Emerson Hough

“ The two women in Judge Henderson's office sat still in the sultry heat, looking out of the window over the sultry, sordid, solemn little town; how long they did not know; until now there came again across the heat-hazy spaces of the maples, over the hot tops of the two-storied brick buildings, the sound of the wailing music—the same music which may come from the noblest organs of the world, the same music which may have pealed on fields of battle after heroes have fallen, speaking, as music may, of a soul passed, of a life ended, so soon to be forgot. ”

“ On the great tapestry that hung above the head of the curtained bed shone the double sun of Louis the Grand, which had meant death and devastation to so much of Europe. It blazed, mimicking the glory that was gone; but toward it there was raised no sword nor scepter more in vow or exaltation. The race was run, the sun was sinking to its setting. Nothing but a man—a weary, worn-out, dying man—was Louis, the Grand Monarque, king for seventy-two years of France, almost king of Europe. This death-bed lay in the center of a land oppressed, ground down, impoverished. ”

“ Halsey's enthusiasm carried him beyond resentment and amusement alike.
"Molecules are everywhere, in everything, Mr. Rawn," he explained gently; "and now we know they move, though we can see them only in mass and as though motionless."
"I don't see how that can be," began Rawn; but checked himself.
Halsey smote his hand against the solid wall. "It moves!" he exclaimed. "It's alive! It vibrates—every solid is in perpetual motion. The dance of the molecules is endless. It's in the air around us, above us—power, power—immeasurable, irresistible power, exhaustless, costless power! ”

“ She knew that our hour had come.
“Suzanne!” I whispered again; for now I had her hands in mine, and had drawn her up, so that we stood there in the most ancient and admirable spot of all our continent, alone. And what went forward among the silent cypresses was, I take it, the most ancient and admirable thing in all our universe.
I turned her face to mine. In the clear air I could see deep into her eyes—deep blue eyes—unfathomable as yonder sea. Eyes that at last looked into mine, without doubt or resentment or uncertainty. ”

“ As the day came on, the sounds of lamentation arose. The friends of that one wept. So I asked the sparrows, and the sun, and the gray sky why these friends wept. What is grief? I asked of them. Why should these weep? What has happened when one dies? Where has the spark of life gone? Did it fall to these sodden pavements, for ever done, or did it go on up, to meet the kiss of the rising sun? And the sparrows, which fall to the ground, answered not. The sun rose calm and passionless, but dumb. The sky folded in, large but inscrutable. None the less arose the voice of lamentation and of woe. ”

“ Yet ever a chill struck Franklin's soul as he thought of the lost battle at the Halfway House. There was now grass grown upon the dusty trail that once led up to the low-eaved house. The green and gray of Nature were shrouding busily the two lonely graves of those who had fought the, frontier and been vanquished in that night of terror, when the old West claimed its own. ”

“ And at about this same time—since after all the world and life and swift keen joy of living must go on just the same—two young persons stood not far distant from that scene; stood not in the full light of the sun, stood not in the wisdom and sadness of middle age, but in youth—in youth and the glory and splendor of the vast, ineffable, indispensable illusion. The dim twilight which lighted them might have been the soft, vague light of the world's own dawning—the same which poor Miss Julia had seen that very day. ”

“ Let us get rid of our false estimates, set up all the higher ideals—a quiet home, vines of our own planting; a few books full of the inspiration of genius; a few friends worthy of being loved; a hundred innocent pleasures that bring no pain or remorse; a devotion to the right that will never swerve; a simple religion empty of all bigotry, full of trust and hope and love—and to such a philosophy, this world will give up all the empty joy it has. ”

“ Adventure is the meat of the strong men who have built the world for those more timid. Adventure and the frontier are one and inseparable. They suggest strength, courage, hardihood—qualities beloved in men since the world began—qualities which are the very soul of the United States, itself an experiment, an adventure, a risk accepted. Take away all our history of political regimes, the story of the rise and fall of this or that partisan aggregation in our government; take away our somewhat inglorious military past; but leave us forever the tradition of the American frontier! ”

“ Laughter and jests, dust, noise, lowings and groanings, the clack and clatter of cattle moved into the wings, the smell of the herd blending with the odor of singed hair—all the old-time flavor of cattle work in the open—went on now, the thin wedge of tail-twisting, surly brutes pushed out of the chute gate increasing steadily. The nucleus of the Del Sol trail herd grew steadily, until finally the red sun fell below the distant screen of the live-oak groves. ”

