Eveleen Laura Mason

“ And sinking on the arbor-seat she wept violently. With a scowl of distress and of another emotion, in which there was no liking, tortured by the mental hiatus which the sight of Mrs. Mancredo intensified, he said suddenly: “Why do you tell such falsehoods? I hate it in woman.”
Astonished, and giggling nervously at his queer starts and turns, her eyes shining like lambent stars through the mist, chiefly concerned not to startle him, and falling back into the way which, as “little Alitza,” she had had to use toward him for the last five years, she gently said:
“Well, Regie, I never will again.” ”

“ Since he was seventeen years old Reginald had bought all the high-priced things that our fast civilization has to offer in exchange for “soul,” and now the ashes of that past were beginning to grit between his teeth; for he had a sweet memory of peace, purity and of an harmonious-purpose which glinted across his mind angelically as the remains of what had been his baby guesses at real manhood. But this dream, and the sainted mother who had inspired it, had both been devastated by the ignorant animalism of the elder Grove. ”

“ But Ethel’s stated recognition of the commonness of the outrages put on woman as maid and mother, now aroused her intelligence as to the general need for a general enlightenment. But her wrath was inexpressible, and she cried out suddenly: “O, but he is a fool, that Reginald! If he had treated me well I could have done him great good. I hate him! I wish he would cease to live in any world,—could be blasted, blotted out of all worlds, and made into nothing at all, with a lasting ache of shame to it! For he is a fool. Miss Ethelbert, it’s—it’s him! ”

“ But then he was afraid as death of his ‘old dad,’ as he called him; just as his mother had been. I wrote to him that his mother in heaven would never forgive him for his treatment of me; for that she had left me in his care, as a younger sister. And that now, however low he sunk, he might look about him in the sloughs there, for any woman whom he met might be the sister to whom he had betrayed his trust. I did not mean to give him a chance to take much comfort in his badness. But I meant to do more than to merely put a ‘death’s head’ at the feast of life which he had spoiled for me. ”

“ What hinders us that we are not baptized in the water of life, flowing out from the throne of supernal power? A social waste hinders us, and that waste results from a fallacy which seeks to sustain the relation of supply and demand, on the basis of the legal tender of a money token; as if to say: “I know that man is hungry, the money in his hand shows it.”
“But, Miss Daksha, we can’t keep brutes in order with these elusive, transcendental theories,” said Elkhorn.
“Yes,” said Palmer, “the question is, How can we keep brutes in order without throwing license as a ‘sop to Cerberus’?” ”

“ There cannot be a more profitable and satisfactory possession than purity. It fills one with courage and truth, and makes honor easy. Its joys fade not away. Its hopes are fulfilled, and I believe if we were all possessors of this type of purity, and understood how to live according to its law, the social result would be, that humanity would become like the angels of God: right, bright, agile and light ”

“ Get out of our light, and give us a chance to find ourselves!’
“They take too much out of our self-esteem when they tell the truth; and when they don’t, they take too much out of our esteem for them, which is worse yet, for our comfort. We know there is something wrong about us, but as we don’t quite understand ourselves, of course we can’t make them understand us. The reason I want to shriek out at them is—well—it is queer, but it is because I like them so much.”
Robert laughed out, as if he had a fellow feeling for Reginald in this difficulty. ”

“ Mancredo said. But you see Reg had called me a liar, and I loathed the whole mess. But you see I had a woman’s pride in being, myself, intrinsic wealth of a finer sort than that thing called ‘money’ can fully represent. I wanted to know how to do well (and in a way which would be of marketable value) every sort of thing which could be needed in the economics of a broad social-system. It made me sick to see men, who inherently had nothing worth exchanging, quarreling so much to get their clutch on the ‘medium of exchange’ called money. ”

“ For this progress is dependent on the intelligibility of the doings of dualized—self-harmonized natures. He will make such things intelligible when he gains equilibrium.
“Bertha, now, is such an one. She has come up out of the scarth of great tribulation, and she has washed her robes white in the life-blood of her own bleeding heart, image as it is of the bleeding heart of the Mother of divine Humanity. She, the outraged, has become pitiful to him who crucified her and put her to open shame—a shame which she will never forget. ”

“ Mancredo said: “I do—dislike sick men.”
And Ethelbert, well knowing that woman’s dislike of folly and sickness would turn men away from both, if woman were free to rise to her own heights, said calmly: “It is precisely because you hate fools that you will conspire with me, his mother, and other angels of God, to annihilate the fool and evoke the man. Two children, Waldemar and Reginald,—is it not so? Your Waldemar is your son, and better born than Reginald. ”

“ And Reginald, as if shocked by an electric charge, sent forth a cry, springing forward as if galvanized; and Bertha, frightened, heard Ethelbert say, steadily:
“There is no man there,—a crippled child, an absent spirit, a wraith, a wreck, a ghost, a ‘remains’ of the criminal who was arrested in the act of killing a citizen of this nation, called Reginald Grove; that ‘remains’ is there; nothing more. A child waiting to come forth to the business of making one more try at self-management, is there.” ”

“ And the two men to whom Ethel was giving participance in all she was sharing with the angels, heard jubilates in the upper air, pitifully tremulant, yet glad, which revealed that the cries of the world are but the growing pains which all endure while getting the growths that bring forth new forms of life, of knowledge and beauty. ”

“ Mancredo saw the cleansing work which would have to be done in society’s augean stables if women took up the business of turning these stables into ‘the home of the brave and the free.’ And he saw that the idea that she ought to save this man, now had a hold on Mrs. Mancredo, and he knew that when a strong woman thinks she ought to do a thing, the ship of state may as well clear its decks for an encounter from all the guns hitherto known or unknown in moral combat. ”

