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 suddenly Lida halted. Her breath stopped—her face blanched. Bennet turned to her alarmed.

"What is it?—What's the matter.—Tell me. Quick."

Before Lida could answer, Elvin Lauriston, eyes blazing with fury, his revolver raised and pointed at Bennet, stepped from behind a pine tree they were approaching, not ten feet away. Lida had seen him peering from behind the tree and had seen him raise the revolver. She prepared to throw herself in front of her lover. Bennet anticipated this and while the revolver was still raised and aimed at him stepped to the front of the girl holding her hand firmly so she could not make effort to save him, and—looked into eternity. He could feel the tremor of the girl's hand in his and felt her breathing close to his arm.

"Needn't pull her behind you.—I'm going to kill you both," Elvin warned. Bennet still gazed from the nozzle of the revolver to Lauriston. "You coward," Elvin continued. "You come down here where you're not wanted and try to take my sister away from her people. Sneaking in like a snake in the grass."

Bennet decided not to interrupt him, knowing that the longer Elvin talked the more time he would be given to map out a plan of action and the less likely Lauriston would be to shoot.

"Yes," he continued, "we shoot snakes like you in cold blood. You thought to take my sister away. You thought to get yourself-into our family. She could not see it. I'm going to spoil your little game. No sister of mine will ever marry a man of your blood."

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 "Don't you think you'll be hanged for such a crime?" Bennet asked.

"I hang, for killing you? Never. We don't do things that way down here. We can stand for black men down here for we can keep them in their places. For your kind, though, there's no sympathy. You're to damned fresh and uppish."

"I am a man the same as you."

"You can never be a white man."

"No, from what Lida tells me, neither can you.—Neither can you.—Neither can any of us. We're all of mixed blood."

Elvin winced at this. Bennet followed this up. "You called me a coward. It is you who'd play the coward to shoot down in cold blood a defenseless woman after you had shot the only one here to protect her."

"You protect her? Ha-ha-ha. That's'a joke."

"Not so much of a joke as you think. It seems that you did not give her the protection and sympathy a brother should. You would have had her married off to one not to her liking, not to please her, but to please yourselves."

"That's a lie. It was to prevent her disgracing the name of Lauriston."

"Bennet is a name as much honored as yours."

"Not here. And we southerners stick together."

"Yes, even in murder.—Tell you what, though. I've no weapon with which to defend myself. I don't want any. You called me a coward. I'm going to see who's the coward. Here's a fair proposition. Shoot us down in cold

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 blood or break your revolver,—throw the weapon away but put the cartridges in your pocket. If you can kill me by your hands I'll be willing to die. In that way you'll have a chance to show whether you're a coward or not. You're bigger than I."

"Ha—Lida's just fool enough to help you."

"I said man to man. Leave her out of it. She'll not harm a hair of your head.—Here's an open space. We'll fight till one of us is no longer able to leave. One of us will be left here dead. That's a man's way. Will you agree or will you prove to be a yellow coward?"

"Take off your coat. No man ever found me yellow yet," Elvin said, as he broke the revolver, removed the cartridges and threw the empty weapon away.

"Now you talk as I had always believed men talk!" exclaimed Bennet.

Both men now began to strip. Lida clung to Bennet's arm as she began to cry softly. "Don't fight, Truman, over me. He'll maybe kill you. I don't want you to die.—I don't want you to die."

"There's no way out of it, Heart of Mine. If not this way then it would be death for both of us. There's no use asking for sympathy."

Elvin was hurrying with his preparations and was almost ready. "I'll give no quarter," he warned. "Each for himself, when I'm ready."

"Elvin," Lida spoke through her tears. "Is there not an iota of love in your heart. Must you persist in murder to satisfy your selfish pride. Can you not leave us to our-

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 selves. Why interfere? I'm no longer a child. Think of the love we bore for each other as children. Think of the times we used to romp and play together. Never was there quarrel between brother and sister till now. These woods, these fields, we've roamed together, you and I, hand in hand, in the love that has been ours. Must it be death for me, for I will die if Truman is hurt; must it be death only that will satisfy you? Have you no heart? Are you all beast?"—

"Oh, shut up! If you're determined to marry this man then I'm determined to stop it. Even if I have to kill him first and then you. I was a fool to not shoot you both down. I'll get my hands on his throat, however, and choke the very life out of him. Then I'll attend to you. When a girl won't look out for herself it is for her blood relatives to look out for her."

Bennet had removed his collar and was in the act of removing the soft wool blouse he wore when Elvin finished, stripped to the waist, the muscles developed in his outdoor life and at college standing out in sinews of arms and shoulders, pinked into condition. Lida, after speaking, seeing that neither tears nor pleas would avail began to weep softly again when Bennet halted in his preparations to comfort her. Placing the free arm about the girl's waist, he drew her to him and whispered. "Never mind. I'll protect you. I have you and God on my side. We'll win."

"But he'll kill you.—He'll kill you. Then what will become of me. I'd rather die by your hands than by his." Bennet drew her to him and kissed her tenderly, still tug-

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 ging to free his arm from the blouse. Elvin started toward the couple. Lida stepped into his path in front of Bennet and raised her hand.

"Stop!" she commanded. "I warn you, Elvin. I love you as a brother even though you do this monstrous thing. I love you, but if you kill him I'll kill you. I'll kill you," she panted hysterically.

For answer Elvin struck the girl a blow with the flat of his hand. "Get out of the way. You'll get hurt." The surprise of the blow as well as the pain sent Lida reeling and stumbling at the side till she fell sprawling on the pine needles.

"You dirty yellow dog!" Bennet exploded as he rushed in madness toward Elvin. "To strike your own sister down like that." The two men met in mighty primeval clinch, brute against brute. Between his teeth, after the first impact of blows exchanged, as they clinched, Bennet continued, "I did not intend to kill you but for that I'm going to throttle you as I would a raging dog."

The two men swayed back and forth around the open space each striving for a blow to advantage and each warding off ponderous swings then clinching and wrestling for mastery.

"Save your breath to cry for help," countered Elvin. "You'll need it, and get none."

They breathed in great explosive hisses and grunted as they tugged and struck out at each other and reeled over the spot. Elvin caught Bennet a terrific swing on the jaw in an unguarded moment as they came together and the

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 latter retaliated with a body blow that sent the former sagging in the knees. They lost the semblance of men, their faces bleeding, and with their hair tousled, their eyes glaring like wild animals, they struggled and grunted. Once Bennet's foot slipped on the bed of pine needles and he almost went down. Elvin was over him in an instant gripping for the throat which was his objective. As he leaned over, Bennet, with a supreme effort twisted to one side and threw his adversary off balance for a moment. That instant, however, was enough for his purpose. He was on his feet quick as a flash, the grip which had been slowly coming closer and closer to his throat broken, and Elvin hurled several feet away.

While the two men were struggling, Lida regained consciousness and struggled to her feet to lean against a tree. She watched the two men, torn between two desires. She wished for her lover to win but prayed that the blood of her brother's death would not be on his hands. At the same time she agonized over the fear that her brother would be victor and she would see her lover die. She leaned against the tree, her eyes staring wildly at the two men, her features distorted by the agony she endured, of fear and hate combined, her fingers digging into the bark so ferociously that the nails were torn and bleeding. She could not scream. She could only stand transfixed with horror.

Bennet seemed to be tiring, and Elvin, gloating in the realization pressed for victory. Bennet's arms seemed to drop for a flash, from protecting his jaw. That flash was

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 enough for Elvin, however. In that instant he swung a vicious bone-crushing blow to Bennet's chin. For just the hundredth part of a second the latter's eyes glazed. Lida saw the blow and uttered a half smothered scream of agony. Bennet heard this and came back to his senses. As he reeled from the blow, and Elvin tried to follow up his advantage, throwing caution to the wind, Bennet reached his hands up under his foe's arms and clutched at the throat. Elvin was trying for the same grip. As Bennet felt his fingers clutching Elvin's neck he gave a quick twist and pull, tripping his adversary over his knee. He fell atop Elvin, but for the moment could not stay on top. He clung to the throat, however. Elvin rolled over with Bennet beneath him. The latter's throat grip, however, was like that of a bull dog. Elvin gave over, for a moment trying to get Bennet's throat, but strove to break the grip by grasping both Bennet's hands and tearing them away from his windpipe. He was gasping for breath now. Bennet hung on for life. He wrapped both legs about those of his adversary and, still pressing tightly on the throat slowly rolled Elvin over till he was above again. He sat astride now slowly pressing, pressing his fingers further and further into the throat of his victim. Elvin tried futilely to shake off the grip. Bennet felt the body weakening. Elvin's face began to purple. As Bennet realized that he was victor and that Elvin was losing consciousness, he released his grip slightly.

"I don't want your blood on my hands," he panted, "or else I'd kill you cold as you planned to do me."

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 Elvin's grip relaxed completely as he passed into unconsciousness. Bennet laid the hands over his head and began working them back and forth, as in the case of a drowning man. Lida stood still at the tree her body half bending over toward the pair transfixed in horror at what she was beholding. Bennet leaned over the prostrate form of his victim, slowly moving the arms back and forth at the same time pressing in and out with his knees at the sides of the man. After a few moments of this he listened at the heart. There were faint heart beats.

