,,man ,,and ,,superman ,a ,,comedy ,,and ,a ,,philosophy ,by ,bernard ,shaw ,,epistle ,,dedicatory ,,to ,,arthur ,,bingham ,,walkley ,my dear ,walkley3 ,you once asked me why ,i did not write a ,don ,juan play4 ,the levity with which you assumed this frightful responsibility has probably by this time enabled you to forget it2 but the day of reckoning has arrived3 here is your play6 ,i say your play1 because qui facit per alium facit per se4 ,its profits1 like its labor1 belong to me3 its morals1 its manners1 its philosophy1 its influence on the young1 are for you to justify4 ,you were of mature age when you made the suggestion2 and you knew your man4 ,it is hardly fifteen years since1 as twin pioneers of the ,new ,journalism of that time1 we two1 cradled in the same new sheets1 made an epoch in the criticism of the theatre and the opera house by making it a pretext for a propaganda of our own views of life4 ,so you cannot plead ignorance of the character of the force you set in motion4 ,you meant me to epater le bourgeois2 and if he protests1 ,i hereby refer him to you as the accountable party4 ,i warn you that if you attempt to repudiate your responsibility1 ,i shall suspect you of finding the play too decorous for your taste4 ,the fifteen years have made me older and graver4 ,in you ,i can detect no such becoming change4 ,your levities and audacities are like the loves and comforts prayed for by ,desdemona3 they increase1 even as your days do grow4 ,no mere pioneering journal dares meddle with them now3 the stately ,times itself is alone sufficiently above suspicion to act as your chaperone2 and even the ,times must sometimes thank its stars that new plays are not produced every day1 since after each such event its gravity is compromised1 its platitude turned to epigram1 its portentousness to wit1 its propriety to elegance1 and even its decorum into naughtiness by criticisms which the traditions of the paper do not allow you to sign at the end1 but which you take care to sign with the most extravagant flourishes between the lines4 ,i am not sure that this is not a portent of ,revolution4 ,in eighteenth century ,france the end was at hand when men bought the ,encyclopedia and found ,diderot there4 ,when ,i buy the ,times and find you there1 my prophetic ear catches a rattle of twentieth century tumbrils4 ,however1 that is not my present anxiety4 ,the question is1 will you not be disappointed with a ,don ,juan play in which not one of that hero's mille e tre adventures is brought upon the stage8 ,to propitiate you1 let me explain myself4 ,you will retort that ,i never do anything else3 it is your favorite jibe at me that what ,i call drama is nothing but explanation4 ,but you must not expect me to adopt your inexplicable1 fantastic1 petulant1 fastidious ways3 you must take me as ,i am1 a reasonable1 patient1 consistent1 apologetic1 laborious person1 with the temperament of a schoolmaster and the pursuits of a vestryman4 ,no doubt that literary knack of mine which happens to amuse the ,british public distracts attention from my character2 but the character is there none the less1 solid as bricks4 ,i have a conscience2 and conscience is always anxiously explanatory4 ,you1 on the contrary1 feel that a man who discusses his conscience is much like a woman who discusses her modesty4 ,the only moral force you condescend to parade is the force of your wit3 the only demand you make in public is the demand of your artistic temperament for symmetry1 elegance1 style1 grace1 refinement1 and the cleanliness which comes next to godliness if not before it4 ,but my conscience is the genuine pulpit article3 it annoys me to see people comfortable when they ought to be uncomfortable2 and ,i insist on making them think in order to bring them to conviction of sin4 ,if you don't like my preaching you must lump it4 ,i really cannot help it4 ,in the preface to my ,plays for ,puritans ,i explained the predicament of our contemporary ,english drama1 forced to deal almost exclusively with cases of sexual attraction1 and yet forbidden to exhibit the incidents of that attraction or even to discuss its nature4 ,your suggestion that ,i should write a ,don ,juan play was virtually a challenge to me to treat this subject myself dramatically4 ,the challenge was difficult enough to be worth accepting1 because1 when you come to think of it1 though we have plenty of dramas with heroes and heroines who are in love and must accordingly marry or perish at the end of the play1 or about people whose relations with one another have been complicated by the marriage laws1 not to mention the looser sort of plays which trade on the tradition that illicit love affairs are at once vicious and delightful1 we have no modern ,english plays in which the natural attraction of the sexes for one another is made the mainspring of the action4 ,that is why we insist on beauty in our performers1 differing herein from the countries our friend ,william ,archer holds up as examples of seriousness to our childish theatres4 ,there the ,juliets and ,isoldes1 the ,romeos and ,tristans1 might be our mothers and fathers4 ,not so the ,english actress4 ,the heroine she impersonates is not allowed to discuss the elemental relations of men and women3 all her romantic twaddle about novelet-made love1 all her purely legal dilemmas as to whether she was married or betrayed1 quite miss our hearts and worry our minds4 ,to console ourselves we must just look at her4 ,we do so2 and her beauty feeds our starving emotions4 ,sometimes we grumble ungallantly at the lady because she does not act as well as she looks4 ,but in a drama which1 with all its preoccupation with sex1 is really void of sexual interest1 good looks are more desired than histrionic skill4 ,let me press this point on you1 since you are too clever to raise the fool's cry of paradox whenever ,i take hold of a stick by the right instead of the wrong end4 ,why are our occasional attempts to deal with the sex problem on the stage so repulsive and dreary that even those who are most determined that sex questions shall be held open and their discussion kept free1 cannot pretend to relish these joyless attempts at social sanitation8 ,is it not because at bottom they are utterly sexless8 ,what is the usual formula for such plays8 ,a woman has1 on some past occasion1 been brought into conflict with the law which regulates the relations of the sexes4 ,a man1 by falling in love with her1 or marrying her1 is brought into conflict with the social convention which discountenances the woman4 ,now the conflicts of individuals with law and convention can be dramatized like all other human conflicts2 but they are purely judicial2 and the fact that we are much more curious about the suppressed relations between the man and the woman than about the relations between both and our courts of law and private juries of matrons1 produces that sensation of evasion1 of dissatisfaction1 of fundamental irrelevance1 of shallowness1 of useless disagreeableness1 of total failure to edify and partial failure to interest1 which is as familiar to you in the theatres as it was to me when ,i1 too1 frequented those uncomfortable buildings1 and found our popular playwrights in the mind to 7as they thought7 emulate ,ibsen4 ,i take it that when you asked me for a ,don ,juan play you did not want that sort of thing4 ,nobody does3 the successes such plays sometimes obtain are due to the incidental conventional melodrama with which the experienced popular author instinctively saves himself from failure4 ,but what did you want8 ,owing to your unfortunate habit--you now1 ,i hope1 feel its inconvenience--of not explaining yourself1 ,i have had to discover this for myself4 ,first1 then1 ,i have had to ask myself1 what is a ,don ,juan8 ,vulgarly1 a libertine4 ,but your dislike of vulgarity is pushed to the length of a defect 7universality of character is impossible without a share of vulgarity72 and even if you could acquire the taste1 you would find yourself overfed from ordinary sources without troubling me4 ,so ,i took it that you demanded a ,don ,juan in the philosophic sense4 ,philosophically1 ,don ,juan is a man who1 though gifted enough to be exceptionally capable of distinguishing between good and evil1 follows his own instincts without regard to the common statute1 or canon law2 and therefore1 whilst gaining the ardent sympathy of our rebellious instincts 7which are flattered by the brilliancies with which ,don ,juan associates them7 finds himself in mortal conflict with existing institutions1 and defends himself by fraud and farce as unscrupulously as a farmer defends his crops by the same means against vermin4 ,the prototypic ,don ,juan1 invented early in the ,,xvi century by a ,spanish monk1 was presented1 according to the ideas of that time1 as the enemy of ,god1 the approach of whose vengeance is felt throughout the drama1 growing in menace from minute to minute4 ,no anxiety is caused on ,don ,juan's account by any minor antagonist3 he easily eludes the police1 temporal and spiritual2 and when an indignant father seeks private redress with the sword1 ,don ,juan kills him without an effort4 ,not until the slain father returns from heaven as the agent of ,god1 in the form of his own statue1 does he prevail against his slayer and cast him into hell4 ,the moral is a monkish one3 repent and reform now2 for to-morrow it may be too late4 ,this is really the only point on which ,don ,juan is sceptical2 for he is a devout believer in an ultimate hell1 and risks damnation only because1 as he is young1 it seems so far off that repentance can be postponed until he has amused himself to his heart's content4 ,but the lesson intended by an author is hardly ever the lesson the world chooses to learn from his book4 ,what attracts and impresses us in ,el ,burlador de ,sevilla is not the immediate urgency of repentance1 but the heroism of daring to be the enemy of ,god4 ,from ,prometheus to my own ,devil's ,disciple1 such enemies have always been popular4 ,don ,juan became such a pet that the world could not bear his damnation4 ,it reconciled him sentimentally to ,god in a second version1 and clamored for his canonization for a whole century1 thus treating him as ,english journalism has treated that comic foe of the gods1 ,punch4 ,moliere's ,don ,juan casts back to the original in point of impenitence2 but in piety he falls off greatly4 ,true1 he also proposes to repent2 but in what terms8 ,oui1 ma foi6 il faut s'amender4 ,encore vingt ou trente ans de cette vie-ci1 et puis nous songerons a nous4 ,after ,moliere comes the artist-enchanter1 the master of masters1 ,mozart1 who reveals the hero's spirit in magical harmonies1 elfin tones1 and elate darting rhythms as of summer lightning made audible4 ,here you have freedom in love and in morality mocking exquisitely at slavery to them1 and interesting you1 attracting you1 tempting you1 inexplicably forcing you to range the hero with his enemy the statue on a transcendant plane1 leaving the prudish daughter and her priggish lover on a crockery shelf below to live piously ever after4 ,after these completed works ,byron's fragment does not count for much philosophically4 ,our vagabond libertines are no more interesting from that point of view than the sailor who has a wife in every port1 and ,byron's hero is1 after all1 only a vagabond libertine4 ,and he is dumb3 he does not discuss himself with a ,sganarelle-,leporello or with the fathers or brothers of his mistresses3 he does not even1 like ,casanova1 tell his own story4 ,in fact he is not a true ,don ,juan at all2 for he is no more an enemy of ,god than any romantic and adventurous young sower of wild oats4 ,had you and ,i been in his place at his age1 who knows whether we might not have done as he did1 unless indeed your fastidiousness had saved you from the empress ,catherine4 ,byron was as little of a philosopher as ,peter the ,great3 both were instances of that rare and useful1 but unedifying variation1 an energetic genius born without the prejudices or superstitions of his contemporaries4 ,the resultant unscrupulous freedom of thought made ,byron a greater poet than ,wordsworth just as it made ,peter a greater king than ,george ,,iii2 but as it was1 after all1 only a negative qualification1 it did not prevent ,peter from being an appalling blackguard and an arrant poltroon1 nor did it enable ,byron to become a religious force like ,shelley4 ,let us1 then1 leave ,byron's ,don ,juan out of account4 ,mozart's is the last of the true ,don ,juans2 for by the time he was of age1 his cousin ,faust had1 in the hands of ,goethe1 taken his place and carried both his warfare and his reconciliation with the gods far beyond mere lovemaking into politics1 high art1 schemes for reclaiming new continents from the ocean1 and recognition of an eternal womanly principle in the universe4 ,goethe's ,faust and ,mozart's ,don ,juan were the last words of the ,,xviii century on the subject2 and by the time the polite critics of the ,,xix century1 ignoring ,william ,blake as superficially as the ,,xviii had ignored ,hogarth or the ,,xvii ,bunyan1 had got past the ,dickens-,macaulay ,dumas-,guizot stage and the ,stendhal-,meredith-,turgenieff stage1 and were confronted with philosophic fiction by such pens as ,ibsen's and ,tolstoy's1 ,don ,juan had changed his sex and become ,dona ,juana1 breaking out of the ,doll's ,house and asserting herself as an individual instead of a mere item in a moral pageant4 ,now it is all very well for you at the beginning of the ,,xx century to ask me for a ,don ,juan play2 but you will see from the foregoing survey that ,don ,juan is a full century out of date for you and for me2 and if there are millions of less literate people who are still in the eighteenth century1 have they not ,moliere and ,mozart1 upon whose art no human hand can improve8 ,you would laugh at me if at this time of day ,i dealt in duels and ghosts and womanly women4 ,as to mere libertinism1 you would be the first to remind me that the ,festin de ,pierre of ,moliere is not a play for amorists1 and that one bar of the voluptuous sentimentality of ,gounod or ,bizet would appear as a licentious stain on the score of ,don ,giovanni4 ,even the more abstract parts of the ,don ,juan play are dilapidated past use3 for instance1 ,don ,juan's supernatural antagonist hurled those who refuse to repent into lakes of burning brimstone1 there to be tormented by devils with horns and tails4 ,of that antagonist1 and of that conception of repentance1 how much is left that could be used in a play by me dedicated to you8 ,on the other hand1 those forces of middle class public opinion which hardly existed for a ,spanish nobleman in the days of the first ,don ,juan1 are now triumphant everywhere4 ,civilized society is one huge bourgeoisie3 no nobleman dares now shock his greengrocer4 ,the women1 marchesane1 principesse1 cameriere1 cittadine and all1 are become equally dangerous3 the sex is aggressive1 powerful3 when women are wronged they do not group themselves pathetically to sing ,protegga il giusto cielo3 they grasp formidable legal and social weapons1 and retaliate4 ,political parties are wrecked and public careers undone by a single indiscretion4 ,a man had better have all the statues in ,london to supper with him1 ugly as they are1 than be brought to the bar of the ,nonconformist ,conscience by ,donna ,elvira4 ,excommunication has become almost as serious a business as it was in the ,x century4 ,as a result1 ,man is no longer1 like ,don ,juan1 victor in the duel of sex4 ,whether he has ever really been may be doubted3 at all events the enormous superiority of ,woman's natural position in this matter is telling with greater and greater force4 ,as to pulling the ,nonconformist ,conscience by the beard as ,don ,juan plucked the beard of the ,commandant's statue in the convent of ,san ,francisco1 that is out of the question nowadays3 prudence and good manners alike forbid it to a hero with any mind4 ,besides1 it is ,don ,juan's own beard that is in danger of plucking4 ,far from relapsing into hypocrisy1 as ,sganarelle feared1 he has unexpectedly discovered a moral in his immorality4 ,the growing recognition of his new point of view is heaping responsibility on him4 ,his former jests he has had to take as seriously as ,i have had to take some of the jests of ,mr ,w4 ,s4 ,gilbert4 ,his scepticism1 once his least tolerated quality1 has now triumphed so completely that he can no longer assert himself by witty negations1 and must1 to save himself from cipherdom1 find an affirmative position4 ,his thousand and three affairs of gallantry1 after becoming1 at most1 two immature intrigues leading to sordid and prolonged complications and humiliations1 have been discarded altogether as unworthy of his philosophic dignity and compromising to his newly acknowledged position as the founder of a school4 ,instead of pretending to read ,ovid he does actually read ,schopenhaur and ,nietzsche1 studies ,westermarck1 and is concerned for the future of the race instead of for the freedom of his own instincts4 ,thus his profligacy and his dare-devil airs have gone the way of his sword and mandoline into the rag shop of anachronisms and superstitions4 ,in fact1 he is now more ,hamlet than ,don ,juan2 for though the lines put into the actor's mouth to indicate to the pit that ,hamlet is a philosopher are for the most part mere harmonious platitude which1 with a little debasement of the word-music1 would be properer to ,pecksniff1 yet if you separate the real hero1 inarticulate and unintelligible to himself except in flashes of inspiration1 from the performer who has to talk at any cost through five acts2 and if you also do what you must always do in ,shakespear's tragedies3 that is1 dissect out the absurd sensational incidents and physical violences of the borrowed story from the genuine ,shakespearian tissue1 you will get a true ,promethean foe of the gods1 whose instinctive attitude towards women much resembles that to which ,don ,juan is now driven4 ,from this point of view ,hamlet was a developed ,don ,juan whom ,shakespear palmed off as a reputable man just as he palmed poor ,macbeth off as a murderer4 ,to-day the palming off is no longer necessary 7at least on your plane and mine7 because ,don ,juanism is no longer misunderstood as mere ,casanovism4 ,don ,juan himself is almost ascetic in his desire to avoid that misunderstanding2 and so my attempt to bring him up to date by launching him as a modern ,englishman into a modern ,english environment has produced a figure superficially quite unlike the hero of ,mozart4 ,and yet ,i have not the heart to disappoint you wholly of another glimpse of the ,mozartian dissoluto punito and his antagonist the statue4 ,i feel sure you would like to know more of that statue--to draw him out when he is off duty1 so to speak4 ,to gratify you1 ,i have resorted to the trick of the strolling theatrical manager who advertizes the pantomime of ,sinbad the ,sailor with a stock of second-hand picture posters designed for ,ali ,baba4 ,he simply thrusts a few oil jars into the valley of diamonds1 and so fulfils the promise held out by the hoardings to the public eye4 ,i have adapted this simple device to our occasion by thrusting into my perfectly modern three-act play a totally extraneous act in which my hero1 enchanted by the air of the ,sierra1 has a dream in which his ,mozartian ancestor appears and philosophizes at great length in a ,shavio-,socratic dialogue with the lady1 the statue1 and the devil4 ,but this pleasantry is not the essence of the play4 ,over this essence ,i have no control4 ,you propound a certain social substance1 sexual attraction to wit1 for dramatic distillation2 and ,i distil it for you4 ,i do not adulterate the product with aphrodisiacs nor dilute it with romance and water2 for ,i am merely executing your commission1 not producing a popular play for the market4 ,you must therefore 7unless1 like most wise men1 you read the play first and the preface afterwards7 prepare yourself to face a trumpery story of modern ,london life1 a life in which1 as you know1 the ordinary man's main business is to get means to keep up the position and habits of a gentleman1 and the ordinary woman's business is to get married4 ,in #i1iii cases out of #aj1jjj1 you can count on their doing nothing1 whether noble or base1 that conflicts with these ends2 and that assurance is what you rely on as their religion1 their morality1 their principles1 their patriotism1 their reputation1 their honor and so forth4 ,on the whole1 this is a sensible and satisfactory foundation for society4 ,money means nourishment and marriage means children2 and that men should put nourishment first and women children first is1 broadly speaking1 the law of ,nature and not the dictate of personal ambition4 ,the secret of the prosaic man's success1 such as it is1 is the simplicity with which he pursues these ends3 the secret of the artistic man's failure1 such as that is1 is the versatility with which he strays in all directions after secondary ideals4 ,the artist is either a poet or a scallawag3 as poet1 he cannot see1 as the prosaic man does1 that chivalry is at bottom only romantic suicide3 as scallawag1 he cannot see that it does not pay to spunge and beg and lie and brag and neglect his person4 ,therefore do not misunderstand my plain statement of the fundamental constitution of ,london society as an ,irishman's reproach to your nation4 ,from the day ,i first set foot on this foreign soil ,i knew the value of the prosaic qualities of which ,irishmen teach ,englishmen to be ashamed as well as ,i knew the vanity of the poetic qualities of which ,englishmen teach ,irishmen to be proud4 ,for the ,irishman instinctively disparages the quality which makes the ,englishman dangerous to him2 and the ,englishman instinctively flatters the fault that makes the ,irishman harmless and amusing to him4 ,what is wrong with the prosaic ,englishman is what is wrong with the prosaic men of all countries3 stupidity4 ,the vitality which places nourishment and children first1 heaven and hell a somewhat remote second1 and the health of society as an organic whole nowhere1 may muddle successfully through the comparatively tribal stages of gregariousness2 but in nineteenth century nations and twentieth century empires the determination of every man to be rich at all costs1 and of every woman to be married at all costs1 must1 without a highly scientific social organization1 produce a ruinous development of poverty1 celibacy1 prostitution1 infant mortality1 adult degeneracy1 and everything that wise men most dread4 ,in short1 there is no future for men1 however brimming with crude vitality1 who are neither intelligent nor politically educated enough to be ,socialists4 ,so do not misunderstand me in the other direction either3 if ,i appreciate the vital qualities of the ,englishman as ,i appreciate the vital qualities of the bee1 ,i do not guarantee the ,englishman against being1 like the bee 7or the ,canaanite7 smoked out and unloaded of his honey by beings inferior to himself in simple acquisitiveness1 combativeness1 and fecundity1 but superior to him in imagination and cunning4 ,the ,don ,juan play1 however1 is to deal with sexual attraction1 and not with nutrition1 and to deal with it in a society in which the serious business of sex is left by men to women1 as the serious business of nutrition is left by women to men4 ,that the men1 to protect themselves against a too aggressive prosecution of the women's business1 have set up a feeble romantic convention that the initiative in sex business must always come from the man1 is true2 but the pretence is so shallow that even in the theatre1 that last sanctuary of unreality1 it imposes only on the inexperienced4 ,in ,shakespear's plays the woman always takes the initiative4 ,in his problem plays and his popular plays alike the love interest is the interest of seeing the woman hunt the man down4 ,she may do it by blandishment1 like ,rosalind1 or by stratagem1 like ,mariana2 but in every case the relation between the woman and the man is the same3 she is the pursuer and contriver1 he the pursued and disposed of4 ,when she is baffled1 like ,ophelia1 she goes mad and commits suicide2 and the man goes straight from her funeral to a fencing match4 ,no doubt ,nature1 with very young creatures1 may save the woman the trouble of scheming3 ,prospero knows that he has only to throw ,ferdinand and ,miranda together and they will mate like a pair of doves2 and there is no need for ,perdita to capture ,florizel as the lady doctor in ,all's ,well ,that ,ends ,well 7an early ,ibsenite heroine7 captures ,bertram4 ,but the mature cases all illustrate the ,shakespearian law4 ,the one apparent exception1 ,petruchio1 is not a real one3 he is most carefully characterized as a purely commercial matrimonial adventurer4 ,once he is assured that ,katharine has money1 he undertakes to marry her before he has seen her4 ,in real life we find not only ,petruchios1 but ,mantalinis and ,dobbins who pursue women with appeals to their pity or jealousy or vanity1 or cling to them in a romantically infatuated way4 ,such effeminates do not count in the world scheme3 even ,bunsby dropping like a fascinated bird into the jaws of ,mrs ,mac,stinger is by comparison a true tragic object of pity and terror4 ,i find in my own plays that ,woman1 projecting herself dramatically by my hands 7a process over which ,i assure you ,i have no more real control than ,i have over my wife71 behaves just as ,woman did in the plays of ,shakespear4 ,and so your ,don ,juan has come to birth as a stage projection of the tragi-comic love chase of the man by the woman2 and my ,don ,juan is the quarry instead of the huntsman4 ,yet he is a true ,don ,juan1 with a sense of reality that disables convention1 defying to the last the fate which finally overtakes him4 ,the woman's need of him to enable her to carry on ,nature's most urgent work1 does not prevail against him until his resistance gathers her energy to a climax at which she dares to throw away her customary exploitations of the conventional affectionate and dutiful poses1 and claim him by natural right for a purpose that far transcends their mortal personal purposes4 ,among the friends to whom ,i have read this play in manuscript are some of our own sex who are shocked at the unscrupulousness1 meaning the total disregard of masculine fastidiousness1 with which the woman pursues her purpose4 ,it does not occur to them that if women were as fastidious as men1 morally or physically1 there would be an end of the race4 ,is there anything meaner then to throw necessary work upon other people and then disparage it as unworthy and indelicate4 ,we laugh at the haughty ,american nation because it makes the negro clean its boots and then proves the moral and physical inferiority of the negro by the fact that he is a shoeblack2 but we ourselves throw the whole drudgery of creation on one sex1 and then imply that no female of any womanliness or delicacy would initiate any effort in that direction4 ,there are no limits to male hypocrisy in this matter4 ,no doubt there are moments when man's sexual immunities are made acutely humiliating to him4 ,when the terrible moment of birth arrives1 its supreme importance and its superhuman effort and peril1 in which the father has no part1 dwarf him into the meanest insignificance3 he slinks out of the way of the humblest petticoat1 happy if he be poor enough to be pushed out of the house to outface his ignominy by drunken rejoicings4 ,but when the crisis is over he takes his revenge1 swaggering as the breadwinner1 and speaking of ,woman's sphere with condescension1 even with chivalry1 as if the kitchen and the nursery were less important than the office in the city4 ,when his swagger is exhausted he drivels into erotic poetry or sentimental uxoriousness2 and the ,tennysonian ,king ,arthur posing as ,guinevere becomes ,don ,quixote grovelling before ,dulcinea4 ,you must admit that here ,nature beats ,comedy out of the field3 the wildest hominist or feminist farce is insipid after the most commonplace slice of life4 ,the pretence that women do not take the initiative is part of the farce4 ,why1 the whole world is strewn with snares1 traps1 gins and pitfalls for the capture of men by women4 ,give women the vote1 and in five years there will be a crushing tax on bachelors4 ,men1 on the other hand1 attach penalties to marriage1 depriving women of property1 of the franchise1 of the free use of their limbs1 of that ancient symbol of immortality1 the right to make oneself at home in the house of ,god by taking off the hat1 of everything that he can force ,woman to dispense with without compelling himself to dispense with her4 ,all in vain4 ,woman must marry because the race must perish without her travail3 if the risk of death and the certainty of pain1 danger and unutterable discomforts cannot deter her1 slavery and swaddled ankles will not4 ,and yet we assume that the force that carries women through all these perils and hardships1 stops abashed before the primnesses of our behavior for young ladies4 ,it is assumed that the woman must wait1 motionless1 until she is wooed4 ,nay1 she often does wait motionless4 ,that is how the spider waits for the fly4 ,but the spider spins her web4 ,and if the fly1 like my hero1 shows a strength that promises to extricate him1 how swiftly does she abandon her pretence of passiveness1 and openly fling coil after coil about him until he is secured for ever6 ,if the really impressive books and other art-works of the world were produced by ordinary men1 they would express more fear of women's pursuit than love of their illusory beauty4 ,but ordinary men cannot produce really impressive art-works4 ,those who can are men of genius3 that is1 men selected by ,nature to carry on the work of building up an intellectual consciousness of her own instinctive purpose4 ,accordingly1 we observe in the man of genius all the unscrupulousness and all the self-sacrifice 7the two things are the same7 of ,woman4 ,he will risk the stake and the cross2 starve1 when necessary1 in a garret all his life2 study women and live on their work and care as ,darwin studied worms and lived upon sheep2 work his nerves into rags without payment1 a sublime altruist in his disregard of himself1 an atrocious egotist in his disregard of others4 ,here ,woman meets a purpose as impersonal1 as irresistible as her own2 and the clash is sometimes tragic4 ,when it is complicated by the genius being a woman1 then the game is one for a king of critics3 your ,george ,sand becomes a mother to gain experience for the novelist and to develop her1 and gobbles up men of genius1 ,chopins1 ,mussets and the like1 as mere hors d'oeuvres4 ,i state the extreme case1 of course2 but what is true of the great man who incarnates the philosophic consciousness of ,life and the woman who incarnates its fecundity1 is true in some degree of all geniuses and all women4 ,hence it is that the world's books get written1 its pictures painted1 its statues modelled1 its symphonies composed1 by people who are free of the otherwise universal dominion of the tyranny of sex4 ,which leads us to the conclusion1 astonishing to the vulgar1 that art1 instead of being before all things the expression of the normal sexual situation1 is really the only department in which sex is a superseded and secondary power1 with its consciousness so confused and its purpose so perverted1 that its ideas are mere fantasy to common men4 ,whether the artist becomes poet or philosopher1 moralist or founder of a religion1 his sexual doctrine is nothing but a barren special pleading for pleasure1 excitement1 and knowledge when he is young1 and for contemplative tranquillity when he is old and satiated4 ,romance and ,asceticism1 ,amorism and ,puritanism are equally unreal in the great ,philistine world4 ,the world shown us in books1 whether the books be confessed epics or professed gospels1 or in codes1 or in political orations1 or in philosophic systems1 is not the main world at all3 it is only the self-consciousness of certain abnormal people who have the specific artistic talent and temperament4 ,a serious matter this for you and me1 because the man whose consciousness does not correspond to that of the majority is a madman2 and the old habit of worshipping madmen is giving way to the new habit of locking them up4 ,and since what we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience1 of literature for life1 of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real1 education1 as you no doubt observed at ,oxford1 destroys1 by supplantation1 every mind that is not strong enough to see through the imposture and to use the great ,masters of ,arts as what they really are and no more3 that is1 patentees of highly questionable methods of thinking1 and manufacturers of highly questionable1 and for the majority but half valid representations of life4 ,the schoolboy who uses his ,homer to throw at his fellow's head makes perhaps the safest and most rational use of him2 and ,i observe with reassurance that you occasionally do the same1 in your prime1 with your ,aristotle4 ,fortunately for us1 whose minds have been so overwhelmingly sophisticated by literature1 what produces all these treatises and poems and scriptures of one sort or another is the struggle of ,life to become divinely conscious of itself instead of blindly stumbling hither and thither in the line of least resistance4 ,hence there is a driving towards truth in all books on matters where the writer1 though exceptionally gifted is normally constituted1 and has no private axe to grind4 ,copernicus had no motive for misleading his fellowmen as to the place of the sun in the solar system3 he looked for it as honestly as a shepherd seeks his path in a mist4 ,but ,copernicus would not have written love stories scientifically4 ,when it comes to sex relations1 the man of genius does not share the common man's danger of capture1 nor the woman of genius the common woman's overwhelming specialization4 ,and that is why our scriptures and other art works1 when they deal with love1 turn from honest attempts at science in physics to romantic nonsense1 erotic ecstasy1 or the stern asceticism of satiety 7the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom said ,william ,blake2 for you never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough74 ,there is a political aspect of this sex question which is too big for my comedy1 and too momentous to be passed over without culpable frivolity4 ,it is impossible to demonstrate that the initiative in sex transactions remains with ,woman1 and has been confirmed to her1 so far1 more and more by the suppression of rapine and discouragement of importunity1 without being driven to very serious reflections on the fact that this initiative is politically the most important of all the initiatives1 because our political experiment of democracy1 the last refuge of cheap misgovernment1 will ruin us if our citizens are ill bred4 ,when we two were born1 this country was still dominated by a selected class bred by political marriages4 ,the commercial class had not then completed the first twenty-five years of its new share of political power2 and it was itself selected by money qualification1 and bred1 if not by political marriage1 at least by a pretty rigorous class marriage4 ,aristocracy and plutocracy still furnish the figureheads of politics2 but they are now dependent on the votes of the promiscuously bred masses4 ,and this1 if you please1 at the very moment when the political problem1 having suddenly ceased to mean a very limited and occasional interference1 mostly by way of jobbing public appointments1 in the mismanagement of a tight but parochial little island1 with occasional meaningless prosecution of dynastic wars1 has become the industrial reorganization of ,britain1 the construction of a practically international ,commonwealth1 and the partition of the whole of ,africa and perhaps the whole of ,asia by the civilized ,powers4 ,can you believe that the people whose conceptions of society and conduct1 whose power of attention and scope of interest1 are measured by the ,british theatre as you know it to-day1 can either handle this colossal task themselves1 or understand and support the sort of mind and character that is 7at least comparatively7 capable of handling it8 ,for remember3 what our voters are in the pit and gallery they are also in the polling booth4 ,we are all now under what ,burke called the hoofs of the swinish multitude4 ,burke's language gave great offence because the implied exceptions to its universal application made it a class insult2 and it certainly was not for the pot to call the kettle black4 ,the aristocracy he defended1 in spite of the political marriages by which it tried to secure breeding for itself1 had its mind undertrained by silly schoolmasters and governesses1 its character corrupted by gratuitous luxury1 its self-respect adulterated to complete spuriousness by flattery and flunkeyism4 ,it is no better to-day and never will be any better3 our very peasants have something morally hardier in them that culminates occasionally in a ,bunyan1 a ,burns1 or a ,carlyle4 ,but observe1 this aristocracy1 which was overpowered from #ahcb to #ahhe by the middle class1 has come back to power by the votes of the swinish multitude4 ,tom ,paine has triumphed over ,edmund ,burke2 and the swine are now courted electors4 ,how many of their own class have these electors sent to parliament8 ,hardly a dozen out of #fgj1 and these only under the persuasion of conspicuous personal qualifications and popular eloquence4 ,the multitude thus pronounces judgment on its own units3 it admits itself unfit to govern1 and will vote only for a man morphologically and generically transfigured by palatial residence and equipage1 by transcendent tailoring1 by the glamor of aristocratic kinship4 ,well1 we two know these transfigured persons1 these college passmen1 these well groomed monocular ,algys and ,bobbies1 these cricketers to whom age brings golf instead of wisdom1 these plutocratic products of the nail and sarspan business as he got his money by4 ,do you know whether to laugh or cry at the notion that they1 poor devils6 will drive a team of continents as they drive a four-in-hand2 turn a jostling anarchy of casual trade and speculation into an ordered productivity2 and federate our colonies into a world-,power of the first magnitude8 ,give these people the most perfect political constitution and the soundest political program that benevolent omniscience can devise for them1 and they will interpret it into mere fashionable folly or canting charity as infallibly as a savage converts the philosophical theology of a ,scotch missionary into crude ,african idolatry4 ,i do not know whether you have any illusions left on the subject of education1 progress1 and so forth4 ,i have none4 ,any pamphleteer can show the way to better things2 but when there is no will there is no way4 ,my nurse was fond of remarking that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear1 and the more ,i see of the efforts of our churches and universities and literary sages to raise the mass above its own level1 the more convinced ,i am that my nurse was right4 ,progress can do nothing but make the most of us all as we are1 and that most would clearly not be enough even if those who are already raised out of the lowest abysses would allow the others a chance4 ,the bubble of ,heredity has been pricked3 the certainty that acquirements are negligible as elements in practical heredity has demolished the hopes of the educationists as well as the terrors of the degeneracy mongers2 and we know now that there is no hereditary governing class any more than a hereditary hooliganism4 ,we must either breed political capacity or be ruined by ,democracy1 which was forced on us by the failure of the older alternatives4 ,yet if ,despotism failed only for want of a capable benevolent despot1 what chance has ,democracy1 which requires a whole population of capable voters3 that is1 of political critics who1 if they cannot govern in person for lack of spare energy or specific talent for administration1 can at least recognize and appreciate capacity and benevolence in others1 and so govern through capably benevolent representatives8 ,where are such voters to be found to-day8 ,nowhere4 ,promiscuous breeding has produced a weakness of character that is too timid to face the full stringency of a thoroughly competitive struggle for existence and too lazy and petty to organize the commonwealth co-operatively4 ,being cowards1 we defeat natural selection under cover of philanthropy3 being sluggards1 we neglect artificial selection under cover of delicacy and morality4 ,yet we must get an electorate of capable critics or collapse as ,rome and ,egypt collapsed4 ,at this moment the ,roman decadent phase of panem et circenses is being inaugurated under our eyes4 ,our newspapers and melodramas are blustering about our imperial destiny2 but our eyes and hearts turn eagerly to the ,american millionaire4 ,as his hand goes down to his pocket1 our fingers go up to the brims of our hats by instinct4 ,our ideal prosperity is not the prosperity of the industrial north1 but the prosperity of the ,isle of ,wight1 of ,folkestone and ,ramsgate1 of ,nice and ,monte ,carlo4 ,that is the only prosperity you see on the stage1 where the workers are all footmen1 parlourmaids1 comic lodging-letters and fashionable professional men1 whilst the heroes and heroines are miraculously provided with unlimited dividends1 and eat gratuitously1 like the knights in ,don ,quixote's books of chivalry4 ,the city papers prate of the competition of ,bombay with ,manchester and the like4 ,the real competition is the competition of ,regent ,street with the ,rue de ,rivoli1 of ,brighton and the south coast with the ,riviera1 for the spending money of the ,american ,trusts4 ,what is all this growing love of pageantry1 this effusive loyalty1 this officious rising and uncovering at a wave from a flag or a blast from a brass band8 ,imperialism3 ,not a bit of it4 ,obsequiousness1 servility1 cupidity roused by the prevailing smell of money4 ,when ,mr ,carnegie rattled his millions in his pockets all ,england became one rapacious cringe4 ,only1 when ,rhodes 7who had probably been reading my ,socialism for ,millionaires7 left word that no idler was to inherit his estate1 the bent backs straightened mistrustfully for a moment4 ,could it be that the ,diamond ,king was no gentleman after all8 ,however1 it was easy to ignore a rich man's solecism4 ,the ungentlemanly clause was not mentioned again2 and the backs soon bowed themselves back into their natural shape4 ,but ,i hear you asking me in alarm whether ,i have actually put all this tub thumping into a ,don ,juan comedy4 ,i have not4 ,i have only made my ,don ,juan a political pamphleteer1 and given you his pamphlet in full by way of appendix4 ,you will find it at the end of the book4 ,i am sorry to say that it is a common practice with romancers to announce their hero as a man of extraordinary genius1 and to leave his works entirely to the reader's imagination2 so that at the end of the book you whisper to yourself ruefully that but for the author's solemn preliminary assurance you should hardly have given the gentleman credit for ordinary good sense4 ,you cannot accuse me of this pitiable barrenness1 this feeble evasion4 ,i not only tell you that my hero wrote a revolutionists' handbook3 ,i give you the handbook at full length for your edification if you care to read it4 ,and in that handbook you will find the politics of the sex question as ,i conceive ,don ,juan's descendant to understand them4 ,not that ,i disclaim the fullest responsibility for his opinions and for those of all my characters1 pleasant and unpleasant4 ,they are all right from their several points of view2 and their points of view are1 for the dramatic moment1 mine also4 ,this may puzzle the people who believe that there is such a thing as an absolutely right point of view1 usually their own4 ,it may seem to them that nobody who doubts this can be in a state of grace4 ,however that may be1 it is certainly true that nobody who agrees with them can possibly be a dramatist1 or indeed anything else that turns upon a knowledge of mankind4 ,hence it has been pointed out that ,shakespear had no conscience4 ,neither have ,i1 in that sense4 ,you may1 however1 remind me that this digression of mine into politics was preceded by a very convincing demonstration that the artist never catches the point of view of the common man on the question of sex1 because he is not in the same predicament4 ,i first prove that anything ,i write on the relation of the sexes is sure to be misleading2 and then ,i proceed to write a ,don ,juan play4 ,well1 if you insist on asking me why ,i behave in this absurd way1 ,i can only reply that you asked me to1 and that in any case my treatment of the subject may be valid for the artist1 amusing to the amateur1 and at least intelligible and therefore possibly suggestive to the ,philistine4 ,every man who records his illusions is providing data for the genuinely scientific psychology which the world still waits for4 ,i plank down my view of the existing relations of men to women in the most highly civilized society for what it is worth4 ,it is a view like any other view and no more1 neither true nor false1 but1 ,i hope1 a way of looking at the subject which throws into the familiar order of cause and effect a sufficient body of fact and experience to be interesting to you1 if not to the play-going public of ,london4 ,i have certainly shown little consideration for that public in this enterprise2 but ,i know that it has the friendliest disposition towards you and me as far as it has any consciousness of our existence1 and quite understands that what ,i write for you must pass at a considerable height over its simple romantic head4 ,it will take my books as read and my genius for granted1 trusting me to put forth work of such quality as shall bear out its verdict4 ,so we may disport ourselves on our own plane to the top of our bent2 and if any gentleman points out that neither this epistle dedicatory nor the dream of ,don ,juan in the third act of the ensuing comedy is suitable for immediate production at a popular theatre we need not contradict him4 ,napoleon provided ,talma with a pit of kings1 with what effect on ,talma's acting is not recorded4 ,as for me1 what ,i have always wanted is a pit of philosophers2 and this is a play for such a pit4 ,i should make formal acknowledgment to the authors whom ,i have pillaged in the following pages if ,i could recollect them all4 ,the theft of the brigand-poetaster from ,sir ,arthur ,conan ,doyle is deliberate2 and the metamorphosis of ,leporello into ,enry ,straker1 motor engineer and ,new ,man1 is an intentional dramatic sketch for the contemporary embryo of ,mr ,h4 ,g4 ,wells's anticipation of the efficient engineering class which will1 he hopes1 finally sweep the jabberers out of the way of civilization4 ,mr ,barrio has also1 whilst ,i am correcting my proofs1 delighted ,london with a servant who knows more than his masters4 ,the conception of ,mendoza ,limited ,i trace back to a certain ,west ,indian colonial secretary1 who1 at a period when he and ,i and ,mr ,sidney ,webb were sowing our political wild oats as a sort of ,fabian ,three ,musketeers1 without any prevision of the surprising respectability of the crop that followed1 recommended ,webb1 the encyclopedic and inexhaustible1 to form himself into a company for the benefit of the shareholders4 ,octavius ,i take over unaltered from ,mozart2 and ,i hereby authorize any actor who impersonates him1 to sing ,dalla sua pace 7if he can7 at any convenient moment during the representation4 ,ann was suggested to me by the fifteenth century ,dutch morality called ,everyman1 which ,mr ,william ,poel has lately resuscitated so triumphantly4 ,i trust he will work that vein further1 and recognize that ,elizabethan ,renascence fustian is no more bearable after medieval poesy than ,scribe after ,ibsen4 ,as ,i sat watching ,everyman at the ,charterhouse1 ,i said to myself ,why not ,everywoman8 ,ann was the result3 every woman is not ,ann2 but ,ann is ,everywoman4 ,that the author of ,everyman was no mere artist1 but an artist-philosopher1 and that the artist-philosophers are the only sort of artists ,i take quite seriously1 will be no news to you4 ,even ,plato and ,boswell1 as the dramatists who invented ,socrates and ,dr ,johnson1 impress me more deeply than the romantic playwrights4 ,ever since1 as a boy1 ,i first breathed the air of the transcendental regions at a performance of ,mozart's ,zauberflote1 ,i have been proof against the garish splendors and alcoholic excitements of the ordinary stage combinations of ,tappertitian romance with the police intelligence4 ,bunyan1 ,blake1 ,hogarth and ,turner 7these four apart and above all the ,english ,classics71 ,goethe1 ,shelley1 ,schopenhaur1 ,wagner1 ,ibsen1 ,morris1 ,tolstoy1 and ,nietzsche are among the writers whose peculiar sense of the world ,i recognize as more or less akin to my own4 ,mark the word peculiar4 ,i read ,dickens and ,shakespear without shame or stint2 but their pregnant observations and demonstrations of life are not co-ordinated into any philosophy or religion3 on the contrary1 ,dickens's sentimental assumptions are violently contradicted by his observations2 and ,shakespear's pessimism is only his wounded humanity4 ,both have the specific genius of the fictionist and the common sympathies of human feeling and thought in pre-eminent degree4 ,they are often saner and shrewder than the philosophers just as ,sancho-,panza was often saner and shrewder than ,don ,quixote4 ,they clear away vast masses of oppressive gravity by their sense of the ridiculous1 which is at bottom a combination of sound moral judgment with lighthearted good humor4 ,but they are concerned with the diversities of the world instead of with its unities3 they are so irreligious that they