — You 
 may think I do, Clara; but I don't — really." 
 
 " Think you do! " I cried. 
 
 " I think the world's an ugly place, a hard, cruel, 
 selfish place. But I don't hate the world at all, nor 
 want to beat it; I'm sorry for it. I'm not sorry for 
 myself. How can I be when I have so much — 
 college — and you — there, keep off! — But Cuthbert 
 is sorry for himself. — And I am a piece of the world's 
 ugliness when I judge him and say so. But I do say 
 so. I have no use for Cuthbert." 
 
 " Well," I agreed reluctantly. " As Lucian would 
 say, he is not exactly simpatico, but then " 
 
 " He finds you very simpatica," she jeered 
 mysteriously. 
 
 " How do you mean? " 
 
 " Oh, Cuthbert has his own little air castles." 
 
 " I don't know what you are talking about." 
 
 " And so you blush for your own stupidity? " 
 
ii8 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 VI 
 
 I saw the boys fairly often when we were in college. 
 One or the other came out every week, and after 
 Helen was graduated I used to spend a good many 
 Sundays at the settlement with her, and Cyrus was 
 always there on Saturday nights with his Italian 
 boys. Lucian's settlement class in the modem poets 
 met in the middle of the week, but oftener than 
 not he dropped in on a Sunday evening if I was 
 there. 
 
 Those days of our first contact with the realities of 
 want, and industrial suffering, were full of excite- 
 ment and anguish for all of us. We took them hard. 
 Even to me, who had known what it was to be poor, 
 the sordid, malodorous, tenement house glut of filthy 
 deprivation was then, and has never ceased to be, 
 an unbearable nightmare of horror. The co-operative 
 poverty of New Hope was a clean thing, well venti- 
 lated and voluntary, not to be mentioned in the same 
 breath with the ugly apathy, the stertorous coma, 
 of this other manifestation. I remember Lucian's 
 saying desperately, " Would Shelley have gone on 
 singing, do you think, if he had run up against this 
 stench? It chokes me. And what's worse, they 
 wouldn't hear me if I did sing; nothing vibrates in 
 this dead atmosphere." 
 
 I was trying to follow Ruskin. Trying to clothe 
 and feed and rightly please people; having my clothes 
 made by needy seamstresses who could not cut and 
 fit; wearing union label shoes that blistered my feet; 
 experimenting in self-denials in order to probe the 
 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 119 
 
 limits of my efficiency and formulate a definition of 
 luxury. But chiefly was I engaged in rebelling 
 against our trustees, who would not let me endow 
 the settlement, who would not let me adopt three 
 Italian orphans, who would not let me set up an Irish 
 widow in the grocery business, who would not let me 
 build and finance a vacation house for working girls 
 by the sea. There were other things, I know, that 
 they would not let me do, but I have forgotten what 
 they were. They did consent to my endowing a 
 bed in the children's hospital, but only one bed. 
 
 Cyrus turned to the New Testament. His bank 
 account was always over-drawn. 
 
 Cuthbert, too, I saw; not at the settlement, how- 
 ever. I think he suspected patronage there; and 
 later he openly scorned all philanthropic endeavour. 
 But he used to come out to college with rigid regu- 
 larity, and sit on a sofa opposite me in awkward 
 silence for an hour, between trains. 
 
 One memorable evening he said, " Do you re- 
 member that first day, how you said everybody ought 
 to be as rich as everybody else? ** 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " Well, I'm taking a course on Socialism this 
 semester. Maybe they ought. The fellow that's 
 giving the course don't think so, though." 
 
 When I told Helen, to my disgust she said: " He's 
 falling in love with you." 
 
 It is no use contradicting Helen. 
 
 Letter-writing was more or less fitful, yet my 
 packet of college letters is by no means small, and 
 choosing is not easy. If among those that follow 
 Lucian's predominate, that is because I had more of 
 
120 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 his to choose from. I seem, somehow, to have saved 
 more of Lucian's. 
 
 The order of these letters is a Httle uncertain, as 
 many of them are dated only by the day of the week, 
 and in my college days I had the habit, disconcert- 
 ing to the biographer, of destroying envelopes, to 
 economise space. 
 
 "Clara! — Have you seen the current Atlantic — 
 ' An Ode in Time of Hesitation? ' Oh, the joy of 
 being the fellow that wrote it! — Moody's his name. 
 The real thing, he is ! Do you suppose he'd fall down 
 in a fit if I wrote and told him so ? It seems as if I 
 must; and yet I suppose I shan't; one never does. 
 I want to hang round his neck. I want to weep tears 
 of joy on his coat coUar. Oh, Clara, is there really 
 going to be a poet in America ? If this ill wind of a 
 war should blow us a poet! — Yours, Lucian." 
 
 " Dear Clara, — Have you seen old Trissy ? He 
 said he was going up to call. He's on for some sort of 
 editorial spree. He looked me up and got me to 
 show him what I was doing, and just to get a rise 
 out of him I made him think that my heart was bound 
 up in that dramatic plot I'm doing for EngUsh 43; 
 you know — the one where the young woollen manu- 
 facturer goes to the Spanish war as a substitute for 
 his Russian- J ew-naturahsed foreman; and the Irish 
 girl they both love marries the Russian Jew to 
 preserve class consciousness; and the naturaUsed 
 Spaniard, who is the night watchman of the mills, and 
 shielded by the others because he's a deserter from 
 the war and doesn't want to fight against his own 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 121 
 
 countrymen, gets drunk in honour of a Spanish 
 victory and sets fire to the mills, and they all kill each 
 other with rocks — You know. 
 
 '* I explained to Trissy solemnly how the possi- 
 bihty of the play's being accepted by a manager 
 would all depend upon Spain's winning out; other- 
 wise the question was purely academic. And Trissy 
 went for me tooth and nail, and then poured salt into 
 my wounds. He says I am stultifying my genius. 
 Mark you, / don't say genius ; Trissy says it. 
 
 " The only thing he had any use for was that little 
 15^10 I wrote for your last birthday. Virginal, he 
 called it. He went off with it in his pocket, and to- 
 day I got a cheque for it. Ten dollars ! First fruits ! 
 
 " Of course, I know that all I've got to do is to 
 set to work and write erotic verse, and mother, and 
 the marchese, and Trissy, and everybody, will im- 
 mediately sigh content and think I am fulfilling my 
 destiny. Shall you think I am fulfilling my destiny, 
 Clara? Wouldn't it make you proud to have me 
 write erotic verse to you ? Say the word ! Or maybe 
 you'd rather have it from Trissy — ^in quantitative 
 metres? — Does Trissy ever? How many things are 
 you conceaHng from me, Clara? Remember, I told 
 you all about that pretty Irish girl in my poetry 
 class at the settlement. Play fair! — She's thrown 
 me over, did you know? — For a man that deals in 
 jimk. There was my opportunity to write erotic 
 verse, and I missed it. Too late, too late ! Will you 
 come with me to choose her wedding gift ? 
 
 " I told Trissy I meant to sing the eight-hour day 
 and the minimum wage in madrigals. — Thine, 
 
 " LuciAN." 
 
122 THE CHILDREN^ OF LIGHT 
 
 " Clara dear, — Don't you want to say a word in 
 season to Cyrus? He may listen to you. His 
 latest is vegetarianism, and I know he isn't getting 
 enough to eat. Why stop at meat? Why isn't it 
 just as murderous to masticate the sensitive little 
 carrot ? 
 
 " And don't you want to learn to knit, and make 
 him a couple of neckties? He wouldn't give those 
 away ; and the ones he's wearing are the weediest. If 
 a fellow chooses to be a Sociahst and go without a 
 necktie, I have nothing to say. I may come to it 
 myself, yet. But if he's going to wear a necktie, let 
 it he a necktie and not a shoestring. 
 
 " He never has any money to buy things. I'm 
 sure I don't know what he does with it. But, yes — 
 I suppose I do. — Distractedly, Lucian." 
 
 " Dear Clara, — Cyrus brought me your letter to 
 read. How well you put it! Yes; the whole 
 universe is our sacrament — and we in our turn are 
 its sacrament. The little vegetable yields up its life 
 to give me Ufe; — ^but I in my turn am Ufe-giving to 
 the vegetable. I feed upon star-dust, to live; and I 
 give my body in return to kindle the light of the stars. 
 Those old pagans had hit upon a great mystery when 
 they said: * He that eateth the god, he becometh 
 the god.' I suppose you couldn't go quite that far, 
 being subject, by your own will, to the theological 
 limitations of the Church of England. But I can go 
 as far as I hke, being rehgiously untrammelled, to 
 Cyrus's great perturbation. 
 
 " But the important result at present is that you 
 have, I think, overcome his difficulty about eating 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 123 
 
 meat. He still has a qualm; he is afraid he may be 
 giving up his vegetarian principles because he likes to 
 do what you ask him to. He's afraid he's too fond of 
 you to be able to judge the question on its own merits. 
 But he'll come round. Fortunately he has a mind. 
 If he were all conscience what a time we should have 
 with him. 
 
 *' I was so full of your sacramental theory that I 
 expounded it to Cuthbert just now when he came in 
 to borrow Marx's Capitalr—diVid. I don't usually open 
 up my soul to Cuthbert. 
 
 " Do you know — it struck him as cannibalistic — 
 grisly! — Aren't people queer? That's because he's 
 such a rank materialist I suppose. He doesn't seem 
 to me to find spirit in anything. He's always balanc- 
 ing, and over-balancing — material poverty against 
 material riches. He finds in your theory an example 
 of merciless competition — the big beasts eating up 
 the little beasts. To me, it seems to signify co- 
 operation — giving one's Hfe — and all that Hfe sym- 
 bolises through flesh and blood — for the sake of the 
 life of the world. 
 
 "I'll tell you something funny; — Cuthbert is 
 beginning to pick flaws in competition. He's just the 
 kind, with his personal grouch against the universe, 
 to turn red-hot Marxian, if he does turn. Now it 
 seems to me — though I say it with bated breath — 
 that there are some fallacies in Marx; — not many, but 
 some. 
 
 " Shall I send you my copy? — it's in the original 
 German; I had hard work getting it. Cuthbert is 
 using my incomplete English edition, just now. — 
 Yours, LuciAN." 
 
124 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 "Rah! Rah! Rah! for the new editor!— or do 
 they call you the editress ? Enclosed please find my 
 subscription, to be renewed as long as the present 
 management endures. Shall you always have an 
 editorial in every week? How does it feel, Clara? 
 Does it remind you of the days when you used to lick 
 the stamps for the Message of New Hope ? I'll tell 
 you one thing, yours has the reputation of being the 
 best of the college periodicals from the women's 
 colleges. At least I know that's what they think here. 
 So now it's up to you. 
 
 ** Won't Uncle Lew be pleased! — 
 
 " As for me — I tremble to think that I am to 
 approach the editoressial presence next Sunday 
 evening. 
 
 " I suppose you've written Trissy that he's not 
 the only pebble. — Yours — puffed with pride, 
 
 '' LUCIAN." 
 
 ** P.S. — I've struck up with a Russian, a tremendous 
 radical. His name (Englished, he explains) is 
 Lazarus Samson. I'll bring him out some night." 
 
 "Dear Miss Editor, — If you are seeking the 
 timely, why not give us an editorial on Tainted 
 Money? Such a topic from your pen would be 
 especially piquante. I can think of nothing more 
 likely to catch the eye of the public at present 
 than an intercollegiate symposium on this perplexed, 
 question. — Faithfully yours, 
 
 " A Constant Reader." 
 
 "Good Heavens, Clara! — Talk about mental 
 telepathy! You must have been mailing me that 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 125 
 
 inflammable copy of your paper just when I was 
 dropping my little fool note into the post office. To 
 think of your writing it! And yet, why not? Oh, 
 bully for you! Bully! Bully! Do you think they 
 will do anything about it ? Temporary banishment ? 
 Perpetual exile? Thumbscrews on the hand that 
 wields the pen ? I wonder ? 
 
 *' What you say of the effect upon the under- 
 graduate mind is so good. To expect us to attend 
 classes in ethics and then not make the practical 
 appUcation! And then all their sophistries about 
 not judging the individual, and nothing being 
 proven. You were very clever to turn the issue 
 away from the business men to the business methods. 
 Nobody wants to hound individuals whose moral 
 sense hasn't happened to keep pace with the times. 
 But that's no reason we should take their money and 
 glorify them. For we do glorify them. Talk about 
 the corrupting of youth! 
 
 " Do you know what Cyrus has done? He's 
 written to Mr. Warner and got a list of all the sources 
 of our income. I tell you, they're putrid, some of 
 them — nothing else expresses it. But as I say to 
 Cyrus — what can we do as long as we are minors? 
 He's in a terrible state about it. I don't believe he's 
 sleeping at all. It affects my imagination, power- 
 fully; but I sleep like a new-born babe. What is 
 reahty, Clara? 
 
 " Be sure you send me a ticket for a front seat, if 
 they throw you to the Hons. Oh, why won't some- 
 body throw me to the lions? I do so long for 
 the experience. You won't half appreciate it. — 
 Enviously, Lucian." 
 
126 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 In the same mail came this little note from 
 Cyrus: — 
 
 '' Dear, dear Clara,— What a brave thing to do! 
 But will they expel you, do you think ? It frightens 
 me for you. But didn't you find it a relief to do 
 something? We are so chained. I can't seem to 
 bear it. I wrote Mr. Warner, asking him to sell out 
 our interests in the southern mills and a lot of other 
 things. But he won't. And then I asked him to 
 separate the dividends and only send me certain ones 
 — and he says it is impossible. After that I went 
 out over the bridge and emptied my pockets into the 
 river. I had to do something. And the maddening 
 thing is that the money is held in trust so long. If I 
 thought I could get at it in two years it wouldn't be 
 so bad. But to have to wait until we're twenty-five ! 
 
 " Mother writes that quaUties of good and evil 
 cannot inhere in money. I am glad, for her sake, 
 that she can look at it that way. — Yours, 
 
 " Cyrus." 
 
 But there was no martyrdom, to Lucian's disgust 
 and my secret reUef . 
 
 ''You poor dear!" he wrote. "Of course they 
 aren't going to do anything to you. I knew they 
 wouldn't. What could they do? Expel you for 
 having moral principles ? — No ; ignore ! — That's their 
 little game. What else can they do? And already 
 the papers have been switched on to a new interest. 
 No, Clara ; it would not have been pretty to martyrise 
 you for holding the same opinion as a bishop and a few 
 clergymen. Oh, what an opportunity for the Church ! 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 127 
 
 If the Church would come out now, good and strong, 
 and clean up house, and talk straight to its rich men, 
 it could have me; and there are plenty more of my 
 kind. If it would take a stand on Christian prin- 
 ciples, and say, ' I won't have your dirty, bloody 
 money, that you make by starving the souls and 
 bodies of your brothers.* But it won't. Oh, no; 
 it will go on time-serving and mammon-worshipping, 
 the same old way. If I were in the Church, Hke you, 
 perhaps I should stay in and try to leaven the lump. 
 But I'm not in — and it's not my lump. No such sour 
 dough for mine. 
 
 " I suppose you think that's blasphemy. 
 
 " LUCIAN." 
 
 " P.S. — Yes; I've given up my class at the settle- 
 ment. To tell you the truth, Clara, I'm rather out- 
 growing settlements. They're a sort of dope, but 
 they don't remove the cause of the industrial disease. 
 Of course I shall keep up my subscription — for the 
 present — if for nothing else, because I'm grateful 
 for the way my settlement experience has opened up 
 to me the genuine poverty of the poor. I doubt if I 
 should have got at it in any other way. But one 
 can't do everything, and I think I can put in my time 
 better just now going to labour meetings — the real 
 thing — than teaching shop-girls Shelley once a week." 
 
 " No, madam; you're mistaken. My ideas about 
 the Church are my own, I don't take them second- 
 hand from Lazarus Samson or any one else. And, 
 Clara, I don't say this arrogantly, but I consider 
 myself a member of that mystical body just as much 
 as you. But I'm not a cog in a machine that is oiled 
 
128 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 by commercial greed. I can't pin myself down, 
 either; you mustn't expect me to. I believe in the 
 immanence of God; I suppose I'm almost a Pantheist. 
 But you needn't be afraid of Lazarus Samson. I 
 couldn't be a materialist if I tried. I have tried; one 
 tries everything, you know. 
 
 "And now, listen to this! It isn't as intelligibly 
 to the point as prose editorials can be. Stick to 
 prose, Clara ! At least the world catches your mean- 
 ing ; it doesn't get the drift of economic thought that's 
 couched in hexameters. 
 
 " What do you think of these? 
 
 Vigil 
 
 " Yea ; on the morrow the children of light shall come forth 
 to deUver! 
 
 Out of the dawn they shall ride. They shall sing ; and the 
 sound of their singing 
 
 Surely shall waken the sleepers and bring to confusion the 
 slothful. 
 
 Surely shall stir up the strife we confess must be stirred to 
 salvation : 
 
 Strife that we listen for, long for and shudder at, praying 
 for respite; 
 
 Praying the hour may come quickly, and praying, faint- 
 hearted, for patience; 
 
 And the words of the song shall be, ' Life ! more abun- 
 dantly life, and for all men ! 
 
 Life ! We do know ! We have dreamed ! And we waken 
 to 'stablish the vision.' 
 
 " Death, where he sitteth asquat on the world, shall peer out 
 
 to the sunrise. 
 Blink at the oncoming glory, and gibe at the high-hearted 
 
 singers. 
 And the children of light shall not stint of their singing, 
 
 nor tarry, nor falter. 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 129 
 
 Youth the eternal shall sit on their brows, and their eyes 
 
 shall be fearless ; 
 Terribly swift shall they be, and serene, and unsmiling, but 
 
 joyous. 
 We of the vigil shall lift them the cup that we brewed in 
 
 the darkness. 
 Lo! they shall drink of our trembling, and unto them 
 
 strength shall be added ; 
 Strength for the wielding of swords. And the morning 
 
 shall clamour with battle. 
 Life! — more abundantly life! — and for all men, for all 
 
 men, for all men ! 
 
 "Cry of the conqueror! Miracle song that the peace- 
 makers carol! 
 
 Hark, how its rapture of prophecy sighs through the gloom 
 of the vigil ! 
 
 And the children of light shall be slain in their strength 
 and their shining unwisdom. 
 
 Slain, with the dew of the morning undried on their hair 
 and their garments. 
 
 " I am afraid their lilt is rather rocking-horsey, but 
 such as they are you are welcome to them, O Child of 
 Light! — Thy sputtering candle, L. E," 
 
 VII 
 
 The later letters, those written after Helen had 
 taken her degree and was earning her own living, are 
 all more or less uneasy in tone. We, too, must make 
 decisions presently. It was a haunting thought. 
 Helen and I could not keep away from it when we 
 were together. 
 
 I remember one day her saying: " No, of course 
 you don't know what you want to be. You have 
 
 I 
 
130 THE CHILDREls[ OF LIGHT 
 
 no incentive. You don't have to be anything. That's 
 just the way it will be with everybody under Socialism ; 
 we shall die of inertia." 
 
 " You are very much mistaken/' I retorted. 
 " Under Socialism everybody will have to be some- 
 thing. But I don't see why you are always casting 
 Socialism in my teeth. I'm not a Socialist ; at least, 
 Cuthbert says I'm not." 
 
 " Cuthbert! " with scorn. "Cuthbert will always 
 be a brigand, under any economic dispensation." 
 
 " Cuthbert is deepening, Helen; even Lucian says 
 so. Class-consciousness may be a dangerous thing, 
 but it is helping Cuthbert to get out of himself." 
 
 " Into a bigger, more deluding kind of selfishness; 
 yes." 
 
 " It needn't be selfishness." 
 
 " Oh, but your bona fide Socialist says it must be." 
 
 " Not if he takes Christianity into consideration." 
 
 " But then, he doesn't, you know." 
 
 " He'U have to." 
 
 Helen's silences could be even more exasperating 
 than her repartee. I endured this one for perhaps 
 three-quarters of a minute and then exclaimed : — 
 
 " Do you believe in anything, Helen? " 
 
 She smiled at me out of those mocking, steady 
 eyes of hers, a smile that was neither yes nor no. 
 Then she said, and there was a tentative note in the 
 assertion — " I work." 
 
 "But without a plan? — Without a reason? — 
 Without a hope? " 
 
 " Ah — hope! — that is an instinct." 
 
 " You can't simply hope in the abstract, Helen. 
 And you know it is not incentive that I lack. But I 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 131 
 
 must see the meaning of the work I do ; I must know 
 the relation it bears to life." 
 
 " How wiU you know? " she asked. 
 
 " People do know. People are not all agnostic, 
 like you. And when my work comes I shall know; 
 just as I know " 
 
 " The Apostles' Creed," she finished for me. 
 
 " For that matter, you know too," I resumed, 
 ignoring her religious bait. ** You do not simply 
 work, you choose your work. Else why, when you 
 could have had twelve hundred a year and your living, 
 and all the luxuries of the season, teaching in a 
 boarding-school, take six hundred and your living — 
 and this ? " This, was the unheated front attic of the 
 Settlement House. 
 
 Helen went to her window and looked down. The 
 street was full of push-carts and mud; of dirty 
 screeching children, and pensive, bearded Jews. 
 
 "Why?" I repeated. 
 
 " I used to think one could get away from it," she 
 said. " Do you remember, Clara, I tried to get 
 away — when I was a little girl? But it follows. It 
 follows." 
 
 Her eyes were on that shifting, sodden throng. 
 " Fm more comfortable here; that's why. If I had 
 a proper sense of pride I should be in that boarding- 
 school, earning money to pay off my debt to you.'* 
 
 "Oh, Helen!" 
 
 " I should. As it is, you will have to wait twice 
 as long. That's because Fm pauperised, Hke all the 
 rest of these. I haven't a proper sense of responsi- 
 bility." She paused. " What I can't make out is 
 where the committee gets the money to pay an 
 
132 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 assistant's salary." She had fixed her eyes upon me 
 with disconcerting suddenness. *' It doesn't appear." 
 
 " Doesn't it? How odd! " said I. 
 
 "What are you blushing for, Clara; the com- 
 mittee? " 
 
 " Am I blushing ? — I should think any one would 
 for the committee, considering the amount of work 
 you do for that money. Lucian was talking about 
 it the other night; he thinks it's starvation wages." 
 
 " Much he knows about starvation wages! " 
 
 *' He and Cyrus wanted to write the committee and 
 offer to make it larger " — Helen's eyes were start- 
 lingly fierce — " but I told them the head worker 
 only had eight or nine hundred, and it wouldn't be 
 decent for you to have more." 
 
 " I should think not. I don't see why my salary 
 is any affair of theirs." 
 
 I had almost said, " It isn't," but instead I 
 murmured, lowering my eyes, " It's just because 
 they're interested." 
 
 VIII 
 
 Those were days in which Lucian's imagination 
 played rather persistently around love. I suppose 
 it was a part of his general restlessness. He was 
 always writing lyrics to some new girl. But I never 
 thought the lyrics very good. Girls Hked him and 
 invited him about a good deal; and his engagements 
 often interfered with his coming to see me. Never, 
 however, with his letters. Indeed, he wrote rather 
 more frequently during his senior year than he had 
 before. He seemed to be obliged to pour himself out 
 to some one every time he discovered a new divinity; 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 133 
 
 and I was convenient and, I hope, sympathetic. But 
 there is nothing very distinctive about those letters, 
 and in looking them over I do not find any that seem 
 to me worth including here, except this one in which 
 he is concerned with no particular girl, but rather 
 with love and matrimony in the abstract. 
 
 " Dear Clara, — When I came home from the 
 Randalls' dance last night I found Lazarus Samson 
 in my rooms. He drops in often now, and I like to 
 have him. It warms me to be near any one who so 
 bums with reality at the core of him. But he is a 
 queer duck. It was four o'clock this morning when 
 we stopped talking. We talked of love. Probably 
 because I had just come from sitting out two waltzes 
 and a two-step with that wee crimson tippet flower, 
 Daisy Randall. Not that we talked of her. Don't 
 imagine it. I should not think of talking of her with 
 any one but you. By the way, Nicholas Richards 
 was there, and I discovered that she had given him 
 as many dances as she had me. I left early. Do 
 you believe anything so small and dark and tenderly 
 innocent and cosy could flirt? Perish the thought! 
 But why in the world does an old fellow like that — 
 over thirty a good deal — want to try to turn the head 
 of a bud of eighteen ? Of course she was flattered. I 
 left before supper. 
 
 " Samson and I almost quarrelled, as it happened. 
 He was holding forth about — well, to put it plainly, 
 free love; and lumping in all that sort of rotten 
 nonsense with Socialism ; and finally I went for him. 
 ' Where's your logic, man ? ' I said to him. ' If 
 ever there were a system that insisted upon restraint. 
 
134 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 and discipline, and law, as concomitants to liberty 
 — or rather as inherent in liberty, and evolution — 
 that system is SociaUsm ; and yet you have the face 
 to sit there and tell me that in the realm of the 
 passions Socialism will permit lawlessness, licence — 
 and more than permit — encourage ? Call it anarchy, 
 and I'll have nothing to say. It is anarchy; and we 
 may come to anarchy in the millenium, when there's 
 no marrying nor giving in marriage. But it's not 
 Socialism ; it has nothing to do with Socialism except 
 where it affects the economic situation. And where 
 it does not affect that situation it will be discipUned 
 and law-bound, and there won't be any free love 
 about it. It is not good for the economic situation, 
 competitive or sociaUstic, for man to be running 
 round indulging his soul or his body in indiscrimate 
 lusts ' (I hope you don't mind plain-speaking, Clara) ; 
 ' it corrupts his wiU and bloats his ego. Socialism is 
 the will to be selfless, if I understand it. Perhaps I 
 don't understand it. Some day I may be a Socialist, 
 who knows? Certainly I find it very alluring.' But 
 then Cyrus comes in and reads me a chapter out of 
 Tolstoy, and talks about the inability of systems to 
 do any good if the soul is still unregenerate ; and I 
 continue to ride my fence-rail. But in any case 
 there won't be any free love in my Socialism. 
 
 " Clara, I think I will tell you something. Do you 
 remember the three knots I tied in the cord of our 
 old cassock? Poverty, Chastity, Obedience? — Well, 
 one of those vows I have kept — so far; because when 
 the temptations come — and they do come, of course, 
 to every man — I always see you, the little girl you 
 were, wearing the cassock. L. E." 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 135 
 
 Lucian was in Europe most of the year after he and 
 I left college. My Cousin Pauline had an idea that 
 he ought to study at some foreign university — 
 EngUsh or German — for a while; and to please her 
 he went about from one to another, looking them 
 over. But he never matriculated. 
 
 '* It is very bad for me, this sort of thing, you know, 
 Clara," he wrote. " I could so easily drift into a 
 dilettante, observatory existence. It is my tendency 
 to take life as a picture, anyway — never to connect 
 myself with it. Tell me how." 
 
 His letters of that year, except one, lack some- 
 thing of the buoyancy and ardour that so fire the 
 younger letters. I know now that he was afraid of 
 himself, and that despite the seeming aimlessness of 
 those drifting days he was making his great decision. 
 
 From Oxford he sent me a sonnet. 
 
 " I have had the good luck to meet the chap that 
 lives in Shelley's rooms at University College," the 
 letter said. " I was there the other night, and I told 
 him a lot about Shelley that he didn't know; but 
 he took it calmly. ' He used to lie here on the rug 
 and roast his head and talk about the universe to 
 Hogg,' I said. And my host said, ' Fancy I ' So 
 after a while I left my host and went down and sat 
 in the Memorial Room with the drowned image of 
 Shelley. I sat there a long while; till they turned 
 
136 THE CHILDREN> OF LIGHT 
 
 me out, in fact. And then I went back to my room 
 at the Mitre and wrote this in a great hurry. 
 
 " A Grave among the Eternal " — 
 
 You remember that phrase in the Adonais ? It 
 seems to me to fit. 
 
 " That day ye thrust the lad without the gate, 
 Ye knew not that the high, resistless tide 
 Would bring him back; would sweep all bars aside. 
 
 And strand him, well-belovdd, where so late 
 
 He wandered aUen and execrate. 
 Ye wise, ye could not know that when he died. 
 His spirit's drowned semblance, glorified, 
 
 Would keep herein so honourable state. 
 
 " Ye could not know that surely, one by one. 
 
 Those silly dreams of his would drift ashore 
 
 To waiting hearts, — your hearts, — grown covetous. 
 Aye, deck his shrine ! — Run, relic-seekers, run. 
 
 Rescue his sea-changed dreams ! Interpret us 
 His message! He is dead! unbar the door! " 
 
 "What would he be doing to-day, I wonder? 
 Living in Italy, as I have the chance to live, and 
 writing his immortal verse? Would he — could he, 
 to-day ? With East London staring him in the eyes ? 
 — What would he make of Tolstoy, do you suppose? 
 Ah, they didn't have Tolstoy to hound them in those 
 days. What do you make of him, Clara? — I've 
 been reading What is to he Done ? — Hear this ! — 
 
 " ' Self-denying and suffering are the lot and 
 portion of a thinker and an artist, because their 
 object is the welfare of men. Men are wretched: 
 they suffer and go to ruin. One cannot wait and lose 
 one's time. 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 137 
 
 '' ' A thinker and an artist will never sit on the 
 heights of Olympus as we are apt to imagine: he 
 must suffer in company with men in order to find 
 salvation or consolation. . . . 
 
 " ' And the only one certain characteristic of the 
 presence of a calling is the self-denying, the sacrifice 
 of one's self in order to manifest the power ingrafted 
 in man for the benefit of others.' . . . 
 
 ** And shall one sacrifice the calling in order to 
 sacrifice one's self? 
 
 " If it were an empty day I could be an idle singer 
 without a qualm. But such a full day ! — Shall I bind 
 myself to the wheel of committees ? 
 
 '* ' He must suffer in company with men in order to 
 
 find salvation and consolation ' Lord knows, I'm 
 
 not bothering about salvation; but it is true that I 
 can't write unless I have something to write about — 
 and we can't find our inspiration among doctrinaire 
 philosophies, the way those revolutionary poets did. 
 We find our inspiration in life — and life must be lived, 
 to know it. And if life be Hved, to-day — will there be 
 time to make a song of it? But what do I care for 
 reform, an5rway? Just a patching. Shall I give 
 myself to board-meetings in order to dam a fabric 
 that is rotten? — Is it rotten? — Yours, 
 
 *' L. E." 
 
 X 
 
 Two more letters and this desultory chapter of our 
 youth is ended. Not that we left off being young; 
 one does not break that habit with a stroke of the 
 pen. But undoubtedly there does come a moment, 
 
138 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 before one is so very old, when one's attitude towards 
 life fixes itself; perhaps not consciously. And these 
 two letters, each in its own way, record such a moment. 
 
 They came to me in the same mail and, I remember, 
 I opened Lucian's first. But to-day his letter shall 
 come after Cyrus's. 
 
 I had begged off from Europe that summer, on the 
 plea that my Cousin Pauline would have both her 
 boys with her and would not need me. Cyrus went 
 over immediately after his Commencement, and 
 Lucian was lingering on the other side to attend a 
 Socialist congress; merely out of curiosity, he said, 
 and in order to be able to tell me about it. For I had 
 begun to call myself a Socialist in those days, though 
 I still balked at the party and at economic deter- 
 minism. A Socialist of an individual and feminine 
 variety, Helen called me. 
 
 It was in late August that the letters came. 
 
 ** The Holy Mountain of La Verna, 
 ** Feast of the Transfiguration. 
 
 " Clara dear, — Do you see where I am? I have 
 been here a week, and I walked over, through Borgo 
 San Sepolcro and Pieve San Stefano, and up the steep 
 bare ways St. Francis used to travel. He came 
 down by this road after he received the Stigmata; 
 and at Borgo they almost worshipped him, and he 
 escaped to the monastery at Monte Casale for a httle 
 while. You know Monte Casale — up in the hills 
 above Borgo — where the three robbers repented and 
 became brothers minor. I shall go out by Bibbiena 
 and Poppi. The road is more beautiful that way, 
 but it does not search the heart so much. It is very 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 139 
 
 arid above Pieve, on those treeless hill-tops; such a 
 desert — with the strange ridge of dark trees like an 
 oasis at its edge. 
 
 " The brothers have been very good to me. They 
 have let me alone, and I have spent my days in the 
 beech-wood, or down below the precipice with the 
 white sheep-dogs. 
 
 " Clara, I am so afraid that I shall come here to 
 stay, some day. And yet, perhaps not here; but 
 somewhere separate. I am afraid. 
 
 " It seems to me the only way out is withdrawal. 
 Giving the world as little chance to sin for you as 
 possible. It is Tolstoy's way; except that I should 
 start less hampered than Tolstoy — having no wife 
 and children. If there were an order of preaching 
 friars — not necessarily Roman Catholic. Or rather, 
 if I could go out and preach on my own responsi- 
 bility, without being tied to any organisation. But 
 it seems as if one always had to belong to something, 
 to-day; and to belong to something — to be tied, to be 
 responsible, in any way — that is fatal; for then im- 
 mediately one begins to be mixed up with the sins of 
 other people, and to make them commit sins. 
 
 *' I think about it a great deal; and I wonder if 
 perhaps I am not meant to do this thing. Because, 
 the one thing that might tempt me — to stay — a 
 selfish thing — is denied me. 
 
 "Or, I could do it by coming here, into this 
 monastery — for example. Giving up all my own 
 torment of judging. But I doubt if I do it that way. 
 My conscience would never let me give it into any 
 one else's keeping — even the Church's keeping. Even 
 yours. But I should like to. But then, when one 
 
140 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 has lived much in Italy, and one is Anglo-Saxon, one 
 can have, inevitably, so Uttle respect for the Roman 
 organisation. I should like to ask Tolstoy about it; 
 and yet I am not wholly in accord with Tolstoy 
 either, for my Christianity is at bottom more doctrinal 
 — more dogmatic I suppose, than his. If only I could 
 be in accord, entirely, with some one, what a rest it 
 would be ! 
 
 *' In one way, perhaps, you, with your sane 
 common sense, will think that all this brooding is 
 useless since there are still five years to run before 
 I can repudiate the money and be out of leading- 
 strings, even if I would. And at twenty-five one may 
 see things quite differently from the way one saw 
 them at twenty. But mother is asking me what I 
 am going to * be.' She thinks I might make a good 
 lawyer, or a good clergyman — something that talks 
 and persuades, she says. Because I have the gift 
 of oratory — she says. Yet I cannot persuade her to 
 let me be, first, myself. And if I could persuade her, 
 how should I know what * myself ' is, in this chaos ? 
 
