Howard Vincent O'Brien

“ The tears came into Judith's eyes as she recalled the enthusiasm with which he had first broached the plan of purchasing The Dispatch.
"I'm disappointed, too," she said slowly, after a pause. He recoiled as if she had struck him.
"Not in the paper—in you," she added hastily, seeing the pain in his eyes. "I thought your faith was stronger. Have you forgotten what you said to me—'serve, not for them, for yourself'? Is it popularity you're after? Has truth ever been popular?"
"A newspaper, to succeed, must be popular," he murmured. ”

“ He paused and bored Imrie with his sharp little eyes. "Do you wish to sway the multitudes with your eloquence? It is applause—yes—you seek? You want your church—or the people's church ... what?"
"I'm afraid I don't quite...."
"You must understand," said Weis bluntly.
"It's quite essential. You wish to free yourself from dogmatic vestries. Very well—will you substitute for dogmatic vestries, your dogmatic self—yes?" And, when Imrie looked a little crestfallen, he added with a smile, "We're all dogmatic, my young friend. To all of us freedom is the right to rule others." ”

“ Over in the velvet depths of the sunken tennis courts, the fireflies flashed their lanterns incessantly. Somewhere in the distance a guitar sounded now and again, and a woman's voice rose and fell softly. It was very peaceful and pleasant, and Imrie, thinking of the hot city and the morrow, drew a deep sigh. No power on earth could prevent him from going back—but he did not pretend to think that he wanted to go.
"Don't you ever wonder what those crickets are saying?" asked Judith, conscious instinctively that her companion's eyes still burned with the same light. "Just listen to them." ”

“ Indoors, the evening dragged along, uneventful to the point of stupidity. There was a little excitement, not unmixed with acerbity, when Ned Alder, contrary to his usual habit, proved clever enough with the cards to add a not inconsiderable sum to his already swollen fortune. But his amazed joy was more than offset by Roger's patent depression and Molly's inexplicable apathy. Altogether it was not as successful a party, as it had given promise of being, and it broke up early.
As the adieus were being said, Judith realised that Good was missing. ”

“ I'm fool enough to brave these little things. But you're wise. You know that they would increase and multiply and crush us both, because they are stronger than we. If we were souls—merely souls—it would be different. But I'm a man. You're human, too. If we were souls alone—less human—less wise—the little things—would not matter. But we aren't just souls. No, we are not—we are not...."
The tender, wistful voice died away. The world seemed very distant to Judith for a moment, and only this man, who talked like a god—or an idiot—mattered. ”

“ Nor was his impatience lost on Judith.
But Imrie never preached long sermons. In a very few minutes he had wound up with his usual stirring peroration, and left the pulpit. Good had an almost irresistible impulse to clap, not as expressing approbation, but admiration for a difficult task well done. He smiled—not wholly pleasantly—at the look of devout complacency on the faces of all the well dressed men and women about him. Not one, he reflected, who had listened so attentively to this stirring denunciation of idleness, knew what real toil was—or had any desire to know. ”

“ In all the world—and on it and over it—man was ever seeking truth and finding it. Always, like the wireless, he was pushing his antennæ into uncharted space, never resting content with the achievements of yesterday. It was only in the St. Viateur's that men still sat mumbling forgotten ritual, praying to shattered idols, rotting in the darkness. Outside, in the sunshine, the world forged ahead, living always in struggle, dying only in content.
His had been death in life, thought Imrie with something between a thrill and a shudder. ”

“ You fire an entirely novel idea at me and expect me to answer at once. You've stunned me."
"But it's not new," cried Good. "We've talked the idea of this over a hundred times."
"The oldest thing in the world is new when it's applied to one's self for the first time," said Judith sententiously.
"Still, it isn't really new, is it?" he persisted.
"Well—not entirely," she admitted.
"Of course not. It's Roger's part in it that's new. That bewilders you, of course."
"What is his part?" she interrupted.
"Running a newspaper is exactly like running any other kind of a business—only harder. ”

“ To begin with, Miss Wynrod, you know how I feel toward the press. We've talked it over often. You know I believe that to turn this old world over and set it on its feet where it belongs, all clean and sound and sweet, the first thing we've got to have is truth—truth, truth, always truth and more truth—nothing whatever but truth, nothing evaded or concealed. In a word, we've got to have a free and a candid press. ”

