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Equilibrium 
 
 OR 
 
 Meetings 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Sphinx Club 
 
 By 
 
 Charles F. Farrar 
 
 1906 
 Printed" for the Author 
 
LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Gooies Received 
 
 APR 28 1906 
 
 C<i Pyi*tit Entry 
 
 cuss €L XXc. No 
 
 OOPY B 
 
 at 
 
 
 Copyright 1905 
 
 BY 
 
 Charles F. Farrar- 
 
 PRESS OF E. A. JOHNSON & CO. 
 PROVIDENCE, R. I. 
 
Introductory 
 
 Kind Reader, you may have an idle wish to know, 
 Why this my feeble attempt to sow 
 Seeds of Nature in a " cultured " soil, 
 Where unnurtured they must die, thus foil 
 The power of a fact. 
 
 This story is culled from ancient lore ; 
 Socrates, Plato, Solon, 'tis to mese I soar. 
 Comrades of Truth and Nature, they can tell, 
 Secrets of life on which man s mind should dwell, 
 Think, then act. 
 
 Their words do hut the course of Nature trace, 
 Through all the ages of this human race, 
 Follow this tribes course and that one's to its close, 
 Victory's triumph, defeat's carnage and dark repose, 
 Or let History teach. 
 
IV 
 
 Tis a simple lesson that a child could learn, 
 False flush of pride on victory's hrow to hum, 
 And know cold death the vanquished doth reward, 
 These extremes should work with one accord, 
 Not one the other overreach. 
 
 For from victory and defeat conscience was horn, 
 A nohle offspring, sunbeam from the dawn, 
 Placed in man's heart to guide aright 
 His faltering footsteps to me beacon light, 
 On wisdom's golden gate. 
 
 To Nature we belong, and in a natural way 
 We must live and hold at bay 
 Our passions, which, at times so wild, 
 Controlled, governed and made mild, 
 Learn to love, forget to hate. 
 
 C. F. F. 
 
Chapter I 
 
 ^4^^~S WO men were walking down a street 
 ■ *■ J in an old New England town, one 
 ^^^ of those old villages in grand Old 
 New England that has given up all of her 
 young men, and all the things that go to make 
 up life in a community, given up all these to 
 the nearby city of trouble and care, which has 
 taken all the bright jewels, the treasures of 
 home life, the very humanity of the human 
 family as it used to be in the old days, and left 
 only the old people to die and the town to go 
 to decay. 
 
 The two men, evidently just arrived from 
 the city, made their way to what was once an 
 old town hall, surrounded by great elms, and 
 with a generous lawn dotted here and there 
 with shrubs and flowering plants ; a small 
 snake-like river wound its serene way through 
 the village, but had to stop when it came to 
 this beautiful spot and smile with nature, and 
 
in stopping here, it formed a fair-sized pond at 
 the west side of the old hall, and then hurried 
 on to dash through the remains of an old water 
 wheel, part of the ancient grist mill long in 
 disuse at the lower end of the town. The men 
 walked up the gravel path to the old hall, 
 opened the door and were welcomed in by a 
 middle-aged janitor. 
 
 The interior of this building was one large 
 hall, very high studded. The walls were adorn- 
 ed with pictures of Alexander the Great, Julius 
 Caesar, Alfred the Great, the Black Prince, 
 famous son of the third Edward of England ; 
 the great Dukes of Marlborough and Welling- 
 ton looked down from out of solid oak frames ; 
 Frederick the Great of Prussia and the "Man 
 of Destiny" the Great Napoleon, were there 
 also; George Washington held the place of 
 honor in a very large gold frame over the huge 
 fireplace; on pedestals were the busts of the 
 great Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Lord Bacon 
 and others, renowned in literature and art. The 
 furniture was of old colonial style. Around the 
 entire room was a library of books of every 
 
description, ancient and modern, such was the 
 abode of the Sphinx Club. The two men 
 sat down in the spacious chairs wheeled into 
 a circle composed of five other men who would 
 strike the beholder as exceptionally intelligent. 
 The two last to sit down — of one it would be 
 said he was a prosperous man of the world. 
 He was young, fair-haired, with blue eyes, a 
 strong face denoting high culture and strong 
 will. This man was Cyril Payne, having an 
 easy-going nature, though at times quite sar- 
 castic, his club mates called him by his Chris- 
 tian name. The other was Richard Plantag- 
 enet ; that he was a direct descendant of the 
 Lion Heart is not known, but all who knew 
 him would say that he had no weak heart in 
 defending the right against the wrong, but as 
 we all have the strain of Adam's blood run- 
 ning through our veins, he was of the same 
 blood as Richard the First of England. He was 
 addressed as Richard by his fellows ; this using 
 of his given name was due in part to Cyril's 
 constant use of it, and in part to often calling 
 on him for information on all subjects that 
 
8 
 
 came up for discussion. He was dark com- 
 plexioned and had a face and figure like Oli- 
 ver Wendell Holmes' "Brahmin" New Eng- 
 land school master. 
 
 "Now here we have our wise men," said one 
 of the five. "What we were discussing was 
 insincerity." 
 
 "Insincerity is a virtue, or I should say a 
 modern virtue, one of the twentieth century 
 slogans," observed Cyril. 
 
 "That explains the reason you are al- 
 ways talking 'double,' " said Richard, 
 "what I mean is that you will say one 
 thing and mean another, so much, in 
 fact, that I don't know half the time what 
 to think of your words as they in nowise coin- 
 cide with your actions. You will say that it is 
 'utter folly' to give to a beggar, as we have in- 
 stitutions for their care, pay men large sal- 
 aries to take care of them, and so on. Still, you 
 are the first to give to these people, as I will 
 prove. The other day, as we were walking 
 down the street, we met an old, and to all ap- 
 
9 
 
 pearances, infirm man, who requested a little 
 help. You were the first to fish out a coin. 
 
 "I then and there made up my mind to catch 
 you, and straightway, when we parted, I went 
 back and asked the bootblacks and newsboys 
 where this old fellow lived, and got all the 
 information that I wished for, not only his his- 
 tory and address, but the social status of all 
 others that came into the boys' imaginations. 
 Well, I followed the boys' directions in regard 
 to the old man's home, and even as I located 
 the place the old man appeared on the scene, 
 made his way to the door of a fine looking 
 apartment house and pushed the bell. 
 
 "A clean elderly lady answered saying, 'Hel- 
 lo, George, done well today?' He nodded his 
 head and passed in. Well, I promptly went up 
 to the door. The same lady answered my call.* 
 I happened to have a book with me. I pre- 
 tended to be a book agent. She asked me in, 
 and I stepped into as fine a parlor as you have 
 at your home. The lady said she would call 
 George. She had no need as George came into 
 the room at once, as fine and healthv looking 
 
10 
 
 an individual as you would wish to see., about 
 middle-aged, gray hair, blue eyes. He had evi- 
 dently dropped his make-up suddenly as I 
 could see some dirty marks around his eyes. 
 Well, I actually sold the book for one dollar, 
 George 'panning' out the dollar. And so here 
 is your half dollar that you gave this old de- 
 ceiver, the other half I will keep to pay for the 
 investigation." 
 
 "Well," said Cyril, "I don't see but that you 
 have proved what I said in the first place was 
 correct, namely, that insincerity is a modern 
 virtue, and you have also sold a one-dollar- 
 and-a-half book for one dollar, which makes 
 you fifty cents out instead of me." And Cyril 
 laughed. "I tell you this is an insincere age 
 that our country is passing through, and the 
 sooner we get on the other side of it the bet- 
 ter. Xow let me bore you with a couple of 
 instances of crying injustice. Suppose a young 
 man falls in love and shows it, as some of them 
 do. The girl takes all kind of advantages of 
 him, as everybody else does. He is looked upon 
 as an easv mark. His friends meet him and sav. 
 
II 
 
 r Saw you having a jolly time last night and 
 you didn't know it either, so now fellows he 
 must treat.' And away goes a couple of dol- 
 lars. He goes to the florist who says as he 
 smiles blandly, 'Oh ! yes, I know, the boys told 
 me so. I will send her something nice,' and 
 the bill comes in for ten dollars. He goes into 
 a jewelry store and is met with, 'Oh ! yes, 
 for a young lady?' and the young man tries 
 to answer 'yes.' It costs him fifty dollars. And 
 chocolates ! Well, the candy makers are all 
 millionaires with a house in Xew York and a 
 villa in Newport, and he is their prey. And 
 during all this robbery the girl, perceiving 
 that she has him 'stuck' will make him jealous 
 'just for fun.' And this is all because he is 
 sincere. Poor young man ! 
 
 "And what happens to the business man if 
 he takes everything sincerely? I need hardly 
 say failure. Suppose a business man starts 
 out on a morning to take everything and every- 
 body sincerely, what would happen? Why, he 
 would have all his 'friends,' his neighbors, 
 and all the drummers in creation at his door, 
 
12 
 
 trying to sell him all the rubbish that they had 
 in stock for years, and all the gold bricks in 
 the country." 
 
 "Enough of that," said Richard. "Please 
 tell me if there has been a great deed done in 
 any age that has not been accomplished by 
 sincere people? Has any great act been done 
 that is not the result of sincere endeavor? A 
 large number of acts have been done through 
 selfish ends, but the doer was sincere. The 
 great Xapoleon was a very sincere person, he 
 was a man who had every confidence in him- 
 self, sincere confidence, and he was in my esti- 
 mation the greatest man the world has ever 
 seen, he is the mightiest example of sincerity 
 that I could hold up to you, a man of small 
 statue, education limited, but a man of power- 
 fully sincere purposes. He came from Cor- 
 sica, of humble parents, a mixture of Greek 
 and French. He came alone and captured 
 France and for fifteen years made her the most 
 powerful nation in Europe, and planted his 
 iron hand on all nations who rose up against 
 him. To be sure he did not hold his power 
 
*3 
 
 long, but it was not his fault, but the fault of 
 his people, and even the great Napoleon could 
 not alter the Nation's make-up, all he could 
 do was to show them the way and for a time 
 compel them to follow it, but no mortal man 
 could hold a whole nation in the palm of his 
 hand, and of course the greatest general had 
 to go down when the nation turned false to 
 him." 
 
 "Oh! yes," said Cyril, "that's all right, but 
 that is ancient history. Sincerity was every- 
 thing in the eighteenth century. If a man called 
 his neighbor a liar he would have to fight to 
 the death with swords, pistols, or knives, but 
 now if a man calls another a hard name the 
 other fellow laughs and tells his friend how 
 so-and-so made a fool of himself down town 
 today, all the while this same fellow would 
 like to kick the other fellow across the street 
 or knock his head against the sidewalk. This 
 comes, I believe, from the desire to get all the 
 gold each and every man can grasp, and also 
 from a very large percentage of cowardice." 
 
 "I agree with you on the percentage of 
 
14 
 
 cowardice in the average man of the twentieth 
 century," said Richard. "I think Edmond 
 Burke is entirely right when he says 'terror 
 is the common stock of all emotions,' and ter- 
 ror is about sixty per cent, of the feelings of 
 the average man. This man is suffering from 
 too much education. He knows too much(?) 
 about life and death, so much that he is terror 
 stricken if death is thought of. He is not so 
 sure of himself as was his ignorant brother of 
 the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. He 
 claims to know so much about evolution, so 
 much about the science of life, and the fact is 
 he does not know any more than his brother of 
 the sixteenth century. A great English histo- 
 rian unconsciously agrees with me on this point 
 when he says that the autocratic rule of the 
 kings and clergy and barons at this time was 
 the best thing for man at this stage of his de- 
 velopment. There is the very same stage of de- 
 velopment going on in every child and man in 
 the world today. Do they not come into this 
 world without any knowledge of it? There is 
 hardly any need for me to dwell on the false 
 
15 
 
 idea he has about the improvements he has 
 made. I claim he has not made any. I would 
 refer you to my former arguments. Even such 
 as look like new ideas you will find upon in- 
 vestigation were well known to the ancient 
 Greeks and Romans, or long before them. 
 Some modern discoveries were even in use in 
 the 'stone age.' Some of the wisest sages 
 will prove what I am saying and in the next 
 breath tell me what a wonderful age of learn- 
 ing we are living in. It is very much like our 
 hand-writing experts and our experts in chem- 
 istry giving evidence at a modern trial. 
 One expert has just the same degree of intel- 
 ligence and learning as the other. Still, one 
 will say a handkerchief is blood-stained and 
 the other will declare it is iron rust, or some 
 other substance. And the learned writer 
 will vouch for a signature and his equally 
 learned brother will swear that it is 
 false. It is the same with the medical pro- 
 fession. Two doctors graduated from the same 
 college, have the same high standard of train- 
 ing, call them to a patient at different times, 
 
i6 
 
 one will say that the patient has diphtheria 
 and the other will say it is typhoid. And so it 
 is amongst our scientific men. They have built 
 a 'Tower of Babel' that they cannot complete 
 because of the 'confusion of tongues,' or, as 
 I put it, 'confusion of knowledge'. 
 
 "Speaking of the fact that there is nothing 
 new under the sun, I ran across an article in 
 a modern publication telling a wonderful tale 
 of the millions of new forms of fish-life in the 
 depths of the ocean. Now this is only another 
 case in point showing the wonderfully short- 
 sightedness of some of our learned men. Those 
 wonderfully formed deep-sea fishes, or mama- 
 lias, call them what you will, that these fel- 
 lows are bringing to the surface, were common 
 property of our prehistoric fathers — accord- 
 ing to the Darwinians — and also found 
 amongst the ancient Chinee, in drawings or 
 sketches of time immemorial, and brought 
 down to the present day art-work of the Chi- 
 naman. 
 
 "These people are one of the oldest nations 
 on the face of the earth, and at the same time 
 
17 
 
 they rarely adopt anything new, consequently 
 never left the old way of doing things, and it 
 is thus reasonable to suppose that these draw- 
 ings were handed down to them, taken from 
 life by their prehistoric fathers. And we have 
 as I said before, also the evolution theory to 
 prove this same fact, and I may add that in 
 diggings in what is supposed to be the land of 
 the cave men, our searchers after prehistoric 
 information have found drawings of wild 
 looking birds and mamalias evidently made by 
 the cave men from life. 
 
 "Some of the wild fantastic scribblings of 
 the North American Indians suggest prehis- 
 toric animals, fishes, and birds to me, as their 
 writings suggest their Asiatic origin. It has 
 been said that they are one of the lost tribes of 
 Israel by men, who connected their writings 
 with that of the ancient Hebrews, but it is 
 very evident that they are Asiatic. 
 
 "Compare some of the living creatures with 
 the fossil of prehistoric mamalias. Take the 
 elephant for instance. The mammoth is said 
 to be progenitor of the elephant of today, but 
 
i8 
 
 I believe that there were elephants on this 
 earth at the same time that the mammoths were 
 here. They were two distinct species of the 
 same animal. The reason we have no mam- 
 moths now is that nature has no further use 
 for them. She let them die out in favor of the 
 elephant. It is the old law of the survival of 
 the fittest of each species of animals. Talking 
 of elephants puts me in mind of an item I 
 saw in a paper the other day wherein it said 
 there had just been an operation performed on 
 a young elephant to remove his corns that had 
 become very annoying to him since his cap- 
 tivity. He had been out of the African jungle 
 less than a year. Now in the natural home of 
 this poor beast it had no such trouble, for he 
 would have been free to roam through the 
 soft woods and plains for four hundred years 
 or more and not have had so much as a corn 
 on his foot, but less than a year's abode in 
 civilizatidn and his feet are covered with them. 
 Like his keeper's feet, no doubt, for there are 
 very few men who do not have corns, caused 
 foy tramping on concrete sidewalks and cob- 
 
19 
 
 ble stones and the like. Men of late have adopt- 
 ed rubber heels and soles, which only make a 
 bad matter worse, and are also using rubber- 
 tired vehicles in their feeble attempt to get 
 back to the dear-old-mother-earth footease. 
 
