Edward S. Van Zile

“ You are treating a great crisis in your life with more cold-blooded cynicism than I thought you retained. Don’t you see that you may be doing Gertrude Van Vleck a great wrong? Don’t you understand that you may be recklessly throwing away your chance of lifelong happiness? What have your years, or your past, or your theories got to do with the matter? The only question at issue in the whole affair is this: Does Gertrude Van Vleck love you? If she does, your sacrifice would be simply a cruelty. If she doesn’t, your sacrifice wouldn’t be a sacrifice. ”

“ Is the screen merely a mirror in which Man looks upon his own face and turns away heedless of what his countenance might have taught him? Has the race finally found a way to that self-knowledge which might mean its eventual salvation only to misuse, as its wont has been, its newest medium for advancement? Can nothing be learned from the screen by the restless, harassed, apprehensive millions of the earth that shall make this first universal method of communication worthy of the possibilities for world-wide uplift that it possesses? ”

“ It was the dawn of a cloudless day near the middle of the moon of old corn when de Sancerre, opening his eyes after a night of dreamless, restful sleep, enjoyed, for a moment, that sensation of physical well-being which suggests the possibility that nature harbors no enmity to man. Outside the royal cabin the morning vibrated with the melody of birds and the distant rumors of a forest springing gladly into life. There was movement and bustle inside the hut, and de Sancerre turned lazily upon his gayly-bedecked couch to watch the Great Sun as he paid homage to his risen god. ”

“ Surely, the sleeping stripling at her feet is worthy of her maiden heart! Not often does the spring-time lure into the forest, to meet the searching, knowing eyes of a thousand living creatures, a nobler youth than he who, for days and nights, has been her worshipper and slave. The forest is young to-day with vernal ecstasy, but, oh, how old it is with the worldly wisdom of long centuries! What means this futile wooing of a sun-burnt demigod and the cold indifference of a stubborn maiden, who sighs and weeps when all the joys of this glad earth are hers? ”

“ At its present rate of progress, the cinema will soon become more powerful as an influence upon the minds of the masses than are the newspaper, the novel and the play taken together.
For the sun never sets upon the screen! Day and night, in all parts of the civilized, and an increasing portion of the uncivilized, globe the motion picture is making its imprint upon the minds and souls of countless millions of men, women and children. ”

“ A half-mocking smile came to her lips as she recalled those words of the tale that she had read, but there was no mockery in her eyes as they met her own gaze in the glass.
Turning from the mirror she crossed the room hurriedly toward the hall door, as one who doubted her own stability of purpose. The hall, dimly lighted, seemed to check her steps for a moment as she stood motionless upon the threshold of her room, gazing into its shadow-filled depths. She could hear the ticking of a tall clock, the strange sighs and creakings that always beset a great house in the darker hours. ”

“ And now she sat awaiting Richard’s coming, her heart beating feverishly, her face pale and her eyes restless and brilliant. She had determined, if the worst came to the worst, that she would ask him to make a great sacrifice for her on the altar of friendship. She had not reached this decision without a struggle. It would be so pleasant to have him with her on the voyage! She had grown to take so much pleasure in his companionship that it seemed almost sacrilege to place any obstacle in the path of events that conspired to prolong their intimacy. ”

“ Tom was seated at the piano, his back toward me. Beside him stood Signorina Molatti, her Cremona resting against her shoulder. They had not heard my footsteps, and I realized that if I had yelled like a wild Indian they would not have come to earth. They played like creatures in a trance, and I felt the strange, seductive hypnotism of the mad, sweet, feverish music that they made, as I stood there voiceless, motionless, helpless, hopeless. ”

“ There is not an amateur in the world, Tom, who can interpret Chopin with such sympathy, such perfection of technique, such reserved power as you displayed this evening. You have placed me in a ridiculous position, and I can't conceive of any reasonable motive for your unnatural reticence. Why, Tom—answer me!—why have you concealed from me the fact that you are an accomplished—yes, a brilliant musician? Think of all the pleasure that we have lost in the last ten years by your deception and falsehoods—for that's what they were, Tom! ”

“ Almost a pygmy beside the bronze giant, whose limbs would have driven sleep from a sculptor’s couch, de Sancerre had apparently chosen well in asking Katonah for an invocation to the saint who protects fools from the outcome of their folly. The black-eyed sun-worshippers glanced at each other in smiling derision. Surely, these children of the moon must eat at night of some plant or fruit which stirred their blood to madness when they wandered far afield! No dwarf would dare to measure strides with a colossus unless, indeed, he’d lost his wits through midnight revelry in moonlit glades! ”