exploit popular religion for professional purposes without delicacy or scruple 7for example1 ,sydney ,carton and the ghost in ,hamlet673 they are anarchical1 and cannot balance their exposures of ,angelo and ,dogberry1 ,sir ,leicester ,dedlock and ,mr ,tite ,barnacle1 with any portrait of a prophet or a worthy leader3 they have no constructive ideas3 they regard those who have them as dangerous fanatics3 in all their fictions there is no leading thought or inspiration for which any man could conceivably risk the spoiling of his hat in a shower1 much less his life4 ,both are alike forced to borrow motives for the more strenuous actions of their personages from the common stockpot of melodramatic plots2 so that ,hamlet has to be stimulated by the prejudices of a policeman and ,macbeth by the cupidities of a bushranger4 ,dickens1 without the excuse of having to manufacture motives for ,hamlets and ,macbeths1 superfluously punt his crew down the stream of his monthly parts by mechanical devices which ,i leave you to describe1 my own memory being quite baffled by the simplest question as to ,monks in ,oliver ,twist1 or the long lost parentage of ,smike1 or the relations between the ,dorrit and ,clennam families so inopportunely discovered by ,monsieur ,rigaud ,blandois4 ,the truth is1 the world was to ,shakespear a great stage of fools on which he was utterly bewildered4 ,he could see no sort of sense in living at all2 and ,dickens saved himself from the despair of the dream in ,the ,chimes by taking the world for granted and busying himself with its details4 ,neither of them could do anything with a serious positive character3 they could place a human figure before you with perfect verisimilitude2 but when the moment came for making it live and move1 they found1 unless it made them laugh1 that they had a puppet on their hands1 and had to invent some artificial external stimulus to make it work4 ,this is what is the matter with ,hamlet all through3 he has no will except in his bursts of temper4 ,foolish ,bardolaters make a virtue of this after their fashion3 they declare that the play is the tragedy of irresolution2 but all ,shakespear's projections of the deepest humanity he knew have the same defect3 their characters and manners are lifelike2 but their actions are forced on them from without1 and the external force is grotesquely inappropriate except when it is quite conventional1 as in the case of ,henry ,v4 ,falstaff is more vivid than any of these serious reflective characters1 because he is self-acting3 his motives are his own appetites and instincts and humors4 ,richard ,,iii1 too1 is delightful as the whimsical comedian who stops a funeral to make love to the corpse's widow2 but when1 in the next act1 he is replaced by a stage villain who smothers babies and offs with people's heads1 we are revolted at the imposture and repudiate the changeling4 ,faulconbridge1 ,coriolanus1 ,leontes are admirable descriptions of instinctive temperaments3 indeed the play of ,coriolanus is the greatest of ,shakespear's comedies2 but description is not philosophy2 and comedy neither compromises the author nor reveals him4 ,he must be judged by those characters into which he puts what he knows of himself1 his ,hamlets and ,macbeths and ,lears and ,prosperos4 ,if these characters are agonizing in a void about factitious melodramatic murders and revenges and the like1 whilst the comic characters walk with their feet on solid ground1 vivid and amusing1 you know that the author has much to show and nothing to teach4 ,the comparison between ,falstaff and ,prospero is like the comparison between ,micawber and ,david ,copperfield4 ,at the end of the book you know ,micawber1 whereas you only know what has happened to ,david1 and are not interested enough in him to wonder what his politics or religion might be if anything so stupendous as a religious or political idea1 or a general idea of any sort1 were to occur to him4 ,he is tolerable as a child2 but he never becomes a man1 and might be left out of his own biography altogether but for his usefulness as a stage confidant1 a ,horatio or ,charles his friend what they call on the stage a feeder4 ,now you cannot say this of the works of the artist-philosophers4 ,you cannot say it1 for instance1 of ,the ,pilgrim's ,progress4 ,put your ,shakespearian hero and coward1 ,henry ,v and ,pistol or ,parolles1 beside ,mr ,valiant and ,mr ,fearing1 and you have a sudden revelation of the abyss that lies between the fashionable author who could see nothing in the world but personal aims and the tragedy of their disappointment or the comedy of their incongruity1 and the field preacher who achieved virtue and courage by identifying himself with the purpose of the world as he understood it4 ,the contrast is enormous3 ,bunyan's coward stirs your blood more than ,shakespear's hero1 who actually leaves you cold and secretly hostile4 ,you suddenly see that ,shakespear1 with all his flashes and divinations1 never understood virtue and courage1 never conceived how any man who was not a fool could1 like ,bunyan's hero1 look back from the brink of the river of death over the strife and labor of his pilgrimage1 and say yet do ,i not repent me2 or1 with the panache of a millionaire1 bequeath my sword to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage1 and my courage and skill to him that can get it4 ,this is the true joy in life1 the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one2 the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap2 the being a force of ,nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy4 ,and also the only real tragedy in life is the being used by personally minded men for purposes which you recognize to be base4 ,all the rest is at worst mere misfortune or mortality3 this alone is misery1 slavery1 hell on earth2 and the revolt against it is the only force that offers a man's work to the poor artist1 whom our personally minded rich people would so willingly employ as pandar1 buffoon1 beauty monger1 sentimentalizer and the like4 ,it may seem a long step from ,bunyan to ,nietzsche2 but the difference between their conclusions is purely formal4 ,bunyan's perception that righteousness is filthy rags1 his scorn for ,mr ,legality in the village of ,morality1 his defiance of the ,church as the supplanter of religion1 his insistence on courage as the virtue of virtues1 his estimate of the career of the conventionally respectable and sensible ,worldly ,wiseman as no better at bottom than the life and death of ,mr ,badman3 all this1 expressed by ,bunyan in the terms of a tinker's theology1 is what ,nietzsche has expressed in terms of post-,darwinian1 post-,schopenhaurian philosophy2 ,wagner in terms of polytheistic mythology2 and ,ibsen in terms of mid-,,xix century ,parisian dramaturgy4 ,nothing is new in these matters except their novelties3 for instance1 it is a novelty to call ,justification by ,faith ,wille1 and ,justification by ,works ,vorstellung4 ,the sole use of the novelty is that you and ,i buy and read ,schopenhaur's treatise on ,will and ,representation when we should not dream of buying a set of sermons on ,faith versus ,works4 ,at bottom the controversy is the same1 and the dramatic results are the same4 ,bunyan makes no attempt to present his pilgrims as more sensible or better conducted than ,mr ,worldly ,wiseman4 ,mr ,w4 ,w4's worst enemies1 as ,mr ,embezzler1 ,mr ,never-go-to-,church-on-,sunday1 ,mr ,bad ,form1 ,mr ,murderer1 ,mr ,burglar1 ,mr ,co-respondent1 ,mr ,blackmailer1 ,mr ,cad1 ,mr ,drunkard1 ,mr ,labor ,agitator and so forth1 can read the ,pilgrim's ,progress without finding a word said against them2 whereas the respectable people who snub them and put them in prison1 such as ,mr ,w4,w4 himself and his young friend ,civility2 ,formalist and ,hypocrisy2 ,wildhead1 ,inconsiderate1 and ,pragmatick 7who were clearly young university men of good family and high feeding72 that brisk lad ,ignorance1 ,talkative1 ,by-,ends of ,fairspeech and his mother-in-law ,lady ,feigning1 and other reputable gentlemen and citizens1 catch it very severely4 ,even ,little ,faith1 though he gets to heaven at last1 is given to understand that it served him right to be mobbed by the brothers ,faint ,heart1 ,mistrust1 and ,guilt1 all three recognized members of respectable society and veritable pillars of the law4 ,the whole allegory is a consistent attack on morality and respectability1 without a word that one can remember against vice and crime4 ,exactly what is complained of in ,nietzsche and ,ibsen1 is it not8 ,and also exactly what would be complained of in all the literature which is great enough and old enough to have attained canonical rank1 officially or unofficially1 were it not that books are admitted to the canon by a compact which confesses their greatness in consideration of abrogating their meaning2 so that the reverend rector can agree with the prophet ,micah as to his inspired style without being committed to any complicity in ,micah's furiously ,radical opinions4 ,why1 even ,i1 as ,i force myself2 pen in hand1 into recognition and civility1 find all the force of my onslaught destroyed by a simple policy of non-resistance4 ,in vain do ,i redouble the violence of the language in which ,i proclaim my heterodoxies4 ,i rail at the theistic credulity of ,voltaire1 the amoristic superstition of ,shelley1 the revival of tribal soothsaying and idolatrous rites which ,huxley called ,science and mistook for an advance on the ,pentateuch1 no less than at the welter of ecclesiastical and professional humbug which saves the face of the stupid system of violence and robbery which we call ,law and ,industry4 ,even atheists reproach me with infidelity and anarchists with nihilism because ,i cannot endure their moral tirades4 ,and yet1 instead of exclaiming ,send this inconceivable ,satanist to the stake1 the respectable newspapers pith me by announcing another book by this brilliant and thoughtful writer4 ,and the ordinary citizen1 knowing that an author who is well spoken of by a respectable newspaper must be all right1 reads me1 as he reads ,micah1 with undisturbed edification from his own point of view4 ,it is narrated that in the eighteen-seventies an old lady1 a very devout ,methodist1 moved from ,colchester to a house in the neighborhood of the ,city ,road1 in ,london1 where1 mistaking the ,hall of ,science for a chapel1 she sat at the feet of ,charles ,bradlaugh for many years1 entranced by his eloquence1 without questioning his orthodoxy or moulting a feather of her faith4 ,i fear ,i small be defrauded of my just martyrdom in the same way4 ,however1 ,i am digressing1 as a man with a grievance always does4 ,and after all1 the main thing in determining the artistic quality of a book is not the opinions it propagates1 but the fact that the writer has opinions4 ,the old lady from ,colchester was right to sun her simple soul in the energetic radiance of ,bradlaugh's genuine beliefs and disbeliefs rather than in the chill of such mere painting of light and heat as elocution and convention can achieve4 ,my contempt for belles lettres1 and for amateurs who become the heroes of the fanciers of literary virtuosity1 is not founded on any illusion of mind as to the permanence of those forms of thought 7call them opinions7 by which ,i strive to communicate my bent to my fellows4 ,to younger men they are already outmoded2 for though they have no more lost their logic than an eighteenth century pastel has lost its drawing or its color1 yet1 like the pastel1 they grow indefinably shabby1 and will grow shabbier until they cease to count at all1 when my books will either perish1 or1 if the world is still poor enough to want them1 will have to stand1 with ,bunyan's1 by quite amorphous qualities of temper and energy4 ,with this conviction ,i cannot be a bellettrist4 ,no doubt ,i must recognize1 as even the ,ancient ,mariner did1 that ,i must tell my story entertainingly if ,i am to hold the wedding guest spellbound in spite of the siren sounds of the loud bassoon4 ,but for art's sake alone ,i would not face the toil of writing a single sentence4 ,i know that there are men who1 having nothing to say and nothing to write1 are nevertheless so in love with oratory and with literature that they keep desperately repeating as much as they can understand of what others have said or written aforetime4 ,i know that the leisurely tricks which their want of conviction leaves them free to play with the diluted and misapprehended message supply them with a pleasant parlor game which they call style4 ,i can pity their dotage and even sympathize with their fancy4 ,but a true original style is never achieved for its own sake3 a man may pay from a shilling to a guinea1 according to his means1 to see1 hear1 or read another man's act of genius2 but he will not pay with his whole life and soul to become a mere virtuoso in literature1 exhibiting an accomplishment which will not even make money for him1 like fiddle playing4 ,effectiveness of assertion is the ,alpha and ,omega of style4 ,he who has nothing to assert has no style and can have none3 he who has something to assert will go as far in power of style as its momentousness and his conviction will carry him4 ,disprove his assertion after it is made1 yet its style remains4 ,darwin has no more destroyed the style of ,job nor of ,handel than ,martin ,luther destroyed the style of ,giotto4 ,all the assertions get disproved sooner or later2 and so we find the world full of a magnificent debris of artistic fossils1 with the matter-of-fact credibility gone clean out of them1 but the form still splendid4 ,and that is why the old masters play the deuce with our mere susceptibles4 ,your ,royal ,academician thinks he can get the style of ,giotto without ,giotto's beliefs1 and correct his perspective into the bargain4 ,your man of letters thinks he can get ,bunyan's or ,shakespear's style without ,bunyan's conviction or ,shakespear's apprehension1 especially if he takes care not to split his infinitives4 ,and so with your ,doctors of ,music1 who1 with their collections of discords duly prepared and resolved or retarded or anticipated in the manner of the great composers1 think they can learn the art of ,palestrina from ,cherubim's treatise4 ,all this academic art is far worse than the trade in sham antique furniture2 for the man who sells me an oaken chest which he swears was made in the ,,xiii century1 though as a matter of fact he made it himself only yesterday1 at least does not pretend that there are any modern ideas in it1 whereas your academic copier of fossils offers them to you as the latest outpouring of the human spirit1 and1 worst of all1 kidnaps young people as pupils and persuades them that his limitations are rules1 his observances dexterities1 his timidities good taste1 and his emptinesses purities4 ,and when he declares that art should not be didactic1 all the people who have nothing to teach and all the people who don't want to learn agree with him emphatically4 ,i pride myself on not being one of these susceptible3 ,if you study the electric light with which ,i supply you in that ,bumbledonian public capacity of mine over which you make merry from time to time1 you will find that your house contains a great quantity of highly susceptible copper wire which gorges itself with electricity and gives you no light whatever4 ,but here and there occurs a scrap of intensely insusceptible1 intensely resistant material2 and that stubborn scrap grapples with the current and will not let it through until it has made itself useful to you as those two vital qualities of literature1 light and heat4 ,now if ,i am to be no mere copper wire amateur but a luminous author1 ,i must also be a most intensely refractory person1 liable to go out and to go wrong at inconvenient moments1 and with incendiary possibilities4 ,these are the faults of my qualities2 and ,i assure you that ,i sometimes dislike myself so much that when some irritable reviewer chances at that moment to pitch into me with zest1 ,i feel unspeakably relieved and obliged4 ,but ,i never dream of reforming1 knowing that ,i must take myself as ,i am and get what work ,i can out of myself4 ,all this you will understand2 for there is community of material between us3 we are both critics of life as well as of art2 and you have perhaps said to yourself when ,i have passed your windows1 ,there1 but for the grace of ,god1 go ,i4 ,an awful and chastening reflection1 which shall be the closing cadence of this immoderately long letter from yours faithfully1 ,g4 ,,bernard ,,shaw4 ,,woking1 #aijc ,,act ,i ,roebuck ,ramsden is in his study1 opening the morning letters4 ,the study1 handsomely and solidly furnished1 proclaims the man of means4 ,not a speck of dust is visible3 it is clear that there are at least two housemaids and a parlormaid downstairs1 and a housekeeper upstairs who does not let them spare elbow-grease4 ,even the top of ,roebuck's head is polished3 on a sunshiny day he could heliograph his orders to distant camps by merely nodding4 ,in no other respect1 however1 does he suggest the military man4 ,it is in active civil life that men get his broad air of importance1 his dignified expectation of deference1 his determinate mouth disarmed and refined since the hour of his success by the withdrawal of opposition and the concession of comfort and precedence and power4 ,he is more than a highly respectable man3 he is marked out as a president of highly respectable men1 a chairman among directors1 an alderman among councillors1 a mayor among aldermen4 ,four tufts of iron-grey hair1 which will soon be as white as isinglass1 and are in other respects not at all unlike it1 grow in two symmetrical pairs above his ears and at the angles of his spreading jaws4 ,he wears a black frock coat1 a white waistcoat 7it is bright spring weather71 and trousers1 neither black nor perceptibly blue1 of one of those indefinitely mixed hues which the modern clothier has produced to harmonize with the religions of respectable men4 ,he has not been out of doors yet to-day2 so he still wears his slippers1 his boots being ready for him on the hearthrug4 ,surmising that he has no valet1 and seeing that he has no secretary with a shorthand notebook and a typewriter1 one meditates on how little our great burgess domesticity has been disturbed by new fashions and methods1 or by the enterprise of the railway and hotel companies which sell you a ,saturday to ,monday of life at ,folkestone as a real gentleman for two guineas1 first class fares both ways included4 ,how old is ,roebuck8 ,the question is important on the threshold of a drama of ideas2 for under such circumstances everything depends on whether his adolescence belonged to the sixties or to the eighties4 ,he was born1 as a matter of fact1 in #ahci1 and was a ,unitarian and ,free ,trader from his boyhood1 and an ,evolutionist from the publication of the ,origin of ,species4 ,consequently he has always classed himself as an advanced thinker and fearlessly outspoken reformer4 ,sitting at his writing table1 he has on his right the windows giving on ,portland ,place4 ,through these1 as through a proscenium1 the curious spectator may contemplate his profile as well as the blinds will permit4 ,on his left is the inner wall1 with a stately bookcase1 and the door not quite in the middle1 but somewhat further from him4 ,against the wall opposite him are two busts on pillars3 one1 to his left1 of ,john ,bright2 the other1 to his right1 of ,mr ,herbert ,spencer4 ,between them hang an engraved portrait of ,richard ,cobden2 enlarged photographs of ,martineau1 ,huxley1 and ,george ,eliot2 autotypes of allegories by ,mr ,g4,f4 ,watts 7for ,roebuck believed in the fine arts with all the earnestness of a man who does not understand them71 and an impression of ,dupont's engraving of ,delaroche's ,beaux ,artes hemicycle1 representing the great men of all ages4 ,on the wall behind him1 above the mantelshelf1 is a family portrait of impenetrable obscurity4 ,a chair stands near the writing table for the convenience of business visitors4 ,two other chairs are against the wall between the busts4 ,a parlormaid enters with a visitor's card4 ,roebuck takes it1 and nods1 pleased4 ,evidently a welcome caller4 ,,ramsden4 ,show him up4 ,the parlormaid goes out and returns with the visitor4 ,,the ,,maid4 ,mr ,robinson4 ,mr ,robinson is really an uncommonly nice looking young fellow4 ,he must1 one thinks1 be the jeune premier2 for it is not in reason to suppose that a second such attractive male figure should appear in one story4 ,the slim shapely frame1 the elegant suit of new mourning1 the small head and regular features1 the pretty little moustache1 the frank clear eyes1 the wholesome bloom and the youthful complexion1 the well brushed glossy hair1 not curly1 but of fine texture and good dark color1 the arch of good nature in the eyebrows1 the erect forehead and neatly pointed chin1 all announce the man who will love and suffer later on4 ,and that he will not do so without sympathy is guaranteed by an engaging sincerity and eager modest serviceableness which stamp him as a man of amiable nature4 ,the moment he appears1 ,ramsden's face expands into fatherly liking and welcome1 an expression which drops into one of decorous grief as the young man approaches him with sorrow in his face as well as in his black clothes4 ,ramsden seems to know the nature of the bereavement4 ,as the visitor advances silently to the writing table1 the old man rises and shakes his hand across it without a word3 a long1 affectionate shake which tells the story of a recent sorrow common to both4 ,,ramsden4 concluding the handshake and cheering up ,well1 well1 ,octavius1 it's the common lot4 ,we must all face it someday4 ,sit down4 ,octavius takes the visitor's chair4 ,ramsden replaces himself in his own4 ,,octavius4 ,yes3 we must face it1 ,mr ,ramsden4 ,but ,i owed him a great deal4 ,he did everything for me that my father could have done if he had lived4 ,,ramsden4 ,he had no son of his own1 you see4 ,,octavius4 ,but he had daughters2 and yet he was as good to my sister as to me4 ,and his death was so sudden6 ,i always intended to thank him--to let him know that ,i had not taken all his care of me as a matter of course1 as any boy takes his father's care4 ,but ,i waited for an opportunity and now he is dead--dropped without a moment's warning4 ,he will never know what ,i felt4 ,he takes out his handkerchief and cries unaffectedly4 ,,ramsden4 ,how do we know that1 ,octavius8 ,he may know it3 we cannot tell4 ,come6 ,don't grieve4 ,octavius masters himself and puts up his handkerchief4 ,that's right4 ,now let me tell you something to console you4 ,the last time ,i saw him--it was in this very room--he said to me3 ,tavy is a generous lad and the soul of honor2 and when ,i see how little consideration other men get from their sons1 ,i realize how much better than a son he's been to me4 ,there6 ,doesn't that do you good8 ,,octavius4 ,mr ,ramsden3 he used to say to me that he had met only one man in the world who was the soul of honor1 and that was ,roebuck ,ramsden4 ,,ramsden4 ,oh1 that was his partiality3 we were very old friends1 you know4 ,but there was something else he used to say about you4 ,i wonder whether ,i ought to tell you or not6 ,,octavius4 ,you know best4 ,,ramsden4 ,it was something about his daughter4 ,,octavius4 eagerly ,about ,ann6 ,oh1 do tell me that1 ,mr ,ramsden4 ,,ramsden4 ,well1 he said he was glad1 after all1 you were not his son1 because he thought that someday ,annie and you--,octavius blushes vividly4 ,well1 perhaps ,i shouldn't have told you4 ,but he was in earnest4 ,,octavius4 ,oh1 if only ,i thought ,i had a chance6 ,you know1 ,mr ,ramsden1 ,i don't care about money or about what people call position2 and ,i can't bring myself to take an interest in the business of struggling for them4 ,well1 ,ann has a most exquisite nature2 but she is so accustomed to be in the thick of that sort of thing that she thinks a man's character incomplete if he is not ambitious4 ,she knows that if she married me she would have to reason herself out of being ashamed of me for not being a big success of some kind4 ,,ramsden4 ,getting up and planting himself with his back to the fireplace ,nonsense1 my boy1 nonsense6 ,you're too modest4 ,what does she know about the real value of men at her age8 ,more seriously ,besides1 she's a wonderfully dutiful girl4 ,her father's wish would be sacred to her4 ,do you know that since she grew up to years of discretion1 ,i don't believe she has ever once given her own wish as a reason for doing anything or not doing it4 ,it's always ,father wishes me to1 or ,mother wouldn't like it4 ,it's really almost a fault in her4 ,i have often told her she must learn to think for herself4 ,,octavius4 shaking his head ,i couldn't ask her to marry me because her father wished it1 ,mr ,ramsden4 ,,ramsden4 ,well1 perhaps not4 ,no3 of course not4 ,i see that4 ,no3 you certainly couldn't4 ,but when you win her on your own merits1 it will be a great happiness to her to fulfil her father's desire as well as her own4 ,eh8 ,come6 you'll ask her1 won't you8 ,,octavius4 with sad gaiety ,at all events ,i promise you ,i shall never ask anyone else4 ,,ramsden4 ,oh1 you shan't need to4 ,she'll accept you1 my boy--although here he suddenly becomes very serious indeed you have one great drawback4 ,,octavius4 anxiously ,what drawback is that1 ,mr ,ramsden8 ,i should rather say which of my many drawbacks8 ,,ramsden4 ,i'll tell you1 ,octavius4 ,he takes from the table a book bound in red cloth4 ,i have in my hand a copy of the most infamous1 the most scandalous1 the most mischievous1 the most blackguardly book that ever escaped burning at the hands of the common hangman4 ,i have not read it3 ,i would not soil my mind with such filth2 but ,i have read what the papers say of it4 ,the title is quite enough for me4 ,he reads it4 ,the ,revolutionist's ,handbook and ,pocket ,companion by ,john ,tanner1 ,m4,i4,r4,c41 ,member of the ,idle ,rich ,class4 ,,octavius4 smiling ,but ,jack-- ,,ramsden4 testily ,for goodness' sake1 don't call him ,jack under my roof he throws the book violently down on the table1 ,then1 somewhat relieved1 he comes past the table to ,octavius1 and addresses him at close quarters with impressive gravity4 ,now1 ,octavius1 ,i know that my dead friend was right when he said you were a generous lad4 ,i know that this man was your schoolfellow1 and that you feel bound to stand by him because there was a boyish friendship between you4 ,but ,i ask you to consider the altered circumstances4 ,you were treated as a son in my friend's house4 ,you lived there2 and your friends could not be turned from the door4 ,this ,tanner was in and out there on your account almost from his childhood4 ,he addresses ,annie by her ,christian name as freely as you do4 ,well1 while her father was alive1 that was her father's business1 not mine4 ,this man ,tanner was only a boy to him3 his opinions were something to be laughed at1 like a man's hat on a child's head4 ,but now ,tanner is a grown man and ,annie a grown woman4 ,and her father is gone4 ,we don't as yet know the exact terms of his will2 but he often talked it over with me2 and ,i have no more doubt than ,i have that you're sitting there that the will appoints me ,annie's trustee and guardian4 ,forcibly ,now ,i tell you1 once for all1 ,i can't and ,i won't have ,annie placed in such a position that she must1 out of regard for you1 suffer the intimacy of this fellow ,tanner4 ,it's not fair3 it's not right3 it's not kind4 ,what are you going to do about it8 ,,octavius4 ,but ,ann herself has told ,jack that whatever his opinions are1 he will always be welcome because he knew her dear father4 ,,ramsden4 out of patience ,that girl's mad about her duty to her parents4 ,he starts off like a goaded ox in the direction of ,john ,bright1 in whose expression there is no sympathy for him4 ,as he speaks1 he fumes down to ,herbert ,spencer1 who receives him still more coldly ,excuse me1 ,octavius2 but there are limits to social toleration4 ,you know that ,i am not a bigoted or prejudiced man4 ,you know that ,i am plain ,roebuck ,ramsden when other men who have done less have got handles to their names1 because ,i have stood for equality and liberty of conscience while they were truckling to the ,church and to the aristocracy4 ,whitefield and ,i lost chance after chance through our advanced opinions4 ,but ,i draw the line at ,anarchism and ,free ,love and that sort of thing4 ,if ,i am to be ,annie's guardian1 she will have to learn that she has a duty to me4 ,i won't have it3 ,i will not have it4 ,she must forbid ,john ,tanner the house2 and so must you4 ,the parlormaid returns4 ,,octavius4 ,but-- ,,ramsden4 calling his attention to the servant ,ssh6 ,well8 ,,the ,,maid4 ,mr ,tanner wishes to see you1 sir4 ,,ramsden4 ,mr ,tanner6 ,,octavius4 ,jack6 ,,ramsden4 ,how dare ,mr ,tanner call on me6 ,say ,i cannot see him4 ,,octavius4 hurt ,i am sorry you are turning my friend from your door like that4 ,,the ,,maid4 calmly ,he's not at the door1 sir4 ,he's upstairs in the drawingroom with ,miss ,ramsden4 ,he came with ,mrs ,whitefield and ,miss ,ann and ,miss ,robinson1 sir4 ,ramsden's feelings are beyond words4 ,,octavius4 grinning ,that's very like ,jack1 ,mr ,ramsden4 ,you must see him1 even if it's only to turn him out4 ,,ramsden4 hammering out his words with suppressed fury ,go upstairs and ask ,mr ,tanner to be good enough to step down here4 ,the parlormaid goes out2 and ,ramsden returns to the fireplace1 as to a fortified position4 ,i must say that of all the confounded pieces of impertinence--well1 if these are ,anarchist manners ,i hope you like them4 ,and ,annie with him6 ,annie6 ,a-- he chokes4 ,,octavius4 ,yes3 that's what surprises me4 ,he's so desperately afraid of ,ann4 ,there must be something the matter4 ,mr ,john ,tanner suddenly opens the door and enters4 ,he is too young to be described simply as a big man with a beard4 ,but it is already plain that middle life will find him in that category4 ,he has still some of the slimness of youth2 but youthfulness is not the effect he aims at3 his frock coat would befit a prime minister2 and a certain high chested carriage of the shoulders1 a lofty pose of the head1 and the ,olympian majesty with which a mane1 or rather a huge wisp1 of hazel colored hair is thrown back from an imposing brow1 suggest ,jupiter rather than ,apollo4 ,he is prodigiously fluent of speech1 restless1 excitable 7mark the snorting nostril and the restless blue eye1 just the thirty-secondth of an inch too wide open71 possibly a little mad4 ,he is carefully dressed1 not from the vanity that cannot resist finery1 but from a sense of the importance of everything he does which leads him to make as much of paying a call as other men do of getting married or laying a foundation stone4 ,a sensitive1 susceptible1 exaggerative1 earnest man3 a megalomaniac1 who would be lost without a sense of humor4 ,just at present the sense of humor is in abeyance4 ,to say that he is excited is nothing3 all his moods are phases of excitement4 ,he is now in the panic-stricken phase2 and he walks straight up to ,ramsden as if with the fixed intention of shooting him on his own hearthrug4 ,but what he pulls from his breast pocket is not a pistol1 but a foolscap document which he thrusts under the indignant nose of ,ramsden as he exclaims-- ,,tanner4 ,ramsden3 do you know what that is8 ,,ramsden4 loftily ,no1 ,sir4 ,,tanner4 ,it's a copy of ,whitefield's will4 ,ann got it this morning4 ,,ramsden4 ,when you say ,ann1 you mean1 ,i presume1 ,miss ,whitefield4 ,,tanner4 ,i mean our ,ann1 your ,ann1 ,tavy's ,ann1 and now1 ,heaven help me1 my ,ann6 ,,octavius4 rising1 very pale ,what do you mean8 ,,tanner4 ,mean6 ,he holds up the will4 ,do you know who is appointed ,ann's guardian by this will8 ,,ramsden4 coolly ,i believe ,i am4 ,,tanner4 ,you6 ,you and ,i1 man4 ,i6 ,i66 ,i666 ,both of us6 ,he flings the will down on the writing table4 ,,ramsden4 ,you6 ,impossible4 ,,tanner4 ,it's only too hideously true4 ,he throws himself into ,octavius's chair4 ,ramsden3 get me out of it somehow4 ,you don't know ,ann as well as ,i do4 ,she'll commit every crime a respectable woman can2 and she'll justify every one of them by saying that it was the wish of her guardians4 ,she'll put everything on us2 and we shall have no more control over her than a couple of mice over a cat4 ,,octavius4 ,jack3 ,i wish you wouldn't talk like that about ,ann4 ,,tanner4 ,this chap's in love with her3 that's another complication4 ,well1 she'll either jilt him and say ,i didn't approve of him1 or marry him and say you ordered her to4 ,i tell you1 this is the most staggering blow that has ever fallen on a man of my age and temperament4 ,,ramsden4 ,let me see that will1 sir4 ,he goes to the writing table and picks it up4 ,i cannot believe that my old friend ,whitefield would have shown such a want of confidence in me as to associate me with-- ,his countenance falls as he reads4 ,,tanner4 ,it's all my own doing3 that's the horrible irony of it4 ,he told me one day that you were to be ,ann's guardian2 and like a fool ,i began arguing with him about the folly of leaving a young woman under the control of an old man with obsolete ideas4 ,,ramsden4 stupended ,my ideas obsolete66666 ,,tanner4 ,totally4 ,i had just finished an essay called ,down with ,government by the ,greyhaired2 and ,i was full of arguments and illustrations4 ,i said the proper thing was to combine the experience of an old hand with the vitality of a young one4 ,hang me if he didn't take me at my word and alter his will--it's dated only a fortnight after that conversation--appointing me as joint guardian with you6 ,,ramsden4 pale and determined ,i shall refuse to act4 ,,tanner4 ,what's the good of that8 ,i've been refusing all the way from ,richmond2 but ,ann keeps on saying that of course she's only an orphan2 and that she can't expect the people who were glad to come to the house in her father's time to trouble much about her now4 ,that's the latest game4 ,an orphan6 ,it's like hearing an ironclad talk about being at the mercy of the winds and waves4 ,,octavius4 ,this is not fair1 ,jack4 ,she is an orphan4 ,and you ought to stand by her4 ,,tanner4 ,stand by her6 ,what danger is she in8 ,she has the law on her side2 she has popular sentiment on her side2 she has plenty of money and no conscience4 ,all she wants with me is to load up all her moral responsibilities on me1 and do as she likes at the expense of my character4 ,i can't control her2 and she can compromise me as much as she likes4 ,i might as well be her husband4 ,,ramsden4 ,you can refuse to accept the guardianship4 ,i shall certainly refuse to hold it jointly with you4 ,,tanner4 ,yes2 and what will she say to that8 what does she say to it8 ,just that her father's wishes are sacred to her1 and that she shall always look up to me as her guardian whether ,i care to face the responsibility or not4 ,refuse6 ,you might as well refuse to accept the embraces of a boa constrictor when once it gets round your neck4 ,,octavius4 ,this sort of talk is not kind to me1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 rising and going to ,octavius to console him1 but still lamenting ,if he wanted a young guardian1 why didn't he appoint ,tavy8 ,,ramsden4 ,ah6 why indeed8 ,,octavius4 ,i will tell you4 ,he sounded me about it2 but ,i refused the trust because ,i loved her4 ,i had no right to let myself be forced on her as a guardian by her father4 ,he spoke to her about it2 and she said ,i was right4 ,you know ,i love her1 ,mr ,ramsden2 and ,jack knows it too4 ,if ,jack loved a woman1 ,i would not compare her to a boa constrictor in his presence1 however much ,i might dislike her he sits down between the busts and turns his face to the wall4 ,,ramsden4 ,i do not believe that ,whitefield was in his right senses when he made that will4 ,you have admitted that he made it under your influence4 ,,tanner4 ,you ought to be pretty well obliged to me for my influence4 ,he leaves you two thousand five hundred for your trouble4 ,he leaves ,tavy a dowry for his sister and five thousand for himself4 ,,octavius4 his tears flowing afresh ,oh1 ,i can't take it4 ,he was too good to us4 ,,tanner4 ,you won't get it1 my boy1 if ,ramsden upsets the will4 ,,ramsden4 ,ha6 ,i see4 ,you have got me in a cleft stick4 ,,tanner4 ,he leaves me nothing but the charge of ,ann's morals1 on the ground that ,i have already more money than is good for me4 ,that shows that he had his wits about him1 doesn't it8 ,,ramsden4 grimly ,i admit that4 ,,octavius4 rising and coming from his refuge by the wall ,mr ,ramsden3 ,i think you are prejudiced against ,jack4 ,he is a man of honor1 and incapable of abusing-- ,,tanner4 ,don't1 ,tavy3 you'll make me ill4 ,i am not a man of honor3 ,i am a man struck down by a dead hand4 ,tavy3 you must marry her after all and take her off my hands4 ,and ,i had set my heart on saving you from her6 ,,octavius4 ,oh1 ,jack1 you talk of saving me from my highest happiness4 ,,tanner4 ,yes1 a lifetime of happiness4 ,if it were only the first half hour's happiness1 ,tavy1 ,i would buy it for you with my last penny4 ,but a lifetime of happiness6 ,no man alive could bear it3 it would be hell on earth4 ,,ramsden4 violently ,stuff1 sir4 ,talk sense2 or else go and waste someone else's time3 ,i have something better to do than listen to your fooleries he positively kicks his way to his table and resumes his seat4 ,,tanner4 ,you hear him1 ,tavy6 ,not an idea in his head later than eighteen-sixty4 ,we can't leave ,ann with no other guardian to turn to4 ,,ramsden4 ,i am proud of your contempt for my character and opinions1 sir4 ,your own are set forth in that book1 ,i believe4 ,,tanner4 eagerly going to the table ,what6 ,you've got my book6 ,what do you think of it8 ,,ramsden4 ,do you suppose ,i would read such a book1 sir8 ,,tanner4 ,then why did you buy it8 ,,ramsden4 ,i did not buy it1 sir4 ,it has been sent me by some foolish lady who seems to admire your views4 ,i was about to dispose of it when ,octavius interrupted me4 ,i shall do so now1 with your permission4 ,he throws the book into the waste paper basket with such vehemence that ,tanner recoils under the impression that it is being thrown at his head4 ,,tanner4 ,you have no more manners than ,i have myself4 ,however1 that saves ceremony between us4 ,he sits down again4 ,what do you intend to do about this will8 ,,octavius4 ,may ,i make a suggestion8 ,,ramsden4 ,certainly1 ,octavius4 ,,octavius4 ,aren't we forgetting that ,ann herself may have some wishes in this matter8 ,,ramsden4 ,i quite intend that ,annie's wishes shall be consulted in every reasonable way4 ,but she is only a woman1 and a young and inexperienced woman at that4 ,,tanner4 ,ramsden3 ,i begin to pity you4 ,,ramsden4 hotly ,i don't want to know how you feel towards me1 ,mr ,tanner4 ,,tanner4 ,ann will do just exactly what she likes4 ,and what's more1 she'll force us to advise her to do it2 and she'll put the blame on us if it turns out badly4 ,so1 as ,tavy is longing to see her-- ,,octavius4 shyly ,i am not1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 ,you lie1 ,tavy3 you are4 ,so let's have her down from the drawing-room and ask her what she intends us to do4 ,off with you1 ,tavy1 and fetch her4 ,tavy turns to go4 ,and don't be long for the strained relations between myself and ,ramsden will make the interval rather painful ,ramsden compresses his lips1 but says nothing--4 ,,octavius4 ,never mind him1 ,mr ,ramsden4 ,he's not serious4 ,he goes out4 ,,ramsden very deliberately ,mr ,tanner3 you are the most impudent person ,i have ever met4 ,,tanner4 seriously ,i know it1 ,ramsden4 ,yet even ,i cannot wholly conquer shame4 ,we live in an atmosphere of shame4 ,we are ashamed of everything that is real about us2 ashamed of ourselves1 of our relatives1 of our incomes1 of our accents1 of our opinions1 of our experience1 just as we are ashamed of our naked skins4 ,good ,lord1 my dear ,ramsden1 we are ashamed to walk1 ashamed to ride in an omnibus1 ashamed to hire a hansom instead of keeping a carriage1 ashamed of keeping one horse instead of two and a groom-gardener instead of a coachman and footman4 ,the more things a man is ashamed of1 the more respectable he is4 ,why1 you're ashamed to buy my book1 ashamed to read it3 the only thing you're not ashamed of is to judge me for it without having read it2 and even that only means that you're ashamed to have heterodox opinions4 ,look at the effect ,i produce because my fairy godmother withheld from me this gift of shame4 ,i have every possible virtue that a man can have except-- ,,ramsden4 ,i am glad you think so well of yourself4 ,,tanner4 ,all you mean by that is that you think ,i ought to be ashamed of talking about my virtues4 ,you don't mean that ,i haven't got them3 you know perfectly well that ,i am as sober and honest a citizen as yourself1 as truthful personally1 and much more truthful politically and morally4 ,,ramsden4 touched on his most sensitive point ,i deny that4 ,i will not allow you or any man to treat me as if ,i were a mere member of the ,british public4 ,i detest its prejudices2 ,i scorn its narrowness2 ,i demand the right to think for myself4 ,you pose as an advanced man4 ,let me tell you that ,i was an advanced man before you were born4 ,,tanner4 ,i knew it was a long time ago4 ,,ramsden4 ,i am as advanced as ever ,i was4 ,i defy you to prove that ,i have ever hauled down the flag4 ,i am more advanced than ever ,i was4 ,i grow more advanced every day4 ,,tanner4 ,more advanced in years1 ,polonius4 ,,ramsden4 ,polonius6 ,so you are ,hamlet1 ,i suppose4 ,,tanner4 ,no3 ,i am only the most impudent person you've ever met4 ,that's your notion of a thoroughly bad character4 ,when you want to give me a piece of your mind1 you ask yourself1 as a just and upright man1 what is the worst you can fairly say of me4 ,thief1 liar1 forger1 adulterer1 perjurer1 glutton1 drunkard8 ,not one of these names fit me4 ,you have to fall back on my deficiency in shame4 ,well1 ,i admit it4 ,i even congratulate myself2 for if ,i were ashamed of my real self1 ,i should cut as stupid a figure as any of the rest of you4 ,cultivate a little impudence1 ,ramsden2 and you will become quite a remarkable man4 ,,ramsden4 ,i have no-- ,,tanner4 ,you have no desire for that sort of notoriety4 ,bless you1 ,i knew that answer would come as well as ,i know that a box of matches will come out of an automatic machine when ,i put a penny in the slot3 you would be ashamed to say anything else4 ,the crushing retort for which ,ramsden has been visibly collecting his forces is lost for ever2 for at this point ,octavius returns with ,miss ,ann ,whitefield and her mother2 and ,ramsden springs up and hurries to the door to receive them4 ,whether ,ann is good-looking or not depends upon your taste2 also and perhaps chiefly on your age and sex4 ,to ,octavius she is an enchantingly beautiful woman1 in whose presence the world becomes transfigured1 and the puny limits of individual consciousness are suddenly made infinite by a mystic memory of the whole life of the race to its beginnings in the east1 or even back to the paradise from which it fell4 ,she is to him the reality of romance1 the leaner good sense of nonsense1 the unveiling of his eyes1 the freeing of his soul1 the abolition of time1 place and circumstance1 the etherealization of his blood into rapturous rivers of the very water of life itself1 the revelation of all the mysteries and the sanctification of all the dogmas4 ,to her mother she is1 to put it as moderately as possible1 nothing whatever of the kind4 ,not that ,octavius's admiration is in any way ridiculous or discreditable4 ,ann is a well formed creature1 as far as that goes2 and she is perfectly ladylike1 graceful1 and comely1 with ensnaring eyes and hair4 ,besides1 instead of making herself an eyesore1 like her mother1 she has devised a mourning costume of black and violet silk which does honor to her late father and reveals the family tradition of brave unconventionality by which ,ramsden sets such store4 ,but all this is beside the point as an explanation of ,ann's charm4 ,turn up her nose1 give a cast to her eye1 replace her black and violet confection by the apron and feathers of a flower girl1 strike all the aitches out of her speech1 and ,ann would still make men dream4 ,vitality is as common as humanity2 but1 like humanity1 it sometimes rises to genius2 and ,ann is one of the vital geniuses4 ,not at all1 if you please1 an oversexed person3 that is a vital defect1 not a true excess4 ,she is a perfectly respectable1 perfectly self-controlled woman1 and looks it2 though her pose is fashionably frank and impulsive4 ,she inspires confidence as a person who will do nothing she does not mean to do2 also some fear1 perhaps1 as a woman who will probably do everything she means to do without taking more account of other people than may be necessary and what she calls right4 ,in short1 what the weaker of her own sex sometimes call a cat4 ,nothing can be more decorous than her entry and her reception by ,ramsden1 whom she kisses4 ,the late ,mr ,whitefield would be gratified almost to impatience by the long faces of the men 7except ,tanner1 who is fidgety71 the silent handgrasps1 the sympathetic placing of chairs1 the sniffing of the widow1 and the liquid eye of the daughter1 whose heart1 apparently1 will not let her control her tongue to speech4 ,ramsden and ,octavius take the two chairs from the wall1 and place them for the two ladies2 but ,ann comes to ,tanner and takes his chair1 which he offers with a brusque gesture1 subsequently relieving his irritation by sitting down on the corner of the writing table with studied indecorum4 ,octavius gives ,mrs ,whitefield a chair next ,ann1 and himself takes the vacant one which ,ramsden has placed under the nose of the effigy of ,mr ,herbert ,spencer4 ,mrs ,whitefield1 by the way1 is a little woman1 whose faded flaxen hair looks like straw on an egg4 ,she has an expression of muddled shrewdness1 a squeak of protest in her voice1 and an odd air of continually elbowing away some larger person who is crushing her into a corner4 ,one guesses her as one of those women who are conscious of being treated as silly and negligible1 and who1 without having strength enough to assert themselves effectually1 at any rate never submit to their fate4 ,there is a touch of chivalry in ,octavius's scrupulous attention to her1 even whilst his whole soul is absorbed by ,ann4 ,ramsden goes solemnly back to his magisterial seat at the writing table1 ignoring ,tanner1 and opens the proceedings4 ,,ramsden4 ,i am sorry1 ,annie1 to force business on you at a sad time like the present4 ,but your poor dear father's will has raised a very serious question4 ,you have read it1 ,i believe8 ,ann assents with a nod and a catch of her breath1 too much affected to speak4 ,i must say ,i am surprised to find ,mr ,tanner named as joint guardian and trustee with myself of you and ,rhoda4 ,a pause4 ,they all look portentous2 but they have nothing to say4 ,ramsden1 a little ruffled by the lack of any response1 continues ,i don't know that ,i can consent to act under such conditions4 ,mr ,tanner has1 ,i understand1 some objection also2 but ,i do not profess to understand its nature3 he will no doubt speak for himself4 ,but we are agreed that we can decide nothing until we know your views4 ,i am afraid ,i shall have to ask you to choose between my sole guardianship and that of ,mr ,tanner2 for ,i fear it is impossible for us to undertake a joint arrangement4 ,,ann4 in a low musical voice ,mamma-- ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 hastily ,now1 ,ann1 ,i do beg you not to put it on me4 ,i have no opinion on the subject2 and if ,i had1 it would probably not be attended to4 ,i am quite with whatever you three think best4 ,tanner turns his head and looks fixedly at ,ramsden1 who angrily refuses to receive this mute communication4 ,,ann4 resuming in the same gentle voice1 ignoring her mother's bad taste ,mamma knows that she is not strong enough to bear the whole responsibility for me and ,rhoda without some help and advice4 ,rhoda must have a guardian2 and though ,i am older1 ,i do not think any young unmarried woman should be left quite to her own guidance4 ,i hope you agree with me1 ,granny8 ,,tanner4 starting ,granny6 ,do you intend to call your guardians ,granny8 ,,ann4 ,don't be foolish1 ,jack4 ,mr ,ramsden has always been ,grandpapa ,roebuck to me3 ,i am ,granny's ,annie2 and he is ,annie's ,granny4 ,i christened him so when ,i first learned to speak4 ,,ramsden4 sarcastically ,i hope you are satisfied1 ,mr ,tanner4 ,go on1 ,annie3 ,i quite agree with you4 ,,ann4 ,well1 if ,i am to have a guardian1 ,,can ,i set aside anybody whom my dear father appointed for me8 ,,ramsden4 biting his lip ,you approve of your father's choice1 then8 ,,ann4 ,it is not for me to approve or disapprove4 ,i accept it4 ,my father loved me and knew best what was good for me4 ,,ramsden4 ,of course ,i understand your feeling1 ,annie4 ,it is what ,i should have expected of you2 and it does you credit4 ,but it does not settle the question so completely as you think4 ,let me put a case to you4 ,suppose you were to discover that ,i had been guilty of some disgraceful action--that ,i was not the man your poor dear father took me for4 ,would you still consider it right that ,i should be ,rhoda's guardian8 ,,ann4 ,i can't imagine you doing anything disgraceful1 ,granny4 ,,tanner4 to ,ramsden ,you haven't done anything of the sort1 have you8 ,,ramsden4 indignantly ,no sir4 ,,mrs4 ,,whitefield4 placidly ,well1 then1 why suppose it8 ,,ann4 ,you see1 ,granny1 ,mamma would not like me to suppose it4 ,,ramsden4 much perplexed ,you are both so full of natural and affectionate feeling in these family matters that it is very hard to put the situation fairly before you4 ,,tanner4 ,besides1 my friend1 you are not putting the situation fairly before them4 ,,ramsden4 sulkily ,put it yourself1 then4 ,,tanner4 ,i will4 ,ann3 ,ramsden thinks ,i am not fit be your guardian2 and ,i quite agree with him4 ,he considers that if your father had read my book1 he wouldn't have appointed me4 ,that book is the disgraceful action he has been talking about4 ,he thinks it's your duty for ,rhoda's sake to ask him to act alone and to make me withdraw4 ,say the word and ,i will4 ,,ann4 ,but ,i haven't read your book1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 diving at the waste-paper basket and fishing the book out for her ,then read it at once and decide4 ,,ramsden4 ,if ,i am to be your guardian1 ,i positively forbid you to read that book1 ,annie4 ,he smites the table with his fist and rises4 ,,ann4 ,of course1 if you don't wish it4 ,she puts the book on the table4 ,,tanner4 ,if one guardian is to forbid you to read the other guardian's book1 how are we to settle it8 ,suppose ,i order you to read it6 ,what about your duty to me8 ,,ann4 gently ,i am sure you would never purposely force me into a painful dilemma1 ,jack4 ,,ramsden4 irritably ,yes1 yes1 ,annie3 this is all very well1 and1 as ,i said1 quite natural and becoming4 ,but you must make a choice one way or the other4 ,we are as much in a dilemma as you4 ,,ann4 ,i feel that ,i am too young1 too inexperienced1 to decide4 ,my father's wishes are sacred to me4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,if you two men won't carry them out ,i must say it is rather hard that you should put the responsibility on ,ann4 ,it seems to me that people are always putting things on other people in this world4 ,,ramsden4 ,i am sorry you take it that way4 ,,ann4 touchingly ,do you refuse to accept me as your ward1 ,granny8 ,,ramsden4 ,no3 ,i never said that4 ,i greatly object to act with ,mr ,tanner3 that's all4 ,,mrs4 ,,whitefield4 ,why8 ,what's the matter with poor ,jack8 ,,tanner4 ,my views are too advanced for him4 ,,ramsden4 indignantly ,they are not4 ,i deny it4 ,,ann4 ,of course not4 ,what nonsense6 ,nobody is more advanced than ,granny4 ,i am sure it is ,jack himself who has made all the difficulty4 ,come1 ,jack6 ,be kind to me in my sorrow4 ,you don't refuse to accept me as your ward1 do you8 ,,tanner4 gloomily ,no4 ,i let myself in for it2 so ,i suppose ,i must face it4 ,he turns away to the bookcase1 and stands there1 moodily studying the titles of the volumes4 ,,ann4 rising and expanding with subdued but gushing delight ,then we are all agreed2 and my dear father's will is to be carried out4 ,you don't know what a joy that is to me and to my mother6 ,she goes to ,ramsden and presses both his hands1 saying ,and ,i shall have my dear ,granny to help and advise me4 ,she casts a glance at ,tanner over her shoulder4 ,and ,jack the ,giant ,killer4 ,she goes past her mother to ,octavius4 ,and ,jack's inseparable friend ,ricky-ticky-tavy he blushes and looks inexpressibly foolish4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 rising and shaking her widow's weeds straight ,now that you are ,ann's guardian1 ,mr ,ramsden1 ,i wish you would speak to her about her habit of giving people nicknames4 ,they can't be expected to like it4 ,she moves towards the door4 ,,ann4 ,how can you say such a thing1 ,mamma6 ,glowing with affectionate remorse ,oh1 ,i wonder can you be right6 ,have ,i been inconsiderate8 ,she turns to ,octavius1 who is sitting astride his chair with his elbows on the back of it4 ,putting her hand on his forehead she turns his face up suddenly4 ,do you want to be treated like a grown up man8 ,must ,i call you ,mr ,robinson in future8 ,,octavius4 earnestly ,oh please call me ,ricky-ticky-tavy1 ,mr ,robinson would hurt me cruelly4 ,she laughs and pats his cheek with her finger2 then comes back to ,ramsden4 ,you know ,i'm beginning to think that ,granny is rather a piece of impertinence4 ,but ,i never dreamt of its hurting you4 ,,ramsden4 breezily1 as he pats her affectionately on the back ,my dear ,annie1 nonsense4 ,i insist on ,granny4 ,i won't answer to any other name than ,annie's ,granny4 ,,ann4 gratefully ,you all spoil me1 except ,jack4 ,,tanner4 over his shoulder1 from the bookcase ,i think you ought to call me ,mr ,tanner4 ,,ann4 gently ,no you don't1 ,jack4 ,that's like the things you say on purpose to shock people3 those who know you pay no attention to them4 ,but1 if you like1 ,i'll call you after your famous ancestor ,don ,juan4 ,,ramsden4 ,don ,juan6 ,,ann4 innocently ,oh1 is there any harm in it8 ,i didn't know4 ,then ,i certainly won't call you that4 ,may ,i call you ,jack until ,i can think of something else8 ,,tanker4 ,oh1 for ,heaven's sake don't try to invent anything worse4 ,i capitulate4 ,i consent to ,jack4 ,i embrace ,jack4 ,here endeth my first and last attempt to assert my authority4 ,,ann4 ,you see1 ,mamma1 they all really like to have pet names4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,well1 ,i think you might at least drop them until we are out of mourning4 ,,ann4 reproachfully1 stricken to the soul ,oh1 how could you remind me1 mother8 ,she hastily leaves the room to conceal her emotion4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,of course4 ,my fault as usual6 ,she follows ,ann4 ,,tanner4 coming from the bockcase ,ramsden3 we're beaten--smashed--nonentitized1 like her mother4 ,,ramsden4 ,stuff1 ,sir4 ,he follows ,mrs ,whitefield out of the room4 ,,tanner4 left alone with ,octavius1 stares whimsically at him ,tavy3 do you want to count for something in the world8 ,,octavius4 ,i want to count for something as a poet3 ,i want to write a great play4 ,,tanner4 ,with ,ann as the heroine8 ,,octavius4 ,yes3 ,i confess it4 ,,tanner4 ,take care1 ,tavy4 ,the play with ,ann as the heroine is all right2 but if you're not very careful1 by ,heaven she'll marry you4 ,,octavius4 sighing ,no such luck1 ,jack6 ,,tanner4 ,why1 man1 your head is in the lioness's mouth3 you are half swallowed already--in three bites--,bite ,one1 ,ricky2 ,bite ,two1 ,ticky2 ,bite ,three1 ,tavy2 and down you go4 ,,octavius4 ,she is the same to everybody1 ,jack3 you know her ways4 ,,tanner4 ,yes3 she breaks everybody's back with the stroke of her paw2 but the question is1 which of us will she eat8 ,my own opinion is that she means to eat you4 ,,octavius4 rising1 pettishly ,it's horrible to talk like that about her when she is upstairs crying for her father4 ,but ,i do so want her to eat me that ,i can bear your brutalities because they give me hope4 ,,tanner4 ,tavy2 that's the devilish side of a woman's fascination3 she makes you will your own destruction4 ,,octavius4 ,but it's not destruction3 it's fulfilment4 ,,tanner4 ,yes1 of ,,her purpose2 and that purpose is neither her happiness nor yours1 but ,nature's4 ,vitality in a woman is a blind fury of creation4 ,she sacrifices herself to it3 do you think she will hesitate to sacrifice you8 ,,octavius4 ,why1 it is just because she is self-sacrificing that she will not sacrifice those she loves4 ,,tanner4 ,that is the profoundest of mistakes1 ,tavy4 ,it is the self-sacrificing women that sacrifice others most recklessly4 ,because they are unselfish1 they are kind in little things4 ,because they have a purpose which is not their own purpose1 but that of the whole universe1 a man is nothing to them but an instrument of that purpose4 ,,octavius4 ,don't be ungenerous1 ,jack4 ,they take the tenderest care of us4 ,,tanner4 ,yes1 as a soldier takes care of his rifle or a musician of his violin4 ,but do they allow us any purpose or freedom of our own8 ,will they lend us to one another8 ,can the strongest man escape from them when once he is appropriated8 ,they tremble when we are in danger1 and weep when we die2 but the tears are not for us1 but for a father wasted1 a son's breeding thrown away4 ,they accuse us of treating them as a mere means to our pleasure2 but how can so feeble and transient a folly as a man's selfish pleasure enslave a woman as the whole purpose of ,nature embodied in a woman can enslave a man8 ,,octavius4 ,what matter1 if the slavery makes us happy8 ,,tanner4 ,no matter at all if you have no purpose of your own1 and are1 like most men1 a mere breadwinner4 ,but you1 ,tavy1 are an artist3 that is1 you have a purpose as absorbing and as unscrupulous as a woman's purpose4 ,,octavius4 ,not unscrupulous4 ,,tanner4 ,quite unscrupulous4 ,the true artist will let his wife starve1 his children go barefoot1 his mother drudge for his living at seventy1 sooner than work at anything but his art4 ,to women he is half vivisector1 half vampire4 ,he gets into intimate relations with them to study them1 to strip the mask of convention from them1 to surprise their inmost secrets1 knowing that they have the power to rouse his deepest creative energies1 to rescue him from his cold reason1 to make him see visions and dream dreams1 to inspire him1 as he calls it4 ,he persuades women that they may do this for their own purpose whilst he really means them to do it for his4 ,he steals the mother's milk and blackens it to make printer's ink to scoff at her and glorify ideal women with4 ,he pretends to spare her the pangs of childbearing so that he may have for himself the tenderness and fostering that belong of right to her children4 ,since marriage began1 the great artist has been known as a bad husband4 ,but he is worse3 he is a child-robber1 a bloodsucker1 a hypocrite and a cheat4 ,perish the race and wither a thousand women if only the sacrifice of them enable him to act ,hamlet better1 to paint a finer picture1 to write a deeper poem1 a greater play1 a profounder philosophy6 ,for mark you1 ,tavy1 the artist's work is to show us ourselves as we really are4 ,our minds are nothing but this knowledge of ourselves2 and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind as surely as any woman creates new men4 ,in the rage of that creation he is as ruthless as the woman1 as dangerous to her as she to him1 and as horribly fascinating4 ,of all human struggles there is none so treacherous and remorseless as the struggle between the artist man and the mother woman4 ,which shall use up the other8 that is the issue between them4 ,and it is all the deadlier because1 in your romanticist cant1 they love one another4 ,,octavius4 ,even if it were so--and ,i don't admit it for a moment--it is out of the deadliest struggles that we get the noblest characters4 ,,tanner4 ,remember that the next time you meet a grizzly bear or a ,bengal tiger1 ,tavy4 ,,octavius4 ,i meant where there is love1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 ,oh1 the tiger will love you4 ,there is no love sincerer than the love of food4 ,i think ,ann loves you that way3 she patted your cheek as if it were a nicely underdone chop4 ,,octavius4 ,you know1 ,jack1 ,i should have to run away from you if ,i did not make it a fixed rule not to mind anything you say4 ,you come out with perfectly revolting things sometimes4 ,ramsden returns1 followed by ,ann4 ,they come in quickly1 with their former leisurely air of decorous grief changed to one of genuine concern1 and1 on ,ramsden's part1 of worry4 ,he comes between the two men1 intending to address ,octavius1 but pulls himself up abruptly as he sees ,tanner4 ,,ramsden4 ,i hardly expected to find you still here1 ,mr ,tanner4 ,,tanner4 ,am ,i in the way8 ,good morning1 fellow guardian he goes towards the door4 ,,ann4 ,stop1 ,jack4 ,granny3 he must know1 sooner or later4 ,,ramsden4 ,octavius3 ,i have a very serious piece of news for you4 ,it is of the most private and delicate nature--of the most painful nature too1 ,i am sorry to say4 ,do you wish ,mr ,tanner to be present whilst ,i explain8 ,,octavius4 turning pale ,i have no secrets from ,jack4 ,,ramsden4 ,before you decide that finally1 let me say that the news concerns your sister1 and that it is terrible news4 ,,octavius4 ,violet6 ,what has happened8 ,is she--dead8 ,,ramsden4 ,i am not sure that it is not even worse than that4 ,,octavius4 ,is she badly hurt8 ,has there been an accident8 ,,ramsden4 ,no3 nothing of that sort4 ,,tanner4 ,ann3 will you have the common humanity to tell us what the matter is8 ,,ann4 half whispering ,i can't4 ,violet has done something dreadful4 ,we shall have to get her away somewhere4 ,she flutters to the writing table and sits in ,ramsden's chair1 leaving the three men to fight it out between them4 ,,octavius4 enlightened ,is that what you meant1 ,mr ,ramsden8 ,,ramsden4 ,yes4 ,octavius sinks upon a chair1 crushed4 ,i am afraid there is no doubt that ,violet did not really go to ,eastbourne three weeks ago when we thought she was with the ,parry ,whitefields4 ,and she called on a strange doctor yesterday with a wedding ring on her finger4 ,mrs4 ,parry ,whitefield met her there by chance2 and so the whole thing came out4 ,,octavius4 rising with his fists clenched ,who is the scoundrel8 ,,ann4 ,she won't tell us4 ,,octavius4 collapsing upon his chair again ,what a frightful thing6 ,,tanner4 with angry sarcasm ,dreadful4 ,appalling4 ,worse than death1 as ,ramsden says4 ,he comes to ,octavius4 ,what would you not give1 ,tavy1 to turn it into a railway accident1 with all her bones broken or something equally respectable and deserving of sympathy8 ,,octavius4 ,don't be brutal1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 ,brutal6 ,good ,heavens1 man1 what are you crying for8 ,here is a woman whom we all supposed to be making bad water color sketches1 practising ,grieg and ,brahms1 gadding about to concerts and parties1 wasting her life and her money4 ,we suddenly learn that she has turned from these sillinesses to the fulfilment of her highest purpose and greatest function--to increase1 multiply and replenish the earth4 ,and instead of admiring her courage and rejoicing in her instinct2 instead of crowning the completed womanhood and raising the triumphal strain of ,unto us a child is born3 unto us a son is given1 here you are--you who have been as merry as ,brigs in your mourning for the dead--all pulling long faces and looking as ashamed and disgraced as if the girl had committed the vilest of crimes4 ,,ramsden4 roaring with rage ,i will not have these abominations uttered in my house he smites the writing table with his fist4 ,,tanner4 ,look here3 if you insult me again ,i'll take you at your word and leave your house4 ,ann3 where is ,violet now8 ,,ann4 ,why8 ,are you going to her8 ,,tanner4 ,of course ,i am going to her4 ,she wants help2 she wants money2 she wants respect and congratulation4 ,she wants every chance for her child4 ,she does not seem likely to get it from you3 she shall from me4 ,where is she8 ,,ann4 ,don't be so headstrong1 ,jack4 ,she's upstairs4 ,,tanner4 ,what6 ,under ,ramsden's sacred roof6 ,go and do your miserable duty1 ,ramsden4 ,hunt her out into the street4 ,cleanse your threshold from her contamination4 ,vindicate the purity of your ,english home4 ,i'll go for a cab4 ,,ann4 alarmed ,oh1 ,granny1 you mustn't do that4 ,,octavius4 broken-heartedly1 rising ,i'll take her away1 ,mr ,ramsden4 ,she had no right to come to your house4 ,,ramsden4 indignantly ,but ,i am only too anxious to help her4 turning on ,tanner ,how dare you1 sir1 impute such monstrous intentions to me8 ,i protest against it4 ,i am ready to put down my last penny to save her from being driven to run to you for protection4 ,,tanner4 subsiding ,it's all right1 then4 ,he's not going to act up to his principles4 ,it's agreed that we all stand by ,violet4 ,,octavius4 ,but who is the man8 ,he can make reparation by marrying her2 and he shall1 or he shall answer for it to me4 ,,ramsden4 ,he shall1 ,octavius4 ,there you speak like a man4 ,,tanner4 ,then you don't think him a scoundrel1 after all8 ,,octavius4 ,not a scoundrel6 ,he is a heartless scoundrel4 ,,ramsden4 ,a damned scoundrel4 ,i beg your pardon1 ,annie2 but ,i can say no less4 ,,tanner4 ,so we are to marry your sister to a damned scoundrel by way of reforming her character6 ,on my soul1 ,i think you are all mad4 ,,ann4 ,don't be absurd1 ,jack4 ,of course you are quite right1 ,tavy2 but we don't know who he is3 ,violet won't tell us4 ,,tanner4 ,what on earth does it matter who he is8 ,he's done his part2 and ,violet must do the rest4 ,,ramsden4 beside himself ,stuff6 lunacy6 ,there is a rascal in our midst1 a libertine1 a villain worse than a murderer2 and we are not to learn who he is6 ,in our ignorance we are to shake him by the hand2 to introduce him into our homes2 to trust our daughters with him2 to--to-- ,,ann4 coaxingly ,there1 ,granny1 don't talk so loud4 ,it's most shocking3 we must all admit that2 but if ,violet won't tell us1 what can we do8 ,nothing4 ,simply nothing4 ,,ramsden4 ,hmph6 ,i'm not so sure of that4 ,if any man has paid ,violet any special attention1 we can easily find that out4 ,if there is any man of notoriously loose principles among us-- ,,tanner4 ,ahem6 ,,ramsden4 raising his voice ,yes sir1 ,i repeat1 if there is any man of notoriously loose principles among us-- ,,tanner4 ,or any man notoriously lacking in self-control4 ,,ramsden4 aghast ,do you dare to suggest that ,i am capable of such an act8 ,,tanner4 ,my dear ,ramsden1 this is an act of which every man is capable4 ,that is what comes of getting at cross purposes with ,nature4 ,the suspicion you have just flung at me clings to us all4 ,it's a sort of mud that sticks to the judge's ermine or the cardinal's robe as fast as to the rags of the tramp4 ,come1 ,tavy3 don't look so bewildered3 it might have been me3 it might have been ,ramsden2 just as it might have been anybody4 ,if it had1 what could we do but lie and protest as ,ramsden is going to protest4 ,,ramsden4 choking ,i--,i--,i-- ,,tanner4 ,guilt itself could not stammer more confusedly1 ,and yet you know perfectly well he's innocent1 ,tavy4 ,,ramsden4 exhausted ,i am glad you admit that1 sir4 ,i admit1 myself1 that there is an element of truth in what you say1 grossly as you may distort it to gratify your malicious humor4 ,i hope1 ,octavius1 no suspicion of me is possible in your mind4 ,,octavius4 ,of you6 ,no1 not for a moment4 ,,tanner4 drily ,i think he suspects me just a little4 ,,octavius4 ,jack3 you couldn't--you wouldn't-- ,,tanner4 ,why not8 ,,octavius4 appalled ,why not6 ,,tanner4 ,oh1 well1 ,i'll tell you why not4 ,first1 you would feel bound to quarrel with me4 ,second1 ,violet doesn't like me4 ,third1 if ,i had the honor of being the father of ,violet's child1 ,i should boast of it instead of denying it4 ,so be easy3 our ,friendship is not in danger4 ,,octavius4 ,i should have put away the suspicion with horror if only you would think and feel naturally about it4 ,i beg your pardon4 ,,tanner4 ,,my pardon6 nonsense6 ,and now let's sit down and have a family council4 ,he sits down4 ,the rest follow his example1 more or less under protest4 ,violet is going to do the ,state a service2 consequently she must be packed abroad like a criminal until it's over4 ,what's happening upstairs8 ,,ann4 ,violet is in the housekeeper's room--by herself1 of course4 ,,tanner4 ,why not in the drawingroom8 ,,ann4 ,don't be absurd1 ,jack4 ,miss ,ramsden is in the drawingroom with my mother1 considering what to do4 ,,tanner4 ,oh6 the housekeeper's room is the penitentiary1 ,i suppose2 and the prisoner is waiting to be brought before her judges4 ,the old cats6 ,,ann4 ,oh1 ,jack6 ,,ramsden4 ,you are at present a guest beneath the roof of one of the old cats1 sir4 ,my sister is the mistress of this house4 ,,tanner4 ,she would put me in the housekeeper's room1 too1 if she dared1 ,ramsden4 ,however1 ,i withdraw cats4 ,cats would have more sense4 ,ann3 as your guardian1 ,i order you to go to ,violet at once and be particularly kind to her4 ,,ann4 ,i have seen her1 ,jack4 ,and ,i am sorry to say ,i am afraid she is going to be rather obstinate about going abroad4 ,i think ,tavy ought to speak to her about it4 ,,octavius4 ,how can ,i speak to her about such a thing he breaks down8 ,,ann4 ,don't break down1 ,ricky4 ,try to bear it for all our sakes4 ,,ramsden4 ,life is not all plays and poems1 ,octavius4 ,come6 face it like a man4 ,,tanner4 chafing again ,poor dear brother6 ,poor dear friends of the family6 ,poor dear ,tabbies and ,grimalkins4 ,poor dear everybody except the woman who is going to risk her life to create another life6 ,tavy3 don't you be a selfish ass4 ,away with you and talk to ,violet2 and bring her down here if she cares to come4 ,octavius rises4 ,tell her we'll stand by her4 ,,ramsden4 rising ,no1 sir-- ,,tanner4 rising also and interrupting him ,oh1 we understand3 it's against your conscience2 but still you'll do it4 ,,octavius4 ,i assure you all1 on my word1 ,i never meant to be selfish4 ,it's so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right4 ,,tanner4 ,my dear ,tavy1 your pious ,english habit of regarding the world as a moral gymnasium built expressly to strengthen your character in1 occasionally leads you to think about your own confounded principles when you should be thinking about other people's necessities4 ,the need of the present hour is a happy mother and a healthy baby4 ,bend your energies on that2 and you will see your way clearly enough4 ,octavius1 much perplexed1 goes out4 ,,ramsden4 facing ,tanner impressively ,and ,morality1 sir8 ,what is to become of that8 ,,tanner4 ,meaning a weeping ,magdalen and an innocent child branded with her shame4 ,not in our circle1 thank you4 ,morality can go to its father the devil4 ,,ramsden4 ,i thought so1 sir4 ,morality sent to the devil to please our libertines1 male and female4 ,that is to be the future of ,england1 is it8 ,,tanner4 ,oh1 ,england will survive your disapproval4 ,meanwhile1 ,i understand that you agree with me as to the practical course we are to take8 ,,ramsden4 ,not in your spirit sir4 ,not for your reasons4 ,,tanner4 ,you can explain that if anybody calls you to account1 here or hereafter4 ,he turns away1 and plants himself in front of ,mr ,herbert ,spencer1 at whom he stares gloomily4 ,,ann4 rising and coming to ,ramsden ,granny3 hadn't you better go up to the drawingroom and tell them what we intend to do8 ,,ramsden4 looking pointedly at ,tanner ,i hardly like to leave you alone with this gentleman4 ,will you not come with me8 ,,ann4 ,miss ,ramsden would not like to speak about it before me1 ,granny4 ,i ought not to be present4 ,,ramsden4 ,you are right3 ,i should have thought of that4 ,you are a good girl1 ,annie4 ,he pats her on the shoulder4 ,she looks up at him with beaming eyes and he goes out1 much moved4 ,having disposed of him1 she looks at ,tanner4 ,his back being turned to her1 she gives a moment's attention to her personal appearance1 then softly goes to him and speaks almost into his ear4 ,,ann4 ,jack he turns with a start3 are you glad that you are my guardian8 ,you don't mind being made responsible for me1 ,i hope4 ,,tanner4 ,the latest addition to your collection of scapegoats1 eh8 ,,ann4 ,oh1 that stupid old joke of yours about me6 ,do please drop it4 ,why do you say things that you know must pain me8 ,i do my best to please you1 ,jack3 ,i suppose ,i may tell you so now that you are my guardian4 ,you will make me so unhappy if you refuse to be friends with me4 ,,tanner4 studying her as gloomily as he studied the dust ,you need not go begging for my regard4 ,how unreal our moral judgments are6 ,you seem to me to have absolutely no conscience--only hypocrisy2 and you can't see the difference--yet there is a sort of fascination about you4 ,i always attend to you1 somehow4 ,i should miss you if ,i lost you4 ,,ann4 tranquilly slipping her arm into his and walking about with him ,but isn't that only natural1 ,jack8 ,we have known each other since we were children4 ,do you remember8 ,,tanner4 abruptly breaking loose ,stop6 ,i remember ,,everything4 ,,ann4 ,oh1 ,i daresay we were often very silly2 but-- ,,tanner4 ,i won't have it1 ,ann4 ,i am no more that schoolboy now than ,i am the dotard of ninety ,i shall grow into if ,i live long enough4 ,it is over3 let me forget it4 ,,ann4 ,wasn't it a happy time8 ,she attempts to take his arm again4 ,,tanner4 ,sit down and behave yourself4 ,he makes her sit down in the chair next the writing table4 ,no doubt it was a happy time for you4 ,you were a good girl and never compromised yourself4 ,and yet the wickedest child that ever was slapped could hardly have had a better time4 ,i can understand the success with which you bullied the other girls3 your virtue imposed on them4 ,but tell me this3 did you ever know a good boy8 ,,ann4 ,of course4 ,all boys are foolish sometimes2 but ,tavy was always a really good boy4 ,,tanner4 struck by this ,yes3 you're right4 ,for some reason you never tempted ,tavy4 ,,ann4 ,tempted6 ,jack6 ,,tanner4 ,yes1 my dear ,lady ,mephistopheles1 tempted4 ,you were insatiably curious as to what a boy might be capable of1 and diabolically clever at getting through his guard and surprising his inmost secrets4 ,,ann4 ,what nonsense6 ,all because you used to tell me long stories of the wicked things you had done--silly boys tricks6 ,and you call such things inmost secrets3 ,boys' secrets are just like men's2 and you know what they are6 ,,tanner4 obstinately ,no ,i don't4 ,what are they1 pray8 ,,ann4 ,why1 the things they tell everybody1 of course4 ,,tanner4 ,now ,i swear ,i told you things ,i told no one else4 ,you lured me into a compact by which we were to have no secrets from one another4 ,we were to tell one another everything1 ,i didn't notice that you never told me anything4 ,,ann4 ,you didn't want to talk about me1 ,jack4 ,you wanted to talk about yourself4 ,,tanner4 ,ah1 true1 horribly true4 ,but what a devil of a child you must have been to know that weakness and to play on it for the satisfaction of your own curiosity6 ,i wanted to brag to you1 to make myself interesting4 ,and ,i found myself doing all sorts of mischievous things simply to have something to tell you about4 ,i fought with boys ,i didn't hate2 ,i lied about things ,i might just as well have told the truth about2 ,i stole things ,i didn't want2 ,i kissed little girls ,i didn't care for4 ,it was all bravado3 passionless and therefore unreal4 ,,ann4 ,i never told of you1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 ,no2 but if you had wanted to stop me you would have told of me4 ,you wanted me to go on4 ,,ann4 flashing out ,oh1 that's not true3 it's ,,not true1 ,jack4 ,i never wanted you to do those dull1 disappointing1 brutal1 stupid1 vulgar things4 ,i always hoped that it would be something really heroic at last4 ,recovering herself ,excuse me1 ,jack2 but the things you did were never a bit like the things ,i wanted you to do4 ,they often gave me great uneasiness2 but ,i could not tell on you and get you into trouble4 ,and you were only a boy4 ,i knew you would grow out of them4 ,perhaps ,i was wrong4 ,,tanner4 sardonically ,do not give way to remorse1 ,ann4 ,at least nineteen twentieths of the exploits ,i confessed to you were pure lies4 ,i soon noticed that you didn't like the true stories4 ,,ann4 ,of course ,i knew that some of the things couldn't have happened4 ,but-- ,,tanner4 ,you are going to remind me that some of the most disgraceful ones did4 ,,ann4 fondly1 to his great terror ,i don't want to remind you of anything4 ,but ,i knew the people they happened to1 and heard about them4 ,,tanner4 ,yes2 but even the true stories were touched up for telling4 ,a sensitive boy's humiliations may be very good fun for ordinary thickskinned grown-ups2 but to the boy himself they are so acute1 so ignominious1 that he cannot confess them--cannot but deny them passionately4 ,however1 perhaps it was as well for me that ,i romanced a bit2 for1 on the one occasion when ,i told you the truth1 you threatened to tell of me4 ,,ann4 ,oh1 never4 ,never once4 ,,tanner4 ,yes1 you did4 ,do you remember a dark-eyed girl named ,rachel ,rosetree8 ,ann's brows contract for an instant involuntarily4 ,i got up a love affair with her2 and we met one night in the garden and walked about very uncomfortably with our arms round one another1 and kissed at parting1 and were most conscientiously romantic4 ,if that love affair had gone on1 it would have bored me to death2 but it didn't go on2 for the next thing that happened was that ,rachel cut me because she found out that ,i had told you4 ,how did she find it out8 ,from you4 ,you went to her and held the guilty secret over her head1 leading her a life of abject terror and humiliation by threatening to tell on her4 ,,ann4 ,and a very good thing for her1 too4 ,it was my duty to stop her misconduct2 and she is thankful to me for it now4 ,,tanner4 ,is she8 ,,ann4 ,she ought to be1 at all events4 ,,tanner4 ,it was not your duty to stop my misconduct1 ,i suppose4 ,,ann4 ,i did stop it by stopping her4 ,,tanner4 ,are you sure of that8 ,you stopped my telling you about my adventures2 but how do you know that you stopped the adventures8 ,,ann4 ,do you mean to say that you went on in the same way with other girls8 ,,tanner4 ,no4 ,i had enough of that sort of romantic tomfoolery with ,rachel4 ,,ann4 unconvinced ,then why did you break off our confidences and become quite strange to me8 ,,tanner4 enigmatically ,it happened just then that ,i got something that ,i wanted to keep all to myself instead of sharing it with you4 ,,ann4 ,i am sure ,i shouldn't have asked for any of it if you had grudged it4 ,,tanner4 ,it wasn't a box of sweets1 ,ann4 ,it was something you'd never have let me call my own4 ,,ann4 incredulously ,what8 ,,tanner4 ,my soul4 ,,ann4 ,oh1 do be sensible1 ,jack4 ,you know you're talking nonsense4 ,,tanner4 ,the most solemn earnest1 ,ann4 ,you didn't notice at that time that you were getting a soul too4 ,but you were4 ,it was not for nothing that you suddenly found you had a moral duty to chastise and reform ,rachel4 ,up to that time you had traded pretty extensively in being a good child2 but you had never set up a sense of duty to others4 ,well1 ,i set one up too4 ,up to that time ,i had played the boy buccaneer with no more conscience than a fox in a poultry farm4 ,but now ,i began to have scruples1 to feel obligations1 to find that veracity and honor were no longer goody-goody expressions in the mouths of grown up people1 but compelling principles in myself4 ,,ann4 quietly ,yes1 ,i suppose you're right4 ,you were beginning to be a man1 and ,i to be a woman4 ,,tanner4 ,are you sure it was not that we were beginning to be something more8 ,what does the beginning of manhood and womanhood mean in most people's mouths8 ,you know3 it means the beginning of love4 ,but love began long before that for me4 ,love played its part in the earliest dreams and follies and romances ,i can remember--may ,i say the earliest follies and romances we can remember8--though we did not understand it at the time4 ,no3 the change that came to me was the birth in me of moral passion2 and ,i declare that according to my experience moral passion is the only real passion4 ,,ann4 ,all passions ought to be moral1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 ,ought6 ,do you think that anything is strong enough to impose oughts on a passion except a stronger passion still8 ,,ann4 ,our moral sense controls passion1 ,jack4 ,don't be stupid4 ,,tanner4 ,our moral sense6 ,and is that not a passion8 ,is the devil to have all the passions as well as all the good times8 ,if it were not a passion--if it were not the mightiest of the passions1 all the other passions would sweep it away like a leaf before a hurricane4 ,it is the birth of that passion that turns a child into a man4 ,,ann4 ,there are other passions1 ,jack4 ,very strong ones4 ,,tanner4 ,all the other passions were in me before2 but they were idle and aimless--mere childish greedinesses and cruelties1 curiosities and fancies1 habits and superstitions1 grotesque and ridiculous to the mature intelligence4 ,when they suddenly began to shine like newly lit flames it was by no light of their own1 but by the radiance of the dawning moral passion4 ,that passion dignified them1 gave them conscience and meaning1 found them a mob of appetites and organized them into an army of purposes and principles4 ,my soul was born of that passion4 ,,ann4 ,i noticed that you got more sense4 ,you were a dreadfully destructive boy before that4 ,,tanner4 ,destructive6 ,stuff6 ,i was only mischievous4 ,,ann4 ,oh ,jack1 you were very destructive4 ,you ruined all the young fir trees by chopping off their leaders with a wooden sword4 ,you broke all the cucumber frames with your catapult4 ,you set fire to the common3 the police arrested ,tavy for it because he ran away when he couldn't stop you4 ,you-- ,,tanner4 ,pooh6 pooh6 pooh6 these were battles1 bombardments1 stratagems to save our scalps from the red ,indians4 ,you have no imagination1 ,ann4 ,i am ten times more destructive now than ,i was then4 ,the moral passion has taken my destructiveness in hand and directed it to moral ends4 ,i have become a reformer1 and1 like all reformers1 an iconoclast4 ,i no longer break cucumber frames and burn gorse bushes3 ,i shatter creeds and demolish idols4 ,,ann4 bored ,i am afraid ,i am too feminine to see any sense in destruction4 ,destruction can only destroy4 ,,tanner4 ,yes4 ,that is why it is so useful4 ,construction cumbers the ground with institutions made by busybodies4 ,destruction clears it and gives us breathing space and liberty4 ,,ann4 ,it's no use1 ,jack4 ,no woman will agree with you there4 ,,tanner4 ,that's because you confuse construction and destruction with creation and murder4 ,they're quite different3 ,i adore creation and abhor murder4 ,yes3 ,i adore it in tree and flower1 in bird and beast1 even in you4 ,a flush of interest and delight suddenly clears the growing perplexity and boredom from her face4 ,it was the creative instinct that led you to attach me to you by bonds that have left their mark on me to this day4 ,yes1 ,ann3 the old childish compact between us was an unconscious love compact4 ,,ann4 ,jack6 ,,tanner4 ,oh1 don't be alarmed-- ,,ann4 ,i am not alarmed4 ,,tanner4 whimsically ,then you ought to be3 where are your principles8 ,,ann4 ,jack3 are you serious or are you not8 ,,tanner4 ,do you mean about the moral passion8 ,,ann4 ,no1 no2 the other one4 ,confused ,oh6 you are so silly2 one never knows how to take you4 ,,tanner4 ,you must take me quite seriously4 ,i am your guardian2 and it is my duty to improve your mind4 ,,ann4 ,the love compact is over1 then1 is it8 ,i suppose you grew tired of me8 ,,tanner4 ,no2 but the moral passion made our childish relations impossible4 ,a jealous sense of my new individuality arose in me4 ,,ann4 ,you hated to be treated as a boy any longer4 ,poor ,jack6 ,,tanner4 ,yes1 because to be treated as a boy was to be taken on the old footing4 ,i had become a new person2 and those who knew the old person laughed at me4 ,the only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor3 he took my measure anew every time he saw me1 whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me4 ,,ann4 ,you became frightfully self-conscious4 ,,tanner4 ,when you go to heaven1 ,ann1 you will be frightfully conscious of your wings for the first year or so4 ,when you meet your relatives there1 and they persist in treating you as if you were still a mortal1 you will not be able to bear them4 ,you will try to get into a circle which has never known you except as an angel4 ,,ann4 ,so it was only your vanity that made you run away from us after all8 ,,tanner4 ,yes1 only my vanity1 as you call it4 ,,ann4 ,you need not have kept away from ,,me on that account4 ,,tanner4 ,from you above all others4 ,you fought harder than anybody against my emancipation4 ,,ann4 earnestly ,oh1 how wrong you are6 ,i would have done anything for you4 ,,tanner4 ,anything except let me get loose from you4 ,even then you had acquired by instinct that damnable woman's trick of heaping obligations on a man1 of placing yourself so entirely and helplessly at his mercy that at last he dare not take a step without running to you for leave4 ,i know a poor wretch whose one desire in life is to run away from his wife4 ,she prevents him by threatening to throw herself in front of the engine of the train he leaves her in4 ,that is what all women do4 ,if we try to go where you do not want us to go there is no law to prevent us1 but when we take the first step your breasts are under our foot as it descends3 your bodies are under our wheels as we start4 ,no woman shall ever enslave me in that way4 ,,ann4 ,but1 ,jack1 you cannot get through life without considering other people a little4 ,,tanner4 ,ay2 but what other people8 ,it is this consideration of other people or rather this cowardly fear of them which we call consideration that makes us the sentimental slaves we are4 ,to consider you1 as you call it1 is to substitute your will for my own4 ,how if it be a baser will than mine8 ,are women taught better than men or worse8 ,are mobs of voters taught better than statesmen or worse8 ,worse1 of course1 in both cases4 ,and then what sort of world are you going to get1 with its public men considering its voting mobs1 and its private men considering their wives8 ,what does ,church and ,state mean nowadays8 ,the ,woman and the ,ratepayer4 ,,ann4 placidly ,i am so glad you understand politics1 ,jack3 it will be most useful to you if you go into parliament he collapses like a pricked bladder4 ,but ,i am sorry you thought my influence a bad one4 ,,tanner4 ,i don't say it was a bad one4 ,but bad or good1 ,i didn't choose to be cut to your measure4 ,and ,i won't be cut to it4 ,,ann4 ,nobody wants you to1 ,jack4 ,i assure you--really on my word--,i don't mind your queer opinions one little bit4 ,you know we have all been brought up to have advanced opinions4 ,why do you persist in thinking me so narrow minded8 ,,tanner4 ,that's the danger of it4 ,i know you don't mind1 because you've found out that it doesn't matter4 ,the boa constrictor doesn't mind the opinions of a stag one little bit when once she has got her coils round it4 ,,ann4 rising in sudden enlightenment ,o-o-o-o-oh6 ,,now ,i understand why you warned ,tavy that ,i am a boa constrictor4 ,granny told me4 ,she laughs and throws her boa around her neck4 ,doesn't it feel nice and soft1 ,jack8 ,,tanner4 in the toils ,you scandalous woman1 will you throw away even your hypocrisy8 ,,ann4 ,i am never hypocritical with you1 ,jack4 ,are you angry8 ,she withdraws the boa and throws it on a chair4 ,perhaps ,i shouldn't have done that4 ,,tanner4 contemptuously ,pooh1 prudery6 ,why should you not1 if it amuses you8 ,,ann4 ,shyly ,well1 because--because ,i suppose what you really meant by the boa constrictor was ,,this she puts her arms round his neck4 ,,tanner4 ,staring at her ,magnificent audacity6 ,she laughs and pats his cheeks4 ,now just to think that if ,i mentioned this episode not a soul would believe me except the people who would cut me for telling1 whilst if you accused me of it nobody would believe my denial4 ,,ann4 taking her arms away with perfect dignity ,you are incorrigible1 ,jack4 ,but you should not jest about our affection for one another4 ,nobody could possibly misunderstand it4 ,,you do not misunderstand it1 ,i hope4 ,,tanner4 ,my blood interprets for me1 ,ann4 ,poor ,ricky ,tiky ,tavy6 ,,ann4 looking quickly at him as if this were a new light ,surely you are not so absurd as to be jealous of ,tavy4 ,,tanner4 ,jealous6 ,why should ,i be8 ,but ,i don't wonder at your grip of him4 ,i feel the coils tightening round my very self1 though you are only playing with me4 ,,ann4 ,do you think ,i have designs on ,tavy8 ,,tanner4 ,i know you have4 ,,ann4 earnestly ,take care1 ,jack4 ,you may make ,tavy very happy if you mislead him about me4 ,,tanner4 ,never fear3 he will not escape you4 ,,ann4 ,i wonder are you really a clever man6 ,,tanner4 ,why this sudden misgiving on the subject8 ,,ann4 ,you seem to understand all the things ,i don't understand2 but you are a perfect baby in the things ,i do understand4 ,,tanner4 ,i understand how ,tavy feels for you1 ,ann2 you may depend on that1 at all events4 ,,ann4 ,and you think you understand how ,i feel for ,tavy1 don't you8 ,,tanner4 ,i know only too well what is going to happen to poor ,tavy4 ,,ann4 ,i should laugh at you1 ,jack1 if it were not for poor papa's death4 ,mind6 ,tavy will be very unhappy4 ,,tanner4 ,yes2 but he won't know it1 poor devil4 ,he is a thousand times too good for you4 ,that's why he is going to make the mistake of his life about you4 ,,ann4 ,i think men make more mistakes by being too clever than by being too good she sits down1 with a trace of contempt for the whole male sex in the elegant carriage of her shoulders4 ,,tanner4 ,oh1 ,i know you don't care very much about ,tavy4 ,but there is always one who kisses and one who only allows the kiss4 ,tavy will kiss2 and you will only turn the cheek4 ,and you will throw him over if anybody better turns up4 ,,ann4 offended ,you have no right to say such things1 ,jack4 ,they are not true1 and not delicate4 ,if you and ,tavy choose to be stupid about me1 that is not my fault4 ,,tanner4 remorsefully ,forgive my brutalities1 ,ann4 ,they are levelled at this wicked world1 not at you4 ,she looks up at him1 pleased and forgiving4 ,he becomes cautious at once4 ,all the same1 ,i wish ,ramsden would come back4 ,i never feel safe with you3 there is a devilish charm--or no3 not a charm1 a subtle interest she laughs4 ,just so3 you know it2 and you triumph in it4 ,openly and shamelessly triumph in it6 ,,ann4 ,what a shocking flirt you are1 ,jack6 ,,tanner4 ,a flirt66 ,i66 ,,ann4 ,yes1 a flirt4 ,you are always abusing and offending people1 but you never really mean to let go your hold of them4 ,,tanner4 ,i will ring the bell4 ,this conversation has already gone further than ,i intended4 ,ramsden and ,octavius come back with ,miss ,ramsden1 a hardheaded old maiden lady in a plain brown silk gown1 with enough rings1 chains and brooches to show that her plainness of dress is a matter of principle1 not of poverty4 ,she comes into the room very determinedly3 the two men1 perplexed and downcast1 following her4 ,ann rises and goes eagerly to meet her4 ,tanner retreats to the wall between the busts and pretends to study the pictures4 ,ramsden goes to his table as usual2 and ,octavius clings to the neighborhood of ,tanner4 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 almost pushing ,ann aside as she comes to ,mr4 ,whitefield's chair and plants herself there resolutely ,i wash my hands of the whole affair4 ,,octavius4 very wretched ,i know you wish me to take ,violet away1 ,miss ,ramsden4 ,i will4 ,he turns irresolutely to the door4 ,,ramsden4 ,no no-- ,,miss ,,ramsden4 ,what is the use of saying no1 ,roebuck8 ,octavius knows that ,i would not turn any truly contrite and repentant woman from your doors4 ,but when a woman is not only wicked1 but intends to go on being wicked1 she and ,i part company4 ,,ann4 ,oh1 ,miss ,ramsden1 what do you mean8 ,what has ,violet said8 ,,ramsden4 ,violet is certainly very obstinate4 ,she won't leave ,london4 ,i don't understand her4 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 ,i do4 ,it's as plain as the nose on your face1 ,roebuck1 that she won't go because she doesn't want to be separated from this man1 whoever he is4 ,,ann4 ,oh1 surely1 surely6 ,octavius3 did you speak to her8 ,,octavius4 ,she won't tell us anything4 ,she won't make any arrangement until she has consulted somebody4 ,it can't be anybody else than the scoundrel who has betrayed her4 ,,tanner4 to ,octavius ,well1 let her consult him4 ,he will be glad enough to have her sent abroad4 ,where is the difficulty8 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 ,taking the answer out of ,octavius's mouth4 ,the difficulty1 ,mr ,jack1 is that when he offered to help her ,i didn't offer to become her accomplice in her wickedness4 ,she either pledges her word never to see that man again1 or else she finds some new friends2 and the sooner the better4 ,the parlormaid appears at the door4 ,ann hastily resumes her seat1 and looks as unconcerned as possible4 ,octavius instinctively imitates her4 ,,the ,,maid4 ,the cab is at the door1 ma'am4 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 ,what cab8 ,,the ,,maid4 ,for ,miss ,robinson4 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 ,oh6 ,recovering herself ,all right4 ,the maid withdraws4 ,she has sent for a cab4 ,,tanner4 ,i wanted to send for that cab half an hour ago4 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 ,i am glad she understands the position she has placed herself in4 ,,ramsden4 ,i don't like her going away in this fashion1 ,susan4 ,we had better not do anything harsh4 ,,octavius4 ,no3 thank you again and again2 but ,miss ,ramsden is quite right4 ,violet cannot expect to stay4 ,,ann4 ,hadn't you better go with her1 ,tavy8 ,,octavius4 ,she won't have me4 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 ,of course she won't4 ,she's going straight to that man4 ,,tanner4 ,as a natural result of her virtuous reception here4 ,,ramsden4 much troubled ,there1 ,susan6 ,you hear6 and there's some truth in it4 ,i wish you could reconcile it with your principles to be a little patient with this poor girl4 ,she's very young2 and there's a time for everything4 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 ,oh1 she will get all the sympathy she wants from the men4 ,i'm surprised at you1 ,roebuck4 ,,tanner4 ,so am ,i1 ,ramsden1 most favorably4 ,violet appears at the door4 ,she is as impenitent and self-assured a young lady as one would desire to see among the best behaved of her sex4 ,her small head and tiny resolute mouth and chin2 her haughty crispness of speech and trimness of carriage2 the ruthless elegance of her equipment1 which includes a very smart hat with a dead bird in it1 mark a personality which is as formidable as it is exquisitely pretty4 ,she is not a siren1 like ,ann3 admiration comes to her without any compulsion or even interest on her part2 besides1 there is some fun in ,ann1 but in this woman none1 perhaps no mercy either3 if anything restrains her1 it is intelligence and pride1 not compassion4 ,her voice might be the voice of a schoolmistress addressing a class of girls who had disgraced themselves1 as she proceeds with complete composure and some disgust to say what she has come to say4 ,,violet4 ,i have only looked in to tell ,miss ,ramsden that she will find her birthday present to me1 the filagree bracelet1 in the housekeeper's room4 ,,tanner4 ,do come in1 ,violet1 and talk to us sensibly4 ,,violet4 ,thank you3 ,i have had quite enough of the family conversation this morning4 ,so has your mother1 ,ann3 she has gone home crying4 ,but at all events1 ,i have found out what some of my pretended friends are worth4 ,good bye4 ,,tanner4 ,no1 no3 one moment4 ,i have something to say which ,i beg you to hear4 ,she looks at him without the slightest curiosity1 but waits1 apparently as much to finish getting her glove on as to hear what he has to say4 ,i am altogether on your side in this matter4 ,i congratulate you1 with the sincerest respect1 on having the courage to do what you have done4 ,you are entirely in the right2 and the family is entirely in the wrong4 ,sensation4 ,ann and ,miss ,ramsden rise and turn toward the two4 ,violet1 more surprised than any of the others1 forgets her glove1 and comes forward into the middle of the room1 both puzzled and displeased4 ,octavius alone does not move or raise his head2 he is overwhelmed with shame4 ,,ann4 pleading to ,tanner to be sensible ,jack6 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 outraged ,well1 ,i must say6 ,,violet4 sharply to ,tanner ,who told you8 ,,tanner4 ,why1 ,ramsden and ,tavy of course4 ,why should they not8 ,,violet4 ,but they don't know4 ,,tanner4 ,don't know what8 ,,violet4 ,they don't know that ,i am in the right1 ,i mean4 ,,tanner4 ,oh1 they know it in their hearts1 though they think themselves bound to blame you by their silly superstitions about morality and propriety and so forth4 ,but ,i know1 and the whole world really knows1 though it dare not say so1 that you were right to follow your instinct2 that vitality and bravery are the greatest qualities a woman can have1 and motherhood her solemn initiation into womanhood2 and that the fact of your not being legally married matters not one scrap either to your own worth or to our real regard for you4 ,,violet4 flushing with indignation ,oh6 ,you think me a wicked woman1 like the rest4 ,you think ,i have not only been vile1 but that ,i share your abominable opinions4 ,miss ,ramsden3 ,i have borne your hard words because ,i knew you would be sorry for them when you found out the truth4 ,but ,i won't bear such a horrible insult as to be complimented by ,jack on being one of the wretches of whom he approves4 ,i have kept my marriage a secret for my husband's sake4 ,but now ,i claim my right as a married woman not to be insulted4 ,,octavius4 raising his head with inexpressible relief ,you are married6 ,,violet4 ,yes2 and ,i think you might have guessed it4 ,what business had you all to take it for granted that ,i had no right to wear my wedding ring8 ,not one of you even asked me3 ,i cannot forget that4 ,,tanner4 in ruins ,i am utterly crushed4 ,i meant well--,i apologize--abjectly apologize4 ,,violet4 ,i hope you will be more careful in future about the things you say4 ,of course one does not take them seriously4 ,but they are very disagreeable1 and rather in bad taste4 ,,tanner4 bowing to the storm ,i have no defence3 ,i shall know better in future than to take any woman's part4 ,we have all disgraced ourselves in your eyes1 ,i am afraid1 except ,ann1 ,,she befriended you4 ,for ,ann's sake1 forgive us4 ,,violet4 ,yes3 ,ann has been very kind2 but then ,ann knew4 ,,tanner4 ,oh6 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 stiffly ,and who1 pray1 is the gentleman who does not acknowledge his wife8 ,,violet4 promptly ,that is my business1 ,miss ,ramsden1 and not yours4 ,i have my reasons for keeping my marriage a secret for the present4 ,,ramsden4 ,all ,i can say is that we are extremely sorry1 ,violet4 ,i am shocked to think of how we have treated you4 ,,octavius4 awkwardly ,i beg your pardon1 ,violet4 ,i can say no more4 ,,miss ,,ramsden4 still loth to surrender ,of course what you say puts a very different complexion on the matter4 ,all the same1 ,i owe it to myself-- ,,violet4 cutting her short ,you owe me an apology1 ,miss ,ramsden3 that's what you owe both