 "Well, to get back to Darwin again. I can- 
 not see where he gets his idea of man descend- 
 ing from a monkey or some such animal. I 
 believe that man has always existed as man 
 since creation. What perceptible difference is 
 there in physical man of the present day and 
 physical man since he learned to write about 
 himself — I mean since the time of our earliest 
 historians ? Or take it later, even in the Alex- 
 andrian age about seven hundred years B. C. 
 That was a great age of learning, I may be 
 pardoned in adding. The city of Alexandria 
 alone had a library of seven hundred thousand 
 volumes. This would make some modern cities 
 proud to own, and contemplate if you can 
 what an irreparable loss civilization sustained 
 at the wanton destruction of this gigantic col- 
 lection of ancient knowledge. Well, physical 
 man has not changed since then, not one iota, 
 
20 
 
 and mentally very little. Now if man was 
 changing there would be a notable change in 
 nearly three thousand years. I could go back 
 further than this but it would be the same. 
 Man has not changed physically in four thou- 
 sand years as a race or as a species of animal. 
 Man is a very delicate and easily deranged 
 organism, and it stands to reason if he was 
 changing he would show it somewhat at the 
 end of all these years. The only change tak- 
 ing place in man is the temporary changes that 
 circumstances drive him to for a couple of 
 generations. The follies he falls into so easily 
 in one generation he usually abhors in the next 
 generation or so. He always gets back to 
 where he started from physically. Breeding 
 has a good deal to do with this, as the tall man 
 weds a short woman, the sickly man weds a 
 robust healthy woman, and the thin man a 
 fat woman, and vice versa, this being so or- 
 dained by nature, as the tall man sees more to 
 admire in the short woman by reason of his 
 tallness. It is that inborn desire to get what is 
 forbidden us handed down from Mother Eve 
 
21 
 
 so long ago. And the offspring of these unions 
 are normal human beings as a rule. Then also 
 when a husband goes wrong the wife is good 
 by contrast, as bad makes good. If we had no 
 evil by what standard could we judge good? 
 Nature corrects the deformed man in her own 
 good time, if she has anything to work on. if 
 she has not then he goes to the dust and is no 
 more. It so happens that whole races of men, 
 after being wasted by their excesses, are thus 
 weighed in the balance and found wanting, 
 then they go down before a greater race, as 
 did the nations of old repeatedly." 
 
 "Now we have another question that before 
 you gentlemen arrived we were talking over," 
 said Franklin. "How does our present civili- 
 zation compare with that of the fourteenth 
 to the eighteenth centuries ? Can you not help 
 us a little on this?" 
 
 "Is our civilization to be compared with that 
 of the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries? 
 From my point of view a comparison would 
 be in favor of the earlier centuries," said Rich- 
 ard. "We are far behind the Medieval era, so 
 
22 
 
 far in fact that I marvel that more sensible 
 people have not declared themselves before 
 this. We are far behind them in culture, great 
 literature, and great art, have no place in the 
 make-up of the modern world or the present 
 twentieth century. Real art still stays with 
 Michael Angelo, Rembrandt, and the old 
 Greeks and Romans ; great literature died with 
 Shakespeare, Milton — of course Longfellow, 
 Holmes, and Hawthorne resurrected it in the 
 new world, but we have no such men nowa- 
 days. All that is written now is sensational 
 nonsense, something to fire the imagination of 
 the misguided masses. Look around. Can you 
 find a satisfied man, woman or child? No need 
 of me to ask. The trouble lies in too much 
 excitement, too much short-lived literature, 
 nothing lasting, no food for thought or reason. 
 And art, all we make nowadays to call art, is 
 flashing lithographs that are here today and 
 gone tomorrow. I could go on, and cry down 
 this wild civilization." 
 
 "Well now, Richard," said Cyril, "don't 
 you think you are putting it too hard? What 
 
23 
 
 do you say about our mechanical improve- 
 ments? Think of Stevenson, Fulton, Morse, 
 and our electrical inventors, are they not great 
 men?" 
 
 "Oh ! yes," answered Richard, "they were 
 great men, and no doubt good Christian men, 
 but do you know, my friend, that these same 
 men have done more to take men from the 
 Christian religion than almost any other group 
 of men you could name ? You want the reason ? 
 Well, here it is. They have taken men far away 
 from nature and from nature's God. By in- 
 venting the steam locomotive men have been 
 hurled hundreds of miles in as many minutes ; 
 they have been drawn from one hot bed of sin 
 and disease to another with but a passing 
 glimpse of God's world, the woods, the green 
 fields, the mountains. All they can think of is 
 rush for gold in the hot cities. They have no 
 time to rest the train starts them off, the tele- 
 graphs, the telephone, the high speed engines, 
 in all walks of life, keep them going until they 
 drop in their tracks unprepared for the great 
 Beyond. Take the factories, the mills. The 
 
24 
 
 owners are trying to cut the price of produc- 
 tion by getting the highest speed out of every 
 machine — and what is there in any man-made 
 machine to make the operator think of the 
 great future? If the same man was out under 
 the great canopy of Heaven he would have 
 to think once in a while at least of the great 
 power that made him." 
 
 "What you say is undoubtedly true to a 
 greater or lesser extent," said Cyril. ''You 
 will agree with me that there is nothing under 
 the sun that is not composed of animal or 
 vegetable life. Even the iron that made the 
 engines you speak of. the telegraph, the tele- 
 phone, all these metals are mined out of mother 
 earth, so why is not a person in the different 
 occupations as near to nature as the farmer? 
 What the masses need is education." 
 
 "It is useless," said Richard, "to argue this 
 matter any longer. You are descending to the 
 ridiculous in saying that the masses must be 
 educated, which you know is impossible. Have 
 not wiser men than you said the same thing 
 years ago? And are we any nearer a solution 
 
25 
 
 of the problem than we were a hundred years 
 ago? No, we are not and in fact, we are far- 
 ther away, as I have been trying to tell you." 
 
 "But look here," exclaimed Cyril. "Have 
 we not more colleges, a hundred-fold more 
 than we had a hundred years back? Have we 
 not ninety-five per cent, more men and women 
 that can read and write today than a hundred 
 years ago? Do not these facts speak for them- 
 selves?" 
 
 "Agreed," answered Richard, "that we have 
 more schools and colleges, and perhaps have 
 ninety-five per cent, more people who can read 
 and write their own name. What matters it if a 
 youth or old man can read and write the Eng- 
 lish language if he cannot make any sense out 
 of it ? Where are your deep thinkers of today ? 
 Please show me a single one to compare with 
 Shakespeare. What good does so much edu- 
 cation do to such people as these that cannot 
 reason, that have no judgment, that have not 
 the capacity to digest even Robinson Crusoe? 
 It is only a few of the boys who go to college 
 that you ever hear from again. Some die of 
 
26 
 
 brain fever, caused by over-study, the brain 
 not having the clear reasoning power that it 
 ought to have if the poor boy is going to learn 
 anything. The young man is undoubtedly the 
 scion of a rich family who has been left to 
 the care of an ignorant maid. He has not been 
 allowed the company of his parents or child 
 friends, and consequently his brain lies unde- 
 veloped, not in the least way prepared for its 
 work later on. Some children are fortunate 
 enough to have one intelligent person within 
 reach, this child if there is anything in him 
 will make his mark, but he is one in a hundred 
 thousand. Environment is a great thing in the 
 early make-up of a young boy, that is where 
 the Medieval knight had the best of our 
 would-be high cultured citizen of today. 
 
 "Some of the highly cultured wait around 
 for the 'old man to kick the bucket' and still 
 others abuse their learning by misleading the 
 less intelligent masses. For instance, crime is 
 held up to us as a beacon light. Its most har- 
 rowing details are exposed to our view in 
 glaring headlines on our modern newspaper. 
 
21 
 
 It is written up by corps of writers especially 
 drilled to cater to the morbid and evil-minded. 
 The more revolting the crime, the more times 
 the details are repeated on the front page. You 
 must say these writers are learned, no doubt 
 they are graduates from Harvard or Yale, or 
 some other great college. They have a great 
 education, but what do they do with it, barter 
 it for a mess of pottage. It would be far bet- 
 ter for the world if these fellows, who use the 
 Instruments of Light to darken men's minds, 
 were left in complete ignorance. Their nat- 
 ural ability would make them good citizens, 
 but give them the delicate tools to work with 
 and they spoil the whole mould." 
 
 "Well," said Cyril, "you have a nice argu- 
 ment, but I fail to see where we are going to 
 better ourselves. According to you we are 
 retrograding instead of going ahead, as all our 
 historians say. Are all these fellows wrong? 
 If so, how can we believe former chronicles ?" 
 
 "I base my argument on conditions as they 
 are, no matter who says this or that is not 
 right," replied Richard. "Can you not in your 
 
28 
 
 inner mind agree with me on the question of 
 education ?" 
 
 "Yes, and no," answered Cyril. "I will have 
 to put it that way. What you said regarding 
 the scion of a rich family is without doubt true 
 but the great majority of the people that can 
 read and write can understand Robinson Cru- 
 soe and lots of other literature." 
 
 "Not so," said Richard. "I say they cannot 
 understand Robinson Crusoe, or will not; 
 with a large number of persons it is that they 
 cannot, with others, they will not. People at 
 the age of twenty-five are either strong-willed 
 or weak. The strong-willed person will run 
 over this kind of literature and throw it down 
 with the remark 'kindergarten' and grab a 
 blood and thunder novel and go into raptures 
 over it. The weak one will look it over and 
 could not tell why Crusoe called his man 'Fri- 
 day.' Now the reasonable one, the man with 
 common sense, that 'most uncommon sense' as 
 Ben Franklin says, would read it all, and give 
 you a sensible reason for every action of Ro- 
 binson Crusoe's. That's the way to digest a 
 
29 
 
 book that has gone down through the ages, 
 alive with interest for every boy who is to 
 make an impression on this old world." 
 
 Here Richard crossed his legs and lighted a 
 fresh cigar, saying as he did so, "Gentlemen, 
 I have finished my rambling for this meeting. 
 Hope that you have been able to glean a little 
 wheat from so much dross ; you will probably 
 not gather as much as did Ruth in the field 
 of Boaz, but it is not because I have not tried 
 to leave a sheaf here and there. If you are 
 still without a few solid grains of truth, it is 
 because I could not give them, as I have done 
 my best." 
 
 "Yes," said Franklin, "you have put some 
 things in a very strange light, but I don't 
 think you were very far from the naked truth. 
 If men will look at some of the absurdities 
 that the public are forced to live under at the 
 present day, in their true light, there are a 
 good many who w T ill agree with you. Cyril 
 has also distinguished himself this time, and 
 we have reason to congratulate ourselves that 
 we have two such members of this club to call 
 
30 
 
 on for information pertaining to the emanci- 
 pation of men from the deadly rush of modern 
 life. We will be pleased to have the valued 
 opinion of Mr. Graham, our latest member on 
 the discussion." 
 
 "Well, of course," said Graham, "the club 
 was organized for the purpose of learning the 
 best way to live and enjoy the good things of 
 life and enjoy them in the best way possible. 
 We are all trying to get at this great secret, 
 and while I think Richard and Cyril are a lit- 
 tle wild at times, in the main I agree with 
 them. This is the only way I see of helping the 
 people out of the mire they have fallen into. 
 Perhaps Mr. Wheeler will give us his opin- 
 ion on the subject also." 
 
 Mr. Wheeler arose, saying: 
 
 "Well, gentlemen, I think Richard has cov- 
 ered the ground pretty well, and I do not 
 doubt that he will do more to help make the 
 way plainer to plain people, and thus raise 
 them up for more enlightenment. We must 
 dispel all false illusions before we can get at 
 the truth of matter. This the club is trying to 
 
3i 
 
 do. In the first place Richard and Cyril have 
 attacked what to them and to the club appear 
 to be false doctrines. These we have attacked 
 and will ultimately down, but it will be a very 
 hard struggle for a handful of men to down 
 so-called new ideas and new improvements. 
 They seem to be bred in the bone as surely 
 as insincerity is included in modern civili- 
 zation. It will take more brilliant arguments 
 and more writings to instill into the modern 
 mind that we can live without so much false- 
 ness, but we must show the faults before we 
 can help the faulty." 
 
 "Can we not hear from Mr. Venner?" asked 
 Cyril. 
 
 Mr. Yenner arose saying: "Cyril has asked 
 my opinion. All that I can say is that we 
 have all got a lot to learn." 
 
 "I have gotten things so mixed up I really 
 don't know where I stand on the matter," 
 drawled the last remaining member, and he 
 yawned and promptly fell asleep in his chair. 
 
 "I think," said Cyril, "we had better ad- 
 journ this meeting indefinitely." 
 
32 
 
 "Oh! no!" exclaimed Mr. Wheeler, "we 
 will not give up what has already been accom- 
 plished by reason of two members not showing 
 the interest they should at once. These fellows 
 have studied with us but have not yet grasped 
 the theme of this discussion. They will be able 
 to out-do us perhaps in a short time. Mean- 
 while I will put them through a course of 
 training that will at least keep them awake. 
 Next week we shall all study Burke, Ruskin 
 and Darwin. These will broaden their ideas. 
 But we must be careful to regulate these 
 boys' tuition or they will be as bad as some of 
 the men of learning and no knowledge that 
 we have been discussing." 
 
Chapter II 
 
 XT WAS a beautiful afternoon late in 
 September. The sun was well over 
 in the west, giving a golden edge 
 to the shrubs and giant elms in the grounds of 
 the old hall of the Sphinx Club. The grass 
 took on a darker green ; the gravel walks even 
 seemed paved with pearls and diamonds in 
 the glow of the waning sun ; the air was clear 
 and refreshing; such a day only as one will 
 find in grand Old New England in the late 
 summer. 
 
 The members of the club had gathered un- 
 der the spreading elm trees, as was their wont 
 at this time of the year. Seated on a rustic 
 settee were Messrs. Franklin, Wheeler and 
 Graham. Cyril occupied a part of the garden 
 wheelbarrow, Richard sat on the moss covered 
 stump of an ancient maple, Air. Yenner sat 
 very upright in the only rustic chair on the 
 grounds, while the "last remaining member" 
 
34 
 
 reclined in a luxurious hammock smoking 
 cigarettes and yawning at intervals. 
 
 "As the formalities," said Graham, "of call- 
 ing the meetings of this club to order are never 
 indulged in since we have no officers, it is the 
 privilege of each member to ask another to 
 express his opinions on the subject under dis- 
 cussion. I will ask Richard to tell us something 
 more about our 'modern improvements' and 
 what they may lead to; whether they be for 
 the good or evil import in their workings for 
 man and his needs." 
 
 "Great riches," said Wheeler, "are one of 
 the contending elements of society also." 
 
 "And I think," said Franklin, "individual 
 man is counting for less and less in this whirl- 
 wind of rapid transit civilization. These 
 questions, I hope, will be taken up at some 
 length this afternoon." 
 
 "Mr. Venner and I," said Cyril, "are going 
 to ask questions as usual, with the permission 
 of the speaker." Venner said he would be a 
 good listener anyway. 
 
 A yawn and a volume of smoke from the 
 
35 
 
 direction of the hammock assured the company 
 that this member was not quite asleep as yet. 
 
 "As you fellows call on me so often," said 
 Richard, "I have developed a desire to shirk 
 a little and can only treat the subjects brought 
 up briefly as I have no memorandum nor data, 
 but will endeavor to show some of the evils 
 of too much 'improving' or abnormal develop- 
 ment, and we know that great riches have 
 always upset the equilibrium of all races of 
 men. Another well-known fact is that the in- 
 dividual man loses his individuality as the per 
 cent of unholy and wicked practices increase 
 in his daily life. 
 
 "Modern improvements, so-called, are at the 
 expense of physical man. Farming, for in- 
 stance, is being so simplified that one man can 
 cultivate one hundred acres in the western 
 plains with the aid of modern machinery, when 
 ten acres would be more than he could do 
 with the old farming implements, that made 
 brain and muscle, that made reverence for the 
 laws of nature and of man, kept down the 
 baser elements in the human animal by arduous 
 
36 
 
 labor as it was meant to be. If one man does 
 the work of every ten, supplies that ten with 
 food, which is all that man actually needs, or 
 is possible for him to have, what do the idle 
 ones do ? They get together in large numbers, 
 build a city and establish a 'commerce,' or 
 trade, or gamble over the products of the few 
 farmers, set up a code of laws and try to keep 
 each other from breaking them. Some of them 
 try to get all the land in sight within the city 
 limits to enable them to gamble a little harder 
 than their fellows. Another class finds a min- 
 eral in the earth, shows it to somebody else; 
 this person thinks it nice and they barter over 
 it, cheat each other and then cheat other men 
 who wish some of it. Thus is produced the 
 maze of endless cheating, gambling and rob- 
 bing which is carried on under the head of 
 'legitimate business.' 
 