 " Lucian says I am morbid; but I know that, 
 quite weU. What I want you to do is to write to 
 mother and urge her not to press me to a decision. 
 TeU her, what is perfectly true, that the philanthropic 
 work I am doing among immigrants in America wiU 
 have its educational value for me whatever else I 
 may eventually decide to be. Don't mention what 
 I have said about monasteries. Try to comfort her 
 by showing her that I shan't be just drifting even if 
 I don't begin to study for a profession at once. 
 
 " How can any one make decisions that involve 
 living, in a world that so manifestly isn't fit to be 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 141 
 
 lived in ? How can any one be anything but tentative 
 in a civilisation so out of joint? 
 
 " One thing only I know, and that is that I must get 
 rid of the mill-stone of the money. I shall take five 
 years to think about how to do it. 
 
 " So you are a Socialist, of a sort ? But don't you 
 know, Clara, that no amount of external system will 
 change the world unless men's hearts be changed ? 
 
 " Christianity is enough. Can you call yourself a 
 Christian and say that anything else is needed? 
 
 " But it must be Christ's Christianity, not the 
 Roman kind that broke the heart of St. Francis, nor 
 the Greek kind that has excommunicated Tolstoy, 
 nor the Anglican kind that is established, nor the 
 Protestant kind that is anybody's vagary. Am I 
 an early Christian or merely an ultra-Protestant? 
 When I ask myself that question I begin to wonder 
 if I ought not to stick by Franciscanism, the Roman 
 variety, for safety's sake. Can one be too individual ? 
 
 " Cuthbert told me I was an anarchist, the day 
 before Commencement. Cuthbert has all his social 
 definitions at his tongue's end. He says that Tolstoy 
 and I are both anarchists, but that being anarchists 
 we are different kinds. 
 
 ** At any rate, dear, you need not worry over me 
 for five years to come. I shall stick to my Italian 
 Circolo and my immigrants. The Httle harm that I 
 can do them will, I must hope, not be counted against 
 me in the end, since I am tied. — Yours, 
 
 " Cyrus." 
 
 The letter worried me a good deal. It was, indeed, 
 a morbid letter. No one, at twenty, ought to write 
 
142 THE CHILDREN 'OF LIGHT 
 
 a letter like that. And yet, if one did not write it at 
 twenty, perhaps one never would. 
 
 I went back to one paragraph in it again and again. 
 What was the thing, the selfish thing, that might 
 tempt him to stay in the world — but was denied him ? 
 I did not like to think what it might be. 
 
 And Lucian, too, had been making his decisions, 
 it seemed. The exultation of his greeting shouts at 
 me from the flimsy foreign note paper that I have 
 folded and unfolded so many times. 
 
 " Dear Comrade! " it begins. — " Dear Comrade! 
 — Hark to the epithet! — Yes, I've gone and done it. 
 Done it brown! I've joined the Party. Swept off 
 my feet. Yes! — But you'd never guess w^ho did the 
 sweeping. It wasn't the Congress; though that was 
 avalanche enough, heaven knows. Nor it wasn't 
 Bebel, nor Jaures, nor any of the other torrential 
 giants; though the confluent streams of their logic 
 washed over me and through me as resistlessly as a 
 mill-race submerges weeds. I and all the other little 
 blades of grass were bent, prostrate, one way, like 
 Dante's pm-gatorial herbs. Nor it wasn't the 
 Marseillaise ; though that did nearly finish me. 
 
 "But to begin: — The second day — which would 
 be only yesterday if I hadn't Hved an immortal one 
 since; — WeU, we'll call it yesterday; — during a re- 
 cess, when I was stretching my legs — there appeared 
 on a street crossing a loose-hung, elfish, bespectacled 
 man, stooping a Httle as to his shoulders, but with a 
 glance that stood upright and pulled you up to it. 
 Nothing haughty; don't misunderstand me; rather 
 a mild glance — tranquil is a better word — with a 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 143 
 
 quizzical gleam in the comer of it. Is there any- 
 thing famihar about those eyes, Clara? Do they 
 remind you of some one ? 
 
 '* ' I have been wondering if your name is Lucian 
 Emery/ said he. ' Mine is Llewellyn Evans.' 
 
 ** Uncle Lew! " I shouted. And you should have 
 seen the radiance of him. 
 
 *' ' You looked so like the boy that Clara writes 
 about/ he said, ' I had to risk it.' 
 
 '' He is here as American delegate from Milwaukee. 
 They're rather thick up that way, you know. We went 
 to a co-operative restaurant and ate, and talked of you 
 and me and him, and SociaUsm. Somehow, before 
 the evening session was called, I had told him all my 
 hopes and fears and doubts and dares and didn't-dares. 
 
 " ' I was squeamish too,' he said. ' You see, I 
 was a shouting Methodist. I went into co-operation 
 for the sake of brotherly love; and then later I ran 
 up against the class struggle. And it took me quite 
 some time before I was able to define the class struggle 
 in terms of brotherly love. But it can be done. 
 I've done it.' He rested his elbows on the table and 
 his chin in his hands and looked somewhere off 
 towards the New Jerusalem. * I come not to bring 
 peace, but a sword,' he said. ' Yes; it's brotherly 
 love that makes me dig my proletarian brother in the 
 ribs and say, "Sic him!" It's brotherly love that 
 makes me hold up my capitaHst brother and say, 
 " Your money or your life! " I am my brother's 
 keeper. I accept the responsibihty. I'm out after 
 souls, I am.' 
 
 *' ' But they are out after bodies,' I threw in. 
 ' Material things ' 
 
144 THE CHILDREN- OF LIGHT 
 
 " ' That's just their bluff/ he said. ' And who 
 are they ? I'm they. You'll be they.' 
 
 But economic determinism is so horribly con- 
 vincing,' I said. ' Morals are determined by economic 
 conditions. History bears it out. It's devilish. It 
 can't be true.' 
 
 *' ' Not devilish — divine,' he contradicted. And 
 when I waited, he went on : — ' Let's take our dear 
 old myth of the Creation. Genesis, Chapter I. What 
 is it but a statement of the materiahstic basis of 
 history? " In the beginning God created the heaven 
 and the earth," economic determinism in a nut-shell. 
 Nothing said about souls; but a place for souls to 
 grow in. Some time later — days we say for conveni- 
 ence — He formed man out of the dust of the ground ; 
 — another place made ready ; and He breathed into 
 his nostrils the breath of hfe; and man became a 
 Hving soul — with a capacity for being morahsed — 
 through temptation. Economic conditions prepared 
 the way — a garden eastward in Eden, a stimulating 
 helpmate, idleness.' 
 
 ** ' But creation didn't come first,' I reminded 
 him. ' God came first — the moral principle.' 
 
 " ' Yes, God,' he agreed. ' But if I didn't believe 
 He was something a good deal bigger than a moral 
 principle, I would give up.' 
 
 " ' But they don't beUeve He came first. They 
 think we invented Him.* 
 
 '* ' They think,' said Uncle Lew, leaning across 
 the table till his nose almost touched mine. ' They 
 think that the underlying cause of creation is a 
 mystery, which possibly man may never fathom. 
 But when we get our universal language what do 
 
EPISTOLARY AND POETICAL 145 
 
 you bet we don't discover that mystery is a scientific 
 synonym for God? ' 
 
 '* Then, simultaneously, we remembered our co- 
 operative Frankfurters, now cold, and our beer, now 
 warm. And we stowed them away in a manner that 
 would scandalise Mr. Fletcher — and ran for the hall. 
 Herv6 was talking, and I was glad Uncle Lew had 
 found me, for he's been Hving on faith and newspaper 
 reports thus far — not understanding either French 
 or German. I managed to scribble a translation for 
 him as the different ones got the floor. 
 
 " And so it happens that this morning I woke up 
 to find myself a Socialist. Or rather, I hadn't been 
 to sleep, for suddenly at one moment turning over 
 in bed I was aware that I was a Socialist. And aU 
 the world came real. If I could describe to you that 
 strange birth-moment. But I can't. 
 
 " All that it means I don't know yet. But inevit- 
 ably a part of its meaning is renunciation. Look at 
 Uncle Lew! 
 
 " And, Clara, I count on you. It all began with you. 
 It was you who first revealed to me the possibility of a 
 real world. Do you remember that day we sat in the 
 old cleft rock and I told you the story of St. Francis, 
 and you capped it with your co-operative colony, 
 where you had known what it was to be hungry, and 
 to beg? I thought of that, last night. There was 
 almost nothing I didn't think of and remember, last 
 night. Suppose you hadn't come? — I count on you 
 to stand by me when mother and the marchese, and 
 the trustees and Tristram Lawrence, and any other 
 dream people protest. I count on you to stand by 
 me if unreality tempts. Even if I never write 
 
146 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 another line of verse — will you stand by me, Clara? 
 This may not be the minstrel's hour, you know. 
 They may need him to stoke the furnace. 
 
 " At dawn I was leaning out of my window among 
 these Gothic gables that overhang the pubUc square. 
 And I said, ' The question is — is this the road up 
 Parnassus? ' And having said it out aloud, I knew 
 that it wasn't the question at all — nor never was, 
 with any true poet. 
 
 "So it's — Ho, for Propaganda! — Yom: comrade, 
 
 *'L/* 
 
BOOK II 
 
 COMMON DAY 
 
** The youth, who daily farther from the east 
 
 Must travel, still is nature's priest. 
 
 And by the vision splendid 
 
 Is on his way attended ; 
 At length the man perceives it die away, 
 And fade into the light of common day." 
 
 Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 LIGHTING THE TORCH 
 
 " There is no question it would be a boon to the 
 party," said Lazarus Samson. " On such a financial 
 basis," he added, and catching my eye, smiled frankly. 
 
 His smile is one of his assets, and on public 
 platforms he works it rather hard. The fastidious 
 criticise him for it. And it is true that if one sits 
 near the back of the hall and doesn't see very well, 
 the effect is a bit mechanical. But then, the whole 
 effect of Lazarus is mechanical, a bit. He is like a 
 very finely adjusted instrument, edgy, accurate — if 
 need be, swift. Not a sword; nothing so showy and 
 romantic; a safety razor, rather. He is a little man, 
 thin, sallow, and rectangular. His smile has none 
 of the oblique quality that makes Uncle Lew's so 
 endearing; yet, of its kind, it is as honest. 
 
 " A daily would be more of a boon," said Cuthbert, 
 doggedly. 
 
 " Yes, I know," Lucian agreed, the tinge of im- 
 patience in his tone that was there invariably when 
 he discussed anything with Cuthbert. 
 
 " Better go slow," counselled Uncle Lew. 
 
 " That's why," said Lucian. " Of course, I'd 
 rather begin with a daily; but think of all the things 
 we don't know about running a newspaper." 
 
 149 
 
150 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " WeU, I know a few." This from Cuthbert. 
 
 '* Reporting isn't everything," said I. Perhaps I, 
 too, was a bit impatient. 
 
 Cuthbert shoved his hands combatively deeper 
 into his trousers' pockets and his legs nearer the fire. 
 It seemed as if he reached all the way across the room 
 and beyond, when he lounged in that particular 
 posture. 
 
 There was a midsummer storm screaming in the 
 dark around the farmhouse. The study windows 
 flowed down like waterfalls. From the living-room 
 Bertha Aarons's haranguing voice penetrated to us, 
 and intermittently some one in there dnunmed on 
 the piano. 
 
 *' If I had been content to start it as a weekly," 
 observed Uncle Lew, " it might not have come to 
 grief so soon." 
 
 ** It hasn't come to grief," interrupted Lucian. 
 
 "Well, no; I suppose not — if you back it." 
 Uncle Lew and Larazus Samson smiled at each other. 
 
 " If you had only come to me in the first place," 
 Lucian protested. 
 
 ** How could he, when you were in Russia, revolu- 
 tionising? " I asked. 
 
 '* Yes; I suppose I've wasted heaps of time." 
 
 But Uncle Lew put in his protest. " Not a bit of 
 it. Who could settle down with Japan and Russia at 
 each other's throats — and then the uprising in 
 Russia? " 
 
 " How about the fellows that can't raise their 
 travelling expenses? " queried Lucian. " They have 
 to settle down." 
 
 Cuthbert sniffed. 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH 151 
 
 " But now you will have this satisfaction/' smiled 
 Lazarus. " You will not either raise your travelling 
 expenses any more, if you finance this paper. You 
 can sink any amount." 
 
 ** Praised be! " Lucian got up, beaming, and 
 stretched himself. 
 
 " Then I understand that you take it over, as it 
 stands, assets and liabilities," said I, knowing that 
 Uncle Lew would never be the first to mention these 
 details ? 
 
 " I don't know that it has any assets," he murmured 
 now. 
 
 ** It has you!" cried Lucian. "And you weigh 
 against any number of liabilities." 
 
 *' Only I've never been bought yet." There was 
 warning in Uncle Lew's smile. 
 
 " Just the same, you're mine, for keeps," Lucian 
 retorted. " And it has the name — The Torch — That 
 we keep too." 
 
 *' You might find a better," Uncle Lew demurred. 
 *' A torch is smoky — lurid — it flares unsteadily." 
 
 *' And don't we, as yet? " 
 
 " By we, who do you mean? " inquired Cuthbert. 
 '* There's nothing unsteady about the party. There's 
 nothing unsteady about the march of Socialism; 
 there's not a more inevitable thing in nature. It is 
 Nature." 
 
 " Steady by jerks," said Lucian. " At least, if 
 you're a revolutionary Socialist." 
 
 " The economic paradox," murmured Lazarus. 
 
 Cuthbert opened his mouth to speak, but I knew 
 that the evening would be gone if we once strayed 
 into abstract discussion; and both Lazarus and 
 
152 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 Uncle Llewellyn must go back to the city the next 
 day. 
 
 " And do you pay a certain fixed sum? " I began 
 again, hurriedly. 
 
 "You? — What's the matter with saying we?" 
 Lucian demanded. " Aren't you in this deal, Clara? 
 I counted on your sinking a little something." 
 
 " But if it is a party organ? " 
 
 " Join the party! " Cuthbert chanted. 
 
 " Maybe she might, if you didn't hanmier at her 
 so about it," Lucian remarked. 
 
 " I do not see a necessity to have each member of 
 the staff a party member," volunteered Lazarus. 
 *' If I understand Miss Emery, it is a question of 
 tactics why she stays out. On the economic pro- 
 gramme she is as sound as you or me. Our American 
 methods she don't find herself always to agree with, 
 that's aU." 
 
 " Well, she can't moralise the party by staying 
 outside the party," said Cuthbert. " If she wants to 
 convert us, let her come in and be virus." 
 
 " Yes, I know," I faltered. 
 
 " When she does come in it'll be to stay," said 
 Uncle Lew. " I know Clara. But meanwhile, just 
 because she is outside, she gets at a section of the 
 community we can't touch. I count on Clara to work 
 up the subscription list in the women's colleges " 
 
 " There speaks the managing editor! " cried Lucian. 
 
 " Oh, no! that's you! " protested Uncle Lew. 
 
 Here Helen put her head in from the Uving-room, 
 looked round upon us, and let her eyes linger on me. 
 *' Never mind! " she said vaguely; and then, " Just 
 for a minute." 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH 153 
 
 II 
 
 I went with her into the living-room, where Bertha 
 Aarons was waving the empty corn-popper and 
 saying : — 
 
 *' Now what do you say we organise the shop 
 when we go back ? Here's five of us. And Beppina 
 Capponi, why don't you organise Eckstein's? " 
 
 Beppina's response was lost to me, for Helen 
 had drawn me through the Uving-room and to the 
 piazza. 
 
 " Feel this," she said. " The Young Leonardos 
 can't possibly sleep in the meadow to-night. The 
 ground is a sponge, and no tent will stand against 
 this wind." 
 
 " I've felt it," said I, " let's go in." And we backed 
 into the living-room again and let the door slam. 
 
 " Twenty of them," continued Helen. " I told 
 Cyrus he couldn't count on the weather." 
 
 ''Where is Cyrus?" 
 
 '* He took Vincenzino Spilla up on the five o'clock 
 train to have his tooth out. He has just telephoned 
 that he can't get a team to bring them home to-night. 
 I should think not!" 
 
 " The Young Leonardos will have to sleep on the 
 floor of the kitchen and the parlour in the farmer's 
 house," I said. " Fortunately they are Httle fellows." 
 
 " They are there now, with your Cousin Pauline, 
 making box kites." 
 
 " They adore her," said I. 
 
 " Yes," Helen admitted. " But she'll be coming 
 over here presently, and somebody must sleep with 
 
154 THE CHILDREN' OF LIGHT 
 
 them. Cuthbert can't get back to his father's 
 to-night; he might as well." 
 
 " Dump him in with a settlement club to keep order ? 
 When he doesn't believe in settlements? We can't 
 do that." 
 
 "Who is Cuthbert, anyway? " demanded Helen. 
 
 " I know. But he's a guest. Lucian will." 
 
 "Very well!" said Helen grimly. "You break 
 it to him." 
 
 " When Cousin Pauline comes over, keep her out of 
 the study as long as you can," I begged. " We're so 
 busy." 
 
 " She's got to stay where she is for a while, any- 
 way." Helen reached for the telephone receiver, 
 and I threaded my way around the working girls 
 sitting on the floor. 
 
 " If there's another cut, we'll do it," proclaimed 
 Bertha Aarons. The corn-popper was full now and 
 she was shaking it over the coals. " And there's a cut 
 coming. You watch!" 
 
 " Yes, we'll do it! " said the girls, looking around 
 upon one another anxiously. 
 
 " The Women Garment Workers," Bertha said. 
 " Don't it sound fine ! And we'll make them 
 recognise us." 
 
 " Don't it sound fine? " echoed Beppina Capponi 
 doubtfully, as I shut the study door. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Lucian was drifting along the book-shelves, pluck- 
 ing a book out, here and there, and shuffling the 
 leaves. 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH 155 
 
 " It's all settled," he called to me. " The Woman's 
 Page is yours, Clara; at a salary of S5000.00 a year, 
 to be paid to yourself on demand, by your own 
 personal cheque. Uncle Lew will take the make-up, 
 and Lazarus the foreign field; Cuthbert will handle 
 the reporters — City Editor when we blossom daily. 
 And the broad generalisations, the philosophical 
 leading articles, the prophetic interpretations, shall 
 be mine. You and I, in other words, will hold up 
 the literary end of this periodical. The others will 
 look after the man in the street. What do you think 
 of this for a motto ? From the Revolt of Islam, do 
 you remember ? — 
 
 " ' When mankind doth strive 
 With its oppressors in a strife of blood ; 
 Or when free thoughts, Hke Hghtnings, are alive. 
 And in each bosom of the multitude 
 Justice and truth with custom's hydra brood 
 Wage silent war ; when priests and kings dissemble 
 In smiles or frowns their fierce disquietude; 
 When round pure hearts a host of hopes assemble; 
 The snake and eagle meet — the world's foundations 
 tremble! ' " 
 
 *' Why not print the whole poem while you're 
 about it? " growled Cuthbert. 
 " Well, here's a shorter, from Casa Guidi Windows: — 
 
 *' * We hurry onward to extinguish hell 
 
 With our fresh souls, our younger hopes, and God's 
 Maturity of purpose.' " 
 
 *' And to these foreign correspondents do I offer, 
 how much? " inquired Lazarus. 
 *^** Oh, whatever is right, of course." Lucian's 
 head was in another volume of poetry. 
 
156 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " I might find out from Tristram Lawrence what 
 he pays for foreign articles. He has the best people, 
 for his point of view," I suggested. 
 
 " Yes, do! " said Lucian. " And we'll pay a Uttle 
 more than he does. I should always want to go 
 one better than Trissy, you know." Lucian's eyes, 
 looking over the top of his book at me, were defiant 
 despite their smile. They puzzled me. His whole 
 manner, of late, in regard to Tristram, puzzled me. 
 
 " We must work out a budget," Lazarus continued. 
 "And who is treasurer? He must know what he 
 will have to draw on " 
 
 "On me — that's what!" said Lucian. "Listen 
 to this!— 
 
 " * Let there be Ught! said Liberty.'— 
 
 Or do you like this better? — 
 
 " ' Reason is the fairest lamp for man.* 
 
 Oh, you fellows needn't try to look interested. I 
 know you're not. But I take my stand for a motto. 
 It's aU I do ask for." 
 
 " And we will decide on a place for of&ces, and if 
 we print ourselves or make contracts with a printing 
 house." 
 
 " Union," from Cuthbert. 
 
 " There is a house of ours," said I. " Where is it 
 — Monroe Street ? — in a row with a colonnade of stone 
 pillars along the second story. It used to be a 
 residence district, all that, but it's business now. 
 You pass it when you go down to the settlement, if 
 you walk across." 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH 157 
 
 " Monroe Street — you do not mean those old houses 
 so elegant in a row, like a picture of a temple of 
 Greece? *' Awe softened the staccato of Lazarus 
 Samson's utterance. 
 
 " Yes; I happen to remember because when I 
 went over the property with Mr. Warner last year, 
 when he turned over my share, he spoke of this house 
 as one whose lease would expire this autumn. It is 
 a boarding-house, I think, wedged in between whole- 
 sale woollen and printing." 
 
 " But you could rent it to great advantage for 
 you," suggested Lazarus. 
 
 "Why should we?" 
 
 Lazarus's mechanism clicked excitedly. He got 
 up and walked across the floor and back again. '* If 
 we can make a start so big as that ! " he said. " Such 
 a dignity to encompass us. I did not think such big 
 plans. It did not occur to me to expect — " Then 
 his smile widened across his face, and he sat down. 
 
 " Here's Moody's Fire Bringer," said Lucian. 
 "How's this?— 
 
 " ' Seeing the taper of small excellent light 
 He lifteth in his hand, the night rolls on 
 Before him, and day follows after him.* 
 
 Or no, — wait — wait! — I've got it! — I've got itl — 
 Listen ! — 
 
 " ' About his torch shineth a dust of souls, 
 Daughters and sons, who fly into the light 
 With trembling, and emerge with prophecy.* 
 
 Whoop ! " Lucian threw the book into the air and 
 caught it with clapped hands. 
 
158 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " Capital! " said Uncle Lew. 
 
 "See, Clara! " Lucian brought the book to me 
 and dropped on his knee beside my chair. 
 
 " I think I ought to have at least three men for 
 assignments," observed Cuthbert. " We shall need 
 to keep in touch with state activities as well as the 
 city ; and who runs the Washington end of things ? " 
 
 " I know a comrade there," said Uncle Lew. 
 " Two or three that would do." He gave their 
 names and credentials. 
 
 In the living-room my Cousin Pauline began to 
 sing " Caro, mio ben." 
 
 " You -^dll have to sleep over at the farmer's with 
 the Young Leonardos," I said in an undertone to 
 Lucian. 
 
 " If we have our own printing-plant, closed shop, 
 it would be simpler," Cuthbert was saying when I 
 turned to listen. 
 
 " And maybe more expense," said Lazarus. 
 
 But the door opened, and my Cousin PauHne came 
 in with a bowlful of popcorn. Behind her Helen's 
 deprecatory eyebrows grimaced at me. 
 
 IV 
 
 The marchese had gone out to the Rockies with a 
 party of Appalachians, to climb Mount Tacoma, and 
 my Cousin Pauline was chaperoning us for the 
 moment. I think she was also a little anxious about 
 Cyrus, who had come into his share of the property 
 a few months earlier, and was taking what she con- 
 sidered a rather alarming interest in an Anglican 
 religious order that was building a monastery in our 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH 159 
 
 valley. At any rate, she had been with us since 
 early spring, and talked of spending the winter on 
 this side. 
 
 '* Come in, mother!" cried Lucian. "We're 
 hatching a new plot." 
 
 Uncle Lew brought a chair for her and she shook 
 her finger at him. " What mischief are you leading 
 my boy into now? " she asked. 
 
 But it appealed to her when she heard what it was. 
 And I am afraid we did not try to dispel her naive 
 delusion that editors of magazines command ex- 
 ceptional opportunities for the writing of verse. 
 
 " If I could but feel as much at ease about your 
 brother," she sighed. 
 
 Whereupon Helen laughed rather annoyingly, and 
 said one might suppose Cyrus was all that was dis- 
 sipated and improper. 
 
 "Ah, but a little natural dissipation I could under- 
 stand," mourned my Cousin Pauline. 
 
 Bertha Aarons in the doorway fixed her dis- 
 illusioned Russian eyes on Cyrus's mother. " If 
 madame could have a really worry, once," she 
 remarked. 
 
 I saw amusement flash across Lazarus Samson's 
 face, and his finger touch his lips wamingly. He 
 was very polite to all of us, always, was Lazarus; 
 even to Lucian whom he knew best. Not obsequious, 
 but careful. 
 
 " Dear child," — my Cousin Pauline reached out a 
 caressing hand to Bertha — " you cannot know, of 
 course, but believe me, hunger and poverty are the 
 least of worries." 
 
 " I can say that," the girl replied — " I do say that. 
 
i6o THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 All Young Russia says it when it suffers to teach the 
 peasants revolution. But it don't come well from 
 you." 
 
 " Miss Aarons does not explain herself so polite as 
 she means," interposed Lazarus hurriedly. " To have 
 a son who is something approaching to an American 
 edition of Tolstoy — ^we wouldn't consider that a 
 worry for a mother." 
 
 " No, I ain't poHte," said Bertha tranquilly. 
 
 " The marchesa knows how to make allowance 
 for our bad breaks," Uncle Lew added. 
 
 "You! — You are a finished courtier!" Again 
 my Cousin Pauline's finger admonished him. 
 
 " And that's the rudest thing you ever said to me," 
 he retorted. 
 
 " But you Young Russians don't believe in Tolstoy," 
 Cuthbert said aggressively. " No genuine Socialists 
 can believe in him." 
 
 " We don't follow Tolstoy," amended Lazarus. 
 " We beUeve in him — yes. He is the sincerest soul 
 in Russia, in the world, to-day." 
 
 " Living a compromise," sneered Cuthbert. 
 
 The smile left Lazarus Samson's face abruptly — 
 left all our faces. 
 
 '* Mother, play us something — leave the door 
 open," said Lucian. 
 
 " Uncle Lew," said I, " do you think I ought to 
 join the party? " He and Lucian and I were hnger- 
 ing over the study fire. The others had wandered out 
 to the music. 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH i6l 
 
 " If you think you ought, I do." 
 
 We all three smiled. 
 
 *' Do you think I'm a moral snob? " I tried again. 
 
 " I do," said Lucian. " Why should you stay out 
 because some of them are living with other men's 
 wives, any more than you would stay out of the 
 Church because there are divorced men paying pew 
 rent? " 
 
 " It isn't individual morals — at least — I suppose 
 it ought not to be — but collective morals " 
 
 "As how? " said Uncle Lew, but I saw that he 
 understood. 
 
 "Graft?" queried Lucian; "I don't believe it. 
 Not in a disinterested organisation like ours. Not 
 in our local, anyway." 
 
 " I was thinking of election returns." 
 
 " But that's too silly, Clara. It wouldn't pay to 
 try to stuff. We couldn't if we tried; we haven't 
 pull enough." 
 
 " I didn't mean just that. But suppose — in a 
 minor election — I'm only supposing it, of course " 
 
 " Of course," echoed Uncle Lew. 
 
 " Suppose we didn't have any chance of putting in 
 our candidate — and we didn't have the incentive to 
 make the vote a census, as we do in presidential 
 elections " 
 
 Lucian and Uncle Lew exchanged glances. 
 
 " And suppose it was to our advantage — from 
 the point of view of class-conscious, revolutionary 
 Socialism — as long as we couldn't get in ourselves — 
 to see that the rottenest of the other municipal 
 parties, or candidates, did get in — all for the sake 
 of educating the public, of course, and of fostering 
 
 L 
 
i62 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 that discontent with the present regime, which is one 
 of our weapons. And suppose our local — I say our, 
 but it's purely hypothetical " 
 
 " Of course," reiterated Uncle Lew. 
 
 " Suppose our local fixed it up with the rotten 
 party to dehver our vote over to them — for a con- 
 sideration " 
 
 " But they couldn't, you know, without taking a 
 vote on it in the local, and there would be protests." 
 This from Lucian. 
 
 " And if there were not enough protests? " 
 
 " Well, it couldn't touch you, anyway," Lucian 
 veered. " We don't have woman suffrage in this 
 state." He laughed shamefacedly. 
 
 "I'm not quite so feminine as to be satisfied with 
 that point of view — thank you." 
 
 " But inside the local," Lucian added, " you would 
 have a vote. You could register a protest there, 
 Clara." 
 
 "Don't teU me what I could do!" I flashed. 
 " That's not my point. My point is that those are 
 vile, rotten, abominable tactics. If I were a man 
 I'd use a stronger word." 
 
 " Give it to us. Red Head! I thought you'd fire 
 up before long," said Uncle Lew. "You're right! 
 You're dead right! — They're damnable — if they're 
 true. But who says they're true? " 
 
 I suppose I looked conscious. 
 
 "Tristram Lawrence!" exclaimed Lucian scorn- 
 fully. " Accusations of that sort always originate 
 with that sort of moralist." 
 
 " There must be some fire where there is smoke," 
 I retorted; "people don't invent such things." 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH 163 
 
 Lucian kicked the andirons moodily. 
 
 " We have our faults," acknowledged Uncle Lew; 
 " we're violent. We might shoot and bum if we got 
 too heady, I suppose. But — treachery — Jesuitism — 
 well — I've knocked about in party locals a good 
 deal and I haven't struck just that. And even if 
 your informant " — Uncle Lew grinned suavely — " is 
 right about it; do you choke off such tactics by 
 staying outside? " 
 
 " Do you choke them off by staying in? " 
 
 " A five-cent yeast-cake," mused Uncle Lew. 
 " But then you and I believe in miracles, Clara." 
 
 " Still, it is war," pursued Lucian. "I'm not 
 sure that they are worse than any other war 
 measures — granted war." 
 
 " There is such a thing as a fair fight," I protested. 
 
 '* Never! " said Lucian. 
 
 " There is such a thing as refusing to be the one 
 to take the unfair advantage." 
 
 " We're in to win." 
 
 " But if you're an economic determinist you 
 think you'll win anyway. As for me, I'm every bit 
 as convinced of economic determinism as — as Cuth- 
 bert, for that matter. I don't think — I know we'll 
 win. The question is, do we hasten or hinder the 
 victory by Jesuitical, dishonourable methods? I 
 think we hinder. That's my Christianity, of course." 
 
 " As a matter of fact, I don't think our local — I 
 don't know about others — ever has tried just those 
 particular tactics that you describe," Lucian re- 
 marked. 
 
 " There's an election for mayor coming off in 
 December," said I. 
 
i64 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 Again those two exchanged glances. 
 
 " What it is to have a suspicious nature/* teased 
 Lucian. 
 
 " Helen says the Citizens' Reform League is talking 
 of putting up Tristram Lawrence." I knew this 
 woiild irritate him. 
 
 " So I hear," he returned. " They have just 
 about as much sense as I gave them credit for. A 
 man of letters! — A school teacher! " 
 
 " There are Bryce, Morley, Jusserand," I suggested. 
 
 " Yes; — I suppose you do put Trissy in the same 
 class," he commented bitterly. 
 
 I resented his emphasis on the pronoun. ** It 
 Tristram does get in, it will be on a clean ballot," I 
 declared. 
 
 " Glad you think so — but he won't get in." He 
 flung the words at me over his shoulder and collided 
 in the doorway with Helen. 
 
 " Well," said she, " it's about time you started. 
 Candeloro has telephoned from the farmhouse that 
 the Young Leonardos have let the kite paste boil all 
 over the top of the stove, and Tonio BerchieUi has 
 decorated the kitchen floor with charcoal sketches." 
 
 " Oh, chide me not! — I go! " cried Lucian. 
 
 But Uncle Lew caught him and drew him back 
 into the room, with — " Hold on! That's my funeral! 
 I promised Cyrus. He arranged it with me before 
 he went. I can manage the Young Leonardos." 
 
 Out in the hall, fishing for an umbrella in the con- 
 fusion of the hat-rack, I said to Uncle Lew — *' I have 
 another grudge against the party. — It uses Lucian 
 as if he were a kitchen knife; here, there, everywhere, 
 peeling somebody's potatoes. He has an Ode to 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH 165 
 
 Russian Freedom begun and never finished — a 
 beautiful thing. He has a Japanese War ballad in 
 his head — such music! And no time — ^no time — 
 because he is kept buzzing from one committee to 
 the next, and pestered with comrades. But what do 
 they care for poetry! " 
 
 " Fm afraid it's my fault,'* sighed Uncle Lew. 
 " And now I've got him into this paper scheme." 
 
 "Oh, that is better than most," I comforted him. 
 " At least there's a semblance of literature about it." 
 
 " Not much." 
 
 We went out on the wet verandah. Uncle Lew 
 rammed a hat on his head and struggled with the 
 catch of the umbrella. 
 
 " Is nothing worth while but the multiplication of 
 locals? " I cried. " Have we really no use for poets, 
 nowadays? " 
 
 " Go in out of the wet, Clara," said Uncle Lew; 
 and suddenly — "We need a poet in the party, if 
 only to fight against dirty methods. You know, 
 don't you, that your poet would fight against that 
 kind of dirt just as quick and just as everlastingly 
 as your Reform candidate? " 
 
 " He's not my Reform candidate." 
 
 " No ? " Uncle Lew looked back at me as he went 
 down the verandah steps. The old hat hid his eyes, 
 but the light from the living-room shone on his 
 whimsical mouth. "I do like to see the natural 
 woman in you come out," he said. 
 
 "You mean when I lose my temper? " I called 
 after him. 
 
 " No, not altogether." 
 
i66 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 VI 
 
 When I went back to the library, Lucian was 
 drooping over the fire in a weary sort of way, unusual 
 with him, turning the leaves of Moody's Fire Bringer. 
 The sad quietness of his face gave me that sort of 
 helpless pang we call heart-ache. 
 
 " Lucian, you don't want to go into it," I said. 
 "Why wiUyou?" 
 
 At my first word his resolute chin went up, his 
 indomitable eyes turned to mine defensively and 
 cheerfully. 
 
 ''Oh, but I do! You're mistaken. What makes 
 you think I don't? " 
 
 I touched the book in his hand. 
 
 "Why, yes! I want both," he assented. "But 
 I've an intuition that if I stepped out of the fight my 
 verse would go rotten." 
 
 " And staying in — it doesn't go at all." 
 
 " I have to do the thing that seems to me most 
 worth while," he insisted. 
 