to yourself and to me4 ,if you were a married woman you would not like sitting in the housekeeper's room and being treated like a naughty child by young girls and old ladies without any serious duties and responsibilities4 ,,tanner4 ,don't hit us when we're down1 ,violet4 ,we seem to have made fools of ourselves2 but really it was you who made fools of us4 ,,violet4 ,it was no business of yours1 ,jack1 in any case4 ,,tanner4 ,no business of mine6 ,why1 ,ramsden as good as accused me of being the unknown gentleman4 ,ramsden makes a frantic demonstration2 but ,violet's cool keen anger extinguishes it4 ,,violet4 ,you6 ,oh1 how infamous6 how abominable6 ,how disgracefully you have all been talking about me6 ,if my husband knew it he would never let me speak to any of you again4 ,to ,ramsden ,i think you might have spared me1 at least4 ,,ramsden4 ,but ,i assure you ,i never--at least it is a monstrous perversion of something ,i said that-- ,,miss ,,ramsden4 ,you needn't apologize1 ,roebuck4 ,she brought it all on herself4 ,it is for her to apologize for having deceived us4 ,,violet4 ,i can make allowances for you1 ,miss ,ramsden3 you cannot understand how ,i feel on this subject though ,i should have expected rather better taste from people of greater experience4 ,however1 ,i quite feel that you have all placed yourselves in a very painful position2 and the most truly considerate thing for me to do is to go at once4 ,good morning4 ,she goes1 leaving them staring4 ,miss ,,ramsden4 ,well1 ,i must say--6 ,,ramsden4 plaintively ,i don't think she is quite fair to us4 ,,tanner4 ,you must cower before the wedding ring like the rest of us1 ,ramsden4 ,the cup of our ignominy is full4 ,,act ,,ii ,on the carriage drive in the park of a country house near ,richmond a motor car has broken down4 ,it stands in front of a clump of trees round which the drive sweeps to the house1 which is partly visible through them3 indeed ,tanner1 standing in the drive with the car on his right hand1 could get an unobstructed view of the west corner of the house on his left were he not far too much interested in a pair of supine legs in blue serge trousers which protrude from beneath the machine4 ,he is watching them intently with bent back and hands supported on his knees4 ,his leathern overcoat and peaked cap proclaim him one of the dismounted passengers4 ,,the ,,legs4 ,aha6 ,i got him4 ,,tanner4 ,all right now8 ,,the ,,legs4 ,all right now4 ,tanner stoops and takes the legs by the ankles1 drawing their owner forth like a wheelbarrow1 walking on his hands1 with a hammer in his mouth4 ,he is a young man in a neat suit of blue serge1 clean shaven1 dark eyed1 square fingered1 with short well brushed black hair and rather irregular sceptically turned eyebrows4 ,when he is manipulating the car his movements are swift and sudden1 yet attentive and deliberate4 ,with ,tanner and ,tanner's friends his manner is not in the least deferential1 but cool and reticent1 keeping them quite effectually at a distance whilst giving them no excuse for complaining of him4 ,nevertheless he has a vigilant eye on them always1 and that1 too1 rather cynically1 like a man who knows the world well from its seamy side4 ,he speaks slowly and with a touch of sarcasm2 and as he does not at all affect the gentleman in his speech1 it may be inferred that his smart appearance is a mark of respect to himself and his own class1 not to that which employs him4 ,he now gets into the car to test his machinery and put his cap and overcoat on again4 ,tanner takes off his leather overcoat and pitches it into the car4 ,the chauffeur 7or automobilist or motoreer or whatever ,england may presently decide to call him7 looks round inquiringly in the act of stowing away his hammer4 ,,the ,,chauffeur4 ,had enough of it1 eh8 ,,tanner4 ,i may as well walk to the house and stretch my legs and calm my nerves a little4 ,looking at his watch ,i suppose you know that we have come from ,hyde ,park ,corner to ,richmond in twenty-one minutes4 ,,the ,,chauffeur4 ,i'd have done it under fifteen if ,i'd had a clear road all the way4 ,,tanner4 ,why do you do it8 ,is it for love of sport or for the fun of terrifying your unfortunate employer8 ,,the ,,chauffeur4 ,what are you afraid of8 ,,tanner4 ,the police1 and breaking my neck4 ,,the ,,chauffeur4 ,well1 if you like easy going1 you can take a bus1 you know4 ,it's cheaper4 ,you pay me to save your time and give you the value of your thousand pound car4 ,he sits down calmly4 ,,tanner4 ,i am the slave of that car and of you too4 ,i dream of the accursed thing at night4 ,,the ,,chauffeur4 ,you'll get over that4 ,if you're going up to the house1 may ,i ask how long you're goin to stay there8 ,because if you mean to put in the whole morning talkin to the ladies1 ,i'll put the car in the stables and make myself comfortable4 ,if not1 ,i'll keep the car on the go about here til you come4 ,,tanner4 ,better wait here4 ,we shan't be long4 ,there's a young ,american gentleman1 a ,mr ,malone1 who is driving ,mr ,robinson down in his new ,american steam car4 ,,the ,,chauffeur4 springing up and coming hastily out of the car to ,tanner ,american steam car6 ,wot6 racin us down from ,london6 ,,tanner4 ,perhaps they're here already4 ,,the ,,chauffeur4 ,if ,i'd known it6 with deep reproach ,why didn't you tell me1 ,mr ,tanner8 ,,tanner4 ,because ,i've been told that this car is capable of #hd miles an hour2 and ,i already know what ,,you are capable of when there is a rival car on the road4 ,no1 ,henry3 there are things it is not good for you to know2 and this was one of them4 ,however1 cheer up3 we are going to have a day after your own heart4 ,the ,american is to take ,mr ,robinson and his sister and ,miss ,whitefield4 ,we are to take ,miss ,rhoda4 ,,the ,,chauffeur4 consoled1 and musing on another matter ,that's ,miss ,whitefield's sister1 isn't it8 ,,tanner4 ,yes4 ,,the ,,chauffeur4 ,and ,miss ,whitefield herself is goin in the other car8 ,not with you8 ,,tanner4 ,why the devil should she come with me8 ,mr ,robinson will be in the other car4 ,the ,chauffeur looks at ,tanner with cool incredulity1 and turns to the car1 whistling a popular air softly to himself4 ,tanner1 a little annoyed1 is about to pursue the subject when he hears the footsteps of ,octavius on the gravel4 ,octavius is coming from the house1 dressed for motoring1 but without his overcoat4 ,we've lost the race1 thank ,heaven3 here's ,mr ,robinson4 ,well1 ,tavy1 is the steam car a success8 ,,octavius4 ,i think so4 ,we came from ,hyde ,park ,corner here in seventeen minutes4 ,the ,chauffeur1 furious1 kicks the car with a groan of vexation4 ,how long were you8 ,,tanner4 ,oh1 about three quarters of an hour or so4 ,,the ,,chauffeur4 remonstrating ,now1 now1 ,mr ,tanner1 come now6 ,we could ha done it easy under fifteen4 ,,tanner4 ,by the way1 let me introduce you4 ,mr ,octavius ,robinson3 ,mr ,enry ,straker4 ,,straker4 ,pleased to meet you1 sir4 ,mr ,tanner is gittin at you with his ,enry ,straker1 you know4 ,you call it ,henery4 ,but ,i don't mind1 bless you4 ,,tanner4 ,you think it's simply bad taste in me to chaff him1 ,tavy4 ,but you're wrong4 ,this man takes more trouble to drop his aiches than ever his father did to pick them up4 ,it's a mark of caste to him4 ,i have never met anybody more swollen with the pride of class than ,enry is4 ,,straker4 ,easy1 easy6 ,a little moderation1 ,mr ,tanner4 ,,tanner4 ,a little moderation1 ,tavy1 you observe4 ,you would tell me to draw it mild1 ,but this chap has been educated4 ,what's more1 he knows that we haven't4 ,what was that board school of yours1 ,straker8 ,,straker4 ,sherbrooke ,road4 ,,tanner4 ,sherbrooke ,road6 ,would any of us say ,rugby6 ,harrow6 ,eton6 in that tone of intellectual snobbery8 ,sherbrooke ,road is a place where boys learn something2 ,eton is a boy farm where we are sent because we are nuisances at home1 and because in after life1 whenever a ,duke is mentioned1 we can claim him as an old schoolfellow4 ,,straker4 ,you don't know nothing about it1 ,mr4 ,tanner4 ,it's not the ,board ,school that does it3 it's the ,polytechnic4 ,,tanner4 ,his university1 ,octavius4 ,not ,oxford1 ,cambridge1 ,durham1 ,dublin or ,glasgow4 ,not even those ,nonconformist holes in ,wales4 ,no1 ,tavy4 ,regent ,street1 ,chelsea1 the ,borough--,i don't know half their confounded names3 these are his universities1 not mere shops for selling class limitations like ours4 ,you despise ,oxford1 ,enry1 don't you8 ,,straker4 ,no1 ,i don't4 ,very nice sort of place1 ,oxford1 ,i should think1 for people that like that sort of place4 ,they teach you to be a gentleman there4 ,in the ,polytechnic they teach you to be an engineer or such like4 ,see8 ,,tanner4 ,sarcasm1 ,tavy1 sarcasm6 ,oh1 if you could only see into ,enry's soul1 the depth of his contempt for a gentleman1 the arrogance of his pride in being an engineer1 would appal you4 ,he positively likes the car to break down because it brings out my gentlemanly helplessness and his workmanlike skill and resource4 ,,straker4 ,never you mind him1 ,mr ,robinson4 ,he likes to talk4 ,we know him1 don't we8 ,,octavius4 earnestly ,but there's a great truth at the bottom of what he says4 ,i believe most intensely in the dignity of labor4 ,,straker4 unimpressed ,that's because you never done any1 ,mr ,robinson4 ,my business is to do away with labor4 ,you'll get more out of me and a machine than you will out of twenty laborers1 and not so much to drink either4 ,,tanner4 ,for ,heaven's sake1 ,tavy1 don't start him on political economy4 ,he knows all about it2 and we don't4 ,you're only a poetic ,socialist1 ,tavy3 he's a scientific one4 ,,straker4 unperturbed ,yes4 ,well1 this conversation is very improvin2 but ,i've got to look after the car2 and you two want to talk about your ladies4 ,i know4 ,he retires to busy himself about the car2 and presently saunters off towards the house4 ,,tanner4 ,that's a very momentous social phenomenon4 ,,octavius4 ,what is8 ,,tanner4 ,straker is4 ,here have we literary and cultured persons been for years setting up a cry of the ,new ,woman whenever some unusually old fashioned female came along2 and never noticing the advent of the ,new ,man4 ,straker's the ,new ,man4 ,,octavius4 ,i see nothing new about him1 except your way of chaffing him4 ,but ,i don't want to talk about him just now4 ,i want to speak to you about ,ann4 ,,tanner4 ,straker knew even that4 ,he learnt it at the ,polytechnic1 probably4 ,well1 what about ,ann8 ,have you proposed to her8 ,,octavius4 self-reproachfully ,i was brute enough to do so last night4 ,,tanner4 ,brute enough6 ,what do you mean8 ,,octavius4 dithyrambically ,jack3 we men are all coarse4 ,we never understand how exquisite a woman's sensibilities are4 ,how could ,i have done such a thing6 ,,tanner4 ,done what1 you maudlin idiot8 ,,octavius4 ,yes1 ,i am an idiot4 ,jack3 if you had heard her voice6 if you had seen her tears6 ,i have lain awake all night thinking of them4 ,if she had reproached me1 ,i could have borne it better4 ,,tanner4 ,tears6 that's dangerous4 ,what did she say8 ,,octavius4 ,she asked me how she could think of anything now but her dear father4 ,she stifled a sob--he breaks down4 ,,tanner4 patting him on the back ,bear it like a man1 ,tavy1 even if you feel it like an ass4 ,it's the old game3 she's not tired of playing with you yet4 ,,octavius4 impatiently ,oh1 don't be a fool1 ,jack4 ,do you suppose this eternal shallow cynicism of yours has any real bearing on a nature like hers8 ,,tanner4 ,hm6 ,did she say anything else8 ,,octavius4 ,yes2 and that is why ,i expose myself and her to your ridicule by telling you what passed4 ,,tanner4 remorsefully ,no1 dear ,tavy1 not ridicule1 on my honor6 ,however1 no matter4 ,go on4 ,,octavius4 ,her sense of duty is so devout1 so perfect1 so-- ,,tanner4 ,yes3 ,i know4 ,go on4 ,,octavius4 ,you see1 under this new arrangement1 you and ,ramsden are her guardians2 and she considers that all her duty to her father is now transferred to you4 ,she said she thought ,i ought to have spoken to you both in the first instance4 ,of course she is right2 but somehow it seems rather absurd that ,i am to come to you and formally ask to be received as a suitor for your ward's hand4 ,,tanner4 ,i am glad that love has not totally extinguished your sense of humor1 ,tavy4 ,,octavius4 ,that answer won't satisfy her4 ,,tanner4 ,my official answer is1 obviously1 ,bless you1 my children3 may you be happy6 ,,octavius4 ,i wish you would stop playing the fool about this4 ,if it is not serious to you1 it is to me1 and to her4 ,,tanner4 ,you know very well that she is as free to choose as you4 ,she does not think so4 ,,octavius4 ,she does not think so4 ,,tanner4 ,oh1 doesn't she6 just6 ,however1 say what you want me to do4 ,,octavius4 ,i want you to tell her sincerely and earnestly what you think about me4 ,i want you to tell her that you can trust her to me--that is1 if you feel you can4 ,,tanner4 ,i have no doubt that ,i can trust her to you4 ,what worries me is the idea of trusting you to her4 ,have you read ,maeterlinck's book about the bee8 ,,octavius4 keeping his temper with difficulty ,i am not discussing literature at present4 ,,tanner4 ,be just a little patient with me4 ,i am not discussing literature3 the book about the bee is natural history4 ,it's an awful lesson to mankind4 ,you think that you are ,ann's suitor2 that you are the pursuer and she the pursued2 that it is your part to woo1 to persuade1 to prevail1 to overcome4 ,fool3 it is you who are the pursued1 the marked down quarry1 the destined prey4 ,you need not sit looking longingly at the bait through the wires of the trap3 the door is open1 and will remain so until it shuts behind you for ever4 ,,octavius4 ,i wish ,i could believe that1 vilely as you put it4 ,,tanner4 ,why1 man1 what other work has she in life but to get a husband8 ,it is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible1 and a man's to keep unmarried as long as he can4 ,you have your poems and your tragedies to work at3 ,ann has nothing4 ,,octavius4 ,i cannot write without inspiration4 ,and nobody can give me that except ,ann4 ,,tanner4 ,well1 hadn't you better get it from her at a safe distance8 ,petrarch didn't see half as much of ,laura1 nor ,dante of ,beatrice1 as you see of ,ann now2 and yet they wrote first-rate poetry--at least so ,i'm told4 ,they never exposed their idolatry to the test of domestic familiarity2 and it lasted them to their graves4 ,marry ,ann and at the end of a week you'll find no more inspiration than in a plate of muffins4 ,,octavius4 ,you think ,i shall tire of her4 ,,tanner4 ,not at all3 you don't get tired of muffins4 ,but you don't find inspiration in them2 and you won't in her when she ceases to be a poet's dream and becomes a solid eleven stone wife4 ,you'll be forced to dream about somebody else2 and then there will be a row4 ,,octavius4 ,this sort of talk is no use1 ,jack4 ,you don't understand4 ,you have never been in love4 ,,tanner4 ,i6 ,i have never been out of it4 ,why1 ,i am in love even with ,ann4 ,but ,i am neither the slave of love nor its dupe4 ,go to the bee1 thou poet3 consider her ways and be wise4 ,by ,heaven1 ,tavy1 if women could do without our work1 and we ate their children's bread instead of making it1 they would kill us as the spider kills her mate or as the bees kill the drone4 ,and they would be right if we were good for nothing but love4 ,,octavius4 ,ah1 if we were only good enough for ,love6 ,there is nothing like ,love3 there is nothing else but ,love3 without it the world would be a dream of sordid horror4 ,,tanner4 ,and this--this is the man who asks me to give him the hand of my ward6 ,tavy3 ,i believe we were changed in our cradles1 and that you are the real descendant of ,don ,juan4 ,,octavius4 ,i beg you not to say anything like that to ,ann4 ,,tanner4 ,don't be afraid4 ,she has marked you for her own2 and nothing will stop her now4 ,you are doomed4 ,straker comes back with a newspaper4 ,here comes the ,new ,man1 demoralizing himself with a halfpenny paper as usual4 ,,straker4 ,now1 would you believe it3 ,mr ,robinson1 when we're out motoring we take in two papers1 the ,times for him1 the ,leader or the ,echo for me4 ,and do you think ,i ever see my paper8 ,not much4 ,he grabs the ,leader and leaves me to stodge myself with his ,times4 ,,octavius4 ,are there no winners in the ,times8 ,,tanner4 ,enry don't old with bettin1 ,tavy4 ,motor records are his weakness4 ,what's the latest8 ,,straker4 ,paris to ,biskra at forty mile an hour average1 not countin the ,mediterranean4 ,,tanner4 ,how many killed8 ,,straker4 ,two silly sheep4 ,what does it matter8 ,sheep don't cost such a lot3 they were glad to ave the price without the trouble o sellin em to the butcher4 ,all the same1 d'y'see1 there'll be a clamor agin it presently2 and then the ,french ,government'll stop it2 an our chance will be gone see8 ,that what makes me fairly mad3 ,mr ,tanner won't do a good run while he can4 ,,tanner4 ,tavy3 do you remember my uncle ,james8 ,,octavius4 ,yes4 ,why8 ,,tanner4 ,uncle ,james had a first rate cook3 he couldn't digest anything except what she cooked4 ,well1 the poor man was shy and hated society4 ,but his cook was proud of her skill1 and wanted to serve up dinners to princes and ambassadors4 ,to prevent her from leaving him1 that poor old man had to give a big dinner twice a month1 and suffer agonies of awkwardness4 ,now here am ,i2 and here is this chap ,enry ,straker1 the ,new ,man4 ,i loathe travelling2 but ,i rather like ,enry4 ,he cares for nothing but tearing along in a leather coat and goggles1 with two inches of dust all over him1 at sixty miles an hour and the risk of his life and mine4 ,except1 of course1 when he is lying on his back in the mud under the machine trying to find out where it has given way4 ,well1 if ,i don't give him a thousand mile run at least once a fortnight ,i shall lose him4 ,he will give me the sack and go to some ,american millionaire2 and ,i shall have to put up with a nice respectful groom-gardener-amateur1 who will touch his hat and know his place4 ,i am ,enry's slave1 just as ,uncle ,james was his cook's slave4 ,,straker4 exasperated ,garn6 ,i wish ,i had a car that would go as fast as you can talk1 ,mr ,tanner4 ,what ,i say is that you lose money by a motor car unless you keep it workin4 ,might as well ave a pram and a nussmaid to wheel you in it as that car and me if you don't git the last inch out of us both4 ,,tanner4 soothingly ,all right1 ,henry1 all right4 ,we'll go out for half an hour presently4 ,,straker4 in disgust ,arf an ahr6 ,he returns to his machine2 seats himself in it2 and turns up a fresh page of his paper in search of more news4 ,,octavius4 ,oh1 that reminds me4 ,i have a note for you from ,rhoda4 ,he gives ,tanner a note4 ,,tanner4 opening it ,i rather think ,rhoda is heading for a row with ,ann4 ,as a rule there is only one person an ,english girl hates more than she hates her mother2 and that's her eldest sister4 ,but ,rhoda positively prefers her mother to ,ann4 ,she--indignantly ,oh1 ,i say6 ,,octavius4 ,what's the matter8 ,,tanner4 ,rhoda was to have come with me for a ride in the motor car4 ,she says ,ann has forbidden her to go out with me4 ,straker suddenly begins whistling his favorite air with remarkable deliberation4 ,surprised by this burst of larklike melody1 and jarred by a sardonic note in its cheerfulness1 they turn and look inquiringly at him4 ,but he is busy with his paper2 and nothing comes of their movement4 ,,octavius4 recovering himself ,does she give any reason8 ,,tanner4 ,reason6 ,an insult is not a reason4 ,ann forbids her to be alone with me on any occasion4 ,says ,i am not a fit person for a young girl to be with4 ,what do you think of your paragon now8 ,,octavius4 ,you must remember that she has a very heavy responsibility now that her father is dead4 ,mrs ,whitefield is too weak to control ,rhoda4 ,,tanner4 staring at him ,in short1 you agree with ,ann4 ,,octavius4 ,no2 but ,i think ,i understand her4 ,you must admit that your views are hardly suited for the formation of a young girl's mind and character4 ,,tanner4 ,i admit nothing of the sort4 ,i admit that the formation of a young lady's mind and character usually consists in telling her lies2 but ,i object to the particular lie that ,i am in the habit of abusing the confidence of girls4 ,,octavius4 ,ann doesn't say that1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 ,what else does she mean8 ,,straker4 catching sight of ,ann coming from the house ,miss ,whitefield1 gentlemen4 ,he dismounts and strolls away down the avenue with the air of a man who knows he is no longer wanted4 ,,ann4 coming between ,octavius and ,tanner4 ,good morning1 ,jack4 ,i have come to tell you that poor ,rhoda has got one of her headaches and cannot go out with you to-day in the car4 ,it is a cruel disappointment to her1 poor child6 ,,tanner4 ,what do you say now1 ,tavy4 ,,octavius4 ,surely you cannot misunderstand1 ,jack4 ,ann is showing you the kindest consideration1 even at the cost of deceiving you4 ,,ann4 ,what do you mean8 ,,tanner4 ,would you like to cure ,rhoda's headache1 ,ann8 ,,ann4 ,of course4 ,,tanner4 ,then tell her what you said just now2 and add that you arrived about two minutes after ,i had received her letter and read it4 ,,ann4 ,rhoda has written to you6 ,,tanner4 ,with full particulars4 ,,octavius4 ,never mind him1 ,ann4 ,you were right1 quite right4 ,ann was only doing her duty1 ,jack2 and you know it4 ,doing it in the kindest way1 too4 ,,ann4 going to ,octavius ,how kind you are1 ,tavy6 ,how helpful6 ,how well you understand6 ,octavius beams4 ,,tanner4 ,ay3 tighten the coils4 ,you love her1 ,tavy1 don't you8 ,,octavius4 ,she knows ,i do4 ,,ann4 ,hush4 ,for shame1 ,tavy6 ,,tanner4 ,oh1 ,i give you leave4 ,i am your guardian2 and ,i commit you to ,tavy's care for the next hour4 ,,ann4 ,no1 ,jack4 ,i must speak to you about ,rhoda4 ,ricky3 will you go back to the house and entertain your ,american friend8 ,he's rather on ,mamma's hands so early in the morning4 ,she wants to finish her housekeeping4 ,,octavius4 ,i fly1 dearest ,ann he kisses her hand4 ,,ann4 tenderly ,ricky ,ticky ,tavy6 ,he looks at her with an eloquent blush1 and runs off4 ,,tanner4 bluntly ,now look here1 ,ann4 ,this time you've landed yourself2 and if ,tavy were not in love with you past all salvation he'd have found out what an incorrigible liar you are4 ,,ann4 ,you misunderstand1 ,jack4 ,i didn't dare tell ,tavy the truth4 ,,tanner4 ,no3 your daring is generally in the opposite direction4 ,what the devil do you mean by telling ,rhoda that ,i am too vicious to associate with her8 ,how can ,i ever have any human or decent relations with her again1 now that you have poisoned her mind in that abominable way8 ,,ann4 ,i know you are incapable of behaving badly4 ,,tanner4 ,then why did you lie to her8 ,,ann4 ,i had to4 ,,tanner4 ,had to6 ,,ann4 ,mother made me4 ,,tanner4 his eye flashing ,ha6 ,i might have known it4 ,the mother6 ,always the mother6 ,,ann4 ,it was that dreadful book of yours4 ,you know how timid mother is4 ,all timid women are conventional3 we must be conventional1 ,jack1 or we are so cruelly1 so vilely misunderstood4 ,even you1 who are a man1 cannot say what you think without being misunderstood and vilified--yes3 ,i admit it3 ,i have had to vilify you4 ,do you want to have poor ,rhoda misunderstood and vilified to the same way8 ,would it be right for mother to let her expose herself to such treatment before she is old enough to judge for herself8 ,,tanner4 ,in short1 the way to avoid misunderstanding is for everybody to lie and slander and insinuate and pretend as hard as they can4 ,that is what obeying your mother comes to4 ,,ann4 ,i love my mother1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 working himself up into a sociological rage ,is that any reason why you are not to call your soul your own8 ,oh1 ,i protest against this vile abjection of youth to age6 look at fashionable society as you know it4 ,what does it pretend to be8 ,an exquisite dance of nymphs4 ,what is it8 ,a horrible procession of wretched girls1 each in the claws of a cynical1 cunning1 avaricious1 disillusioned1 ignorantly experienced1 foul-minded old woman whom she calls mother1 and whose duty it is to corrupt her mind and sell her to the highest bidder4 ,why do these unhappy slaves marry anybody1 however old and vile1 sooner than not marry at all8 ,because marriage is their only means of escape from these decrepit fiends who hide their selfish ambitions1 their jealous hatreds of the young rivals who have supplanted them1 under the mask of maternal duty and family affection4 ,such things are abominable3 the voice of nature proclaims for the daughter a father's care and for the son a mother's4 ,the law for father and son and mother and daughter is not the law of love3 it is the law of revolution1 of emancipation1 of final supersession of the old and worn-out by the young and capable4 ,i tell you1 the first duty of manhood and womanhood is a ,declaration of ,independence3 the man who pleads his father's authority is no man3 the woman who pleads her mother's authority is unfit to bear citizens to a free people4 ,,ann4 watching him with quiet curiosity ,i suppose you will go in seriously for politics some day1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 heavily let down ,eh8 ,what8 ,wh--8 ,collecting his scattered wits ,what has that got to do with what ,i have been saying8 ,,ann4 ,you talk so well4 ,,tanner4 ,talk6 ,talk6 ,it means nothing to you but talk4 ,well1 go back to your mother1 and help her to poison ,rhoda's imagination as she has poisoned yours4 ,it is the tame elephants who enjoy capturing the wild ones4 ,,ann4 ,i am getting on4 ,yesterday ,i was a boa constrictor3 to-day ,i am an elephant4 ,,tanner4 ,yes4 ,so pack your trunk and begone2 ,i have no more to say to you4 ,,ann4 ,you are so utterly unreasonable and impracticable4 ,what can ,i do8 ,,tanner4 ,do6 ,break your chains4 ,go your way according to your own conscience and not according to your mother's4 ,get your mind clean and vigorous2 and learn to enjoy a fast ride in a motor car instead of seeing nothing in it but an excuse for a detestable intrigue4 ,come with me to ,marseilles and across to ,algiers and to ,biskra1 at sixty miles an hour4 ,come right down to the ,cape if you like4 ,that will be a ,declaration of ,independence with a vengeance4 ,you can write a book about it afterwards4 ,that will finish your mother and make a woman of you4 ,,ann4 thoughtfully ,i don't think there would be any harm in that1 ,jack4 ,you are my guardian3 you stand in my father's place1 by his own wish4 ,nobody could say a word against our travelling together4 ,it would be delightful3 thank you a thousand times1 ,jack4 ,i'll come4 ,,tanner4 aghast ,you'll come666 ,,ann4 ,of course4 ,,tanner4 ,but-- he stops1 utterly appalled2 then resumes feebly ,no3 look here1 ,ann3 if there's no harm in it there's no point in doing it4 ,,ann4 ,how absurd you are6 ,you don't want to compromise me1 do you8 ,,tanner4 ,yes3 that's the whole sense of my proposal4 ,,ann4 ,you are talking the greatest nonsense2 and you know it4 ,you would never do anything to hurt me4 ,,tanner4 ,well1 if you don't want to be compromised1 don't come4 ,,ann4 with simple earnestness ,yes1 ,i will come1 ,jack1 since you wish it4 ,you are my guardian2 and think we ought to see more of one another and come to know one another better4 ,gratefully ,it's very thoughtful and very kind of you1 ,jack1 to offer me this lovely holiday1 especially after what ,i said about ,rhoda4 ,you really are good--much better than you think4 ,when do we start8 ,,tanner4 ,but-- ,the conversation is interrupted by the arrival of ,mrs ,whitefield from the house4 ,she is accompanied by the ,american gentleman1 and followed by ,ramsden and ,octavius4 ,hector ,malone is an ,eastern ,american2 but he is not at all ashamed of his nationality4 ,this makes ,english people of fashion think well of him1 as of a young fellow who is manly enough to confess to an obvious disadvantage without any attempt to conceal or extenuate it4 ,they feel that he ought not to be made to suffer for what is clearly not his fault1 and make a point of being specially kind to him4 ,his chivalrous manners to women1 and his elevated moral sentiments1 being both gratuitous and unusual1 strike them as being a little unfortunate2 and though they find his vein of easy humor rather amusing when it has ceased to puzzle them 7as it does at first71 they have had to make him understand that he really must not tell anecdotes unless they are strictly personal and scandalous1 and also that oratory is an accomplishment which belongs to a cruder stage of civilization than that in which his migration has landed him4 ,on these points ,hector is not quite convinced3 he still thinks that the ,british are apt to make merits of their stupidities1 and to represent their various incapacities as points of good breeding4 ,english life seems to him to suffer from a lack of edifying rhetoric 7which he calls moral tone72 ,english behavior to show a want of respect for womanhood2 ,english pronunciation to fail very vulgarly in tackling such words as world1 girl1 bird1 etc42 ,english society to be plain spoken to an extent which stretches occasionally to intolerable coarseness2 and ,english intercourse to need enlivening by games and stories and other pastimes2 so he does not feel called upon to acquire these defects after taking great paths to cultivate himself in a first rate manner before venturing across the ,atlantic4 ,to this culture he finds ,english people either totally indifferent as they very commonly are to all culture1 or else politely evasive1 the truth being that ,hector's culture is nothing but a state of saturation with our literary exports of thirty years ago1 reimported by him to be unpacked at a moment's notice and hurled at the head of ,english literature1 science and art1 at every conversational opportunity4 ,the dismay set up by these sallies encourages him in his belief that he is helping to educate ,england4 ,when he finds people chattering harmlessly about ,anatole ,france and ,nietzsche1 he devastates them with ,matthew ,arnold1 the ,autocrat of the ,breakfast ,table1 and even ,macaulay2 and as he is devoutly religious at bottom1 he first leads the unwary1 by humorous irreverences1 to wave popular theology out of account in discussing moral questions with him1 and then scatters them in confusion by demanding whether the carrying out of his ideals of conduct was not the manifest object of ,god ,almighty in creating honest men and pure women4 ,the engaging freshness of his personality and the dumbfoundering staleness of his culture make it extremely difficult to decide whether he is worth knowing2 for whilst his company is undeniably pleasant and enlivening1 there is intellectually nothing new to be got out of him1 especially as he despises politics1 and is careful not to talk commercial shop1 in which department he is probably much in advance of his ,english capitalist friends4 ,he gets on best with romantic ,christians of the amoristic sect3 hence the friendship which has sprung up between him and ,octavius4 ,in appearance ,hector is a neatly built young man of twenty-four1 with a short1 smartly trimmed black beard1 clear1 well shaped eyes1 and an ingratiating vivacity of expression4 ,he is1 from the fashionable point of view1 faultlessly dressed4 ,as he comes along the drive from the house with ,mrs ,whitefield he is sedulously making himself agreeable and entertaining1 and thereby placing on her slender wit a burden it is unable to bear4 ,an ,englishman would let her alone1 accepting boredom and indifference of their common lot2 and the poor lady wants to be either let alone or let prattle about the things that interest her4 ,ramsden strolls over to inspect the motor car4 ,octavius joins ,hector4 ,,ann4 pouncing on her mother joyously ,oh1 mamma1 what do you think6 ,jack is going to take me to ,nice in his motor car4 ,isn't it lovely8 ,i am the happiest person in ,london4 ,,tanner4 desperately ,mrs ,whitefield objects4 ,i am sure she objects4 ,doesn't she1 ,ramsden8 ,,ramsden4 ,i should think it very likely indeed4 ,,ann4 ,you don't object1 do you1 mother8 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,i object6 ,why should ,i8 ,i think it will do you good1 ,ann4 ,trotting over to ,tanner ,i meant to ask you to take ,rhoda out for a run occasionally3 she is too much in the house2 but it will do when you come back4 ,,tanner4 ,abyss beneath abyss of perfidy6 ,,ann4 hastily1 to distract attention from this outburst ,oh1 ,i forgot3 you have not met ,mr ,malone4 ,mr ,tanner1 my guardian3 ,mr ,hector ,malone4 ,,hector4 ,pleased to meet you1 ,mr ,tanner4 ,i should like to suggest an extension of the travelling party to ,nice1 if ,i may4 ,,ann4 ,oh1 we're all coming4 ,that's understood1 isn't it8 ,,hector4 ,i also am the modest possessor of a motor car4 ,if ,miss ,robinson will allow me the privilege of taking her1 my car is at her service4 ,,octavius4 ,violet6 ,general constraint4 ,,ann4 subduedly ,come1 mother3 we must leave them to talk over the arrangements4 ,i must see to my travelling kit4 ,mrs ,whitefield looks bewildered2 but ,ann draws her discreetly away2 and they disappear round the corner towards the house4 ,,hector4 ,i think ,i may go so far as to say that ,i can depend on ,miss ,robinson's consent4 ,continued embarrassment4 ,,octavius4 ,i'm afraid we must leave ,violet behind1 ,there are circumstances which make it impossible for her to come on such an expedition4 ,,hector4 amused and not at all convinced ,too ,american1 eh8 ,must the young lady have a chaperone8 ,,octavius4 ,it's not that1 ,malone--at least not altogether4 ,,hector4 ,indeed6 ,may ,i ask what other objection applies8 ,,tanner4 impatiently ,oh1 tell him1 tell him4 ,we shall never be able to keep the secret unless everybody knows what it is4 ,mr ,malone3 if you go to ,nice with ,violet1 you go with another man's wife4 ,she is married4 ,,hector4 thunderstruck ,you don't tell me so6 ,,tanner4 ,we do4 ,in confidence4 ,,ramsden4 with an air of importance1 lest ,malone should suspect a misalliance ,her marriage has not yet been made known3 she desires that it shall not be mentioned for the present4 ,,hector4 ,i shall respect the lady's wishes4 ,would it be indiscreet to ask who her husband is1 in case ,i should have an opportunity of consulting him about this trip8 ,,tanner4 ,we don't know who he is4 ,,hector4 retiring into his shell in a very marked manner ,in that case1 ,i have no more to say4 ,they become more embarrassed than ever4 ,,octavius4 ,you must think this very strange4 ,,hector4 ,a little singular4 ,pardon me for saving so4 ,,ramsden4 half apologetic1 half huffy ,the young lady was married secretly2 and her husband has forbidden her1 it seems1 to declare his name4 ,it is only right to tell you1 since you are interested in ,miss--er--in ,violet4 ,,octavius4 sympathetically ,i hope this is not a disappointment to you4 ,,hector4 softened1 coming out of his shell again ,well it is a blow4 ,i can hardly understand how a man can leave a wife in such a position4 ,surely it's not customary4 ,it's not manly4 ,it's not considerate4 ,,octavius4 ,we feel that1 as you may imagine1 pretty deeply4 ,,ramsden4 testily ,it is some young fool who has not enough experience to know what mystifications of this kind lead to4 ,,hector4 with strong symptoms of moral repugnance ,i hope so4 ,a man need be very young and pretty foolish too to be excused for such conduct4 ,you take a very lenient view1 ,mr ,ramsden4 ,too lenient to my mind4 ,surely marriage should ennoble a man4 ,,tanner4 sardonically ,ha6 ,,hector4 ,am ,i to gather from that cacchination that you don't agree with me1 ,mr ,tanner8 ,,tanner4 drily ,get married and try4 ,you may find it delightful for a while3 you certainly won't find it ennobling4 ,the greatest common measure of a man and a woman is not necessarily greater than the man's single measure4 ,,hector4 ,well1 we think in ,america that a woman's moral number is higher than a man's1 and that the purer nature of a woman lifts a man right out of himself1 and makes him better than he was4 ,,octavius4 with conviction ,so it does4 ,,tanner4 ,no wonder ,american women prefer to live in ,europe6 ,it's more comfortable than standing all their lives on an altar to be worshipped4 ,anyhow1 ,violet's husband has not been ennobled4 ,so what's to be done8 ,,hector4 shaking his head ,i can't dismiss that man's conduct as lightly as you do1 ,mr ,tanner4 ,however1 ,i'll say no more4 ,whoever he is1 he's ,miss ,robinson's husband2 and ,i should be glad for her sake to think better of him4 ,,octavius4 touched2 for he divines a secret sorrow ,i'm very sorry1 ,malone4 ,very sorry4 ,,hector4 gratefully ,you're a good fellow1 ,robinson1 ,thank you4 ,,tanner4 ,talk about something else4 ,violet's coming from the house4 ,,hector4 ,i should esteem it a very great favor1 men1 if you would take the opportunity to let me have a few words with the lady alone4 ,i shall have to cry off this trip2 and it's rather a delicate-- ,,ramsden4 glad to escape ,say no more4 ,come ,tanner1 ,come1 ,tavy4 ,he strolls away into the park with ,octavius and ,tanner1 past the motor car4 ,violet comes down the avenue to ,hector4 ,,violet4 ,are they looking8 ,,hector4 ,no4 ,she kisses him4 ,,violet4 ,have you been telling lies for my sake8 ,,hector4 ,lying6 ,lying hardly describes it4 ,i overdo it4 ,i get carried away in an ecstasy of mendacity4 ,violet3 ,i wish you'd let me own up4 ,,violet4 instantly becoming serious and resolute ,no1 no4 ,hector3 you promised me not to4 ,,hector4 ,i'll keep my promise until you release me from it4 ,but ,i feel mean1 lying to those men1 and denying my wife4 ,just dastardly4 ,,violet4 ,i wish your father were not so unreasonable4 ,,hector4 ,he's not unreasonable4 ,he's right from his point of view4 ,he has a prejudice against the ,english middle class4 ,,violet4 ,it's too ridiculous4 ,you know how ,i dislike saying such things to you1 ,hector2 but if ,i were to--oh1 well1 no matter4 ,,hector4 ,i know4 ,if you were to marry the son of an ,english manufacturer of office furniture1 your friends would consider it a misalliance4 ,and here's my silly old dad1 who is the biggest office furniture man in the world1 would show me the door for marrying the most perfect lady in ,england merely because she has no handle to her name4 ,of course it's just absurd4 ,but ,i tell you1 ,violet1 ,i don't like deceiving him4 ,i feel as if ,i was stealing his money4 ,why won't you let me own up8 ,,violet4 ,we can't afford it4 ,you can be as romantic as you please about love1 ,hector2 but you mustn't be romantic about money4 ,,hector4 divided between his uxoriousness and his habitual elevation of moral sentiment ,that's very ,english4 ,appealing to her impulsively ,violet3 ,dad's bound to find us out some day4 ,,violet4 ,oh yes1 later on of course4 ,but don't let's go over this every time we meet1 dear4 ,you promised-- ,,hector4 ,all right1 all right1 ,i-- ,,violet4 not to be silenced ,it is ,i and not you who suffer by this concealment2 and as to facing a struggle and poverty and all that sort of thing ,i simply will not do it4 ,it's too silly4 ,,hector4 ,you shall not4 ,i'll sort of borrow the money from my dad until ,i get on my own feet2 and then ,i can own up and pay up at the same time4 ,,violet4 alarmed and indignant ,do you mean to work8 ,do you want to spoil our marriage8 ,,hector4 ,well1 ,i don't mean to let marriage spoil my character4 ,your friend ,mr ,tanner has got the laugh on me a bit already about that2 and-- ,,violet4 ,the beast6 ,i hate ,jack ,tanner4 ,,hector4 magnanimously ,oh1 he's all right3 he only needs the love of a good woman to ennoble him4 ,besides1 he's proposed a motoring trip to ,nice2 and ,i'm going to take you4 ,,violet4 ,how jolly6 ,,hector4 ,yes2 but how are we going to manage8 ,you see1 they've warned me off going with you1 so to speak4 ,they've told me in confidence that you're married4 ,that's just the most overwhelming confidence ,i've ever been honored with4 ,tanner returns with ,straker1 who goes to his car4 ,,tanner4 ,your car is a great success1 ,mr ,malone4 ,your engineer is showing it off to ,mr ,ramsden4 ,,hector4 eagerly--forgetting himself ,let's come1 ,vi4 ,,violet4 coldly1 warning him with her eyes ,i beg your pardon1 ,mr ,malone1 ,i did not quite catch-- ,,hector4 recollecting himself ,i ask to be allowed the pleasure of showing you my little ,american steam car1 ,miss ,robinson4 ,,violet4 ,i shall be very pleased4 ,they go off together down the avenue4 ,,tanner4 ,about this trip1 ,straker4 ,,straker4 preoccupied with the car ,yes8 ,,tanner4 ,miss ,whitefield is supposed to be coming with me4 ,,straker4 ,so ,i gather4 ,,tanner4 ,mr ,robinson is to be one of the party4 ,,straker4 ,yes4 ,,tanner4 ,well1 if you can manage so as to be a good deal occupied with me1 and leave ,mr ,robinson a good deal occupied with ,miss ,whitefield1 he will be deeply grateful to you4 ,,straker4 looking round at him ,evidently4 ,,tanner4 ,evidently6 ,your grandfather would have simply winked4 ,,straker4 ,my grandfather would have touched his at4 ,,tanner4 ,and ,i should have given your good nice respectful grandfather a sovereign4 ,,straker4 ,five shillins1 more likely4 ,he leaves the car and approaches ,tanner4 ,what about the lady's views8 ,,tanner4 ,she is just as willing to be left to ,mr ,robinson as ,mr ,robinson is to be left to her4 ,straker looks at his principal with cool scepticism2 then turns to the car whistling his favorite air4 ,stop that aggravating noise4 ,what do you mean by it8 ,straker calmly resumes the melody and finishes it4 ,tanner politely hears it out before he again addresses ,straker1 this time with elaborate seriousness4 ,enry3 ,i have ever been a warm advocate of the spread of music among the masses2 but ,i object to your obliging the company whenever ,miss ,whitefield's name is mentioned4 ,you did it this morning1 too4 ,,straker4 obstinately ,it's not a bit o use4 ,mr ,robinson may as well give it up first as last4 ,,tanner4 ,why8 ,,straker4 ,garn6 ,you know why4 ,course it's not my business2 but you needn't start kiddin me about it4 ,,tanner4 ,i am not kidding4 ,i don't know why4 ,,straker4 ,cheerfully sulky ,oh1 very well4 ,all right4 ,it ain't my business4 ,,tanner4 impressively ,i trust1 ,enry1 that1 as between employer and engineer1 ,i shall always know how to keep my proper distance1 and not intrude my private affairs on you4 ,even our business arrangements are subject to the approval of your ,trade ,union4 ,but don't abuse your advantages4 ,let me remind you that ,voltaire said that what was too silly to be said could be sung4 ,,straker4 ,it wasn't ,voltaire3 it was ,bow ,mar ,shay4 ,,tanner4 ,i stand corrected3 ,beaumarchais of course4 ,now you seem to think that what is too delicate to be said can be whistled4 ,unfortunately your whistling1 though melodious1 is unintelligible4 ,come6 there's nobody listening3 neither my genteel relatives nor the secretary of your confounded ,union4 ,as man to man1 ,enry1 why do you think that my friend has no chance with ,miss ,whitefield8 ,,straker4 ,cause she's arter summun else4 ,,tanner4 ,bosh6 who else8 ,,straker4 ,you4 ,,tanner4 ,me666 ,,straker4 ,mean to tell me you didn't know8 ,oh1 come1 ,mr ,tanner6 ,,tanner4 in fierce earnest ,are you playing the fool1 or do you mean it8 ,,straker4 with a flash of temper ,i'm not playin no fool4 ,more coolly ,why1 it's as plain as the nose on your face4 ,if you ain't spotted that1 you don't know much about these sort of things4 ,serene again ,ex-cuse me1 you know1 ,mr ,tanner2 but you asked me as man to man2 and ,i told you as man to man4 ,,tanner4 wildly appealing to the heavens ,then ,i--,i am the bee1 the spider1 the marked down victim1 the destined prey4 ,,straker4 ,i dunno about the bee and the spider4 ,but the marked down victim1 that's what you are and no mistake2 and a jolly good job for you1 too1 ,i should say4 ,,tanner4 momentously ,henry ,straker3 the moment of your life has arrived4 ,,straker4 ,what d'y'mean8 ,,tanner4 ,that record to ,biskra4 ,,straker4 eagerly ,yes8 ,,tanner4 ,break it4 ,,straker4 rising to the height of his destiny ,d'y'mean it8 ,,tanner4 ,i do4 ,,straker4 ,when8 ,,tanner4 ,now4 ,is that machine ready to start8 ,,straker4 quailing ,but you can't-- ,,tanner4 cutting him short by getting into the car ,off we go4 ,first to the bank for money2 then to my rooms for my kit2 then to your rooms for your kit2 then break the record from ,london to ,dover or ,folkestone2 then across the channel and away like mad to ,marseilles1 ,gibraltar1 ,genoa1 any port from which we can sail to a ,mahometan country where men are protected from women4 ,,straker4 ,garn6 you're kiddin4 ,,tanner4 resolutely ,stay behind then4 ,if you won't come ,i'll do it alone4 ,he starts the motor4 ,,straker4 running after him ,here6 ,mister6 arf a mo6 steady on6 he scrambles in as the car plunges forward4 ,,act ,,iii ,evening in the ,sierra ,nevada4 ,rolling slopes of brown1 with olive trees instead of apple trees in the cultivated patches1 and occasional prickly pears instead of gorse and bracken in the wilds4 ,higher up1 tall stone peaks and precipices1 all handsome and distinguished4 ,no wild nature here3 rather a most aristocratic mountain landscape made by a fastidious artist-creator4 ,no vulgar profusion of vegetation3 even a touch of aridity in the frequent patches of stones3 ,spanish magnificence and ,spanish economy everywhere4 ,not very far north of a spot at which the high road over one of the passes crosses a tunnel on the railway from ,malaga to ,granada1 is one of the mountain amphitheatres of the ,sierra4 ,looking at it from the wide end of the horse-shoe1 one sees1 a little to the right1 in the face of the cliff1 a romantic cave which is really an abandoned quarry1 and towards the left a little hill1 commanding a view of the road1 which skirts the amphitheatre on the left1 maintaining its higher level on embankments and on an occasional stone arch4 ,on the hill1 watching the road1 is a man who is either a ,spaniard or a ,scotchman4 ,probably a ,spaniard1 since he wears the dress of a ,spanish goatherd and seems at home in the ,sierra ,nevada1 but very like a ,scotchman for all that4 ,in the hollow1 on the slope leading to the quarry-cave1 are about a dozen men who1 as they recline at their cave round a heap of smouldering white ashes of dead leaf and brushwood1 have an air of being conscious of themselves as picturesque scoundrels honoring the ,sierra by using it as an effective pictorial background4 ,as a matter of artistic fact they are not picturesque2 and the mountains tolerate them as lions tolerate lice4 ,an ,english policeman or ,poor ,law ,guardian would recognize them as a selected band of tramps and ablebodied paupers4 ,this description of them is not wholly contemptuous4 ,whoever has intelligently observed the tramp1 or visited the ablebodied ward of a workhouse1 will admit that our social failures are not all drunkards and weaklings4 ,some of them are men who do not fit the class they were born into4 ,precisely the same qualities that make the educated gentleman an artist may make an uneducated manual laborer an ablebodied pauper4 ,there are men who fall helplessly into the workhouse because they are good for nothing2 but there are also men who are there because they are strongminded enough to disregard the social convention 7obviously not a disinterested one on the part of the ratepayer7 which bids a man live by heavy and badly paid drudgery when he has the alternative of walking into the workhouse1 announcing himself as a destitute person1 and legally compelling the ,guardians to feed1 clothe and house him better than he could feed1 clothe and house himself without great exertion4 ,when a man who is born a poet refuses a stool in a stockbroker's office1 and starves in a garret1 spunging on a poor landlady or on his friends and relatives rather than work against his grain2 or when a lady1 because she is a lady1 will face any extremity of parasitic dependence rather than take a situation as cook or parlormaid1 we make large allowances for them4 ,to such allowances the ablebodied pauper and his nomadic variant the tramp are equally entitled4 ,further1 the imaginative man1 if his life is to be tolerable to him1 must have leisure to tell himself stories1 and a position which lends itself to imaginative decoration4 ,the ranks of unskilled labor offer no such positions4 ,we misuse our laborers horribly2 and when a man refuses to be misused1 we have no right to say that he is refusing honest work4 ,let us be frank in this matter before we go on with our play2 so that we may enjoy it without hypocrisy4 ,if we were reasoning1 farsighted people1 four fifths of us would go straight to the ,guardians for relief1 and knock the whole social system to pieces with most beneficial reconstructive results4 ,the reason we do got do this is because we work like bees or ants1 by instinct or habit1 not reasoning about the matter at all4 ,therefore when a man comes along who can and does reason1 and who1 applying the ,kantian test to his conduct1 can truly say to us1 ,if everybody did as ,i do1 the world would be compelled to reform itself industrially1 and abolish slavery and squalor1 which exist only because everybody does as you do1 let us honor that man and seriously consider the advisability of following his example4 ,such a man is the able-bodied1 able-minded pauper4 ,were he a gentleman doing his best to get a pension or a sinecure instead of sweeping a crossing1 nobody would blame him2 for deciding that so long as the alternative lies between living mainly at the expense of the community and allowing the community to live mainly at his1 it would be folly to accept what is to him personally the greater of the two evils4 ,we may therefore contemplate the tramps of the ,sierra without prejudice1 admitting cheerfully that our objects--briefly1 to be gentlemen of fortune--are much the same as theirs1 and the difference in our position and methods merely accidental4 ,one or two