“ Purity gives one self-possession, and creates a simple, unsullied self, well worth possessing.
“It enables people to dare to state themselves in unqualified correct terms. For their unmixed simple purposes bear each other out in the long run. And I say, Bertha, if all women were legally upheld in being what men delight to be called (that is, Right Honorable,) the sons of such women would be by nature ‘Right Honorables.’ I will uphold you in being right honorable, Bertha, and Waldemar shall be Right Honorable.” ”

“ My only marriage is with you, just as you understand and remember its limitation, nothing more. We are all seeking a simple life here, with little marriage or giving in marriage, because the power of the angels, with whom we co-operate for the redemption of the Cerberi, is all and in all for us.
“And Reginald, listen to me carefully: No one blames another here; no one hurries or worries, or enters on wordy discussions of past blunders or future plans. We act, leaving no room for license, but taking the liberty to each one be his or her best self, according to individual judgment. ”

“ Mancredo’s hand cordially.
“Is that so? Would you not dictate to me, nor talk to others about me, nor flinch from your duty if I neglected mine?”
“I only know,” said Ethelbert after a pause, “whatever comes to me to be done, I shall do, but I shall accommodate my actions to new circumstances which may arise, for I should be sorry to have anything come between Reginald and his best development, or between you and yours. The development of the individual is the point; all else is inconsiderable.” ”

“ Judge Elkhorn, if you believe in granting license, you believe in stultifying liberty. For liberty to all leaves no man to grant or forbid anything to anyone. License is the antagonist of liberty. For liberty is the use of law, and license is the abuse of law.
“Briefly then, in this country, where everything consistent with the right of others is already constitutionally conceded to each one, the attempt to give anything more to anyone, is an encroachment on liberty. ”

“ Put away sadness, Bertha, and remember not wrongs against your brother Reginald. Correct the past by dealing sensibly with the present. Truth and right living will bring good results to the future.
“A large proportion of morals and manners today are unintelligent. Yours have been. But all that ceases today. Excessive emotional wrath at those who have blundered with us, does not help either them or us to better intelligence, nor to the best adjustment of results.” ”

“ What Hercules did do, was this: he brought Cerberus a morsel fresh from the feast of the ‘gods of Olympus’; and Cerberus, at the taste, aflame for more, burst his chains, and willingly he went away with Hercules to the upper air, where such feasts awaited him.
“Men of America, the trouble with our nation is, there is a dearth of deities at our Capitol! There is still a lack of Herculean power! We want more there at the moral-feasts of our Olympus, the flavor of which would be new to our desiring, fighting, frenzied Cerberi! ”

“ Then you will see why I say that any methods of abusing the brain-substance is unintelligent, and why I say that fuller intelligence concerning woman-nature and possibilities will render intelligible the past miseries and mysteries of life, and will displace them with the spontaneous joyfulness of wisdom’s way of living.
“Do you understand?”
“Certainly I understand. Tell me your five points of faith,” said Bertha, clear-headedly.
“One is, that purity is natural and inherent in humanity. ”

“ It is this deep-seated repugnance to moral smoke, stench and torment, which keeps me up to my idea of duty. And then, Miss Ethel, I certainly am not better than other men, but I surmise I was vastly better taught than some men are, from babyhood, and before birth. For, like thousands of men everywhere today, there comes to me a sort of homesick, perplexed feeling, at having to sojourn amid such ‘hell-let-loose’ conditions as (so-called) society today represents. ”

“ Let him die as the fool dies; withhold your breath of life from him. Dead he would be but for the vitality you exhale upon the upper realms of his being. Let him die! Let him be damned, as he has damned my poor Waldemar into being! ”

“ Judge Elkhorn was a bright man in many regards, and had had an ambition to electrify the world with a theory which would give a new basis for action in reforms; but in dealing with such a case as this, he had certain serious limitations. For he prided himself on never going beyond the common-sense recognition of objects which he could taste, touch, feel, smell and see. ”

“ If all possessed this type of purity, there would be an end to these inordinate desires which now make some people to be self-tormented monsters, and others to be their victims. When this type of purity exists, then family life, worthy the name, will be established on a plane of health-giving-comfort to all concerned. While those who, St. Paul says, ‘do better than to marry, though to marry may be to do well,’ will be able, Bertha, to coöperate together in simple, unsullied service to the world, which always needs such service. ”

“ It was held to be desirable that Reginald should be saved from the sudden shock of the knowledge that as thirty odd years had been blotted out of his memory at the time of his paralysis, so now at this crisis of probable recovery the years which had since intervened, with their life of other worldliness and other consciousness, were swept away for the moment, like a dream forgotten. ”

“ We are chiefly interested in getting ourselves (and keeping ourselves) in right relations to the realms of supersensuous life, with which we may choose to surround ourselves. For of course we draw about us spirits, which in tendencies and longings are like ourselves. Listen to me: One of the family here, who has a far-reaching inheritance of psychic-faculty and self-poised spiritual power, is—”
“Is,” said Reginald, “the one woman in the world who is, in a way, my wife more than you are.”
Alitza sprang to her feet, flushed and with blazing eyes. ”

“ Purity is free from a burdensome sense of shame, and is full of an invigorating courage which is wide away from all necessity of making and loving those things which the Bible calls ‘lies.’ Because a robust healthfulness fills with courage those who habitually practice the scientific law of purity. So that, in the character of a Right Honorable, purity, courage and truth knit each other up into a triuned power against which nothing can prevail. ”

“ She informed me that in the bonds of matrimony, as well as out, Bertha, mothers often endure abuse which no creature but man thrusts on his mate; abuse which devitalizes and poisons the fountain at which, born and unborn, the babe is fed; and which weakens the nerve substance of the child, by draining the vital forces of the mother, in a way more ruinous than would be a sword-thrust. ”