“ What if I had given in to it, and had, let us say, won the hand of Gertrude Van Vleck? I could never make her happy. Ten years ago, perhaps, such a woman might have moulded me into something approaching an ideal husband. But time is tyrannical, Richard. It is too late now for me to ask of life the greatest blessing that it holds for man, a companionable wife. I cannot accept the sacrifice of youth, beauty, intellect, and affection on the altar of my selfishness. It wouldn’t do, Richard. It wouldn’t do at all. Let the dream pass! Come, boy, help me to be a man. ”

“ Belatedly, but with thrilling efficiency, the camera is giving to us and to our descendants pictures of savage and half-savage life against which the irresistible power of the regnant races of the earth has issued a decree of annihilation. The polar seas, the islands of the Pacific, the deserts, mountain-tops, jungles, are shown to us on the screen as they are to-day, as if this generation were frantically endeavoring to assure itself that this romantic planet of ours is not really doomed to become eventually as prosaic and uninteresting as Main Street. ”

“ Standing erect abruptly, Tom cast a defiant glance at the chattering throng behind me and hurriedly made his way through a side door from the music-room. As I turned away from the piano I saw that Signorina Molatti's eyes were fixed on his retreating figure with an expression that my worldly wisdom could not interpret. There was more of wonder than of admiration in her gaze, a gleam of questioning and longing that might, it seemed to me, readily flame into hot anger. ”

“ A youth and maiden, young and beautiful, so runs the chatter of the woods and streams, wander in sadness along a zigzag trail, and, while he sighs, the maiden weeps and moans. There is no precedent, in all the forest lore, for this strange, futile quest of misery, this daily search for some new cause for tears where all the world is singing hymns of joy and praise.
And all the questions which the forest asked had found an echo in Cabanacte’s soul. Why should Katonah gaze into his loving eyes with a glance which spoke of sorrow at her heart? ”

“ It would be cruel, unnecessary, to make her explain herself more fully. One thought overshadowed all others in his mind. If she did not care for him,—why should he mince words?—did not love him, she would not admit that she was sorry that he was to be by her side for so long a time. She had confessed to him that the shadow of self-distrust was on her soul. He could not ask for more. All men may be selfish, but at a great crisis there are those who can be chivalric.
Richard reseated himself and looked at her mournfully. ”

“ Kerr’s despondent eyes history seems to be just one devastating war after another, with no end to the infernal succession now in sight. But is it not barely possible that history, gaining from the screen a new method of exposition, a new way of approach to the soul of Man, may eventually convince the human race that there is a more sensible solution to international problems than through bloodshed?
It is through the study of history alone that Man can, in the opinion of H. G. Wells, find his way toward higher planes of existence out of the mire in which he is now stuck. ”

“ At that very instant Doña Julia could hear the murmurs of a group of devout sun-worshippers, who had come from the budding forest to pile before her door great heaps of magnolia blossoms to bear witness to their reverence for the beneficent spirit of the sun, and to their hope that she would save them from [183] their threatening doom. The skull-bedecked temple of the sun stood for all that was most savage in a cult demanding human blood. The hut of Coyocop, wellnigh hidden from the noonday by sacrificial flowers, gave forth a fragrant incense which arose from an altar built of loving hearts. ”

“ Lent means more to us, whose days are nearly all Easters, than to people who spend their whole lives in the shadow of self-sacrifice and denial. Do you know, Harriet, I sometimes feel a great pity for the worried and overworked world that lies outside our set. It seems so unjust that a few of us should have all the good things of the earth, while the millions are obliged to toil and sicken and die in the mere effort to get enough to eat and wear.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett looked at Gertrude with undisguised astonishment in her eyes. ”

“ Prison, the 182stake, massacre, war—what weapon has not been used by the foes of enlightenment that they might check mankind in its rise toward heights upon which the ancient, unhallowed prerogatives of a few reactionaries could not survive? And always, in some form or other, censorship has been the most serviceable weapon, both in times of war and times of peace, by which relentless unprogressives could break the spirit of those who strove to loosen the shackles of ignorance from the human spirit. ”

“ Not that the Count was better than his age, more scrupulous than the pleasure-loving court in which his youth had been passed, but in the freer, nobler atmosphere of this brave New World, and in the companionship of men striving in the midst of peril to do great deeds, all that was most admirable in de Sancerre’s character had been born anew, and, to his own amazement, he had learned that his views of life had undergone a change, that there had grown up something in his soul which gave the lie to his scoffing tongue, still from habit the tongue of a mondain fashioned in an evil school. ”