"Thank God," he breathed. "Thank God, I'm no murderer." He leaned over and listened again. The heart beats were stronger. "He'll live," he said aloud. At the words Lida came out of her trance of horror and fell prostrate on the ground again. The hoise of her fall brought Bennet to his senses of her presence. He turned to her. "My God," he exclaimed.

"Lida,—Lida—Lida, Dear," he exclaimed as he rushed to her side, bent over and lifted her into his arms. "Lida, Lida." He shook her gently. "Lida—Lida, wake dear."

He shook her gently again and at the third time she opened her eyes.

"Truman,—Oh, Truman—Yov've killed him.—You've killed him."

"No," he said, lifting her to her feet. "Brace up. He's not dead."

"And to think that he tried to kill you.—It was horrible—horrible, horrible," she continued. "Are you sure he's not dead?" she asked.

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 "His heart's beating," Bennet reassured her.

Bennet returned to the still prostrate and unconscious man, kneeled over and listened to his heart. "He'll live," he said. "His heart is stronger. We'll have to get away from here as quickly as possible. When he comes to there'll be no saving ourselves then. He'll not fight again, but kill us in cold blood. We'll have to go and go quickly."

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Dusk was just creeping under the clouds as they left Elvin slowly breathing but still unconscious. "We'll have to get out of this land tonight dear. That's all. If he wakes and finds us still here, nothing will save us." Bennet gathered up his clothes and started toward the cave, half guiding, half carrying Lida in his arms. She was almost too weak to walk from the ordeal through which she had passed. By the time they reached the falls she had recovered, however.

Bennet prepared to wash the blood from his body and face. Lida was all tenderness now. "Let me do that. Let me do that.—Here, bend over."

Bennet leaned over the little stream as directed while Lida dipped the handkerchief he offered her into the water and tenderly laved his wounds. There were great scratches on his arms and body where Elvin's nails had dug in their effort to get a grip. His chin was swollen and bruised from the blows, landed there and his body was a mass of welts and blotches. An eye was almost closed. About the throat whole inches of flesh had been torn away. Lida closed her eyes from the sight as she carefully bathed and dressed them. That finished she said:

"I'll hurry home and get what things we need, and we'll have to get away in the darkness.—We'll have to use two horses."

"Where's the nearest minister?" Bennet asked. Lida blushed in the growing dark.

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 "I don't know," she answered,—"Let's see."

"I met a Father Buntin, in Charleston," Bennet offered, whooffered, "who [sic] said he lived somewhere above Orangeburg. I don't sup—"

"Oh, yes. Father Buntin—Father Buntin. I know whom you mean.—I know him. He's down beyond Carter's, on the way into Orangeburg.—We can go there."

"There's where we'll go. I take you away from here as my wife.—The wife of my heart." He took her gently in his arms.

"Anywhere—Truman, with you."

"You'll never regret," he answered feelingly. "Hurry now," he urged as he freed her. "Hurry, we've no time to lose. I wish I had an automobile."

"Horses are better, Truman, in this country. The roads, you know are wretched, particularly after a rainstorm. I'll meet you at the edge of the clearing."

"Minutes become hours, dear, with you away," he said as he kissed her tenderly.

When she had departed Bennet climbed to the cave and quickly gathered what few things he had kept there and descended. Lida fairly flew to the house and bade Chloe have two horses brought to the front. While the maid was gone she hastily gathered what few treasures of her room she felt she could not leave, then descended. She started toward her father's room but as she approached she heard him singing incoherently and alternately cursing. She knew his mind was gone. Reverently she bowed at the door for an instant, uttered a prayer and was gone. As she

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 opened the door she heard the horses stamping impatiently with surprise at being called upon on this dark rainy night. Quickly she mounted one and led the other to the place of meeting. Bennet was there to meet her. Without a word he mounted and the two started off at a trot into the dark, only the white ribbon of sandy road to guide them. As they started off, horses side by side, Lida reached over and placed her hand in his. He grasped it tenderly.

"Riding off into the dark with me, My Heart," he murmured.

She pressed his in return, "Not into the dark, but through the dark into light, Truman. For there's the light of tomorrow ahead."

"God keep it always light ahead," he prayed fervently.

Thus they traveled for more than two hours, sometimes pausing to listen to see if they were being followed. They heard nothing, however, save the screech of an owl from time to time as his slumbers were despoiled by the hoof sounds, or the bay of a distant hound. At last they reached Carter's. Lida knew the place by the wide stretch of garden in front of it and the scale house at the roadside where cotton and grain were weighed at the end of each day's harvest. Carter was known as the greatest grower of oats and wheat in the county.

"Father Buntin's church is not far from here, Dear."

"I hope he'll be in."

"He'll most likely be in on a night like this."

A few miles further on they passed the graveyard of

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 the little country church. Back behind the cedars and juniper trees nestled the church with its parish house off to one side. They turned in at the gate. A light shone from the study. They rode straight to the door and Bennet dismounted. Lida remained on her mount. Bennet rapped at the door and soon there was a motion of activity seen from the reflection at the study window, followed by an opening of the door while Father Buntin, his gray hair showing under the edges of his study cap and his kindly benign eyes showing through his reading glasses peered into the darkness.

"Who's there?" he asked shading his eyes with a hand.

"It is I, Father. I've come to be married."

Father Buntin smiled broadly and genially as he said, "You can't marry here. You're alone."

Bennet laughed. "Oh, no, Father, I'm not alone."

"I usually marry couples not single men," Father Buntin continued, enjoying his joke.

"Oh, but I have the girl."

"Oh, but I don't see her," he mocked. "However, come in, come in!" Here he threw the door wide. Before Bennet could turn, Lida leaped from her horse and stood beside him. "Here am I, Father—the other part of the contract."

"Ah, daughter. It is well. I was just about to believe either the young man was having his joke with me or else he was under the influence of Luna."

"I'm under the influence of a far greater goddess, Father," Bennet offered looking at Lida who stood beside

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 him in the doorway, touching his arm affectionately.

"Come in children. Come in." Father Buntin noted shrewdly the condition of Bennet's face and commented:

"Youth will ever fight for love, eh, Boy?"—SoBoy?—So [sic] you're running away?—Well, you're both of age and know your own minds."

"Yes, Father, we love and want to marry," Bennet said simply.

"This is a serious step you take. Few young people realize nowadays how serious. They become enamored of a face or the eyes or some other feature and immediately believe themselves in love and want to rush to the altar. Love and marriage are serious things. They present serious problems both of the present and future. Have you considered all these things?"

"We have, Father." Father Buntin looked long and silently at Bennet. "If it were not for the difference in feature I should say I had met you somewhere. Let's see." He stroked his chin ministerially. "Ah—" he sighed. "I have it. Aren't you the young man I met at Charleston, with Dr. Tansey?"

Bennet nodded his head affirmatively. "That's it.—That's it. You're Mr. Bennet.—I sense it all now. You came down here to get a girl. Well, she seems well worth coming for—and fighting for," he added. "I take it you're eloping." Bennet nodded. "In that case you're in a hurry."

"Yes, Father."

"We'll lose no time then. Daughter, step this way.

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 Now join hands," he commanded as they stood side by side. The ceremony was soon over and the prayer pronounced, After both had shaken hands with the clergyman and started for the door, Father Buntin touched Bennet on the shoulder.

"You knew of the fate of poor Dr. Tansey, did you?" Bennet whirled.

"No, I hope to see him in the city."

"Well, you won't," Father Buntin said solemnly. "He's dead."

Father Buntin then gave Lida and Bennet a brief story of the events leading up to the killing of Dr. Tansey. "I only hope his death will have some effect on the people down here. It was a sad thing, my boy. My heart bleeds for the people here. Dr. Tansey was a brave outspoken man. An honest and a fearless man. Never will I forget the bravery he showed in challenging the attitude of the southerners toward their black neighbors. A good man has gone. Many more will go unless the people turn from their ways. Unless they get more of Christ in their hearts. Unless they live more the life of the Saviour."

"Dr. Tansey was a saintly man, and my friend," added Bennet.

"He was a saintly man. I tell you all the Godly men are not in the church. There are some great souls whose lives are the best sermons, and Dr. Tansey's was one of these. I think the people are beginning to feel remorse. If his death can but have the effect of putting more of God into the hearts of the people of this section and the

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 seed be spread, then Dr. Tansey will not have died in vain. His death and my meeting with and knowing him, have given me courage to do my work here better, to be braver, and to look with more compassion on the black folk who are our neighbors. I'm going to try to make their lives easier and if possible establish a settlement house for them."

Lida, remembering her brother and the people on her own plantation grew worried lest they delay too long and her brother overtake them when he revived, pressed Bennet's arm to which she clung.

"Better be going, don't you think?" she warned.

"That's right," added Father Buntin. "Don't mind a garrulous old preacher. "Therepreacher. There [sic] may be somebody after you. God bless you, my children. May your lives be happy and true to God." With that he closed the door and they were again in the dark. Bennet took Lida in his arms and in a long embrace. When they were disengaged, he uttered two words, "My wife." Lida stood on tiptoe and kissed him gently, the love of her heart in her lips. He lifted her to the saddle then mounted himself and they were off.