 " But, Lucian, which does seem to you the most 
 worth while? " 
 
 He laughed. " Why do you ask? Am I not the 
 editor of The Torch? " 
 
 " You are afraid to choose the other because you 
 want it most ; because you love it best ; because you 
 would rather write a Hymn to Russian Freedom 
 than edit The Torch. It is fooUsh to make that kind 
 of choice." 
 
 " No, no!— I wouldn't. At least, I don't think 1 
 would. — I don't know. — How can I know, Clara? 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH 167 
 
 And even if I did know — one doesn't choose to do a 
 thing because one Hkes it best. I do know that while 
 the fight is on I can't stay out. It isn't as if I didn't 
 like to fight. I'm a bully fighter, and you know it. 
 One can't fight as well as I do and not like it." 
 
 " One doesn't choose to do a thing merely because 
 one likes it; no," I agreed. " But if a poem, if a 
 poet, might convert the world to a purer, saner, 
 swifter Socialism than these mechanical party 
 methods can? " 
 
 " Will they be the less mechanical if I don't have a 
 hand in them? You are unjust to the party, Clara; 
 impatient of it. That's where your class animus 
 comes out, and it surprises me. Besides — how do I 
 know I could be The Poet? " 
 
 " The party does not give you a chance to find 
 out." 
 
 " The chance is mine to take. The trouble is, I 
 want two chances. I want to live two lives in one — 
 and I'm not big enough." 
 
 *' Yes, you are! " 
 
 " But, Clara, that's what you've been insisting 
 upon. You want me to give one up. And I can't 
 give up either." He went to the book-shelves and 
 thrust the Fire Bringer back into its place. " Every 
 morning I think I have. But at night I find they're 
 both there." 
 
 " Perhaps that is because you try to give up the one 
 you are meant to keep." 
 
 "Oh, don't play devil's advocate!" he cried. 
 " What does it matter what happens to my literary 
 vanity, if this vile economic system can be cast out 
 on the dust-heap and superseded by collectivism and 
 
i68 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 brotherly love ? One poet more or less won't matter 
 when all the world swings in tune.** 
 
 "Don't call me a devil's advocate!" I pleaded. 
 " I don't mean to be that. If only you wouldn't 
 think the party and its methods the only way." 
 
 " As if I did! " he protested. " Am I Cuthbert? 
 But you have this illogical prejudice against the 
 party " 
 
 ''No, I haven't; — you don't imderstand. I can't 
 bear being outside. But I am afraid of myself. This 
 is a serious step. I can't take it simply because you 
 and Uncle Lew have; no matter how much I may 
 want to. If you and he were not already in the 
 party I should find it much easier to decide whether 
 I really do want to abolish the senate." 
 
 He laughed at 'that. '' One can't take the senate 
 seriously," he said. " Its aboUtion is only one of the 
 many steps toward reconstruction. That's the way 
 I look at it. What's the matter, Helen? " 
 
 For again Helen was looking in at the door. 
 
 " Uncle Lew can't sleep in both the kitchen and 
 the sitting-room of the farmhouse at the same time," 
 she remarked, " and Cuthbert, for all his Marxian 
 bluster, doesn't seem to want the proletariat for a 
 bed-fellow." 
 
 " I'm going over," Lucian said. " Good night. 
 Clara and I got to talking." 
 
 " About our consciences," I added, as he dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 "I don't doubt it," Helen observed. "It's a 
 family characteristic, and seems to be catching: 
 Bertha Aarons and Lazarus Samson are out on the 
 verandah in all this wet discussing their consciences. 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH 169 
 
 You know, she has scruples against the marriage 
 ceremony." 
 
 " But so has he. Helen, we must be careful. It 
 would be dreadful if anything happened here." 
 
 "My dear, don't be alarmed! Lazarus is really 
 in love with that girl, and love is a safe, bourgeois 
 emotion. In Russia he might take her at her word, 
 but here in America he won't sacrifice her to a theory. 
 He is unselfish under that nickel-plate finish. If it 
 were Cuthbert I should be out there on the verandah 
 with them. But Cuthbert looks higher than the 
 proletariat for his soul's mate. He is hanging round 
 the living-room now, waiting for me to come out of 
 here so he can come in." 
 
 "Don't go!" I said hastily. 
 
 So she took Lucian's chair by the fire, and we must 
 have sat there together nearly an hour, silent, watch- 
 ing the blaze bum itself out. 
 
 In my diary I find written under July 7th of that 
 year — " To-day we rekindled Uncle Lew's Torch. It 
 sputtered a good deal." And in a new paragraph: — 
 
 " How would it feel, I wonder, to have a heart big 
 enough to ache over something not purely personal? 
 I wish I knew how it felt to be really great. Not 
 in achievement necessarily. Greatness does not 
 seem to be indispensable to achievement. The small 
 people, the limited people, the narrow people — ^like 
 Napoleon — get results. Tolstoy doesn't get any. 
 Nor St. Francis. Did he, though? Where are they? 
 Napoleon made a new map of Europe. Something 
 definite, that, if superficial. I wish I knew how it 
 felt to desire the Co-operative Commonwealth so 
 passionately that I did not have to stop to think 
 whether or not I was true to myself in joining the 
 
170 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 Socialist Party. The really great never need to 
 question their own motives; they are not aware of 
 greater and lesser desires; they are the one desire. 
 I wish I knew how it felt to merge the individual — 
 the individuals — in the idea ; so that my heart might 
 ache for every other hampered, strangled poet in 
 this hindering, strangUng economic system as it aches 
 for Lucian. I wish I knew whether, if I had a vote, 
 I would vote for Tristram Lawrence and the Reform 
 Party who have a chance to win and clean things 
 up a bit; or whether I would vote for some scrub 
 candidate in the SociaUst Party, put up just to split 
 the vote and give the city another educational dose 
 of machine corruption. I am not an opportunist. 
 Am I ? But it isn't as simple to me as it is to Lucian. 
 If the Socialists would support Reform, why mightn't 
 they convert Reform ? Most of these Reformers are 
 more than half-way Socialists as it is." 
 
 Something Hke this I must have been thinking as 
 we sat by the fire, for my conversation with Helen 
 follows on the next page of the little book. 
 
 " If you had a vote in the next election, how would 
 you use it? " I remember I asked her. 
 
 " What did you say? " She came out of her own 
 thoughts absently. 
 
 " How far away you were, Helen," I said. 
 
 *' In the Never-Never Land." She leaned over to 
 adjust a burning log. " How would I vote? It 
 would depend upon the issue involved." 
 
 " Issues, men, principles," I mused. " But 
 shouldn't principles carry most weight? Doesn't 
 every other way involve compromise? " 
 
 " Not if one makes a principle of the issues." Her 
 eyes quizzed me. 
 
LIGHTING THE TORCH 171 
 
 " Helen, that seems to me specious." 
 
 " It may be," she admitted with tantalising 
 indifference. 
 
 " Cyrus won't vote at all? " I suggested. 
 
 To this she made no reply. 
 
 " You say it would depend upon the issues — you 
 mean as they would affect democracy? " 
 
 " I never talk in ultimates, you know," she fenced. 
 " And if you are worrying over your hypothetical 
 vote because you are afraid you might vote for 
 Tristram Lawrence against your principles — why — 
 let me tell you right now, Clara, that you are not in 
 love with Tristram Lawrence. You play with the 
 thought of being — but you're not." 
 
 " You seem to know all about being in love! " I 
 retorted angrily. 
 
 vShe knelt down on the hearth and began to take 
 off the half-burned wood and set it apart where it 
 could cool away from the back log. " It's nearly 
 twelve o'clock, did you know it? " she said. 
 
 When she had made the fire safe for the night, she 
 still knelt there. Something in her passive stillness 
 choked me, and I leaned down and put my arm 
 around her neck remorsefully. 
 
 " What were you doing in the Never-Never 
 Land? " I asked. " Buying new winter coats for all 
 your settlement children? " 
 
 "No; I was mothering my own children," she 
 said. " The children that I shall never have." 
 
 "Oh, Helen," I pleaded, " how do you know it 
 is never? " 
 
 " How do I know that you are you and I am I? " 
 Her eyes were turned away from mine toward the 
 fire. " I know." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SMOKING FUSE 
 
 One evening in September Tristram Lawrence came 
 to see me. 
 
 " Really at home? " he said, his eyes indulgent and 
 playful. 
 
 I did not tell him that the maid had found me 
 putting on my hat when she brought his card. 
 
 " It is good to find you for once where you belong," 
 he added, relinquishing my hand in that reluctant 
 way he has. 
 
 "Belong!" I echoed blankly, looking about the 
 Italianate drawing-room of my Cousin Pauline's 
 apartment. " Do I seem to you to belong here? " 
 
 " In one sense, no, of course." He paused. " To 
 every bird its own nest." His eyes looked beyond 
 me a moment, as if they saw — a nest. Then they 
 dipped into my own eyes again. 
 
 Last year he had been very attentive to a Miss 
 Warner, whose grandfather was one of the trustees 
 of our estate. The year before there was a rumour 
 of his engagement to Daisy Randall — who had since 
 married Nicholas Richards — her father was some- 
 thing highly financial. Before that — had there been 
 a rich young widow? — There had always been some 
 one with money. And now? 
 
 172 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 173 
 
 " But you can hardly blame me for liking this 
 better than a comer of the settlement parlour," he 
 was saying, ** when I have come to tell you something 
 that means a great deal to me — to tell you first of all." 
 
 It seemed to me I ought to have outgrown the 
 possibiUty of being flattered by this kind of obvious 
 remark. But I hadn't. Still — 
 
 " I suppose the newspapers don't count," I said. 
 
 " Already! " he laughed. " I didn't give my final 
 consent till this afternoon." 
 
 " I heard in the summer that they wanted you." 
 
 He leaned back in his chair and looked at the floor, 
 forgetful of me, for the moment. " I didn't make 
 up my mind in a hurry," he said. " And yet I 
 wonder even now if I haven't been an ass." 
 
 I inadvertently let the moment for reassuring him 
 slip. He was no stouter than he used to be, but he 
 showed his forty years in a certain dryness of fibre. 
 The pale brown hair was ashier, the thin cheeks 
 sUghtly leathern in texture. The scholar's face was 
 still there, but the set of his chin against his collar, 
 the concentrated look in his eyes, or more accurately 
 his eyebrows, hinted at an executive capacity which 
 made one understand why the Citizens' Reform 
 League had offered him the nomination. 
 
 "Oh, no!" I deprecated, remembering suddenly 
 that he had wondered if he were an ass. 
 
 " All roads seem to lead to it, nowadays," he 
 mused. " Action — action. We all get bitten. It 
 is no longer possible to live consistently within the 
 province of ideas. I have tried. I do not care to 
 be that inferior thing, the man of action; — at least" 
 — ^he hesitated — " I still feel that it is inferior." 
 
174 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " But you are ashamed of that feeling," said I. 
 
 He looked up and smiled. " There was once a 
 little girl with a lucid mind," he said. " And she 
 grew up, she and her mind." His chair was rather 
 near, and he leaned nearer. " Do you know the 
 thing that reassures me most in taking this step. Miss 
 Clara? It is the consciousness that you will approve. 
 — You do approve ? — If I get in, shall you — be glad ? 
 —ShaUyou?" 
 
 The trite words would have been pleasant to 
 any woman. He was a successful man of letters. 
 Nevertheless — 
 
 " I haven't the faintest idea you will get in," I said. 
 And just then Cyrus spoke in the doorway: — 
 
 *' Good evening," he remarked casually to Tristram; 
 and then to me — " You're coming down to the settle- 
 ment, Clara? Helen has just telephoned." 
 
 Unintentional rudeness is not possible in some 
 people. I knew that Cyrus had his reasons, but it 
 was a bit annoying. 
 
 " No, she is not coming this evening," returned 
 Tristram genially. " I have come to call, and I 
 mean to stay. This is my last free evening until 
 after the elections." His cool, amused eyes dis- 
 missed Cyrus, who, however, remained in the door- 
 way, and merely said: — 
 
 " This strike is going to be a factor in the election." 
 
 " You mean these garment workers? " Tristram's 
 attention was languid, but he did attend. 
 
 Cyrus nodded. 
 
 " A handful of women? " 
 
 " The men have begun to come out. And women 
 have other means of influencing elections, lacking 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 175 
 
 the ballot/* C5n:us's laconic utterance was entirely 
 unemotional. 
 
 Tristram rested a hand on each knee, as if he 
 meditated getting to his feet. " I had not attached 
 any importance to it whatever," he said. " Of 
 course, I knew there was a strike — yesterday? " 
 
 " Day before." 
 
 *' It began with ten girls; only two over eighteen," 
 I explained. 
 
 " To-night there are three hundred out," said 
 Cyrus. 
 
 Tristram studied him with a sort of unwilling 
 curiosity. " I am told," he said, " that you have your 
 finger on the pulse of the working people in this 
 town." 
 
 " The poor prefer a quack," Cyrus admitted. 
 
 ** A quack, Cyrus!" It was I who made the 
 protest. 
 
 *' Oh, I'm in very good company," he replied. 
 " Christ was a quack. At least the regular schools 
 refused to countenance his methods of healing. — 
 Not that I heal anything," he added. " Not that I 
 have any methods." 
 
 " And just how do you think this strike will affect 
 the election? " Tristram asked. 
 
 " For one thing, by its staying quality." 
 
 " Two months? " 
 
 '* For another thing, by its spreading quality." 
 
 *' Chiefly women? — And foreigners who have no 
 vote? " 
 
 " Chiefly women — ^yes. But you like to play the 
 squire of dames. Here's your chance." 
 
 A smile flickered — winced were a better word. 
 
176 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 perhaps — on Tristram's delicate lips. " You mean — 
 make it an issue? " he questioned. 
 
 " You'll have to before you're through." 
 
 ''What is it at your settlement to-night? — A 
 strike meeting? " Tristram absently rose to his 
 feet, and with a certain abruptness sat down again. 
 
 " Why don't we all three go? " I suggested. 
 
 He looked from me to Cyrus. " I suspect this is 
 a put-up job," he objected. His face was both 
 amused and rueful. " My one free evening — Oh, 
 Miss Clara! — But of course, if you'd rather " 
 
 ** So would you — now," I retorted, and went to 
 put on my hat. 
 
 When I came back they were standing before a 
 marble low reUef of me that one of Cyrus's hungry 
 Italians had done. 
 
 " But one needs the colour," Tristram said, turning 
 to me. " Titian would have enjoyed painting you, 
 Miss Clara." 
 
 " I don't think so," observed Cyrus, his back to us 
 as he mused upon the bas-rehef. " Watts would 
 understand her better." He put out a finger and 
 touched the marble brow gently. " This fellow was 
 too young," he said, " but he needed the money. I 
 knew he couldn't put the thinking spirit in here." 
 The caressing fingers hovered, hesitated. 
 
 " I'm ready, Cyrus," I reminded him. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I'U catch up." 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 177 
 
 II 
 
 Along the River Way there were crowds of people 
 walking with autumn briskness. On the other 
 shore and from the long low bridges the silver 
 sparkles streamed down through the lightly ruffled 
 water. Tristram talked of the new civic pride, the 
 new enthusiasm for urban beauty, the new schemes 
 for municipal architecture, the gropings of the Park 
 Commission, the crusade against the electric signs 
 that intermittently starred our heaven. 
 
 " A fair outside," said Cyrus. I had thought he 
 was not listening. Tristram glanced sidewise at him 
 with an amused smile. 
 
 " We had a questionnaire the other night in our 
 Circolo del Mondo Nuovo," Cyrus added, " on how 
 to improve the Italian quarter. It might give you 
 points." 
 
 "What do they want?" 
 
 " Relief from the white slave traffic." 
 
 At the end of the River Way we struck across into 
 the city, through a garish zone of moving-picture 
 shows. It seemed as if Cyrus took off his hat to 
 every other man or woman we met. The streets 
 were unusually crowded, but we were all three taller 
 than the average, and other faces had a way of 
 seeking his face. 
 
 " Apparently you have some personal connection 
 with each one of them," said Tristram presently, 
 leaning out and eyeing him across me. 
 
 " Why, yes, of course," said Cyrus. 
 
 M 
 
178 THE CHILDREK OF LIGHT 
 
 *' And I suppose you could call each one by 
 name? " 
 
 " Why, yes, of course." 
 
 Sometimes we had to elbow our way. Girls that I 
 knew smiled at me. One said — " Our shop come out 
 this afternoon. Miss Emery." And another, farther 
 on, called back — " I'll be to the meeting all right, all 
 right. I'm just laying for a bunch of finishers that 
 haven't joined yet." 
 
 Three or four young ItaUan men jostled Tristram; 
 then meeting Cyrus's eyes, burst into a hatless, 
 joyous chorus of buona seras. 
 
 A sleek, heavy-looking man, loudly dressed in black, 
 sUghtly oleaginous, watched us from the doorway of 
 a saloon restaurant. He seemed especially interested 
 in Tristram. When we came abreast of him he 
 touched his hat to Cyrus and said kindly : — 
 
 " I bailed out an Eyetalian of yours to-day, Mr. 
 Emery — Giuseppe Monterone." 
 
 ''That so? He'll be your friend for life," Cyrus 
 said over his shoulder. 
 
 " Yep; good job," the man agreed, and his some- 
 what throaty and complacent laugh foUowed us. 
 
 " Who is the philanthropist? " inquired Tristram. 
 
 " The boss of the settlement ward." 
 
 "That man? " Tristram palpably controlled an 
 impulse to look back. " Well, he and I have both 
 missed an opportunity.'* 
 
 " He didn't miss anything," said I, laughing. 
 " He knew you." 
 
 We had left the winking ghtter of the avenue and 
 were making our way through the darker, dirtier 
 streets in the vicinity of the settlement. Wavering 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 179 
 
 gas torches sputtered and sizzled above the push- 
 carts. The human stream thickened and moved more 
 sluggishly. Now and again an eddy of little children 
 swirled about our feet. Here and there, in angles 
 and corners, clusters of men and women stood still, 
 like backwater, murmuring. Through open door- 
 ways the tenements breathed out their close, rank 
 stench upon this flood. A muddy-mouthed, dark- 
 eyed little child took Cyrus's hand and walked beside 
 us the length of the block, looking up into his face and 
 smiling. A woman, leaning out of an upper window, 
 called down some sort of unintelligible Italian bless- 
 ing upon his head. 
 
 " These are the ones who will turn me down, J 
 suppose," Tristram speculated. 
 
 " All who have a vote will turn you down; yes," 
 agreed Cyrus. 
 
 We picked our way over a slimy street-crossing, 
 and at the other side Tristram exclaimed unex- 
 pectedly — "Cyrus, I'm beginning to think you 
 ought to be the Reform candidate. You could 
 carry this thing through." 
 
 "If I accepted the Reform platform — yes, per- 
 haps." This frank recognition of his own power 
 and equally genuine indifference to it were a part of 
 Cyrus's charm. 
 
 "What's wrong with the platform?" asked 
 Tristram, 
 
 " Its assumptions." 
 
 Surprised, I turned and looked at him, but held 
 my tongue. 
 
 " Assumptions? " queried Tristram. 
 
 " That the system, political and industrial, is all 
 
i8o THE CHILDRElsI OF LIGHT 
 
 right as it stands. That all you need is good men to 
 run it. How many good men has it swamped? " 
 
 " Cyrus! " I cried expectantly. 
 
 " Oh, no," he said to me, a hopeless, wistful sort 
 of smile in his eyes, " I haven't come round to 
 Socialism either; that doesn't follow. Socialism 
 puts the cart before the horse, you know. You'll 
 have to get your perfect man before you achieve your 
 perfect system. It is the heart that must be changed." 
 
 "I sighed; but Tristram laughed and said — 
 " Don't you see you're going round in a circle? " 
 
 *' Saying one minute that I won't stand for the 
 present system because it destroys the good man — 
 and the next minute that I won't stand for Socialism 
 because the bad man would destroy it? Oh, yes, 
 I see. But there's a loophole. We might first catch 
 our good man, and then give him carte blanche to 
 change the system." 
 
 " But the system makes the man," I protested. 
 " And the competitive system is making him a 
 Socialist; and he again is making Socialism; and 
 out of Socialism shall come a still better man, and 
 so on." 
 
 " God makes the man," said Cyrus, with his gentle 
 but inflexible obstinacy. 
 
 " Come, come, children, you mustn't quarrel on the 
 street," laughed Tristram. "It all depends upon 
 which came first — man or the system. Who can 
 teU? " 
 
 " God came first, Clara; we agree there," Cyrus 
 pleaded. 
 
 " But God may be the system," I suggested. And 
 Tristram laughed aloud. 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE i8i 
 
 " What is your nostrum for making a good man ? " 
 he asked Cyrus, after a moment. 
 
 And Cyrus said — " Repentance.*' 
 
 "To be followed by that course in spiritual 
 gymnastics entitled the Sermon on the Mount? " 
 
 " Exactly.'* Nothing could have been drier than 
 Cyrus's tone. 
 
 The group of settlement buildings loomed at the 
 end of the street. The crowd was all going our way 
 now, quietly, swiftly. 
 
 " And how will you get them to take their dose? " 
 Tristram continued lightly. 
 
 " By prayer," said Cyrus. " Yours and mine." 
 And he looked across me into Tristram's face. And 
 Tristram did not laugh again. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Cyrus had a key to the gate of the men's quad and 
 we slipped in there, leaving the crowd to go round to 
 the gymnasium door. This is the new part of the 
 settlement, the part that Nicholas Richards designed, 
 and we are all rather foolishly proud of it. The arts- 
 and-crafts shops, the boys' club house, the dispensary, 
 the music school, and the rooms of the men residents, 
 look out on the quadrangle. At the top of the dis- 
 pensary there is a loggia where occasional tubercular 
 patients sleep out while arrangements are being made 
 to send them to the tuberculosis camp; and there 
 is a roof garden for open-air concerts above the 
 music school. In summer the lace-makers and 
 spinners sit in the shady cloister that opens on three 
 sides of the court. As we made our way past the 
 
i82 THE CHILDREN' OF LIGHT 
 
 weaving-room we could hear the measured click and 
 thrust of the old women, taking their recreation at 
 their Giottesque looms within. Suddenly a chorus 
 of young voices began to sing a folk-song, something 
 barbaric and slow, Polish probably. There was a 
 not unpleasant suggestion of tobacco; in the middle 
 of the quad two of the men residents were smoking, 
 sitting on the edge of the ancient Roman sarcophagus 
 that was my Cousin Pauline's latest gift to the 
 settlement. 
 
 " That you, Emery? " said one of them. *' If my 
 young deUnquents have begun to gather inside, 
 would you mind singing out? " He was the proba- 
 tion officer in residence, and as four or five of his 
 charges were already standing round in the lower 
 hall of the boys' house as we passed through, Cyrus 
 obligingly went back to the court -yard door and 
 sang out. 
 
 In the main house, the old original settlement 
 house, now patched and enlarged beyond recognition, 
 we caught a glimpse, through a doorway, of the head 
 worker deep in conference with two labour men and 
 an officer of the Women's Trade Union League, and 
 were discreetly passing by; but she saw us, as she 
 sees everything and every one, and came to the door 
 to greet Tristram, to congratulate his party on his 
 nomination, and somehow to convey to him the im- 
 pression that his coming to the settlement at this 
 particular juncture was what one had a right to 
 expect from his penetration and devotion. — Yes, we 
 should find Helen in the gymnasium. 
 
 And there, at last, we found her, in the midst of a 
 group of pale, foreign-looking girls, whose burning 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 183 
 
 eyes followed her hungrily, adoringly, down the room 
 as she came to meet us. 
 
 " So Clara made you come? " she said to Tristram. 
 " To lend a hand?— Or maybe to stick in a finger? " 
 
 " Both," he retorted. " Dear me, how you grow, 
 down here! I haven't seen this place." 
 
 He looked around at the roomy hall, at the modem 
 athletic equipment, at the chattering, shifting groups 
 of stunted women. Up in the running track around 
 the gallery, a slim, dark boy, in the abbreviated 
 toggery beloved of sprinters, was training for some 
 future Marathon. He ran lightly, steadily, his lips 
 firm, his eyes dreaming. 
 
 " How Greek he is! " exclaimed Tristram. 
 
 " His name happens to be Aristides Philippopolis," 
 Helen answered. "Ah, there's Bertha!" and she 
 left us and hurried to the door at the bottom of the 
 hall, where Bertha Aarons stood, unbuttoning her 
 jacket. 
 
 " She might be a general estimating his strength 
 before a battle. Who is she? " Tristram asked. 
 
 And when I told him she was the girl who had 
 precipitated the strike, he laughed and said : — 
 
 "Good guess, wasn't it? I'd like to meet her." 
 
 He had to wait, however, for when we had made 
 our way to her through the crowding girls, and I had 
 touched her sleeve to get her attention, she said with- 
 out turning : — 
 
 " I told my life-story to six newspaper fellows 
 to-day already. Miss Emery. I ain't talking to any- 
 body but strikers now for an hour, if he wants to 
 listen." 
 
 " This is delicious," murmured Tristram, and for 
 
i84 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 the better part of an hour he did move about at her 
 elbow, attentive, solicitous, yet with an obedient air 
 of not wishing to hinder. I saw her give him a 
 puzzled glance occasionally. After a while I knew 
 that she was resisting an impulse to speak to him. 
 
 " I give him up,'' said Helen in my ear. " No man 
 who is so trivial about women can have any depth of 
 earnestness about other things." 
 
 " On the contrary, he thinks she can be useful to 
 him in his election," I explained, rebuke in my tone. 
 
 "Oh, that's why he's here ! " Helen fixed her eyes 
 on me. " Not just because you came? " 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't," I remonstrated. *' Cyrus 
 suggested his coming, to get at the situation." I 
 looked about for Cyrus, and saw him standing with 
 his back against the Swedish bars at the side of the 
 room, a little group of men and women around him. 
 Helen and I edged near enough to hear him explaining 
 to them in Italian that he did not believe in war and 
 therefore could not fight with them, or against them ; 
 but that in every modem war there were men and 
 women who followed the army to nurse the wounded, 
 and if they were willing, he would like to be one of 
 these. — There must be a committee for raising funds 
 for relief 
 
 Helen and I laughed into each other's eyes tenderly, 
 and a Russian tailor standing beside us asked— 
 " What does he say to them? " 
 
 I translated, and the man flashed upon me a look 
 of shrewd understanding. " Half a dozen of non- 
 combatants like that, and how soon we win out," he 
 said. 
 
 " Miss Baldwin ! " A girl was holding up her hand 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 185 
 
 to attract Helen's attention. " Here's all of us from 
 Blum & Markowsky's; we all come out to-night. 
 Does somebody take our names ? What is it we do ? " 
 "Miss Emery! — Miss Baldwin!" It was Bertha 
 Aarons, pushing towards us with Tristram following 
 close. " We are all right to listen now; I was wait- 
 ing for the crowd from Blum's. The Women's Trade 
 Union League organisers can get busy any time." 
 
 IV 
 
 Helen made a little speech of welcome; and the 
 man from the Central Labour body gave a brief 
 exposition of union principles; and I told them how 
 the Women's Trade Union League could, and would, 
 help them. Then Bertha Aarons took the floor, and 
 the audience sighed and fluttered expectantly. 
 
 " What a type! " said Tristram in my ear. " Like 
 molten steel at white heat." I saw what he meant; 
 the thick pallor, colourless, yet afire. " Oriental 
 eyes," he observed. " Curious, isn't it, the wrestle 
 of the fatalist with the enthusiast going on in eyes 
 like that?" 
 
 There was a sniff as of disapproval immediately 
 behind me, and turning I found Cuthbert looking 
 over my shoulder. 
 
 " Let me walk home with you," he said. " I've 
 got some great news." His eyes were unusually 
 bright; he seemed excited; but Bertha had begun 
 and I had no time to answer. 
 
 "Now, girls," she cried, "what's it all about? 
 Do you know? — What do we want? — What are we 
 making this kick for? — Is it the fines? — Is it 
 
i86 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 the cut downs? — Say! — Bernheimer's has a grouch 
 against their foreman ; is that why we are striking ? — 
 Markowsky's canvas basters used to be allowed to 
 take five stitches at a time, but now they get fined 
 if they take more than one stitch at a time; is that 
 why? — Is it because they make us buy our own 
 needles? — Say! Is it because Giuseppina Barboni 
 makes two-fifty a week working ten hours a day to 
 pull bastings and pad lapels of coats? — Well, I'll tell 
 you! All these things, they are why! Yes! But 
 if you want to say it in one word, this is it : We are 
 striking for the closed shop " 
 
 " Sure! — Yes! " cried half a dozen voices. 
 
 " We are striking for the recognition of the union; 
 and if we get that, we get everything. Now, that's 
 what you got to remember. — You girls that sews on 
 buttons, how do you feel to-night when you don't 
 be threading your needles till twelve, one o'clock, to 
 get ready for to-morrow's buttons? — Ain't it a 
 holiday? — Well, you just say with yourself — * If we 
 get the closed shop it will be Hke this every night.* — 
 Only it won't be a strike — that's the difference. — 
 If we get the closed shop, the boss can't say to me 
 to-day — ' You baste me twenty-four coats a day for 
 seven and a half cents a coat.' And then next week 
 again — ' If I pay you seven and a half cents for a 
 coat you have to baste me thirty-five coats a day.' 
 Oh, my God, what kind of a business is that! " 
 
 There was a low groaning throughout the haU. 
 The Greek boy in the gallery had stopped running 
 and was looking down over the raiUng curiously. 
 Behind me Cuthbert's pencil made little swift 
 whistling sounds and sudden jabs on his pad. He 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 187 
 
 was reporting the strike for The Torch, nothing else 
 would have induced him to spend an hour at the 
 settlement. 
 
 " Do I blame the foreman ? " Bertha cried. " He's 
 got to make a living out of it the same as you and me, 
 doesn't he? It's up to him to get the most work for 
 the lowest prices. If he gets mad and puts his fingers 
 in my throat to choke me when I threaten him to go 
 to the head of the firm — well — that ain't right; but 
 then, he don't want to get fired, does he? — And I 
 don't blame the boss — not very much. He's telling 
 me the truth when he says these competing firms 
 will squeeze him out if he don't cut down; — he's 
 teUing some of the truth. He's a hog, of course; he 
 wants all what he can goi) but he don't lie when he 
 says that the others squeeze him if they can. — No; 
 but where I blame is the system — that keeps the 
 means of production in the hands of capital, and 
 chains the workers in slavery." 
 
 There was a wild outburst of applause. 
 
 "Socialism — that's the talk!" shouted a man's 
 voice. 
 
 " You're right, comrade," called Bertha, above 
 the clapping. " But I forgot, I ain't going to talk 
 it to-night." 
 
 " Yes, yes — go ahead! " cried several voices. 
 
 "No!" Bertha's negative was smiling but 
 decided. "No; to-night I talk kindergarten talk; 
 I talk trade unionism." 
 
 " Hummer, isn't she? " chuckled Cuthbert amid the 
 laughter. 
 
 "Now look here!" she exclaimed, beating down 
 the good-natured clamour with her own heavy, rather 
 
i88 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 roughened voice. '* Now look here; don't you make 
 the mistake to think I jolly the trade unions. The 
 trade unions are the school where they make Socialists. 
 They are the best school we got. They train the 
 working class to stand together. They train the 
 working class to know they are a class. They train 
 the working class to know they are the ones to save 
 themselves; nobody else dies to save them. And 
 they are going to save themselves by standing 
 together. Now here's the difference — the way I see 
 it : trade unionists say — ' We going to save ourselves ;' 
 Socialists say — * We going to save the world.* That's 
 when you come out of the kindergarten into the high 
 school — into the imiversity." 
 
 Again there was loud clapping. I glanced at 
 Tristram. His critic's eyes were fixed with intel- 
 lectual pleasure upon Bertha ; and I saw her look at 
 him, and swiftly away again, as if against her will she 
 wanted to know what he thought of her. 
 
 " But to-night," she continued, " it don't matter 
 what else some of us are, we are all trade unionists. 
 If there is anybody here who is not, he better walk out 
 — because we don't have any use for him, nor for her. 
 If there is anybody here who don't believe in the union 
 and the closed shop, after all the talk this evening — 
 from the organisers of the trade unions and the 
 Women's Trade Union League — why, what is he here 
 for? He better go. Our picket ers, they will tackle 
 him to-morrow morning." 
 
 There was more laughter, but no one went out. 
 
 '' And now you have heard what Miss Baldwin said 
 about committees. That's the next thing. We got 
 to have a committee to raise funds, and to do the 
 
 X^ 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 189 
 
 clerical work, and to look up the girls that don't 
 turn up; and a committee on public meetings — and 
 grievances — and to confer with the employers when 
 they get good and ready to confer. — They will— 
 because we're going to stay out till they do." 
 
 She paused, and her hearers made no sound, but 
 every Hp was set. 
 
 " Now, there must be near five hundred packed in 
 here," she resumed. " And we don't know your 
 names, except a few ; but will you give them to Miss 
 Emery and Miss Baldwin and me; and Mr. Samson 
 said he would be here to take the men's names " 
 
 " He's detained," Cuthbert called over my shoulder, 
 " he'll try to come later." 
 
 " I'll take the names for him," said Cyrus. 
 
 "That's right! Everybody knows Mr. Cyrus 
 Emery; he takes the men's names for committees. 
 Say what you are willing to do. And for pickets now : 
 I want all the very Uttle, weak girls; all the little 
 girls that ought to be under sixteen, but of course 
 they ain't." 
 
 She smiled sarcastically and other people laughed. 
 " And you walk with your hands in your pockets, 
 or behind your back. You don't touch anybody with 
 your little finger. You don't stand in front of any- 
 body; you don't blow your breath on them, because 
 it might knock them down and then they can have 
 you for assault. You just walk with them and talk 
 very quiet. All the girls that will picket, go in the 
 gymnasium office over there and wait for me. I'll 
 tell you what you must say to the scabs. I'U tell 
 you all the things you must say. — And now, let's get 
 busy. The strike's on. We're five hundred already. 
 
igo THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 To-morrow we'll be a thousand — the next day two 
 thousand, the next day six. There's over forty 
 thousand garment workers in this town, and in ten 
 days we'll have them all out — and out to w^in! " 
 
 A great wave of applause shook the hall, and Bertha 
 came down from the low platform and made her way 
 to us through crowds of radiant faces, and hands that 
 struggled to touch her as she passed. 
 
 " It was masterly, Miss Aarons," said Tristram. 
 " I hope I may do as well when my time comes." 
 