of them1 perhaps1 it would be wiser to kill without malice in a friendly and frank manner2 for there are bipeds1 just as there are quadrupeds1 who are too dangerous to be left unchained and unmuzzled2 and these cannot fairly expect to have other men's lives wasted in the work of watching them4 ,but as society has not the courage to kill them1 and1 when it catches them1 simply wreaks on them some superstitious expiatory rites of torture and degradation1 and than lets them loose with heightened qualifications for mischief1 it is just as well that they are at large in the ,sierra1 and in the hands of a chief who looks as if he might possibly1 on provocation1 order them to be shot4 ,this chief1 seated in the centre of the group on a squared block of stone from the quarry1 is a tall strong man1 with a striking cockatoo nose1 glossy black hair1 pointed beard1 upturned moustache1 and a ,mephistophelean affectation which is fairly imposing1 perhaps because the scenery admits of a larger swagger than ,piccadilly1 perhaps because of a certain sentimentality in the man which gives him that touch of grace which alone can excuse deliberate picturesqueness4 ,his eyes and mouth are by no means rascally2 he has a fine voice and a ready wit2 and whether he is really the strongest man in the party1 or not1 he looks it4 ,he is certainly1 the best fed1 the best dressed1 and the best trained4 ,the fact that he speaks ,english is not unexpected in spite of the ,spanish landscape2 for with the exception of one man who might be guessed as a bullfighter ruined by drink and one unmistakable ,frenchman1 they are all cockney or ,american2 therefore1 in a land of cloaks and sombreros1 they mostly wear seedy overcoats1 woollen mufflers1 hard hemispherical hats1 and dirty brown gloves4 ,only a very few dress after their leader1 whose broad sombrero with a cock's feather in the band1 and voluminous cloak descending to his high boots1 are as un-,english as possible4 ,none of them are armed2 and the ungloved ones keep their hands in their pockets because it is their national belief that it must be dangerously cold in the open air with the night coming on4 7,it is as warm an evening as any reasonable man could desire74 ,except the bullfighting inebriate there is only one person in the company who looks more than1 say1 thirty-three4 ,he is a small man with reddish whiskers1 weak eyes1 and the anxious look of a small tradesman in difficulties4 ,he wears the only tall hat visible3 it shines in the sunset with the sticky glow of some sixpenny patent hat reviver1 often applied and constantly tending to produce a worse state of the original surface than the ruin it was applied to remedy4 ,he has a collar and cuff of celluloid2 and his brown ,chesterfield overcoat1 with velvet collar1 is still presentable4 ,he is pre-eminently the respectable man of the party1 and is certainly over forty1 possibly over fifty4 ,he is the corner man on the leader's right1 opposite three men in scarlet ties on his left4 ,one of these three is the ,frenchman4 ,of the remaining two1 who are both ,english1 one is argumentative1 solemn1 and obstinate2 the other rowdy and mischievous4 ,the chief1 with a magnificent fling of the end of his cloak across his left shoulder1 rises to address them4 ,the applause which greets him shows that he is a favorite orator4 ,,the ,,chief4 ,friends and fellow brigands4 ,i have a proposal to make to this meeting4 ,we have now spent three evenings in discussing the question ,have ,anarchists or ,social-,democrats the most personal courage8 ,we have gone into the principles of ,anarchism and ,social-,democracy at great length4 ,the cause of ,anarchy has been ably represented by our one ,anarchist1 who doesn't know what ,anarchism means laughter-- ,,the ,,anarchist4 rising ,a point of order1 ,mendoza-- ,,mendoza4 forcibly ,no1 by thunder3 your last point of order took half an hour4 ,besides1 ,anarchists don't believe in order4 ,,the ,,anarchist4 mild1 polite but persistent3 he is1 in fact1 the respectable looking elderly man in the celluloid collar and cuffs ,that is a vulgar error4 ,i can prove-- ,,mendoza4 ,order1 order4 ,,the ,,others shouting ,order1 order4 ,sit down4 ,chair6 ,shut up4 ,the ,anarchist is suppressed4 ,,mendoza4 ,on the other hand we have three ,social-,democrats among us4 ,they are not on speaking terms2 and they have put before us three distinct and incompatible views of ,social-,democracy4 ,,the ,,majority4 shouting assent ,hear1 hear6 ,so we are4 ,right4 ,,the ,,rowdy ,,social-,,democrat4 smarting under oppression ,you ain't no ,christian4 ,you're a ,sheeny1 you are4 ,,mendoza4 with crushing magnanimity ,my friend2 ,i am an exception to all rules4 ,it is true that ,i have the honor to be a ,jew2 and1 when the ,zionists need a leader to reassemble our race on its historic soil of ,palestine1 ,mendoza will not be the last to volunteer sympathetic applause--hear1 hear1 etc44 ,but ,i am not a slave to any superstition4 ,i have swallowed all the formulas1 even that of ,socialism2 though1 in a sense1 once a ,socialist1 always a ,socialist4 ,,the ,,social-,,democrats4 ,hear1 hear6 ,,mendoza4 ,but ,i am well aware that the ordinary man--even the ordinary brigand1 who can scarcely be called an ordinary man ,hear1 hear6--is not a philosopher4 ,common sense is good enough for him2 and in our business affairs common sense is good enough for me4 ,well1 what is our business here in the ,sierra ,nevada1 chosen by the ,moors as the fairest spot in ,spain8 ,is it to discuss abstruse questions of political economy8 ,no3 it is to hold up motor cars and secure a more equitable distribution of wealth4 ,,the ,,sulky ,,social-,,democrat4 ,all made by labor1 mind you4 ,,mendoza4 urbanely ,undoubtedly4 ,all made by labor1 and on its way to be squandered by wealthy vagabonds in the dens of vice that disfigure the sunny shores of the ,mediterranean4 ,we intercept that wealth4 ,we restore it to circulation among the class that produced it and that chiefly needs it--the working class4 ,we do this at the risk of our lives and liberties1 by the exercise of the virtues of courage1 endurance1 foresight1 and abstinence--especially abstinence4 ,i myself have eaten nothing but prickly pears and broiled rabbit for three days4 ,,the ,,sulky ,,social-,,democrat4 ,stubbornly ,no more ain't we4 ,,mendoza4 indignantly ,have ,i taken more than my share8 ,,the ,,sulky ,,social-,,democrat4 unmoved ,why should you8 ,,the ,,anarchist4 ,why should he not8 ,to each according to his needs3 from each according to his means4 ,,the ,,frenchman4 shaking his fist at the anarchist ,fumiste6 ,,mendoza4 diplomatically ,i agree with both of you4 ,,the ,,genuinely ,,english ,,brigands4 ,hear1 hear6 ,bravo1 ,mendoza6 ,,mendoza4 ,what ,i say is1 let us treat one another as gentlemen1 and strive to excel in personal courage only when we take the field4 ,,the ,,rowdy ,,social-,,democrat4 derisively ,shikespear4 ,a whistle comes from the goatherd on the hill4 ,he springs up and points excitedly forward along the road to the north4 ,,the ,,goatherd4 ,automobile6 ,automobile6 ,he rushes down the hill and joins the rest1 who all scramble to their feet4 ,,mendoza4 in ringing tones ,to arms6 ,who has the gun8 ,,the ,,sulky ,,social-,,democrat4 handing a rifle to ,mendoza ,here4 ,,mendoza4 ,have the nails been strewn in the road8 ,,the ,,rowdy ,,social-,,democrat4 ,two ahnces of em4 ,,mendoza4 ,good6 ,to the ,frenchman ,with me1 ,duval4 ,if the nails fail1 puncture their tires with a bullet4 ,he gives the rifle to ,duval1 who follows him up the hill4 ,mendoza produces an opera glass4 ,the others hurry across to the road and disappear to the north4 ,,mendoza4 on the hill1 using his glass ,two only1 a capitalist and his chauffeur4 ,they look ,english4 ,,duval4 ,angliche6 ,aoh yess4 ,cochons6 ,handling the rifle ,faut tire1 n'est-ce-pas8 ,,mendoza4 ,no3 the nails have gone home4 ,their tire is down3 they stop4 ,,duval4 shouting to the others ,fondez sur eux1 nom de ,dieu6 ,,mendoza4 rebuking his excitement ,du calme1 ,duval3 keep your hair on4 ,they take it quietly4 ,let us descend and receive them4 ,mendoza descends1 passing behind the fire and coming forward1 whilst ,tanner and ,straker1 in their motoring goggles1 leather coats1 and caps1 are led in from the road by brigands4 ,,tanner4 ,is this the gentleman you describe as your boss8 ,does he speak ,english8 ,,the ,,rowdy ,,social-,,democrat4 ,course he does4 ,y'don't suppowz we ,hinglishmen lets ahrselves be bossed by a bloomin ,spenniard1 do you8 ,,mendoza4 with dignity ,allow me to introduce myself3 ,mendoza1 ,president of the ,league of the ,sierra6 ,posing loftily ,i am a brigand3 ,i live by robbing the rich4 ,,tanner4 promptly ,i am a gentleman3 ,i live by robbing the poor4 ,shake hands4 ,,the ,,english ,,social-,,democrats4 ,hear1 hear6 ,general laughter and good humor4 ,tanner and ,mendoza shake hands4 ,the ,brigands drop into their former places4 ,,straker4 ,ere6 where do ,i come in8 ,,tanner4 introducing ,my friend and chauffeur4 ,,the ,,sulky ,,social-,,democrat4 suspiciously ,well1 which is he8 friend or show-foor8 ,it makes all the difference you know4 ,,mendoza4 explaining ,we should expect ransom for a friend4 ,a professional chauffeur is free of the mountains4 ,he even takes a trifling percentage of his princpal's ransom if he will honor us by accepting it4 ,,straker4 ,i see4 ,just to encourage me to come this way again4 ,well1 ,i'll think about it4 ,,duval4 impulsively rushing across to ,straker ,mon frere6 ,he embraces him rapturously and kisses him on both cheeks4 ,,straker4 disgusted ,ere1 git out3 don't be silly4 ,who are you1 pray8 ,,duval4 ,duval3 ,social-,democrat4 ,,straker4 ,oh1 you're a ,social-,democrat1 are you8 ,,the ,,anarchist4 ,he means that he has sold out to the parliamentary humbugs and the bourgeoisie4 ,compromise6 that is his faith4 ,,duval4 furiously ,i understand what he say4 ,he say ,bourgeois4 ,he say ,compromise4 ,jamais de la vie6 ,miserable menteur-- ,,straker4 ,see here1 ,captain ,mendoza1 ow much o this sort o thing do you put up with here8 ,are we avin a pleasure trip in the mountains1 or are we at a ,socialist meetin8 ,,the ,,majority4 ,hear1 hear6 ,shut up4 ,chuck it4 ,sit down1 etc4 etc4 ,the ,social-,democrats and the ,anarchist are hurtled into the background4 ,straker1 after superintending this proceeding with satisfaction1 places himself on ,mendoza's left1 ,tanner being on his right4 ,,mendoza4 ,can we offer you anything8 ,broiled rabbit and prickly pears-- ,,tanner4 ,thank you3 we have dined4 ,,mendoza4 to his followers ,gentlemen3 business is over for the day4 ,go as you please until morning4 ,the ,brigands disperse into groups lazily4 ,some go into the cave4 ,others sit down or lie down to sleep in the open4 ,a few produce a pack of cards and move off towards the road2 for it is now starlight2 and they know that motor cars have lamps which can be turned to account for lighting a card party4 ,,straker4 calling after them ,don't none of you go fooling with that car1 d'ye hear8 ,,mendoza4 ,no fear1 ,monsieur le ,chauffeur4 ,the first one we captured cured us of that4 ,,straker4 interested ,what did it do8 ,,mendoza4 ,it carried three brave comrades of ours1 who did not know how to stop it1 into ,granada1 and capsized them opposite the police station4 ,since then we never touch one without sending for the chauffeur4 ,shall we chat at our ease8 ,,tanner4 ,by all means4 ,tanner1 ,mendoza1 and ,straker sit down on the turf by the fire4 ,mendoza delicately waives his presidential dignity1 of which the right to sit on the squared stone block is the appanage1 by sitting on the ground like his guests1 and using the stone only as a support for his back4 ,,mendoza4 ,it is the custom in ,spain always to put off business until to-morrow4 ,in fact1 you have arrived out of office hours4 ,however1 if you would prefer to settle the question of ransom at once1 ,i am at your service4 ,,tanner4 ,to-morrow will do for me4 ,i am rich enough to pay anything in reason4 ,,mendoza4 respectfully1 much struck by this admission ,you are a remarkable man1 sir4 ,our guests usually describe themselves as miserably poor4 ,,tanner4 ,pooh6 ,miserably poor people don't own motor cars4 ,,mendoza4 ,precisely what we say to them4 ,,tanner4 ,treat us well3 we shall not prove ungrateful4 ,,straker4 ,no prickly pears and broiled rabbits1 you know4 ,don't tell me you can't do us a bit better than that if you like4 ,,mendoza4 ,wine1 kids1 milk1 cheese and bread can be procured for ready money4 ,,straker4 graciously ,now you're talking4 ,,tanner4 ,are you all ,socialists here1 may ,i ask8 ,,mendoza4 repudiating this humiliating misconception ,oh no1 no1 no3 nothing of the kind1 ,i assure you4 ,we naturally have modern views as to the justice of the existing distribution of wealth3 otherwise we should lose our self-respect4 ,but nothing that you could take exception to1 except two or three faddists4 ,,tanner4 ,i had no intention of suggesting anything discreditable4 ,in fact1 ,i am a bit of a ,socialist myself4 ,,straker4 drily ,most rich men are1 ,i notice4 ,,mendoza4 ,quite so4 ,it has reached us1 ,i admit4 ,it is in the air of the century4 ,,straker4 ,socialism must be looking up a bit if your chaps are taking to it4 ,,mendoza4 ,that is true1 sir4 ,a movement which is confined to philosophers and honest men can never exercise any real political influence3 there are too few of them4 ,until a movement shows itself capable of spreading among brigands1 it can never hope for a political majority4 ,,tanner4 ,but are your brigands any less honest than ordinary citizens8 ,,mendoza4 ,sir3 ,i will be frank with you4 ,brigandage is abnormal4 ,abnormal professions attract two classes3 those who are not good enough for ordinary bourgeois life and those who are too good for it4 ,we are dregs and scum1 sir3 the dregs very filthy1 the scum very superior4 ,,straker4 ,take care6 some o the dregs'll hear you4 ,,mendoza4 ,it does not matter3 each brigand thinks himself scum1 and likes to hear the others called dregs4 ,,tanner4 ,come6 you are a wit4 ,mendoza inclines his head1 flattered4 ,may one ask you a blunt question8 ,,mendoza4 ,as blunt as you please4 ,,tanner4 ,how does it pay a man of your talent to shepherd such a flock as this on broiled rabbit and prickly pears8 ,i have seen men less gifted1 and ,i'll swear less honest1 supping at the ,savoy on foie gras and champagne4 ,,mendoza4 ,pooh6 they have all had their turn at the broiled rabbit1 just as ,i shall have my turn at the ,savoy4 ,indeed1 ,i have had a turn there already--as waiter4 ,,tanner4 ,a waiter6 ,you astonish me6 ,,mendoza4 reflectively ,yes3 ,i1 ,mendoza of the ,sierra1 was a waiter4 ,hence1 perhaps1 my cosmopolitanism4 ,with sudden intensity ,shall ,i tell you the story of my life8 ,,straker4 apprehensively ,if it ain't too long1 old chap-- ,,tanner4 interrupting him ,tsh-sh3 you are a ,philistine1 ,henry3 you have no romance in you4 ,to ,mendoza ,you interest me extremely1 ,president4 ,never mind ,henry3 he can go to sleep4 ,,mendoza4 ,the woman ,i loved-- ,,straker4 ,oh1 this is a love story1 is it8 ,right you are4 ,go on3 ,i was only afraid you were going to talk about yourself4 ,,mendoza4 ,myself6 ,i have thrown myself away for her sake3 that is why ,i am here4 ,no matter3 ,i count the world well lost for her4 ,she had1 ,i pledge you my word1 the most magnificent head of hair ,i ever saw4 ,she had humor2 she had intellect2 she could cook to perfection2 and her highly strung temperament made her uncertain1 incalculable1 variable1 capricious1 cruel1 in a word1 enchanting4 ,,straker4 ,a six shillin novel sort o woman1 all but the cookin4 ,er name was ,lady ,gladys ,plantagenet1 wasn't it8 ,,mendoza4 ,no1 sir3 she was not an earl's daughter4 ,photography1 reproduced by the half-tone process1 has made me familiar with the appearance of the daughters of the ,english peerage2 and ,i can honestly say that ,i would have sold the lot1 faces1 dowries1 clothes1 titles1 and all1 for a smile from this woman4 ,yet she was a woman of the people1 a worker3 otherwise--let me reciprocate your bluntness--,i should have scorned her4 ,,tanner4 ,very properly4 ,and did she respond to your love8 ,,mendoza4 ,should ,i be here if she did8 ,she objected to marry a ,jew4 ,,tanner4 ,on religious grounds8 ,,mendoza4 ,no3 she was a freethinker4 ,she said that every ,jew considers in his heart that ,english people are dirty in their habits4 ,,tanner4 surprised ,dirty6 ,,mendoza4 ,it showed her extraordinary knowledge of the world2 for it is undoubtedly true4 ,our elaborate sanitary code makes us unduly contemptuous of the ,gentile4 ,,tanner4 ,did you ever hear that1 ,henry8 ,,straker4 ,i've heard my sister say so4 ,she was cook in a ,jewish family once4 ,,mendoza4 ,i could not deny it2 neither could ,i eradicate the impression it made on her mind4 ,i could have got round any other objection2 but no woman can stand a suspicion of indelicacy as to her person4 ,my entreaties were in vain3 she always retorted that she wasn't good enough for me1 and recommended me to marry an accursed barmaid named ,rebecca ,lazarus1 whom ,i loathed4 ,i talked of suicide3 she offered me a packet of beetle poison to do it with4 ,i hinted at murder3 she went into hysterics2 and as ,i am a living man ,i went to ,america so that she might sleep without dreaming that ,i was stealing upstairs to cut her throat4 ,in ,america ,i went out west and fell in with a man who was wanted by the police for holding up trains4 ,it was he who had the idea of holding up motors cars--in the ,south of ,europe3 a welcome idea to a desperate and disappointed man4 ,he gave me some valuable introductions to capitalists of the right sort4 ,i formed a syndicate2 and the present enterprise is the result4 ,i became leader1 as the ,jew always becomes leader1 by his brains and imagination4 ,but with all my pride of race ,i would give everything ,i possess to be an ,englishman4 ,i am like a boy3 ,i cut her name on the trees and her initials on the sod4 ,when ,i am alone ,i lie down and tear my wretched hair and cry ,louisa-- ,,straker4 startled ,louisa6 ,,mendoza4 ,it is her name--,louisa--,louisa ,straker-- ,,tanner4 ,straker6 ,,straker4 scrambling up on his knees most indignantly ,look here3 ,louisa ,straker is my sister1 see8 ,wot do you mean by gassin about her like this8 ,wot she got to do with you8 ,,mendoza4 ,a dramatic coincidence6 ,you are ,enry1 her favorite brother6 ,,straker4 ,oo are you callin ,enry8 ,what call have you to take a liberty with my name or with hers8 ,for two pins ,i'd punch your fat ed1 so ,i would4 ,,mendoza4 with grandiose calm ,if ,i let you do it1 will you promise to brag of it afterwards to her8 ,she will be reminded of her ,mendoza3 that is all ,i desire4 ,,tanner4 ,this is genuine devotion1 ,henry4 ,you should respect it4 ,,straker4 fiercely ,funk1 more likely4 ,,mendoza4 springing to his feet ,funk6 ,young man3 ,i come of a famous family of fighters2 and as your sister well knows1 you would have as much chance against me as a perambulator against your motor car4 ,,straker4 secretly daunted1 but rising from his knees with an air of reckless pugnacity ,i ain't afraid of you4 ,with your ,louisa6 ,louisa6 ,miss ,straker is good enough for you1 ,i should think4 ,,mendoza4 ,i wish you could persuade her to think so4 ,,straker4 exasperated ,here-- ,,tanner4 rising quickly and interposing ,oh come1 ,henry3 even if you could fight the ,president you can't fight the whole ,league of the ,sierra4 ,sit down again and be friendly4 ,a cat may look at a king2 and even a ,president of brigands may look at your sister4 ,all this family pride is really very old fashioned4 ,,straker4 subdued1 but grumbling ,let him look at her4 ,but wot does he mean by makin out that she ever looked at im8 ,reluctantly resuming his couch on the turf ,ear him talk1 one ud think she was keepin company with him4 ,he turns his back on them and composes himself to sleep4 ,,mendoza4 to ,tanner1 becoming more confidential as he finds himself virtually alone with a sympathetic listener in the still starlight of the mountains2 for all the rest are asleep by this time ,it was just so with her1 sir4 ,her intellect reached forward into the twentieth century3 her social prejudices and family affections reached back into the dark ages4 ,ah1 sir1 how the words of ,shakespear seem to fit every crisis in our emotions6 ,i loved ,louisa3 #dj1jjj brothers ,could not with all their quantity of love ,make up my sum4 ,and so on4 ,i forget the rest4 ,call it madness if you will--infatuation4 ,i am an able man1 a strong man3 in ten years ,i should have owned a first-class hotel4 ,i met her2 and you see6 ,i am a brigand1 an outcast4 ,even ,shakespear cannot do justice to what ,i feel for ,louisa4 ,let me read you some lines that ,i have written about her myself4 ,however slight their literary merit may be1 they express what ,i feel better than any casual words can4 ,he produces a packet of hotel bills scrawled with manuscript1 and kneels at the fire to decipher them1 poking it with a stick to make it glow4 ,,tanner4 clapping him rudely on the shoulder ,put them in the fire1 ,president4 ,,mendoza4 startled ,eh8 ,,tanner4 ,you are sacrificing your career to a monomania4 ,,mendoza4 ,i know it4 ,,tanner4 ,no you don't4 ,no man would commit such a crime against himself if he really knew what he was doing4 ,how can you look round at these august hills1 look up at this divine sky1 taste this finely tempered air1 and then talk like a literary hack on a second floor in ,bloomsbury8 ,,mendoza4 shaking his head ,the ,sierra is no better than ,bloomsbury when once the novelty has worn off4 ,besides1 these mountains make you dream of women--of women with magnificent hair4 ,,tanner4 ,of ,louisa1 in short4 ,they will not make me dream of women1 my friend3 ,i am heartwhole4 ,,mendoza4 ,do not boast until morning1 sir4 ,this is a strange country for dreams4 ,,tanner4 ,well1 we shall see4 ,goodnight4 ,he lies down and composes himself to sleep4 ,mendoza1 with a sigh1 follows his example2 and for a few moments there is peace in the ,sierra4 ,then ,mendoza sits up suddenly and says pleadingly to ,tanner-- ,,mendoza4 ,just allow me to read a few lines before you go to sleep4 ,i should really like your opinion of them4 ,,tanner4 drowsily ,go on4 ,i am listening4 ,,mendoza4 ,i saw thee first in ,whitsun week ,louisa1 ,louisa-- ,,tanner4 roaring himself ,my dear ,president1 ,louisa is a very pretty name2 but it really doesn't rhyme well to ,whitsun week4 ,,mendoza4 ,of course not4 ,louisa is not the rhyme1 but the refrain4 ,,tanner4 subsiding ,ah1 the refrain4 ,i beg your pardon4 ,go on4 ,,mendoza4 ,perhaps you do not care for that one3 ,i think you will like this better4 ,he recites1 in rich soft tones1 and to slow time ,louisa1 ,i love thee4 ,i love thee1 ,louisa4 ,louisa1 ,louisa1 ,louisa1 ,i love thee4 ,one name and one phrase make my music1 ,louisa4 ,louisa1 ,louisa1 ,louisa1 ,i love thee4 ,mendoza thy lover1 ,thy lover1 ,mendoza1 ,mendoza adoringly lives for ,louisa4 ,there's nothing but that in the world for ,mendoza4 ,louisa1 ,louisa1 ,mendoza adores thee4 ,affected ,there is no merit in producing beautiful lines upon such a name4 ,louisa is an exquisite name1 is it not8 ,,tanner4 all but asleep1 responds with a faint groan4 ,,mendoza4 ,o wert thou1 ,louisa1 ,the wife of ,mendoza1 ,mendoza's ,louisa1 ,louisa ,mendoza1 ,how blest were the life of ,louisa's ,mendoza6 ,how painless his longing of love for ,louisa6 ,that is real poetry--from the heart--from the heart of hearts4 ,don't you think it will move her8 ,no answer4 ,resignedly ,asleep1 as usual4 ,doggrel to all the world2 heavenly music to me6 ,idiot that ,i am to wear my heart on my sleeve6 ,he composes himself to sleep1 murmuring ,louisa1 ,i love thee2 ,i love thee1 ,louisa2 ,louisa1 ,louisa1 ,louisa1 ,i-- ,straker snores2 rolls over on his side2 and relapses into sleep4 ,stillness settles on the ,sierra2 and the darkness deepens4 ,the fire has again buried itself in white ash and ceased to glow4 ,the peaks show unfathomably dark against the starry firmament2 but now the stars dim and vanish2 and the sky seems to steal away out of the universe4 ,instead of the ,sierra there is nothing2 omnipresent nothing4 ,no sky1 no peaks1 no light1 no sound1 no time nor space1 utter void4 ,then somewhere the beginning of a pallor1 and with it a faint throbbing buzz as of a ghostly violoncello palpitating on the same note endlessly4 ,a couple of ghostly violins presently take advantage of this bass 7a staff of music is supplied here7 and therewith the pallor reveals a man in the void1 an incorporeal but visible man1 seated1 absurdly enough1 on nothing4 ,for a moment he raises his head as the music passes him by4 ,then1 with a heavy sigh1 he droops in utter dejection2 and the violins1 discouraged1 retrace their melody in despair and at last give it up1 extinguished by wailings from uncanny wind instruments1 thus3-- 7more music7 ,it is all very odd4 ,one recognizes the ,mozartian strain2 and on this hint1 and by the aid of certain sparkles of violet light in the pallor1 the man's costume explains itself as that of a ,spanish nobleman of the ,,xv-,,xvi century4 ,don ,juan1 of course2 but where8 why8 how8 ,besides1 in the brief lifting of his face1 now hidden by his hat brim1 there was a curious suggestion of ,tanner4 ,a more critical1 fastidious1 handsome face1 paler and colder1 without ,tanner's impetuous credulity and enthusiasm1 and without a touch of his modern plutocratic vulgarity1 but still a resemblance1 even an identity4 ,the name too3 ,don ,juan ,tenorio1 ,john ,tanner4 ,where on earth---or elsewhere--have we got to from the ,,xx century and the ,sierra8 ,another pallor in the void1 this time not violet1 but a disagreeable smoky yellow4 ,with it1 the whisper of a ghostly clarionet turning this tune into infinite sadness3 7,here there is another musical staff47 ,the yellowish pallor moves3 there is an old crone wandering in the void1 bent and toothless2 draped1 as well as one can guess1 in the coarse brown frock of some religious order4 ,she wanders and wanders in her slow hopeless way1 much as a wasp flies in its rapid busy way1 until she blunders against the thing she seeks3 companionship4 ,with a sob of relief the poor old creature clutches at the presence of the man and addresses him in her dry unlovely voice1 which can still express pride and resolution as well as suffering4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,excuse me2 but ,i am so lonely2 and this place is so awful4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,a new comer8 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,yes3 ,i suppose ,i died this morning4 ,i confessed2 ,i had extreme unction2 ,i was in bed with my family about me and my eyes fixed on the cross4 ,then it grew dark2 and when the light came back it was this light by which ,i walk seeing nothing4 ,i have wandered for hours in horrible loneliness4 ,,don ,,juan4 sighing ,ah6 you have not yet lost the sense of time4 ,one soon does1 in eternity4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,where are we8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,in hell4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman proudly ,hell6 ,i in hell6 ,how dare you8 ,,don ,,juan4 unimpressed ,why not1 ,senora8 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,you do not know to whom you are speaking4 ,i am a lady1 and a faithful daughter of the ,church4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i do not doubt it4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,but how then can ,i be in hell8 ,purgatory1 perhaps3 ,i have not been perfect3 who has8 ,but hell6 oh1 you are lying4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,hell1 ,senora1 ,i assure you2 hell at its best--that is1 its most solitary--though perhaps you would prefer company4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,but ,i have sincerely repented2 ,i have confessed4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,how much8 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,more sins than ,i really committed4 ,i loved confession4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,ah1 that is perhaps as bad as confessing too little4 ,at all events1 ,senora1 whether by oversight or intention1 you are certainly damned1 like myself2 and there is nothing for it now but to make the best of it4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman indignantly ,oh6 and ,i might have been so much wickeder6 ,all my good deeds wasted6 ,it is unjust4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,no3 you were fully and clearly warned4 ,for your bad deeds1 vicarious atonement1 mercy without justice4 ,for your good deeds1 justice without mercy4 ,we have many good people here4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,were you a good man8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i was a murderer4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,a murderer6 ,oh1 how dare they send me to herd with murderers6 ,i was not as bad as that3 ,i was a good woman4 ,there is some mistake3 where can ,i have it set right8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i do not know whether mistakes can be corrected here4 ,probably they will not admit a mistake even if they have made one4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,but whom can ,i ask8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i should ask the ,devil1 ,senora3 he understands the ways of this place1 which is more than ,i ever could4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,the ,devil6 ,i speak to the ,devil6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,in hell1 ,senora1 the ,devil is the leader of the best society4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,i tell you1 wretch1 ,i know ,i am not in hell4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,how do you know8 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,because ,i feel no pain4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,oh1 then there is no mistake3 you are intentionally damned4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,why do you say that8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,because hell1 ,senora1 is a place for the wicked4 ,the wicked are quite comfortable in it3 it was made for them4 ,you tell me you feel no pain4 ,i conclude you are one of those for whom ,hell exists4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,do you feel no pain8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i am not one of the wicked1 ,senora2 therefore it bores me1 bores me beyond description1 beyond belief4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,not one of the wicked6 ,you said you were a murderer4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,only a duel4 ,i ran my sword through an old man who was trying to run his through me4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,if you were a gentleman1 that was not a murder4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,the old man called it murder1 because he was1 he said1 defending his daughter's honor4 ,by this he meant that because ,i foolishly fell in love with her and told her so1 she screamed2 and he tried to assassinate me after calling me insulting names4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,you were like all men4 ,libertines and murderers all1 all1 all6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,and yet we meet here1 dear lady4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,listen to me4 ,my father was slain by just such a wretch as you1 in just such a duel1 for just such a cause4 ,i screamed3 it was my duty4 ,my father drew on my assailant3 his honor demanded it4 ,he fell3 that was the reward of honor4 ,i am here3 in hell1 you tell me that is the reward of duty4 ,is there justice in heaven8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,no2 but there is justice in hell3 heaven is far above such idle human personalities4 ,you will be welcome in hell1 ,senora4 ,hell is the home of honor1 duty1 justice1 and the rest of the seven deadly virtues4 ,all the wickedness on earth is done in their name3 where else but in hell should they have their reward8 ,have ,i not told you that the truly damned are those who are happy in hell8 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,and are you happy here8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,springing to his feet ,no2 and that is the enigma on which ,i ponder in darkness4 ,why am ,i here8 ,i1 who repudiated all duty1 trampled honor underfoot1 and laughed at justice6 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,oh1 what do ,i care why you are here8 ,why am ,i here8 ,i1 who sacrificed all my inclinations to womanly virtue and propriety6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,patience1 lady3 you will be perfectly happy and at home here4 ,as saith the poet1 ,hell is a city much like ,seville4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,happy6 here6 where ,i am nothing6 where ,i am nobody6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,not at all3 you are a lady2 and wherever ladies are is hell4 ,do not be surprised or terrified3 you will find everything here that a lady can desire1 including devils who will serve you from sheer love of servitude1 and magnify your importance for the sake of dignifying their service--the best of servants4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,my servants will be devils6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,have you ever had servants who were not devils8 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,never3 they were devils1 perfect devils1 all of them4 ,but that is only a manner of speaking4 ,i thought you meant that my servants here would be real devils4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,no more real devils than you will be a real lady4 ,nothing is real here4 ,that is the horror of damnation4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,oh1 this is all madness4 ,this is worse than fire and the worm4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,for you1 perhaps1 there are consolations4 ,for instance3 how old were you when you changed from time to eternity8 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,do not ask me how old ,i was as if ,i were a thing of the past4 ,i am #gg4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,a ripe age1 ,senora4 ,but in hell old age is not tolerated4 ,it is too real4 ,here we worship ,love and ,beauty4 ,our souls being entirely damned1 we cultivate our hearts4 ,as a lady of #gg1 you would not have a single acquaintance in hell4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,how can ,i help my age1 man8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,you forget that you have left your age behind you in the realm of time4 ,you are no more #gg than you are #g or #ag or #bg4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,nonsense6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,consider1 ,senora3 was not this true even when you lived on earth8 ,when you were #gj1 were you really older underneath your wrinkles and your grey hairs than when you were #cj8 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,no1 younger3 at #cj ,i was a fool4 ,but of what use is it to feel younger and look older8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,you see1 ,senora1 the look was only an illusion4 ,your wrinkles lied1 just as the plump smooth skin of many a stupid girl of #ag1 with heavy spirits and decrepit ideas1 lies about her age8 ,well1 here we have no bodies3 we see each other as bodies only because we learnt to think about one another under that aspect when we were alive2 and we still think in that way1 knowing no other4 ,but we can appear to one another at what age we choose4 ,you have but to will any of your old looks back1 and back they will come4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,it cannot be true4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,try4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,seventeen6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,stop4 ,before you decide1 ,i had better tell you that these things are a matter of fashion4 ,occasionally we have a rage for #ag2 but it does not last long4 ,just at present the fashionable age is #dj--or say #cg2 but there are signs of a change4 ,if you were at all good-looking at #bg1 ,i should suggest your trying that1 and setting a new fashion4 ,,the ,,old ,,woman4 ,i do not believe a word you are saying4 ,however1 #bg be it4 ,whisk6 the old woman becomes a young one1 and so handsome that in the radiance into which her dull yellow halo has suddenly lightened one might almost mistake her for ,ann ,whitefield4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,dona ,ana de ,ulloa6 ,,ana4 ,what8 ,you know me6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,and you forget me6 ,,ana4 ,i cannot see your face4 ,he raises his hat4 ,don ,juan ,tenorio6 ,monster6 ,you who slew my father6 even here you pursue me4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i protest ,i do not pursue you4 ,allow me to withdraw going4 ,,ana4 seizing his arm ,you shall not leave me alone in this dreadful place4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,provided my staying be not interpreted as pursuit4 ,,ana4 releasing him ,you may well wonder how ,i can endure your presence4 ,my dear1 dear father6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,would you like to see him8 ,,ana4 ,my father ,,here666 ,,don ,,juan4 ,no3 he is in heaven4 ,,ana4 ,i knew it4 ,my noble father6 ,he is looking down on us now4 ,what must he feel to see his daughter in this place1 and in conversation with his murderer6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,by the way1 if we should meet him-- ,,ana4 ,how can we meet him8 ,he is in heaven4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,he condescends to look in upon us here from time to time4 ,heaven bores him4 ,so let me warn you that if you meet him he will be mortally offended if you speak of me as his murderer6 ,he maintains that he was a much better swordsman than ,i1 and that if his foot had not slipped he would have killed me4 ,no doubt he is right3 ,i was not a good fencer4 ,i never dispute the point2 so we are excellent friends4 ,,ana4 ,it is no dishonor to a soldier to be proud of his skill in arms4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,you would rather not meet him1 probably4 ,,ana4 ,how dare you say that8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,oh1 that is the usual feeling here4 ,you may remember that on earth--though of course we never confessed it--the death of anyone we knew1 even those we liked best1 was always mingled with a certain satisfaction at being finally done with them4 ,,ana4 ,monster6 ,never1 never4 ,,don ,,juan4 placidly ,i see you recognize the feeling4 ,yes3 a funeral was always a festivity in black1 especially the funeral of a relative4 ,at all events1 family ties are rarely kept up here4 ,your father is quite accustomed to this3 he will not expect any devotion from you4 ,,ana4 ,wretch3 ,i wore mourning for him all my life4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,yes3 it became you4 ,but a life of mourning is one thing3 an eternity of it quite another4 ,besides1 here you are as dead as he4 ,can anything be more ridiculous than one dead person mourning for another8 ,do not look shocked1 my dear ,ana2 and do not be alarmed3 there is plenty of humbug in hell 7indeed there is hardly anything else72 but the humbug of death and age and change is dropped because here ,,we are all dead and all eternal4 ,you will pick up our ways soon4 ,,ana4 ,and will all the men call me their dear ,ana8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,no4 ,that was a slip of the tongue4 ,i beg your pardon4 ,,ana4 almost tenderly ,juan3 did you really love me when you behaved so disgracefully to me8 ,,don ,,juan4 impatiently ,oh1 ,i beg you not to begin talking about love4 ,here they talk of nothing else but love--its beauty1 its holiness1 its spirituality1 its devil knows what6--excuse me2 but it does so bore me4 ,they don't know what they're talking about4 ,i do4 ,they think they have achieved the perfection of love because they have no bodies4 ,sheer imaginative debauchery6 ,faugh6 ,,ana4 ,has even death failed to refine your soul1 ,juan8 ,has the terrible judgment of which my father's statue was the minister taught you no reverence8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,how is that very flattering statue1 by the way8 ,does it still come to supper with naughty people and cast them into this bottomless pit8 ,,ana4 ,it has been a great expense to me4 ,the boys in the monastery school would not let it alone3 the mischievous ones broke it2 and the studious ones wrote their names on it4 ,three new noses in two years1 and fingers without end4 ,i had to leave it to its fate at last2 and now ,i fear it is shockingly mutilated4 ,my poor father6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,hush6 ,listen6 ,two great chords rolling on syncopated waves of sound break forth3 ,d minor and its dominant3 a round of dreadful joy to all musicians4 ,ha6 ,mozart's statue music4 ,it is your father4 ,you had better disappear until ,i prepare him4 ,she vanishes4 ,from the void comes a living statue of white marble1 designed to represent a majestic old man4 ,but he waives his majesty with infinite grace2 walks with a feather-like step2 and makes every wrinkle in his war worn visage brim over with holiday joyousness4 ,to his sculptor he owes a perfectly trained figure1 which he carries erect and trim2 and the ends of his moustache curl up1 elastic as watchsprings1 giving him an air which1 but for its ,spanish dignity1 would be called jaunty4 ,he is on the pleasantest terms with ,don ,juan4 ,his voice1 save for a much more distinguished intonation1 is so like the voice of ,roebuck ,ramsden that it calls attention to the fact that they are not unlike one another in spite of their very different fashion of shaving4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,ah1 here you are1 my friend4 ,why don't you learn to sing the splendid music ,mozart has written for you8 ,,the ,,statue4 ,unluckily he has written it for a bass voice4 ,mine is a counter tenor4 ,well3 have you repented yet8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i have too much consideration for you to repent1 ,don ,gonzalo4 ,if ,i did1 you would have no excuse for coming from ,heaven to argue with me4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,true4 ,remain obdurate1 my boy4 ,i wish ,i had killed you1 as ,i should have done but for an accident4 ,then ,i should have come here2 and you would have had a statue and a reputation for piety to live up to4 ,any news8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,yes3 your daughter is dead4 ,,the ,,statue4 puzzled ,my daughter8 ,recollecting ,oh6 the one you were taken with4 ,let me see3 what was her name8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,ana4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,to be sure3 ,ana4 ,a goodlooking girl1 if ,i recollect aright4 ,have you warned ,whatshisname--her husband8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,my friend ,ottavio8 ,no3 ,i have not seen him since ,ana arrived4 ,ana comes indignantly to light4 ,,ana4 ,what does this mean8 ,ottavio here and ,,your friend6 ,and you1 father1 have forgotten my name4 ,you are indeed turned to stone4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,my dear3 ,i am so much more admired in marble than ,i ever was in my own person that ,i have retained the shape the sculptor gave me4 ,he was one of the first men of his day3 you must acknowledge that4 ,,ana4 ,father6 ,vanity6 personal vanity6 from you6 ,,the ,,statue4 ,ah1 you outlived that weakness1 my daughter3 you must be nearly #hj by this time4 ,i was cut off 7by an accident7 in my #fdth year1 and am considerably your junior in consequence4 ,besides1 my child1 in this place1 what our libertine friend here would call the farce of parental wisdom is dropped4 ,regard me1 ,i beg1 as a fellow creature1 not as a father4 ,,ana4 ,you speak as this villain speaks4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,juan is a sound thinker1 ,ana4 ,a bad fencer1 but a sound thinker4 ,,ana4 horror creeping upon her ,i begin to understand4 ,these are devils1 mocking me4 ,i had better pray4 ,,the ,,statue4 consoling her ,no1 no1 no1 my child3 do not pray4 ,if you do1 you will throw away the main advantage of this place4 ,written over the gate here are the words ,leave every hope behind1 ye who enter4 ,only think what a relief that is6 ,for what is hope8 ,a form of moral responsibility4 ,here there is no hope1 and consequently no duty1 no work1 nothing to be gained by praying1 nothing to be lost by doing what you like4 ,hell1 in short1 is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself4 ,don ,juan sighs deeply4 ,you sigh1 friend ,juan2 but if you dwelt in heaven1 as ,i do1 you would realize your advantages4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,you are in good spirits to-day1 ,commander4 ,you are positively brilliant4 ,what is the matter8 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i have come to a momentous decision1 my boy4 ,but first1 where is our friend the ,devil8 ,i must consult him in the matter4 ,and ,ana would like to make his acquaintance1 no doubt4 ,,ana4 ,you are preparing some torment for me4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,all that is superstition1 ,ana4 ,reassure yourself4 ,remember3 the devil is not so black as he is painted4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,let us give him a call4 ,at the wave of the statue's hand the great chords roll out again but this time ,mozart's music gets grotesquely adulterated with ,gounod's4 ,a scarlet halo begins to glow2 and into it the ,devil rises1 very ,mephistophelean1 and not at all unlike ,mendoza1 though not so interesting4 ,he looks older2 is getting prematurely bald2 and1 in spite of an effusion of goodnature and friendliness1 is peevish and sensitive when his advances are not reciprocated4 ,he does not inspire much confidence in his powers of hard work or endurance1 and is1 on the whole1 a disagreeably self-indulgent looking person2 but he is clever and plausible1 though perceptibly less well bred than the two other men1 and enormously less vital than the woman4 ,,the ,,devil4 heartily ,have ,i the pleasure of again receiving a visit from the illustrious ,commander of ,calatrava8 ,coldly ,don ,juan1 your servant4 ,politely ,and a strange lady8 ,my respects1 ,senora4 ,,ana4 ,are you-- ,,the ,,devil4 bowing ,lucifer1 at your service4 ,,ana4 ,i shall go mad4 ,,the ,,devil4 gallantly ,ah1 ,senora1 do not be anxious4 ,you come to us from earth1 full of the prejudices and terrors of that priest-ridden place4 ,you have heard me ill spoken of2 and yet1 believe me1 ,i have hosts of friends there4 ,,ana4 ,yes3 you reign in their hearts4 ,,the ,,devil4 shaking his head ,you flatter me1 ,senora2 but you are mistaken4 ,it is true that the world cannot get on without me2 but it never gives me credit for that3 in its heart it mistrusts and hates me4 ,its sympathies are all with misery1 with poverty1 with starvation of the body and of the heart4 ,i call on it to sympathize with joy1 with love1 with happiness1 with beauty4 ,,don ,,juan4 nauseated ,excuse me3 ,i am going4 ,you know ,i cannot stand this4 ,,the ,,devil4 angrily ,yes3 ,i know that you are no friend of mine4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,what harm is he doing you1 ,juan8 ,it seems to me that he was talking excellent sense when you interrupted him4 ,,the ,,devil4 warmly shaking the statue's hand ,thank you1 my friend3 thank you4 ,you have always understood me3 he has always disparaged and avoided me4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i have treated you with perfect courtesy4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,courtesy6 ,what is courtesy8 ,i care nothing for mere courtesy4 ,give me warmth of heart1 true sincerity1 the bond of sympathy with love and joy-- ,,don ,,juan4 ,you are making me ill4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,there6 ,appealing to the statue ,you hear1 sir6 ,oh1 by what irony of fate was this cold selfish egotist sent to my kingdom1 and you taken to the icy mansions of the sky6 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i can't complain4 ,i was a hypocrite2 and it served me right to be sent to heaven4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,why1 sir1 do you not join us1 and leave a sphere for which your temperament is too sympathetic1 your heart too warm1 your capacity for enjoyment too generous8 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i have this day resolved to do so4 ,in future1 excellent ,son of the ,morning1 ,i am yours4 ,i have left ,heaven for ever4 ,,the ,,devil4 again grasping his hand ,ah1 what an honor for me6 ,what a triumph for our cause6 ,thank you1 thank you4 ,and now1 my friend--,i may call you so at last--could you not persuade ,,him to take the place you have left vacant above8 ,,the ,,statue4 shaking his head ,i cannot conscientiously recommend anybody with whom ,i am on friendly terms to deliberately make himself dull and uncomfortable4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,of course not2 but are you sure ,,he would be uncomfortable8 ,of course you know best3 you brought him here originally2 and we had the greatest hopes of him4 ,his sentiments were in the best taste of our best people4 ,you remember how he sang8 ,he begins to sing in a nasal operatic baritone1 tremulous from an eternity of misuse in the ,french manner4 ,vivan le femmine6 ,viva il buon vino6 ,,the ,,statue4 taking up the tune an octave higher in his counter tenor ,sostegno a gloria ,d'umanita4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,precisely4 ,well1 he never sings for us