Willis George Emerson

“ CHAPTER XXXII.—THE SILENCING OF GOSSIP WHEN Lord Avondale had gone, Captain Osborn turned mechanically toward his wife. She stood before him, defiant and beautiful, like a tigress at bay, without defense or chance of escape. “Lucy,” said he, in resolute and yet sorrowful tones, “my very soul revolts at you. A pretty-faced woman whose purity is questioned is like a rose broken from its stem. We cannot use the one as a decoration and dare not trust the other as a companion.” ”

“ She coaxingly told Hugh that he must come over to the Grove every day, and, if he did not, they would surely send for him.
When they were gone, Hugh turned back to his room, marveling at the transformation in Ethel. Her cheeks glowed with the pink tinge of ruddy health and her lips were like well-ripened cherries, while the whole expression of her youthful face was one of contentment and of hope. “Love is a wonderful thing,” said he, as he stood by the window watching the carriage containing Jack and Ethel drive away toward the country. ”

“ Evolution takes the mud of the lake and makes a water lily—the hollow reed in the hand of the savage grows into a modern flute—the rude marks of primitive man in the stone age become poems and anthems in our own age. If mist can become stars—if dust can become worlds—if the immortality of biology is a truism—if love can come from sensations, if the angel of the brain can spring into being from simple cells, why then cannot the soul endure forever although undergoing transitions in the course of its divine development? ”

“ The traveler is surrounded by every comfort. Vance Gilder was more than ever in love with the change, as the cars rumbled on through dell and forest, across broad stretches of beautiful valley country, and ever and anon rushing over an iron bridge that spanned some beautiful stream of water, some of them calm and peaceful, and others rushing madly along, breaking into white spray over rocky ripples, and then hurrying on again as if they were running a race with time. ”

“ In the golden casket of his great soul rests the immortal principles which we advocate, and in his heart burns the undying fire of love for America and American institutions. The righteousness of our cause is our strength, while he is our hope and will lead us triumphantly on to certain and splendid victory. ”

“ As the day advanced, the wind became hotter and hotter, until not a soul was visible on the streets of Meade. People hastened to their homes, offices, and stores for shelter, and shut themselves away from the intensely suffocating air. A few minutes’ exposure would blister the face and hands of the hardiest farmer.
On rushed the scorching wave,—its wilting breath shriveling up every growing thing as effectually as a prairie fire,—everything excepting the native buffalo-grass, the cacti, and the sunflowers. The grass it cured, and made more sweet and fattening for the cattlemen’s herds. ”

“ Why, do you know, sitting over in that rocky gorge of Dillon canyon in the little town of Dillon, writing editorials for the Double jack month after month and no one to read my paper, I have had time to think it all over, and I have made up my mind to come here to the Shields ranch and tell Dorothy it is my firm conviction that she is the greatest woman on top of the earth, and that life to me without her is simply—well, I don’t have words to describe the pitiful loneliness of it all without her. ”

“ Olaf Jansen makes the startling announcement through me, an humble instrument, that in like manner, God created the earth for the "within"—that is to say, for its lands, seas, rivers, mountains, forests and valleys, and for its other internal conveniences, while the outside surface of the earth is merely the veranda, the porch, where things grow by comparison but sparsely, like the lichen on the mountain side, clinging determinedly for bare existence. ”

“ Suffering among the poor, whose eyes are blinded with scalding tears, appeals to me with a strong and resistless force. For centuries I have been battling for humanity. I have renounced the world and yielded all that was demanded of me for the cheering song of one small feathered thing, that, like a tiny bird, is always singing in my soul. It is called Hope, and it still sings, and its sweet warbling notes fill me with the abiding belief that the millennium is coming, when altruism will rule the world, and selfishness shall be reckoned as one of the lost attributes of man. ”

“ Bertha, with her handsome face and lisping speech, humored her mother’s whims of formality, and tickled the uncouth vanity of her step-father, on whose bounty she was dependent. She was an artful, cooing, little woman, full of strategy and deceit, and hopelessly untruthful. Her clandestine meetings with her cousin, Arthur Boast, were numerous, while in her heart she felt an infatuation for Vance Gilder, and was secretly intensely jealous of Louise Bonifield. ”

