The Colossus Part 14

Suddenly we meet a man, and he speaks the word of life unto that mist, and instantly it becomes a thought."

Other members joined the group, and the conversation broke and flew into sharp fragments. McGlenn and Richmond began to wrangle.

"Your children may not read my books," said McGlenn, replying to some a.s.sertion that Richmond had made, "but your great-grandchildren will."

"Oh, that's possible," Richmond rejoined. "I can defend my immediate offspring, while my descendants may be left without protection. If you would tear the didacticism out of your books and inject a little more of the juice of human interest--hold on!" Richmond threw up his arm, as though warding off a blow. "When that double line comes between his eyes I always feel that he is going to hit me."

"I wouldn't hit you. I have some pity left."

"Or fear--which is it?"

"Not fear; pity."

"Why don't you reserve some of it for your readers?"

McGlenn frowned. "I don't expect you to like my books."

"Oh, you have realized the fact that the characters are wooden?"

"No, but I have realized that they are beyond your feeble grasp. I don't want you to like my books." He hammered his knee. "The book that wins your regard is an exceedingly bad production. When you search for facts you may sometimes go to high sources, but when you read fiction you go to the dogs. A consistent character in fiction is beyond you."

"There are no consistent characters in life," said Richmond, "and a consistent character in fiction is merely a strained form of art. In life the most arrant coward will sometimes fight; the bravest man at times lacks nerve; the generous man may sometimes show the spirit of the n.i.g.g.ard. But your character in fiction is different. He must be always brave, or always generous, or always n.i.g.g.ardly. He must be consistent, and consistency is not life."

"But inconsistency is life, and you are, therefore, not dead," McGlenn replied. "If inconsistency were a jewel," he added, "you would be a cl.u.s.ter of brilliants. As it is, you are an intellectual fault-finder and a physical hypochondriac."

"And you are an intellectual cartoon and a physical mistake."

"I won't talk to you. Even the semblance of a gentleman commands my respect, but I can't respect you. I like truth, but"--

"Is that the reason you seek me?"

"No, it is the reason I avoid you. Brutal prejudice never held a truth."

"Not when it shook hands with you," Richmond replied.

McGlenn got up, walked over to the piano, came back, looked at his watch, and addressing Richmond, asked:

"Are you going home, John?"

"Yes, John. Suppose we walk."

"I'll go you; come on."

They bade Henry good evening and together walked off affectionately.

"What do you think of our new friend?" Richmond asked as they strolled along.

"John, he has suffered. He is a great man."

"I don't know how he may turn out," Richmond said, "but I rather like him. Of course he hasn't fitted himself to his position--that is, he doesn't as yet feel the force of old Witherspoon's money. His experience has gone far toward making a man of him, but his changed condition may after a while throw his past struggles into contempt and thereby corrode his manliness."

"I don't think that he sc.r.a.ped up his principles from the Witherspoon side of the house," McGlenn declared. "If he had, we should at once have discovered in him the unmistakable trace of the hog. Oh, I don't think he will stay in the club very long. His tendency will be to drift away. All rich men are the enemies of democracy. If they pretend that they are not, they are hypocrites; if they believe they are not, it is because they haven't come to a correct understanding of themselves. The meanest difference that can exist between men is the difference that money makes. There is some compa.s.sion in an intellectual difference, and even in a difference of birth there is some little atonement to be expected, but a moneyed difference is stiff with unyielding brutality."

In this opinion they struck a sort of agreement, but they soon fell apart, and they wrangled until they reached a place where their pathway split. They halted for a moment; they had been fierce in argument. Now they were calm.

"Can't you come over to-night, John?" McGlenn asked.

"No, I can't possibly come to-night, John. I've got a piece of work on hand and must get it off. I've neglected it too long already."

But he did go over that night, and he wrangled with McGlenn until twelve o'clock.

CHAPTER XIII.

b.u.t.tING AGAINST A WALL.

When we have become familiar with an environment we sometimes wonder why at any time it should have appeared strange to us; and it was thus with Henry as the months moved along. The mansion in Prairie Avenue was now home-like to him, and the contrasts which its luxurious belongings were wont to summon were now less sharp and were dismissed with a growing easiness. Feeling the force which position urges, he worked without worry, and conscious of a certain ability, he did not question the success of his plans. But how much of the future did he intend these plans to cover? He turned from this troublesome uncertainty and found satisfaction in that state of mind which permits one day to forecast the day which is to follow, and on a futurity stretching further than this he resolutely turned his back. In his work and in his rest at the Press Club, whither he went every afternoon, he found his keenest pleasure. He was also fond of the theater, not to sit with a box party, but to loiter with Richmond--to enjoy the natural, to growl at the tame, and to leave the place whenever a tiresome dialogue came on. Ellen sometimes drew him into society, and on Sundays he usually went with Mrs. Witherspoon to a Congregational church where a preacher who had taught his countenance the artifice of a severe solemnity denounced the money-chasing spirit of the age at about double the price that he had received in the East.

The Witherspoons had much company and they entertained generously, though not with a showy lavishness, for the old man had a quick eye for the appearance of waste. It was noticeable, too, that since Henry came young women who were counted as Ellen's friends were more frequent with their visits. Witherspoon rarely laughed at anything, but he laughed at this. His wife, however, discovered in it no cause for mirth. A mother may plan the marriage of her daughter, for that is romantic, but she looks with an anxious eye upon the marriage of her son, for that is serious.

One evening, when Witherspoon and Henry had gone into the library to smoke, the merchant remarked: "I want, to talk to you about the course of your paper."

"All right, sir."

The merchant stood on the hearth-rug. He lighted his cigar, turned it round and round, and then said:

"Brooks called my attention this afternoon to an article on working girls. Does it meet with your approval?"

"Why, yes. It was a special a.s.signment, and I gave it out."

"Hum!" Witherspoon grunted. He sat down in his leather-covered chair, crossed his legs, struck a match on the sole of his slipper, relighted his cigar, which he had suffered to go out, and for a time smoked in silence.

"Is there anything wrong about it?" Henry asked.

"I might ask you if there is anything right about it," Witherspoon replied. "'The poor ye have with you always,' was uttered by the Son of G.o.d. It was not only a prophecy, but a truth for all ages. There are grades in life, and who made them? Man. Ah, but who made man? G.o.d.

Then who is responsible for the grades? Nature sets the example of inequality. One tree is higher than another." His cigar had gone out.

He lighted it again and continued: "Writers who seek to benefit the poor of ten injure them--teach them a dissatisfaction which in its tarn brings a sort of reprisal on the part of capital."

"I don't agree with you," said Henry.

"Of course not."

"I have cause to know that you are wrong, sir."

"You think you have," the merchant replied.