Scarcely had they left the district, riding away to the city, and Father Buntin had settled himself to a resumption of his studies when he heard wild horse's hoofs padding down the road as if racing. Father Buntin listened. The sound of hoofs came toward his door. He waited till they came to the very door when he heard the sound of someone dismounting. The visitor strode heavily to the door and pounded loudly.

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 "Humph!" exclaimed Father Buntin, readjusting his glasses. "You're in too big a hurry. I'll just let you cool your heels." He turned to his reading again. Again the knocking, this time more forcibly. Father Buntin still paid no heed. A third time there was a loud knocking, this time accompanied by a smothered oath. Father Buntin arose and shuffled to the door.

"Come in! Come in! Don't wait.—Break the door in and enter."

Here he opened the door only to stand staring into the muzzle of a revolver. "Mercy me." He stepped back exclaiming, "What a fearsome boy. You play with a very dangerous toy. Very dangerous. Come in but leave your weapon outside. Leave that outside where you left your good manners."

It was Elvin Lauriston. He had revived sometime after being left, and after floundering about in the darkness bewildered, recalled the battle and hurried to the house to find Lida gone. He surmised they would hasten to the first minister to make sure of marriage, so he had ridden posthaste to Father Buntin, knowing him to be the nearest clergyman. He stepped into the little reception room as bidden, the revolver still pointing at the body of the minister.

"Where are they?" he demanded. "I know they came here. Where are they?"

"They who? Whom do you mean? Put that down or I won't talk to you at all."

"You'll talk or you'll never preach again. Kneel down and answer me."

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 Father Buntin fingered the crucifix that hung at his breast. "I kneel to no one but God. And I'll kneel to no one with murder in his heart." He looked fearlessly and calmly into the eyes of the young man before him whose eyes were blazing with mad anger and lust for blood.

"Where are they? I'm going to kill them."

Father Buntin raised the crucifix till it was on level with the muzzle of the revolver, then looking past the eyes and into the very heart of the man before him, slowly and solemnly he uttered the words, "Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill," he repeated slowly and deliberately, "Thou shalt not kill.—Don't hit him, Job!"

At that warning Elvin turned his head for the flash of a second and in that instant Father Buntin sprung to the boy, grabbed the revolver, pointed it toward the ceiling and wrenched it from Elvin's hand. He had acted so quickly, and Elvin was taken so unawares, that before he realized it he had been disarmed.

"Now you kneel," Father Buntin commanded. Elvin refused. "You'll kneel or take some of your own medicine. Kneel now." He held the revolver toward Elvin's body. Slowly the latter sank to his knees.

"It is so that God always triumphs," said Father Buntin. "God and right always win in the end."

"Now my boy, let Father Buntin read you a lesson. You have had murder in your heart for weeks, perhaps for a lifetime. Cast it out. If you live by violence you must die by violence. There is and has been altogether too much violence in this land. We are too quick to slay.

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 Only the devil prompts a slayer. And one slaying begets another. The laws are immutable. We live by laws even when we break them.

"There is a law of good which creates goodness. There is a law of evil which spawns evil. An evil act begets an evil act though it be years in showing. It is said in the Commandments that the sins of the father are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." Elvin thought of the courthouse records and of that one of his forbears that had brought evil upon his head. "Good law—right law, is right thought—thought rightly directed. Bad law is bad thought poorly directed. There is a law of recompense which we too often forget. We have forgotten it in this land of ours—in our treatment of those about us who are dependent upon us. This whole country will some day reap an evil harvest from the evil laws by which it has existed.

"There are laws of right and justice well thought out and laid down to direct our lives. Some were laid by Christ and his life; others by wise men who thought for humanity. By way of the law let us live. Let us live by way of the good law, the right law, the true law. Only then shall we know true real happiness. There is only one law that is supreme by which we should live."

Father Buntin paused here, stepped to Elvin whose head was now bowed, the evil in his heart soothed away with the calm, almost divine, talk of this man of God. Father Buntin laid his hand gently on the head of the young man bowed before him, raised his face toward heaven and said:

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 "Love ye one another. Love is mankind's best creation and good will the most powerful friend. Hatred is the most destructive enemy. Let this reach your heart, it is the most beautiful and most enlightened form of self-interest and self-protection. It was that which made Christ die to save the world. Oh, my boy, my poor deluded, self-willed boy. Look up."

Elvin raised his head. Father Buntin held the Crucifix before him. "Wherever you go, hereafter, whatever be your fate, remember this symbol, and recall the words of Him who died for you, when he said,  ' Love ye one another.

Father Buntin reached over and gently raised the kneeling form to a standing position. Without a further word he handed the revolver back to Elvin and turned to his study.

Elvin stood for a few moments looking at the revolver, then at the light shining from the adjoining room. He stepped through the door, looked at the revolver for a few minutes, broke the breech, withdrew the cartridges, cast them to one side and the revolver to the other, he walked to the window and peered in. Father Buntin was kneeling at his table, his head bowed. Slowly Elvin sank to his knees. He wanted to pray but could frame no words. His mind reverted to the times when at his mother's knee he had knelt and slowly his lips framed the words, "Our Father, who art in Heaven." He slowly repeated the Lord's prayer.

Elvin continued to kneel some moments after the prayer

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 was ended, his mind still unsettled and his heart troubled. In his trouble the image of his father flashed into his mind. "Poor Father," he murmured. "He needs me. I must go." Slowly he stood erect in the darkness. After looking once more into the window through which he could still see Father Buntin kneeling, he turned toward his horse champing at the hitching post impatient to be free. After mounting he gave the animal free rein, and was soon in the road and headed back for home. His mind was heavy with the events of the past few days. Father Buntin's words still pounding in his ears and the crucifix dancing before his eyes.

"Thou shalt not kill," he repeated reflectively. "Untoreflectively. " 'Unto [sic] the children of the third and fourth generations of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto those that keep my commandments.'—I never knew what that meant before.—We certainly heap up sins by our acts for those who come after us.—I wonder what more's in store for me?" It was almost daybreak when he again reached the Lauriston place. As his horse turned into the familiar drive he could see lights flashing back and forth from various rooms. An unusual circumstance. With an effort he dismissed his mood and spurred his horse into a trot.

One of the domestics heard the footsteps of the horse and hurried out to the veranda. Discerning Elvin as he mounted, who had started up the steps, the man said feelingly with tears in his eyes:

"Mr. Lauriston's gone, Suh—Gone. He's done kilt."

"Suicide," thought Elvin, recalling the state of mind of

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 his father, a feeling of horror enveloping him. Before he could frame a question, however, as to details, the colored servant continued, apologetically. "I didn't mean to let him get outa my sight, Suh. But I went to git him a drink and when I cum back he's gone. I didn't mean to lef? him go, knowin' he ain't right," tapping his head to suggest bereft mind.

Elvin was still silent, his mind dazed at the calamity which overwhelmed him. The servant continued. "Next I hyeard a commotion out in the stables. The horses was a-trompin' and kickin' and neighin'. I go out theah and come to the stall of the big bay, who's making most of the fuss and under his feet is Mistuh Lauriston, daid. Oh, Lordy, trompled down by that horse." The domestic could say no more, his voice choked and tears began to flow freely.

"My God! What a horrible end." Again the words of the clergyman came to his ears, "unto the third and fourth generations." Elvin lifted his head to the sky. "Oh, God, help me," was all he could say. "It is more than I can bear."

As he uttered these words he felt the hand of the colored servant grasp his arm and pull him gently toward the door to enter. He removed it from his arm only to grasp it firmly in his hand. "William," he said. "Your heart is simpler than mine but it's also nobler. I'll never forget you. I'm going to treat you and your people like friends hereafter."

"Thass all right, Suh,—Thass all right. We all loves you, Suh, an' we'll stick by you. We'll tek care of you—an' Miss Lida."

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Reaching Orangeburg about a half hour after sunrise, Bennet and Lida, unmindful of the tragedy behind them, stabled their horses then enquired their way to the little railroad station at the east end of the town. Once here, Bennet purchased tickets for New York and asked when the next train for Columbia and the North would leave. Informed that one would depart in half hour, Bennet sought a small lunchroom to which he was directed by the ticket agent, secured a lunch and reappeared.

He and Lida disposed of their hasty meal, the locomotive was heard at the lower end of the town. Bennet ushered her into the coach, disposed of their baggage and seated himself beside her. Lida watched the station agent, a thin-moustached, spare man of middle age ordering the baggage and mail placed aboard, then heard the locomotive puff itself into action. As the train left the station she leaned back in the coach, her heart saddened by the memory of her father whose image she could not force from her mind, At Columbia they sent a wire to Elvin telling where the horses had been stabled and directing that he call for them there.

"We're married," the message read. "And on our way abroad. Take care of father till I return."

Elvin fingered the message a long time when it reached him in the afternoon. His thoughts turned from the father whose body lay silent in the room, being prepared for burial, to his sister. "Life—death—pawns of fate,"

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 he soliloquized. "We never know—we never know.—It's the way of the law." He still sat pondering, his hand hanging over the arm of the chair dangling the message when the buggy of Old John Marley came up the driveway.

"I fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh just heard the news, Ellie. Can I fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh help?"

"Come in. Come in, John—Poor Father, he's gone."

"Fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh killed by his heedless daughter."