“ When he handed me my father’s letter, he took me out of that selfish inferno and sent me here into the sweet pure air of the western mountains, among men like you, the Reverend Stephen Grannon, Ben Bragdon, Boney Earnest, and good old Jim Rankin too, besides our dear dead comrade Grant Jones. Here I have the life worth living, which is the life compounded of work and love. Love without work is cloying, work without love is soul-deadening, but love and work combined can make of earth a heaven.”
“And now you speak like a philosopher,” said Buell Hampton approvingly. ”

“ Nature chanted a lullaby in the faint murmur of winds whose breath was sweet with the fragrance of bud and blossom.
After having spent considerably more than a year in visiting several of the many cities of the "within" world and a great deal of intervening country, and more than two years had passed from the time we had been picked up by the great excursion ship on the river, we decided to cast our fortunes once more upon the sea, and endeavor to regain the "outside" surface of the earth. ”

“ Stanton, I will not intrude my political faith upon you at our first meeting. I am sincerely delighted to have met you; and in some way I have an impression that we shall become great frends. Do you love music?”
“Passionately fond of it,” replied Hugh, “but, unfortunately, I cannot play even a Jew’s-harp.”
“A soul without a language,” said the major, as he looked benignly at Hugh. “Internal rhythm and melody that move us with their invisible touch, and then die away like a song on the night wind—into silence—when one is unable to express the emotions that stir the inmost soul. ”

“ Presently Roderick Warfield came into view astride his favorite pony, Badger, riding at full tilt down the race course, chasing a huge cream-colored steer with wide-spread horns, cruelly sharp and dangerous-looking. As horse and steer came abreast Roderick’s athletic form swayed in his saddle for a moment, and then like a flash he was seen to leap on to the steer’s back and reaching forward grab the animal’s horns. ”

“ I am old in years, and ripe both with adventures and sorrows, yet rich with the few friends I have cemented to me in my struggles to lead a just and upright life. Like a story that is well-nigh told, my life is ebbing away. The presentiment is strong within me that I shall not live to see the rising of another sun. Thus do I conclude my message. OLAF JANSEN. ”

“ Hugh replied, slowly, “that we have much to do with the shaping of our own destinies, for we are but barks on an open sea, tossed and driven about by every wind of chance. The harbor that we expect to make is seldom reached. I am but little acquainted with love’s tender passion. I hardly know that I should recognize it, if it were to come to me. Miss Horton’s wishes and preference must be considered above all else.”
“Ah, Hugh,” said the captain, gravely, “she is too sensible a girl not to prefer a man like you to a ‘fungus of nobility,’ such as Lord Avondale. ”

“ The drab moss-covered dyke really contained the wealth of a King Solomon’s mine. It was true—true, though almost unbelievable. Yet in this moment of overwhelming triumph Buell Hampton saw not with the eyes of avarice and greed for personal gain, but rather with the vision of the humanitarian. Unlimited wealth had always been for him a ravishing dream, but he had longed for it, passionately, yearningly, not as a means to supply pleasures for himself but to assuage the miseries of a suffering world. ”

“ But remember, although we may be parted, our friendship abides—its influences endure. Friendship, my dear Roderick, is elemental—without commencement and without end—a discovery. From the beginning of furthest antiquity, the pathway of the centuries have been lined with tablet-stones pronouncing its virtues. Friendship is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever. It is an attraction of personalities and its power is unseen and as subtle as the lode-stone. It is the motive that impels great deeds of bravery in behalf of humanity. ”

“ Our little fishing-sloop sprang forward as if eager as ourselves for adventure. Within thirty-six hours we were out of sight of the highest point on the coast line of Franz Josef Land. We seemed to be in a strong current running north by northeast. Far to the right and to the left of us were icebergs, but our little sloop bore down on the narrows and passed through channels and out into open seas—channels so narrow in places that, had our craft been other than small, we never could have gotten through. ”

