Ralph Adams Cram

“ Aurelian's ardent eyes gazed on the man before him through the writhing smoke in the pallid dawn; his voice was like the voice of a velvet bell.
"Yes, it is the end of years; the era of action is over, night follows, blotting from sight the shame of a wasted world; but through the mute, unutterable night rises and brightens the splendour of the new day, the new life. Action has striven and failed, and wreck and ruin are the ending thereof; but across the desert of failure and despair bursts the flame of the Dawn ”

“ Aurelian stroked its nose gently.
"Malcolm," he said, "if you persist you will fail, either broken by the power you attack or through creating a condition more evil, more intolerable still. There is a depth of fall below the point the nineteenth century has now reached, and until that destiny is accomplished, you are helpless."
"You break my heart, Aurelian," said McCann, sadly. "When I went away you promised to fight with me in the battle for reform. I thought you understood me, followed me. And now—you lapse into awful luxury and vice,—opium and things. ”

“ For a time neither spoke; then at length Aurelian said, with a more sorrowful gravity than before,—
"Yes, the night is at hand, and the darkness at last will cover our shame. It is better so. I thought once that through art we might work revolution, and so win the world to clearness of sight again; that was because I did not know the nature of art. Art is a result, not an accident,—a result of conditions that no longer exist. ”

“ Aurelian tossed the glowing end of his cigarette out through the jasmine leaves, watching it fall like a scarlet star. "Do you not see how it is?" he said; "I know to the full the grotesque hideousness of life as it is, and I long for revolution. But I have seen every man who is fired with desire to bring the change yield to the baleful influence of that which he would destroy until he has come to see no ideals save those of materialism. His ideal of life is a socialistic ideal of a dead, gross, physical ease and level uniformity; his ideal of government a democracy ”

“ Here have I gathered all my treasures of art and letters; here may those I love find rest and refreshment when worn out with hopeless lighting. Suffer me to live here and forget, or live in a living dream of dreamless life. Against my hilly ramparts life may beat in vain,—it cannot enter. ”

“ Everything sickens me,—every detail of the life that is now, the stock exchange and newspapers, alleged art and trade, and the whole false principle that is under it all. I can't fight them, the contest sickens me. It is all wrong, the principle of your reform; you are wrong yourself. ”

“ You have broken and destroyed the power of the Church, and you are proud thereof; but beware! for in its place you have builded a Power, more widespread, more overwhelming, more irresistible. Though you crushed Democracy and discredited Public Opinion, yet so long as the Freedom of the Press remained in existence, Journalism would by its bull of deposition, its anathema of excommunication, extinguish your labour in a breath. ”

“ Were Lucian to come among us now he would be quite at ease—no, not that, for in one thing [Pg 34] we are utterly changed; so sordid is our decadence, so gross, so contemptibly material, that we are denied the consolations of art vouchsafed to his own land. Even in the days of her death Rome could boast the splendour of a luxuriant literature, the glory of beauty of environment, the supremacy of an art-appreciation that blinded men's eyes to the shadow of the end. But for us, in the meanness of our fall, we have no rags of art wherewith to cover our nakedness. ”

“ Art can never happen again; we who love it and know it for what it is, the flowering of life, may only dream in the past, building for ourselves a stately pleasure-house in Xanadu on the banks of that river measureless to man that runs to a sunless sea.
"Individualism begot materialism, and materialism begot realism; and realism is the antithesis of art.
"What else could have been? Art is a result,—and a cause; at once the flower of life and the seed of [Pg 36] the age to come. That age which through its meanness and poverty is barren of blooms leaves no seed for its own propagation. ”

“ Around a brazier of green bronze, on the floor, before the fire, lay the three men who were gently breathing in the bland opium, their dark figures radiating from the queer brazier wrought of two ugly dragons chasing each other around a great globe of [Pg 12] Japanese chrystal, the firelight gleaming on the tall glasses of champagne where the little column of gold bubbles rose steadily. The fire fell together, and a leaping flame cast a fitful light on heavy tapestry curtains wrought with the story of the loves of Cupid and Psyche. ”

