Part 33 (1/2)
”In other words,” said Joe, ”he is your ideal. He is what you hope to be at his age. He must be very old.”
”Yes, he is old. As for his representing my ideal, I think he approaches more nearly to it than any man alive. But you would probably not like him.”
”Why?”
”He belongs to a cla.s.s of men whom old-world people especially dislike,”
answered John. ”He does not believe in any monarchy, aristocracy, or distinction of birth. He looks upon t.i.tles as a decaying inst.i.tution of barbarous ages, and he confidently a.s.serts that in two or three generations the republic will be the only form of social contract known amongst the inhabitants of the civilized world.”
John was watching Joe while he spoke. He was merely talking because it seemed necessary, and he saw that in spite of her a.s.sumed calm she was still greatly agitated. She seemed anxious, however, to continue the conversation.
”It is absurd,” said she, ”to say that all men are born equal.”
”Everything depends on what you mean by the word 'equal.' I mean by it that all men are born with an equal claim to a share in all the essential rights of free citizens.h.i.+p. When a man demands more than that, he is infringing on the rights of others; when he is content with less, he is allowing himself to be robbed.”
”But who is to decide just how much belongs to each man?” asked Joe, leaning back wearily against the cus.h.i.+ons. She wished now that she had allowed him to call her aunt. It was a fearful strain on her faculties to continue talking upon general subjects and listening to John Harrington's calm, almost indifferent tones.
”The majority decides that,” said John.
”But a majority has just decided that you are not to be senator,” said Joe. ”According to you they were right, were they not?”
”It is necessary that the majority should be free,” said John, ”and that they should judge of themselves, each man according to his honest belief.
Majorities with us are very frequently produced by a handful of dishonest men, who can turn the scale on either side, to suit their private ends. It is the aim we set before us to protect the freedom of majorities. That is the true doctrine of a republic.”
”And for that aim,” said Joe, slowly, ”you would sacrifice everything?”
”Yes, indeed we would,” said John, gravely. ”For that end we will sacrifice all that we have to give--the care for personal satisfaction, the hope of personal distinction, the peace of a home and the love of a wife. We seek neither distinction nor satisfaction, and we renounce all ties that could hamper our strength or interfere with the persevering and undivided attention we try to give to our work.”
”That is a magnificent programme,” said Joe, somewhat incredulously. ”Do you not think it is possible sometimes to aim too high? You say 'we seek,'
'we try,' as though there were several of you, or at least, some one besides yourself. Do you believe that such ideas as you tell me of are really and seriously held by any body of men?”
Nothing had seemed too high to Josephine an hour earlier, nothing too exalted, nothing so n.o.ble but that John Harrington might do it, then and there. But a sudden change had come over her, the deadly cold phase of half melancholy unbelief that often follows close upon an unexpected disappointment, so that she looked with distaste on anything that seemed so full of the enthusiasm she had lost. The tears that bad risen so pa.s.sionately to her dimmed eyes were suddenly frozen, and seemed to flow back with chilling force to her heart. She coldly asked herself whether she were mad, that she could have suffered thus for such a man, even ever so briefly. He was a man, she said, who loved an unattainable, fanatic idea in the first place, and who dearly loved himself as well for his own fanaticism's sake. He was a man in whom the heart was crushed, even annihilated, by his intellect, which he valued far too highly, and by his vanity, which he dignified into a philosophy of self-sacrifice. He was aiming at what no man can reach, and though he knew his object to be beyond human grasp, he desired all possible credit for having madly dreamed of anything so high. In the sudden revulsion of her strong pa.s.sion, she almost hated him, she almost felt the power to refute his theories, to destroy his edifice of fantastic morality, and finally to show him that he was a fool among men, and doubly a fool, because he was not even happy in his own folly.
Joe vaguely felt all this, and with it she felt a sense of shame at having so nearly broken down at the news that he was going away. He had thought she was ill; most a.s.suredly he could not have guessed the cause of what he had seen; but nevertheless she had suffered a keen pain, and the tears had come to her eyes. She did not understand it. He might leave her now, if he pleased, and she would not care; indeed, it would be rather a relief if he would go. She no longer asked what she was to him, she simply reflected that, after all was said, he was nothing to her. She felt a quick antagonism to his ideas, to his words, and to himself, and she was willing to show it. She asked him incredulously whether his ideas were really held by others.
”It makes little difference,” answered John, ”whether they are many or few who think as I do, and I cannot tell how many there may be. The truth is not made truth because many people believe it. The world went round, as Galileo knew, although he alone stood up and said it in the face of mankind, who scoffed at him for his pains.”
”In other words, you occupy the position of Galileo,” suggested Joe, calmly.
”Not I,” said John; ”but there are men, and there have been men, in our country who know truths as great as any he discovered, and who have spent their lives in proclaiming them. I _know_ that they are right, and that I am right, and that, however we may fail, others will succeed at last. I know that, come what may, honor and truth and justice will win the day in the end!” His gray eyes glittered as he spoke, and his broad white hands clasped nervously together in his enthusiasm. He was depressed and heartsick at his failure, but it needed only one word of opposition to rouse the strong main thought of his life into the most active expression.
But Joe sat coldly by, her whole nature seemingly changed in the few minutes that had pa.s.sed.
”And all this will be brought about by the measures you advocated the other day,” said she with a little laugh. ”A civil service, a little tariff reform--that is enough to inaugurate the reign of honor, truth, and justice?”
John turned his keen eyes upon hers. He had begun talking because she had required it of him, and he had been roused by the subject. He remembered the sympathy she had given him, and he was annoyed at her caprice.
”Such things are the mere pa.s.sing needs of a time,” he said. ”The truth, justice, and honor, at which you are pleased to be amused, would insure the execution at all times of what is right and needful. Without a foundation composed of the said truth, justice, and honor, to get what is right and needful is often a matter so stupendous that the half of a nation's blood is drained in accomplis.h.i.+ng the task, if even it is accomplished after all. I see nothing to laugh at.”