Elvin shook his head slowly and smiled faintly. "No, Uncle John. You can't blame her. The blame goes further back."

Old John, not understanding, merely shook his head lugubriously, at the same time adding, "Fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh Women're both fuh-tuh Heaven and Hell—fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh mostly hell, eh, Elvin? They'se no knowin' 'em."

"We make 'em so, I guess, Uncle John.—You wanted Lida to marry Young John, didn't you?"

"Fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh she'll marry him now quicker'n ever. She'll need fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh someone to take care of her."

"No, she won't," Elvin retorted. "Not now. She's married," waving the message. "And she has my blessing."

"Fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh what?" stammered Old John Marley. "Fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh, run away?" he asked, his huge jowls of jaws working spasmodically as he tried to frame the question.

Elvin merely bowed in assent.

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 "I'll fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh be fuh-fuh-fuh-tuh durned," he replied as his face purpled with the news. "Fuh-tuh married and her daddy dead?" Disappointment was written all over the old man's face. His flabby fat became flabbier. He could say no more. He had come to offer condolences and aid. In his disappointment he tightened the reins and clucked to his horse then started off for home again.

Elvin looked at the retreating equipage and smiled but made no comment.

Bennet and Lida reached New York and were just about to leave the Pennsylvania Station for a hotel when they heard a little scream and turned in time to see Louise Comstock dropping her bags and running toward them, her face wreathed in smiles.

"Lida Lauriston!"

"Oh, Louise, You Darling. What are you doing here?—Of all things. My husband," she turned proudly to Bennet.

Louise Comstock flushed confusedly then recovered herself as she returned the hearty grasp of the hand outstretched to her. Bennet looked into her eyes and she saw there no resentment or ill will. She still held Bennet's hand as she took Lida's arm and drew the two close to her.

"I owe you two my apologies." Lida, understanding, reached her arm about the girl, but before she could say anything, Louise Comstock continued. "I did you a wrong, Mr. Bennet.—I hope you'll forgive me, if you can. I don't see how you can—." Bennet tried to interrupt.

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 "No—no—no—don't interrupt me. You don't know how sorry I've been—how sorry.—I'm glad you're married and I'm glad Lida is the girl. I've learned a lot since I saw you last. I've learned that prejudices we hold are wrong. I've decided to try and right some of those wrongs. I saw some horrible things in the South; things I was ashamed of; things America ought to be ashamed of; things America will be ashamed of some of these days.

"Professor Armstrong—"

"Oh, Professor Armstrong? Is he up here too?" Bennet interrupted.

"Yes, after Dr. Tansey's awful death—You heard about that?" she rattled on. "No?—He died, killed in a mob—trampled on as he and Professor Armstrong tried to prevent two innocent persons from being lynched. They failed—Oh, it was horrible—horrible. Professor Armstrong was so shocked at the conditions that he has decided to devote his life to changing conditions.—I'm going to help him. The South is wrong—wrong—wrong.

"Professor Armstrong is going to start settlement work in the South and try to get the white South to help better the conditions. By bettering conditions of the colored people, which is their duty, they will better their own. It's a glorious work.—I was just on my way down to meet him now. Congratulations and may your lives be full of happiness. Lida, I adore you." She kissed Lida heartily.—"On your honeymoon? Well, good luck to you. I'm awfully glad you're married."

"We were just on our way to book passage for England," Bennet explained.

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 "How wonderful! A honeymoon abroad. Oh, Goody."

"Take Professor Armstrong and bring him over."

Louise dropped her head but said nothing. There was a suspicious bulge on a finger of her left hard, however, which both Bennet and Lida noticed. A handshake for Bennet and a kiss for Lida and the girl was gone. Bennet and Lida lost no time getting to a hotel and making arrangements for their trip abroad.

As they passed the Statue of Liberty, Lida and Bennet were standing on the afterdeck with a group watching the shores of America fade from view. All the fellow voyagers were waving handkerchiefs, or blowing kisses to their native land and the image of Miss Columbia. Bennet, hat in hand, stood facing the statue, a peculiar tug at his heart. He looked to see how Lida was affected. She was still, but not looking toward the statue at all. He was surprised.

"Aren't you going to say good-bye to Columbia?"

"No, why should I? Look how much trouble she's made for us?"

Bennet shook his head as, before all the group, he took his wife gently in his arms. "You shouldn't say that, Dear. Matters not what troubles we have, this is our country—our birthplace—our native land. However, cruel and hurtful, it is our land just the same." He folded her in his arms.

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text: By Sanction of Law/Preface

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text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 1

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 1


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 2

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 2


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 3

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 3


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 4

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 4


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 5

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 5


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 6

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 6


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 7

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 7


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 8

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 8


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 9

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 9


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 10

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 10


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 11

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 11


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 12

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 12


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 13

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 13


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 14

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 14


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 15

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 15


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 16

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 16


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 17

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 17


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 18

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 18


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 19

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 19


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 20

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 20


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 21

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 21


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 22

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 22


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 23

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 23


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 24

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 24


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 25

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 25


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 26

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 26


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 27

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 27


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 28

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 28


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 29

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 29


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 30

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 30


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 31

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 31


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 32

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 32


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 33

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 33


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 34

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 34


text: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 35

title: By Sanction of Law/Chapter 35


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 you, and of the throne-rug. It was my fault; I should have told her."

Worse and worse! That rug again. Hadn't I returned it? Wasn't he sitting on it even as he spoke? Well then

"It was my fault. I should have told her," he repeated.

He drained his cup.

The brooding silence forbade even an attempt at making conversation. My nerves were rapidly getting on edge; and I hoped bin Ayyub would end the interview.

"I am leaving very soon, effendi," he finally resumed. "Saoud will pack up my goods. I have been waiting for you to return the throne-rug; and I was right in waiting. For the sake of my illustrious ancestor, I treasure it. But much has happened in the last few days. I do not care to have it in my house any longer. My brother's son in Tekrit will take it."

I could think of no appropriate comment.

"Here is the piece which was exchanged for the throne-rug. Take it with you when you leave, and return it to its owner."

Which was also fair enough; though Revell deserved no such fortune after his shabby trick. The loss might be a lesson to him.

"May I ask you to be so kind as to lift the cover of the jar of attar?" requested bin Ayyub, as he set aside his empty cup.

I could see that he was momentarily becoming paler. There was not a drop of blood beneath his bronzed skin. The corners of his mouth and the muscles of his cheeks twitched perceptibly; so that his request did not seem at all out of order. Though if I myself felt as he looked, the last thing in the world I'd want would be a whiff of that overpowering perfume.

"Certainly," I replied.

Poor devil! He seemed to be having a chill, shivering noticeably. No wonder he wanted me to take Saoud's place in the ritual of the perfume jar.

As I advanced across the wondrously carpeted floor, I heard him mutter to himself, "One is at times hasty"

I parted the curtains that veiled the great urn of Byzantine glass, and lifted the heavy cover; then, dizzied by the overwhelming surge of sweetness, recoiled a pace.

And then I dropped the cover.

Christ in heaven! But why deny my own eyes? In the throbbing, glowing rosy-amber jar was the shapely form of Djénane Hanoum! Faintly distorted by the refraction of the curved surfaces of the urn and the attar, but nevertheless and beyond any mistake, that was the Gurjestani girl. I stared, fascinated. Then looked behind the jar, hoping ridiculous hope to find that she was standing on the other side, and that I had seen her through, and not in, the urn.

It is strange how in such a moment one notices trifles.

"La illah ilia allah wa Muhammad rasul allahi" came the murmuring accents of bin Ayyub, very low, but distinct.

Even in the grip of that horribly lovely sight, I had distinctly caught the Moslem's "There is no God but Allah" And then, scarcely perceptible, "Djénane"

My movements must have been those of a mechanical toy.

As I caught the curtains on the hilts of the simitars hanging at each side of the alcove, I noted that the fine, hard-woven cord of silk was missing. And then I found myself wondering what poison the blue cup of mourning had contained.

Not until fully a minute later did it dawn on me why bin Ayyub's eyes had flamed with immeasurable despair when I had reminded him that since I had returned the throne-rug


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Rh too glad to hold aloof. Graesler spoke of his youth, of the old battlemented, many-spired city of his birth, and of the parental home and ancestral dwelling which waited patiently, year in, year out, to shelter him—and, until a short time ago, his sister as well—for a few short weeks or days of rest in the spring or in autumn. And when Sabine listened to him attentively and not unmoved, he somehow always tried to imagine how beautiful it would be if he were to return home with her and how he would surprise his old friend, the attorney Boehlinger, the only human being who still maintained a certain loose connexion between him and his native city.