“ So long as this is so, so long will reform be impossible.
"Democracy, Public Opinion, Freedom of the Press,—the idolatrous tritheism of a corrupt generation. Through the Institution of Democracy you have bound yourself with invincible chains to a political system which is the government of the best, by the worst, for the few,—in other words, the suppression of the intelligent few by the mob for the bosses. ”

“ You hug the pleasant and cheerful theory to your hearts, and twist history to fit its fancied laws. You cannot see that the law of evolution works by a system of waves advancing and retreating; yet as you say the tide goes forward always. ”

“ You will say, 'Rise then, gird thyself with the sword of scorn and invective, and strike with exaltation at the false civilisation which is the death of art and of all that is worthy in life.' Dear boy, our fathers in their fond, visionary idealism made for all time such warfare of no avail. ”

“ McCann sat bolt upright. "Look here, Aurelian," he said seriously, "I can't talk in this way, I am not that kind of man. What has come over you? I left you a socialist, and I come back and find you an unreasoning royalist, incapable of talking sense, putting your defenceless fancies into the armour of paradox. What in the name of common-sense do you mean by it?"
Aurelian turned his handsome head and looked at the red-bearded agitator. "Malcolm," he said gently, "as you would say, we had best have it out. ”

“ Ragged and grimy children, hardly old enough to walk, sprawled and scrambled on the dirty platform, and as McCann hurried by, a five-year old cursed shrilly a still more youthful little tough, who answered in kind. Vulgar theatre-bills in rank reds and yellows flaunted on the cindery walls; discarded newspapers, banana-skins, cigar-butts, and saliva were ground together vilely under foot by the scuffling mob. Dirt, meanness, ugliness everywhere,—in the unhappy people no less than in their surroundings. ”

“ Down from the terrace stretched the great garden, where multitudinous lilies flashed in the first light with iridescent dew. A splendid peacock swept flauntingly through the mazy walks and among the white statues until it reached the central fountain, where it spread itself in the sun. At the foot of the last terrace, where the marble steps turned to serpentine in the still water, a small white boat with prow of gilded fretwork lay motionless among the opening water-lilies and the great blooms of the lotos. ”

“ By cunning schemes and crafty mechanism they, impelled by most honourable motives, have woven a System which is now not alone the System of these United States but of that Europe which we have dragged to our level; a System which is now being accepted by that pure and happy civilisation, the last to yield to our importunity, Japan, and being accepted to its own damnation. And that System has made impossible forever any successful result; for so dominant is it, so subtle in its influence, so almighty in its power, that human strength is helpless before it. ”

“ As he smoked, his thoughts went back to Aurelian with some uneasiness. "I am afraid he is a backslider," he mused seriously. "Now, when I went over to England a couple of years ago, he was a good socialist, the best pupil I ever had. He would rail at the world in good set terms, better than I myself. And now he runs a trap like this, with a coon slave for a driver and a footman beside him. Now, I can't lose a man like that; he was a born leader of men, when leaders are what we lack. Besides, he had a lot of money, and we need money as badly as we need leaders. ”

“ We might as well work for the restoration of chivalry, of the House of Stuart, of the spirit of the Cinque-Cento, or any other equally desirable yet hopeless thing. What we are, that our art is also. Every school of art, every lecture on æsthetics, every art museum, is a waste and a vanity, their influence is nothing. ”

“ You would make me—an artist—forsake it all, and go shoulder a rifle, or carry a red flag. I have a life given me, let me live. I am not a fighter, let me be; let me live here in this happy oasis in the desert of men. ”

“ I detest the republic, and long for the monarchy again."
"Aurelian," said McCann, "will you tell me straight what you mean when you say that, yet claim [Pg 28] to be a socialist? I asked you once before that empty-headed Rip Van Winkle called Strafford Wentworth in the other room, and you made an evasive answer. Now, tell me, how do you reconcile the two?"
"Because I believe that political socialism will destroy society and clear the ground for a new life; because it will annihilate the Republic, and make monarchial government possible."
"It will destroy neither, but reform them both." ”