 " AU but that about the kindergarten," Bertha 
 replied, looking at me. " Miss Emery thinks I put 
 my foot in it there. I saw her face w^hen I said it." 
 
 "I was afraid — it wasn't quite discreet," I 
 stammered apologetically. 
 
 *' I ain't discreet. That's where I fall down ever>^ 
 time," Bertha admitted. " If I don't do something 
 to queer this whole show before I'm done, you can 
 call me a miracle. — But it's you newspaper men that 
 make the mischief," she added. "I'm not afraid of 
 Comrade Sylvester here. The Torch is with the 
 union in this fight. But how do I know " — she faced 
 Tristram half defiantly — "what your high -class 
 periodical will say about us ? What is your high-class 
 periodical anyhow? " 
 
 Tristram with becoming meekness gave the name 
 of his great weekly, and — she had never heard of it. 
 
 " A new ten-center? " she inquired, and then — 
 " How can I keep the run of all the fashion 
 magazines? " Her eye travelled up and down 
 Tristram's subdued elegance; he was wearing a dinner 
 jacket and had kept on his Ught overcoat. 
 
 " This is Mr. Lawrence," said I, " Miss Aarons." 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 191 
 
 " Lawrence? " said Bertha, studying him seriously 
 now. *' You mean — Lawrence ? — Mr. Tristram 
 Lawrence? " — and Tristram bowed. For a moment 
 she looked at him in silence. Then she said — " You 
 know, there might be a chance for you, this election, 
 if you would stand for the closed shop. But of course 
 you don't believe in it — you're a Reformer." 
 
 ''You think I am too old to be converted?** 
 smiled Tristram. " Who knows, perhaps I am not 
 even impervious to the appeal of Socialism? " He 
 waited, the smile of challenge on his lips. 
 
 " Well, first, I must talk to those pickets," said 
 Bertha, turning abruptly away. 
 
 " And then? " he suggested, following her. — " And 
 then?" 
 
 " While I take the names of these girls who are 
 willing to serve on the grievance committee," I said 
 to Cuthbert, " you go and tell Cyrus that you will 
 see me home." 
 
 But after I had said it I was almost sorry, he looked 
 at me so strangely. 
 
 I am in a quandary about the autobiography. 
 
 I had not thought of it as a record of personal 
 emotions. Robert Owen was my inspiration, not 
 Rousseau; and the impulse toward self -revelation, 
 so compelling in people like Marie Bashkirtseff, is 
 quite alien to me — at least, so I supposed. Even 
 apart from the question of good taste, I would rather 
 keep certain things to myself; and as far as my 
 experience goes, the woman who wouldn't is the 
 exception, not the rule. When I was still a little 
 
192 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 girl, Esther Summerson's story in Bleak House 
 offended my embryonic instinct for literary values; 
 it seemed to me so impossible that a real daughter 
 could have brought herself to write that description 
 of Lady Dedlock's death. And I remember scoring 
 Jane Eyre unmercifully in a college theme, when I 
 was a Sophomore, because of her lack of reticence 
 in recording her sentiments for Rochester. 
 
 But Nemesis is upon me. In going over my notes 
 and journals, to refresh my memory of that walk 
 home with Cuthbert, I have been startled to find 
 how important a role personal emotion has played in 
 this stormy Httle social drama of ours. I had thought 
 that the dramatic forces were the Strike, the Election, 
 and our SociaHst Newspaper; yet, if I leave out 
 certain episodes and conversations, irrelevant enough 
 on the surface, I cannot seem to make the crises 
 inteUigible. I have tried. But if I put those episodes 
 and conversations in, I remind myself so inevitably 
 of Mavis Clare in that book of Marie Corelli's where 
 even the devil falls in love with her. And that would 
 be giving my great-grandchildren such a wrong im- 
 pression, for I am not really the sort of woman with 
 whom men fall in love easily; not magnetic, not 
 elusive, not provocative in any way; not like Helen, 
 for example, whom men propose to within a week 
 after they have met her — who has had three times as 
 many lovers as I have (even counting all those as 
 lovers who have asked me to marry them) and never 
 needs to question their motives, since she is her only 
 attraction. — But if it is indelicate of me to mention 
 my own love affairs in my autobiography, how much 
 more so to speak of Helen's ! 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 193 
 
 I wrote Lucian that I thought I would tear up the 
 whole thing; but to-day his letter has come, and he 
 is so grieved. He asks me if the conversations that 
 I shrink from including are more intimate than some 
 of the poems he has printed. Perhaps not; it is hard 
 to say. A different criterion of reticence applies to 
 poems. He instances Tolstoy, whose books are one 
 long, continuous, intimate revelation of himself. He 
 reminds me of the autobiographical element in 
 Dickens, in Thackeray, in George Eliot. He is the 
 artist; his point of view is inevitable. He brushes 
 aside my scruples as to involving other people, by 
 again suggesting a change of names. So many strikes 
 have happened, in so many cities, he pleads; and as 
 for a Socialist paper in hot water, or a Reform candi- 
 date maligned, what is there distinctive about that? 
 
 Concerning Cuthbert, Lucian could not be more 
 generous. He seems to Uke him and understand him 
 better since he has had to forgive him so much. He 
 feels that I ought not to be squeamish about repeating 
 anything that helps to explain or excuse the ugly 
 thing that Cuthbert did. But I wonder if he would 
 feel so in Cuthbert's place. And I wonder if I 
 exaggerate my own importance in the affair; or if 
 Cuthbert himself realises why he did it. But no; 
 he is not Ukely to go very deep down into that poor 
 sore heart of his for motives. 
 
 Why I should feel less delicacy in regard to the 
 things that Tristram said to me, I don't quite know, 
 except that they were so deliberate. I want to be 
 generous to Tristram. He was, of course, the injured 
 party, and he insisted that he did not want to 
 prosecute. I ought to be able to forgive him if 
 
 N 
 
194 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 Lucian can. But could he ever forgive me if he read 
 the autobiography? 
 
 And all the while I know that these scruples of 
 mine are concerned very little with the fear of giving 
 my great-grandchildren, or other readers less remote, 
 a wrong impression of Cuthbert and Tristram, and 
 very much with a desire to give them a right im- 
 pression of me. Surely, any one must see that neither 
 the hulking passion of a penniless country boy, nor 
 the cold financial amorousness of an ambitious man 
 in middle life, is the sort of homage that a woman 
 wiUingly dwells on when she is writing her memoirs. 
 
 Perhaps we shall keep the autobiography until we 
 are seventy-five. In that event I think I could bring 
 myself to finish it now. I am afraid I only want an 
 excuse. It has been a part of me so many years — 
 and I always finish things. 
 
 VI 
 
 I am always rather silly about the settlement, it 
 is such a pretty plaything — my doll's house, Helen 
 caUs it — and on our way out I could not resist taking 
 Cuthbert through the httle new theatre, where an 
 impassioned rehearsal of Yeats' s Kathleen na Hoolihan 
 was going forward. I ought to have known better, 
 for Cuthbert's attitude towards all settlements is, of 
 course, immovably Marxian. Anything that aims 
 to improve the conditions of the working people and 
 tends to make them contented under the present 
 economic system, he distrusts. Anything financed 
 by the bourgeois capitahst as a philanthropic measure, 
 he hates. As a matter of fact, we who have lived 
 
 ^^ 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 195 
 
 in them know that settlements do not improve the 
 conditions of the working people; indeed, that they 
 cannot improve those conditions. We know also 
 that instead of tending to make the poor man con- 
 tented, this sort of patching which is all — in the way 
 of relief — that settlements accomplish, only serves 
 to aggravate his discontent with the economic system 
 fraying and puckering around the patch. It is 
 because I beheve that settlements are one of the 
 indirect ways of making working people into Socialists 
 that I still keep my connection with Helen's settle- 
 ment; it is also because I see that the educative 
 reaction of a philanthropic measure is not confined 
 to the technical benificiaries; the settlement resident 
 and the bourgeois capitalist invariably acquire some- 
 thing more than merit. Helen, although she re- 
 pudiates Socialism as a system, is always getting me 
 to sign my name to some new reform measure along 
 socialistic lines, to be pressed at the state capitol. 
 
 But it is useless to say all this to Cuthbert, who 
 moves in the realm of theory only; and why I 
 allowed myself to argue with him, vehemently, for 
 six blocks, I do not know. We ended, as always, by 
 caUing each other names. 
 
 " You are a doctrinaire," I taunted, ** and of 
 course you are obliged to ignore any facts that don't 
 square with your theory." 
 
 " Well, I would rather be a doctrinaire than an 
 opportunist or a mush of sentiment," he snapped. 
 And at this point our exchange of amenities was 
 interrupted by Lazarus Samson, who came hurrying 
 across the street to ask if our meeting was over. 
 
 " She's there," said Cuthbert, " but if you don't 
 
196 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 want the new Reform candidate to cut you out, you'd 
 better hustle." 
 
 '* What did she say to our Socialist candidate? '* 
 Lazarus asked; and there was some special meaning 
 in his smile. 
 
 " I didn't get a chance to tell her," Cuthbert 
 answered, flushing. 
 
 " Socialist candidate? " I asked, as we walked on. 
 " I didn't know you were putting up one for this 
 election." 
 
 " The strike changes the look of things, you know," 
 Cuthbert explained. " It's sure to increase our vote, 
 so we thought we'd have a try. We nominated 
 to-night before I came to the settlement." The 
 queer, excited look was shining again in those bright, 
 wide-open eyes of his. 
 
 " Whom did you nominate? " I was beginning to 
 feel a little excited myself. 
 
 " I'll give you three guesses." 
 
 And I immediately guessed Lucian. 
 
 "What do you take us for? " Cuthbert snorted. 
 *' You don't suppose he represents the party, do you ? " 
 
 " Then it is Uncle Lew, I hope.'* 
 
 But no, it was not Uncle Lew. *' He says him- 
 self he's not a leader, you know." There was a note 
 of discomfiture in Cuthbert's usually crisp voice. 
 
 *' Oh, Lazarus Samson, of course! " 
 
 With head sunk between his shoulders, Cuthbert 
 gloomed at the pavement. He had never outgrown 
 the country boy's slouching stride, and he lifted his 
 feet as heavily in city streets as if he were walking 
 over a ploughed field. Apparently, somehow, I had 
 managed to hurt his feelings. 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 197 
 
 "Who is it, then? — Oh! — Cuthbert! — Is it 
 you? " 
 
 Still he would not look at me; but he said, " Well, 
 why not? " with a defiant outward thrust of his chin. 
 
 " How stupid of me! " I cried remorsefully. " I 
 ought to have known it was you — from the way you 
 looked." 
 
 '* But you never do know," he answered. " My 
 looks never mean anything to you." 
 
 " Oh, Cuthbert! — when Tm trying to tell you how 
 glad I am!" 
 
 "You needn't trouble!" 
 
 " Very well, I won't." 
 
 We walked half a block in silence. Then, because 
 after all it was my fault that his feelings were hurt, I 
 relented, and spoke first. 
 
 " Do you remember that first day you took me up 
 the mountain, Cuthbert, how you said, * If ever I'm 
 governor of the state? ' — and now you're candidate 
 for mayor." 
 
 " Well, I'm not such a fool as to think I'm going to 
 be mayor," he replied, still ungracious. 
 
 "No, I suppose not," I agreed. " And I'm afraid 
 that's my fault, too." 
 
 " Your fault ? " He looked at me now, grudgingly. 
 
 " It's because you met me that day that you're a 
 SociaUst, I suppose." 
 
 He considered a moment before he said, as if the 
 idea were new to him — " I suppose it is." 
 
 " Do you remember how you said you were going 
 to be the richest man in the world, like my Uncle 
 Jesse, and buy things, and own them ? " 
 
 "Did I? "he said. 
 
198 THE CHILDRElNl OF LIGHT 
 
 " And you would like to be rich, even now, 
 Cuthbert/' 
 
 "Naturally; who wouldn't! That's why I'm for 
 Sociahsm. Is there any other way for a man like me 
 to come out on top, nowadays? " 
 
 " I know — Marx says it is becoming less and less 
 possible. But if you had never read Marx, you 
 might have tried the other way. You might even 
 have been one of the exceptions to the rule — and 
 have succeeded." 
 
 " I know," he acquiesced. " But when a man gets 
 his red card, when he joins the Socialist Party — well, 
 I'd rather never come out on top than come there 
 your Uncle Jesse's, way — that's all." 
 
 '' Then it isn't wholly self-interest " 
 
 He turned on me with impatience and disgust. 
 " Why not? — What else? The thing that helps my 
 class is the thing that will help me in the long run. 
 Enlightened self-interest; nothing more." 
 
 " So really we look at life just as differently to-day 
 as we did on the mountains years ago." 
 
 " Why do you say that to-night? " he cried. " Is 
 this the way you try to make me feel how glad 
 you are that I have the nomination? " I would 
 have protested, but without waiting he went on — 
 "Aren't we fighting for the same end? — Where's 
 the separation? — You don't think just as C3n:us does, 
 or Lucian — he's no more Christian than I am." 
 
 " You are mistaken." 
 
 " I am not mistaken. Look at that last editorial 
 of his against the Church " 
 
 " It was intensely Christian, Cuthbert. How dull 
 you are! " 
 
 U'TO'; 
 
THE SMOKING FUSE 199 
 
 " I am not so dull but that I know that if he wanted 
 what I want, you'd give it " 
 
 For a moment everything swam red; the bridge 
 lights shot all ways at once, dizzily. I had a horrid 
 fear that I had struck him, the impulse was so intense 
 and swift; but the habit of self-control does count 
 for something in a crisis. 
 
 " From a gentleman, your words would be an 
 insult," I remarked. " But I have never mistaken 
 you for a gentleman. Do not come with me any 
 farther; I prefer to go home alone." 
 
 "Oh, Clara — forgive me!" he groaned. Little 
 beads of moisture had started out upon his sullen, 
 frightened face. But I turned my eyes away and 
 quickened my steps. 
 
 "It is because you starve me that I say these 
 things," he pleaded, keeping beside me. 
 
 " Cuthbert," I said, still with my eyes fixed ahead, 
 " I will not be looked at as you are looking at me." 
 
 He turned his head and doggedly fell into step 
 with me; and for more than half the River Way we 
 kept silence. Then, his misery began to soften me, 
 as he had doubtless hoped it might, and I said, trying 
 not to be sententious: — 
 
 " The thing that separates me from my cousins is, 
 in the one case an intellectual, in the other an ethical 
 conception; the thing that separates me, and them, 
 from you, is a spiritual attitude. I know, and you 
 know, too, that Lucian and I are not Sociahsts from 
 self-interest, Cuthbert. Self-interest would range 
 us on the capitaHst side in this class war. Neither 
 can you accuse us of fatalism — of coming over because 
 we think the outcome is inevitable and we want to 
 
200 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 be on the side that wins. You know that Lucian and 
 I wanted the socialisation of property long before 
 we were wiUing to accept the materialistic inter- 
 pretation of history. And as for Cyrus — self- 
 interest? " 
 
 "No; I never said that," murmured Cuthbert, 
 his chin on his breast. 
 
 I waited a moment, gripping my courage — then — 
 
 " But even though we look at life so differently — 
 even though our spirits are so far apart, I know that 
 if I felt for you what you feel for me " — his haggard 
 eyes turned to me again — " there might come a 
 moment of — of — passion — when we should defy that 
 spiritual barrier. — But after that there would be 
 tragedy. One sees it every day." 
 
 *' Then this is not tragedy, you think? " 
 
 What could I say? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ILLUMINATION 
 I 
 
 At the end of October, when the strikers had begun 
 to show the strain, we got out a strike edition of 
 The Torch. I have a copy of it here beside me as I 
 write — with the picture of Bertha Aarons on the 
 cover, and Lazarus Samson's threatening forecast 
 of the general strike and exposition of syndicaUsm 
 leading the editorials, and Lucian's Plea to the 
 Comsumer, those ironical verses that begin: — 
 
 "Who hath garments, let him strow them in the way," 
 
 printed in red across the middle page. 
 
 Although little more than two months old. The 
 Torch had already made good. Not financially, of 
 course; the weekly deficit showed a tendency to 
 increase according to the laws of geometrical pro- 
 gression; but that we had expected. What we cared 
 about was the fact that everybody read it. The 
 news-stands clamoured for it after the first three 
 weeks, and Sociahst locals all over the country sent 
 in subscriptions. The city dailies made copy for a 
 few days out of, " The Young Millionaires* New Toy," 
 "The Way to Sow Sociahst Wild Oats," "An 
 Amusing Attempt at Utopian JoumaHsm," and 
 called us The Pink ' Un and The Safety Lamp. One 
 
 201 
 
202 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 of the more recondite, pursuing the historic method, 
 furnished its readers with a hst of reform periodicals, 
 no one of which had survived its third number. By 
 the end of September, however, the press was pre- 
 serving a discreet silence concerning us; and in 
 October the gist of one of our reviews, of an im- 
 portant ItaUan book on degeneracy and crime, was 
 quoted with favourable comment in a magazine that 
 makes a business of summarising current thought. 
 
 The strike, of course, increased our circulation; 
 and also threatened to swamp us with copy. Lucian 
 was for reorganising at once and becoming a daily. 
 He had Cuthbert on his side; and for a day Lazarus 
 Samson wavered, but his instinct for caution pre- 
 vailed, and when we took the vote he went with 
 Uncle Lew and me. We all agreed, however, that 
 the strike issue must be an extra. 
 
 We none of us had much time to spare for food 
 and sleep, that week, and I was at the office every 
 night till after twelve, sifting and arranging the 
 material that came pouring in for my department. 
 It was hke dwelling in the Cave of Rumour; the air 
 we breathed was a perpetual whispering. The 
 stately old house that sheltered The Torch was filled 
 with evil report. Not in the offices of the staff only, 
 but in the subscription department, the advertising 
 department, the press room — scandals, political, in- 
 dustrial, domestic, teazed for print. They lay in 
 wait for me on the wide mahogany staircase. I could 
 almost hear them through my thick office door, of 
 a morning, as they clamoured in the letters on my 
 desk; I used to dread opening that slow old 
 door. 
 
ILLUMINATION 203 
 
 The others enjoyed them more than I did, and 
 were in a state of continuous regret over the things 
 we dared not pubUsh. Men are hardier than women, 
 in some ways. They like the fight for the fight's 
 sake, and I wonder if we ever do. I was always 
 saying '* Don't!" In their different ways I think 
 they were all a bit restive under what they good- 
 naturedly dubbed "my feminine influence;" but 
 they invariably brought me their copy for comment 
 before they sent it up to the printers. It was very 
 nice of them. 
 
 I remember, the day before the strike edition went 
 to press, Lucian came into my office with an editorial 
 on the campaign methods of the machine; and 
 together we were trying to veil some of his utterances 
 and convey to the public in non-libellous language 
 the undoubted, but as yet unprovable, information 
 that the machine candidate, who posed as the work- 
 ing man's friend, was drawing campaign funds from 
 the tills of certain sweating manufacturers. We had 
 been drawn by the incident into our old quarrel over 
 Socialist Party tactics, and I was trying to maintain 
 that to keep a third candidate in the field at this 
 juncture was immoral since it could only split the Re- 
 form vote and make the machine's victory inevitable. 
 But Lucian would persist in making the issue personal, 
 and harping on my interest in the particular reformer 
 in question. It was unworthy of him — unlike him; 
 but I was trying hard to keep my temper, when the 
 boy brought me Tristram Lawrence's card. 
 
 Lucian swept up his copy rather huffily. 
 
 " Don't go! " I said. " It must be business. He 
 wouldn't come here to make a social call." 
 
204 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " Business, no doubt," he replied, " but evidently 
 not with me." 
 
 At the door he looked back. " You know he is 
 trying to make a fool of Bertha Aarons? " 
 
 "No, I don't know; but probably she does — if 
 he is. Why make irrelevant remarks? " 
 
 " I never do." 
 
 " Then I must be stupid." 
 
 " Well, don't be stupid the next half hour, that's 
 aUl" 
 
 II 
 
 Tristram's greeting was disconcerting. 
 
 " If you will not stay at home to be called upon 
 properly," he said, " what can I do? " 
 
 I stared. 
 
 "Is it a great liberty?" His eyes hovered 
 amusedly over me. I felt as if I were a little girl 
 playing editor. 
 
 " I should suppose you had work of your own to 
 do, this time of day," I replied. 
 
 " And what is work? " He laid his arm along my 
 desk and leaned toward me, smiling. "Work? — 
 Isn't it a striving after the thing we want? " 
 
 I shook my head. " No — the thing we need." 
 
 The involuntary flash of appreciation in his eyes 
 flattered me more than their superfluity of tenderness. 
 
 " You have a genius for the inevitable word," he 
 said. " Need; yes. And I called on you yesterday 
 at five, and the day before at half -past eight. Do 
 you ever look in the card bowl on your hall table? " 
 
 It was on the tip of my tongue to say, " Your need 
 
ILLUMINATION 205 
 
 must be very great; " but I had a second thought, in 
 time. " The Reform candidate evidently thinks I 
 can be of service to him," I mocked, instead. 
 
 "Oh, the Reform candidate!" He shrugged. 
 " Perhaps I want to be mayor — I'm not so sure. 
 Do you think I need to be mayor? " 
 
 " For the city's sake? " I suggested. 
 
 " If I thought you really thought so " — his hand 
 moved a bit farther toward me, along the desk. 
 
 '* You don't think I want the machine, I hope." 
 
 " You don't? — I thought that if you were a real 
 bright red Socialist you had to want the machine — 
 if you couldn't have your own candidate. I thought 
 you had to want the worst thing in sight, for its 
 educational effect on the community. I gathered so 
 much from The Torch." 
 
 " Theoretically, you do," I admitted. 
 
 " But — practically — you think — I might make a 
 fairly decent mayor — Clara — you think I might? " 
 
 "Of course!" 
 
 But my matter-of-fact tone failed of its effect. 
 
 *' You know, my party think I'm more than half a 
 Socialist already," he continued lightly. " They're 
 quite uneasy about me." 
 
 " They needn't be," I taunted, laughing. 
 
 "No; they needn't. But it is quite possible that 
 if I come in, I shall be able — and willing — to push 
 measures as Socialistic as any your young Sylvester 
 would introduce." 
 
 " Yes; I've observed you stealing his thunder." 
 
 "The traction matter; and the city gas? — Well, 
 I mean it." 
 
 " Mean it ! " said I. " What a strange afiirmation. 
 
2o6 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 Are you making other promises that you don't 
 mean? " 
 
 " On the contrary," he answered with some heat, 
 *' I am making no promises which I do not see my 
 way clear to carrying out. Sylvester would be wiser 
 if he followed a similar poHcy." 
 
 " Still, as neither of you is likely to get a chance/* 
 I teased. 
 
 " I am not so much of an opportunist as that 
 comes to, however." 
 
 I flushed at his implication, and for a moment 
 there was silence. He drew a careful line along the 
 edge of the desk with my paper cutter before he 
 said: — 
 
 " If the Socialists want to give a practical demon- 
 stration of the power of co-operation — there is a 
 chance for me." 
 
 I had nothing to say to this. 
 
 '* Clara," he touched my fingers softly with the 
 paper cutter. " Do you think Cuthbert Sylvester 
 would make a better mayor than I? " 
 
 "No; how absurd!" 
 
 " You would rather see me mayor than either of 
 those other two? " 
 
 " If it were a question of the individual — yes." 
 
 " But isn't it a question of the individual? 
 Suppose — the impossible — that my party could be 
 brought to consider a merger with the Sociahsts, and 
 I should step down in favour of their candidate — 
 would you agree to it? " 
 
 " I am afraid not," I faltered. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " You know why. Because I care for the cause 
 
ILLUMINATION 207 
 
 more than I do for the individual. Because Cuth- 
 bert is too ignorant, too inexperienced, too young. 
 As its representative he could not fail, just now, to 
 do SociaHsm more harm than good." 
 
 " And you think I should harm the cause also — 
 by advocating municipal gas, municipal traction, 
 municipal luncheons for school children? " 
 
 " Cuthbert and Lazarus Samson would think so. 
 They would say you were hindering — setting back 
 Socialism — by making the people too comfortable; 
 putting them to sleep so the spoilers might have a 
 freer field." 
 
 "But you?" 
 
 " I suppose I am still something of a Fabian." 
 
 " Then if you think my election would really 
 further Socialism — oughtn't you to want to help me?" 
 
 " Help you? " I drew my hand away from the 
 encroaching paper cutter. "How? " 
 
 The keen eyes quizzed. " Why — as Cyrus would 
 say — ^with your prayers." 
 
 And suddenly he had my hand, fast under his; and 
 the mockery had melted out of his eyes, out of his 
 voice; and he was saying : — 
 
 " Child — I've waited years. Don't you know, 
 yet, how you can help me? Don't you know what 
 the one thing is that can make success worth while 
 for me, or failure a triumph? Don't you know? — 
 Dear, is it never going to be a question of the 
 individual? — Never — never? " 
 
 One thinks of queer things at such times. I 
 thought of that evening in the hay-field, long ago; 
 and how Lucian's wet cheek pressing against mine 
 had comforted me. The faint tapping of the type- 
 
2o8 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 writer in the inner office stopped. My stenographer 
 was in the habit of coming in without knocking. I 
 pulled my hand away and the girl put her head in 
 the door and said : — 
 
 *' Miss Aarons; coming up.** 
 
 And as she said it, Bertha's knock came. 
 
 *Xome!" I called; and to him, smiling, "It will 
 depend upon the individual." 
 
 " They said come right up," Bertha explained, 
 " but I wiU wait." 
 
 " Oh, no! " I reassmred her. " Mr. Lawrence had 
 just finished." 
 
 We were all three standing, and Tristram with an 
 acquiescent smile gave his chair to Bertha; then, to 
 my surprise, he drew up another for himself. I waited 
 a suggestive moment, still standing, and he too, 
 stood, of course. The dismissal direct is editorial 
 prerogative — but I sat down. 
 
 "If my constituents could see me now!" he 
 exclaimed gleefully, planting his chair opposite 
 Bertha and me, with assumed bravado. " I am 
 afraid they would cancel the nomination." 
 
 Bertha laughed. " I will write them they don't 
 have to worry. You are grinding the axes all 
 right." 
 
 " Did I have an axe to grind? " Tristram appealed 
 to me. 
 
 But Bertha answered — " Maybe they are scissors. 
 The closed shop and the Reform ticket — those two 
 sharp edges. Screw them together — snip, snip — 
 how sharp they cut ! " 
 
 She sliced the air with two fingers, perilously near 
 his nose. 
 
ILLUMINATION 209 
 
 " But if they cut me? " His suggestion was 
 mournful. 
 
 " Oh, if you are clumsy ! " she retorted. And then, 
 meeting his eyes steadily — " It don't matter to me 
 what happens to you if we win this strike." 
 
 His amused face said that he didn't beheve her. 
 " I am sufficiently flattered that you care to use me 
 for your impersonal ends," he repHed. 
 
 " Well, to be used that way don't flatter me." 
 Again her eyes braved his. " But I stand it because 
 I want to win." 
 
 The inference was not to be mistaken; and there 
 was a pause before he said, at his gentlest: — 
 
 " You know, I want you to win." 
 
 "You hear that. Miss Emery?" Bertha cried. 
 *' There's copy for The Torch. ' The Reform 
 candidate commits himself before witnesses.' Ain't 
 that how you say it in headlines? " 
 
 He laughed, but I thought he looked a bit startled. 
 
 " Well, you know what you can do to help, if you 
 mean what you say," Bertha continued. " You can 
 make that philanthropic department store friend of 
 yours demand the union label on all his ready-made 
 suits." 
 
 The banter dropped from Tristram's tone. " I 
 have been turning that over in my mind since you 
 suggested it yesterday," he said. 
 
 " Keep on turning till it is done brown," urged 
 Bertha. 
 
 " It would not necessarily commit him to the 
 closed shop, to ask for the label on his goods." 
 
 " If he likes to think it wouldn't, why — I don't 
 care." There was a hint of contempt in the comers 
 
 o 
 
210 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 of Bertha's long mouth. "If he forces it on the 
 manufacturer, that's what I'm after." 
 
 " Suppose I see what I can do." He turned to me 
 now. '* The union label stands for good conditions 
 and fair wages, as I understand it " 
 
 "Hold that thought!" Bertha broke in. "And 
 hypnotise your philanthropic merchant with it. If 
 you get him, the other stores will follow." 
 
 "You don't think I'll get him? " Tristram said 
 to me. 
 
 " He's been a philanthropist longer than you have," 
 I answered. " He knows aU that the union label 
 connotes. You may get him because he is really 
 tender-hearted, and because the sympathy of the 
 pubHc is going with the strikers just now, and to side 
 with them against the manufacturers might be good 
 business policy — though I doubt it. You may get 
 him because the Sociahsts are pressing for a general 
 sympathetic strike of all industries. But you won't 
 hoodwink him." 
 
 "You think I would try to hoodwink him?" 
 Was it real chagrin, I wondered. 
 
 Bertha did not interrupt, this time, and I said, " All 
 is fair?" 
 
 " Then come to limch with me, both of you, and 
 help me plan my attack. I am, as you hint, a babe 
 in philanthropy; I need guidance." 
 
 He stood up and looked at us expectantly. 
 
 " If your constituents would be troubled to find 
 you here," I suggested, " might they not be stiU more 
 anxious if we lunched with you? " 
 
 "Oh, no! Guileless openness always disarms 
 suspicion." He stooped for his hat. 
 
ILLUMINATION 211 
 
 " You don*t need any lessons in hoodwinking," I 
 laughed. " My lunch is always sent in, the day we 
 go to press, thank you." 
 
 Bertha too had risen. 
 
 " Then you didn't want to see me about anything 
 special? " I asked. 
 
 " Look at me forgetting! " she exclaimed, flushing; 
 and laid on my desk another and more damaging 
 version of the relations between the machine candidate 
 and the sweating manufacturers. 
 
 " Yes; we have this," I said. " We risk some- 
 thing, printing it — but still " 
 
 ** Why — a libel would boom The Torch," she cried, 
 " and the strike, and the Socialist campaign." 
 
 " It would depend on the libel," I demurred. 
 " But this might — that's why I agreed to put it in." 
 
 " For the real fighting spirit, commend me to 
 women! " Tristram murmured. He was holding the 
 door open for Bertha; and as they went down the 
 hall together I heard him say: — "So you're not 
 afraid to lunch with me? " 
 
 " It's you that take the risk, to be seen with me," 
 she answered. " They know I wiU work you for the 
 strike if I can. But what can you work me for? 
 I don't have a vote." 
 
 Suppose, after all these cautious, fastidious years 
 he were to fall in love with a girl who had no money 
 — a working girl? How good for him it would be! 
 But would it be good for her? I wished, uneasily, 
 that I had gone to lunch with them. 
 
212 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 III 
 
 Two hours afterward, when I was munching a 
 belated sandwich and blue pencilling copy for the 
 importunate printers' boy, the house telephone 
 buzzed, and Lucian's voice said — " Mother is here." 
 
 I recognised the appeal. 
 
 ** Wouldn't she like to come up to me, in about 
 five minutes? " I suggested. 
 
 " If you could come down, Clara ? — The marchese 
 is here also. — It's about Cyrus." 
 
 " We have the staff meeting at four-thirty." 
 
 " I know." 
 
 "Cyrus isn't there?" 
 
 " No; but he's coming in for the meeting, to give 
 us some statistics on the amount of strikers' reUef 
 necessary." 
 
 " Wouldn't it expedite matters to have him drop 
 in earlier? " 
 
 " It might." 
 
 So I rang up Helen at the settlement. She could 
 usually be counted on to know where Cyrus was. 
 And he was there, with her, she said. There was 
 something queer about her voice. No; he was not 
 in that room — ^in the next. 
 
 " Helen, is anything the matter? " I asked. 
 
 "Matter?" 
 
 " You soimd — I don't know — offended; secretive." 
 
 *' Perhaps you've done me an injury and your 
 conscience is guilty," she replied. " I don't know 
 what else it can be. Shall I call Cyrus? " 
 
ILLUMINATION 213 
 
 "No; if you'll just tell him not to wait till four- 
 thirty. We'd be glad to have him come along now, 
 if he can." 
 
 " You know," she said hesitatingly, " what he 
 wants to do ? " 
 
 "No; I've hardly seen him this week, we've been 
 so rushed at the office." 
 
 I waited a moment, and as I added, " Good-bye," 
 her reluctant voice said — " Don't hinder him, Clara ! " 
 
 I asked what she meant, but she had evidently 
 hung up the receiver. 
 
 In Lucian's office the marchese was standing at 
 gaze, thirstily, before a large photograph on glass, of 
 Mont Blanc from Courmayeur, which Lucian kept 
 hanging in the window. My Cousin Pauline flitted 
 about, a-tremble, like a moth. Lucian was signing 
 letters for which his secretary waited. 
 
 " Clara, darling, I am being a bother as usual." 
 My Cousin Pauline kissed me daintily. " Lucian is 
 being his most patient." She made a mischievous 
 grimace at her son, who said : — 
 
 " That's all for now. Miss Merrill," to the secretary 
 — and we were left en famille. 
 
 *' Perhaps Clara knows all about it? " My Cousin 
 Pauline's voice was wistful. " I am usually the last 
 one in whom he confides." 
 
 It pleased her to find that I knew nothing. Cyrus 
 had a queer dread of being influenced in his decisions 
 by his affections. 
 
 " Is it the Anglican Benedictines? " I asked, " or 
 Rome? " 
 
 " Per Dio! Does he consider Rome? " exclaimed 
 the marchese, roused from his contemplation of Mont 
 
214 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 Blanc. " They wiU strip him cleatn if they get him. 
 We must not aUow that." 
 
 *' If we only knew," my Cousin Pauline mourned. 
 " All he will say is that he wants to disappear. I 
 don*t know what he means. Disappear? " 
 
 " He is very Tolstoyan, you know," said Lucian. 
 
 " But even Tolstoy considers his family," she 
 complained. " Lucian, if I had been a selfish woman, 
 your hfe would be very different." 
 
 Lucian laughed, and kissed her. 
 
 " Do I claim my children for myself? Amolfo 
 knows what I suffer in these separations." 
 
 The marchese turned back to the snows of Mont 
 Blanc. 
 
 " If I were a worldly mother, it might be better 
 for all of us. I never told you of Prince Pazzini's 
 overtures, Lucian — his youngest daughter — you 
 remember " 
 
 " I*m glad you haven't," Lucian interrupted 
 hastily. 
 
 " And last winter when Clara was with me in Paris, 
 the Conte de Ferrand " 
 
 " Dear Cousin Pauline," I protested. 
 