 "How well the ancient Greeks knew the 
 evil of commercialism is shown vividly in 
 their naming one of their most important di- 
 vinities as the god of eloquence, commerce and 
 robbers ! These triplets have been together 
 
37 
 
 since their birth. It is impossible to separate 
 them. What does this continual wrestling and 
 wrangling do to man ? It dwarfs him physically 
 mentally and morally. Man not using his mus- 
 cles, nature takes them away. Man using his 
 mind for base schemes surely degrades it, he 
 leaves it open to ever}' evil wind that blows." 
 
 "I believe," said Cyril, "you said some time 
 ago that physical man did not change." 
 
 "You must not," answered Richard, "forget 
 the fact that I am not talking about the whole 
 world, but a large and misguided part. There 
 will still be enough left somewhere on our 
 globe to jump down on this mass of confusion 
 and blot it out as of yore when the time comes. 
 You recall, do you not, the 'temporary changes' 
 I mentioned? A hundred years is little in the 
 building of a nation — and man, as his abilities 
 to use his strength diminish tries to make a 
 device or 'improvement' to help him in his 
 weakness, and in so doing he creates a want in 
 another direction more vital than the first de- 
 ficiency, and I may here state that improve- 
 ments at this time are caused bv the loss of 
 
38 
 
 nature's blessings, she having taken away such 
 as he failed to make a just and proper use of. 
 This is one of the laws of nature that man can- 
 not overcome in the least semblance, in fact it 
 is impossible to trangress the laws of nature 
 without paying the penalty sooner or later. 
 Then as we know absolutely that this is so, 
 why do we not live as nature directs and enjoy 
 the good things of life, instead of doing things 
 that are sure to bring discontent and short 
 life as nature's revenge. 
 
 "Now the human existence on this planet 
 is not for the purpose of torment in some form 
 or another. As conditions are today the av- 
 erage civilized human being has to take two- 
 thirds evil with every dose of good. This is 
 not as it should be. Well, now, as we certainly 
 know that man can only have what he can eat 
 and drink and wear, everything else is super- 
 ficial and unnecessary and of no use to him, 
 thus his needs can easily be provided for. This 
 great truth that man's needs are simple is the 
 great secret of the human happiness on this 
 earth, and the sooner this is inculcated into the 
 
39 
 
 minds and hearts of the people, the sooner we 
 will have a contented and happy population of 
 strong, noble and long-lived men. 'Of what use 
 to a man if he win the whole world and lose his 
 own soul?' Why have the care and constant 
 worry of great houses and great equipages? 
 It is more ennobling to work with the hands 
 than to work with the brain constantly in 
 such small matters as caring for a house in the 
 city, a house in the country, a house at the sea- 
 shore, with their endless regime demanded by 
 the devil's constitution called 'style.' Use your 
 brain for this and such like nonsense and you 
 have no room for the great thoughts that up- 
 lift humanity. This is one of the chief causes 
 of man's losing his soul. He allows these cares 
 to quench what little real manhood the business 
 life has left in him. 'Fill your measure full 
 of chafT and there is no room for the grain.' 
 
 "Most men become specialists at maturity 
 in the line of thought that they have been 
 driven to or voluntarily adopted. People say 
 'so and so is born to such a profession.' This 
 is a relic of the old time superstition. Each and 
 
40 
 
 every one of us is born to each and every one 
 of the 'professions.' No person ever looked on 
 a master painting without a desire to do like- 
 wise if he could. No person ever gazed upon a 
 great architectural triumph without a desire 
 to create himself if it were his opportunity. He 
 knows what one man can do he can do under 
 like training to a greater or lesser degree, if 
 he be a normal man. It is these mean little 
 things that luxurious living creates, to destroy 
 a man's capacity to do great things, thus the 
 reason for people saying 'he was born to it,' 
 when they see the result of Napoleonic hard 
 work. There was no more systematic worker 
 than this man. He could not do little things 
 because he did so many to make the perfect 
 whole that man could not see the small achieve- 
 ments that resulted in the crowning victory. 
 If Napoleon had been an artist he would have 
 been a master, because he would have worked 
 hard to bring out every detail to a symmetrical 
 conclusion. If Napoleon had been an architect 
 he would have been a great architect, doing 
 
4i 
 
 his work with the same precision as he mar- 
 shalled his army. 
 
 "It is needless for me to recall to memory 
 any part of the countless great nations that 
 have been crushed into the earth as a result 
 of their extravagant man-killing excesses, 
 brought about by the building of great cities 
 and the collecting by the populations thereof 
 of great riches, and a consequent greater num- 
 ber of diseases caused by idle hands. Brave 
 men in disuse soon become cowards. Great 
 luxury and great riches should be unknown. 
 What is all this display of riches and jewelry? 
 What are these diamonds, these rubies, these 
 great castles with their gorgeous equipments, 
 elegant grounds, their expensive autos, their 
 gilded turn-outs? It is because you and I have 
 put a price on these things, put a value on 
 them. We consider them 'par excellence.' We 
 might just as well put our valued opinion on 
 things of practical use. Better make necklaces 
 and dog collars of coal. Diamonds are of no 
 use. We cannot eat them, neither can we derive 
 heat in winter from them. But you can warm 
 
42 
 
 your cold body with coal. Diamonds are use- 
 less carbon, coal is useful carbon. 
 
 "Man should be his own valet, his own far- 
 mer, his own workman. I read a glowing ac- 
 count of some of our millionaires finding an 
 isolated spot down on the coast of the Sunny 
 South cut off from the cities and towns, where 
 they can go and 'hide away' from the cares 
 of business life. They have no telephone and 
 telgraph lines, no railroads, so no market re- 
 ports or telegrams can come to break into the 
 'millionaires' paradise,' and the writer goes on 
 to say that the millionaires go boating, fishing 
 and hunting, lie in the hammocks and idly 
 while away the time in the cool shade, or play 
 outdoor games, etc. 
 
 "Here you can readily see that a millionaire 
 cannot have any more real pleasure than you 
 and I might have right in this country town. 
 We can go fishing, hunting, boating, and come 
 back with a better appetite than these men who 
 do not do enough of the right kind of work 
 to keep their digestive organs in good order. 
 When a man wins a million or so he is used up- 
 
43 
 
 physically. He has won a lot of gold and paid 
 for it with his health. In his attempt to cheat 
 nature he finds he himself is the one who is 
 cheated. He builds a great house in one of our 
 large cities, collects everything money can buy, 
 puts it into the house. Just as he thinks he is 
 going to enjoy his hard or otherwise earned 
 dollars nature steps in and demands her own 
 and he is no more. What becomes of the great 
 house or castle he has built? It does not suit 
 the fastidious ideas of his self-indulgent off- 
 spring. They sell the great paintings, the great 
 plate, and all the wonderful things along with 
 the estate. It gets into other hands, is pulled 
 to pieces. This great work of this great man 
 is torn into shreds, and not one stone of this 
 great costly pile is left one upon another, that 
 this man gave his whole life in building. He 
 and all his work is forgotten in a generation. 
 Is the price worth paying? Is it not as easy to 
 eat from a china plate as from a silver one? 
 The food will taste as good to a man with a 
 healthy body. 
 
 "It is due to the mistaken idea that man has 
 
44 
 
 as to the fitness of things. His ideas of ad- 
 vancement are wrong, but he cannot see it be- 
 cause he is so susceptible to fads. The ravish- 
 ing delight of a new sensation intoxicates him, 
 blinds his reason and destroys his common 
 sense. He sees only the surface of things. He 
 does not care to investigate for himself, and 
 thus fails of his birthright. If he only knew 
 that the height of human attainment in this 
 world is to arrive at simplicity, he would live 
 right and enjoy the world as it was meant he 
 should. 
 
 "My ideal civilization would no doubt ap- 
 pear as ridiculous as did the Wooden Horse of 
 ancient Troy to the common mind. As I know 
 that man's needs are simple, so would be my 
 civilization. It was Socrates who said 'To be 
 simple in one's needs is to be like unto the 
 gods.' Socrates, Plato, Solon, these great 
 Greek philosophers championed the simple life 
 as man's salvation. John Milton advocated the 
 same, as did Ruskin and our own 'Platonic' 
 Emerson. 
 
45 
 
 "All great nations have been stricken down 
 in their youth or early manhood, as it was at 
 this period of their existence that they became 
 artificial, fell away from nature, where they 
 got their power, and thus lost all. My men 
 would live near to nature's heart at once and 
 for all time. Everything that man has on his 
 table comes from the ground, this being so 
 he can supply himself. There will be little 
 need of the evil business or 'commercialism' 
 as it is carried on at the present time. The in- 
 dividual man would have found himself out; 
 crime and disease would be stamped out. 
 
 "One of the great producers of moral and 
 physical degeneration in this age is the fact 
 of man's losing his individuality. For example : 
 he gets into one of our large cities, stands on 
 the curb in a main thoroughfare and watches 
 the surging to and fro of the crowd. Of how 
 little consequence he is to the world is forced 
 upon him with tremendous power. He forgets 
 that the world was made for him and that he 
 is the noblest of all God's work. He starts 
 breaking the laws of humanity, because he says 
 
4 6 
 
 to himself, 'I am no one anyway, and I can do 
 as I please and no one will be the wiser. No 
 one knows me in this great crowd.' And thus 
 the restraint of the country town and of home 
 and friends is gone and he is only curbed by 
 the police into cat-like observance of the laws. 
 He does not live within the laws from a desire 
 to be honest as he would if he were in his 
 native town. This is the wicked worm that is 
 eating at the vitals of our people. Man in a 
 large city will do a multitude of evil things 
 that he would not dream of in the country. It 
 is the same old demon that caused the de- 
 struction of every nation at a certain stage in 
 its development. They 'harden their hearts 
 against the Lord,' or rather, throw reason and 
 common sense to the winds and undertake to 
 live against all healthful laws contrary to 
 nature, leaving themselves open to destruction 
 at the hands of the 'Barbarians of the North' 
 as did the great and glorious Empire of the 
 Romans." 
 
 "Accordingly," remarked Cyril, "we must 
 all become primitive cave men or barbarous 
 
47 
 
 children of the wild wood to live in accord- 
 ance with your ideas." 
 
 "Do not put it that way," answered Richard, 
 "get down to the happy medium. What I hold 
 as the best for humanity is that state that 
 always follows the great wars, the great de- 
 struction of life and property ; the recon- 
 struction period, the creating of a desire to 
 build up again on solid foundations that which 
 has been ruthlessly torn asunder, the result 
 of a great victory to a nation. Each and every 
 man feels solid, feels that he can build his 
 home and country on a rock now that he has 
 won lasting peace. It is the same grand feeling 
 that the pioneer has as he hews his home out 
 of the forest. He feels that he is doing some- 
 thing worthy of a strong and noble man, and 
 he is. It is that period of life we call youth in 
 nations. That is the ideal condition of which I 
 speak. We must not go beyond this stage. We 
 can have art, literature and all the good things 
 necessary to a high intellectual development, 
 but we must give the animal body work to do 
 to keep it up with the development of the mind. 
 
4 8 
 
 The mind and the body must work together 
 as it was meant to be. Each can run ahead of 
 the other for a time only to be brought back 
 at a terrible cost. Such as one great people 
 crushing out the life of another as history 
 repeatedly records. When the mind gets ab- 
 normal in its development it becomes corrupt 
 and rends the puny body with every kind of 
 evil passion until both perish in the common 
 ruin." 
 
 "You recall, do you not," asked Cyril, 
 "Dante, Napoleon, Carlisle — Milton was blind, 
 the little monk who caused the first Crusade — 
 these were great men, but not great in bodily 
 strength. I could speak of others." 
 
 "Exceptions, my dear Cyril," said Richard, 
 "there are exceptions to all rules. I judge from 
 the texture of the whole people. These ex- 
 ceptions we call philosophers, geniuses, they 
 are our wise men. But we must work out the 
 problems for the whole people. You cannot 
 make philosophers out of a hundred million 
 souls. They are nature's children all, and but 
 a rare few can see nature more clearly. Thus 
 
49 
 
 we have Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, Carlisle, 
 etc., but even these are not of our thoughtless 
 age. 
 
 "Carlisle once said 'There are millions of 
 people in Great Britian, mostly fools.' This 
 sage philosopher could have explained himself 
 more clearly if he had said that the people were 
 blind to nature's gifts, causing them much 
 useless suffering by huddling millions into 
 small areas, such as London, leaving large 
 tracts of land practically unoccupied. There 
 was no more ardent lover of nature than Car- 
 lisle. He lived in close communion with her 
 while tilling the fields of his rural home. What 
 he said about England I could say of America. 
 We have thousands of acres of unused land 
 and millions of people packed into our cities 
 wasting their manhood and losing their heri- 
 tage in their vain worship of Mammon." 
 
 As the occupant of the hammock had arisen 
 to a sitting position Richard paused and look- 
 ing at him said, "Mr. Brown, express yourself. 
 We will all be pleased to hear from you, as I 
 
50 
 
 judge from your looks you wish to say some- 
 thing on the subject." 
 
 "I wish to say," said Brown, "that civilized 
 men have forever been trying to better their 
 condition. It matters not where you find them, 
 in palace or hovel, at the goal or far behind in 
 life's race. In this case I think I should quote 
 the old adage 'Where ignorance is bliss it is 
 folly to be wise.' Man can know too much. He 
 can know too much of one subject by not 
 having enough of the counteracting knowledge 
 to evenly balance him. In modern civilization 
 the goal is gaul and wormwood, victory is 
 defeat, man's highest aims end in grief. So he 
 keeps forever seeking light, and he will until 
 lie finds it, God bless him. False prophets arise 
 on every hand. He follows them as long as they 
 can hold out any light in his direction. Some 
 he drops at once, but others dazzle him and he 
 follows blindly until he runs against a stone 
 wall. There is that unattainable something that 
 keeps the human mind and body unsatisfied. 
 I believe if civilized man would heed nature's 
 laws, adhere to honesty in all things, live up to 
 
5i 
 
 his conscience complete, he would answer the 
 unattainable with the word attained. The goal 
 would be a goal indeed, and victory would be 
 victory." 
 
 "True words, well spoken," said Richard. 
 
 "If a man live up to the teachings of his con- 
 science he will live up to the laws of nature, 
 as conscience is the natural instructor of this 
 human race. Well, gentlemen, I move we go 
 into executive session for half an hour, have a 
 smoke talk and adjourn." 
 
 The move was seconded, and the vote was 
 unanimous in favor of the motion. 
 
Chapter III 
 
 IT WAS a cool evening in the fall, 
 one of those evenings that drives 
 the New England villager against 
 his will to seek the warmth of the house at an 
 early hour, for at this time of the year it is 
 not only cold, but the sun sets early. The 
 heavens darken and the general aspect of the 
 frost-bitten earth is uninviting for an after 
 dark vigil. The members of the Sphinx Club 
 came into the old hall one by one, threw off 
 their outer coats and drew up to the huge 
 fireplace, the red glow of the fire casting a 
 beautiful light on their faces, and silhouetting 
 their figures far back against the ancient wall. 
 Cyril was the last to enter the door and re- 
 move his great coat. As he did so he gazed 
 at his friends in front of the fireplace, the 
 easy, graceful pose of Richard, the stiff and 
 erect Mr. Venner, the reclining Brown, the 
 
53 
 
 easy-going Graham, the listening attitude of 
 Wheeler, the conservative Franklin. Glancing 
 from his friends he followed their shadows to 
 the walls, gazing at them for a moment, he 
 said, "My friends, allow me to become a little 
 prophetic this evening. As I see Richard's 
 shadow over-cast the bust of the great Shakes- 
 peare, so let his fame shine with that of this 
 greatest of scholars of human nature, and the 
 fame of Mr. Venner can shut out that of 
 Dante as easily as his shadow covers the bust 
 of this black minded hermit. Brown will have 
 to liven up in order to cover the dashing repu- 
 tation of the famous Black Prince, won on 
 the bloody field of Crescy, as his shadow ex- 
 tends over the surface of the picture of this 
 noble prince. Graham must overshadow 
 Frederick the Great. You can readily do this, 
 get into a scrape with the women. Now I see 
 Wheeler must eclipse Alfred the Great. This 
 is no easy task, as this man did more for the 
 English-speaking race than any before or since 
 him. His translation of the Bible alone puts 
 him far in advance of all other great men. 
 