now4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,do you complain of that8 ,hell is full of musical amateurs3 music is the brandy of the damned4 ,may not one lost soul be permitted to abstain8 ,,the ,,devil4 ,you dare blaspheme against the sublimest of the arts6 ,,don ,,juan4 with cold disgust ,you talk like a hysterical woman fawning on a fiddler4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,i am not angry4 ,i merely pity you4 ,you have no soul2 and you are unconscious of all that you lose4 ,now you1 ,senor ,commander1 are a born musician4 ,how well you sing6 ,mozart would be delighted if he were still here2 but he moped and went to heaven4 ,curious how these clever men1 whom you would have supposed born to be popular here1 have turned out social failures1 like ,don ,juan6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i am really very sorry to be a social failure4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,not that we don't admire your intellect1 you know4 ,we do4 ,but ,i look at the matter from your own point of view4 ,you don't get on with us4 ,the place doesn't suit you4 ,the truth is1 you have--,i won't say no heart2 for we know that beneath all your affected cynicism you have a warm one4 ,,don ,,juan4 shrinking ,don't1 please don't4 ,,the ,,devil4 nettled ,well1 you've no capacity for enjoyment4 ,will that satisfy you8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,it is a somewhat less insufferable form of cant than the other4 ,but if you'll allow me1 ,i'll take refuge1 as usual1 in solitude4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,why not take refuge in ,heaven8 ,that's the proper place for you4 ,to ,ana ,come1 ,senora6 could you not persuade him for his own good to try a change of air8 ,,ana4 ,but can he go to ,heaven if he wants to8 ,,the ,,devil4 ,what's to prevent him8 ,,ana4 ,can anybody--can ,i go to ,heaven if ,i want to8 ,,the ,,devil4 rather contemptuously ,certainly1 if your taste lies that way4 ,,ana4 ,but why doesn't everybody go to ,heaven1 then8 ,,the ,,statue4 chuckling ,i can tell you that1 my dear4 ,it's because heaven is the most angelically dull place in all creation3 that's why4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,his excellency the ,commander puts it with military bluntness2 but the strain of living in ,heaven is intolerable4 ,there is a notion that ,i was turned out of it2 but as a matter of fact nothing could have induced me to stay there4 ,i simply left it and organized this place4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i don't wonder at it4 ,nobody could stand an eternity of heaven4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,oh1 it suits some people4 ,let us be just1 ,commander3 it is a question of temperament4 ,i don't admire the heavenly temperament3 ,i don't understand it3 ,i don't know that ,i particularly want to understand it2 but it takes all sorts to make a universe4 ,there is no accounting for tastes3 there are people who like it4 ,i think ,don ,juan would like it4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,but--pardon my frankness--could you really go back there if you desired to2 or are the grapes sour8 ,,the ,,devil4 ,back there6 ,i often go back there4 ,have you never read the book of ,job8 ,have you any canonical authority for assuming that there is any barrier between our circle and the other one8 ,,ana4 ,but surely there is a great gulf fixed4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,dear lady3 a parable must not be taken literally4 ,the gulf is the difference between the angelic and the diabolic temperament4 ,what more impassable gulf could you have8 ,think of what you have seen on earth4 ,there is no physical gulf between the philosopher's class room and the bull ring2 but the bull fighters do not come to the class room for all that4 ,have you ever been in the country where ,i have the largest following--,england8 ,there they have great racecourses1 and also concert rooms where they play the classical compositions of his ,excellency's friend ,mozart4 ,those who go to the racecourses can stay away from them and go to the classical concerts instead if they like3 there is no law against it2 for ,englishmen never will be slaves3 they are free to do whatever the ,government and public opinion allows them to do4 ,and the classical concert is admitted to be a higher1 more cultivated1 poetic1 intellectual1 ennobling place than the racecourse4 ,but do the lovers of racing desert their sport and flock to the concert room8 ,not they4 ,they would suffer there all the weariness the ,commander has suffered in heaven4 ,there is the great gulf of the parable between the two places4 ,a mere physical gulf they could bridge2 or at least ,i could bridge it for them 7the earth is full of ,devil's ,bridges72 but the gulf of dislike is impassable and eternal4 ,and that is the only gulf that separates my friends here from those who are invidiously called the blest4 ,,ana4 ,i shall go to heaven at once4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,my child2 one word of warning first4 ,let me complete my friend ,lucifer's similitude of the classical concert4 ,at every one of those concerts in ,england you will find rows of weary people who are there1 not because they really like classical music1 but because they think they ought to like it4 ,well1 there is the same thing in heaven4 ,a number of people sit there in glory1 not because they are happy1 but because they think they owe it to their position to be in heaven4 ,they are almost all ,english4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,yes3 the ,southerners give it up and join me just as you have done4 ,but the ,english really do not seem to know when they are thoroughly miserable4 ,an ,englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,in short1 my daughter1 if you go to ,heaven without being naturally qualified for it1 you will not enjoy yourself there4 ,,ana4 ,and who dares say that ,i am not naturally qualified for it8 ,the most distinguished princes of the ,church have never questioned it4 ,i owe it to myself to leave this place at once4 ,,the ,,devil4 offended ,as you please1 ,senora4 ,i should have expected better taste from you4 ,,ana4 ,father3 ,i shall expect you to come with me4 ,you cannot stay here4 ,what will people say8 ,,the ,,statue4 ,people6 ,why1 the best people are here--princes of the church and all4 ,so few go to ,heaven1 and so many come here1 that the blest1 once called a heavenly host1 are a continually dwindling minority4 ,the saints1 the fathers1 the elect of long ago are the cranks1 the faddists1 the outsiders of to-day4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,it is true4 ,from the beginning of my career ,i knew that ,i should win in the long run by sheer weight of public opinion1 in spite of the long campaign of misrepresentation and calumny against me4 ,at bottom the universe is a constitutional one2 and with such a majority as mine ,i cannot be kept permanently out of office4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i think1 ,ana1 you had better stay here4 ,,ana4 jealously ,you do not want me to go with you4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,surely you do not want to enter ,heaven in the company of a reprobate like me4 ,,ana4 ,all souls are equally precious4 ,you repent1 do you not8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,my dear ,ana1 you are silly4 ,do you suppose heaven is like earth1 where people persuade themselves that what is done can be undone by repentance2 that what is spoken can be unspoken by withdrawing it2 that what is true can be annihilated by a general agreement to give it the lie8 ,no3 heaven is the home of the masters of reality3 that is why ,i am going thither4 ,,ana4 ,thank you3 ,i am going to heaven for happiness4 ,i have had quite enough of reality on earth4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,then you must stay here2 for hell is the home of the unreal and of the seekers for happiness4 ,it is the only refuge from heaven1 which is1 as ,i tell you1 the home of the masters of reality1 and from earth1 which is the home of the slaves of reality4 ,the earth is a nursery in which men and women play at being heros and heroines1 saints and sinners2 but they are dragged down from their fool's paradise by their bodies3 hunger and cold and thirst1 age and decay and disease1 death above all1 make them slaves of reality3 thrice a day meals must be eaten and digested3 thrice a century a new generation must be engendered3 ages of faith1 of romance1 and of science are all driven at last to have but one prayer1 ,make me a healthy animal4 ,but here you escape the tyranny of the flesh2 for here you are not an animal at all3 you are a ghost1 an appearance1 an illusion1 a convention1 deathless1 ageless3 in a word1 bodiless4 ,there are no social questions here1 no political questions1 no religious questions1 best of all1 perhaps1 no sanitary questions4 ,here you call your appearance beauty1 your emotions love1 your sentiments heroism1 your aspirations virtue1 just as you did on earth2 but here there are no hard facts to contradict you1 no ironic contrast of your needs with your pretensions1 no human comedy1 nothing but a perpetual romance1 a universal melodrama4 ,as our ,german friend put it in his poem1 the poetically nonsensical here is good sense2 and the ,eternal ,feminine draws us ever upward and on--without getting us a step farther4 ,and yet you want to leave this paradise6 ,,ana4 ,but if ,hell be so beautiful as this1 how glorious must heaven be6 ,the ,devil1 the ,statue1 and ,don ,juan all begin to speak at once in violent protest2 then stop1 abashed4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i beg your pardon4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,not at all4 ,i interrupted you4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,you were going to say something4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,after you1 gentlemen4 ,,the ,,devil4 to ,don ,juan ,you have been so eloquent on the advantages of my dominions that ,i leave you to do equal justice to the drawbacks of the alternative establishment4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,in ,heaven1 as ,i picture it1 dear lady1 you live and work instead of playing and pretending4 ,you face things as they are2 you escape nothing but glamor2 and your steadfastness and your peril are your glory4 ,if the play still goes on here and on earth1 and all the world is a stage1 ,heaven is at least behind the scenes4 ,but ,heaven cannot be described by metaphor4 ,thither ,i shall go presently1 because there ,i hope to escape at last from lies and from the tedious1 vulgar pursuit of happiness1 to spend my eons in contemplation-- ,,the ,,statue4 ,ugh6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,senor ,commander3 ,i do not blame your disgust3 a picture gallery is a dull place for a blind man4 ,but even as you enjoy the contemplation of such romantic mirages as beauty and pleasure2 so would ,i enjoy the contemplation of that which interests me above all things namely1 ,life3 the force that ever strives to attain greater power of contemplating itself4 ,what made this brain of mine1 do you think8 ,not the need to move my limbs2 for a rat with half my brains moves as well as ,i4 ,not merely the need to do1 but the need to know what ,i do1 lest in my blind efforts to live ,i should be slaying myself4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,you would have slain yourself in your blind efforts to fence but for my foot slipping1 my friend4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,audacious ribald3 your laughter will finish in hideous boredom before morning4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,ha ha6 ,do you remember how ,i frightened you when ,i said something like that to you from my pedestal in ,seville8 ,it sounds rather flat without my trombones4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,they tell me it generally sounds flat with them1 ,commander4 ,,ana4 ,oh1 do not interrupt with these frivolities1 father4 ,is there nothing in ,heaven but contemplation1 ,juan8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,in the ,heaven ,i seek1 no other joy4 ,but there is the work of helping ,life in its struggle upward4 ,think of how it wastes and scatters itself1 how it raises up obstacles to itself and destroys itself in its ignorance and blindness4 ,it needs a brain1 this irresistible force1 lest in its ignorance it should resist itself4 ,what a piece of work is man6 says the poet4 ,yes3 but what a blunderer6 ,here is the highest miracle of organization yet attained by life1 the most intensely alive thing that exists1 the most conscious of all the organisms2 and yet1 how wretched are his brains6 ,stupidity made sordid and cruel by the realities learnt from toil and poverty3 ,imagination resolved to starve sooner than face these realities1 piling up illusions to hide them1 and calling itself cleverness1 genius6 ,and each accusing the other of its own defect3 ,stupidity accusing ,imagination of folly1 and ,imagination accusing ,stupidity of ignorance3 whereas1 alas6 ,stupidity has all the knowledge1 and ,imagination all the intelligence4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,and a pretty kettle of fish they make of it between them4 ,did ,i not say1 when ,i was arranging that affair of ,faust's1 that all ,man's reason has done for him is to make him beastlier than any beast4 ,one splendid body is worth the brains of a hundred dyspeptic1 flatulent philosophers4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,you forget that brainless magnificence of body has been tried4 ,things immeasurably greater than man in every respect but brain have existed and perished4 ,the megatherium1 the icthyosaurus have paced the earth with seven-league steps and hidden the day with cloud vast wings4 ,where are they now8 ,fossils in museums1 and so few and imperfect at that1 that a knuckle bone or a tooth of one of them is prized beyond the lives of a thousand soldiers4 ,these things lived and wanted to live2 but for lack of brains they did not know how to carry out their purpose1 and so destroyed themselves4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,and is ,man any the less destroying himself for all this boasted brain of his8 ,have you walked up and down upon the earth lately8 ,i have2 and ,i have examined ,man's wonderful inventions4 ,and ,i tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing2 but in the arts of death he outdoes ,nature herself1 and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague1 pestilence and famine4 ,the peasant ,i tempt to-day eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of ten thousand years ago2 and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score of weeks4 ,but when he goes out to slay1 he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies1 and leaves the javelin1 the arrow1 the blowpipe of his fathers far behind4 ,in the arts of peace ,man is a bungler4 ,i have seen his cotton factories and the like1 with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food4 ,i know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles3 they are toys compared to the ,maxim gun1 the submarine torpedo boat4 ,there is nothing in ,man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth3 his heart is in his weapons4 ,this marvellous force of ,life of which you boast is a force of ,death3 ,man measures his strength by his destructiveness4 ,what is his religion8 ,an excuse for hating ,,me4 ,what is his law8 ,an excuse for hanging ,,you4 ,what is his morality8 ,gentility6 an excuse for consuming without producing4 ,what is his art8 ,an excuse for gloating over pictures of slaughter4 ,what are his politics8 ,either the worship of a despot because a despot can kill1 or parliamentary cockfighting4 ,i spent an evening lately in a certain celebrated legislature1 and heard the pot lecturing the kettle for its blackness1 and ministers answering questions4 ,when ,i left ,i chalked up on the door the old nursery saying--,ask no questions and you will be told no lies4 ,i bought a sixpenny family magazine1 and found it full of pictures of young men shooting and stabbing one another4 ,i saw a man die3 he was a ,london bricklayer's laborer with seven children4 ,he left seventeen pounds club money2 and his wife spent it all on his funeral and went into the workhouse with the children next day4 ,she would not have spent sevenpence on her children's schooling3 the law had to force her to let them be taught gratuitously2 but on death she spent all she had4 ,their imagination glows1 their energies rise up at the idea of death1 these people3 they love it2 and the more horrible it is the more they enjoy it4 ,hell is a place far above their comprehension3 they derive their notion of it from two of the greatest fools that ever lived1 an ,italian and an ,englishman4 ,the ,italian described it as a place of mud1 frost1 filth1 fire1 and venomous serpents3 all torture4 ,this ass1 when he was not lying about me1 was maundering about some woman whom he saw once in the street4 ,the ,englishman described me as being expelled from ,heaven by cannons and gunpowder2 and to this day every ,briton believes that the whole of his silly story is in the ,bible4 ,what else he says ,i do not know2 for it is all in a long poem which neither ,i nor anyone else ever succeeded in wading through4 ,it is the same in everything4 ,the highest form of literature is the tragedy1 a play in which everybody is murdered at the end4 ,in the old chronicles you read of earthquakes and pestilences1 and are told that these showed the power and majesty of ,god and the littleness of ,man4 ,nowadays the chronicles describe battles4 ,in a battle two bodies of men shoot at one another with bullets and explosive shells until one body runs away1 when the others chase the fugitives on horseback and cut them to pieces as they fly4 ,and this1 the chronicle concludes1 shows the greatness and majesty of empires1 and the littleness of the vanquished4 ,over such battles the people run about the streets yelling with delight1 and egg their ,governments on to spend hundreds of millions of money in the slaughter1 whilst the strongest ,ministers dare not spend an extra penny in the pound against the poverty and pestilence through which they themselves daily walk4 ,i could give you a thousand instances2 but they all come to the same thing3 the power that governs the earth is not the power of ,life but of ,death2 and the inner need that has nerved ,life to the effort of organizing itself into the human being is not the need for higher life but for a more efficient engine of destruction4 ,the plague1 the famine1 the earthquake1 the tempest were too spasmodic in their action2 the tiger and crocodile were too easily satiated and not cruel enough3 something more constantly1 more ruthlessly1 more ingeniously destructive was needed2 and that something was ,man1 the inventor of the rack1 the stake1 the gallows1 and the electrocutor2 of the sword and gun2 above all1 of justice1 duty1 patriotism and all the other isms by which even those who are clever enough to be humanely disposed are persuaded to become the most destructive of all the destroyers4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,pshaw6 all this is old4 ,your weak side1 my diabolic friend1 is that you have always been a gull3 you take ,man at his own valuation4 ,nothing would flatter him more than your opinion of him4 ,he loves to think of himself as bold and bad4 ,he is neither one nor the other3 he is only a coward4 ,call him tyrant1 murderer1 pirate1 bully2 and he will adore you1 and swagger about with the consciousness of having the blood of the old sea kings in his veins4 ,call him liar and thief2 and he will only take an action against you for libel4 ,but call him coward2 and he will go mad with rage3 he will face death to outface that stinging truth4 ,man gives every reason for his conduct save one1 every excuse for his crimes save one1 every plea for his safety save one2 and that one is his cowardice4 ,yet all his civilization is founded on his cowardice1 on his abject tameness1 which he calls his respectability4 ,there are limits to what a mule or an ass will stand2 but ,man will suffer himself to be degraded until his vileness becomes so loathsome to his oppressors that they themselves are forced to reform it4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,precisely4 ,and these are the creatures in whom you discover what you call a ,life ,force6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,yes2 for now comes the most surprising part of the whole business4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,what's that8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,why1 that you can make any of these cowards brave by simply putting an idea into his head4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,stuff6 ,as an old soldier ,i admit the cowardice3 it's as universal as sea sickness1 and matters just as little4 ,but that about putting an idea into a man's head is stuff and nonsense4 ,in a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it's more dangerous to lose than to win4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,that is perhaps why battles are so useless4 ,but men never really overcome fear until they imagine they are fighting to further a universal purpose--fighting for an idea1 as they call it4 ,why was the ,crusader braver than the pirate8 ,because he fought1 not for himself1 but for the ,cross4 ,what force was it that met him with a valor as reckless as his own8 ,the force of men who fought1 not for themselves1 but for ,islam4 ,they took ,spain from us1 though we were fighting for our very hearths and homes2 but when we1 too1 fought for that mighty idea1 a ,catholic ,church1 we swept them back to ,africa4 ,,the ,,devil4 ironically ,what6 you a ,catholic1 ,senor ,don ,juan6 ,a devotee6 ,my congratulations4 ,,the ,,statue4 seriously ,come come6 as a soldier1 ,i can listen to nothing against the ,church4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,have no fear1 ,commander3 this idea of a ,catholic ,church will survive ,islam1 will survive the ,cross1 will survive even that vulgar pageant of incompetent schoolboyish gladiators which you call the ,army4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,juan3 you will force me to call you to account for this4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,useless3 ,i cannot fence4 ,every idea for which ,man will die will be a ,catholic idea4 ,when the ,spaniard learns at last that he is no better than the ,saracen1 and his prophet no better than ,mahomet1 he will arise1 more ,catholic than ever1 and die on a barricade across the filthy slum he starves in1 for universal liberty and equality4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,bosh6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,what you call bosh is the only thing men dare die for4 ,later on1 ,liberty will not be ,catholic enough3 men will die for human perfection1 to which they will sacrifice all their liberty gladly4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,ay3 they will never be at a loss for an excuse for killing one another4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,what of that8 ,it is not death that matters1 but the fear of death4 ,it is not killing and dying that degrade us1 but base living1 and accepting the wages and profits of degradation4 ,better ten dead men than one live slave or his master4 ,men shall yet rise up1 father against son and brother against brother1 and kill one another for the great ,catholic idea of abolishing slavery4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,yes1 when the ,liberty and ,equality of which you prate shall have made free white ,christians cheaper in the labor market than by auction at the block4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,never fear6 the white laborer shall have his turn too4 ,but ,i am not now defending the illusory forms the great ideas take4 ,i am giving you examples of the fact that this creature ,man1 who in his own selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone1 will fight for an idea like a hero4 ,he may be abject as a citizen2 but he is dangerous as a fanatic4 ,he can only be enslaved whilst he is spiritually weak enough to listen to reason4 ,i tell you1 gentlemen1 if you can show a man a piece of what he now calls ,god's work to do1 and what he will later on call by many new names1 you can make him entirely reckless of the consequences to himself personally4 ,,ana4 ,yes3 he shirks all his responsibilities1 and leaves his wife to grapple with them4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,well said1 daughter4 ,do not let him talk you out of your common sense4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,alas6 ,senor ,commander1 now that we have got on to the subject of ,woman1 he will talk more than ever4 ,however1 ,i confess it is for me the one supremely interesting subject4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,to a woman1 ,senora1 man's duties and responsibilities begin and end with the task of getting bread for her children4 ,to her1 ,man is only a means to the end of getting children and rearing them4 ,,ana4 ,is that your idea of a woman's mind8 ,i call it cynical and disgusting materialism4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,pardon me1 ,ana3 ,i said nothing about a woman's whole mind4 ,i spoke of her view of ,man as a separate sex4 ,it is no more cynical than her view of herself as above all things a ,mother4 ,sexually1 ,woman is ,nature's contrivance for perpetuating its highest achievement4 ,sexually1 ,man is ,woman's contrivance for fulfilling ,nature's behest in the most economical way4 ,she knows by instinct that far back in the evolutional process she invented him1 differentiated him1 created him in order to produce something better than the single-sexed process can produce4 ,whilst he fulfils the purpose for which she made him1 he is welcome to his dreams1 his follies1 his ideals1 his heroisms1 provided that the keystone of them all is the worship of woman1 of motherhood1 of the family1 of the hearth4 ,but how rash and dangerous it was to invent a separate creature whose sole function was her own impregnation6 ,for mark what has happened4 ,first1 ,man has multiplied on her hands until there are as many men as women2 so that she has been unable to employ for her purposes more than a fraction of the immense energy she has left at his disposal by saving him the exhausting labor of gestation4 ,this superfluous energy has gone to his brain and to his muscle4 ,he has become too strong to be controlled by her bodily1 and too imaginative and mentally vigorous to be content with mere self-reproduction4 ,he has created civilization without consulting her1 taking her domestic labor for granted as the foundation of it4 ,,ana4 ,,that is true1 at all events4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,yes2 and this civilization6 what is it1 after all8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,after all1 an excellent peg to hang your cynical commonplaces on2 but ,,before all1 it is an attempt on ,man's part to make himself something more than the mere instrument of ,woman's purpose4 ,so far1 the result of ,life's continual effort not only to maintain itself1 but to achieve higher and higher organization and completer self-consciousness1 is only1 at best1 a doubtful campaign between its forces and those of ,death and ,degeneration4 ,the battles in this campaign are mere blunders1 mostly won1 like actual military battles1 in spite of the commanders4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,that is a dig at me4 ,no matter3 go on1 go on4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,it is a dig at a much higher power than you1 ,commander4 ,still1 you must have noticed in your profession that even a stupid general can win battles when the enemy's general is a little stupider4 ,,the ,,statue4 very seriously ,most true1 ,juan1 most true4 ,some donkeys have amazing luck4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,well1 the ,life ,force is stupid2 but it is not so stupid as the forces of ,death and ,degeneration4 ,besides1 these are in its pay all the time4 ,and so ,life wins1 after a fashion4 ,what mere copiousness of fecundity can supply and mere greed preserve1 we possess4 ,the survival of whatever form of civilization can produce the best rifle and the best fed riflemen is assured4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,exactly6 the survival1 not of the most effective means of ,life but of the most effective means of ,death4 ,you always come back to my point1 in spite of your wrigglings and evasions and sophistries1 not to mention the intolerable length of your speeches4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,oh come6 who began making long speeches8 ,however1 if ,i overtax your intellect1 you can leave us and seek the society of love and beauty and the rest of your favorite boredoms4 ,,the ,,devil4 much offended ,this is not fair1 ,don ,juan1 and not civil4 ,i am also on the intellectual plane4 ,nobody can appreciate it more than ,i do4 ,i am arguing fairly with you1 and1 ,i think1 utterly refuting you4 ,let us go on for another hour if you like4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,good3 let us4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,not that ,i see any prospect of your coming to any point in particular1 ,juan4 ,still1 since in this place1 instead of merely killing time we have to kill eternity1 go ahead by all means4 ,,don ,,juan4 somewhat impatiently ,my point1 you marbleheaded old masterpiece1 is only a step ahead of you4 ,are we agreed that ,life is a force which has made innumerable experiments in organizing itself2 that the mammoth and the man1 the mouse and the megatherium1 the flies and the fleas and the ,fathers of the ,church1 are all more or less successful attempts to build up that raw force into higher and higher individuals1 the ideal individual being omnipotent1 omniscient1 infallible1 and withal completely1 unilludedly self-conscious3 in short1 a god8 ,,the ,,devil4 ,i agree1 for the sake of argument4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i agree1 for the sake of avoiding argument4 ,,ana4 ,i most emphatically disagree as regards the ,fathers of the ,church2 and ,i must beg you not to drag them into the argument4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i did so purely for the sake of alliteration1 ,ana2 and ,i shall make no further allusion to them4 ,and now1 since we are1 with that exception1 agreed so far1 will you not agree with me further that ,life has not measured the success of its attempts at godhead by the beauty or bodily perfection of the result1 since in both these respects the birds1 as our friend ,aristophanes long ago pointed out1 are so extraordinarily superior1 with their power of flight and their lovely plumage1 and1 may ,i add1 the touching poetry of their loves and nestings1 that it is inconceivable that ,life1 having once produced them1 should1 if love and beauty were her object1 start off on another line and labor at the clumsy elephant and the hideous ape1 whose grandchildren we are8 ,,ana4 ,aristophanes was a heathen2 and you1 ,juan1 ,i am afraid1 are very little better4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,you conclude1 then1 that ,life was driving at clumsiness and ugliness8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,no1 perverse devil that you are1 a thousand times no4 ,life was driving at brains--at its darling object3 an organ by which it can attain not only self-consciousness but self-understanding4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,this is metaphysics1 ,juan4 ,why the devil should--to the ,devil ,i ,,beg your pardon4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,pray don't mention it4 ,i have always regarded the use of my name to secure additional emphasis as a high compliment to me4 ,it is quite at your service1 ,commander4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,thank you3 that's very good of you4 ,even in heaven1 ,i never quite got out of my old military habits of speech4 ,what ,i was going to ask ,juan was why ,life should bother itself about getting a brain4 ,why should it want to understand itself8 ,why not be content to enjoy itself8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,without a brain1 ,commander1 you would enjoy yourself without knowing it1 and so lose all the fun4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,true1 most true4 ,but ,i am quite content with brain enough to know that ,i'm enjoying myself4 ,i don't want to understand why4 ,in fact1 ,i'd rather not4 ,my experience is that one's pleasures don't bear thinking about4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,that is why intellect is so unpopular4 ,but to ,life1 the force behind the ,man1 intellect is a necessity1 because without it he blunders into death4 ,just as ,life1 after ages of struggle1 evolved that wonderful bodily organ the eye1 so that the living organism could see where it was going and what was coming to help or threaten it1 and thus avoid a thousand dangers that formerly slew it1 so it is evolving to-day a mind's eye that shall see1 not the physical world1 but the purpose of ,life1 and thereby enable the individual to work for that purpose instead of thwarting and baffling it by setting up shortsighted personal aims as at present4 ,even as it is1 only one sort of man has ever been happy1 has ever been universally respected among all the conflicts of interests and illusions4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,you mean the military man4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,commander3 ,i do not mean the military man4 ,when the military man approaches1 the world locks up its spoons and packs off its womankind4 ,no3 ,i sing1 not arms and the hero1 but the philosophic man3 he who seeks in contemplation to discover the inner will of the world1 in invention to discover the means of fulfilling that will1 and in action to do that will by the so-discovered means4 ,of all other sorts of men ,i declare myself tired4 ,they're tedious failures4 ,when ,i was on earth1 professors of all sorts prowled round me feeling for an unhealthy spot in me on which they could fasten4 ,the doctors of medicine bade me consider what ,i must do to save my body1 and offered me quack cures for imaginary diseases4 ,i replied that ,i was not a hypochondriac2 so they called me ,ignoramus and went their way4 ,the doctors of divinity bade me consider what ,i must do to save my soul2 but ,i was not a spiritual hypochondriac any more than a bodily one1 and would not trouble myself about that either2 so they called me ,atheist and went their way4 ,after them came the politician1 who said there was only one purpose in ,nature1 and that was to get him into parliament4 ,i told him ,i did not care whether he got into parliament or not2 so he called me ,mugwump and went his way4 ,then came the romantic man1 the ,artist1 with his love songs and his paintings and his poems2 and with him ,i had great delight for many years1 and some profit2 for ,i cultivated my senses for his sake2 and his songs taught me to hear better1 his paintings to see better1 and his poems to feel more deeply4 ,but he led me at last into the worship of ,woman4 ,,ana4 ,juan6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,yes3 ,i came to believe that in her voice was all the music of the song1 in her face all the beauty of the painting1 and in her soul all the emotion of the poem4 ,,ana4 ,and you were disappointed1 ,i suppose4 ,well1 was it her fault that you attributed all these perfections to her8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,yes1 partly4 ,for with a wonderful instinctive cunning1 she kept silent and allowed me to glorify her2 to mistake my own visions1 thoughts1 and feelings for hers4 ,now my friend the romantic man was often too poor or too timid to approach those women who were beautiful or refined enough to seem to realize his ideal2 and so he went to his grave believing in his dream4 ,but ,i was more favored by nature and circumstance4 ,i was of noble birth and rich2 and when my person did not please1 my conversation flattered1 though ,i generally found myself fortunate in both4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,coxcomb6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,yes2 but even my coxcombry pleased4 ,well1 ,i found that when ,i had touched a woman's imagination1 she would allow me to persuade myself that she loved me2 but when my suit was granted she never said ,i am happy3 my love is satisfied3 she always said1 first1 ,at last1 the barriers are down1 and second1 ,when will you come again8 ,,ana4 ,that is exactly what men say4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i protest ,i never said it4 ,but all women say it4 ,well1 these two speeches always alarmed me2 for the first meant that the lady's impulse had been solely to throw down my fortifications and gain my citadel2 and the second openly announced that henceforth she regarded me as her property1 and counted my time as already wholly at her disposal4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,that is where your want of heart came in4 ,,the ,,statue4 shaking his head ,you shouldn't repeat what a woman says1 ,juan4 ,,ana4 severely ,it should be sacred to you4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,still1 they certainly do always say it4 ,i never minded the barriers2 but there was always a slight shock about the other1 unless one was very hard hit indeed4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,then the lady1 who had been happy and idle enough before1 became anxious1 preoccupied with me1 always intriguing1 conspiring1 pursuing1 watching1 waiting1 bent wholly on making sure of her prey--,i being the prey1 you understand4 ,now this was not what ,i had bargained for4 ,it may have been very proper and very natural2 but it was not music1 painting1 poetry and joy incarnated in a beautiful woman4 ,i ran away from it4 ,i ran away from it very often3 in fact ,i became famous for running away from it4 ,,ana4 ,infamous1 you mean4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i did not run away from you4 ,do you blame me for running away from the others8 ,,ana4 ,nonsense1 man4 ,you are talking to a woman of #gg now4 ,if you had had the chance1 you would have run away from me too--if ,i had let you4 ,you would not have found it so easy with me as with some of the others4 ,if men will not be faithful to their home and their duties1 they must be made to be4 ,i daresay you all want to marry lovely incarnations of music and painting and poetry4 ,well1 you can't have them1 because they don't exist4 ,if flesh and blood is not good enough for you you must go without3 that's all4 ,women have to put up with flesh-and-blood husbands--and little enough of that too1 sometimes2 and you will have to put up with flesh-and-blood wives4 ,the ,devil looks dubious4 ,the ,statue makes a wry face4 ,i see you don't like that1 any of you2 but it's true1 for all that2 so if you don't like it you can lump it4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,my dear lady1 you have put my whole case against romance into a few sentences4 ,that is just why ,i turned my back on the romantic man with the artist nature1 as he called his infatuation4 ,i thanked him for teaching me to use my eyes and ears2 but ,i told him that his beauty worshipping and happiness hunting and woman idealizing was not worth a dump as a philosophy of life2 so he called me ,philistine and went his way4 ,,ana4 ,it seems that ,woman taught you something1 too1 with all her defects4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,she did more3 she interpreted all the other teaching for me4 ,ah1 my friends1 when the barriers were down for the first time1 what an astounding illumination6 ,i had been prepared for infatuation1 for intoxication1 for all the illusions of love's young dream2 and lo6 never was my perception clearer1 nor my criticism more ruthless4 ,the most jealous rival of my mistress never saw every blemish in her more keenly than ,i4 ,i was not duped3 ,i took her without chloroform4 ,,ana4 ,but you did take her4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,that was the revelation4 ,up to that moment ,i had never lost the sense of being my own master2 never consciously taken a single step until my reason had examined and approved it4 ,i had come to believe that ,i was a purely rational creature3 a thinker6 ,i said1 with the foolish philosopher1 ,i think2 therefore ,i am4 ,it was ,woman who taught me to say ,i am2 therefore ,i think4 ,and also ,i would think more2 therefore ,i must be more4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,this is extremely abstract and metaphysical1 ,juan4 ,if you would stick to the concrete1 and put your discoveries in the form of entertaining anecdotes about your adventures with women1 your conversation would be easier to follow4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,bah6 what need ,i add8 ,do you not understand that when ,i stood face to face with ,woman1 every fibre in my clear critical brain warned me to spare her and save myself4 ,my morals said ,no4 ,my conscience said ,no4 ,my chivalry and pity for her said ,no4 ,my prudent regard for myself said ,no4 ,my ear1 practised on a thousand songs and symphonies2 my eye1 exercised on a thousand paintings2 tore her voice1 her features1 her color to shreds4 ,i caught all those tell-tale resemblances to her father and mother by which ,i knew what she would be like in thirty years time4 ,i noted the gleam of gold from a dead tooth in the laughing mouth3 ,i made curious observations of the strange odors of the chemistry of the nerves4 ,the visions of my romantic reveries1 in which ,i had trod the plains of heaven with a deathless1 ageless creature of coral and ivory1 deserted me in that supreme hour4 ,i remembered them and desperately strove to recover their illusion2 but they now seemed the emptiest of inventions3 my judgment was not to be corrupted3 my brain still said ,no on every issue4 ,and whilst ,i was in the act of framing my excuse to the lady1 ,life seized me and threw me into her arms as a sailor throws a scrap of fish into the mouth of a seabird4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,you might as well have gone without thinking such a lot about it1 ,juan4 ,you are like all the clever men3 you have more brains than is good for you4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,and were you not the happier for the experience1 ,senor ,don ,juan8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,the happier1 no3 the wiser1 yes4 ,that moment introduced me for the first time to myself1 and1 through myself1 to the world4 ,i saw then how useless it is to attempt to impose conditions on the irresistible force of ,life2 to preach prudence1 careful selection1 virtue1 honor1 chastity-- ,,ana4 ,don ,juan3 a word against chastity is an insult to me4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i say nothing against your chastity1 ,senora1 since it took the form of a husband and twelve children4 ,what more could you have done had you been the most abandoned of women8 ,,ana4 ,i could have had twelve husbands and no children that's what ,i could have done1 ,juan4 ,and let me tell you that that would have made all the difference to the earth which ,i replenished4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,bravo ,ana6 ,juan3 you are floored1 quelled1 annihilated4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,no2 for though that difference is the true essential difference--,dona ,ana has1 ,i admit1 gone straight to the real point--yet it is not a difference of love or chastity1 or even constancy2 for twelve children by twelve different husbands would have replenished the earth perhaps more effectively4 ,suppose my friend ,ottavio had died when you were thirty1 you would never have remained a widow3 you were too beautiful4 ,suppose the successor of ,ottavio had died when you were forty1 you would still have been irresistible2 and a woman who marries twice marries three times if she becomes free to do so4 ,twelve lawful children borne by one highly respectable lady to three different fathers is not impossible nor condemned by public opinion4 ,that such a lady may be more law abiding than the poor girl whom we used to spurn into the gutter for bearing one unlawful infant is no doubt true2 but dare you say she is less self-indulgent8 ,,ana4 ,she is less virtuous3 that is enough for me4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,in that case1 what is virtue but the ,trade ,unionism of the married8 ,let us face the facts1 dear ,ana4 ,the ,life ,force respects marriage only because marriage is a contrivance of its own to secure the greatest number of children and the closest care of them4 ,for honor1 chastity and all the rest of your moral figments it cares not a rap4 ,marriage is the most licentious of human institutions-- ,,ana4 ,juan6 ,,the ,,statue4 protesting ,really6-- ,,don ,,juan4 determinedly ,i say the most licentious of human institutions3 that is the secret of its popularity4 ,and a woman seeking a husband is the most unscrupulous of all the beasts of prey4 ,the confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error4 ,come1 ,ana6 do not look shocked3 you know better than any of us that marriage is a mantrap baited with simulated accomplishments and delusive idealizations4 ,when your sainted mother1 by dint of scoldings and punishments1 forced you to learn how to play half a dozen pieces on the spinet which she hated as much as you did--had she any other purpose than to delude your suitors into the belief that your husband would have in his home an angel who would fill it with melody1 or at least play him to sleep after dinner8 ,you married my friend ,ottavio3 well1 did you ever open the spinet from the hour when the ,church united him to you8 ,,ana4 ,you are a fool1 ,juan4 ,a young married woman has something else to do than sit at the spinet without any support for her back2 so she gets out of the habit of playing4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,not if she loves music4 ,no3 believe me1 she only throws away the bait when the bird is in the net4 ,,ana4 bitterly ,and men1 ,i suppose1 never throw off the mask when their bird is in the net4 ,the husband never becomes negligent1 selfish1 brutal--oh never6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,what do these recriminations prove1 ,ana8 ,only that the hero is as gross an imposture as the heroine4 ,,ana4 ,it is all nonsense3 most marriages are perfectly comfortable4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,perfectly is a strong expression1 ,ana4 ,what you mean is that sensible people make the best of one another4 ,send me to the galleys and chain me to the felon whose number happens to be next before mine2 and ,i must accept the inevitable and make the best of the companionship4 ,many such companionships1 they tell me1 are touchingly affectionate2 and most are at least tolerably friendly4 ,but that does not make a chain a desirable ornament nor the galleys an abode of bliss4 ,those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and the prisoners left free to choose1 the whole social fabric would fly asunder4 ,you cannot have the argument both ways4 ,if the prisoner is happy1 why lock him in8 ,if he is not1 why pretend that he is8 ,,ana4 ,at all events1 let me take an old woman's privilege again1 and tell you flatly that marriage peoples the world and debauchery does not4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,how if a time comes when this shall cease to be true8 ,do you not know that where there is a will there is a way--that whatever ,man really wishes to do he will finally discover a means of doing8 ,well1 you have done your best1 you virtuous ladies1 and others of your way of thinking1 to bend ,man's mind wholly towards honorable love as the highest good1 and to understand by honorable love romance and beauty and happiness in the possession of beautiful1 refined1 delicate1 affectionate women4 ,you have taught women to value their own youth1 health1 shapeliness1 and refinement above all things4 ,well1 what place have squalling babies and household cares in this exquisite paradise of the senses and emotions8 ,is it not the inevitable end of it all that the human will shall say to the human brain3 ,invent me a means by which ,i can have love1 beauty1 romance1 emotion1 passion without their wretched penalties1 their expenses1 their worries1 their trials1 their illnesses and agonies and risks of death1 their retinue of servants and nurses and doctors and schoolmasters4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,all this1 ,senor ,don ,juan1 is realized here in my realm4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,yes1 at the cost of death4 ,man will not take it at that price3 he demands the romantic delights of your hell whilst he is still on earth4 ,well1 the means will be found3 the brain will not fail when the will is in earnest4 ,the day is coming when great nations will find their numbers dwindling from census to census2 when the six roomed villa will rise in price above the family mansion2 when the viciously reckless poor and the stupidly pious rich will delay the extinction of the race only by degrading it2 whilst the boldly prudent1 the thriftily selfish and ambitious1 the imaginative and poetic1 the lovers of money and solid comfort1 the worshippers of success1 art1 and of love1 will all oppose to the ,force of ,life the device of sterility4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,that is all very eloquent1 my young friend2 but if you had lived to ,ana's age1 or even to mine1 you would have learned that the people who get rid of the fear of poverty and children and all