“ I saw her plan, her wish, her merciless, pitiless desire; and seeing this, I smiled slowly in the dark at the mockery of what we call civilization, its fuss and flurry, its pretense, its misery. Indeed, we are small, but life is not small. We are small, but love is very large and strong, born as it is of the great necessity that man shall not forget the world, that woman shall not rob the race. ”

“ Europe, which sent to the West some of its best and its poorest population, will have more to fear at the hands of the West than China has to dread to-day. Europe has to combat not only the West, but all the heredity of the West.
This, then, is where the eagle-faced pioneers of America will find their last trail. This is how the king will at last come again into his own. Peoples may pass away, monarchies may fall, but above them there will stand the only aristocracy fit to survive; not a false democracy that nominates all men as equal, but the aristocracy of survival. ”

“ For now the sun of the South came creeping up apace, and saw Miss Lady as it peered in through the rose lattice whereon hung scores of fragrant blossoms. A gentle wind of morning stirred the lace curtains at the windows and touched Miss Lady's hair as she stood there, asking the answer of the mirror. It was morning in the great room, morning for the southern day, morning for the old plantation whose bell now jangled faintly and afar off—morning indeed for Miss Lady, who now had ceased in her self-absorbed dance. ”

“ Lady Catharine Knollys, left alone, gazed upon the sleeper. John Law, the failure, lay there, supine, abased, cast-down, undone, shorn utterly of his old arrogance of mind and mien. Fortune, wealth, even the boon of physical well-being—all had fled from him. The pride of a superb manhood had departed from the lines of this limp figure. The cheeks were lined and sunken, the eye, even had the lid not covered it, lacked the late convincing fire. No longer commanding, no longer strong, no longer gay and debonair, he lay, a man whose fate was failure, as he himself had said. ”

“ Around her, untouched by any civilization, lay a wild, free world. The ceaseless wind of the prairie swept old and new grass into a continuous undulating surface, silver crested, a wave always passing, never past. The sky was unspeakably fresh and blue, with its light clouds, darker edged toward the far horizon of the unbounded, unbroken expanse of alternating levels and low hills. Across the broken ridges passed the teeming bird life of the land. The Eskimo plover in vast bands circled and sought their nesting places. ”

“ The debt of the world must be paid by America. We can pay it only by making a new and better democracy in America. We can pay it only by renewed individual sacrifices and a renewed individual courage.
We must remake America. We must purify the source of America’s population and keep it pure. We must rebuild our whole theory of citizenship in America. We must care more for the safety of America’s homes and the safety of the American ideal. We must insist that there shall be an American loyalty, brooking no amendment or qualification. ”

“ That was the Meriwether Lewis I had pictured to myself. I shall glory in my own undoing, if it has meant your success.
Holding to your own ambition, keeping your own loyalty, holding your own counsel and your own speech to the end—pushing on through everything to what you have set out to do—that is the man I could have loved! Deeds, deeds, high accomplishments—these in truth are the things which are to prevail. The selfish love of success as success—the love of ease, of money, of power—these are the things women covet from a man—yes, but they are not the things a woman loves in a man. ”

“ I was familiar with every detail of the Belle Helène, and now I looked in both the generating plant and the storage batteries, so that four thousand candle-power of electric light blazed over her from bow to fantail. The steady purr of the Belle Helène’s double sixties—engines I had had made under my own care—came to me with a soothing rhythm where I stood near by the wheel. Her search-light made a vast illumination far ahead. Brilliant enough must have seemed the passing spectacle of our stanch little ship to any observer, as we now swept on down the tawny flood of the great river. ”

“ But the main miracle was in the instance of Sim Gage himself.
Perhaps it was the hat which did it, with its brave cord of green, humblest of all the insignia of those who stand at the threshold of the Army. To Sim's vague soul it carried a purpose in life, knowledge that there was such a thing as service in the world. Daily his face now was new-reaped, his hands made clean. He imitated the erectness and alertness of these young soldiers whom he saw, learned the jerk of the elbow in their smart salute. ”

