Jr. Thomas Dixon

“ The sobbing in the little room was the only sound that came from one of the grimmest battle-fields from which the soul of a woman ever emerged alive.
To the first rush of cowardly tears Mary had yielded utterly. She had fallen across the high-puffed feather mattress of the bed, shivering in humble gratitude at her escape from the horror of blindness. The grip of his claw-like fingers on her throat came back to her now in sickening waves. The blood was still trickling from the wound which his nails had made when she tore them loose in her first mad fight for breath. ”

“ For one brief instant he hated all men. Not merely the fool who had shamed his soul with fear but all the mob of hissing howling brutes that surged about him and all the millions like them that crawl over the earth.
There was a pause of only a few seconds while these ideas flashed with the vividness of lightning through his imagination. The crowd noted no pause of any kind. His action seemed instantaneous.
With a sudden panther-like spring he leaped across the five feet which separated him from the man who held the revolver. ”

“ Cameron had brought his memorial, presented a pathetic spectacle. Most of them were old men, who sat in grim silence with nothing to do or say as they watched the rising black tide, their dignity, reserve, and decorum at once the wonder and the shame of the modern world.
At least they knew that the minstrel farce being enacted on that floor was a tragedy as deep and dark as was ever woven of the blood and tears of a conquered people. Beneath those loud guffaws they could hear the death rattle in the throat of their beloved State, barbarism strangling civilization by brute force. ”

“ On a beautiful Sunday morning in May, 1899, the steamship Comrade slowly swept through the Golden Gate with two thousand enthusiastic Socialists crowding her decks, shouting, cheering, laughing, crying, singing their joy and faith in the new world of human brotherhood for which they had set sail.
The flag of the republic flew from her stern because the law of the port of entry required it. But from her huge prow rose a slender steel staff, above the tips of her funnels and masts, on which flew the blood-red ensign of Socialism, while from every masthead huge red steamers fluttered in the sky. ”

“ It was the consciousness of this intensity of nature which drew John to her with resistless power. No other type of woman could interest him, and Stella was endowed with this subtle magnetism as no human being he had ever met. It spoke in every movement of her body, in every accent of her voice.
As she passed and turned her back on him, the sense of a hopeless and irreparable loss crushed his spirit. The words of the preacher rang in his soul, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and forfeit his life.” ”

“ As he began to realize it, his heart went out to the great city with a throb of gratitude.
When the novelty of the new world had gradually worn off a feeling of loneliness set in. He couldn't get used to the crowds on every street, these roaring rivers of strange faces rushing by like the waters of a swollen stream after a freshet, hurrying and swirling out of its banks.
At first he had found himself trying to bow to every man he met and take off his hat to every woman. It took a long time to break himself of this Southern instinct. ”

“ The sun was pouring his hot rays down into the moist earth, and the heat began to feel like summer. As he drank in the beauty and glory of the spring his soul was melted with joy. The fruit trees were laden with the promise of the treasures of the summer and autumn, a cat-bird was singing softly to his mate in the tree over his head, and a mocking-bird seated in the topmost branch of an elm near his cabin home was leading the oratorio of feathered songsters. The wild plum and blackberry briars were in full bloom in the fence comers, and the sweet odour filled the air. ”

“ With a heavy heart Brown saw Douglas leave. It was the shattering of his most dramatic dream of the execution of the Great Deed. When the black bees should swarm he had seen himself at the head of the dark, roaring tide of avengers, their pikes and rifles flashing in the Southern sun. Around his waist was the sword of George Washington and the pistols of Lafayette. His Aide of Honor would ride, this negro, once a fugitive slave. Side by side they would sweep the South with fire and sword. ”

“ For the first time there came into his soul the sweet and terrible realisation that his own flesh and blood had become one with Ruth’s in the greatest miracle of earth, the heart of a woman—a woman who could live and suffer and whose heart could break even as her mother’s! Her eyes were all his, her hair a perfect mixture of the pigments with which theirs had been coloured. The strength of the man trembled with tender pride and wonder as he looked at her—his living marriage vow, written out before his eyes in a beautiful poem of flesh and blood. ”

“ As the last word fell from his white lips cannon thundered a salute from the hill crest and the great silk ensign of the South was slowly lifted by the hand of the granddaughter of President Tyler.
As the breeze unrolled its huge red, white and blue folds against the shining Southern skies the crowd burst into hysterical applause.
A Nation had been born whose history might be brief, but the people who created it and the leader who guided its destiny were the pledge of its immortality. ”

“ Look at those crawling lines of men, Jim, and think for a moment of the millions like them on the surface of the earth, each one fighting tooth and nail for his own kennel and the bone that he claims. Think of the centuries of stupid history back of each generation of those crawling things—their selfish habits, as fixed as the colour of hair and eyes, their pride, their little prejudices of race and creed—and talk to me about days of reckoning and revolution! ”

“ The world went black and she felt herself sinking into a bottomless abyss. With maniac energy she tore his hands from her throat and the warm blood streamed from the gash his nails had torn.
“Jim! Jim! For God's sake!” she moaned in abject terror.
With a sullen growl, his fingers, sharp as a leopard's claw, found her neck again and closed with a grip that sent the blood surging to her brain and her eyes starting from their sockets.
The one hideous thought that flashed through her mind was that he was going to plunge his claws into her eyes and blind her for life. ”