the other family troubles1 and devote themselves to having a good time of it1 only leave their minds free for the fear of old age and ugliness and impotence and death4 ,the childless laborer is more tormented by his wife's idleness and her constant demands for amusement and distraction than he could be by twenty children2 and his wife is more wretched than he4 ,i have had my share of vanity2 for as a young man ,i was admired by women2 and as a statue ,i am praised by art critics4 ,but ,i confess that had ,i found nothing to do in the world but wallow in these delights ,i should have cut my throat4 ,when ,i married ,ana's mother--or perhaps1 to be strictly correct1 ,i should rather say when ,i at last gave in and allowed ,ana's mother to marry me--,i knew that ,i was planting thorns in my pillow1 and that marriage for me1 a swaggering young officer thitherto unvanquished1 meant defeat and capture4 ,,ana4 scandalized ,father6 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i am sorry to shock you1 my love2 but since ,juan has stripped every rag of decency from the discussion ,i may as well tell the frozen truth4 ,,ana4 ,hmf6 ,i suppose ,i was one of the thorns4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,by no means3 you were often a rose4 ,you see1 your mother had most of the trouble you gave4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,then may ,i ask1 ,commander1 why you have left ,heaven to come here and wallow1 as you express it1 in sentimental beatitudes which you confess would once have driven you to cut your throat8 ,,the ,,statue4 struck by this ,egad1 that's true4 ,,the ,,devil4 alarmed ,what6 ,you are going back from your word4 ,to ,don ,juan ,and all your philosophizing has been nothing but a mask for proselytizing6 ,to the ,statue ,have you forgotten already the hideous dulness from which ,i am offering you a refuge here8 ,to ,don ,juan ,and does your demonstration of the approaching sterilization and extinction of mankind lead to anything better than making the most of those pleasures of art and love which you yourself admit refined you1 elevated you1 developed you8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i never demonstrated the extinction of mankind4 ,life cannot will its own extinction either in its blind amorphous state or in any of the forms into which it has organized itself4 ,i had not finished when ,his ,excellency interrupted me4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i begin to doubt whether you ever will finish1 my friend4 ,you are extremely fond of hearing yourself talk4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,true2 but since you have endured so much you may as well endure to the end4 ,long before this sterilization which ,i described becomes more than a clearly foreseen possibility1 the reaction will begin4 ,the great central purpose of breeding the race1 ay1 breeding it to heights now deemed superhuman3 that purpose which is now hidden in a mephitic cloud of love and romance and prudery and fastidiousness1 will break through into clear sunlight as a purpose no longer to be confused with the gratification of personal fancies1 the impossible realization of boys' and girls' dreams of bliss1 or the need of older people for companionship or money4 ,the plain-spoken marriage services of the vernacular ,churches will no longer be abbreviated and half suppressed as indelicate4 ,the sober decency1 earnestness and authority of their declaration of the real purpose of marriage will be honored and accepted1 whilst their romantic vowings and pledgings and until-death-do-us-partings and the like will be expunged as unbearable frivolities4 ,do my sex the justice to admit1 ,senora1 that we have always recognized that the sex relation is not a personal or friendly relation at all4 ,,ana4 ,not a personal or friendly relation6 ,what relation is more personal8 more sacred8 more holy8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,sacred and holy1 if you like1 ,ana1 but not personally friendly4 ,your relation to ,god is sacred and holy3 dare you call it personally friendly8 ,in the sex relation the universal creative energy1 of which the parties are both the helpless agents1 over-rides and sweeps away all personal considerations and dispenses with all personal relations4 ,the pair may be utter strangers to one another1 speaking different languages1 differing in race and color1 in age and disposition1 with no bond between them but a possibility of that fecundity for the sake of which the ,life ,force throws them into one another's arms at the exchange of a glance4 ,do we not recognize this by allowing marriages to be made by parents without consulting the woman8 ,have you not often expressed your disgust at the immorality of the ,english nation1 in which women and men of noble birth become acquainted and court each other like peasants8 ,and how much does even the peasant know of his bride or she of him before he engages himself8 ,why1 you would not make a man your lawyer or your family doctor on so slight an acquaintance as you would fall in love with and marry him6 ,,ana4 ,yes1 ,juan3 we know the libertine's philosophy4 ,always ignore the consequences to the woman4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,the consequences1 yes3 they justify her fierce grip of the man4 ,but surely you do not call that attachment a sentimental one4 ,as well call the policeman's attachment to his prisoner a love relation4 ,,ana4 ,you see you have to confess that marriage is necessary1 though1 according to you1 love is the slightest of all the relations4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,how do you know that it is not the greatest of all the relations8 far too great to be a personal matter4 ,could your father have served his country if he had refused to kill any enemy of ,spain unless he personally hated him8 ,can a woman serve her country if she refuses to marry any man she does not personally love8 ,you know it is not so3 the woman of noble birth marries as the man of noble birth fights1 on political and family grounds1 not on personal ones4 ,,the ,,statue4 impressed ,a very clever point that1 ,juan3 ,i must think it over4 ,you are really full of ideas4 ,how did you come to think of this one8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i learnt it by experience4 ,when ,i was on earth1 and made those proposals to ladies which1 though universally condemned1 have made me so interesting a hero of legend1 ,i was not infrequently met in some such way as this4 ,the lady would say that she would countenance my advances1 provided they were honorable4 ,on inquiring what that proviso meant1 ,i found that it meant that ,i proposed to get possession of her property if she had any1 or to undertake her support for life if she had not2 that ,i desired her continual companionship1 counsel and conversation to the end of my days1 and would bind myself under penalties to be always enraptured by them2 and1 above all1 that ,i would turn my back on all other women for ever for her sake4 ,i did not object to these conditions because they were exorbitant and inhuman3 it was their extraordinary irrelevance that prostrated me4 ,i invariably replied with perfect frankness that ,i had never dreamt of any of these things2 that unless the lady's character and intellect were equal or superior to my own1 her conversation must degrade and her counsel mislead me2 that her constant companionship might1 for all ,i knew1 become intolerably tedious to me2 that ,i could not answer for my feelings for a week in advance1 much less to the end of my life2 that to cut me off from all natural and unconstrained relations with the rest of my fellow creatures would narrow and warp me if ,i submitted to it1 and1 if not1 would bring me under the curse of clandestinity2 that1 finally1 my proposals to her were wholly unconnected with any of these matters1 and were the outcome of a perfectly simple impulse of my manhood towards her womanhood4 ,,ana4 ,you mean that it was an immoral impulse4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,nature1 my dear lady1 is what you call immoral4 ,i blush for it2 but ,i cannot help it4 ,nature is a pandar1 ,time a wrecker1 and ,death a murderer4 ,i have always preferred to stand up to those facts and build institutions on their recognition4 ,you prefer to propitiate the three devils by proclaiming their chastity1 their thrift1 and their loving kindness2 and to base your institutions on these flatteries4 ,is it any wonder that the institutions do not work smoothly8 ,,the ,,statue4 ,what used the ladies to say1 ,juan8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,oh1 come6 ,confidence for confidence4 ,first tell me what you used to say to the ladies4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i6 ,oh1 ,i swore that ,i would be faithful to the death2 that ,i should die if they refused me2 that no woman could ever be to me what she was-- ,,ana4 ,she8 ,who8 ,,the ,,statue4 ,whoever it happened to be at the time1 my dear4 ,i had certain things ,i always said4 ,one of them was that even when ,i was eighty1 one white hair of the woman ,i loved would make me tremble more than the thickest gold tress from the most beautiful young head4 ,another was that ,i could not bear the thought of anyone else being the mother of my children4 ,,don ,,juan4 revolted ,you old rascal6 ,,the ,,statue4 ,stoutly ,not a bit2 for ,i really believed it with all my soul at the moment4 ,i had a heart3 not like you4 ,and it was this sincerity that made me successful4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,sincerity6 ,to be fool enough to believe a ramping1 stamping1 thumping lie3 that is what you call sincerity6 ,to be so greedy for a woman that you deceive yourself in your eagerness to deceive her3 sincerity1 you call it6 ,,the ,,statue4 ,oh1 damn your sophistries6 ,i was a man in love1 not a lawyer4 ,and the women loved me for it1 bless them6 ,,don ,,juan4 ,they made you think so4 ,what will you say when ,i tell you that though ,i played the lawyer so callously1 they made me think so too8 ,i also had my moments of infatuation in which ,i gushed nonsense and believed it4 ,sometimes the desire to give pleasure by saying beautiful things so rose in me on the flood of emotion that ,i said them recklessly4 ,at other times ,i argued against myself with a devilish coldness that drew tears4 ,but ,i found it just as hard to escape in the one case as in the others4 ,when the lady's instinct was set on me1 there was nothing for it but lifelong servitude or flight4 ,,ana4 ,you dare boast1 before me and my father1 that every woman found you irresistible4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,am ,i boasting8 ,it seems to me that ,i cut the most pitiable of figures4 ,besides1 ,i said when the lady's instinct was set on me4 ,it was not always so2 and then1 heavens6 what transports of virtuous indignation6 what overwhelming defiance to the dastardly seducer6 what scenes of ,imogen and ,iachimo6 ,,ana4 ,i made no scenes4 ,i simply called my father4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,and he came1 sword in hand1 to vindicate outraged honor and morality by murdering me4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,murdering6 ,what do you mean8 ,did ,i kill you or did you kill me8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,which of us was the better fencer8 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i was4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,of course you were4 ,and yet you1 the hero of those scandalous adventures you have just been relating to us1 you had the effrontery to pose as the avenger of outraged morality and condemn me to death6 ,you would have slain me but for an accident4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i was expected to1 ,juan4 ,that is how things were arranged on earth4 ,i was not a social reformer2 and ,i always did what it was customary for a gentleman to do4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,that may account for your attacking me1 but not for the revolting hypocrisy of your subsequent proceedings as a statue4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,that all came of my going to ,heaven4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,i still fail to see1 ,senor ,don ,juan1 that these episodes in your earthly career and in that of the ,senor ,commander in any way discredit my view of life4 ,here1 ,i repeat1 you have all that you sought without anything that you shrank from4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,on the contrary1 here ,i have everything that disappointed me without anything that ,i have not already tried and found wanting4 ,i tell you that as long as ,i can conceive something better than myself ,i cannot be easy unless ,i am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it4 ,that is the law of my life4 ,that is the working within me of ,life's incessant aspiration to higher organization1 wider1 deeper1 intenser self-consciousness1 and clearer self-understanding4 ,it was the supremacy of this purpose that reduced love for me to the mere pleasure of a moment1 art for me to the mere schooling of my faculties1 religion for me to a mere excuse for laziness1 since it had set up a ,god who looked at the world and saw that it was good1 against the instinct in me that looked through my eyes at the world and saw that it could be improved4 ,i tell you that in the pursuit of my own pleasure1 my own health1 my own fortune1 ,i have never known happiness4 ,it was not love for ,woman that delivered me into her hands3 it was fatigue1 exhaustion4 ,when ,i was a child1 and bruised my head against a stone1 ,i ran to the nearest woman and cried away my pain against her apron4 ,when ,i grew up1 and bruised my soul against the brutalities and stupidities with which ,i had to strive1 ,i did again just what ,i had done as a child4 ,i have enjoyed1 too1 my rests1 my recuperations1 my breathing times1 my very prostrations after strife2 but rather would ,i be dragged through all the circles of the foolish ,italian's ,inferno than through the pleasures of ,europe4 ,that is what has made this place of eternal pleasures so deadly to me4 ,it is the absence of this instinct in you that makes you that strange monster called a ,devil4 ,it is the success with which you have diverted the attention of men from their real purpose1 which in one degree or another is the same as mine1 to yours1 that has earned you the name of ,the ,tempter4 ,it is the fact that they are doing your will1 or rather drifting with your want of will1 instead of doing their own1 that makes them the uncomfortable1 false1 restless1 artificial1 petulant1 wretched creatures they are4 ,,the ,,devil4 mortified ,senor ,don ,juan3 you are uncivil to my friends4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,pooh6 why should ,i be civil to them or to you8 ,in this ,palace of ,lies a truth or two will not hurt you4 ,your friends are all the dullest dogs ,i know4 ,they are not beautiful3 they are only decorated4 ,they are not clean3 they are only shaved and starched4 ,they are not dignified3 they are only fashionably dressed4 ,they are not educated they are only college passmen4 ,they are not religious3 they are only pewrenters4 ,they are not moral3 they are only conventional4 ,they are not virtuous3 they are only cowardly4 ,they are not even vicious3 they are only frail4 ,they are not artistic3 they are only lascivious4 ,they are not prosperous3 they are only rich4 ,they are not loyal1 they are only servile2 not dutiful1 only sheepish2 not public spirited1 only patriotic2 not courageous1 only quarrelsome2 not determined1 only obstinate2 not masterful1 only domineering2 not self-controlled1 only obtuse2 not self-respecting1 only vain2 not kind1 only sentimental2 not social1 only gregarious2 not considerate1 only polite2 not intelligent1 only opinionated2 not progressive1 only factious2 not imaginative1 only superstitious2 not just1 only vindictive2 not generous1 only propitiatory2 not disciplined1 only cowed2 and not truthful at all--liars every one of them1 to the very backbone of their souls4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,your flow of words is simply amazing1 ,juan4 ,how ,i wish ,i could have talked like that to my soldiers4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,it is mere talk1 though4 ,it has all been said before2 but what change has it ever made8 ,what notice has the world ever taken of it8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,yes1 it is mere talk4 ,but why is it mere talk8 ,because1 my friend1 beauty1 purity1 respectability1 religion1 morality1 art1 patriotism1 bravery and the rest are nothing but words which ,i or anyone else can turn inside out like a glove4 ,were they realities1 you would have to plead guilty to my indictment2 but fortunately for your self-respect1 my diabolical friend1 they are not realities4 ,as you say1 they are mere words1 useful for duping barbarians into adopting civilization1 or the civilized poor into submitting to be robbed and enslaved4 ,that is the family secret of the governing caste2 and if we who are of that caste aimed at more ,life for the world instead of at more power and luxury for our miserable selves1 that secret would make us great4 ,now1 since ,i1 being a nobleman1 am in the secret too1 think how tedious to me must be your unending cant about all these moralistic figments1 and how squalidly disastrous your sacrifice of your lives to them6 ,if you even believed in your moral game enough to play it fairly1 it would be interesting to watch2 but you don't3 you cheat at every trick2 and if your opponent outcheats you1 you upset the table and try to murder him4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,on earth there may be some truth in this1 because the people are uneducated and cannot appreciate my religion of love and beauty2 but here-- ,,don ,,juan4 ,oh yes3 ,i know4 ,here there is nothing but love and beauty4 ,ugh6 it is like sitting for all eternity at the first act of a fashionable play1 before the complications begin4 ,never in my worst moments of superstitious terror on earth did ,i dream that ,hell was so horrible4 ,i live1 like a hairdresser1 in the continual contemplation of beauty1 toying with silken tresses4 ,i breathe an atmosphere of sweetness1 like a confectioner's shopboy4 ,commander3 are there any beautiful women in ,heaven8 ,,the ,,statue4 ,none4 ,absolutely none4 ,all dowdies4 ,not two pennorth of jewellery among a dozen of them4 ,they might be men of fifty4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i am impatient to get there4 ,is the word beauty ever mentioned2 and are there any artistic people8 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i give you my word they won't admire a fine statue even when it walks past them4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i go4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,don ,juan3 shall ,i be frank with you8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,were you not so before8 ,,the ,,devil4 ,as far as ,i went1 yes4 ,but ,i will now go further1 and confess to you that men get tired of everything1 of heaven no less than of hell2 and that all history is nothing but a record of the oscillations of the world between these two extremes4 ,an epoch is but a swing of the pendulum2 and each generation thinks the world is progressing because it is always moving4 ,but when you are as old as ,i am2 when you have a thousand times wearied of heaven1 like myself and the ,commander1 and a thousand times wearied of hell1 as you are wearied now1 you will no longer imagine that every swing from heaven to hell is an emancipation1 every swing from hell to heaven an evolution4 ,where you now see reform1 progress1 fulfilment of upward tendency1 continual ascent by ,man on the stepping stones of his dead selves to higher things1 you will see nothing but an infinite comedy of illusion4 ,you will discover the profound truth of the saying of my friend ,koheleth1 that there is nothing new under the sun4 ,vanitas vanitatum-- ,,don ,,juan4 out of all patience ,by ,heaven1 this is worse than your cant about love and beauty4 ,clever dolt that you are1 is a man no better than a worm1 or a dog than a wolf1 because he gets tired of everything8 ,shall he give up eating because he destroys his appetite in the act of gratifying it8 ,is a field idle when it is fallow8 ,can the ,commander expend his hellish energy here without accumulating heavenly energy for his next term of blessedness8 ,granted that the great ,life ,force has hit on the device of the clockmaker's pendulum1 and uses the earth for its bob2 that the history of each oscillation1 which seems so novel to us the actors1 is but the history of the last oscillation repeated2 nay more1 that in the unthinkable infinitude of time the sun throws off the earth and catches it again a thousand times as a circus rider throws up a ball1 and that the total of all our epochs is but the moment between the toss and the catch1 has the colossal mechanism no purpose8 ,,the ,,devil4 ,none1 my friend4 ,you think1 because you have a purpose1 ,nature must have one4 ,you might as well expect it to have fingers and toes because you have them4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,but ,i should not have them if they served no purpose4 ,and ,i1 my friend1 am as much a part of ,nature as my own finger is a part of me4 ,if my finger is the organ by which ,i grasp the sword and the mandoline1 my brain is the organ by which ,nature strives to understand itself4 ,my dog's brain serves only my dog's purposes2 but my brain labors at a knowledge which does nothing for me personally but make my body bitter to me and my decay and death a calamity4 ,were ,i not possessed with a purpose beyond my own ,i had better be a ploughman than a philosopher2 for the ploughman lives as long as the philosopher1 eats more1 sleeps better1 and rejoices in the wife of his bosom with less misgiving4 ,this is because the philosopher is in the grip of the ,life ,force4 ,this ,life ,force says to him ,i have done a thousand wonderful things unconsciously by merely willing to live and following the line of least resistance3 now ,i want to know myself and my destination1 and choose my path2 so ,i have made a special brain--a philosopher's brain--to grasp this knowledge for me as the husbandman's hand grasps the plough for me4 ,and this says the ,life ,force to the philosopher must thou strive to do for me until thou diest1 when ,i will make another brain and another philosopher to carry on the work4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,what is the use of knowing8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,why1 to be able to choose the line of greatest advantage instead of yielding in the direction of the least resistance4 ,does a ship sail to its destination no better than a log drifts nowhither8 ,the philosopher is ,nature's pilot4 ,and there you have our difference3 to be in hell is to drift3 to be in heaven is to steer4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,on the rocks1 most likely4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,pooh6 which ship goes oftenest on the rocks or to the bottom--the drifting ship or the ship with a pilot on board8 ,,the ,,devil4 ,well1 well1 go your way1 ,senor ,don ,juan4 ,i prefer to be my own master and not the tool of any blundering universal force4 ,i know that beauty is good to look at2 that music is good to hear2 that love is good to feel2 and that they are all good to think about and talk about4 ,i know that to be well exercised in these sensations1 emotions1 and studies is to be a refined and cultivated being4 ,whatever they may say of me in churches on earth1 ,i know that it is universally admitted in good society that the prince of ,darkness is a gentleman2 and that is enough for me4 ,as to your ,life ,force1 which you think irresistible1 it is the most resistible thing in the world for a person of any character4 ,but if you are naturally vulgar and credulous1 as all reformers are1 it will thrust you first into religion1 where you will sprinkle water on babies to save their souls from me2 then it will drive you from religion into science1 where you will snatch the babies from the water sprinkling and inoculate them with disease to save them from catching it accidentally2 then you will take to politics1 where you will become the catspaw of corrupt functionaries and the henchman of ambitious humbugs2 and the end will be despair and decrepitude1 broken nerve and shattered hopes1 vain regrets for that worst and silliest of wastes and sacrifices1 the waste and sacrifice of the power of enjoyment3 in a word1 the punishment of the fool who pursues the better before he has secured the good4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,but at least ,i shall not be bored4 ,the service of the ,life ,force has that advantage1 at all events4 ,so fare you well1 ,senor ,satan4 ,,the ,,devil4 amiably ,fare you well1 ,don ,juan4 ,i shall often think of our interesting chats about things in general4 ,i wish you every happiness3 ,heaven1 as ,i said before1 suits some people4 ,but if you should change your mind1 do not forget that the gates are always open here to the repentant prodigal4 ,if you feel at any time that warmth of heart1 sincere unforced affection1 innocent enjoyment1 and warm1 breathing1 palpitating reality-- ,,don ,,juan4 ,why not say flesh and blood at once1 though we have left those two greasy commonplaces behind us8 ,,the ,,devil4 angrily ,you throw my friendly farewell back in my teeth1 then1 ,don ,juan8 ,,don ,,juan4 ,by no means4 ,but though there is much to be learnt from a cynical devil1 ,i really cannot stand a sentimental one4 ,senor ,commander3 you know the way to the frontier of hell and heaven4 ,be good enough to direct me4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,oh1 the frontier is only the difference between two ways of looking at things4 ,any road will take you across it if you really want to get there4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,good4 saluting ,dona ,ana ,senora3 your servant4 ,,ana4 ,but ,i am going with you4 ,,don ,,juan4 ,i can find my own way to heaven1 ,ana2 but ,i cannot find yours he vanishes4 ,,ana4 ,how annoying6 ,,the ,,statue4 calling after him ,bon voyage1 ,juan6 ,he wafts a final blast of his great rolling chords after him as a parting salute4 ,a faint echo of the first ghostly melody comes back in acknowledgment4 ,ah6 there he goes4 ,puffing a long breath out through his lips ,whew6 ,how he does talk6 ,they'll never stand it in heaven4 ,,the ,,devil4 gloomily ,his going is a political defeat4 ,i cannot keep these ,life ,worshippers3 they all go4 ,this is the greatest loss ,i have had since that ,dutch painter went--a fellow who would paint a hag of #gj with as much enjoyment as a ,venus of #bj4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,i remember3 he came to heaven4 ,rembrandt4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,ay1 ,rembrandt4 ,there a something unnatural about these fellows4 ,do not listen to their gospel1 ,senor ,commander3 it is dangerous4 ,beware of the pursuit of the ,superhuman3 it leads to an indiscriminate contempt for the ,human4 ,to a man1 horses and dogs and cats are mere species1 outside the moral world4 ,well1 to the ,superman1 men and women are a mere species too1 also outside the moral world4 ,this ,don ,juan was kind to women and courteous to men as your daughter here was kind to her pet cats and dogs2 but such kindness is a denial of the exclusively human character of the soul4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,and who the deuce is the ,superman8 ,,the ,,devil4 ,oh1 the latest fashion among the ,life ,force fanatics4 ,did you not meet in ,heaven1 among the new arrivals1 that ,german ,polish madman--what was his name8 ,nietzsche8 ,,the ,,statue4 ,never heard of him4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,well1 he came here first1 before he recovered his wits4 ,i had some hopes of him2 but he was a confirmed ,life ,force worshipper4 ,it was he who raked up the ,superman1 who is as old as ,prometheus2 and the #bjth century will run after this newest of the old crazes when it gets tired of the world1 the flesh1 and your humble servant4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,superman is a good cry2 and a good cry is half the battle4 ,i should like to see this ,nietzsche4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,unfortunately he met ,wagner here1 and had a quarrel with him4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,quite right1 too4 ,mozart for me6 ,,the ,,devil4 ,oh1 it was not about music4 ,wagner once drifted into ,life ,force worship1 and invented a ,superman called ,siegfried4 ,but he came to his senses afterwards4 ,so when they met here1 ,nietzsche denounced him as a renegade2 and ,wagner wrote a pamphlet to prove that ,nietzsche was a ,jew2 and it ended in ,nietzsche's going to heaven in a huff4 ,and a good riddance too4 ,and now1 my friend1 let us hasten to my palace and celebrate your arrival with a grand musical service4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,with pleasure3 you're most kind4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,this way1 ,commander4 ,we go down the old trap he places himself on the grave trap4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,good4 ,reflectively ,all the same1 the ,superman is a fine conception4 ,there is something statuesque about it4 ,he places himself on the grave trap beside ,the ,devil4 ,it begins to descend slowly4 ,red glow from the abyss4 ,ah1 this reminds me of old times4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,and me also4 ,,ana4 ,stop6 ,the trap stops4 ,,the ,,devil4 ,you1 ,senora1 cannot come this way4 ,you will have an apotheosis4 ,but you will be at the palace before us4 ,,ana4 ,that is not what ,i stopped you for4 ,tell me where can ,i find the ,superman8 ,,the ,,devil4 ,he is not yet created1 ,senora4 ,,the ,,statue4 ,and never will be1 probably4 ,let us proceed3 the red fire will make me sneeze4 ,they descend4 ,,ana4 ,not yet created6 ,then my work is not yet done4 ,crossing herself devoutly ,i believe in the ,life to ,come4 ,crying to the universe ,a father--a father for the ,superman6 ,she vanishes into the void2 and again there is nothing3 all existence seems suspended infinitely4 ,then1 vaguely1 there is a live human voice crying somewhere4 ,one sees1 with a shock1 a mountain peak showing faintly against a lighter background4 ,the sky has returned from afar2 and we suddenly remember where we were4 ,the cry becomes distinct and urgent3 it says ,automobile1 ,automobile4 ,the complete reality comes back with a rush3 in a moment it is full morning in the ,sierra2 and the brigands are scrambling to their feet and making for the road as the goatherd runs down from the hill1 warning them of the approach of another motor4 ,tanner and ,mendoza rise amazedly and stare at one another with scattered wits4 ,straker sits up to yawn for a moment before he gets on his feet1 making it a point of honor not to show any undue interest in the excitement of the bandits4 ,mendoza gives a quick look to see that his followers are attending to the alarm2 then exchanges a private word with ,tanner4 ,,mendoza4 ,did you dream8 ,,tanner4 ,damnably4 ,did you8 ,,mendoza4 ,yes4 ,i forget what4 ,you were in it4 ,,tanner4 ,so were you4 ,amazing ,,mendoza4 ,i warned you4 a shot is heard from the road4 ,dolts6 they will play with that gun4 ,the brigands come running back scared4 ,who fired that shot8 to ,duval ,was it you8 ,,duval4 breathless ,i have not shoot4 ,dey shoot first4 ,,anarchist4 ,i told you to begin by abolishing the ,state4 ,now we are all lost4 ,,the ,,rowdy ,,social-,,democrat4 stampeding across the amphitheatre ,run1 everybody4 ,,mendoza4 collaring him2 throwing him on his back2 and drawing a knife ,i stab the man who stirs4 ,he blocks the way4 ,the stampede it checked4 ,what has happened8 ,,the ,,sulky ,,social-,,democrat1 ,a motor-- ,,the ,,anarchist4 ,three men-- ,,duval4 ,deux femmes-- ,,mendoza4 ,three men and two women6 ,why have you not brought them here8 ,are you afraid of them8 ,,the ,,rowdy ,,one4 getting up ,thyve a hescort4 ,ow1 de-ooh lut's ook it1 ,mendowza4 ,,the ,,sulky ,,one4 ,two armored cars full o soldiers at the end o the valley4 ,,anarchist4 ,the shot was fired in the air4 ,it was a signal4 ,straker whistles his favorite air1 which falls on the ears of the brigands like a funeral march4 ,,tanner4 ,it is not an escort1 but an expedition to capture you4 ,we were advised to wait for it2 but ,i was in a hurry4 ,,the ,,rowdy ,,one4 in an agony of apprehension ,and ,ow my good ,lord1 ere we are1 wytin for em6 ,lut's tike to the mahntns4 ,,mendoza4 ,idiot1 what do you know about the mountains8 ,are you a ,spaniard8 ,you would be given up by the first shepherd you met4 ,besides1 we are already within range of their rifles4 ,,the ,,rowdy ,,one4 ,bat-- ,,mendoza4 ,silence4 ,leave this to me4 ,to ,tanner ,comrade3 you will not betray us4 ,,straker4 ,oo are you callin comrade8 ,,mendoza4 ,last night the advantage was with me4 ,the robber of the poor was at the mercy of the robber of the rich4 ,you offered your hand3 ,i took it4 ,,tanner4 ,i bring no charge against you1 comrade4 ,we have spent a pleasant evening with you3 that is all4 ,,straker4 ,i gev my and to nobody1 see8 ,,mendoza4 turning on him impressively ,young man1 if ,i am tried1 ,i shall plead guilty1 and explain what drove me from ,england1 home and duty4 ,do you wish to have the respectable name of ,straker dragged through the mud of a ,spanish criminal court8 ,the police will search me4 ,they will find ,louisa's portrait4 ,it will be published in the illustrated papers4 ,you blench4 ,it will be your doing1 remember4 ,,straker4 with baffled rage ,i don't care about the court4 ,it's avin our name mixed up with yours that ,i object to1 you blackmailin swine1 you4 ,,mendoza4 ,language unworthy of ,louisa's brother6 ,but no matter3 you are muzzled3 that is enough for us4 ,he turns to face his own men1 who back uneasily across the amphitheatre towards the cave to take refuge behind him1 as a fresh party1 muffled for motoring1 comes from the road in riotous spirits4 ,ann1 who makes straight for ,tanner1 comes first2 then ,violet1 helped over the rough ground by ,hector holding her right hand and ,ramsden her left4 ,mendoza goes to his presidential block and seats himself calmly with his rank and file grouped behind him1 and his ,staff1 consisting of ,duval and the ,anarchist on his right and the two ,social-,democrats on his left1 supporting him in flank4 ,,ann4 ,it's ,jack6 ,,tanner4 ,caught6 ,,hector4 ,why1 certainly it is4 ,i said it was you1 ,tanner1 ,we've just been stopped by a puncture3 the road is full of nails4 ,,violet4 ,what are you doing here with all these men8 ,,ann4 ,why did you leave us without a word of warning8 ,,hector4 ,i want that bunch of roses1 ,miss ,whitefield4 ,to ,tanner ,when we found you were gone1 ,miss ,whitefield bet me a bunch of roses my car would not overtake yours before you reached ,monte ,carlo4 ,,tanner4 ,but this is not the road to ,monte ,carlo4 ,,hector4 ,no matter4 ,miss ,whitefield tracked you at every stopping place3 she is a regular ,sherlock ,holmes4 ,,tanner4 ,the ,life ,force6 ,i am lost4 ,,octavius4 ,bounding gaily down from the road into the amphitheatre1 and coming between ,tanner and ,straker ,i am so glad you are safe1 old chap4 ,we were afraid you had been captured by brigands4 ,,ramsden4 who has been staring at ,mendoza ,i seem to remember the face of your friend here4 ,mendoza rises politely and advances with a smile between ,ann and ,ramsden4 ,,hector4 ,why1 so do ,i4 ,,octavius4 ,i know you perfectly well1 ,sir2 but ,i can't think where ,i have met you4 ,,mendoza4 to ,violet ,do ,,you remember me1 madam8 ,,violet4 ,oh1 quite well2 but ,i am so stupid about names4 ,,mendoza4 ,it was at the ,savoy ,hotel4 ,to ,hector ,you1 sir1 used to come with this lady ,violet to lunch4 ,to ,octavius ,you1 sir1 often brought this lady ,ann and her mother to dinner on your way to the ,lyceum ,theatre4 ,to ,ramsden ,you1 sir1 used to come to supper1 with dropping his voice to a confidential but perfectly audible whisper several different ladies4 ,,ramsden4 angrily ,well1 what is that to you1 pray8 ,,octavius4 ,why1 ,violet1 ,i thought you hardly knew one another before this trip1 you and ,malone6 ,,violet4 vexed ,i suppose this person was the manager4 ,,mendoza4 ,the waiter1 madam4 ,i have a grateful recollection of you all4 ,i gathered from the bountiful way in which you treated me that you all enjoyed your visits very much4 ,,violet4 ,what impertinence6 ,she turns her back on him1 and goes up the hill with ,hector4 ,,ramsden4 ,that will do1 my friend4 ,you do not expect these ladies to treat you as an acquaintance1 ,i suppose1 because you have waited on them at table4 ,,mendoza4 ,pardon me3 it was you who claimed my acquaintance4 ,the ladies followed your example4 ,however1 this display of the unfortunate manners of your class closes the incident4 ,for the future1 you will please address me with the respect due to a stranger and fellow traveller4 ,he turns haughtily away and resumes his presidential seat4 ,,tanner4 ,there6 ,i have found one man on my journey capable of reasonable conversation2 and you all instinctively insult him4 ,even the ,new ,man is as bad as any of you4 ,enry3 you have behaved just like a miserable gentleman4 ,,straker4 ,gentleman6 ,not me4 ,,ramsden4 ,really1 ,tanner1 this tone-- ,,ann4 ,don't mind him1 ,granny3 you ought to know him by this time she takes his arm and coaxes him away to the hill to join ,violet and ,hector4 ,octavius follows her1 doglike4 ,,violet4 calling from the hill ,here are the soldiers4 ,they are getting out of their motors4 ,,duval4 panicstricken ,oh1 nom de ,dieu6 ,,the ,,anarchist4 ,fools3 the ,state is about to crush you because you spared it at the prompting of the political hangers-on of the bourgeoisie4 ,,the ,,sulky ,,social-,,democrat4 argumentative to the last ,on the contrary1 only by capturing the ,state machine-- ,,the ,,anarchist4 ,it is going to capture you4 ,,the ,,rowdy ,,social-,,democrat4 his anguish culminating ,ow1 chock it4 ,wot are we ere for8 ,,wot are we wytin for8 ,,mendoza4 between his teeth ,goon4 ,talk politics1 you idiots3 nothing sounds more respectable4 ,keep it up1 ,i tell you4 ,the soldiers line the road1 commanding the amphitheatre with their rifles4 ,the brigands1 struggling with an over-whelming impulse to hide behind one another1 look as unconcerned as they can4 ,mendoza rises superbly1 with undaunted front4 ,the officer in command steps down from the road in to the amphitheatre2 looks hard at the brigands2 and then inquiringly at ,tanner4 ,,the ,,officer4 ,who are these men1 ,senor ,ingles8 ,,tanner4 ,my escort4 ,mendoza1 with a ,mephistophelean smile1 bows profoundly4 ,an irrepressible grin runs from face to face among the brigands4 ,they touch their hats1 except the ,anarchist1 who defies the ,state with folded arms4 ,,act ,,iv ,the garden of a villa in ,granada4 ,whoever wishes to know what it is like must go to ,granada and see4 ,one may prosaically specify a group of hills dotted with villas1 the ,alhambra on the top of one of the hills1 and a considerable town in the valley1 approached by dusty white roads in which the children1 no matter what they are doing or thinking about1 automatically whine for halfpence and reach out little clutching brown palms for them2 but there is nothing in this description except the ,alhambra1 the begging1 and the color of the roads1 that does not fit ,surrey as well as ,spain4 ,the difference is that the ,surrey hills are comparatively small and ugly1 and should properly be called the ,surrey ,protuberances2 but these ,spanish hills are of mountain stock3 the amenity which conceals their size does not compromise their dignity4 ,this particular garden is on a hill opposite the ,alhambra2 and the villa is as expensive and pretentious as a villa must be if it is to be let furnished by the week to opulent ,american and ,english visitors4 ,if we stand on the lawn at the foot of the garden and look uphill1 our horizon is the stone balustrade of a flagged platform on the edge of infinite space at the top of the hill4 ,between us and this platform is a flower garden with a circular basin and fountain in the centre1 surrounded by geometrical flower beds1 gravel paths1 and clipped yew trees in the genteelest order4 ,the garden is higher than our lawn2 so we reach it by a few steps in the middle of its embankment4 ,the platform is higher again than the garden1 from which we mount a couple more steps to look over the balustrade at a fine view of the town up the valley and of the hills that stretch away beyond it to where1 in the remotest distance1 they become mountains4 ,on our left is the villa1 accessible by steps from the left hand corner of the garden4 ,returning from the platform through the garden and down again to the lawn 7a movement which leaves the villa behind us on our right7 we find evidence of literary interests on the part of the tenants in the fact that there is no tennis net nor set of croquet hoops1 but1 on our left1 a little iron garden table with books on it1 mostly yellow-backed1 and a chair beside it4 ,a chair on the right has also a couple of open books upon it4 ,there are no newspapers1 a circumstance which1 with the absence of games1 might lead an intelligent spectator to the most far reaching conclusions as to the sort of people who live in the villa4 ,such speculations are checked1 however1 on this delightfully fine afternoon1 by the appearance at a little gate in a paling on our left1 of ,henry ,straker in his professional costume4 ,he opens the gate for an elderly gentleman1 and follows him on to the lawn4 ,this elderly gentleman defies the ,spanish sun in a black frock coat1 tall silk bat1 trousers in which narrow stripes of dark grey and lilac blend into a highly respectable color1 and a black necktie tied into a bow over spotless linen4 ,probably therefore a man whose social position needs constant and scrupulous affirmation without regard to climate3 one who would dress thus for the middle of the ,sahara or the top of ,mont ,blanc4 ,and since he has not the stamp of the class which accepts as its life-mission the advertizing and maintenance of first rate tailoring and millinery1 he looks vulgar in his finery1 though in a working dress of any kind he would look dignified enough4 ,he is a bullet cheeked man with a red complexion1 stubbly hair1 smallish eyes1 a hard mouth that folds down at the corners1 and a dogged chin4 ,the looseness of skin that comes with age has attacked his throat and the laps of his cheeks2 but he is still hard as an apple above the mouth2 so that the upper half of his face looks younger than the lower4 ,he has the self-confidence of one who has made money1 and something of the truculence of one who has made it in a brutalizing struggle1 his civility having under it a perceptible menace that he has other methods in reserve if necessary4 ,withal1 a man to be rather pitied when he is not to be feared2 for there is something pathetic about him at times1 as if the huge commercial machine which has worked him into his frock coat had allowed him very little of his own way and left his affections hungry and baffled4 ,at the first word that falls from him it is clear that he is an ,irishman whose native intonation has clung to him through many changes of place and rank4 ,one can only guess that the original material of his speech was perhaps the surly ,kerry brogue2 but the degradation of speech that occurs in ,london1 ,glasgow1 ,dublin and big cities generally has been at work on it so long that nobody but an arrant cockney would dream of calling it a brogue now2 for its music is almost gone1 though its surliness is still perceptible4 ,straker1 as a very obvious cockney1 inspires him with implacable contempt1 as a stupid ,englishman who cannot even speak his own language properly4 ,straker1 on the other hand1 regards the old gentleman's accent as a joke thoughtfully provided by ,providence expressly for the amusement of the ,british race1 and treats him normally with the indulgence due to an inferior and unlucky species1 but occasionally with indignant alarm when the old gentleman shows signs of intending his ,irish nonsense to be taken seriously4 ,,straker4 ,i'll go tell the young lady4 ,she said you'd prefer to stay here he turns to go up through the garden to the villa4 ,,malone4 who has been looking round him with lively curiosity ,the young lady8 ,that's ,miss ,violet1 eh8 ,,straker4 stopping on the steps with sudden suspicion ,well1 you know1 don't you8 ,,malone4 ,do ,i8 ,,straker4 his temper rising ,well1 do you or don't you8 ,,malone4 ,what business is that of yours8 ,straker1 now highly indignant1 comes back from the steps and confronts the visitor4 ,,straker4 ,i'll tell you what business it is of mine4 ,miss ,robinson-- ,,malone4 interrupting ,oh1 her name is ,robinson1 is it8 ,thank you4 ,,straker4 ,why1 you don't know even her name8 ,,malone4 ,yes ,i do1 now that you've told me4 ,,straker4 after a moment of stupefaction at the old man's readiness in repartee ,look here3 what do you mean by gittin into my car and lettin me bring you here if you're not the person ,i took that note to8 ,,malone4 ,who else did you take it to1 pray8 ,,straker4 ,i took it to ,mr ,ector ,malone1 at ,miss ,robinson's request1 see8 ,miss ,robinson is not my principal3 ,i took it to oblige her4 ,i know ,mr ,malone2 and he ain't you1 not by a long chalk4 ,at the hotel they told me that your name is ,ector ,malone4 ,,malone4 ,hector ,malone4 ,,straker4 with calm superiority ,hector in your own country3 that's what comes o livin in provincial places like ,ireland and ,america4 ,over here you're ,ector3 if you avn't noticed it before you soon will4 ,the growing strain of the conversation is here relieved by ,violet1 who has sallied from the villa and through the garden to the steps1 which she now descends1 coming very opportunely between ,malone and ,straker4 ,,violet4 to ,straker ,did you take my message8 ,,straker4 ,yes1 miss4 ,i took it to the hotel and sent it up1 expecting to see young ,mr ,malone4 ,then out walks this gent1 and says it's all right and he'll come with me4 ,so as the hotel people said he was ,mr ,ector ,malone1 ,i fetched him4 ,and now he goes back on what he said4 ,but if he isn't the gentleman you meant1 say the word3 it's easy enough to fetch him back again4 ,,malone4 ,i should esteem it a great favor if ,i might have a short conversation with you1 madam4 ,i am ,hector's father1 as this bright ,britisher would have guessed in the course of another hour or so4 ,,straker4 coolly defiant ,no1 not in another year or so4 ,when we've ad you as long to polish up as we've ad im1 perhaps you'll begin to look a little bit up to is mark4 ,at present you fall a long way short4 ,you've got too many aitches1 for one thing4 ,to ,violet1 amiably ,all right1 ,miss3 you want to talk to him3 ,i shan't intrude4 ,he nods affably to ,malone and goes out through the little gate in the paling4 ,,violet4 very civilly ,i am so sorry1 ,mr ,malone1 if that man has been rude to you4 ,but what can we do8 ,he is our chauffeur4 ,,malone4 ,your what8 ,,violet4 ,the driver of our automobile4 ,he can drive a motor car at seventy miles an hour1 and mend it when it breaks down4 ,we are dependent on our motor cars2 and our motor cars are dependent on him2 so of course we are dependent on him4 ,,malone4 ,i've noticed1 madam1 that every thousand dollars an ,englishman gets seems to add one to the number of people he's dependent on4 ,however1 you needn't apologize for your man3 ,i made him talk on purpose4 ,by doing so ,i learnt that you're staying here in ,grannida with a party of ,english1 including my son ,hector4 ,,violet4 conversationally ,yes4 ,we intended to go to ,nice2 but we had to follow a rather eccentric member of our party who started first and came here4 ,won't you sit down8 ,she clears the nearest chair of the two books on it4 ,,malone4 impressed by this attention ,thank you4 ,he sits down1 examining her curiously as she goes to the iron table to put down the books4 ,when she turns to him again1 he says ,miss ,robinson1 ,i believe8 ,,violet4 sitting down ,yes4 ,,malone4 ,taking a letter from his pocket ,your note to ,hector runs as follows ,violet is unable to repress a start4 ,he pauses quietly to take out and put on his spectacles1 which have gold rims3 ,dearest3 they have all gone to the ,alhambra for the afternoon4 ,i have shammed headache and have the garden all to myself4 ,jump into ,jack's motor3 ,straker will rattle you here in a jiffy4 ,quick1 quick1 quick4 ,your loving ,violet4 ,he looks at her2 but by this time she has recovered herself1 and meets his spectacles with perfect composure4 ,he continues slowly ,now ,i don't know on what terms young people associate in ,english society2 but in ,america that note would be considered to imply a very considerable degree of affectionate intimacy between the parties4 ,,violet4 ,yes3 ,i know your son very well1 ,mr ,malone4 ,have you any objection8 ,,malone4 somewhat taken aback ,no1 no objection exactly4 ,provided it is understood that my son is altogether dependent on me1 and that ,i have to be consulted in any important step he may propose to take4 ,,violet4 ,i am sure you would not be unreasonable with him1 ,mr ,malone4 ,,malone4 ,i hope not1 ,miss ,robinson2 but at your age you might think many things unreasonable that don't seem so to me4 ,,violet4 with a little shrug ,oh well1 ,i suppose there's no use our playing at cross purposes1 ,mr ,malone4 ,hector wants to marry me4 ,,malone4 ,i inferred from your note that he might4 ,well1 ,miss ,robinson1 he is his own master2 but if he marries you he shall not have a rap from me4 ,he takes off his spectacles and pockets them with the note4 ,,violet4 with some severity ,that is not very complimentary to me1 ,mr ,malone4 ,,malone4 ,i say nothing against you1 ,miss ,robinson3 ,i daresay you are an amiable and excellent young lady4 ,but ,i have other views for ,hector4 ,,violet4 ,hector may not have other views for himself1 ,mr ,malone4 ,,malone4 ,possibly not4 ,then he does without me3 that's all4 ,i daresay you are prepared for that4 ,when a young lady writes to a young man to come to her quick1 quick1 quick1 money seems nothing and love seems everything4 ,,violet4 sharply ,i beg your pardon1 ,mr ,malone3 ,i do not think anything so foolish4 ,hector must have money4 ,,malone4 staggered ,oh1 very well1 very well4 ,no doubt he can work for it4 ,,violet4 ,what is the use of having money if you have to work for it8 ,she rises impatiently4 ,it's all nonsense1 ,mr ,malone3 you must enable your son to keep up his position4 ,it is his right4 ,,malone4 grimly ,i should not advise you to marry him on the strength of that right1 ,miss ,robinson4 ,violet1 who has almost lost her temper1 controls herself with an effort2 unclenches her fingers2 and resumes her seat with studied tranquillity and reasonableness4 ,,violet4 ,what objection have you to me1 pray8 ,my social position is as good as ,hector's1 to say the least4 ,he admits it4 ,,malone4 shrewdly ,you tell him so from time to time1 eh8 ,hector's social position in ,england1 ,miss ,robinson1 is just what ,i choose to buy for him4 ,i have made him a fair offer4 ,let him pick out the most historic house1 castle or abbey that ,england contains4 ,the day that he tells me he wants it for a wife worthy of its traditions1 ,i buy it for him1 and give him the means of keeping it up4 ,,violet4 ,what do you mean by a wife worthy of its traditions8 ,cannot any well bred woman keep such a house for him8 ,,malone4 ,no3 she must be born to it4 ,,violet4 ,hector was not born to it1 was he8 ,,malone4 ,his granmother was a barefooted ,irish girl that nursed me by a turf fire4 ,let him marry another such1 and ,i will not stint her marriage portion4 ,let him raise himself socially with my money or raise somebody else so long as there is a social profit somewhere1 ,i'll regard my expenditure as justified4 ,but there must be a profit for someone4 ,a marriage with you would leave things just where they are4 ,,violet4 ,many of my relations would object very much to my marrying the grandson of a common woman1 ,mr ,malone4 ,that may be prejudice2 but so is your desire to have him marry a title prejudice4 ,,malone4 rising1 and approaching her with a scrutiny in which there is a good deal of reluctant respect ,you seem a pretty straightforward downright sort of a young woman4 ,,violet4 ,i do not see why ,i should be made miserably poor because ,i cannot make profits for you4 ,why do you want to make ,hector unhappy8 ,,malone4 ,he will get over it all right enough4 ,men thrive better on disappointments in love than on disappointments in money4 ,i daresay you think that sordid2 but ,i know what ,i'm talking about4 ,my father died of starvation in ,ireland in the black #dg1 ,maybe you've heard of it4 ,,violet4 ,the ,famine8 ,,malone4 with smouldering passion ,no1 the starvation4 ,when a country is full of food1 and exporting it1 there can be no famine4 ,my father was starved dead2 and ,i was starved out to ,america in my mother's arms4 ,english rule drove me and mine out of ,ireland4 ,well1 you can keep ,ireland4 ,i and my like are coming back to buy ,england2 and we'll buy the best of it4 ,i want no middle class properties and no middle class women for ,hector4 ,that's straightforward isn't it1 like yourself8 ,,violet4 icily pitying his sentimentality ,really1 ,mr ,malone1 ,i am astonished to hear a man of your age and good sense talking in that romantic way4 ,do you suppose ,english noblemen will sell their places to you for the asking8 ,,malone4 ,i have the refusal of two of the oldest family mansions in ,england4 ,one historic owner can't afford to keep all the rooms dusted3 the other can't afford the death duties4 ,what do you say now8 ,,violet4 ,of course it is very scandalous2 but surely you know that the ,government will sooner or later put a stop to all these ,socialistic attacks on property4 ,,malone4 grinning ,d'y' think they'll be able to get that done before ,i buy the house--or rather the abbey8 ,they're both abbeys4 ,,violet4 putting that aside rather impatiently ,oh1 well1 let us talk sense1 ,mr ,malone4 ,you must feel that we haven't been talking sense so far4 ,,malone4 ,i can't say ,i do4 ,i mean all ,i say4 ,,violet4 ,then you don't know ,hector as ,i do4 ,he is romantic and faddy--he gets it from you1 ,i fancy--and he wants a certain sort of wife to take care of him4 ,not a faddy sort of person1 you know4 ,,malone4 ,somebody like you1 perhaps8 ,,violet4 quietly ,well1 yes4 ,but you cannot very well ask me to undertake this with absolutely no means of keeping up his position4 ,,malone4 alarmed ,stop a bit1 stop a bit4 ,where are we getting to8 ,i'm not aware that ,i'm asking you to undertake anything4 ,,violet4 ,of course1 ,mr ,malone1 you can make it very difficult for me to speak to you if you choose to misunderstand me4 ,,malone4 half bewildered ,i don't wish to take any unfair advantage2 but we seem to have got off the straight track somehow4 ,straker1 with the air of a man who has been making haste1 opens the little gate1 and admits ,hector1 who1 snorting with indignation1 comes upon the lawn1 and is making for his father when ,violet1 greatly dismayed1 springs up and intercepts him4 ,straker doer not wait2 at least he does not remain visibly within earshot4 ,,violet4 ,oh1 how unlucky6 ,now please1 ,hector1 say nothing4 ,go away until ,i have finished speaking to your father4 ,,hector4 inexorably ,no1 ,violet3 ,i mean to have this thing out1 right away4 ,he puts her aside2 passes her by2 and faces his father1 whose cheeks darken as his ,irish blood begins to simmer4 ,dad3 you've not played this hand straight4 ,,malone4 ,hwat d'y'mean8 ,,hector4 ,you've opened a letter addressed to me4 ,you've impersonated me and stolen a march on this lady4 ,that's dishonorable4 ,,malone4 threateningly ,now you take care what you're saying1 ,hector4 ,take care1 ,i tell you4 ,,hector4 ,i have taken care4 ,i am taking care4 ,i'm taking care of my honor and my position in ,english society4 ,,malone4 hotly ,your position has been got by my money3 do you know that8 ,,hector4 ,well1 you've just spoiled it all by opening that letter4 ,a letter from an ,english lady1 not addressed to you--a confidential letter6 a delicate letter6 a private letter opened by my father6 ,that's a sort of thing a man can't struggle against in ,england4 ,the sooner we go back together the better4 ,he appeals mutely to the heavens to witness the shame and anguish of two outcasts4 ,,violet4 snubbing him with an instinctive dislike for scene making ,don't be unreasonable1 ,hector4 ,it was quite natural of ,mr ,malone to open my letter3 his name was on the envelope4 ,,malone4 ,there6 ,you've no common sense1 ,hector4 ,i thank you1 ,miss ,robinson4 ,,hector4 ,i thank you1 too4 ,it's very kind of you4 ,my father knows no better4 ,,malone4 furiously clenching his fists ,hector-- ,,hector4 with undaunted moral force ,oh1 it's no use hectoring me4 ,a private letter's a private letter1 dad3 you can't get over that4 ,,malone raising his voice ,i won't be talked back to by you1 d'y' hear8 ,,violet4 ,ssh6 please1 please4 ,here they all come4 ,father and son1 checked1 glare mutely at one another as ,tanner comes in through the little gate with ,ramsden1 followed by ,octavius and ,ann4 ,,violet4 ,back already6 ,,tanner4 ,the ,alhambra is not open this afternoon4 ,,violet4 ,what a sell6 ,tanner passes on1 and presently finds himself between ,hector and a strange elder1 both apparently on the verge of personal combat4 ,he looks from one to the other for an explanation4 ,they sulkily avoid his eye1 and nurse their wrath in silence4 ,,ramsden4 ,is it wise for you to be out in the sunshine with such a headache1 ,violet8 ,,tanner4 ,have you recovered too1 ,malone8 ,,violet4 ,oh1 ,i forgot4 ,we have not all met before4 ,mr ,malone3 won't you introduce your father8 ,,hector4 with ,roman firmness ,no1 ,i will not4 ,he is no father of mine4 ,,malone4 very angry ,you disown your dad before your ,english friends1 do you8 ,,violet4 ,oh please don't make a scene4 ,ann and ,octavius1 lingering near the gate1 exchange an astonished glance1 and discreetly withdraw up the steps to the garden1 where they can enjoy the disturbance without intruding4 ,on their way to the steps ,ann sends a little grimace of mute sympathy to ,violet1 who is standing with her back to the little table1 looking on in helpless annoyance as her husband soars to higher and higher moral eminences without the least regard to the old man's millions4 ,,hector4 ,i'm very sorry1 ,miss ,robinson2 but ,i'm contending for a principle4 ,i am a son1 and1 ,i hope1 a dutiful one2 but before everything ,i'm a ,man666 ,and when dad treats my private letters as his own1 and takes it on himself to say that ,i shan't marry you if ,i am happy and fortunate enough to gain your consent1 then ,i just snap my fingers and go my own way4 ,,tanner4 ,marry ,violet6 ,,ramsden4 ,are you in your senses8 ,,tanner4 ,do you forget what we told you8 ,,hector4 recklessly ,i don't care what you told me4 ,,ramsden4 scandalized ,tut tut1 sir6 ,monstrous6 he flings away towards the gate1 his elbows quivering with indignation ,,tanner4 ,another madman6 ,these men in love should be locked up4 ,he gives ,hector up as hopeless1 and turns away towards the garden1 but ,malone1 taking offence in a new direction1 follows him and compels him1 by the aggressivenes of his tone1 to stop4 ,,malone4 ,i don't understand this4 ,is ,hector not good enough for this lady1 pray8 ,,tanner4 ,my dear sir1 the lady is married already4 ,hector knows it2 and yet he persists in his infatuation4 ,take him home and lock him up4 ,,malone4 bitterly ,so this is the high-born social tone ,i've spoilt by my ignorant1 uncultivated behavior6 ,makin love to a married woman6 ,he comes angrily between ,hector and ,violet1 and almost bawls into ,hector's left ear ,you've picked up that habit of the ,british aristocracy1 have you8 ,,hector4 ,that's all right4 ,don't you trouble yourself about that4 ,i'll answer for the morality of what ,i'm doing4 ,,tanner4 coming forward to ,hector's right hand with flashing eyes ,well said1 ,malone6 ,you also see that mere marriage laws are not morality6 ,i agree with you2 but unfortunately ,violet does not4 ,,malone4 ,i take leave to doubt that1 sir4 ,turning on ,violet ,let me tell you1 ,mrs ,robinson1 or whatever your right name is1 you had no right to send that letter to my son when you were the wife of another man4 ,,hector4 outraged ,this is the last straw4 ,dad3 you have insulted my wife4 ,,malone4 ,,your wife6 ,,tanner4 ,,you the missing husband6 ,another moral impostor6 ,he smites his brow1 and collapses into ,malone's chair4 ,,malone4 ,you've married without my consent6 ,,ramsden4 ,you have deliberately humbugged us1 sir6 ,,hector4 ,here3 ,i have had just about enough of being badgered4 ,violet and ,i are married3 that's the long and the short of it4 ,now what have you got to say--any of you8 ,,malone4 ,i know what ,i've got to say4 ,she's married a beggar4 ,,hector4 ,no2 she's married a ,worker his ,american pronunciation imparts an overwhelming intensity to this simple and unpopular word4 ,i start to earn my own living this very afternoon4 ,,malone4 sneering angrily ,yes3 you're very plucky now1 because you got your remittance from me yesterday or this morning1 ,i reckon4 ,wait til it's spent4 ,you won't be so full of cheek then4 ,,hector4 producing a letter from his pocketbook ,here it is thrusting it on his father4 ,now you just take your remittance and yourself out of my life4 ,i'm done with remittances2 and ,i'm done with you4 ,i don't sell the privilege of insulting my wife for a thousand dollars4 ,,malone4 deeply wounded and full of concern ,hector3 you don't know what poverty is4 ,,hector4 fervidly ,well1 ,i want to know what it is4 ,i want'be a ,man4 ,violet3 you come along with me1 to your own home3 ,i'll see you through4 ,,octavius4 jumping down from the garden to the lawn and running to ,hector's left hand ,i hope you'll shake hands with me before you go1 ,hector4 ,i admire and respect you more than ,i can say4 ,he is affected almost to tears as they shake hands4 ,,violet4 also almost in tears1 but of vexation ,oh don't be an idiot1 ,tavy4 ,hector's about as fit to become a workman as you are4 ,,tanner4 rising from his chair on the other ride of ,hector ,never fear3 there's no question of his becoming a navvy1 ,mrs ,malone4 ,to ,hector ,there's really no difficulty about capital to start with4 ,treat me as a friend3 draw on me4 ,,octavius4 impulsively ,or on me4 ,,malone4 with fierce jealousy ,who wants your dirty money8 ,who should he draw on but his own father8 ,tanner and ,octavius recoil1 ,octavius rather hurt1 ,tanner consoled by the solution of the money difficulty4 ,violet looks up hopefully4 ,hector3 don't be rash1 my boy4 ,i'm sorry for what ,i said3 ,i never meant to insult ,violet3 ,i take it all back4 ,she's just the wife you want3 there6 ,,hector4 ,patting him on the shoulder ,well1 that's all right1 dad4 ,say no more3 we're friends again4 ,only1 ,i take no money from anybody4 ,,malone4 pleading abjectly ,don't be hard on me1 ,hector4 ,i'd rather you quarrelled and took the money than made friends and starved4 ,you don't know what the world is3 ,i do4 ,,hector4 ,no1 no1 ,,no4 ,that's fixed3 that's not going to change4 ,he passes his father inexorably by1 and goes to ,violet4 ,come1 ,mrs ,malone3 you've got to move to the hotel with me1 and take your proper place before the world4 ,,violet4 ,but ,i must go in1 dear1 and tell ,davis to pack4 ,won't you go on and make them give you a room overlooking the garden for me8 ,i'll join you in half an hour4 ,,hector4 ,very well4 ,you'll dine with us1 ,dad1 won't you8 ,,malone4 eager to conciliate him ,yes1 yes4 ,,hector4 ,see you all later4 ,he waves his hand to ,ann1 who has now been joined by ,tanner1 ,octavius1 and ,ramsden in the garden1 and goes out through the little gate1 leaving his father and ,violet together on the lawn4 ,,malone4 ,you'll try to bring him to his senses1 ,violet3 ,i know you will4 ,,violet4 ,i had no idea he could be so headstrong4 ,if he goes on like that1 what can ,i do8 ,,malone4 ,don't be discurridged3 domestic pressure may be slow2 but it's sure4 ,you'll wear him down4 ,promise me you will4 ,,violet4 ,i will do my best4 ,of course ,i think it's the greatest nonsense deliberately making us poor like that4 ,,malone4 ,of course it is4 ,,violet4 after a moment's reflection ,you had better give me the remittance4 ,he will want it for his hotel bill4 ,i'll see whether ,i can induce him to accept it4 ,not now1 of course1 but presently4 ,,malone4 eagerly ,yes1 yes1 yes3 that's just the thing he hands her the thousand dollar bill1 and adds cunningly ,y'understand that this is only a bachelor allowance4 ,,violet4 ,coolly ,oh1 quite4 ,she takes it4 ,thank you4 ,by the way1 ,mr ,malone1 those two houses you mentioned--the abbeys4 ,,malone4 ,yes8 ,,violet4 ,don't take one of them until ,i've seen it4 ,one never knows what may be wrong with these places4 ,,malone4 ,i won't4 ,i'll do nothing without consulting you1 never fear4 ,,violet4 politely1 but without a ray of gratitude ,thanks3 that will be much the best way4 ,she goes calmly back to the villa1 escorted obsequiously by ,malone to the upper end of the garden4 ,,tanner4 drawing ,ramsden's attention to ,malone's cringing attitude as he takes leave of ,violet ,and that poor devil is a billionaire6 one of the master spirits of the age6 ,led on a string like a pug dog by the first girl who takes the trouble to despise him4 ,i wonder will it ever come to that with me4 ,he comes down to the lawn4 ,,ramsden4 following him ,the sooner the better for you4 ,,malone4 clapping his hands as he returns through the garden ,that'll be a grand woman for ,hector4 ,i wouldn't exchange her for ten duchesses4 ,he descends to the lawn and comes between ,tanner and ,ramsden4 ,,ramsden4 very civil to the billionaire ,it's an unexpected pleasure to find you in this corner of the world1 ,mr ,malone4 ,have you come to buy up the ,alhambra8 ,,malone4 ,well1 ,i don't say ,i mightn't4 ,i think ,i could do better with it than the ,spanish government4 ,but that's not what ,i came about4 ,to tell you the truth1 about a month ago ,i overheard a deal between two men over a bundle of shares4 ,they differed about the price3 they were young and greedy1 and didn't know that if the shares were worth what was bid for them they must be worth what was asked1 the margin being too small to be of any account1 you see4 ,to amuse meself1 ,i cut in and bought the shares4 ,well1 to this day ,i haven't found out what the business is4 ,the office is in this town2 and the name is ,mendoza1 ,limited4 ,now whether ,mendoza's a mine1 or a steamboat line1 or a bank1 or a patent article-- ,,tanner4 ,he's a man4 ,i know him3 his principles are thoroughly commercial4 ,let us take you round the town in our motor1 ,mr ,malone1 and call on him on the way4 ,,malone4 ,if you'll be so kind1 yes4 ,and may ,i ask who-- ,,tanner4 ,mr ,roebuck ,ramsden1 a very old friend of your daughter-in-law4 ,,malone4 ,happy to meet you1 ,mr ,ramsden4 ,,ramsden4 ,thank you4 ,mr ,tanner is also one of our circle4 ,,malone4 ,glad to know you also1 ,mr ,tanner4 ,,tanner4 ,thanks4 ,malone and ,ramsden go out very amicably through the little gate4 ,tanner calls to ,octavius1 who is wandering in the garden with ,ann ,tavy6 ,tavy comes to the steps1 ,tanner whispers loudly to him ,violet has married a financier of brigands4 ,tanner hurries away to overtake ,malone and ,ramsden4 ,ann strolls to the steps with an idle impulse to torment ,octavius4 ,,ann4 ,won't you go with them1 ,tavy8 ,,octavius4 tears suddenly flushing his eyes ,you cut me to the heart1 ,ann1 by wanting me to go he comes down on the lawn to hide his face from her4 ,she follows him caressingly4 ,,ann4 ,poor ,ricky ,ticky ,tavy6 ,poor heart6 ,,octavius4 ,it belongs to you1 ,ann4 ,forgive me3 ,i must speak of it4 ,i love you4 ,you know ,i love you4 ,,ann4 ,what's the good1 ,tavy8 ,you know that my mother is determined that ,i shall marry ,jack4 ,,octavius4 amazed ,jack6 ,,ann4 ,it seems absurd1 doesn't it8 ,,octavius4 with growing resentment ,do you mean to say that ,jack has been playing with me all this time8 ,that he has been urging me not to marry you because he intends to marry you himself8 ,,ann4 alarmed ,no no3 you mustn't lead him to believe that ,i said that3 ,i don't for a moment think that ,jack knows his own mind4 ,but it's clear from my father's will that he wished me to marry ,jack4 ,and my mother is set on it4 ,,octavius4 ,but you are not bound to sacrifice yourself always to the wishes of your parents4 ,,ann4 ,my father loved me4 ,my mother loves me4 ,surely their wishes are a better guide than my own selfishness4 ,,octavius4 ,oh1 ,i know how unselfish you are1 ,ann4 ,but believe me--though ,i know ,i am speaking in my own interest--there is another side to this question4 ,is it fair to ,jack to marry him if you do not love him8 ,is it fair to destroy my happiness as well as your own if you can bring yourself to love me8 ,,ann4 looking at him with a faint impulse of pity ,tavy1 my dear1 you are a nice creature--a good boy4 ,,octavius4 humiliated ,is that all8 ,,ann4 mischievously in spite of her pity ,that's a great deal1 ,i assure you4 ,you would always worship the ground ,i trod on1 wouldn't you8 ,,octavius4 ,i do4 ,it sounds ridiculous2 but it's no exaggeration4 ,i do2 and ,i always shall4 ,,ann4 ,always is a long word1 ,tavy4 ,you see1 ,i shall have to live up always to your idea of my divinity2 and ,i don't think ,i could do that if we were married4 ,but if ,i marry ,jack1 you'll never be disillusioned--at least not until ,i grow too old4 ,,octavius4 ,i too shall grow old1 ,ann4 ,and when ,i am eighty1 one white hair of the woman ,i love will make me tremble more than the thickest gold tress from the most beautiful young head4 ,,ann4 quite touched ,oh1 that's poetry1 ,tavy1 real poetry4 ,it gives me that strange sudden sense of an echo from a former existence which always seems to me such a striking proof that we have immortal souls4 ,,octavius4 ,do you believe that is true8 ,,ann4 ,tavy1 if it is to become true you must lose me as well as love me4 ,,octavius4 ,oh6 he hastily sits down at the little table and covers his face with his hands4 ,,ann4 with conviction ,tavy3 ,i wouldn't for worlds destroy your illusions4 ,i can neither take you nor let you go4 ,i can see exactly what will suit you4 ,you must be a sentimental old bachelor for my sake4 ,,octavius4 desperately ,ann3 ,i'll kill myself4 ,,ann4 ,oh no you won't3 that wouldn't be kind4 ,you won't have a bad time4 ,you will be very nice to women2 and you will go a good deal to the opera4 ,a broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in ,london if he has a comfortable income4 ,,octavius4 considerably cooled1 but believing that he is only recovering his self-control ,i know you mean to be kind1 ,ann4 ,jack has persuaded you that cynicism is a good tonic for me4 ,he rises with quiet dignity4 ,,ann4 studying him slyly ,you see1 ,i'm disillusionizing you already4 ,that's what ,i dread4 ,,octavius4 ,you do not dread disillusionizing ,jack4 ,,ann4 her face lighting up with mischievous ecstasy--whispering ,i can't3 he has no illusions about me4 ,i shall surprise ,jack the other way4 ,getting over an unfavorable impression is ever so much easier than living up to an ideal4 ,oh1 ,i shall enrapture ,jack sometimes6 ,,octavius4 resuming the calm phase of despair1 and beginning to enjoy his broken heart and delicate attitude without knowing it ,i don't doubt that4 ,you will enrapture him always4 ,and he--the fool6--thinks you would make him wretched4 ,,ann4 ,yes3 that's the difficulty1 so far4 ,,octavius4 heroically ,shall ,i tell him that you love him8 ,,ann4 quickly ,oh no3 he'd run away again4 ,,octavius4 shocked ,ann3 would you marry an unwilling man8 ,,ann4 ,what a queer creature you are1 ,tavy6 ,there's no such thing as a willing man when you really go for him4 ,she laughs naughtily4 ,i'm shocking you1 ,i suppose4 ,but you know you are really getting a sort of satisfaction already in being out of danger yourself4 ,,octavius startled ,satisfaction6 ,reproachfully ,you say that to me6 ,,ann4 ,well1 if it were really agony1 would you ask for more of it8 ,,octavius4 ,have ,i asked for more of it8 ,,ann4 ,you have offered to tell ,jack that ,i love him4 ,that's self-sacrifice1 ,i suppose2 but there must be some satisfaction in it4 ,perhaps it's because you're a poet4 ,you are like the bird that presses its breast against the sharp thorn to make itself sing4 ,,octavius4 ,it's quite simple4 ,i love you2 and ,i want you to be happy4 ,you don't love me2 so ,i can't make you happy myself2 but ,i can help another man to do it4 ,,ann4 ,yes3 it seems quite simple4 ,but ,i doubt if we ever know why we do things4 ,the only really simple thing is to go straight for what you want and grab it4 ,i suppose ,i don't love you1 ,tavy2 but sometimes ,i feel as if ,i should like to make a man of you somehow4 ,you are very foolish about women4 ,,octavius4 almost coldly ,i am content to be what ,i am in that respect4 ,,ann4 ,then you must keep away from them1 and only dream about them4 ,i wouldn't marry you for worlds1 ,tavy4 ,,octavius4 ,i have no hope1 ,ann3 ,i accept my ill luck4 ,but ,i don't think you quite know how much it hurts4 ,,ann4 ,you are so softhearted6 ,it's queer that you should be so different from ,violet4 ,violet's as hard as nails4 ,,octavius4 ,oh no4 ,i am sure ,violet is thoroughly womanly at heart4 ,,ann4 with some impatience ,why do you say that8 ,is it unwomanly to be thoughtful and businesslike and sensible8 ,do you want ,violet to be an idiot--or something worse1 like me8 ,,octavius4 ,something worse--like you6 ,what do you mean1 ,ann8 ,,ann4 ,oh well1 ,i don't mean that1 of course4 ,but ,i have a great respect for ,violet4 ,she gets her own way always4 ,,octavius4 sighing ,so do you4 ,,ann4 ,yes2 but somehow she gets it without coaxing--without having to make people sentimental about her4 ,,octavius4 with brotherly callousness ,nobody could get very sentimental about ,violet1 ,i think1 pretty as she is4 ,,ann4 ,oh yes they could1 if she made them4 ,,octavius4 ,but surely no really nice woman would deliberately practise on men's instincts in that way4 ,,ann4 throwing up her hands ,oh ,tavy1 ,tavy1 ,ricky ,ticky ,tavy1 heaven help the woman who marries you6 ,,octavius4 his passion reviving at the name ,oh why1 why1 why do you say that8 ,don't torment me4 ,i don't understand4 ,,ann4 ,suppose she were to tell fibs1 and lay snares for men8 ,,octavius4 ,do you think ,i could marry such a woman--,i1 who have known and loved you8 ,,ann4 ,hm6 ,well1 at all events1 she wouldn't let you if she were wise4 ,so that's settled4 ,and now ,i can't talk any more4 ,say you forgive me1 and that the subject is closed4 ,,octavius4 ,i have nothing to forgive2 and the subject is closed4 ,and if the wound is open1 at least you shall never see it bleed4 ,,ann4 ,poetic to the last1 ,tavy4 ,goodbye1 dear4 ,she pats his check2 has an impulse to kiss him and then another impulse of distaste which prevents her2 finally runs away through the garden and into the villa4 ,octavius again takes refuge at the table1 bowing his head on his arms and sobbing softly4 ,mrs ,whitefield1 who has been pottering round the ,granada shops1 and has a net full of little parcels in her hand1 comes in through the gate and sees him4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 running to him and lifting his head ,what's the matter1 ,tavy8 ,are you ill8 ,,octavius4 ,no1 nothing1 nothing4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 still holding his head1 anxiously ,but you're crying4 ,is it about ,violet's marriage8 ,,octavius4 ,no1 no4 ,who told you about ,violet8 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 restoring the head to its owner ,i met ,roebuck and that awful old ,irishman4 ,are you sure you're not ill8 ,what's the matter8 ,,octavius4 affectionately ,it's nothing--only a man's broken heart4 ,doesn't that sound ridiculous8 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,but what is it all about8 ,has ,ann been doing anything to you8 ,,octavius4 ,it's not ,ann's fault4 ,and don't think for a moment that ,i blame you4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 startled ,for what8 ,,octavius4 pressing her hand consolingly ,for nothing4 ,i said ,i didn't blame you4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,but ,i haven't done anything4 ,what's the matter8 ,,octavius4 smiling sadly ,can't you guess8 ,i daresay you are right to prefer ,jack to me as a husband for ,ann2 but ,i love ,ann2 and it hurts rather4 ,he rises and moves away from her towards the middle of the lawn4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 following him hastily ,does ,ann say that ,i want her to marry ,jack8 ,,octavius4 ,yes3 she has told me4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 thoughtfully ,then ,i'm very sorry for you1 ,tavy4 ,it's only her way of saying ,,she wants to marry ,jack4 ,little she cares what ,i say or what ,i want6 ,,octavius4 ,but she would not say it unless she believed it4 ,surely you don't suspect ,ann of--of ,,deceit66 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,well1 never mind1 ,tavy4 ,i don't know which is best for a young man3 to know too little1 like you1 or too much1 like ,jack4 ,tanner returns4 ,,tanner4 ,well1 ,i've disposed of old ,malone4 ,i've introduced him to ,mendoza1 ,limited2 and left the two brigands together to talk it out4 ,hullo1 ,tavy6 anything wrong8 ,,octavius4 ,i must go wash my face1 ,i see4 ,to ,mrs ,whitefield ,tell him what you wish4 ,to ,tanner ,you may take it from me1 ,jack1 that ,ann approves of it4 ,,tanner4 puzzled by his manner ,approves of what8 ,,octavius4 ,of what ,mrs ,whitefield wishes4 ,he goes his way with sad dignity to the villa4 ,,tanner4 to ,mrs ,whitefield ,this is very mysterious4 ,what is it you wish8 ,it shall be done1 whatever it is4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 with snivelling gratitude ,thank you1 ,jack4 ,she sits down4 ,tanner brings the other chair from the table and sits close to her with his elbows on his knees1 giving her his whole attention4 ,i don't know why it is that other people's children are so nice to me1 and that my own have so little consideration for me4 ,it's no wonder ,i don't seem able to care for ,ann and ,rhoda as ,i do for you and ,tavy and ,violet4 ,it's a very queer world4 ,it used to be so straightforward and simple2 and now nobody seems to think and feel as they ought4 ,nothing has been right since that speech that ,professor ,tyndall made at ,belfast4 ,,tanner4 ,yes3 life is more complicated than we used to think4 ,but what am ,i to do for you8 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,that's just what ,i want to tell you4 ,of course you'll marry ,ann whether ,i like it myself or not-- ,,tanner4 starting ,it seems to me that ,i shall presently be married to ,ann whether ,i like it myself or not4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 peacefully ,oh1 very likely you will3 you know what she is when she has set her mind on anything4 ,but don't put it on me3 that's all ,i ask4 ,tavy has just let out that she's been saying that ,i am making her marry you2 and the poor boy is breaking his heart about it2 for he is in love with her himself1 though what he sees in her so wonderful1 goodness knows3 ,i don't4 ,it's no use telling ,tavy that ,ann puts things into people's heads by telling them that ,i want them when the thought of them never crossed my mind4 ,it only sets ,tavy against me4 ,but you know better than that4 ,so if you marry her1 don't put the blame on me4 ,,tanner4 emphatically ,i haven't the slightest intention of marrying her4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 slyly ,she'd suit you better than ,tavy4 ,she'd meet her match in you1 ,jack4 ,i'd like to see her meet her match4 ,,tanner4 ,no man is a match for a woman1 except with a poker and a pair of hobnailed boots4 ,not always even then4 ,anyhow1 ,i can't take the poker to her4 ,i should be a mere slave4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,no3 she's afraid of you4 ,at all events1 you would tell her the truth about herself4 ,she wouldn't be able to slip out of it as she does with me4 ,,tanner4 ,everybody would call me a brute if ,i told ,ann the truth about herself in terms of her own moral code4 ,to begin with1 ,ann says things that are not strictly true4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,i'm glad somebody sees she is not an angel4 ,,tanner4 ,in short--to put it as a husband would put it when exasperated to the point of speaking out--she is a liar4 ,and since she has plunged ,tavy head over ears in love with her without any intention of marrying him1 she is a coquette1 according to the standard definition of a coquette as a woman who rouses passions she has no intention of gratifying4 ,and as she has now reduced you to the point of being willing to sacrifice me at the altar for the mere satisfaction of getting me to call her a liar to her face1 ,i may conclude that she is a bully as well4 ,she can't bully men as she bullies women2 so she habitually and unscrupulously uses her personal fascination to make men give her whatever she wants4 ,that makes her almost something for which ,i know no polite name4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 in mild expostulation ,well1 you can't expect perfection1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 ,i don't4 ,but what annoys me is that ,ann does4 ,i know perfectly well that all this about her being a liar and a bully and a coquette and so forth is a trumped-up moral indictment which might be brought against anybody4 ,we all lie2 we all bully as much as we dare2 we all bid for admiration without the least intention of earning it2 we all get as much rent as we can out of our powers of fascination4 ,if ,ann would admit this ,i shouldn't quarrel with her4 ,but she won't4 ,if she has children she'll take advantage of their telling lies to amuse herself by whacking them4 ,if another woman makes eyes at me1 she'll refuse to know a coquette4 ,she will do just what she likes herself whilst insisting on everybody else doing what the conventional code prescribes4 ,in short1 ,i can stand everything except her confounded hypocrisy4 ,that's what beats me4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 carried away by the relief of hearing her own opinion so eloquently expressed ,oh1 she is a hypocrite4 ,she is3 she is4 ,isn't she8 ,,tanner4 ,then why do you want to marry me to her8 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 querulously ,there now6 put it on me1 of course4 ,i never thought of it until ,tavy told me she said ,i did4 ,but1 you know1 ,i'm very fond of ,tavy3 he's a sort of son to me2 and ,i don't want him to be trampled on and made wretched4 ,,tanner4 ,whereas ,i don't matter1 ,i suppose4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,oh1 you are different1 somehow3 you are able to take care of yourself4 ,you'd serve her out4 ,and anyhow1 she must marry somebody4 ,,tanner4 ,aha6 there speaks the life instinct4 ,you detest her2 but you feel that you must get her married4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 rising1 shocked ,do you mean that ,i detest my own daughter6 ,surely you don't believe me to be so wicked and unnatural as that1 merely because ,i see her faults4 ,,tanner4 cynically ,you love her1 then8 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,why1 of course ,i do4 ,what queer things you say1 ,jack6 ,we can't help loving our own blood relations4 ,,tanner4 ,well1 perhaps it saves unpleasantness to say so4 ,but for my part1 ,i suspect that the tables of consanguinity have a natural basis in a natural repugnance he rises4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,you shouldn't say things like that1 ,jack4 ,i hope you won't tell ,ann that ,i have been speaking to you4 ,i only wanted to set myself right with you and ,tavy4 ,i couldn't sit mumchance and have everything put on me4 ,,tanner4 politely ,quite so4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 dissatisfied ,and now ,i've only made matters worse4 ,tavy's angry with me because ,i don't worship ,ann4 ,and when it's been put into my head that ,ann ought to marry you1 what can ,i say except that it would serve her right8 ,,tanner4 ,thank you4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,now don't be silly and twist what ,i say into something ,i don't mean4 ,i ought to have fair play-- ,ann comes from the villa1 followed presently by ,violet1 who is dressed for driving4 ,,ann4 coming to her mother's right hand with threatening suavity ,well1 mamma darling1 you seem to be having a delightful chat with ,jack4 ,we can hear you all over the place4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 appalled ,have you overheard-- ,,tanner4 ,never fear3 ,ann is only--well1 we were discussing that habit of hers just now4 ,she hasn't heard a word4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 stoutly ,i don't care whether she has or not3 ,i have a right to say what ,i please4 ,,violet4 arriving on the lawn and coming between ,mrs ,whitefield and ,tanner ,i've come to say goodbye4 ,i'm off for my honeymoon4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 crying ,oh don't say that1 ,violet4 ,and no wedding1 no breakfast1 no clothes1 nor anything4 ,,violet4 petting her ,it won't be for long4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,don't let him take you to ,america4 ,promise me that you won't4 ,,violet4 very decidedly ,i should think not1 indeed4 ,don't cry1 dear3 ,i'm only going to the hotel4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,but going in that dress1 with your luggage1 makes one realize--she chokes1 and then breaks out again ,how ,i wish you were my daughter1 ,violet6 ,,violet4 soothing her ,there1 there3 so ,i am4 ,ann will be jealous4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,ann doesn't care a bit for me4 ,,ann4 ,fie1 mother6 ,come1 now3 you mustn't cry any more3 you know ,violet doesn't like it ,mrs ,whitefield dries her eyes1 and subsides4 ,,violet4 ,goodbye1 ,jack4 ,,tanner4 ,goodbye1 ,violet4 ,,violet4 ,the sooner you get married too1 the better4 ,you will be much less misunderstood4 ,,tanner4 restively ,i quite expect to get married in the course of the afternoon4 ,you all seem to have set your minds on it4 ,,violet4 ,you might do worse4 ,to ,mrs ,whitefield3 putting her arm round her ,let me take you to the hotel with me3 the drive will do you good4 ,come in and get a wrap4 ,she takes her towards the villa4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 as they go up through the garden ,i don't know what ,i shall do when you are gone1 with no one but ,ann in the house2 and she always occupied with the men6 ,it's not to be expected that your husband will care to be bothered with an old woman like me4 ,oh1 you needn't tell me3 politeness is all very well2 but ,i know what people think--,she talks herself and ,violet out of sight and hearing4 ,ann1 musing on ,violet's opportune advice1 approaches ,tanner2 examines him humorously for a moment from toe to top2 and finally delivers her opinion4 ,,ann4 ,violet is quite right4 ,you ought to get married4 ,,tanner4 explosively ,ann3 ,i will not marry you4 ,do you hear8 ,i won't1 won't1 won't1 won't1 ,,won',t marry you4 ,,ann4 placidly ,well1 nobody axd you1 sir she said1 sir she said1 sir she said4 ,so that's settled4 ,,tanner4 ,yes1 nobody has asked me2 but everybody treats the thing as settled4 ,it's in the air4 ,when we meet1 the others go away on absurd pretexts to leave us alone together4 ,ramsden no longer scowls at me3 his eye beams1 as if he were already giving you away to me in church4 ,tavy refers me to your mother and gives me his blessing4 ,straker openly treats you as his future employer3 it was he who first told me of it4 ,,ann4 ,was that why you ran away8 ,,tanner4 ,yes1 only to be stopped by a lovesick brigand and run down like a truant schoolboy4 ,,ann4 ,well1 if you don't want to be married1 you needn't be she turns away from him and sits down1 much at her ease4 ,,tanner4 following her ,does any man want to be hanged8 ,yet men let themselves be hanged without a struggle for life1 though they could at least give the chaplain a black eye4 ,we do the world's will1 not our own4 ,i have a frightful feeling that ,i shall let myself be married because it is the world's will that you should have a husband4 ,,ann4 ,i daresay ,i shall1 someday4 ,,tanner4 ,but why me--me of all men8 ,marriage is to me apostasy1 profanation of the sanctuary of my soul1 violation of my manhood1 sale of my birthright1 shameful surrender1 ignominious capitulation1 acceptance of defeat4 ,i shall decay like a thing that has served its purpose and is done with2 ,i shall change from a man with a future to a man with a past2 ,i shall see in the greasy eyes of all the other husbands their relief at the arrival of a new prisoner to share their ignominy4 ,the young men will scorn me as one who has sold out3 to the young women ,i1 who have always been an enigma and a possibility1 shall be merely somebody else's property--and damaged goods at that3 a secondhand man at best4 ,,ann4 ,well1 your wife can put on a cap and make herself ugly to keep you in countenance1 like my grandmother4 ,,tanner4 ,so that she may make her triumph more insolent by publicly throwing away the bait the moment the trap snaps on the victim6 ,,ann4 ,after all1 though1 what difference would it make8 ,beauty is all very well at first sight2 but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days8 ,i thought our pictures very lovely when papa bought them2 but ,i haven't looked at them for years4 ,you never bother about my looks3 you are too well used to me4 ,i might be the umbrella stand4 ,,tanner4 ,you lie1 you vampire3 you lie4 ,,ann4 ,flatterer4 ,why are you trying to fascinate me1 ,jack1 if you don't want to marry me8 ,,tanner4 ,the ,life ,force4 ,i am in the grip of the ,life ,force4 ,,ann4 ,i don't understand in the least3 it sounds like the ,life ,guards4 ,,tanner4 ,why don't you marry ,tavy8 ,he is willing4 ,can you not be satisfied unless your prey struggles8 ,,ann4 turning to him as if to let him into a secret ,tavy will never marry4 ,haven't you noticed that that sort of man never marries8 ,,tanner4 ,what6 a man who idolizes women6 who sees nothing in nature but romantic scenery for love duets6 ,tavy1 the chivalrous1 the faithful1 the tenderhearted and true6 ,tavy never marry6 ,why1 he was born to be swept up by the first pair of blue eyes he meets in the street4 ,,ann4 ,yes1 ,i know4 ,all the same1 ,jack1 men like that always live in comfortable bachelor lodgings with broken hearts1 and are adored by their landladies1 and never get married4 ,men like you always get married4 ,,tanner4 ,smiting his brow ,how frightfully1 horribly true6 ,it has been staring me in the face all my life2 and ,i never saw it before4 ,,ann4 ,oh1 it's the same with women4 ,the poetic temperament's a very nice temperament1 very amiable1 very harmless and poetic1 ,i daresay2 but it's an old maid's temperament4 ,,tanner4 ,barren4 ,the ,life ,force passes it by4 ,,ann4 ,if that's what you mean by the ,life ,force1 yes4 ,,tanner4 ,you don't care for ,tavy8 ,,ann4 looking round carefully to make sure that ,tavy is not within earshot ,no4 ,,tanner4 ,and you do care for me8 ,,ann4 rising quietly and shaking her finger at him ,now ,jack6 ,behave yourself4 ,,tanner4 ,infamous1 abandoned woman6 ,devil6 ,,ann4 ,boa-constrictor6 ,elephant6 ,,tanner4 ,hypocrite6 ,,ann4 ,softly ,i must be1 for my future husband's sake4 ,,tanner4 ,for mine6 ,correcting himself savagely ,i mean for his4 ,,ann4ignoring the correction ,yes1 for yours4 ,you had better marry what you call a hypocrite1 ,jack4 ,women who are not hypocrites go about in rational dress and are insulted and get into all sorts of hot water4 ,and then their husbands get dragged in too1 and live in continual dread of fresh complications4 ,wouldn't you prefer a wife you could depend on8 ,,tanner4 ,no1 a thousand times no3 hot water is the revolutionist's element4 ,you clean men as you clean milkpails1 by scalding them4 ,,ann4 ,cold water has its uses too4 ,it's healthy4 ,,tanner4 despairingly ,oh1 you are witty3 at the supreme moment the ,life ,force endows you with every quality4 ,well1 ,i too can be a hypocrite4 ,your father's will appointed me your guardian1 not your suitor4 ,i shall be faithful to my trust4 ,,ann4 in low siren tones ,he asked me who would ,i have as my guardian before he made that will4 ,i chose you6 ,,tanner4 ,the will is yours then6 ,the trap was laid from the beginning4 ,,ann4 concentrating all her magic ,from the beginning--from our childhood--for both of us--by the ,life ,force4 ,,tanner4 ,i will not marry you4 ,i will not marry you4 ,,ann4 ,oh1 you will1 you will4 ,,tanner4 ,i tell you1 no1 no1 no4 ,,ann4 ,i tell you1 yes1 yes1 yes4 ,,tanner4 ,,no4 ,,ann4 coaxing--imploring--almost exhausted ,yes4 ,before it is too late for repentance4 ,yes4 ,,tanner4 struck by the echo from the past ,when did all this happen to me before8 ,are we two dreaming8 ,,ann4 suddenly losing her courage1 with an anguish that she does not conceal ,no4 ,we are awake2 and you have said no3 that is all4 ,,tanner4 brutally ,well8 ,,ann4 ,well1 ,i made a mistake3 you do not love me4 ,,tanner4 seizing her in his arms ,it is false3 ,i love you4 ,the ,life ,force enchants me3 ,i have the whole world in my arms when ,i clasp you4 ,but ,i am fighting for my freedom1 for my honor1 for myself1 one and indivisible4 ,,ann4 ,your happiness will be worth them all4 ,,tanner4 ,you would sell freedom and honor and self for happiness8 ,,ann4 ,it will not be all happiness for me4 ,perhaps death4 ,,tanner4 groaning ,oh1 that clutch holds and hurts4 ,what have you grasped in me8 ,is there a father's heart as well as a mother's8 ,,ann4 ,take care1 ,jack3 if anyone comes while we are like this1 you will have to marry me4 ,,tanner4 ,if we two stood now on the edge of a precipice1 ,i would hold you tight and jump4 ,,ann4 panting1 failing more and more under the strain ,jack3 let me go4 ,i have dared so frightfully--it is lasting longer than ,i thought4 ,let me go3 ,i can't bear it4 ,,tanner4 ,nor ,i4 ,let it kill us4 ,,ann4 ,yes3 ,i don't care4 ,i am at the end of my forces4 ,i don't care4 ,i think ,i am going to faint4 ,at this moment ,violet and ,octavius come from the villa with ,mrs ,whitefield1 who is wrapped up for driving4 ,simultaneously ,malone and ,ramsden1 followed by ,mendoza and ,straker1 come in through the little gate in the paling4 ,tanner shamefacedly releases ,ann1 who raises her hand giddily to her forehead4 ,,malone4 ,take care4 ,something's the matter with the lady4 ,,ramsden4 ,what does this mean8 ,,violet4 running between ,ann and ,tanner ,are you ill8 ,,ann4 reeling1 with a supreme effort ,i have promised to marry ,jack4 ,she swoons4 ,violet kneels by her and chafes her hand4 ,tanner runs round to her other hand1 and tries to lift her bead4 ,octavius goes to ,violet's assistance1 but does not know what to do4 ,mrs ,whitefield hurries back into the villa4 ,octavius1 ,malone and ,ramsden run to ,ann and crowd round her1 stooping to assist4 ,straker coolly comes to ,ann's feet1 and ,mendoza to her head1 both upright and self-possessed4 ,,straker4 ,now then1 ladies and gentlemen3 she don't want a crowd round her3 she wants air--all the air she can git4 ,if you please1 gents-- ,malone and ,ramsden allow him to drive them gently past ,ann and up the lawn towards the garden1 where ,octavius1 who has already become conscious of his uselessness1 joins them4 ,straker1 following them up1 pauses for a moment to instruct ,tanner4 ,don't lift er ed1 ,mr ,tanner3 let it go flat so's the blood can run back into it4 ,,mendoza4 ,he is right1 ,mr ,tanner4 ,trust to the air of the ,sierra4 ,he withdraws delicately to the garden steps4 ,,tanner4 rising ,i yield to your superior knowledge of physiology1 ,henry4 ,he withdraws to the corner of the lawn2 and ,octavius immediately hurries down to him4 ,,tavy4 aside to ,tanner1 grasping his hand ,jack3 be very happy4 ,,tanner4 aside to ,tavy ,i never asked her4 ,it is a trap for me4 ,he goes up the lawn towards the garden4 ,octavius remains petrified4 ,,mendoza4 intercepting ,mrs ,whitefield1 who comes from the villa with a glass of brandy ,what is this1 madam he takes it from her8 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,a little brandy4 ,,mendoza4 ,the worst thing you could give her4 ,allow me4 ,he swallows it4 ,trust to the air of the ,sierra1 madam4 ,for a moment the men all forget ,ann and stare at ,mendoza4 ,,ann4 in ,violet's ear1 clutching her round the neck ,violet1 did ,jack say anything when ,i fainted8 ,,violet4 ,no4 ,,ann4 ,ah6 with a sigh of intense relief she relapses4 ,,mrs ,,whitefield4 ,oh1 she's fainted again4 ,they are about to rush back to her2 but ,mendoza stops them with a warning gesture4 ,,ann4 supine ,no ,i haven't4 ,i'm quite happy4 ,,tanner4 suddenly walking determinedly to her1 and snatching her hand from ,violet to feel her pulse ,why1 her pulse is positively bounding4 ,come1 get up4 ,what nonsense6 ,up with you4 ,he gets her up summarily4 ,,ann4 ,yes3 ,i feel strong enough now4 ,but you very nearly killed me1 ,jack1 for all that4 ,,malone4 ,a rough wooer1 eh8 ,they're the best sort1 ,miss ,whitefield4 ,i congratulate ,mr ,tanner2 and ,i hope to meet you and him as frequent guests at the ,abbey4 ,,ann4 ,thank you4 ,she goes past ,malone to ,octavius ,ricky ,ticky ,tavy3 congratulate me4 ,aside to him ,i want to make you cry for the last time4 ,,tavy4 steadfastly ,no more tears4 ,i am happy in your happiness4 ,and ,i believe in you in spite of everything4 ,,ramsden4 coming between ,malone and ,tanner ,you are a happy man1 ,jack ,tanner4 ,i envy you4 ,,mendoza4 advancing between ,violet and ,tanner ,sir3 there are two tragedies in life4 ,one is not to get your heart's desire4 ,the other is to get it4 ,mine and yours1 sir4 ,,tanner4 ,mr ,mendoza3 ,i have no heart's desires4 ,ramsden3 it is very easy for you to call me a happy man3 you are only a spectator4 ,i am one of the principals2 and ,i know better4 ,ann3 stop tempting ,tavy1 and come back to me4 ,,ann4 complying ,you are absurd1 ,jack4 ,she takes his proffered arm4 ,,tanner4 continuing ,i solemnly say that ,i am not a happy man4 ,ann looks happy2 but she is only triumphant1 successful1 victorious4 ,that is not happiness1 but the price for which the strong sell their happiness4 ,what we have both done this afternoon is to renounce tranquillity1 above all renounce the romantic possibilities of an unknown future1 for the cares of a household and a family4 ,i beg that no man may seize the occasion to get half drunk and utter imbecile speeches and coarse pleasantries at my expense4 ,we propose to furnish our own house according to our own taste2 and ,i hereby give notice that the seven or eight travelling clocks1 the four or five dressing cases1 the salad bowls1 the carvers and fish slices1 the copy of ,tennyson in extra morocco1 and all the other articles you are preparing to heap upon us1 will be instantly sold1 and the proceeds devoted to circulating free copies of the ,revolutionist's ,handbook4 ,the wedding will take place three days after our return to ,england1 by special license1 at the office of the district superintendent registrar1 in the presence of my solicitor and his clerk1 who1 like his clients1 will be in ordinary walking dress4 ,,violet4 with intense conviction ,you are a brute1 ,jack4 ,,ann4 looking at him with fond pride and caressing his arm ,never mind her1 dear4 ,go on talking4 ,,tanner4 ,talking6 ,universal laughter4