54 
 
 Well, Wheeler, your shadow covers but a 
 small portion of this great King's portrait, so 
 I will let you off easy. Franklin's task is a 
 great one if he is to outshine Julius Caesar. 
 There, there, old fellow, don't shift your posi- 
 tion, it may be easier to accomplish your task 
 than you think. Perhaps you have already 
 done your work. I believe a man living an 
 honest existence as you are has completely 
 overshadowed this ambitious man. His work 
 has gone, buried with him, and all we have is 
 a memory. With you we have a just man, 
 an honest citizen, and a living man, of far 
 more power at the present moment than a 
 thousand dead Caesars." 
 
 Cyril had now moved to the vacant chair 
 awaiting him. 
 
 "I take exceptions to your prophetic vision," 
 said Richard. "As I was the first victim I 
 will be the first to condemn you, for I know 
 I am the greatest sufferer. To compare me 
 with Shakespeare is to compare a toad with an 
 elephant." 
 
 "And I," said Venner, "would make a very 
 
55 
 
 poor figure to be gazed at by future genera- 
 tions, beside the dark, passionate, sublime 
 Dante. Perhaps I am a victim of women's 
 wiles, but I could not put up such a kick 
 against them as did this king of dreamers." 
 
 Brown yawned, stretched himself, saying, 
 "I would not exert one muscle to become a 
 dozen Black Princes." 
 
 "It is hardly fair for you to give me the 
 task of telling some young lady she is 'too 
 fat,' " said Graham. "I could not condemn 
 thousands of innocent human beings to death 
 for the fun of 'sassing' three women." 
 
 "In my case," said Wheeler, "if I succeed 
 in translating the views as put forth by the 
 Sphinx Club to my own understanding, I will 
 be perfectly satisfied with life." 
 
 "And I do not wish to share the fate of 
 Julius Caesar. No daggers for me," said 
 Franklin. "I would be a brave man and have 
 taken my wife's advice and not gone to the 
 Senate chamber on that fateful day." 
 
 "Well, I know prophets are of no use in 
 their own country," said Cyril. "Never have 
 
56 
 
 the soothsayers when applied to, helped the 
 applicant to anything good. The Witch of 
 Endor only foretold Saul's downfall. Mac- 
 beth's three evil spirits told of his undoing, so 
 I am profoundly grateful, my comrades, that 
 you do not call on me for any further in- 
 formation regarding your futures." 
 
 "Our future is a sealed book to us all," said 
 Venner. "We know not what tomorrow will 
 bring forth and it is far better thus. But, Cyril, 
 I note your own shadow overcasts the portrait 
 of Alexander the Great. You will have to 
 drop some of your sarcastic reasoning to draw 
 your sword and cut the Gordian knot in twain. 
 Alexander was a passionate slasher who 
 fought it out and reasoned afterwards." 
 
 "And that was the cause of his early death," 
 commented Cyril. 
 
 "Since we have again arrived in the neigh- 
 borhood of Athens, I would ask why sculpture 
 was seemingly so neccessary to the ancient 
 Greek?" asked Franklin, "and is so conspicu- 
 ous by its absence in our own century?" 
 
 "Because it was their language," said Cyril. 
 
57 
 
 "Their everyday speech. They could not build 
 a palace, neither could they build a slave house 
 without it. No more could they erect a temple. 
 Every household shrine was a sculptured 
 image. Sculpture was their religion. I have 
 often thought that the Greeks misused art by 
 making sculpture so common; they seemed to 
 live on clay dust." 
 
 "But, my dear Cyril," said Richard, "we 
 need sculpture today. It is as necessary to us 
 as it was to the Greeks. What more peaceful, 
 more happy, more healthful, more brave, more 
 great people than the art-loving Greeks. Their 
 streets were lined with sculptured images of 
 their gods and their great public men. Every- 
 where was this poetic expression of thought. 
 Athens was the center of all the greatest clay- 
 workers that the world had ever seen. Every 
 beautiful thought was pictured in clay or 
 spread on canvas. Why could not the Greeks 
 become typical freemen and their civilization 
 lead the world, when they adopted such force- 
 ful yet gentle laws as these. 
 
 "Art is the supreme regulator of brute na- 
 
58 
 
 ture. The tremendous swollen rivers dash 
 down the mountain sides carrying boulders 
 weighing hundreds of tons and giant trees 
 with them, as if they were but feathers, but as 
 soon as this great torrent reaches the plain, it 
 instantly subsides into quiet placid rivers. Art 
 is like the valley plain. The strongest forces 
 fall down and worship in the presence of her 
 graceful figure. She is irresistible, for she 
 portrays all that is glorious in nature. The 
 divine in all things call upon her to interpret 
 themselves unto man. Art is the mirror of 
 nature. Art makes 'all the world akin.' ' 
 
 "You believe then," asked Cyril, "that if 
 each and every one of us take a chisel and at- 
 tack a boulder we will thereby establish a per- 
 fect civilized state?" 
 
 "I believe," said Richard, "if we each study 
 the grand and beautiful in nature work down 
 the animal spirits to their rational level, not 
 let any one passion devour us, we will soon 
 reach the ideal state. 
 
 "All great thinkers agree on one point, — that 
 of the wonderful early Greek civilization. 
 
59 
 
 Creasy says, 'that the mission of imperial Rome 
 was in truth already accomplished, she had 
 received and transmitted the civilization of 
 Greece.' He tells us this in giving the causes 
 of her defeat at the hands of Arminius mark- 
 ing the turning point of her mighty power. I 
 could question this statement as I consider 
 Imperial Rome received a large part of the 
 Grecian manners and customs, but she did not 
 receive the real Grecian civilization, in fact the 
 Greeks themselves could not give what they 
 had already destroyed. When Rome rose, 
 Athens was in ruins. She may have been as 
 she is today, a populated city, but not the 
 learned Athens of old. Her true Grecian civ- 
 ilization was in ruins as surely as was the 
 glorious Carthage. If Greece had kept her 
 high standard of culture there would have 
 been no Rome. For she had solved the prob- 
 lem of humanity and was irresistible, when 
 she threw this great secret away is when she 
 fell. While Rome patterned after the Athen- 
 ians she had a lower grade of civilization. 
 Even at the pinnacle of her greatness her cul- 
 
6o 
 
 ture was marred by great corruption, and con- 
 sequently of a much lower cast than the Greek. 
 Those grand truths commonly called 'Greek 
 myths' were unthought of in Rome. She could 
 not have originated such theories as these. She 
 did not have the mental capacity. And there 
 has been no nation to equal Greece in this 
 searching and finding of these great laws of 
 Nature. 
 
 "Early Greece still teaches the nations of the 
 earth. Scientists continually make great dis- 
 coveries only to be disputed by the Greek 
 scholar who can in almost every case show 
 him that his find is only 'new' unto himself, 
 that the Greeks had been there ages before 
 him. The only difference being that he and 
 those like him call the Greek knowledge 
 'myths,' where he calls his 'practical theory 
 and very possible truth,' and I know of no bet- 
 ter way of comparing our pompous culture, 
 largely due to our great scientific researches, 
 than to take down these cobweb-covered, 
 much neglected 'myths' and see how closely 
 any real knowledge our men have found com- 
 
6i 
 
 pare with these great 'mythological' truths 
 recorded centuries ago. 
 
 "It was only when great luxury and great 
 riches came and brought their 'dry rot' that the 
 Greeks perished. While they worked stone 
 and moulded clay, and tilled the soil, they had 
 the most perfect civilization the world has 
 ever seen. But when they brought their cap- 
 tives home from the wars and made them do 
 all the work while they strutted about their 
 cities thinking themselves too refined for man- 
 ual labor, then it was that they began to dig 
 their own graves, as the idle hands and minds 
 soon were inventing base schemes of treason, 
 plunder and murder of their own brothers. It 
 is ever thus, the ending of all nations comes 
 about in this way. 
 
 "Ridpath says, 'the ancient Roman even of 
 the highest rank was himself a laborer.' When 
 I say 'ancient' I mean the period of the real 
 greatness of Rome. Her early republican his- 
 tory, not the blown up bag of foul gases rep- 
 resented by the latter days of Octavius Caesar 
 Augustus, pierced by the heroic German in 
 
62 
 
 the marshes of the Lippe and the Ems. When 
 the Romans ceased to labor with their hands 
 as well as their minds, then began their un- 
 doing as of the Greeks." 
 
 "In your recent discourse on modern life 
 I notice you lay particular stress on the evils 
 of riches," said Cyril. "You are not leaning 
 towards socialistic doctrines, are you, friend 
 Richard? " 
 
 "No, no," said Richard. "How many times 
 will I tell you it is the extremes that are ruin- 
 ous. I would not and could not throw down 
 the law. I stand for law and order above all 
 things. We cannot live without law, without 
 restraint. There is too much brute force to be 
 resisted, and resistance is necessary for the 
 development of mind and body. There is law 
 and order in the whole universe. What I try 
 to point out is the abnormal in things. These 
 are the abuses I would correct. 
 
 "There are distinctions that must be made. 
 There must be classes. Some men are better 
 in some lines of work than others and merit 
 a greater reward. Some persons are very dull 
 
63 
 
 and others very sharp witted. But you must 
 curb them all at times, or like a fine horse they 
 will run away with you and jump over a preci- 
 pice and hurl themselves and you to destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 "Croesus became so rich that he could think 
 of nothing but adding to his pile by good 
 means or bad, and showing himself and his 
 wonderful treasures off to other men to gloat 
 over their envy and amazement. He was 
 soon, however, overthrown and all his wealth 
 went to swell the coffers of Cyrus the Great. 
 The history of Lydia is the history of all na- 
 tions and as the individual man makes the 
 nations so does he make history. It is the 
 great middle class that carries on all good 
 government, that does the business of the 
 country, that upholds the majesty of the law, 
 that carries the mental, moral, physical and re- 
 ligious standards for a nation, in fact, the 
 middle or moderate class is the heart, the soul 
 and the body of every nation. The extremes, 
 whether they be the very rich or the very poor, 
 exert no influence in these matters, unless they 
 
6 4 
 
 succeed in corrupting this middle class. When 
 this occurs the nation soon disappears from 
 the face of the earth, or it sometimes happens 
 that after a terrible convulsion it may succeed 
 in mending itself in some degree by casting 
 off these drones. It is the stimulus, the de- 
 gree of simplicity that creates the ambitions 
 that this great class have, that equalize all 
 differences in the growth of national life. 
 Their industry, their thrift, their manual labor, 
 this is the magic wand that guides the mighty 
 races of men to great and noble deeds. 
 
 "The misinterpretation of history, great 
 events, great battles, a single figure presents 
 itself as the sole being in the controversy 
 when it is the movement of the whole people 
 Individuals often guide these great actions of 
 a mighty population of a country, but he must 
 direct them in their own way, study the na- 
 tion and do as it wishes, if he is to hold his 
 sway. The greatest individual power ever 
 held over a nation was weilded by the Emperor 
 of the French, not the King of France. Na- 
 poleon was made Emperor of the people by the 
 
65 
 
 people, and none knew this better than he. It 
 is by the consent of the people that they are 
 ruled, and always have been. If a despot has 
 sat on the neck of a people, it was because the 
 people were despotic. 
 
 "Socialistic doctrines complicate civilization 
 so much that it would require another deluge 
 to destroy mankind and begin anew, and even 
 then we would have to eliminate Old Noah, 
 create a new being entirely to live up to this 
 standard of thinking." 
 
 "Friend Richard," asked Cyril, "will you 
 tell me the reason you compare modern civili- 
 zation with that of the old Romans ? Can you 
 not find a comparison as suitable to you at a 
 later period in the world's history? Why go 
 so far back? Have we not been making his- 
 tory ever since the fall of Rome?" 
 
 "I cannot find," said Richard, "any age of 
 these latter times to compare us with other 
 than I have already used to some extent in 
 one of our earlier sessions. We of today have 
 very little in common with the Dark Ages. 
 After Greece and Rome man returned to his 
 
66 
 
 lowest nature. A certain well-known historian 
 says 'Rome was followed by chaos, confusion 
 and night.' This is true from the fourth cen- 
 tury to the ninth. Then we see a virtuous deed 
 performed, or a short space of time when 
 noble deeds are appreciated. This period 
 stands out as a single star in the hideous black 
 night of the middle ages previous to the four- 
 teenth century. This is the Feudal age. The 
 spirit that bids the Feudal knight speed out on 
 the road to punish the oppressor, to lift up and 
 defend and die if need be for the weak, was 
 divine. The reverence and profound respect 
 that the Medieval knight had for the weak and 
 aged was sublime. These two cardinal vir- 
 tues of this age we would do well to copy. I 
 can almost forgive his crimes as I think of his 
 noble acts in defence of his honor. This knight 
 of contradictions. 
 
 "What a striking illustration we get of the 
 sentiment of these times in the sad but beau- 
 tiful love story of the philosopher Abelard and 
 the lovely Heloise — the monk teaching the 
 maiden philosophy, the maiden teaching the 
 
6 7 
 
 monk love, and the benighted age teaching 
 them both sad disappointment and hopeless 
 despair. Then we have nothing but chaos and 
 confusion handed down to us by the Cru- 
 saders. 
 
 "In the early part of the twelfth century we 
 have the inauguration of that gentle persuad- 
 ing institution the Inquisition with its Cham- 
 ber of Horrors organized for the extinction of 
 the Albergenses in France, an invention for 
 inhumane cowardly cruelty and dastardly mur- 
 der unequalled by man since Creation. 
 
 "This century also furnishes the Sicilian 
 Vespers or the massacre of the French Pro- 
 testants in Italy. 
 
 "France paints another black picture for us 
 in 1572. Thirty thousand Huguenots are 
 butchered in cold blood on St. Bartholomew's 
 night. France has never recovered from this 
 mortal wound she gave herself at this time. 
 And following we have 'wars and rumors of 
 wars.' Think of the bloody useless wars of 
 the Roses, and that devil in human form, 
 Richard III, and his crimes. The fifteenth 
 
68 
 
 century gives us a ray of light, the rising sun 
 of the New World and Reformation appears 
 on the horizon never to set. There is little in 
 these ages to compare us with. We are Greeks 
 and Romans all, therefore my going back to 
 the Greeks and Romans for my humble illus- 
 trations." 
 
 "One striking feature of American civiliza- 
 tion is the congregation of practically all races 
 of men under one government," said Graham. 
 "Is that to our advantage ?" 
 
 "This condition is practically new," said 
 Richard, "and to my mind it is to our disad- 
 vantage. I have a little original verse touch- 
 ing on this point somewhat that may explain 
 my view of the subject. It may be a mistaken 
 one, but here it is : 
 
 Under the arched elms of an old New England road, 
 Towards his native town a lonely figure strode, 
 Large of hand, great sinewy arms, ponderous feet, 
 Such strength of arm and character we rarely meet, 
 Forehead high, steel gray eye and square of chin, 
 A normal New Englander, undipped in sin, 
 An Ulysses searching for his native land, 
 But in Ithaca, the suitors are in command, 
 
6 9 
 
 Penelope lost, Corruption holds sway 
 
 Over this quiet country hamlet night and day. 
 
 As the Traveller draws near his natal hearth 
 
 He meets men and women of every birth ; 
 
 Americans all, and freemen too ; 
 
 Some tightly grasp the Eagle, others say "Shoo !" 
 
 Looking at the group he can scarce repress a frown, 
 
 And he, in turn, thro' Italia's eyes looks like a clown, 
 
 And thro' petit France's creates disgust, 
 
 Makes Portugal's simple countrymen afraid, 
 
 Turns straight the oblique eye who to look essayed, 
 
 Fires up dull Poland's leaden eyes, 
 
 The ancient Hun declares "he's from the skies," 
 
 The Syrian, the Russian, and the Turk, 
 
 With wonderous eyes gaze on this noble work 
 
 Of God, of goodly living, of old days, 
 
 When men lived for a purpose in true ways, 
 
 The drones of Southern Europe with some from 
 
 Northern parts 
 Are here to answer Greed's call with stinging darts, 
 To obey the gesture of Fate's ominous hand, 
 To traverse, to linger, and grow fat in this fair land. 
 We are a Mecca for the dregs of Earth, 
 While we laugh and shout in delirious mirth, 
 Cry aloud defiance of all Natural law, 
 So much wrong exalt, so much right ignore. 
 