“ The air of the Southern autumn was like wine. The Boy's heart beat with new life. The scarlet and purple glory of the woods fired his imagination. He found himself whistling and singing at his tasks. He proudly showed a bee tree to his mother, the honey was gathered and safely stored. A barrel of walnuts, a barrel of hickory-nuts and two bushels of chestnuts were piled near his bed in the loft.
But the day his martins left, he came near breaking down. He saw them circle high in graceful sweeping curves over the gourds, chattering and laughing with a strange new note in their cries. ”

“ I’m only too glad of an excuse to save a life when I can. Every drop of blood shed in this war North and South has been as if it were wrung out of my heart. A strange fate decreed that the bloodiest war in human history should be fought under my direction. And I—to whom the sight of blood is a sickening horror—I have been compelled to look on in silent anguish because I could not stop it! ”

“ Never had he seen a human being so transformed by anger—eyes that a moment before had held him enraptured with their tender light had flashed cold points of steel. Hands, soft and warm and full of velvet feeling, had closed in rage as the claws of a tigress!
Suppose she refused to see him again? It was unthinkable. He seemed to have lived a century within the weeks since she had called him to her side. The life which had gone before grew dim. Four years of war and two years of daring secret revolution as a leader of the Invisible Empire faded from his consciousness. ”

“ Vassar’s heart went out in a throb of pity as he watched the scene—pity for the men whom a mighty nation had murdered for nothing—pity for the well-meaning but foolish men and women whose childish theories of peace had made this stupendous crime possible.
He thought too with the keenest pang of the anguish that would come to the heart of the woman he loved when the magnitude of this betrayal of a nation crushed her soul. Men like Barker and Pike would continue their parrot talk perhaps until Death called them. ”

“ The hour was propitious; he could feel the hearts of the people beat responsive to his slightest tone, word or gesture.
As he swept rapidly through his introduction and into his theme he knew he was holding these thousands of breathless listeners in the hollow of his hand. He could feel their heartstrings quiver as he touched them with tenderness or struck them with some mighty thought.
His soul was singing with triumph, when suddenly a ripple of laughter ran along the front tier of the gallery, and a hundred heads were turned upward to see what the disturbance meant. ”

“ The world is always beautiful if we only have eyes to see and ears to hear. Watch that smoke curling straight up from the chimney! That means the clouds are already lifting and the sun will burst through them this afternoon. You mustn't brood, dearest. You must forget the misery that has darkened our world for a moment and remember that it's only the dawn of a new life for us both. We are just boy and girl yet. There's nothing impossible. I'm going to prove to you that my love is the deathless thing in me—the thing that links me to God. ”

“ If you should fall into the bottomless pit, into the pit and down to the lowest depths of hell I would go, and lift you in the arms of my love. To break the tie that binds us is unthinkable. It has passed into the infinite. Not only are our souls one in a little boy’s grave, but there is something so absorbing, so interwoven with the hidden things of nature in our union that I defy all the fiends in perdition to break it. Love is eternal. ”

“ Norman seized her arm and hurried through the swiftly moving throng of the under-world—gambling touts, thieves, cut-throats, pick-pockets, opium fiends, drunkards, thugs, carousing miners, and sailors—but above all, everywhere, omnipresent, the abandoned woman—painted, bedizened, lurching through the streets, hanging in doorways, clinging to men on the sidewalks, beckoning from windows, singing vulgar songs on crude platforms among throngs of half-drunken men, whirling past doors and windows in dance-halls, their cracked voices shrill and rasping above the din of cheap music. ”

“ Are we devoid of the sensibilities, the sentiments, the passions, the reason, and the instincts of mankind? Have we no pride, no honor, no sense of shame, no reverence for our ancestors, no care for posterity, no love for home, or family or friends? Must we quail before the onion breath of an enthroned mob, confess our baseness, discredit the fame of our sires, degrade our children, abandon our homes, flee from our country and dishonor ourselves—all for the sake of a Union whose Constitution you have publicly burned and whose Supreme Court you have spit upon? ”

“ All he had to do to-night was to apply the law of self-interest by which this man had lived and waxed mighty, and to-morrow he could take the woman be loved in his arms, move into his palace its master and hers. There could be no mistake about Nan's feelings. He had read the yearning of her heart with unerring insight. Visions of a life of splendour, beauty and power with her by his side swept his imagination. A sense of fierce, exultant triumph filled his soul. But most alluring of all whispered joys was the dream of their love-life. ”

“ John found her in a mood of elusive girlishness. When he begged her to remember her parting words, the half-pledged promise of a message for which he waited, she only laughed and fenced.
She allowed him to call each afternoon and evening for a week until he was drunk with the joy of her presence—until the sense of personal intimacy and the growing consciousness of comradeship had made his will obedient to her slightest whim. It amused her to watch the growth of his powers of intuition, born of this daily life, which enabled him to anticipate her wishes. ”

“ The Boy's gourds were placed beside the new garden and the noise of chattering martins echoed over the cabin. The toughened muscles of his strong, slim body no longer ached in rebellion at his tasks. Work had become a part of the rhythm of life. He could sing at his hardest task. The freedom and strength of the woods had gotten into his blood. In this world of waving trees, of birds and beasts, of laughing sky and rippling waters, there were no masters, no slaves. Millions in gold were of no value in its elemental struggle. ”