And when autumn set in—unusually early and with especial potency—and most of the patients at the health-resort fled before the customary time of departure, and all the hours that he could not spend at The Range were, for Doctor Graesler, empty and desolate, there came over him such a fear of beginning his lonely, meaningless, and hopeless wanderings anew that he sometimes positively thought himself determined to prefer his suit for Sabine in all due form. But instead of putting the question to her point-blank—a thing for which he could not get up the necessary courage—he hit upon the notion (as though this offered a way to seek his counsel straight from fate) of making a general inquiry as to whether Doctor Frank's sanitarium, of which Sabine had recently spoken casually for the second time, were really for sale, and if so, on what terms. As he could get no definite information on the matter, he sought out the proprietor, with whom he was personally acquainted. He found the morose old fellow dressed in a dirty yellow linen suit and sitting on a white bench in front of the sanitarium smoking a pipe, looking much more like an eccentric yokel than like a physician, and asked him straightway whether there was really any foundation for the rumours he had heard. It seemed that Director Frank, too, had only casually betrayed his intentions here and there, and had apparently been expecting, on his part also, something in the nature of a sign of fate. In any case he was thoroughly disposed to be rid of his property, and the sooner the better, as he wished to pass the few years still allotted to him as far removed as possible from real and imaginary patients and to recuperate from the hundreds of thousands of lies to which his profession had all his lifetime condemned him.

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Rh I would be slow to believe her father's daughter a witch.

 * Have you ever seen the Queen, countryman?

 * No.

 * Nor has any one else. Not a man here has set eyes on her. For seven years she has been shut up in that great black house on the great rocky hill. From the day her father died she has been there with the doors shut on her, but we know now why she has hidden herself. She has no good companions in the dark night.

 * In my district they say that she is a holy woman and prays for us all.

 * That story has been spread about by the Prime Minister. He has spies everywhere spreading stories. He is a crafty man.

 * It is true, they always deceive us country people. We are not educated like the people of the town.

 * The Bible says, suffer not a witch to live. Last Candlemas twelvemonth I strangled a witch with my own hands.

 * When she is dead we will make the Prime Minister King.

No, no, he is not a king's son.

I'd send a bellman through the world. There are many kings in Arabia, they say.

 * The people must be talking. If you and I were to hide ourselves, or to be someway hard to understand, maybe they would put some bad name on us. I am not against the people, but I want testimony.

 * Come, Tapster, stand up there on the stone and tell what you know.

(The Tapster climbs up on the mounting-stone.)

I live in the quarter where her Castle is. The garden of my house and the gardens of all the houses in my row run right up to the rocky hill that has her Castle on the top. There is a lad in my quarter that has a goat in his garden.

That's Strolling Michael—I know him.

That goat is always going astray. Strolling Michael got out of his bed early one morning to go snaring birds, and nowhere could he see that goat. So he began climbing up the rock, and up and up he went, till he was close under the wall, and there he found the goat and it shaking and sweating as though something had scared it. Presently he heard a thing neigh like a horse, and after that a something like a white horse ran by, but it was no horse, but a unicorn. He had his pistol, for he had thought to bring down a rabbit, and seeing it rushing at him as he imagined, he fired at the unicorn. It vanished all in a moment, but there was blood on a great stone.

Seeing what company she keeps in the small hours, what wonder that she never sets foot out of doors.

 * I wouldn't believe all that night rambler says—boys are liars. All that we have against her for certain is that she won't put her foot out of doors. I knew a man once that when he was five and twenty refused to get out of his bed. He wasn't ill—no, not he, but he said life was a vale of tears, and for forty and four years till they carried

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450 a right which extended even to the development of a personal idiom. Mallarmé's expert mal-writing reached a rare flowering—in such a hothouse product, for instance, as "heureuses deux tétines." And the peculiar glory of these pursuits is that the artist attains thereby "au-dessus d'autre bien, l'élément de félicités, une doctrine en même temps qu'une contrée."

Waldo Frank's idiom is no less personal. But instead of Mallarmé's special-case fauns and nymphs with their icy emotions, Mr Frank gives us the eager, pulsing universe noted above. Still, it cannot be denied that Waldo Frank's idealism emphasizes a somewhat different aspect. If Mallarmé was striving simply for beautiful possibilities, for intriguing enormities, for likely distortions which would appeal to the connoisseur acquainted with all the rules, Mr Frank falls in rather with the German expressionists who strive to give us a version of life which shall be alas! only too true. For the last fifty years the world has been pressionistic (read, volitional) first im and then ex. If Mallarmé, looking at a man, goes beyond that man with the direct purpose of distortion, the expressionists take their man, rip off his clothing, observe the sorry nipples of his breasts, look into his viscera, and maintain that here is the real man, the essential man. The subtle difference is that Mallarmé has said, "Here is a distortion," and has given us one, while the expressionists have said, "Here is the very pulse of truth," and their distortion has been no less marked.

One goes into a park and sits down, and immediately, if one is an artist, the park becomes a problem. It lies there. The individual feels his edges knocking improperly against it. He is sitting in somebody else's park. Then, if he is Waldo Frank, he starts remaking that park. Exorbitant characters appear, the skyline begins to churn, mad speeches are ground out. And we have John the Baptist, one of the most interesting stories of City Block. But such a park is a personal creation, and is statistically false; it is true as a reflection of Waldo Frank's temperament, true in a sense that Mallarmé's fauns are true, but completely erroneous as a gauge of our environment.

My reason for pointing this out is a somewhat complicated one. But first of all, I feel that it provides us with a criterion for approaching Mr Frank. Thus, we have the two possibilities: a book must be statistically true, a whole and proper valuation of life; or

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Moscow, August 22nd/September 4th, 1918.

M. le Président,

Encouraged by the goodwill you have been pleased to show me, and by the request you made of me upon a former occasion—to send you information from time to time on the situation in Russia—I have the honour to send you a copy of the letter recently written by me to M. Albert Thomas, and dealing more particularly with the question of Allied intervention. Since the despatch of that letter, as I foresaw, events have almost inevitably taken a course which I regard as unfavourable to the interests both of Russia and of the Allies.

You have taught us, M. le Président, that, under certain circumstances, an honest man ought at the critical moment to satisfy his conscience, whatever may be the cost. That was my reason for writing to M. Albert Thomas the letter you are reading. You know me, M. le Président; you know with what ardent faith I supported the Franco-Russian alliance before and during the war, and with what enthusiasm I devoted myself, with all my heart and soul, with all my energy, to the struggle so odiously provoked and imposed by imperialist, brutal Germany upon my dear Motherland, defender of justice and of oppressed peoples, represented by you with such loyal and essentially pacific dignity!

There is no need for me to tell you, therefore, that to-day, as yesterday, if I saw in the efforts made by the Allies in Russia a supplementary, though weak, means of increasing our chances of victory, or of advancing them—were it by a single hour—not for a solitary moment would the idea have come into my head, notwithstanding my great love for Russia and my poignant sorrow at her sufferings, of writing to M. Albert Thomas the enclosed letter or of taking the extreme liberty of addressing these lines to yourself.

I believe I have been one of those who have criticised with the deepest conviction Bolshevism in its character of violent demagogy. I believe I have been from the day that the idea of intervention was mooted, one of the most ardent, if most modest, partisans of that intervention, without the Bolsheviks and in spite of them, for the purpose of helping the Russian people directly to shake off the German yoke, to reconstruct Russian unity, and to obtain a drastic revision of the abominable treaty of Brest-Litovsk, so fatal to the interests of Russia, so detrimental to those of the Allies.


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548 been our room with the room of our daughter Jane beside it," he had thought on the morning after the fire as he walked past and stopped with other curious idlers to gaze up at the scene above.

And now, as he walked alone in the sleeping streets of his town his imagination succeeded in stripping all the walls from all the houses and he walked as in some strange city of the dead. That his imagination could so flame up, running along whole streets of houses and wiping out walls as a wind shakes the branches of the trees, was a new and living wonder to himself. "A life-giving thing has been given to me. For many years I have been dead and now I am alive," he thought. To give the fuller play to his fancy he got off the sidewalk and walked in the centre of the street. The houses lay before him all silent and the late moon had appeared and made black pools under the trees.

In the houses the people were sleeping in their beds. How many bodies lying and sleeping close together, babes asleep in cribs, young boys sleeping sometimes two or three in a single bed, young women asleep with their hair fallen down about their faces.

As they slept they dreamed. Of what did they dream? He had a great desire that what had happened to himself and Natalie should happen to all of them. The love-making in the field had after all been but a symbol of something more filled with meaning than the mere act of two bodies embracing, the passage of the seeds of life from one body to another.

A great hope flared up in him. "A time will come when love like a sheet of fire will run through the towns and cities. It will tear walls away. It will destroy ugly houses. It will tear ugly clothes off the bodies of men and women. They will build anew and build beautifully," he declared aloud. As he walked and talked thus he felt suddenly like a young prophet come out of some far strange clean land to visit with the blessing of his presence the people of the street. He stopped and putting his hands to his head laughed loudly at the picture he had made of himself. "You would think I was another John the Baptist who has been living in a wilderness on locusts and wild honey instead of a washing machine manufacturer in a Wisconsin town," he thought. A window to one of the houses was opened and he heard low voices talking. "Well, I'd better be going home before they lock me up for a crazy man," he thought.

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Rh frame affair, there was a little garden and two apple trees. He walked around the house and saw his daughter, Jane Webster, lying in a hammock hung between the trees. There was an old rocking chair under one of the trees near the hammock and he went and sat in it. His daughter was surprised at his coming upon her so, at the noon hour when he so seldom appeared. "Well, hello dad," she said listlessly, sitting up and dropping a book she had been reading on the grass at his feet. "Is there anything wrong?" she asked. He shook his head.

