Mischief-maker

“ I have occupied myself here in work of different sorts. I have tried in my way to do good among women less happy, even, than I. Wherever I went I saw that every woman who has sinned, every woman who is miserable, every woman who has become a blot upon the earth, is what she is by reason of man's selfishness. Can you wonder that I have grown a little bitter?"
"I wonder at nothing in the woman who has been Falkenberg's wife," Julien replied. "He seems to me the most unscrupulous person who ever breathed. Yet in his way he is marvelously attractive." ”

“ The children of the night—the weary, unwholesome products of dissipation, rubbed shoulders with the children of the morning—girls, hatless, in simple clothes, walking with brisk footsteps to their work; market women, brown-cheeked and hearty, setting out their wares upon the stalls; the youth of Paris, blithe and strenuous, walking light-footed to the region of warehouses and factories. Julien and Kendricks looked out upon the little scene with interest. ”

“ Herr Freudenberg said slowly. "No man can be at his best who knows care. I, Prince Falkenberg, I promise you that it is the truth which I have spoken, the truth which I shall show you. You lose no shadow of honor or self-respect. There will come a day when the millions of readers whom you shall influence will say to themselves—'Paul Jesen, he is the man who saw the truth. It is he who has saved France.' You accept?" ”

“ You never thought of me myself, me as an independent person, in all your life. Do you believe that I am simply Lady Anne Clonarty, a reasonable puppet, a walking doll to receive some one's guests and further his social ambitions? Don't you think that I have the slightest idea of being a woman of my own? What's wrong with me, I wonder, Julien, that you should take me for something automatic? ”

“ You can travel around the world in your own yacht, you can visit all strange countries, you can wander where you will, and all the time affairs in the world will go on very much the same as if you had stayed and given the best hours of your life to the dusty treadmill. I am an old man, Lady Anne, and I have an evil name in your country. ”

“ Germany's first and greatest wish is for a rich and prosperous France. On the other hand, Germany is loyal to her friendships, and fervent in her hatreds. The country whose humiliation is a solemn charge upon my people is Great Britain and not France."
Monsieur Décheles leaned back in his chair. Monsieur Felix Brant never moved.
"I want," Herr Freudenberg continued, "to have you think and consider and weigh this matter. Why do you, a great and prosperous country, link yourselves with a decaying power, against whom, before very long, Germany is pledged to strike? ”

“ There is a general and daily flitting about of its inhabitants after news of their neighbours—all that is said and done within a three-mile circle is reported, and, of course, a great deal of what has neither been said nor done. There are certain people whose business it is to make mischief, and mischief-making is a calling in which it does not require much wit to be successful. ”

“ They bang the typewriters in our offices, they elbow us in the streets, they smile at us from the next table at our workaday luncheon, they crowd the tubes and the cars and the cabs in the streets. Why the deuce, Julien, can't we treat them like those sage Orientals, and dump them all in one place where they belong till we've finished our work?"
Julien lifted his tumbler of whiskey and soda to his lips and set it down empty.
"In a way, you're right, Kendricks," he agreed. "You go too far, of course, but I do believe that women hold too big a place in our lives. ”

“ There's a power to do mischief—to undo what has been done with great expense and labor, to waste and destroy, to be cruel to the weak, to lie and quarrel, and to talk poisonous nonsense. That's the sort of power that ignorant numbers have. ”

“ Her eyes, which looked steadily down the road in front of them, were full of the fatigue of unwelcome days.
"You men so easily escape," she murmured. "We women never."
Julien was conscious of a certain selfishness in all his thoughts connected with his companion. He had been so ready always to accept her society, to accept and profit by the stimulus of her intellect. ”

“ Julien laughed.
"What shall I do? Present myself? Bah!" he added, almost fiercely. "I wish the girl would keep her black eyes to herself. I want to tell you this, Kendricks. You've talked some splendid common sense to me without going out of your way to do it. I am not going to whine, now or at any other time, but as long as I live I never want anything more to do with a woman. That sounds about the most futile and empty-headed thing a man can say—I know that. ”

“ And thus, although each man would have a portion of time to himself in which he was allowed to do what he chose without let or inquiry,—so long as he was working in that particular business which he had undertaken for the common benefit, any secrecy on his part would be immediately supposed to mean mischief ”

“ I hate their meddling in men's affairs, shoving themselves into politics, always whispering in a man's ear under pretence of helping him with their sympathy. They're in evidence wherever you go—women, women, women! The place reeks with them. You can't go about your work, hour by hour or day by day, without having them on every side of you. ”

“ Julien said, "that I require a few more details if your advice is to be of value?"
"The details are here in this room," Herr Freudenberg replied firmly. "Be my man. I cannot offer you fame, because fame comes only, nowadays, to the man who serves his own country. You see, I make no pretense at deceiving you, but I offer you a life of action, I offer you such wealth as your imagination can have conceived, and I offer you revenge." ”

“ Herr Freudenberg made a little grimace.
"But my toys!" he cried. "Who is there in Germany could make such toys as I and my factory people? The world would be sad indeed—the world of children, I mean—if my factory were to close down or my designers should lose their cunning."
"Is it the greatest ambition of monsieur," the girl asked, "to amuse and make happy the world of children? Have not the world of grown people some claims?" ”

“ There is no life, there is no career upon this world for a woman. It is a strange doctrine, perhaps, to preach in these days, but I have searched and I know it to be the truth. Nature meant woman for man, and if she rebels there is no seat for her alone among the mighty places. Alone I can win none of the things I desire. ”