 '* An old legitimist family," she sighed. " You 
 don't think, Clara, that a love affair has anything 
 to do with Cyrus's wanting to go away? " 
 
 " He has never told me so." 
 
 " I used to be afraid it might be Helen? " 
 
 " You need not be," said I, resentful for 
 Helen. 
 
 *' Mother dear," said Lucian gently, *' don't you 
 see it's the world's muddle that's breaking his heart ? 
 He isn't made like me. It exhilarates me. My 
 
ILLUMINATION 215 
 
 dramatic sense is like a hard shell; things glance 
 off my surface. But he's all exposed. Let him 
 go!'' 
 
 " Yes; but I think there must be something 
 personal as well," she reiterated. " It is unnatural 
 to be so depressed over other people's misfortunes." 
 
 Lucian's burst of laughter bewildered her. 
 
 " If any one could find out, I suppose it is Clara,'* 
 she said rather grudgingly. 
 
 I did not offer to try. 
 
 " Helen and I are not simpatica," she sighed; '* but 
 even if it were Helen — I want him to have what he 
 wants. What else do I live for? I want you all to 
 have what you want, dear children." 
 
 *' Then let him go," I pleaded. 
 
 " You know, mother," warned Lucian, " he can 
 go without asking." 
 
 "If it should be a religious mania," the marchese 
 said without looking round. 
 
 *' I don't think I catch your point, sir." Lucian's 
 voice was cold. 
 
 " In your mother's interest, my dear Lucian, I 
 should protest if the money went to the Vatican." 
 
 "Oh, the money!" Nothing could exceed 
 Lucian's bored scorn. 
 
 My Cousin Pauline cast a deprecatory glance at 
 the marchese's expressive Italian shoulders, and 
 murmured something about stewardship. 
 
 And Cyrus, standing in the doorway, said: — 
 
 " If it's the money that bothers you — I plan to sell 
 all that I have, and give to the poor." 
 
 " Darling, who are the poor? " his mother asked 
 in her most tenderly metaphysical manner, 
 
2i6 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " I shall give some of it to you, mother," he 
 answered quietly. 
 
 She coloured the least bit, and I saw in her long 
 grey eyes the old look of annoyance and distaste. 
 " Dear, that is not a pretty joke," she chided. 
 
 " Is it a joke? " he inquired. " You know I have 
 very little sense of humour." 
 
 "Sit down, old man!" said Lucian. "What is 
 it you want to do? Clara and I are aU in the dark." 
 
 But Cyrus stood where he was, looking off into a 
 dream, with that pale gaze of his. 
 
 " I have told mother," he began presently. " I 
 want to go away — alone. I suppose philosophically 
 it would be called renouncing civilisation " 
 
 " If you can," I suggested. 
 
 " If I can." He made the admission tranquilly. 
 
 " Are you sure that isn't the coward's way ? " 
 asked Lucian. 
 
 " No ; I am not sure. Almost every one else whom 
 I know seems to me self-deceived on one point or 
 another. Why not I? But my conscious motive 
 is not one of escape. If by wearing this Nessus shirt " 
 — ^he plucked at his rather rusty tweeds — " I could 
 break the economic spell that binds those who wove 
 it; if the blood and death that saturate these clothes 
 could make a proper scapegoat of me — what a 
 privilege to be sprinkled and stained! But there is 
 no atoning power in these garments of degradation; 
 they are the grave-clothes of unrepented sin." 
 
 The contrast between the passionate words and the 
 unemotional voice gave one a lump in one's throat. 
 My Cousin Pauline wrung off her gloves as if they 
 hurt her. The marchese had turned his back on 
 
ILLUMINATION 217 
 
 Mont Blanc. Uncle Lew, in his shirt sleeves, his arms 
 streaming with gaUey proof, suddenly bolted into the 
 room, with: — 
 
 " Say, Lucian, this leader runs over half a column; 
 how many adjectives will you sacrifice? " And then, 
 " Excuse me! ** as he discovered us all. 
 
 "Don't go!" Cyrus said, putting out a hand. 
 " You wiU know what I mean. The world is 
 possessed of a devil." 
 
 "Sure thing!" agreed Uncle Lew. He hitched 
 himself upon the comer of Lucian's desk, one leg 
 swinging, the proof-sheets crushed against his breast. 
 
 " What if this kind cometh out only by prayer and 
 fasting? " said Cyrus. 
 
 " Well, you know," Uncle Lew acknowledged 
 awkwardly, "I'm not much of a thinker. I always 
 have believed in prayer. I pray for rain. Its 
 unscientific, they tell me." 
 
 " I touch reahty when I pray, never else," said 
 Cyrus. " You ask me to find reality by signing 
 cheques; to cast out the devil by subscribing to Fresh 
 Air Funds and Strikers' Relief; by endowing Old 
 Ladies' Homes and Professorships of Economics " 
 
 " Not I," protested Lucian. " No Socialist does." 
 
 " But Socialism is the most unreal thing of all, 
 brother. A strait jacket for a world possessed. Can 
 you not see the creature writhe and shriek and foam 
 at the mouth, until the bonds are burst? " 
 
 " Yes," said Uncle Lew. " There's got to be the 
 change of heart to correspond " 
 
 " And the conditions will prepare the way for the 
 change of heart," Lucian interrupted. 
 
 " The conditions necessary for a change of heart 
 
2i8 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 are conviction of sin, and repentance," his brother 
 replied. " Not the socialisation of property and a 
 full belly." 
 
 " Dearest " murmured my Cousin Pauline. 
 
 '* I'm not so sure," retorted Lucian. " It was a 
 full belly that convicted me of sin." 
 
 " Darlings! " the murmur came again. 
 
 " Still, it didn't me," Uncle Lew mused. " I 
 wonder if we can generalise? " 
 
 " It didn't me," said I. 
 
 " Christ and St. Francis convicted me of sin," 
 Cyrus said. " By prayer and fasting." 
 
 "No; by their life — their actions," Lucian cried. 
 
 " Action that is not prayer is never real," his 
 brother answered. " They knew how to pray. Let 
 me go away, mother, and learn of them. We shall 
 never get a real world except by prayer." 
 
 "Let the boy go, marchese! " said Uncle Lew 
 gravely. " I wish he were my boy." He was on 
 his way to the door, and he laid his hand on Cyrus's 
 shoulder in passing. 
 
 My Cousin Pauline hesitated, impressed. " Of 
 course, I shall be led," she faltered. 
 
 " Just so you're sure of your leader, that's all," 
 said Uncle Lew. " It's risky sinning against the 
 Holy Ghost." 
 
 "He is very bizarre, that good fellow," observed 
 the marchese appreciatively, when the door had 
 closed. 
 
 " I don't think I quite caught his meaning," said 
 my Cousin Pauline. " But Cyrus knows that the 
 last thing in the world that I want to do is to thwart 
 him in the service of humanity. When you were 
 
ILLUMINATION 219 
 
 little boys, you and Cyrus, did I not dedicate you to 
 the service of humanity ? Did I not dedicate myself ? 
 Do I not take up some philanthropic work wherever 
 I happen to be? Even on the steamer coming over 
 this last time, we read the Idylls of the King to the 
 steerage one afternoon. But to say you are serving 
 humanity by trying to overturn the institutions that 
 supply you with your funds of stewardship — as you 
 and Clara are doing — or by running away from the 
 suffering thousands that cry to you for help, as 
 Cyrus " 
 
 Cyrus shook his head. "No; it is because I want 
 to get near to them, mother. I have tried your way. 
 I have sat on the edge of the gulf and flung in philan- 
 thropic doles. And the gulf only widens. Helen 
 builds bridges, but the bank caves in. Lucian and 
 Clara hang their castle in the air above the gulf — a 
 mirage. I want to try a new way. I want to go 
 into the gulf; to lose myself in it.'* 
 
 My Cousin PauHne caught his hand and clung to 
 his sleeve. " No, no ! I don't know what you mean. 
 I won't let you! " she cried. 
 
 " I only want to say my prayers. So simple, 
 mother! " 
 
 ** Oh, but, darling, you could go to the theological 
 seminary, and afterwards have a parish, and we'd 
 build a big parish house with a roof garden, and you 
 could marry some nice girl " 
 
 Standing impassive in her grasp, looking beyond 
 us all, he shook his head. 
 
 " You have some dreadful ceUbate notion about 
 marriage being wrong — and there is a girl, I know 
 there is a girl," she wailed. "It is like your vege- 
 
220 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 tarianism. I know you won't talk to me about such 
 things : you never will. But talk to Clara, dearest " 
 
 He looked at his mother then : so strangely. 
 
 " Clara," she pleaded, " you can argue and I can't; 
 he will listen to you '* 
 
 " Celibacy has nothing to do with it, mother," he 
 said. 
 
 " But there is a girl, Cyrus," she persisted. 
 "Clara, isn't there? You are running away from 
 some girl " 
 
 " Mother — really " objected Lucian. 
 
 " But do you know that he wants to go away now 
 — to-morrow, or next day? " cried my Cousin 
 Pauline. " The strike means nothing to him — ^the 
 election — nothing ' ' 
 
 " The strike will not be won by the funds that I 
 subscribe," C5mis explained wearily. 
 
 " And where are you going ? "his mother continued. 
 — " No one is to ask. Your master, Tolstoy, does 
 not carry things to such extremes. He thinks of his 
 loved ones; he crushes his individual preferences." 
 
 " Tolstoy is not my master, mother. Christ is 
 my master. I beHeve that Tolstoy knows he is 
 sinning against love in not pushing his convictions to 
 their extremes. I believe that is his tragedy." 
 
 " Your arrogance grieves me immeasmrably, Cyrus, 
 Your self-deception is monstrous. Because of a 
 boyish infatuation for some girl who is evidently 
 unsuitable, or who is playing with you and keeping 
 you on tenterhooks, you wish to break my heart and 
 make your family notorious. And to justify your- 
 self you say, ' I must go because I am holy — as holy as 
 St. Francis — holier than Tolstoy. I am the modem 
 
ILLUMINATION 221 
 
 saint and the world waits for my prayers, to be 
 saved/ " 
 
 " Mother, how dare you! " Lucian had bounded 
 from his chair, his face scarlet, his eyes two swords 
 of anger. 
 
 '* I had not thought of it that way," said Cyrus, 
 with bent head. " You may be right. I wish I 
 knew." 
 
 " Well, I know! " shouted Lucian. " And you are 
 going." 
 
 "Oh, Lucian! — Oh, Lucian!" said Cyrus, and 
 took his brother's clenched hands. I shall always 
 be glad I saw them look at each other Uke that. Then 
 Cyrus said, so sadly, " But it is I who must make the 
 decision." 
 
 " Mother, take back what you said! " cried Lucian. 
 " You had no right " 
 
 " A mother has always the right to rebuke her son," 
 observed the marchese sententiously. " No son is 
 ever justified in addressing his mother as you 
 have allowed yourself to address your mother. In 
 Italy " 
 
 " But this is our harsh America, carino." My 
 Cousin Pauline turned her tear-brimmed eyes upon 
 her husband gratefully. 
 
 " I apologise for raising my voice," said Lucian. 
 " I lost my temper. But you know, mother — we 
 all know, that this talk about a girl is absurd. If it 
 were I — but women never exist for Cyrus — as 
 women." 
 
 Why this remark impelled me to take up the 
 cudgels for Cyrus I do not quite know; but I said — 
 " Is that the sort of assumption we have the right to 
 
222 THE CHILDREi^ OF LIGHT 
 
 make about other people, Lucian? " And was im- 
 mediately annoyed \vith myself, for Lucian gave me a 
 swift, startled look. 
 
 " If I knew that it was cowardice," said Cyrus, and 
 turning to me slowly he let his eyes rest in mine — 
 " If I knew I ought to stay, I hope I should stay, 
 whatever it cost me. But I think I ought to go. — 
 I wish I knew." And wheeUng round to his mother, 
 he added, " I will not go — yet." 
 
 And his mother began to sob on the marchese's 
 shoulder. And Lucian stood rooted, looking thought- 
 fully, with grave, troubled eyes, at his brother, and 
 at me, and back again at his brother. 
 
 When Lazarus Samson's brisk rap at the door 
 shattered oiu: silence, I hurried across the room 
 before he could enter, to ask him to delay the staff 
 meeting five minutes. And presently, Lucian and 
 Cyrus went down to the door with my Cousin Pauline 
 and the marchese, and inducted them fiHaUy into the 
 motor. 
 
 IV 
 
 Lucian and Uncle Lew and I had a very high 
 standard for The Torch, I think we all three 
 cherished the hope, unacknowledged, that it might 
 be the model for millennial journalism. But Lazarus 
 Samson and Cuthbert were working for immediate 
 results in a partisan present. Impeccable EngHsh, 
 imerring taste, a morale without blemish, were not 
 germane to their ideal. 
 
 We aU made concessions. Uncle Lew made the 
 most, I think; yet, curiously enough, he got his way 
 
ILLUMINATION 223 
 
 oftener than the rest of us. I got my way, too, a 
 good many times, but not so unobtrusively. Cuth- 
 bert and I fought three weeks over the spurious verb 
 " to enthuse," I remember. Uncle Lew was for 
 letting him have it; but I couldn't. Over questions 
 of policy we were less venomous, possibly, though 
 no less rigid. Socialism, for Lazarus Samson, 
 included the abolition of the marriage-tie and the 
 repudiation of Christianity. He could be pinned 
 down in argument and made to acknowledge that the 
 economic theory did not cover these issues, but his 
 European tradition inhibited him from conceiving 
 social revolt as apart from them. He was for ever 
 bringing in translations of French, or Italian, or 
 German diatribes against ecclesiasticism — material 
 without point for an untrammelled American pro- 
 letariat. If we refused to print a crude attack upon 
 the Church, signed by An Atheist, he could not divest 
 himself of the idea that we were throttling freedom 
 of speech. His attitude towards the Holy State of 
 Matrimony was equally advanced, though not so 
 bitter. When even Cuthbert voted against a 
 Socialistic serial whose Socialism was the sketchiest 
 mise en scene for the erotic vagaries of the heroine, 
 Lazarus acquiesed with an amused and scornful 
 smile, and, respecting our Anglo-Saxon reticence, 
 did not press for reasons; but when I pleaded for the 
 suppression of a spicy correspondence between 
 " Christian " and " Free Thinker," after the argu- 
 ment had endured for three weeks and the letters 
 had attained the length of five columns, his sarcasm 
 slipped the leash; he smiled as always, but a smile 
 with edges. 
 
224 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 I sometimes speculated uneasily upon his relations 
 with Bertha Aarons, although Helen, who saw them 
 together oftener than I did, was reassuring. 
 
 ** She's ready for anything, of coiurse," I remember 
 Helen's saying. ** But he's not hving in Russia, or 
 in Paris, and he knows it. He has no intention of 
 shocking any of our sensibihties." At this point we 
 had veered off into an altercation on the nature of 
 love. 
 
 Since the beginning of the strike, however, Helen 
 and I had had no opportunity for discussion, abstract 
 or personal. Her interpretation of Lazarus's emo- 
 tions, now that Tristram Lawrence was a factor 
 in the situation — if he were a factor — I could only 
 infer from her zeal in chaperoning Bertha and 
 Tristram whenever opportunity offered, and from 
 the way in which her eyebrows tilted at me across 
 the room when she wanted me to spoil a tete-d,-Ute, 
 I wondered now, as I waited in Lucian's office for the 
 postponed conference, if I ought to have set aside 
 editorial exigencies and gone to lunch with those two. 
 
 The door was ajar, and Lazarus sUpped in and sat 
 down on the fat edge of the leather Davenport; he 
 had to sit on the edge of most things, being a Httle 
 man. He said nothing, only sat there upright, his 
 hands on his knees, his face fixed in thought, strangely 
 unsmiHng. I busied myself with proof sheets; but 
 that still, inward look drew my eyes again and again. 
 
 Cuthbert and Uncle Lew came in together, dis- 
 cussing an undesirable advertisement. I remember 
 Cuthbert was saying, " It won't do. I was talking 
 about it last night with Mendel of the Typographical. 
 If The Torch is going to hold the proletariat, it's got 
 
ILLUMINATION 225 
 
 to give it the stuff it wants, advertisements and all. 
 What do our people care for dinky arts-and-crafts 
 book-binding? They're not buying editions de luxe 
 for their parlour tables. If we're giving away 
 advertising space, I say give it to BebeFs new book, 
 or something of that kind that hasn't been puffed 
 the way it deserves. Who is this fellow? " 
 
 " Benacci? " I asked, looking up from my proof. 
 " He does beautiful leather work, and he's having 
 such a hard time. He was digging in a sewer. It 
 isn't a free advertisement; I will pay for it if Lucian 
 doesn't. He's one of Lucian's." 
 
 " Oh, that's all very well," Cuthbert grumbled. 
 " It may be settlement sentiment, but it's not busi- 
 ness. Put it in Lawrence's dilettante sheet if you 
 want to spend money on the Dago; that's where it 
 belongs." 
 
 " I have," I said, " but it belongs in ours, too; we 
 are not merely a proletarian organ." 
 
 " We'll never get anywhere till we are," he 
 muttered. 
 
 " That's where we differ," I remarked. 
 
 " Of course, I never expect Lucian to got our point 
 of view, but I did have hopes of you." There was 
 a certain wist fulness underlying his retort. 
 
 " Our point of view? " 
 
 " Uncle Lew's and mine — the Proletarian." 
 
 " You're not making the mistake of supposing that 
 you and I belong to the Proletariat, are you? " 
 queried Uncle Lew with suspicious mildness. 
 
 " I don't know where else? " Cuthbert answered 
 defiantly. 
 
 " Well— it begins with P all right, but Parasite's 
 
226 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 its name," said Uncle -Lew. "That's us. Don't 
 make any mistake." 
 
 Lucian and Cyrus came in and shut the door while 
 he was speaking, and Cyrus sat down beside Lazarus 
 on the Davenport, and leaned back wearily. 
 
 '* You can call yourself what you Uke," repUed 
 Cuthbert, his face a sullen red. " But I know where 
 I belong." 
 
 *' We're the paid employees of a paper owned by a 
 capitahst." Uncle Lew cocked his head at Cuthbert 
 and smiled his most whimsical smile. 
 
 " Oh, dry up! " exploded Lucian, making a long 
 arm and unceremoniously mussing his hair. ** What 
 
 in thunder " 
 
 " Then you don't think. Uncle Lew, that an indi- 
 vidual can have the Proletarian point of view without 
 belonging to the Proletariat? " I asked. 
 
 " WeU, I like to think so," Uncle Lew admitted, the 
 irrepressible twinkle in his eye. " But then what's 
 the matter with sympathising with Benacci, who 
 does belong to the Proletariat, and no question, even 
 if he can bind books by hand." 
 
 "Stung!" said Cuthbert. "You can have the 
 advertisement." And he laughed shamefacedly at 
 Uncle Lew. 
 
 "Oh, Benacci?" Lucian asked. "Yes; charge 
 that up to me. Whose is the next grievance? " 
 
 " Perhaps I'd better go over those statistics if you 
 have the proof handy," suggested Cyrus. " It won't 
 take more thcin a couple of minutes, and then I'll 
 leave you to your editorial secrets." 
 
 We laughed at that, complimenting his discretion. 
 " The boy's bringing them," said Uncle Lew. " I 
 
ILLUMINATION 227 
 
 guess you'll have to wait. We'll trust you as you're 
 just off for the wilderness." 
 
 " Not yet," Cyrus smiled. 
 
 " You make a mistake not to go, Cyrus." Uncle 
 Lew's eyes were grave. 
 
 " I need to be under authority, I know," Cyrus said. 
 " I shall never accomplish anything until I am. But 
 I'm not — yet; so I must decide, or undecide, as best 
 I can, a while longer." 
 
 Cuthbert and Lazarus were looking at him 
 curiously. 
 
 " Then we'll skip the statistics for the moment,'* 
 said Lucian, " and take up our quarrel over the 
 Reform candidate where we left off last time. Miss 
 Emery's got it in for you and me, Cuthbert; she 
 doesn't like your tone in your report of the last 
 Reform rally, and she's afraid my editorial will hurt 
 Trissy's feehngs. And as for Lazarus's critique of 
 his literary output up to date, including the Persian 
 Love Songs — she calls it a savage attack." 
 
 "It is," Lazarus agreed, smiling grimly. 
 
 I explained that Mr. Lawrence seemed to me too 
 prominent in the number; that it was a strike number 
 and its readers would not be interested, primarily, in 
 belles-lettres or Reform politics. 
 
 " Unless we can point out the connection between 
 belles-lettres and Reform politics, and the strike, which 
 you can't deny we do," interrupted Lucian. 
 
 " One would think we had a personal grudge against 
 him," I protested. 
 
 There was self-conscious silence and no dis- 
 claimer. 
 
 " What you would like," grunted Cuthbert, 
 
228 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 presently, " would be a merger between the 
 Socialists and the Reformers, and me to step down in 
 favour of Tristram Lawrence. But the party don't 
 work things that way. And if The Torch is for 
 Socialism it can't at the same time support the 
 competitive system — which is what Lawrence stands 
 for." 
 
 " I do not wish a merger," I contradicted with 
 undue heat. " I am just as keen on exposing the 
 evils of the competitive system as any of you; but 
 I see no reason why The Torch should stoop to 
 personalities." 
 
 " Of course, your own attitude toward Mr. 
 Lawrence is not colomred by personal feeling," 
 Lucian suggested. 
 
 ** Because I am still able to remember that he is 
 a scholar and an honourable gentleman, and very 
 much in earnest, even though he does not happen to 
 be fighting on our side ? " 
 
 " In what sense do you use the term ' honourable 
 gentleman? ' " inquired Lazarus. 
 
 " In every sense." 
 
 His face was impassive and he did not pursue the 
 inquiry. We all avoided each other's eyes. 
 
 " If we must bring poUtics into this strike edition," 
 I continued, " why not expend oiu: ammunition on 
 the machine candidate and his method of raising 
 campaign funds? " 
 
 " Of course, there are no personalities involved in 
 that story," remarked Lucian. 
 
 I laughed. He had me there. " Still, there is a 
 difference," I insisted. 
 
 " You mean," cried Lazarus, " that for the 
 
ILLUMINATION 229 
 
 machine candidate to call himself the friend of the 
 working-man and to get campaign funds from those 
 sweat-shop manufacturers that are to blame for this 
 strike, is more worse than for the Reform candidate 
 to tell the strikers that he is all for pushing the label, 
 on the quiet — when his party is for the open 
 shop?'* 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "Who gave you that?" 
 
 Lucian and Cuthbert plunged toward the Daven- 
 port. 
 
 " He may not realise all that the label means," 
 said Uncle Lew. 
 
 " Hot air won't get him the strike vote," sneered 
 Cuthbert. " And he can't do anything; because if 
 he don't know what the label means, the merchants 
 do; they're not going to let themselves in for a row 
 with the manufacturers." 
 
 "I get the impression he thinks he can swing his 
 party," said Lazarus. " If he says to the strikers, 
 ' See how hard I try to get the closed shop for you ! 
 See how I am willing to be unpopular with my own 
 constituency for the sake to improve your conditions ! ' 
 and to the merchants he gives the wink, that he don't 
 expect any concessions from them — then he thinks 
 he gets the strike vote, and he don't lose the merchants' 
 vote; and his party smiles and says, ' You observe 
 how we are open-minded. Our candidate lets us in 
 for more than we expected; we do not go with him 
 all the way; but the situation is unprecedented — 
 he must have a free hand; he is a philanthropist.' " 
 
 "Gee, what a scoop!" gloated Cuthbert. "It'll 
 queer him with the working-class vote, and with the 
 
230 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 moral high-brows; and with his party, too — they'll 
 have to repudiate him to save their face." 
 
 "But we aren't going to print it!" I cried, 
 horrified. *' Mr. Samson, you must have got your 
 hint of the situation from Miss Aarons; but I know 
 she thinks he will be honest if he consents to approach 
 his merchant-backers. He hadn't consented this 
 morning." 
 
 *' I do not know what Miss Aarons thinks. She is 
 a deep thinker," he replied pohtely. 
 
 *' What she thinks doesn't cut any ice," Cuthbert 
 exclaimed. " We've got the story." 
 
 " My God, folks! " said Uncle Lew, " this isn't a 
 game of checkers. If he could convert his party to 
 the label, think what it would mean for the strikers! 
 The strike would be off in forty-eight hours." 
 
 Lucian sat with his head bent, drawing circles on 
 his blotter. 
 
 ** Lucian," Uncle Lew said, *' you won't stand for 
 this? " 
 
 And Lucian looked up at Uncle Lew, and then at 
 his brother. " I want to," he said to Cyrus. 
 Cyrus's head moved a scarcely perceptible No, and 
 a Httle, tender smile shadowed his Hps for the 
 briefest moment. 
 
 " I want to," Lucian said to me, defiantly. *' Dio 
 mio — how I want to 1 " And to the others, " FeUows, 
 you know I want to ; but it's not a gentleman's game." 
 
 ** I'm not a gentleman," Cuthbert proclaimed 
 hardily. But he hadn't hked to have me tell him so, 
 the night that he walked home with me. 
 
 '* The instincts of the primitive man are the sane 
 instincts, in crises," Lazarus stated coldly. 
 
ILLUMINATION 231. 
 
 " Am I right that the vote stands three to two 
 against printing? " asked Lucian, looking from me 
 to Uncle Lew.^" Then suppose we take up next 
 the article on Syndicalism. The question is, how 
 much shall we take the public into our confidence 
 as to the preparations for the general sympathetic 
 strike? " 
 
 " I say tell all we know/' Lazarus suggested. 
 ** The capitalist won't believe it even if he reads it; 
 and the working-man, he needs to be put wise." 
 
 " At Socialist headquarters they recommend a 
 certain degree of reticence," Lucian reminded him. 
 
 But I am afraid I did not follow the discussion 
 very closely. My mind would insist upon reverting 
 to Bertha and Tristram, and to his equivocal remark 
 about the label. Had he realised that it was 
 equivocal ? 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 EXPLOSION 
 
 Two weeks before the elections the general sym- 
 pathetic strike was called. It began on a Wednesday, 
 I remember, and there was some discussion in the 
 Central Labour Union as to whether the printers 
 should go out or not; whether it would be more 
 effective to give the pubhc the news of the fight, or 
 to leave it in ignorance, groping helplessly for in- 
 formation. But when they had got the Wednesday 
 afternoon editions off the presses and into the streets, 
 the printers struck work; and with them The Torch's 
 men, of course. After Thursday, other cities sent 
 down reporters to glean, but the poor fellows had a 
 hard time getting their stories home, for the telegraph 
 operators were out with the rest and from the start 
 the railway traffic was so blocked — the depots and 
 freight sheds were so choked with goods, perishable 
 and other, which the striking teamsters refused to 
 haul away — that the reaction on the mail and 
 passenger trains was inevitable, and they gave up all 
 attempt to keep to schedule. 
 
 We saved the milk for the babies. That was 
 Helen's scheme. Ten of the members of the settle- 
 ment committee, who could run their own motor cars 
 — the chauffeurs were out — met the milk train on 
 Thursday morning, gave vouchers to the frantic 
 milk dealers, divided the city into districts, and 
 
 232 
 
EXPLOSION 233 
 
 peddled the milk. Friday morning there were fifty 
 gentlemen with as many automobiles, volunteering 
 for milk routes. But the meat in the cold storage 
 cars spoiled on the sidings for lack of ice; and the 
 cattle and live-stock in the freight pens squealed and 
 grunted and starved, for the stockyards were closed 
 and there was no one to put them out of their 
 misery. 
 
 Unorganised labour reaped what harvest it could. 
 The small provision and fruit shops, family affairs 
 run by Greeks or Italians, profited most by the 
 situation. The larger groceries and markets, as well 
 as some of the hardware and drug stores, found 
 themselves unexpectedly blocked by the Retail 
 Clerks Benefit Association, a benevolent organisation 
 not hitherto allied with the union labour, which now 
 declared its sympathy with the Garment Workers 
 by joining the general strike. 
 
 Factories shut down all over the city and in the 
 suburbs, and at the request of the Citizens' Reform 
 League the mayor closed the saloons, the unions 
 applauding. Trolley cars had vanished at midnight 
 on the Tuesday. Public cabs were out of commission 
 by Wednesday noon. Thereafter, through all the 
 waiting days and nights that followed, only the men 
 who owned their vehicles drove in our city, and those 
 chose the less-frequented streets. Along the main 
 thoroughfares great crowds stagnated. They moved, 
 these multitudes, but with a glacial slowness; and 
 their eyes were as the eyes of sleep-walkers. At 
 intervals the mounted police rode through their 
 midst, huddling them to right and left. When one 
 heard those wild, relentless hoof-beats coming, one's 
 
234 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 heart stopped a moment; one thought of the 
 avalanche. Had it come? 
 
 At headquarters the leaders of the strike sat in 
 endless committee. Every day — almost every hour 
 — some one conferred with some one else: the Pre- 
 sident of the Central Labour Union with the Mayor; 
 the Mayor with the Governor; the Mayor with the 
 Chief of Police; the officers of the National Federa- 
 tion of Labour with the officers of the State Federa- 
 tion; the State Federation with the Head of the 
 Garment Workers, with the Teamsters, with the Tin 
 Plate Workers, with the Shoe Operatives; the 
 Citizens' Reform League with the Head of the Gar- 
 ment Workers; the Head of the Garment Workers 
 with the Citizens' Reform League. The President of 
 the A.B. & C.R.R. with the Mayor. The Presidents 
 of the D.E. & F. and the G.H. & LR.R.'s with the 
 President of the A.B. & C; the Citizens' Reform 
 League with the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of the 
 Diocese; the 'Citizens' Reform League with the heads 
 of social settlements, with the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Association, with the Consumers' League; the 
 Machine candidate with the Reform candidate; the 
 Suffragists with the Garment Workers; the President 
 of the United States with the Secretary of War. 
 And so on indefinitely. 
 
 In the public squares the police were kept busy 
 suppressing stump orators. Here the Sociahsts got 
 their innings. Processions had a way of forming, 
 unexpectedly, headed by haggard foreigners who 
 sang the Internationale or the Marseillaise. Once 
 some women smashed the windows of a chocolate 
 factory where a few scabs were working. After the 
 
EXPLOSION 235 
 
 first two or three days there began to be outbreaks 
 of rowdyism, for which the strikers bore the blame. 
 Once or twice the poHce lost their heads, and cracked 
 other people's, not wisely but too well. One man died. 
 At night there was thievery in dark streets, and even 
 occasional house-breaking. As the days passed there 
 was a subtle change in the temper of the waiting, idle 
 throngs; something fierce and ugly threatened in those 
 watchful eyes. 
 
 ** It is because they know they are not going to hold 
 out," Helen said. " No, Mr. Polotsky, no bread 
 to-day. Stale? — No; I wish we had. Nor any 
 codfish. I'm sorry. The wholesale provision men 
 have no teams, you know. We only get what can 
 be brought here from the train yards by private 
 automobile." 
 
 Helen and I were giving out rations in one of the 
 commissary stores that had been established earlier 
 in the garment strike. But we had had no new 
 supplies for two days, and the shelves of the shop 
 were almost bare. Men and women stood about, 
 silent, listless, holding their commissary tickets in 
 their hands. 
 
 " They're not the stuff that wins," Helen went on. 
 *' And they are beginning to suspect it. They're 
 soft yet. It will take another generation, or maybe 
 two, to produce the kind of men and women that can 
 win a general strike. What discipline have these 
 people had? No; no more macaroni. Too bad! " 
 
 " What discipline had the mob had in the French 
 Revolution? " I asked. " But they hung on." 
 
 " Why, the discipline of want, my dear. They 
 had come to the point where they had nothing more 
 
236 THE CHILDREl^ OF LIGHT 
 
 to lose. Ours are not there yet. The job waits, 
 tantalising. Until they can turn their back on it, or, 
 better still, starve with it hanging, tempting, two 
 inches above their noses, there's nothing for them but 
 failure." 
 
 " You don't mean that they are giving in at union 
 headquarters, after only three days? " 
 
 " Not at headquarters, naturally." Helen was 
 our delegate to the Central Labour Organisation 
 from the Women's Trade Union League. " But the 
 leaders can't hold them in if they stampede." 
 
 "Stampede; after only three days? " 
 
 *' Well, if you could hear the weak-kneed delegates 
 wrangling, you would think so. There's no use 
 looking so mournful, Clara; you ought to know by 
 this time that the rank and file of trade unionists are 
 not built on heroic lines. Did you really think, for 
 one moment, that they could win a general strike? " 
 
 " I don't know," I murmured. " Didn't you? " 
 
 She laughed. " I thought they might win a con- 
 cession or two — nothing very definite — if they didn't 
 aUenate the public altogether; which is what they 
 are in a fair way to do now, by their rowdyism." 
 
 " Not their rowdyism." 
 
 " As long as they can't control it, it will lie at their 
 door. Not that I think we're at the end of our rope 
 yet. The leaders are whistUng very loud to keep 
 their courage up, and the pubhc is still fooled. But, 
 my dear. Capital isn't fooled." 
 
 " Helen," I cried, " When you say a thing Uke 
 that, I can't understand why you are not a Socialist." 
 
 "Dam Sociahsm! " said Helen. "What is it 
 doing to help this situation? Butting in with a 
 
EXPLOSION 237 
 
 candidate for mayor when it knows it hasn't a ghost 
 of a show, just to make mischief and hand the city 
 over to corruption." 
 
 " No, Helen; that's not true. They saw a chance, 
 in this strike, to increase their following " 
 
 " A lot of cold-blooded fanatics trafficking in their 
 brothers' misery " 
 
 " Not at all; they are living for the future; they 
 are far-sighted " 
 
 " Well, I'm near-sighted, and Fm living right 
 now " 
 
 " And yet you said yesterday that all these oppor- 
 tunist schemes for temporary relief were perfectly 
 futile — that Cyrus's position was the only logical 
 one: there's got to be a change of heart." 
 
 " But then, you see, I'm not logical, and — " her 
 voice softened — " I'm not Cyrus. I haven't a gift 
 for prayer. I can only cobble." 
 
 " What else can any of us do? But we can have 
 the vision, too." 
 
 " I won't have it, thank you, if it involves tactics 
 that sacrifice the individual." 
 
 " Not when it means the ultimate gain of the 
 individual? The law of life is sacrifice, Helen." 
 
 *' Sacrifice yourself, and welcome, Clara. But 
 who gives you leave to sacrifice me, or Bertha 
 Aarons, or the forty thousand garment workers, to 
 a theory? " 
 
 " Ah, but when they are Socialists they will 
 sacrifice themselves," I cried. 
 