Picking up the book he began to read and her head dropped again to the cushion in the hammock. The book was a modern novel of the period. It concerned life in the old city of New Orleans. He read a few pages. It was no doubt the sort of thing that might take one out of oneself, take one away from the dulness of life. A young man was stealing along a street in the darkness and had a cloak wrapped about his shoulders. Overhead the moon shone. The magnolia trees were in blossom filling the air with perfume. The young man was very handsome. The scene of the novel was laid in the time before the Civil War and he owned a great many slaves.

John Webster closed the book. There was no need of reading. When he was still a young man he had sometimes read such books himself. They took one out of oneself, made the dulness of everyday existence seem less terrible.

That was an odd thought, that everyday existence need be dull. There was no doubt the last twenty years of his own life had been dull, but during that morning life had not been so. It seemed to him he had never before had such a morning.

It was a strange and terrible fact, but the truth was he had never thought much about his daughter, and here she was almost a woman. There was no doubt she already had the body of a woman. The functions of womanhood went on in her body. He sat, looking directly at her. A moment before he had been very weary, now the weariness was quite gone. "She might already have had a child," he thought. Her body was prepared for child-bearing, it had grown and developed to that estate. What an immature face she had. Her mouth was pretty but there was something, a kind of blankness. Her face was like a fair sheet of paper on which nothing had been written. Her eyes in wandering about met his eyes. It was odd. Something like fright came into them. She sat quickly up. "What's the matter with you, Dad?" she asked sharply. He smiled. "There

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 It is in this sense that I have always understood the word "intervention": it is in this sense that it has always been explained to me, that I have always been authorised to explain it to our Russian friends. I am sure that such, above all, are the ends pursued by the Entente Governments; but I observe with anguish that in the course of these last months we have let ourselves become entangled in the particular meshes of the struggle against Bolshevism; that is to say, of Russian internal affairs. This gradually makes us lose sight of our first principal aim, and apply ourselves, without any benefit to the interests of the Entente, to a task which can only have one result:—To increase in vain the sufferings and the distress of the Russian people, in all classes without distinction; to aggravate anarchy and famine; to accentuate civil war, White Terror and Red Terror; to sharpen the dissensions between parties; finally, to enfeeble the national powers of resistance at a moment when they were so vigorously raising their head that they had to be taken into account at last by the Soviet Government—whose extraordinary energy in State administration, in face of the most formidable difficulties, I must in all honesty recognise—Such will be the result. Those powers of resistance were openly beginning to prepare for a struggle which could not and cannot, whatever is said or thought, but be directed against the only definite enemy of Russia—that is to say, against Germany, the Germany of Brest, or, in other words, the Germany of Wilhelm and Scheidemann.

This most regrettable distraction of our activity, little by little and, as it were, insensibly leaving the ground of national defence for the barren and in any case subsidiary ground of internal politics, has been manifested gradually. But more and more clearly as time went on one sees from July onwards, after the painful incidents at Jaroslave, where the fight carried on by the White Guards of Savinkoff against the Soviet Government produced in the end no practical result but the massacre of several thousands of Russians, the destruction of numerous churches and considerable artistic treasures, an old city running with blood, the parties whom we were supposed to be supporting discouraged, increased hatred of the Bolsheviks, increased distrust of the bourgeoisie.

I know the particularly painful impression which those unfortunate events left at the time in the mind of the venerable head of the Orthodox Church, the patriarch Tikhon. In this connection, I cannot too heavily underline the fact that, in all the conversations which I had the honour of holding with this eminent man, every time I raised the question of his moral support in the ultimate event of intervention by the Allies, he did not cease to repeat (always putting off his final reply), that the preliminary condition, the sine


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254 tub, which he filled with milk, and waited, hoping to see a young man make his appearance. He waited an hour, and then another, yet nothing came. He looked into the tub, but only saw all the bones swimming about on the surface, and those were burnt almost black.

The wife was getting rather impatient, so she sent one of her servants round to the smithy to ask,—

"Whether her husband would be ready soon?"

The unfortunate blacksmith could only say in reply that,—

"Her husband had wished her and all at home a long life, and asked them to remember his name."

When the wife heard this, she knew that the blacksmith had burnt her husband to ashes, and had not made him young again. She flew into a great rage, and ordered her servants to run to the smithy, seize the blacksmith, and lead him to the gallows.

No sooner said than done. The servants ran into the smithy, caught hold of the unfortunate blacksmith, and dragged him to the gallows.

Just as they were on their way, who should overtake them but the young fellow who had lived with the blacksmith as workman—in other words, the devil.

"Whither are they taking you, master?" he asked.

"They want to hang me," replied the blacksmith; and then he told the devil all that had happened.

"Well, uncle," the evil spirit whispered, "I am no other than the painting of the devil on the smithy door, but as you treated me so shamefully I changed myself into a man, and vowed to pay you out. How-


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 qua non, of any moral support from the Church must be a solemn engagement on the part of the Allied Powers to do nothing which might menace the unity of the Russian State, to take energetic measures against the German enemy, and to take practical steps that there might be no increase in the sufferings of the Russian people, especially as regards the famine, which, thanks to German activities in the Ukraine, was already making itself terribly felt in the districts of Central Russia.

You will understand therefore, M. le Président, that in such circumstances the marked and rapid deviation from our policy, during these last months, could not but make a profound impression upon me. Nevertheless, I was constantly expecting, with the most sincere confidence, a return to our original point of view.

Unfortunately, the latest events were to ruin these vain illusions. An official meeting at which I chanced to be present recently revealed to me, in a manner I least expected, a secret activity of the most dangerous character, in my opinion, and, in any case, completely in opposition to the whole work with which I had been associated up to that day. I allude here to a private meeting held at the former Consulate-General of the United States on August 23rd or 24th, if I remember rightly, though the exact date is of no importance. The Consul-General of the United States, Mr. Poole, and our own Consul-General were present. Allied agents whose names I do not remember, but who were not personally known to me, were also present.

Doubtless, I hasten to state, neither the American Consul-General nor the Consul-General of France made the least mention at any time of some secret task of destruction; but incidentally I was made acquainted with this task by the conversation of the agents among themselves.

I learnt thus that an English agent was arranging to destroy the railway bridge across the river Volkoff, before the station of Zvanka. Now, it requires but a glance at the map to see that the destruction of this bridge would mean the complete starvation of Petrograd; the city would find itself practically cut off from all communication on the East, whence comes all the corn on which it is existing so miserably, even at present. Moreover, the author of the project stated himself all the gravity of the consequences of such action, and remarked that he was not yet certain whether he would be able to put his plan into execution.

A French agent added to this that he had already attempted to blow up the bridge of Tcherepovetz, which, as far as the provisioning of Petrograd is concerned, would have the same effect as the destruction of the bridge of Zvanka, Tcherepovetz being on the only


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Rh ever, I will forgive you if you fall down on your knees and promise faithfully to treat me with the same respect that your father treated me before you. If you promise this, the husband of the old lady who is sending you to the gallows shall become alive and well again."

The blacksmith did not wait to be told twice; anything would be better than being hung. So he fell down before the devil and stammered out his promise, saying that he would never again think of knocking him about with the hammer, but would from henceforth treat him with all possible respect and courtesy.

The devil then ran to the smithy, and very soon returned with the old gentleman, who had become youthful again.

"Stop!" cried the devil to the servants, who were about to hang the blacksmith. "Don't hang him! Here is your master for you!"

They at once untied the rope from around the blacksmith's neck, and set him free again to do what he pleased.

From that day forth the blacksmith never attempted or even thought of giving the devil on the door of the smithy a blow with his hammer, or otherwise ill-treating him, but he always greeted the painting with the greatest possible politeness, and lived on happily and prospered all his life; but his workman disappeared, and was seen no more by any one.

The husband and wife, whom the devil had turned into young people again, lived on double their time, and were as rich and happy as ever, and I believe they are still alive if not dead!


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 line which connects Petrograd with the Eastern districts. Subsequently there was discussion of the question of derailing trains on various lines. One agent even explained that he was assured of help from amongst the railwaymen; which was very useful, but precluded the use of certain methods of destruction, as the railwaymen won over would agree to operations directed only against trains bearing military material.

I do not labour this point, I think I have said enough to justify with concrete facts the grave fears I have outlined above. I remain deeply convinced that it is a question of the isolated activities of irresponsible agents. But it is none the less certain that such activities can only have the fatal result of convulsing Russia with a most bloody and hopeless political struggle, as well as with the inhuman tortures of a famine without precedent. I would add, in this connection, that these tortures will necessarily and almost exclusively be felt by the poor and middle classes, that is to say, by that part of the population, which is now suffering most cruelly and most unjustly in the present crisis—the lower middle classes, the employees, the workmen; because the upper and the richer middle classes have always the means left of escaping to the Ukraine and other countries (an exodus that in any case has commenced very largely already), and the popular elements in the service of the Soviet Government are assured of being relieved, at least to a certain extent, of the most intolerable privations; which, on the face of it, cannot be accomplished except more and more to the detriment of others.

I will not labour the point, but must add that during the whole of the assembly in question, not a word was said about the war against Germany.

Naturally I shall not draw arguments from this fact to sustain the hypothesis that these plans had the object of striking at Russia herself—especially at an inoffensive and toiling Russian population; it was unfortunately nevertheless a fact.