“ Even as in the monasteries of the sixth century the wise monks treasured the priceless records of a dead life until the night had passed and the white day of mediævalism dawned on the world, so suffer me to dream in my cloister through evil days; for the night has come when man may no longer work. ”

“ Malcolm, there is beauty still left, and a little art; it will last us through the twilight."
"Art will not quiet my conscience, nor blind my eyes to the sight of rotting slaves and foul fat drivers."
"You take things too seriously!" cried Wentworth, [Pg 24] biting the heavy leaves one by one from a drooping rose. "It is like putting new wine into old bottles to try to pour seriousness into this decrepit and degenerate age."
McCann laughed aloud. ”

“ And you yourselves, McCann, bon citoyen, you agitators and socialists, hug to yourselves the vain phantom of popular government. You ought to know better, for you know something of sociology if you are sweetly ignorant on politics. What was that Balzac said, Aurelian? ”

“ McCann had chafed furiously under this tirade, and as Wentworth threw himself down in a low chair, lighting his Dimitrino cigarette at the flames of the brazier, he burst out violently: "You are all wrong, you don't know what you are talking about when you say we don't want a political reform! ”

“ In a little time his three horrid heads will growl with rising fury each to each, over the enormous spoils of decaying life. Wait! and the growls will grow fierce and more furious; and at last in mortal and horrible combat the beast will strive with itself, spreading chaos and death around. ”

“ You yourself do them honour, for that you yourself have yielded to their evil influence; until you have risen once for all superior to their plausible sophistry, every thought you have, every act you are guilty of, will be tainted by them and made of no avail. ”

“ I never take the black smoke myself, nor any of you: wise, all of you, but God forbid that I should refuse any guest of mine aught! They, sleeping in opium-dreams, have chosen their way. We will choose another for ourselves."
III.
HE night had grown old unnoticed, and now in the first dim twilight of coming dawn Aurelian and McCann were sitting on the wide terrace that stretched along the south side of the great house, smoking lazily and drinking the fine rare wines that Aurelian treasured as he treasured his precious books. ”

“ Above, men in dirty shirt-sleeves lolled out of the grimy windows, where long festoons of half-washed clothes drooped sordidly. On the other side, gangs of workmen were hurriedly repairing the ravages of a fire that evidently had swept clear a large space in its well-meant but ineffectual attempts at purgation. ”

“ HIS," said Eveleth, languidly, turning his head in the valley of silken pillows until he could see the long figure of Aurelian drooping in the Mexican hammock across the big room through the dim strata of blue smoke that, in the silence, lay almost motionless, swirled now and then into subtle curlings and windings as some drowsy smoker breathed more white vapour into the slowly moving and rising tide,—"This is the [Pg 10] peace of the land of Proserpina, the faultless content of perfect possession. Philistinism is not without honour, for behold! ”

“ McCann gasped in impotent rage, but Aurelian interposed with his low voice. "You will reach nothing by such argument, my children. You are both visionaries,—you, Malcolm, who dream of ideal, impossible republics surrounded by the tottering ruins of your fantastic fabrics, builded on the shifting sand of popular fancies; you, Strafford Wentworth, dear dupe of futile hopes, vainly watching for the King to come to his own again. Dreamers both of you! I alone am the practical man ”

“ This passed, and then came the circle of "suburban residences," as crowded almost as the tottering tenements, but with green grass around them. Frightful spectacles these,—"Queen Anne" and colonial vagaries painted lurid colours, and frantic in their cheap elaboration. Between two affected little cottages painted orange and green and with round towers on their corners, stood a new six-story apartment-house with vulgar front of brown stone, "Romanesque" in style, but with long flat sides of cheap [Pg 6] brick. ”