“ We are always face to face with the hideous fact that any slight dislocation of the bony structure of modern civilization might, as was shown by the recent war of wars, bring about its complete annihilation. Surely it is incumbent upon us, if we are not, as a race, madmen or morons, to take full advantage of any new medium or method that presents itself for the safeguarding of peace on earth, for the furtherance of good will to men. ”

“ What is love, monsieur?” exclaimed de Sancerre, lightly, throwing himself down beside his leader.
It was as if a butterfly, born of the moonbeams, had come to ask a foolish riddle of the grim forest glades. The incarnation of all that was most polished, insincere, diabolical, fascinating at Versailles had taken the form of a handsome man, not quite forty years of age, who reclined at midnight upon the banks of an unexplored river, and pestered the living embodiment of high adventure and mighty purposes with the light and airy nothings of a courtier’s tongue. ”

“ They flocked to see it, marvelled at its ingenuity, but failed, as did Edison himself, to realize that the world had been enriched by not merely a new plaything but by a novel medium for influencing the destinies of the race, the ultimate stupendous significance of which we, even thirty years later, can only vaguely estimate. It is amazing but true that, so little did Edison appreciate the fact that he had invented not an ephemeral toy but the only universal language yet vouchsafed to the race, he neglected to obtain patents for his kinetoscope outside of the United States. ”

“ But look how the moon breaks through above those clouds! The storm is over, and the night grows clear. Shall we launch our raft again? I fear the forest, señor, more than yonder stream.”
“Nay, I dare not float at night, ma chère” answered de Sancerre, smoothing the raven hair from her white forehead as her head rested upon his shoulder, and they watched the fickle night change its garb of black, fringed with fire, for the silvery costume vouchsafed by the full moon. “I fear I might steal past my captain in the dark.” ”

“ A Lighthouse of the Past, a university of universities, a fountain of all revealed knowledge inculcated through a medium understood of all men, a Mecca for the pilgrims of peace and progress from all corners of the earth, forever adapting itself to the growing needs of mankind for enlightenment, sending forth, year after year, its polyglot graduates to carry its teachings, warnings, promises to every tribe and nation on the planet—is it not a consummation to be devoutly wished, a dream worth every sacrifice to bring within 17the purview of reality? ”

“ Suddenly the youth, an expression of mingled astonishment, horror, and fear upon his changing face, fell upon his knees and crossed himself with [70] a fervor begotten of the miracle upon which his straining eyes now gazed.
Beside the out-stretched figure of Doña Julia stood two angelic beings, taller than the run of men, who faced the sun and raised their arms straight upward toward the evening sky. They wore white robes, and from the distant dune to which the startled Juan crawled it seemed as if golden halos glorified the heads of these marvellous messengers from Paradise. ”

“ Here may you visualize the epic tale of Man’s rise from protoplasm to power, from an amœba to ruler of the earth. Here may a Chinaman study the past of his people through forty centuries of weal and woe; the modern Greek glory in the splendors of ancient Athens or appraise his compatriots’ achievements of yesterday; the Norseman, the Slav, the Teuton, the Celt, the Anglo-Saxon, the Latin, the Jap, the Arab, the East Indian learn from the screen what his race, or nation, or tribe has done for or against—and they have all done both—the cause of advancing civilization. ”

“ In the white light of a cloudless night the City of the Sun lay disguised in a beauty which the bright glare of its own deity destroyed by day. Grouped around the temple, the houses of the sun-worshippers, rising gracefully from artificial mounds, were softened in their outlines by the moonbeams until they formed a city upon which de Sancerre, accustomed, as he was, to the architectural splendors of the old world, gazed with surprise and pleasure. ”

“ Is it not possible that when the errors, the tragedies, the cumulative horrors of the past are revealed to them, when the majority of men and women turn to the evidence of their senses rather than to gossip, rumor and hearsay for historical enlightenment, Mankind, horrified at his scowling face and bloody hands, as he sees them for the first time in a mirror, will take an oath to remove the brand of Cain from his brow, the blush from his cheeks as the screen shows him what man’s inhumanity to man really means? ”

“ Meanwhile the high spirits of Louis de Sancerre had cast their spell upon Katonah, a maiden whose ready smile seldom changed to laughter. But on this bright spring day, treading a flower-bedecked path by the side of a man whose delicately chiselled face was to her eyes a symbol of all the joy of life, it was not hard for the Mohican maiden to affect a gayety uncharacteristic of a race lacking in vivacity. ”