“ There were two white boulders beside which the trickle of water rippled. Obeying him, she seated herself. Presently Dan Anderson settled himself upon the other, and for a time they sat in silence. The purple shadows had long ago deepened into half darkness, and as they looked up above the long, slow curve of old Carrizo, there rose the burnished silver of the wondrous moon of Heart's Desire. The bare and barren valley was softened and glorified into a strange, half-ghostly beauty. The earth has few scenes more beautiful than Heart's Desire at moonlight. ”

“ For we, who know as much as Aurora Lane knew of Miss Julia's secret—who once saw her gazing adoringly at a certain framed portrait when she fancied herself alone—would have known that there was more than one mansion in the heart of the little lame librarian.
Helpless, resigned—but yet a woman—Miss Julia loved in the first place as every woman with any touch of normality does love in spite of all. She had known all these years that her love was hopeless, that it was wrong, that it was a sin—she classed it as her sin. ”

“ We ran as we might, back and forward on the slippery mud, scrambled up and down, panting, until at length our hearts began to beat more quickly, and the love of life came back strongly, and the unknown, mysterious fire deep down somewhere, inscrutable, elemental, began to flicker up once more, and we were saved—saved, we two savages, we two primitive human beings, the only ones left alive after the deluge which had flooded all the earth—left alive to begin the world all over again. ”

“ The reign of lawlessness and terror must end in this country. We must contrive some machinery of the law which shall command respect. We must not continually drag the name of the South—the name of America— in the mire of lawlessness. To do that is to smirch the flag—the one flag of America. But we denounce and will always denounce that false decree which says that black is white; that inequality is equality; that lack of manhood is manhood itself; that the absence of a hearthstone can mean a home; that the absence of the home can mean a permanent society. ”

“ Midway Point, Pebble Beach, Carmel, the matchless cliffs of Point Lobos—in all the world there is not so much sheer beauty in a like number of miles. The Amalfi Drive of Italy, touted the world over, is not comparable to it. The sea and the mountains, joining at a coast-line of endless and countless pictures of which not one resembles the other intimately, yet which are all alike, combine here to offer human beings the great and healing lesson of sheer beauty. ”

“ This was the general day of harvest for Graystone Hall.
But the day passed on. Shadows lengthened beyond the tall towers and softened as they fell toward the east. The soft airs of evening, turning, came in across the open gallery front. Night came, night unbroken by more than a few lights in all the myriad windows of this stately monument which John Rawn had builded as proof of his personal success. Vehicles, passing slowly, held occupants staring in curiosity at this vast, vacant pile. Human sympathy lacked, human aid there was not. ”

“ The soul exults. Flickering of light on steel, the flash of 72 servant forces used to slay, the reverberant growl of engines made for death, the passing of men in cloth and men in blankets, the tramp of hurrying hoofs, the falling of men who die—can you see this—can you catch the horror, the exultation, the joy of this, I say? They come, they go; they run their race, and it is all. ”

“ Who shall say what thoughts the flowered wilderness of spring carried to the soul of a young woman beautiful and ripe for love, her heart as sweet and melting as that of the hidden plover telling her mate of happiness? Surely a strange spell, born of youth and all this free world of things beginning, fell on the soul of Molly Wingate. ”

“ How freely I write to you, seeing that you are blind and deaf, of that wish of a woman to be the one grand passion of a strong man’s life—above all—before even his country! What may once have been my own dream of my capacity to evoke such emotions in the soul of any man I have flung into the scrap-heap of my life. The man, the one man—no! What was I saying, Meriwether Lewis, to you but now, even though you were blind and deaf? ”

“ Mary Connynge stood, her eyes glancing from one to the other of the men before her. She had seen them both proved brave men, strong of arm, undaunted of heart, both gallant gentlemen. God, who makes the Mary Connynges of this earth, only can tell whether or not there arose in the heart of this savage woman, this woman at bay, scorned, rebuked, mastered, this one question: Which? If Mary Connynge hated John Law, or if she loved him—ah! how must have pulsed her heart in agony, or in bitterness, as she took into her hand those lots which were the arbiters of life and death! ”

“ There was a wistfulness in her gaze which made appeal. I could not resist. “Helena,” said I suddenly, “give me your parole that you will not try to escape, and I will walk with you among yonder flowers. You look as though just from a Watteau fan, my dear. It is fall, but seems spring, and the world seems made for flowers and shepherds and love, my dear. ”