 We know that at the decline of Athens the 
 
70 
 
 shiftless wanderers from every part of the 
 world swarmed into Greece. 
 
 "At the fall of Carthage her streets were 
 full of foreigners, in fact, I believe Hannibal 
 owes his defeat by the Romans to the poor 
 quality of his troops. He had very few Car- 
 thegians in his last army. They were too 
 busy heaping up riches, or too lazy to leave 
 their luxurious abodes to fight for their coun- 
 try. They would buy substitutes among the 
 new comers pouring in from every country, 
 in fine, the Carthegians had become too cor- 
 rupt to have any regard for what befell their 
 country until it was too late. And Rome in 
 her turn was sapped by this same agency. 
 
 "At the fall of Rome every known tongue 
 was heard in her city's streets, some being 
 brought as captives, others allowed to come 
 to work in the fields and workshops to sup- 
 plant the now pleasure-loving and debase 
 Romans, who disdained to do manual labor." 
 
 "But we assimilate our emigrants," said 
 Franklin, "as fast as possible and probably 
 faster than any other nation on earth." 
 
7i 
 
 "A good many reformers make this same 
 statement," said Richard, "but come and take a 
 stroll with me through Chinatown, or any of 
 the numerous groups of foreign concentra- 
 tion in our cities, and I will show you that 
 you cannot Americanize a native of any other 
 country as soon as you are pleased to believe. 
 Take yourself, for instance. If you were sud- 
 denly transplanted to Italy, Portugal, Hun- 
 gary, Poland, China, you would stand by the 
 principles of the United States to the last 
 ditch. No one could make you a Chinaman, 
 nor could they make you a Russian. 
 
 "Wise men have said 'races will not mix,' 
 and it is very true. Nations of a common 
 language and a common method of accom- 
 plishing the desired end will ofttimes mix to 
 the mutual advantage of both. These are the 
 kind of newcomers that we will assimilate in 
 short order. But there are hoards of people 
 coming to our shores that will not mix, that 
 will always have to live apart from us if they 
 and their seed remain here for centuries." 
 
 "Some time ago," said Brown, "in answer to 
 
72 
 
 a question asked by friend Cyril, you stated 
 that there were enough people in some part 
 of the globe to jump down on this mass of 
 confusion and blot it out as of yore. Now I am 
 unable to find this powerful branch of hu- 
 manity. It seems to me with the great pow- 
 ers of the earth already forming an arbitration 
 court, and all the leading men of the world 
 arguing universal peace, the huge genii you 
 bring up for us to contemplate is rather airy, 
 like the famous friend of Aladdin." 
 
 "Your exceptions come rather belated," re- 
 plied Richard. "But they shall be answered, 
 and any more questions that you wish to bring 
 up regarding statements I have made. I will 
 answer all questions provided the Club wish 
 to listen to the threshing out of old straw." 
 
 "Well, gentlemen of the Sphinx Club," 
 asked Brown, "shall our friend Richard ans- 
 wer such questions as we wish to bring up re- 
 garding former statements? I for one vote 
 aye." 
 
 "Well," said Franklin, "why can you not 
 
73 
 
 ask your questions when the matter is under 
 discussion?" 
 
 "I cannot ask off-hand questions," said 
 Brown. "My conception of the meaning of 
 some lines of argument is slow, but of course 
 I leave it to the Club to decide the matter." 
 
 "Well," said Graham, "I move that if any 
 two members object to such bringing up of 
 former topics that the question will be thrown 
 out." It was so voted. 
 
 "This question of Brown's," said Richard, 
 "is quite a natural one. There are very few 
 people in our country today that will admit 
 that anything of this sort can possibly happen. 
 They get together in their cities and drive 
 out the dark night with bonfires of electric 
 lights and feel pompous and brave in their 
 vast numbers as they parade up and down 
 their city's streets. But let me tell you this is 
 not real bravery. This is not the quality 
 shown by Xenophon and his ten thousand 
 Greeks. They could not have held together 
 in their famous retreat if they had paraded 
 up and down a city's streets for half a night 
 
74 
 
 and debauched the other half. It is not the 
 kind of bravery that causes a country boy to 
 walk unconscious of evil three miles alone at 
 the dead of night, through black forests and 
 lonely meadows, when sent for a doctor or on 
 some other important message, when a city 
 bred lad cannot go into a dark room in his 
 own home without fear and trembling. 
 
 "This feeling of cowardice gets uppermost 
 with the artificial city life. The continual 
 round of make-believe demoralizes humanity, 
 and I cannot see why we will not find our 
 Nemesis in the hordes of China, India, and 
 the other densely populated states of Asia. 
 
 "We see what the Beacon Light of Asia 
 is doing. I refer to the Japanese. They are 
 beating the white man with his own weapons. 
 If thirty-six millions can do this, what is it 
 possible for four hundred millions to do, or 
 perhaps eight hundred and fifty millions, to 
 include China and the other Asiatic states? 
 Now, I am not crying the 'Yellow Peril' from 
 the house tops. I think this danger is quite 
 remote. But, it is a possibility, nevertheless, 
 
75 
 
 that we can bring upon ourselves in the re- 
 mote future. As I have said, a nation is not 
 made in a day, nor is it destroyed at such 
 notice, but after a certain stage corruption 
 rolls like an avalanche. 
 
 "We must admit that there is stability in 
 the Chinese character. They have occupied 
 the same territory from time immemorial. 
 Every other nation has been subject to radical 
 changes in every possible condition they have 
 ever attained, but the Celestial remains the 
 same through centuries and centuries. And 
 what is this great mongrel secret ? We of the 
 Western world cannot call it progress. It is 
 a condition utterly unknown to us. We can- 
 not comprehend the Chinese. They are repul- 
 sive to us. But we are obliged to believe in 
 their endurance. Can we say as much of our- 
 selves ? What have we that will not be a dust 
 heap in ten centuries? There will be no such 
 huge mark of the triumph of manual labor as 
 the Great Wall of China ; no massive pyramids 
 will mark the place of regal splendor such as 
 we decorate ourselves with today. These light 
 
76 
 
 fantastic things we make and call magnificent 
 structures are built only for today. These 
 twenty-nine story 'skyscrapers' will be gone 
 tomorrow. They are not made to last. We 
 only live for today. Who will deny that the 
 Chinese Wall is responsible for the integrity 
 of China all these Centuries? It is recorded 
 of one of the very early Chinese emperors 
 that, on assuming the crown, he declared, 'I 
 will, if possible, have no idleness in my do- 
 minions, for if there be one idle some other 
 man must suffer cold and hunger.' So he puts 
 them all at work. But whether this ancient 
 monarch meant just what he said is hard to 
 decide. It seems to me that he had discov- 
 ered that to keep his subjects at work was the 
 main point to be kept in mind. Consequently 
 he built the Great Wall, and thus trained his 
 people to work off their surplus animal spirits 
 at home within their own territory. And does 
 not their whole crude civilization tend to this 
 end? They built the wall to keep their fierce 
 neighbors out, and also to keep themselves in. 
 And they have succeeded in enduring while 
 
77 
 
 all other races have been disrupted and cor- 
 rupted, and a large number destroyed alto- 
 gether. 
 
 "Now, I am not a lover of the 'heathen 
 Chinee,' particularly, and am not desirous of 
 adopting any of their customs, but I am try- 
 ing to show that there is a great possibility in 
 such stable endurance, and that Asia is a 
 power which, if she awakens, would have to 
 be reckoned with by Western civilization. I 
 see no cause why Eastern history should not 
 repeat itself as well as Western is already 
 doing. The Christian has felt the terrible 
 shock of victorious Islam in the South, and 
 the Slav has recoiled before the fierce Tartar 
 in the North, when Japan was a nonentity. 
 And let us note, in passing, the Egyptian has 
 stood by his Pyramid as long, and perhaps 
 much longer, than the Chinese behind his 
 Wall. 
 
 "Do not these huge structures have an al- 
 luring and sheltering influence on the races 
 that construct them? We have the facts that 
 the Egyptian is still living in the shadow of 
 
78 
 
 the great Pyramid, and the Chinese still stands 
 by his Wall. The Egyptian has shown, per- 
 haps, a greater degree of stability than the 
 Chinese, for they have been overrun by nearly 
 all the nations of the earth, but have still pre- 
 served their nationality. Another tribute 
 might be paid to Egypt. All the really great 
 conquerors have always been impressed with 
 the works of the Egyptians to such a degree 
 that they have patronized the cities of the 
 Nile, some in rebuilding what they had torn 
 down, and others in recognizing Egypt as a 
 place of learning. It was here that the great 
 Alexander built his magnificent city, and it 
 was here that other monarchs of lesser in- 
 telligence of antiquity came to learn. It was 
 in the land of the Pharaohs that the nucleus 
 of Christianity was found floating in the bull- 
 rushes of the silent Nile. What a mighty 
 power has arisen from that kindly act of the 
 Egyptian princess? It has reached to the 
 ends of the earth. It was here, too, that man 
 burst through the black cloud of Oblivion, or 
 from here we get the first record of his 
 
79 
 
 awakening. And was it not the laborious task 
 of the building of the Pyramids that broke 
 the spell of darkness enveloping the human 
 intellect? And did not the gigantic task of 
 building the Great Wall of China awaken the 
 Chinese, and produce the great philosophers 
 Confucius and Mencius ? As the fruit of hon- 
 est labor is just meditation which ripens into 
 the golden harvest of deep and righteous 
 thought." 
 
Chapter IV 
 
 X *4^^S HE members of the Sphinx Club 
 / ^J had strolled into the old hall for 
 ^^^ the fourth meeting since the open- 
 ing of the discussion on "Modern Life." 
 "One of the questions that is causing quite an 
 earnest agitation," said Graham, "not only 
 among the clergy, but is seriously discussed 
 by the thoughtful 'man in the street/ is that 
 of 'Race Suicide/ so called. This matter is 
 within the jurisdiction of our Club, I think." 
 
 "That's a question," said Brown, "that you 
 should be quite familiar with, since you are a 
 happy man of family." 
 
 "My being the happy man of family," said 
 Graham, "is no doubt the reason why I do 
 not know the exact cause of this disquieting 
 question, being contented in the state I find 
 myself is the direct cause of my ignorance, 
 as you said awhile ago. 'Ignorance is bliss 
 where it is folly to be wise.' " 
 
8i 
 
 "I don't see," said Brown, "but that I am 
 in the same state of mind that you are; the 
 only difference being that I enjoy single bless- 
 edness, and you enjoy double happiness. I 
 must put it to fit your case. I have a nice 
 home, friends and our Club, and I have all the 
 necessaries of life; I have money enough to 
 purchase anything I wish, but, of course, I 
 use the same reasoning power in holding onto 
 my purse-strings and in letting them loose 
 that I would if my money belonged to some 
 other person and only held in honest trust by 
 myself. I live in luxury to a certain extent; 
 go as I please and come when I please ; but, as 
 I said, my pleasure is governed by my best 
 judgment, and in this way I get the most real 
 pleasure from my amusement that can be got- 
 ten therefrom, but I find if I was in the double 
 state of Graham I could not live happily, as 
 my income being enough for one would come 
 far short if two or more were helping to 
 empty the pocket-book; also I am contented 
 in my present state; I make no vows, so I 
 break none. I can stay out late or come in 
 
82 
 
 early ; I have the liberty that all men crave, but 
 like the fabled Frogs, who craved for a king 
 and received one in the shape of a Stork, 
 who at once set about to eat them up, so 
 men crave for liberty and get married." 
 
 "If we were all of that state of mind," said 
 Graham, "there would be little left on this 
 earth, even for the King of Darkness to gloat 
 over in a hundred years, and 'Race Suicide' 
 would be accomplished." 
 
 "Yes," said Brown, "none know this better 
 than I, but why are conditions so hard on the 
 married man? Why is the cost of living so 
 high in comparison to man's earning power? 
 Why cannot things be regulated to a man's 
 ability? 'I am single because I cannot afford 
 to marry' a hundred young fellows of my 
 acquaintance will declare. Others are weak 
 enough to marry and then we read in the 
 daily press notices of divorce granted for 
 'Non-support,' or 'Desertion,' and the great 
 question of Divorce is probed at with gold- 
 headed canes, handled with kid gloves and 
 fountain pens, else the hero descends to the 
 
83 
 
 'Abyss' and is lost in the general confusion 
 of common, poverty-stricken every day life. 
 Those who are left will ask, 'Where is Smith 
 now?' 'Oh, he got married,' will be the ans- 
 wer. The places of congenial companionship 
 know him no more. He is like one who has 
 been carried out to sea on a raft, there is no 
 hope of ever seeing him again, do you think 
 I can feel justified in accepting such a life 
 as this? No, I feel that I would be doing 
 an injustice to my children to bring them 
 into the world with nothing to feed them on 
 or clothe them with; and in justice to myself 
 in slaving to keep body and soul together. 
 
 "Another evil presents itself to me, the fact 
 of the inferior quality of the wives of men of 
 strong principles and stainless character, the 
 number of weak, peevish and nagging girls 
 that these fellows marry is astounding, and 
 usually these men have had 'their pick' of all 
 kinds. The young man will sit down beside 
 a fine healthy girl of youth and college edu- 
 cation; she has lovely dreams of some dark, 
 handsome, curlv-headed Prince of untold 
 
8 4 
 
 wealth who is dying for her if she will only 
 wait until he can cast off his mask of a Don- 
 key's head bestowed on him by a witch. This 
 disgusts the youth and he runs away, and the 
 lovely girl, seeing him run away, cries a little, 
 but finally decides to wait for her Prince, — 
 she waits from seventeen to twenty-five, more 
 or less, but finally marries the Jackass' head 
 in the hopes of breaking the spell, and inci- 
 dentally preventing the terrible catastrophe 
 of being an 'old maid.' She awakes out of 
 her delusion when she receives the Jackass' 
 return from the 'Club,' but instead of the 
 harmless mule there appears the terrible head 
 of the Hydra. 
 
 "Well, I left my young man on the run ; he 
 stops to talk with a 'well-read' girl, but plain 
 to look upon. She has dreams of just what a 
 man should be and she will not look at any- 
 thing else unless there is a gold-lining to his 
 pockets, for, of course, 'we must have enough 
 to live on and keep ourselves, and father and 
 mother, and help brother with his education.' 
 Our young man travels on; he finds a beau- 
 
85 
 
 tiful girl without much learning ; she lives only 
 for style; she paints her cheeks and co\ers 
 her graceful form with 'hooks' to catch the 
 gold fish only, — no matter who or what he is, 
 if he glitters that is enough. Our young man 
 hurries on and finally meeting with rebuffs on 
 all sides he picks up a girl that only knows 
 she is a girl. She is usually homely, never 
 looks neat and don't intend to, and in despera- 
 tion he marries her and goes through his 
 Purgatory. These, Graham, are the reasons 
 I do not enter the matrimonial state and this 
 is the cause of 'Race Suicide,' as the young 
 men cannot afford to marry and live right. 
 These are the reasons we have so many bach- 
 elors in our cities." 
 
 "You only illustrate one more of the great 
 evils of our 'high civilization,' Brown," said 
 Richard. "Your fastidious young girls are 
 only one of the products of these times, our 
 young men are suffering with the same dis- 
 ease, and I judge you have a touch of it also. 
 Still you have a very good defence of your 
 course, and I could pardon you, for I can 
 
S6 
 
 hardly blame a man for getting what little 
 comfort he can from this short life of ours. 
 
 "Of course, most of our young men marry, 
 but there is an ever increasing number that are 
 of your mind, and these are the ones that 
 should marry and bring up the future genera- 
 tions, for they have prepared themselves to live 
 right, and are thus the ablest teachers for the 
 young America coming up to take the reins 
 of government. There is truth in your state- 
 ment that desperation drives many men tq 
 matrimony, for misery likes company, and also 
 debt drives men to wed, as Kipling sings in 
 his old song: 
 
 'So long as Aces take the King, 
 
 Or backers take the bet, 
 So long as debt leads men to wed, 
 
 Or marriage leads to debt; 
 So long as Lust and Lucre tempt 
 
 Straight riders from their course, 
 So long as with each drink we pour 
 
 Black brewage of Remorse.' 
 