I understand perfectly that if these plans are—I do not think I have the right to say approved, but only "tolerated"—this can only be the case when it has been admitted, in the first place, that the Soviet Government has bound its interests with those of Germany. Also I am aware that this is actually what is currently said, and that certain Allied agents even live for the search—an atmosphere, I will add in parenthesis, morally dangerous and disturbing—of "documents" which will establish the "alliance."

On different occasions I have been myself led, relying on a concurrence of circumstances and appearances, to suspect com-


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256

upon a time there lived in a Russian village an old peasant woman who had two sons. One, however, died; and the other was from home, but was soon expected to return to his native village.

One evening, as the peasant woman was working in her little hut, a soldier walked in at the open door.

"Good-day, little mother!" he said. "Can I stay here the night?"

"Yes, certainly, with pleasure, little father. But whence come you, and who are you?"

"I am nobody in particular, little mother; I am an emigrant from the next world."

"Ah! my precious soul! One of my sons died a little while ago. Did you happen to come across him?"

"Why, yes, of course! We lived in the same sphere."

"No, really! You don't mean it?"

"He feeds and looks after the young cranes in the next world."

"Oh, my precious soul! But where did he get them?"

"Where did he get them! Why, the young cranes roam about among the sweet-briar!"

"How did he look? What clothes had he on?"


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Rh "Clothes! He was all in tatters, and a pair of wings."

"Poor fellow! Well, I have got about forty yards of grey cloth and a ten-rouble note; take them, good man, and give them to my son."

"With pleasure, little mother."

Next morning the old woman gave the soldier the cloth and the money, and wished him a safe journey back; and also begged him to come again soon and tell her how her son was getting on.

She waited and waited for many a week, but the soldier did not return. At last the day arrived when her other son was expected home.

"How are you, mother mine?" he exclaimed, coming into the hut and embracing his mother. "Have you any news?"

"Yes, my boy. Not very long ago, an emigrant from the other world came to stay the night here, and he brought some news of your brother, for they both lived in the same sphere. But he said that the poor fellow had nothing but a pair of wings, so I gave him forty yards of cloth and ten roubles."

"Good gracious, mother, you have given away everything we had; and for what? Just because that man was artful enough to tell you a lot of lies. It really is most astonishing how confiding some people are! I think I will go into the wide world and tell a lot of lies, and see whether, after cheating everybody, I become a very rich man or not. If I succeed, I shall come home again, and then we can live happily together, and have food and money in plenty ever after." S


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258 Next day the son went off to try his luck.

He went on and on until he came to an estate belonging to a rich Russian barin or gentleman. He walked up to the lordly mansion, and saw, in a garden near the house, a large pig with a number of little ones walking about. A thought struck him, and he went down on his knees before the pigs, and began making most polite bows to them.

Now the mistress of the house, who was looking out of one of the windows, saw the performance, and was greatly amused.

"Go," she said to one of her maids, "and ask the mujik what he is bowing for."

The maid went up to the peasant, saying,—

"Little mujik, tell me why you are on your knees before the pigs, and why you are bowing to them? My lady has sent me to ask."

"Tell your mistress, my little dear, that yonder pig is my wife's sister, and my son is going to be married to-morrow, so I am asking her and her young ones to come to the wedding, that is all; and she has consented, on condition that your lady allows them. So go and ask your mistress whether she will let them come with me."

The girl burst out laughing, and went straight to her mistress, who also began laughing heartily when she heard all the peasant had said.

"What a donkey!" she cried, "Fancy asking the pigs to his son's wedding! Well, never mind, let all his friends have a good laugh at him. Yes, he may take the pigs; but first dress them up in my shuba (fur coat), and let the coachman get my own


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 plicity between certain Bolshevist leaders and Berlin, especially at the time of the arrival of Lenin in Russia, at the time of the abortive insurrection in July, and, finally, at the time of the definite disruption of the Army and the opening of pourparlers at Brest. The Allied Governments and their authorised representatives did not consider then that they could base either their attitude or their decisions on impressions which were supported subsequently by no positive facts, beyond violent controversies in the Press. Since then the international situation, has, in many respects, been greatly modified, and to-day it is difficult seriously to suppose that the Soviet Government has decided to bind its fortunes with those of the Central Empires; whose victory, whose mere continued existence, indeed, could not bring it any benefit, but would signify, on the contrary, the suppression of all revolutionary movements in Russia, in short its own destruction. That is why, whatever should be the future development of military events, I consider it unlikely that the Soviet Government would ever resolve to call Germany to its aid; it would be an alliance infinitely too dangerous to itself, and one which, moreover, would compromise it in the eyes of international Socialism—and, one must remember, of the Russian masses on whom it relies. It cannot be disputed that the Germans have succeeded in creating in this country, in the bosom of a people so little capable of hatred, a most profound and serious feeling of hostility.

One of the principal arguments commonly invoked to support the theory of the secret "alliance" between the Soviet Government and Germany is the complete inaction of the latter on the eastern front at a moment when it is particularly desirable for the Soviet Government to have its hands free militarily, and to be delivered of any German menace. This argument should not be considered. For any onlooker, however little attentive or informed he be, must realise that, if Germany leaves the Bolsheviks in power, it is not by choice—(she has to fear in her midst too great eventual repercussions)—it is by necessity, because she is materially deprived of the opportunity of doing otherwise.

Under the influence of our magnificent victories in the West, the effect of which is considerable, the anti-German animus amongst the Russian masses is becoming more and more active. In order to fight it, Germany is obliged to extend her occupation to fresh districts, or to reinforce her Army in the districts already held. She cannot think of this in face of the events in the West; and she can think of it the less because, in certain occupied regions, she can no longer rely on certain of her Landsturm units, which have been permeated little by little by Bolshevist propaganda.


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 That is why not only is she not going to strengthen her action in Russia, but, on the contrary, I am convinced that she is about to be forced to evacuate, between now and the winter, an important part of the occupied territories. Doubtless she is, and probably will continue some months, engaged in saving appearances, in huckstering and haggling. But for any keen observer it is beyond doubt that her days in Ukraine—the region of most interest to her—are numbered henceforth, in spite of the atrocities she is committing there. Her detachments, as I have definite proof in many cases, frequently reduce whole villages to ashes. And, as far as the Ukraine is concerned, everyone can discover for himself that, as a matter of fact, the Bolsheviks do not cease supporting in a more and more active manner the peasants' and workmen's revolts in that territory, and especially that they transmit munitions and money to the insurgents. This fact, which I have been able to verify from various anti-Bolshevist sources, seems to me absolutely incompatible with the existence of a hidden alliance between the Soviet Government and Berlin.

I will not return to the subject with which I have attempted to deal in my letter to M. Albert Thomas; I wish to speak of the situation actually created in Russia by the latest events.

Of course, more than ever, I long for the day when the revolutionary and dictatorial procedure of the present Government makes way for normal methods, and when another Government will be able at length to put an end to the prostitution and street licence, to the uncontrolled rule of irresponsible adventurers, to the current corruption of administrative officials, to the odious abuses of Demagogy (inseparable, alas, from every revolution), to the legalised pillage of churches and the gratuitous insulting of religion when it will be able to recreate, in the breasts of the masses, the great principle of human fraternity!

These excesses, so deeply painful, so cruelly unworthy of our age, are, all the same, in large measure the inevitable result of the state of anarchy which has spread little by little throughout the country. I am, however, profoundly convinced that, in any case, what we are actually witnessing here is purely transitory, and that, by revolution or evolution—for an evolution of Bolshevism itself, at a certain moment, is not a priori an impossibility—we shall proceed to new forms.

But, contrary to what I had thought, Bolshevism is not the artificial government of one city (Petrograd, Moscow), thrown up by the hazard of a revolt and destined to disappear again in a revolt; it is a government which, if supported only by one part of the popu-


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 lation against the other, thrives on the revenge of the party which supports it not only in a centre, at a given point in the country, but throughout its territory. Moreover, it is a government which, precisely because hitherto all the attacks which it has had to withstand have come exclusively from the right and not from the left which may yet happen some day—has become, in the eyes of part of the elements it has assembled under its banner, the synonym and the symbol of The Revolution. These two facts explain, it seems to me, why it is that, in spite of the hatred accumulated amongst those whom it persecutes, wherever its power is overthrown, Bolshevism is reborn in the shape of popular insurrections. These circumstances also explain why every attempt to overthrow Bolshevism by means of revolt at given points or fixed centres—which is what has happened so far—has the effect only of aggravating anarchy, increasing the general disorder and the extreme confusion of the country; creating, that is to say, an artificial intensification, profitable to none, of the sufferings of the unhappy Russian people, AND ABSORBING, IN A DISORDERED AND AIMLESS CIVIL WAR, ENERGIES WHICH COMBINED MIGHT ALREADY PERHAPS HAVE BEEN TURNED VICTORIOUSLY against an enfeebled and increasingly powerless Germany. On the other hand, the Soviet Government is indirectly finding itself temporarily strengthened in actual proportion to the effort directed against it; for it is being driven, by the very force of circumstances, to increase its energy tenfold, in order to make head against both the external danger and the internal anarchy which, insensibly but steadily, were spreading in every direction. Thus, by that very necessity it is raising itself to the level of a GOVERNMENT—a revolutionary government without doubt, but no longer anarchically or helplessly so: really revolutionary in the classic, administrative sense.