“ When I fenced with Suzanne in my room at the Yellowstone, I looked straight into her eyes. They were blue eyes—gray-blue when she frowned in the assault, blue of divine softness when she dropped her foil and came to take my face in her two hands; eyes of such blue are not given to many women, customarily to those infinitely loyal, infinitely tender, infinite steadfast and changeless. Eyes such as a man must love forever and ever! ”

“ The door opened, admitting a still greater blaze of light, and there swept into the hall, as though swimming upon the flood of this added brilliance, a figure striking enough to arouse attention even at that time and place, even among the beauties of the court of France. There advanced, calm and stately, with the gliding ease of a perfect carriage, the figure of a woman, slender, with full bright eyes and somber hair—so much might be seen at a glance. Yet the newcomer left somewhat of query in the mind of womankind accustomed to view in detail any costume. ”

“ Her gaze gained directness and comprehension at last.
This, thought Miss Lady, was the world! It was all the world for her. This, so far as she could see, was to be her fate—to sit and look out over the wide reaches of the cotton fields, to hear the negroes sing their melodies, to watch the lazy life of an inland farm. This was to be the boundary of her world, this white and black rim of the forest hedging all about. This lattice was to shut in her life for ever. She might meet no white woman but her mother, no white man. Things were not quite clear to Miss Lady's mind to-day. ”

“ The Columbia had made a trail for them through the Cascades.
Down the stormy rapids they plunged exulting. Mount Hood, St. Helen’s, Rainier, Adams—all the lofty peaks of the great Cascades, so named at a later date, appeared before them, around them, behind them, as they swung into the last lap of their wild journey and headed down toward the sea. Cruzatte, Labiche, Drouillard—all you others—time now, indeed, for you to raise the song of the old voyageurs! None have come so far as you—your paddles are wrinkling new waters. You are brave men, every one, and yours is the reward of the brave! ”

“ Ah, never in all the world was a place like this Eden, this man's Eden of Heart's Desire!
A gentle wind sighed up the valley from the narrow cañon mouth, as it did every day. There was no variableness. Surprises did not come thither. The world ran always in one pleasant and unchanging groove. But the breeze this evening brought no smile of content to Dan Anderson's face as he sat waiting for the coming of the new and fateful visitor to our ancient Eden. ”

“ A fair woman indeed, comely, round of form, soft-eyed, and light of touch, she might none the less have been a very savage as she stood there, clad no longer in the dress of civilization, but in the soft native garb of skins, ornamented with the stained quills of the porcupine and the bizarre adornments of the native bead work; in her hair dull metal bands, like any Indian woman, upon her feet little beaded moccasins—the very moccasin, it might have been, which Law had first seen in ancient London town and which had played so strange a part in his life since then. ”

“ You will love—why should you not, a man fit to love and be loved by any woman? But that love, the stronger it grows, will but burn you the deeper. You will struggle through on your own path; but happiness does not lie at the end of that path for you. You will succeed, yes—you could not fail; but always the load on your shoulders will grow heavier and heavier. You will carry it alone, until at last it will be too much for you. Your strong heart will break. You will lie down and die. Such a fate for you, Merne, my boy—such a man as you will be! ”

“ Out in the open air, under the warm summons of the sun, there passed a merry, laughing group of negroes, happy, care-free, each humming the burden of some simple song, each slouching across the road, as though ease and the warm sun filled all his soul! Dissimulation and secretiveness, seeded in savagery, nourished in oppression, ingrained in the soul for generations, are part of a nature as opaque to the average Caucasian eye as is the sable skin of Africa itself. ”

“ She sat looking out over the street below, instinctively following Dan Anderson's gaze. Voices came to them, clamorous, strident, coarse. There lay revealed all that was crude, all that was savage, all that was unlovable and impossible of Heart's Desire. It had been a dream, but it was a man's dream in which he had lived. For a woman—for her—for this sweet girl of a gentler world, that dream could be nothing else than hideous. "Be just! Be fair!" Dan Anderson's soul demanded of him; and as best he saw justice and fairness to the woman he loved he answered for himself. ”

“ With these scenes, as time was soon to prove, there was to be most intimately connected this very man who, now bending forward attentively, now listening respectfully, and ever gazing directly and ardently, heard naught of plots or plans, cared naught for the Paris which lay about, saw naught but the beautiful face before him, felt naught but some deep, compelling thrill in every heart-string which now reaching sweet accord in spite of fate, in spite of the past, in spite of all, went singing on in a deep melody of joy. ”