“ As she sat down, another rose, and another and another, until half a dozen girls had given their experiences, each one of which brought a gasp of horror to Judith's lips.
"Why, this is dreadful," she cried. "I never dreamed ..."
But Good merely smiled to himself. "They've only told one side of it," he said. "There are things—much worse."
Judith shuddered understandingly but said nothing further until they were in the motor on the way home. "I never heard anything more terrible," she cried, "or more surprising. If people only knew, such things couldn't take place. ”

“ A thousand tentacles seemed to come down on Judith and overwhelm her and bind her fast; and with the sound of the whistle she knew that the world was with her once more. She had been an angel for a moment. She was one no longer. The tears fell unchecked.
"It's funny, isn't it," Good was saying in a matter-of-fact tone, "that the trifles—things we really don't value at all—should keep people from the one thing that counts. Queer world, this. But it's one of the rules of the game. It's silly to complain. As well mock the stars." ”

“ She expressed her astonishment.
"Their feeling for their employers goes without saying," said Good shortly.
Suddenly Judith gave a little cry. "Why, there's Mrs. Dodson." A woman, inconspicuously dressed and well on in years, but with such a spirit of youth and kindliness in her face as to belie her grey hairs, had begun to speak. Her first words were the signal for such a storm of applause that she had to halt momentarily.
"What a favourite she is!" exclaimed Judith.
"She has cause to be," said Good. "These girls have no better friend."
"Isn't it strange," said Judith in amazement. ”

“ You have more angel in you than most—but you're not an angel. You're wise—very wise, Judith Wynrod—too wise to be an angel. Heaven is for the fools. The wise have the earth. It's the little things—like table manners and polished shoes—that keep us out of heaven. ”

“ To you life is long, and the world putty in your hands. But after all, you're only an atom on the everlasting shore.
"The Dispatch is the paper of Truth. All reformers—most hypocrites—sing the same song. It seems the easiest thing in the world to tell the truth. But I know there is nothing harder. And it's not because truth frequently clashes with the human side of our lives—though God knows that is hard enough—but because no one knows what truth is.
"It's a struggle worthy of fine souls to tell the truth. But it's a far greater struggle to know what the truth is. ”

“ Faxon paused in the doorway as if he would say more, but Roger had already turned his back upon him. With an oath he slammed the door.
"I wonder what he takes me for," murmured Roger. "Thinks I'm a child does he ... got another think, I guess." Then he went in search of Good and Jenkins.
His sense of isolation and futility seemed to have deserted him utterly. For the first time in his life he felt himself at grips with a man's reality. Disdaining the elevator he skipped up the stairs to Bassett's office with his heart full of a curious exaltation such as he had never experienced before. ”

“ Judith, listening in amazement with the rest, realised, as did few, how characteristic of him it all was. She felt that she could almost trace the steps which had brought him to this point. Her own attitude had played a large share, she felt certain. Her doubts had set up doubts in him. He had tried to dissipate them, and had failed. So far he was quite like other men. But then he had resolved to tell his congregation that he had failed. In that he was different. Other men would have waited longer, have hesitated and put off and pondered, some to the end of their lives. Not so with Imrie. ”

“ But, Miss Wynrod, I want your money for something of greater value to society than all the churches and hospitals put together. I want you to put your money to work clearing up this muddled old world of ours by bringing sunshine and oxygen and hope and understanding into men's minds. I want you—how can I possibly make clear to you how much I want it—I want you to—to—buy ... a newspaper! ”

“ Imrie had gone into the ministry, not really from choice, but from a painfully acute sense of duty inherited from his Knoxian forbears. Contradicting an abounding vitality was an overwhelming consciousness of sin, based, it must be confessed, on a fair modicum of actuality, impelling him, irresistibly, toward a fear and a hatred of the flesh. Some men enter the Church positively, out of love for their God and their fellow men: but Imrie had entered it negatively, from a fear and a distrust of the devil in himself. ”

“ A vague regret flitted across his mind that if he disappeared there would be no one to seek him with such eagerness. He dismissed the thought quickly, however. One in his position had no time for such nonsense. Time was too valuable to be wasted in dreaming. The Woman faded: only the Case remained. He fell to drumming on the desk with his pencil, and Judith realised that he asked nothing further of her. She thanked him and rose. Silently he opened a private door leading to the hallway, bowed courteously as she passed him, and went back to his desk as if he had already forgotten her. ”