“ In many cases the instant removal of an offender from his power of doing mischief is the only mode of preventing the utter and perhaps irretrievable ruin of public affairs. In such a case the process ought to be simple, and the power absolute in one or in either hand separately. ”

“ He is necessarily, also, called into action in cases when all the worst passions of our nature—our hatred and revenge, and our self-interest—are set in motion. Consider the mischief which might be constantly done on a grand scale in society, if the vast majority of attorneys and solicitors were not honorable, and able men! ”

“ Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individuals, because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to disgrace or punishment. They feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor good-will. ”

“ Now that I am outside the thing, I see the narrowness of it all, I see that I was giving up many things which are interesting and beautiful, many friendships that might have been delightful, but on the other hand there was always the pressing on, the big, vital side, the great throb of life. I miss it. I feel to myself as a great factory sounds on Sundays and holidays, when the engine that drives all the machinery of the place is silent. I wander among the empty, quiet places, and I am lonely. ”

“ Secondly, whether in the cases where mischief sometimes is perceived, and no other purpose appears to be effected, we do not almost as uniformly lay the blame on our own ignorance, and conclude, not that the arrangement was made without any design, and that mischief arises without any contriver, but that if we knew the whole case we should find a design and contrivance, and also that the apparent mischief would sink into the general good? ”

“ Prosperity and smooth-traveling along the easy ways, even though they come to one as the reward of brainwork, lead to a certain flabbiness in life, lead to many moments when you have to stop and ask whether things are worth while, lead sometimes, I think, to that curious neuroticism from which clever, successful people suffer as well as the butterflies of fashion. You are up against it now, Julien, real and hard. You don't feel that you've got a day to live that you care a snap of the fingers about. ”

“ To-night I have Marguerite by my side, and you—you can choose from the world of Marguerites. There is nothing in life like this—the hour of midnight, the music of the moment, the wine of the hour, the woman we love. Drink, Estermen, once more. Fix your thoughts upon the present. Mademoiselle looks around her. She finds you dull. She will seek for another admirer. Ah, mademoiselle!" he added, leaning across the table, "if the sweetest girl in Paris were not here already by my side, do you think that I would permit you to be for an instant the companion of a dumb admirer?" ”

“ And all the time the wall will grow, brick by brick, and you will look up to the skies and find them empty, and listen for the music and hear none, and a web will be spun about your heart, and your brain will be clogged, and the fine thoughts will go, and you'll never be anything but a successful politician. ”

“ When it don’t go astray for a long time, they get suspicious and throttle it anyhow, because they think it is hatching deviltry. Imagine the Grand Vizier in solemn council with the magnates of the realm, spelling his way through the hated newspaper, and finally delivering his profound decision: “This thing means mischief—it is too darkly, too suspiciously inoffensive—suppress it! ”

“ There are fairer flowers in life to be plucked than any which can be reached from the high places in Downing Street or Berlin.... Let me, at least, Lady Anne, make sure of your support? Mind, I am not threatening now—I plead."
Lady Anne looked at him gravely.
"Sir Julien," she declared, "will answer you for himself."
"But I want your own decision," Falkenberg insisted. "I want you to see the truth as I see it. I want you to tell me that you agree with me."
She shook her head.
"But I do not!" she exclaimed. "To me you have spoken like a sophist. One does not gain happiness by seeking it. ”

“ When driven to labour by the compulsive power of the white man, he performs the task assigned to him in a headlong, careless manner, treading down with his feet or cutting with his hoe the plants he is put to cultivate—breaking the tools he works with, and spoiling everything he touches that can be injured by careless handling. Hence the overseers call it ‘rascality,’ supposing that the mischief is intentionally done. ”

“ When poor customers complained of these things, they were told that the system was perfect, that the evils were all from the evil men who conducted the business! but the good people did not further explain how the perfection of the system could ever be realised, since it must always be worked by imperfect men. Complainants thus mildly and vaguely answered were very fortunate; others, in places where the firm was very powerful, were answered by imprisonment or false accusations, or by being pelted and even murdered by mobs. ”

“ We should have outlived the days of barbarity. I do not understand men who deal in such fashion with their enemies."
Falkenberg frowned.
"There is something between us greater than personal enmity," he retorted fiercely. "My personal enemy I would deal with in such a manner as I make no doubt would commend itself to your scruples. Julien Portel is more than that. He is the enemy of my country. ”

“ Offenses and contraventions against property.
“It is egoism which chiefly governs man, shows itself positively in the desire to acquire as much as possible, and negatively in the desire to lose as little as possible, and which reduces activity to insatiability, and economy to avarice.”35 Now, cupidity leads to most of the crimes against property, while hatred, vengeance, etc. drive men to malicious mischief. ”

“ By the unerring administration of such a state, every fraud or oppression practised upon others, all self-aggrandizement at their expense, will be rendered not merely vain, and all labour so applied fruitless, but such attempts would even recoil upon their author, and assuredly bring home to himself the evil which he would cause to others. ”

“ Where no human agency whatever is interposed, and the calamity comes without any one being to blame for it, the mischief seems a step, and a large step, nearer the creative or the superintending cause, because it is, as far as men go, altogether inevitable. ”

“ If the magnitude of the mischief affords, in any degree, the measure by which to judge of the criminality of a project, few have ever been devised to be compared with the present, whether the end be regarded, or the means by which it is proposed to be accomplished. ”

“ You are lonely here and you need companionship, and I am very much in the same position. You are a hater of women and I have sworn eternal enmity against all men. We are so safe, and solitude is bad for us. ”