 "It is the great confusion of the city life 
 that brings about these conditions. The evil 
 
87 
 
 of commercialism is rampant, we must get 
 back to nature if we wish to have conditions 
 as they should be. We belong to nature and 
 must live near her. Everything teaches us 
 this, but we will not learn. Our bodies are 
 composed of the very same elements that na- 
 ture puts into all her wonderful works. Oxy- 
 gen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon she works 
 into all her magnificent and boundless crea- 
 tions. Man, beast, birds of the air, fishes of 
 the sea, trees of the forest, in fact, all the 
 vegetable and mineral life, are composed of 
 these same ingredients, the difference we find 
 in all these things is but the skilful hiding of 
 the same material in the grand symmetrical 
 delusion of arrangement governed by the 
 Great Artist, and man is the only one of these 
 mighty creations that is given that divine gift 
 of reason. It is he alone who can use this gift. 
 It is he who can create the great destructive 
 power of picric acid, and it is he who can 
 cause the Milk of Human Kindness to flow, 
 and as we look at the growing boy we wonder 
 which he will endeavor to promote with his 
 
88 
 
 strong right arm, therefore the care we 
 should exercise in training him, he should not 
 be the passion flower that blooms only in the 
 night, but he should be the stalwart rose that 
 blooms the season through, the product of 
 the matured plant. 
 
 "We are, if we are normal men, all alike in 
 the body. Each of us is subject to the same 
 passions, each has the same degree of good 
 and bad; we also have the liberty of cultivat- 
 ing each virtue and each passion. Our degree 
 of manhood is acquired by the degree we 
 cultivate virtue. The degree of evil is gov- 
 erned by the extent we cultivate passion. You 
 must sow pure seed and keep the weeds away 
 from the tender plant if you wish to reap the 
 bountiful harvest. 
 
 "In those simple days of yore men who 
 'built' the United States of America did not 
 use enough money in their daily life to pay 
 a street car fare, Honor and Justice and 
 Brotherly Love were the legal tender of our 
 forefathers. When a young man married he 
 would receive as wedding gifts the homely 
 
8 9 
 
 and practical only with which to furnish his 
 humble home, he would receive a plot of land 
 to till and build his house on, his neigh- 
 bors and friends would take a couple of days 
 'off' and have a 'House Raising/ which means 
 that they would come in large numbers, build 
 the young man's house and barn for him and 
 the only recompense they received was Bro- 
 therly Love. What a golden price these men 
 received for their labor. If you and I would 
 receive it for arduous labor we would — what 
 would we do in this tense age? We would 
 likely bring out a gun and demand gold, be- 
 cause we do not know what rare value our 
 ancestors derived from life. I almost laugh 
 when I repeat that all the recompense these 
 friends would expect from the young man was 
 a return of the good deeds that they had lav- 
 ished on him. 
 
 "Brotherly Love, Kindly Acts, Fellowship 
 among men, how light and airy these words 
 sound, like something very far away, in fact, 
 like something of almost impossible concep- 
 tion. Is it not so in this mad rush for riches? 
 
90 
 
 Does man ever stop to hear such words but 
 to laugh at them, and shove his struggling 
 brother down deeper into the Slough of 
 Despond that he might gather the few golden 
 coins that the brother would drop in his 
 downfall." 
 
 "I cannot agree with you/' said Graham. 
 "I believe that there are as good men nowa- 
 days as there were in the eighteenth century." 
 "Yes, there are as good men, no doubt," said 
 Richard, "but they do not show their good side 
 at the proper time. The individual man is 
 very often a good man, but take man collec- 
 tively and he is getting very bad. I have 
 touched on the individual man before in for- 
 mer discussions somewhat, and I don't think 
 I would ever tire of directing your attention 
 to him. He is 'all in all/ and we should cor- 
 rect him and not reach out for a million to 
 mould as one man, we are so prone to try 
 the impossible. 
 
 "Did you ever note the wild heedless actions 
 of a crowd in a city's street? I have seen a 
 rat run out from a building on a great public 
 
9i 
 
 thoroughfare and actually stop the entire traf- 
 fic for half an hour, as the rat ran into the 
 street messenger boys spied him and rapidly 
 made after him, then a street cleaner came 
 along to assist in the killing, then a truck- 
 man stopped to see the fun, then another and 
 another, and the crowd on the sidewalk had 
 by this time become a struggling mass of 
 humanity shouting 'who's killed,' 'who's hurt/ 
 'anybody robbed,' 'police.' Large trucks and 
 heavy delivery wagons had effectively blocked 
 trolley cars and all other traffic, and all this 
 was not ended until a 'cop' had killed the rat. 
 Now if you or I had met one of the men in- 
 dividually and told him that a messenger boy 
 was going to kill a rat on the corner in a few 
 moments and have asked this man to rush 
 wildly about and shout 'murder,' 'burglars/ 
 'police/ he would direct us the nearest way to 
 Bellevue Hospital in short order. 
 
 "Did you in your younger days walk down 
 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, and stop sud- 
 denly in a conspicuous place and gaze in- 
 tently at the upper windows of a large build- 
 
9 2 
 
 ing for the fun of seeing a hundred people do 
 the same who were a moment before hurrying 
 madly on to 'Somewhere?' I have. 
 
 "Did you ever note the way that people eat 
 their noonday meals in ten minutes and spend 
 an hour watching a drayman struggle to 
 make his poor old fallen horse rise once more 
 to his feet? Have you ever noted what a 
 panic a fire sale will make on the street and 
 how goods that under ordinary sale would not 
 go at forty-nine cents will be carried off in 
 triumph at sixty-nine cents? 
 
 "Do you know that Style requires as many 
 human sacrifices as did the Druids in old 
 Britain? Shall I take you into the theatres, 
 at the race tracks, to the beer gardens, to show 
 you far worse examples of man collectively ? 
 
 "We have a large number of good solid men, 
 but they are individual men, and even these 
 put into a great crowd most of them would 
 do the bidding of the greatest fool as quickly 
 as they would obey the order of the wisest 
 man or the greatest philosopher, the indi- 
 vidual man is what we must have if we are to 
 
93 
 
 reach a right civilized state. Everything in 
 this great world has its own individuality. 
 This must be for pure and united action. 
 
 "Have you ever looked over the battlefield 
 of Harper's Ferry and met the farmers of the 
 country side, and received their salutations of 
 'How do?' 'Nice day?' Not merely a farmer 
 you might meet in the field, but every one you 
 meet, in the woods, on the roads, in the by- 
 paths, everywhere you come across a man, 
 woman, or child, it is the same 'good-will 
 toward men' attitude. 
 
 "I will not raise the question of our South- 
 ern farmer being very much better than our 
 Northern city man, but here is a pearly drop 
 of Fellowship from what we would no doubt 
 call the dark ages of American development, 
 namely, the eighteenth century civilization. I 
 will not argue what causes the hearty expres- 
 sion of 'How do?' to float from the mouths of 
 these backwoodsmen when they see me strolling 
 along the road. It is perhaps that the kindly 
 invitation to 'come up to see my place the next 
 time you come down' involves the payment of 
 
94 
 
 a double ransom for a dinner. I care not, but 
 it is that echo of a far away honest and hon- 
 orable civilization that comes to me from the 
 Past as I hear these free-hearted people that 
 I found in this far away spot. Perhaps this 
 is a relic of the old southern chivalry, but I 
 choose to associate it farther back to the dear 
 old Revolutionary times ; southern gallantry is 
 a product of these times as well. How beau- 
 tiful of the grand old Potomac to be able to 
 secrete so simple but such all-powerful ex- 
 pressive jewels as these in her verdant hills 
 and valleys. Far from the metallic clang of 
 modern speech tuned to the 'Almighty Dollar' 
 ritual. 
 
 "In gazing over this picture of nature, fram- 
 ing the Potomac and the cradle of the Shenan- 
 doah what havoc would be made of all this 
 grand flowing life of nature's bosom were it 
 to be changed into a city. Instantly, everything 
 would be changed from life to death, for man 
 kills everything that shows life in building his 
 city. He changes everything from real to un- 
 real; every right is wronged, and this sylvan 
 
95 
 
 spot would become like unto the German leg- 
 end in which a traveller waxing tired in his 
 long journey fell asleep on a mountain side, but 
 was soon awakened by a great noise, as of an 
 earthquake, he jumped to his feet and saw 
 where yesterday was a beautiful valley of 
 meadows and forests, now changed to a city 
 of lofty towers and low houses, and crooked 
 streets, he descends into the city and as he 
 walks along the street great bells were ringing 
 out loudly and continuously, and all the peo- 
 ple were hurrying about with downcast eyes 
 and worried look without noticing the stran- 
 ger, some were rushing around madly on the 
 streets and shouting 'hurry, hurry, your time 
 is short, we will be buried tonight !' The 
 traveller tried to stop a young man to ask him 
 what was the matter with everybody, and what 
 city he was in, but the man pushed him aside 
 roughly and hurried on. After trying to hold 
 up other persons our traveller finally stopped 
 an old man and inquired what city it was. The 
 old man said 'Oh! I see you are a Christian, 
 you must not stay here, for this is the Doomed 
 
9 6 
 
 City which was buried for its wickedness, 
 and is allowed to come to the earth's surface 
 for a day but once in a hundred years. We 
 shall be buried tonight, so hurry out of this 
 wicked place, your time is short as the sun is 
 burning low and the bells are warning us of 
 the end.' So the old man led the traveller 
 back to the mountain side where he soon fell 
 asleep and when he awoke the city had dis- 
 appeared." 
 
 "Well, now, leaving physical man for 
 awhile," said Venner, "my mind returns to the 
 beautiful in nature. How many times I have 
 looked in vain for the red-breasted robin, the 
 blue birds, the orioles, and all those more beau- 
 tiful birds of song and bright colors that New 
 England should have in abundance. Where 
 are they, and why have they disappeared from 
 their old haunts ? Why when in the city as I 
 throw crumbs out of my window do I see only 
 the flutter of the always dirty little gray-brown 
 sparrow? Why do I see the noble buffalo 
 only in a cage enclosure in a modern city 
 park?" 
 
97 
 
 "It seems to me," said Cyril, "you do not 
 look in the right place for your red-breasted 
 robin and other birds of song, we have them 
 still in some parts of New England, and as to 
 the English sparrow, he seems to be the only 
 bird we can civilize." 
 
 "I merely asked the question," said Venner, 
 "because I missed these things of beauty and 
 song, these emblems of purity, what say 
 you, friend Richard?" 
 
 "Quite true, Cyril," said Richard, "we have 
 'civilized' the English sparrow, we have taught 
 him to eat every description of food and to 
 drink every kind of liquid, he has learned 
 to live and breed fast under the sad conditions 
 that our cities offer to a homeless wanderer, 
 he has learned the great secret of modern 
 civilization, to rob and to drive out all his 
 useful brethren of song and beauty. In fact, 
 he has increased in numbers to such an extent 
 that he declared war against even man and 
 several pitched battles have been fought with 
 the people of Massachusetts. I don't know 
 which side won, but I do know that he still 
 
9 8 
 
 roams about in roving bands devouring every- 
 thing within reach in the enemy's country, so 
 I judge the sparrow came out victorious." 
 
 " The more beautiful robin and blue bird 
 cannot be 'civilized' because they belong to a 
 higher and nobler civilization than this. They 
 are foreign to a modern city. They demand 
 a clear, healthful air, green grass and trees, 
 in short they are nature's finest works of art, 
 and require her bosom to live in, require her 
 tenderest care. They are too pure to dwell 
 in contact with so much evil. They are like 
 Adam before he ate of the fruit of the tree of 
 knowledge, but they are much wiser than he, 
 as they prefer to die rather than to eat the 
 poisonous fruit that the serpent would en- 
 treatingly offer them." 
 
 "Well," said Cyril, "the buffalo has given 
 place to the cow and ox on our great Western 
 plains." 
 
 "Or rather," said Richard, "they were vic- 
 tims of civilization, they were slaughtered 
 by thousands for the purpose of making buf- 
 falo robes to satisfy Style; one hunter killing 
 
99 
 
 as many as eight hundred animals in a week's 
 shooting. Why this mutilating of nature? 
 Why this disfiguring of the earth's surface? 
 Men only reap greater curses with every blow 
 they strike at the beautiful in nature. Do 
 they not know that these things would not be 
 beautiful if they did not have a beautiful work 
 to perform for man? 
 
 "Let me recall Whittier's lines of the mythi- 
 cal cause of the red on the robin's breast. A 
 boy threw a stone at the bird in the presence 
 of his grandmother. 
 
 "Nay," said the grandmother, "have you not heard, 
 
 My poor bad boy of the firery pit, 
 And how drop by drop this merciful bird, 
 
 Carries the water that quenches it? 
 
 "'He brings cool dew in his little bill, 
 
 And lets it fall on the souls of sin; 
 You can see the mark on his red breast still, 
 
 Of the fires that scorch as he drops it in." 
 
 "Ah, yes, these noble animals and handsome 
 birds and beautiful flowers are here to help 
 guide and to help hold up the 'right hand and 
 
100 
 
 the left' of man in his heavy task of solving" 
 his destiny." 
 
 "I for one," said Brown, "can vouch for the 
 usefulness of the birds in one line of inquiry, 
 that of the weather. I do not have to leave 
 my hammock on a summer's day to seek the 
 knowledge of the next day's storm. I notice 
 the birds in the elms above me ruffle up their 
 feathers and fly swiftly to-and-fro if it is to be 
 stormy. The beautiful swan in our small pond 
 who is of no practical use except to float 
 around and look graceful is even a better 
 barometer than my birds." 
 
 "That bird," said Cyril, "has a good right 
 to impart some of his knowledge to you if he 
 has lived one-half of the three hundred years 
 allotted to his kind." 
 
 "Yes," said Richard, "the water foul show 
 the approach of the storm more quickly than 
 the birds of the wing, they, too, ruffle up 
 their plumage and swim aimlessly about and 
 utter loud harsh cries. Our domestic fowl 
 will lose all ambition to run about if a storm 
 be approaching. They will stand, with droop- 
 
101 
 
 ing tails, on one leg and look at you with half- 
 closed eye wondering no doubt why you too do 
 not take a little time from your hurry and 
 bustle and observe the weather also. Why do 
 we need great weather observatories when we 
 have the knowledge all about us if we wish, 
 an old farmer can tell the weather a day or 
 two in advance and come as near as our 
 w r eather prophets do with all their infinite 
 detail of investigation. We study the sky in 
 all parts of the country to discover any change, 
 we make notes of such change and run to the 
 telegraph and despatch the precious informa- 
 tion to all other parts of our country, while 
 we make haste to tell everyone we meet of the 
 storm that too ofttimes never comes, we make 
 haste to print the information, we tack it up 
 on our door posts. 
 
 "And is not a great deal of our boasted 
 learning acquired in this way? We shut our 
 eyes and ears to all these natural truths given 
 to us by Divine Nature and accept only such 
 results that we can acquire through long, la- 
 borious, farsical and artificial red tape. We 
 
102 
 
 lean more to the false power of the dust em- 
 bodied in the long curling form of the serpent 
 instead of adopting the knowledge at our 
 hands embodied to a high degree in the beau- 
 tiful birds which are the highest and the purest 
 power of Athena, the great Greek goddess, 
 meaning the pure incarnated air. Are not 
 we like unto the professor who spent three 
 weeks inspecting a farmer's corn crib to ascer- 
 tain the fact of the number of rows of corn on 
 a cob? When he called the farmer and told 
 him of his wonderful discovery what was his 
 disgust when the farmer said, 'If you had 
 come to me before you went to my crib I 
 could have told you the same thing, by gosh; 
 as I saw you hang around the crib so much I 
 had about decided that you were stealing my 
 corn, think of this, if the professor had gone 
 to the right place he would have gotten his 
 information; if he had asked a student of 
 nature he would have gotten the truth in a 
 moment instead of spending three weeks in 
 the search. Study nature if you wish to be 
 learned. This is the secret of Greek culture 
 and of all other real culture." 
 
Chapter V 
 
 *^0^~S HE Sphinx Club had come together 
 
 fi J for their fifth meeting. "I wish to 
 
 ^^i^ call your attention, gentlemen," 
 said Wheeler, "to the fact that this is the fifth 
 meeting of our Club, since we undertook to 
 help explain some of the causes of the great 
 evils that beset man on all sides — notwith- 
 standing the effort of one of our members to 
 exclude these questions from our discussions, 
 I think we should feel gratified at having been 
 able to carry the discourses so long without 
 our strenuous friend's objection, taking a more 
 powerful form." 
 