“ Why, Ethel, tell me that you care for me, and it will make me the happiest man in the world.”
There was a pitiful look in her eyes as they rested on his face.
“Hugh,” she said very slowly, “it is a woman’s heart that an earnest man desires when he asks a woman to become his wife. My heart is like the worm-eaten rosebud,—it is the semblance of what you seek, not the reality.”
Hugh imagined that she referred to Lord Avondale, and, again, he told himself that it could not be true,—that she surely was not grieving for him. ”

“ O gorgeous sunflower, incomparable in thy beauty, unequaled in thy queenliness, surpassing in thy stateliness, glorious in thy radiance, emblematic of freedom, liberty, and deathless love of justice! Indeed thou art the worthy emblem of a land of freedom, of a commonwealth asserting and establishing “man’s humanity to man.” The rose has its beauty and transcendent fragrance, the hyacinth its charm of color, the columbine its mountain freshness, the lily its stateliness of poise, the dandelion its golden warmth, the daisy its modesty, the honeysuckle its vining tendrils of love ”

“ I believe in the immortality of the soul. I believe in the religion of humanity. Yes, on the far away rim of eternity, Faith seeks a beckoning hand and the human heart pulses anew with inspiration and unfaltering belief in the immortality of the soul. Let us believe there are songs sung and harps touched and kisses given and greetings exchanged in that other world. It is better that all other words should turn to ashes upon the lips of man rather than the word immortality. ”

“ And I feel that, in equipping such a man as yourself, a man whom I have tested out and tried in a dozen different ways without your knowing it—in equipping you with a sufficient competency I really help to discharge my trust, for I invest you with the power to do unmeasured good to all around you. I need not expatiate on such a theme; you have heard my views many times. In sharing my wealth with you, Roderick, I simply bring you in as an efficient helper for the uplift of humanity. ”

“ Ethel is the only child and heiress to millions.”
“No,” shouted Hugh, vehemently, starting up as if combating with the tempter, “no, that is a contemptible, cowardly thought. It is true that to-day poverty with her sable robe envelops me, and that a fortune is mine if I will only reach out and take it—a fortune that will make me a Croesus, while a resigned and heart-broken woman is ready to lift up her fair white arms to me as her savior, if I—I, Hugh Stanton—am willing to place upon her lips the kiss of a Judas. ”

“ Their voices rose with the rising of the flames until at last the piteous cries were hushed perforce, and only the crackling sound of burning wood and the forked tongues of raging red fire greeted the sun, that morning of April 18, as it climbed above the eastern mountains and looked upon the scene of woeful destruction.
Is it any wonder that strong men wept? Is it to be marveled at that those separated from friends and relatives grew bewildered, frantic and crazed with grief and fear, and that chaos reigned supreme? ”

“ It is not the government as set forth by the laws of a nation, so much as it is, my dear Stanton, obedience to the unwritten laws emanating from the first Great Cause. The hope of humanity is happiness, and happiness consists of a great love, and much service and sacrifice to the children of men and to the Omnipotent Ruler of the universe, who will hold us responsible if we are derelict in our duties to those who are helpless and incapable of self-protection. ”

“ His was the simple life of the hills, loving his few chums and turning his back on all whom he disliked or mistrusted.
Other men and greater men there may be, but it was men of Jim Rankin’s type that could build, and did build, monuments among the wild western waste of heat-blistered plains and gaunt rock-ribbed mountains, men who braved the wilderness and there laid the first foundation stones of a splendid civilization—splendid, yet even now only in its first beginnings, a civilization that means happy homes and smiling fields where before all was barrenness and desolation. ”

“ Yes, I’ve seen the black race freed from slavery, but the yoke was not destroyed, and in turn it has, like an octopus, fettered a race of white slaves. As a lover of mankind and a reformist, I am now building up the nucleus of a power in my organization, the Barley Hullers, that will not only free from bondage the white slaves of our land, but will also effectually destroy the yoke—the instrument of torture. This can be done only by an equal distribution of wealth. ”