 "Yes; when! — Meanwhile, suppose you run 
 around the comer, to number six Lincoln Court, and 
 up five flights to the Balderonis'. They happen to 
 
238 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 be bur5nng a starved baby as a result of the present 
 crisis. Papa Balderoni, aged twenty-four, is a 
 Socialist of the most violent Italianate variety. He 
 takes cocaine, I think. You won't love him at first 
 sight, but poke the embers of brotherly love in your 
 heart with the word Comrade — oh, magic poker with 
 an insulated handle warranted not to bum the 
 fingers! — and you may be able to bring yourself to 
 the point of lending him the wherewithal for the 
 next meal. If he can find a meal to buy." 
 I went, in a hurry. 
 
 II 
 
 In the three rooms of the Balderoni tenement there 
 were gathered some forty or fifty people, members 
 of the other families Hving in the house, all Itahans; 
 and, to my surprise, the majority were men. Some 
 of the women I knew, and they came round me, 
 weeping aloud, gesticulating, all together explaining 
 some outrage whose nature was lost to me in the 
 mazes of SiciUan and Neapolitan dialects. 
 
 Four tiny bright red candles, such as one buys for 
 a penny apiece for Christmas trees, illumined the 
 soap-box which was the baby's bier. 
 
 " But they are not blessed, Signorina ; che viwle, 
 they are not blessed," the women wailed. 
 
 The mother, kneehng by the baby's head, suddenly 
 flung herself face downwards on the floor and beat 
 upon the rotten boards with her hands and screamed 
 terribly, so that a number of men who were in the inner 
 room came crowding to the door and stood and 
 watched me as I tried to lift her up. And one of 
 
EXPLOSION 239 
 
 those men was Lucian. He shouldered his way past 
 the others through the door, and he and I together 
 lifted the woman and wiped her bloody mouth, where 
 she had struck it against the floor. 
 
 "I'm glad you've come," he said. " I heard about 
 it through some of the men in the local. He won't 
 let her have a priest to bury the baby." 
 
 " He must! " said I. 
 
 " Well, I think I'm talking him round. He knows 
 I don't love the priests any better than he does — 
 but we must concede something to the sensibiHties 
 of our women — that's my tack." And in Italian to 
 the woman, "Coraggio/ The good God will not 
 permit that the bambino be buried without the rites 
 of the Church. Coraggio ! " 
 
 Her husband came and stood above her, sullenly. 
 "If he comes — that animal — I do not remain. 
 Choose! " 
 
 The other women chorused their indignation; but 
 his wife only Hfted her streaked face and murmured, 
 " Grazie ! " 
 
 He was a white-faced, sickly-looking young fellow, 
 with a twitching hand which he brushed frankly, 
 now, across his eyes, as he stooped over the baby. 
 
 " There's a vicious row threatening," Lucian 
 whispered to me. I had taken the woman into my 
 arms and she was sobbing softly, her face buried 
 in my breast. " Poverina," said Lucian, " weep, 
 weep! The bambino will await you in the bosom of 
 God." And again, to me, " There's a rumour that 
 the G.H. & I. railroad is bringing in a train-load of 
 strike-breakers at midnight, and these fellows are 
 cooking up a riot." 
 
240 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " O Signore," I said to the dogged young husband, 
 ** will you not speak a kind word to this poor wife 
 who suffers such anguish through her love for you and 
 your child? " 
 
 " Not through me does she suffer, Signorina," the 
 man answered sulkily," but through the superstitions 
 of a greedy Church that sells Jesus Christ to the 
 people." 
 
 " Matteo, God hears! Do not blaspheme against 
 God! " his wife cried, flinging out of my arms into 
 his. 
 
 " I do not," he said, not unkindly. " I blaspheme 
 against the Church, which separates the people from 
 God. Women do not understand these things." 
 
 " Why not go for a priest," I suggested to Lucian. 
 
 " Cyrus has. Come over in this comer while they 
 make up, and let me tell you. These men are 
 planning to derail the track a few miles out. Hush, 
 don't say anything, don't look anything! Some of 
 them are a part of a gang that re-laid the track not so 
 long ago; they know just where they can do most 
 mischief. Don't get so white, Clara; nothing will 
 really happen; nothing ever does. Would you 
 like a glass of water, dear? " 
 
 "No; I'm not white." 
 
 " You're a lovely pink, now." He stood looking 
 in my face in a way that made me get pinker and 
 pinker — as if he'd quite forgotten that he was 
 talking about something else. 
 
 " What shall you do? " I asked. 
 
 "Do? — Oh! — Help me to think! It means that 
 my day's work is cut out for me; and I had planned 
 something quite different. Uncle Lew came to the 
 
EXPLOSION 241 
 
 office this morning chockful of a scheme to print a 
 four-page number of The Torch on that hand-press 
 we bought with the outfit and never use. I left him 
 setting up type. Fm afraid you'll have to get it out 
 without me, now. We can sell it to-morrow after- 
 noon, Sunday, you know; when everybody will be 
 hanging round, more than half inclined to go to work 
 Monday morning. It may brace them up and keep 
 them out a bit longer.*' 
 
 " ril go there from here," I said. " But where 
 are you going? " 
 
 " I've got to have a little more talk with these 
 fellows first. What would you do, Clara? — inform 
 the police? " He waited, anxious-eyed. 
 
 " Must we tell the poUce? " I questioned. ** These 
 are our people. This is our side in this war " 
 
 "O Beloved!" he said. 
 
 I suppose we were in that little garlic-reeking 
 tenement room with the dead baby and the soap-box 
 and the four red, unblessed candles and the weeping 
 father and mother. I suppose women were moaning 
 and rocking their arms. I suppose the snarling 
 wrangle of men's voices seeped through the door's 
 crack from the inner room, intermittently. I did 
 not hear any of these things. I heard Lucian say, 
 '* O Beloved! " and we were looking at each other 
 after that — I do not know how long. My spirit and 
 Lucian's had discovered that they were one spirit. 
 " This is marriage and he knows," my heart said. 
 
 But what I said to Lucian, after the long while, 
 was — ** How not to betray them? We've got our 
 chance." 
 
 " The union leaders must handle it," he answered 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 decisively. *' It's their job. I'm going into the other 
 room now, to make these men see it that way; some 
 of them belong to miions — they're all sorts. They've 
 got to submit their plan to the Central Committee. 
 If this is war, the head of the army is the one to plan 
 the campaign; enlisted men can't go off and raid on 
 their own hook. And the President of the Central 
 Labour Union will never stand for train-wrecking; 
 that I know." 
 
 " I'll go in with you," I said. 
 
 "No, dear, there's nothing to be afraid of." 
 
 " They won't understand, Lucian. Some of them 
 won't distinguish between the police and the com- 
 mittee of the unions. They are so ignorant. And 
 these Italian Socialists are so violent, so anarchistic. 
 Any hindrance will seem to them betrayal. I'd 
 rather be with you." 
 
 " They'd know why, Clara. I couldn't insult them 
 by distrust like that. Besides, I don't distrust them. 
 I know my Italians. The obvious place for you is 
 here, with the poor mother. There's the priest now." 
 
 Cyrus and a Franciscan missionary friar came in 
 from the stairway, and Lucian hooked his arm 
 through Balderoni's and drew him into the inner 
 room. 
 
 " It's all arranged," Cyrus whispered. " Mother 
 let me have her motor to carry the baby to the church 
 and the cemetery. — What's the matter in there? 
 Can't they be quiet five minutes? " For a tumult 
 of tongues had broken loose in the other room, 
 blotting out the priestly mumble — even the laments 
 of the women. 
 
 " Fratelli miei I " Lucian's voice struggled through 
 
EXPLOSION 243 
 
 the clamour. The priest, rapt in the oblivion of 
 prayer, continued to move dumb lips. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Cyrus. He looked from 
 the priest to the door, took a step toward the door, 
 hesitated, and went down on his knees beside the 
 kneeling women. 
 
 I tiptoed around them, knocked to no effect upon 
 the door, and opened it a little way. The raging 
 noise bellowed in my face — then hushed abruptly. 
 
 " I must speak to Mr. Emery a moment, before 
 we go to the burial," I explained, and squeezed into 
 the room. The men were silent, staring at me while 
 Lucian and I talked together hurriedly. 
 
 " About this hand-press edition of The Torch — 
 what am I to say at the office? " 
 
 " Oh — that! — Yes. You and Uncle Lew will have 
 to put it through, Clara. There won't be any time 
 for proof-reading. Cuthbert was at me again, before 
 the general strike shut down, about Trissy. I'm 
 afraid it's true that Trissy is facing both ways. Still 
 — if it comes up — remember, I vote against it. And, 
 Clara, hold a column free till midnight — no, better 
 say two o'clock — in case I have something to report 
 about this affair. I hope we can either stop it off 
 short in committee, or come out gloriously as 
 guardians of the pubUc welfare against sporadic 
 rowdyism. But I don't know. I'm afraid only 
 force will block this crowd. 
 
 " I shall be anxious," I said. 
 
 And his answer was a radiant smile. '* Isn't it 
 great! " he whispered " We're in the real thing at 
 last." 
 
244 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 III 
 
 After we buried the baby, Cyrus dropped me at 
 The Torch office, where I found Uncle Lew and 
 Lazarus and Cuthbert fussing about among the 
 presses. 
 
 '* Well, Clara, I guess I've busted our newest 
 linotype machine," Uncle Lew announced. " It 
 looks so easy when that little blue-eyed Mulhaley 
 girl plays her five-finger exercises on it, I thought 
 I*d save time. But I haven't. The good old 
 Ruskinian way for mine. Me and WiUiam Morris 
 beheve in hand labour. It'll be slow. — The last 
 column of type I set up was for the farewell number 
 of The Message of New Hope. How many years? " 
 
 He was smiling when he said it; but as he turned 
 away and bent over the case, he sighed. 
 
 '* Miss Emery, you know where is kept the keys of 
 the store-room where is ink — where paper is? " 
 Lazarus Samson's English was deserting him in the 
 emergency. 
 
 I suggested the absent foreman's pocket, which did 
 not help much. 
 
 "Where's Lucian? Why isn't he on his job? " 
 growled Cuthbert. 
 
 But when I told him, he too wanted to be off. 
 
 "No, you don't, young man! " said Uncle Lew. 
 *' You sit right down here and dig up the capital 
 letters from this mess of type. They mixed it before 
 they walked out. That shows a trusting spirit, 
 doesn't it? S'pose they thought we'd get in scab 
 labour? " 
 
EXPLOSION 245 
 
 " But the reporting's my job," protested Cuthbert. 
 " Lucian's no journalist — he won't know " 
 
 " Everything's your job to-day," interrupted 
 Uncle Lew. " Find me a capital T, six-point. The 
 trouble with you is you're too highly specialised, 
 Cuthbert; now's your opportunity to remedy that 
 defect and be an all-round man, like me and William 
 Morris. Have you found that T ? — That's eight-point, 
 son, I said six." 
 
 " Weren't they right, after all ? " I asked. " Aren't 
 we scab labour? Ought we to be doing this? " 
 
 " I thought you'd bite," shouted Uncle Lew. 
 "It's a delicate question: — Are we? — ought we? — 
 What do you say ? — All the a's in one pile, Cuthbert, 
 all the b's in another, like the little girl and the 
 mixed breakfast foods in the fairy tale. That's the 
 ticket. Tip 'em out.— Well, Clara? " 
 
 " I asked you," I said, laughing. 
 
 " And my answer is — this " — he waved his hands 
 around at the confusion in the room. " I'm like the 
 express train going past the flag-station at New Hope 
 — I don't even hesitate." 
 
 " But if it isn't scab labour, what is it, Uncle Lew?" 
 
 " There is such a thing as a distinction without a 
 difference, my dear. We are not depriving any man 
 of his job by doing this; we are not taking away any 
 man's wages, since we don't get paid for it. And 
 the money we take in for this number of The Torch 
 will go to the Strikers' Relief Fund. There will be 
 no kick coming from the unions. — Now, if your 
 conscience has gone bye-low, take off your hat and 
 run your blue pencil through the Russo-American 
 idioms in Lazarus's account of that poor striker's 
 
246 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 funeral procession. — Wf. Cuthbert, do you know 
 what that means? — Yes, dear boy, wrong font, 
 exactly. Try my spectacles." 
 
 Thus Uncle Lew, in that whimsical voice of his 
 that even Cuthbert's defiance could not withstand. 
 
 Later, when I had gone into my own office, Lazarus 
 came in and stood by my desk, listening to my sug- 
 gestions absently. 
 
 " If you permit me, I ask you an impertinent 
 question," he said at last. 
 
 " I don't believe it will be impertinent, Mr. Samson," 
 I replied gently. 
 
 " Well, I don't know," he returned. And then — 
 " You wasn't ever engaged to Mr. Lawrence? " 
 
 ** Oh, no ! " I blushed at the over-vehemence of 
 my tone. 
 
 " But you know him pretty well? " 
 
 ** I have known him a long time." 
 
 " You think he is not bluffing the workers when he 
 says he asks the merchants to use the label? You 
 think he believes in the closed shop ? " 
 
 '* I think he has always been an honourable gentle- 
 man, Mr. Samson." 
 
 " Now, here is a conversation a man sold me. He 
 was cleaning the windows in that office, and he heard 
 them. I wrote it." Lazarus handed me several 
 scribbled pages of yellow paper and stood waiting. 
 
 It was an incoherent report of conversation between 
 Tristram Lawrence and the head of one of the big 
 department stores. 
 
 " Then the Reform candidate, he says, ' / want to 
 be able to tell them I've asked you, that's all.' And 
 then they looks at each other, and old Wingate he laughs, 
 
EXPLOSION 247 
 
 and the Reform candidate he smiles like he had a had 
 taste in his mouth. And old Wingate says, ' Of course, 
 Mr. Lawrence, if I and the other members of the 
 Citizens League didnH know you were as sound as the 
 rest of us on this issue, we shouldn't he supporting your 
 nomination.' ' Of course,' says the Reform candidate, 
 ' / understand.' ' And when we give up the right of 
 an employer to engage whatever man he pleases at 
 whatever price he can get him for,* says old Wingate, 
 ' we strike the death-hlow of the repuhlic' * Yes,' 
 says the Reform candidate, kind of slow, * I suppose 
 we do.' Then the old man looks at him sharp and says, 
 ' Look here, Lawrence, there's talk of your heing 
 infected hy Socialism.' And Lawrence says, ' You 
 know I'm a memher of the committee for relief for 
 strikers' wives and children, and the young woman who 
 led out this strike is a Socialist. I've seen something 
 of her in committee work, I suppose that's where the 
 talk arises.' ' Yes, I dare say,' the old man says, 
 indifferent. ' Fine-looking girl, eh ? — So I've heard. 
 Well, I'm glad there are some compensations.' ' It's 
 a peculiar situation,' Lawrence says. Then old Wingate 
 claps him on the shoulder and tells him, ' I don't know 
 who is hetter fitted to handle it than you. It's all right. 
 You've asked me — urged me — and I'm considering it 
 seriously.' " 
 
 There was more, but that was the gist of it. 
 
 " What does Miss Aarons say? " I asked. 
 
 " I didn't show her this, yet. But to everything 
 she only says I make it a personal matter. We don't 
 speak to each other for two days now, because we 
 disagreed. What I want to know — shall we print 
 this?" 
 
248 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " Oh, but that was settled days ago," I cried. 
 
 " You think so ? With these new data ? " 
 
 I stared at him, frightened. 
 
 " I don't wish to print, you understand," he ex- 
 plained. *' I am personal about her; she is right. 
 I don't like her name with his in the paper. And if 
 she gets mad in a hurry, reading this, she will kiU 
 him. It is probable. I don't want that. You see 
 how it is personal with me ? She is so right ; I must 
 remember only the cause, not her. I fail, because I 
 am personal. But if you say to print ? " 
 
 " We can't ! " I cried. " We can't ! It is so vulgar ; 
 so horrid. The Torch does not print scandal." 
 
 " The Torch prints the truth." 
 
 " He is an honourable gentleman in a very difficult 
 position " 
 
 '' He is in a difficult position, yes." 
 
 " And who knows how much of this is malicious — 
 garbled? " 
 
 He shrugged. 
 
 " We should give him the benefit of the doubt," 
 I insisted. 
 
 " I rely to your judgment," he said, and left me 
 alone with those scribbled yellow sheets. 
 
 And I was a coward. 
 
 I tried to persuade myself that The Torch could not 
 touch this sort of thing. But where does one draw 
 the Hne in political campaigns, as to what the public 
 has a right to know about the political morale of a 
 candidate? And The Torch was supporting union 
 labour and the closed shop, which Tristram was 
 trying to betray. " Not trying to," I said. " He 
 doesn't mean it that way." And The Torch was the 
 
EXPLOSION 249 
 
 organ of the Socialist Party. *' But I don't belong 
 to the party," I said irrelevantly. I cannot forgive 
 myself for saying that. Other thoughts crowding 
 in at the time obscured the implication it held; but 
 the words flashed back into consciousness like a 
 shameful blow in the face. I had been quite as 
 ready as Tristram to take advantage of a false posi- 
 tion. No doubt he, too, did not realise what his 
 action meant till afterwards. It is as if conscience 
 were absent-minded, sometimes. 
 
 A couple of hours later I was still trying to think 
 that I had not made up my mind what to do, when 
 Cuthbert came in to tell me that three of The Torch* s 
 four pages were set up. Had I anything else that 
 must go in ? 
 
 " This? " His hand went out to the yellow sheets. 
 
 So did mine. I covered them, and crumpled them 
 together. "No, not this!" 
 
 "We're leaving two columns open for Lucian; 
 and Uncle Lew is setting up the striker's fimeral 
 now, and that baby's obsequies you sent down," 
 he said. " Regular tear-starter, that. But we ought 
 to have something to run in at the last minute, 
 just supposing Lucian's train wreck fizzles out." 
 
 I suggested going again to the settlement, where 
 there were always new developments. But he 
 scouted the proposal. 
 
 " Settlement ! " he snarled. " I mean something 
 vital. We've got enough philanthropic gush." 
 
 " Cuthbert, once for all," I said, " understand that 
 I am quite as convinced of the futility of settlements 
 as you are; indeed, I am more convinced, for I'm not 
 afraid of what they can do." 
 
250 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " I afraid! " he blustered — " I ignore them! " 
 
 " I haven't observed it. But my suggestion has 
 nothing to do with philanthropic gush. You know, 
 as well as I do, that if you want to get the latest 
 movements of the garment strikers, you have to go 
 to Helen at the settlement.'* 
 
 '' Yes; and if I want to get the latest news of 
 Tristram Lawrence and Bertha Aarons," he retorted, 
 *' I can find them there, too, any time of day, sitting 
 holding hands on a sofa behind the door." 
 
 "Cuthbert!" 
 
 *' I say it's so ! It's time we threw the flashlight 
 on the Reform candidate, I tell you. We've got 
 enough to go on." 
 
 " Lucian told me, the last thing, that he would not 
 have it," I said. 
 
 He clucked his tongue against his teeth im- 
 patiently, and snapped his fingers. " Oh, well, if 
 he's printing a weekly guide on etiquette, he can 
 count me out." 
 
 " Cuthbert," I began, " just because Mr. Lawrence 
 is running against you in this campaign you ought to 
 be the more careful not to indulge in personalities 
 about him in print." 
 
 "Yes, that's politics, isn't it?" he retorted. 
 ** I'm no gentleman — as you once remarked. I'm 
 also no lady, thank God ! I'U get ahead of him and 
 Lucian too before I'm done. Lucian can keep me 
 out of print, maybe; but he can't muzzle me." 
 
 Since childhood I have always been moved to 
 preach to Cuthbert. All the prig in me comes out 
 when I am with him. Now I said — " You are so 
 angry against all the world. It is dreadful. Your 
 
EXPLOSION 251 
 
 anger will destroy you, Cuthbert. If Lucian were 
 your bitterest enemy — if he had hounded you to 
 disgrace — you could not speak of him more violently. 
 You and he differ on a matter of journalistic policy, 
 that is all — and yet " 
 
 " That is all? " he said, suddenly quiet. " All?— 
 If it were not for Lucian, you " 
 
 " Hush ! " I said. And he burst out into boisterous, 
 heart-breaking laughter. 
 
 " And I must knuckle under because he gave me 
 his old clothes in college,'* he shouted. *' I must 
 lick his foot and give up the woman I love *' 
 
 I stood up. " There was never a question of such 
 a thing! " I cried. ** How dare you? '* 
 
 '* I say, if it had not been for Lucian you 
 would '* 
 
 "Leave the room at once!" I remember how 
 strange my voice sounded. 
 
 " I say, he doesn't even know you are in love 
 with " 
 
 " Then I shall go." Could I see to go ? I wondered. 
 
 He put out his hand to keep me, dropped it, and 
 shrank aside. 
 
 " I say, he's a fool! My God, I could " 
 
 So I went — forgetting those loose yellow pages. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was after eight o'clock when I got home that 
 evening. Uncle Lew and I had had a dinner of stale 
 bread and strong cheese bought at a fabulous price 
 from a corner grocery, and eaten among the presses 
 
252 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 by the light of three monstrously expensive tallow 
 candles. While we were eating, Cuthbert looked in 
 at the door. His face flared, wild and defiant, among 
 the shadows, then disappeared. 
 
 " Come in and have a bite," Uncle Lew called. 
 " There's plenty." 
 
 But we heard him clattering downstairs. 
 
 He was standing at the front door when we came 
 down later. 
 
 " How about a filler, in case Lucian's row doesn't 
 pan out? " he asked. " Because if you haven't one, 
 I think I — " The shakiness of his voice seemed to me 
 natural, under the circumstances; but Uncle Lew 
 turned and looked at him and said : — 
 
 "What's that?— Oh, filler? Yes, there's one on 
 my desk that will do; an interview with a button- 
 sewer. I'U set it up for emergency when I have seen 
 the lady editor safe home." 
 
 " I'll set it up," Cuthbert cried, starting back up 
 the stairs. 
 
 "Do you know what's the matter with him? " 
 Uncle Lew asked, shutting the heavy front door and 
 trying the knob. And to my brief " Yes " he replied 
 hastily, " Oh, very well! " and changed the subject. 
 
 The streets were unpleasantly dark, and Uncle Lew 
 hurried me along on pretence of needing to get back 
 to his work. We had an electric lamp that we 
 flashed now and then. Occasionally we met some 
 one with a lantern, and there were policemen with 
 official bulls'-eyes at more or less uncertain intervals. 
 Once, down a side street there were screams, and 
 scuttling as of gigantic rats. 
 
 " Now's the time I regret your Franciscanism, 
 
EXPLOSION 253 
 
 Clara, and wish you had an auto of your own," Uncle 
 Lew said. 
 
 " I hope I shouldn't be riding in it now, even if I 
 did own one," I retorted. " Even Cyrus wished he 
 owned one to-day; but it was for a funeral." And 
 we laughed. 
 
 The showy vestibule of our apartment house was 
 illumined by one large oil lamp with a tin reflector 
 behind it. Uncle Lew left me there, and I had 
 started up the unaccustomed stairs when a reluctant 
 voice below me said, " Miss Emery," and looking 
 down I saw a shame-faced elevator-boy. 
 
 " Why, Joe; have you given in? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes'm," he opened the door of the elevator cage. 
 
 "All the boys? " 
 
 " Yes'm." He seemed to lose himself in depressing 
 reflections. 
 
 I again began to climb the stairs. 
 
 ** Miss Emery, it's running, you know! " he called 
 up in surprise. 
 
 " Not for me, Joe," I said. 
 
 His mouth fell open. He watched me till I came 
 to the first landing ; then I saw him go into his cage, 
 shut the door, and sit down with his elbows on his 
 knees and his chin in his hands. He reminded me 
 humorously of Rodin's Thinker. I cHmbed the 
 remaining seven flights of stairs with a whimsical 
 feehng of amusement. 
 
 Tristram Lawrence was in our drawing-room try- 
 ing to induce Cyrus to speak at a mass-meeting 
 which, it seemed, the Citizens* Relief Committee was 
 hurriedly planning for Sunday afternoon. Within 
 the last year or two people had waked up to the fact 
 
254 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 that Cyrus could speak, and he was beginning to be 
 very much in demand, although oftener than not he 
 would refuse. Tristram was assuring him, now, 
 that he might talk Tolstoyism, non-resistance, 
 Christianity, whatever he pleased — so he struck the 
 note of Peace. Brotherhood — that was the motif to 
 embroider. The present situation was furnishing a 
 dramatic example of our dependence upon one 
 another. Peace, conciliation, arbitration — all of 
 them hobbies of Cyrus's; surely he would not 
 refuse ? 
 
 He consented at last and made his escape from the 
 room, and Tristram developed the plan of the meet- 
 ing for my Cousin Pauline and me. — The note of 
 appeal, so far as I could make out, was to be 
 prominent; appeal to the strikers. The discomfort 
 of the guiltless public was to be stressed. — Guiltless! 
 Having left undone the things it ought to have done ? 
 — But I did not interrupt. Along with the veiled 
 appeal for mercy there was to go, also veiled, a threat. 
 Through the efforts of the Reform candidate, whose 
 sympathy for the cause of organised labour was so 
 well known, the mayor had, thus far, been persuaded 
 not to call for troops, but A list of those organisa- 
 tions which had agreed to go back to work on Monday 
 morning would be read. — I ventured to question the 
 policy of this, and Tristram made a note of it. 
 Arbitration was to be urged, and the meeting was to 
 close with the proposal of names for a committee of 
 arbitration, six names: two from the unions, two 
 from the employers, two from the public. — " We 
 mean to make Cyrus one," Tristram said, " and a 
 woman, perhaps Miss Baldwin, the other." — The 
 
EXPLOSION 255 
 
 strike, of course, was to be called off pending the 
 decision, which would hardly be reached, Tristram 
 thought, until after the elections. I reminded him 
 that a somewhat similar proposal for arbitration had 
 already been rejected by the strikers early in the 
 Garment Workers' strike, but he was evidently 
 counting on the temper of the meeting to push public 
 opinion in that direction; especially was he count- 
 ing on Cyrus. I observed that he had no Socialist 
 speakers on his programme. 
 
 At this point, my Cousin Pauline, always a little 
 dazed in the presence of practical detail, excused 
 herself. 
 
 " I proposed Lucian's name," Tristram exclaimed, 
 " but the mayor thought " 
 
 " Oh, but Lucian wouldn't have spoken, anyway," 
 said I. "He wouldn't approve of getting that sort 
 of peace." 
 
 ''Arbitration?" queried Tristram. " What's con- 
 trary to Socialism there? " 
 
 " It looks like hoodwinking the people, to tide 
 over till after the elections." 
 
 " You're very fond of that word — ' hoodwink.' " 
 
 " What word would you have me use? " 
 
 " Clara," he was leaning his elbows on his knees, 
 bowing his head, and he pushed his fingers through 
 his thin hair. " My faith in myself is at a low ebb 
 to-night ; I'd Uke to think you keep your faith in me." 
 
 The unaccustomed gesture had left him dishevelled. 
 I discovered that his was the type that looks in- 
 effective when its hair is mussed. 
 
 " But I never did think you would win," I 
 stammered. 
 
256 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " I'm not talking about the election — I mean faith 
 in me, the man." 
 
 I said nothing to this. 
 
 When he spoke again he shaded his eyes with his 
 hand, as if the Ught annoyed him; but there was not 
 much Hght. 
 
 " If I had known — all that it would involve — I 
 presume — I should not have gone in. — But I am in, 
 now." He drooped backward slowly into the deep 
 chair and mused a few moments, with eyelids down- 
 cast. Then he rubbed his fingers against each other 
 with a delicate gesture of repugnance, and said, " I 
 hope you will never know what it feels like to touch 
 pitch." And then, " It was in your cause, you know; 
 the Cause of the People. You probably hear all 
 sorts of lies about me. I can see by your face that 
 you do. Is it too much to ask you to believe that, 
 nevertheless, I am disinterested? " 
 
 " You want to win," I reminded him. 
 
 " To give the people what I believe to be a better 
 government. But — I labour under the disadvan- 
 tage of having been trained for hterature, not for 
 hfe. To-night I am ready to admit, to you, that I 
 ought to have stayed in literature. But it is not my 
 fault that I didn't, Clara; you were in hfe." 
 
 " Then you were not disinterested," I remarked. 
 
 *' Would you want a man to be whoUy disinterested 
 — if you loved him? " 
 
 " I should want him not to try to deceive himself, 
 or me, as to his own motives." 
 
 " He must be superhuman, then. No man ever 
 yet fathomed his own motives." 
 
 " I distrust such a convenient doctrine." 
 
EXPLOSION 257 
 
 He got up, his greyhound face suddenly ashy, and 
 smoothing his hair with one hand, felt for the chair- 
 arm unsteadily with the other. " After that, how 
 can I presume to ask you the question a man asks 
 the woman he would most honour — if there is no 
 honour in me? " 
 
 "Oh!" I whispered, covering up my own face, 
 " I did not say that." 
 
 " Clara! — you will listen? " 
 
 " No, no! " I cried; but he would not be stopped. 
 
 " I could defend myself " — the distressful tremor 
 in his voice sent the tears raining through my fingers. 
 " But I make no defence to you. I love you. And 
 because I love you I have tried to do something I was 
 not fit to do. But I'll keep at it until I am fit — if 
 you will marry me, Clara." 
 
 " If I loved you," I said then, and I tried to be 
 gentle, " perhaps I could be happy to marry you on 
 those terms. I am afraid I should delude myself 
 into thinking that I could teach you to care for the 
 things that I care for — if I loved you. But — I don't 
 love you." 
 
 After he had gone, and I had dried my eyes and got 
 hold of myself, there were lengths of evening stretch- 
 ing still ahead, full of dread imaginings. Lucian had 
 warned me not to expect him before midnight, if then. 
 What had happened in those long afternoon hours 
 since he left me, I wondered. What was happening 
 now, in that city murk? I remember I went from 
 window to window, straining into the unusual dark- 
 ness restlessly. No bright, blinking garlands, no 
 
258 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 streaming ribbons of light, decked the River Way. 
 At sullen intervals along the shore blear-eyed lanterns 
 kept watch. The black vagueness of the three 
 bridges streaked the dim, palpitating water. We 
 had stripped our great courtesan of her jewels. 
 
 "Have you noticed the stars?" Cyrus said, 
 behind me. " They get their chance to-night." 
 
 I made room for him in the window, and he opened 
 it and kneeling down laid his head on the sill, so that 
 he looked sidewise up at the sky. " This way you 
 quicken them and shut the city out," he said. And 
 I knelt down too, and laid my head beside his on 
 the siU. 
 
 " You know, don't you, that I should be with him, 
 if I knew where he was? " he asked, after a little 
 silence. 
 
 " Yes, dear," I answered. 
 
 " But one finds out nothing in this chaos. There 
 is no knowing which railroad they're coming in on. 
 And without the telephone we are so helpless." 
 
 I moved my head in acquiescence, and after 
 another star-himg silence, he said, in his quietest 
 voice — " If I could have gone in his stead." 
 
 I am glad I put my hand out and touched his 
 shoulder, humanly, tenderly. 
 
 These Umbrian nights when I cannot sleep, I come 
 up to the loggia and lay my cheek against the cool 
 parapet, and say over and over the things I might 
 have said to comfort him that other night. I think 
 of so many things to say, now. I shut my eyes that 
 I may see again his dear head lying beside mine; 
 but my voice goes seeking out among the stars. 
 
 " If I could have gone in his stead," he said; and 
 
EXPLOSION 259 
 
 then in the comfortless stillness, "No; I must not 
 covet even his suffering." 
 
 And I — withdrew my hand from his shoulder. 
 
 I remember so well how his coat wrinkled across 
 the back as he got off his knees and went to the door. 
 I remember the Uttle straggle of hair that stood out 
 from the crown of his head. 
 
 " I shall be getting my to-morrow's speech in 
 shape," he said, " if you need me. I shan't go to 
 bed. — But you won't need me." 
 
 It was eleven then, and I got out my diary and 
 wrote the day into it, and spent a good deal of time 
 trying to justify myself to myself for not having 
 consulted Uncle Lew about Tristram's interview with 
 the department store man. It would have been so 
 simple to consult Uncle Lew — but conscience said, 
 *' You were afraid to consult him, he sees so clear." 
 I did not write that in the diary, but I wiU write it 
 here. In the diary I stressed the fact that Lucian 
 had told me to cast his vote against — but against 
 what? Against facts that the public had a right to 
 know? Did Lucian mean me to interpret him that 
 way ? Suppose I had put him in the wrong with the 
 party, by my cowardice ? And suppose he could never 
 come back to set himself right ?— Suppose he never 
 came back? I sat a long time motionless in the 
 clutch of the intolerable thought. 
 
 I had not re-read that record in my diary until 
 yesterday, here at the villa, in the cypress avenue. 
 The ancient serried trees, motionless in their inimit- 
 able vista, stretch dark and unending, like the hours 
 before Lucian came home. 
 
 By two o'clock I could no longer sit still, but I 
 
26o THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 dared not let myself pace the floor. I hunted up a 
 dust-cloth and dusted the drawing-room: all my 
 Cousin Pauline's little silver gimcracks, all the 
 picture-frames and the chair rungs and the piano 
 keys. I was wiping off the books when I heard his 
 key in the haU-door, his voice and Cyrus's mingling 
 in a brief, excited whisper. " Yes, aU safe," I heard, 
 and " Clara's waiting." 
 
 His linen collar had been torn off the button at one 
 side; his left coat-sleeve hung ripped from cuff to 
 armhole; there was a muddy splash on the front of 
 his shirt, a muddy streak across his forehead; his 
 hair flashed every way; his eyes 
 
 I heard Cyrus shut the drawing-room door and 
 tiptoe away, down the hall. 
 
 " I mustn't touch you; I'm so dirty," Lucian 
 whispered. 
 
 And I whispered — " I don't mind." 
 
 Presently — I don't know when — he said: " Where 
 were we all these years? " And when I did not 
 answer — " Did you know, Clara? " 
 
 " Know what? " 
 
 " That it was love from the beginning? " 
 
 "No; there are some things one does not tell one's 
 self." 
 
 " Ah — you! " he sighed. " No one else could say 
 it that way." 
 
 I liked to have him say that, even though it may 
 not be true. 
 
 "What happened?" I asked, touching his torn 
 sleeve. 
 