 "Oh! well," said Cyril, "I soon found out 
 that I would have to be lenient with you 
 fellows, and when you awoke the lazy Brown 
 by your eloquence, I could not help but be- 
 come interested myself. In fact, I think we 
 have not carried some of the questions that 
 
104 
 
 we have talked over far enough. I think there 
 is plenty of chance to enlarge on a great many 
 questions we have had under discussion, and 
 that the points that we have let go are almost 
 as essential as those we have brought out." 
 
 "I feel," said Graham, "that we have made 
 a stride in the right direction, and if we do not 
 take as much time to draw a conclusion as we 
 might, still I think we brought out the points 
 sufficiently for our own satisfaction, but, per- 
 haps, we could lengthen our sessions some- 
 what." 
 
 "I don't think," said Franklin, "it would be 
 to our good to lengthen our sessions." 
 
 "I think we use time enough," said Richard. 
 
 "And I," put in Venner. 
 
 "In studying Darwin," said Wheeler, "and 
 other great scientists I am struck with the 
 ruthless manner in which they handle man. 
 They tell us man is an 'intelligent atom.' Man 
 is an 'Intelligence assisted by organs.' They 
 cannot seemingly get away from the fact that 
 there is, and always was, this intelligence." 
 
 "No," said Richard, "they can carry out 
 
105 
 
 their theory of the animal part of man, but they 
 cannot account for the divine spark of in- 
 tellect." 
 
 "It seems to me," said Cyril, "most of their 
 theories are built upon exceptions." 
 
 "I consider that Darwin's natural selection," 
 said Venner, "is but another way of putting 
 the story of the wearing out of animal power, 
 or the using up of waste material." 
 
 "I agree with Cyril," said Wheeler, "on the 
 exceptional cases adopted by scientists to 
 prove their theories. It seems to me the 
 mere accident of a child 'taking back' that is 
 a child having the same peculiarities as its 
 grandparents, as we will ofttimes notice, and I 
 know of the offspring of cattle being as unlike 
 either father or mother, that an expert will 
 declare that it was a 'mongrel breed' when it 
 came from what was supposed to be pure 
 stock. I have seen a colt born with markings 
 of white from a pair of 'bay' parents, and do- 
 mestic fowl will often produce parallel cases. 
 I have seen a black Spanish fowl produce a 
 black and white chick amongst a clear black 
 
io6 
 
 brood. We call these 'Freaks of Nature' and 
 forget them, but it seems evident to me that 
 any of these 'freaks' could upset some of the 
 smooth theories of some of these scientists." 
 
 "Well," said Brown, "there is a statement 
 made by some that I cannot agree with, which 
 is 'rarity is a precursor of extinction.' I can- 
 not see it in this light. A certain great peo- 
 ple become corrupt and pine away until an- 
 other people come and capture them and their 
 country, kill and work them until there is 
 only a comparatively few left, but that few by 
 being restrained from the corrupting influences 
 that caused their downfall in the first instance 
 become powerful again and turn on their now 
 corrupt oppressors and regain their lost 
 prestige." 
 
 "These great and good men studied to help 
 explain the mystery of the world," said Rich- 
 ard, "and of the wonderful Life herein. They 
 tell us we are a combination of very small cells. 
 Some say that man was originally a four- 
 footed animal, and others give us overwhelm- 
 ing proof that man was always erect and 
 
107 
 
 walked on two feet, which any lay brother will 
 instantly swear to. We are made up of 'cells' 
 and these 'cells' are made up of other 'cells' 
 and these still more 'cells', and so on. 
 
 "The planetary system, man says, is made 
 up of so many stars and suns. He will tell 
 you how the sun's total diameter is eight hun- 
 dred and sixty-five thousand miles, and that 
 it is about ninety-five millions of miles distant 
 from the earth, that if you are inclined to 
 stroll around the earth's orbit before break- 
 fast you would have to travel one hundred and 
 eighty-six millions of miles, that the nearest 
 fixed star is only twenty-six trillions of miles 
 from your doorstep. And how many fixed 
 stars are behind that? Millions and millions. 
 Like the world life, it goes on to the infinite, 
 'cells' within 'cells/ stars behind stars. If 
 man can manufacture a more powerful 
 telescope he will find more stars. If he makes 
 a more powerful microscope he will discover 
 more cells, more minute atoms. 
 
 •'But where is the missing link between the 
 animal and the intellectual being? Why can- 
 
io8 
 
 not the scientist connect the man's body and. 
 his soul? Who holds the key to this great 
 mystery ? 
 
 "Here these great minds have worked out 
 an almost perfect theory. Why could they not 
 finish it? Why like the builders of the Tower 
 of Babel are they allowed to build so high and 
 then grasp tongues of heresy? When they 
 near the pinnacle they become mystified. Con- 
 fusion sets in and if they go any further they 
 become lost, and go round and round until 
 they get back to their starting point. Do they 
 not tell us we were apes ? They trace the well- 
 balanced and symmetrical body of man back 
 to the ugly body of an ape, and still back until 
 we are on equal terms with the first 'cell' or 
 'life atom' that starts out to become the croak- 
 ing midnight frog ! 
 
 "No doubt the common house fly that so 
 persistently buzzes around your face is a great 
 fly philosopher out on a tour of inspection of 
 puny man, who has just jumped up from the 
 easy chair in his cosy library, kicked off his 
 three pairs of slippers (for Mrs. Fly Philoso- 
 
109 
 
 pher to pick up again while buzzing in a sub- 
 dued way, ('John's such a careless man'), and 
 adjusted his spectacles over his thousands of 
 compound eyes, and has come at you at the 
 rate of six hundred strokes per second of his 
 delicate wings, and, in fact, if he wishes to 
 have the honor of taking the first observation 
 of you, he can increase his speed six or seven 
 fold, if you watch him very closely you may 
 be able to see him pull out a memorandum 
 book from his inside pocket and hurriedly 
 pencil down a few lines discoursing on the 
 new brand of cigar you are smoking. 
 
 "Perhaps the worm you see crawling along 
 the gutter is an expert chemist having just left 
 his underground laboratory bristling with re- 
 torts, test-tubes and little Bunsen lamps with 
 their blue flickering flames, to try and verify 
 some of the observations he has made of the 
 per cent, of oxygen required in the air to keep 
 alive the large Brahma rooster in your back 
 yard. And how truly he should keep out of 
 the way of this fat member of the feathered 
 
no 
 
 tribe that excites his solicitude, we know if he 
 does not. 
 
 "These brilliant intellects that work out this 
 story are not above the commonest snake in the 
 grass ! the beetle that lays its eggs in the cow- 
 dung! they have gone so far up the Tower of 
 Babel that they forget what they learned on the 
 way. Where did the power come from that en- 
 abled these men to search for these cells, to 
 search for the infinite ? It seems to me they are 
 lost in the mist of high clouds they have reach- 
 ed and fall back, but still believe they are going 
 higher up; so the present day intellectual and 
 animal man is taken by them and set down in 
 what they call the Pleistocene period, or the 
 very beginning of their researches. They look 
 at the sky and are lost in its wonderous Space. 
 They look at the earth Life and are lost in its 
 immensity. 
 
 "Carlyle says of man 'For the highest God 
 dwells visible in that mystic unfathomable 
 visibility which calls itself T on earth.' 
 
 " 'Bending before man,' says Novalis, 'is a 
 reverence done to the revelation in the flesh. 
 
Ill 
 
 We touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a 
 human body.' This is a very agreeable con- 
 trast to the coldblooded way in which our fa- 
 mous scientists picture man and his being. 
 
 "Why do these words 'ring true' in our 
 hearts, is it our Vanity that causes us to listen 
 to this noble definition of man? Is it our Self- 
 love that makes us desire to be thus defined? 
 Is it Conceit that drives us many times against 
 our wills to praise and to worship Purity 
 wherever we find it? If it is then here we have 
 the ingredients for making the Soul, no matter 
 how much man will outrage and destroy, he 
 will, in his inner-self, and more especially when 
 he returns to his normal state, praise and wor- 
 ship the good in all things. These writers, who. 
 in their learned trance, call man the embodi- 
 ment of 'nothingness' in their sober moments 
 do him the very highest honor in saying that he 
 is the apex of all world life, and that he is 
 'an intelligence assisted by organs.' This 'in- 
 tellect' or soul, has been recognized by all races 
 of men in every clime since creation ; be they 
 learned or the untutored savage. The Xeth of 
 
112 
 
 the Egyptians; the Bel of the Caldeans; 
 Athena of the Greeks ; Jupiter of the Romans ; 
 Allah of the Mohammedans; Buddha of the 
 Buddhists ; are but the different names of the 
 same Eternal God that the soul forces the 
 body to believe in and worship. Pagans, Idol- 
 aters worshipped idols as the visible emblems 
 of their God. 
 
 "One tendency of modern times is to ques- 
 tion our religion. Scientific investigation is 
 creating a feeling of unbelief in our people, 
 our 'great thinkers' are taking some excep- 
 tions to the New Testament, and a good part 
 of the old has already been called fiction. Our 
 scientists seem to be in this fight against the 
 Bible because it bids them halt in their mad 
 career. They make fun of the great teachings 
 that has made it possible for them to have the 
 opportunities to become 'broad-minded men' 
 of learning. They make light of the great laws 
 that have civilized the world. Let me here 
 quote a few lines from the immortal Pope : 
 
H3 
 
 "Go ! wonderous creature, mount where science 
 guides, 
 
 Go ! measure earth weigh air and state the tides ; 
 Instruct the planets in what orbs to run; 
 
 Correct Old Time and regulate the sun. 
 
 Go ! teach Eternal wisdom how to rule, 
 Then drop into thyself and be a fool. 
 ****** * * 
 
 Trace science then with modesty thy guide ; 
 First strip off all her equipage of pride ; 
 Then see how little the remaining sum." 
 
 You will see in the comic press the liberty 
 that is taken with the teachings of the Old 
 Testament. This would not be so if the learn- 
 ed man had not first ridiculed some of these 
 stories. They cannot give us anything to re- 
 place this Good Book so why take this away 
 and leave us to flounder around in despair at 
 the feet of the golden calf. 
 
 "I see in this disregard for the sound doc- 
 trines of our forefathers another sign of phys- 
 ical decay. We are gradually drifting in to 
 the same state that preceded the stoic period 
 in Rome. Our learned professors in trying to 
 
ii4 
 
 reconcile philosophy and theology are under- 
 mining the foundations of law and order, cut- 
 ting down the staff that all great nations must 
 have to walk with and endure. They raise up 
 the ghost of despair in the minds of the weak. 
 The great mass of the people become indiffer- 
 ent, are driven to adopt the stoic state of mind 
 which preceded the downfall of Greece and es- 
 pecially Rome. They follow the professors 
 and ask each other if he knows what he be- 
 lieves. Each evades the question since the 
 learned men whom in former times he called 
 •on to help him prove an argument will only 
 say 'We believe only what we can prove.' He 
 says nothing. He stays away from church 
 more often for when he goes he is in such a 
 state of turmoil between these fellows' argu- 
 ments and the great natural facts of wonder- 
 ful divine Nature that he is completely puzzled, 
 consequently he becomes a 'back-slider.' The 
 church loses some of his support, the good 
 sound judgment is at a loss how to proceed. 
 He hesitates, he wrestles with himself, and 
 while all this confusion is going on the church 
 
H5 
 
 is, of course, losing power to do good. Less 
 support in moral and financial matters be- 
 cause of this great black doubt that has arisen, 
 and at the present the ministry is becoming less 
 able to carry its load by the absence of the 
 talent it should have. The young men of 
 strong character are becoming stoic. They 
 too, can believe only what they can prove, and 
 they cannot go before the people and preach 
 doctrines that they are in doubt about. They 
 too, like the Romans of old, are coming to 
 look upon religion as a political necessity, to 
 be tolerated for the control of 'the vulgar 
 masses' only. Here is our undoing. Here is 
 where we depart from the great Power that 
 made us. Here is where we introduce the un- 
 bridled stud of evil. We must have something 
 to do. We cannot lie dormant. We have 
 lost our faith, we must have something. W^hat 
 will it be ? What it has always been in the past, 
 Pleasure ! Man runs to the theatres, to the 
 pool rooms and beer gardens, and the like, try- 
 ing to forget the fate that awaits him. He 
 keeps himself in a high nervous state and re- 
 
n6 
 
 laxes only when sickness comes or death 
 knocks at his door. Love and duty are un- 
 known, we are getting to be a nation of law- 
 breakers. Our young break every known law. 
 There is no restraint, no governing, no sense 
 of duty in them. There is no respect for the 
 weak and aged. Why such utter disregard for 
 all things that make a national life secure or 
 an individual one? 
 
 "Conversation, association of persons from 
 the cradle to middle life, social intercourse 
 create high ideals in the exchange of views of 
 thought on current subjects. We are in this 
 way able to place our brother men in their 
 proper place in our confidences and relations, 
 religious business and political, etc. (this is 
 much more necessary to a republic than to a 
 monarchy where each man is properly graded 
 by birth and caste.) This condition is rapidly 
 disappearing from our country. 
 
 "In rambling around the earth, in short 
 stays in places, tend toward the breaking up 
 of man's contented mind. There is no more 
 Christianizing influence than a good home. 
 
ii; 
 
 Man without a home is nothing more than a 
 beast, and the farther away a people get from 
 the homelike influence the nearer they get to 
 disruption. The loose city life is agnostic 
 to the quiet pure home hearth where the family 
 gathered 'round the fireside to listen to mother 
 or father read some good strong healthy story. 
 Far from the evil thought that fill a large 
 part of the books of fiction of today, the young- 
 er generation reading about the 'natural' hero 
 or heroine shocking their elders in every move 
 they make. The author gushingly describes 
 his heroine as being 'so natural, so full of life' 
 that she does not know right from wrong, 
 or more times he will say 'Evil is 
 to those who evil thinks,' meaning to 
 infer that his heroine does no wrong 
 because it is her nature. It is not that 
 her actions are shocking, actually shock- 
 ing. Her actions may be natural enough, but 
 it is the absence of common sense she shows 
 in the time and place that she acts, that shocks 
 her elders and makes the book unfit for the 
 young to read. But they read this kind of 
 
u8 
 
 literature, act the same. They make fun of 
 the 'puritanical' ideas of the older school of 
 humanity, they have no patience with destiny, 
 try to grasp their fate with both hands, en- 
 deavor to beat nature, only to reap a harvest 
 of green poisonous fruit, as one must if he 
 picks his apples before they are ripe. 
 
 "And all this fever heat ; all these efforts of 
 wonderful brain power, 'man overcoming na- 
 ture,' they call it, all these great mechanical 
 delusions, after all this riot, they fall down 
 and cry out in their weakness as Nature steps 
 in and makes them feel what little helpless 
 children they are." 
 
 "I believe," said Brown, "that the time will 
 come when Nature will take men up in her 
 arms and carry them back to the doorstep of 
 her home, as any mother picks up her off- 
 spring from the middle of the street where 
 they would likely be run down and killed. She 
 knows that they have been punished enough 
 for their going astray, so with a word of cau- 
 tion she will leave them once more to play at 
 her hearthstone." 
 
iig 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said Richard, "history re- 
 peats itself continually but it is not necessary 
 for us to go through all this suffering, endure 
 all this havoc for the sake of sitting in the mid- 
 dle of the road to mix mud pies. We cannot 
 follow in the footsteps of the polluted Romans 
 without arriving at the same goal as they. 
 
 "The debauched Romans went to the Colos- 
 seum to witness the powers of foreign strong 
 men. We go to Vaudeville shows in order to 
 see a strong natural robust man in these latter 
 days of dried-up counter jumpers, bloated bar 
 tenders (tend bar mostly on the outside), and 
 other specimens of indoor imbeciles." 
 
 "There have been men of abnormal 
 strength," said Cyril, "in all ages. The Old 
 Testament mentions Goliath, the Philistine. 
 And later we have Sampson the strong man 
 of Israel, and I recall one Teutobach of 
 ancient history fame." 
 
 "Yes," said Richard, "they are sent to a 
 nation in a time of a bondage or at the period 
 of a downfall of its manhood as a living re- 
 proach. They have accomplished nothing of 
 
120 
 
 importance in their brief irregular appear- 
 ances. Goliath was killed by a small boy, and 
 the Philistines straightway routed. Sampson 
 was ensnared by a woman, delivered by her to 
 his enemies and put to death, and at his time 
 you will note, that the Jews were in bondage, 
 and Teutobach, the great German ruffian was 
 captured and his host of barbarians totally de- 
 feated. Let me tell you, my friend, anything 
 in the extreme is dangerous, is not right. Em- 
 erson said that 'Justice is the rhythm of 
 things." Equilibrium is another name for 
 justice. 
 