“ Gradually, as proposals were made and rejected and remade, with not a little healthy acrimony, and a very great deal of humour on the part of the older man, which Imrie needed most of all, the idea took shape.
"Ho—yes," cried Weis, as a crushing echo to one of Imrie's most rhetorical flights. "That is fine—yes. Fine words—yes. But words—pouf—what are they? You are young—you wish to reform the world. That is excellent—ambition—yes. But no more. If you succeed beyond your dreams, you will do little, very little. Hitch your wagon to a star—yes. ”

“ I understand perfectly. I loathe the wretched futility of the work I do, with its everlasting cowardice and compromise. I wish I could go back to the life for which I was born and bred, which even those dearest to me, lead now. But I can't do that. Life as it is, is unsatisfying. But any other would be worse."
"Why, I always thought you so happy—one of the happiest women I knew," cried Judith in amazement.
"Oh, well—" Mrs. Dodson's sigh defied analysis. "Such things are relative." ”

“ His chagrin showed in his face, and Judith was a little appalled by what she had done. But she would not have recalled a word or a glance. She was sorry to see his pain, but for all its harshness, she felt that he would emerge better for the treatment. The mind needs an occasional physic, no less than the body. She had rocked the ponderous bulk of the Reverend Arnold Imrie on its foundations. If it settled back into its original place, none the worse for the rocking, so much the better for the foundations. ”

“ Judith thanked him so calmly that the detective wondered. Had he seen the expression of her face as she hung up the receiver, he would have wondered still more.
But as three o'clock merged into four, and four rolled away into five, with no further report, Judith's restlessness gave place to resignation. And when, just as it was turning dark, the maid announced Imrie, she was able to welcome him as unaffectedly as if not a care clouded her sky. ”

“ I worked for a Socialist paper, but I wasn't a Socialist. Socialism isn't enough. It's too narrow, too material, too bigoted. It isn't spiritual enough. It isn't elastic enough. We don't want dogma, we want light. We don't want to stop exploitation. We want to tell the people how they're exploited. They'll stop it for themselves, when they know—when they know their own power. They've got to know what is going on in the world. Germs can't live in sunlight and oxygen. And the germs that cause poverty and disease and misery of all kinds can't live in the sunlight and the oxygen of publicity. ”

“ She laughed at that. "But there aren't any strikers here," she persisted.
"No, but to talk about idleness is almost as pointless here as there. Why didn't he say something that would get under their hides? Look at them coming up the street. Do they look as if they had been filled with a fear of the Lord?"
"Do you think people go to church to be frightened?"
"I'm sure I don't know why they go," he said cheerfully. "I never could. I'd rather do almost anything. Church-going always irritates me. The preachers are so spineless—like this Mr. Imrie. ”

“ What the world needs, Miss Wynrod, is not charity, not the kind of altruism that polishes off effects, but a force that will remove and eliminate causes. Money causes most of the evil in the world. Money can cure it. But it won't do to fill stomachs or even heads. When they die the job has to be done all over again. We've got to sweep the old world off the boards, and build a new one in its place. And the new world must be for all. The people must rule and be ruled. There are lots of panaceas on the market. There's the single tax—giving the land back to its owners—the people. ”

“ They went into Bassett's private office.
"What I want to get at," said the latter perplexedly, after they were seated, "is what line of thought you intend to follow. What angles do you mean to push?"
"You don't understand," said Good patiently, "all we want is the truth."
"Oh, fiddlesticks," cried Bassett impatiently. "That's fine for a rights-of-man declaration, but we're running a newspaper. You've got to have balance. What's true and interesting and desirable to one class of people isn't to another. What kind of people do you intend to cater to?" ”

“ Most of the avenues of publicity are the avenues for special pleaders. The owners of newspapers and magazines have axes to grind, they have policies—some good, some bad—always policies. They present what happens so as to bolster up some preconceived theory. That's not truth—it's propaganda."
"Is the press all dishonest?" she asked in surprise, somewhat tinged with irritation at what seemed like a crude generality.
"Not dishonest, no. The average newspaper would rather be honest than not. And those who wouldn't, find that honesty pays better than dishonesty. ”

“ Do you think I can live on that?"
"Some people do," she murmured faintly. Judith was not without a certain quiet irony when she chose to employ it.
"Don't be silly, Judith. You know mighty well I can't get along on that. Why, good heavens, I can't possibly do it!" His voice rose shrilly as the enormity of the thought struck him with all its force. But Judith refused to be troubled.
"Perhaps you'll know more about it after you've tried," she said gently.
Roger jumped to his feet and paced rapidly to and fro for a moment. Then he faced his sister, and his eyes blazed like those of an angry cat. ”