 " Oh, everything — and nothing. At trade union 
 
EXPLOSION 261 
 
 headquarters they were not too happy over my news. 
 Most of them would rather have been left in ignorance. 
 The bigger men on the executive committee were 
 with me, of course, but the others were for hands 
 off. " And let two or three or four hundred men go 
 down an embankment to destruction! " I shouted. I 
 was red hot. One said, * It's war.* One said, ' It's 
 not our responsibility, these Italians are not 
 unionised.' One of their Socialists said, * And you 
 say you stand for the class war; they could read you 
 out of the party for this.' I said, * Let them! — I 
 don't care a damn.' I didn't handle it very well, I 
 was too mad. Neither did the chairman. We were 
 hammering at it for four hours and then we lost it 
 by one vote. They wouldn't interfere. * Too bad I ' 
 the chairman said, * but if you hustle you can still 
 put the police on to it in time.' That Socialist 
 Unionist didn't say anything; he just looked at me 
 and smiled his class-conscious smile. ' I can wave 
 a red lantern on a railroad track as well as a police- 
 man,' I said. ' I shan't waste time telling the 
 police. And you, comrade,' I said to the smiler, 
 ' go down to the Sociahst headquarters and tell them 
 I've gone out on the G.H.I, tracks to prevent the 
 slaughter, if I can, of three or four hundred pro- 
 letarians. Proletarians, do you hear, you fool? 
 members of the labouring class so befuddled and 
 degraded by the iniquities of the present industrial 
 system that they don't know they're your brothers 
 and mine. Proletarians of all lands, unite I you say. 
 Are you going to bid these poor devils unite after 
 you've pitched them over the precipice? Class- 
 conscious — ^you! * I didn't wait for his answer." 
 
262 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 He laughed and, linking his arm in mine, began to 
 walk up and down the drawing-room. 
 
 " Beloved, can you hear it chant, and shout, and 
 sing," he whispered, " chant, and shout, and laugh, 
 and sob, and sing? — My blood leaps to the rhythm 
 of it. All the rage and despair and brutality of it — 
 all the bright brotherhood of it ; all the near failure 
 and far seen triumph of it. All the anguish wrapped 
 round in the victorious laughter of God. Listen ! " 
 
 We stood still together, in the middle of the room. 
 
 " And in the heart of it. Beloved, in the still place 
 at the heart of the crashing discords and distraught 
 harmonies, this singing love of ours — earnest of all 
 the oneness that shall be." 
 
 " I hear," I said. And I turned and looked into 
 his eyes, and drew him to me, with my hands on his 
 shoulders. So we listened. But soon he leaned to 
 me and kissed my eyes and said : — 
 
 ** No; put the thought away from us, dear heart. 
 I shall never sing it; I shall never write it. Taillefer 
 sang the Song of Roland before Hastings; but when 
 the fight was on who had ears to listen, who had 
 breath to sing? The battle sang itself." 
 
 " But when it is over," I pleaded. 
 
 " Emotion recollected in tranquillity? " he smiled. 
 *' When it is over — oh, long before set of sun, my 
 darling, long before this long, long strife is ended, 
 you and I shall be lying dead upon the field." 
 
 I think my eyes still pleaded, for again he kissed 
 them. " There is not enough of me to fight and 
 sing, both," he said. " I choose to fight. You and 
 I, Beloved, choose that I shall fight. Say it ! I want 
 to hear you say it." 
 
EXPLOSION 263 
 
 " I choose— that you shall fight," I said through 
 my tears. 
 
 " And when Fm restive — as I am to-night, with the 
 imperative desire to sing it — ^you must crush my 
 egotism with what, I suspect, is the modest, salutary 
 truth, that I'm not big enough to sing it, even if I 
 would." 
 
 " No; that is not the truth! " I cried. 
 
 " We shall never be sure, dear. That's my hair 
 shirt. It scratches healthily. But you haven't 
 heard the end of my story. — I wasted half an hour 
 trying to borrow a motor to take me out there. 
 Gasolene is running short in this beleaguered town, 
 did you know it? And finally I set out over the 
 tracks for an indefinite spot eight miles, or perhaps 
 farther, beyond the city. It was half -past five then. 
 At half-past eight I did get a four-mile lift in a passing 
 motor; and after that it wasn't safe to leave the 
 ties as I didn't know just where they would be cut. 
 I had my electric flash-light with me, and three red 
 lanterns; but I didn't dare use a light for fear of 
 giving myself away, and I almost ran into the wreckers 
 in the darkness. Then I dogged them and found that 
 they were waiting for an eleven o'clock accommoda- 
 tion to pass, so as not to wreck anything earlier than 
 the midnight express. They derailed the track near 
 
 the middle of a trestle. Yes — fiendish ; but then . 
 
 I had only half an hour and I wanted to make sure 
 they didn't block me, so I groped along under the 
 trestle and up the embankment, and then beyond, 
 for half a mile, before I ventured to light a lantern. 
 Two of them I set on the track, about a hundred yards 
 apart, out of sight of each other, round a curve. 
 
264 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 You see, I was afraid they would patrol the track. 
 They did, but not far enough. I kept the third 
 lantern to wave, if they should find the other two. 
 I tied a message to each lantern, ' Trestle derailed, 
 half a mile beyond.' I never expect to enjoy myself 
 so much again ! " 
 
 " If those Italians had found you — Oh, Lucian ! " 
 
 " But you see, they didn't! " 
 
 " Every one will say you ought to have warned 
 the police — that it was your duty as a citizen." 
 
 " Yes, I know. And according to all precedents 
 of conventional morahty, I ought. But think how 
 it would have complicated matters — ^how it would 
 have increased hard feeling. If there had been no 
 other way, that would have been another matter. 
 But there was this way. I watched the conductor 
 and brakesman come down the track, after the train 
 stopped. They went out on the trestle and found 
 the break. I suppose the train is still out there, and 
 the strike-breakers. I crawled up to the turnpike 
 after that, and presently along came a motor from 
 town, and slowed up and looked me over; and that 
 grinning SociaUst got out and said, * Is that you, 
 comrade? Are we too late to lend a hand? ' And 
 I said, ' Repented, did you ? Then take me back 
 to The Torch office double quick.' So they did. I 
 left Uncle Lew setting up the story. It's not much 
 over half a column, but Cuthbert said he had a filler 
 ready for the rest of the space. He was going to 
 send Uncle Lew to bed and do the press work when 
 it was all set up. They made me come home. I 
 think Uncle Lew knew you'd be anxious." 
 
 " How did you write it up? " I asked. 
 
EXPLOSION 265 
 
 " Oh, quite from the outside, as it would appear 
 to the trainmen. A war-measure — stressing the 
 humanitarian character of the warning. The infer- 
 ence would be that the wreckers had given it, of 
 course, though I didn't say they did. I also stated 
 that the unions disclaimed responsibility ; the wreck- 
 ing had evidently been done by private persons and 
 not under the direction of organised labour, ' which 
 made the care displayed for human life all the more 
 remarkable,' etc., etc. It will make the unions want 
 to kick themselves for not having had a hand in it." 
 
 " Now you must go to bed," I urged. 
 
 ** And you. Dearest, don't look at me like that; 
 as if I were a hero. There is something on my 
 conscience, unheroic, I must tell you. About 
 Tristram " 
 
 " Oh, Tristram! " I said, " and on mine." 
 
 " You mean " 
 
 "No; not quite what you think " 
 
 "What do I think?" 
 
 " Tell me to-morrow." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 CONFLAGRATION 
 
 I DO not have premonitions of misfortune. I often 
 plan and live through in imagination the possible 
 deaths of friends and relatives; but this is a literary, 
 not a psychic trait. And Lucian is like me. On 
 that last Sunday of the general strike we went down 
 to the mass meeting almost gaily, unshadowed by 
 any tragic omen. Somehow, at the moment, victory 
 for the strikers seemed inevitable, and I think we 
 had forgotten that personal grief could touch us. 
 No doubt our own individual happiness, so new and 
 absorbing, created the illusion. 
 
 The immense hall was filling rapidly when we 
 arrived. It was a grey, misty afternoon, and people 
 brought the damp and the mud in with them. The 
 place reeked with wet rubber and moist humanity. 
 We sat in the centre, some ten or twelve rows from 
 the front, and congratulated ourselves on being so 
 near the speakers. But later, how intolerably far 
 away it seemed! I had been invited to sit on the 
 platform, but had refused — to my Cousin Pauline's 
 annoyance. 
 
 '* This is surely the time to take your stand with 
 your own people," she conplained that morning at 
 the breakfast table. 
 
 266 
 
CONFLAGRATION 267 
 
 " And so I do/* I said. 
 
 " The fanatical Socialist," the marchese smiled 
 indulgently. 
 
 And I acquiesced with, " If you like." 
 
 *' No ; your true fanatic is always a party member,*' 
 Lucian teased, " and you reverse the biblical phrase 
 — ^you are of the party but not in it.** 
 
 " It is your level-headed fanatic who is fanatichis- 
 simus,'* said Cyrus, gently, *' and that is Clara.** 
 
 " And you, too! " laughed his brother. 
 
 *' Darling," said my Cousin Pauline, " there is no 
 such word as fanatichissimus." 
 
 But before the mass meeting was over I would have 
 given much to be upon the platform. 
 
 It seemed as if the whole city were crushed into 
 that huge, ill-smelling hall. Long before the hour 
 every seat was taken on the floor and in the gallery; 
 the high window sills were filled, the walls were lined 
 with people standing. At the doors, they said, the 
 pressure was intense. Despite the police, crowds 
 surged up the aisles, and, once in, could not be got 
 out. 
 
 " Stand up and take a look! " Lucian said. '* It*s 
 tremendous! '* 
 
 The men and women immediately around us were 
 Italians; we knew many of them — faces that flashed 
 and lowered, restless shoulders, restless hands; the 
 young girls looking out half-starved from under- 
 neath their big, be-feathered hats; the young men 
 furtive or insolent — but always with a pathetically 
 friendly smile for us. 
 
 The Slavic faces were perhaps in the majority; 
 their smouldering eyes were everywhere; and every- 
 
268 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 where were the ferret looks of watchful Jews. Heavy 
 Irish trade unionists elbowed and shoved their way 
 through the crowd. I recognised a labour leader 
 here and there, usually in low- voiced, emphatic 
 colloquy with some button-holed henchman. And 
 dotted all about the hall there were those other faces, 
 mingled of intensest curiosity and secret apprehension 
 — the faces of the American upper class. On every 
 side I caught their unwinking, excited gaze. I 
 caught it two seats behind us, and after a staring 
 moment it nodded and smiled, and was Nicholas 
 Richards and his pretty wife. 
 
 " Great show, isn't it! " he seemed to say. We 
 couldn't hear his voice for the general rumbling. 
 
 Presently he beckoned, leaning toward us over 
 intervening shoulders, and we bent near enough to 
 hear him murmur, ** If a cog slips there'll be a 
 massacre. Jinks ! I'm scared, and I don't care who 
 knows it. I wish I'd left my wife at home." 
 
 We could only nod and smile our reassiurance. 
 
 "There's Uncle Lew waving in the gallery!" 
 exclaimed Lucian. " That means the paper's ready 
 — he was bound to get it out for the meeting." 
 
 *' Something is the matter with him," I said. 
 "What is he trying to tell us? He looks so dis- 
 turbed. Why does he point to his copy? " 
 
 " Oh, I suppose it's set up in a muddle," Lucian 
 laughed. " Cuthbert did all the last part — worked all 
 night and wouldn't let Uncle Lew stay. I shouldn't 
 be surprised if half the type were upside down." 
 
 "It is not like him to take that sort of thing 
 seriously," I objected. " There is something real 
 the matter." 
 
CONFLAGRATION 269 
 
 "I wonder if they're selling outside?'* Lucian 
 started up. " I wonder if I can get a copy? " 
 
 But I warned him that he would never get in again, 
 and he reluctantly sat down beside me. Then — 
 
 " Clara," he said after a few minutes of silence, 
 '* Fm afraid The Torch ought to show up Tristram 
 Lawrence. I'm afraid it's disloyal to the party not 
 to print what I know " 
 
 " What you know? " I repeated. 
 
 " Yes; within the last two days I've got hold of 
 pretty good evidence that he's crooked. That's why 
 my conscience troubles me. I've been trying to 
 persuade myself that it's the sort of thing a gentle- 
 man can't touch. But I don't know — if I hadn't 
 been jealous of him I think I might have looked at it 
 the other way round, and known that I owed it to the 
 city, to the party, to clean politics everywhere " 
 
 " Jealous of him! " said I. 
 
 He glanced down, sidewise at me, ruefully. ** I 
 
 thought — I thought " he said. The colour rushed 
 
 up his face, and mine. 
 
 " Don't you see? " he began again, " I was afraid 
 I wanted to blacken him for personal reasons. And 
 I couldn't do that. It's the personal that trips us 
 every time." 
 
 "Oh, but I am to blame, too!" I cried. And 
 then I told Lazarus's story. '* And I knew I ought 
 to get Uncle Lew's advice," I confessed. " But it 
 was so horrid, I couldn't bear to have anything to 
 do with it. And to turn on a man who had visited 
 me; who — who — Hked me," I ended lamely. " Oh, 
 I couldn't! Is it too late? Lucian, do you suppose 
 you will be read out of the party ? It was my fault." 
 
270 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 "No; mine as much," he insisted. "We might 
 go to Tristram — I might — and tell him I know and 
 m print unless he resigns the nomination." 
 
 " Is — is that blackmail? " I faltered. 
 
 " Why, no! Is it? " He laughed. " But if the 
 strike holds out we may not be able to get out 
 another number of The Torch, We'll see what Uncle 
 Lew says. We might print a broadside and scatter 
 it on street comers. Dio mio, do you suppose we've 
 got to be as vulgar as all that? " 
 
 A cane reached between us from behind and tapped 
 him on the shoulder. It was Nicholas again. He had 
 a copy of The Torch in his other hand, and was trying 
 to say something to us. We saw other copies of the 
 paper in the back of the hall. Nicholas finally scribbled 
 something on a card and passed it over to Lucian. 
 
 " I admire your nerve," we read, " but if there's 
 a riot in this place you ought to be hung for it. Why, 
 in the name of conunon sense, couldn't you wait till 
 after the show to sell your firebrand? " 
 
 *' What's he talking about? " said Lucian. *' Does 
 he think they'll fight in here because the scabs weren't 
 wrecked? Whom would they fight? What a fool 
 he is." 
 
 And just then I saw Bertha Aarons standing against 
 the wall at the side of the room, her head bent over 
 a copy of The Torch. As I looked, she Hfted her 
 face — a distorted, livid face; and she tore The Torch 
 across and across. 
 
 " Oh, look at Bertha Aarons! " I exclaimed. 
 
 But Lucian said, " S's'h'h, here they are at last! " 
 And the speakers and other dignitaries came filing 
 in upon the platform. 
 
CONFLAGRATION 271 
 
 There were some fifteen or twenty — an impressive 
 company; among them a Presbyterian minister, an 
 Episcopal clergyman, the president of a college, the 
 head of the Charity Organisation Society, a couple of 
 lawyers, a professor of economics, — a woman, — 
 Tristram, of course, the marchese, my Cousin Pauline, 
 Helen. Cyrus came last, looking particularly absent 
 minded, a strange little half-smile on his lips, and 
 vision in his eyes. 
 
 '* Far from this our war," Lucian quoted softly. 
 
 But I said, " No; not as far as he looks." 
 
 All around us the Italians were saying, *' Ecco lo! 
 Ecco il signore Americano! " and nudging each other 
 and smiling. One of them even shouted, " Ewiva 
 il Signor Emery! " 
 
 "Think of his wanting to leave it all! " Lucian 
 whispered. " Think of his pining for prayerful 
 solitudes when he can be in the thick of a fight like 
 this! If ever anything were clear, it is that we've 
 got to stay in the struggle — the general struggle I'm 
 talking about now, that this scrimmage is a part of — 
 and see it through." 
 
 But the chairman — one of the lawyers — was intro- 
 ducing the first speaker — a member of the state 
 legislature — who proceeded to expound: — The evils 
 of internecine controversy; why it was impossible 
 that America should ever have another civil war; 
 why it was incumbent upon the government never 
 to take sides in economic disagreements, never to 
 legislate for a class. His manner was the heavy 
 fatherly, his rhetorical device was platitude. He 
 spoke over long and the audience grew restive, 
 shuffled its feet, rattled its newspaper — there seemed 
 
272 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 to be a great many copies of The Torch selling. But 
 at the end, when he reminded his hearers casually of 
 other strikes in other cities, where the troops had 
 been called out, the silence was so threatening, so 
 sinister, that he lost the thread of his discourse, 
 trailed on, a helpless word or two, and stopped. 
 
 For an ominous second there was no sound. Then 
 he rallied, and his voice, half a tone higher than 
 before, over-rode the stillness hurriedly. 
 
 " Of course — that is to say — not that we anticipate 
 — not that you or I anticipate anything of that kind 
 in this instance " 
 
 Nervously blithe, he gave us his reasons for this 
 optimistic certainty : our deep sense of responsibility 
 as citizens — Americans first of all, capitalists and 
 trade unionists afterwards " 
 
 A voice in the back of the room yelled "No! " 
 but another said, "Speak up, capital!" and the 
 mood of the audience dissolved in laughter. 
 
 The legislator smiled as if he were faint, and 
 mopped his forehead. He would take only one more 
 moment of the meeting. The panacea followed, the 
 proposal for a council of arbitration — which the next 
 speaker would explain. 
 
 There was perfunctory, scattered applause — but I 
 saw no working people clapping. 
 
 The chairman was sure that we should all be 
 particularly interested to listen to the next speaker, 
 both for what he had to say, and for what he was. 
 His intellectual achievement was stressed, his im- 
 selfish patriotism — he had left the congenial quiet of 
 his study at the city's call — his chivalric pity — no 
 one had worked harder to bring about a solution of 
 
CONFLAGRATION 273 
 
 the present difficulties. This new proposal for arbi- 
 tration, differing in certain essentials from other 
 proposals which had been made earlier in the strike, 
 was his own idea; and what more fitting than that 
 he should explain it. The next speaker, in brief, 
 was Tristram Lawrence. 
 
 There was a queer stirring throughout the hall. 
 Tristram made his bows — looked out on the audience 
 — and a woman at the side of the hall laughed, a 
 loud, deliberate laugh of insult. Tristram's face 
 half turned, involuntarily, toward the sound. Then 
 a man laughed, blatantly. I saw him — it was 
 Lazarus. Then another woman, three or four — and 
 the mob had caught the cue. Like fire in a high 
 wind, outrageous insolent laughter flamed through 
 the hall. Tristram backed one step, then tried to 
 hold his ground, mouthing unheard into the hysterical 
 clamour, making ineffectual gestures. 
 
 " What is it? What is it? " Lucian and I were 
 staring into each other's faces. 
 
 People began to stand up — to scream foul words — 
 unintelligible taunts. " Compensations, are there? " 
 — " Infected with Socialism." — " Purify him." The 
 air was thick with oaths, and with tattered, waving 
 copies of The Torch. Some one thrust the paper 
 under our eyes — and there it was: the interview 
 between Tristram and the merchant. The Scholar 
 in Politics. The Three-Cornered Candidate Cornered, 
 was the title. 
 
 " Cuthbert! " I gasped. 
 
 *' Stand up," said Lucian. '* Safer." 
 
 In a moment there would be no more laughter, 
 there would be fury, screaming. 
 
274 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " If they break for the platform, go with them — 
 we can't hold them back — too many behind," Lucian 
 said. 
 
 And then, at the fury's edge, there was a tremor, 
 a quenching hesitance. The laughter wavered — 
 sank. 
 
 Cyrus had touched Tristram on the shoulder — 
 stood now in Tristram's place, quietly waiting, 
 smiHng, shaking his head ever so sUghtly in depre- 
 cation of the noise. And as suddenly as it had 
 arisen the laughter died, as the wind dies. And 
 among the belated ripples and gusts one began to 
 hear raucous Italian voices shouting — " Silenzio — 
 shut up!" And other voices — "Sit down!" and 
 others — " Quiet! " 
 
 Cyrus waited until the last voice was still. 
 
 " Think of my little brother's being able to do 
 this! " whispered Lucian. " A close call, Clara, and 
 all my fault. I guess we're in for a Hbel suit. Oh, 
 joUy!" 
 
 " Your fault? Oh, no! " I protested. 
 
 "T'sss!" said the woman next to me. '* VuoV 
 parlare," indicating Cyrus. 
 
 II 
 
 I have the stenographer's report of Cyrus's speech 
 beside me, as I write. No newspaper ever printed 
 the whole of it. It was old news when the newspapers 
 got to work again, Tuesday. They contented them- 
 selves with mentioning it, in retrospect, and depre- 
 cating its inflammatory character, while eulogising 
 the speaker's young ideaHsm. 
 
CONFLAGRATION 275 
 
 When all the rustle had died down, all the admoni- 
 tory voices were stilled, Cyrus said : — 
 
 ** You may not like what I have to say." 
 
 He paused significantly. There was an embar- 
 rassed shuffling in the audience. 
 
 " Shall we close the meeting? '* 
 
 The crisp brevity of the question made one blink. 
 Then — its meaning penetrating — scattered voices cried 
 — " No; no! "— " Speak! "— " We like your speak! " 
 
 " I shall speak as a Christian. There are a great 
 many Jews here, a great many atheists." 
 
 " We giff you a fair show," said a voice in the 
 middle of the hall. " A real Christian, he's a 
 curiosity." 
 
 " If I begin I shall want to go on to the end. You 
 would, you know, if you were I." 
 
 There was a pleasant ripple of laughter, that died 
 away, decorously, after a moment. 
 
 " This is my little brother! " whispered Lucian. 
 
 " We are all peacemakers in this hall to-day. — 
 Yes " — his voice rode above the mutinous murmur. 
 " All peacemakers. We may disagree as to what 
 peace is; we may disagree as to the best way to get 
 it — by striking, by arbitration, by calling out the 
 troops — but the thing we are all after is peace. You 
 want to be able to earn a decent living under decent 
 conditions; and we want you to do it. Yes, we do; 
 every man and woman of us on this platform is here 
 to-day because he, or she, wants to find a way to 
 help you to earn a decent living under decent con- 
 ditions. Don't give me the lie ! " 
 
 They didn't. Their eyes were grim, but he had 
 silenced them. 
 
276 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 " Now, what have I to suggest ? What's my 
 Christian way of making peace? Is it the same as 
 your trade union way? — Is it the strikers' way? — 
 Are strikers Christian? — A strike is a fight — a form 
 of war. — Is there any Christianity in this present 
 strike? " 
 
 On the platform the dignitaries nodded at each 
 other complacently. I looked along our row of seats, 
 and every face strained up to Cyrus's. There was 
 a slight tension in my neck. He straightened his 
 shoulders and took breath. There was utter stillness 
 throughout the hall. 
 
 " Christ said — ' Ye have heard that it hath been 
 said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but 
 I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whoso- 
 ever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him 
 the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the 
 law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak 
 also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, 
 go with him twain.' But I do not find Him any- 
 where saying. If any one smite thy brother on his 
 right cheek, do thou stand by and hold thy hand 
 while thy brother is beaten to death. He does not 
 say. If any man take away thy brother's coat, let 
 him strip thy brother naked and cast him out to 
 freeze. He does not say. Whosoever shall compel 
 thy brother to go a mile, do not thou interfere even 
 though he harness thy brother to a treadmill. No; 
 He said — * This is my commandment. That ye love 
 one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath 
 no man than this, that a man lay down his life for 
 his friends.' " 
 
 There was a tremendous outburst of applause. 
 
CONFLAGRATION 277 
 
 There was cheering. Some of the dignitaries on the 
 platform, behind Cyrus, glanced sidewise at one 
 another. The Presbyterian minister murmured some- 
 thing to his Episcopal brother, who smiled behind 
 his hand. The chairman glanced back uneasily over 
 his shoulder at Tristram, made a motion as if to con- 
 sult him, then thought better of it. But the noise 
 was brief, people were eager to hear more. When 
 Cyrus began again there was a glow in his quiet 
 voice; and the great audience glowed responsive. 
 
 " Me you may smite; but my brother — No! — Me 
 you may rob, me you may starve, me you may bind 
 in the treadmill of sweated labour ; but my brother — 
 No!— No!" 
 
 And there went a great cry — was it anguish — was 
 it triumph ? — through the hall. 
 
 " Well then our question — Is the strike a Christian 
 way of laying down one's life for one's friends — for 
 one's brothers ? 
 
 " Understand me: — To riot against scabs in the 
 streets is not to lay down one's life for one's friends. 
 To steal out at night to wreck a train filled with 
 workmen who do not happen to believe in trade 
 unions, is not to lay down one's life for one's friends. 
 But to refuse to work for a wage on which your 
 brother must starve; to refuse to work at all unless 
 your brother be given wages and industrial conditions 
 that shall keep his soul and body in health; to 
 endure hunger, cold, nakedness, even unto death, 
 that your brother may live — this, this it is to love 
 your brother as yourself ! This is the point at which 
 resistance and non-resistance meet and mingle, and 
 become as one. 
 
278 THE CHILDRfiN OF LIGHT 
 
 '* It rests with you — strikers — to make your strike 
 holy — or heUish. It rests with you to make this 
 general strike the holiest of all strikes, the beginning 
 of the world's industrial peace. Oh, you, union men 
 in organised trades with a hving wage, who have 
 gone out because your brothers in their sweated 
 trades are helpless to help themselves — ^you love 
 much! — But can you keep it up? Can you really 
 die that they may live ? I hear that to-morrow the 
 teamsters go back to work — is it true? I hear 
 rumours of this and that organisation filtering back 
 to its job. Is it true, my brothers ? But the garment 
 workers have not won their cause yet, their righteous 
 cause. Why did you come out if you didn't mean 
 to stay out — if you didn't mean to lay down your 
 life? — You thought you would bluff the capitalist — 
 was that it ? — You thought you would frighten him ? 
 You will when you lay down your life; not before. 
 When you lay down your life he will know that his 
 hour has come — for he cannot live without you. 
 Then you shall save your own soul, and his — in spite 
 of him. This, brothers, some of you call Socialism. 
 AUow me to differ with you — it is Christianity. It 
 was Christianity before SociaHsm was bom. Will 
 you follow it, or will you, for the sake of a bluff, and 
 because you love yourself better than you love your 
 fellow-men — plunge us into anarchy to-morrow? // 
 you begin to go hack to work you are lost. Oh, if I 
 could speak as one of you, if I were laying down my 
 life, a striker in this strike, I think I could make you 
 listen, I think I could persuade you to this peace- 
 making! But I am a rich man; between you and 
 me there is a great gulf fixed. I cannot find a way 
 
CONFLAGRATION 279 
 
 to lay down my life for you. You have heard how 
 hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
 kingdom of God. You must save one another, that 
 is your privilege. Oh, blessed, blessed are ye poor! " 
 
 We sat hushed as if it were indeed a benediction. 
 Then some one broke into subdued sobbing, and the 
 applause came thundering about our ears. For 
 several minutes after Cyrus had sat down it rose 
 and fell, rhythmical, overwhelming, a great wave of 
 cheering that lifted our voices up out of our hearts 
 and soared with them, and sank, and soared again. 
 I shall always remember Lucian's face as he sat beside 
 me cheering his brother. 
 
 On the platform there seemed to be consultation. 
 There was delay in introducing the next speaker. 
 The applause had at last dwindled to a spasmodic, 
 intermittent clapping. 
 
 " If they have any sense they'll close this thing 
 up now,'* murmured Lucian. 
 
 '* They will never let it end on that note,*' I replied. 
 " How can they, with their principles ? And they 
 evidently haven't seen The Torch yet." 
 
 " Jove! They're not going to let him try again? '* 
 Lucian leaped up in his seat, for Tristram, in hurried 
 conference with the chairman, was rearranging his 
 notes. "Heavens! Can't we send up a copy of 
 the paper, a note, something? He mustn't! He 
 mustn't! " He caught Tristram's eye, and motioned 
 him back. I suppose it was the worst thing he could 
 have done; for Tristram looked at him, and at me 
 beside him, and came down to the very edge of the 
 platform. 
 
 " As the days are short," he began rapidly, " and 
 
28o THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 there is no way of lighting the hall, we shall have to 
 close the meeting in about fifteen minutes." 
 
 There was a good deal of noise all about — whistles 
 and cat-calls — but Tristram's voice, strained, but 
 resolute, kept on; and the people, whether from 
 surprise at his persistence, or curiosity to hear him, 
 or because Cyrus had momentarily softened their 
 mood, at last subsided into comparative quiet. 
 
 Very briefly and clearly he put the scheme of arbi- 
 tration before them as he had outlined it to me the 
 night before, except that the Council of Arbitration 
 had been expanded from six to nine. He gave the 
 list of names — three from the employers, three from 
 the unions, three from the public — two of these to be 
 Helen and Cyrus — there was approving applause. — 
 And the strike to be called off pending the decision 
 of the council. 
 
 " No ! " shouted a metallic voice at the side of the 
 hall. And in all directions the word was taken up. — 
 " No ! "— " No ! "— " No ! "—' No ! "—a storm of noes. 
 
 " And the council to delay the decision till after 
 the election?" shouted the metallic voice. "No! 
 I say. There will not be a calling off of this strike 
 until the council makes the decision.*' 
 
 We could not make out the man's face in the dusk, 
 although he had mounted his chair, but the intonation 
 was Lazarus's unmistakably. 
 
 - No! "— " No! "—" No calUng off! "—the people 
 shouted. 
 
 '* Election? " roared a heavy Irish voice. " Friends 
 of labour, I ask you, will any self-respecting working- 
 man vote for that son of a bitch — yes, him? — I ask 
 you will any " 
 
CONFLAGRATION 281 
 
 " No! " — " No! " — " No! " — " KiU him! "— 
 " Throw him out! "— " Kill him! "— " He'll fool our 
 girls, will he ! " — ** Call him down ! " Strange epithets 
 in Yiddish, in Italian, in unprintable English hailed 
 through the air. 
 
 " There will he no calling off of this strike until the 
 decision is made.'' Lazarus's voice cut through the 
 tumult like a steam-hammer. 
 
 " No ! " — " No ! " — '' You're right ! " — '* Throw 
 him out! " — " You're right! " 
 
 " And not then if the people don't like the decision." 
 
 " The people! "— " The people! "— " The voters! " 
 —"Throw him out!" 
 
 " There won't he a calling off of this strike till the 
 people are satisfied. Mr. Emery is right " 
 
 " Emery! "— " Emery! "— " Emery! " 
 
 Even through that tremendous cheer the steam- 
 hammer made itself heard — " Mr. Emery is right ; 
 we got to hang on, even if we die for it ! " 
 
 " Die for it! "— " Yes! "— " Yes! "—" Emery! "— 
 "Emeiy!"—" Emery!" 
 
 Trailing after this second cheer came Tristram's 
 insistent voice: — 
 
 ** I am a peacemaker too, and I tell you on autho- 
 rity, if this state of anarchy isn't checked by another 
 twenty-four hours the federal government will take 
 a hand. The troops " 
 
 Menacing voices, menacing hands flared, shadowy, 
 everywhere. 
 
 " I say 1 amz. peacemaker. But you know as well 
 as I do that all this talk of holding on is futile. — You 
 can't hold on " 
 
 Vile epithets were pelting him from every comer 
 
282 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 of the hall. The air was fuU of curses. Demons 
 seemed to be dancing on chairs. 
 
 " / don't care who says you can '* 
 
 There was an unmentionable epithet. 
 
 A shrieking, infuriate something huried itself on 
 the platform, and there was a man grappUng with 
 Tristram — no — not with Tristram — with Cyrus — 
 this dusk! — No — Cyrus had tripped and fallen — No? 
 — No! — Who had fallen? — If one could see! — Who? 
 — Cyrus ? — Who ? 
 
 And then that terrible cry : — 
 
 " E morto ! — E morto ! " 
 
 And between us and the platform ten rows of 
 struggling, screaming men and women. 
 
 And Lucian's voice crying — " My brother! — my 
 brother! — Give way! — My brother! — Let me pass! — 
 My brother! — My brother! " 
 
 III 
 
 We found him in the Uttle bare ante-room that is 
 always at the back of platforms. A doctor and a 
 clergyman came out as we got to the door. 
 
 "Go in quietly!" said the doctor. "Yes; still 
 living. I have sent your mother home with the 
 marchese to get his room ready. — No; I do not think 
 we shall get him there; but she excited him — it was 
 better for them both. Call me if you need me, I 
 shall be here." 
 
 I noticed that the clergyman, a man with grey 
 hair, was crying. 
 
 Helen had had the janitor's mattress brought up 
 
CONFLAGRATION 283 
 
 and laid on the dusty floor. There was one window, 
 opening on an air well. Helen had a lighted candle 
 in her hand, and she stood behind Cyrus, at his 
 head, so that the light should not shine in his eyes. 
 
 He smiled when he saw us. " My two! " he said 
 faintly. And to Lucian, " Don't mind! — You know, 
 I'm not keen about it all — the way you are. — It will 
 be a relief to tackle a new set of problems." 
 
 Lucian could not speak. We were kneeling beside 
 the mattress. 
 
 " Don't mind! " he said again, more faintly. " I 
 don't love it the way — you — do. That's — where I 
 fail — lacking love. I'm only — conscience." 
 
 Then I whispered, " Greater love hath no man 
 than this " 
 
 " But I'm not fond of Tristram," he replied. " It 
 was instinct — what any man does — when he sees 
 another attacked. I sprang automatically." 
 
 " The others shrank back automatically," com- 
 mented Helen, in a colourless voice. 
 
 "Helen?" 
 
 At his question she came where he could see her — 
 shielding the candle with her hand. 
 
 ** Don't forget the Bandinis. Their rent is due 
 to-morrow. Lucian will advance the money. And 
 Lorenzino — comes out of the hospital — next week. 
 And — Lucian — they must not prosecute — that poor 
 mad fellow. — They must not — he did not mean " 
 
 " Don't be anxious," Helen whispered. " He 
 killed himself. It's all right." 
 
 *' Oh — poor boy! " 
 
 After that he lay quite silent, looking at me, never 
 at any one else again. And I put my hand on his. 
 
284 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 And I kissed him, and kept my eyes in his. We did 
 not need to speak. 
 
 At the very end he Hfted his head from the pillow 
 and repeated those hnes of Jacopone's, " By despising 
 mine own will I set myself free." 
 
 " Quanto av\dlia il suo volere 
 Tan to sale in libertade." 
 
 he said; and then, l5dng back again: " My will — my 
 desires; death cannot free me from these chains — 
 only I." 
 