I apologise, M. le Président, for having at such length detained your gracious attention, otherwise absorbed by such numerous and weighty affairs; but, being deprived of all means of direct communication with our ambassador, and mindful, moreover, of the kind benevolence with which you have been pleased to honour me in the past, I resolved, after long and repeated hesitation, to address myself to you, considering that it was my duty, in face of the events unfolding themselves before my eyes, to place these different facts and considerations before you for your, high deliberation in the interests of our dear and well-beloved France.

Accept, M. le Président, the offer of my deepest respect and whole-hearted devotion.

(Signed) RENÉ MARCHAND.


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 genealogically descended from him. But the man is better pictured in these stories than in any number of modern realistic trivialities about his favourite breakfast and his favourite musical composer. Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men. If we read of a man who could make green grass red and turn the sun into the moon, we may not believe these particular details about him, but we learn something infinitely more important than such trivialities, the fact that men could look into his face nnd believe it possible. The glory and greatness of Alfred, therefore, is like that of all the heroes of the morning of the world, set far beyond the chance of that strange and sudden dethronement which may arise from the unsealing of a manuscript or the turning over of a stone. Men may have told lies when they said that he first entrapped the Danes with his song and then overcame them with his armies, but we know very well that it is not of us that such lies are told. There may be myths clustering about each of our personalities; local

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text: NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Independent Study Team Report/Foreword


text: NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Independent Study Team Report/Introduction


text: NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Independent Study Team Report/Responses to Statement of Task


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With deep consternation and anger we have heard that the bullet of an assassin hired by the bourgeois has wounded you, the greatest soldier of the Soviet Republic, and leader of the International Revolutionary Labour movement.

We meet here, in the capital of the Socialist Soviet Republic, to organise a Finnish Communist Party, in place of the Social Democratic Party, that fell in the reyolutionary storms last spring. We hoped to see you amongst us, honoured comrade, and best adviser; we had already adopted a resolution asking you to come to our Conference. As our wish to see you here with us cannot be realised owing to the infamous attack on your life, we desire by this open letter to convey to you the thoughts in our hearts that we had hoped to express to you verbally.

A year ago you were an exile in our country; now we are visiting yours. You were exiled by the terrorism of the Russian Bourgeoisie, and afterwards by the Temporary Administration, which coerced and exiled Russia's struggling proletariat. Now it is we who have been chased to Russia by the violent terrorism of the united Finnish and German bourgeoisie, which by a bloody military dictatorship is now crushing the workers of Germany and Finland.

A year ago we could not believe that during the war Russia could achieve a real proletarian revolution. We thought: "First peace, then revolution." But you, comrade Lenin, declared with deep confidence, "First revolution, then peace."

You acted with decision and in harmony with that belief. You hurried from Helsingfors to Viborg, from Viborg to Petrograd. We sent you a special warning: "Take care, Kerensky is seeking your life." But you disregarded our warning because you thought that the time had come to lead the workers to revolution.

In October the Russian proletariat rose; it crushed both the bourgeois administrators and their Socialist hirelings, and took all power into its own hands.

We Finnish Social Democrats did not then realise the true meaning of this tremendous stroke; we could not believe that still, in September, 1918, the power wrested by the workers from the bourgeois state which they have destroyed would remain


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 saga-men and chroniclers have very likely circulated the story that we are addicted to drink, or that we ferociously ill-use our wives. But they do not comInonly lie to the effect that we have shed our blood to save all the inhabitants of the street. A story grows easily, but a heroic story is not a very easy thing to evoke. Wherever that exists we may be pretty certain that we are in the presence of a dark but powerful historic personality. We are in the presence of a thousand lies all pointing with their fantastic fingers to one undiscovered truth.

Upon this ground alone every encouragement is due to the cult of Alfred. Every nation requires to have behind it some historic personality, the validity of which is proved, as the validity of a gun is proved, by its long range. It is wonderful and splendid that we treasure, not the truth, but the very gossip about a man who died a thousand years ago. We may say to him, as M. Rostand says to the Austrian Prince:

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 in the workers' hands, and that they would be building a Socialist society.

Last Autumn. on the very eve of the Russian Revolution, you, comrade Lenin, advised us Finlanders: "Rise; rise without delay; take all power into the hands of the organised workers." By failing to follow your wise advice in November, 1917, we made, as we know now, an historic error.

In November, 1917. there were good prospects for our Finnish Revolution. Unscrupulous profiteering had angered the Finish workers and driven them to the very verge of the class war; but one pace removed from forcible conflict. When from Russia the trumpets of proletarian revolution sounded, the Finnish workers were ready to rise. But our Social Democratic Party, the only workers' party in our country, was not prepared.

Our party was paralysed by the Bourgeois Class Administration; it dropped to the level of peaceful class rivalry, at which, for instance, the German Social Democratic Movement has always remained. It was one of those Labour Parties which try by trade union methods to better the conditions of the workers within the Capitalist state, in the programmes of which Socialism is a mere ornament, and which strive to avoid the workers' revolution, instead of making ready to fulfl the great historic mission of the working class. Therefore, after a period of hesitation and uncertainty, our party guided the revolutionary flood tide of the workers into mere general strike demonstrations, and staved off forcible conflict between the workers and the bourgeoisie. We did not believe in revolution; we did not wish to endanger our organisations and the "democratic" institutions of the country. We preferred to continue developing those institutions.

Now, looking back, it is plain to us that those tactics could at best, have led only to a temporary and relative victory; not a genuine victory of the working classes, but to a so-called democratic compromise between the capitalist parties and the majority of our Social Democratic Party. The minority would then, doubtless, have left our party to call the workers to revolutionary Socialism. A Finnish revolution last November could not have placed the working class immediately in power, but it might have taken us an historical evolutionary step in that direction. It was the duty of our party, as a class war organisation of the workers, to dash forward to that goal; not merely to lay in wait, as it did, for attack by the bourgeoisie. If we had chosen revolution then, our country;s class struggle would have been less costly than it has been. The process of evolution will in any case take its toll in human life, but the cost, if we had acted boldly, would have been smaller.


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 To have a man so simple and so honourable to represent us in the darkness of primeval history, binds all the intervening centuries together, and mollifies all their monstrosities. It makes all history more comforting and intelligible; it makes the desolate temple of the ages as human as an inn parlour.

But whether it come through reliable facts or through more reliable falsehoods the personality of Alfred has its own unmistakable colour and stature. Lord Rosebery uttered a profound truth when he said that that personality was peculiarly English. The great magnificence of the English character is expressed in the word "service." There is, perhaps, no nation so vitally theocratical as the English; no nation in which the strong men have so consistent1y preferred the instrumental to the despotic attitude, the pleasures of the loyal to the pleasures of the royal position. We have had tyrants like Edward I. and Queen Elizabeth, but even our tyrants have had the worried and responsible air of stewards of a great estate. Our typical hero is such a man as the Duke of Wellington, who had

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 every kind of traditional and external arrogance, but at the back of all that the strange humility which made it physically possible for him without a gleam of humour or discomfort to go on his knees to a preposterous bounder like George IV. Across the infinite wastes of time and through all the mists of legend we still feel the presence in Alfred of this strange and unconscious self-effacement. After the fullest estimate of our misdeeds we can still say that our very despots have been less self-assertive than many popular patriots. As we consider these things we grow more and more impatient of any modern tendencies towards the enthronement of a more self-conscious and theatrical ideal. Lord Rosebery called up before our imaginations the picture of what Alfred would have thought of the vast modern developments of his nation, its immense fleet, its widespread Empire, its enormous contribution to the mechanical civilisation of the world. It cannot be anything but profitable to conceive Alfred as full of astonishment and admiration at these things; it cannot be anything but good for us that we should

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 realise that to the childlike eyes of a great man of old time our inventions and appliances have not the vulgarity and ugliness that we see in them. To Alfred a steamboat would be a new and sensational sea-dragon, and the penny postage a miracle achieved by the despotism of a demi-god.

But when we have realised all this there is something more to be said in connection with Lord Rosebery's vision. What would King Alfred have said if he had been asked to expend the money which he devoted to the health and education of his people upon a struggle with some race of Visigoths or Parthians inhabiting a small section of a distant continent? What would he have said if he had known that that science of letters which he taught to England would eventually be used not to spread truth, but to drug the people with political assurances as imbecile in themselves as the assurance that fire does not burn and water does not drown? What would he have said if the same people who, in obedience to that ideal of service and sanity of which he was the example, had

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 borne every privation in order to defeat Napoleon, should come at last to find no better compliment to one of their heroes than to call him the Napoleon of South Africa? What would he have said if that nation for which he had inaugurated a long line of incomparable men of principle should forget all its traditions and coquette with the immoral mysticism of the man of destiny?

Let us follow these things by all means if we find them good, and can see nothing better. But to pretend that Alfred would have admired them is like pretending that St. Dominic would have seen eye to eye with Mr. Bradlaugh, or that Fra Angelico would have revelled in the posters of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. Let us follow them if we will, but let us take honestly all the disadvantages of our change; in the wildest moment of triumph let us feel the shadow upon our glories of the shame of the great king.

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text: Varied Types/Chapter 14

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