 "What is this that an eminent Englishman 
 remarks of the American college man after a 
 visit to our shores on a tour of inspection of 
 our colleges, he said, 'The American college 
 man is becoming very feminine in his looks 
 and manners.' He did not examine our stores, 
 our shops, and offices, and professional men; 
 he did not look into our factories, if he had I 
 think he would have said that all of us were 
 fast becoming 'squaw men,' getting weak in 
 our bodies due to our consumption of foods 
 
121 
 
 unfit to eat and liquids unfit to drink, lack of 
 proper healthful exercise and close confine- 
 ment in badly ventilated buildings crowded 
 together in our miserable ant hill cities. 
 
 "Where our grandfathers got their manly 
 forms and brainy heads from corn meal and 
 wheat grown on their own farms and car- 
 ried direct to the miller, ground and brought 
 home, kneaded by grandmother and put into 
 the oven. No adulteration here, no alum, no 
 ammonia, no sulphate of copper in this bread. 
 Where their cider came from sweet apples 
 from their own trees and -their wines direct 
 from their own vineyards, our men have to 
 drink concoctions of salicylic acid and count- 
 less other drugs. Where their water came 
 from the pure sparkling old oaken bucket with 
 the blue trout sporting in the silver pebbled 
 well with its frame of moss covered rocks, we 
 now draw our life giving draught from dark 
 muddy rivers too ofttimes polluted with foul 
 sewage, dead animals, and rotten vegetation." 
 
 "You know the reason," said Cyril, "of the 
 passing of the Old Oaken Bucket, it became 
 
122 
 
 so polluted that the people had to do away 
 with it." 
 
 "Quite true," answered Richard "how could' 
 anything so pure live in a densely populated 
 city and remain uncontaminated. The Old' 
 Oaken Bucket was encompassed by evil sew- 
 age, and, of course, under such abuse it be- 
 came man's worst enemy as surely as it was 
 his best friend under healthful conditions. This 
 is the nature of man and beast, birds of the air, 
 fishes of the sea, and all things. 
 
 "You cannot find a dozen men in a thousand 
 that are enjoying perfect health today. What 
 a horrible tale lies behind the thousands of 
 patent medicine advertisements that fill our 
 newspapers and magazines, that are dropped 
 at our doors, laid into our hands as we pass 
 along the streets, that glare in front of us in 
 the electric cars, that trail along our railroads, 
 shutting out the view of our beautiful world, 
 that are nailed on every old board fence, paint- 
 ed on bleak rocks and old barns, and are at 
 every visible point along our rivers, in fact 
 they even fly them in the air far above our 
 
123 
 
 city streets, throw them on the very clouds. 
 Now there is a demand, else there would not 
 be such a supply of these things. Of course 
 there is a demand since man is making him- 
 self such an easy prey to disease, and since one 
 set of men in their lust for gold are handing 
 out copperas, alum, chromate and sulphate of 
 lead, salts of tin, gypsum, sulphuric acid, 
 hydrochloric acid, china clay, caustic lime, red 
 lead, etc., in our food stuffs. Of course such 
 stuff as this creates a demand for patent medi- 
 cines. Of course these foul drugs prepare us 
 for early graves, and with our twentieth cen- 
 tury civilization it is remarkable that the aver- 
 age human frame reaches the age limit of 
 thirty-one years under such abuse. Far better 
 range our humanity out on the battlefield and 
 bid them destroy each other in glorious war, 
 than to kill them like cats in a bag." 
 
 "You made the statement," said Cyril, "that 
 a man's social and business status is fixed by 
 conversation and association in a republic, and 
 that this was more necessary to a republic than 
 a monarchy where his status was looked after 
 
124 
 
 by the government to some extent. Now I 
 claim a man is a man under all conditions or 
 should be. If you can 'jump twelve feet in 
 Rhodes' why can't you jump twelve feet here?" 
 
 "I agree with you" said Richard, "if I can 
 be a man in Rhodes I can be one here. This 
 is as it should be, but it is not as it is. Man is 
 a mass of contradictions, and under different 
 circumstances he develops himself differently. 
 
 "In England for instance they have 'peers' 
 and 'commoners.' The 'peers' have been given 
 'privileges' for centuries; are considered 'bet- 
 ter blood' than the common people. Their 
 cast has no doubt made them as a whole better 
 in culture and their experiences in higher posi- 
 tions has, with the absence of bribery, due to 
 their being provided for by the government, 
 given them a higher sense of duty a com- 
 moner would feel the high dignity of the fa- 
 vored place from the top of his head to the 
 sole of his feet and try very hard to make 
 every one he came in contact with feel it also. 
 This attitude gives the unscrupulous lobbyist 
 the opportunity of paying court to him and 
 
125 
 
 basking in the sunshine of his newly acquired 
 fame. Thus after a time they are fast friends 
 and shortly the 'necessary' is running from a 
 corporation's till into the commoner's pocket 
 with no disquieting questions asked, and finally 
 as a report of some shady transaction is noised 
 abroad and he sees his defeat at the next elec- 
 tion assured, he w T ill instantly grasp every op- 
 portunity to receive 'graft' before his rival 
 be seated. His lack of culture narrows his 
 horizon also at this junction, and he sells him- 
 self to the highest bidder without the 'turn of 
 a hair.' 
 
 "While the 'peer' receiving the respect due 
 his position in society all his life receives the 
 new honor with the same composure that he 
 shows at all times. He knows that he is a 
 legitimate part of the government of the peo- 
 ple, designated and honored as such, and an 
 absolute necessary part of a most honest and 
 stable government, and especially chosen by 
 the people for centuries to perform these 
 functions. This favor is in most 
 cases brought about by some great 
 
126 
 
 noble act in behalf of the nation in 
 times of war. A brave man accomplishes a 
 deed that frees the nation from a great dread, 
 wins a great battle, and saves a large portion 
 of the country from capture by the enemy, if 
 not actually preserving the entire country 
 from ultimate capture by its foes. This man 
 Is rewarded by a high place in the councils of 
 the country. He receives a title and it is trans- 
 mitted to his offspring and they live up to the 
 traditions of their ancestors to a certain de- 
 gree. 
 
 "Every student of history and every close 
 observer of human nature knows what a power 
 tradition has over man. The recounting of the 
 noble deeds of a great grandfather or a father 
 are most inspiring to a son, and he is aware 
 everybody knows the brave acts of his fore- 
 fathers, and have watchful eyes on him ex- 
 pecting him to act like his parents if a crisis 
 arises and calls for such action. 'Like father 
 like son' is what they believe. He has an an- 
 cestral castle with trophies of the achievements 
 of those gone before him. The collection of 
 
127 
 
 portraits of his noble ancestors as they appear- 
 ed in life look down upon him, and he feels 
 he must do as near right as he can to be worthy 
 of such forefathers. He treads in their foot- 
 steps. What they honored he honors, what 
 they considered wrong he considers wrong. So 
 as he is surrounded by every opportunity to 
 fulfill his heritage he usually does, and thus the 
 people are satisfied with their young lord, and 
 hold him in respect as a part of their own gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 "Where in a republic, the changing of high 
 officials so often tends to make the man in 
 ofnce 'make hay while the sun shines' lest to- 
 morrow he be deposed. This corruption be- 
 comes more flagrant as the city increases in 
 population. About all that two-thirds of the 
 voters know about a candidate is that he is 
 running for the ofnce on a certain party ticket. 
 They do not know whether he is a blackguard 
 or an honest man. And with the confusion 
 created by party organs with all their 'mud 
 slinging' a voter cannot believe 'anything he 
 hears nor half he sees,' regarding the character 
 
128 
 
 of a candidate. If an honest man is nominated 
 for an office the opposing party will search his 
 record from the cradle, and as no man is per- 
 fect they find a flaw and they make a mountain 
 of wickedness out of it. If a base man is 
 nominated on the opposite side they can call 
 him all the names they wish and be right. But 
 what does he care. They have blackened the 
 record of the honest man as well so he stands 
 just as good a chance to be elected as though 
 his own record was clean. This is the reason 
 we see so many unclean men in our high places 
 today. The good men will sit back and say 
 'let the villains wrangle amongst themselves so 
 long as they don't bother my business.' And 
 as a result corruption walks ungloved in our 
 land. Our men do not know each other. There- 
 fore, I say conversation and association are 
 necessary. We are all strangers. People in 
 cities do not know their next door neighbor, 
 because of a certain evil shifting population 
 that roams about the country staying but a 
 short time in each place. This always occurs 
 where a large number of people concentrate 
 
129 
 
 in a given spot. This scum always comes to 
 the top and destroys the general peace of all. 
 
 "In a country of isolated towns and hamlets 
 honest men thrive because they become stable. 
 They 'anchor' in one place and are governed 
 by their traditions to a large extent, and are 
 not corrupted by this Floating Evil. They can 
 shake the hand of their neighbor and have the 
 satisfaction of knowing that they are greeting 
 an honest man. For have they not known him 
 since his birth ? There is no smile at your face 
 and stab at your back here. You know your 
 man and he knows you. An ideal condition. 
 
 "In this age nearly all our men are the per- 
 sonification of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. No 
 doubt that is the reason of the popularity of 
 this play. Man sees himself as in a mirror, 
 only in a more exaggerated form and he be- 
 comes pleased at the exaggeration, for he can 
 say to himself T am not as bad as that anyway.' 
 We are all two-faced. We are trying to be 
 somebody else instead of being ourselves. How 
 rarely is an honest open-hearted conscientious 
 man found nowadays. And when found we 
 
130 
 
 soon see that we have nothing in common with 
 him in this century, and we will immediately 
 proceed to divest him at once of all he posses- 
 ses. We will tell him to look at the moon and 
 see the woman in it and while he is looking we 
 will rifle his pockets. We will shake his hand 
 cordially and relieve him of his watch. We 
 will sell him a 'gold brick' and take his home. 
 And if he cries out that we are thieves, we will 
 tell him he is 'slow' that he is 'easy.' He is 
 like unto Rip Van Winkle, he has slept too 
 long. We have been playing the black game 
 of 'chance' for twenty years and are past mas- 
 ters of the art now, while he has been sleeping. 
 He belongs to the past. He cannot exist with 
 his fellow men today. We are too sharp for 
 him. 
 
 "He reads a sign 'This way to a beautiful 
 city' and he finds it leads him to the throne 
 room of Deceit, Envy, Malice and Hatred, the 
 four Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. And he is 
 mystified with even the language of the coun- 
 try. He reads a sentence from some good man's 
 oration. He sees the simple truth in it at once. 
 
I3i 
 
 But he afterwards hears another man read the 
 same sentence and scientifically dissect it 'in 
 an attempt to get at the full meaning.' The 
 truth has fled. The dissection of the Word has 
 been its death. This man has taken the truth 
 that a moment ago was so clear and bright to 
 the honest man and cast an impenetrable cloud 
 over it. He has skilfully misconstrued it. Our 
 language is so pliable that an evil person can 
 take a true word and make it stand for his 
 own bad purposes with a little 'dissection.' In 
 fact, a silver-tongued orator can make him 
 think that black is white. Quote every author- 
 ity to convince him that he is right and make 
 the honest man concede the point in the pres-. 
 ence of the arguer. But on getting alone he 
 thinks it over and knows that the orator is a 
 liar. This power of the gilt-edge oration that 
 momentarily convinced him is what we cal] 
 'personal magnetism' or the power of a 'posi- 
 tive' person over a 'negative' person. And 
 this is so infused into the modern blood that we 
 are all 'positive' we all must be great men at 
 once, and we have no room for a slow honest 
 
132 
 
 man. We must all be great orators, great 
 thinkers. All of our opinions are of very 
 great weight. We are very great. We don't 
 need any ideals, tear them down, they belong 
 to the simple honest man here and he is no- 
 body. He don't know enough to go in when it 
 rains. We know it all, and we are very prac- 
 tical. We must kill the goose that lays the 
 golden eggs to find the cause of her producing 
 them. And in this wild clamor, this playing to 
 the gallery, we lose the stable, honest, solid 
 purpose of life and the dogged endurance of 
 the preservers of the honor of the country is 
 not here. It cannot live with such fanaticism, 
 such frivolous vanity. 
 
 "The 'practical' search of the modern man 
 for the 'truth' leads him into another false 
 door, that of the modern city hospital. In his 
 vain search for wisdom, he has not the time to 
 create a feeling of love in his near fellow 
 beings, or they are occupied in the same search 
 as he and cannot appreciate any of his efforts 
 in this direction. And his children not being 
 brought under control by him with words of 
 
133 
 
 love and command as both are much needed, 
 and not having time enough to satisfy his own 
 search for knowledge he has none for his off- 
 spring and they come to look on him as their 
 credit account only. And if he be taken ill he 
 is hurried to the city hospital to be practiced 
 on by young doctors and trained nurses, while 
 his family come to see him when they feel like 
 it. Trained nurses are usually disappointed 
 old maids with a grudge against humanity in 
 general. It is quite evident that they are train- 
 ed for the money which is in it, anyway, they 
 treat him as a 'case.' No near and dear sym- 
 pathy to ease his fevered brow. No 
 love proved by long association and 
 kind actions and true friendship such 
 as the sick need and should have. 
 Kind, loving care, sympathetic nature, and 
 true friend in constant attendance is a 
 medicine that performs more cures than all 
 the doctors, nurses or drugs combined. I may 
 add that sick or well, this is what all men 
 crave and each one waits for his neighbor to 
 prove the 'Golden Rule' and consequently he 
 
134 
 
 is still waiting. We are like the Pharaoh who 
 would make his bricks without straw. Our 
 man is a simple 'case' in the hospital, and he 
 is getting to be the same simple 'case* in all 
 walks of life. Everything now must be 
 gigantic. All our business is combination. 
 
 "Our whole fabric of civilization is getting 
 to be a union of violent contrasts that must re- 
 sult in an explosion of greater or less dimen- 
 sions. For we now have no chance for in- 
 dividual worth to count. 
 
 ''Man is an atom in this masterdomic struc- 
 ture, and is of little consequence from a com- 
 bination point of view, and in losing his per- 
 sonality he loses all that his life stands for. 
 Here instinctive force compels rebellion. 
 
 "Man is proud and when he receives his 
 meat, his bread, even his religion parceled 
 out to him at a stipulated time and quantity 
 like a soldier's rations it wounds his vanity. 
 
 "This handling of humanity in 'car-load lots' 
 is degrading. But how else are they to be hand- 
 led in a great city. They must be pushed and 
 shoved and driven about like cattle. If thev 
 
135 
 
 will crowd and jostle each other under a single 
 apple tree, with but a single apple, when it 
 falls only one gets it, and it is usually found to 
 be filled with worms as all 'windfalls' are." 
 
 "It is needless to announce," said Franklin, 
 "that we all heartily concur with friend Rich- 
 ard's argument." 
 
 "It gives me pleasure," answered Richard, 
 "to be able to express the opinions of all of 
 you so readily, and now, gentlemen, I move 
 we adjourn as it is getting late." 
 
 The motion was unanimously carried. 
 
 Our friends of the Sphinx Club are still en- 
 gaged in searching for new truths along scien- 
 tific lines, are still trying to deduct the true 
 from the false. This is their relaxation from the 
 strenuous life most of them lead; while they 
 are all of very different natures, still they all 
 enjoy with the pleasure of a Nimrod the 
 "sport" of chasing after the beautiful, the sub- 
 lime, but so elusive, the always new, the always 
 youthful Truth, and if they capture her in one 
 line of thought it matters not if she changes 
 herself instantly into another form; they en- 
 
136 
 
 joy their victory and put their trophy in safe 
 keeping, and with light hearts take up the 
 chase again, while they are not always re- 
 warded by capture, they enjoy a glimpse of the 
 sublime form among the black trees of the 
 forest of Deceit, or find her delicate footprints 
 in the mud of the Doubtful marshes ; they don't 
 seem to tire of the chase ; Venner breaks away 
 once in awhile, but takes up the scent after a 
 brief rest, pushing after the game with in- 
 creased zeal, and showing a broadening of 
 thought that surprises his fellow members. 
 
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