 And his eyes no longer saw me. 
 
 But it was Helen who knew that he had gone. 
 She stooped and kissed him on the lips. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GLEAM 
 
 Possibly the sun shone and the sky was blue, 
 those next two days — I know there were two days — 
 but I remember only night, moving continuous round 
 and round the clock; night without moon or star, 
 a-shudder with dreadful spasms of sound — and yet 
 more dreadful silences. Always, after the volley of 
 rifles, there would be a moment of piercing stillness, 
 as if the whole world had been slain by violence. 
 Always, after the trampling clatter of horses' hoofs, 
 there would be a sudden hush. Once, I remember, 
 I thought the moan of the mob was the wind moaning; 
 it came and screamed at our street comer, where a 
 cordon of soldiers shot it down and scattered it. At 
 startling intervals the fire bells pealed. Near the 
 end of the long, dark vigil there was a dynamite 
 explosion somewhere so near that the glass in our 
 windows was shattered. And in the midst of all 
 this tumult of death and dying, our boy lay wrapt in 
 his eternal quiet. In the corners of his young, 
 unsmiling mouth wistfulness still lingered, wistfulness 
 and patience and heart-break. He looked so tired. 
 
 Sometimes his mother came into the room and 
 flung herself down beside him and begged him to 
 forgive her — and had to be led away and soothed. 
 
 285 
 
286 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 Sometimes the marchese wandered in and looked 
 with uncomprehending pity at that pure face, and 
 said, " It is best," in a tone of resignation and relief. 
 Lucian's eyes would meet mine then, scornful and 
 protesting. We sat there together, long hours, 
 silent. 
 
 The second day Uncle Lew brought Helen. Stand- 
 ing in the doorway of the drawing-room, behind her, 
 he beckoned me and Lucian. And we left her alone 
 there. 
 
 As we went across the hall to the dining-room my 
 Cousin PauHne ran suddenly out of her room, crying 
 and wringing her hands and caUing Cyrus ; and when 
 she saw Uncle Lew she went to him, piteously, say- 
 ing — " I have done this; I, I! I would not let him 
 go when he asked me to. He would have been 
 living now if I had let him go, I was selfish." She 
 clung to him, wildly searching his face for contra- 
 diction. 
 
 "You were; you sure were; real human and 
 selfish." It is impossible to give an impression of 
 the comforting tenderness of Uncle Lew's voice. 
 
 Staring at him, bewildered but docile, she let him 
 lead her into the dining-room and put her in a chair. 
 
 " What was it you said about sinning against the 
 Holy Ghost — down at the office? " she whispered, 
 still clinging to him. 
 
 " I don't remember, dear marchese — I say so many 
 fool things." He smiled gently, reassuringly, as one 
 smiles at a frightened child. 
 
 "I have killed him," she whispered, "I, I!" 
 And she began to weep again. 
 
 Uncle Lew took her two wild hands in his. "No; 
 
THE GLEAM 287 
 
 you haven't,'* he said. " And if you had? — I killed 
 my wife. We have to bear these things." 
 
 It was strange to see the hysterical look lift off of 
 her face, Hke a veil; to see the normal, startled 
 question in her eyes, on her hps. " You — your 
 wife? " And then leaning towards him pityingly — 
 " Oh, no; you mustn't look at it that way." 
 
 "No! you mustn't," he repeated. "I had to 
 leam that. You will learn it, too." 
 
 She sat quiet with her hands in his for a little 
 while, and then her Up began to quiver, and the tears 
 welled into her appealing eyes. " I would not let 
 him go away and say his prayers," she sobbed. " See ! 
 his little book! " She fumbled in the pocket of her 
 wrapper and drew out a tiny manual of devotion all 
 rubbed and worn. She kissed it and cried over it, 
 and at last said she would go and He down. At the 
 door of her room she turned — " If I learned to pray — 
 he would Hke it? " 
 
 When she had shut her door we went back to the 
 dining-room, and Uncle Lew said : — 
 
 " I hunted Cuthbert up this morning. He has 
 kept out of my way; but I found him." 
 
 '* I cannot imagine Cuthbert contrite for anything 
 he had ever done," I said rigidly. 
 
 Uncle Lew gave me a deprecating look. 
 
 " I do not blame him for thinking the interview 
 ought to be printed," said Lucian. " Teh him that, 
 will you? " 
 
 " But I do blame him," I interrupted, " for selHng 
 The Torch at the mass meeting, when he knew what 
 the effect of the interview would be. It was a 
 wicked, a wantonly wicked and unprincipled thing 
 
288 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 to do. It was — death; and he knew it would be. 
 I cannot forgive him." 
 
 "Now, now, Clara!" Uncle Lew commented 
 mildly. " Try to reaUse that Cuthbert thought he 
 was launching the Revolution. He thought it was 
 up to him as a loyal Marxian and party member to 
 press the button. It was an exalted moment for 
 Cuthbert." 
 
 " Yes," agreed Lucian. " He has lived up to his 
 lights — Cuthbert has — which is more than can be 
 said of you and me, Clara." 
 
 " Oh — do you caU hatred, and spite, and gross 
 self-seeking, and self-conceit, Ughts? " I cried. 
 
 " I found him in his room in his boarding-house," 
 said Uncle Lew. " He hadn't eaten anything since 
 it happened; he hadn't had his clothes off, or slept. 
 When he saw me, he said, ' I killed him. O God! 
 no new economic system can ever change that.* " 
 
 " Oh! — I wiU go to him! " Lucian said. " Where 
 did you leave him, Uncle Lew? I'll go now." 
 
 " I sent him down to the Socialist headquarters on 
 an errand, after I'd made him eat. If you can think 
 up something to keep him occupied, do ! " 
 
 " I do not want to forgive him," I insisted. " But 
 tell him it was not all his fault — it was our fault, 
 too." 
 
 " It was my fault for not looking over that last 
 page after it was set up." Uncle Lew patted my 
 hand. " Helen told me she must be back at the 
 settlement at four " — he glanced at his watch. But 
 Helen had not waited for me, she came into the 
 dining-room as Lucian went out. 
 
 " Clara," she said quietly, " there is a little note- 
 
THE GLEAM 289 
 
 book that has all of Cyrus's engagements and obliga- 
 tions in it — the people whose rent he pays — and 
 when — and things of that sort. If you can find it 
 and let me take it, I will attend to everything. It 
 will be simpler to do it from the settlement than 
 from here. — If you don't mind." 
 
 When I had found the little book Uncle Lew and 
 I went into the drawing-room together for a moment. 
 
 "Darling boy — darling, darling boy!" he said, 
 crying unashamedly. '* I wonder if he's got his 
 chance for solitude? — I doubt it. I very much 
 doubt it. — The glorious company — the noble army — 
 the goodly fellowship. Party methods in kingdom 
 come, same as now, I shouldn't be surprised." 
 
 Helen sat waiting for us in the hall, her head braced 
 rigidly against the high-backed Gothic chair. 
 
 " Stay with me, dear! " I begged. " Stay, while 
 he is here! Don't go down there all by yourself! '* 
 
 " He is not here," she answered. 
 
 '* Helen, Helen — he lives! Believe it! " I pleaded. 
 
 She put me from her quietly. " I must go to old 
 Mrs. Vannucci; he always sent her groceries on 
 Tuesdays; she may be suffering." 
 
 After they had gone I went back to Cyrus. Every- 
 thing was unwontedly still. I realised that the inter- 
 mittent sounds of strife no longer came up from the 
 street; that I had not heard them for a long time. 
 Kneeling beside the empty tabernacle of my cousin's 
 spirit, the only hermit cell that had been granted 
 him, I tried to pray — for him. But, as always, 
 myself intruded. 
 
 What did we pray for the faithful departed — 
 Eternal rest? — Light perpetual? 
 
290 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 When was it Cyrus had said, " If only I could be 
 in accord, entirely, with some one, what a rest it 
 would be? " — Party methods in kingdom come? 
 
 When was it he had said, " Can one be too indi- 
 vidual? " — Party methods? 
 
 When was it he had said, " How can any one be 
 anything but tentative in a civihsation so out of 
 joint? " — Party methods, same as now? 
 
 When did he say — ah, yes, in the La Vema letter 
 — " How can any one make decisions that involve 
 living, in a world that so manifestly isn't fit to be 
 lived in? " — Decisions? — But Christ made decisions, 
 Cyrus; why not you — and I? 
 
 Decisions? — What to decide? — Light perpetual, 
 illumine our groping darkness — his and mine ! 
 
 ** Oh, if I could speak as one of you," he said, two 
 days ago, " I think I could persuade you to this 
 peace-making." 
 
 But I could speak as one of them, if I would. — 
 As one of them? — Could I? — By taking out a red 
 card and paying dues ? Was it as simple as that ? — 
 Was Lucian really one of them? What did class 
 involve after all? — That glorious company of the 
 apostles, chiefly ignorant fisherfolk; was Paul really 
 one of them? There was friction between him and 
 Peter, they say. 
 
 And I, calling myself a SociaHst and believing that 
 economic salvation shall be of the common people; 
 that the truth is with them — where do I belong? 
 If not with them, then where? — Whether they will 
 or not; whether I will or not; is it not true that I 
 am one of them — one with them? — Cyrus, dear, isn't 
 it true ? 
 
THE GLEAM 291 
 
 " It worries me a good deal to be responsible for 
 other people's sins " — when did he say that?— Years 
 ago. But I am responsible for them, dear, whether 
 I will or no ; and what is worse, they are responsible 
 for mine. 
 
 Eternal rest! — But doesn't one find it in sharing 
 the load? 
 
 " Can one be too individual? " — But Cyrus, even 
 Christianity isn't Christ against the world; it's 
 Christ and His party against the world. 
 
 You said to me once — " Christianity is enough. 
 Can you call yourself a Christian and say that any- 
 thing else is needed? " — Cyrus, do you remember? — 
 But the leaven of Christianity has made this ferment 
 we call SociaHsm. Before Christianity came into the 
 historical process, SociaUsm would not have been 
 possible. It isn't a choice between Socialism and 
 Christianity that I make. It isn't leaving Christ's 
 party to join the SociaHsts'. Christianity is the road 
 we travel to the kingdom of heaven, and for me, one 
 of the sign-posts on the way is Socialism. I cannot 
 help it, dear, it is so. I am going to join the Socialist 
 Party. 
 
 " Arise, O Jerusalem, and stand on high, and 
 behold thy children gathered from the west unto the 
 east by the word of the Holy One, rejoicing in the 
 remembrance of God. Amen." 
 
 " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. 
 Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord; and let light 
 perpetual shine upon them." 
 
 Lucian, coming in, touched the electric switch and 
 
 T2 
 
292 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 turned on some of the soft, shaded lights in the 
 ceiling. 
 
 "They light?" I said. 
 
 " Yes. To-morrow the trolleys will be running. 
 It is practically over. There never was any real 
 fighting. They weren't prepared for that sort of 
 leadership. They had no guns, you know. I don't 
 know that a general strike can succeed imless it is 
 nation-wide; and our nation is so very wide. In 
 England it might be different." 
 
 He spoke softly, his eyes on his brother's sleeping 
 face. 
 
 " Wilt thou wake us at dawn on the morrow, ere daylight is 
 rife? 
 Wilt thou teach us, recruits in thine army, to battle like 
 
 men? 
 Wilt thou lighten our darkness, O Lord, wilt thou bless us, 
 
 and then 
 Wilt thou grant, though the people be dumb, yet thy 
 martyrs through strife 
 
 Shall rise up out of death into life 
 Once again ? 
 Amen, Lord, Amen ! " 
 
 Then his face became suddenly distorted, and he 
 flung up his hands with a desperate gesture, whisper- 
 ing — "O God! this contemptible ego of mine that 
 can juggle with metres when my brother lies dead! 
 That can savour the literary possibiHties of a lost 
 strike! O God! — O God! — They were real to him. 
 He suffered with them in every fibre of his being — 
 in every thought he was one with their suffering. 
 See his dear face, all love-ht, all sorrowing, even 
 though the spirit is gone. But I cannot suffer. I 
 
THE GLEAM 293 
 
 can only enjoy, with a terrible enjoyment, the woe 
 of the worid/' 
 
 I clung to him and tried to comfort him; and 
 when he saw me crying he comforted me, till at last 
 we were both quieter. 
 
 *' If we had let him go away as he wanted to," 
 Lucian said, " he would have come back to lead us. 
 — Let us think so! " 
 
 " Yes, let us think so," I whispered. " He wanted 
 to go away that he might become more one with the 
 world, and God. He wanted to free himself from all 
 the chains of self — do you remember? — And the 
 vision beckoned him that way." 
 
 " And me it beckons in the party." 
 
 " And me." 
 
 II 
 
 For what follows, I have enough material in my 
 diaries and correspondence, and in the newspaper 
 files of the trial, to fill a volume as large again as this 
 that I have written — if it were worth while. Possibly, 
 in omitting the long and tedious evidence by which 
 the jury arrived at its decision, my selective instinct 
 errs. But to me it seems that those long days of 
 quibble in the court-room add nothing to the revela- 
 tion of Tristram's attitude, contained in his letter to 
 me, but rather tend to beUttle him to an extent that 
 he hardly deserves. 
 
 The letter reached me in the morning mail the day 
 after Lucian was arrested, in that short week that 
 intervened between Cyrus's funeral and the election. 
 
 The arrest had found me wholly unprepared. 
 
294 THE CHILDREN^ OF LIGHT 
 
 '' But Cyrus saved Tristram's life," I said, when 
 Lucian, after securing bail, came home and broke 
 the news to me. 
 
 " Yes; but you see, Tristram is driven to it,*' he 
 explained. " He has put the Reform Party into the 
 worst kind of a hole. If he keeps the nomination 
 and makes no move against us, he has queered the 
 Reform vote; for the high-brows may be dull but 
 they're moral, you know — they'll desert him on 
 principle and let reform go hang. And if he resigns 
 the nomination, he tacitly admits our imputation 
 and involves the Citizens* League; for everybody 
 will say they knew what he was up to and winked at 
 it — they're sa5dng it now. I don't believe they could 
 get any workable candidate to take the nomination 
 if he resigned it. And besides — if he doesn't protest 
 against us, where's his own reputation? He'll be 
 dead — oh, far more dead than — than " 
 
 " Still, I do not see why he is driven to it," I 
 rephed. 
 
 Lucian smiled; and I persisted, " If he did it, how 
 does he improve his reputation by lying about it? " 
 
 " To proclaim one's self a sinner may be com- 
 paratively easy, Clara; but to acknowledge one's self 
 a fool? — Trissy? " 
 
 " But hasn't he spoiled his chances whether or no? 
 And you say the trial cannot take place for six weeks 
 or more — when the election will be ancient history ? — 
 I don't see " 
 
 ** He makes his protest. He does what he can to 
 save his face, and the league's. It will have a certain 
 weight with the uptown vote. Of course, he hasn't 
 the ghost of a show of election, now that labour has 
 
THE GLEAM 295 
 
 turned him down. Are you coming with me to break 
 it to mother ? Stress our ideals as much as you can, 
 dear, and touch lightly on the arrest; she may not 
 take that in as long as I am not actually in jail. We 
 must muzzle the marchese before he comes from his 
 club." 
 The next morning came the letter. 
 
 " My dear Miss Emery, — If I offend in addressing 
 you; if, after my unpardonable offence against your 
 cousin's memory, against you and all his family, 
 there is still room for offending, nevertheless, I beg 
 that in your unfailing courtesy you will not leave this 
 letter unread. To you, as to no one else, I look for 
 understanding of my action in this dilemma in which 
 I am involved by the article in The Torch. 
 
 ** You will be told that I yielded to pressure in 
 proceeding against the paper. It is true; I did. But 
 I ask you to believe that it was pressure from within, 
 from my conscience, not from without. You, who 
 said to me in The Torch office, not so long ago, that 
 as between the individual and the cause it could 
 never be a question of the individual — that one must 
 learn to put the cause before the individual — you will 
 understand that in outraging all my own instincts of 
 gratitude and the world's canons of convention, I 
 am trying, in very truth, to put the cause before 
 the individual, the integrity of the Citizens* League 
 before my own debt to the family of the man to whom 
 I owe my life. I ask you to believe also, that although, 
 as is evident, I have not been an apt pupil, I have 
 endeavoured to square my motives at every point in 
 the campaign with this ideal of yours — the cause 
 
296 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 before the individual — which now is wrecking my 
 life. If I have failed it has not been through impurity 
 of motive. 
 
 " Life is made up of a succession of choices between 
 two evils. You will contradict me here, because you 
 are a woman, and the ideaHsm of women deals with 
 absolutes; the relatively good has no existence for 
 them. For the sake of the integrity of the race, it 
 is well that this should be so ; but we men who must 
 carry ideals into action know that mingled with our 
 every good choice there is some modicum of evil; 
 and that no matter how egregiously we may blunder, 
 some good will result from oiu: most evil choosing. 
 I do not offer this in mitigation of my present action, 
 however. My decision has been made in deep anguish 
 of mind. Possibly I am only adding one more error 
 of judgment to the chain which I have forged for 
 myself during my brief poUtical activity; but for 
 the sake of the Citizens' League and all its individual 
 members who have championed me, and still do 
 champion me so trustingly, I do not see that I can 
 do anything else. 
 
 '* Shall I confess that I am not yet sufficiently 
 schooled in your doctrine to endure without bitterness 
 the reaUsation that you could so prefer the party 
 before the individual, the candidate before the friend, 
 as to deem yourself justified in withholding from me, 
 the last time I called upon you, the knowledge, which 
 you must have then possessed, that this blow was 
 to faU? 
 
 " We grope from error to error hke our cosmic 
 prototype, that blind choice which rules the world, 
 whose unforgivable error it is that I am living now. 
 
THE GLEAM 297 
 
 while your Cousin Cyrus is struck out of life; that 
 his purity and power are sacrificed to prolong my 
 sullied ineffectiveness. 
 
 " I shall not intrude upon you again. — Sincerely 
 yours, Tristram Lawrence." 
 
 It made me very unhappy, of course; the more so 
 because I could not write him and explain that I 
 had not known, the night he called, that the article 
 was to be in the paper the next day. Lucian insisted 
 that as the responsibility for the appearance of the 
 article rested, at bottom, with him, it was both 
 unnecessary and unwise to take the public into our 
 confidence as to the way in which it had got into 
 print. Cuthbert rebelled at this, and was very 
 truculent — I liked him the better for it. But Lucian 
 at last persuaded him that for the sake of the party, 
 and for the sake of our own defence in the trial, it 
 was much wiser that the Socialist candidate for mayor 
 should not figure as the deUberate defamer of his 
 rival. 
 
 " That's what it would amount to, you know," 
 Lucian reminded him. " And there is already a 
 general impression in polite circles that the Socialist 
 Party is made up of a lot of blacklegs. We don't 
 want to give colour to that impression. No, sir! 
 The role of hero in this melodrama is bespoke; the 
 limelight for mine. The rest of you will kindly 
 retire to the flies." 
 
 " And you go to jail for a year, for me! " cried 
 Cuthbert angrily. *' Not if I know it! " 
 
 "No, not for you, my egoist; for the party," 
 Lucian answered, smiling. " You hide - bound, 
 
298 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 narrow-gauge, Marxian bigot, you! I know you 
 think you're the whole thing; but I'm the party, 
 too. And I've a right to keep you out of jail if it 
 will save the party from scandal." 
 
 *' By God, I always have to take a back seat for 
 you! " cried Cuthbert. 
 
 " Tchutt, don't swear! lady present," said Uncle 
 Lew. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," Lucian exclaimed. 
 *' When have you ever " 
 
 ** None of your damn business ! Leave me alone ! *" 
 shouted Cuthbert. And then he dropped his head 
 on his arms on the desk, and said, " Oh, say; let up! 
 I'm all in; I don't know what I'm saying." 
 
 Uncle Lew went over and patted him on the 
 shoulder. " It was a heroic act of insubordination, 
 son; we're all of us glad you did it. But it was 
 insubordination, just the same; now, wasn't it? " 
 
 " If only I hadn't started the sale — but I thought — " 
 murmured Cuthbert. 
 
 "No; we're not talking about that — we're talking 
 about the printing of the article. That was insubor- 
 dination. The other was — was — an indiscretion. 
 But for insubordination, when the chief here says 
 take a back seat, why, it's only right. Discipline, 
 you know. Marxians have a lot to say about dis- 
 cipline. I guess you'll have to take your medicine 
 and step into the wdngs." 
 
 " I've been looking up publisher's liability," said 
 Cuthbert slowly, his eyes bent on the desk before 
 him, " and on a criminal charge of Hbel, if the truth 
 of the defamatory matter is proved, the prosecution 
 has to show that the defendant in a legal sense 
 
THE GLEAM 299 
 
 actually participated in or authorised the publication, 
 and with actual malicious intent. And I believe that 
 generally in a criminal court negligence or blame must 
 be proved, to get a conviction. You didn't know 
 anything about that article. You can get out of it 
 that way.'* 
 
 " Don't let's go over all that again," Lucian inter- 
 rupted. "I'm not going to get out of it that way. 
 You wouldn't have me, would you, Clara? " 
 
 " No; but I like Cuthbert to press it." 
 
 He lifted those wretched eyes of his to mine for 
 a second. There was a miserable, grudging gratitude 
 in them that brought a lump into my throat. 
 
 " They can't prove that you did it maliciously," 
 I added. 
 
 "Oh,, malice, legally, means only absence of lawful 
 excuse," Uncle Lew explained. 
 
 Lucian smiled at my indignation. " The next 
 thing for us to do," he said, " is to consult a lawyer 
 and find out where we really do stand." 
 
 Just then Lazarus Samson came in. I had been 
 wondering where he was. He had Bertha Aarons 
 with him, and his smile flashed and flashed again 
 across his face like an electric light whose connection 
 is not perfect. 
 
 Assisting Bertha's elbow he brought her over to me. 
 
 " I knew you would be here. Miss Emery," he said. 
 *' I made her to come. She is Mrs. Samson now, just 
 since twenty minutes." 
 
 Bertha was actually blushing, but she tried to 
 carry off her embarrassment with bravado. " Yes," 
 she acknowledged, " we went before a justice of the 
 peace. Wouldn't that jar you! " 
 
300 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 We gathered round them, shaking hands and con- 
 gratulating them, and Uncle Lew and I kissed the 
 bride. Dear little Lazarus could only smile and 
 smile and smile. 
 
 " Miss Emery," Bertha said, brushing aside our 
 hymeneal amenities, '* do you know what? Mar- 
 kowsky's has agreed to treat with their girls as if 
 they are a union. They don't say union, but they 
 will make the bargain with one girl for all instead of 
 every girl separate. If a new girl comes in and 
 wants to make her separate bargain they say she can. 
 So now it's up to us to head the new ones ofi and give 
 them their orders before they see the foreman. It's 
 something, ain't it? " 
 
 " But you won't be at Markowsky's now," I 
 reminded her. 
 
 "No; but that's one good thing, because now I 
 shall give my time with the Women's Trade Union 
 League and get hold of those poor women that just 
 have come over, and organise them," 
 
 " How do you come in, Lazarus? " laughed Uncle 
 Lew. 
 
 " Oh, I come in with a latch-key, all right, all right," 
 he clicked gaily. " We got a little flat with a bath- 
 room and a gas range. We shall go now to buy 
 furniture. There is a damage sale from the dynamite 
 explosion." 
 
 So presently he carried Bertha off; but before 
 she went, as she was shaking hands again aU round, 
 suddenly with her hand in Lucian's her face changed. 
 " Oh, I never believed in saints," she said, " but I 
 do now. That was why I let the justice of the peace 
 tie me up. I knew your brother would like it better. 
 
THE GLEAM 30.1 
 
 The strikers can't do much to show the way they 
 feel. He poured out his money hke water through 
 a sieve. Christianity! I bet the ministers that sat 
 behind him on the platform got a shock.'* 
 
 It was after they had gone, and Cuthbert with them, 
 that I showed Uncle Lew and Lucian Tristram's 
 letter. Lucian read it over Uncle Lew's shoulder 
 and finished first. His comment was characteristic : — 
 
 " I should like to kick him. Putting it all on you." 
 
 I hadn't thought of that. 
 
 But Uncle Lew said — " Poor devil! I reckon he 
 does wish he was dead ; and he'll wish it worse later, 
 even if he secures a verdict against Lucian. This is 
 the sort of thing that sticks to a man." 
 
 ** Even if he clears himself? " I asked. 
 
 Uncle Lew only looked at me, and then at the 
 letter, and back again at me, significantly. 
 
 *' Perhaps," I suggested, " he is too proud to deny 
 it. He thinks I ought to know that he doesn't need 
 to deny a thing like that? " 
 
 " Then he wouldn't talk so much about the purity 
 of his motives," Lucian blurted out disgustedly. 
 
 " But I want to think him honest," I pleaded. 
 
 " Well, dear, there's one thing you can bank on," 
 Uncle Lew remarked, " and that is that he knows 
 a heap more about honesty than he ever did before. 
 Politics is a great eye-opener, especially for the men 
 who get their knowledge of the abstract virtues out 
 of Socrates and Plato. When they see the real thing 
 they don't always recognise it — at first." 
 
302 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 IV 
 
 The election was, as we had known it would be, 
 an overwhelming defeat for the party of reform; 
 but the effect on the Socialist vote surprised us all. 
 The Torch's exposure of Tristram turned labour our 
 way, and there was one unhappy moment, while the 
 returns were coming in, when it actually looked as 
 if Cuthbert had a chance of election. 
 
 Lucian, at the telephone repeating the figures, 
 gazed at me in frank despair. Fortunately Cuthbert 
 was down at the Socialist headquarters and could not 
 see our faces. 
 
 ** Now we see what we get for not being ready," 
 sighed Lazarus. " That kid, he will set back our 
 clock ten years in this town." 
 
 But the moment passed, and at the end of the 
 evening the Machine candidate had come in on a 
 respectable majority. 
 
 The Conservative press, all the papers in fact, laid 
 the blame of the fiasco upon The Torch. Our irre- 
 sponsible, anarchical, revolutionary, pernicious, etc., 
 etc., policy was made the subject of editorial com- 
 ment in all the important periodicals. Lucian's 
 services to the community were contemptuously 
 paralleled with those of Tristram, his " sensational 
 and histrionic efforts after publicity " with the 
 latter's " steady and statesmanlike subordination of 
 himself to the people's need." Lucian did, indeed, 
 cut a very poor figure in the eyes of most people at 
 that time, I know; and he still does. I try to 
 
THE GLEAM 303 
 
 console myself by remembering that Shelley cut a 
 poor figure, and Ruskin; but literary analogies are 
 poor comfort. 
 
 When the trial opened (it was set for the earliest 
 possible date, and there were no delays) the sympathy 
 of the " solid " members of the community was all 
 with Tristram; even those who admitted that he 
 might have played fast and loose with the strikers 
 said, " Well, suppose he did," and went on to show 
 how circumstances alter cases, and how he was in a 
 tight place, and so forth and so on. And throughout 
 the trial — it lasted only three days — pubhc sentiment 
 did not waver. The two great classes, capital and 
 labour, never displayed their unconquerable antagon- 
 ism more convincingly. 
 
 By the end of the second day I realised that Lucian 
 had no chance. With what the marchese exasper- 
 atedly described as " his usual quixotism," he had 
 insisted upon engaging as his lawyer a young SociaUst 
 comrade who had never before tried a case in court. 
 The boy did very well, considering the odds against 
 him; but Tristram's counsel was one of the most 
 eminent men in the state. Somehow, he managed 
 to create and sustain the impression that he was 
 dealing, more in sorrow than in anger, with the 
 regrettable escapade of a very naughty boy. The 
 man who cleaned the windows in the department 
 store office, and upon whom we had to depend to 
 establish the truth of the published interview, was 
 as wax in his hands. Lazarus gave him more trouble, 
 but unfortunately lost his temper when questioned as 
 to Bertha's relations with the plaintiff. I was let 
 
304 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 off with a few perfunctory questions. The others 
 were well badgered. Uncle Lew was treated as a 
 corrupter of youth, as one who was old enough to 
 know better. 
 
 Yet, despite the masterly cross-examination, despite 
 the flabbiness of the window-washer, the untruthful- 
 ness of the published interview was not conclusively 
 established. But, as the court's ruling, according 
 to precedent, was to the effect that although in every 
 case the truth of the matters charged may be inquired 
 into if pleaded, nevertheless in criminal libel the 
 truth does not amount to a defence unless it be also 
 proved that the pubHcation was for the pubUc benefit 
 — counsel for the plaintiff conducted the examination 
 of witnesses both for and against the truth of the 
 interview as if it were merely a concession on his 
 part to the idiosyncrasies of the comi: and not germane 
 to the issue. 
 
 Our defence, aside from our plea of truth, was 
 conducted, of course, on the ground that comments 
 on subjects of pubhc interest, or on persons who have 
 in any way chosen to invite the pubUc attention, are 
 not actionable unless it can be proved that the critic 
 has used false and defamatory language out of malice, 
 or gone beyond the facts which are properly before 
 the public. 
 
 But counsel for the plaintiff — who, it happened, 
 was one of the lawyers on the platform at the mass 
 meeting — gave, in his summing up, such a picture of 
 the chaos and violence of that afternoon, resultant 
 upon the pubHcation and sale of The Torch, that he 
 had no difficulty in conveying to the jury the im- 
 
THE GLEAM 305 
 
 pression that the publication was not for the pubUc 
 benefit. And the judge's charge strengthened this 
 impression. 
 
 Yet, to our surprise, the jury was out two hours. 
 When it finally came into court the foreman an- 
 nounced a verdict of guilty, but added that the jury 
 was not agreed as to the conclusiveness of the evidence 
 against the truthfulness of the publication. 
 
 The judge then gave the maximum sentence for 
 libel in our state, a fine of $5000.00 and imprisonment 
 in the county jail for one year. 
 
 As we were leaving the court-house a messenger 
 brought me a scribbled note from Lucian: — 
 
 " I wish I could be with you to break it to mother. 
 Play Leigh Hunt for all he's worth; he had quite a 
 jolly time in jail serving time for calling the Prince 
 of Wales a fat Adonis, you know. Make her see that 
 it's victory after all, if you can. — But it leaves a 
 bitter taste in one's mouth to call another man a 
 liar, doesn't it? '* 
 
 It is for my Cousin Pauline's sake that I am 
 spending this year in Italy. She had a very alarming 
 nervous breakdown after the trial. The two shocks, 
 following so closely one upon the other, of Cyrus's 
 death and Lucian's imprisonment, completely pros- 
 trated her, and there was great danger that she would 
 fall into religious melancholia. The physicians in- 
 sisted that she must not be allowed to remain near 
 
3o6 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 the jail; she was unhappy if not allowed to see 
 Lucian as often as the rules of the institution per- 
 mitted, and yet she came away from each visit 
 increasingly distraught. 
 
 It was Lucian's suggestion that she come to Italy, 
 and although at first she refused to consider the idea, 
 she consented at last because he said it would make 
 him happier. 
 
 '* Remember how C5mis loved Assisi and La Vema 
 and Greccio, mother,'* he reminded her. *' You will 
 feel very close to him there." 
 
 So she and the marchese and I came over in 
 February, and the change has to a certain extent 
 restored her nervous balance, as the doctors hoped 
 it would. The marchese does not think it has ; with 
 his violent anti-clerical tendencies it is next to 
 impossible for him to regard her present attitude 
 towards the Roman Church as sane. But I am sure 
 that, for her, health lies that way. I shall have a 
 hard time convincing him, but I must. Lucian 
 agrees with me. His antagonism against the Church 
 of Rome, though quite as strong as the marchese's, 
 derives from a different philosophical basis, and is 
 only a part of his general contempt for all organised 
 Christianity. Then, too, Lucian is a poet. 
 
 As I sit here in the loggia, writing, I can hear the 
 workmen scraping the walls of the long -disused 
 oratory. It is to be restored to its sixteenth-century 
 magnificence: so far my cousin Pauline carries the 
 marchese with her — especially since he has discovered 
 that the whitewash conceals a madonna and angels, 
 possibly a genuine Bonfigh. 
 
THE GLEAM 307 
 
 From America, our prisoner sends us joyous assur- 
 ance of his unfettered spirit. He finished his long- 
 delayed Ode to Russian Freedom in the first weeks 
 of his imprisonment, and the magazines all write him 
 that it is a splendid poetic achievement; but it is 
 not timely, just now, and besides, it is too long. 
 After that he wrote his pamphlet on the minimum 
 wage, and now he has begun to write a history of 
 Socialism. I suppose I ought to be content with 
 that. A history of Socialism by a poet will at any 
 rate be a unique contribution to the Uterature of the 
 movement. 
 
 Occasionally a Httle lyric, written as it were in 
 spite of himself, finds its way across the sea to com- 
 fort me. One came this morning — an Aubade. The 
 marchese getting a glimpse of the page as I turned 
 it, said with a smile : — 
 
 " Verses! After this is over I believe he will settle 
 down and practise his mdtier, do you not? " 
 
 I did not say what I beUeved. There is still The 
 Torch. Uncle Lew and Lazarus and Cuthbert keep 
 their fingers on it; but they are in a minority since 
 we reorganised it as a daily and increased the force. 
 It is genuinely a party organ now, and is becoming 
 more and more the mouthpiece of the younger 
 Socialists, the great van of the Socialist army; a 
 mixed lot they are, sons and daughters of immigrants, 
 sons and daughters of privilege, proletarians and 
 intellectuals, with youth and the ideal in common. 
 Slowly, savagely, persistently, they are permeating 
 the Hfe of trade and the intellectual life of our cities 
 with democracy, and choking out the bourgeois 
 
3o8 THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT 
 
 ideals of individualistic greed. This " dust of souls ** 
 does indeed "fly into the light with trembling;** 
 but ever and again it emerges " with prophecy." 
 
 Lucian and I are pledged to keep The Torch alight. 
 And Lucian wiU inevitably go into politics. That 
 is the next step, I suppose. 
 
 Settle down? No; the Auhade is an omen. One 
 doesn't settle down with a dawn-song on one's lips. 
 
 THE TEMPLE PRESS, PRINTERS, LETCHWORTH 
 
RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 TO^^- 202 Main Librory 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 
 
 Books may be Renewed by colling 642-3405. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 ilOTODK«OB 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 OCT 3 2001 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
 ®$ 
 
 isemeiey 
 
|6) X^ ^ *J 
 
 YB 60346 
 
 "C. BEBKEUruBM/MEs 
 
 <^00b0t3Ssl' 
 
■nlllp 
 
 t